I fear for my country and do whatever I can to prevent the re-election of George Bush. Here are my top reasons to dump George Bush.

Bush was an unscrupulous and greedy businessman long before he was elected president. It is a matter of public record that in June 1990, he cashed in his Harken Energy stock for $848,000 – just before a public announcement about shady accounting practices in the company caused the price to fall dramatically. His timely sale saved him a handsome $636,000. This clever transaction would have been honest and legal had it not been for the fact that Bush served on the board of directors of Harken, was a member of the audit committee, had prior knowledge of the company’s falling fortunes and was forewarned by the company lawyers of the possibility of facing insider trading charges. Bush ignored their advice and sold the stock. This is called insider trading and is a felony.

Although prompt disclosure of such a transaction is required by law, Bush waited 34 months to report it. The Security and Exchange Commission was aware of the violation but chose not to bring criminal charges. Martha Stewart should be so lucky.

Secondly, Bush stole the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

After all the chads were counted or not counted, the U.S. Supreme Court reached down and overruled the Florida Supreme Court, selecting Bush as the winner in Florida by 527 votes, thus making him the 43rd president of the United States.

Overlooked was the racist fraud that disenfranchised tens of thousands of Florida voters. Florida Republicans used Database Technologies to compile a felony “scrub” list allegedly to be made up of persons who had committed felonies in Florida. They were to be removed from the list of eligible voters. Katherine Harris, Florida’s secretary of state, ordered 57,000 names removed about five months before the election. An examination of the 57,000 names in question, conducted by Greg Palast in the Weekly Dig in April 2003, showed that at least 90.2 percent of those on the list were not felons – but they were African-Americans. Since African-Americans voted 9 to 1 for Gore over Bush in Florida, this fraud prevented about 41,131 additional net votes for Gore, which easily makes him the winner.

In testimony before a Congressional committee, DBT admitted it was told by Florida state officials to knock certain voters off the voting list by falsely matching them with felons. For its fraudulent work, DBT was paid $2.3 million.

Vote Nov. 2.

Cliff Cleland Jr.

DeKalb resident