SECTION ONE


sm
COLUMN FIFTY-SIX, FEBRUARY 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)

RIGHT-WING COUP PUTS FAMILY  IDIOT INTO WHITE HOUSE!

MIAMI HERALD RECOUNT
PROVES G.O.P. STOLE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION


DUMB DUBYA, MR. FRAUDULENT

That stench you smell emanating from the new occupant of the White House will reek throughout all of history, a stink worse than the fart left by tricky Dick (I Am Not A Crook) Nixon. Dumb (I AM A Crook) Dubya hasn’t left a fart for history, he’s taken a shit on America and on its past, present and future! According to the newspapers now counting the Florida votes that the Republicans fought and argued and stalled and connived so hard and so long to keep from getting counted, it appears that Democrat Al Gore actually won the state by approximately 23,000 votes.  In other words, the Republicans have stolen the election and seized control of this country by pulling off a coup d’état!

Where is the outcry?  Wake up, America!  Dumb Dubya’s brother, Jeb Bush, the corrupt governor of Florida, has fixed it so that Florida’s votes couldn’t be correctly counted!  We’ve been taken over by a fascist coup! Why hasn’t that news become a headline"  How come I had to learn about it from a Sons of Afrika (SOA) email quoting a report in England’s Manchester Guardian that a team of political analysts and pollsters hired by Knight-Ridder’s Miami Herald had counted enough of the votes to make that statistical calculation?

Of course, the Republicans knew that, under Florida’s Freedom of Information legislation, the news would somehow leak out.  They cajoled and threatened and twisted arms to get the press to keep the results of the unofficial recount a secret.  New Jersey’ Governor Christie Whitman, an alleged Republican “moderate,” campaigned to have the results of the Newspaper recount kept secret for at least 10 years.  But now it’s more obvious than ever that the Republicans control the media.  Such Republican-biased Washington journalists as Tim Russert, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts are only posing as “objective reporters.”  Not only did they most likely vote for Dumb Dubya, they as good as campaigned for him in their supposedly unbiased news reports.

Anyway, it’s the end of December, 2000 and I still haven’t heard a peep about Florida’s


He's not
Mr. President,
he's Mr. Fraudulent


newspaper recount on the radio.  Not at this writing.  Or on TV.  Or in the New York Times.  I guess the media doesn’t want to embarrass the President-elect by catching him with his hand deeper into the cookie jar than Tricky Dick could reach.  Now that the injustices of the Supreme Court have crowned Dumb Dubya President, does that make him legal?

Not for my money.  To me, he’s not Mr. President, he’s Mr. Fraudulent.  By keeping quiet about it, the Media becomes complicit in this coup d’état. What’s obvious is that Papa Bush, still feeling the sting of having been scorned by the populace, methodically conspired with his two sons and their combined connections to steal the election.  The will of the people be damned! The Bushies have succeeded in installing into the White House the one all the other Bushies considered the family idiot.

That’s how history is going to read it. And the country simply accepted the coup like Jews walking like sheep to slaughter in the gas chambers of the Nazi death factories. My take on the Republicans is that not since the Nazis has there been a group so greedy for power, so lusting for control, so determined to rule, so hungry to impose its will that it would shit on the electorate and thwart the will of the people, that it would rob and cheat and lie and commit all kinds of illegalities and evil deeds of which the Republicans are guilty.

The Bushies, of course, were well acquainted with the Nazis.  Wasn’t Papa’s Papa, Connecticut’s Senator Prescott Bush, busted during World War II for trading with the Adolf?  Look it up! Prescott Bush, along with George Walker, his father-in-law, had their assets seized by our own federal government for financial dealings with the enemy when we were at war with Germany.

But maybe we can’t really blame Dumb Dubya for shitting on us the way he did.  He was really nothing more than a pet on a leash held by Papa, who delegated cronies like Dick Cheney to take the pet for that necessary walk.  Dubya’s nothing more than an errand boy for the oligarchs who hire Congress to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  These oligarchs are the predators who would rather doom their progeny to extinction than surrender a pound of power or a penny of profit.

They told Dubya to say he would unify the country.  Instead, he’s created a gap in this country almost as wide as it was when Tricky Dick had to surround the White House with a wall of bumper-to-bumper buses.  They told Dubya to sell himself as a “compassionate conservative.”  As if they, who live in the high-stakes, dog-eat-dog world of corporate rivalry, have ever felt such an emotion as compassion.  They told Dumb Dubya to say he would restore dignity to the White House.  As if it’s more dignified to get busted for drunken driving than it is to get a blowjob.  Cheney got busted for drunken driving, too.  So, now we’ve got two ex-drunks at the rudder.

Cheney is one of those corporate oligarchs and already he’s running things because he knows Dumb Dubya can’t even think for himself.  The truth is Dumb Dubya is too dumb to think for himself.  Except, now he has the power to tell people to do his thinking for him.  Did you notice the moronic smirk on his face when he talked about all the executions over which he had presided?

Oh, yes!  Dumb Dubya is much too moronic to have pulled off that coup d’état all by his Lone Star lonesome. He had to have an organization as power-hungry as the Nazis playing his cards for him. Starting with master card shark Papa Bush, longing for vengeance against those who dumped him onto history’s smelly garbage heap after he lost the Gulf War to Saddam Hussein. Keeping Nazi-loving grandpa hidden in the bushes, Papa not only got away with Iran-Contragate, but he also was once a director of the Central Ignorance Agency.

Wasn’t that when the Central Ignorance Agency was helping Central American military dictators rape and massacre American nuns as well as slaughter hundreds of peon women and children?  It was in the name of Americanism that the CIA-trained the military death squads to do their dirty work.  Papa Bush is still a popular figure with the Nazi-like element within the CIA, all of whom are old hands at engineering coups d’états.  The most recent of which may very well be the one that has given America its 43rd President, Mr. Fraudulent.

Oh, yeah, sure, it was a close election.  Dumb Dubya won by a cunt’s hair of a whore, a term I’ve often heard used to describe him.   He won by only one vote among the injustices of the Supreme Court.  Why doesn’t public opinion force Antonin Scalia and Uncle Thomas to resign?  They’re both so obviously partisan and corrupt.

Check out this email that has been rippling through the Internet:

By Mark H. Levine, Attorney at Law.
Note suggestions at end of document.

 = = = = = = =

 Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the recent Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to me?

 A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most votes.

 Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme Court has to give a reason, right?

 A: Right.

 Q: So Bush wins because hand-counts are illegal?


Nobody understands the doubletalk of the fascists
on the Supreme Court


 A: Oh no. Six of the justices (two-thirds majority) believed the hand-counts were legal    and should be done.

 Q: Oh. So the justices did not believe that the hand-counts would find any legal ballots?

 A. Nope. The five conservative justices clearly held  (and all nine justices agreed) "that punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter." So there are legal votes that should be counted but can't be.

 Q: Oh. Does this have something to do with states' rights? Don't conservatives love that?

 A: Generally yes. These five justices have held that the federal government has no business telling a sovereign state university it can't steal trade secrets just because such stealing is prohibited by law. Nor does the federal government have any business telling a state that it should bar guns in schools. Nor can the federal government use the equal protection clause to force states to take measures to stop violence against women.

 Q: Is there an exception in this case?

 A: Yes, the Gore exception. States have no rights to have their own state elections when it can result in Gore being elected President. This decision is limited to only this situation.

 Q: C'mon. The Supremes didn't really say that. You're exaggerating.

 A: Nope. They held "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, or the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."

 Q: What complexities?

 A: They don't say.

 Q: I'll bet I know the reason. I heard Jim Baker say this.  The votes can't be counted because the Florida Supreme Court "changed the rules of the election after it was held." Right?

 A. Dead wrong. The US Supreme Court made clear that the  Florida Supreme Court did not change the rules of the election. But the US Supreme Court found the failure of the Florida Court to change the rules was wrong.

 Q: Huh?

 A: The Legislature declared that the only legal standard for counting vote  is "clear intent of the voter." The Florida Court was condemned for not adopting a clearer standard.

 Q: I thought the Florida Court was not allowed to change the Legislature's law after the election.

 A: Right.

 Q: So what's the problem?

 A: They should have. The US Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court should have "adopt[ed] adequate statewide standards for determining what is a legal vote"

 Q: I thought only the Legislature could "adopt" new law.

 A: Right.

 Q: So if the Court had adopted new standards, I thought it would have been overturned.

 A: Right. You're catching on.

 Q: If the Court had adopted new standards, it would have been overturned for changing the rules. And if it didn't, it's overturned for not changing the rules. That means that no matter what the Florida Supreme Court did, legal votes could never be counted.

 A: Right. Next question.

 Q: Wait, wait. I thought the problem was "equal protection," that some counties counted votes differently from others. Isn't that a problem?

 A: It sure is. Across the nation, we vote in a hodgepodge of systems. Some, like the optical-scanners in largely Republican-leaning counties record 99.7% of the votes. Some, like the punchcard systems in largely Democratic-leaning counties record only 97% of the  votes. So approximately 3% of Democratic votes are thrown in the trash can.

 Q: Aha! That's a severe equal-protection problem!!!

 A: No it's not. The Supreme Court wasn't worried about the 3% of Democratic ballots thrown in the trashcan in Florida. That "complexity" was not a problem.

 Q: Was it the butterfly ballots that violated Florida law and tricked more than 20,000 Democrats to vote for Buchanan or Gore and Buchanan.


The fascists on the Supreme Court had no problem believing that Holocaust victims voted in droves for an anti-Semite


 A: Nope. The Supreme Court has no problem believing that Buchanan got his highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home with Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about Hitler.

 Q: Yikes. So what was the serious equal protection problem?

 A: The problem was neither the butterfly ballot nor the 3% of Democrats (largely African-American) disenfranchised. The problem is that somewhat less than .005% of the ballots may have been determined under slightly different standards because judges sworn to uphold the law and doing their best to accomplish the legislative mandate of clear intent of the voter may have a slightly different opinion about the voter's intent.

 Q: Hmmm. OK, so if those votes are thrown out, you can still count the votes where everyone agrees the voter's intent is clear?

 A: Nope.

 Q: Why not?

 A: No time.

 Q: No time to count legal votes where everyone, even Republicans, agree the intent is clear? Why not?

 A: Because December 12 was yesterday.

 Q: Is December 12 a deadline for counting votes?

 A: No. January 6 is the deadline. In 1960, Hawaii's votes weren't counted until January 4.

 Q: So why is December 12 important?

 A: December 12 is a deadline by which Congress can't challenge the results.

 Q: What does the Congressional role have to do with the Supreme Court?

 A: Nothing.

 Q: But I thought ---

 A: The Florida Supreme Court had earlier held it would like to complete its work by December 12 to make things easier for Congress. The United States Supreme Court is trying to help the Florida Supreme Court out by forcing the Florida court to abide by a deadline that everyone agrees is not binding.

 Q: But I thought the Florida Court was going to just barely have the votes counted by December 12.

 A: They would have made it, but the five conservative justices stopped the recount last Saturday.

 Q: Why?

 A: Justice Scalia said some of the counts may not be legal.

 Q: So why not separate the votes into piles, indentations for Gore, hanging chads for Bush, votes that everyone agrees went to one candidate or the other so that we know exactly how Florida voted before determining who won? Then, if some ballots (say, indentations) have to be thrown out, the American people will know right away who won Florida.

 A. Great idea! The US Supreme Court rejected it. They held that such counts would likely to produce election results showing Gore won and Gore's winning would cause "public acceptance" and that would "cast a cloud" over Bush's "legitimacy" that would harm "democratic stability."

 Q: In other words, if America knows the truth that Gore won, they won't accept the US Supreme Court overturning Gore's victory?

 A: Yes.

 Q: Is that a legal reason to stop recounts? or a political one?

 A: Let's just say in all of American history and all of American law, this reason has no basis in law. But that doesn't stop the five conservatives from creating new law out of thin air.

 Q: Aren't these conservative justices against judicial activism?

 A: Yes, when liberal judges are perceived to have done it.

 Q: Well, if the December 12 deadline is not binding, why not count the votes?

 A: The US Supreme Court, after admitting the December 12 deadline is not binding, set December 12 as a binding deadline at 10 p.m. on December 12.

 Q: Didn't the US Supreme Court condemn the Florida Supreme Court for arbitrarily setting a deadline?

 A: Yes.

 Q: But, but-

 A: Not to worry. The US Supreme Court does not have to follow laws it sets for other courts.

 Q: So who caused Florida to miss the December 12 deadline?

 A: The Bush lawyers who first went to court to stop the recount, the rent-a-mob in Miami that got paid Florida vacations for intimidating officials, and the US Supreme Court for stopping the recount.

 Q: So who is punished for this behavior?

 A: Gore, of course.

 Q: Tell me this Florida's laws are unconstitutional?

 A: Yes

 Q: And the laws of 50 states that allow votes to be cast or counted differently are unconstitutional?

 A: Yes. And 33 states have the "clear intent of the voter" standard that the US Supreme Court found was illegal in Florida

 Q: Then why aren't the results of 33 states thrown out?

 A: Um. Because...um.....the Supreme Court doesn't say...

 Q: But if Florida's certification includes counts expressly declared by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, we don't know who really won the election there, right?

 A: Right. Though a careful analysis by the Miami Herald shows Gore won  Florida by about 20,000 votes (excluding the butterfly ballot errors).

 Q: So, what do we do, have a re-vote? Throw out the entire state? Count under a single uniform standard?

 A: No. We just don't count the votes that favor Gore.

 Q: That's completely bizarre! That sounds like rank political favoritism! Did the justices have any financial interest in the case?

A: Scalia's two sons are both lawyers working for Bush. Thomas's wife is collecting  applications for people who want to work in the Bush administration.

 Q: Why didn't they recuse themselves?

 A: If either had recused himself, the vote would be 4-4, and the Florida Supreme Court decision allowing recounts would have been affirmed.

 Q: I can't believe the justices acted in such a blatantly political way.

 A: Read the opinions for yourself: 

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/00-949_dec12.pdf  (December 9 stay stopping the recount)

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf (December 12 opinion)

 Q: So what are the consequences of this?

 A: The guy who got the most votes in the US and in Florida and under our Constitution (Al Gore) will lose to America's second choice who won the all important 5-4 Supreme Court vote.

 Q: I thought in a democracy, the guy with the most votes wins.

 A: True, in a democracy. But America is not a democracy. In America in 2000, the guy with the most US Supreme Court votes wins.

 Q: So what will happen to the Supreme Court when Bush becomes President.

 A: He will appoint more justices in the mode of Thomas and Scalia to ensure that the will of the people is less and less respected.  Soon lawless justices may constitute 6-3 or even 7-2 on the court.

 Q: Is there any way to stop this?

 A: YES. No federal judge can be confirmed without a vote in the Senate. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. If only 41 of the 50 Democratic Senators stand up to Bush and his Supremes and say that they will not approve a single judge appointed by him until a President can be democratically elected in 2004, the judicial reign of terror can end....and one day we can hope to return to the rule of law.

 Q: What do I do now?

 A: Email this to everyone you know, and write or call your senator, reminding him that Gore beat Bush by several hundred thousand votes (three times Kennedy's margin over Nixon) and that you believe that VOTERS rather than JUDGES should determine who wins an election by counting every vote.  And to protect our judiciary from overturning the will of the people, you want them to confirm NO NEW JUDGES until 2004 when a president is finally chosen by most of the American people.

 Mark H. Levine
Attorney at Law
MarkLevineEsq@aol.com 


A lot of people
blame a
'vast right-wing conspiracy'


Yeah, there are plenty of people saying Dumb Dubya stole the election with the help of a vast right-wing conspiracy, the same Fascist cabal that trapped Bill Clinton into getting a blowjob from a mouth that was too big.  The Boston Globe went so far as to start quoting conspiracy buff Robert Lederman, 50, a Democrat activist, who blames this larceny on “a vast right-wing conspiracy, “ probably orchestrated by Papa’s friends in the CIA..

Wasn’t it obvious that Secretary of State Katherine Harris (I heard some comedian on TV say it’s obvious she puts on her makeup with a trowel) certified the vote under orders from Florida Governor Baby Brother Bush? Lederman asks.  Was it just a coincidence that Republicans took absentee ballot applications home in Seminole and Marin Counties and denied Democrats the same opportunity?  Lederman wants to know.  How come those who committed these gross infractions have never been punished? That’s another question Lederman asks.

He scoffs at the partisanship displayed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which actually ruled that to hand-count the ballots could do Dumb Dubya “irreparable harm.”  Certainly it could!  Dumb Dubya could lose his “fixed” election. As Justice Stevens warned in his dissent to the Court’s Fascist majority, the U. S. Supreme Court has lost its credibility.  As Lederman commented:

“Of course, the whole thing’s a set –up.”

 I’m told that undercover Republicans bore the brunt of underwriting the campaign of a certain candidate I’m forced to identify as Ralph Arrogant Ego--- or RAE for short.  Arrogance occurs when, like a cartoon character, you walk off the edge of a cliff and you’re really walking on thin air. A determined Republican effort succeeded in turning RAE from a one-per center candidate like Pat Buchanan into the three- and-four-per center candidate that RAE became.  Just another example of how the party of Tricky Dickie and his dirty tricks plays the game. Although the Democrats are no saints, they just haven’t learned how to play evil Republican hardball yet.

As for the poor dummies who deluded themselves into thinking that RAE was the Great White Hope of the Left, what did they accomplish but to help install a totalitarian regime?  They’re so mushy headed, they wouldn’t recognize the enemy if he were staring them in the face, with his horns and his tail and his cloven hooves.  As I said before, not since the Nazis has there been such a group so thirsty for absolute power, so dedicated to authoritarianism, so intent on imposing their will on you, so addicted to greed and to evil as today’s Republican Party.  Evil as the Democrats also may be, they are clearly the lesser evil.

The only alternative left to the Left is to co-opt the Democratic Party and transform it into the party of the Left.   Because the Left has got to fight the Devil, not one another.  Like I say, you can’t beat the devil but  you’ve got to keep him at bay.

A lot of good friends of mine are among the dummies who voted for RAE.

“So what has voting for Nader accomplished?” I asked one with undisguised rancor.

“The best fucking thing to happen to the Democrats during this election,” he responded, “is to lose, in the final court, with that Court divided.”

Huh?

“You must be able to understand,” he went on, why a person would vote their dreams rather than their fears.”

This guy is certainly dreaming!

“You also understand.” He went on, completely ignoring my question, which was ‘What did voting for RAE accomplish?’---that as bad as Bush is, Gore is just a very short step behind him. Gore is not quite everything that George Bush junior is. Both are imperialists, racists, one an environmental liar, the other an environmental whore, one a Capitalist posing as a Democrat, the other a Capitalist posing as a Republican. All major party heads and their Presidential choices are scum who collaborated and placed the arch conservatives on the Supreme Court---two of the three responsible for the votes in Florida not being counted..”  In other words, my dummy friend kept mouthing the same old RAE shit.


Answer the question:
What was accomplished by voting for RAE?


Dream on, my friend.  Wait’ll you see the scum Dumb Dubya installs on the court to terrorize us for the net 40 years!  So, what was accomplished by voting for Ralph Arrogant Ego?

“Worse yet,” my misguided leftist friend continued,  “ Democrats are blaming Ralph Nader for Bush winning when the Democratic candidate was walking around like a tongue-tide, slow-witted automaton. When a party picks candidates like Gore over a dozen certain winners, the party heads are watching their profit margins first and their ethical margins last.”

As if RAE wouldn’t have entered the Presidential race no matter WHOM the Democrats nominated!  So WHAT was accomplished by voting for RAE?  Tongue-tide, slow-witted automaton Gore, after all, won the popular vote nationwide!  And he would have won the Presidency if the five Republican-appointed dinosaurs on the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t voted for their party instead of for justice.  We all know America is a hypocrisy rather than a Democracy.  But RAE and the manipulated dummies who voted for him refuse to awaken to that fact because they were too busy dreaming.  Of what?  Pie in the sky?  Yes, pie in the sky!  The only reason RAE entered the race was to enhance his ego by denying Gore the Presidency.  So RAE and the dummies who voted for him have helped give us Mr. Fraudulent.

“Gore is such a phony,” my dreaming dummy RAE-voter explained, “that he will not be the Democratic candidate for President in four years. Whoever the Democrat is (four years from now) that Democrat will win and have a Democratic majority in the Senate and the House waiting when sworn in as President. The best fucking thing to happen to the Democrats during this election is to lose, in the final court, with that Court divided.”

I asked my dummy friend if he had an orgasm while dreaming this dream?

“You must try to see past your (seemingly out-of-joint) nose,” this dummy friend advised me, without ever answering my question.  If RAE was a dirty trick played on us by the Republicans, the G.O.P. surely has another dirty trick up its sleeve for four years hence.

“Relax,” says my dummy friend, not yet awakened from his dream.  “It's time for the senior to put the squeeze on these assholes.”

Now, what did he mean by that"

And still there was another dummy RAE voter who told me to relax.  Why?

“Green terrorism will make things right!” he said or some such baloney.

The truth is that the anarchist wing of the Naderites (or the misnamed “Green” Party) includes activists who like to smash storefront windows, smell tear gas, get their heads cracked by police batons and find themselves behind bars.  They like the idea of rioting against Dumb Dubya and the corporate oligarchs who have helped DD steal the White House and you know what?  Dumb Dubya is the kind of authoritarian who would welcome such chaos.  Like Fujimori in Peru, DD could simply declare martial law and assume dictatorial powers.

That’s what the dummies who voted for RAE have accomplished.   ##

* * *

RELEVANT EMAIL

FROM SONS OF AFRIKA (SOA)

Subject: [soa] GORE WON ! - Bush is "Mr. Fraudulency"
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 13:29:10 -0000
From: "Ahmad " <soa1@juno.com>
To: soa@egroups.com  

The following is text of an article from The GUARDIAN Dec. 24, 2000

GORE WON FLORIDA BY OVER 23,000 VOTES

sons of afrika central command  ministry of information

Now it's unofficial: Gore did win Florida

Ed Vulliamy in New York
Sunday December 24, 2000
The Observer

As George W. Bush handed further key government posts to hardline Republican right-wingers, an unofficial recount of votes in Florida appeared to confirm that Bush lost the US presidential election.

Despite the decision by the US Supreme Court to halt the Florida recount in the contested counties, American media organisations, including Knight Ridder - owner of the Miami Herald - have commissioned their own counts, gaining access to the ballots under Freedom of Information legislation. The result so far, with the recounting of so-called 'undervotes' in only one county completed by Friday night, indicates that Al Gore is ahead by 140 votes.

Florida's 25 electoral college votes won Bush the presidency by two seats last Monday after the Supreme Court refused to allow the counting of 45,000 discarded votes. But as the media recount was suspended for Christmas, the votes so far tallied in Lake and Broward counties have Gore ahead in the race for the pivotal state, and hence the White House.

Gore's lead is expected to soar when counting resumes in the New Year and Miami votes are counted. In a separate exercise, the Miami Herald commissioned a team of political analysts and pollsters to make a statistical calculation based on projections of vote by county, concluding that Gore won the state by 23,000.

The media initiative is likely to bedevil Bush in the weeks to come, thickening the pall of illegitimacy that will hang over his inauguration on 20 January.

It has already led to a face-off between almost all the news media organisations in the state and Bush's presidential team. In the most extreme example of the Bush camp's desperation to avoid a recount, the new director of the Environment Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, has proposed that the Florida ballots be sealed for 10 years.

Bush's spokesman Tucker Eskew dismissed the recount as 'mischief-making' and 'inflaming public passions' while his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, accused the papers of 'trying to rewrite history'.

Meanwhile, Bush made his boldest ideological statement yet with the appointment of John Ashcroft as Attorney General.

The appointment is especially significant, because as head of the Justice Department Ashcroft would be the man to bring any felony charges against President Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair.   During the scandal, Ashcroft's was among the loudest and shrillest voices for impeachment.

There have been many calls to President-elect Bush to pardon his predecessor as a sign of peace, but he made a point of rejecting them.

Ashcroft lost his Missouri Senate seat to the widow of the state's popular Democrat governor, Mel Carnahan. From the family of a Pentecostal minister, he is an outspoken social conservative and an ally of the extremist Pat Robertson.

Ashcroft represents a host of militant committees and activist groups, of which the Christian Coalition is most prominent. He is an opponent not only of abortion but even - as he said in one speech – of dancing.

                               Guardian Unlimited © Guardian

Newspapers Limited 2000  

* * *

FROM RITA DOVE

Subject: COURT OF LAST RESORT
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 13:02:46 -0500
From: "Rita Dove" <Erato@prodigy.net>
To: "Fred Viebahn" <FVIEBAHN@prodigy.net>

A couple of days ago -- Wednesday night -- Rita and I attended our last White House dinner in a while, a bittersweet farewell to a grand time, with lots of cheers and tears.  In the end, out in the huge tent on the South Lawn, the Master (Clinton) took the baton from the Maestro (Leonard Slatkin) and conducted the National Symphony Orchestra with "Stars and Stripes Forever" himself -- he actually knew how to do it, and did a good job. Afterwards we burned up the floor in the East Room until 1 AM.

But here are the latest news, on a lighter note, just forwarded from a friend who works for the administration right next to the White House:

BREAKING NEWS: GOD OVERRULES SUPREME COURT VERDICT

Bush to be smitten later today

In a stunning development this morning, God invoked the "one nation, under God" clause of the Pledge of Allegiance to overrule last week's Supreme Court decision that handed the White House to George Bush.

"I'm not sure where the Supreme Court gets off," God said this morning on a rare Today Show appearance, "but I'm sure as hell not going to lie back and let Bush get away with this bullshit."

"I've watched analysts argue for weeks now that the exact vote count in Florida will never be known.' Well, I'm God and I DO know exactly who voted for whom. Let's cut to the chase: Gore won Florida by exactly 20,219 votes."

Shocking political analysts and pundits, God's unexpected verdict overrules the official Electoral College tally and awards Florida to Al Gore, giving him a 289-246 victory. The Bush campaign is analyzing God's Word for possible grounds for appeal.

"God's ruling is a classic over-reach," argued Bush campaign strategist Jim Baker. "Clearly, a divine intervention in a U.S. Presidential Election is unprecedented, unjust, and goes against the constitution of the state of Florida."

"Jim Baker's a jackass," God responded. "He's got some surprises ahead of him, let me tell you. HOT ones, if you know what I mean."

God, who provided the exact vote counts for every Florida precinct, explained that bad balloting machinery and voter confusion were no grounds to give the White House to "a friggin' idiot."

"Look, only 612 people in Palm Beach County voted for Buchanan. Get real!

The rest meant to vote for Gore. Don't believe me? I'll name them: Anderson, Pete; Anderson, Sam, Jr.; Arthur, James; Barnhardt, Ron..."

Our Lord then went on to note that he was displeased with George W. Bush's prideful ways and announced that he would officially smite him today. In an act of wrath unlike any reported since the Book of Job, God has taken all of Bush's goats and livestock, stripped him of his wealth and possessions, sold his family into slavery, forced the former presidential candidate into hard labor in a salt mine, and afflicted him with deep boils. Dick Cheney will reportedly receive leprosy.  ##  

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