Ken Starr's Law Firm is Evil. No, Wait. They're Good!. No, They're Evil Again!

A friend sent this out. While I fully sympathize with the gay community in their fight against Ken Starr and the moral majority, I am always amazed at the short memory Democrats seem to have. Read on.


From: Mary Beth Bolduc
Subject: FW: This video will break your heart

Have you heard that Ken Starr -- and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund -- filed legal briefs defending the constitutionality of Prop 8 and attempting to forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year? The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on March 5, 2009, with a decision expected within the next 90 days.

The Courage Campaign has created a video called "Fidelity," with the permission of musician Regina Spektor, that puts a face to those 18,000 couples and all loving, committed couples seeking full equality under the law.

Please watch this heartbreaking video now. If you have the same reaction that I did, you can help spread the word by sharing it with your friends ASAP -- before the Valentine's Day deadline:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce

The more people who see this video, the more people will understand the pain caused by Prop 8 and Ken Starr's shameful legal proceeding.

After you watch the video, please join me and over 60,000 people who have signed a letter to the state Supreme Court, asking them to invalidate Prop 8 and reject Starr's case.

Thanks.


* MY RESPONSE *

Mary Beth,

I did see this and it is heartbreaking. In a way, though, the injustice of these actions is a major victory for gay rights. Anti-gay fervor always rouses progressives and, in this weird time, when everyone seems to be in a coma while Obama continues to manifest a virtually unchanged imperialist American foreign policy, it is vital that we roust up continued support for a truly progressive agenda. Perhaps Starr's firm should be thanked for getting people angry and active. No one else is doing it!

That said, something else broke my heart involving Starr and his thugs. About four years ago, Starr's firm was hired in Pennsylvania to sue Carl Romanelli and Ralph Nader and keep them off the ballot (in the senate and presidential races, respectively). Did you hear about that? These thugs came in and kicked them both off the ballot (even though they had collected twice the necessary signatures). They then sued them for legal fees and the crooked (Democrat appointed) judges awarded the firm $75,000 dollars in legal fees from each of the candidates!!

Carl and his family are still in very real danger of losing their home to these bastards. Ralph has since had his judgment reversed. Even though the court's original decision had been overturned by a higher court and even though a handful of the Democrat operatives responsible for this are now in jail, the decision to make Carl responsible for the Starr firm's fees has, thus far, stood! It is a travesty what these two-party fascist scum will do! I agree.

The Democrats want Greens and independents to work with them. I think that they first need to take a good look in the mirror (as Democrat-King Alan Chartok might say). To gain this sort of trust the Democrats would need to stop behaving just as badly as the Republicans, wouldn't they?! I have a long memory and the reason I don't work with either corporate party is terrible hypocrisy of exactly this sort. The Dems are now saying that Starr and his firm are evil bastards because they subvert democracy and squash minority rights ... but were they saying the same thing when they hired these scum to thwart our very democracy?

Peace,
Matt

Using Tax Money To Kill Democracy!

If you consider yourself knowledgeable about politics and you believe there is a special place in Hell for those who sabotage our elections, you just may want to read up on these lesser known culprits doing that evil work right next door in Pennsylvania. Not all "theft of democracy" occurs in Florida and Ohio and not all of it is sponsored by the Republicans. Interesting stuff!

Pa. Statehouse scandal cited in Sen. ballot case

PETER JACKSON
The Associated Press
The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 2008
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20080716_ap_pastatehousescandalcitedinsenballotcase.html

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A former Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate on Wednesday asked the state's highest court to reopen his two-year-old ballot-access case because state legislative officials arrested last week on corruption charges were allegedly involved in the challenge that knocked him out of the race.

Carl Romanelli, once regarded as a threat to Democrat Bob Casey in the 2006 Senate race, and his lawyer, Lawrence Otter, want the case sent back to Commonwealth Court. There, they plan to ask a judge to dismiss a ruling requiring them to pay more than $80,000 in legal costs.

Romanelli and Otter cite grand jury allegations that state House Democratic caucus operatives directed as many as 30 taxpayer-paid employees to review signatures on Romanelli's petition in the ballot challenge that killed his candidacy.

"A democratic society can no longer function if the government is going to support candidates and suppress other candidates using its funds and resources," Samuel Stretton, the attorney for Romanelli and Otter, wrote in Wednesday's filing in the state Supreme Court.

Casey, a son of the late governor, won the election over Rick Santorum, then the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.

A Casey spokesman said the senator was not aware of any illegal activity surrounding the Romanelli ballot challenge.

"There was never any indication ... about anything like this going on," said the spokesman, Larry Smar.

In a similar challenge that prevented Ralph Nader from running in Pennsylvania as an independent presidential candidate in 2004, the grand jury alleged that as many as 50 House Democratic staffers invested "a staggering number of man-hours" in efforts to block his candidacy.

The state Supreme Court ordered Nader and running mate Peter Miguel Camejo to pay $81,000 in legal costs of the voters who challenged his signatures , a judgment that Nader is contesting in the District of Columbia courts.

Nader's lawyer, Oliver Hall, said he is weighing whether to raise the Pennsylvania corruption case in that litigation.

"We are going to aggressively pursue every avenue to oppose this judgment," Hall said. "It now appears to be clear that (the judgment) is the result of a criminal conspiracy."

State Attorney General Tom Corbett's office last week charged each of the 12 defendants with theft, conspiracy and conflicts of interest counts in an alleged wide-ranging scheme to use taxpayer-funded employees, equipment and other resources to advance their political interests.

The defendants include former Rep. Michael Veon of Beaver County, the No. 2 Democratic leader until he was ousted in the 2006 election; Mike Manzo, the former chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese, who has not been charged; and one sitting legislator, Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver. All the defendants are free on bail. Veon, Manzo and Ramaley have said they are innocent.

The ballot challenges left Nader and Romanelli, a railroad consultant who had been making his first bid for statewide political office, thousands of signatures shy of the number needed to qualify for their respective ballots.
Eleven Commonwealth Court judges were involved in examining Nader's petitions. Nearly two-thirds of his signatures were declared invalid, and the presiding judge cited widespread evidence of fraud that "shocks the conscience."

Democratic strategists regarded both Romanelli and Nader as spoilers who would siphon votes from the Democrats in those races.

Smar noted that Santorum's supporters provided most of the financing for Romanelli's signature-gathering effort.

"Nothing changes the fact that his signatures were invalid," said Smar.
Part of the reason for the monetary judgment against Romanelli and his lawyer was that they lacked the resources to defend themselves against the ballot challenge, Stretton said.

For example, some days they failed to muster the nine representatives that the judge wanted from each side. The Democratic State Committee, which mounted the challenge, consistently had the requisite number, he said.

"If there are going to be any fines and costs, they should be reserved for those who misused government offices and taxpayer funds in mounting this challenge," he wrote in the latest filing.

Bumped off ballot, Green Party candidate goes to court

By Tracie Mauriello
Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), July 17, 2008
http://www.post-gazette.com

HARRISBURG -- A third-party congressional candidate filed a court petition yesterday saying he had been bumped from the ballot based on illegal work done by Harrisburg Democratic staffers who were arrested last week on corruption charges.

Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate in the 2006 U.S. Senate race, is asking the state Supreme Court to dismiss a ruling requiring him to pay $80,408 in legal costs incurred during his fight to stay on the ballot. He was bumped from the ballot after numerous signatures on his nominating petitions were challenged as invalid.

A grand jury presentment last week included evidence that those signature challenges were based on work by dozens of Democratic House employees while they were on the clock and being paid with tax dollars.

The grand jury found that staffers were similarly involved in an effort to remove former presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the 2004 ballot.

"The use of government monies to sponsor or support a candidate and/or challenge another candidate is absolutely dreadful and impermissible and a total violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution," attorney Samuel C. Stretton wrote in the petition filed yesterday on behalf of Mr. Romanelli and Larry Otter, an attorney who had represented Mr. Romanelli during the petition challenges. "A Democratic society can no longer function if the government is going to support candidates and suppress other candidates using its funds and resources."

Mr. Romanelli had been viewed as a potential spoiler who could draw votes away from Democrat Bob Casey Jr. during his 2006 race against longtime Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.

Mr. Casey's spokesman Larry Smar said he was "absolutely unaware" that legislative staffers had been put to work challenging petition signatures on the senator's behalf.

"We absolutely had no idea any of this was going on," he said. "But, as far as the ballot challenge, the names on the Romanelli petitions were still invalid, no matter what took place."

Mr. Nader and running mate Peter Camejo were seen as potential spoilers in the 2004 presidential race. House Democratic staffers were involved in petition challenges that got them removed from the ballot and assessed $81,000 in court costs in Pennsylvania.

"It seems clear that the judgment [against Mr. Nader and Mr. Camejo] was related to conduct set forth in the presentment and, for that reason, we think it is the ill-gotten fruit of a criminal conspiracy and cannot be enforced," said Nader attorney Oliver Hall. The presentment "clearly shows you have 50 state employees who are marshaled into service by a political party for the purpose of suppressing voter choice in a federal election by forcing a candidate off the ballot."

Mr. Nader and Mr. Camejo have not yet paid the $81,000 and have not decided whether to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to remand the case, as Mr. Romanelli has.

Among those charged in the grand jury investigation were former House Minority Whip Mike Veon, D-Beaver Falls; Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Economy, and Michael Manzo, former chief of staff to Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese of Waynesburg.

Tracie Mauriello can be reached at tmauriello@post-gazette.com or 717-787-2141.

Letters: One Reader's View

Investigate sabotage of Nader efforts

Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17, 2008
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080717_Letters__One_Reader_s_View.html

It is unfortunate that Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman Abe Amoros used the criminal indictment of 12 prominent Pennsylvania Democrats as an occasion, once again, to defame 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and 2006 Green Party senatorial candidate Carl Romanelli ("National tie to Pa. bonus scandal," July 15).

As Amoros should know, only a tiny number of signatures on the Nader petitions - 687 or 1.3 percent of the total - were counted as "forgeries" by their signers, and in the words of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Thomas Saylor, there is "no evidence" to support Democrats' claims that the Nader campaign was even aware of such signatures. Furthermore, no allegation of fraud was ever raised against Romanelli's petitions.

There is, however, evidence that the Nader petitions were the target of widespread and deliberate sabotage: specifically, petition circulators discovered and removed about 7,000 obviously fake signatures prior to submitting the petitions.

Attorney General Tom Corbett should make it a priority to discover who was behind this unlawful conduct, and to clarify the role of the law firm mentioned in the indictment, which helped perpetrate the miscarriage of justice that denied Pennsylvanians their free choice of candidates in the 2004 presidential election.

Oliver Hall
Counsel to Ralph Nader
Washington

Will Nader and the Greens Ride Again?

The short answer is, it really does seem probable ... even likely. I just got back from Reading, PA where I attended the Green Party's Annual Convention, "Green For a Change". It was a great recharging of the batteries. It was wonderful to see so many of my fellow national delegates. We email each other and debate and discuss and argue all types of things endlessly all year long and the convention is a great opportunity to actually talk face to face, mend some fences, set some limits or just plain wrassle.

I know that my posts in our various email battles usually become more pointed and more civil after attending such gatherings.

A short rundown is easy. I arrived on Thursday. Many others who had come from as far away as Hawaii, were already attending workshops on Dismantling Racism, Running For Office, Peace Actions, Green Strategy, Fundraising and many other various and sundry topics.

Friday morning, I attended a workshop given by NY state's own Mike Seller (Cobleskill's 23 yr. old Green Mayor) and Rebecca Rotzler, New Paltz's outgoing Green Deputy Mayor. They had lots of insight about the nuts and bolts of governance and were very direct in speaking to the issues of limited resource within the party for aiding officeholders with campaigns and problem resolution.

Plenary sessions began Friday afternoon and, finding that we had, in fact, achieved a quorum, we watched several presentations on next year's possible convention sites (Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Oakland/Berkeley). We spent some time that evening listening to a number of presidential candidates, Green and otherwise, who had come seeking our nomination. I especially liked Jared ball, a young man from the DC Statehood Greens who was extremely poised and articulate and strong in his presentation.

On Saturday, we voted for our secretary and new steering committee and spent some time speaking (a minute each) about what we thought should happen with electoral/presidential politics in 2008. Four people, myself being one of them, got up to speak in support of a Ralph Nader/Green candidacy. Three of us were applauded enthusiastically, one massively. Only one of the other 50 or so Greens who spoke mentioned David Cobb and Pat LaMarche and how proud they were of them both. There was massive silence. Only two Maine Greens twinkled. One speaker advocated for a Cynthia McKinney Green candidacy. A few people clapped and some people twinkled.

That same night, Ralph came to speak. There were a little over 300 people there (mostly national delegates). There was a standing ovation and the crowd chanted loudly, "Run, Ralph. Run!" for about two minutes. Ralph was very inspirational and there was a feeling in the air of such great possibility.

I should explain that there are "paper state" Greens in our party. Basically, these are Greens
from states without ballot status or any real mechanism for measuring party support in their state who have somehow been assessed delegates anyway (we like to call them Democrats and
obstructionists). These people are often suspiciously anti-Nader but they are also a very small minority within the party. The other group of anti-Nader or anti-presidential run Greens are those concerned about ballot access for their state parties in places like Texas or Illinois or Pennsylvania itself. These people want to make sure that they get an unknown to run who will spend a lot of time working on party building in their states, unlike Ralph, who always makes an honest effort to go to every state at least once and only hits the bigger states multiple times.

My sense of things is that 2004 is clearly over. ABB is dead and a vast majority of us are just champing at the bit to run a presidential candidate. If the respective Green reaction to Nader and then McKinney on Sunday was any indication, we all really want Ralph to run but if he won't do it, we want to keep the McKinney "door" open a crack.

I organized a private discussion with Ralph and a hadnful of other Greens after his appearance and it certainly was my feeling that, collectively, we are all just dying to finish off what we all so happily undertook in 2000.

McKinney, appearing Sunday afternoon, looked great in her movie, American Blackout, that was screened before she spoke. I was somewhat dissappointed with her ability to inspire. She seems so capable and fearless and articulate and direct on C-Span and in her film but not so much when she is at the podium live. She is someone we all should respect and appreciate but it was also obvious from the smaller, slightly less enthusiastic crowd that she is not going to be our candidate. Many of her own advocates amongst us were talking (rudely) throughout her allotted time.

McKinney dropped a lot of hints about 2008 that left no room for guessing but it is my prediction that Ralph is going to run and he's going to run with us again and that this action will help make the Green Party whole so we can start building again.

Crooked Democrat Judge Fines Nader $89,000 For Running for Office

I have attached a truly frightening piece below about the lengths to which the Democrats have now stooped to quash democracy and shut down third party candidates. The Democrats, through actions like this, are succeeding at making the Republicans look like the good guys. When I read articles like this, I am quite relieved to be associated with neither set of ruling class, neo-corporatist swine.


OpEdNews
www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__070502_democrats_tighten_no.htm
May 2, 2007
Democrats tighten noose on Nader and Greens in punitive attack on "Third Party" candidates
By Michael Richardson

The Democrats are tightening the financial noose around Ralph Nader for his failed bid to obtain ballot access in Pennsylvania during his 2004 Presidential campaign. Nader had been deprived a place on the ballot after extensive litigation, brought by the Democrats, and was later assessed a hefty $89,821 penalty by the Pennsylvania courts to be paid to the Democrats for court-related costs. Nader appealed the assessment and was recently denied a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. Emboldened, lawyers for the Democrats have now entered the costly order as a final judgment in an ongoing effort to enforce the penalty.

Nader attorney Oliver Hall says about the post-election vendetta, "They have overreached and gone way too far, it is unprecedented." The obvious chilling effect on independents and minor party candidates is not lost on Carl Romanelli, the 2006 Green Party would-be candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. Romanelli, too, has been hit by the Democrats with a huge bill for their costs in removing him from the ballot and has been ordered to pay $89,668.

If successful in Pennsylvania, Democrat legislators around the country will likely introduce similar punitive election laws in other states, particularly "swing" states, in a preventive effort to keep independents and minor party candidates off the ballot.

Capital University law professor Mark Brown has studied the 2004 legal wrangling that took Nader off the ballot in Pennsylvania and recently published a law review article on the affair. Brown discovered the Democrats were aided by a judge who may have been motivated by animus toward Nader's candidacy.

Nader needed 25,697 signatures on his nomination petitions to get a spot on the Pennsylvania ballot and submitted approximately 52,000. A week after filing the petitions the Secretary of State accepted Nader's nomination after tossing about 5,000 signatures for various reasons. That same day, August 9, 2004, eight Democrat "objectors" represented by two dozen lawyers challenged some 37,000 of the remaining signatures. After weeks of legal wrangling eleven judges were assigned the monumental task of a line-by-line review of Nader's petitions.

Judge James Collins, who assessed the $89,821 bill, led the review declaring Nader's petitions were "rife with forgeries" and that "this signature gathering process was the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this Court." Collins alleged that "thousands of names" were "created at random"…a view dissented from by Justice Saylor of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who declared the Nader campaign had not been shown to have engaged in any kind of "systemic" fraud and that only 687 signatures out of 51,273 had actually been rejected for forgery.

Professor Brown has discovered that Judge Collins personally ruled that 568 of the 687 purported forgeries were fraudulent leaving the other ten judges to find only 119 forgeries. Collins and two of the other reviewing judges discarded thousands of signatures on very "technical and complicated" criteria including a missing middle initial, use of ditto marks, or mixing printing with cursive writing. Collins ended up rejecting 70% of the 10,794 signatures he reviewed.

Brown wrote in his law review article, "Moreover, the eleven judges who reviewed Nader's signature submissions apparently employed different standards to invalidate signatures at alarmingly different rates." In a footnote, Brown notes that 3,500 signatures were invalidated for unstated reasons.

Brown writes there was a "concerted Democratic program to purge Nader from the presidential ballot." Further, "The lesson to be drawn from the 2004 presidential race is that neither major party can be trusted to police a general election ballot. Major party interests naturally lean more toward rigging and sabotaging than insuring fair and competitive fights."

"The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court pressed just under a dozen judges into service at different locations over the course of two weeks to canvass 52,000 signatures submitted by the Nader campaign. Not only did this Herculean effort push the Nader campaign beyond its legal and technical capacity--some of the proceedings were not even attended by Nader's lawyers--the eleven judges invalidated signatures at alarmingly different rates."

"Forcing lawyers to scramble among a dozen courtrooms in as many days to uphold an agency's decision authorizing ballot access is neither measured nor productive. The practice is not only constitutionally objectionable, but it also facilitates a moneyed effort to veto a political outsider's participation in the electoral arena."

Attorney Hall says that Ralph Nader is still reviewing his options regarding the costly and punitive order issued by Judge Collins to punish Nader's bid for public office.

Professor Brown concludes his analysis of the Democratic legal attack on Nader, "I suspect that as long as America's political system rewards an empty lust for power, politicians and judges will continue to turn blind eyes to fair procedures."

Permission granted to reprint. Authors Bio: Michael Richardson is a freelance writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about politics, election law, human nutrition, ethics, and music. In 2004 Richardson was Ralph Nader's national ballot access coordinator.