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To my Republican pals:

The election is over, the results are well-known,
the will of the people has clearly been shown.
Let's dump all our quarrels and show by our deeds,
that we'll give our leader the help that he needs.
So let's get together, let bitterness pass,
I'll hug your elephant; you kiss my ass.

An End To Mourning

No matter the outcome of this election, change will be forthcoming. Change always comes, as slow or as fast as we demand it.  

However, if after last week we hang up our ideals, put away our enthusiasms, and close the lid on our indignation, then change will be kept waiting. But change cannot do so; the urgency of the moment is even greater than before. Change cannot bear indifference. The time for mourning has ended; it's time to get back to work.  

Chief among our tasks is to continue the conversation. What a grand conversation it has been! This election energized Americans as never before in most of our lifetimes. Yet the swift current of events we call everyday life has a way of moving us downstream quickly, leaving unfinished business behind and forgotten. We must not let this happen. We are, in fact, swamped with unfinished business, to be done on behalf of our nation, our children, and our planet. Whether face-to-face or over the internet, it is essential that we keep talking about what to do next.  

What Is to Be Done?

AUSTIN, Texas --- Here's my two cents worth on "What Is to Be Done?" First of all, let me rush to join the Bill-Clinton-for-Party-Chair bandwagon (which I believe started with a Los Angles Times editorial). Granted, that means Hillary couldn't run in 2008, which is fine by me since I think she is: (A) too divisive, and (B) I worry about her safety.

So put the Big Dog in at DNC. Let him raise money, recruit candidates and plot strategy. He knows and loves politics: who better? If he doesn't want that deal, he could at least travel about to various states to help strategize.

Second, count me in the Hidden Blessing camp on the defeat of Tom Daschle. Nice man, lovely man, not enough of a fighter. I know R's like to consider Daschle guilty of colossal obstructionism and terrible, extreme partisanship hiding behind his mild-mannered demeanor. If only. That's just the R's usual game of claiming to be victims.

The big problem with Daschle is that he comes from such a red state he always faced a tough re-election fight. You can't exactly be real Out There when you're from South Dakota -- and besides, he put such a milquetoast face on the party.

Gahana miscount

I just want to pledge a thanks to you for covering the miscount incident here in Gahanna, Ohio on your freepress site. You mentioned on the press that there was a miscount at the New Life Church at the Gahanna, Ohio polling site...well...that's just about a mile down the road from where I live and it doesn't suprise me. This is the same place that displayed bulletins confirming "30 more days of prayer" prior to election. Could this prayer be aimed towards John Kerry or President George W. Bush? I don't know what that mysterious bulletin meant, other than the fact that this is a church that likes to preach to the bypassers about how high of a brand of faith content they carry with their to-close-to-the-road messages. BUT, I'd say that they probably lean towards the right for the simple reason that this is the party that pledges that it is all about faith and values to cover-up their lies and propaganda.

Help Ohio expose voter suppression and election fraud!

Donate now to the CICJ, the Free Press' parent organization, which is spearheading the investigation into Ohio election irregularities and voter suppression.

It is not over! We do not concede. There are people working in Ohio to demand a recount of the votes in the 2004 presidential election. You can donate by credit card at Paypal or by check to: CICJ Election Protection; 1240 Bryden Road, Columbus, Ohio, 43205. The CICJ is a nonpartisan nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.

Voter suppression

Greatest falsehood of the Bush Administration

The greatest of all falsehoods visited upon the American people by the Bush Administration is that the President’s policies, both foreign and domestic, spring from the combination of a muscular Christianity and direct revelations from Almighty God to George W. Bush.

It is not Christian to invade a country which had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11, killing 100,000 innocent citizens of Iraq and causing the deaths of over a thousand Americans to achieve this horrible injustice. Jesus never committed nor advocated such a crime, nor, I assure you, did He ever tell George Bush to go forth and do so in His Name.

Jesus said, "I was born into the world to tell the truth”. Can the same be said of President Bush?

The Son of God never justified the use of torture against those imprisoned, whether in war or peacetime, neither did He believe in false imprisonment by the denial of fundamental legal and human rights.

Nowhere in the Bible do I read of Jesus Christ taking money from the poor and middle classes for the further enrichment of those whose assets already number in the billions of dollars.

November 3rd action

Nov 3- The Central Ohio Peace Network and the Toledo League of Pissed Off Voters organized an anti-war protest for today at 5:00 PM to send out the message that whoever the next president is, we need to end our occupation of Iraq. After hearing about Kerry's concession earlier in the day, the focus of the event at the Federal Building turned heavily towards expressing dissatisfaction with questionable election procedures.

One sign read, "Hundreds of thousands of voters suppressed- democracy failed." Written on another was, "Blackwell sucks," accompanied by a picture of ballots being sucked into a well.

A man who identified himself as David claimed that votes were lost because of Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's decision to only count provisional ballots that were cast at the correct precinct, and also because Republican workers "cleansed the voting lists," taking off people who had not voted in recent elections.

Yoshi Furuhashi was a vocal leader. She said, "Kerry already conceded. He is even more of a wimp than Gore!" She stressed that we need to bring back complete democracy to the country, and encouraged the

Elections and the Specter of Things Unseen

The day before the election, I visited Albuquerque and Las Vegas. Up close, I saw hundreds of people involved in vigorous get-out-the-vote efforts. Most were young; they seemed very idealistic. These Americans had an opportunity to make a difference, and -- brought together by labor unions and such groups as the MoveOn PAC -- they took it.

Watching the election returns scarcely 24 hours later, I kept an eye on the results from New Mexico and Nevada. The vote tallies were close in both states because of such activism; otherwise, the Bush-Cheney ticket would have won easily.

On Wednesday, as the pundits kept chattering on television, I thought about how far removed the TV studios and newsrooms tend to be from the active idealism of the grassroots. All over this country, literally millions of people cherish the belief that what they choose to do can make a difference. A big difference.

This belief propels many people in daily life. Yet much of the internal language of such political commitment gets lost in media translation. By the time we see accounts of political campaigns on the

Who Says The Exit Polls Were Wrong?

 I found it remarkable that on election night and the morning after, that pretty much each and every network that I watched, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS... each engaged in handwringing and wondered aloud "How could our exit polls have been so wrong?"  And they each came up with the same answer which I've heard over and over again:  the early exit polls showing Kerry with a 3 point lead were somehow released to the internet and we all read the internet and the liberals sat back on their laurels and did not vote; and the conservatives began panicking and worked harder.   

Does anyone really believe that?  Really?  It sounds like a line that senior editors made up as plausible so they could duck and run from the truth:  either that exit polling is a total sham; or that the exit polls were absolutely correct, and its corollary truth, that enough  electronic voting machines in Ohio and Florida were hacked into or just plain pre-programmed to count the blips in a not so kosher way.   

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