JB: You make some good points, particularly about not just preaching to the choir. But it's another matter entirely "to decertify phony election results." Especially when the media, public officials and pundits of all varieties have pretty uniformly lined up behind the Clinton campaign. What's happening with Hillary? She's adamantly claiming the crown already and pivoting toward the general election. Is that realistic, wishful thinking or merely a bluff?
SF: It is realistic, it is a bluff, it is wishful thinking, and it is a wing and a prayer. Time will reveal all, and I hope it is before the convention, not after, with a half billion dollars in Trump's advertising that will destroy her permanently, and will destroy the blindsided Democratic party for the next 20 years. Decertification would be done by court order after hearings and adjudications.
Within a few days after the NY primary, I wrote the Moveon.org petition requesting NY Attorney General Schneiderman to ask a Federal Court for an order for a new NY Primary, based on the egregious and unprecedented levels of 200,000+ Civil Rights violations of those purged voters. Most of what follows has been published at OpEdNews.com, the ONLY website in America that would do so.
Evidence by other parties was presented to Schneiderman on May 2, the same day the first phase of our petition landed on his desk top. This evidence, in the form of a timeline and flowchart, was compiled by two New Yorkers and assembled into the flowchart by Netra Halperin, an activist in Hawaii, with the same interest that I have in the administration of clean and honest elections. It points clearly to the involvement of Bernie's opponent, her friend Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Lowey's daughter the realtor, and the prime purger in the NYC Board of Elections, in a very bizarre real estate deal that was even reported in the Wall Street Journal in 2014. There are evidentiary gaps, but that is what subpoena powers and interrogatories under oath are for, not for lay persons struggling to make sense of all of this as private concerned citizens.
JB: What was the real problem with the NY primary, and what ripple effect did it have on the rest of the following primaries?
SF: New York's primary was anything but clean and honest: it was a heist and hijack, pure and simple. The pundits crowed that it was all over for Bernie; the bean counters accepted the so-called "results" of this ostensible election, and piled up the delegate lead for Bernie's opponent, and a passing paragraph or two about election "irregularities," a reprehensible euphemism for the theft of our democracy, bit by bit.
I regret to say that the evidence compiled for the Attorney General in Albany, in addition to our petition, has resulted in absolutely nothing significant: one phone call from one of his assistants; nothing from the Civil Rights Bureau, nothing from the Press Office in terms of a press release, not even one telling us to go away. Nothing, despite the hundreds of New Yorkers who wrote in comments directed explicitly to their attorney general that they got screwed, that they witnessed this or that, that the purges were much more widespread than the Bronx and Brooklyn, and that they were willing to testify. Hundreds of people accepted my request to call Mr. Schneiderman's press office. You can read all of these outraged comments, including those from every other state, by going to the petition site on moveon.org .
JB: How many people signed the petition and what did they have to say to the Attorney General of New York? What has been the response from Albany?
SF: 6,400 signers, which may seem like a trivial number in Albany. I have to wonder just how deep the corruption really goes. Is it Tammany Hall all over again? We touted Schneiderman's efforts to impugn the Trump University, but as for our request? A big pathetic zero, like Albany wants to move on, pretend nothing happened, slap a few wrists, carry on some audits and count those affidavit ballots, all very remedial and half-baked measures, but not come through with the real solution: do the damned primary all over again!
New Yorkers, get it right the next time. Have safeguards, monitors, UN observers and the Carter Foundation, and if it is deemed crucial to have no vote "flipping," once and for all, bring in half the FBI for a few days plus every single one of their computer forensic crime experts, because every single voting machine may be suspect.
[As a 68 year old battered skeptical idealist with continued high hopes for what is left of American Democracy, it may seem surprising to read me speaking highly of the FBI, but in this election, they may be our best hope, and in due course, Bernie's best hope, as well.]
JB: I understand that you and Alison Landes of Florida shifted your request last week to US Attorney Preet Bharara. Why?
SF: Yes; I thank Alison for coming up with the solution of shifting the focus to Preet, and I hope in due course you will interview her.
Less than one week ago, we had to shift the focus away from Schneiderman to New York's most serious corruption buster, United States Attorney for the Southern District, the Honorable Preet Bharara. His record is exemplary, both in terms of Wall Street malfeasance, and crooked high level politicians in Albany like the former President of the Senate and the former Speaker of the Assembly.
More evidence is being compiled now for Mr. Bharara, all from outside of his office, and should be presented to him and then to media detailing vote manipulation and purging in seven different counties with as many as 350,000 voters purged.
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