US Senate represents Insurance, Israel

Are you represented by a US senator? I doubt it. Today the Senate Finance Committee rejected Public Option amendments to the health care reform legislation; continued to vilify ACORN based on fraudulent accusations hyped the MSM; and thirty two senators signed a letter drafted by AIPAC, to urge Secretary of State Clinton to block further investigation of Israel for its crimes in Gaza based on the findings of the Goldstone Report.
 
Abolish the Senate! Does America have any use for a House of Lords?

Today five Democrats joined the ten Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to reject a PUBLIC OPTION. The senators voting no were: Max Baucus (D-MT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Thomas Carper (D-DE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Charles Grassley (R-IA), John Ensign (R-NV), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Mike Enzi (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX)

Senator Rockerfeller promoted his public option saying that “the public option is on the march.” There should be more pitchforks than that on the march. Who are these rich bastards who lord over our representatives in Congress? It’s a House of Lords, representing America’s moneyed interests, against the needs of the common people.

Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga) collected signatures last week to urge the GAO to investigate ACORN. I mention this letter because of similar source of today’s letter.

Isakson and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) circulated the letter to block the UN from taking action against Israel. The other senators, among them 16 Democrats, are: Charles Schumer (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Carl Levin (D-MI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tim Johnson (D-SD), David Vitter (D-ND), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Mark Begich (D-AK), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dan Inouye(D-HI), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Roger Wicker (R-MS), John McCain (R-AZ), John Thune (R-SD), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

Do these people represent the American People? Here is their letter sent on behalf of Israel:

Dear Madam Secretary,

We appreciate the State Department publicly raising significant concerns about the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone. We believe it is critical that the U.S. continue to work very hard to block any punitive actions against Israel that this report mentions, whether at the Security Council or other U.N. bodies. The loss of innocent lives is unfortunate wherever it occurs – in Israel or in Gaza. But this biased report ignores many of the key facts, and this should be recognized by the international community.

We commend the State Department statements criticizing the one-sided mandate directing the Goldstone report and highlighting the real causes of the war between Israel and Hamas. In particular, we are gratified that the Department has very serious concerns about the report’s recommendations, including calls that this issue be taken up in international fora outside the Human Rights Council and in national courts of countries not party to the conflict. As the United Nations Human Rights Council moves toward a resolution on the Goldstone report, we trust you and your team will denounce the unbalanced nature of this investigation.

There are many serious flaws with the Goldstone report and the investigatory process. The Goldstone mission’s mandate was problematic from the start. The fact that the mission exceeded this mandate by also criticizing some of Hamas’ activities does not diminish the problem that the vast majority of the report focuses on Israel’s conduct, rather than that of Hamas. The report further fails to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism and other external threats, a right of all UN Members under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The report ignores the fact that Israel acted in self-defense only after its civilian population suffered eight years of attacks by rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately from Gaza. Furthermore, the report does not adequately recognize the extraordinary measures taken by the Israel Defense Forces to minimize civilian casualties, which frequently put Israeli soldiers at risk.

As the State Department has stated, Israel is a democratic country, like the United States, with an independent judiciary and democratic institutions to investigate and prosecute abuses. The Israel Defense Forces have a reputation for investigating alleged violations of international law and its internal military code of conduct. As a law-abiding state, Israel is in the process of conducting numerous investigations for which it should be commended not condemned.

We hope you will succeed in your efforts to ensure that consideration of the report at the current meetings of the UN Human Rights Council will not provide an opportunity for Israel’s critics to unfairly use the Council and the report to bring this matter to the UN Security Council.

Sincerely,

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand

Senator Johnny Isakson

For the record, here also is Isakson’s letter trying to bring heat to the poverty-rights advocacy group ACORN:

The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro
Acting Comptroller General
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Dear Mr. Dodaro,

I am writing to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) undertake a review of ACORN, otherwise known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. For purposes of this letter, the term ACORN shall mean the organization itself, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, and the employees of all such organizations.

Any such investigation should:

(1) Analyze the business structure and organizational management of ACORN.

(2) Analyze ACORN’s compliance with state, local and federal law.

(3) Examine ACORN’s tax structure focusing on a delineation of what activities fall under their 501(c)3 umbrella and what, if any, do not.

(4) Compile a comprehensive list of all federal funding that ACORN has received since its inception; including, but not limited to, contracts, cooperative agreements, grants, appropriations and emergency funding.

(5) Examine grants or payments for services made by ACORN, its subsidiaries or affiliates.

(6) Examine grants or payments for services received by ACORN, its subsidiaries or affiliates.

Current voter fraud investigations in several states, prior fraud convictions, and new video showing apparent illegal activity by ACORN employees suggest that at the very least the organization warrants a top to bottom investigation on behalf of the taxpayer. Taxpayers deserve nothing less than a thorough and transparent accounting of ACORN’s activities.

Bipartisan character of election fraud

baby-voteI must say that I find it utterly humorous this search with cameras for Republicans supposedly committing fraud? What are these people actually doing? So many of the Democrats are seemingly obsessed with rooting out this supposed election day fraud… but only when they seemingly might be somehow the victims of of it. They don’t seemingly give a damn that their own party’s victory is fundamentally structured and arrived at totally due to election fraud by their own party’s representatives in the first place? No concern of theirs at all, it seems… Why not though?

The Democrats dish out fraud to others challenging them for the vote, and rob the final elections’ results working in tandem with The Republican Party, their supposed enemies at the polls. Go figure now? But do you ever see the Democratic Party politicians proposing meaningful laws that would expose and stop election fraud? No. Instead, the Democrats and Republicans alike support their partisan government receipt of tax monies to fraudulently steal the elections for themselves, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars PLUS each election held inside our country. The Democratic Party stays alive through election fraud, same as their buddies The Republicans do.

Look at all the government assistance to keep these 2 parties monopolizing the voting. Schools, government buildings, policing, running their conventions for them with public monies, tax give aways for them at income tax time, and YES, paying for multiple impediments to be placed in alternative parties’ way. Isn’t that election fraud in a much bigger way than that seen when the final vote is done?

Election fraud does not just begin the day of the voting and neither does it have merely to do with the purging of voter registration lists. As bad as these manipulations can become, this is the mere tip of the iceberg when it comes to the bipartisan Demopublican-Republicratic voter fraud pulled off at each and every election in our country.

‘Elections’ where the business community is allowed to bottleneck the public into only having the choice of really being able to vote one or other of the two allowed political parties is election fraud, Folks. Don’t you get it? Get a clue now! The whole damn election thing in this undemocratic country is build on fraud, dishonesty, and corruption. No camera on hand will much help spread the news of where that basic election fraud really lies. People have to use their brains and not just their eyes to see the fraud that is.

Free John O’Hara

Voter fraud? Maybe it’s those officials that block high turn outs for elections that are the real frauds and felons here? People like Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman who was just caught trying to throw off more than 10,000 voters from the Colorado voting lists, for just one local example?

In New York State, Pardon John O’Hara now and stop throwing people off US voter lists for stupid reasons. For more of an explanation of what John O’Hara’s case is about see the Counterpunch article of today… Voter Lockdown By JOHN KENNEDY O’HARA

Greg Palast suggests election theft theft

Steal back your voteOne fifth of all Colorado voters have already been purged from the rolls. The Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson who accomplished this now heads the US Elections Assistance Commission where she purged the report which examined voter fraud.
 
But why be discouraged by GOP election fixing? Greg Palast has accompanied his upcoming Rollingstone expose with a comic book STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE.
 
1. Don’t mail in your ballot. 2. Vote early. 3. Register and re-register.
4. Do not accept a Provisional Ballot. 5. Assist voters in swing states.
6. Go to the polls with friends. 7. Prepare for: No Vote Left Behind!

Greg Palast explains:

DON’T DON’T DON’T MAIL IN YOUR BALLOT
For those of you who mailed in your ballot, please tell me, what happened to it? You don’t know, do you? I can tell you that officially, three-fourths of a million absentee ballots were never counted last time, on the weakest of technical excuses. And you won’t even know it. Furthermore, tens of thousands of ballots are not mailed out to voters in time to return them—in which case you’re out of luck. In most states, new voters must now include a photocopy of your ID. Which is, like, nuts. Every time I hear of a voter going “absentee” to avoid computer screens, I want to “go postal” myself.

VOTE EARLY … VERY EARLY
Every state now lets voters cast ballots in designated polling stations and at county offices in the weeks before Election Day. Do it. Don’t wait until Election Day to find out you have the wrong ID, your registration’s “inactive,” or you’re on a challenge list. By Election Day, there’s little to do but hold up the line.

REGISTER AND REGISTER AND REGISTER
Think you’re registered to vote? Think again. With all this purg’n going on, you could be x’d out and you won’t know it. Check online at http://www.votersunite.org/info/RegInfo.asp. Then register your girlfriend, your wife, your mailman and your mommy. Contact the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Rock the Vote, and your local party organization, and commit to a couple of days of door-to-door registration, especially in minority neighborhoods or at social service agency offices. And if you’ve served the time, you can sign: in almost every state, ex-cons can vote.

VOTE UNCONDITIONALLY, NOT PROVISIONALLY
In 2008, they’ll be handing out provisional ballots like candy, especially to Hispanic voters. If your right to vote is challenged, don’t accept a provisional ballot that will likely not get counted no matter what the sweet little lady at the table tells you. She won’t decide; partisan sharks will. Demand adjudication from poll judges on the spot; demand a call to the supervisor of elections; or return with acceptable ID if possible. And be a champ: defend the rights of others. If you’ve taken Step 1 above and voted early, you have Election Day free to be a poll watcher. Run into trouble —you’ve been caged or purged or challenged—call Election Protection at 1-(866) OUR-VOTE. Then challenge the challengers, the weird guys with Blackberrys containing lists of “suspect” voters. Be firm, but no biting.

OCCUPY OHIO, INVADE NEVADA
The revolution will not be podcast. Let go of that mouse, get out of your PJs and take the resistance door-to-door—to register the vote, to canvass the voters, to get out the vote. Donate time to your union (if you’re not in a union, why not?) or to the troublemakers I’ve already listed here and on our site. This may seem a stupendously unoriginal suggestion, but I know of no other method more effective for confronting the armed and dangerous junta that has seized the White House.

DATE A VOTER
Voting, like bowling and love, should never be done alone. As our sponsor, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, says, make a date to ‘Arrive with Five.’ And keep this comic book in your holster – with our 800 numbers and your photo ID in your hand. And Bobby, make sure your ID says, “Robert Kennedy JUNIOR” or your vote is toast.

MAKE THE DEMOCRACY DEMAND: NO VOTE LEFT BEHIND!
I have this crazy fantasy in my head. In it, an election is stolen and the guy who’s wrongly declared the loser stands up in front of the White House and says three magic words: “Count the votes.” You can have all the paper ballots in the world, but if you don’t demand to look at them, publicly, in a recount, you might as well mark them with invisible ink. Democracy requires vigilance The Day After. That’s when you check in at www.stealbackyourvote.org one more time.