A Call for Democrats to Honor Stephanie Tubbs Jones by Spotlighting January 6, 2005

Last week’s death of Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones should have meant so much to every American. Unfortunately, her greatest gift to American citizens and Democracy was largely ignored in the eulogies and obituaries of the mainstream press. It is no wonder, since acknowledging her gift would also reveal their failure to tell us the story when it happened.

Even sadder, Democrats, too, have shied away from acknowledging the Congresswoman’s significance, because then they would have to face their greatest failure AND greatest vulnerability for the 2008 election.

Still, here we are in the week of the Democratic Convention, and the tragedy of Stephanie Tubbs Jones leaving us while still young must surely warrant a dedicated moment of Honor before the world, and this timing gives Democrats – who should be sick of having their votes and elected offices stolen – the opportunity to shine a light on that glorious day, January 6th, 2005, when Congresswoman Tubbs Jones dared to stand up before the joint session of Congress to challenge the Ohio electoral vote count from the November 2004 election.
"Mr. Vice-President, I seek to object to the electoral votes of the State of Ohio."

Unlike 2000, when Vice President Al Gore had to dismiss the challenges raised by many Representatives -- because no Senator was willing to provide the necessary signature -- this time Senator Barbara Boxer rose alongside the Congresswoman. And in that moment, according to one of the few functioning journalists of the time, Bob Fitrakis of the Columbia Free Press, the Voting Rights movement was born.

Congresswoman Tubbs Jones continued, speaking to the House (my emphasis):

I’m duty-bound to follow the law and apply the law to the facts as I find them, and it is on behalf of those millions of Americans who believe in and value our Democratic process, and the right to vote, that I put forth this objection today. If they’re willing to stand at polls for countless hours in the rain as many did in Ohio, then I should surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress.

This objection does not have at its root the hope or even the hint of overturning the victory of the president, but it is a necessary, timely, and appropriate opportunity to review and remedy the most precious process in our democracy. I raise this objection neither to put the nation in the turmoil of a proposed overturned election, nor to provide cannon fodder or partisan demagoguery for my fellow members of Congress. I raise this objection because I am convinced that we as a body must conduct a formal and legitimate debate about election irregularities. I raise this objection to debate the process, and protect the integrity of the true will of the people.

With this action that day, the report written by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. and the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, based on the hearings they held in Ohio throughout December 2004, entitled Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, was entered into the Congressional Record.

Still, the Voting Rights movement has been mostly an internet movement, and to this day, the most important issue facing us this November is still largely unknown to most Americans. It is not Iraq (or Afghanistan, or Iran, or now Russia), nor the Economy, nor Healthcare – no, not even Global Warming.

It is Election Theft, as demonstrated so clearly in Ohio in 2004 (see report above).

While it is not a partisan issue, per se, because ultimately all sides lose if we forfeit the value of the vote, the evidence indicates the beneficiary of voting machine errors, voter intimidation tactics, voter registration list purging, etc., has consistently been Republican candidates, from Bush/Cheney in 2004 to Congressman Brian Bilbray in San Diego County in 2006. Karl Rove's RNC operatives, and their corporate partners, have been very busy and very effective. And the more they get away with, the harder it will be to stop this corruption of the one tool that gives Americans Hope - their vote.

Yet, despite evidence brought forward by courageous election officials and Secretaries of State, computer scientists, data experts, citizen activists, and a few remaining investigative journalists and communicators, such as Mark Crispin Miller, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Greg Palast, Brad Friedman, Stephen Rosenfeld, Dan Rather, and Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, most Americans have no idea how frightening real the problem of election theft is.

Why? Because the Democrats themselves have failed to demand fair and accurate elections. This is where they are, as accused, weak on National Defense.

You see, National Defense is not about weapons aimed at other countries. It’s not about wiretaps aimed at citizens.

National Defense needs to be about BRIGHT LIGHTS aimed at the treacherous actions of partisan operatives to manipulate election results.

National Defense should be about BROADCAST MICROPHONES aimed at those who have investigated, and those who have witnessed, and those who have been turned away when they tried to vote.

So, if the Democratic Convention this week has a goal of putting Barack Obama in the White House, then those Democratic leaders who stand before the world need to be willing to say:

We will not let this election be stolen. Our votes will be counted accurately. We now know what has happened before, and this time we won’t be intimidated into conceding.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones told Bob Fitrakis in a 2005 interview:

Here I was placed. I’m the only African American member of Congress in the state of Ohio. I’m in a position to raise the issue. If I don’t, then God’s gonna say, "Why would I put you there if you didn’t have -- if you didn’t do it?"

So, Senator Clinton, you can do this. You can shake the rafters by honoring your dear friend and outspoken supporter, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. This could be the greatest gift you give all Americans, the sign that you are a true leader.

Kennedys all, come forward. You know the truth. One of your own, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has already stood up, and so should the rest of the family - what a powerful statement.

Senator Biden, we know you have the chutzpah and we love you for it. Demonstrate it immediately and it will make a difference.

Barack Obama, you must address this boldly, now, in this venue, because you are very much at risk to be the next failure, and that would break the hearts of all who have been newly encouraged. From Hope to utter devastated cynicism, because you would not do what our late Congresswoman showed up must be done. As you can do.

I call on all of you to speak up.

And I call on all of you readers to contact Senator Clinton, the Kennedys, Senator Biden and Senator Barack Obama, and tell them it is time to stop the Republican destruction of Democracy by declaring that you will not tolerate Election Theft, you will not accept manipulated results, and you will demand Election Justice.

When you doubt that this issue is serious, then watch the movie Uncounted by Dale Earnhardt, go to a screening of Stealing American: Vote by Vote by Dorothy Fadiman, read Loser Take All, listen to podcasts from Voice of the Voters, and go to www.BradBlog.com and www.GregPalast.com.

Then speak up.

Rocky's Activism Created by a Tethered Press and Uninvolved Citizenry

by Barbara Bellows-TerraNova, PDA/Utah
Posted by Progressive Democrats of America

Ross C. (Rocky) Anderson left office Monday January 7, 2008 as his second four-year term as mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, expired. He plans to move his activism into the private arena--Rocky joined the PDA advisory board in September 2007--and has plans to start a non-profit organization serving humanity. PDA extends our hearfelt appreciation to former Mayor Anderson for his courageous stand against the Iraq war and occupation and his leadership on impeachment.

Rocky Anderson's last day as mayor of Salt Lake City included his signature, as well as the signatures of Mimi Kennedy, Tim Carpenter, Ralph Nader, Daniel Ellsberg, Harry Belafonte, and other noted activists, on a letter delivered to Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, urging him to investigate the abuse of power by the Bush/Cheney administration.

It was the cherry on the sundae that has been Rocky's double duty as mayor and U.S. citizen/activist. While many in Salt Lake have responded enthusiastically to Rocky's call to protest Mr. Bush's visits to the city, others have been annoyed and have encouraged phone campaigns against the activist mayor.

If these people in Salt Lake are displeased with Rocky Anderson's involvement in protests against the Bush administration and the impeachment movement, they should look to the poor job done by a press that was held back by a few newly-consolidated owners receiving favors from that same administration. Either it was the press-or a public that didn't care to pay attention.

Things would surely have turned out differently if Americans had known, for example, about:

-the dismissal of the 1991 insider-trading investigation by the Security Exchange Commission, whose Chairman was old family friend and Bush Sr. appointee, Richard Breedan, into George Bush's sudden dumping of his Harken Oil stock for $848,000 before informing shareholders about the company's financial losses;

-the lack of an investigation into Cheney's insider-trading when he cashed out his stock options at Halliburton for $20 million before the stockholders were informed of the asbestos-injury lawsuits that came with Cheney's arrangement of the company's buyout of Dresser Industries;

-the fact that the riot that shut down the vote recount in Dade County, Florida, on November 22, 2000, was actually manned by Republican aides and operatives flown down from D.C. in Enron and Halliburton jets, whose success was celebrated at a Thanksgiving banquet where they were serenaded by Wayne Newton;

-the 2003 report by the EPA Inspector General stating that the White House altered the wording of the post-9/11 EPA statement on the air safety in Manhattan to completely change its meaning, resulting in the horrendous, debilitating medical problems, suffering and deaths of the courageous first responders, EMTs, cleanup crew, and other workers and residents of New York City;

-the sell-out of every federal agency's purpose with the appointments of industry lobbyists throughout;

-the Office of Special Plans, where appointees from the militarily aggressive Project of the New American Century (whose University of Chicago professor/mentor, Leo Strauss, taught that it was best to subdue the public with "Noble Lies") cherry-picked through discredited intelligence data to build up a threatening Saddam Hussein;

-the multi-level, vast series of irregularities in the 2004 election, which were immediately exposed in the December hearings in Ohio by Congressman John Conyers, Jr., and the Democratic minority, culminating in the January 6, 2005, objection by Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and Senator Barbara Boxer to the certification of the election. Conyers' report was inserted into the Congressional Record;

-the largest, record-breaking, donations to the 2005 Bush inauguration by the home-loan industry, whose unregulated business is now wreaking havoc across the world economy;

And that's just off the top of my head. I know. I picked up a book, and another, and another, watched PBS's "Now with Bill Moyers and David Brancaccio", did some Googling, and discovered that the Bush administration was not compassionate, was not conservative, and did not act according to moral values. Surely, this was not the President most Republicans thought they'd elected.

For me, that meant I was moved to begin emailing "Know Bush Facts" and performing Know Bush: Launching Facts That Shock and Awe, A One Person Patriot Act in October 2004 at the main downtown Salt Lake City library.

For Rocky, it meant a call for protest when George W. Bush came to town, giving extremely informative speeches about the specific wrongdoings of the administration, and, ultimately, the detailed development of the legal basis for impeachment of an administration which overstepped both the Constitution and international law and destroyed the moral ground of democracy and human rights the United States once maintained-thus making us all considerably less safe in this world.

If we do not have a free press which informs us, we must have citizens who care enough to pay attention to what our leaders do in our name. If we are unwilling to listen to those citizens who do speak up, then it takes citizens who have greater clout-such as the Mayor of a noted conservative city-to stand up and point out what we desperately need to know.

I, for one, am very grateful to Rocky and am proud that we, as a community, were invited by him to engage in a meaningful response to the kind of power-usurping, questionably elected executive officer that our Founders intended us to stop from ruining our country.

Thank you, sir, for taking it on, and taking the flack. I, for one, will continue to pay attention to your efforts, and I recommend that others do the same. I'm setting up a "Google Alert" today so I can keep up.

To Honor Veterans, What Americans Should Know About Depleted Uranium

The United Nations has voted to move forward on the issue of depleted uranium weapons and their effects.

No longer facing the infamously brutish U.S. Ambassador (never confirmed, only recessed) John Bolton, on October 31st, the vote in the UN First Committee was 122 to 6 in favor of a resolution calling for studies to be done on depleted uranium and its effects by various countries, with the results to come back at the next General Assembly where it will be on the Agenda.

The United States and its ally, the United Kingdom, voted against it, along with The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, Israel, and its newest surprise friend, France.

While Americans are extraordinarily unaware, misled and deceived on this nuclear waste material that is at the core of the U.S. military's most effective weapons, the rest of the world knows the damages suffered first by Iraq, then the former European NATO troops who served in the Balkans in the late 90's, then Afghanistan and even more in Iraq again.

In addition, on November 6th, the International Coalition to Ban the Use of Uranium Weapons launched its Global Disinvestment Campaign - with their "Too Risky for Business" dossier, which provides information as to which banking institutions are investing in the weapons manufacturers that use depleted uranium.

The time has come. America needs to ask the tough questions and shine a light on the truth. Is there a candidate willing to lead us in that direction? What are their positions on this? Have any of them they even dared to face this? Do we have a responsibility to raise the subject? Yes.

Check out this list of essential facts about depleted uranium so you can understand why the world is so angry, and why Bush/Cheney's statements on Iran are so hypocritical.



Ten Essential Facts:

1. Depleted uranium, the nuclear waste of uranium enrichment, is not actually "depleted" of radiation; 99.3% of it is Uranium238, which still emits radioactive alpha particles at the rate 12,400/second, with an estimated half life of 4.5 billion years.

2. Depleted uranium is plentiful - there are 7 pounds remaining for every pound of enriched uranium - and requires expensive and often politically-contentious hazardous waste storage.

3. Depleted uranium is less of a problem for the nuclear industry when it is cheaply passed on to U.S. weapons manufacturers for warheads, penetrators, bunker-busters, missiles, armor and other ammunition used by the U.S. military in the Middle East and elsewhere, and sold to other countries and political factions.

4. Depleted uranium is "pyrophoric", which makes it uniquely effective at piercing hard targets, because upon impact, it immediately burns, vaporizing the majority of its bulk and leaving a hard, thin, sharpened tip - and large amounts of radioactive particles suspended in the atmosphere.

5. Depleted uranium weaponry was first used in the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, under President George H. W. Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

6. Depleted uranium weaponry was later used by President Bill Clinton in the NATO "peace-keeping" bombing missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. By January 2001, as the 2nd President Bush and Dick Cheney were moving in to the White House, there was a furor in Europe over the news of an alarming increase in leukemia and other cancers amongst the NATO troops who'd served in the Balkans.

7. The World Health Organization suppressed a November 2001 report on the health hazards of depleted uranium by Dr. Keith Baverstock, Head of the WHO's Radiation Protection Division and his team, commissioned by the United Nations. Baverstock's report, "Radiological Toxicity of Depleted Uranium", detailed the significant danger of airborne vaporized depleted uranium particles, already considerably more prevalent in Iraq than the Balkans due to the difference in military tactics, because they are taken into the body by inhaling and ingesting, and then their size and solubility determines how quickly they move through the respiratory, circulatory and gastrointestinal systems, attacking and poisoning from within as they travel, and where the damages occur. In addition, the report warns that the particles tend to settle in the soft tissue of the testes, and may cause mutations in sperm. In 2004 Dr. Baverstock, no longer at the WHO, released the report through Rob Edwards at Scotland's Sunday Herald.

8. The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration twisted the meaning of the failure of the World Health Organization to produce evidence of depleted uranium's health hazards, turning it into evidence that there was no link between exposure to depleted uranium and the increases in cancer in Europe and Iraq; instead, as presented in the January 20, 2003 report by the new Office of Global Communications, ironically titled Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda 1990 - 2003, the depleted uranium uproar was only an exploitation of fear and suffering. Two months later, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Rice began to "Shock and Awe" Baghdad by again dropping tons of depleted uranium bombs on densely populated areas.

9. On March 27, 2003, significant increases in depleted uranium particles in the atmosphere were detected by the air sampler filter systems of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at 8 different sites near Aldermaston Berkshire, Great Britain, and continued at 4-5 times the previous norm until the end of April 2003, after the Coalition forces declared the war over. This information only came to light in a report on January 6, 2006 by Dr. Chris Busby, due to his diligent fight for access to the data through Britain's Freedom of Information law.

10. The John Warner Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007, signed into law on October 20 2006, was celebrated by those concerned with depleted uranium because it contained an amendment authored by Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), calling for a study of the health effects of depleted uranium on returning soldiers, due in one year. However, George W. Bush also issued a signing statement that day which includes the right to withhold information "which could impair foreign relations". At this time, November 2007, there remains no federal program for all members of the U.S. military and National Guard returning from the Middle East to be tested and treated for the presence of depleted uranium in their bodies, and the study that was called for has not appeared.

Clearly, the story of the United States and depleted uranium is shameful and horribly irresponsible.

The international community, however, is ready to take a stand.

On October 31st, 2007, the United Nations First Committee passed the "Effects of the use of armaments and ammunitions containing depleted uranium" Resolution, by a vote of 122 to 6, with 35 abstentions, requesting that states and international bodies submit a report on depleted uranium to the UN General Assembly by next year's session. The countries voting against it were the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Israel, and the U.S.'s newest surprise friend, France.

The United States will not get away with this forever. Other countries know about the depleted uranium, and they see arrogant hypocrisy in the administration's fear-mongering about Iran as a nuclear threat.

Now, at this moment in our history, the United States needs a leader with the moral courage to face this issue.

So, what we still need to know is:

Where do the Presidential candidates stand on this issue?

Who is willing to be the leader who will stop this?

We need -- and our veterans deserve -- answers.



*****

References and Links:
There are articles and documents that span decades which shed light on Depleted Uranium and the deceptions that surround it. The evidence is plentiful, often overwhelming, but one should be aware that there are powerful interests ready to confuse the public and silence or discredit the scientists and activists.

Campaign Against Depleted Uranium. http://www.cadu.org.uk/ Founded by one of the great long-time scientist/activists, Dr. Rosalie Bertell.

International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) is probably the best of the best all-in-one place http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/.

Department of Defense description of self-sharpening depleted uranium: http://www.defenselink.mil/DODCMSShare/briefingslide/94/030314-D-9085M-022.pdf

Dr. Keith Baverstock's November 2001 report, suppressed by the World Health Organization: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Radiological-Toxicity-WHO5nov01.htm.

Rob Edwards article on Baverstock: http://www.robedwards.com/2004/02/who_suppressed_.html

Karen Parker, a Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Lawyer: http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker.html Scroll down on the page and you'll find her documents on DU.

Representative Jim McDermott: http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr061020.shtml

October 17, 2006 Presidential signing statement is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/200Http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/200 61017-9.html .

January 2003 White House Report - Apparatus of Lies: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/suffering.html

United Nations First Committee, October 31, 2007: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gadis3357.doc.htm

January 2006 Chris Busby report: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2006/DU-Europe-Contamination1jan06.htm

Note: On November 12, 2007, Dr. Janette Sherman, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and Research Associate and Lecturer with the Radiation and Public Health Project, wrote to me after reading the above, "It looks accurate to me. Good work! You may use my references too if you want."