Article: South Dakota: Corruption from the top down

This is about the South Dakota Initiative that the good people there
attempted to pass at the Novemember election. They had over 46,000
signatures on petitions to get amendment E on the ballot and succeeded
in doing so. Prior to the election, Zogby and other polls taken said the
people in South Dakota favored Amendment E, 3 to 1.

So how did it so overwhelmingly go down in flames? We already know the
answer, don't we?

It is being reported that Amendment E lost big in yesterday's election
-- 90% against to 10% in favor. This figure does not even amount to the
number of voters who signed the petition in the first place to qualify
Amendment E for the ballot. Supposedly, the issue of Judicial
Accountability failed to even amount to a blip on the radar screen, and
fared worse than every other issue on the ballot. 90% versus 10% on any
ballot issue is very rare! Just seven weeks ago, on September 19th,
Amendment E was better than 3-to-1 in its favor according to a poll by
Zogby International. See the entire revealing article at
Sept. 19, 2006 Poll
Reveals Amendment E Gaining Its Lead Even More.

Below is an e-mail I received from the SD Amendment E attorney Gary
Zerman. I thought I would share it with you.

Onward and upward!

Angela
www.coalitionforvisibleballots.org

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South Dakota Government Acted In Concert Against The People
By Attorney Gary Zerman, HYPERLINK
" mailto:gzerman@hotmail.com"gzerman@hotmail.com

You are kidding yourselves if you think you can draft a perfect
amendment. The
process re putting Amendment E on the ballot, and then to a vote, proved
here
the government does not serve the People, will ignore them and the law,
the
constitution and simply do as they please. How are you going to stop
them?

Where are checks and balances? As set forth below, the 3 branches of SD
government (with a lot of help from the power establishment) acted in
concert
against the People and the constitution - and actually proved our case
for us.

1. The SD legislature's illegal unanimous resolution (that flew in the
face of
SD Attorney General Official Opinion 88-28 and constitutional voting
rights law)
that interfered in an election, and thereafter spawned countless similar
illegal
resolutions by virtually every local government agency, its hate speech
against
the E backers, its failure to w/draw its resolution, its failure to
reply to any
of our 3 letters.

2. The failure of the SD executive branch Governor Rounds & Attorney
General
Larry Long to determine those resolutions were illegal and interfered in
an
election and infringed on voting rights, and to order the legislature to

withdraw such and to cease & desist in further interference (we failed
to send
the letter to Gov. Rounds/Long dumping that issue in their lap, putting
them on
formal notice with a specific demand); thereafter AG Long's biased
official
ballot statement on Amendment E. I also believe both Gov. Rounds and his

opposition candidate for governor, billion officially stated they were
against
E.

3. The failure of the SD judiciary. First, SD Chief Justice Gilbertson
proved
our case and the need for passage of Amendment E, when shortly after we
got E on
the ballot, the Chief attended and spoke at the SD State Bar 12-8-05
meeting
kicking off their opposition campaign to E and stated they planned to
raise
$1-million. The Chief's conduct here violated about 4-5 SD judicial
canons; he
later recused himself when Judge Gor's biased decision was appealed to
the SD
Supreme Court. (The press reported he recused himself, but never
inquired WHY he
recused himself; another SD Supreme Court justice also recused himself,
which
was reported, but again there was no inquiry WHY; he may also have
attended that
bar meeting with the Chief). We wrote a letter to the Chief, which he
failed to
answer, but we were supposed to follow that up by filing a complaint to
the SD
Commission on Judicial
Qualifications about his attendance at the bar meeting and thereby
violating 4-5
canons (with cc's to all media), and our letter attached as exhibit A;
we did
not file the complaint.

In our case against SD Attorney General Long for his biased official
ballot
statement (again this proved the executive branch was biased against E),
the
judiciary proved
our case with Judge Gor's biased decision, particularly where he stated
Long's
statement did not go far enough; Judge Gor amazingly stated, Long could
have
stated the purpose of E was to destroy the SD judiciary, and, where Gor
stated
"Judges do have absolute judicial immunity." Period. He provided no case

citations. No explanation(s). Thus he was stating our case: that the
judiciary
have become, made themselves - just like the king - royalty. Gor is
symbolically
stating: "We are the kings." They have immunity because he said they do.
The
Emperor's New Clothes. I never saw the legal papers we filed in Gor's
court,
nor, the papers we filed in the SD Supreme Court challenging Gor's
decision. But
I do know we did not sufficiently challenge the bias on the part of
Long, Gor or
Gilbertson - in court, with the media (which was also biased against us
and we
may not have been able to get any proper reporting from them anyway), or
even on
our own websites.

We were supposed to have filed a voting rights lawsuit in federal court,
based
upon the above letters we wrote and sent (they were to be exhibits to
the
lawsuit), and the above conduct/response demonstrated by each branch of
the SD
government to those letters. We never filed the lawsuit. We thus could
never
make any press, or drive that issue ourselves.

To sum up, even if E would have passed, our opposition (the government,
the
establishment), would not (and in the future will not) let E actually be

enacted. It would languish in the courts forever (first in SD state
court, then
fed court), and long after almost everyone has forgotten that election
and E,
rule it unconstitutional. Anarchy will come before E or something like
it can
come into actual practice.

Our purpose with JAIL or Amendment E, or at least MINE, was simply to
draw a
line in the sand, engage the battle (WE in fact fought the good fight
and I
thank everyone who aided and participated with us) to put People on
NOTICE
regarding how we (our government and big business) no longer have, or
follow,
the Rule of Law, our Constitution. What we need to do is make a video
and
document the process of E - how government actually served the People
and
followed the law - or actually did not.

You can go ahead with another E, but you have to have the finances (a
lot of
money to pay for a legal team, press team and campaign team), but more
importantly have a plan B. Actually multiple strategies. JAIL is not the
only
answer, because the powers that be will simply act the same way the next
time,
tell even greater lies if they have to. (And with the global economy,
they are
getting bigger and have a greater need to keep the facade up, in place.)
Unless
you can combat them, respond timely with good opposition, dollar for
dollar
(better yet get out ahead of them, so we control the agenda), in the
short run
(almost any election issue that
threatens their power so directly) they will win every time. They have
to.

We will win in the long run (anarchy/collapse will occur), because
(beyond
the corruption) our nation/society has reached the point that we have
taken/made
too many wrong turns in the law - there simply is too much law
(government) to
even function - we cannot get out of our own way, we have tied ourselves
in
knots - when we were supposed to have a limited government and the
purpose of
the Constitution was to tie government down to the EXPRESS powers given
it.
There simply is nothing left that government does not touch, have its
hands on,
and has not made a mess of. More law, more government will not save us -
they
are the problem. Further, the law and government in place has divided
and
continues to divide our country. We are fighting amongst ourselves way
too much,
to even recognize much of the world does not like us or is turning
against us.
....
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www.coalitionforvisibleballots.org