Free For All: The Movie - One Dude’s Quest to Save Democracy!

Ken Blackwell is no longer my friend.

After my last column endorsing him for the RNC Chair, I was abruptly de-friend-ed/dumped from his Facebook profile — proof that he is in fact getting tech savvy.  He also took down the embarrassingly lame YouTube videos from his 2006 gubernatorial campaign, which still only had a couple hundred views after all this time.  His super-fast, Internet-like response to my endorsement might have been tipped off when I posted a Tinyurl link on his Facebook wall to my piece here on Huffington Post.

And there on his Facebook profile I happened to notice the only film Ken Blackwell had put down as his favorite: The Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? This struck me that: A) He shares one of my favorite films by my favorite filmmakers, and B) What did he like so much about it to list it as his only favorite?

Does Blackwell really, really like Bluegrass?  The film is arguably a Bluegrass musical, and its soundtrack sold millions.  It stands out to me that the film centers on a governor’s race between two corrupt hacks only decided by the incumbent’s last-minute shameless play unlike anything before, and the other guy being a racist.  Maybe he’s got a thing for Clooney–but who doesn’t?

Maybe something in him knows he belongs singing along, on a chain gang, for any of the number of electoral crimes that I could only begin to cover in my film FREE FOR ALL!

Blackwell will assuredly becoming more tech-savvy now that his loyal IT tech guru, Mike Connell (featured in this clip from my film) has died inexplicably in a solo plane explosion miles from his landing strip.

Mike Connell was a GOP PC Platform in himself.  He made literally every major Republican campaign website, including for Ken Blackwell and the Ohio GOP, and then would get the government jobs and access from them in office under a different company name.  Mike Connell made the website for the Swift Boat Vets for Truth.

Mike Connell (as you can read in-depth on Epluribusmedia.org, BradBlog, Velvet Revolution, Free Press, and HuffPo) was also at the scene of every election heist between 2000 and 2006 like Woody Allen’s chameleon-like character in Zelig.  And Mike Connell was instrumental, crucial to Ken Blackwell on election night in 2004.

The already suspect details of this plane crash will continue to develop.  It is significant in its untimely tragedy, in that Mike Connell had finally just been deposed under court order in an ongoing lawsuit charging Ken Blackwell with election theft in 2004. His deposition, by relentless attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis, was the Monday before this past Election Day.  Some have credited this intense focus at the last minute as the reason Rove and his cabal did not make the power grab they might have.

Mike Connell had received death threats since the summer telling him to take the fall for the 2004 election crimes, and despite a formal request to provide him with federal protection, the Attorney General did not grant it.

To compare this to another TV series that I bet Ken Blackwell enjoys like I do, 24, Mike Connell is like the bad guy that Jack Bauer catches up with at the climax in an 8-episode arc, who we’ve been seeing all these schemes through—from the lost White House emails to god-knows-what he accessed while operating behind the Congressional firewall for the entire Bush term—and then his plane blows up, incinerating his secrets with him.

Usually at this point, Jack Bauer gets a clue to the next bad guy up the chain, rather conveniently, like hitting re-dial on the dead guy’s cell phone.  While Arnebeck’s case King Lincoln v. Blackwell is still open, with another RICO case against Blackwell in the works, there will no doubt be new revelations, but I don’t know that many other conspirators will feel like playing whistleblower at this time.

I was shocked today to learn about Mike Connell’s sudden death — yet not surprised.  Many loose ends from the Bush era will be cut off altogether.  Mike Connell goes so far back with the Bushes, he was doing campaign computer infrastructure for Bush Sr. when he was running against Reagan.

To put this in terms of yet another of my favorite movies that I’m sure Ken Blackwell also reveres: The offing of Mike Connell in such dramatic and convenient fashion after decades as a dedicated insider is like something out of the final assassination montages of the Godfather movies.

And then it struck me—another aspect Blackwell perhaps relates to in O Brother, Where Art Thou: Being constantly on the run from the crimes you’ve committed and the people trying to kill you.  Talk about a man of constant sorrow.

Among the many revelations from Stephen Spoonamore—the former colleague of Mike Connell’s whose deposition on their election hacking was the basis of Connell’s subpoena—Connell disclosed to Spoonamore that his motivation for subverting these elections were to protect the unborn.  He was that ardent in his Catholic beliefs.

While Blackwell loves to sell himself as the strictest pro-life go-to guy, I am not sure that it’s his driving reason in his long battle to suppress voters.  To cite another YouTube video he probably doesn’t like, Ken Blackwell takes more positions than a porn queen.

Maybe Ken Blackwell will go see Mike Connell’s widow, Heather, whose life has also been threatened.  Blackwell himself signed the incorporation papers for Heather’s company, GovTech.  By setting up GovTech in Heather’s name, this allowed Connell to juggle IT responsibilities for the GOP either as a government contractor, or work on campaigns under his other company New Media, without a “technical” conflict of interest.

Maybe Ken can spend the holiday with their four children, who will be having the worst Christmas of their lives, and tell them stories about how he and their daddy worked hard to empower the kind of terrible people who might do such a thing as steal elections and kill to cover it up.

Or, they could just watch movies.  Any suggestions?

Originally posted on Huffington Post

It’s not often that you will see the same endorsement on Townhall.com as on the Huffington Post, so let’s savor this in the newfound era of post-partisanship.

J. Kenneth Blackwell, the former Secretary of State of Ohio whose administration of the 2004 election made Katherine Harris look like Mary Tyler Moore, is aggressively pushing to become the next chair of the Republican National Committee when its 168 members convene in 2009 to figure out how to pull their party out of the deep, dank hole they have dug themselves into. And I for one support his selection wholeheartedly.

I have spent a tremendous amount of time studying Ken Blackwell. I made a feature length documentary, FREE FOR ALL!, which examines his corrupt stewardship of Ohio elections. Just a few of Ken’s greatest hits:

• Purging a quarter of Cleveland’s register voters, one of the most Democratic counties in the country.
• Rewarding no-bid contracts to Diebold for its voting machines, while owning stock in the company, your basic illegal conflict of interest.
• Going to court numerous times to make voting even more difficult.
• And when questioned about such anti-democratic maneuvers, the belicose Blackwell emerges, disrespecting the late, beloved U.S. Rep Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

But I’m not here to focus on Ken Blackwell’s tireless war against democracy.

You see, in covering Ken Blackwell during his hapless bid for Ohio governor in 2006, I eventually realized that he requires another documentary to do justice to what a poor politician he is the rest of the time when he is not trying to subvert the electorate. (Coming in 2009!)

Here are some qualities the new RNC Chair should have, and how Ken Blackwell measures up to them.

The RNC Chair should be able to navigate past the party’s previous losses and expand the brand appeal.

Since the election, many Republicans have stressed that the divisive platform of extreme conservatism not only drives away the expanding electorate, it limits the party’s ability to talk about far more relevant issues. (Like the economy, stupid.)

Cut to Blackwell, stressing himself as a “full-portfolio conservative.” His very word choice belies how he has amassed conservative credits like a starving actor on IMDB. His titles from the Family Research Council, the NRA, and more help to bury his opportunistic ascension through Cincinnati politics, starting as an African-American activist in college, on to the city council as a Democrat, to Independent, to fiscal conservative, to far right today.

His greatest conservative achievement is championing the amendment that banned same sex marriage in Ohio, even though two other laws previously existed against gay marriage. Blackwell has closely tied himself to the evangelical right wing base, and ratcheted up the heretic talk like he’s the Spanish Inquisition.

The RNC Chair should have the respect of his party’s leaders.

On page 347 of his book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward describes W.’s apparent fondness for Blackwell during election night, 2004, as he sat in the White House waiting for the election forecasts to swing his way:

At 2:43 a.m., someone noted that Bush was ahead in the popular vote nationwide, prompting the President to sneer, “If the popular vote made it, I wouldn’t be here.”

The campaign was left to anxiously wait for a statement from Kenneth Blackwell, a former black power student leader who had morphed into Ohio’s gadfly Republican secretary of state.

“I’m the President of the United States,” Bush fumed, “waiting on a secretary of state who is a nut.”And that was when Blackwell was delivering Ohio at all costs. Does Ken still think he’s in the club?

The RNC Chair should know how to get votes.

Ken Blackwell lost his bid for governor by 24 points. His unpopularity dragged down the rest of the Republican ticket in 2006, sealing a takeover by the Democrats and ending the GOP’s one party rule that had lasted 16 years. There arguably isn’t a Democrat who could affect such a swing.

The RNC Chair should know how to wage an effective campaign.

Blackwell’s strategy was simple: All negative, all the time. In the Republican primary for governor, Blackwell savaged his fellow cabinet member Jim Petro with ads that linked him with the Tom Noe pay-to-play scandal Coingate that had ruined the Ohio GOP. Lost in these ads were that Blackwell is also in the Ohio GOP, having also received money from the same Tom Noe, now serving 18 years in prison.

Bob Bennett, the Ohio GOP Chairman not normally known for prescience, had this to sayw about Blackwell: “A man who models himself after Ronald Reagan should have a little more respect for winning on ideas and vision. He knows the accusations in these ads are politically motivated, and this kind of gutteral politics doesn’t win votes. If we can’t win with substantive ideas for leading Ohio, we don’t belong in the race.”

In the general gubernatorial race against the Democrat, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, Blackwell lagged in the polls the entire race. His strategy for a turnaround? In the final debate, Blackwell dramatically–however illogically–sought to tie his opponent to NAMBLA. The lowest of the low in scare tactics, it appalled Ohioans, and only cemented Blackwell’s defeat.

The RNC Chair should know how to speak.

I am no Peggy Noonan (cough!) but I suspect that in debating an Obama administration, there will be a priority on eloquence.

Blackwell’s call to arms in 2006 for civic involvement: “Whether or not we will choose to be thermometers that just take the temperature of our culture, or whether or not we will be thermostats to turn up the heat and define and shape and influence the morays of our culture.”

Besides being uninspiring rhetoric (not to mention an incomplete sentence), this oft-repeated meme really just reminded Ohioans how expensive home heating had become. One camera crew I worked with in Ohio had just put in a wood-burning stove to fight their heating bills.

The RNC Chair should have a clue about using New Media to further the party.

Ken Blackwell is proud that he has a Facebook page, and that it even got coverage. What a techie! You’d think with such cutting edge technology such as “spell check,” (like on my pirated Microsoft Word 97) he’d be able to spell his own name correctly as he lamely tries to tie Obama to Blago, which even most of the anonymous hotheads at Free Republic could do with more conviction.

Look at this cutting edge video from 2006 to see how he pre-dates Obama’s Internet youth army. Just make a mock up of the MTV logo circa 1981, and those whippersnappers will be dying to go door to door for you!

In conclusion, I think that most readers of Huffington Post will join me in supporting Ken Blackwell to lead the Republican Party to a dismal future. Indeed, his penchant for election fraud may be their only chance left.

Bravo, Blagojevich!  Amidst the awe-inspiring legacy of corruption you will leave behind (which takes a LOT coming out of my hometown Chicago), you had the integrity and foresight to neatly distance “That One” from your middle-school mentality shakedowns.

President-Elect “Motherfucker,” as you so fondly referred to him on federal wires, stands clearly out of the loop of your own pompous power grab.  Your “fuck him” disdain for this historical politician who ascended from your home state not only keeps Obama the good guy, but your drooling over the Senate seat he left behind makes you look far less the leader of the Land of Lincoln, and more like a spoiled rich kid who inherited a prestigious family heirloom and ran to put it on Craigslist.

I am sorry you felt “stuck” as Governor of my home state, a job you rolled into fairly easily considering the outgoing Republican Gov. Ryan was going to jail for 6 years for corruption charges, and the Republican candidate to succeed him happened to also have the last name Ryan.  (You just might be able to have too many Irish in politics after all.)  Throw in your Polish-sounding last name to an electorate in Chicago where there are more Polish people than in Warsaw, and you, sir, just drew the lucky bingo card into Springfield.

So it might have been annoying to you that your name was so quickly despised by most Illinois Democrats so quickly, as you freely helped yourself to what was rightly yours as far as power, respect, deference, ass-kissing, money, favors, the like.  So what if it was reported your own father-in-law wouldn’t allow you in his home?  

Meanwhile, that pesky do-gooder Senator South Side, everybody LOVED him, they were already speculating about him “someday” as a presidential candidate.  Everybody knows Governors have better odds at the White House, and you’d have to wait and plot your chance to 2012 for that gimme.

Beyond giving the incoming administration that precious “plausible deniability” that Republican White Houses have shred countless careers for (paging Patrick Fitzgerald, care to comment?), Blago got to demonstrate Lesson Number One of how this new and improved White House will work.  

Allowing Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel to bare his newly-empowered knuckles by tipping off Feds to a fellow Illinois Democrat is like picking a fight the first day in the prison yard.  Let this be a lesson to you, ANY of you, who want to throw down.

Beyond Blago’s blinding brilliance, he has further left behind a case that Two Party Politics Proliferates Pay to Play.  Without public financing of elections, only two (2) political parties get to make the rules for potential backers.  And this happens in any state, at any level.  While party-specific patterns emerge over corruption between Democrats and Republicans — Democrats tend to go down over shameless shakedowns and sorry sex scandals, while Republicans go down over big-time cash crimes and gay sex scandals — these are two flavors of the same canned goods.

And when one party just temporarily looks slightly better than the other, it empowers that popular choice to make all the rules.  Until hubris hits them hard, and then suddenly the eager business interests dart in the other direction like a school of fish.

As an Obama staffer just wrote on HuffPo, this new President is for everyone, not just you Progressives.  We’ll see if politics as usual breeds business as usual, or if our new leader can lead us all above petulant indulgence.

But we don’t have to wait for that.  We must get involved in our own local races, we have to take control of how our elections are funded, and we have to not let oafs like Rod Blagojevich believe they are the rule makers, when they are actually inheritors of the rules.

As my wife and I flew into Thailand, the Bangkok International Airport where we were scheduled to arrive had just been seized by thousands of anti-government protesters, shutting down all air travel.  We were re-routed to Tupao, a Vietnam-era naval base 200 km outside of Bangkok, which was hastily set up with customs agents and buses handling the overflow of confused tourists. 

For the next week, this modest third world country was paralyzed as hundreds of thousands of travelers and tons of cargo could not get in or out of Bangkok, costing this struggling economy over $85 million a day.  Over 1 million Thais face losing their jobs because of this enduring blow to their thriving tourism industry.

The Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD) was fully aware of how devastating the protests would be.  Yet they steadfastly believed that the demand for the Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to resign was more urgent, and after staging protests outside the Parliament building since September, this was, as several banners read, the “Final Stand.” 

The PAD built barricades around the airport, established their own security forces, fed stranded travelers, and even fought off police forces when they tried to retake the airport on Sunday.  As the Prime Minister refused to step down, crowds of yellow shirts worn by the PAD only grew on TV screens and newspapers around the world, which were reporting no end in sight for stranded travelers and struggling Thais.

How did it come to this?  This is where this Third World crisis started to sound a little familiar to me.

The PAD sought the resignation of the Prime Minister insisting that he was a proxy for the previously ousted PM, a billionaire media tycoon convicted of corruption and election fraud and living in exile.  His name is Thaskin (pronounced like “Texan”).  Besides the fact that the Prime Minister is also on trial for election fraud, he had even more in common with Thaksin: he is Thaksin’s brother-in-law. 

Wealthy families with puppets in power, election fraud, refusal to compromise in the face of mass dissent from your own people?  Yet, the similarities to the last eight years in America end there.

The PM, while buoyed by red-shirted pro-government demonstrators, did not seem to get the same support from his military.  The military chief refused to unleash his firepower on the demonstrators, nor stage a military coup, acknowledging that neither would solve the deep divisions and problems in Thailand.  Huh?  The police here have a no-force policy, which allowed their outnumbered forces to be easily overrun.  It probably has to do with the Buddhist religion that 95% of Thailand observes, which urges compassion for all life, hence the stray dogs sleeping everywhere you go here.

And just as grenades and violent skirmishes between red shirts and yellow shirts were starting to evoke the Bloods and the Crips, a ruling came from the Constitutional Court: the PM, and his People Powered Party, were convicted of election fraud and vote rigging.  The PM immediately had to step down, his political party was dissolved, and he and 59 other party members were banned from politics for five years.  Elections were to be called by a new Parliament within a week, with a new party forming from the PPP’s remains.

Just close your eyes and imagine seeing this on our TV screens across America: 

• George W. Bush thrown out of the White House by a court case proving election fraud in Ohio. (There is such a case open, King Lincoln vs. Blackwell in Ohio, led by the relentless Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis.) 
• The Republican Party ordered to dissolve over its well-documented history of illegally purging voters, which it previously admitted to in a 1981 consent decree to cease such efforts, only to continue such tactics.
• Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and 57 other GOP All-Stars humiliated under court order to cease any political activity and find a new line of work.

Are we to look to Thailand for pointers on democracy?  A country that deeply reveres its King, featuring billboard sized photos of him with shrines on every block, honoring his birthday on December 5th as one of its highest holidays?  This 80 year-old King who kept quiet throughout this national crisis, at a time when such powerful leadership could have calmed the masses?

Since the Constitutional Court’s ruling, the PAD protesters have cleared out of the Bangkok International Airport in high spirits, though weary of the next PM’s ties to Thaksin.  This dreadful standoff, peaceful though it was, has already scared away half of the 14 million visitors scheduled to visit this tourist season.

I urge everyone to come to Thailand and visit this beautiful country, with its warm people, wondrous natural scenery, and stunning temples.  If that is not enough, come for the cheap great food, cheap great beer, and cheap great massages.  Two more words: ELEPHANT RIDES. 

And while you’re here, you can bring back some of the basic outrage that could be well used in places like the state of Georgia, where a ruthlessly partisan Secretary of State has helped her fellow Republican Senator Chambliss back into office on the same electronic voting machines that drove out triple amputee Max Cleland in 2002. 

In Chiang Mai, I saw such wisdom in a Buddhist temple’s garden that read: “Better to speak unpopular truths than share popular lies.”

I have to check out of this beautiful Cleveland room and get back to L.A. to see my wife and dog at last, so I’ll keep this quick.

This has been an amazing experience since starting FREE FOR ALL! two years ago.  In that time, I have lost my faith in democracy and regained it.  I know well that this historic moment will overshadow the many thousands of voter problems experienced across the country yesterday.  At videothevote.org, we have received over 700 videos and counting from across the country.  The vigilance of Americans everywhere leading up to this election was a key component to Obama’s success.  I hope there will still be a sense of outrage in spite of complacency.

In Ohio, I literally met people who came here to Video the Vote because they saw my movie on line and wanted to do something because of it.  That is staggering.  I am grateful to every volunteer and supporter.

I am grateful to my producer Holly and editor Vivian for realizing FREE FOR ALL! with me.

I am grateful to anyone who was inspired by this film, every small screening across the country to a few fascinated faces, every anonymous digit on a traffic counter.

I feel the enormous freshness of letting myself off the hook to do something after 2004.  Now I feel like I can do this comfortably, not desperately.

Let’s get to work!

John Wellington Ennis
Cleveland, Ohio - November 5th, 2008