http://www.gregpalast.com/ Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses
Is the actual name of the article on Greg's web site. Scott ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: [progressive] [FWD: Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses] From: [email protected] Date: Thu, 6 September, 2012 9:23 pm To: "Progressive" <[email protected]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- GregPalast.com Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses An Excerpt from Greg Palast's brand new book Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Elections in 9 Easy Steps Greg Palast with comics by Ted Rall, introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Chapter One: Colonels in Mirrored Sunglasses Here are the facts, ma'am: In the 2008 election, no less than: 767,023 provisional ballots were cast and not counted; 1,451,116 ballots were "spoiled," not counted; 488,136 absentee ballots were mailed in, but not counted. Add it up: in the last presidential election, no less than 2,706,275 ballots were castâand never counted. I have not included a quarter million (251,936) provisional ballots counted only in part (that is, for some offices). That's the official number I've calculated from the records of the US Election Assistance Commission. Approximately three million votes flushed away are ugly enough. But it gets worse. In addition to the roughly three million ballots cast and not counted, no less than: 2,383,587 would-be voters had their registrations rejected; 491,952 voters already registered were wrongly purged from the rolls; and 320,000 properly registered voters were simply turned away from the polls when they tried to vote, mostly for not having IDs acceptable to a poll worker. Add it up again and total grows to no less than 5,901,814 legitimate votes and voters tossed out of the count. Letâs call it the Missing Six Million. Karl Rove, when he was senior advisor to President George W. Bush, summed it up perfectly: âWe are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are, you know, colonels in mirrored sunglasses.â Rove is not complaining, heâs boasting about his own accomplishments. But for strategist Rove, six million isnât enough. Through several front organizations and affiliates, Rove and his comrades have launched a campaign making brilliant use of the tactics originating from the Red Scare and the War on Terror. Now, instead of the communist lurking under your bed or the al-Qaeda sleeper cell next door, theyâve created a new monster to fear, to hunt, and to destroy: the Fraudulent Voter. There arenât any, of course. Or, to be accurate, so few you can literally count them on your fingersâabout six in any yearânot six million, half a dozen jerks convicted of voting illegally. In the whole country. But in Roveâs echo chamber of fear, in the Voter-Fraud Hysteria Factory, these six become so threatening and dangerous that they will be used to take away the vote from six million. Tracking ballot-bending tricksters, figuring out how they game US elections and snatch the choice away from the electorate, thatâs my job, my beat for more than a decade, for the Guardian newspaper and BBC television, and in 2008, for Rolling Stone. I started covering the election games in November 2000 when I got my hands on two computer disks from the office of Secretary of State Katherine Harris of Florida. My team cracked the computer codes and found the names of ninety-one thousand criminalsâfelonsâHarris listed to purge from voter rolls. We went through Harrisâs list name by name. We didn't find felons. But most were guilty of VWB: Voting While Black. âPurgingâ is one way to get rid of legal voters. There are eight more tricks, and Iâll take you through each in turn. It was bad in 2000. It was worse in 2004 and 2008. But in 2012, it will be much worse. And in 2016, worse than in 2012. Chapter Two: "Why Obama is Likely to Lose in 2012" "Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012" is the title of a column Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal in June 2011. Itâs not Roveâs prediction: this is his plan to make sure Obama will lose. That's fine with meâif Rove prefers vanilla to chocolate, hey, it's a free country. But how Rove plans to take Obama down is contained in the subhead, and it gives me the chills... ... Read the rest in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and Vultures' Picnic. Palast's brand new book Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, will be out on September 18. You can pre-order Billionaires & Ballot Bandits from Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Indie Bound. Author's proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues. Or donate and can get a signed copy of the book. MEDIA REQUESTS (Interviews, Review Copies, excerpts etc.) contact us. Follow Palast on Twitter | Like Palast on Facebook | Forward to a friend Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter | Podcasts Share this with Copyright © 2012 Greg Palast, All rights reserved. You are receiving this Newsletter because you are a subscriber. 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