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Today's
Stories
September 10,
2004
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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September 10, 2004
Democrats v.
Democracy
Oregon
Judge Puts Nader on Ballot
By
MICHAEL DONNELLY
In a year devoid of victories for Democracy,
indeed a year where Democracy has taken quite a few body blows
to say the least, a county judge in Oregon has stepped up and
blown away months' worth of shady dealings of the Democratic
(sic) Party, its top political pros and its union henchmen.
Judge Paul Lipscomb ruled September
9th in Salem that "Secretary of State Bill Bradbury violated
election laws" indeed "made up laws," in the Democrat's
effort to undermine the presidential candidacy of Independent
Ralph Nader. The judge ordered Nader's name to be placed on Oregon's
November 2nd ballot, joining as of today, 20 other states where
Nader's name will appear.
Situational
Democracy Again
Nader's supporters turned in
more than 28,000 signatures to county elections officials last
month. After getting new rules (those made up laws), the county
staffers eliminated around 10,000 signatures. So, the Nader supporters
still armed with over 18,000 already-vetted signatures went ahead
and submitted them to the Secretary of State's office as 15,306
were needed to place Nader on the ballot.
But Secretary of State Katherine
Harris -- er, Bradbury - an ardent Kerry supporter -- last week
disqualified 3,082 signatures that had been validated by the
county elections officials. That left Nader just 218 signatures
shy of the 15,306 needed to put him on the ballot, prompting
the lawsuit.
Bradbury alleged that more
than 1,000 sheets of signatures of registered voters could not
be counted because rules about numbering the sheets were not
followed or because the sheets were improperly signed or dated.
"I think the secretary
of state should be ashamed of himself," Greg Kafoury, co-director
of Nader's Oregon campaign said at the time. "This is a
completely political decision."
On Oregon Public Radio, Nader
attorney Dan Meek used this sports analogy to describe what had
happened to the Nader Campaign: "It's as if someone came,
somebody who is here in Oregon and said, OK, we're here to play
baseball. And the Secretary of State says, OK, play baseball.
But after the game is over, says well we're not going to count
the runs you scored, because actually you should have been following
the rules of basketball."
Prior to Judge Lipscomb's Court
decision, Bradbury proudly defended his rejection of the petitions,
saying, "It's my duty to uphold the law, and it is clear
that signatures on sheets that do not comply with the law cannot
be counted."
Not so clear to Judge Lipscomb
-- rumored to have never voted for a Republican -- who repeatedly
asked in Court, "And, just where in the law does it give
the Secretary of State that power?"
Apparently it was just "clear"
to Bradbury who disingenuously claimed, "I don't have a
dog in this fight."
Still defying the Judge, Bradbury
underling State Elections Director John Lindback denied that
state officials had applied different rules to Nader. "We
apply the law evenhandedly and the secretary's positions (as
a Kerry supporter) are irrelevant," he testified. Of course
Bradbury has a dog in it; Lindback vowed to Appeal Lipscomb's
decision immediately to the Oregon Supreme Court. Fellow Democrat
Attorney General Hardy Myers took up Lindback's vow and has asked
the Supreme Court for a seldom used (last time in Oregon was
a decade ago) Writ of Mandamus to bypass the Court of Appeals
-- the Supreme Court being stacked with cronies of Democratic
Governor Ted Kulongoski, an alumni of the court.
Predictably, despite the judge's
ruling, the executive director of the Oregon Democratic Party
and architect of the dirty tricks, Neel Pender still contends,
"The Ralph Nader campaign misled voters and committed voter
fraud," while at the same time labeling the Nader candidacy
a "political sideshow." He ended his blather claiming,
"Progressives are supporting John Kerry."
Oregon GOP Chairman, former
Democrat Kevin Mannix responded, calling the judge's ruling "a
victory for Democracy and voter access to the ballot, and a defeat
for bureaucratic obstinacy."
Republicans hands are hardly
clean in all this, and they are fully entangled, as well. Thinking,
as wrongly as their Democratic opponents that Nader hurts the
Democrats' chances more, the Republicans circulated petitions
and have defended their circulators, who I assure you weren't
out there circulating Ross Perot Petitions in 1992.
Dirty Dems
Judge Lipscomb's heroic ruling
comes on the heels of a dirty campaign waged by the Democrats
and their union henchmen, notably
the public employees union, the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU).
In August, sixty Nader petition
circulators received a letter in the mail from the union's law
firm stating that they were "under investigation" for
fraudulently filling out the petition form and could "face
a felony conviction and a prison term." One person "under
investigation" was a lawyer who had just herself and her
family sign. One elderly woman had two people show up at her
house past 9 PM telling her that she was under investigation
and that she might do jail time for not filling out her forms
right. All of her forms were found to be in compliance.
"The evidence indicates
a clear pattern of widespread signature fraud in the effort to
put Nader on the ballot," SEIU union spokesman Mark Weiner
baldly lied.
"We have been sabotaged
and smeared, and now we have had our people bullied by people
who knock on doors at night," Nader's Oregon Chair Greg
Kafoury said, adding that, of course, there was no intentional
effort to turn in invalid signatures. Kafoury notes that 30 of
the campaign's 150 petition carriers quit as a result of the
union aggravation.
The state's largest newspaper,
The Oregonian, editorialized September 3rd in favor of Bradbury's
sleazy attempt to deny voter rights, ironically stating, "Legislators
should consider whether just one fraud investigator is really
enough for the secretary of state's office."
Lipscomb
has tangled with Oregon's corrupt Democrats before
Judge Lipscomb, despite numerous
death threats, recently took on corruption in the quasi-public
State Accident Insurance Fund (SAIF), a group that was secretly
paying the firm of disgraced former Governor Neil Goldschmidt
more than $1.1 million between 1986 and 2003 for lobbying the
agency is forbidden to conduct.
SAIF Chief Executive Officer
and President Katherine Keene resigned in disgrace after it was
disclosed that she had destroyed all records concerning Goldschmidt;
intentionally defying Lipscomb's June 2001 court order to turn
them over. The judge found SAIF in contempt and fined the organization
over $1 million. State investigators have since seized computers
and other records trying to find or recreate the missing documents.
The well-connected Democrat
Goldschmidt recently admitted to having a years-long sexual relationship
with a woman who was a 14-year-old child when it began -- when
then-Portland Mayor Goldschmidt was 35. Such sexual activity
with a minor is a felony in Oregon, with mandatory prison time.
Goldschmidt escaped under old Statute of Limitations clauses,
though legions of Democrat sycophant/enablers knew of the assault;
did nothing and covered it up for years, including current Governor
Ted Kulongoski. Jimmy Carter even made Goldschmidt Secretary
of Transportation, AFTER knowledge of the rape was known within
Democratic Party circles.
Judge Lipscomb has also been
involved in a series of lawsuits over the state's Oregon Public
Employees Retirement Fund (PERS). Neil Goldschmidt's wife Diana
is a member of the Oregon Investment Council. It decides where
the PERS and other state funds are invested. The council, with
Diane Goldschmidt's yes vote, approved the investment of some
$300 million of PERS funds in Fort Worth-based Texas Pacific
Group. The $300 million was over $100 million more than the normal
cap on such investments. That brought Oregon's total investment
with the Texas group to a whopping $950 million.
On November 18, 2003, the power
investment group agreed with Enron to buy Portland General Electric
(PGE) for $2.35 billion, including $1.1 billion in debt costs/liabilities.
Enron paid $3.1 billion for PGE in 1997.
Then it came to light that
Neil Goldschmidt was, along with two other Pacific Northwest
"movers and shaker's, Tom Walsh of Oregon, and Gary Grinstein
of Washington investing $2.5 million in the venture BUT will
control 95% of the voting stock. Oregon's PERS, with its $300
Million (70% of the total investment) investment will have little
say. Oregon PERS has lost $80 million due to PGE- parent Enron's
bankruptcy, caused as the world knows, by company fraud on the
watch of former Enron CEO, Kenneth "Kenny Bay" Lay,
good friend of both George W. Bush and Teresa Heinz.
Denying
Democracy for What?
In the end, with Kerry holding
a 53-43 lead over Bush in Oregon in a September 2nd Zogby poll,
Nader's entry on the ballot is unlikely to affect the outcome
of the state's race. With Bush now leading by eleven percent
in many nationwide polls, Nader's candidacy is doubtful to change
the national outcome.
This means that all the dirty
tricks of the Democrats AND the implosion of the Green Party
has all been for naught. If the polls hold and Bush wins with
over 50% of the vote, then it most likely means Nader could have
garnered 5 to 10 percent of the vote and it would not have affected
the outcome at all -- other than the Democrats and the Green
Party might have been left with some integrity intact as they,
hopefully regroup and join forces behind the necessary Impeachment.
Re-losing
the Last War
"Generals often re-fight
the last war, and so do political people," Portland pollster
Tim Hibbitts told The Oregonian. "The Democrats believe
Nader cost them votes the last time, and they are playing hardball
to make sure it doesn't happen again."
And, just as the generals pretty
much always get the last war analysis wrong, these seedy operatives
started from the wrong premise ("Nader cost Gore"),
reinforced each other, seethed for almost four years and then
shot themselves in the foot and Democracy in the head.
It's way past time for the
Democrats and the Greens to clean house. It's way past time for
Kerry to "disown these efforts on his behalf." Bradbury
should resign or face Recall. The same applies to Kulongoski,
whose silence on the issue has been as deafening as his silence
on his patron Goldschmidt's recent confession - and, of course,
the rest of the Goldschmidt cabal. Too bad we can't recall the
Cobbite "Greens" who consciously passed on such a golden
opportunity to fully differentiate themselves from this rotten
other half of the War Party duopoly.
I was left instead to the heroic
Nader supporters and tireless folks like Greg Kafoury and his
longtime ally Dan Meek and many others who organized for Nader
and saw through, not only the Petition process despite all the
union harassment, but two conventions that were sabotaged by
anti-Nader forces. Ultimately all the efforts of a lot of people
culminated when Nader attorneys Meek and Mark McDougal brought
this egregious assault on public participation in free and open
elections before a lone, courageous non-partisan in the best
sense county judge. We sure could use more judges like Paul Lipscomb.
And, one thing The Oregonian sure has right is we have a great
need for political fraud investigators in Oregon these days.
Democracy won this one. But, stayed tuned. In Oregon politics
these days, it's a Reprieve at best.
MICHAEL DONNELLY of Salem, OR is a longtime forest
activist. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's new book on the
2004 elections, A
Dime's Worth of Difference. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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