Well relax! There's no reason to worry.

Source

International Election Monitoring Group Headed By Impeached U.S. Judge;
Group Warns of Election Catastrophe

August 25, 2004

Washington, D.C.- The American Policy Center charged on Wednesday that the U.S. State Department has invited scandal, fraud, and corruption to the American electoral process with its decision to bring in foreign election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the November presidential election.

APC, a grassroots activist organization located in suburban Washington, D.C., is alerting Americans to the dangers of inviting an international body to monitor the upcoming presidential election.

APC has discovered that the president of the OSCE election monitoring arm is none other than Florida Representative and disgraced federal judge, Alcee Hastings. He was elected President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on July 9 of this year. According to its website: "The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's role [in the election monitoring process] is to deploy parliamentarians, primarily as short-term observers, and to provide political leadership to the OSCE monitoring operation." In other words, Alcee Hastings is at the top of the OSCE's election monitoring operation.

In 1988, The U.S. House of Representatives voted almost unanimously (413-3) to approve 17 articles of impeachment amounting to "high crimes and misdemeanors" against Hastings, who at the time was a federal judge. While sitting on the federal bench, an FBI bribery sting caught Hastings conspiring to obtain a $150,000 bribe in exchange for granting leniency to a pair of convicted racketeers. The Senate convicted Hastings of perjury and conspiracy to take a bribe. He is one of only a handful of judges ever to be impeached in the history of the U.S.

"The outrage just got more outrageous," said American Policy Center president Tom DeWeese. "Not only has the State Department invited a team of unaccountable, foreign bureaucrats to meddle in our free elections, but these meddlers are headed by one of the most corrupt individuals in the U.S. Congress."

"While they're at it," said DeWeese, "why doesn't the State Department invite O.J. Simpson to head up the FBI crime lab?"

Hastings is by no means an innocent bystander in the upcoming presidential election. Hastings is a House Democrat who represents Broward County, Florida-ground zero of the Election 2000 re-count fiasco. On June 14 of this year, the disgraced former judge declared to the Associated Press: "Any way we cut it, these people [the Bush Administration] are going to try and steal this election." Now Hastings, as president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, is in position to seriously affect the outcome of the 2004 vote.

"By caving to the demands of 13 leftist Congressmen that international election observers monitor the November 2 presidential election, the Bush Administration is not only shooting U.S. sovereignty, but shooting itself in the foot," said DeWeese. "There is a political agenda at work here. The OSCE is not an unbiased team of observers. If the vote in Florida or many other states is as close as predicted, you can bet that Alcee Hastings and his army of foreign monitors will do everything in their power to affect the outcome to their liking."

Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) warned: "We should be wary about organizations like the OSCE that seek to involve themselves in our electoral process. The OSCE in particular has a terrible record in the newly-democratic countries of central Europe, where it normally operates. According to groups that follow the conduct of the OSCE, this organization does much more to undermine free elections than to promote them.

"In Bosnia in 1996, for example," said Rep. Paul, "the OSCE gave its seal of approval to parliamentary elections despite the fact that an impossible 107 percent of the possible voting-age population had voted. In 1998, the OSCE observer team that was to monitor the cease-fire between the Serbs and Albanians was caught sending targeting information back to the US and European Union in advance of the U.S.-led attack on Serbia. This year, the OSCE approved the election of Mikheil Saakashvili in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with a Saddam Hussein-like 97 percent of the vote! There are dozens more similar examples."

"Clearly the OSCE has shown by its conduct and by its questionable choice of leadership that it is not an organization worthy of U.S. participation," DeWeese charged.

"Not only must the Bush Administration immediately rescind its invitation to the OSCE to monitor this year's election, but the White House must also withdraw our membership from this suspect group. Alcee Hastings is a blatant symbol of political corruption. Why on Earth would the U.S. government continue to support an organization lead by him, let alone pay 10 percent of its operating budget?"

© 2004 American Policy Center

Thanks for getting me pissed off about this - AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!  This just infuriates me.  Apparently, the U.S. agreed in principle to this U.N. election monitoring BS years ago, but it's never actually happened before.  Are there really that many people who don't want us to be a soveregin nation any more?

And what group will be doing the monitoring?  See highlighted text below - 'nuff said.

Quoted: ... the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ...

@#%$^!*&#^*!!!!!  If I WANTED to be part of $%*^$%* socialist Europe, I'd *&$@#'ing move there!!!!!!

Let me guess, all of the monitor's names are CHAD!

www.osce.org/general/

About the OSCE

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the largest regional security organization in the world with 55 participating States from Europe, Central Asia and North America. It is active in early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.

The OSCE approach to security is comprehensive and co-operative: comprehensive in dealing with a wide range of security-related issues including arms control, preventive diplomacy, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, democratization, election monitoring and economic and environmental security; co-operative in the sense that all OSCE participating States have equal status, and decisions are based on consensus.

What I don't understand is that this asshat was elected to U.S. House of Representatives after he was impeachment in 1988 for "high crimes and misdemeanors" while sitting as a federal judge.

And it seems like a huge conflict of intrest to be a current U.S. House Rep. for Broward County, Florida and the head of OSCE at the same time.

Impeached
All I had too read. WTFA

Maybe they'll wear those nifty blue targets, I mean helmets.

It isn't the UN. We didn't "agree in priciple" to monitoring. It is a treaty obligation. Alcee Hastings should have been burned at the stake, but for some reason was not criminally prosecuted for his shameful conduct.

Quoted: It isn't the UN. We didn't "agree in priciple" to monitoring. It is a treaty obligation. Alcee Hastings should have been burned at the stake, but for some reason was not criminally prosecuted for his shameful conduct.

FLAL1A - Okay, I've never known you to be factually inaccurate.  I'll do some more research on this.  When I made the U.N. elections monitoring statement, I said "apparently" because I had not yet checked it for myself.  It was something I was told by a colleague who is very knowledgeable and generally correct.  Perhaps I misunderstood him.  One day I will learn to check first, speak second.

Now, this I have checked (and I was first clued in to it by the same colleague I mentioned above).  This is why treaties are so dangerous.  From the Constitution of the U.S. -

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Note especially the last sentence - "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."  The Constitution of the U.S. is subordinate to any treaty - including one that bans firearms.

Almost sounds like the US voters need to show up at the polling places prior to them opening and "assist" any forign nationals off the premises of any voting area and keep them out throughout the entire vote counting process.

Forigners have no right or reason to be anywhere near US voting aparatus or involved in the process.

The group that wants to do the meddling monitoring, should be "assisted" in relocating to mexico for the duration of the voting process as well.

Bush is acting like an idiot to not only allow this group in, but to invite them is supidly absurd.  Nothing like telling the rest of the world that the US Constitutions electoral process is no better then some third world shitholes.

Nice.

Chris

The UN is trying to ban firearms right now. They say we have no right to own them. If you go to the NRAnews.com site you can see a video about it.

Quoted: The UN is trying to ban firearms right now. They say we have no right to own them. If you go to the NRAnews.com site you can see a video about it.

Communist Goal #3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

Communist Goal #11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.

Communist Goal #45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm

Quoted: Quoted: It isn't the UN. We didn't "agree in priciple" to monitoring. It is a treaty obligation. Alcee Hastings should have been burned at the stake, but for some reason was not criminally prosecuted for his shameful conduct. FLAL1A - Okay, I've never known you to be factually inaccurate.  I'll do some more research on this.  When I made the U.N. elections monitoring statement, I said "apparently" because I had not yet checked it for myself.  It was something I was told by a colleague who is very knowledgeable and generally correct.  Perhaps I misunderstood him.  One day I will learn to check first, speak second. Now, this I have checked (and I was first clued in to it by the same colleague I mentioned above).  This is why treaties are so dangerous.  From the Constitution of the U.S. - This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. Note especially the last sentence - "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."  The Constitution of the U.S. is subordinate to any treaty - including one that bans firearms.

No criticism was intended. The UN question popped up on the board a few weeks ago when the European Security thing first surfaced.

On the other point, the US Constitution cannot be amended by the terms of a treaty; to be enforceable within the US, the treaty must be consistent with the Constitution. I understand your reasoning. That clause scared the bejesus out of me the first time I noticed it. However, what the Supremacy Clause (as the cited portion is known) does is establish the supremacy of the US Constitution, federal law, and federal treaties over the statutes and Constitution of any state. "The Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" Unravelling that phrase you get "anything in the Constitution of any State or in the laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." The latter reference is not to the US Constitution.

The President and the Senate could not reinstitute slavery in the US by signing a treaty with Saudi Arabia agreeing that slavery would be practiced in both countries; a NATO treaty saying that the heads of state and gov't in member nations as of January 1, 2003 would hold office for life, even if approved by the Senate, would not make GWB president for life. I am almost 100% sure there is a 19th or early 20th c. USSCt case addressing this, but the short answer is that "THIS Constitution," referred to in the beginning of the clause is obviously not "the Constitution of any state" referred to at the end.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It isn't the UN. We didn't "agree in priciple" to monitoring. It is a treaty obligation. Alcee Hastings should have been burned at the stake, but for some reason was not criminally prosecuted for his shameful conduct. FLAL1A - Okay, I've never known you to be factually inaccurate.  I'll do some more research on this.  When I made the U.N. elections monitoring statement, I said "apparently" because I had not yet checked it for myself.  It was something I was told by a colleague who is very knowledgeable and generally correct.  Perhaps I misunderstood him.  One day I will learn to check first, speak second. Now, this I have checked (and I was first clued in to it by the same colleague I mentioned above).  This is why treaties are so dangerous.  From the Constitution of the U.S. - This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. Note especially the last sentence - "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."  The Constitution of the U.S. is subordinate to any treaty - including one that bans firearms. No criticism was intended. The UN question popped up on the board a few weeks ago when the European Security thing first surfaced. On the other point, the US Constitution cannot be amended by the terms of a treaty; to be enforceable within the US, the treaty must be consistent with the Constitution. I understand your reasoning. That clause scared the bejesus out of me the first time I noticed it. However, what the Supremacy Clause (as the cited portion is known) does is establish the supremacy of the US Constitution, federal law, and federal treaties over the statutes and Constitution of any state. "The Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" Unravelling that phrase you get "anything in the Constitution of any State or in the laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." The latter reference is not to the US Constitution. The President and the Senate could not reinstitute slavery in the US by signing a treaty with Saudi Arabia agreeing that slavery would be practiced in both countries; a NATO treaty saying that the heads of state and gov't in member nations as of January 1, 2003 would hold office for life, even if approved by the Senate, would not make GWB president for life. I am almost 100% sure there is a 19th or early 20th c. USSCt case addressing this, but the short answer is that "THIS Constitution," referred to in the beginning of the clause is obviously not "the Constitution of any state" referred to at the end.

So, in the sentence "... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding," the Constitution being referred to is a state constitution, and not the U.S. Constitution?  I had nor considered that interpretation, that is, that the reference to a state in the sentence applied not only to the "Laws" but to the "Constitution" as well.  I had considered them as separate entities, that is, the "Constitution" was that of the U.S. and the "Laws" were those of the state.  Your interpretation does make sense now that I look at it that way.  Thanks.