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08/09/2005:

"Bush, GOP Labeled 'Thieves' Who 'Need to be Locked Up'"

Atlanta (CNSNews.com) - A featured speaker at Saturday's civil rights march in Atlanta said the Bush administration and Republican Party leaders are "thieves" who "need to be locked up" for stealing the past two presidential elections and presiding over federal budget deficits and the war in Iraq.

"They all need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves," said Judge Greg Mathis, the star of the syndicated television program "The Judge Mathis Show."

Mathis made his remarks to an enthusiastic crowd assembled in Atlanta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Participants are launching a two-year campaign to extend and strengthen key aspects of the act when it expires in 2007.

"It is indeed criminal to steal an election and within two years run up a federal deficit of half-a-trillion dollars, send our young people over to Iraq to die for an unjust war. What they are doing is criminal," Mathis said to loud cheers.

The march was sponsored by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and included leaders from the National Urban League, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the NAACP, and the AFL-CIO.

Entertainer/activist Harry Belafonte also used charged rhetoric during the march when he referred to black members of the Bush administration as "black tyrants."

Mathis, whose speech drew the largest and most raucous reception from the crowd, also chastised the Supreme Court for its role in the 2000 presidential recount.

"[The] Supreme Court was an accomplice to the biggest election crime in history in 2000. And I call it a crime because indeed that is exactly what it was," he said to applause.

The Bush administration was equated with past policies of slavery and segregation and labeled "the enemy of our (black America's) progress" by Mathis.

"They shot and missed when they enslaved, segregated and oppressed our people. They shot and missed when they stole the past two presidential elections. They shot and missed when they denied our right to vote," Mathis said.

An extension and strengthening of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is imperative to ensure black Americans the right to vote, according to Mathis. "The enemy of democracy continues to attack voting rights here, while they try to fight for democracy in Iraq," he said.

'Intimidation and discrepancies'Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California appeared at the march and noted that minorities may not have had full voting rights in the last two presidential elections.

"Some changes have to be made so we don't have a repeat of 2000 and 2004 where there was intimidation and discrepancies at the polls," Pelosi told Cybercast News Service during the voting rights march.

"In the state of Ohio, where they had fewer voting booths and long lines in minority neighborhoods and no lines and many voting booths in white neighborhoods, that the balance is not what it should have been," she added.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) echoed the accusation of many at the march that Bush was an illegitimate president.

"The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about," Lee told the crowd gathered.
Full: crosswalk.com