We had been talking a lot about computerized voting machines in the Leftopshere in the leadup to the 2004 election. Over at Daily Kos I even made the front page when Meteor Blades promoted my diary urging people to get serious about it.
Then, all of the sudden, just weeks before the election, “people” started popping up everywhere attacking anyone who questioned allowing private contractors to count our votes in secret. And when things didn’t quite add up after the election, things really got nasty.
I spent about a week trying to trace some of the sockpuppets who showed up every time anyone posted on election fraud or the perils of computerized voting. The results of that investigation were inconclusive. The internet can be quite anonymous if you know how and all I discovered was that there was an entire ring of these sockpuppets. I traced one account to Ohio. Who knows.
I also spent days backtracking to find any place where Bev Harris actually discredited herself by making false claims or any other impeachable offense. I COULDN”T FIND IT. What I found instead were just more sockpuppets making unsubstantiated claims, spreading lies and innuendo, and never, even backing any of it up with hard evidence even when that was demanded of them.
Harris did make a mistake which I remember in real time. She announced that she had a big bombshell down in Florida and then, as far as I could tell, never really dropped it. Maybe I missed it. Regardless, this led many to think she made it up. It certainly led me to question her credibility.
It was only when the HBO documentary, Hacking Democracy, came out that I saw that she had in fact caught a big story. Was it wise to wait for a documentary deal to air it? I won’t say. But her story had been big: she caught red handed a bunch of election officials manipulating votes and destroying evidence.
Finally watching that documentary on HBO, and seeing for the first time the evidence that Harris had talked about back in those crazy days following Kerry’s defeat, and thousand and thousands of blog posts claimed didn’t exist, I felt Harris had been utterly vindicated. Imperfect for sure, but here was a person who actually walked the walk. She got off of her ass, left her computer for a while, and went out to fight for our democracy and our country. I still think she’s an American hero.
And then I thought of all the little sleazebags who made sport of attacking her. I mean that kind of hate was usually reserved for Rush Limbaugh. And every time I asked for specific evidence against her, all I got was, “Everybody knows” she’s this or that. Everybody knows. That’s actually what the Daily Kos frontpager “brownsox” said. And I won’ t even mention what kind of vitriol spewed from the lips of rabid dog DHinMI. Turns out no one even needed evidence once “Bev is bad” had become a meme.
And the hate wasn’t reserved for Bev Harris. Before long, anyone who laid claim to the issue of voting integrity became enemy number one at Daily Kos and other Democratic blogs. And after a while, a lot of people just gave up on the issue. I know I did. There is really no issue that gets me more upset. So I had to back off to prevent a coronary. Seriously.
So it is not surprising that I hadn’t seen this video. Maybe some of you missed it as well. If so, watch for a reminder of why your government and your president’s attempts to put the criminal Bush presidency behind us are simply unacceptable.
The entire corrupt Washington establishment is now trying to pretend that the previous eight years was just a difference of opinion. A different philosophy. They want to ignore the treason and war crimes and out and out unconstitutionality of that “presidency” so they can repeat it when necessary. The next time they want a war, or other illegal act, they now have a template to follow. They must protect the template.
And Barack Obama is at best an accomplice after the fact. At worst, he’s just Act II in a game of good cop, bad cop. Either way, it doesn’t matter. He’s guilty.
Now watch Dan Rather’s most important report of his life that, if you’ve been seeing too much orange, you probably missed.
PART 1
PART 2
UPDATE: Oh Yeah. Here’s Hacking Democracy.
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various Central Committees and enforced by virtual thugs. The DKOS variety are particularly disgusting, I’ve dealt with them as well and they tolerate no deviation from the official lines — and they are ever vigilant for “dangerous” ideas.
Election fraud and the fact that the left never leapt on it in 2004 is another one of those astonishing matters that make even a hardened realpolitik skeptic like me wince. Why did the progressive movement ignore the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004? I can understand their faint-hearted refusal to deal with 9/11 — but election fraud? Particularly in 2004 when the problems were well known, studies concluded and the fraud in Ohio was so obvious.
Is the progressive left actually a real movement or just a fake playground to make dissidents harmless. What is going on here. What are your thoughts? My own thoughts lie in the direction of the fact that all section of the oligarchy are behind most political activity. The stakes are way to high to leave things up to chance so, frankly, I believe we live in a political situation that has as its key feature multiple overlapping conspiracies and criminal enterprises at the highest levels and a sheep mentality (perhaps in reaction to the sixties) in the populace particularly on the left.
did some amazing work. Do you remember Andy Stephenson? He worked with Bev and did some unbelievable investigation work. We lost him and his passion for truth too soon. I give her credit for her work, but she screwed over some of her own people for fame and/or money. That’s were she lost credibility!
I still have the cd-rom with info on the 2004 election, solarbus put that together, I was just a ‘seed planter’.
I can get you the info off line if you want it.
According to dkos just another CT not to be taken serious. They need to get with it over there if they want to stay relevant.
The Dan Rather video that is, anyone know?
based on the concept that more convenience is always better.
It would be one thing if we voted in such elections five times a day. But every few years or so, I think we can afford to take the time to count paper ballots.
re: DK and “everybody knows,” one of the many things that irritates me about that blog is how people who have unpopular opinions get scapegoated, and once they’ve collected a lot of HR abuse for them, then the scapegoaters start attacking them for nothing at all, validating doing so by writing “He’s a known troll! Just look at all his hides!”
So it goes. I didn’t realize they got so stupid over there about the voting machines. That really is shameful.
The community mau mauing that went on about 2004 election fraud was absolutely ludicrous.
“Where’s the smoking gun? There’s no smoking gun, no case. Extraordinary claims….(blah blah blah)”
With Kos actively encouraging the troll hunters, even Georgia10’s brilliant election diaries were considered suspect.
It was silly.
Of course, Kos wasn’t the only A lister who stuck his head in the sand. Atrios was virtually silent, among many others.