Wake Up And Smell The Voter PURGE in Ohio

Here we go again,and again, and again! Is there no end to Ken Blackwell's sleaze?

Tell The DNC To WAKE UP And Immediately Seek An Injunction To Reverse The purge Of Democratic Voters In Ohio

ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/pnum540.php

You had to know this was coming. The further they fall in the polls the more massive the voter fraud and preemptive vote suppression the other side will attempt. The key word here is "attempt." We're not supposed to let them get away with it without a fight. That fight must start NOW!

Reports are breaking that the pathologically partisan Ohio secretary of state has been secretly using the master database of voters to systematically purge hundreds of thousands of likely Democratic voters from the registered rolls. Their latest version of an old scam is to put a discriminatory burden on voters in heavily Democratic precincts to meet a special hurdle of verification of their address, a "guilty until proven innocent" routine. And they have been doing this without any public notice
that such a massive operation was underway, and timed in such a way that voters would have no recourse to re-register.

Never again will we allow such outrages against democracy to go unchallenged by the fullest force we can bring to bear. Bob Fitrakis, who has been fighting the election criminals in Ohio for years, has announced that he will file a lawsuit no later than this coming Monday. Please tell the DNC, and also the Ohio Democratic party (if you are an Ohio resident), to bring every resource to bear to join in this battle for the soul of our electoral process.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/pnum540.php

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours.

(Thanks to Mick Gallagher.)

Votes in Ohio

And the Winner Is

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the states governors race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. Wed like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee, is leading Mr. Blackwell by as much as 28 points, according to one recent poll. In their panic, some Blackwell supporters have hit on the idea of trying to prevent the election from occurring. One of them filed a complaint alleging that Mr. Strickland, who is a member of Congress, does not live in the apartment where he is registered to vote. Mr. Strickland owns a condominium in another part of Ohio, and the complaint alleges that he actually lives there. If Mr. Strickland was not a qualified voter, he would be prohibited from running for governor. The complaint itself is without merit. No one disputes that Mr. Strickland lives in Ohio, or that he is registered. The only issue is which of his two homes he chose to register from, and the law gives voters with multiple homes broad discretion in choosing among them.
What is more interesting, and troubling, is the way that the complaint is proceeding. The county board that heard it broke down 2 to 2, on party lines, about whether to hold a hearing. In the case of a tie vote at the county level, complaints like these get forwarded to the secretary of states office to be resolved. Mr. Blackwell says that he has designated his assistant secretary to handle duties that could conflict with his candidacy. But passing these matters on to a subordinate who is a
political ally and owes his job to the candidate hardly removes the conflict.
Election administration should be removed from partisan politics, in Ohio and everywhere else. Decisions such as these should be made by nonpartisan bodies or, failing that, by people who do their utmost to insulate themselves from partisan politics. In 2004, Mr. Blackwell chose to become co-chairman of President Bushs Ohio campaign, and then issued rulings that helped the campaign. Now we have the even more bizarre prospect of Mr. Blackwell, or his deputy, potentially participating in the baseless disqualification of his opponent.

We are confident that it will not come to that. But however this particular case is resolved, it underscores the need for Ohio, and other states, to find a way to administer elections that is insulated from partisan politics.

Women as Goddesses or Sacred Mind

Thanks to Karleen Sell

Why Arent We Shocked? by Bob Herbert, NY Times

"We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected."

Why Arent We Shocked?

In the recent shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and then deliberately attacked onlythe girls.

Ten girls were shot and five killed at the Amish school. One girl was killed and a number of others were molested in the Colorado attack. In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes, very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted. Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews.

There would have been thunderous outrage. The country would have first recoiled in horror, and then mobilized in an effort to eradicate that kind of murderous bigotry. There would have been calls for action and reflection. And the attack would have been seen for what it really was: a hate crime.

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