Afternoon Update

Good afternoon . . .

As predicted the Congressional Black Caucus pushed through an objection to the electoral vote from Ohio. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (r-OH) which was endorsed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Under House rules the CBC has no standing to bring an objection to the floor.

The objection was made under an 1877 law which requires a Senator to join in the objection to the electoral vote from a state.

After the objection the members of the Senate retired to debate in their chamber. In un-Senate like speed, the upper body debated and voted quickly to defeat the objection. The Senate vote was 1 - yea and 74 - nay. The single affirmative vote was Sen. Boxer's. More significant is the number of Senators that did not vote. 25% of Senators chose not to vote and to leave town early, Among those not voting was the junior Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry.

The debate in the House was long and drawn out. Democrats continued to blame Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell for all of the problems that occurred on election day. Although, under Ohio law, each county has its own Election Board and the local board decides how many machines are at each polling place and, by following Ohio law, which provisional ballots are rejected.

This did not deter House liberals from heaping on allocation after allocation to absolute ridiculous conspiracy theories onto the Blackwell. Far left liberal Maxine Waters (D-CA) also said she was ashamed that Blackwell was a African-American. Not only did Waters make a fool of herself, she insulted every African American male who is in a prominent position. Waters also failed to stop talking after her time was up for nearly a minute and tried to yield time (that did not exist) to another speaker. House Speaker Dennis Hastert stopped her attempt cold.

In the end after all the conspiracy theories and just dumb rhetoric the House voted 32 yea and 265 nea to the objection. There were 135 members of the House not voting. This is over 30% of paid elected officials not doing his/her job. Like the Senators that skipped town, reports are the House members not voting also left early.

Both House of Congress, after only 3 days work, are off until the Inauguration on January 20.

The Joint Session will continue shortly to finish certifying the Electorial College results.
C-SPAN

While the judge in the Michael case has sealed most documents and heavily redacted others, the website Smoking Gun has uncovered most, if not all the information contained in the documents.

According to the Smoking Gun, the information in the documents a chilling and contain detailed sexual content about the activities of Jackson with several underage boys. If these allegations are true, Jackson could be spending the rest of his life behind bars.
The Case Against Michael Jackson - January 6, 2005

If events warrant, more in the Evening Update.