Archive for month: April, 2006

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Justice for Carol Fisher!

The rise of fascism always begins with the corruption of the police. The recent conviction of Carol Fisher on two counts of felonious assault on two 200+ pound Cleveland Heights policemen must concern all Americans who believe in the Bill of Rights.

Carol’s real crime was posting the World Can’t Wait posters that demanded that Bush “step down.”  The cops, as foot soldiers of the Constitution, should have been defending Carol’s First Amendment right to post fliers. Instead, as thugs of the Repugnican Party, they assaulted Carol.

This is an old game, and I’ve seen more than more cop laugh about testi-lying. In this case, the lie was obvious. They were the victims. They were assaulted. Again, just another pair of lying jackbooted thugs who do the bidding of the Bush junta.

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More Voting Machine Problems

The debate over e-voting rages on. In Ohio’s Franklin County, the Board of Elections had a 4-page insert placed in the Daily Monopoly (The Columbus Dispatch) explaining the new voting machines that will be in place for our May 2 primary. Some are excited that the machines aren’t Diebold – Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder could hardly  purchase Diebold machines after being suspended without pay for taking a $10,000 check/bribe from Bush and Hackwell’s favorite voting vendor – but Election Systems & Software (ES&S) has clear Republican ties through Sen. Chuck Hagel’s ownership interest in the company. 

While the ES&S machines sound wonderful in the Dispatch ad, when BOE employee Howard Heard first presented the machine to the Commissioners for demonstration, it didn’t work and had to be brought back for a second presentation.

Also, voting rights activist John Gideon has pointed out problems with ES&S optical scan machines in Ohio’s Summit County. ES&S admitted to making mistakes with the memory card and had to replace 70% of the instrument that records the vote.  So the memory card is one area voters should pay attention to.

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Dr. Bob Fitrakis on WVKO April 27, 2006, Bush, Nazis, Terror Flights, Local Issues

Dr. Bob 4/27/06 on WVKO

this is hot so watch your volume

DrFitrakis042706.mp3

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Ferris is Fraud

It looks like American Blackout II. In the award-winning documentary film “American Blackout,” Ian Inanda chronicles how Republicans crossed over in the primary to beat one of America’s most progressive Congressional representatives, Cynthia McKinney. Now, Barbara Anne Ferris, a 52-year-old “Democrat,” is being endorsed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, over incumbent Dennis Kucinich. When I spoke to Ferris on Sunday, I was dressed in a golf shirt and tan dress slacks to gather signatures at the Earthfest at the Cleveland Zoo. I asked her if she was a Democrat. She said, “You have to be one in Cleveland to win” and pointed out that a lot of Republicans were supporting her. Her website recently directed Republicans to ask for a Democratic ballot to defeat Kucinich.

Now, what are Kucinich’s great sins? According to the Plain Dealer, it is the fact that he “cobbled together a creaky, left-slanted platform” in the presidential primary. The Plain Squealer also noted, that “His legislative initiatives, whether for universal health care or his long-talked-of federal Department of Peace, are most informed by his place well to the left of all of Ohio’s other representatives.”

Thus, the Republican-owned Plain Dealer, the Republican Party, and a Republican candidate in Democratic trappings are conspiring to oust the populist Kucinich, whose only sin is trying to bring health care to 44 million Americans – the type of universal health care available in every other democracy.

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Hackwell. Hypocrite.

Finally, someone used the “H” word against J. Kenneth Hackwell. Jim Petro decided to state the obvious: that Hackwell is a blatant amoral hypocrite. If you haven’t seen Petro’s new commercial yet, you should catch it on the web. Hackwell’s used to going unchallenged: when he steals elections; disenfranchises voters; returns their voter registrations because they aren’t on 80-bond unwaxed white paper. Indeed, he quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. in inverse proportion to how many minority and poor votes he steals and suppresses.

Petro, his Republican primary challenger, actually pointed out that it’s hypocritical to claim that you’re right-to-life while investing in a pharmaceutical company that manufactures a morning-after pill. That it’s hypocritical to claim you’re appalled by gambling and then you’re shocked to find you have stock in the company that makes the slot machines for the industry.

Politics is getting exciting in the Buckeye State as this bare-knuckled brawl in the Republican primary exposes the utter bankruptcy of the Republican front-runner. Of course, it’s still impossible to believe Hackwell will lose the election to Petro when Blackwell will count and certify the vote. The fact that this would not be allowed in any other Democracy has eluded the corporate mainstream media in Ohio.

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Thank You For Killing the Planet

A Columbus Dispatch op-ed today by Jonah Goldberg, editor of the National Review online, trots out the absurd claim that global warming is nothing more than a “green scare.” Goldberg goes on to attack Al Gore as a “scaremonger” and the local Dispatch editors chime in to attack Gore with the headline “Gore’s Green Scare Conveniently Avoids Facts.” Well, here’s a fact for you. The Dispatch has not endorsed a Democratic President since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and the paper is owned by a prominent Republican family that owns the local Republican Party and rents the Democrats as needed.

But getting down to facts, Goldberg belittles Vanity Fair for saying that global warming is a “threat greater than terrorism.” Goldberg also dismisses the National Review’s old Cold War Red Scare partners at Time magazine for being worried about global warming.

Here’s a fact you won’t hear from the Dispatch, Goldberg or the National Review: George W. Bush’s own Department of Defense Security Planner Andrew Marshall led a team of risk assessment experts who found global warming to be a greater threat to U.S. national security than al Qaeda in the next 20 years. Marshall drafted Peter Schwartz, the former head of planning at Royal Dutch Shell Group, among other conservative forces, and they came up this fact: that the climate change “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.” The Bush administration has done everything to suppress the secret report by its own risk assessment team at the Pentagon. Read more

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Earth Day Musings

Today I spent seven hours at the Cleveland Zoo for an Earth Day event. Not only did we collect hundreds of signatures, but we got some of the most politically educated and active people in the state of Ohio.

I am more convinced than ever that we are at a tipping point in Ohio and the United States. People see clearly that we need to develop alternative energy and build urban transit systems and light rail throughout our great state. There are plenty of solutions out there to make this a green and sustainable state. Our problem isn’t with our people. It’s with two decrepit and corrupt political parties that are wedded to the status quo and to the special interests that pollute and poison our planet.

I was asked whether I believed a two-party system can work. Generally, I believe no. We need to hear from many alternative parties and voices on the ballot. But, perhaps if those two parties were the Greens and Libertarians, we’d have a much better chance than the same old ruthless Republicans and spineless Democrats.

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The suburban dream came forth on heavy government subsidies, welfare if you will, and the promise of cheap gas. Most are familiar with the story of how General Motors and Big Oil conspired to destroy the mass transit system in L.A. and other major cities. But now that we’re in one long continuous unending war for fossil fuels in the Middle East, the question is what should we do locally here in Ohio?

Planes should be the transportation of last resort, only for long distance travel or absolute necessity. Local, affordable, fuel-efficient mass transit is a must in Ohio’s major cities. The creation of a European or Japanese-style rail system is essential.

Re-thinking suburbia (“sprawlburbia”) and  promoting green architecture, which encourages people to walk instead of driving everywhere, should be accepted goals for all Ohioans.

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Reviving the “No Nukes” Movement

Americans must first accept the fact that their president is criminal, and with his numerous twitches and jerks, perhaps criminally insane. But, around him is a small group of hardcore ideologues, so-called neocons.

In Ohio, we need to revive the “No Nukes” movement. The Bush administration’s dream of using “bunker busting” tactical nuclear weapons against Iran is an illegal violation of international law. Iran is no threat to the United States. Public documents indicate they are 10 years away from developing any sort of delivery system that would threaten the U.S.

It is absolutely hypocritical for the United States to allow Pakistan, which harbors bin Laden, sold nuclear weapons to the North Koreans, and created the Taliban, to have nuclear weapons while we threaten nuclear annihilation of the Iranian people. The Bush logic of saying “it’s bad to have nukes . . . so we’ll nuke you,” is beyond bizarre. The acceptance of the Israeli nuclear weapons, as well as our complicity in the creation of their nukes, must also be publicly dealt with.

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Arnebeck Starts Ohio Ethics Commission Investigation

A historic press conference took place today in Ohio’s capital city, Columbus. Cliff Arnebeck, the attorney for the Ohio Honest Elections campaign, revealed that he wrote a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission asking for a “broader ethical investigation” of Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Specifically, Arnebeck wants an investigation of the allegation by fellow Republican Matt Damschroder, Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, that Blackwell may have had a Diebold lobbyist contribute $50,000 to a political interest favored by the Secretary of State.

Also, Arnebeck wants the Ethics Commission to probe how Blackwell ended up as a multimillionaire while on the public payroll, and the effect of his minority investment in a radio company that managed to secure $2.5 million in loans from prominent banks at the same time that Blackwell was serving as state treasurer. Read more

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Bob Fitrakis Official Site