November 8th, 2000

      We thought we have seen everything during recent events in Belgrade but that was nothing compared to this. Everything goes around state of Florida that gives 25 electoral votes. Presidential race was very close and candidate who gets 270 electoral votes wins presidency. Some states carry just couple of electoral votes while some as California carry over 50. Gore tactics were to rely on those states with more electoral votes while Bush went for more states, more electoral votes and won over 30 of them (Wisconsin, Oregon, New Mexico and Florida are still undecided). Total popular vote is also very close but it doesn't count, what counts is electoral votes.

      Early on Tuesday, November 7th, TV stations and various media based in Florida reported that Gore has won Florida which was a big surprise for everyone because of strong republican support. Bush's brother Jeb is governor there and Florida usually gives support to the Republicans. Some of them questioned that and during the night CNN showed 52% Bush's lead over 46% for Gore. It is almost impossible to believe that media could have been that blind and biased to report Gore's victory. Sometimes victory can be called if the lead is big or not too many votes weren't accounted but in this case Bush had substantial lead. CNN and other national networks believed to local reports and call Gore's victory in Florida. Early Wednesday morning NY Times published full story regarding this and investigated how this happened. Their explanation says that local Florida media announced Gore's victory based on stories told by voters!? That reminds us of some people in 1972 telling stories that no one voted for Nixon and everyone gave their votes to democratic nominee (we don't even know his name). Now goes the question to what the hell was going on in Florida and who controls TV networks and media in general. U. S. State Department likes to complain about Serbian state TV propaganda and lies but never wants to examine domestic media propaganda and lies. This time we had presidential elections in the U.S.A. and it is of extreme importance for media to provide objective informations to the public. It is obvious of what kind of an impact this was. Gore was trailing Bush and in order to mobilize voters in the West, a lie was launched to deceive voters and gain momentum for Gore's campaign. With 54 electoral votes from California almost won before elections even started and victory in New York and Illinois there was a lot to go for.

      Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that CNN and other national networks would transmit this swindle and broadcast a lie if they were not conspirators as well. You can call for someone's victory only if the number of all the remaining votes left unaccounted is smaller than the number of the votes that would make candidates that trail win. If one candidate wins 25,000 votes, other wins 22,000 and there is 2,000 votes unaccounted then you can announce the winner. Showing up Bush's commencing lead during the night after republicans questioned Florida's results contradicts conditions to call someone a winner. How can the one who lost Florida elections suddenly lead 52% to 46%? Story unfortunately doesn't end here. It goes far worse.

      Gore and his team rejected facts and true results and called for recount. From that moment on, Bush's lead started to melt, 52% to 47% then 51% to 48% when finally CNN announced Bush's victory in Florida and overall his victory because with 25 electoral votes from Florida he achieved magic 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Gore still refused to accept defeat and with good results coming from Washington he demanded further recount. Bush's lead again started to melt finally reaching only 21,000 votes. Bush's team was celebrating in Austin, Texas and CNN cameras moved to Nashville, Tennessee where Gore was supposed to admit his defeat. Only moments ago he congratulated Bush on his victory over the phone. But, Gore was nowhere to be seen. Cameras looking everywhere but Gore wasn't there. CNN then showed up local coverage of Florida, mentioning that votes from districts that support Gore are still not accounted!? First they announce Gore's victory then they show Bush's commencing lead then they show to us that Bush's lead is starting to melt with no apparent reason then they say that votes from all districts that support Gore are still not accounted!? What do they think? Do they think we are that stupid? Gore never had enough votes to win presidency without Florida and as a result started to pressure with recounting in order to force Florida victory. No matter what Bush's lead remained unchallenged and then Gore's personal friend, to quote CNN: Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth -- who served as Gore's campaign chairman in Florida said that under Florida's law recount must be done if the difference in votes is less than half percent of all accounted votes. You do the math and then find out that the magic number is around 25,000 votes and that Gore suddenly disappeared when CNN showed difference of 21,000 votes.

      Another tight race was in 1960 when Kennedy won over Nixon with 110,000 votes more in popular vote and although Nixon's team insisted on recount and investigatio of other irregularities, Nixon himself refused to do that and admitted outright Kennedy's victory. Nixon won his presidency twice after, in 1968 and 1972. His explanation was very simple, he didn't want to place any question marks on presidential elections and thus smear institution of presidency, U.S.A. reputation and election process in U.S.A. What do you think now about USA and democracy in USA? Not much, you feel betrayed and your vision of some global democratic society starts to fade in favor of totalitarianism and their bully approach when people's opinion counts. "Everyone" voted for ex-KGB agent Putin in Russia. People want more gulags and more persecutions, stronger police state and media censorship. It is like black voters voting for KKK. So what, says Bill Clinton and his buddy Gore, Putin is our good friend!? After that, Clinton-Gore team goes to Serbia and orchestrates coup d'etat. Kostunica wins first round of elections but fails to win more than 50% of all votes and under Yugoslav law candidates must go to the second round. Kostunica, backed by Clinton-Gore administration then says that Federal Election Commission is lying and that he has won 54% of all votes. Federal Election Commission then rejects Kostunica's complaints and on October 5th, team of paratroopers, mercenaries and kickboxers stormed federal parliament, state TV station and major local TV stations. Kostunica announced himself the president and that was it. Votes were never recounted and he is officially recognized as the president of FRY. Just days before coup d'etat happened, Clinton-Gore administration announced through U.S. State Department that there will be no second round of Yugoslav elections. It is obvious who is behind all of this. World remained quiet because Milosevic is a war criminal and everyone is sick and tired of him. Unfortunately, Clinton-Gore team had other things on their minds, to steal and smear U.S. elections. Yugoslavia and Milosevic were just testing grounds.

      The worst part of U.S. elections was CNN coverage and their anchor Judy Woodruff, veteran journalists with numerous awards. If someone ever needed to be restrained then that was her. Her biased, subjective and blatant cheerleading for Gore and Hillary Clinton was shameful and it is hard to imagine that this kind of experienced and awarded journalist can do such unprofessionally coverage of one of the most important and definitely closest U.S. presidential elections ever. If someone told me that she is member of Gore's campaigning team I would believe him outright. At some moments she became hysterical, refusing even to accept possibility of Gore's defeat, her hands shaking with every state won by Bush, her face indicating possibility of a sudden stroke or nervous breakdown were a little too much. She looked more like campaign managers then award winning journalist or moderator who needs to professionally covers important political events like this one. She was happy as a schoolgirl when finally she announced Gore's victory in California and Hawaii that gave him substantial lead. Immediately after that she moved to cover speech of Hillary Clinton for 15 minutes while no results where announced, results indicating Bush's sweep of the states. One by one states were falling but Hillary was on our screens telling us propaganda crap and how happy she is because of her victory in the state that has been democratic stronghold for years, that her husband used his presidential influence to help her, that democrats kicked out NY City mayor Giuliani out of the race. blah, blah, blah. Who wouldn't win in her place? When finally, Florida results were announced and Bush won his presidency, she looked like her mother died. After that goes period of post traumatic stress when people try to find out will to live and calm themselves. Judy started to talk about popular vote and how close the race was, then she mentioned possibility that Gore might win popular vote although he has lost elections, then she started complaining about electoral votes and what kind of credibility would Bush have if he wins less popular votes than Gore, then she started to look again in Florida votes cheering herself that difference is becoming smaller and finally she got an idea - recount of all votes! Maybe some miracle happens and they find out that Gore has won and Bush was cheating.

      The worst thing then happened that will haunt these elections forever and cast grave doubts about media influence in U.S.A. and fairness of election process. Here it goes: Just before Gore arrived at Nashville memorial building where stage was located, CNN turned on directly and their feed was broadcasted on the big screen and huge speakers. Everything said in the studio was heard by thousands of supporters of Al Gore in Nashville, all speculations, all her cheering, all her frustrations, all her ideas. Gore delayed his speech although he did congratulate Bush. He waited for less than 25,000 votes difference in order to call his buddy from Florida and ask full recount. Everything would be clear because of Florida's law so no one could blame him. At that moment, Judy wasn't sure what people are chanting and then, as a suggestion, she started yelling recount, recount. Do not forget that she was heard and seen by the crowd. Crowd spontaneously started to repeat her words like in a football game where fans chant. No one knew anything about Florida's laws or even thought possibility of full recount of all 5 million votes. Why should they? CNN and other national networks announced Bush as a winner. She was so happy that she couldn't stop smiling and cheering for Gore. Only moments later, some guy from Florida gets on CNN by the phone and tells us about 1200 votes differential and that votes are going to be recounted because the law requires so. Soon as he was finished, Gore's campaign manager showed up and announced to the crowd that Gore is still not defeated and that there is going to be recount of all 5 million votes and that will take days. Someone mentioned recount of absentee ballots but now it was announced that all votes are going to be double and triple checked indicating that Bush was cheating similar to Milosevic in Yugoslavia.

      This is the worst that could have happened to the democracy and election process in U.S.A. Credibility and validity is now forever smeared. Gore refused to accept defeat, his campaign manager abused his position of Attorney General. Who knows what he did to fix results in order to help Gore. We can now suspect all states and all votes where the race was close and there were too many of them. We used to wait for weeks for results during Milosevic's days but not from Americans. Whole world is now waiting for Gore to accept his defeat because we don't need another coup d'etat that happened recently in Serbia. This is similar to Dornan-Sanchez lunacy occurred in 1996 in Orange County, California. Dornan (R) lost his bid for Congress by small margin and refused to accept defeat. First he wanted to recount absentee ballots and then when he was still behind he requested recount of all votes and announced himself Republican boycott of Congress. This drag went for full two years after he finally accepted defeat. I would like to suggest that democratic voters from Orange County send copies of their messages written to Dornan to Al Gore, messages calling Dornan a loser and various other names and profanities. You are not surprised aren't you? We also heard about Gore's team bitching about presidential candidate from the Green Party, Ralph Nader and how his campaigning damaged Gore. Too bad we haven't heard exact names they called Nader because CNN censors profanities. I do not think that he got more than 10% of votes in any state so this kind of accusations only speak about character of presidential candidate and members of his team. They like to blame everyone and everything but not themselves. Clinton-Gore were accusing other presidential candidates in Yugoslavia as well blaming them to try to steal votes from their favorite Nazi candidate Kostunica. They are like Milosevic, all people should vote for just one guy and think what one party tells them as was the case in Nazi Germany in '30s. Already mentioned Judy Woodruff was constantly asking for Nader's votes and because the race was close she was blaming him for Gore's losses. "You see, Bush won by 20,000 votes and Nader took 30,000 votes. Statistics showed that if Nader was not campaigning those voters would cast their votes for Gore. Someone should stop this man, I can't stand to see Gore defeated." What about democracy Judy, what about elections, what about free speech? "Yes I know but I sooooo much like Gore, I can't restrain myself." Should we listen Judy further and go back and talk about Jews in Florida who vote for Gore and Cuban Americans who are actually not Cubans but Latinos from Peru, Salvador and other countries from South America!? We thought we heard everything but that Cuban Americans are actually not Cubans and that because of that they will vote for Gore is total garbage. Her logic goes that all Jews voted for Gore because his running mate is Lieberman. If voting is about that then we don't need to vote at all. What about issues and presidential candidates? He is an eskimo, I'm an eskimo so I will vote for him no matter what.

      It is almost 9AM EST and it is time to end of this commentary. If within 24 hours Gore doesn't accept his defeat then democracy and reputation of U.S.A. will suffer greatly. Democracy is almost a synonym for America around the world. What people around the globe are supposed to think now? What about CNN instigation of recount in Nashville? What about lies, biased coverage and an attempt to change election outcome and destroy idea of democratic and fair elections forever? As a result of this, FS Net will not provide links to CNN and use their news because of our policy that says: Everything you are going to find here is true, based on solid facts! If we need propaganda and lies then we will quote Gore's campaigning managers not CNN.

FS Net Editor