Former U.S. congresswomen Cynthia McKinney paid the price for daring to question powerful political forces. The final blow was a quote that was plastered "all over the place", but yet was a phantom quote never uttered by McKinney. She was beaten to death by a fabricated quote.

What was her transgression that led to her ouster? Perhaps it was her audacity to question the shenanigans that went on Florida Election 2000 with ChoicePoint, a strong Republican-tied database company, contracted by Florida to generate a list of felons ineligible to vote. Problem was, that list was erroneous and only a very few of the 90,000 (3%, 97% were innocent and half the list contained non-whites) voters on the list were indeed felons. Only one congress member inquired about the evidence - Cynthia McKinney of Atlanta, also home of ChoicePoint.

Or could it be because she was the only congressperson to demand hearings about a Canadian gold mining company, Barrick, who reportedly was funding both sides of a civil war in Congo? Human rights investigators had evidence that Barrick bulldozed mineshafts while clearing Tanzanian properties and buried 50 miners alive. A lawyer named Tundu Lissu stepped forward with the charges but was then charged himself with sedition by the Tanzian police. McKinney was trying to save his life. But Barrick has friends in high political places - George Bush Sr., or "Poppy" Bush who was serving as an advisor and lobbyist for Barrick. Even prominent Democrats Vernon Jordan and Andrew Young, who distanced themselves from McKinney in the 2002 election, were on the Barrick payroll too.