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 Bush Uses Any Means Some Politicians Call for Inquiry into Election 2000 Violations Oral Majority says Weak-Kneed Gephardt Statement 'Pabulum' |
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Attention has been called to the illegal erasure of public records, reportedly once stored on computers in the offices of Florida's top election official, Katherine Harris. Although Ms. Harris and Governor Bush both claimed to be withdrawing into near do-nothingism during the most contentious days following the November 7 election, it has now become clear, apparently, that both officials were then neck-deep in the Bush family's cut throat-strategizing sessions.
Gov. Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris played a major role in the Florida vote counting scandal Bob Poe, chair of Florida's Democratic Party, talked openly about pursuing a criminal investigation, scoffing not only at Ms. Harris' pretensions, but at those of Governor Jeb Bush as well. What the Oral Majority's Bob Kunst has demanded for nine months now was heard throughout Tallahassee on Sunday. Poe told the New York Times: "We have to look at trying to see if criminal action needs to be taken against Katherine Harris, particularly for the destruction of public records. Its very clear that Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush, for that matter, never took off their campaign hats during the whole post-election process-and they always claimed that they did." United States Representative Richard Gephardt (D. Missouri), House Democratic leader, sounded a milder tone. He said of misbehavior by Representative Steve Buyer, Republican of Indiana, who had improperly manipulated U.S. military votes: "I don't think it's proper for the Pentagon to hand out peoples' private e-mail addresses to the political parties-to either party…I don't get the sense that there was fraud or illegality. But you've got to ask some questions." Oral Majority's chair, Bob Kunst, who, since November 7th, has led 141 demonstrations focusing on Florida officials' theft of Election 2000, waxes contemptuous, he admits, of do-nothing Democratic leaders who've thus far refused to stand up tall on the stealing of the American election. After reading Representative Gephardt's statement, Kunst was dismissive of its too-gentle tone: "Now that I've finished retching from this pabulum, the real issue is that the law has been broken and prosecution with investigation is what's in order. This is just the tip of the iceberg!"
He said at least one Democratic Party leader merited some enthusiastic praise and that that was Cheryl Long, Chair of the Democratic Party in Florida's Pinellas County (St. Petersburg). She was on hand to officially present both the activist hero and heroine with Democratic Purple Heart Award plaques bearing their names and the following words: "For courageous action in demonstrating every citizen's right to free speech on June 4, 2001, for which you and others were arrested by members of the Florida Republican Party and arrested by Tampa Police." Kunst noted that "Channel 10, and Channel 13 were there as well as the St. Petersburg Times, WMNF Radio, and a reporter from the Tampa area's Gazette, a gay monthly." Though this Tampa event provided an evident show of Democratic solidarity over the election's theft, the theft elicited a mere "So, what's new"? approach by Representative Lois Frankel, (D-West Palm Beach) who is also a Democratic candidate for governor. She told Steve Bousquet of the St. Peterburg Times: "We have to look forward, not backwards. We all knew all the votes weren't counted." Kunst fumes: "How can it be that the very Florida state legislature's Democratic leader seems so unaware of the consequences we're facing because of this stolen election. She clandestinely admits it took place, of course but then in her next breath she seems to be asking us to more or less forget it. 'No, Lois, we mustn't forget that stolen election; no no no Lois, we mustn't do that.' My g-d, she didn't learn anything from that wonderful 'Bush stole the election' crowd we addressed in Cocoa Beach?" The trial of the Oral Majority and gay activists was postponed on Monday until July 30 (also a Monday) when a third arrestee belonging to the Tampa Three, Grandma Suni, an Oral Majority member, will be tried also. A video film of the three activists' harassment by police vividly shows, say local news media, how the anti-Bush protesters were denied their First Amendment rights. ` Kunst denounced police video cameras invading privacy in Ybor City, a Tampa locale. He plans to return to Tampa on July 19, he says, when a personal privacy protest has been scheduled. He says: "So when it comes to human rights, to justice, to liberty, to our sacred right to vote, to our rights to privacy, to pursing what is right on all levels, to our right to assemble and to be heard and to state our case... from this leaping dictatorship, so evident in the Tampa Bay Area, this whole picture is what my campaign for governor is all about and what we are pursuing." |
