Saturday, Jan. 6. In today's joint session of Congress, no Democratic Party Senator was willing to co-sign a document with Dem Rep. Deutsch of Florida to the effect that the meeting lacked a quorum, which was the case, thus allowing Congress to accept the votes of the Electoral College indicating Bush had won the election for president. Later, no Democratic Senator was willing to co-sign a document challenging the legitimacy of the Florida electoral vote. During the campaign, Ralph Nader claimed there was no difference between Republicans and Democrats, and Bush Watch plans to keep score on key issues to determine if he was right. Protesting Congress' acceptance of the Electoral College vote was such an issue, and Nader has been proven right. The most obvious future key issue will be the congressional approval of Bush nominee John Ashcroft. --Politex, Saturday, January 6, 2001, 1:30 p.m.

Note...Go here for our position on Nader.

Today, January 6th, a joint session of Congress meets to review Presidential electors and finalize the election. This review occurs without debate, unless one House member and one Senate member challenges electors. Although the result is certain, we believe this debate must take place, for the health of our system. Several House members have agreed to challenge, but as of yet no member of the Senate has stepped forward. Al Gore really won Florida, not George W. Bush. Also, under the 12th Amendment, Bush has no legal right to the Texas electors because Cheney is an inhabitant of Texas. Please join several House Democrats in challenging Florida's illegal electors on January 6. We call upon all citizens to call and/or visit the offices of their representatives, urging Congress to challenge and then to reject Florida's electors and also to reject Texas' electors. We are calling on Congress to challenge the award of Florida's 25 electoral votes for George W. Bush and also to challenge the award of Texas' electoral votes for George W. Bush. Congress will meet on Saturday January 6th at 1 p.m. Under constitutional procedures established more than 100 years ago, the electoral votes of any state may be challeged by any member of the House of Representatives in conjunction with any member of the Senate. The challenge requires that each house debate and decide by majority vote. More about this campaign to reject Florida's electors as well as a reporting of the evidence gathered so far is available here. The facts behind Cheney's Texas inhabitance are summarized here and documented and described at length below. --Politex, Saturday Jan. 6, 2001.

A SENATOR IS NEEDED TO CHALLENGE. If you don't have a Democratic Senator please call the following progressive Senators (all area 202): Wellstone (224-5641), Boxer (224-3553), Harkin (224-3254), Kennedy (224- 4543), Schumer (224-6542), Mikulski (224-4654), Feingold (224-5323).

State Member DC Phone District Phone
AR: Blanche Lambert Lincoln 202-224-4843 501-375-2993
CA: Dianne Feinstein 202-224-3841 619-231-9712
CA: Barbara Boxer 202-224-3553 415-403-0100
CT: Christopher Dodd 202-224-2823 860-240-3470
CT: Joseph Lieberman 202-224-4041 860-549-8463
DE: Joseph Biden 202-224-5042 302-573-6345
DE: Tom Carper 202-224-2441
FL: Bob Graham 202-224-3041 305-536-7293
FL: Bill Nelson 202-224-5274
GA: Joseph Maxwell Cleland 202-224-3521 404-331-4811
GA: Zell Miller 202-224-3643 404-347-2202
HI: Daniel Inouye 202-224-3934 808-541-2542
HI: Daniel Kahikina Akaka 202-224-6361 808-522-8970
IA: Tom Harkin 202-224-3254 515-284-4574
IL: Richard Durbin 202-224-215 2217-492-4062
IN: B. Evan Bayh 202-224-562 3317-554-0750
LA: John Breaux 202-224-4623 504-589-2531
LA: Mary Landrieu 202-224-5824 504-589-2427
MA: Edward M. Kennedy 202-224-4543 617-565-3170
MA: John Forbes Kerry 202-224-2742 617-565-8519
MD: Paul Sarbanes 202-224-4524 410-962-4436
MD: Barbara Mikulski 202-224-4654 301-263-1805
MI: Carl Levin 202-224-6221 313-226-6020
MI: Debbie Stabenow 202-224-4822
MN: Paul David Wellstone 202-224-5641 651-645-0323
MN: Mark Dayton 202-224-3244
MO: Jean Carnahan 202-224-6154
MT: Max Baucus 202-224-2651 406-329-3123
NC: John Edwards 202-224-3154 919-856-4245
ND: Kent Conrad 202-224-2043 701-232-8030
ND: Byron Dorgan 202-224-2551 701-250-4618
NE: Ben Nelson 202-224-6551
NJ: Robert Torricelli 202-224-3224 973-624-5555
NJ: Jon Corzine 202-224-4744
NM: Jeff Bingaman 202-224-5521 505-988-6647
NV: Harry Reid 202-224-3542 775-885-9111
NY: Charles Schumer 202-224-6542 212-486-4430
NY: Hillary Clinton 202-224-4451
OR: Ron Wyden 202-224-5244 503-326-7525
RI: John F. 'Jack' Reed 202-224-4642 401-943-3100
SC: Ernest Hollings 202-224-6121 803-765-5731
SD: Thomas Daschle 202-224-2321 605-225-8823
SD: Tim P. Johnson 202-224-5842 605-332-8896
VT: Patrick Leahy 202-224-4242 802-863-2525
WA: Patty Murray 202-224-2621 206-553-5545
WA: Maria Cantwell 202-224-3441
WI: Herbert Kohl 202-224-5653 414-297-4451
WI: Russ Feingold 202-224-5323 608-828-1200
WV: Robert Byrd 202-224-3954 304-342-5855
WV: Jay Rockefeller 202-224-6472 304-347-5372

To find your Representative, use this Guide to Congress: http://congress.nw.dc.us/dem/congdir.html

With only two days left before the Electoral College votes are officially accepted by a joint session of Congress, it is incumbent upon all freedom-loving Americans to get the Democrats in Congress and the Democratic National Committee to pull their heads out of the corporate controlled major media fog and do as the people whom they serve demand: Reject Florida's 25 stolen electoral votes. We received word last night that the DNC is not publicly endorsing the people's protests over the way George W. Bush and his cohorts stole the presidential election, but are cheering us on from behind the curtain. This is an outrage!

And now this from someone who sought to get Senator Tom Harkin to join with a House member in objecting to Florida's electoral votes: "I just got off the phone with a rep at Sen. Harkin's office. I went into my Election From Hell 2000 spiel when I mentioned that Gore was leading the media recount [in Florida]. "The woman stopped me dead in my tracks and asked me how did I know this. I told her (somewhat incredulously) that it's being reported all over the Internet, at web sites like Salon.com and by Florida newspapers in Tampa, Orlando, Palm Beach and the Miami Herald. "She again stopped me and asked about the mainstream media. Was it being reported there? I told her there was a blurb on Fox News two nights ago but for all intents and purposes, it was being buried, but right now Gore was leading and by the end, would clearly have won Florida by several thousand votes, if not more. "I think this is our problem. Our Democratic leadership is reluctant to challenge His Fraudulency because to them it looks like no one cares about the media recount. How could they care when they don't even know the facts themselves?"

In other words, the attitude of Harkin's, and who knows how many others, office is, if it isn't being reported by the "right" corporate controlled major media, it isn't happening. Well it is happening and just Online Journal's readership alone attests to the people's anger at having their country taken over by the Bushistas with the help of the Rehnquist Five. Our hits have gone from 614,952 in September to 1.01 million in October, to 1.9 million in November to a mind-boggling 2.7 million in December. Does that say something? (It says we should be looking for investors so we can pay some investigative reporters who will put the big boys to shame.) Americans are awakening to just what has been going on in their country for at least 40 years, while the Democrats in Congress, the state houses and the city councils have been trying to be more like Republicans. And now, just when we are on the verge of recovering from the Reagan-Bush years-in which, make no mistake about it, the Democratic majorities in Congress were complicit in helping Uncle Ronnie and Poppy Bush to tear the country down-the Democrats in Congress are signaling they plan to roll over for the GW Bush coup.

You have already heard conciliatory remarks from House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and even the man from whom the presidential election was stolen, Al Gore. Are we truly living in alternate universes or what? Is this Wonderland or the United States of America? Are the Greens right when they say the Democrats are no better than the Republicans? Are the Democrats wusses and wimps? Have they grown so fat and lazy that they don't give a damn about the people who elected them? Could it be that they have something to hide, because they played as loose and dirty as the Republicans? Whatever the reason, if they don't develop some backbone by 1 pm Saturday and stand up for the people, they no longer are deserving of our support. This election was stolen not just in Florida, but everywhere-and the truth is and will continue to come out, despite people like New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman who would lock up the ballots for at least eight years, and who, for her support of the illegitimate regime that plans to occupy the White House come Jan. 20, will be paid off, if it succeeds, with the directorship of the Environmental Protection Agency, her lack of qualifications notwithstanding. While the corporate controlled media kept the focus on Florida and had great sport with "hanging chad" and "pregnant chad," and "stupid" Jews in Palm Beach County, what wasn't being reported was that thousands upon thousands of African Americans everywhere had been systematically robbed of their votes; that ballots had been tampered with; that vote tabulating machines also may have been tampered with; that votes were cast in the names of deceased persons; that there was absentee ballot fraud.

Yet, despite all the efforts of the Bushistas-even their purchase of commercials for Ralph Nader-Al Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes and, when the Florida recount is finished, the Miami Herald estimates Gore will also have won Florida by 23,000 votes, which means he and not GW Bush is entitled to Florida's 25 electoral votes and the presidency. But now Gore is urging us to make nice-nice with the Bushistas, who went to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the recount and got their five ideological soul mates to spit on the people and turn the Constitution on its head in declaring GW Bush the winner-the Bushistas who now want to sweep their theft under the rug and lock up the evidence if they can, and install rabid fascists as heads of every federal government department and agency. Does Al think we have lost our collective minds? Have we learned nothing from the lessons of the Holocaust that we are eager to repeat them? We think not. The Democrats in Congress, along with five Republicans who put the people and the Constitution above party ideology, have one last opportunity to put an end to this nightmare. Let the word go out to them that if they fail to act, we shall not treat them kindly. Despite what the major media aren't telling them, we the people are outraged and energized, and we are not going to stand idly by while they aid an illegitimate regime in destroying us and everything this country stands for. --Online Journal, 1/5/01

The shell game is not over. It looks a lot like it's over. The Electoral College vote was taken on December 18, and now all that's left to do is for the Republicans and the your pundits to keep telling us to rally around their guy because, after all, he won. It doesn't matter that he didn't win fair and square, because he still got all the electoral votes he needs to be called POTUS (and, I suppose, the right to have the same embroidered on a nice new jacket). Plus, as we've all heard, we need "closure" on this thing that has happened. We need to "heal". The coup in Florida is complete, and it appears very little can be done to nullify the state's tainted electoral votes except to hope that some US Senator or Representative has the cajones - and enough of a conscience - to stand up on January 6th and challenge them. If one does this will buy exactly two hours of debate in whichever house the challenge is made before the final rubber-stamp certification can take place. But while we've all been dazzled by the stunning grab for power by Bush and Cheney in Florida, and distracted by their tortured logic about why the votes in Martin and Seminole Counties - that were clearly illegal - are legal, and why the under votes in Miami-Dade and Duval Counties - that were clearly legal - are illegal, be aware that the pea is still in play in this shell game.

The pea has changed, now. Instead of trying to hide votes in Florida, the Republicans are trying to muff their way past a problem that Bush and Cheney have with the Constitution. They'd have you believe that it is a small problem, and one that they had "handled" back in July. The little problem that the Bush/Cheney ticket has is with the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution, which says that the electors of a state may not cast their votes for two individuals who are inhabitants of the same state as they are. When Mr. Cheney was invited to have an audience with the dauphin-who-would-be-king last summer, to discuss the vice-presidency, they obviously anticipated a problem with the 12th Amendment. That's why we were all treated to news reports showing Cheney arriving in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to register as a voter there. It was to show us all that he's really from Wyoming, even though he lives in Dallas, and worked at Halliburton until he left to be Bush's running mate. Immediately after he registered, he got back on his plane, and returned to his Texas residence. I don't think he even stopped at his property in Jackson Hole to pee. This was supposed to convince us all that he's not a Texan anymore, but rather, he's from Wyoming. The Texas electors are all from Texas (duh). George W. Bush is and will remain a legal resident of Texas - even after he takes up squatters' rights at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Richard Cheney has been a legal resident of Texas since he moved there to take over Halliburton in 1995, the same year he bought his Highland Park residence. The ONLY thing he's done to show he's from Wyoming, not Texas, is to register to vote in Wyoming last July (although after the election he listed his house for sale, and was frightened into getting a Wyoming driver's license, too).

As property owners, and as legal residents of Texas, Mr. and Mrs. Cheney have filed their federal income taxes from there since 1995. They have registered and paid taxes on all but one of their vehicles there since 1995. Mr. Cheney was registered to vote there until this past summer, and Mrs. Cheney is STILL registered to vote in Texas (are they planning to separate?). Mr. Cheney changed his driver's license to Wyoming, which nullified his Texas license, but Mrs. Cheney has not surrendered her Texas drivers' license, nor applied for one from Wyoming (again, are they planning to separate?). Until after the election, the Cheneys had a standing request at the United States Post Office in Jackson Hole, Wyoming that any and all mail addressed to them be forwarded to their home in Texas. But, if all this isn't enough to convince someone that Mr. Cheney is not from Wyoming, there's more. The Cheneys also claimed what is called the General Homestead Exemption on their property taxes on their Highland Park home, starting in 1995, and up to November 30, 2000 when the sale of the home was closed. Having been licensed in the state of Texas as a real estate appraiser for 15 years, I can tell you for an absolute fact that Cheney's claiming the General Homestead Exemption in Texas, while also claiming that he's a Wyoming resident, is a pretty big deal. By Texas law, this exemption is not available to anyone who does not legally reside in Texas, or to anyone claiming a legal residence in any other state. Nor is it available on any property in Texas OTHER than the owners' legal domicile. Because Texas has no income tax, property taxes are pretty hefty. The General Homestead Exemption is a sort of "tax deduction" on your place of residence, which has the same effect as claiming dependents on your federal income taxes. If one is claiming residency in another state (say, Wyoming), and still claiming a General Homestead Exemption on his or her property in Texas, then one is breaking the law and evading Texas taxes, at the very least. Also with regard to taxes, it is very telling that Mr. Cheney has filed all of his federal income taxes since 1995 from Texas, where there is no state income tax. He has not paid any state income taxes in Wyoming since he bought his Texas dwelling. Not even on the $20 million that he got as a "going away" present from his friends at Halliburton, which they were not, in any way, required to give him, and which raises UNLIMITED questions about just what that $20 million will buy if Cheney is VP. (It makes Hillary's $8 million book deal look rather pitiful, doesn't it?) I guess if we want to give him the benefit of the doubt, we can assume he's made all required estimated tax payments to Wyoming for 2000, when he got the $20 million, based on that amount. But it surely does seem that Mr. Cheney wants us to believe that for tax purposes he lives in Texas, while for national election and constitutional purposes, he lives in Wyoming.

Richard and Lynne Cheney did not even list their Texas home for sale until the Bush campaign learned, after Election Day, that a suit was filed in an effort to block the Texas electors from voting for two Texans. The Cheneys were still claiming their Texas General Homestead Exemption at the time sale closed on November 30, fully four months after Mr. Cheney flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to register to vote there. If you would like a look at the tax record, it is still available at: http://www.dallascad.org/dcadres00.cfm?theKey=60084500240110000 But it gets better. From Wyoming's perspective, Mr. Cheney only got a "temporary voter registration" back in July, when he did his big photo-op trip there to become a Wyoming resident (not!). Wyoming statute requires that all information provided by a prospective voter/resident must be verified. This could not have happened, because if the information had been verified, Wyoming would have learned that Cheney was claiming his Texas home as his legal residence right up until the day he showed up in the elections office to register to vote. One cannot become a legal resident of WYOMING if one has been a legal resident of any other state within the 12 months prior. This means that when Dick Cheney gave us another photo-op, at the polls in Wyoming on Election Day, he was probably casting an illegal vote. (Mr. Cheney would not even qualify for a resident hunting license in Wyoming. Of course, I guess if he really needed one, Charleton Heston and his friends over at the NRA could get it for him - thus providing further "proof" of his residency.)

There have been three lawsuits filed with regard to this matter. The first was filed in Florida. This is the one that precipitated the listing of Cheney's Highland Park home for sale toward the end of November (well after Election Day) and probably the only reason he got a Wyoming driver's license. WHY it was filed there is anybody's guess. Maybe just the frenzy of the moment? As the (REPUBLICAN) judge properly pointed out, he had no jurisdiction over Texas electors. The second suit was filed in Fort Worth, on behalf of a Texas voter by a personal injury attorney named William K. Berenson. This suit was dismissed. The (REPUBLICAN) judge said that the plaintiff had no "credible evidence" that Dick Cheney was a legal resident of Texas. According to the (REPUBLICAN) judge, Dick Cheney was born and educated in Wyoming, and he served that state in Congress. To this (REPUBLICAN) judge, this was all the "evidence" that was needed to prove that Cheney is/was from Wyoming. What William K. Berenson didn't have, at the time, was the Dallas County Appraisal District's property tax record, showing that the Cheneys were claiming their Texas home as their legal residence. (As a real estate appraiser, I learned that ONLY people licensed by the State of Texas could operate as real estate agents or appraisers. The exception to this is that any licensed attorney in Texas, of any specialty, can also legally handle real estate transactions. This created the false impression in me that lawyers in Texas, of any specialty, are aware of real estate laws. Nothing could be further from the truth. NONE of the legal eagles involved in this mess, up to and including either of the Texas attorneys, or the Texas (REPUBLICAN) judges, seemed to be at all familiar with the General Homestead Exemption, it's implications, OR how easy it is to find out whether it has been claimed on a particular piece of property. Go figure.)

The third suit was a class action suit filed in Austin, Texas on November 29, 2000, in the US District Court, by Philadelphia attorney Philip J. Berg, on behalf of some Texas voters, and others from across the country. The total number of plaintiffs was somewhere around 1,900 the last time I checked. Mr. Berg had the property tax record, because I sent it to him. The complaint, and all of the motions, opinions etc. on this case are available at the website of the US District Court for Northern Texas http://www.txnd.uscourts.gov/mirror.htm under the heading "Notable Cases". The case is titled Jones v Bush. (REPUBLICAN) Judge, Sidney Fitzwater, stated in his opinion that the plaintiffs in the case could show no evidence that they would be harmed, personally, by the votes of the Texas electors. According to him, they had no standing. So, who DOES have standing when the Constitution is being subverted? That's what I'd like to know. Part of the evidence filed in this, the latest of these suits, includes an email from George W. Bush to...Linda Starr. Ms Starr had apparently sent him a copy of an amicus brief filed in the Florida case described above that panicked Cheney into listing his house and getting a Wyoming drivers' license. In the brief, it was erroneously stated that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were both from Florida. Here's what W had to say about that: In a message dated 11/19/00 12:06:58 PM Central Standard Time, texas@georgewbush.com writes: << Subj: Re: Our suit to challenge electoral votes for Texas Date: 11/19/00 12:06:58 PM Central Standard Time From: texas@georgewbush.com (Governor George W. Bush) Reply-to: texas@georgewbush.com To: Shootingstarr4u@aol.com Linda, I am no lawyer but I think this Amicus Brief has cited the wrong state for which Bush and Cheney reside. It keeps saying the STATE OF FLORIDA!!!!!!! Bush and Cheney reside in the STATE OF TEXAS! Help! Shootingstarr4u@aol.com wrote: > Click > here: IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR > > Here's what we filed in Florida as "Friends of the Court" in an Amicus Brief, > joining another suit already in progress. Just thought you'd like to see it > for yourselves. > Comments? Questions? This is clearly "evidence", not to mention an "admission against interest", by one of the defendants in this lawsuit. But (REPUBLICAN) Judge Fitzwater apparently isn't bothered by it, because no one is being harmed, PERSONALLY. Funny, isn't it, now it seems that REPUBLICAN judges are only bothered by harm if it's perceived to be happening to their guy? Is that what makes it "personal"?

Judge Fitzwater granted the defendants' (Bush and Cheney) motion to dismiss, without prejudice. The case was sent on appeal to the US Supreme Court, where the plaintiffs requested a speedy hearing. I guess the five (REPUBLICAN) Justices were all just plum tuckered out after their stunningly illogical decision, which anointed W as the President-select. They said they couldn't possibly consider the case until January 10th, four days after Congress is supposed to ratify the Electoral College votes. Quelle suprise! So, the pea is still under the shell, and all that remains is for someone to stand up, and shout - LOUD - "There it is!!!" If we don't, the Republican coup d'etat WILL be complete and final. After all, in all three cases, REPUBLICAN judges have refused to look at, or see, the further subversion of the US Constitution by the rabid right. The press has largely ignored this whole matter. The only mentions of it I have heard on the news outlets have been dismissed by the pundits, just as the Republicans' talking points called for them to do. They bought the Bush/Cheney spin on the situation - "It's no big deal" - like the good little sheep the Republicans want them to be. But it is a big deal. It's a VERY BIG DEAL. And, it's even a VERY, VERY BIG DEAL when you consider what they're trying to do here along side what they have already done in Florida. --Anne.

by Jerry Politex

I drove my silver Audi down Mesa Drive, the spine of Cat Mountain, hung a left at the cat's tail, drove quickly up the hilly, winding 2222 in low gear, took a right onto Balcones Drive, and came to a stop in the rear parking lot of Chez Zee.

Another sunny, warm early spring day in Northwest Austin, Texas. The lunch crowd was pretty much thinned out by now, so I had choices of parking spaces. I got out of the car, the turbines winding down, and stood by the rear entrance to the restaurant, a pretty-good place for not very expensive Southwestern food. I didn't have long to wait.

He came into the parking lot in an old, rattletrap Nissan pickup. Paint worn off in places, rusty, dusty, squeaky. I recognized him from the description the moment he got out. Looked to be in his fifties. Grizzled. Kind of rusty, dusty, and squeaky. A stringbean of a guy with pale white skin, reddish hair, which was short but unkempt. He was wearing a black polo shirt with the tail out. Denim shorts that had shrunk to a tight fit over his bony hips, short enough for the front pockets to stick out of the frayed cuffs. A pair of old, once-white but now gray, paint-spattered tennis sneakers. Austin casual for a yuppie restaurant, ten minutes from the glass buildings of the city's burgeoning silicon gulch , a world of high tech hopes in buildings springing up like overnight mushrooms.

"Name's Wayne," he said with a crooked, good-natured smile, coming across the parking lot with his arm outstreatched like a spear, eager to shake my hand. "Recognized you right away, Politex. Good description."

...click here to continue the novel.

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