-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/2/_/1406/_/975422369/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com "The election was close, but tonight, after a count, a recount and yet another manual recount, Secretary Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election." George W. Bush Perhaps it is ironic that a man who has behaved with such dishonor and brazen arrogance would proclaim himself president, then add he was honored and humbled. Sorry, Dubya: the battle has just begun. And The Konformist is so disgusted with your behavior, we will not even feign a denial that we are out to destroy your stolen presidency before it even begins (and, hopefully, aid the stopping of your swindle.) Let the war begin. ***** New sign for Bush: SLOBadan MilsoBUSH ***** George (Ted Bundy) Bush Lee Markland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hasn't anyone besides myself and a friend noticed how much George Bush looks and acts like Ted Bundy? And how about this latest ploy, of trying to use PR to force Clinton to acknowledge him the winner, by raising a non issue (The Transition). The man is a scumbag, and is a reflection of his constitutency. Here's something that you might pass around to Kenn and others of a mind to do some research. Back when Reagan ran for President, I not only donated $300 to his campaign, but I prayed to the god that ain't for his victory, and then felt the cold water hit my face as he started picking his cabinet. Was I ever surprised when to a man he chose members of the CFR and Trilateral Commission, and even held over a CFRer, the Deputy Secretary of Defense from the Carter Administration. And amazingly, not a peep about this betrayal from any right wing organization, not the National Review, not even the John Birch Society, which filled every other publication with laments about the CFR and the TC. I wonder if the right wing, anti New World Order, mostly Republican crowd will be taking a similar tally, as George Bush names his new administration and most assuredly fleshes it out with CFR and TC members as well. Probably not, for them it is all about "family values" and something they call god. Lee ***** The Nation Full Court Press | December 11, 2000 ERIC ALTERMAN 'Accuracy' vs. 'Speed' The signal moment of the 2000 election occurred at 2:16 on election night when Fox News freelance consultant John Ellis called Florida and the election for his cousin George W. Bush. The anchors of NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC followed, lemminglike, within four minutes. Ellis had previously admitted, "I am loyal to my cousin.... I put that loyalty ahead of my loyalty to anyone else," a view that appeared consistent with the We Distort, You Deride standards of Murdoch's toy network. Alas, Fox is a relatively simple case. But how to explain the pro-Bush postelection of the rest of the mainstream media? Part of the answer lies in the original goof itself. Network executives enjoy profits, ratings and scoops, but their first priority is to try not to look like idiots. And given their premature election-night ejaculations, this is just what happened. "Sip it, savor it, cup it, photostat it, underline it in red, press it in a book, put it in an album, hang it on the wall. George W. Bush is the next President of the United States," advised a hypercaffeinated Dan Rather, outdoing his colleagues in poetical, if not political, perspicacity. >From that moment on, media bigfeet adhered to a Bush-camp script that deemed the counting crisis a mere bump on the road to a restored Bush regency. Did Gore win the popular vote? Never mind. What was once feared by all as a potential crisis of legitimacy evaporated into ether when the perceived winner and loser in the equation switched places. Chris Matthews had complained days before the election that "knowing him as we do, [Gore] may have no problem taking the presidential oath after losing the popular vote to George W. Bush." But he quickly developed a case of selective amnesia afterward and called on Gore to concede. Before the election, it was the Bush team that was quoted in the New York Daily News as planning to overturn an Electoral College count in its disfavor. And it was the party's House whip, Tom DeLay, who has been openly plotting with his Congressional cronies to reject the Florida vote if it does not go their way. Never mind, also, that when you factor in the mistaken votes for Pat Buchanan and the disallowed ballots for Gore, the Democrat is the clear favorite of Florida voters. Thousands of absentee ballots in Seminole County, moreover, appear to have been manipulated for Bush, greatly exceeding his razor-thin statewide lead. Such machinations are hardly a surprise in a state run by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. Al Gore would have needed a mighty margin indeed to win with this crowd at the helm. Inside the punditocracy, the battle for a Bush putsch was led by rabid conservatives like George Will, the Wall Street Journal editors, Michael Kelly, Charles Krauthammer, Robert Novak, Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh. Barely a day went by without hysterical cries of a Gore "coup d'�tat" or "slow-motion larceny" of the election: terms they used as synonymous with the lawful manual counting of election ballots as required in Florida and Texas. Novak seriously used the word "tragedy." Next came the centrist and nominally liberal pundits who, while unwilling to echo the debased discourse of the Bush camp, nevertheless professed to fear for the fate of the Republic should the workings of democracy be allowed to grow too messy. Al Hunt demanded of Gore that he "give the hook to Jesse Jackson, with his phony claims of African-American disenfranchisement." The Washington Post editors viciously attacked the Gore team for its "poisonous" assertions of victory when in fact, these were made with considerably more justice and less hubris than those coming out of Austin at the time. These "sensible liberals"--as Murdoch's Weekly Standard condescendingly called them--screamed themselves blue in the face about Gore's alleged eagerness to go to court. They were joined by Congressional Democrats like Bob Torricelli, who have every reason to prefer a Bush victory, as it sets up the party to win a majority in 2002. Such accusations might have reached their hysterical climax but for the Bush campaign's last-minute realization that it could probably not survive a fair hand-count of the Florida votes. This forced Baker and company to turn on a dime and rush into federal court to try to have Florida's election laws invalidated. The Gore team took tactical advantage of this hypocritical flip-flop by offering to abide by the results of any hand counts the Bush team desired. Given the weakness of the Bush/Baker position, the punditocracy's center of gravity drifted back toward Gore, as Times and Post editors took to lambasting Bush in the same language they had used against the Vice President a day earlier. But the cost was considerable. To win this round, the Gore team had to promise to drop all its potential legal avenues to victory. It had to promise to concede the election regardless of the rights of tens of thousands of Gore voters whose franchise was being denied owing to the vagaries of the confusing--and probably illegal--butterfly ballots, to say nothing of the Republican-aided absentee voters of Seminole County. The conservatives got at least one thing right. "This is the impeachment process being played out all over again," Rush Limbaugh complained. Indeed, it is. Once again, everyday Americans evinced a degree of common sense that found few counterparts in the media. "Our polls are showing that the longer it goes on, the less people have confidence in the accuracy of the count," intoned a characteristically clueless Cokie Roberts. "People are growing less confident in the vote with each passing week." In fact, every single poll that had been taken by the time of Roberts's November 19 comments demonstrated strong majorities of voters preferring accuracy to speed in determining who our next President will be. Unfortunately we are stuck with media that, time and again, give us exactly the reverse. (Note: It is moments like this that make the shock of losing such a tough-minded and ferociously independent reporter as Lars-Erik Nelson of the Daily News and the New York Review of Books so much harder to bear.) ***** Baby's Bush's Diamond Daddy Mon, 27 Nov 2000 Best democracy money can buy Gregory Palast examines the sources of the $500m that boosted Bush's bid for the White House ObserverSunday November 26, 2000 Last week, I mailed my overseas ballot for the US presidency - and you can wipe that smug little grin off your face. I won't put up with condescending comments about America's democratic rituals from a nation with an unelected House of Lords occupied by genetic fossils and, soon, Chris Woodhead. In fact, you could think of the $3 billion spent in the US campaign in positive, New Labour terms. Call it 'the efficient privatisation of the democracy' - though an outright auction for the presidency would be more efficient still. If the guy who lost the vote, George W Bush, nevertheless wins the White House, he'll have surfed in on a crushing wave of nearly half a billion dollars ($447 million), my calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from corporate America, a good 25 per cent more than Al Gore's take. George W could not have amassed this pile if his surname were Jones or Smith. The key to Dubya's money empire is Daddy Bush's post-White House work which, incidentally, raised the family's net worth by several hundred per cent. Take two packets of payments to the Republican Party, totalling $148,000, from an outfit called Barrick Goldstrike. That's quite a patriotic contribution from a Canadian company. They can afford it. In 1992, in the final hours of the Bush presidency, Barrick took control of US government-owned property containing an estimated $10bn in gold. For the whole shooting match, Barrick paid the US Treasury only $10,000. Barrick made deft use of an 1872 gold rush law meant to allow pan-and-bucket prospectors to gain title to their tiny claims. In 1992, Clinton's newly elected administration was ready to prevent Barrick's stunning grab. But Barrick is a lucky outfit. Bush's Interior Department expedited procedures to ram through Barrick's claim stake before Clinton's inauguration. Ex-Pres George Bush was lucky, too. When the electorate booted him from the White House, he landed softly - on the Barrick Goldstrike payroll, where he comfortably nested until last year. Who is Barrick? Its founder, Peter Munk, made his name in Canada in the 1950s as the figure in an infamous insider stock-trading scandal. Munk headed a small speaker manufacturer that went belly-up, just after he sold his stock. This is not quite the expected pedigree for an international minerals mogul. If we look in the shadows behind Munk we can see the more accomplished player who provided the capital to set up Barrick - Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. During Bush's presidency, Khashoggi was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. He had already run into trouble with US lawmen when, in 1986, he was arrested and charged - but not convicted - of fraud. He was bailed out of the New York prison by Munk, who provided the $4m bond. Bush performed an even bigger favour for Khashoggi: as his last act in office, the president pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators, key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi. In 1996, a geologist prospecting in Indonesia, Mike de Guzman, announced his discovery of the world's richest gold field. Munk rapidly deployed his president. Bush, on behalf of Barrick, contacted officials of the former dictator Suharto who were in control of mining concessions. Thereafter, De Guzman's company was told it would have to turn over 68 per cent of its claim to Barrick. Barrick didn't have long to gloat. Jim-Bob Moffett, the tough, old, Louisiana swamp dog who heads Freeport-McMoRan Mining, had a private meeting with his old benefactor Suharto. At the end of the meeting, Jim-Bob and the dictator stood on the steps of the presidential palace to announce that Freeport-McMoRan would replace Barrick. (Ironically, Barrick lucked it again. The gold find was a hoax. After Jim-Bob learnt he'd been suckered, his company invited geologist De Guzman to talk it over. Sadly, on way to the meeting, De Guzman fell out of a helicopter.) While Mr Munk's president did not pay the cost of his rental in Indonesia, Bush could redeem himself in Africa. In 1996, as genocide in Rwanda fomented civil war in Zaire, Barrick smelt opportunity. We have learnt that, at that time, Bush spoke with his old golfing buddy, Mobutu Sese Seko, then dictator of Zaire, about diamond concessions. I don't know what ex-CIA director Bush told the panicked dictator, but we do know that Mobutu granted Barrick exclusive rights to mine diamonds in north-west Zaire. Maybe Bush talked about Barrick's mining experience in neighbouring Tanzania where, according to Amnesty International, Barrick's subsidiary carried out 'extra-judicial killings'. Amnesty reports that 50 independent miners who refused to move off the Barrick unit's concession were buried alive in the pits by company bulldozers. Barrick denies the allegations. Beyond Barrick, Daddy Bush has many other friends who filled up his sonny-boy's campaign kitty while Bush performed certain lucrative favours for them. In 1998, Bush p�re created a storm in Argentina when he lobbied his close political ally President Carlos Menem to grant a gambling licence to Mirage Casino corporation. Bush wrote that he had no personal interest in the deal. That's true. But Bush fils did not do badly. After the casino favor, Mirage dropped $449,000 into the Republican Party war chest. The ex-president and famed Desert Strormtrooper-in- Chief, also wrote to the oil minister of Kuwait on behalf of Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush says honestly that he, 'had no stake in the Chevron operation'. Following this selfless use of his influence, the oil company put $657,000 into Republican Party coffers. Most of that loot, reports the Center for Responsive Politics, came in the form of 'soft money' That's the squishy stuff corporations use to ooze around US law which, you may be surprised to learn, prohibits any donations to presidential campaigns in the general election. Not all of the elder Bush's work is voluntary. His single talk to the board of Global Crossing, the telecoms start-up, earned him $13m in stock. The company also kicked in another million for his kid's run. And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-felons should not have the right to vote for president, they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas of US church leaders, Daddy Bush gave several speeches (he charges $100,000 per talk) sponsored by organisations run by Rev Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat - and formerly, the guest of the US federal prison system. There are so many more tales of the Bush family daisy chain of favours, friendship and campaign funding. None of it is illegal - which I find troubling. But I don't want to seem ungrateful. After all, the Bushes helped make America the best democracy money can buy. Blackout in Florida Vice-President Al Gore would have strolled to victory in Florida if the state hadn't kicked 12,000 citizens off the voters' registers five month ago as former felons. In fact, only a fraction were ex-cons. Most were simply guilty of being African- American. While 8,000 of those disenfranchised went through the legal rigmarole of getting on to the voting list, the rest - enough to have won the state for Gore - did not. A top-placed election official (not a Democrat) told me that the government had conducted a quiet review and found - surprise! - that the listing included far more African-Americans than would statistically have been expected, even accounting for the grievous gap between the conviction rates of blacks and whites in the US. The source of this poisonous blacklist: Database Technologies, a division of ChoicePoint, and hired by Governor Jeb Bush's frothingly partisan Secretary of State, Katherine Harris. My thanks to investigator Solomon Hughes for informing me that DBT is a division of ChoicePoint. Under fire for mis-use of personal data in state computers, ChoicePoint founder Rick Rozar made a strategic six-figure soft cash donation to the Republican Party. 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