On Tuesday, while the corporate media was helping along John McCain’s faux controversy over lipstick and farm animals, and while Republicans were otherwise preparing to celebrate 9/11 on Thursday, a group of so-called “third-party” Presidential candidates gathered for a news conference at the National Press Club, as sponsored by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX)’s CampaignForLiberty.org. Paul’s introductory statement, endorsing third-party candidates as a whole, is here.
Paul recently announced his refusal to endorse his party’s nominee, John McCain, despite their personal entreaties. The entire press conference is on video here.
The candidates joining Paul included independent candidate Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. It was announced that the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr would be present as well, but he became a no-show and then decided to hold his own presser an hour later. The snub earned him the excoriation and retraction of an endorsement from Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veteran’s Against the War, who I interviewed earlier this week while guest hosting The Randi Rhodes Show. Kokesh was the awesome dude who held up the “You Can’t Win an Occupation” protest sign during John McCain’s RNC acceptance speech last week.
The three candidates who did show, all spoke to various aspects of the detrimental nature of the dangerous two-party duopoly the country is currently saddled with, thanks in no small part to the corporate media’s unwavering support thereof. (See this condescending coverage from WaPo clown Dana Milbank, whose never run for even dog catcher, as far as I know, much less President on a national party ticket, by way of just one such example.)
Only McKinney spoke directly to the issues surrounding Election Integrity. She is, to my knowledge, the only Presidential candidate of any party this year, to speak substantively to the most important matter underscoring every freedom we have and every serious issue we face in this nation.
She begins her remarks by pointing out: “What has not been mentioned this morning, and has rarely been mentioned throughout this presidential election season, is the issue of election integrity.” She speaks rather eloquently both about “massive disenfranchisement” and “manipulation of electronic voting machines.” The video clip of her comments on the topic (appx. 3 mins, courtesy Alan Breslauer) is below. A text-transcript is included at the end of this article…
None of the candidates, including McKinney, have yet signed the StandingForVoters.org pledge to challenge any questionable election results and not concede until every vote is counted, and counted accurately. We (The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us, the creators of the StandingForVoters.org initiative) welcome all such candidates, from any political party, running for any office on the national, state or local level, to sign the pledge and stand up for voters as they have/will stand up for them. The SFV campaign calls on voters to demand candidates sign the pledge, and makes materials available to hand to them during campaign events. For more info, see the website or write to info@StandingForVoters.org.
The text transcript of Cynthia McKinney’s statement yesterday on Election Integrity, follows below…
So, for example, for those of you who are not familiar with the film “American Blackoutâ€, it methodologically demonstrates how the election in 2000, and again in 2004, how those two presidential elections were stolen, and the use of certain political constructs in order to disenfranchise certain populations.
Now aside from the fact that we don’t have election integrity, or didn’t have it in 2000 where one million black people went to the polls, and they voted, but their votes were not even counted… So we should never forget the fact that there was massive disenfranchisement, one million blacks alone whose votes were not counted, and yet there are some who would like to talk about stealing elections. Basically, here has to be election integrity.
Secondly, in the 2004 election, again what you see is the situation with the purposeful manipulation of electronic voting machines – aside from the fact that electronic voting machines have their inherent problems that have not been resolved from their introduction in 2000…
Now in 2008 we have the voter ID laws that have been passed, that basically create a two-tiered election system in this country – one for those who show up at the polls on election day with certain sets of requirements, and then, yet another, less-stringent set of requirements for those who mail in their ballots.
And then of course we have the voter caging, and the voter caging also targets certain populations of voters. So therefore, we’ve got some severe problems with election integrity, and those need to be addressed in the system, and by those who are campaigning within it as well.
This is interesting also.
Wapo scrubs story about McCains cover up of his wifes drug charges right before your eyes.
The comments are pretty good anyway.
Go to the last page of the comments where someone copied and pasted it, lol
OH!, here it is Link
Just imagine if one of the third parties candidates spouses OR Michelle Obama was involved in this…Just what do you think the MSM and Fake News would say?
Nader gave a very good speech on that CSPAN video.
It is hard to believe how utterly stupid the average American is.
We deserve exactly what we are getting in Nov.
none of us deserve this not even mcsame’s kidz
the argument has been made that we are being bred/brainwashed into being stupid
our media/corporate world is constantly bombarding us with lies
our food contains no nutrients except the organics
you can’t drink the water in certain areas, particularly the midwest
and there are more then enough toys to keep us all drooling on our selfs, video games, tv, iphone, etc.
no, the american public is like a child, if
you abuse it and lock it in a closet you will produce a learning issue among other things.
when we treat people like cattle, don’t they act like cattle?
here’s your 2 parties, group a hates group b and group b hates group a. ya both say the same thing about each other and call each other names proclaiming to be right. but its a trap, once you polarize you stop thinking about your side and start mooing like all the other cows.
this has been set up for years it is not new.
who built this country? the masons.
united states of free masonry,
remember that when you feel like you’re in the slaughter house come nov.
I have the utmost respect for Cynthia Mckinney, she was the only one doing her job at “the time.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eootfzAhAoU
And what did they do? Run her out on bs media hype and unverifiable voting systems. No matter what happens in the horse race, work for election integrity and third party access.
(Ron Paul & Ralph Nader)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out.
(McKinney Gravel Kucinich Ventura Perot)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out.
[msm lip gloss]
Cynthia McKinney gave a short but rousing speech yesterday on 9/11 at a press conference for the 9/11 Petition for a new investigation. This issue is the elephant in the room. Without bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice, the election scams will continue unimpeded.
Tom Hanks gave a rousing endorsement for Obama a couple hours ago. It’s very good!
This was the best article I have read on the subject yet: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/hamilton4.html
I have sent it to all of my friends. It helped me decide what to do.
It’s growing on me #6!
We must all continue to be villigent and actively informing each other of the possibilities, evidence and remedys of election fraud if we care about having a true, honest election this year.