The 2008 Election Will Be Stolen

[davidswanson]

A new collection of essays edited by Mark Crispin Miller called "Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000 - 2008," tells the story better than any single source I've seen yet.

The Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida in 2000 that would have made Al Gore president. This is not speculation. The recount was later done.

Numerous elections were stolen in 2002, in Colorado, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and elsewhere, including Senate, Governor, and House races in Georgia that were practically openly swiped by Diebold's elections unit president flying in at the last minute and altering the election machines. The theft of Don Siegelman's 2002 election as governor of Alabama was almost as transparent. One county reported a set of results from electronic machines that made Siegelman governor, then recalculated and reported a different set of results. The new results were statistically impossible, and the pair of reports strongly suggested exactly how the machines were rigged, first mistakenly and later as intended.

John Kerry and John Edwards won the presidential election in 2004. The evidence of specific fraud in Ohio and elsewhere is overwhelming, but so is the evidence of the exit polls. The unadjusted exit polls show Kerry and Edwards winning. When the results are "adjusted" to conform to the official results, we are asked to believe that Bush and Cheney increased their big city voters from 2.3 million in 2000 to 5.4 million in 2004, a 153 percent increase. While support for Cheney-Bush dropped off in rural areas, small towns, medium sized cities, etc., it skyrocketed in the Democratic strongholds of big cities. Let me be clear: that's the official story of what happened, not the wild conspiracy theory of ordinary people who allow themselves to be influenced by facts, logic, or memory of actual events.

Election fraud was not limited to Ohio or to the presidential race in 2004, but was widespread and systematic. This was also true in 2006. In many cases, Democratic turnout overwhelmed Republican fraud in 2006, and the Democrats picked up 30 new seats. But those victories were by larger margins than people believe. In other races, Republican fraud won out, and was immediately hushed up. Read the evidence in "Loser Take All," and then think about how the current Congress would have been different with 40 or 50 new Democrats rather than 30. The 2006 elections saw the most widespread and sophisticated election fraud our country has yet seen, combined with the greatest public confidence since 2000 that elections were honest and verifiable. That combination does not bode well for 2008.

The views of Senator John McCain are so far from those of most Americans, that Miller rightly refers to the Republicans as a fringe party. But that fringe party is perfecting election theft. The only way to prevent John McCain from being the next president would be to hand him such a whopping defeat that he could not plausibly claim to have honestly won. Sadly, Senator Obama (the Democratic nominee, barring an antidemocratic coup by super delegates) appears intent on avoiding a landslide at all costs and aiming, rather, for a tight victory of 1 or 2 percent. (And Senator Clinton appears intent on losing the election should she be miraculously nominated.)

Obama is sitting on a number of keys to a landslide if he would only pull them out of his pocket and use them. Thus far it appears he will not. The 20 percent of Americans who support the occupation of Iraq are not potential Obama voters. There is nothing to be gained by appealing to them. But when I talk to people in the peace movement, they are increasingly telling me they plan to stay home or vote for a third party candidate such as Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. None of them are potential McCain voters. They are, in fact, what Senator Hillary Clinton disdainfully refers to as "the activist base of the Democratic Party." According to Clinton, these people:

"turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them."

Well, guess what, we don't agree with Obama either. We appreciate the credit Clinton gives us for her defeat. For his own good, Obama needs to understand that he's next, that those of us who actively represent the 80 percent of the nation opposed to the occupation will direct our activism at him until he agrees to a speedy and complete withdrawal from Iraq. And we will mobilize millions to guarantee a landslide if Obama stands up this week and leads a filibuster of the next $170 billion for the occupation. If he continues to claim that he opposes the occupation while funding it with our grandchildren's borrowed treasure, his criticism of McCain will fall flat. If he continues to speak of reducing the U.S. presence in Iraq to "non-combat troops" while soldiers get their heads blown off deep within the Green Zone, he will lose all credibility. A "non-combat troop" in Iraq is another name for John McCain's fantasy that the Iraqis will someday stop resisting. If Obama votes No on the $170 billion without actively lobbying his colleagues to vote No, he will not be seen as sincere.

Obama was asked last week in Philadelphia about impeachment, indictment, and accountability for Bush and Cheney. He suggested that he MIGHT investigate their crimes AFTER we elect him president, and that he MIGHT prosecute them "if" they were found to have committed crimes. "If"? "If"? That word may become as famous as Dick Cheney's "So?" At every stop Obama makes on this endless campaign, people should hand him copies of John Conyers' "The Constitution in Crisis," a book you can buy in most bookstores which documents a long list of criminal offenses committed by Bush and Cheney. Does Obama disagree with the book's conclusions? Does he have a response to Bush's public confession to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? Does he question the two Government Accountability Office studies that have found that in a significant percentage of cases, when Bush has announced his right to violate laws through signing statements, he has proceeded to violate those laws? Does Obama now believe the invasion of Iraq and everything that came with it was possibly legal? Was the February 7, 2002, order from Bush allowing the torture of detainees a legal act? "If?" "If?"

(You can find Conyers' whole book for free here: http://afterdowningstreet.org/constitutionincrisis Just click on "Summary," print out that short section, and send it to Obama.)

If Obama were to quietly allow impeachment hearings on Cheney or Bush to proceed on such subjects as torture and signing statements, he could put McCain on the defensive and force him to defend each crime while promising not to commit it. Impeachment hearings could squeeze out all coverage of nonsense spats and scandals. And if the American public understood that voting for Obama would put Bush and Cheney behind bars, we would see a landslide that could not be denied.

Sadly, it looks like we're going to see a tight race. During this tight race, good citizens will avoid all other political activism and devote their energies to the race. And not just their energies. We will transfer enough wealth to build a real populist movement for justice or a legitimate source of news into the hands of corporate television networks in the form of campaign ads. And, as a reward for our efforts, the election will be stolen.

Unless we interrupt this script and make some changes.

[EFerrari]

1. Yes and no. They've powerful mechanisms in place to steal it

and, we know what most of them are.

It's really up to us.

[tucsonlib]

71. They Already Successfully Rigged the Primaries

The Repugs, aided and abetted by the DLC and the MSM, managed to convince Democrats that Clinton was the "front-runner". Think about that. Do any of you personally know even one Dem who, from the start, was enthusiastically supporting Clinton? Then, to give us the impression that we had a "choice", and to guarantee a divided electorate, they convinced us that Obama was the next highest vote-getter. So here we are - reduced to arguing among ourselves which candidate has the best chance of beating McCain in November. The BEST CHANCE?? A trained gerbil should be able to beat McCain. Edwards, Dodd, Biden, Richardson or Kucinich would have trounced McCain. No question. And we would have all been united behind our (one) candidate. But none of them were "electable", so we were told.
I wish I could be more optimistic. Who knows? Maybe November will usher in a new progressive era for America. But last month I applied for a new passport. And I've been checking out Costa Rican real estate. Just in case.....

[PerpetuallyDazed]

78. Agreed.

Edwards got pretty close but couldn't quite make it past the massive effort that was out to silence him. :(

[Red Zelda]

84. Edwards didn't make it past

the 10 people in Nevada who supported him. Be real. I supported him, but few others did.

[PerpetuallyDazed]

123. My point...

more would have had there not been a coordinated effort by the corporate media to silence him. Iowa is a great example: Edwards beat out Clinton and came in 2nd to Obama, yet there was scant coverage of this. Again, it was the Clinton/Obama narrative that the press was pushing for from the beginning that ended up shaping the eventual outcome.

[defendandprotect]

105. Remember the threat/warning by the Chamber of Commerce to Edwards/Kucinich .. .

that they would raise . . . what was it $60 million . . . and smash them?

Didn't they specificially refer to them as "anti-corporate" candidates?

Populist is anti-corporate !!!

The corporate mass media also blocked Edwards from being visible as a candidate ---

Remember the debates where Edwards and Kucinich were sidelined?

[DianaForRussFeingold]

138. I remember (ABC News Censors Dennis Kucinich)

ABC literally took Kucinich out of the picture and disappeared him.... The photo was missing Dennis Kucinich. He had been deliberately cropped out of the picture.... However - the original, from an AP photographer, had all the candidates
--When candidate Dennis Kucinich took the lead by a very large margin, ABC took down the poll, and then replaced it with another poll On Aug. 19, a debate for the Democratic contenders for 2008 was hosted in Iowa by ABC news. At the same time, ABC put up a prominent poll on their website, asking the question
"Who is winning the debate?" When candidate Dennis Kucinich took the lead by a very large margin, ABC took down the poll, and then replaced it with another poll:" --- After Dennis took the lead, again winning handily, ABC dropped the second survey from prominence on its website. Users posting comments in ABC's Politics page reported having their comments deleted, and demanded explanation of ABC's actions....
video- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x57478

They did the same thing with Edwards and it's obvious they're doing it again, this time with Obama!

[defendandprotect]

143. I thought the other Dems should have refused to participate if Kucinich wasn't included . . .

but they went on anyway --- and shortly thereafter, Edwards was out ---

The corporate mass media is running our elections with total disregard for the public ---

[DianaForRussFeingold]

171. I was disappointed they stood for the injustice, It's sad!

:hug: I wanted to scream, you're next, at the TV... :shrug:

"After years of a government that didn't listen to them, or speak for them,
or represent their hopes and their dreams" Obama

[nichomachus]

81. Right -- it already has been stolen

Two candidates whose ideas have widespread support were virtually eliminated by the corporatocracy and he media right in the beginning. Kucinich was ridiculed out of the race and Edwards was treated as a non-entity by the media. It was as if he didn't exist. Most voters never got a chance to meet these guys, to hear their platforms, or to vote for them.

[Thothmes]

164. They were elimanted by the fact that

to few democratic voters actually went to the polls and cast votes for them. Or are you suggesting that Demcrats are to stupid to make intelligent decisions at the voting booth, that they vote the way fox and cnn tell them to. I think not myself. These people lost because they failed to reach a solid contituitany. The majority voters were not interested in these people.

[nichomachus]

170. True, but

one of the reason they got so few votes is that they were ignored and marginalized by the media. Don't confuse all voters will the handful of us who spend all day reading about and discussing this stuff. Most people don't do that -- and they get their news from the TV or newspaper. When newspaper and television stations can devote an hour to Clinton and Obama and 22 second to Edwards, the word isn't going to get out. If you didn't spend time reading the blogs, it's possible you'd never have known he was running. Go out into the street, find 10 people who identify as Democrats and ask them if they know who Dennis is and what his platform was. Chances are 9 out of the 10 won't know.

[Thothmes]

182. Sad but true

[Individualist]

93. Correct

The corporatocracy determines who the nominee will be, and no progressive candidate has a chance.

[ooglymoogly]

116. Yes you are right....this has been my position since the 2000

election was stolen and all elections since and is my position now on this election and Kucinich was the proof; That plus the insistence of DINO's and pukes on keeping paperless voting machines.
The corporate media is already beginning the meme of Its going to be a very close election, making their theft much easier to defend.


Why Costa Rica and is Venezuela an option or is their oil wealth too dangerous?

[tucsonlib]

122. Re: Why Costa Rica and is Venezuela an option

Costa Rica, among its other charms, has no military. Nor has it had one for almost six decades. It's also fairly easy to emigrate to. There are some attractive alternatives (Denmark comes to mind). As for Venezuela - I'm not sure I'd want to be living in the bullseye of McCain's pre-invasion bombing campaign.

[warren pease]

221. A good friend just evacuated to Costa Rica a couple of weeks ago...

He'd planned the move roughly since the 2000 Bush installation. He decided on Costa Rica for a lot of reasons; some political, some financial, others just quality of life.

He went down there quite a few times over the past seven years, "cased the joint" thoroughly, decided which climate zone would be the most comfortable, bought land, hired local contractors to build a pretty cool house, and cashed out of the Fourth Reich April 6th.

I haven't heard from him since the move, but getting a local ISP, broadband access and all that isn't at the top of the list. He figured he'd have all that stuff in place by mid-May at the latest.

I know him as a fellow contributor to Online Journal, and he's one of the finest political satirists around, imo. Satire is pretty tough to write these days simply because no matter how rich and weird your imagination is, the psychopaths running the Fourth Reich can easily out-weird anyone who isn't as stark raving mad as they are.

He's never been exactly shy about his growing disgust with the Bush regime. Here's a few of his more recent columns:

Love it or leave it? You don't have to tell me twice

Can only a dolt love America?

Homegrown terrorism: Keeping your eye on others isn't sneaky; it's patriotic!

Or we could always just tow it out to sea, sink it, and it'd make a great artificial reef

Finally, here's some general background on Costa Rica, based on my impressions and experience in a half-dozen trips down there over the past 15 or so years:

Physically beautiful in some places, logged out or polluted all to hell in others. San Jose, the capital, is a big city kind of on the brink between the first and third worlds. It reeks of diesel exhaust, as does every city I've been to in Central or South America. But there are great restaurants, a pretty safe downtown area, an opera house that's about a 1/3 scale replica of the Paris Opera House and a large and growing expat community from here and Europe.

It's humid beyond endurance at the coasts -- at least my endurance -- but it's temperate and not at all humid in the interior, starting at around 3500 - 4000 feet. You can literally freeze at about 12,000 feet atop one of the volcanoes that forms the north-south spine.

And the bugs; voracious, relentless, more numerous than stars in the galaxy, desperate for Yankee blood. They're a lot worse at the coasts than the interior, and during the wet season -- roughly May through November -- they're in their glory. Again, much worse at the coasts.

The people are generally decent, friendly to a point but still reserved unless they know you pretty well. They're seemingly happy to talk or leave you alone, your choice. I should mention that my Spanish is pretty primitive but they're cool about it and try to use their English and my toddler Spanish to communicate. It works OK, along with plenty of sign language. I'd want to get a whole lot more proficient if I were to spend much time there, though.

Service people -- waitstaff, retail, bar tenders, merchants, et al -- are very polite and pleasant, and you don't get the constant aggravating money grubbing you get in some places here. I've been to plenty of regular old retail stores in the US where I felt like I had blundered into a used car lot, measured in intensity of sales pressure.

None of that crap in Costa Rica that I've experienced, but maybe that's just because I can't handle Spanish well enough to know that I'm actually being intensely pressured or threatened with dismemberment if I don't buy a particular shirt or pound of coffee.

The roads outside the city can be pretty lousy, particularly in the rainy season. The state run airline -- Sansa -- flies all over the place, to the most remote towns and wild areas, places you could never get to by car without a major struggle and a lot of wasted time.

For example, from San Jose to Quepos on the Pacific coast is at least a four-hour drive most of the year -- often much longer in the wet season. It's about 20 minutes by DC-3 and, when I was there last, airfare was about US$11.00. Probably US$50.00 now thanks to Bushie. Or maybe they only accept Euros anymore.

Sansa does, however, have several old Spanish-built planes that look like city buses hung from a single wing -- about as aerodynamic as a grand piano. Kind of like a larger, enclosed version of this. I was a little leery of boarding that one, but with enough Xanax...

Last time I was there was, I think, 2002 -- before Americans were universally despised and/or feared -- so attitudes may have changed considerably since then. Mark should be able to fill me in pretty soon.

Hope this all helps. If not, it won't be the first time I've typed a few hundred words for no good reason ;-)


wp

[TZ]

183. Oh good lord

I actually know a lot more dems that like Clinton much better than Kucinich.
But of course since they don't post on DU, they aren't REALLY dems are they.
BTW, my family is from Cleveland and wouldn't vote for Kucinich under any circumstance What does *that* say about electability.

[warren pease]

194. "What does *that* say about electability."

It probably says more about your family's collective capacity for self-flagellation, gullibility and critical thinking capabilities than it does about Kucinich's electability. Hell, if it's a choice between an actual democrat and a backstabbing DLC android, pockets stuffed with corporate bribes, promising continued war and positioning the US in its role as world's most hated rogue state... what's not to like about Ms. Clinton?

She may be a hopeless, bought-and-paid-for corporate suck-up and veteran Bush enabler, but at least she's not Kucinich. At least she's not actually going to do something positive for the American people, but rather she'll let them continue to rot from eight years of wingnut extremist abuse. And she's certain to keep draining the treasury and borrowing from anyone who'll still extend credit to the world's biggest debtor nation -- and saddle even more successive generations with the damages.

Kucinich isn't electable to national office because he will be always be marginalized and dismissed by corporate mass media, kept out of the spotlight by the so-called leadership of his own party, reviled by status quo democrats, written out of the script by the various sponsors of these abominations known as "debates" and misquoted, slandered and generally kept away from any interaction with a broad section of the public lest his ideas -- which about 86 percent of mainstream agrees with according to various polls and surveys -- catch on.

And if all else failed, the "superdelegates" were there mainly to provide one last line of defense against a Kucinich nomination. But as usual, megamedia were the most efficient and vicious barriers between Kucinich and the American people. Their ability to misrepresent candidates' positions is only equaled by their gift for completely ignoring anything that could be perceived as an actual issue of even moderate significance.

By the time mass media got through weeding out the "radicals" -- Kucinich, Gravel and finally Edwards -- the corporate androids were the only ones left standing. So now we get to choose among candidates from the moderate right, the corporate right or the Curtis LeMay right. Maybe the Mittster can reenter the race and we can have some representation from the religiously insane right, too. Just so we get an accurate cross-section of Americana.

This was pre-ordained from the moment mass media eliminated the first "unelectable" candidate and force-fed us only the safe and trustworthy ones -- those carefully vetted and found acceptable to the corporate oligarchy because they show absolutely no interest in tampering with the status quo.

Thanks to the mind-numbing influence of corporate media and its amazing collection of lint-headed political "experts," people now experience politics as passive consumers rather than as active participants. Which is the idea, since that approach has a way of keeping the peasants docile, compliant and hopeless.

Take the US health care disaster... please. Anyone who would prefer a continuation of the for-profit medical scam we call a health care system in this country -- which is Ms. Clinton's big plan for reform -- over Kucinich's single-payer, universal-access program -- which proposed to give US citizens the kind of system that seems to work in every single one of the other 18 countries that comprise the industrialized world... anyone who opts for more abuse at the hands of for-profit medicine is probably also good enough at shooting themselves in the foot that they're confined to a wheelchair for life.

And here's the stats that indicate how shitty a job the US does at taking care of its people, versus how the rest of the world is doing. Note that, at 37th, the US ranks behind all EU countries, UK countries and a bunch of others who just do a better job of taking care of their citizens' medical needs.

Here's some of the things "real Americans" are supposed to believe: Taxes on the rich are killing our competitiveness. They hate us for our freedoms. This is the land of equal opportunity for all. Free trade is an economic godsend. Guns don't kill people. The justice system protects the powerless from the powerful. TV news tells the truth. America always acts internationally out of benign motives. Gay marriage is destroying the family. The war on terror is making us safer. The bible is the literal word of god. The policeman is our friend. The liberal media is poisoning this country with secular humanist lies. Brown people are disposable. Global climate change is a leftist fantasy. Evolution is just another a creation myth. Single-payer health care is evil. Capitalism lifts all boats. The rich are rich because they're morally and intellectually superior.

Ms. Clinton is down with probably 3/4 of that list. Kucinich recognized mythological bullshit when he smells it. Which would you rather have running the show? An obvious opportunist and corporate suck-up? Or an actual democrat?


wp

[CanSocDem]

238. Right ON!!....(eom)

[lonestarnot]

208. What a family!

:eyes:

[proud2BlibKansan]

240. Well don't you have lots to be proud of?

:sarcasm:

[cliffordu]

2. We need to burn the script.

We need some kind of oversight at the polls.

There must be accountability.

[Fireweed247]

20. We need someone with a video camera at every polling station

We need to do our own exit polls.

It would be fabulous if a group like afterdowningstreet, or DUers etc. ALL of US together could organize this!


www.peacecandidates.com

[flyarm]

73. THE LAWS IN ALL STATES ARE DIFFERENT..try learning your states law

some states make you stay away from the polling places with cameras..some make you stay 100 ft away some 200 ft away..

[eagertolearn]

91. How does that catch electronic voting fraud?

I'm scared to death of this happening again and yesterday I saw on the news that the repugs voted down something that would of helped prevent this (they said it was too close to a big election to change things). People have been fighting for these changes since 2000. What the hell is going on! We need to have secured elections and electronic voting machines without a paper trail are not secured!!!!!!

[RaleighNCDUer]

114. And, don't forget, you don't need to tamper with a hundred seperate

voting machines if you have access to a single compiler to which those hundred machines are connected. There don't have to be hundred and hundreds of co-conspirators to flip an election - just a few at the right places.

[Quantess]

3. If John McCain is the next president,

you can just stick a fork in America, and call us "done".

[natrat]

46. true and it's almost like they are pushing for a depression,,, strange days

[defendandprotect]

107. The GOP/Elites profit from recessions/depressions . . .

they're the ones with money left to buy up assets ---

PLUS it weakens the citizenry and argues against money being spent on domestic needs ---

[malexander777]

197. Does anyone else feel like the elite few in this country are trying to take over everything

I have heard of this group called Restore the Republic...they spread a pretty interesting message about the IRS, the Fed, and the Council on Foreign Relations. From what I understand they "the elite" are trying to move us to a very controlled dominated country. Has anyone else checked into this? Just curious on your thoughts!

[Nay]

154. Not so strange. This is always how bigwigs show you who's boss

after they figure you've gotten too uppity. They've stripped most people of their wealth, and now feel that the populace is too stupid to live a middle class life anymore.

[bdamomma]

237. they also strip away anyone's chance of getting a good education

thus easier for them to control the ignorant masses.

Education is power, and the right wing neo cons do not want this for Americans.

[malexander777]

196. McCain equals disaster

Seriously....if McCain becomes President we are doomed....the last thing we need is another pawn being controlled by the corporate republican machine. I wouldn't be surprised if he wins though given the electronic voting machines. Who ever owns the technology controls the election.

[bdamomma]

234. all the more reason why we have to get a Dem in the WH

there would more to lose if we don't.

[the other one]

4. McCain will be pres. The Congress will swing back GOP.

Yep. And then Kos will spend four years denying election fraud exists.

[Carrieyazel]

No, we're keeping Congress, and we'll actually gain seats.

What makes you think McCain will have any coattails if he wins?

[RaleighNCDUer]

115. IIRC, that was one of the notable signs of fraud in 04 -

how the local, down-ticket races were strongly Democratic but the national races on the same tickets favored Republicans. Democrats won the local races because there was too much variation in the tickets to fiddle with them at the vote compiler level - but on the congressional and senatorial races the fraud had the coattails.

[KSinTX]

5. They aren't "crimes"

They are allegations of crimes. At this point, they are allegations for which no one has been indicted. "Indictments" happen in the House.

"If Obama were to quietly allow impeachment hearings on Cheney or Bush to proceed on such subjects as torture and signing statements, he could put McCain on the defensive and force him to defend each crime while promising not to commit it."

Obama has nothing to do with impeachment hearings, he's in the Senate. Impeachment hearings stem in the House - that would be Nancy Pelosi's domain.

[davidswanson]

10. conyers blames obama

conyers says he won't impeach because it could hurt obama's election

ask conyers

[KSinTX]

14. I downloaded the entire document, did a search. No "Obama"

If Rep. Conyers finds it politically expedient to hold his actions in abeyance until after the elections OR if he can't find enough support and political will among his colleagues, that's one thing. But to blame Obama or CLINTON for that matter for failed actions in a body to which neither belongs is ludicrous. Really, WTF? Who'd buy this?

[davidswanson]

17. Who'd buy

anything Conyers has said in the past 2 years?

[davidswanson]

23. conyers wrote that book

before the RNC/Pelosi ban on impeachment and before Obama was a candidate

[babylonsister]

24. Their collective excuse has been post Pelosi 'taking it off the table'

is that they don't want to rock the boat, this election is too important. It's not directly Obama's fault, but would be any presumptive nominee's-for the good of the party they've held their fire. :eyes: Constitution be damned.

[KSinTX]

26. That's closer to reality. But at the end of the day it's neither candidates 'fault'

Pelosi is a big girl - third in succession to the Presidency. Outranks all of 'em. Her decision. To blame Obama or Clinton (because Pelosi feels a Dem pres outweighs impeachment action) is to also blame Edwards, Kuchinich (who remains incredibly vocal), Biden, Dodd, Vilsack, Richardson and, for God's sake, Gravel!

[RaleighNCDUer]

117. They are afraid that any move to impeach or investigate will be

the excuse used by the other side - what they will use to explain the unexpected shift in the polls. It would really be electoral fraud, but the republicans would say "the Democrats and their partisan witchhunts angered the people who voted against them" -- and who could prove them wrong?

They are afraid that any shift from the polls will be explained as a backlash against 'partisan politics'.

Shorthand: They are afraid.

[babylonsister]

15. Wow, that lets himself off the hook handily, doesn't it. Two years

or more ago would have worked, Mr. Conyers. Even an attempt would have been appreciated. That's disappointing coming from him, though I know it's been everyone's worry. In the meantime, look at the damage done.

[KSinTX]

22. Thanks, thought I was losing it for a minute there

It hasn't stopped Ron Paul and Dennis Kuchinich from screaming from the mountaintops to anyone who would listen, has it? They've done THEIR part. (Active tense not passive)

[bdamomma]

235. no one wants any impeachment hearings because

of the upcoming election, there has been much speculation about this matter, the Dems just do not want to risk the election outcome for any Dem Presidential Candidate.

[mnhtnbb]

6. I was screaming on these boards six months--a year ago--that unless

John Edwards was nominated (Colbert gets it--the white male vote is critical this year) there would be a close enough race between either Obama or Clinton and McCain that it WOULD BE STOLEN.

The Repubs aren't going to just go away quietly after the power grab of the last 8 years. They intend
to maintain control of the money machine--government funds--which they are sucking dry while they enrich
their buddies. Education, health care, infrastructure--these guys can't make any money off it. But war, man
that's a winner for the defense industry and they are bleeding this country dry.

Yes, the election will be stolen. Why? Follow the goddamn money.

[babylonsister]

7. Thanks, David. If someone has any idea how, I think we should

all send this article to Obama. If he gets enough of them, maybe he'd pay attention.

I'm ready to send one: sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the grease.

[davidswanson]

11. there's this

To reach the Campaign Headquarters by phone, please call: [phone]

You can contact us by mail at:
Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

[babylonsister]

13. Thanks. Maybe mailing it would be the way to go. I have no

problem doing something. OTOH, I have to vote for someone, even if they don't exactly meet my standards. I can't imagine sitting this one (especially) out. That makes no sense to me.

[bdamomma]

236. there should be no reason to sit it out either, this election

is just too damn important for all of us and the world, cause the world will be watching us.

[lonestarnot]

209. Sending.

[remember2000forever]

8. I Couldn't Agree More.

These Republican People will stop at nothing to remain in power and continue to fill their coffers. Only a landslide, which can't be denied by the talking heads, will give Sen. Obama the presidency that he so well deserves and that we so badly need.

[bananas]

9. Greg Palast was talking about this on WBAI a few days ago. nt

[Liberal In Texas]

44. There's a chapter in his book "Armed Madhouse" where

he says the election has already been stolen.

[liberal N proud]

12. Not if it is a landslide election in favor of the Democrats

A large margin of victory makes it pretty hard to steal

[tom_paine]

32. That's what the Bush Lie Machine and the Toady Media is for.

n/t

[eagertolearn]

92. Their already setting us up with the polls showing that both democrats

are equal with McCain in the polls. How can that be when so many repugs are frustrated with their party and I know a lot who will vote for Obama this time around. With so many people hating the war and realizing this is effecting are economy (two top issues for everyone) how can he be equal. It's a total set up! We need to hit the streets in masses before the GE and show the numbers to the world!!!!!

[lonestarnot]

210. Yeah what a crock of shit that is! And we will show the numbers to the world!

[Sam Ervin jret]

16. So democratic "activists", if Obama doesn't say what you want, the way you want, it's better to have

another election stolen and McCain in office?

Then never have a chance of getting diebold and others looked at?

Never get a chance of getting the election system corrected?

Never getting closer to being free from war with Iraq America

But on the other hand we will have more war, rich getting richer, elections stolen, judges that are not in it for the justice, and BushCo forever.

Is about right?

Which do you think is more likely. That Obama is unaware of The Conyers book and the assault the constitution is under. He is trying to work in the system to fix it knowing that to come out and say the things you have outlined would label him a "fringe candidate."

Or he's a idiot.

I for one don't think he's an idiot. But anyone who sits out this election, or doesn't do all they can do to keep the republican party from winning is.

[defendandprotect]

109. There are many people in "blue" states --- I'm one of them --- who can

cast an anti-war, anti-Dem vote -- many people have that same situation.

I find it disturbing that Obama is not talking about the Constitution and the outrages of this administration --- didn't he teach Constitutional law?

At the moment, I'm planning to vote for Obama ---

HOWEVER, if he begins at any point to turn to the right --- I'll be looking for a blue state option to vote my conscience.

We do have the question of the RE-FUNDING of the war coming up --
that will be a sign as to what is actually going on with Obama.

[readmoreoften]

215. If I lived in a blue state I'd be doing the same.

I support you wholeheartedly. I wish my registration was in Manhattan. Unfortunately, I'm in a state where my vote supposedly "counts." Of course the problem with that is that I don't think my vote will literally be counted and even if it does 'count' its a vote for someone who doesn't really represent a single thing I believe in or even represent my interests.

[CADEMOCRAT7]

18. Organize

I am new to DU. What can be done this time around ? Does DU organize ? Can or do they join forces with moveon.org ? Or any other organizations ? How can we get this whole community to take a stand on this ? What about sending letters to Barbara Boxer ? Didn't she try to bring attention to this after the 2004 election ?

[Fireweed247]

21. good idea

:applause:

DUers should organize this!!

[intheflow]

90. Organizing resources at DU

You can try DU's Activist HQ to see what's cooking in there.

You can learn all you can in the Election Reform forum, then educate others in your community.

You can meet other DUers in your region by going to the State and Country forums.

You can access all these DU resources without a being a DU donor.

Mostly, though, I'd Google "election reform" and your state or city to find out what grassroots actions are already underway in your community, then go to their next meeting. Reform movements really are built one person at a time, by people who show up to do the work. :hi:

[CADEMOCRAT7]

111. I really appreciate your response

Thank you ! I will look at DU's Activist HQ, I did not know about this.

[Fireweed247]

121. Thanks!

But it would be better to discuss it out in the open on GD where everyone else is. The other forums are like putting us in a corner and forgetting about it. We need everyone's help, and many people don't visit those smaller forums.

[intheflow]

139. I see it as like moving into a new town.

When you sign up, it's like you're moving to DU Town. First you stay on the main drags, Rte. LBN, GD Ave., Lounge Blvd. and the GDP Freeway. But after a while, you get curious about your surroundings. Neighbors give you directions, co-workers mention the hot spots in town and you go check them out. In theory, GD could include everything under the sun, but then it would be much harder to find what you're looking for because none of the neighborhoods would be distinguishable from each other, and the roads would have no names. So the topic forums have evolved over time as a way for the admins to direct traffic. :hi:

[bdamomma]

239. we should be kicking some a$$, we have the numbers here to do it.

[tom_paine]

19. Unquestionably. n/t

[bean fidhleir]

25. Can anyone think of a slicker way to rig an election than for 2 right-wing Dems

to hack away at each other enlessly, with the winner setting up for a steal followed by an immediate preemptive concession? It seems perfect to me - who could prove anything?

[SammyWinstonJack]

147. Working like a charm, isn't it?

[bean fidhleir]

187. It definitely looks that way. I guess we'll know in November. (nt)

[Flatulo]

174. Almost no one in the world considers BO a right-winger.

You need to consider where you are on the political spectrum. If you're far left, the guy 1 millimeter to the right of you looks like a wingnut.

[bean fidhleir]

179. Then "almost no one in the world" is wrong

FDR and LBJ were far from being "far left" - except by today's rightwing standards. That is the verdict of history.

When by European standards every major US politician except Kucinich is in the "Authoritarian Conservative" quadrant, people calling themselves Democrats need to think about their priorities and the direction "their" party has taken them. I've been doing that thinking and, frankly, I don't like the result.

Read Obama's speeches and votes, beginning with the one at the 2004 Convention. If you can still convince yourself he's not a rightwing Democrat in the Bill Clinton mold, then I honestly think you need to review *your* place along the political axes.

[readmoreoften]

216. Here here, my friend.

ALL the candidates are from the authoritarian right-wing quandrant of the political map. The only one who came close to where I stand is Kucinich (and Gravel before he went Libertarian.)

The only real question I have left is whether it matters at all to those who are rigging whether it's an Obama or a McCain presidency. Why should they care? Both candidates are right-wing and militaristic. The Republicans might rig it on top of the fact that the choices were all pre-selected, just as the terms of the debate are always eternally framed to the benefit of the military-industrial complex.

It's not a question of what we GET if Obama wins. We probably won't get much. But we'll just lose a few things if McCain wins: most notably abortion. Of course there's one thing that will most certainly be toast: the Democratic Party.

[bean fidhleir]

224. Kucinich was mine, too.

My sense is that the topmost riggers don't really care who gets it, though the ones lower down do because they want the pelf in their pockets. For the topmost ones, the ones who own everything already, I'm sure it's enough that none of the three are going to do anything to threaten their wealth and privilege. The top ones are so completely insulated from ordinary life that it would take a revolution to disturb them.

As to RvW, I wonder whether even McCain's fool enough to go after it. There aren't many women anywhere on the axes who would accept going back to coathangers. I honestly think that if SCOTUS were that stupid, the rightwing Catholics on that bench would suddenly find themselves in serious need of round-the-clock guards. There are plenty women in the US these days who've been desensitized to conventional rules by seeing the horrors our rulers visit on innocent people, and who can use weapons.

[Kaleko]

27. "Obama MIGHT investigate their crimes AFTER we elect him..." So, you want to force him

to threaten the Cheney-gang outright and publicize his strategies point for point?

He is a constitutional law professor, and you want people to hand him Conyer's "The Constitution in Crisis"?

Come on. Give this poor, benighted, disemboweled country a break!

Don't you understand that Obama is a dead man walking, if not already then as soon as he's within reach of the Presidency?

Do you realize what's at stake, not just for the US but the entire world, as we are playing cat and mouse with the most dangerous crime syndicate and their Congressional collaborators, ever?

Sheeesh...

[davidswanson]

33. cat and mouse would be a nice game

more like cheese and mouse so far

[Kaleko]

43. The point is to make the right moves in this high-stakes game

of ousting the murderous war-profiteers who have America by the balls.

Calling for Obama to reveal his hand before he's even nominated for the position that gives him some power to eliminate the Bushies, is asking him to commit suicide and forfeit the last chance this country has to shake off these parasites. Clearly, he's not stupid enough to risk making impotent threats before he's in the center of the battlefield with all his forces amassed.

Despite your evasive remark, I trust you understand.

Meanwhile, let's have some cheese with our :toast:

[davidswanson]

47. i fundamentally disagree

i vote for someone because they've earned it, not because i can fantasize about how they might turn into someone better AFTERWARDS

[Kaleko]

54. Who has earned it in your mind?

[DeeDeeNY]

28. Election fraud is very real

this problem has not gone away

[L. Coyote]

82. Snake-oil salesmen are also promoting the idea that voting is a waste of time.

This concern is also a psychological tool to keep people from voting and especially from registering to vote.

However, the snake oil sales people cannot back up their claims with actual facts.
They talk and talk, but do not carry any water by proving their ill-founded and confusing claims.

Who can prove election fraud? Show me one proof.

I'm not saying it isn't happening. I'm just saying, "Show us" too, if you can!!

[davidswanson]

108. if you can't read a book

and you aren't paying me by the hour to teach you

please understand that you have my sympathy but you will parade your ignorance in vain here unless someone has the time to educate you

why not start with a perusal of www.bradblog.com

or read this http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

or read this http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml

or discover google

[OnTheOtherHand]

126. wow, that's lame

The RFK Jr. article was extensively criticized at the time. I've spent the last three years hacking my way through misinformation about the 2004 (and 2005 and 2006 and 2002...) elections, as well as noting the claims that do hold up. Many of the contributors to this book have purveyed that misinfo in the past, and I have little reason to doubt that form holds. But now I have to pay for the privilege of doing it again.

[L. Coyote]

133. Election fraud investigation and election reform movements are dominated by disinformation.

I should not need to explain why here. I'd sure like to see more intelligence on the topic here though.
Few people realize what you stated is not only true, but part of a much larger picture of deceptions.

I won't even get started on all the left-wing "DONATE" activists who assuredly do one thing, cash the checks.

[OnTheOtherHand]

134. well, your view is darker than mine, or different anyway

I think most of these folks think they're doing the Lord's work (not that they are likely to put it that way), even the ones who seem like hucksters. Even Harold Hill always thought there was a band.

As for the much larger picture of deceptions, it's hard to tell.

[L. Coyote]

136. You are right. I'm not naming the piped piper, just saying everyone is humming the tune

without asking who the composer is.

People are just saying stuff, repeating stuff, without an element of critical reason.
I don't expect everyone to give everything Ph.D. treatment, just to apply common sense.

Some of the covert operatives and operations have already been exposed.
There are some real surprises yet to come though.

[L. Coyote]

132. How much do you charge per hour?

Can I get all my contribution back to pay the sympathy bill?

I'll use the words of Karl Rove to Dan Abrams, since you are not paying me by the hour:

It boils down to this: as a journalist, do you feel you have a responsibility to dig into the claims made by others, seek out evidence and come to a professional judgment as to the real facts? Or do you feel if a charge is breathtaking enough, thoroughly checking it out isn't a necessity?

You have relinquished the central responsibility of an investigative reporter, namely to press everyone in order to get to the facts. You didn't subject the statements of others to skeptical and independent review. You have chosen instead to simply repeat something someone else says because it agrees with the theme line.

[struggle4progress]

230. Karl Rove fan, eh?

[lonestarnot]

211. Are you still in the dark? I've seen you around here long enough, that I know that you should know

better! WTF is wrong with you?

[Echo In Light]

29. K&R ...Greg Palast link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3174685&mesg_id=3174685

[Wilms]

30. "Diebold's elections unit president flying in at the last minute and altering the election machines"

Can you provide a little background for those of us who are unaware of this?

[davidswanson]

34. better

i can provide the title of an excellent book :-)

[Wilms]

59. It's a pretty large statement deserving something a bit better than...

"hey, buy this book".

This is a discussion board. Not Amazon.com.

[Fireweed247]

31. We can monitor the elections ourselves

and post the results on DU. We already know the media is watching us...and they know we are watching them. It is time for us to take matters into our own hands.

[davidswanson]

35. yes we can

but the urgent need is to push a candidate in the direction of winning positions

long term, this is MCM's solution:

1. Repeal the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
2. Replace all electronic voting with hand-counted paper ballots (HCPB).
3. Get rid of computerized voter rolls.
4. Keep all private vendors out of the election process.
5. Make it illegal for the TV networks to declare who won before the vote-count is complete.
6. Set up an exit polling system, publicly supported, to keep the vote-counts honest.
7. Get rid of voter registration rules, by having every citizen be duly registered on his/her 18th birthday.
8. Ban all state requirements for state-issued ID's at the polls.
9. Put all polling places under video surveillance, to spot voter fraud, monitor election personnel, and track the turnout.
10. Have Election Day declared a federal holiday, requiring all employers to allow their workers time to vote.
11. Make it illegal for Secretaries of State to co-chair political campaigns (or otherwise assist or favor them).
12. Make election fraud a major felony, with life imprisonment--and disenfranchisement--for all repeat offenders.

[Fireweed247]

36. "push a candidate in the direction of winning positions"

How will they win if they are stealing elections?

The winning positions for We the People are ending the war, providing universal health care, repealing the patriot act, canceling NAFTA...but that is not what wins when they steal it. If we were going by what We the People want, Kucinich would be winning the presidential election.

(Kucinich introduced legislation for hand counted paper ballots, counted and posted in the precincts as well, but has yet to reintroduce it in the legislative session. In fact he has been very quiet lately.)

[davidswanson]

48. by

getting a landslide

i actually posted about this above

[Fireweed247]

57. If they are reversing the results, a landslide will not help

It will only make the actual losing candidate look better.

In 2004, the exit polls were the reverse of what they told us were the actual results. It looked as if they reversed the real results to the reported results, so a landslide is not going to work. They have ways of dealing with that.

[defendandprotect]

110. Great suggestions . . . . !!!

I'm saving those --- !!!

[lonestarnot]

212. Excellent!

:applause:

[L. Coyote]

37. Don't share this dark view. Which "evidence of specific fraud in Ohio" ??

Which "evidence of specific fraud in Ohio" do you refer to in asserting
"John Kerry and John Edwards won the presidential election in 2004"?

[davidswanson]

49. i could type it out

for years or you could use Google

there's actually a Conyers report on this one too - have you read that?

OR -- you could read the book I was describing - It's a very good book

[L. Coyote]

62. Please do. It is a simple question, if true.

[L. Coyote]

80. Still waiting. Can you support what you wrote?

There is a difference between an urban myth of election theft
and actually having something real to back up what you write.

Are you saying this off the top of your head, or do you have something substantive in mind?

It is a simple question! Can you answer it without dodging the question?

[lonestarnot]

213. Oh so you would believe that Homeland Security called Blackwell with information on a terrorist

threat to keep people from observing. Then when Homeland Security was asked about this they denied it ever happened? Are you for real? Or just kicking this thread?

[struggle4progress]

69. U.S. election irregularities in 2004

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._election_irregularities_in_2004

[Echo In Light]

75. Thanks for posting

[tritsofme]

38. The tinfoil nutters will need something to fall back on if we lose.

Because there is no way we can evaluate the flaws and failing of the candidate.

For some people the only way a Democrat can lose any election is through voter fraud.

[New Earth]

125. are you insane?

or did you forget the sarcasm emoticon?

:freak:

[tritsofme]

127. Sorry I'm just not into the whole tinfoil conspiracy crowd.

If that's your cup of tea, go for it.

[OnTheOtherHand]

130. what makes me sad is: the machines really do stink

Not as in "right-wing conspiracy," as in "amazingly bad." (Of course that could lend itself to a right-wing conspiracy, or a left-wing conspiracy, or just good old FUBAR.)

[foo_bar]

176. in my homonym's defense I think you mean SNAFU

Fubar's more of a modifier than a noun-like widget (unless it's the gerund form, "fucking up..."), but we could compromise on SNAFUBAR. And the badness isn't too amazing after Windows, just the lack of human oversight and civic responsibility that permitted the electoral equivalent of serving McDonald's in school cafeterias for the public health benefit.

[OnTheOtherHand]

178. yeah, I actually thought about that

At the time I decided that "snafu" had been so overused that I was more likely to convey meaning if I torqued FUBAR to serve as a noun. But I accept your critique. SNAFUBAR, hmm....

I like the analogy to McDonald's in school cafeterias. Can we think of a way to make McDonald's sound like a high-tech innovation?

[foo_bar]

218. HAVA it your way?

I'd give McD's the edge in quality control, but Mickey Diebolds makes similar low-tech excuses for privatization: faster, sometimes cheaper, increases overall participation (the "plate waste" argument) albeit with a higher regurgitation rate for the uninitiated, and the mystery meat preceding McLunches wasn't the epitome of transparency either. I guess the cheese food product in this analogy is subcontracted proprietary cruft that needs a gig of ram and a DVD drive to load the operating system kernel.

[DaDooRonRon]

39. Spot on

Many peace voters find NOTHING in the war-mongering of Clinton or the vapidity of Obama's wishy-washy all things to all people tried and tested pablum to get them anywhere near either of the two. Since they will not vote McCain, they will go third party.

If and when they do, do not blame them. Blame the mainstream candidates, for that is where the true blame lies.

Unless of course you are one of the true believers who will always find fault elsewhere, even if it doesn't exist.

[ThomWV]

40. If the Republicans take the Presidency in 2008 there will be rioting in the streets everywhere

And I do not mean in just this country.

[davidswanson]

51. promises

promises

[Echo In Light]

76. Elsewhere, yes. In brainwashed America, don't count on it

[Flatulo]

100. You make it sound like rioting in the streets would be a good thing...?

[Echo In Light]

141. Your question sounds loaded, however, here's a good example:

Ukrainian presidential election, 2004
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election,_2004

The grim irony was how the U.S. press covered this incident while simultaneously ignoring and/or sharply denouncing ANY who cried foul re our own election.

Howard Zinn on non-violent civil disobedience:

"And our topic is topsy-turvy: civil disobedience. As soon as you say the topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem is civil disobedience. That is not our problem.... Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem. We recognize this for Nazi Germany. We know that the problem there was obedience, that the people obeyed Hitler. People obeyed; that was wrong. They should have challenged, and they should have resisted; and if we were only there, we would have showed them. Even in Stalin's Russia we can understand that; people are obedient, all these herdlike people."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/CivilObedience_ZR.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oRoQTwac9M

http://www.stateofnature.org/howardZinn.html

[Flatulo]

153. I have no problem with civil disobedience... rioting, however, implies

violent resistance. Not my cup of tea.

I agree that it is very ironic that America would have the chutzpuh to judge any other nations' elections. Our system is so poor that we need to get our own house in order.

[tucsonlib]

119. Won't Happen

Much as I'd like to think otherwise. This is the reason we were suckered into a choice between Obama and Clinton - The two candidates whose defeat in November would be easiest to explain away. (See comment #71 - "They Already Successfully Rigged the Primaries".) If Clinton "loses", the pundits will attribute it to her "divisiveness". Or maybe it was a "gender" thing. If it's Obama, can't you just picture those talking heads somberly asking whether "racism" was a factor? And the American people will buy it. And once again those who raise questions will be ridiculed as conspiracy nuts. And that thinly veiled threat, "You lost! Now get over it!" will once again echo thoughout the land.

[Echo In Light]

140. Nailed it. Why would the powers that be want to fix what isn't broken?

[SammyWinstonJack]

149. Exactly right! So how is that "historical" election working out for some of you now?

:argh:

[bdamomma]

241. possibly in other countries, and the rest of the world will see

how ignorant we are.

[Carrieyazel]

41. Yeah, the Repukes did a bang up job "stealing" Election 2006

We crushed them like cock roaches in '06, and many of the elections that were exceedingly close, were expected to be. The ones that weren't expected were solid Repuke incumbents getting a scare, and we won far more of those than we lost. We destroyed them, and they know it. They were beat down like roadkill.

Give me a break, if the Repukes could steal so many elections in a row, (which is absurd) than Democrats are the dumbest bitches in history.

Election 2000 was the epitome of a true stolen election, as we all know. I won't get into the details, but the Repukes were able to use varied nefarious means to steal that one, (along with some bad luck) and the proof is well documented. That election steal is seared in my mind, and it won't be forgotten. BUT I HAVE YET TO SEE ANY SOLID EVIDENCE SHOWING THAT THE REPUKES STOLE THE NEXT TWO ELECTIONS. IT ISN'T THERE AND EVEN THE LIKELIHOOD OF THEM DOING IT EVERY OTHER YEAR IS LUDICROUS.

If we lose the presidential race this year, its because McCain beats Obama or Hillary. He's beating them both now in the polls, and he's starting to break away. If we lose, its because we nominated a candidate who couldn't win, and they nominated their only viable candidate. This tired script is the one that needs to change.

[Flatulo]

45. How could I have missed this?

> Election 2000 was the epitome of a true stolen election, as we all know. I won't get into the details,
> but the Repukes were able to use varied nefarious means to steal that one, (along with some bad luck)
> and the proof is well documented.

Can you share that documentation with me?

[Carrieyazel]

50. Florida Repub. Sec. of State Harris eliminated thousands of names off the rolls in 2000

in that state. Many were not convicted felons, and WERE eligible to vote. Voters were therefore removed illegally from the registration lists. There have been witnesses who claim that she acted on orders from Jeb Bush "to clean up the rolls". The 5-4 Supreme Court decision is also considered by many legal scholars (not just Democratic ones) to have little or no grounding in actual law, and the 5 who went for Shrub wanted him in and wanted the counting to stop. There are also allegations against Fox News Channel. Here's a convincing book that I read last year.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1560259299?&PID=32317

[davidswanson]

53. yes but

Gore still won.

[Flatulo]

60. The Supreme Court decides what is the law...

> The 5-4 Supreme Court decision is also considered by many legal scholars (not just Democratic ones) to
> have little or no grounding in actual law

The SCOTUS decides what is legal and what is not. They're the final say, unless Congress passes legislation that passes constitutional muster that nullifies a SCOTUS decision.

[tom_paine]

120. And that is the core of the problem, same one they had in Nazi Germany

Soviet Russia, Pincohet's Chile, Marcos' Phillipines, etc.

We now have that same problem here, as evidence by the still-unpunished (and probably never will be) US Attorney's Firing Scandal.

What if those charged with enforcing the laws are either criminals themselves or working for criminals or just sympathetic tothe criminals enough to subvert the law of the land?

I've said this before and I'll say it again. In many ways Bush-Occupied Amerika is a small Alabama town in the 1950s.

The Bushies, their FBI, their SCOTUS, their EPA, their everything, are the small-town sheriffs who also happen to be KKK members.

We are the n*****rs.

Thus, as in that small Alabama town in the 50s, it doesn't matter how much evidence there is, how many of us n*****rs have had our balls cut off or died hanging from trees. There is nothing nothing NOTHING that could make our KKK Bushies invetsigate these crimes, and if they did investigate these crimes we know the investigations would be tanked, any evidence destroyed even if it was found.

Therefore any disinterested observer who was watching the situation from the outisde with understanding the dynamic or denying it existed would say EXACTLY the same things that you are saying now.

They were wrong then just like you are wrong now.

But go on, you keep looking to our KKK-sheriff SCOTUS and FBI to see that obviously, all of those n****rs that is us are just a bunch of complainers making groundless complaints.

:puke:

Some things never change and history is largely a circle (or a sine wave).

You just keep looking to the KKK-Bushie-sheriff. They sure are a trustwothy bunch and you apparently believe everything they say.

:puke:

[Echo In Light]

142. Thanks for posting

[Flatulo]

146. I think you're reading more into what I said than what I actually said.

I merely pointed out that, in leiu of any case law even remotely like Bush v Gore, the SCOTUS is empowered by our constitution to have the final say. If you don't like their decisions, too bad. There's just no higher legal authority.

Please remember that 50% of the country thought it was the right decision. 50% did not. The fact that the ruling gave us the worst president in history does not make the enabling event illegal, or even suspect.

A left-leaning court may have granted Gore's request for a recount, and Gore would have still lost under the parameters he was requesting. It would not have changed the outcome. We would still have Bush as POTUS.

You can make comparisons to Nazis and whatnot, but the process was perfectly legal under our Constitution.

[tom_paine]

155. No...it wasn't. You are wrong again.

Please show me where in Article II or any article oft he Constitution that it mentions the Supreme Court as arbiter of disputed Presidential elections.

http://www.leftjustified.org/leftjust/lib/sc/ht/home.html

That was my one my first indications that something was very very VERY wrong.

There is a Constitutional method for determining disputed Presidential elections, and it involves the House of Representatives.

Apparently, it wasn't sure enough for the Bushies. In 2000, perhaps there were "unreliable" (read: honest) Republicans who may have voted for Gore because their districts voted for him. As Gore actually won the popular vote and won it by a good bit, it is very possible that a few honest member of the House could have derailed the Bushie plans.

Thus, instead of the Constitution, Ed Luttwak's "Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook" was used. The Bushies used the parts of the government they controlled to take over the parts they didn't contrtol.

http://www.amazon.com/Coup-d%C3%89tat-Practical-Edward-Luttwak/dp/0674175476/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208733958&sr=8-1

So you are wrong again. Simply wrong. The 2000 Presidential "election" was NOT Constitutional, not in any way, shape or form.

But tell yourself whatever lies you like, whatever makes you feel better with the tyranny we all shall likely live under for the rest of our lives.

Repeat some more Toady Media bullshit, and comfort yourself as much as you like.

It doesn't make it so.

Now then, please to show me where in the Constituion the Supreme Court is the arbiter of disputed Presidential Elections.

[Flatulo]

157. The only time the House is involved is when there is an electoral tie.

The issue was to whom Florida's electors would be pledged. Until this uncertainty could be resolved, there would be no electoral college vote. This was the only constitutional crisis.

The SCOTUS did not decide the presidential election. They took the appeal from the Florida Supreme Court for a four county recount and heard the case, and decided in Bush's favor. There is a not-so-subtle distintion.

If the SCOTUS had ruled for Gore, we would not be having this conversation and I think you know that.

But believe what you will.

[tom_paine]

165. If the SCOTUS had ruled for Gore, we would have had a recount.

No matter what way the recount would have proceeded, whether it went for Bush or Gore, it still would have been Constitutional.

The Bush side argued for immediate Bush victory. The Gore side argued for a recount and further analysis that was not guaranteed to give Gore a victory, but would have given all of us the validation of a clean election and knowing that the results had been double-checked.

There is a not-so-subtle-distinction there.

So, you have now been wrong, and wrong again, and now wrong again regarding the publishing of Luttwak's book.

You are wrong here, too, but it is not so clear-cut nor demostarble as the other three times you were wrong.

Finally, two Supreme Court Operative (I cannot in good conscience call them "Justices") were also guilty of Felony Conflict of Interest, Fat Tony Scalia and Slappy Thomas, each of whom had immdiate relatives working for the Bush Campaign.

Which brings us full circle. What to do when those charged with enforceing the law are crminals themselves.

I know what YOU do. Obey the criminals and smear anyone who tries to speak against them.

Perhaps you should just call me "Sore Loserman" and get it over with.

:rofl: :rofl:

Goodbye, now. :hi: This has been entertaining. And if anyone reading this didn't understand the massive obstacles to restoring the Old American Republic when even half or more of our own allies are so desperate to believe that it isn't what it looks like, that Hitler isn't really than bad, nor Pinochet nor Bush and all of their respective followers, well...now they have gotten a closer look at the nuts and bols of how the denial of the long-term bamboozled works.

Sure you just don't want to call me a "Sore Loserman"? I mean, the Bushies designed that rhetorical template to shut down criticism and converstaion, just for you. It sure would work better than you being factually wrong time after time after time, wouldn't it?

Of course it would. That's why the Bushies spent many billions of dollars and thousands of person-hours designing their rhetorical memes. You should probably make use of them. It would work better than what you're doing now.

[Flatulo]

166. I have no interest in insulting you. What would that solve?

> No matter what way the recount would have proceeded, whether it went for Bush or Gore, it still would
> have been Constitutional.

So you now agree that the court had a legitimate right to hear and rule on the case? I did not get this impression from your previous posts.

You previously stated that the House should have resolved this, but did not explain how. I responded that the house can only vote if there is an electoral tie. Where am I wrong here?

[Flatulo]

159. By the way, Luttwak's book wasn't published until 2006, so the

Bushies could not have used it as a blueprint, as you claim.

You see, time flows the other way.

[tom_paine]

163. Wrong Again. That's three for three.

Demonstrably, practically definitevly WRONG.

Thank you for proving my point.

Luttwak's book was originally published in the 60s, during the time of massive Bushie involvement in the stifiling and destruction of freedom movements around the world, partioularly in S. America nd the Middle East.

Proof? Oh, on something like this, that's easy.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Luttwak+coup+etat

So, once again, you have proven not to know what you are talking about, grasping at any straw, any lie, anything to believe it yourself.

I understand. It is one of the deepest parts of human nature, and one of our oldest truths, that if we have been bamboozled long enough we will do anything anything ANYTHING to close our eyes and reject proof that we have been bamboozled. It is too painful, too damaging to the ego to do otherwise.

I want to thank you for showing us all in what a detailed fashion what ignorance and denial we face if we are ever to restore the Old American Republic (1776-2000) to health, vigor and freedom.

I want to thank you for showing us that, even people on our own side will reject evidence in their desperate quest to deny reality, as the Germans must have done regarding the state of t heir nation, press, courts, elections, etc.

Oh, and don't complain that the example of the Nazis is (for the moment) much more severe than what the bushies have done to us and our nation. If a person dreives 1000 miles and another drives 1 mile, are they not both driving?

In either case, the concrete evidence is clear that Luttwak's Bushie Manual, now applied so vigorously to our nation, exploiting the same weaknesses of developed nations that Luttwak mentioned back in 1968, that we are so comfortable in our stable democratic systems that we know no other way to fight a totalitarian takeover than to wait for the next crooked election, when thing will surely be set right, we are in so many ways, EASIER to take over than Third World countries where they understand the face of tyranny and what it takes to fight it.

But again, it is enugh to point out that you are wrong yet again. Luttwak's book was published in 1968, though it was probably written several years before it was declassified.

[Flatulo]

167. You are right, I am wrong. I looked at the last publication date, not

the first.

There, that was easy.

If you read my posts at all you will find that I am always very willing to admit error.

[struggle4progress]

67. Quietly Florida Admits 2000 Election Fraud (Associated Press 26 Apr 02)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.28A.Election.Fraud.htm

[Echo In Light]

180. Thanks for posting

[Flatulo]

191. I can't find the original AP article...

The text of the article never uses the word 'fraud', only the headline on Truthout.org.

The link to the NYT article is broken and I can't find the original.

[struggle4progress]

199. Voteless in Florida (Mother Jones / November 2000)

By Sasha Abramsky
November 8, 2000

Thousands of Florida residents were struck from the voter lists because they were mistakenly identified as ex-felons, just months before what has become the closest election in US history. With Bush apparently leading Gore by only hundreds of votes, in a state with hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised voters, could similar errors be tipping the race? ... http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/11/floridavote.html

[struggle4progress]

201. Florida's 'Disappeared Voters': Disfranchised by the GOP (The Nation / January 2001)

posted January 18, 2001 (February 5, 2001 issue)
Gregory Palast

... On November 7 tens of thousands of eligible Florida voters were wrongly prevented from casting their ballots--some purged from the voter registries and others blocked from registering in the first instance. Nearly all were Democrats, nearly half of them African-American ...

... The Nation has obtained an internal Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections memo, dated August 1998, which warns Mortham's office that it had wrongly removed eligible voters in a botched rush "to capriciously take names off the rolls" ...

Over the past two years, with Republicans in charge of both the governorship and the secretary of state's office, now under Harris, the felon purge has accelerated. In May 2000, using a list provided by DBT, Harris's office ordered counties to purge 8,000 Florida voters who had committed felonies in Texas. In fact, none of the group were charged with anything more than misdemeanors ...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/palast

[struggle4progress]

203. Jeb Bush's secret weapon (Salon / Nov 2002)

94,000 people on a voter "purge" list -- half of them African-American -- continue to be banned from voting in Florida, even though the state knows the list is wildly inaccurate.

By Greg Palast

Nov 1, 2002 | In December 2000, we reported that Florida's use of a faulty and politically questionable list of felons and dead people "scrubbed" from voter rolls -- half of them African-Americans -- may have cost Al Gore the 537-vote margin of victory claimed by George W. Bush in Florida.

Fast-forward two years. There's another close race in Florida. This time, younger brother Jeb is fighting to fend off a challenge from Bill McBride for the governor's race. The Nov. 5 face-off could again come down to thousands, if not hundreds, of votes.

And even though the list has been widely condemned -- the company that created it admits probable errors -- the same voter scrub list, with more than 94,000 names on it, is still in operation in Florida. Moreover, DBT Online, which generated the disastrously flawed list, reports that if it followed strict criteria to eliminate those errors, roughly 3,000 names would remain -- and a whopping 91,000 people would have their voting rights restored ...

http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2002/11/01/lists/

[struggle4progress]

204. Repeat of "Felon" Purging That Tilted Florida Election? (IPA / May 2004)

... Supervisor of Elections for Leon County in Florida, <Ion> Sancho said today: "Florida's 2000 felon purge program resulted in over 50,000 legal voters being disenfranchised. Officials in the Secretary of State's Division of Elections misled county election supervisors about the 2000 election purge list, blaming the vendor (DBT/Choicepoint) for the errors that were disenfranchising citizens. After the election was over, public record requests revealed that Division of Elections ordered the vendor to keep the matching criteria loose, guaranteeing the denial of citizens' legal right to vote. Now, the Director of the Division of Elections has ordered local elections officials to implement a new felon purge list database for 2004. When asked for assurances the list was 90 percent accurate, the minimum level local Supervisors of Elections requested for such a list, we were told that it was better than the 2000 list -- with no data to support its accuracy. As the Supervisor of Elections for Leon County, I will not be party to any effort, program or activity which may deny the voting rights of our citizens. I am outraged that our State officials, in an apparent pursuit of some imaginary voting fraud problem, are once again pursuing an ill-conceived program which may once again lead to the disenfranchisement of thousands of Floridians" ... http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=297

[struggle4progress]

206. Banana Republicans (2004)

... In the end, racial disparities in treatment of voters may have been the worst scandal of the Florida 2000 election. Five months before the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, acting under the direction of Governor Jeb Bush, sent local election boards a list of 42,389 "probable" and "possible" felons, with instructions that the list should be used to exclude ineligible voters. The scrub list was compiled by a private company hired by the state called Database Technologies, a division of a national database company called ChoicePoint. To compile the list, ChoicePoint-DBT had compared the state's list of registered voters against lists of known felons and also removed duplicate listings and deceased residents .2' As journalist Greg Palast and others have noted, the purged names were disproportionately black- 54 percent of the names on the ChoicePoint-DBT list, although only 14.6 percent of the state's residents were black in 2000. '3 ChoicePoint's system for purging names accomplished this in part by purging black people from the voter rolls if their names were the same as or similar to convicted felons, while keeping white people with names similar to convicted felons. 24
"They were supposed to use their extensive databases to check credit cards, bank information, addresses and phone numbers, in addition to names, ages, and social security numbers. But they didn't," says Palast, who has written extensively about the Florida balloting in his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. "They didn't use one of their 1,200 databases to verify personal information, nor did they make a single phone call to verify the identity of scrubbed names." Instead, ChoicePoint compiled its list of felons by downloading names from other states' Internet sites. "They scrubbed Florida voters whose names were similar to out-of-state felons," Palast explains. "An Illinois felon named John Michaels could knock off Florida voter John, Johnny, Jonathan or Jon R. Michaels, or even J.R. Michaelson. DBT matched for race and gender, but names only had to be similar to a certain degree. Names could be reversed, and suffixes (Jr., Sr.) were ignored, but aliases were included. So the felon John 'Buddy' Michaels could knock non-felon Michael Johns or Bud Johnson, Jr., off the voter rolls. This happened again and again. Although DBT didn't get names, birthdays or social security numbers right, they were very careful to match for race. A black felon named Mr. Green would only knock off a black Mr. Green, but not a single white Mr. Green ...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Rampton_Stauber_page/Block_Vote_BR.html

[struggle4progress]

207. Perhaps some of the links I have just provided will help clarify the issue for you

[Flatulo]

220. Thanks for the data dump, but can you find the original AP article? nt

[struggle4progress]

226. NAACP and National Civil Rights Groups File Florida Voting Rights Lawsuit to Eliminate Unfair Voting

January 10, 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C. --The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), along with The Advancement Project, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and People for the American Way Foundation today filed a historic lawsuit in Florida to eliminate discriminatory and unequal voting policies and practices from Florida's electoral system ...

Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President & CEO, said the lawsuit is part of an effort to "restore justice to the thousands of black and other voters who were denied the right to have their vote counted on November 7, 2000." Mfume said: "There was evidence of massive voter disenfranchisement of people of color during the presidential election. The election in Florida was conducted in a manner which was unfair, illegal, immoral and undemocratic."

Starting on Election Day, the NAACP national and Florida offices, as well as many other civil rights organizations, received calls from black voters and others who had been turned away from the polls or had trouble casting their ballots. Civil rights lawyers were immediately sent to Florida to interview witnesses and on November 11, 2000, the NAACP held a hearing in Miami to highlight the extent of the violations of state and federal law ...

http://www.lawyerscomm.org/2005website/projects/votingrights/naacprelease011002.html

[struggle4progress]

227. NAACP Files Class Action lawsuit Charging Racism In Florida Vote (Jet / Jan 2001)

Jet
Jan 29, 2001

... The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Miami, charges that equipment malfunctions, purges of registration lists that discarded rightful voters, breakdowns in registration and ill-prepared poll workers kept Blacks from casting ballots Nov. 7 and thus violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and equal protections guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

"It is ironic that the Supreme Court, in rendering its decision regarding the election, cited the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution," said Theodore Shaw, associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. "That is why we are going to court--to ensure that the Equal Protection clause serves its original purpose--to protect African-American voters from disenfranchisement."

The suit names as defendants Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the newly installed president; Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris; Clay Roberts, director of the state Division of Elections; and election supervisors in seven Florida counties. It also names Choicepoint, Inc., a Georgia firm hired by Florida state officials to purge ineligible names from voter registration lists. After the election, county election officials admitted that eligible voters' names had been removed ...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_7_99/ai_69961440

[struggle4progress]

228. Blacks Facing Unfair Obstacles (NAACP / 2004)

July 30, 2004
By Alaina C. Beverly

... Before the 2000 elections, Florida used inaccurate criteria and flawed methods to create a "felon purge" list that led to the unlawful disfranchisement of thousands of voters, mostly African Americans. At least 2,000 of the individuals on the purge list were convicted in other states but had served their sentences and already had their voting rights restored by law (in those other states). Nevertheless, they were scrubbed from Florida's voting rolls. Many individuals who had never been convicted of a crime were on the list because of faulty methods of matching names on the voter lists with names of individuals convicted of felony offenses.

In 2001, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a coalition of civil-rights organizations filed a lawsuit challenging many of Florida's voting procedures, under federal laws including the Voting Rights Act. That suit questioned the ways in which Florida identified persons potentially ineligible to vote because of a prior felony conviction. The NAACP vs. Harris case led to a settlement that required Florida to match name and race of individuals on the voter rolls and criminal conviction lists before including them on the felon purge list ...

Florida state officials finally agreed to withdraw the flawed purge list for the November elections. But county election supervisors are still required by state law to remove from the voting rolls persons convicted of felonies who have not had their rights restored. Recent reports indicate that, with the election rapidly approaching and little guidance from the state, some supervisors are relying on the flawed state list anyway, in possible violation of federal law ...

Despite its promises to improve election procedures, losing another lawsuit over its clemency process, receiving continued criticism from civil-rights groups and being the subject of a series of embarrassing news stories, Florida continues to adopt and implement election procedures that exclude minority voters in general -- and African Americans in particular -- from participating fully in its political process. The right to vote is a fundamental part of citizenship, regardless of sex, class, color or partisanship that cannot be abridged by state agencies or local election officials ...

http://www.naacpldf.org/content.aspx?article=334

[struggle4progress]

229. Please feel free to educate yourself about what happened in Florida in 2000

I've provided enough links so that you can understand the issues involved in the lawsuit and track down the lawsuit and settlement, if the real issues matter to you

[Flatulo]

231. Thanks for taking the time to post all these links. I am reading them all.

[davidswanson]

52. the point

of reviewing a book correcting common misconceptions is not to solict posts regurgitating the common misconceptions as if we hadn't heard them before

[eagertolearn]

94. Anyone who is that sure the elections were not stolen in both 2000

and 2004 with all the information out there on this is not paying attention. This is our number one threat to our so called "democracy". We can secure this but it is not happening. Where have you been?

[Flatulo]

103. I'm not sure they were *not* stolen, but I'm not sure they were either.

There were plenty of reports of irregularities, and plenty of reports of voter intimidation on both sides.

Our system is tragically flawed, and I agree we should have verifiable paper trails. But in any close contest, there will be some uncertainty that the process is 100% untainted in any way.

[OnTheOtherHand]

128. did you mean 2004 and 2006?

Otherwise you seem to be talking to the wrong person.

[Flatulo]

42. Sorry folks - Bush won. I don't like it, but that's what happened.

> The Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida in 2000 that would have made Al Gore president. This is
> not speculation. The recount was later done.

A consortium of major news outlets - the NY Times, Wahsington Post, Wall St Journal, CNN, The Tribune Co, The Palm Beach Post, The St. Petersburg Times and The Associated Press conducted a recount.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/recount/

The outcome was clear - Bush won. Under the recount guidelines that Gore was requesting, Bush maintained a small lead.

From the NYT:

"Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations"

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html?ex=1208750400&en=3a99778f51502902&ei=5070


USA Today and the Miami Herald conducted another recount with the same outcome.

"In the first full study of Florida's ballots since the election ended, The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled "undervotes" -- ballots the voter has noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through -- to be counted"

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june01/recount_4-3.html

I can't understand why some people think it necessary to revise history because it does not please them. I am not aware of any scholarly recount or analysis that refutes the outcome of the 2000 election. Whether or not illegal acts were committed, I don't know. But the votes were counted, counted again, counted yet again, then counted two more times. Bush won.

Edit - spelling

[davidswanson]

56. From the NY Times Article Linked Above

"(A) statewide recount — could have produced enough votes to tilt the election (Gore's) way, no matter what standard was chosen to judge voter intent."

I had been referring to the actual findings of the statewide recount, not the New York Times' choice of headline and spin.

[Flatulo]

58. Coulda, woulda, shoulda....

[Flatulo]

61. What statewide recount?

[davidswanson]

63. this one

https://www2.norc.org/fl

[Flatulo]

68. A few points...

Gore did not request a statewide recount. Even if the SCOTUS did not intervene and the recount Gore fought for had happened, Bush still would have won.

The NORC project is only counting overvotes and undervotes. Prior tallies are not being re-examined, so there is no way to tell if either candidate would have picked up more votes there.

In every scenario I can find, the margin of victory is less than 500 votes either way.

I believe that this was a statistical tie, and we'll never really know who got more votes.

Elections this close will always have a cloud over them. We need a landslide in November.

[OnTheOtherHand]

129. it depends

There are two sides to this. (Imagine that!)

If overvotes had been recounted in keeping with voter intent, all else equal, Gore would have won -- that's how I read the NORC data.

It's true that Gore didn't request that.* It has been speculated that federal judges would have ordered it anyway. That does seem pretty... speculative.

*ETA: I should probably hedge that -- with so many motions, briefs, and arguments, there is probably another side to that, too.

[Flatulo]

148. Well, that's kind of my point... we'll never know who won Florida in 2000.

All we know is that it was close enough that there will always be uncertainty.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

205. Why do you believe it was close ?

A particular event which occured in August of 2001, put the difference at just over 16,000.
Not the paltry little 537 that most seem to believe.

[Flatulo]

225. I can only judge the votes that were counted.

If votes weren't counted, or if voters were purged, then we will never know exactly how many votes each candidate received.

If we include other intangibles, like the effect of the media making early predictions on the winner (this really pisses me off), then we muddy the waters even further. How far do we go in determining how many voters were disenfranchised? How about voter intimidation? If someone asks another voter in line at a polling station whom they are voting for, does this count as intimidation?

You made a very good case that many voters were wrongly purged from the roles for felony convictions. The demographics suggest that they would have been Gore votes, but do we know for sure what each one of those votes were?

[deutsey]

144. An alternate interpretation

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/112101a.html

A document, revealed by Newsweek, indicates that the Florida recount that was stopped last year by five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court would have taken into account so-called “overvotes” that heavily favored Gore.

If those “overvotes” were counted, as now it appears they would have been, Gore would have carried Florida regardless of what standard of chad – dimpled, hanging, punched-through – was used in counting the so-called “undervotes,” according to an examination of those ballots by a group of leading news organizations.

In other words, Bush lost not only the national popular vote by more than a half million ballots, but he would have lost the key state of Florida and thus the presidency, if Florida’s authorities had been allowed to count the votes that met the state’s legal requirement of demonstrating the clear intent of the voter.

The Newsweek disclosure – a memo that the presiding judge in the state recount sent to a county canvassing board – shows that the judge was instructing the county boards to collect “overvotes” that had been rejected for indicating two choices for president when, in reality, the voters had made clear their one choice.

MORE...

[Flatulo]

152. From the article you cite...

> dramatic finding that Gore would have won if a full statewide recount had been conducted in accordance
> with state law. Using the clear-intent-of-the-voter standard, Gore beat Bush by margins ranging from 60
> to 171 votes, depending on what standard was used in judging the “undervotes.”

But a full statewide recount never happened, so it is only speculation that Gore 'would' have won. I think 'could' is more appropriate.

No matter which way this is interpreted, there is a great deal of uncertainty as to who actually received more votes in Florida.

[deutsey]

172. Well, if there's uncertainty why do you say Bush won with such certainty?

I believe with all the tens of thousands of disenfranchised voters (thanks to Jeb Bush) along with the Bush relative calling it for Bush on Fox and the "Brooks Bros. riot" and the different recount scenarios that indicated a Gore victory and the Bush/Reagan appointees on ths SC issuing the unprecedented decision that was not to be applied to any future court cases etc. etc., it seems to me it was not a simple Bush victory (i.e., he legitimately won Florida and therefore the presidency).

[Flatulo]

173. Since a statewide recount was never done, we'll never know who

got more votes total. The SCOTUS decision denied Gore the opportunity to 'mine' for more votes in the counties in which he was likely to get them. They ruled that a partial recount was illegal, and only a full recount would do. Of course, a full recount was impossible to carry out by inauguration day, so they essentially guaranteed a Bush presidency.

I would like to see any scholarly proof that shows that Gore did in fact win any of the recounts. As far as I know, he did not. The NORC statewide research only counted overvotes and undervotes, not every ballot. He didn't win any of the NTY or USA Today consortium recounts, which, using the standards that he was asking for, gave Bush a narrow victory.

In the sense that Gore never did show a majority of votes, Bush won.

[deutsey]

181. As the Dude say, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

And, when I get a moment to search for the articles, I know there were different scenarios in which Gore would have won. And of course we can't measure the impact that disenfranchising tens of thousands of innocent voters had on the election results.

But most importantly, the main issue for me is how the Bush family and their cohorts in the media, SC, and Congress bullied their way into subverting the democratic process in this country. I think that's the deeper and larger issue here and was merely the opening salvo of what they've gone on to do over the past eight years.

[Flatulo]

185. Yes, there were scenarios under which Gore would have won.

But these scenarios did not use the standards that Gore was asking to be used in the recount. If the SCOTUS had ruled in favor of Gore, and the recount had happened under the guidelines he requested, the vote tally would have still gone to Bush.

It's ironic.

Edited to add - this is the way the NYT consortium reported their findings. It is not my opinion. Whether or not this data is absolutely conclusive I cannot say.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

198. Have you seen this topic ?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=49624&mesg_id=49624&pages=



The newspaper "recounts" did not have accurate totals.
And the NORC results were also flawed, they lacked accurate totals.

If * "won" why did he need so much help from his brother AND his father's appointees ?

[Fresh Toones]

55. The Script

Keep getting the word out. I'll do my best. Interrupt the script.

[Perry Logan]

64. No way. Republicans show none of the creepy confidence they showed in 2000 and 2006.

[Kip Humphrey]

65. Its the central tabulators. Its before your eyes and you don't see it...

Hillary wins primaries but loses caucuses.

Primaries are counted by electronic voting system central tabulators.

Caucuses are tabulated by hand.

In 2004, 88% of the national vote was counted by the same software (GEMS).

If Rove holds the keys to the kingdom (and the passwords to the tabulators), who would he unlock the kingdom's door to? Someone he's known to ridicule (McCain) or someone with deep neo-liberal, globalist roots (Hillary)?

Bush, Clinton, Bush, McCain?

Or,

Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, Bush? (Did you forget about good ol' Jeb?)

Wins in primaries; loses in caucuses.
Primaries are counted by computer tabulators; Caucuses are counted by hand.



Want your country back? Hand count paper ballots.

[Wilms]

89. ??"88% of the national vote was counted by the same software (GEMS)"??

Care to back that up with a few cites???

People will go and repeat that...and be wrong...and look dumb.

Ever hear of ES&S?

[eagertolearn]

95. Thank-You!

[OnTheOtherHand]

131. the primary/caucus argument won't hunt

If you seriously think that the only salient difference between primaries and caucuses is how the votes are counted, well....

When you use this argument, you invite the ridicule of political observers. I don't think that's a great way to work for election integrity. Please stop.

[elleng]

66. Polling places are not the residence of the main thieves.

Its the central tabulators with which Rover/Bushies tampered, and will do again.

[Honeycombe8]

70. No need to steal it this time. If Clinton goes much longer, the Dem. Party will be little more...

than fishbait in the general election. I mean that. McCain's numbers continue to go up in the polls, the longer the Dems snipe at each other.

As for McCain's views being far from most Americans' views, I strongly disagree. Except for the Iraq War, McCain is pretty mainstream. What he is NOT, though, is far right. Which is why he may well win...and he won't need to steal votes. He is pro-environmental, anti-oil company, pro-tax cuts. Most Americans are likewise. Where he differs is his view of the Iraq War and immigration (most Americans are against any sort of amnesty, but McCain actually holds a similar position to the Democrats on that issue, so it doesn't hurt him in the general election). As for the Iraq War, many people are confused about what to do, with the majority being against immediate withdrawal.

Clinton, Obama, and McCain are all very similar in their views on some main issues. Plus, McCain is a known and well liked national figure. Obama was his only real competitor. With Clinton bashing him in Rovian style, if she injures his reputation much more with swift boating ads, McCain will be a shoe-in.

[eagertolearn]

96. Clinton's information against Obama is not working now....

so why will it work in the GE? People are smarter than that (even repugs). McCain can't even talk to the camera without sounding like he is having a "senior moment". He was reading "his" economic plan off of a visual aide and he can't quite figure out who is fighting who in Iraq. Obama will blast him in debates. The only thing he has going for him is he was a prisoner of war and repugs really like that type of thing.

[natrat]

106. ya know when the msm echo chamber gets fired up in earnest against obama.....

[flyarm]

72. it is already stolen by the DNC by disenfranchising Fla and Michigan!

thanks Dean and BRAZILE!!!!

[eagertolearn]

97. I think you need to look at the facts on that....

Both states did it to themselves (Florida with the help of the repugs in government so I feel sorry for them). Rules are rules and everyone agreed to them when they were made including Hillary Clinton. I personally wished each state could have worked out something but how do you do it fairly? I would of taken it how it was in Florida and have done a total recount in Michigan but Clinton's campaign has messed up that by blaming this all on Obama (smart tactic) so a recount now wouldn't be fair because of that. I just know with kids that if you change a rule after they have broken it then they know they can keep breaking rules without punishment. You have to draw the line somewhere.

[earth mom]

74. IF * Co committed crimes?! WTF?! Pay attention people! Obama is going to let the bastards get away

with their crimes! No impeachment for * & Co! EVER. :argh:

God damn it! :grr:

[Fractured]

77. The way things are going, they won’t have to steal it.

[duhneece]

79. New Mexico's results didn't match exit polls

When I went to bed, Kerry was ahead; when I awoke, Bush had won NM.
I provided the Secretary Of State with affidavits of three voters (but had more verbal reports) of voters who voted for Kerry, but Bush was 'credited' with the vote; these voters had the clerk reset the machines, sometimes several times) before the machine correctly recorded their Kerry vote. How many voters didn't pay such close attention?
We New Mexicans got active demanding voter-verified, auditable trails...and got them. I still worry about all of those other states still voting with no auditable ballots.

[mcollier]

83. The choice will be clear for 08

Bush 3 or Obama...

[eagertolearn]

98. This happened in many places. We need a paper trail everywhere!

[proud2BlibKansan]

85. One thing we can and must do, David

is get those peace activists off their ass on election day. I have zero patience for anyone who gets involved in the peace movement (or the impeachment movement) and doesn't bother to vote on election day or votes third party.

Sadly I know way too many people who are active in our movements who don't plan on voting. This election is too important to stay home. It is too important to vote for a third party candidate who has no chance of winning. Not voting or voting third party is the same as voting for McCain. It is the same as voting for 100 more years in Iraq.

We can't always have our first choice on the ballot. I want Dennis Kucinich to be my next president. But I will vote for the Democrat on the ballot and hopefully it will be Obama, as he is a better choice than Hillary.

But even if it is Hillary on that ballot, I will vote for her over McCain. I definitely prefer Hillary to 100 more years in Iraq.

We really need to drive this message to the activists we know. This election is critical, the most important in my lifetime.

[bdamomma]

242. this infuriates me, to sit out this most important and dire election?

people in other parts of the world relish the view to vote, but in the US sit it out??? And to those who say they will not vote, are only playing into the hands of the neo cons. We all have to get out there in record numbers and kick these repigs so hard back to the curb, crap, we are talking about our country. And there are many ex pats out there who can see the forest through the trees to see that their country is in the toilet. We all have to make an effort to get out there in record numbers, or suffer the consequences of bush III, we cannot risk another repig in the WH.

[leftofthedial]

86. corporations already rigged the game

there is no "democracy" in Amurka. Not anymore.

[brindis_desala]

87. Why not for ONCE! Instead of bellyaching about the candidates

People get off their asses and DO something. Mobilize people to demand that every precinct get bipartisan observers. I can tell you that by organizing in '06 we managed to expose election tampering and force a recount.

[eagertolearn]

102. I was watching at my town in 2004 and we have paper ballets...

anytime they had to adjust something (better fill in a choice) they would show it to me. Paper ballets is the only way to go because even if someone filled in a few for "their" candidate (or if one filled out one for their dead spouse and sent it in) it is nothing like what they can do with the electronic voting machines. I can't believe there are still people who don't know about this! It's even been on main stream media so- Hello!!!!!

[babsbunny]

88. What you think about, you bring about!

Thanks!

[tomp]

99. there is no reason to think otherwise.

and thank you for your take on obama and the question of the crimes of the bush administration. it was far too equivocal for me.

[defendandprotect]

101. PLEASE ... understand that the steals didn't begin in 2000 . . .

they began immediately after the JFK assassination ---

See: Votescam - The Stealing of America
http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

This is a book written by two journalists in Florida - Jim & Ken Collier - in the 1960's who
wanted to do a story on the elections and they decided that one of them should run for office.
On Election night they watched as their vote totals failed to move and then jumped hugely followed
by a "computer breakdown" and when the reports were resumed their votes had dropped back down again.
Some inquiries led to more and more questions and more investigation.

Their investigations finally unveiled this election fraud and resulted in a book which was suppressed as it hit the bookstores --

You can read or scan the book at the website which they family keeps going to inform the public.

[Flatulo]

104. I see D&P is making as much sense as usual....

> Their investigations finally unveiled this election fraud and resulted in a book which was suppressed as
> it hit the bookstores --

How could their book have been suppressed if it hit the bookstores? LOL!

D&P, you make a lot more sense in the 9/11 forum.

[defendandprotect]

112. Because when it "hit the bookstores" it was removed from the windows and counters . . .

and repacked in cartons --- not to be seen again.

How could anything makes sense to anyone who doesn't trouble themselves to think about anything ?

[Flatulo]

151. D&P, no offense, but you are consistently one of the wrongest people on DU.

There are hundreds of incredibly bright people here who actually post accurate information, but I have seen you eat crow on so many occasions that I bring a plate and utensils when I see one of your posts.

[ooglymoogly]

124. You must spend most of your time giggling through life, since the dumber you are

the less the workings of life (for the bad or good) are usually complicated; As it is that complication that appears to set of your bouts of giggling. If the FACT that a book can hit the book stores and can be suppressed is a new and too complicated a concept for you; Perhaps this site is too much for you. Flatulence and incomprehension are welcomed on many of the freeper sites. May I be so kind as to recommend a few.

[Flatulo]

145. I'm giggling right now as I read your post.

Please tell me, what evil entity went into bookstores across the country demanding that certain books be locked away into cartons? Was it the Mafia? The NWO? The Republican Book Police? PNAC? Committee to Steal Elections? Can you support this with some kind of proof, or like 9/11 conspiracy theories, they just 'feel' about right to you?

May I offer an alternative hypothesis for your consideration - maybe the book sucked and wasn't selling well.

[OnTheOtherHand]

158. may well have been recalled for legal reasons

If memory serves, that has happened before. But all I can tell you about Votescam is that it is a strange book.

[ooglymoogly]

160. Lets see....suppressing a book for Ninnies...let me count the ways

Limited or no advertising...any number of dumb shill reviews like say Mikel Medved...very little or very poor distribution...shoving into the wrong market...my god I could go on forever but to put a finer point on it, there are more ways to suppress a book than you can shake a broomstick at...but is time for me to shuffle off this idiotic spiral into boredom.

[Flatulo]

169. Let me guess... you read this on the internets, right?

[ooglymoogly]

186. No; Just the googles

[Flatulo]

190. 'Votescam' is currently available at these fine retailers:

Barnes and Noble
Waldenbooks
Borders
Amazon.com
Alibris.com
Half.com

[ooglymoogly]

195. and on just how many of these on line sellers can a dedecated hatchet man

posting bad reviews do some major damage. I and many on DU have written bad reviews on some of the right wing clap trap that has and is selling on Amazon and other online booksellers; However that is somewhat meaningless...By far the more important is the way a book is marketed, hyped etc., making the difference between a book that is placed on the bookstore shelves to die and one that is hyped to the max. and becomes the shot heard round the world....I give you the The Bridges of Madison County and such nonsense as an excellent (though it is fiction and election fraud is non fiction) example.

[Flatulo]

222. Actually the reviews on Votescam were quite good in general. nt

[defendandprotect]

113. Push & Recommend --

[wundermaus]

118. Great post!

"Obama was asked last week in Philadelphia about impeachment, indictment, and accountability for Bush and Cheney. He suggested that he MIGHT investigate their crimes AFTER we elect him president, and that he MIGHT prosecute them "if" they were found to have committed crimes. "If"? "If"? That word may become as famous as Dick Cheney's "So?" At every stop Obama makes on this endless campaign, people should hand him copies of John Conyers' "The Constitution in Crisis," a book you can buy in most bookstores which documents a long list of criminal offenses committed by Bush and Cheney. Does Obama disagree with the book's conclusions? Does he have a response to Bush's public confession to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? Does he question the two Government Accountability Office studies that have found that in a significant percentage of cases, when Bush has announced his right to violate laws through signing statements, he has proceeded to violate those laws? Does Obama now believe the invasion of Iraq and everything that came with it was possibly legal? Was the February 7, 2002, order from Bush allowing the torture of detainees a legal act? "If?" "If?"

(You can find Conyers' whole book for free here: http://afterdowningstreet.org/constitutionincrisis Just click on "Summary," print out that short section, and send it to Obama.)

If Obama were to quietly allow impeachment hearings on Cheney or Bush to proceed on such subjects as torture and signing statements, he could put McCain on the defensive and force him to defend each crime while promising not to commit it. Impeachment hearings could squeeze out all coverage of nonsense spats and scandals. And if the American public understood that voting for Obama would put Bush and Cheney behind bars, we would see a landslide that could not be denied."

Worthy of repeating!
Spread the word!
Thank you!

[Name removed]

135. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IsItJustMe]

137. I will vote for him but I do serious differences with him.

He criticized Carter for talking with Hamas. Yet Obama says he will talk with people who does not agree with him.

He continues to say that we need to send more troops into Afghanistan. I think that war is as much as a sham as the Iraq war.

He called Hugo Chavez a dictator today. I believe Hugo was Democratically elected.

His answer to the immigration problems is to allow the immigrants that are already hear, to stay hear, just put them in the back of the line of people who have already applied to come here. I find that logic hypocritical.

I am not thrilled about him by a long shot. But between the three remaining candidates, there is no other choice.

On edit: While I am in the rant mode, Obama's solutions to a lot of our problems seems more Republican than they are truly Democratic. He would give 4000 dollars to college kids each year to help college tuition. He would give middle class folk a 1000 tax cut to help with rising inflation. Just seems to me that the use of the tax system is not a good solution to much of anything. It's like the bull shit Republican medical savings account. If your out on the edges of our society, this stuff doesn't help you at all.

[Zynx]

150. I don't have the time to read the whole thing, but that big city statistic doesn't strike me as

correct. Yes their numbers increased, but in no city individually, much less a collective of cities, did I find a rise that large. What are they talking about?

[OnTheOtherHand]

156. it's exit poll crap

In the national subsample, for some reason big cities are overweighted. This is true both before and after the results are weighted to the final count, but we are asked to believe that it is a smoking gun.

There is a thread about it on the front page of Election Reform, with over 20,000 views. Some people are very proud of it. There's actually some substance below Awsi Dooger's #22, as well as some nice ripe McCarthyism (yum!).

[Zynx]

161. They cited an actual number of voters.

I'm aware of the exit poll issue, but the actual numbers they cited were wrong. They had 5.3 million in 2004 versus something in the 2 million range in 2000. That isn't right at all.

Edit:
Here was the quote
"When the results are "adjusted" to conform to the official results, we are asked to believe that Bush and Cheney increased their big city voters from 2.3 million in 2000 to 5.4 million in 2004, a 153 percent increase."

Where the hell are they getting this from? I see an exit poll argument here, but it doesn't make sense.

[OnTheOtherHand]

162. well, you're right, it doesn't make sense

And this surprises you? :)

That number is based on a free-wheeling extrapolation from the national exit poll tab. The tab shows 13% of the vote in big cities when it probably should have been 9-10% -- so it's easy to generate gobs of new votes for Bush. Of course, the official big-city returns show no such thing. It's an artifact of a single table.

ETA: I was having trouble pasting this link before due to a browser problem: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=474094&mesg_id=474094
Read it if you dare. I guess it's in a book now!

ETA^2: I've forgotten if I ever figured out how to reconcile the "5.4 million" figure in one place with the "5.9 million" figure in two other places -- the latter is easier to get. Maybe it's supposed to be 5.4 million whites? Whatever. It's hard to follow all the way down the rabbit hole.

[Balbus]

168. I miss the election reform forum.

These nutjobs need their home back...

[L. Coyote]

175. It is still there.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

[Hubert Flottz]

177. I think McCain is even planning on us not having enough gasoline

to get to the polls.

[Perry Logan]

184. But surely even Republicans have figured out that being in power is the WORST thing for them?

After four more years of Republicans in the White House, people will be hunting Republicans down in the street. It'll be fun.

[slackmaster]

188. Oh for fucking pathetic fucking fuck's fucking sake

I am so tired of stupid excuses and blaming everyone but ourselves for our failures.

[OnTheOtherHand]

192. hey, long time no see!

Save some of that for later. I'm afraid we'll need it.

[OKthatsIT]

202. Sorry...it is NOT our faults this time.

This has been decades of planning. Stop blaming yourselves and wake up!

[Generator]

189. Frankly I don't trust Obama

but he's all we got between unadulterated fascism and a prayer at this point. The prayer that is.

He DOES promise to bring the troops home-it's the first thing he says in his adds running here in Oregon. Of course he's appealing to the Dem base. How strong he will appeal to that if he's the nominee is another matter.

If Obama is the nominee and doesn't fight to for his votes he will prove himself to be the phony that Kerry became. And if he doesn't actually end this war-then well, yes, he's just a charmer like Bill Cliton whom he reminds me of. He pulls at your heart strings and sells your love to the highest NAFTA bidder. I trust no politician again ever ever ever after the Edwards/Kerry debacle and the eight years of selling out the middle class by the first Clinton.

If Clinton is the nominee and doesn't fight for her votes-well I almost can't see that happening. The only thing I'm certain she'll fight for his herself. So maybe we should all vote for her (ugh!) because she wouldn't let them take it from her. She's schemed and sacrificed her entire life for this moment in time. I cannot see her letting it slide like Kerry did. Of course with the stacked courts, she's a loser probably anyway. And of course I KNOW she has no intention of ending any wars.

Well grim all around. But YES WE CAN! Oh happy days!

[readmoreoften]

217. My sense of things is similar to yours.

Only I don't believe Obama's new comments about 'bringing home the troops'. He says that out one side of his neck and out the other side of his neck he says "I'll just be pulling combat troops." Sure. He'll pull the "combat" troops, and then after the first bomb goes off... sorry, had to put those combat troops back in. The difference between him and Clinton is that Clinton hasn't ruled out Iran (although I don't see her hungry for it either) and Obama has been itching to get at Pakistan. If you read his website he says that he thinks we're on the "wrong battlefield" and that he's going to increase the troops by 100,000 so we can go to the "right battlefield." I'm afraid to even ask what the hell that means. I don't think he'll change a damn thing and I don't trust him. I haven't the faintest idea on where he stands. I suspect he stands for nothing at all and is one of those folks who talks pretty and does what he's told.

My worse case scenario is Obama wins and is a disaster. Why would the corporate powers who've been running this show since the 1970s suddenly go "poof" and allow even minor change? Why let go now?

[Zywiec]

193. Thanks for letting me know

Now I don't have to waste my time waiting in line to vote.

[tomtomtom]

200. its already been stolen

by "super" delegates. What is this shit anyway?
I don't need babysat. Repugs got these??? NO

[readmoreoften]

214. Damn I wish I was here in the past 24 hours to rec this thread!

Seriously, you hit it on the nose. Why the candidates have played to the middle on the war is beyond me. I suppose it is most likely because both candidates actually ARE centrists--not to mention triangulators who stand for nothing. It would warm my heart to see Obama take a stand... on anything. But the only candidate who stood for anything whatsoever--DK--dropped out of the race because he couldn't get a serious hearing from the American people. And then Edwards, who I was skeptical about but willing to support, dropped out. Since then... I could give a shit. The only thing that irks me is that many Obama supporters really do believe that he's a progressive and hero under all that centrist drag and triangulating rhetoric.

I'm voting for Obama only because I don't want to be responsible for the theft of the election. But frankly, neither Obama or McCain (or Clinton) appeal to me in any way and I am truly only voting for the lesser of two evils. And I mean...slightly less. I truly believe Obama when he says that he doesn't think the Bush Administration has done anything wrong and that they truly love their country and that they are only people with "different opinions."

No. They're corporate thugs and they've stolen our country. A candidate can say it more elegantly... but it must be said.

[Perry Logan]

219. Readers should note that liberals love to predict defeat for themselves.

[Flatulo]

223. I notice that a lot too... here's my prediction:

Obama will absolutely destroy McCain in the debates and will win the general election.

He's a fine candidate and will be a fine leader.

[raccoon]

232. Sorry I can't rec this one. nt

[orangerevolution]

233. Don't you mean Hillary Clinton or

Howard Dean?

Has anyone heard mentioned the Denver Plan? I read recently, can't remember where, about a plan to install Al Gore (!) as President at the convention and to put Obama or Clinton in as VP, depending on the outcome of the delegate count.

Talk about stealing your elections!