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Rep. Jim Trakis Introduces Ohio HB 638: Allows Independents To Choose Partisan Label Before Election

Congratulations to Republican representative Jim Trakas for believing in democracy. He introduced House Bill 638 in Ohio on July 27, 2006 that would allow independent candidates to choose a partisan label before an election. No more “Other Party” label and praying to get 5% of the vote. Any name can be used as long as it doesn’t mimic the name of an existing party, and isn’t overly long.

The Republican Party itself is the most successful third party in history. Back when the Whigs were whipping the populists into a religious fervor while looting their pockets, much like today, small parties at the state level with names like The Abolition Party and The Free Soil Party pressed the great issue of the day – abolishing slavery. Out of that grew a larger third party coalition known as the Republicans.

With the Republican and Democratic Parties agreeing to span the political spectrum from A-B and engage in the most boring, stilted and irrelevant debates in modern history, it is more important than ever to hear new voices and political perspectives. In many ways, the mainstream corporate media mirrors the boring political non-debates of our day. The great moral issues call out for debate and redress: an illegal war in Iraq, a president who embraces torture, the spying on American citizens, the repression of minority and poor voters’ rights.

Let the Libertarians and Greens flourish and the Republicans and Democrats wither and hopefully, go the way of the Whigs.

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Bush-Blackwell-Brewer Continue African American Suppression

The Other Paper, Columbus’ faux “alternative” paper driven by the junior high hijinks of editor Danny Russell and the cynical search for “political relevance” by Dan Williamson, may have reached a new low. In the article “Blackwell and the black vote,” Williamson, who knows better, leads with the most absurd quote in modern Ohio gubernatorial history. East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer, making a bid to be in Uncle Ken’s cabinet, likens blacks who are opposed to Ken Blackwell to the slave Jim in Gone With the Wind. As Williamson describes it, “To Brewer, black Democrats trying to defeat Republican Ken Blackwell for governor are like Jim the slave.” Jim fought with the Southerners against the Yankees. Brewer goes on to say that the African American community doesn’t know “his record,” his being Blackwell’s.

Now let’s look at the facts. Ken Blackwell appeared earlier this year before the super secret far- right Council on National Policy which harbors many known white supremacists. They are based in Texas, a southern Confederate state. The Bush family also has a sordid history of an anti-black and anti-Semitic nature, and these are Blackwell’s political backers. Prescott Bush laundered money to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, it’s a known fact. George H.W. Bush, the former CIA director who suppressed people around the world and rigged elections, won as a Congressional candidate in Texas in 1966 opposing Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement.

There’s a reason that W lives in Texas and Jeb lives in Florida. These are former Confederate Jim Crow states. Jeb and W conspired in the 2000 with their key elections expert Ken Blackwell to suppress the vote of more than 92,000 Florida citizens who were eligible to vote but were denied the right to vote because their name was the same or similar to a felon or their birthdate was the same as a felon. A disproportionate number of these people were African Americans. Bush also targeted black and Latino soldiers during the 2004 election who were serving in Iraq challenging their right to vote in their home precincts.

Blackwell is Jim. No, he’s worse than Jim. Jim was a browbeaten, brainwashed, uneducated black man who may not have known better. Blackwell is an opportunistic, ass-kisser to a low-IQ’ed cracker named George W. Bush. Anytime Blackwell and Brewer start to talk about Blackwell doing things for blacks, all you have to remember is J. Kenneth is the key apologist in the Buckeye State for W Bush who left blacks to die in the rooftops in New Orleans. When Blackwell calls a black man brother, he should respond with the name Katrina

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We Must Reject Faith Based Voting

Those private vote-switching, election-stealing electronic voting machines are at it again. Early in the day, Cynthia McKinney supporters began registering complaints that when they tried to register their vote for McKinney in Georgia’s primary election today, it registered a vote for her opponent. Just like in the Ohio election, the vote hopping with Diebold machines always goes for the conservative candidate: push for Kerry – votes hops to Bush.

Or, if you voted for McKinney it hopped to Hank Johnson or John Coyne. Thankfully McKinney had her team of lawyers on the spot taking affidavits from voters who swore the machines switched their votes to one of her opponents. With a majority of counties in Ohio using Diebold electronic machines, other problems present in Georgia’a primary today are bound to plague the Buckeye State in the fall.

For example, complaints were lodged against Diebold’s electronic pollbooks. Election staff were not properly trained to access the voter registration database. Also, complaints came in about machines breaking down in the middle of the voting process and machines malfunctioning.

As I prepare to sign off, McKinney is barely ahead of Hank Johnson by a little over 500 votes with 53% of the precincts reporting. Our democracy must be transparent. We must reject this bizarre, faith-based voting. Let’s pray for McKinney’s victory, and equally important, for a real democratic system based on hand counted paper ballots.

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We Do Not Concede To The Bush Election Team In Mexico Or Here In Ohio

More than a million people were in the streets in Mexico City in perhaps the largest demonstration in the history of the western hemisphere. What’s the difference between Columbus, Ohio and Mexico City? Both had a stolen election by the same people. When I saw, a week or so before the election, that the Bush team was headed down to Mexico, you could tell that the son of a CIA director was about to steal again. Bush, Rove and Blackwell are chronic kleptomaniacs. They steal because they think they can get away with it – but that only works in Ohio. In Mexico, the difference is that people believe in democracy and they are not brainwashed by a propagandistic corporate media into ignoring the obvious.

We didn’t have a million, but I want to acknowledge the hard core voting rights activists who did hit the streets after the 2004 election and continue to fight for a fair election in Ohio to this day. My campaign is the direct result of that movement – we will not concede.

We should do everything we can to support the nonviolent civil disobedience and massive demonstrations that are rocking Mexico. I’ve enclosed two recent articles Harvey Wasserman and I have written on the elections in Mexico. Let me know what you think.

The Democrats must now say “We Do Not Concede” in the U.S. as it’s being said in Mexico

An open letter from Ohio to the people of Mexico

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And So The Lawsuits Are Blooming…

The first of many qui tam (fraud) legal suits has been officially filed against a major electronic voting machine manufacturer. Florida attorney Mike Papantonio, co-host with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the Air America show “Ring of Fire,” described some of the details of the suit on Mike Malloy’s radio show.

Papatonio claims to have assembled a “dream team of lawyers” that will go after the well-known Republican operatives that are running the sham voting machine companies. Perhaps his best quote was: “When you hear the details, when you hear the caliber of the fraud . . . it’ll make Americans feel like they’re living in a damn banana republic, a Third World country. I’ve never heard such outrageous facts.”

Indeed. That’s how I felt when I first listened to the late Athan Gibbs describe the trail of money from voting machine companies that led back to conservative right-wing families and the software in the hands of a few people – in one case, the notorious Urosevich brothers. That’s why I blew the whistle on this fraud in a Free Press cover story called

“Diebold, electronic voting, and the vast right wing conspiracy.”

The disgusting details were also outlined in an article by me for MotherJones.com.

Diebold’s Political Machine

I’m indebted to Bev Harris for her expertise and guidance. Often maligned, Harris is the godmother of the movement, who fights to expose the evils of “black box voting.”

The reality we face is that a small group of Republican operatives, loyal to the former CIA Director and his son, George the Lessor, have hijacked our election process and we are, in fact, a banana republic. We have no transparency in our election process. We have privatized it to partisan, for-profit corporations who don’t make that much money off of selling electronic voting machines, but make a fortune off selling election results.

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IMMEDIATE UPCOMING COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP FORUM

Wednesday, July 19th, 7PM, Robert Fitrakis, Editor and Publisher of the Freepress and a practicing local attorney, Candidate for Governor, State of Ohio, will speak to the Community Leaders Forum on the topic,

“Will the Green Party Simply Be A Spoiler Factor in Ohio Politics?”

Many people are afraid that the Green Party in Ohio, as the Green Party nationally in the years 2000 and 2004, will this year, ruin the chances of the Democratic Party in Ohio to rebound from its many setbacks in state government elections in recent years.

Candidate Fitrakis will address this sensitive issue directly and head-on in a candid discussion of what is likely to happen in Ohio and nationally within the fall November state and national general elections. This forum is free and open to the broad Columbus community.

Well, this should be fun. But there’s really nothing like democracy, and democracy means trusting the people and being accountable, as a candidate for public office, for one’s actions. Since the Green Party and other independents have placed my name on the ballot as their candidate, I intend to explain the philosophy behind my candidacy as directly as possible. While I’ll go into much greater detail a week from today at the Unitarian Church, let me state the obvious.

Had the Democratic Party in Ohio and John Kerry campaign actually made good on their pledge to “count every vote” in 2004, I would not be running for governor in 2006. But that’s only one area where the Democratic Party has failed to provide a clear alternative. Remember, when an independent progressive candidate has done well, so have liberal Democrats like Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt.

But, more next Wednesday. Hope to see you there!

The Unitarian Church in Columbus is at

93 W. Weisheimer Rd.

Wednesday, July 19th, 7PM

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Blackwell And The New Kleptocracy

Let a thousand lawsuits bloom! The coalition of civil rights groups that sued the state of Ohio and Blackwell, is to be congratulated. Voting should be a guaranteed constitutional right, like free speech. Voting should be standardized, universal and easy.

What the Republican Party is doing, all too often with spineless Democrat acquiescence, is shrinking the electorate while their corporatist Christo-fascist politics dedicated to war and massive war profiteering are alienating the majority of Americans. Blackwell’s latest anti-democratic directive, requiring each person who registers voters to individually return the form, is ludicrous – just like his directive for 80 bond un-waxed requirement for voter registration forms in 2004.

In a real democratic country, Blackwell would be serving time in jail for violating constitutional rights, not running as the gubernatorial candidate of a major party. Blackwell’s policies led to mass purging of voters in the 2004 election with nearly 25% of all the voters purged in the city of Cleveland. It led to the unnecessary and widespread use of provisional ballots. While Blackwell likes to point out there were a high rate of provisional ballots approved, that’s because in Republican-dominated counties the boards of elections never enforced his absurd rule that if you were a registered voter voting in the wrong precinct, but the right county, your vote wouldn’t be counted from the county level to the presidency.

Blackwell claims he’s not repressing “African American” votes although, despite being black, he loses the African American vote by 20% to Democratic opponents. This is true. Blackwell represses not only black voters, but the elderly, poor and college students – that is, all the traditional Democratic voting blocks and the core of liberal and progressive voters in Ohio.

There are many other areas that Blackwell should be sued over, but more than anything, there should be a criminal investigation on how he became a multi-millionaire while on the public payroll and the obvious trail on the 2004 stolen election. Instead of rewarding him for helping Bush (and now himself) steal elections, he should be punished. Blackwell symbolizing the death of democracy and the rise of a new kleptocracy – rule by thieves.

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Blackwell Chooses A Flake

What do we make of the aptly named Rev. Floyd Flake, president of Wilberforce University, signing on as Ken Blackwell’s Co-Chair? First, the press release is one of the weirdest in gubernatorial history. Blackwell, a former Democrat, calls the former Democratic Congressman Flake an educator, a statesman and a national leader – ironically, all the things that Blackwell is not. Flake says that “Ken Blackwell’s the leader Ohio needs right now.” Well, I suppose with George Wallace and Mussolini dead, there’s a dearth of theocratic neo-fascist ultra-nationalists who repress minority votes, so why not elect Blackwell?

Flake goes on the say that Blackwell understands the challenges faced by institutions of higher education. Indeed, Blackwell’s higher education plan and his economic policies would make it even more challenging as he cuts aid to higher education. It’s not often you’ll see a reverend flat-out lying, but what else can you make out of the bizarre statement that “Ken Blackwell’s solid, proven leadership will get Ohio cities back on track”? I guess, if the track is hunger, homelessness, and catering to rich white suburbanites, Blackwell’s capable of that track. Kind of a retro-white-is-right track.

Blackwell and Flake are both members of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), a group of black self-proclaimed leaders who are funded primarily by white charities. This is an old tactic. W’s daddy, former CIA Director George Herbert Walker Bush, hated the civil rights movement and was elected as an anti-civil rights Congressman in 1966. But, after white supremacy and racism were no longer in vogue in the 70s, Bush the Elder embraced the United Negro College Fund and pushed wealthy white donors in that direction.

Already Black activists have called for a boycott of Wilberforce and the resignation of Flake. Students at Wilberforce waited for hours to vote in the 2004 election at the historically black college. Blacks waited 4-7 hours to vote in Franklin County during the 2004 due to the directives of Blackwell.

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Another Sign Of Smiley-Faced Fascism

I marched in the Doo Dah Parade today in Columbus, Ohio; democracy requires dissent. And here’s where I dissent from W. Bush and his junta. Our founders held that people are born with certain “unalienable Rights” – among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have a Constitution with a Bill of Rights that protects us from “unreasonable search and seizure.” The Bush administration violates this daily with its warrantless searches of U.S. citizens. This is the hallmark of an authoritarian regime, not a constitutional republic with guaranteed rights.

  Our Bill of Rights guarantees that people won’t suffer “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Bush regime and its Attorney General embrace torture by redefining it. Remember when Alberto Gonzales wrote the memo saying that torture isn’t torture unless a major body organ fails. This is another sign of smiley-faced fascism. We rip your toenails out with pliers and claim it’s not torture. We shock your genitals with electricity and say it’s not torture. Finally, we have a regime that is every bit as imperialist and ruthless as the British empire early Americans rebelled against. The Bush junta adopts the same tactics as King George. His is a belief in an empire based on lies and full-scale occupation of whole countries.

We must resist the tyranny of the Bush regime and drive them from power, just as we drove the original King George from these shores.

The Green Party in the Doo Dah Parade marched for clean elections, peace, the environment and prosperity. Thanks to everyone who joined us!

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How We Got On The Ballot

Here’s a breakdown from the Secretary of State regarding the filing of the Fitrakis/Rios gubernatorial slate. We filed 1,199 petitions representing 81 of Ohio’s 88 counties. In Franklin County alone, my home, we filed 7,124 signatures. We also filed 1,283 in the Cleveland area (Cuyahoga County) and 757 signatures in the Cincinnati area (Hamilton County). We filed 322 in the Toledo area (Lucas County), Anita Rios’ home, and 163 in the Akron area (Summit County). We also filed 102 in Lorain County and 1071 in the Dayton area (Montgomery County). We did well in the college towns of Athens (Ohio U) with 111 and 244 in Greene County where Antioch College is in Yellow Springs. Major party candidates only have to file 1,000 signatures, but the bipartisan bluster of two effete corporate lapdog parties are in agreement that independents and third party candidates should have to file 5,000 valid signatures.

Overall, we filed 12,295 signatures and the Secretary of State approved 7,853. What these numbers show is that the Green Party has a massive and active grassroots network throughout the state of Ohio, due in no small part to the fact that they stood up for the rights of the voters when the Democratic Party faded away following the 2004 election. The Greens funded and initiated the recount, and my running mate for Lieutenant Governor, Anita Rios, was a plaintiff in many voting rights actions before the court.

Tim Kettler, Green Party candidate for Secretary of State also gained ballot status this week. Kettler was instrumental in forcing Coshocton County to recount all its ballots by hand in 2004, the only county in the state of Ohio to do so.

Once again I want to thank all my signature gatherers and those who signed. We look forward to building a real party of the people. I know some of you are concerned about the Greens playing a spoiler role, so I intend to ask Ted Strickland to drop out of the race, as suggested by blogger Andrew Warner, so a real progressive can run against Blackwell. But here’s another idea: why don’t all the candidates – Democratic, Republican, Green and Libertarian – debate openly in the series of public town hall meetings and let the people decide. Isn’t that what democracy is all about?

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