Letters to Politicians

     One way to work for liberty and justice is to let your elected, hired, and appointed representatives know your viewpoints. The right-wing is adept at this, using all kinds of ways to mass-mail politicians. So we on the left have our work cut out for us.
     Among the good politicians is Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-Vt.], who had this to say in July 2002 on the Bush-Cheney administration's program to recruit one million American truckers, postal workers, cable guys, utility employees, Crime Watch group members, and others to report "suspicious activity" about their neighbors and customers:
     "We used to laugh at the old Soviet Union idea where everybody reported everybody else....The idea that they're going to have some huge data bank where everybody - from a next-door neighbor who may have a gripe toward you because of your dog barking, to the person who fixes the cable in your house and doesn't like some of the books you're reading - that they're going to report this into some data bank in Attorney General Ashcroft's office really doesn't make me feel more secure....I think this turns us into a nation of paranoids."
     Letters to politicians like him - which I have written - should be thankful. The following are some of many letters I have written to right-wing politicians through the years. Their replies - normally in the mode of form letters, if at all - are in italics.

The ‘great’ Republican record since Bush & Co. stole the White House

By Jackson Thoreau
The following is an open letter to U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas that was emailed to his office, other politicians, the media, and others on Oct. 22, 2002.
     Dear U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm,
     I am a Texan who received a recorded phone call this morning with your voice urging me to vote Republican on Nov. 5. You urged me to vote for the “great” Republican candidates who are running for U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and Texas and local offices.
     Here is the “great” job Republicans like you and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and U.S. Rep. Dick Armey and Bush and Cheney and others have done since y’all – as we say in Texas - stole the White House in late 2000:
     * Unemployment has risen from 4 percent to 6 percent, while under Democratic President Bill Clinton, unemployment went down from 7 percent to 4 percent.
     * The poverty rate went up for the first time in eight years, from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 11.7 percent in 2001, according to federal government figures. The number of Americans living under the federal poverty level INCREASED by 1.3 million in 2001, while under President Clinton the number of impoverished Americans DECLINED by 7.7 million.
     * The share of income going to the poorest fifth of households declined, for the first time in five years, from 3.6 percent in 2000 to a record-low 3.5 percent in 2001. The next-to-the-bottom [8.7 percent] and middle [14.6 percent] fifths of households also saw their pieces of the pie drop to all-time lows, dating to 1967, when such statistics were first recorded. The share going to the next-to-the-top [23 percent] fifth tied for an all-time low.
     * The percentage of income going to the richest 20 percent of households went the opposite way, increasing from 49.8 percent in 2000 to a record-high 50.2 percent in 2001. The wealthiest Americans’ pie piece rises even more – to 55.6 percent - if you include capital gains, such as the windfall Bush received when his interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team was sold to campaign contributor Tom Hicks in 1994 [Bush reported this as capital gains, rather than income, to pay the least amount of taxes].
     * The average amount by which Americans fell below the poverty level also hit a record of $2,707 [data goes to 1979], according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And experts don’t expect the trend to change soon.
     * More than a net 1 million jobs have been lost since early 2001, while under President Clinton, more than a net 22 million jobs were gained.
     * More than 2 million people were laid off in 2001 by companies like Enron and Worldcom that you Republicans support so much, and we are on target to reach more than another 2 million layoffs in 2002, according to the U.S. Labor Department. That is the most since the early 1980s, when another Republican administration controlled the White House.
     * The percentage of MBA graduates in the top 30 U.S. business schools who have a job within three months of graduation declined from 97 percent in 2000 to 80 percent in 2002, according to Business Week.
     * We now have returned to Republican-led budget deficits again, after getting good surpluses under President Clinton.
     * We are in the midst of starting World War III with our irresponsible, go-it-alone invasion of Iraq. More than 25 countries – including those that aren’t favorable to us like Pakistan – already have nuclear weapons, and others like Iran and North Korea are much farther along in building these weapons of mass destruction than Iraq. Republicans have failed to link Hussein with the Sept. 11, 2001, acts of terrorism. Bush is on record as saying he’s going after Hussein for personal reasons because Hussein tried to kill his dad. Others say oil is a big factor since Iraq is the second-leading exporter of oil in the world, and U.S. companies want a bigger role in controlling that. And Bush and you and others are willing to sacrifice American, Iraqi, and others lives for the sake of personal, petty, putrid politics.
     * Republicans have created much ill-will among our allies overseas by breaking nuclear treaties, not signing environmental pacts like the Kyoto Treaty, refusing to support an international court to resolve international disputes, and other arrogant, selfish decisions. How can we expect other countries to support us when we don’t support international issues they care about?
     * The federal government is desecrating our national parks by putting oil wells in such places as Utah’s Arches Park.
     * The ranks of people without health insurance swelled by about 2 million in 2001, to some 41 million, the largest one-year increase in nearly a decade, according to Covering the Uninsured, a partnership of national organizations that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. Republican politicians like Bush and Cheney have done NOTHING to address the increase in the uninsured.
     * Republicans want to invest Social Security funds in the stock market, which has dropped significantly since Bush & Co. stole the White House.
     * Crime increased across the country by 2 percent in 2001, according to the FBI, the first increase in more than a decade.
     * Republicans care more about school children saying the Pledge of Allegiance than significantly increasing funding for education, especially higher education to lower tuition and fees, which will do much more to further our pledge of “liberty and justice for all” than simply saying that pledge.
     * Republicans have cut many domestic programs, causing the ranks of the homeless to rise again.
     * The number of protests and protesters against the federal government’s policies has increased dramatically in the past two years.
     * Civil liberties are being eroded, as many Republicans push to create a police state.
     * More far-right judges who will stop our elections to tell us who won and make other undemocratic decisions have been appointed to federal courts.
     * Republicans continue to blame Clinton for everything that goes wrong under them, making a mockery of their claim to “take responsibility.”
     * Little has been done to fix the electoral “problems” and fraud that occurred, mostly by the Republicans, in the 2000 election.
     * Bush has already taken more days of vacation than probably any American president in history, including the entire month of August 2001 when he was told early that month of an impending terrorist attack and remained on vacation for the entire month, doing nothing about what he was told.
     * And so on. And so on. And so on.
     I can come up with more failures of the Republicans in the last two years, but this should do for now.
     In your recording, you also thanked me for supporting you in the past 24 years and referred to Texas as “the greatest state in the greatest country in the history of the world.” Besides wanting to know what criteria you use to define the greatest state and greatest country, I could come up with a list at least this long of reasons why Texas is not the greatest state [for instance, we rank among the highest rates of poverty and people without health insurance in the nation] and the U.S. is not the greatest country [for instance, numerous other countries have much fewer homeless people and people without health insurance]. I should add that I have NEVER voted for you or given you any money in the last 24 years, so I don’t know how you can say I supported you.
     Again, I am extremely angry about your propaganda phone call this morning, and I hope you do not make any such calls to me in the future.
     For liberty and justice for all – not just hollowly mouthing the words, as so many Republicans do,
     Jackson Thoreau
     A Texan who votes and tells others to vote DEMOCRATIC
     P.S. You ended your recording with “I love ya.” You don’t love me. You love wealthy yahoos who fund your campaigns who you pay back using our tax money. I find that ending almost as offensive as you calling Republican politicians “great.”

On Aug. 22, 2002, police in Portland, Ore., squashed a protest against Bush by firing rubber bullets, pepper spray, and gas into a crowd that included babies and the elderly. Here was my letter to the White House, other politicians, media, and others:

Aug. 23, 2002
     Greetings:
     As a 43-year-old father and American citizen, I want to express my outrage about the police action against a crowd of peaceful protesters targeting Bush's war and environmental policies Aug. 22 in Portland, Ore. I demand that you investigate this situation and help make sure this not happen again.
     The crowd of protesters included babies in strollers, the elderly, and people in wheelchairs. Some reports said a few protesters banged on police cars and "jostled" some people attending the Republican fund-raiser, but overall they were peaceful. Nothing justified the police using rubber bullets, pepper spray, and gas against the crowd, when there were babies and elderly among them. One witness reported, "Suddenly the police came forward spraying pepper spray. A man nearby with an infant in a backpack got hit real good. The baby's face was so red I thought it had quit breathing."
     You can go here to see more comments.
     This is not the kind of America I want my children to grow up in. This borders on fascism and a police state. The last time I checked we still have a Constitutional right to petition our government with our grievances. I know Bush and many others in Washington want to have a dictatorship where they can squash protests all the time in this manner, but that is not the country our forefathers envisioned.
     Please do what you can to preserve America's true ideals of liberty and justice for all.
     Sincerely,
     Jackson Thoreau

     ACTION ALERT! Call for Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft to take lie-detector tests!
     In an obvious intimidation ploy, the Bush administration’s FBI in August 2002 started trying to get members of Congress to submit to lie-detector tests related to whether they leaked information about what certain officials might have known before Sept. 11.
     Contact your representatives and tell them to only agree to take a lie-detector test if Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft themselves submit to such tests about what exactly they knew before Sept. 11. And while they’re at it, Bush should answer questions about Harken Energy’s scams, whether he committed illegal acts to take the presidency, why he took a lucrative 12 percent share in the Texas Rangers baseball team when he only contributed 2 percent of the money, why he lobbied for a sales-tax increase to build a private ballpark in Arlington, Tx., that made him a multi-millionaire, why he needs a month-long vacation every August when he doesn't do anything of substance, whether he snorted cocaine and took other illegal drugs when younger, if he has ever had an extramarital affair, and related questions.
     Cheney should answer questions under a polygraph test about fraud committed while head of Halliburton Co., who he met with to develop the energy policy, why he tried to get India to pay off a multimillion-dollar loan to Enron last year, how many other DUIs has he had, if he has ever had an extramarital affair, and other questions.
     And Ashcroft should answer to why he only flew on private planes in the months before Sept. 11, why he took an honorary degree from the segregationist Bob Jones University, if he has ever had an extramarital affair, and if he is pushing fascist policies and crackdowns on Americans’ rights because he is still mad about losing to a dead man in Missouri in 2000, among other questions.

On July 29, 2002, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepared for hearings on whether to invade Iraq, I sent the following letter to Bush, Committee Chairman Biden, and other politicians. I only received form responses, including one from the White House that follows the letter. July 29, 2002
     President George W. Bush
     Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Phil Gramm
     Dear President Bush and Sens. Hutchison and Gramm:
     As an American citizen, writer, Eagle Scout, and father of two, I urge you NOT to support an invasion of Iraq.
     Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General, reported to the UN Security Council in 1997 that the number of Iraqi children under age five who died increased from about 7,000 in 1989 to 57,000 in 1996. That number continued to rise to 78,000 dead in 1998, according to the Iraq Resource Information Site.
     Clark reported touring hospitals with bloated babies not expected to live a day, facilities without clean water or air conditioning or enough basic supplies. While many people blamed the harsh conditions on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait and ignoring the needs of many citizens, Clark called the situation "a human disaster created by the United Nations, a genocide intended to destroy a national, religious, and ethnic group."
     Compare Iraq, with its 2,000 tanks and several hundred aircraft, to our country, arguably the most powerful, sophisticated military machine in known history. We spend about $396 billion a year on the military – and that number is expected to increase substantially in the coming years [at the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, we spent about $300 billion]. The closest country in military spending is Russia at $60 billion annually, according to the Center for Defense Information. Iraq spends a piddling $1.4 billion on defense, less than Vietnam, Columbia, and Kuwait. Another country in the so-called “axis of evil," North Korea, spends even less at $1.3 billion. Iran, the third “evil” country, is up there at $9.1 billion but still only ranks 13th in the world in military spending [see here for a list of what other countries spend].
     Why are we supposed to fear a country that we spend almost 300 times more to defend? Is it because much of what we spend actually goes to defend the security of other countries like Germany, or more accurately, the security of U.S.-owned multinational corporations in those countries? Much of our defense dollars line already more-than-wealthy pockets in our country. In keeping with the wave of fraudulent accounting in private corporations, the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion in past transactions, according to the U.S. Inspector General’s office.
     I’m all for combatting terrorism – President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore tried to get airport security beefed up several years ago – but this War on Terrorism is simply an excuse and an opportunity for some fat cats to get fatter at the expense of the rest of us, just as the Cold War was in earlier decades. We can spend $1 trillion a year on defense, and someone will still figure out how to plant a bomb somewhere. The British learned that in dealing with the Irish Republican Army, who confounded them for decades.
     Several U.S. military leaders and analysts want to continue the policy of containment of Hussein, rather than invade Iraq, according to a recent article in the Washington Post. Jim Cornette, a former Air Force biological warfare expert who participated in the Gulf War, told the Post, “We've bottled [Hussein] up for 11 years, so we're doing OK. I don't know the reason the administration is so focused on Iraq. I'm very puzzled by it.”
     A few in the administration, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, have reservations about a military attack. At the very least, most U.S. military leaders want to wait until next year to give the operation time to develop its plan.
     I wonder if some are pushing them to invade by October, a month before the mid-term elections, to boost Republicans' re-election campaigns in a wave of renewed patriotism and divert attention from domestic scandals. Never mind about the moral implications of one country declaring its plans to overthrow another country’s leader. That worked so well with Fidel Castro and Cuba, didn’t it?
     Some say Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction it plans to use on the U.S. and we need to stop Iraq from doing so. Some who would know, like Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, say that Iraq has no such capabilities. Some say Iraq had ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network that carried out the Sept. 11 acts. Even some officials with the CIA and Israel's intelligence agency have said Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11, although our CIA director has testified about Iraq’s alleged links to al Qaeda. Some say Hussein could be responsible for sending anthrax spores through the mail. Others believe the likely source of anthrax terrorism is domestic.
     Most allies in Europe oppose our invasion of Iraq, saying among other things, that it would make conditions in the fiery Middle East worse. They note the hypocrisy of U.S. officials telling Israel not to bomb Palestinian camps, as we consider unleashing a more potent bombing attack on Iraq.
     There is also the economic component. A more favorable leader in Iraq could give U.S. oil companies more leeway at moving into that lucrative Mideast trade – Iraq is the second leading oil-producing country in the world. The war will at least divert many Americans’ attention from the recession that threatens to escalate into a depression. A war in Iraq does come down to the possession of wealth, as Plato said, mainly keeping – and growing - wealth in the hands of those who now have it in this country.
     I do believe we have fought just wars. My father fought in one, World War II, when we were attacked and the Nazi criminals threatened to dominate our world. If I was of age during such a war as that, I would have gladly answered the call. It’s sad that I now have to say we now seem more like the ones who want world domination than the ones who would fight against the forces that want to rule the planet.
     I understand why we’re bombing Afghanistan – we had to bomb somebody after Sept. 11, didn’t we? – but I hate to see civilians killed and the fact that Osama bin Laden was never captured or his ties to Sept. 11 proven in court. Contrast that to our response after the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, an act of terrorism that admittedly was different from Sept. 11. Did we bomb the neighborhoods where Timothy McVeigh lived, hoping to draw him out or get more of his conspirators? No, we treated it like the horrendous crime it was and sought justice through the courts.
     Some call me un-American for opposing the way the Bush administration is fighting the War on Terrorism – with its crackdowns on Americans’ basic freedoms, development of a more sophisticated domestic spying network, bombing campaigns that hit civilians, secrecy, military tribunals that suspend the Bill of Rights, ignorance of the United Nations and international treaties, cynical use of tragedy for unrelated political purposes, and other abuses. They tell me to “love it or leave it.” I have to respond that I almost joined the Marines out of high school and would have gone if called upon back then. I was in the “junior military” - the Boy Scouts - and earned the highest rank of Eagle Scout while doing numerous community service projects. I did unpaid civilian service for two years on a special project after college.
     As an American, I believe I earned the right through such service to state my opinion that most leaders in the right-wing in this country are bringing us down into the gutter. I believe I have an obligation to stand up and state my true beliefs while I still have the chance, before our country slides farther down the slippery slope to a dictatorship. What's the use of having freedom of speech if you live in a country where everyone marches to the same drum beat? You don't have a country, you have a dictatorship, if everyone worships those in power and refrains from criticizing that regime.
     I will stay here and stand up the way our forefathers did the British and patriotic Americans have done throughout our country's existence. I will battle for my children's future here. I will not run away to another country.
     Anyways, I urge you again to do everything in your power to not start another war with Iraq.
     Thank you for your time and consideration.
     Sincerely,
     Jackson Thoreau

Date: Mon Jul 29 19:34:26 2002 (EST)
Subject: Re: Please do NOT support an invasion of Iraq
     Thank you for emailing President Bush. Your ideas and comments are very important to him.
     For up-to-date information about the President and his policies, please check the White House web site at www.whitehouse.gov.
     Unfortunately, because of the large volume of email received, the President cannot personally respond to each message. However, the White House staff considers and reports citizen ideas and concerns.
     Again, thank you for your email. Your interest in the work of President Bush and his administration is appreciated.
     Sincerely,
     The White House Office of E-Correspondence
     Please Note:
     If the subject of your email was a request for a Presidential greeting, please note that all greeting requests must be submitted in writing to the following address:
     The White House, Attn: Greetings Office, Room 39, Washington, D.C. 20502-0039

     In April 2002, I sent this letter to numerous politicians, including Bush, Gramm, Hutchison, etc. The only response was a form letter from Hutchison.
April 15, 2002
Greetings,
     I read a disturbing article today in the Toronto Star on the Bush administration's crackdown on dissent. The article can be viewed here on the Internet.
     I believe this is a dangerous slope we are sliding down, one that has similarities to the slope Nazi Germany went down in the 1930s. If we aren't careful, we can find ourselves in much that same situation.
     My main question is this: Why could Republicans criticize and hound our last elected president, Bill Clinton, for eight years on every single policy decision, and even attempt to drive him from office through a publicly-financed witch hunt of his private life that cost us about $100 million, yet if taxpaying Americans even mildly criticize Bush administration policies, we are questioned and intimidated by the FBI and Secret Service like criminals and campaigns to persecute and take away our livelihoods are enacted?
     I believe that Jefferson and Paine and Franklin and many other patriotic Americans who spent their lives working for our freedoms are rolling over in their graves.
     Please do what you can to NOT allow the United States to become like Nazi Germany. DON'T allow crackdowns on our First Amendment and other Constitutional rights.
Sincerely,
Jackson Thoreau
Texas

Dec. 3, 2001
Dear President Bush [sic], Sen. Gramm, and Sen. Hutchison:
     There is no denying that the Sept. 11 acts of terrorism in the U.S. were sad, tragic, and horrifying. I grieve not only for the victims and family members, but of the subsequent victims and their families in Afghanistan and other places.
     But I must point out that our bombing campaign in Afghanistan has not succeeded in securing Osama bin Laden, whom I support capturing and putting on trial, the same way Terry Nichols was caught and put on trial for the 1995 Oklahoma terrorism act. The campaign has only caused the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Afghans who likely had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 acts. The bombing has driven untold thousands more out of their homes to face starvation in the cold mountains. A few terrorists bombed two key economic and military centers of ours, and we responded with a terrorism campaign of our own that hit not only workplaces, but people's homes.
     It's sickening how President Bush's approval ratings have risen during the war, and that makes one wonder if he would keep the war going someplace to maintain high ratings to get re-elected in 2004. Bush seems to mainly care about paying back his big campaign contributors, which are mostly big oil, defense, insurance, and other companies. That's what the war in Afghanistan comes down to - enriching U.S. multi-national oil and defense firms. Afghanistan is rich in oil that US companies want, and any war aids our war-dependent economy. The war is also about raising Bush's approval ratings and getting people's minds off all the corporate layoffs that many Republicans support to make it an employers' job market again. And it's about Republicans pushing through their agenda like drilling for oil in the protected Alaskan refuge and dismantling civil rights under the guise of supporting the "war on terrorism."
     A lot of Republicans want to bomb Iraq next to keep the war economy going and are making up accusations against Hussein to do that. We even have U.S. troops in Kuwait getting ready to invade Iraq. Sryia, where my wife's mother and father were born, will probably be targeted after Iraq.
     We have already caused a lot of pain to people in the Middle East. Some estimate that 200,000 Iraqis died in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 and since then due to bombing raids and economic sanctions that have resulted in the slow, painful deaths of thousands of kids. In the last few decades, we have rained bombs on numerous countries - from Iraq to Vietnam - and the ones that suffered the most were the average people who didn't want these wars, they just want to raise a family and live like anyone else. Is it any wonder why so many countries and groups hate us? On Sept. 11, one group got in a sucker punch when we weren't looking. All those bombings we did in the past finally came back to haunt us.
     I hated to see the senseless violence, but at least it woke a few people up to what we're doing. But so many other people blame the tragedy on people being jealous of what the U.S. has, rather than people being mad as hell at us for all the killing and bombing we've done. So many are clueless. So many rally around the flag and country against an enemy they don't even know. So many just want to bomb anyone and anything, which will just cause more rounds of senseless violence. We should be rallying around the flag of the earth. We should be working for peace and freedom and liberty and justice for all, for everyone around the world. We should be working on a fairer system of distributing wealth and resources around the world, which will mean more sacrifices by us than not driving our SUVs as much. We live in a country that has 6 percent of the world's population and almost 60 percent of its wealth. And we wonder why some take potshots at us. As someone once said, we have met the enemy, and he is us.
     Our government is now targeting Arabs and Muslims with new laws that will make it much harder for them to visit the U.S. and obtain a fair trial. After white terrorists bombed a federal building in 1995 in Oklahoma, the U.S. government did not target all white people, of course. The U.S. government did not firebomb white people's homes and businesses. The U.S. government did not bomb the camps of the right-wing, anti-government groups that bred people like McVeigh. Then why is the U.S. government targeting, bombing, and killing innocent Arabs? Like it or not, we are a racist, elitist, vengeful, hypocritical country, one that has little to do with carrying out the work of Christ.
     There is some hope in some family members of the victims calling for an end to the cycle of violence and war in Middle East. Last week, some family members even walked from Washington, D.C. to New York to plead for peace. But the corporate- and Republican-controlled national media largely ignored them, as they have ignored or belittled most campaigns that go against Bush in the past year.
     If we continue this war in Iraq, Syria, and other places, more moderate people will join the radicals like the Taliban in fighting against the U.S. The likelihood of more terrorist acts as occurred on Sept. 11 will increase in the future. The world will become even more dangerous. Our country could even go under martial law, thus losing the freedoms that so many before us have fought for in creating and building the U.S.
     It is very difficult to oppose this bombing campaign after what occurred on Sept. 11. I have traveled through Germany and talked to many young people who cannot believe their parents and grandparents did not openly oppose Hitler and the nazis during World War II before that holocaust when they had the chance. While the current situation is different, I am concerned that one day young people in this country will be asking older people like me what we tried to do to prevent the killing and starvation of untold thousands, and perhaps millions, of innocent people in Afghanistan and other countries.
     That is why I have to stand up and say I tried to speak out against this potential holocaust when I had the chance. I believe in bringing the perpetrators of terrorism to justice in a court of law. That is justice. Bombing innocent people is not justice. It makes us the big bully, the Goliath having to fend off the slingshots of the weaker opponents. Terrorism has long been a part of our history. For example, the British considered the forefathers of the U.S. to be terrorists in the 1770s for acts of rebellion like the Boston Tea Party. Then, the Irish-British conflict has gone on for decades. The British accused the Irish, who were the huge underdogs in a conventional battle against the British, of employing terrorism with sneak bomb attacks. And the Irish claimed the British have brutally executed acts of terrorism and war against them for centuries. So it goes.
     This is a dark time in our world's history, but let's not make it darker. Let's stop bombing other countries. Let's resolve to really become part of the global community, not be the big bully who just gives others table scraps when they rebel. As I said before, this will take rethinking our priorities, sacrificing our standard of living, and living more wholesome, spiritual lives.
Sincerely,
Jackson Thoreau
Texas

     No response from Bush and Gramm, and only a superficial form letter from Hutchison, who at least had an aide send that.

Dec. 10, 2000
Greetings U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia:
     I am a U.S. citizen. I want to know why you are allowed to hear the presidential case when your son works for the same law firm as George Bush's attorney. This is a direct conflict, and you should recuse yourself from the case.
     I also want to know why the court is entering a state election case, why you and other justices are injecting partisanship in their court, and if that is really an appropriate function of the court.
    Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Jackson Thoreau

     To no surprise, I did not hear from Scalia.
__________________________________________________________________________

Palm Beach Fiasco

    On Nov. 11, 2000, I sent a letter to each Palm Beach County commissioner to urge them to make sure they counted all their votes, or organize another election. Only one was kind enough to respond, Mary McCarty, but her response was less than satisfactory.

Nov. 11, 2000
Greetings Commissioner Mary McCarty:
     More than 19,000 ballots being thrown out in one county in this country is a travesty of the election process. At a time when experts are trying to figure out how to get more people to vote, throwing away thousands of people's votes hurts the campaign to increase voter turnout immensely.
    We live in Tarrant County in Texas, which cast 473,771 ballots on Tuesday, about the same number as Palm Beach County, Fla. Here, only a few, from 25 to 30 according to election officials, were thrown out. There are electronic checks here that catch mistakes at polling sites, and even if ballots aren't marked properly, election officials here take pains to attempt to determine how the voter wanted to vote.
    This was not done in Palm Beach County with more than 19,000 ballots thrown out. Please determine how those voters voted, count them, and if you cannot, then have another election in Palm Beach County.
Sincerely,
Jackson Thoreau

From: Mary McCarty Mmccarty@co.palm-beach.fl.us
Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2000 12:05 PM
     Votes are thrown out in every precinct of every county in this nation. In 1996, 15,000 votes were thrown out in Palm Beach County.

Commissioner McCarty:     If so many votes are being thrown out in your county, something is terribly wrong. While some votes are thrown out in most US counties, 19,000 is way high compared to other counties across the country.
    There should be a greater effort done not to throw out so many votes, if 15,000 were tossed aside in 1996. In Tarrant County in Texas, election officials go to great pains to determine how voters vote and throw away very few ballots.
    As we said before, throwing out people's votes will not increase voter participation, which we all can agree needs to improve.
Jackson Thoreau

    I received no response, as obviously my recommendation to recount those votes or have another election was not taken. But at least I got one Palm Beach official to admit on the record that officials there don't seem to care much if thousands of votes are thrown away because, hey, that happens in every precinct in the country, right?