Dear friends,

I just put a dollar bill in the soda pop machine.

The machine rejected my dollar bill!

Does that mean my dollar bill can no longer be counted as a dollar? After all, the  machine refused to accept it as a legal tender. But it IS a dollar, regardless of what this machine says, right? If I go down to my local bank, and demand that my dollar be counted as a valid American dollar, will they say, Sorry, but this dollar bill was rejected by a soft drink machine whose patent and machinery has been approved by various state and federal agencies. It is your fault you did not insert your dollar properly.

But I inserted it properly!

We'll, it must have had a wrinkle. We cannot deposit your dollar bill into your account!

That's not what would happen, is it?

Do any of you Bush supporters believe that my dollar is still a dollar --
EVEN THOUGH IT WAS REJECTED BY A MACHINE?

Also, would you mind if I push for legislation that would require the New York Stock Exchange and the bank that maintains your 401K account and the broker who handles your mutual funds to switch to the same technology used to count the punch card ballots in Florida? You seem to have so much faith in that system! Why don't you and all your rich buddies start using it yourselves? It only fails to count an average of 5% of the ballots that are run through it. You could afford lose 5% of your money, couldn't you? C'mon, it's only money -- it's not like it's a sacred vote or anything!

I insist that you put your money not only where your mouth is but also in the technology who may give you the President you so want.
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More good news from our telegram onslaught yesterday and today. Western Union told us that they had to add extra emergency staff to handle all the requests that were initiated from our letter yesterday. We are hauling at least one large bag an hour over to the Court, the Western Union person told us. Each bag contains thousands of telegrams. Nearly all are addressed to O'Connor and Kennedy. Privately, she told me that 99% of those O'Connor/Kennedy telegrams were demanding that ALL the votes in Florida be counted. (Note: Western Union automatically changed the William Kennedy grams to Anthony.)

We have not had a day like this in years!, she told me. (Hey, we didn't even know telegrams still existed! Somebody today told me Pony Express is still in business. Next time, let's save the money and use smoke signals.)
Phone lines on their 800 number have been jammed for the past 24 hours.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this. Let's see if it works. Once the Justices made it clear this was not going to be decided on the Constitution but rather on political considerations, as far as I'm concerned, we had no choice but to respond in a political manner.
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So, while we await the Supreme Court's decision, here is a little reading material for a cold winter's night in America...

The first is from a law book -- THE law book, the United States Code. The rules are very clear about how justices and judges have to STEP ASIDE when there is a conflict of interest. Justice Thomas's wife works for the company currently recruiting staff for a potential George W. Bush administration. Justice Scalia's son works for Bush's lawyers. To not recuse themselves from this decision is a violation of the law.

Following that, I have included two powerful articles that support this conflict of interest charge. Read them and wail.

Finally, I offer you a piece from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about a little incident many years ago involving Chief Justice Rehnquist. Per the U.S. Code, considering these former actions of his, maybe he, too, should step aside. (Thanks to Pamela Martens for the research.)

Still hopeful,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com