It hit me this morning. A punch in the Gut....Where are the Lawyers? We

[KoKo]

have been left out here with no support! Kerry conceded to stop us all from raising a ruckus, from going to Ohio, from taking to the streets!

They are still counting votes and Provisional Ballots all over the US, but Kerry conceded before we started to call for action before we could mobilize. WHY??? WHY???? What the hell is going on. They've left us like discarded garbage on the side of the road. WHY???

I was numb for two days, but looking for information here about Lawyers calling for recounts, for the voter fraud we know took place...I was numb, but this morning I woke up kicked in the stomach feeling abandoned.

Is anybody doing anything out there? Why were we left like this?

[bryant69]

1. Well it's been two days

I think that a lot of people are doing stuff. Just because Kerry isn't directing it, doesn't mean it's not happening. People like Greg Palast and others are going to dig up what happened--and if they can find enough dynamite, well, we'll have to see what happens.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Yep. Bev Harris is on the case!

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[LTRS]

7. Sorry, but the federal politicians I know think....

Bev Harris is a crackpot. I am not saying she is - I think she is right. But you can't rely on here to get this fixed. WE have to ALL rise up and demand it!

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. We do indeed. But Bev is a great leader for us.

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[bryant69]

12. If a smoking gun is found

It's most likely to be found by someone who's actually looking for it not by suits taking lunch meetings with lobbyists.

That's why Kojak was always turning down lunch meetings with Exxon, cause he was too busy trying to solve the crime.

Bryant
Check it out--> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[shanti]

15. of course they do

because they are part of the problem! they have a vested interest in "staying the course"!

GO BEV!

[GreenPoet64]

17. Why do they think she is a crackpot? I'm rather new to this. n/t

[michigandem2]

29. if she has hard evidence...they can't ignore it...

regardless of what they persoanlly feel about her..and she isn't alone...its not just her...

[KoKo]

13. Greg Pallast just doesn't get traction. We all know the "Consortium Repor

on 2000 Election was deepsixed by September llth Attack. He can write for years, but unless big guns in DC get on it, it will go nowhere. We have no help in DC. We have no help from DNC/DLC...they've left us hanging out to dry, it seems.

Four years and Al Gore was the President....we've written, phoned, faxed, walked the streets, had friends and relatives we had to distance ourselves from...and it's the same thing but Al Gore tried to fight.

Eveyone has given up. Why? Why?

[LisaLynne]

2. I don't know.

I just don't know what's going on. I'm trying to stop from being too tinfoil hat. It might just be that Kerry was told he could not possibly win and that he needed to concede right away or (horror of horrors) he would be seen as a sore loser, because apparently the entire country is a playground filled with 7 year olds.

[BayStateBoy]

3. Kerry Lawyers = WMDs....Nonexistent

[wurzel]

5. We have permanent Republican rule for the foreseeable future.

The "fix" clearly worked. The voting machines will not be challenged. The Supreme Court will have younger neocons in place. I can see no real way out of this short of some Republican catastrophe like a draft. I still have this wild idea that Kerry's concession had to do with membership in Skull and Crossbones.

[KoKo]

14. If it was Skull and Bones why would he have run in the first place? Why

run and then accept it if "S&B" tells you to quit. I just don't think "S&B"'s every member is a high ranking Repug/Dem or doesn't have a conscience like the Chimp.

[Chelsea Patriot]

36. Didn't Kerry win the Iowa primary on trailess BBV?

Weren't the touch screen voting machine used in his first miraculous primary win?

How can he come out against BBV when he benefited by it?

[Booster]

38. A friend of mine has been saying since the campaign started

that we would be shafted by the Skull & Bones secret society. I told him I didn't think so, but now I'm not so sure. The fact that Howard Dean had it in the bag, and in the end, two S&B members run against each other. Seems to me we should make a rule that no member of S&B can EVER run for the office of president. I hate secret societies like S&B, the Promisekeepers, etc. We have been had, folks - not just Dems, but the entire country.

[LTRS]

6. They stole it - and we're just going to let that stand?

See Gahanna thread in the voting problems section. It was DU that made this AP story below happen. But the point is that this, and the threads on the Flordia ballots showing huge (and I mean HUGE) numbers of DEMS supposedly voting for Bush in very Dem counties is indicative of wholesale theft of this election! And they are simply going to play off every instance in which they were caught as an "oops, sorry, we'll fix that. Don't know how this could have happened!"

If we take this shit, we are purely stupid. Right now, today, we need to spread the word to every blog, every newspaper, and every politician we know personally that we aren't going to give another dime to any Dem candidate until they fix our voting system.

We need to start a movement, and we need to start it today, because the wheels grind slowly. Are you with me?

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10103910.htm

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct.

Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there. The other 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president.

Damschroder said he received some calls Thursday from people who saw the error when reading the list of poll results on the election board's Web site.

[bigtree]

11. kick

:kick:

[KoKo]

19. I want THIS election fixed, right now. I've done all the writing and

phoning about BBV and the rest. We had a hearing on it here in NC and wrote letters...we've been working on this for four years...and nothing has been fixed. We've got to call this election out for the fraud it is and tie it to the last one with the "Media Consortium Report" from 2000, but they won't listen to us. They will never listen to us...It's out of our hands, without some attention by some powers on our side. :-(

[KoKo]

8. But What if NOTHING is going on? Why would our Party do this to us twice?

They didn't want us to mobilize. I'm convinced that's why Kerry conceded so early. They knew we were freaked out and would DEMAND recounts. They knew....why did they stop us. Where does our anger and frustration go? What is their motivation?

It's like preparing an army for battle for four years then calling the
battle off. The troops would Mutiny! No General who was wise would do that for fear of Mutiny!

I don't believe something is going on behind the scenes. I trusted them in Florida and they didn't fight back. I cannot trust them now...

Why would they do this to us, knowing the psychological devastation it would cause. This is OUR PARTY...THEY ASKED US TO WORK! They've abandoned us. I have to know why because what I'm thinking is so dark and devastating to me and the country........

[SammyWinstonJack]

30. Neither do I

"I don't believe something is going on behind the scenes."


It's over as far as they are concerned. They used us and abandoned us. We are forgotten until the next election.

[CrispyQ]

31. I'm pissed about the hundreds of dollars I sent to his campaign...

...then he concedes just like that - without a fight. He wasn't my first choice -- not even close -- but I thought he'd stand up for us better than this. What happened to "I've got your back"?

What he has accomplished is that I will be less likely to financially support any candidate in the future.

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. Yeah, I am not to happy about that either

I sent more then I could afford but I was glad to do so. I thought I was investing in America's future. When he conceded without a fight, I was pissed and still am. Apparently he never had "our backs." He still has his comfortable lifestyle though, so I guess that is all that matters.

[PaDUer]

34. Wouldn't surprise me..

and all those donations made to them..what did they do with that $ that many of us didn't have and that many here on DU sent just to help the cause.
WHY are they letting the people down? Are they in on this? It's truly mind-boggling. And, WHY did Kerry concede so early? Was he threatened or what? Doesn't seem right..what's really going on, and what really happened that we are unaware of.

[sangh0]

9. Our lawyers haven't returned yet

I don't know what it means, but a couple of lawyers from my place went to help Kerry, and they haven't returned to work yet

[Pirate Smile]

18. Is there any way you can try to reach them and find out if anything is

going on or are they just taking a couple of days off after everything?

[UNIXcock]

21. I wonder if they're even "on it" ???

... Haven't heard hide nor hair out of any law firm since the concession

[Q]

16. We're left with the impression...

...that Democrats don't care about 'free and fair' elections much more than their counterparts.

[ClassWarrior]

27. And that doesn't add up...

NGU.

[trof]

20. I held my own pity party & posted this Wednesday:

He's gone. I'm still here.

I don't blame Kerry, don't get me wrong.
I don't blame him for getting beat by the right wing machine.
And I sure I don't blame him for being a rich man.

But he'll go on with his life. Sure, last night and today was a
big letdown for him, but it seems to me politics is just a game for folks
like him. He has a nice life that will still be relatively untouched by Bush
and his policies. In a few months, or weeks, or maybe just days he'll be
able to look back on this and think "Aw, what the hell. Gave it my best
shot." And go on with his life.

But I'm still out here. Holding the bag.
It's MY social security they might want to just 'tweak' a
little. It's MY small government guaranteed pension they might think is just
a leetle too generous. Gotta cut somewhere. Big deficits, ya know.

It's MY real estate taxes that keep climbing every year, because
our state is broke, because the feds have cut way back on taxes returned to
it. Hey, we gotta have those tax breaks. It's MY electric bill that has a
higher and higher 'fuel surcharge' with oil at $50 a barrel.

Concession speech promises notwithstanding, I feel abandoned.
And I feel stupid.

I opened my pensioner's purse to a politician. I gave the
widow's mite, so to speak. I'd never done that before. Helen and I argued
about it. I wanted to send one month's entire social security check to him.
Just endorse it and mail it in. A grand symbolic gesture.
"We just can't afford that.", she said. She was right, of
course. We couldn't. We compromised on $100 per month starting in May.
I paid it religiously on the first of every month.

I'm wise enough in the ways of political races to know that
money is the mother's milk. I pictured little people like us doing the same
all over this land each month. "By God, if it's money it takes, we'll just
DO it! We have to sacrifice for this. It's important."
Now I feel like a sucker. Call it buyer's remorse, I guess.
I know I'll never do it again. Never. I may give time, which I
have quite a bit of, but not another nickel.

Anyway, God bless you John Kerry. I place no blame. Have a nice life.
I'm still out here.

[Insider]

24. kick for trof

your country thanks you. :ovation:

[KoKo]

25. I missed that trof...thanks for posting it here. Hundreds of thousands of

folks did what you did. Folks who stretched to give because we were saving the party from the "Big Special Interests." It wasn't money they lacked. Many of us had already given what we could little afford to the early candidates like Dean,Kucinich, Clark and others. We gave again to Kerry/Edwards.

They didn't lack for money. There's something wrong. They just wouldn't do this to us over and over. They will have no party left after this...they wouldn't take the chance..would they? Why would they.

I sound like a broken record...Why Why Why. But, they owe it to us to tell us why. Where are they? Kerry said in his consession speech that a little boy had collected pennies from everyone he knew and he gave them to him at a campaign stop. He cited other stories. Yet he left us on the side of the road. I think he's an honorable man. How could he do this?

And, as you said...we are left here, while his life goes on. I didn't see him as that kind of person. I didn't see Theresa as that kind of person. I didn't see our Party as totally calous and nothing but an arm of the Repugs....I just can't accept that without a good reason.

[cheezus]

22. Fuck the national Democratic party

and as for my local state parties:
I'm the Non-partisan league in the ND Dem-NPL
I'm Farm-Labor in the MN DFL

the national party had better not pick another LOSER next time, or I'll just vote my conscience. If we're going to lose anyway I'd rather lose with self respect.

[KoKo]

23. There have to be huge numbers of folks all over America who are devasted

like us. The hundreds of thousands who marched in NYC...the hundreds of thousands who showed up total for all the Anti-Iraq Invasion protests, the folks like us who walked the streets...were outed to our Repug neighbors to put signs on our lawn all over America. We were told to mobilize. We are out here in huge numbers after Florida (when so few really knew what happened). Now we are hundreds of thousands...angry, despairing feeling abandoned knowing that someone took us on a ride to nowhere. I just don't get it...I don't understand it...it makes no sense, there's no logic to it.

A party just doesn't do this to it's people. It just doesn't.

[ClassWarrior]

26. If the votes are still being counted, the lawyers must be there.

This is total silence. We'd have at least some indication if this was all over. It was too passionate of a campaign to have just died.

NGU.

[RevCheesehead]

32. I've wondered why Eliz. Edwards had her surgery in Boston...

and not at Duke, or some other hospital in NC.

Could this be to keep them close and in touch with Kerry?

CLASSWARRIOR, I'm with you.
"Never Give Up...Never Surrender!"

http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/video/misc/dreamworks

[Oilwellian]

28. Here's what I think...

The lawyers and other fine groups are quietly working behind the scenes, gathering the evidence against the theft. If Kerry were a part of the investigation, you'd witness a media frenzy, Republican congressional staffers flown to FL or OH by Enron to disrupt their efforts; any number of other scenarios involving mass chaos that we saw in Florida in 2000. I think it's a clever move on Kerry's part to concede and keep this from becoming a Kerry vs Bush battle and is instead being set up to be a Bush vs irefutable proof he didn't in fact win the election.

As Bev Harris posted in her thread, her FOIA requests have already produced solid evidence to suggest the electronic voting machines were rigged and there could be up to 30 states involved in the theft. She also suggested there are lawyers working on the issue. We're also finding statistical data out of FL showing a majority of Dems in evoting counties voted for Bush, but only in those counties without an audit trail.

I think the whole issue is about to explode...it's not official til the EC votes on December 13th.

[Shiraz]

35. I hope you are right Oaf of Office

because in the last couple of days I have started to think that may-be Alex Jones is right and it is all just theater.

[KoKo]

39. Katheryn, I hope you are correct...but I thought that about Florida. I'll

try to hope again. I just can't believe they would let us down like this without a good reason.

[Gothmog]

37. K/E voter protection team

I was one of the 10,000+ attorneys who were part of the Kerry/Edwards voter protection team. We had 3400+ attorneys in Florida,3,000+ in Ohio and 1,200 in New Mexico. I was assigned to Broward County in Florida where we had around 600 attorneys.

The vast bulk of the attorneys who volunteered for duty were assigned to individual precincts to look for voter intimidation and to help voters cast regular ballots instead of provisional ballot. Under Florida law, our non-resident attorneys had to be outside the polling places. Only licensed Florida attorneys who lived in the precinct in question could be inside poll watchers. That law tied our hands quite a bit. Some of my fellow attorneys were allowed into the polling places on an informal basis. I was kept out of the polling place and actually got into a fight with the clerk in charge of the station when she saw me filling out an incident report on a voter she screwed.

All of the attorneys participating in this program underwent an on line training program followed by two hours of additional training in person. After going to the training process, I realize that part of our training materials were leaked to the GOP in that I heard Ed Gillespie quote some of the tactics in the materials out of context.

I know that I got a decent number of voters to vote regular ballots instead of provisional ballots at my polling place. Other of the attorneys seemed to be very successful in this regard. I did not observe any voter intimidation and it may be that the Florida election was fairly clean in that regard.

There was not a darn thing that we could do about the machines. The voters that I talked to on the way out of the polling places did check the screens to make sure that machines were showing the right candidate. In only one case did a voter have problems and this was a large man with big hands who got the poll workers help to correct his vote. In training we had been warned that people with large fingers had trouble on these machines.

I am not a litigator and was not in the loop on the litigation plans for the election.

I wish that we could do more but given the law there was very little that most of the 10,000 attorneys could do on the ground.

[mzmolly]

40. It might be good to start a thread?

Thanks for the info :hi:

[KoKo]

41. Thanks for your report...but I'm left wondering what the 10,000 attorneys

were sent out for if they couldn't properly monitor the machines, themselves.

My husband took the "Poll Monitor" training and was inside watching the process. A judge was appointed to open the Optiscan machine and check the tally three times during the day. There was a "print out" of all the votes and the tally was sent to Dem Headquarters.

However, he was not told to observe the original state of the Opti-Scan before the voting started. How was he to know whether the counter was set properly? This was all done before the 6:30 a.m. time when he was scheduled to serve. The machine was already set up.

He observed a couple of irregularities but nothing that would cause an investigation. Just the machine printout. However we had early voting for over a week with long lines and there were NO inside poll monitors for those days. I wonder if the lawyers were there for those early voting locations. That's probably were the fraud (if there was major fraud with the machines) took place. Most of our voting was done in the week before where there was chaos with the unexpected turnout. Election day itself was very quiet with no lines except in the first hour.

The Early Vote might have been where the attention should have been placed.

[DeepModem Mom]

42. kick