NeoConservative=NeoFascist

If you don’t think the Neoconservative Party is planning to steal our votes in the next election, you are either crazy, asleep, or a card-carrying member of Bush’s wealthiest 1%.

Here are two newspaper articles: one from the national level (The New York Times), and another from the local level (The Seattle Times). The Press must gather this information at the local level in order to verify perhaps a planned subverting of our votes in the next election for national office. The groundwork for this malfeasance is being laid right now, with the apathetic complicity and naïve belief that so-called Neoconservatives really do have the best interests of America and her citizens at heart. We are learning on a daily, and almost hourly, basis that this premise of altruism does not apply to the so-called elected officials currently in office.

Our country continues to be at dire risk of an unnamable future approaching tyranny, despotism, and for which the closest parallel is Nazi Germany prior to the intervention of the worlds’ armies in the conflagration of World War II.

A search of local news events and reporting of this ‘reckless’ restructuring of the voter roles, and the gathering of these local events into a cohesive national pattern might go a long way toward awakening the slumbering electorate before it becomes too late to correct the course of fascist leanings in our current leaders.

The time approaches for hysteria. The time approaches for putting ones personal reputation on the line; to step forward and raise our voices as loudly as possible to change these events peacefully before the only avenues left to us are roads labeled ‘terrorist’ (anyone who disagrees with Bush’s Neoconservative agenda, according to the Patriot Act). It is time for our national leaders to step forward before dissent results in unplanned travel to a secret prison in another country.

All the elements are in place for America to become the latest Nazi Germany. That’s just this grandmother’s opinion.

Take heed.

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November 20, 2005

Editorial

Congress's Quiet Holiday Plans

For all the shambles Congress has made of this year's public agenda, the reigning politicians of Washington are diligently attending to their own private wish list, which emphasizes ever greater protections for incumbents like themselves.

Waiting like a ship in the night for a quick, opportunistic vote is a Republican proposal that could devastate existing campaign controls by allowing politicians to collude with big-check donors from corporations, unions and lobbying blocs to finance unlimited amounts of campaign ads on the Internet. This would signal the return to unregulated soft-money politicking that a wiser and warier Congress outlawed three years ago.

As House leaders wait for some hurried moment to pounce, an even stealthier tactic is in the works. President Bush is reportedly planning to use recess appointments to restock the Federal Election Commission - the supposed regulator of politicians - with a fresh array of reliable wheel horses from both parties. This would continue the panel's notorious reputation for enabling, not controlling, campaign abuses. And it would happen beyond public notice.

A more courageous Congress would demand an open forum and strong regulators. But leaders from the two parties are reported to be selecting loyalists with no threatening streaks of independence. One rumored Republican appointee to the six-member panel is a veteran of the political machine of Representative Tom DeLay, the former majority leader charged with campaign abuses.

Democratic leaders, no less cunning, are reportedly unwilling to reappoint Scott Thomas, the F.E.C. chairman who has dissented valiantly from the commission's repeated pro-incumbent bending of the rules.

The current F.E.C. had to be stopped by a court ruling from empowering soft money by exempting the Internet from all campaign controls. The waiting House bill would overrule that court's defense of the campaign law. The bill should be spiked in favor of the proposal of Representative Martin Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, to ban the soft-money plague from the Internet. His bill carefully protects the free-speech rights of individual bloggers, even those who choose to incorporate. They remain free to speak out - and we hope some of them use their forums to attack the power plays that Congress keeps concocting to protect itself.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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Sunday, November 20, 2005 - 12:00 AM

Editorial

Sloppy work taints GOP voter challenge

The King County Elections Office ought to be held accountable — by people who know what they are doing.

The King County Republican Party's challenge of nearly 2,000 voters was tainted by embarrassingly sloppy research. The GOP stunt inconvenienced scores of legitimate voters. State law allows for a challenge of a voter's registration based on legitimacy of a residential address. It should not be a dart game conducted by partisans who don't understand geographical designations of target areas.

Consider Jeffrey Weber and Lisa Christoffersen, who are registered to vote in West Seattle. They live at 2311 45th Ave. S.W. A UPS Store, the kind of business Republicans are focusing on, is located at 2311 N. 45th St., in Wallingford. Oops, sorry, just kidding.

This mistake was repeated too many times, including outrageous cross-referencing of voters living at 320 Cedar St., in Seattle's Belltown. Apparently, researchers mismatched that with a storage complex at a similar address in Forks, Clallam County, many miles away.

Republicans withdrew this challenge but it reflects the reckless nature of their exercise.
Most Republican challenges seem legitimate. State law says a voter has to provide an accurate residential address, and generally that would not include a mailbox-business address.

During the 2004 governor's election, Republicans bristled when King County elections officials announced their vote tallying was 99-percent accurate. Not good enough, they said. Republican research by contrast is estimated to be less than 90-percent accurate.

Using the GOP's own standard, its work is unacceptable. The threshold for revoking someone's cherished right to vote ought to be high, not low.

Some voters haggled a long time at the polls or spent time on the phone clearing their name and address. Others threw their hands in the air in disgust and did not bother voting.

Challenging voter registration is fair game. But launching willy-nilly challenges without checking and double-checking facts undermines voter confidence and makes Republicans look like chumps.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company