bob_fitrakis020_mth.jpgDr. Fitrakis will air on 610 WTVN radio in Columbus tonight at 7:!5 Wednesday, October 18, 2006 on the Joel Riley show.

There is also an 8:00 P.M. appearence.

More details forth coming as they are received.

There is also a new Freepress article.

A loaves & fishes/Holy Ghost victory for the GOP in November?
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 17, 2006

The polls all point to a Democratic sweep in November. The news pours in
about pedophile Republicans and Team Bush contempt for their fundamentalist
bedmates. Iraq implodes. Deficits soar. Katrina lingers. Scandal is everywhere.

Read more:
https://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/2181

Moderator

We Do Not ConcedeRecent Zogby polls show that 92% of all Americans believe in full transparency for our democratic system. Since the vast majority of all Americans believe in the principles of democracy, let me recommend the following Election Protection conference at Columbus State Community College this weekend. I hope to see you there. It is free and open to the public.

For more details, go to: https://freepress.org/vrrc Voting Rights Revival Conference
Columbus State Community College, Columbus, Ohio 

October 13, 14 and 15, 2006

Long lines….provisional ballots…intimidation at the polls…
 Don’t let what happened on Election Day in 2004 happen again in Ohio!
 Get involved!
 Come to the Voting Rights Revival conference
 Become an Election Protection volunteer! 

The VRRC focuses on concrete solutions that will empower Ohio voters this November 7, 2006. Free and open to the public, the VRRC will inspire and inform with renowned speakers and hands-on workshops. Workshops will cover the changes in the new laws, basic voting procedures, how to make sure your vote is counted, how to work with Boards of Elections, Election Protection videography, the voting rights of people with disabilities, and post-election audits, to name a few.

Our Mission Statement:
To focus on the election process in Ohio, with the goal of sharing information that enfranchises all voters in Ohio; to encourage civic participation at the local and state level, including the ongoing facilitation of emerging local and student leaders and organizers: the commencement of a public sphere.

Highlights:

Speakers:

  • Steve Freeman, Penn University professor, author of “Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count”
  • Bob Fitrakis, author, journalist, political science professor, attorney for Moss v. Bush, co-editor “Did George W. Bush Steal America’s 2004 Election? Essential Documents”
  • Harvey Wasserman, author, journalist, Senior Free Press Editor, co-editor “How the GOP Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008”
  • Cliff Arnebeck, attorney for post-2004 election challenge
  • Ruth Colker, law professor, OSU Moritz College of Law
  • Greg Moore, civil rights leader, director, Voting Rights Institute of the Democratic National Committee
  • Doris D. “Granny D” Haddock, clean elections activist

Workshops:

  • Voting 101 (Guaranteeing your voter registration, new ID rules, how to use voting machines)
  • Disabilities and Voting
  • Election Day Election Protection Activities: parallel elections, legal, video, observation
  • Post-election Auditing
  • More

Entertainment:

  • “American Blackout,” documentary on e-voting fraud, producer Ian Inaba Guerrilla News Network
  • Eternal Vigilance
  • “Help America Vote on Paper,” video, produced by Ecological Options Network
  • Victoria Parks, singer-songwriter “This is Our Democracy”
  • Tom Neilson
  • Granny D
  • Connie Harris, singer-songwriter, Cultural Creatives
  • Marvin the Robot
  • Miaka Carter
  • Mas Bagua
  • Drum circle

 

Congressional Forum to Investigate Voting Irregularities

Recorded from webcast, find it and other audio @ Http://freepress.org/podcasts October 7, 2006 or here for download or just listening.

Includes live commentary about Blackwell’s recent appearence with Larry Pratt, a white supremacist.

And how the republican party is chipping away at fair elections and the Busby/Bilbray debacle.

Suprising Zogby poll on election machinery.

Vote switching on DREs.

Recalibration lies.

The art of election fraud.

Moderator

globanim.gifThings got hot on Magic 98.9FM radio today in Columbus. I was a guest on the Khari Enaharo talk show “Straight Talk” and we actually got some straight talk from the J. Kenneth Blackwell for Governor campaign.

Eric Seabrook, attorney and spokesperson for the Blackwell campaign, conceded that Blackwell had campaigned with a white supremacist, Larry Pratt, as reported in the Columbus Dispatch on Oct. 5. Pratt, who was forced from the Pat Buchanan campaign for being too far to the right and ties to white supremacists, campaigned with Blackwell on Wednesday, Oct. 4 on gun rights.

Seabrook tried to spin it as a “straight gun rights issue” but black callers to the show and other guests in the studio, including Republican Walter Cates were outraged that Blackwell would campaign with an avowed racist.

The story will be released on http://www.freepress.orgindex2.php/ tomorrow.

Why is the Man Who Stole Ohio Campaigning with a White Supremacist? Read more

The best item in today’s Columbus Dispatch was buried on page D7 under the headline “Bush on Blackwell: ‘a nut,’ Woodward book claims.” The Big D reported that on page 347 of Woodward’s new book State of Denial, Bush told Karl Rove that “I’m the President of the United States waiting on a Secretary of State who is a nut.”

Anyone who knows Blackwell knows this rings true, in the same way if Woodward would have reported that Bush was dim-witted. The beauty of Bush’s America, the Jethro Bodine president relying on the opportunistic former black nationalist to steal the vote in Ohio as the Free Press had previously reported, an eyewitness on election day saw the Secretary of State busy frantically writing in numbers on precinct maps of down state Republican counties. Granted, it’s crazy for the people of Ohio to allow the chief election officer to be involved in such a clearly partisan way – delivering the vote for Bush from his government office. It’s also equally crazy that the Dispatch has refused to investigate the illegality of Blackwell’s activities in the 2004 election.

A then Dispatch reporter claims that Michael Dawson, the press aide to Senator Mike Dewine visited the Dispatch editorial board and convince them not to investigate the massive irregularities in the 2004 election.

You can help prevent irregularities in the 2006 election by adopting a board of elections, being a poll monitor, an election protection volunteer or videotaping the events at polling sites on Election Day – by attending the Voting Rights Revival conference at Columbus State Community College on October 13-15. See www.freepress.org/vrrc for details. The conference is free! 

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The biggest surprise at the “We Count” conference in Cleveland was the announcement by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich that he’s introduced H.R. 6200, a bill with 19 co-sponsors, that would require “hand counted paper, ballots counted, and posted at the precinct level” for the 2008 presidential election. To a rousing ovation, Kucinich told the assembled voting rights activists that “we heard you.”

He said, in reference to Ohio’s 2004 stolen presidential election “We understand why there’s such great concern…there are lingering questions about the 2004 election and there ought to be.”

What should not be lingering in anyone’s mind is the fact that Blackwell was the point man for Bush boys in stealing the 2004 election. We must do everything in our power to make sure Blackwell does not become governor in the Buckeye State.

To find out more about the 2004 presidential election and Cynthia McKinney’s fight against corrupt politics and election stealing, see the film “American Blackout,” by GNN, a Sundance-award winning film at Studio 35 this week through Thursday in Columbus. Another film documenting the run-up to the 2004 election in Ohio plays at the Drexel Gateway starting this Friday, October 6 – “…And so goes the nation.”

And if you want to ensure that what happened at the polls in 2004 doesn’t happen again: don’t miss the Voting Rights Revival – Tune in, Tune Up, Turn Out! voting rights event in Columbus on October 13-15 at Columbus State Community College, Nestor Hall. Starting on Friday evening we will present speakers, entertainment and workshops to prepare for the 2006 election. Workshops will organize volunteers to work as Election Protection on Election Day – observing, monitoring and videoing at the polls – legal protection – parallel elections and exit polling – and how to adopt-a-board. We will have singers, comedy, spoken word and several films and videos such as “American Blackout,” “Stealing America Vote by Vote” and more! The conference is FREE and open to the public. See the website: www.freepress.org/vrrc or call 614-253-2571.

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I got to speak with Rev. Werner Lange this weekend at the “We Count” voting rights conference in Cleveland. On September 22, within an hour of the funeral of Sgt. David Gordon of Andover who was killed in Iraq, Rev. Lange took to the streets. Bearing a sign that read “Stop the war now!” Lange stood in the middle of the street in Andover’s town square and spread the following message: “Not one more life, not one more wound, not one more dime for this immoral war based on lies.” Lange was eventually arrested and taken to the Ashtabula County Jail. 

Lange’s protest is part of a new nationwide campaign of nonviolent disobedience against the illegal war in Iraq which began September 21 on the International Day of Peace. Lange is an independent candidate for U.S. Congress in Ohio’s 14th district. More of us need to take action like Rev. Lange, support his efforts, as well as his candidacy. The Republican Party is a party of war and Democratic Party are their enablers.

Moderators Comment: See (and click) adjacent calender Oct. 2 for Governors’ debate event on October 4th at Media Bridges in Cincinnati.    

 

School funding:
School funding should be equalized with each child getting the same amount of money regardless of whether their parents own a mansion or rent a shack. Vouchers for private schools should end, but publicly chartered voucher schools under school districts should be encouraged. The prison budget should be cut back dramatically by medicalizing drug addiction and ending the senseless war on drugs, and shifting the savings into the school budget.

Key factors for Ohio jobs:
Providing universal health care for all Ohio workers, developing new high-tech and green industries, and going back to the future by building trains, trams and trollies to improve our mass transit system and freight rail and to create jobs.

Why best candidate?
I am more interested in changing the culture of corruption in Ohio than being a player in one of the major political parties. The two major parties are incapable of ending the pay-to-play system in Ohio. Only an outside independent force can restore integrity in Ohio politics. My background as a political scientist, investigative reporter and attorney, I have the skills to bring back honest government to the people of Ohio. I want to see Ohio become a place known for green alternative energies, convenient mass transit, clean air and water, great college and universities, and a place where the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution in enforced.

Appropriate role:
Government should rein in the large trans-national corporations when they engage in anti-social practices such as polluting our environment. Government should encourage the relocalization of small entrepreneurial businesses throughout Ohio. It is illegal for government to spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant. Federal officials who engage in such practices should be arrested. Government should move out of people’s bedrooms and quit enforcing an insane racist and class-based war on drugs. There should be a separation of church and state.

STEALING AMERICA
Vote by Vote
A new documentary film by
an OSCAR-nominated, EMMY-wining filmmaker

For more information contact:
The Free Press, 614-253-2571, truth@freepress.org
Date: September 10, 2006

On September 24, at 7:30pm the new documentary STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote will be shown at the Drexel Gateway Theater, 1550 N. High St.

This film brings together dramatic behind-the-scenes stories related to the election of November 2, 2004. The heart of the story is a candid assessment of ways in which privatized election systems, disenfranchisement of certain populations and vulnerable voting technology are impacting our democracy.
Honors for the Director’s media work include an ACADEMY AWARD nomination and the CPB Gold Medal (Best Short Documentary from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting).

The film features voters in Ohio and interviews with local voting rights activists Bob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman and Charles Traylor. The event is a fundraiser for the Columbus Free Press.

WHAT:
A screening of the new film STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote

WHEN:

September 24, 7:30-9:30pm. Discussion with filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman following the screening.

WHERE:

Drexel Gateway Theater, 1550 N. High St., south OSU campus.

ADMISSION: $8 or $5 for students.
Reporters wanting background information on the film, or on invited guests, should call – the Free Press, 253-2571 or email truth@freepress.org.

Parking is available in the garage behind the theater.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Interviewees include poll workers, computer experts, journalists, politicians, voters of all ages and others concerned about reports that certain communities may have been targeted for intimidation. The film introduces a spectrum of issues, including discrepancies between exit polls and final official tallies, the silence of the media following the election and the impact of technological glitches – for example more votes than voters, and vote flipping from one candidate to another. The film documents stories such as those of inner city voters who experienced waiting hours in line, along with the apparent unequal distribution of voting machines. Throughout, we underscore that election reform is not a partisan issue. It is the responsibility of both Democrats and Republicans to work with each other to address these issues. Various solutions to real problems are integrated into the film.

Our goal is to be provocative, but not confrontational. We want to engage viewers who may be uncomfortable addressing the realities of the election system. Our goal is to open people’s minds to the irregularities in the technology and open their hearts to the devastating impact of disenfranchising voters. The final question that the film poses is: How can we create an election system in which voters have confidence, and in which they can trust that their vote is being counted fairly?

 

Third Party Candidate For Ohio Governor Vows Fight To The Finish 

Bill Cohen, Ohio Public Radio

COLUMBUS, OH (2006-09-18) His name is on the ballot in this year’s race for ohio governor, but he’s been shut out of the debates and is rarely mentioned in news reports. He’s Bob Fitrakis, the favorite of the Green party and activists on the political left. Fitrakis is a lawyer and political science professor from Columbus and he has sparked headlines by helping file two lawsuits, claiming Republicans stole Ohio’s last presidential election and, with it, the national election. Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen has this audio portrait of a candidate who admits he’s a long shot but isn’t giving up:

 

(original link http://tinyurl.com/r68a4)