I recently wrote a piece about the Heroes of India Company reviewing a FOX News documentary - about brave Marines who fought in the battle of Fallujah, Iraq. Thousands of people around the world read that piece and watched the accompanying video - many have written to stand with pride for these incredible patriots and to share in the grief for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

Please let me introduce you to another Fallujah hero from Washington state. His name is Tyler Farmer. He's also a Marine. He was wounded in the battle of Fallujah - was treated and is now back in action.

Tyler took particular care in doing his part to vote in this year's election. He didn't count on his home county making a mistake in not getting his ballot to him on a timely basis. He was disenfranchised by no fault of his own.

Better, let Tyler's father do the introduction and tell the story. Click on the picture to the left or here to see a video of the Rossi press conference the afternoon of December 30th (requires MS media player - this is about an 11 minute long clip.)

The Democrats in our state just appealed to our State Supreme Court to get a specific set of ballots - that had been rejected by the King County canvassing board (by 'mistake') - counted so as to not disenfranchise those voters. But in response to Tyler's plight - from this brave patriot who lays his body on the altar of freedom every day for you and me - Christine Gregoire, Washington's now Governor Elect, reminds us that the election is not 'golf'.

Let's be blunt: If you Christine Gregoire, Washington Democratic party, Gregoire supporters in the public - if you are not willing to go to the same length - even to the Washington Supreme Court - to see that the hundreds of overseas military voters that were disenfranchised are allowed to be counted - then you do violence to our democracy and you will be held accountable.

We will not allow the blood of patriots to be trampled under foot.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link. Also see the comment by reader 'Baynative' which concludes with "How do we explain this to those who are risking their lives to help conduct a democratic election in Iraq?".

UPDATE: Many thanks to Kathryn Lopez from the Corner at National Review Online for the link. Thank you for helping us get attention on this! Post after post on King County fraud and MSM calumny at Shark and friends' place.

UPDATE: In addition to Michelle Malkin, and the Corner, Many more blogs are bringing attention to this 'election': Polipundit, Powerline, Little Green Footballs, and Captain's Quarters - among many others I'm sure - all pile in.

UPDATE: 1/3/05: Shark got an email about more disenfranchised soldiers here.

From here on out we've got 2 choices: 1) We have a re-vote, 2) We have an election contest.

The revote is the most efficient, effective, fair, and positive of the two alternatives. It will resolve this entire process more quickly than anything else.

Following is the press release from the Rossi campaign this afternoon:

DINO ROSSI FOR GOVERNOR

www.dinorossi.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mary Lane

Dec. 30, 2004
(425) 646-7202

No, Attorney General Gregoire, this isn’t ‘golf’

With so many disenfranchised military voters,

how can this be a fair election?

Bellevue, WA – Today Dino Rossi stood with the family of a disenfranchised Marine from Snohomish County to again call for a revote in the governor’s race.

Tyler Farmer is a Marine serving in Iraq who was recently wounded in Fallujah.  He is registered to vote in Snohomish County, and went to extraordinary lengths to make sure he’d be able to vote, but he didn’t receive his ballot until after Election Day.  His parents, Charles and Marty Farmer, and his brother, Dylan Farmer, today questioned the fairness of the election process.

“I’d like to ask Christine Gregoire how she can take office in good conscience when so many of our Armed Forces, including my son, weren’t allowed to vote,” said Charles.  “The rules were changed for some people in King County, but not for everyone else.  That’s wrong.”

Rossi said the election is such a mess that at this point the best solution is a revote.  He said his office is receiving a steady stream of calls and e-mails from members of the military, or their loved ones, who never got their ballots or received them too late.

Rossi’s spokeswoman Mary Lane said Gregoire’s remark about the election not being “golf” and that there are “no do-overs” isn’t a sufficient answer to people like Tyler Farmer.

“Christine Gregoire is trying to sweep this election mess under the carpet because she doesn’t want to face up to all the wrongfully disenfranchised people across Washington,” said Lane.  “But people like Tyler Farmer, and all the other servicemen and women who were denied their right to vote, aren’t going away.  And the fact that this entire election process has been a complete mess isn’t going away, either. 

“We need a revote because the people of Washington deserve to have a governor who actually wins an election fair and square.”

This is stark reality folks. Here's the simple question: Is it OK to change the rules - to ostensibly fix a 'mistake' - to make sure that you count the vote from a guy in King County who's loosening his belt for the holidays but you don't change the rules for a mistake that prevents a wounded soldier's vote from counting? You can't have it both ways.

Ann Coulter's new column just hit the press this evening.

This is her 2004 end of year post. It will make you laugh and make you cry - and once again make you proud to be an American.

God Bless You Ann!

At the banana republic of the United Nations! My favorite word-trooper says it best once again.

Go hither and please read every word.

UPDATE: Claudia was on Hannity and Colmes tonight! She articulated her Regime Change message with great skill in the time they had alloted to her. A treat for the FOX audience.

Letter today from Dino Rossi to Christine Gregoire today:

Dino Rossi

December 29, 2004

Attorney General Christine Gregoire

1125 Washington Street

Olympia, WA 98504

Dear Attorney General Gregoire:

The Secretary of State will certify you as governor-elect tomorrow.  Although you will be certified, with all the problems that have plagued this process there won’t be many people in our state who believe with certainty that you actually won the election.  The uncertainty surrounding this election process isn’t just bad for you and me – it is bad for the entire state.  People need to know for sure that the next governor actually won the election.

We’ve now had three counts – I was certified the victor after Counts 1 and 2, and you will be certified tomorrow as the victor of Count 3. Throughout the entire process, King County Elections staff changed the rules about which ballots would count and, at the end, the Supreme Court also changed the rules.  As it now stands, some people in King County had the rules changed so their votes could count, while other wrongfully disenfranchised people across the state – including many members of our military – have been denied the opportunity to have their votes counted.

Additionally, I don’t believe you’ll find many people in this state who think the hand recount was more accurate than the first two counts.  Even some Democratic elections officials have said hand counts are less accurate.  So we’re now in a situation where nobody really knows who won this election. 

Our next governor should enter office without any doubt about the legitimacy of his or her office.  The people of Washington deserve to know that their governor was elected fair and square.  Unfortunately, the events of the past few weeks now make it impossible for you or me to take office on January 12 without being shrouded in suspicion.

The law allows me to contest the election.  An election contest would bring every questioned aspect of this election before the Legislature or a court for review.  It would take many weeks, perhaps months, to complete.  At the end, even if the results were to change back in my favor, the state would have suffered from the long, drawn-out process.

For several weeks, former Secretary of State Ralph Munro has argued that this election will never be seen as legitimate and that the best option is to put it back into the hands of the voters for a revote.   If our roles were reversed, if you had won twice and I had only won in the less-accurate hand recount, I would support a revote.  I would not want to enter office with so many people viewing my governorship as illegitimate. 

The only good answer is for the people to decide, once and for all, who is the next governor.  A revote would be the best solution for the people of our state, and would give us a legitimate governorship.  If you and I were to join together and ask the Legislature to pass a bill calling for a special election, the bill would pass quickly, as soon as the 2005 session begins.  The revote could be held as soon as possible.

I hope you will agree that a revote makes the most sense to build back people’s trust in our election process, and I look forward to your response.

Best regards,

This is the most positive thing that could happen. All of Washington state could turn all of the aggravation and pain into a positive resolution.

The Democrats will probably respond with "This will just be too costly to the Washington taxpayers." (I predict this based on recent video history of Gregoire.) I, for one, would be happy to pay a buck - heck, I'll pay five bucks (to make up for those that can't or don't want to contribute) to vote again. Just think of all the posts I won't have to do about fraud - and we can get on with actually working on the issues that face our state!

How about you?

The above heading is the title of a CNN news article today.

Contained in that article is this text:

Scientists believe that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

Now that's an earthquake. The scientists are quick to say that the earth's wobble over a year exceeds what happened with this event. To me, it is concerning that this happened in but an instant. It will only be a day or so now before the death toll hits 100,000.

The local news media has posted stories about the Washington state GOP making its Public Disclosure Act request from King County today. They are generally of the tone: Governor's Race: GOP Demands Voter List as in this Kiro TV (CBS affiliate) story. They make it sound like some kind of petulant request rather than a perfectly legitimate legal request that the county is required by law to respond to within five days.

Additional TV news stories are posted at Komo TV (ABC affiliate), and King 5 (NBC affiliate). Friend Josef has his usual good roundup of print media stories on the GOP PDA request here.

Surprise! Just as in the GOP filing for the first Supreme Court case during the recount, none of these MSM accounts provide access to the actual documents filed by the GOP with King County. Why not? Because if the public in general were given access to the filings and read them for themselves, the outrage would be heard across the entire country.

The PDA request to King County is here.

These are the declarations of Dan Brady, Jeffrey Cox, and Steve Bentler - all participants in some way during the recounts conducted in King County. What they directly observed makes my blood boil. Remember what I said about pens being in the counting area? Over vote fraud may prove to be a significant issue.

Want to bet that any response from King County to the Washington GOP will be posted immediately to some or all of these MSM sites with some favorable discussion about public support for their position?

Friend Dinocrat Josef sent me a quote to work into a post. The quote is so good that it deserves its own post:

So it is the [King County Elections Department] who gives us our rights to freedom of speech and political action, and we are invited to be grateful for [their] magnanimity. But I thought these rights had been won for the [American] people [and the citizens of Washington State and King County] beyond dispute or challenge by our forebears in bygone generations. … And now it is [King County Elections] who thinks [they] have given them to us. Let [them] cherish these illusions, but let [them] not be so foolish as to try to take them away. Well was it said, ‘the price of freedom is eternal vigilance’. Small steps and graduated stages are the means by which, in the history of many countries, the freedom of great and noble races has been slowly frittered and whittled away. (Ed. Bracketed text added by Josef for elucidation.)

SOURCE: Churchill, Sir Winston. “The Rights of the British.” Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches. Ed. Winston S. Churchill. New York City: Hyperion-Random House, 2003. 444-445.

Let's be clear and make no mistake. We must stand against the outrage committed against the people of this state. It is nothing less than the age old battle to be a free people - paid for by the blood of patriots from the beginning and even now in this present moment. We will not submit to tyranny!

One of my favorite journalists and true American heroine Claudia Rosett wrote an inspiring and prescient article on the situation in Ukraine.

It appears that the pro-Western candidate Yushchenko has won the Ukrainian presidency in a new election held on December 26th.

We who have been confronted by the corruption and brazen fraud in Washington state might take inspiration from Claudia's interview with Yushchenko's aid Oleh Rybachuk. It is heartening to hear the vitality and hope from someone who stands in the breach.

The path ahead is long and arduous. We must stand and fight for our freedom.

They are currently estimating as many as 59,000 dead from the earthquake caused Tsunamis in South East Asia. There is incredible potential for disease and wide ranging problems with water and food.

I have personally had a relationship with World Vision for more than a decade and believe that they have the most efficient operation in the relief business. Their site is slow because of the disaster but will eventually come up.

I was in the 1989 San Francisco earthquake which was in the 7 range on the Richter scale. The earthquake in SE Asia was somewhere around a 9. That's an almost unimaginalbe release of energy - some 200 times more powerful than the San Francisco earthquake. This energy was primarily translated into wave action which produced the death and devastation that we are seeing.

The death toll from the tsunamis is unimaginable - but this has the potential to have a far larger impact from starvation and disease.

Fox News also has this report with other relief agency references on how to help.