Why does the whole rest of the world know that Bush stole the election,
but the Americans get to be kept in the dark about it?

I wonder why investors are pulling money out of the US.
Mr. Bush has only seriously embarrassed our country about four times in the last week.
As well as talking down the economy into a sell off.
The man's Residency is cursed, no doubt about it.
I don't care *how* lucky he is supposed to be.

There should be a "Gate" Topic devoted to Voter Scam Gate. Cheat Gate.
Whatever it is people want to call it.

Interfering with an election by a government official is a crime punishable by a $10,000 fine or
one year in jail. There are many that should be prosecuted.

Why isn't Katherine Harris being fined for hiring a private consulting firm for $4 million of taxpayers
dollars (as reported by the BBC and all over Europe) in order that 60,000 voters should
be taken off the roles for being identified as felons. The error rate was 95%? The people
so disenfranchised Democrats and Blacks. Why isn't John Sweeney of NY being prosecuted for
shouting, "shut it down" and intimidating the people counting the votes in Dade county?
Why are the men and women who were aides to Tom Delay, who were flown to FL on a
paid vacation to pose as grass roots citizens and behave a thugs not being prosecuted?

The SCOTUS and the Republicans overthrew our Democracy and to get it back they must be impeached:

This must not be covered up. Nor can it be in the long run. Bush must be thrown out of office. And this is a major
argument for that end. The corruption of the electoral process; his indifference to it and his shamelessly benefiting
from it. And allowing his friends to benefit from it.

I believe the Justices of the SC were acting cynically and consciously to do whatever it took
to ensure Bush's election. To imagine anything else stretches my credulity. Scalia was "unconsciously"
making sure he's to become Chief Justice? That's funny.

He based his career on "State's rights" and "Judicial restraint" What a joke!
What fools people are now to take them seriously.

I believe that the Press is intimidated by the Far Right Repubs who jump up and down and scream "Law"
and meanwhile subvert it. Where does the Law reside? Not in the pronouncements of a corrupt judiciary.
Not in the actions of pompous Justices who impose their own will by technical and arbitrary rules.

Justice Scalia argued that the court was acting to protect the legitimacy of a Bush victory. But the Court's
decision damaged Bush's legitimacy (not to mention to its own) much more than anything else they could
possibly have done.

It's obvious that the action of Scalia was to make sure Bush had a Presidency. He mentioned "legitimacy
of his election," - - as if such an election existed, which it did not under FL law at that time.

Scalia lies.

By backing up Bush's claim: that Bush had been "elected," he repeated a lie. He gave substance to a lie. He just
made up Law. The "legitimacy" smokescreen was just a "claim." Scalia knew damn well there would never
be any "legitimacy" to what Scalia did except as he  writes the Law and therefore Bush's claim is bona
fide if Scalia pronounces it so, by definition. He didn't care. He's taken his gloves off. That's why people are
rightly frightened.

Supposedly Chief Justice Rehnquist and his colleagues had hoped that history would remember them well.
They would have liked that. But not as much as they liked to make sure Bush got into power. Power is more important.
That's the name of the game. If they honestly cared more about how they'd be remembered, they
wouldn't have done this. Ruling the country is a more important to them than what anyone thinks.

The SCOTUS deliberately setup a no win situation for Gore. And they naturally tried in the hearing of
the oral arguments to pretend to be fair. And they had the boldness to have demanded of Boies that
he tell them what is a fair standard for the re-count. But neither he, nor us, nor they, could go back in time.
And they knew that. And they had the boldness to claim it was an issue of "equal protection."
Straight out of  the book _Animal Farm_ it is:

"Your vote is not being thrown out like those of other unfortunates;
We must remedy that.

We are not protecting you adequately.
We must throw out your vote so all can be equally protected"

It's not "equal protection" but "pretend protection and equally arbitrary disenfranchisement." They can't give you your vote
back because that is not fair to the people who's vote were suppressed or who's votes got lost? But they are naming it
"Protection?" Who exactly are they protecting? Only Bush was named.

How can anyone believe their goodwill after what they did? They had the brazenness to demand Boies tell them how to
repair it? After it was a fait accompli! They would've liked to have gotten themselves off the hook. But after all, it was
too late for that. That's why Scalia was all smiles.

Our institutions are the sum of the people who inhabit them. If the standard goes down, I see now,
the body politic gets weak. The weakness doesn't erupt into sickness necessarily right away.
But December 12th we crossed that line into sickness.

If the sanctity of the governmental Institutions are not upheld - -
And I don't mean because of something as minor as a blowjob;
If the Institutions are not protected, the country is prone then to increasing violations.
Then the ultimate value of those Institutions will become zero or less.

An article on the Supremes I read recently detailed that it was the respect of the SC Institution and the delicacy with
which that respect was held that kept the two swing Justices from overturning Roe vs. Wade. Maybe that is part of
Scalia's motive in destroying the reputation of the court at home and in the rest of the world. He is a Roman Catholic
and his loyalties are obviously with overturning Roe v. Wade for his God and for his Church.

He is an operative for the Republican Religious Right, not a jurist. He has proved that. The Court is sullied now,
so there is no reason for anyone to uphold it's any reputation anymore. The masks are off. The green curtain is
pulled back from the racist wizard from AZ [Congressional testimony about Rehnquist's intimidation of minority voters
is at http://www.thenation.com/special/20010101rehnquist.mhtml]  and pulled back from the smug and faux fancy
cohorts who voted with him. And now Scalia can get his way. No one will persuade  O 'Connor and Kennedy to
hold back from Roe because of  fear to harm the Institution of the court. There is no more reputation.

The SCOTUS' respectability is now a pretentious charade. Every one of Nino Scalia's opinions is now rendered questionable. His judgment is proven by this to be worse than poor. It's proven to be completely arbitrary. In fact, the ruling is probably illegal because Thomas didn't recuse himself (it broke the law that his wife will benefit from the decision because of her job "headhunting" for the Enterprise Institute. Rehnquist's involvement was illegal because two of his sons work for a law firm that work for Bush. And Scalia broke the Law because *his son works for Olson*)

Why are no investigations being done of this?
These three broke an actual law. It's not some trumped up insinuation.
They do not care about the law. They are seriously dangerous.
They only care about power.

What they have done is worse than breaking some rule in a bid for a Faustian freedom, since Faust at least made a barter. What they did is betrayal - - of our American values. They threw away our Democracy so they could, in what they pretend
to be their superior wisdom but is in fact their job as operatives for the Radical Republican Party, decide on what would
be our government. SCOTUS 5 betrayed those values upon which our Country was founded.

Our tradition here *was* that of the Enlightenment. The Tradition is that the settlers came here to escape and avoid the arbitrary rule of those in power. Our Government was constructed in particular to avoid the arbitrary rule of power.
The remedy in order for us to return to our original form of government, determined by the rules of that form of government,
is to Impeach and remove Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas.

I call for this here and now.

If this is not done our Democracy is in peril.

The betrayal of the American people and the American tradition
by this Supreme Court and by the ultra right factions of the
Republican party I am afraid can never breed happiness or
anything good. It is based upon hubris. George Bush's highhanded
actions and disregard for the people of this Country is based
upon the disenfranchisement of elderly Jews and Blacks and
millions who voted for the better, the more qualified, and the
smarter man. No good can ever come from that.

I shiver for our beautiful Lady Democracy; 224 years old. But way
too young anyhow to face murder. She is supposed to be
immortal. In our lifetimes, we will never know her immortality
for she died for us December 12th. I never knew how much
I truly and keenly loved her. In case you didn't guess I curse
Nino Scalia. And will do so each day of my life.

-Daisy Vining
  vasudha@well.com