Ohio Election Theft Kills

This is an important video, titled "More Dead Cause of Ohio" that ties in the theft of the Ohio Election with the many soldiers now dead... because of what has happened in Ohio.  The ripples in this dark pond water are rolling around the world, and the dead are buried. 

 

This Video is based on a Neil Young song, and it includes scenes from the new David Earnhardt movie "UNCOUNTED".  David is a supporter of The Ohio Election Justice Campaign, and we recommend the movie.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdvsJKzmN0

 

 

Accidental Organizing and Determination

by Deborah Lake

Being EXTREMELY bord, I visited the Paltalk chatroom Liberal Destruction of America tonight.

I had just finished explaining that the President of Iran did not say that Iran had no homosexuals, to some poor victim of corporate media. I posted the sentence and the link in the chatroom Liberal Destruction of America. What he really said was: our homosexuals are quiet and yours are loud! Or: Our homosexuals are in the closet and yours aren't!

Lost in Translation

I then received a PM from "D"

Talk about your accidental organizing!

Conversation follows. It's sort of backwards because we are typing to one another rather than talking. Have fun!

(12:36 AM) D: HI
(12:36 AM) D: OK
thephoenix_: hi
(12:38 AM) D: HI
D just sent you a nudge!
thephoenix_: hi D
thephoenix_: how may I help you?
(12:39 AM) D: WHO ARE YOU
thephoenix_: I am thephoenix_, silly
(12:39 AM) D: YOU HELP
(12:39 AM) D: ME NOT
thephoenix_: I help?
(12:39 AM) D: OK SOLIDER
thephoenix_: Cool!
thephoenix_: I am a left wing libertarian
(12:40 AM) D: I FREE OK
(12:40 AM) D: WAR
(12:41 AM) D: AMD LIFE NOT
thephoenix_: I am afraid I don't understand
thephoenix_: oic
(12:41 AM) D: BUT IM WOMN
thephoenix_: war should always be the last resort
thephoenix_: and it was not in Iraq
(12:41 AM) D: wont yall stop
thephoenix_: war is the most toxic human activity
thephoenix_: I do everything I can to get us to stop, but America is owned by corporations
(12:42 AM) D: it is ets and young men
(12:42 AM) D: woman
thephoenix_: I am a woman too
thephoenix_: and most of the politicians are owned by corporations
(12:43 AM) D: why wont men stop the fightighting
thephoenix_: Bill and Hillary Clinton, sponsored by Walmart!
thephoenix_: because men are crazy
(12:43 AM) D: lols
thephoenix_: about 75% of them are out of their minds
(12:43 AM) D: and
(12:44 AM) D: my
(12:44 AM) D: not
thephoenix_: and it makes a LOT of MONEY for rich people to fight wars
(12:44 AM) D: ill say know more
thephoenix_: Iraq has transferred more money into fewer pockets than any war in history
(12:44 AM) D: yes
(12:44 AM) D: my bf
(12:44 AM) D: marine
thephoenix_: oh dear
thephoenix_: I am very sorry to hear that
thephoenix_: he could become a conscientious objector, you know
(12:45 AM) D: my kids his kids
(12:45 AM) D: our gov
thephoenix_: do you want to do something?
thephoenix_: it's perfectly legal
(12:46 AM) D: my god
thephoenix_: write your congressmen and senators
thephoenix_: and get your friends to do it too
(12:46 AM) D: i ok
thephoenix_: and ask them to get their friends to do it
(12:46 AM) D: it hurts
(12:46 AM) D: ok
thephoenix_: they count on you NOT writing!
thephoenix_: If we DROWN them in letters, they will pay attention to us
(12:47 AM) D: yes
(12:47 AM) D: our people
(12:47 AM) D: running for gov
(12:48 AM) D: re
(12:48 AM) D: cant say nne of them
(12:48 AM) D: say they
(12:48 AM) D: can bring our troops home 1 yr
thephoenix_: They are all owned by corporations, except Edwards and Kucinich
thephoenix_: They could start bringing them home tomorrow...unless they sent the people who went to New Orleans to help
(12:49 AM) D: and
(12:50 AM) D: contact me who
(12:50 AM) D: i STAND AND FIGHT
(12:50 AM) D: ok
thephoenix_: got to www.congress.org
thephoenix_: and I think there's a place where you can type in your zip code
(12:50 AM) D: thanks
thephoenix_: It will tell you who your congress and senator is
(12:51 AM) D: thank YOU LADIE
thephoenix_: you pay their salary!
thephoenix_: with the taxes you pay
thephoenix_: you are their boss!
(12:52 AM) D: THANK U
(12:52 AM) D: OK
thephoenix_: always remember that!
(12:53 AM) D: WE LOVE OUR COUNTRY
thephoenix_: I do too
(12:53 AM) D: WE STAND GOT TO FIGHT
thephoenix_: I want it to be great and wonderful again, not like it is now
thephoenix_: we got to fight for sure
thephoenix_: I fight all the time
thephoenix_: that's why I come to chat
(12:55 AM) D: THANKS
(12:55 AM) D: TO YOU
thephoenix_: to help people find out who to talk to!
thephoenix_: write your mayor, too!
thephoenix_: You could have a letter writing party, and all write the letter together, you and your friends
thephoenix_: it would be fun!
(12:56 AM) D: I WILL
(12:56 AM) D: WHAT GOOD WILL IT DO
thephoenix_: you could ask other people for help too
thephoenix_: if enough of us write letters, they will fear for their jobs
thephoenix_: we have to work together as Americans to stop this
(12:57 AM) D: YES
(12:57 AM) D: YES
thephoenix_: I will be back in a minute
(12:57 AM) D: IT WONT HELP
thephoenix_: people never get anywhere with the government unless they work together
thephoenix_: if enough people are mad, they pay attention!
thephoenix_: I show them that I am mad!
(12:58 AM) D: JUST LIKE
(12:58 AM) D: OK
(12:58 AM) D: ILL FIGHT
(12:58 AM) D: OK
thephoenix_: brb
thephoenix_: back
thephoenix_: Bush is immoral!
thephoenix_: He kills innocent people!
(1:02 AM) D: MY\ COUNTRY
thephoenix_: Soldiers are innocent people too.
(1:02 AM) D: IS TRUE
thephoenix_: They did not do anything to start this war!
(1:02 AM) D: OK
thephoenix_: They think they are helping their country, but they are just helping Bush's rich friends
(1:03 AM) D: WE LOSSE OK
(1:03 AM) D: PEOPLE
(1:03 AM) D: OK
(1:03 AM) D: why
thephoenix_: look at the price of oil now. It was like $40 a barrell when Bush invaded Iraq
thephoenix_: now it's $80
(1:04 AM) D: our ok ll say no more
thephoenix_: and the oil companies are making record profits
thephoenix_: and we are paying twice what we paid in 2000
thephoenix_: that's inflation
(1:05 AM) D: I bow my hea agian and PRAY
(1:05 AM) D: HEAD
(1:05 AM) D: AND PRAY
thephoenix_: Indeed, we must pray for America and write letters to congress
thephoenix_: so they know that we are mad
(1:06 AM) D: GOD please no no more
thephoenix_: no more innocents should die
thephoenix_: My granddaughter died last year from cancer
thephoenix_: she was only 12
(1:07 AM) D: troops WE AS GODS CHILD SAY NO MORE
thephoenix_: she never hurt anyone
thephoenix_: she made everyone around her happy
thephoenix_: except her father
(1:08 AM) D: HER
(1:08 AM) D: FATHER WAS GOD
(1:08 AM) D: SHES SORRY
(1:08 AM) D: OUR GOD
thephoenix_: no, her father was a crazy mean man
(1:08 AM) D: TOOK
(1:09 AM) D: HER
thephoenix_: she needed to be here
thephoenix_: she had work to do
(1:09 AM) D: AND YOU WAS YOUR BEST
(1:09 AM) D: AS A MOM
(1:09 AM) D: YES
(1:10 AM) D: I SAY YOUR OK
(1:10 AM) D: I HURT FOR YOU
(1:10 AM) D: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE STRONG
thephoenix_: thank you

New Room Name Bush Is a Butt Pirate

The room name has changed in honor of our Star Administrator to "Bush is a Butt Pirate".

Where Is The Revolucion?!?!?!

Apparently yahoo was on hiatus trying to get its new security system online and then it happened. I went back there and found that you had to sign a security code to get into a chat room. This is now standard procedure to prevent bots all over the Internet. It is called human intervention. Something a bot can't do, read some funky picture with screwed up text. Well I can barely read it as well.

As to the paltalk chat room, International Avante Guarde Unite, I try to open it as a haven for the refugees of neocon panic attacks (not the room but the actual disease, there is a room named that mind you) received during the various incursions of the recent flight from yahoo into paltalk.

Will the bulk of the cons return to Yahoo? How can we plan to deal with them?

My sincere suggestion is to catch them at making blanket derogatory remarks against humanity and warn them not to proceed. If they persist then boot them. We do not have to tolerate this uncivilized assault on our better judgment and humanity.

PEACE

The criminal cover-up of Ohio's stolen 2004 election sinks to the fraudulent, the absurd, the pathetic

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
August 2, 2007

The illegal destruction of federally protected 2004 election materials by 56 of 88 Ohio counties has become a fraudulent "dog ate my homework" farce of absurd justifications and criminal coverups.

The mass elimination of the critical evidence that could definitively prove or disprove the presumption that the 2004 election was stolen has all the markings of a Rovian crime perpetrated to hide another one. Indeed, under Ohio law, that's precisely what must be presumed here.

But what makes the situation downright pathetic is that Ohio's new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has publicly stated she sees "no evidence" of intentional destruction in the disappearance in more than 60% of the state's counties of the ballots from the 2004 presidential election.

So once again, as did Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, the Democrats seem poised to cave to the on-going GOP coup that has redefined America, and that now involves the criminal destruction of contested evidence in one of the most controversial vote counts in US history.

Ironically, in Florida, under Jeb Bush, the ballot records from the 2000 election in all but one of the state's counties were successfully preserved. They are now stored in a state repository in Tallahassee. An unofficial recount conducted by the national media concluded that Al Gore rightfully carried Florida, and thus the presidency, in 2000.

A parallel preservation was ordained by federal and state law for the election records from Ohio 2004, where a similar examination has been viewed as inevitable.

But a series of excuses that range from the lame to the pathetic to the obviously criminal have left us shocked---shocked!---to learn that despite the protection of established federal law, a federal court order, long-standing Ohio laws, two directives from the Ohio Secretary of State's office, and legal notification letters from plaintiff's attorneys to hold the evidence, a precise recount of Ohio's stolen 2004 election may no longer be possible.

In short, Brunner has informed us that 56 of Ohio's 88 counties have mostly "inadvertently" destroyed all or some of their records from the 2004 presidential election.

Are we surprised?

Wait 'til you hear how these mostly Republican directors say it happened!

The materials were under legal protection "from birth" on November 4, 2004, shielded by national law, acknowledged by Brunner, by Ohio Revised Coded 3505.31, then by a federal court decision in the now-legendary King-Lincoln-Bronzeville lawsuit (in which we are attorney and plaintiff).

The Ohio Revised Code specifically states that in presidential elections "the board shall carefully preserve all ballots prepared and provided by it for use in that election, whether used or unused, for twenty-two months after the day of the election." In this case, that would have been through September 2, 2006.

These records were also essential to reconstructing a credible recount that was most pointedly stifled by then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Brunner blamed the destruction of documents on Blackwell, "…for not giving counties clear instructions and for not notifying them quickly enough about U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley's September 7, 2006 order," according to the conservative Columbus Dispatch.

But many of the ballots were destroyed soon after the election in a series of events whose descriptions grow stranger and more implausible by the day.

In October 25, 2004, just prior to the election, Blackwell issued directive 2004-43, reminding all county election officials of the federal 22-month holding period for presidential ballots. That meant all election-related materials would be under federal protection until September 2, 2006.

On August 23, 2006, plaintiff's attorneys in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville case hand-delivered a letter to the Secretary of State's office and faxed notices to all 88 county Board of Elections offices that the ballots were to be evidence in the forthcoming civil rights suit against Blackwell.

On August 31, 2006 that suit was filed in Marbley's federal court in Columbus. The AP reported that same day that Blackwell "has signaled his willingness to keep ballots from the contentious 2004 election beyond their scheduled September 3 destruction date in response to activists who plan to sue him in federal court today."

Ohio laws also require that noticed---for election-related materials and other public records---be offered to the Ohio Historical Society and other public repositories before they are destroyed. Public record forms must be filed and Ohio law requires a Certificate of Destruction. Nonetheless, Blackwell erroneously told the Dispatch the next day that he was "willing to ask the boards not to destroy ballots, but the decision ultimately is a local one."

But under applicable law, the decision was definitely not "a local one." Indeed, Judge Marbley ordered all of Ohio's 88 counties to "…preserve all ballots from the 2004 presidential election on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, unless and until such time otherwise instructed by this court." Thus anyone destroying such records, from Election Day until the time you read this, may have broken various federal or state laws, and be in contempt of a federal court order.

King-Lincoln alleges a wide range of civil rights violations perpetrated by Blackwell and many of Ohio's 88 county boards of elections based on race, economic status, political inclination, wrongful denial of absentee ballots (as in Harvey's case) and more.

Here are some of the stories the counties are telling about the destruction of their ballots: (View the original state documents in a 19.5MB PDF)

Hancock County says it "received verbal directions" from Secretary of State Blackwell's office that unused and soiled ballots "did not have to be retained and these items were destroyed."

But any election audit requires a complete set of used and unused ballots to ensure that the unused ballots weren't stuffed illegally into the ballot box. The law refers specifically to "all" ballots.

Putnam County apparently understood this all too clearly. That's why they informed Brunner that "all unused ballots were destroyed for security purposes."

In Warren County, on Election Day, the board of elections declared a Level 10 Homeland Security alert for which neither the Homeland Security Agency nor the FBI has any documentation or explanation. The alert served as cover for moving the vote count to an isolated warehouse, away from the media. Bush emerged from Warren County with a huge majority, far in excess of what he received in 2000.

Some twenty-two thousand officially unused ballots from Warren County are now mysteriously missing.

Warren County Board of Elections Director Michael E. Moore has written Brunner, stating that, in complete defiance of the law, "They were not accidentally destroyed. They were destroyed pursuant to standard practices that had been used by the Board of Elections for many years in Warren County regarding unused punch card ballots." Moore notes that "The unused ballots were destroyed 60 days after the 2004 election."

Warren, along with neighboring Clermont and Butler counties, provided Bush with more than his entire 118,775 winning margin in Ohio 2004. Thus these three counties were singled out for allegations of fraud in the election contest case Moss v. Bush (though only after surviving the first-ever Congressional challenge to a state's entire Electoral College delegation). The allegations of fraud on a level that could have decided the presidency were thus never tested in court…and now the evidence has been destroyed.

Clermont County "could not locate" the unused ballots, according to Mike Keeley, Board of Elections Director.

Butler County cannot provide the "2004 General Election Ballot Pages." Director Betty McGary says that "at no time was anyone specifically instructed to discard these items. Our staff unintentionally discarded boxes containing Ballot Pages as requested in Directive 2007-07 due to unclear and misinterpreted instructions." For complex reasons having to do with Ohio's precinct ballot rotation law, the ballots from Butler County cannot be recounted with the "Ballot Pages" missing. The pages match the punches to the candidates.

Holmes County BOE Director Lisa Welch wrote Brunner that "a shelving unit collapsed in the Board of Elections storeroom on the morning of Friday, April 7, 2006. That shelving unit held the voted ballots, stubs, soiled and defaced ballot envelopes, and ballot accounting charts from the 2004 General Election. The shelves and stored items collapsed onto a side table holding a working coffee maker. The carafe on the coffee maker was full at the time of the incident. Many of the stored items had to be destroyed due to the broken glass and hot coffee. The ballot pages and unused ballots were stored on a neighboring shelf and were not damaged."

Holmes County was rendered infamous by Karl Rove's legendary spin claiming there was an unprecedented massive turnout of homophobic old order Amish voted for Bush and against gay marriage. (It is well-known that the Amish as a community rarely vote).

Allen County "labeled all voted ballots and placed [them] in our vault for the required 22 months of storage," according to Keith Cunningham, Director. Cunningham distinguished himself as a pro-Bush and Rove mouthpiece when he testified at then-Congressman (now-felon) Bob Ney's cursory March 2005 hearing into the 2004 Ohio election.

Cunningham told the Secretary of State that in the "…latter part of 2004 and into 2005… [we] began to experience problems with storm water migrating and subsequently penetrating our primary storage areas including our vault." He told Free Press reporter Paddy Shaffer that the vault had been flooding for "six years," and he had to put the 2004 presidential ballots on the floor because he needed the shelf space.

Cunningham added that: "As a result of these events, much of what was stored in our vault, including the 2004 general election ballots, were compromised by water damage and subsequently destroyed on or about August 20, 2006. Pursuant to the recommendations of the Allen County Health Department the boxes displaying mold or mildew were set aside to be discarded. Unfortunately, the contractor hired to remove the damaged boxes also accidentally removed the undamaged boxes as well," stated Cunningham, who did manage to save 498 write-in ballots.

The Health Department records recommended destruction or isolation as a solution.

Guernsey County's ballots suffered a similar twisted fate. According to BOE Director Jacqueline Newhart, "The unused ballots as well as the punch card ballot pages were destroyed in error" because "the county maintenance worker, when collecting trash, picked up the boxes" that contained them.

In allegedly mobbed up Mahoning County, the board of elections has blamed environmentalists for inadvertently destroying the ballots. Apparently the "Mahoning County Green Team picked up all recyclables in the storage room for disposal pursuant to the retention schedule," according to Director Thomas McCabe. As a result, some 115, 936 ballots "were accidentally disposed of on Friday, March 23 of 2007."

Down in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), home of the Taft family dynasty, the unvoted and soiled ballots were "inadvertently shredded between January 19th and 26th of '06."

Perhaps the most egregious case of ballot destruction, and easiest to criminally prosecute, is Director Steve Harsman's in Montgomery County. Researcher Richard Hayes Phillips reported in the Free Press that, "…the Board was eager to destroy them [the ballots]. The employees who handled the ballots for me brought up the subject themselves."

Harsman conceded that the "Ohio Revised Code" required a 22-month "retention schedule." Yet, he argues that since the "Certificate of Destruction" had already been "prepared" prior to his receiving the order from Judge Marbley that he had the right to destroy the ballots.

"We literally ran out of space to prepare, stage, and retain material for these elections. It was imperative that we process the 2004 materials for destruction under the guidelines of the 22-month retention. Therefore, all materials were properly destroyed in a timely manner and we were unable to comply due to these circumstances. We did not receive formal notice from the courts prior to preparing the certification of destruction," Harman wrote.

Thus Harman admits to openly defying a federal court order and destroying evidence because he wasn't notified "prior to preparing the certification of destruction."

But Judge Marbley pointed out in his opinion and order of September 11, 2006 in support of his order of September 7, that the Ohio Revised Code 3501.16 makes it a fourth degree felony for, among other things, willfully or negligently violating election laws as a director of a board of elections.

The original story of the ballots being saved for litigation and history made the pages of the New York Times. But the blatant and bizarre destruction of Ohio's 2004 ballots has been relegated to the back page of the Columbus Dispatch Metro & State section. The brief article by Mark Niquette ran below the fold and the weather map, and above an ad for Window World and the Ohio State Medical Center.

Matt Damschroder, the Franklin County (Columbus) Board of Election Director and former Chair of the Republican Party, assured the Dispatch that the "counties did nothing intentionally wrong." Damschroder is the President of the Ohio Association of Election Officials and was suspended without pay for a month after he accepted a $10,000 check from a Diebold representative in his office, made out to the GOP on the day the bidding for e-voting machines opened.

His job was in jeopardy until Board of Elections President Bill Anthony, Chair of the Franklin County Democratic Party, intervened to save Damschroder from firing.

King-Lincoln-Bronzeville Attorney Cliff Arnebeck stated that "The nature and scope of the cover-up can tell a lot about the nature and scope of the crime. Destruction of relevant documents can create a presumption that such evidence would have helped the other side in litigation."

Arnebeck also said White House advisor Karl Rove "has had the keys to the US Justice Department for some time. No wonder FBI investigations requested by US Rep. John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee went nowhere. He also used those keys to scuttle two years of work by the IRS and FBI of financial corruption at the Ohio Statehouse."

Overall this blatant destruction of evidence only reinforces the widespread belief that the 2004 election was stolen. The loss of ballot materials in a few isolated counties might be an understandable random event. But for more than 60% of the state's BOEs to have destroyed ballots or ballot materials amidst a series of bizarre, absurd explanations is a joke.

America has been robbed of its history here. The public has a right to know the true outcome of the 2004 election, and to have its laws about preservation of critical records honored.

Under evidence laws, the destruction of material that serves as evidence in a lawsuit is presumed to be fraudulent action by the destroyer.

But the Bush-Rove-Blackwell regime is about nothing if not contempt for the law. And its assault on the documents that could show what really happened in Ohio's contested 2004 election seems yet another obvious confirmation that it was, in fact, stolen.

--
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available at freepress.org (where this article first appeared) along with the FITRAKIS FILES. HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE US is at www.solartopia.org.

The criminal cover-up of Ohio's stolen 2004 election sinks to the fraudulent, the absurd, the pathetic

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
August 2, 2007

The illegal destruction of federally protected 2004 election materials by 56 of 88 Ohio counties has become a fraudulent "dog ate my homework" farce of absurd justifications and criminal coverups.

The mass elimination of the critical evidence that could definitively prove or disprove the presumption that the 2004 election was stolen has all the markings of a Rovian crime perpetrated to hide another one. Indeed, under Ohio law, that's precisely what must be presumed here.

But what makes the situation downright pathetic is that Ohio's new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has publicly stated she sees "no evidence" of intentional destruction in the disappearance in more than 60% of the state's counties of the ballots from the 2004 presidential election.

So once again, as did Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, the Democrats seem poised to cave to the on-going GOP coup that has redefined America, and that now involves the criminal destruction of contested evidence in one of the most controversial vote counts in US history.

Ironically, in Florida, under Jeb Bush, the ballot records from the 2000 election in all but one of the state's counties were successfully preserved. They are now stored in a state repository in Tallahassee. An unofficial recount conducted by the national media concluded that Al Gore rightfully carried Florida, and thus the presidency, in 2000.

A parallel preservation was ordained by federal and state law for the election records from Ohio 2004, where a similar examination has been viewed as inevitable.

But a series of excuses that range from the lame to the pathetic to the obviously criminal have left us shocked---shocked!---to learn that despite the protection of established federal law, a federal court order, long-standing Ohio laws, two directives from the Ohio Secretary of State's office, and legal notification letters from plaintiff's attorneys to hold the evidence, a precise recount of Ohio's stolen 2004 election may no longer be possible.

In short, Brunner has informed us that 56 of Ohio's 88 counties have mostly "inadvertently" destroyed all or some of their records from the 2004 presidential election.

Are we surprised?

Wait 'til you hear how these mostly Republican directors say it happened!

The materials were under legal protection "from birth" on November 4, 2004, shielded by national law, acknowledged by Brunner, by Ohio Revised Coded 3505.31, then by a federal court decision in the now-legendary King-Lincoln-Bronzeville lawsuit (in which we are attorney and plaintiff).

The Ohio Revised Code specifically states that in presidential elections "the board shall carefully preserve all ballots prepared and provided by it for use in that election, whether used or unused, for twenty-two months after the day of the election." In this case, that would have been through September 2, 2006.

These records were also essential to reconstructing a credible recount that was most pointedly stifled by then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Brunner blamed the destruction of documents on Blackwell, "…for not giving counties clear instructions and for not notifying them quickly enough about U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley's September 7, 2006 order," according to the conservative Columbus Dispatch.

But many of the ballots were destroyed soon after the election in a series of events whose descriptions grow stranger and more implausible by the day.

In October 25, 2004, just prior to the election, Blackwell issued directive 2004-43, reminding all county election officials of the federal 22-month holding period for presidential ballots. That meant all election-related materials would be under federal protection until September 2, 2006.

On August 23, 2006, plaintiff's attorneys in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville case hand-delivered a letter to the Secretary of State's office and faxed notices to all 88 county Board of Elections offices that the ballots were to be evidence in the forthcoming civil rights suit against Blackwell.

On August 31, 2006 that suit was filed in Marbley's federal court in Columbus. The AP reported that same day that Blackwell "has signaled his willingness to keep ballots from the contentious 2004 election beyond their scheduled September 3 destruction date in response to activists who plan to sue him in federal court today."

Ohio laws also require that noticed---for election-related materials and other public records---be offered to the Ohio Historical Society and other public repositories before they are destroyed. Public record forms must be filed and Ohio law requires a Certificate of Destruction. Nonetheless, Blackwell erroneously told the Dispatch the next day that he was "willing to ask the boards not to destroy ballots, but the decision ultimately is a local one."

But under applicable law, the decision was definitely not "a local one." Indeed, Judge Marbley ordered all of Ohio's 88 counties to "…preserve all ballots from the 2004 presidential election on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, unless and until such time otherwise instructed by this court." Thus anyone destroying such records, from Election Day until the time you read this, may have broken various federal or state laws, and be in contempt of a federal court order.

King-Lincoln alleges a wide range of civil rights violations perpetrated by Blackwell and many of Ohio's 88 county boards of elections based on race, economic status, political inclination, wrongful denial of absentee ballots (as in Harvey's case) and more.

Here are some of the stories the counties are telling about the destruction of their ballots: (View the original state documents in a 19.5MB PDF)

Hancock County says it "received verbal directions" from Secretary of State Blackwell's office that unused and soiled ballots "did not have to be retained and these items were destroyed."

But any election audit requires a complete set of used and unused ballots to ensure that the unused ballots weren't stuffed illegally into the ballot box. The law refers specifically to "all" ballots.

Putnam County apparently understood this all too clearly. That's why they informed Brunner that "all unused ballots were destroyed for security purposes."

In Warren County, on Election Day, the board of elections declared a Level 10 Homeland Security alert for which neither the Homeland Security Agency nor the FBI has any documentation or explanation. The alert served as cover for moving the vote count to an isolated warehouse, away from the media. Bush emerged from Warren County with a huge majority, far in excess of what he received in 2000.

Some twenty-two thousand officially unused ballots from Warren County are now mysteriously missing.

Warren County Board of Elections Director Michael E. Moore has written Brunner, stating that, in complete defiance of the law, "They were not accidentally destroyed. They were destroyed pursuant to standard practices that had been used by the Board of Elections for many years in Warren County regarding unused punch card ballots." Moore notes that "The unused ballots were destroyed 60 days after the 2004 election."

Warren, along with neighboring Clermont and Butler counties, provided Bush with more than his entire 118,775 winning margin in Ohio 2004. Thus these three counties were singled out for allegations of fraud in the election contest case Moss v. Bush (though only after surviving the first-ever Congressional challenge to a state's entire Electoral College delegation). The allegations of fraud on a level that could have decided the presidency were thus never tested in court…and now the evidence has been destroyed.

Clermont County "could not locate" the unused ballots, according to Mike Keeley, Board of Elections Director.

Butler County cannot provide the "2004 General Election Ballot Pages." Director Betty McGary says that "at no time was anyone specifically instructed to discard these items. Our staff unintentionally discarded boxes containing Ballot Pages as requested in Directive 2007-07 due to unclear and misinterpreted instructions." For complex reasons having to do with Ohio's precinct ballot rotation law, the ballots from Butler County cannot be recounted with the "Ballot Pages" missing. The pages match the punches to the candidates.

Holmes County BOE Director Lisa Welch wrote Brunner that "a shelving unit collapsed in the Board of Elections storeroom on the morning of Friday, April 7, 2006. That shelving unit held the voted ballots, stubs, soiled and defaced ballot envelopes, and ballot accounting charts from the 2004 General Election. The shelves and stored items collapsed onto a side table holding a working coffee maker. The carafe on the coffee maker was full at the time of the incident. Many of the stored items had to be destroyed due to the broken glass and hot coffee. The ballot pages and unused ballots were stored on a neighboring shelf and were not damaged."

Holmes County was rendered infamous by Karl Rove's legendary spin claiming there was an unprecedented massive turnout of homophobic old order Amish voted for Bush and against gay marriage. (It is well-known that the Amish as a community rarely vote).

Allen County "labeled all voted ballots and placed [them] in our vault for the required 22 months of storage," according to Keith Cunningham, Director. Cunningham distinguished himself as a pro-Bush and Rove mouthpiece when he testified at then-Congressman (now-felon) Bob Ney's cursory March 2005 hearing into the 2004 Ohio election.

Cunningham told the Secretary of State that in the "…latter part of 2004 and into 2005… [we] began to experience problems with storm water migrating and subsequently penetrating our primary storage areas including our vault." He told Free Press reporter Paddy Shaffer that the vault had been flooding for "six years," and he had to put the 2004 presidential ballots on the floor because he needed the shelf space.

Cunningham added that: "As a result of these events, much of what was stored in our vault, including the 2004 general election ballots, were compromised by water damage and subsequently destroyed on or about August 20, 2006. Pursuant to the recommendations of the Allen County Health Department the boxes displaying mold or mildew were set aside to be discarded. Unfortunately, the contractor hired to remove the damaged boxes also accidentally removed the undamaged boxes as well," stated Cunningham, who did manage to save 498 write-in ballots.

The Health Department records recommended destruction or isolation as a solution.

Guernsey County's ballots suffered a similar twisted fate. According to BOE Director Jacqueline Newhart, "The unused ballots as well as the punch card ballot pages were destroyed in error" because "the county maintenance worker, when collecting trash, picked up the boxes" that contained them.

In allegedly mobbed up Mahoning County, the board of elections has blamed environmentalists for inadvertently destroying the ballots. Apparently the "Mahoning County Green Team picked up all recyclables in the storage room for disposal pursuant to the retention schedule," according to Director Thomas McCabe. As a result, some 115, 936 ballots "were accidentally disposed of on Friday, March 23 of 2007."

Down in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), home of the Taft family dynasty, the unvoted and soiled ballots were "inadvertently shredded between January 19th and 26th of '06."

Perhaps the most egregious case of ballot destruction, and easiest to criminally prosecute, is Director Steve Harsman's in Montgomery County. Researcher Richard Hayes Phillips reported in the Free Press that, "…the Board was eager to destroy them [the ballots]. The employees who handled the ballots for me brought up the subject themselves."

Harsman conceded that the "Ohio Revised Code" required a 22-month "retention schedule." Yet, he argues that since the "Certificate of Destruction" had already been "prepared" prior to his receiving the order from Judge Marbley that he had the right to destroy the ballots.

"We literally ran out of space to prepare, stage, and retain material for these elections. It was imperative that we process the 2004 materials for destruction under the guidelines of the 22-month retention. Therefore, all materials were properly destroyed in a timely manner and we were unable to comply due to these circumstances. We did not receive formal notice from the courts prior to preparing the certification of destruction," Harman wrote.

Thus Harman admits to openly defying a federal court order and destroying evidence because he wasn't notified "prior to preparing the certification of destruction."

But Judge Marbley pointed out in his opinion and order of September 11, 2006 in support of his order of September 7, that the Ohio Revised Code 3501.16 makes it a fourth degree felony for, among other things, willfully or negligently violating election laws as a director of a board of elections.

The original story of the ballots being saved for litigation and history made the pages of the New York Times. But the blatant and bizarre destruction of Ohio's 2004 ballots has been relegated to the back page of the Columbus Dispatch Metro & State section. The brief article by Mark Niquette ran below the fold and the weather map, and above an ad for Window World and the Ohio State Medical Center.

Matt Damschroder, the Franklin County (Columbus) Board of Election Director and former Chair of the Republican Party, assured the Dispatch that the "counties did nothing intentionally wrong." Damschroder is the President of the Ohio Association of Election Officials and was suspended without pay for a month after he accepted a $10,000 check from a Diebold representative in his office, made out to the GOP on the day the bidding for e-voting machines opened.

His job was in jeopardy until Board of Elections President Bill Anthony, Chair of the Franklin County Democratic Party, intervened to save Damschroder from firing.

King-Lincoln-Bronzeville Attorney Cliff Arnebeck stated that "The nature and scope of the cover-up can tell a lot about the nature and scope of the crime. Destruction of relevant documents can create a presumption that such evidence would have helped the other side in litigation."

Arnebeck also said White House advisor Karl Rove "has had the keys to the US Justice Department for some time. No wonder FBI investigations requested by US Rep. John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee went nowhere. He also used those keys to scuttle two years of work by the IRS and FBI of financial corruption at the Ohio Statehouse."

Overall this blatant destruction of evidence only reinforces the widespread belief that the 2004 election was stolen. The loss of ballot materials in a few isolated counties might be an understandable random event. But for more than 60% of the state's BOEs to have destroyed ballots or ballot materials amidst a series of bizarre, absurd explanations is a joke.

America has been robbed of its history here. The public has a right to know the true outcome of the 2004 election, and to have its laws about preservation of critical records honored.

Under evidence laws, the destruction of material that serves as evidence in a lawsuit is presumed to be fraudulent action by the destroyer.

But the Bush-Rove-Blackwell regime is about nothing if not contempt for the law. And its assault on the documents that could show what really happened in Ohio's contested 2004 election seems yet another obvious confirmation that it was, in fact, stolen.

--
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available at freepress.org (where this article first appeared) along with the FITRAKIS FILES. HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE US is at www.solartopia.org.

Did U.S. intelligence assets kill Antioch College?

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." President Dwight Eisenhower

By Bob Fitrakis

At the time of its announced closure, Antioch College, perhaps America’s most progressive and well-known peace college, had a few visible capitalist hawks on its Board of Trustees.

Bruce P. Bedford, one of only three Trustees not a former alum, had been appointed to the board of Arlington, Virginia company GlobeSecNine in 2005. The company is described by a representative of investment corporation Bear Sterns as having “a unique set of experiences in special forces, classified operations, transportation security and military operations.” One can only speculate why the nation’s longest-standing anti-imperialist education institution would appoint a trustee with extensive ties to the military and security industrial complexes.

Business Wire on May 4, 2005 described GlobeSecNine as follows: “GlobeSecNine invests in companies providing U.S. defense, security, global trade management and supply chain solutions to the public and private sectors, and has a strategic alliance with The Scowcroft Group, a business advisory firm headed by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.”

Bedford served on the GlobeSecNine board of advisors with Scowcroft and co-founder of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center Fred Turco. Others affiliated with the company are tied directly to the prison industrial complex and the anti-liberal “war on drugs,” for example Jack Lawn, former Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who serves on the board of directors.

On July 3, 2007, Michael Alexander’s name was removed from the list of Antioch trustees. Two days earlier, he had been sworn in as president of Lasell College in Newton Massachusetts. There has been speculation that Antioch’s campus would make a great retirement community, much like the one at Lasell, known as Lasell Village, “a state-of-the-art eldercare community with the first-of-its-kind built in educational component.”

In 1998 Alexander founded AverStar, where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and did business primarily with NASA and the Defense Department. In 2000, Alexander’s AverStar defense company merged with the Titan corporation.

In March 2005, Titan pled guilty and paid the largest penalty under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in history for bribery and filing false tax returns.

L-3 Communications acquired the Titan Corporation on July 29, 2005. As their corporate website described the company, it “is a leading provider of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems, secure communications systems, aircraft modernization, training and government services. The company is a leading merchant supplier of a broad array of high technology products, including guidance and navigation, sensors, scanners, fuzes, data links, propulsion systems, simulators, avionics, electro optics, satellite communications, electrical power equipment, encryption, signal intelligence, antennas and microwave components. L-3 also supports a variety of Homeland Security initiatives with products and services. Its customers include the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, selected U.S. Government intelligence agencies and aerospace prime contractors.”

The L-3 Communications Titan Group brags that 8000 of its 10,000 employees have “security clearances” and that they are a leading provider of C4ISR, Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance – “developing and supporting the systems of today and tomorrow for the United States and Allied Militaries and defense-related agencies in order for them to carry out their assigned missions,” according to their website.

While Anitoch board members Bedford and Alexander cozied up with U.S. intelligence and Homeland Security, students at the university sponsored a national teach-in to expose the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay on October 5, 2006.

How a college targeted by the FBI and its notorious COINTELPRO operation during the Cold War as a “vanguard of the New Left” managed to place two “spook”-connected trustees on their board is a mystery worth exploring.

Antioch resides in the shadow of the Wright Patterson Air Force Base and its legendary Foreign Technologies Division that reverse engineers weapons systems from other nations. Its larger neighbor to the west, Ohio State University, has long been tied up with the CIA’s favorite nonprofit institution, Battelle, and was one of the 30 or so universities involved in the MK Ultra mind control LSD experiments in the 1960s.

The Dayton Daily News is reporting that a $5 million accounting error caused the radical college to close. Others have pointed to the long-standing rumors of intelligence ties to the Antioch Europe in Transition study program.

If the CIA or U.S. intelligence services were involved in the subversion of America’s most imperialist and pro-peace college, it wouldn’t be the first time that the progressive college campuses have been infiltrated. The CIA subverted the National Student Association in the late 50s and early 60s. The agency also has been accused of subverting everything from fraternities to Fullbright scholars to Peace Corps workers.

The role of these trustees must be heavily scrutinized. Antioch alumni should be ashamed to allow their college to die until they get to the bottom of this spooky mystery.

Bob Fitrakis is the author of The Fitrakis Files: Spooks, Nukes, and Nazis, on the role of the CIA in Ohio politics.

get the low down on all the candidates at oppodepot.com

http://www.oppodepot.com/

Kathy Griffin has a few words to say about Ann Coulter

Warning: Visit the loo before you watch this or you will experience regret.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P17w0RWTew

Impeaching the Opus Dei 5

by Deborah Lagutaris July 1, 2007

We now have five conservative Catholics sitting on the highest court in the USA. I have nothing against Catholics. I was raised Catholic and I know many powerful progressives who were raised Catholic. But these men have an extreme right wing viewpoint and it is showing in their rulings. They are so far out of the mainstream of American life, they can't even see it. Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy are all right wing Catholics.

When the Democrats are in control after the next election, the first order of business should be impeaching Scalia and Thomas, for starters. They should have recused themselves due to conflict of interest during Bush v. Gore. Both had family members working for Bush and the Heritage Foundation.

Here are some articles regarding this serious problem.

None Dare Call It Treason: Vincent Bugliosi

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/bugliosi

The Politicization of the Supreme Court: American Progress

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/supreme_court.html

Gerald Ford's article on the legal methods of impeachment of Supreme Court Justices

http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/speeches/700415e.htm

The Three Coequal Branches of US Government

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/government/branches.html

It's even got pictures for the trolls! Perfect.

Beach Impeach 1-Run to the Rock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3iozK8Ew7g

1200 of us spelled out the word IMPEACH ! across Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It was a positive yet sober crowd that gathered that day. We had a need to move the national debate past the private two-party decisionmaking system.

Please watch with open eyes and heart.

Upside to the Meltdown

Please take some time to browse these websites and make suggestions of your own. I see these ideas as providing some hope for survival of our grandchildren, and their children. I look forward to discussing these ideas in the room!

The Simultaneous Policy
www.simpol.org

Steady State Economics
http://www.steadystate.org/

The Apollo Alliance
http://www.apolloalliance.org/

Participatory Economics
http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm

President Fred Thompson and The First Lady

Just a little shot of what the Republican Party was thinking you might want in a Presidential couple.
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272613846.shtml

It isn't so much that Mrs. Fred Thompson is a skank. It's that the Republican Party seems to worship its skanks while pretending to be pious, viz. Ann Coulter.

~Deb

Please come to Denver...

by Deb Lake

Progressives of all stripes, the Democratic Convention Summer of 2008, is shaping up to be a very interesting moment in history. The City of Denver has already determined that it will not even discuss honoring the First Amendment rights of citizens.

"The Denver City Council decided it would not hear argument for a proclamation that assures that protesters’ First Amendment rights would be protected for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver."

http://www.workers.org/2007/us/denver-0621/

To learn more about the Convention, and the planned First Amendment political activities, go to these two sites:

http://www.08dnc.com/index.cfm An unofficial convention guide.

http://www.recreate68.org/

August 25 –28, 2008

Characteristics of Fascism

http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeacecollection/facism.htm

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
Free Inquiry: http://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/
Spring 2003; 5-11-03
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

Characteristics of Fascism

http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeacecollection/facism.htm

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
Free Inquiry: http://www.secularhumanism.org/fi/
Spring 2003; 5-11-03
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:


1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to (sic) media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed
to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

The Constitution of Venezuela

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Venezuela

Here is the Preamble:

The people of Venezuela, exercising their powers of creation and invoking the protection of God, the historic example of our Liberator Simon Bolivar and the heroism and sacrifice of our aboriginal ancestors and the forerunners and founders of a free and sovereign nation; to the supreme end of reshaping the Republic to establish a democratic, participatory and self-reliant, multiethnic and multicultural society in a just, federal and decentralized State that embodies the values of freedom, independence, peace, solidarity, the common good, the nation's territorial integrity, comity and the rule of law for this and future generations; guarantees the right to life, work, learning, education, social justice and equality, without discrimination or subordination of any kind; promotes peaceful cooperation among nations and furthers and strengthens Latin American integration in accordance with the principle of nonintervention and national self-determination of the people, the universal and indivisible guarantee of human rights, the democratization of imitational society, nuclear disarmament, ecological balance and environmental resources as the common and inalienable heritage of humanity; exercising their innate power through their representatives comprising the National Constituent Assembly, by their freely cast vote and in a democratic Referendum, hereby ordain the following:

read more...

Psychotics 4 Bush!

Study finds the more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

To be filed under duh:


[Christopher Lohse], a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.


…Lohse's study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person's psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

The study began in part as an advocacy project "designed to register mentally ill voters and encourage them" to vote, while assessing "knowledge of current issues, government and politics." The Bush trend emerged in the course of the study, according to Lohse, who describes himself as a "Reagan revolution fanatic" who nonetheless finds Bush "beyond the pale." During the course of the study, it emerged that "Bush supporters has significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry," and that greater levels of psychosis predicted Bush support.


"Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader," Lohse says. "If your world is very mixed up, there's something very comforting about someone telling you, 'This is how it's going to be'."

Read More...

Psychotics 4 Bush!

Study finds the more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

To be filed under duh:


[Christopher Lohse], a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.


…Lohse's study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person's psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

The study began in part as an advocacy project "designed to register mentally ill voters and encourage them" to vote, while assessing "knowledge of current issues, government and politics." The Bush trend emerged in the course of the study, according to Lohse, who describes himself as a "Reagan revolution fanatic" who nonetheless finds Bush "beyond the pale." During the course of the study, it emerged that "Bush supporters has significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry," and that greater levels of psychosis predicted Bush support.


"Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader," Lohse says. "If your world is very mixed up, there's something very comforting about someone telling you, 'This is how it's going to be'."

Read More...

The Corporate Welfare State: How the Government Subsidizes U.S. Corporations

by Deborah Lake

This analysis comes from the Cato Institute, a right-wing libertarian group that occasionally provides worthwhile articles that highlight the ills of the current political system. Corporate welfare costs Americans much more than individual welfare, just as corporate crime costs Americans much more than street crime.

I used to be a right wing libertarian. Now I am a left-wing libertarian, since I learned that the "ideal" of free market capitalism will never happen and at best mandates that there always be losers despite individual merit and hard work. If you don't know where you sit in that spectrum, there's a fun little quiz at www.politicalcompass.org you can take.

http://tinyurl.com/2s4qp7

The federal government spent $92 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to businesses and private- sector corporate entities — expenditures commonly referred to as "corporate welfare" — in fiscal year 2006. The definition of business subsidies used in this report is broader than that used by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, which recently put the costs of direct business subsidies at $57 billion in 2005. For the purposes of this study, "corporate welfare" is defined as any federal spending program that provides payments or unique benefits and advantages to specific companies or industries.

Supporters of corporate welfare programs often justify them as remedying some sort of market failure. Often the market failures on which the programs are predicated are either overblown or don't exist. Yet the federal government continues to subsidize some of the biggest companies in America. Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, General Electric, and others have received millions in taxpayer-funded benefits through programs like the Advanced Technology Program and the Export-Import Bank. In addition, the federal crop subsidy programs continue to fund the wealthiest farmers.

Because the corporate welfare state transcends any specific agency — and therefore any specific congressional committee — one way to reform or terminate those programs would be through a corporate welfare reform commission (CWRC). That commission could function like the successful military base closure commission. The CWRC would compose a list of corporate welfare programs to eliminate and then present that list to Congress, which would be required to hold an up-or-down vote on the commission's proposal.

Go to the Original to get the full text of the policy analysis.

US Assistance to Israel 1947-2006

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

Over 1 Trillion of our 9 Trillion National Debt has gone to Israel. Egypt is the second largest recipient of US aid.

The Landlord

http://sjl.funnyordie.com/v1/view_video.php?viewkey=3efbc24c7d2583be6925

This is one of the funniest videos ever!

Animals Have Problems Too

http://www.animalshaveproblemstoo.com/

The Biggest Threat to Democracy in History

Go here to sign a petition to your National representatives and read reasoning behind it

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

Synopsis

WARNING: a bipartisan Congress will, in the next few days, attempt to violate your #1 Inalienable Right. Having talked to many folks, I’ve not yet found an American who says this warning is not well taken. Although each person I’ve talked to understands they’re being cheated by this; they just tend to think that other Americans won’t listen, or think Americans too busy to preserve their own most basic rights.

WARNING: With computerized voting, your inalienable right to kick the bums out, or your inalienable right to alter or abolish your government through elections, doesn’t exist. It is not secured for you by your government. They are not guaranteeing this right for you. In fact any corrupt election insider could, for money, partisanship, pressure, threat or in the belief of doing a great justice to the whole Nation, alter the election results undetectably, erasing the steps along the way. As long as the total number of votes match up roughly, and one doesn’t cheat more than say 20 percentage points, a whole industry of political pundits will chalk up the surprise victory to the last minute attack ad, or great get out the vote campaign, or a problem with the “loser’s” platform, the weather, or any of dozens of other colorable excuses.

An August 2006 Zogby poll I paid for with help from Nancy Tobi of New Hampshire and Michael Collins of electionfraudnews.com established that an incredible 92% of Americans supported a vote counting system where vote counting is observable by the public and the public can obtain information about vote counting. http://www.zogby.com/News/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1163 This is one of the highest political values ever measured in polls, yet the 90% secret vote counting that is taking place in America shows how incredibly out of touch our government, of both parties, is with every demographic group in America.

A Threat to Democracy, Privatized Electronic Voting

Go here to sign a petition to your National representatives and read reasoning behind it

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

Synopsis

WARNING: a bipartisan Congress will, in the next few days, attempt to violate your #1 Inalienable Right. Having talked to many folks, I’ve not yet found an American who says this warning is not well taken. Although each person I’ve talked to understands they’re being cheated by this; they just tend to think that other Americans won’t listen, or think Americans too busy to preserve their own most basic rights.

WARNING: With computerized voting, your inalienable right to kick the bums out, or your inalienable right to alter or abolish your government through elections, doesn’t exist. It is not secured for you by your government. They are not guaranteeing this right for you. In fact any corrupt election insider could, for money, partisanship, pressure, threat or in the belief of doing a great justice to the whole Nation, alter the election results undetectably, erasing the steps along the way. As long as the total number of votes match up roughly, and one doesn’t cheat more than say 20 percentage points, a whole industry of political pundits will chalk up the surprise victory to the last minute attack ad, or great get out the vote campaign, or a problem with the “loser’s” platform, the weather, or any of dozens of other colorable excuses.

An August 2006 Zogby poll I paid for with help from Nancy Tobi of New Hampshire and Michael Collins of electionfraudnews.com established that an incredible 92% of Americans supported a vote counting system where vote counting is observable by the public and the public can obtain information about vote counting. http://www.zogby.com/News/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1163 This is one of the highest political values ever measured in polls, yet the 90% secret vote counting that is taking place in America shows how incredibly out of touch our government, of both parties, is with every demographic group in America.

Politics Lobby 10: On The Move (From Yahoo)

As I pen this missive, Ann_Coulter2 is in the new Paltalk Room, Politics Lobby 10, talking in her inimitable fascist style. Is it Ann? I don't know. It seems, she too, is leaning left these days (maybe, we could only hope).

Thanks to thephoenix (sic) there is a more civil place to run this liberal think tank from. This is an administered room where bots from ovrbearing chatters cannot and will not rule the day.

Paltalk is not Yahoo. I has its advantages and is not tweakable (much yet) like Yahelite, Yazak is to yahoo, though there are alternative program add-ons.

This is room is an exodus from politics lobby 10 in yahoo. And a migration to a new vision of a just, honest, and progressive reality.

We all keep each other informed there and try to take the weight of the world off each others shoulders.

The world is watching, we are watching, and trying to make constructive sense of some progressive action that will benefit all.

Politics Lobby 10: On The Move (From Yahoo)

As I pen this missive, Ann_Coulter2 is in the new Paltalk Room, Politics Lobby 10, talking in her inimitable fascist style. Is it Ann? I don't know. It seems, she too, is leaning left these days (maybe, we could only hope).

Thanks to thephoenix (sic) there is a more civil place to run this liberal think tank from. This is an administered room where bots from ovrbearing chatters cannot and will not rule the day.

Paltalk is not Yahoo. I has its advantages and is not tweakable (much yet) like Yahelite, Yazak is to yahoo, though there are alternative program add-ons.

This is room is an exodus from politics lobby 10 in yahoo. And a migration to a new vision of a just, honest, and progressive reality.

We all keep each other informed there and try to take the weight of the world off each others shoulders.

The world is watching, we are watching, and trying to make constructive sense of some progressive action that will benefit all.

Bush's Cyber Election Hit Squad

Read this along with the next article, Behind the Firewall.

The GOP’s Cyber Election Hit Squad
by Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis
April 22, 2007

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush’s re-election?

The answer appears to be yes. There is more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio’s “official” Secretary of State website – which gave the world the presidential election results – was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Recent revelations have documented that the Republican National Committee (RNC) ran a secret White House e-mail system for Karl Rove and dozens of White House staffers. This high-tech system used to count and report the 2004 presidential vote– from server-hosting contracts, to software-writing services, to remote-access capability, to the actual server usage logs themselves – must be added to the growing congressional investigations.

Numerous tech-savvy bloggers, starting with the online investigative consortium epluribusmedia.org and their November 2006 article cross-posted by contributor luaptifer to Dailykos, and Joseph Cannon’s blog at Cannonfire.blogspot.com, outed the RNC tech network. That web-hosting firm is SMARTech Corp. of Chattanooga, TN, operating out of the basement in the old Pioneer Bank building. The firm hosts scores of Republican websites, including georgewbush.com, gop.com and rnc.org.

The software created for the Ohio secretary of state’s Election Night 2004 website was created by GovTech Solutions, a firm co-founded by longtime GOP computing guru Mike Connell. He also redesigned the Bush campaign’s website in 2000 and told “Inside Business” magazine in 1999, “I wouldn’t be where I am today without the Bush campaign and the Bush family because the Bushes truly are about family and I’m loyal to my network.”

Read more...

Also read: http://fraudbusterbob.com/blog/2007/04/26/are-roves-missing-e-mails-the-smoking-guns-of-the-stolen-2004-election

...and then something went wrong with his airplane... ~Deb

Who is Michael L. Connell? Part II: Behind the firewall.

The Missing Link

In Part I: The Atwater School of Politics, we detailed the first half of Michael L. Connell's GOP career arc, from college-aged Bush 41 computer prodigy to seasoned smashmouth campaign planner.

In the latter half of the 90s, Connell's return to hi-tech was a no-brainer, as the Internet explosion unearthed new pathways and paradigms for soliciting votes. With the creation of his company New Media Communications, Connell began to blaze a nascent "super-highway" and to begin the task of re-branding the Bush family legacy from "wimp" to "winner." And by the end of the decade, New Media's GeorgeWBush.com and GOP.com gilded Connell's status as "a trusted partisan."

So why was this Internet guru for the Republican Party -- once fired for "unethical" campaign tactics - selected as the first private vendor to set up behind the firewall at the U.S. House of Representatives? And how did GovTech Solutions, the company he co-founded with scandal-ridden lobbyist Thomas J. Synhorst, get security clearance to re-design and install the Intelligence committee's web site on the House intranet?

This article, "Part II: Behind the firewall," picks up the Connell thread in 1996, when after a year of preparations, his company New Media Communications and the GOP start laying the foundation for the 2000 presidential election.

Read More...

...and then something went wrong with his airplane... ~Deb

Stephen Colbert (whatta man!) at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

See it on You Tube!

The Establishment Rethinks Globalization

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070430/greider

The church of global free trade, which rules American politics with infallible pretensions, may have finally met its Martin Luther. An unlikely dissenter has come forward with a revised understanding of globalization that argues for thorough reformation. This man knows the global trading system from the inside because he is a respected veteran of multinational business. His ideas contain an explosive message: that what established authorities teach Americans about global trade is simply wrong--disastrously wrong for the United States.

Martin Luther was a rebellious priest challenging the dictates of a corrupt church hierarchy. Ralph Gomory, on the other hand, is a gentle-spoken technologist, trained as a mathematician and largely apolitical. He does not set out to overthrow the establishment but to correct its deeper fallacies. For many years Gomory was a senior vice president at IBM. He helped manage IBM's expanding global presence as jobs and high-tech production were being dispersed around the world.

The experience still haunts him. He decided, in retirement, that he would dig deeper into the contradictions. Now president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, he knew something was missing in the "pure trade theory" taught by economists. If free trade is a win-win proposition, Gomory asked himself, then why did America keep losing?

Read more...

Important Political Films and Videos

When Democracy Failed: Thom Hartmann

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
State of the Union
The Corporation Watch it.
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
My Man Godfrey
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Silkwood
An Inconvenient Truth
Norma Rae
The Battle of Algiers
The Bicycle Thief
The Grapes of Wrath
Why We Fight
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Great Dictator
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
Salud
From Freedom to Fascism
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. An eyeopening film about the US backed coup against Hugo Chavez of Venezuela
Walmart-The High Cost of Low Prices

Many of these films, as well as other excellent documentaries, may be found at ALLUC.ORG



Got a suggestion? Add it to Comments and I will add it to the list!

Lee Iacocca, Mad as Hell!

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Read More!

Lee Iacocca, Mad as Hell!

http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=wherehavealltheleadersgone

I
Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Read More!

Eking Out Reality And Gonzales Denies Us Habeas Corpus

First a quote from a friend that rings so true in the "dis-information age":

Our universe is governed by fictions of all kinds: mass consumption, publicity, politics considered and managed like a branch of publicity, instantaneous translation of science and techniques into a popular imagery, confusion and telescopage of identities in the realm of consumer goods, right of pre-emption exercised by the television screen over every personal reaction to reality. We live at the interior of an enormous novel. It becomes less and less necessary for the writer to give fictional content to his works. The fiction is already there. The work of the novelist is to invent reality.
-J.G. Ballard, from the introduction of the French edition of Crash




From Amnesty International Email;


"The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is granted or assured the right to habeas [corpus]. It doesn't say that."

If you guessed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, you're correct. In fact, the Constitution states that habeas corpus rights cannot be suspended except in times of rebellion or invasion. For centuries, this has meant that a person could challenge his or her detention in an independent court of law - unless those exceptional circumstances existed.

Gonzales's declaration should strike fear in all of us. His dangerous comments before the Senate Judiciary Committee betrayed the Constitutional rights he was sworn to protect as our nation's top law enforcement official...and defied common sense, too. Watch the video!

A Boy Named Bush

http://www.amiright.com/parody/misc/themesong7.shtml

"The Beverly Hillbillies" Based on the performance by Theme Song
"A Boy Named Bush" Parody by Sharon Krebs
Come and listen to my story 'bout a boy name Bush.
His IQ was zero and his head was up his tush.
He drank like a fish while he drove all about.
But that didn't matter 'cuz his daddy bailed him out.
DUI, that is. Criminal record. Cover-up.

Well, the first thing you know little Georgie goes to Yale.
He can't spell his name but they never let him fail.
He spends all his time hangin' out with student folk.
And that's when he learns how to snort a line of coke.
Blow, that is. White gold. Nose candy.

The next thing you know there's a war in Vietnam.
Kin folks say, "George, stay at home with Mom."
Let the common people get maimed and scarred.
We'll buy you a spot in the Texas Air Guard.
Cushy, that is. Country clubs. Nose candy.

Twenty years later George gets a little bored.
He trades in the booze, says that Jesus is his Lord.
He said, "Now the White House is the place I wanna be."
So he called his daddy's friends and they called the GOP.
Gun owners, that is. Falwell. Jesse Helms.

Come November 7, the election ran late.
Kin folks said "Jeb, give the boy your state!"
"Don't let those colored folks get into the polls."
So they put up barricades so they couldn't punch their holes.
Chads, that is. Duval County. Miami-Dade.

Before the votes were counted five Supremes stepped in.
Told all the voters "Hey, we want George to win."
"Stop counting votes!" was their solemn invocation.
And that's how George finally got his coronation.
Rigged, that is. Illegitimate. No moral authority.
Y'all come vote now. Ya hear?

Discovery the Hidden History Behind the Bush Dynasty

http://www.secrecyandprivilege.com/

Discover the Hidden History
Behind the Bush Dynasty

Secrecy & Privilege
by Robert Parry
390 pages (paperback)
$22.95


Tracing investigative leads back through three decades, Secrecy & Privilege explores the mystery of how the two George Bushes rose to the pinnacle of American political power – and what the rise of their dynasty has meant to the nation’s democratic principles.



Purchase 'Secrecy & Privilege' along with Parry's 1999 book 'Lost History' for only $32, a 30% discount!

Two ‘must-read’ books, Lost History and Secrecy & Privilege fill in missing chapters of modern U.S. history – from the truth about the Reagan administration’s complicity in drug trafficking of the 1980s to the real story of how the Bush Family’s rise to power transformed American democracy.

When you order now, $10 from the purchase will be donated to Consortiumnews.com.

Palestinians live in an Imprisoned Society

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/181D9639-1F51-46E5-839E-292BBEFDE726.htm

Israel accused of 'apartheid'

Dugard said Gaza was an imprisoned society, with things little better in the West Bank [GALLO/GETTY]

A UN human rights envoy has likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians in occupied territory to "apartheid", and said that failure to tackle the situation will make it hard to solve abuses elsewhere.

John Dugard, a UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, made his remarks to the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday.

Dugard, a South African lawyer, said restrictions on movement and separate residential areas gave a sense of "deja vu" to anyone with experience of apartheid, noting that apartheid was "contrary to international law".

He said: "Of course there are similarities between the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory] and apartheid South Africa."

He also told the council that the situation "places in danger the whole international human rights enterprise".

Read More...

Death and Contractors

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/made-in-the-usa-part-iii-us-company-listings-a-m/2888/

Made In the USA, Part III: US Company Listings A-M

By Jim Crogan
Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 12:00 am

AT&T

(New York City, New York)

2000 — Contracted with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. to "optimize" Huawei’s products. Between 2000 and 2001, Huawei outfitted Iraq’s air-defense system with fiber-optic equipment, in violation of a U.N. trade embargo.

(return to company index)

AL HADDAD ENTERPRISES, INC.

(Formerly based in Nashville, Tennessee — defunct)

1984 to 1985 — Company sold 60 tons of DMMP, a material used to make sarin gas, to Iraq. Also provided chemical-production equipment to Iraq. In 1984, customs officials at Kennedy International Airport seized another Al Haddad shipment of 1,100 pounds of potassium fluoride, a chemical used in nerve-gas production. Al Haddad was not charged in this attempted transfer of chemicals, which were destined for Iraq’s Ministry of Pesticides. This firm also received letters of credit from BNL (an Italian bank) totaling $134,988 to sell knives and rubber blankets to Technical Corp. for Special Projects, an Iraqi front company. (Note: See Banca Nazionale del Lavoro entry for information about BNL’s Iraqi loans and letters of credit.)

The firm was owned by Sahib Abd al-Amir al-Haddad, an Iraqi-born, naturalized American citizen. According to corporate records from Tennessee’s Department of State, Al Haddad operated a number of registered firms, which are all inactive, dissolved or merged out. These firms included Al Haddad Enterprises, Inc.; A. Saleh & S. Al-Haddad, Inc.; and Al-Haddad Bros. Enterprises, Inc. Recent stories in The New York Times and The Tennessean reported that al-Haddad was arrested in Bulgaria in November 2002 while trying to arrange an arms sale to Iraq. At last report, Al-Haddad, 59, was awaiting extradition to Germany, where he is charged with conspiring in the late 1990s to purchase equipment for the manufacture of a giant Iraqi cannon.

(return to company index)

ALCOLAC INTERNATIONAL, INC

(Formerly located in Baltimore, Maryland. Company was restructured as Alcolac, Inc., and it’s currently listed as an active Georgia corporation. Company’s assets now owned by French-based firm Rhodia, Inc., with U.S. operations based in Cranberry, New Jersey.)

1988 — Allegedly sold more than 300 tons of thiodiglycol (precursor material used to make mustard gas) via Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation, which, according to congressional testimony and media reports, shipped the material to Jordan and then on to Iraq, through Iraq’s Industrial Procurement Company. In the same period, Alcolac also shipped thiodiglycol to Iran and pleaded guilty in 1988 to one count of export violations for its Iranian shipments. Alcolac is currently one of the corporate defendants in a Texas civil suit filed on behalf of some 3,500 Gulf War vets allegedly suffering from Gulf War syndrome. The suit initially named 64 American and international companies that allegedly provided Iraq with materials used to develop chemical and biological weapons. However, a number of those companies will likely be sued in European courts, and the current number of defendants is in flux. Ronald Welsh, the attorney representing Alcolac in that suit, denied any company wrongdoing in connection with Iraq and added that he had no "personal knowledge" of any Alcolac shipments of thiodiglycol to Saddam Hussein’s regime. But U.N. weapons-inspector reports, included in a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing on U.S. export policy toward Iraq, identified shipments of thiodiglycol that were sent to Iraq by Alcolac.

A spokesman for the company that now owns Alcolac emphasized that the "alleged illegal infractions" occurred before Alcolac was obtained by the current ownership.

(return to company index)

AMERICAN TYPE CULTURE COLLECTION

(Manassas, Virginia)

1985 to 1989 — ATCC is a nonprofit that provides biological products, technical services and educational programs to private industry, government and academia. It sent to Iraq some 70 shipments of deadly germs, which included anthrax bacteria, E. coli bacteria, salmonella bacteria, bacillus megaterium (which causes meningitis), bacillus subtilus and bacillus cereus (which are strains of anthrax), brucella abortus (which causes influenza), brucella melitensis (a bacteria that attacks major organs), clostridum botulinum (a source of botulism), clostridium perfringens (which causes lung failure), clostridium tetani (which causes muscle rigidity), and Francisella tularensis (which causes tularemia).