Slashdot Mirror
RNC and Voter Suppression
Indomitus writes "Slashdot recently listed the story about a voter registration company tearing up registration forms from Democrats but the story is quickly becoming much more than just that one story. Daily Kos is keeping track of the many folks digging up more and more information on this scandal-in-the-making. This is not only an important story to get out to voters, it's a great example of power of the internet to facilitate participatory journalism."
I predict a deluge of posts saying that /. is biased towards the left and pointing out that the Democrats haven't been above using dirty tricks in the past (and may very well be doing so now). Of course this ignores the obvious fact that no matter who is committing such fraud it's ultimately a travesty of justice and the biggest danger our Republic currently faces.
Of course the bigger question (that nobody is asking) is are these actions being coordinated by the RNC in any way shape or form? Is it a "wink, smile and nod" system or was the RNC truly caught off guard by this (as they will no doubt claim)? It also begs the question of why would you hire such clearly biased people and trust them with such an important responsibility?
Much more importantly how exactly does voter registration work in Nevada? Why should the system be setup in such a way as to even allow this to happen? In my state the only way to register to vote is to do it yourself in person or mail it to your local board of elections. Why the hell are third-party people (with either party) being allowed to do anything more substantial then hand out registration forms and encourage people to actually register? In a smart system they would be allowed to drive them to the Board of Elections if need-be but they should have no business handling these forms after they are filled out.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That is sort of like telling the cop who pulled you over for doing 50 in a 35 that the other cars on the road were going 60. Well, that doesn't make what you were doing any less wrong.
I do agree however on your point that we should know of shenanigans from both sides. Which is why I started this thread in the first place. There needs to be balance.
In general, I agree with a previous poster who stated that this is all part of a campaign to set the stage so that if the Democrats lose they can claim the election was stolen like they did last time. Even though all the independant investigations (Miami Herald, Civil Rights Commission, Justice Department, CNN-) into voter intimidation claims, etc. could find no major problems with the Florida results nor any substantiation to claims of police using dogs and firehoses, etc. to suppress minority votes. In fact they found that most of the problems were due to voter error.
So, now, along with their campaign about the bogus threat of a draft, they've added the equally bogus accusation of "a textbook case of attempted censorship". Perhaps they should open up that textbook and see what "censorship" really means. Those imprisoned bloggers in Iran might be able to elaborate.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
if they're corrupt, how the hell you suppose you even CAN 'look' elsewhere?
their corruption NEEDS to be pointed out again and again, and fought, not just letting it happen.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Whoever loses is going to have legions of bitter hardened zealots available to rally four years later.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Story 1 - Lone gunman
Story 2 - Lone gunman
Story 3 - People paid on a "per voter registration card" basis have incentive to turn in forged voter registrations. No indication that these people actually intended to make use of these fake registrations for voting purposes.
Story 4 - Democrat governor wants his people to oversee elections. Republicans don't.
Story 5 - Only story nearly as newsworthy as the one Slashdot is reporting.
As for your final story about the Democratic playbook, discussing voter intimidation and fraud before it happens is a sound preventative measure. Nowhere does it specifically say to allege voter fraud without evidence, and I don't believe that was their intent.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
All right, let's take them in turn then:
(1) the military doesn't want a draft. Your response: the military can't turn down a draft if one is established by law.
You neglect to ask the essential questino: if the military can't use draftees, why would one be instituted?
(2) DoD doesn't want a draft either. Your response: they wouldn't propose such a thing in an election year.
True. But then, since there is no reason to imagine that the military wants one -- it doesn't fit with the way a US military works any longer -- there's no reason to imagine that someone would propose such a thing in a non-election year. You're suffering under the burden that you're proposing that in the face of uniform denials, you're having to find some reason to imagine that they could be lying. But the only evidence you have for it is a bunch of political opponents trying to sell the idea.
Might as well assert, say, that Kerry wants to force everyone in the US to marry someone of the same sex. No evidence for that? Well, that just proves it.
(3) The draft's illegal. Your response: it would be legal if it were made legal.
True enough. But then, it hasn't been passed, the law proposing it wasn't passed, and Bush has insisted he's veto such a law if it did pass.
(4) The law to provide for a new draft failed 402 to 2. You're response: there's no reason to suppose that this was a serious vote.
You're right: it wasn't a serious vote. Everyone knew it would fail, and the bill would normally have died in committee.
Until the Democrats started lying about plans for a draft, using as their evidence the very Democrat-sponsored bill they proposed.
So, to settle the question, it was brought to the floor and voted down.
(5) The military is overextended etc. Now, this might be true -- although I work with the military and follow the more "technical" open sources pretty closely, and that's not the way it's being reported there. In fact, if you follow the reports more closely, you'll find that the areas in which "insurgents" are operating are getting smaller, the "insurgent" attacks are not being very successful and are losing steam, the Iraqis are increasingly trying to get rid of the "insurgents", and if you plot the attacks on a map you find that the attacks are very very highly correlated with where Western media is found.
But let's say you were right. Then you are still ignoring the fact that a draft would not solve that problem. Modern forces can't use "cannon fodder" -- you don't do modern oeprations by throwing a couple divisions up against the line, as we did even in Viet Nam. A modern infantryman has to have about a year of specialized training to be effective, and the infantry only accounts for about 10 percent of any fighting force. Everyone else needs even more training.
What's worse, the real issues -- the ones that are leading to people being recalled from the IRR or retained past their expected release date -- are the loss of specialized training or skills, like experienced intelligence analysts or people who speak foreign languages. We could also use lots more special operators -- Seals, Green Berets, Air Commandos, and so on.
You can't draft those people.
So, what you come down to is that there's no one in authority asking for a draft, which makes sense because a draft wouldn't solve their problems.
Now, up to this point, I've assumed that you're merely ignorant or ill-informed, but let's think about the other option: that you, like Charlie Rangel, actually know these things.
In that case, you're lying.
Pick one, you're choice: stupid or liar?