Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Newsy Notes from the Lynne Stewart Persecution
Today was sort of a Little Big Horn for the Custer-prosecution. They weren't as pummled by arrows as Custer - it was more like they had pebbles thrown at them until they were out of the saddle, in a hole and having desert sand pelted over their half dead corpses by the tribe's children.
I had the bad luck to miss the exciting a.m. portion. I thought there would be a long bit of bickering over this dumb FOX News snippet so I dawdled in late. Evidently I missed a great bit of oratorical dec by Lynne Stewart. Cr*p - so read official transcripts when they come out for Nov. 11. Should be posted in a day or so.
The prosecution has a new tack. Since most schemes have gone the way of Ralph Kramdon get-rick-quick schemes they have a new one. This one is to try and make it appear that she is not after all the lead attorney for the blind Shiek's appeal to return to Egyptian custody. She is in fact a radical Mata-Hari. She only pretends to be a big shot attorney but is really sneaking 'messages' into the Shiek and sneaking out calls to violence, mayhem and ship sinking. She uses the ruse of lawyer to accomplish this and to PROVE it they have this sort of a rider onto a SAMS document (or some paper similar) that got faxed for use by colleagues. And since she doesn't have familiarity with this item the jury can slyly conclude that she ain't on top of much in her office (the high power Commie law office with the big budget for those Lear jets to Minn.) -- and MUST be Mata Hari. Any real lawyer would memorize every document in the office as well as every news clipping. To drive home the point the prosecution stalled on this point and asked the same thing over and over.
OK so they drove that one home like Bush Jr. talking about Saddam and WMDs.
Then Stewart team rests and defence of Mr. Sattar starts. Now he had earlier legal translation work with the Shiek than Stewart. He worked with Ramsey Clark. So defence called the Texan in to testify. He went to the witness stand and seemed unassuming. At 76 he had some problems with his hearing aid and he didn't respond with tv crime show dramamatics. But when asked about his biography and he described his being Assist. Attorney General in the 60's and his early work assuring the safety of the Selma vote marchers you could hear a pin drop! This, days after the stolen election that still shames us all. He went slowly on about his official duties and career ascent. Then he talked about social justice concerns etc. He gave more info about going to Cairo and they displayed photos of him, the defendant, Mr. Sattar and the Sheik's family members in a homey setting which adds a 'face' to the days of wire-tap tapes about family letters read to the Sheik. And asked about his professional association later with Lynne Stewart on the blind Sheik legal cause he said she was a colleague and more like the team leader. Pow! Custer fell =thunk= out of the saddle.
Ah. Sweet.
Like a Reggie Jackson homerun.
Team Leader.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Ground Zero suicide follows post-election despair
A man fatally shot himself at Ground Zero of the World Trade Centre in New York, and friends believe the tragic suicide was a political protest against President George W Bush's re-election and the war in Iraq.
The body of Andrew Veal, 25, a university research worker from the southern state of Georgia who was engaged to be married, was found on the site of the September 11 terror attacks yesterday morning, his family and officials said.
Veal didn't leave a note, but those who knew the sensitive young man said he sent a grim message by choosing to end his life where almost 3,000 people perished.
"I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," said Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the University of Georgia survey research lab. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic."
"I see it as a political statement," agreed co-worker Stacey Sutherland. "He was so opposed to the war."
When Veal failed to show up at work on Wednesday, his pals assumed he was upset that Bush had beaten John Kerry in the race for the White House and was taking a few days off.
"We figured he was just devastated," Mauney said.
But fears for his safety grew when he didn't returns calls from his mother and his fiancee, an Iowa college student who was supposed to meet him in Seattle this weekend for a family wedding.
Hope turned to heartache yesterday when Veal's body was found. He had a head wound and police recovered a shotgun nearby.
"Andy was so anti-violence, I can't even see him holding a gun," Sutherland said.
Mauney said that other than the war and the election, she didn't know what might have been troubling Veal.
"I told his mother there are some people so sensitive and intelligent and passionate they don't belong in the world the way it is today," she said.
A man fatally shot himself at Ground Zero of the World Trade Centre in New York, and friends believe the tragic suicide was a political protest against President George W Bush's re-election and the war in Iraq.
The body of Andrew Veal, 25, a university research worker from the southern state of Georgia who was engaged to be married, was found on the site of the September 11 terror attacks yesterday morning, his family and officials said.
Veal didn't leave a note, but those who knew the sensitive young man said he sent a grim message by choosing to end his life where almost 3,000 people perished.
"I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," said Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the University of Georgia survey research lab. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic."
"I see it as a political statement," agreed co-worker Stacey Sutherland. "He was so opposed to the war."
When Veal failed to show up at work on Wednesday, his pals assumed he was upset that Bush had beaten John Kerry in the race for the White House and was taking a few days off.
"We figured he was just devastated," Mauney said.
But fears for his safety grew when he didn't returns calls from his mother and his fiancee, an Iowa college student who was supposed to meet him in Seattle this weekend for a family wedding.
Hope turned to heartache yesterday when Veal's body was found. He had a head wound and police recovered a shotgun nearby.
"Andy was so anti-violence, I can't even see him holding a gun," Sutherland said.
Mauney said that other than the war and the election, she didn't know what might have been troubling Veal.
"I told his mother there are some people so sensitive and intelligent and passionate they don't belong in the world the way it is today," she said.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Franklin County, Ohio has tens of thousands of absentee ballots to count
Franklin County, Ohio is where Columbus [pop 711,470] is which the home of Ohio State University. Because of the large student body there are lots of absentee ballots. I worked for the voter outreach to young voters and students via
VoteMob and
Downtown for Democracy (D4D) for a few days last week and I worked with data from new registration records. Move On and numerous election protection organizations and local organizations were doing similar work with their own staff and volunteers.
Readers should know that last Sunday the Columbus Dispatch reported huge numbers, the largest amount in Ohio electoral history had been submitted.
See 53,000 seek absentee ballots.
The elections board had issued about 53,000 applications for absentee ballots as of Friday, said Matthew Damschroder, board of elections director.
That eclipses the previous record of about 30,000 applications issued in the 2000 election, he said.
Ohio allows these ballots up to the last minute and they have easy to use
internet tools to download forms. The last day to submit an absentee ballot was noon Oct. 30th.
As students often move and sometimes vote using their parents address and not their dormitory or other housing many choose to ensure their vote counts by submitting and absentee ballot. The young voters had great outreach by the local and out of state volunteers. There were extra efforts to contact them individually to dispel voting procedure lies being spread by flyer and other means by Republican operatives. Student voter dissuasion tactics including telling potential voters they would loose their student insurance if they put an address on the ballot that didn't match the insurance records. The lie campaign varied from the clever, varied and convincing or plain pathetic. However, thanks to us the rumors were quickly corrected. I cannot stress how many Vote Mob/D4D people were there to do this. As I left Saturday many from our bus stayed on and twice our busload were arriving from New York to replace us.
Provisional ballots were available at each polling place in case of new address problems etc.. Voters were not just sent home if they went to their nearest polling place but records showed their less recent address. Many students move more than once a year and there will be many provisional ballots (ballots filled out on election day but in need of qualification). Republicans planned to place operatives in big numbers in each polling place to challenge provisional ballots as they know large votes equals a Kerry victory. The Ohio judiciary quashed this scheme in advance so these ballots should not have been interfered with. The mobility of the students in this college town should not prohibit them from voting and it did not hinder outreach efforts to urge them to vote.
The Ohio newspapers and news media did a great job of pointing out all different voting methods since the Republicans wanted to nix the provisionals. The local news media made extra efforts to explain the ballot choices in the last days of the campaign.
The Ohio ballot includes an anti-gay marriage proposal which energized the gay and lesbian community to work extra hard on the election.
There is good new information on the status of the Ohio vote count from
the Cleveland Plain Dealer blog.
I predict Franklin County will carry Kerry-Edwards by a good number of absentee and provisional votes.
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