Blog Posts
The 20 latest Blog Posts
- New Book: A History of Hate in Ohio
- Fraudbusterbob.org Moved To here! Fitrakis.org Archived
- The Other Side of the News April 26, 2019 Nuclear Plants Plus
- LaRose knows not to purge
- Historical Digitization Hundreds Of Tapes Fitrakis Archive.org
- Historical Digitization Hundreds Of Tapes Fitrakis Archive.org
- Four Still Dead in Ohio
- Dr. Bob Speaking With Thom Hartmann About Alabama Election
- Bob Fitrakis speaks as an election attorney and political scientist who talks about the suspension of the laws of physics for exit polling only not working within the borders of the U.S.
- 10/7/2017, in Berkeley, Dr. Bob Fitrakis, Peter Peckarsky speak about voter exit polls and the massive issues American voters are facing
- The Other Side of the News October 6, 2017 – An interview with Ajamu Baraka
- Closing Statement At Summit County Ohio State Meeting
- Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour – 08.24.17
- 20170813 – anti fascist rally and march in support of charlottesville – web
- ORANGE IS THE NEW ORANGE: The President should be behind bars
- ORANGE IS THE NEW ORANGE: The President should be behind bars
- The Other Side of the News July 28, 2017 – Trump and the ACA
- Bob Speaks Out About Police Arrests At Portman’s “Private” Office
- Columbus Police on the Attack Again: Disabled demonstrators arrested
- Bob Fitrakis On WVKO Radio Columbus Series Audio 2012 Archive, Youtube Bonus at end
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Don’t Reward Kerry’s Betrayal
So John Kerry’s giving the commencement speech at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio. The college’s press release reads: “Thanks to record student voter participation, Kenyon College was among the last polling places in the nation to close on Election Day 2004.”
Talk about spin. The reality is that 1300 students registered to vote, and there were only 2 voting machines instead of the 13 required by an Ohio court decision, based on 1 per 100 voters. At worst there should have been 6 or 7 machines there, even if counties pleaded poverty. And on Election Day 2004, one machine broke down. Matthew Segal, a Kenyon College student, testified about the eleven-hour wait to vote and how the polls closed around four in the morning when he addressed Rep. John Conyers and the Minority members of the House Judiciary Committee, who held hearings in on December 13, 2004 in Columbus to determine what had gone wrong with the Ohio vote.
Meanwhile, a few miles away on Election Day 2004, at the pro-Bush right-wing Mt. Vernon Nazarene College, there were plenty of voting machines and no wait. Scores of people illegally registered to vote at the school’s business office, according to records at the Licking County Board of Elections. Emails flying around that not-for-profit institution endorsed Bush for President, a clear violation of IRS laws.
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How I Would Clean Up Elections
I’m speaking in Athens, Ohio at Ohio University to the Political Science Majors Association on the Culture of Corruption in Ohio. My B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. are all in political science, but I learned more about the corruption in Ohio as an investigative journalist.
Let’s recall some of the recent scandals in Ohio. In 2001, the former director of the Ohio Department of Human Services pleaded guilty to improperly steering $60 million, primarily in the form of no-bid contracts. As governor, I would end the use of no-bid contracts and make all contracts competitive. So corrupt is Ohio that even the Ohio Consumer Counsel, who advocates on behalf of all Ohio consumers, resigned and was later convicted for accepting gifts from utility lobbyists. Then there was the pay-to-play scheme involving brokers who received contracts from former State Treasurer Joe Deters’ office. Deters was a typical pious Republican invoking the name of God every few seconds while taking pieces of silver from Caesar, or at least Caesar’s lobbyist.
The Coingate scandal has passed into the realm of Ohio legend. Noe, the former hobby shop owner who sold beanie babies, baseball cards and some coins, is planning to plead guilty to stealing between $4.5 and $6 million, and he was indicted for laundering that money into the Bush re-election campaign. Governor Taft’s Chief of Staff was convicted for renting Tom Noe’s $1.8 million Florida home at below market rates. Taft was convicted on four misdemeanor charges of filing incomplete financial disclosure statements and failing to report golf outings and other gifts. One of those outings was with Noe, who claimed he told Taft about his secret and bizarre little rare coin investment scheme backed by the Bureau of Worker’s Compensation.
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Taking Home the Ballot Box
After Hackwell and his Republican cohorts at Diebold and ES&S test-marketed how to destroy democracy in the November 2005 election in Ohio, the company and its machines are working to destroy the republic nationwide. Predictably, more than 100 voting machines failed today in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania – foreseeable because that’s where Pittsburgh, a Democratic enclave, is located. The Pennsylvania primary may go down as one of the great unnatural disasters in voting history. In Philadelphia, hundreds of ES&S machines melted down. The only highlight of the day is the report that right-wing Senator Rick Santorum was locked out of a polling place and unable to cast a ballot in the morning. We don’t know whether or not he’ll blame this on gay activists, or men who prefer to have sex with dogs.
Meanwhile, back in Franklin County, in Ohio, a $750,000 contract for ES&S voting machine storage carts is now being investigated by a Franklin County Commissioner, Paula Brooks. She asked the obvious questions: “Were the carts even needed?” But as we’ve written before, the real problem is the bipartisan collusion to steal contracts and elections in Ohio. Whether it’s Republican Party Chair Robert Bennett in Cuyahoga County pulling Michael Vu, the Democratic BOE director’s strings, or the big old bepartisan hug-a-thon in Franklin County, we cannot trust the unethical political hacks that occupy the election boards throughout Ohio.
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