“Scheinheilig” is a great word in German that translates to, “hypocrite” but, take the word apart and you have, “scheinen” meaning, “to appear” and “heilig” meaning, “holy.” A hypocrite is a “Scheinheiliger” or loosely translated, a “holy-looker.” If you need to locate a load of these “holy-lookers” in a hurry, then look no farther than, The City of Jefferson!
These so-called, pro-life Republicans, after seizing control of all branches of Missouri’s State government, hastily cut services from the mental health community, made certain that our schools remained 40-somethingth in the nation and cut the funding from the elderly and the poorest among us for medical treatment. Pro-life indeed!
Now, after three years of threatening legislation to hamper stem-cell research that resulted in the Stowers Institute rethinking the expansion of its research facilities in Missouri, Illinois’ Governor Blagojevich has expressed to these research firms that he welcomes them with open arms and $10 Million dollars into his state.
Quickly, Governor Matt Blunt reassured our research institutes that he supports stem cell research! He supports Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer! He will veto his own Party’s attempts to outlaw the same!
Dear Matt - turn and smile for the camera and LOOK HOLY!
On another note, the national media has done a dismal job reporting calls for election reform. In the 2000 election, in an about face, the Supreme Court decided that States’ Rights, (that they had clung to so faithfully), always applies except when it comes to selecting Presidents.
In 2000 we had Florida and Tennessee, in 2004 we had Ohio and New Mexico! To keep it simple though, just look at Florida and Ohio. Think back to 2000 and all those chad...boy, what a mess! I bet you didn’t hear about Volusia County and their little touchscreen voting problem, did you? That was the place where Al Gore’s numbers ran backwards and in precinct 216 the machine’s count was (negative) -16,022 for Gore! There were no paper ballots that could be audited!
The company responsible for the machines that can count backwards is the Ohio-based, Republican-backing firm of Diebold. Their defense was to blame this on a faulty memory chip! For more on Florida’s 2000 election, pick up “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.”
After 2000 and the damage it did to many American’s faith in the election process our nation quickly decided to change all that and install touchscreen, paperless voting machines all over the place! Now, to be fair, it’s not just Diebold who has been making money and giving money to the GOP, ES&S out of Nebraska actually led in both touchless voting machine manufacturing and GOP contributions! The entire time since 2000 many in our country have been warning and warning that these machines are easily hacked into and if for no other reason than this, we need a system that can be audited! This makes sense, right? Bills were introduced in Ohio and Washington to mandate such machines and in both cases Republicans objected!
November 2004 rolled around and with it came another dubious election. This time, as had been forewarned, Ohio’s results were questionable and attempts to challenge the system were quashed with the help of Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell. So, surely the voice of reason won out and we can now audit the results because such protections were put into place, right? Think again! Diebold has even gone to court to prevent such audits in order to protect so-called trade secrets. Doesn’t the public good come before trade secrets?
There is/was an answer to this dilemma by the name of Truvote. A Mr. Athan Gibbs, an accountant concerned with the 2000 election, had brought forward a voting machine that was touch screen, however, after you had made you choices the ballot slid under Plexiglas for you to confirm. Upon confirmation, the ballot was cast and a numbered receipt was printed out for the voter to take home and later check to make certain his or her ballot had been counted!
Truvote’s creator was killed in a car wreck which brought his efforts for elections that can be audited to a halt.
If you’d like more information on fair elections, you can visit: www.blackboxvoting.ORG (there is also a “.com” version that you can take a look at too).
Clean, fair elections is of the utmost importance to both Republicans and Democrats alike! Nothing less than our Democracy is at stake!
