Wednesday

Dear Republican:

GW Bush lost the national election and the election in Florida as well. But, not only did he lose, he benefited from an unprecedented and illegal series of actions, in Florida especially, but also in Tennessee and Washington, D.C.

Vincent Bugliosi's recent book, The Betrayal of America, outlines in vivid detail the extent to which the U.S. Supreme Court not only erred in throwing out the votes of 100 million plus citizens (the majority of which had voted for Gore), but also the extent to which their decision was malicious, illegal and even, yes, criminal. This is a big part of the picture of the Republican coup d'etat, but not the whole picture. Bugliosi's article None Dare Call It Treason gives the main argument on which the book is later based. For a complete listing of articles lambasting the Supreme Court's idiotic decision, including the denunciation of it by 600 plus law professors throughout the land, go to our complete collection here.

The USSC court's idiotic decision was a necessary, but not a sufficient, cause of the coup d'etat. Even before the election took place, tens of thousands of legal voters were illegally purged from the voting rolls by the Florida State Department, run by Katherine Harris under the aegis of Jeb Bush's government. A Database Technologies/Choicepoint Vice President has testified under oath TWICE that his company informed the State of Florida of the extent to which legal voters would be purged from the voting rolls, yet the Florida State Department decided to go ahead in any case. Further, exonerated felons who had served their time and had their citizenship rights restored in other states were illegally required to apply for clemency in Florida, to Jeb Bush's Clemency office. This was not the standard practice and was illegal, as several court cases made clear, cases of which Jeb Bush could not have been ignorant as they happened in his own state and ruled on his practice. Much of this can be found in Gregory Palast's great investigative journalistic work, and we've compiled a complete list here. If you don't like to read, we suggest you at least view Palast's BBC Newsnight broadcast, which ran nationally in Britain. While the national mainstream news carried this story in England, U.S. news consumers are, in the case of the vast majority, completely in the dark. The story was reiterated in the Nation by the Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist John Lantigua here.

Furthermore, the recent spate of articles on the recount confirms that at least 25,000 more voters voted for Gore, and even where ballots should not have been disqualified, a complete recount of all uncounted ballots would have given Gore the win. (See the story at USA Today.) While no intentional illegality is alleged in these areas yet, Theresa LePore's butterfly ballot design is highly suspect, as are the ballots in other counties. We know these ballots were illegal, yet to date, no one has suggested that criminal mischief was involved. While we were told that LePore is a Democrat, the fact is that she only became one to win an election. She has subsequently reverted to "independent," though her longest standing affiliation was Republican. For a list of other recount stories that confirm that Gore won, go to our recount page or our recount links. You should also see all the relevant articles currently on our front page .

Beyond illegality, systematic disenfranchisement disallowed poorer urban voters from recognizing errors, while wealthier, mostly white, northern and mostly Republican voters were warned by the machines when their ballots were invalid, and allowed to revote. (See USA Today article referred to above.)

The case is clear: Gore was the rightful winner not only of the nation, but of Florida. Bush was installed, not elected, and as such, he is not legitimate. His policies are rejected by the vast majority of Americans (66% in the last polls) and they are unfit for the world in its current condition. He is a retrogressive, arch right-wing fanatic who does not recognize nor represent the national will. He should be removed from office, and we will continue to oppose his every action. He has no right to any executive actions at all, let alone the pro-business, anti-majority, anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-world actions that he is taking and proposing to undertake. (For the complete list of articles on Bush's atrocities against humanity, go to the record -- warning, you could spend a week reading them.)

We are working endlessly to remove Bush from office and to stop his every action in the meantime. He is a complete and utter fraud, and a menace to the nation and the world at large, including every species that currently resides here.

Cheers,

Michael Rectenwald,
Founder and Chair
Citizens for Legitimate Government