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Court Filing On How 2004 Ohio Election Hacked
chimpo13 writes "A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush."
Unexpected? Really? When the CEO of Diebold was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president"?
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
or a nonpartisan transparent one that works and is sized in proportion to the population, area governed, world role, and gdp
The thing is, he didn't win, he stole the election. The same thing happened in Florida.
That ass should be in jail for so many reasons.
RRR...RRRRAAAAGEEEEEE!!!!! (this ad brought to you by moveon.org)
Check your facts. News orgs. did check in FL after the 2K election and found that Bush would have won. He did not steal the election. However, I disagreed with the Supremes when they wrote that it was too late and gave Bush the win.
He stole the election and therefore did in fact win. But there is no need for the CT stuff, Ohio was stole the old fashioned way... by making sure that the people that aren't going to vote for your guy have a harder time voting. In this case by manipulating the allocation of voting machines.
Sadly, I fear that the DNC response is probably "We need to figure out how to do that too."
The ______ Agenda
Real Clear Politics poll aggregation showed that Bush led Kerry going into the election in Ohio, and had led nationally since the September before the election - it would have been surprising if Kerry won. Exit polling can be and has been unreliable - that's why it's only used as an indicator and not on it's own (precinct turnout is usually more indicative of who's going to win).
Really, just let it go. Kerry just lost - sometimes that's all there is to it.
Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?
That's a good one, there. We heard about the massive lines in the largest cities in Ohio, where working people had to stand in line for several hours to vote if they lived in less-than-affluent districts. Many people were unable to take enough time off of work, and simply walked away from the line, not casting a vote at all.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Well, when the CEO of Diebold (the company making the voting machines), Walden O'Dell is also doubling as a major Bush fundraiser and promising to "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President", is anyone really surprised that serious questions were raised about these e-voting machines--which were already controversial long before Wally O'Dell ever started fundraising?
Some things are still best done the old-fashioned way. And voting is one of them.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I wonder what it means if this suit succeeds? Does it mean that mean that all laws Bush signed after the 2004 election are illegal along with all executive orders from the same time period? Personally I doubt that will be the case but I do wonder especially since the article didn't go into what the suit was about. For those who would like to complain about the 2000 election that one already went all the way to the supreme court so we are kind of stuck with that decision.
Time to offend someone
I read through the article and all I found was information that it was possible to do so - but we at Slashdot ALL know that all electronic voting systems are heavily flawed. I didn't see any evidence in the article that voter fraud actually did occur, only that it was possible.
What IS mentioned is that an intermediate vote count was transferred to another server, but that just means that early vote totals were made available, not that fraudulent votes were cast.
What is with Slashdot and the craptacular headlines lately?
Love sees no species.
Kerry's biggest problem in 2004 was not the voting machines in Ohio or Pennsylvania, but his inability to coherently and succinctly answer a simple question.
In 2004, a ham sandwich would have out-polled George W, but the Democrats nominated John Friggin Kerry. Vote tampering in Ohio does not excuse the Democrats for losing that election.
... that of this startling revelation absolutely nothing will come.
The people don't care, the politicians only mind when it is used against them and the people with money are working both sides anyway.
Oh, there may be a lot of hot words thrown around, endless suggestions on how to prevent a repeat of the problem (some might even work) and a even handful of fixes that don't really do anything (or may even make the problem worse).
But a real solution? Ha!
yes, because the people who conduct exit polls and political pundits in general are complete ignorant of the factors involved.
in fact i suspect this is nothing but a rouse so they can continue to call themselves experts despite having gotten the prediction so wrong.
i mean, really, who could possibly concieve of any one affiliated with the bush camp (not going to tar the whole party) performing such and amoral and illegal act. they're all so cuddly.
surprised there's not been a beanie bear range made after them.
How much of this is incompetence and how much is really malice? As much as everyone seems to like a good conspiracy I have a feeling that this is probably going to be more like the Sony PSN security breach and less like the Sony rootkit DRM fiasco
Time to offend someone
This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened."
If you care at all about the integrity of our electoral system that's the position you have to take, no matter who benefits from the error. We won't send a man to jail when there's reasonable doubt, why should we elect a president on less?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Exit polls are, frankly, more reliable then our actual vote tallies now. The Florida ballot was, quite clearly, confusing. Go look at it from a statistical perspective - Buchanan's results were clearly skewed, as acknowledge by everyone but Bush (Meaning, Buchanan agreed they were screwed up too!), because only Bush had soemthing to gain. Oh, and he was elected president without a plurality popular support. In Florida, back then, the Republicans clearly proved that they were in this to win the presidency, not win an election. If you want to contest this, offer more proof.
Meanwhile, in this article, the argument is not as simple 'It COULD have happened therefore it happened", which would be the grounds you would use to contest any election in any system no matter what. No, here, you have a clearly partisan system, you have an unexplained security lapse, you have an unexplained vote shift. You have strong circumstantial effort of foul play - and while it's not enough to convict someone, this bloody well should have invalidated the election results and forced a revote. You need to know that your election system is clean and reliable, and in this, Ohio's system failed - there's just too great of a chnce for the election to have been stolen to tolerate it. We're America. Run another election. We're supposed to care about that, right?
Why is he a 'douchebag'. Because he doesnt agree with you? And he's the douchebag? nice
Sadder still, the electorate will continue to care more about American Idol, instead of rising up in utter outrage about what has been done to their nation.
Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?
All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.
Agreed
They already do. It's called "ACORN." How do you think Obama won in 2008?
That said, didn't a recent commission investigate the Ohio election in 2004 and found something like four instances of fraud, total? I could have sworn that was in the news recently.
They're working on how to export the Chicago model to the rest of the country instead.
Most of those people are the same ones that said if you leave the financial instruments market unregulated, all hell will break loose.
8% - that's quite revisionist. I believe they were talking "north of 10%, and possibly 15%" before the stimulus. But hey, believe whatever Rush tells you today.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
By the time it comes down to actually voting for one of two "viable" candidates, the statist agenda is bound to be fulfilled. There are meaningful differences between Republican and Democrat, but on the whole they will both tend to do things that increase the role of federal government in our everyday lives and insidiously undermine our rights.
Give me a third party with the size and principles to actually change the course of government and I'll care more about what happens in the final round of elections.
Your brain is not a computer.
Check your facts. News orgs. did check in FL after the 2K election and found that Bush would have won. He did not steal the election. However, I disagreed with the Supremes when they wrote that it was too late and gave Bush the win.
Except for that whole removing thousands of democratic voters from the roles even though they were qualified to vote thing, right? I'm sure that had no possible impact on an election that hinged on a few hundred votes, right?
I just read the whole packet. There is nothing in it. My absolute favorite is the Rolling Stone Article. Not only for it evidential value, but for footnote 11. It's the only footnote on a particularly damning paragraph:
11) Facts mentioned in this paragraph are subsequently cited throughout the story.
Normally footnotes refer to supporting material and don't just tell you how important they are.
Umm... The unemployment numbers have always been garbage. The length of time that unemployment could be collected has been increased, so the numbers went up.
The Republicans would drop it to a month, and the numbers would be down to a couple of percent, and they'd say "Look how we improved things! Low unemployment!" while people are jobless, starving in the streets.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
You can hack mechanical voting machines
But the problem with electronic voting is that your hack can happen in seconds, and do far more damage than an army of corrupt vote counters and ballot stuffers and truck drivers who get lost while delivering paper ballots. Plus your attack vectors are orders of magnitude more numerous, because you're dealing with a more complex systems.
Democracy is about trust. Voting should not be a black box: votes in, sausage out. We on Slashdot are all technophiles: anything can be improved with software and electronics, we believe.
But maybe, just maybe, so that the process is transparent, verifiable, and easy to understand, even to the most suspicious and hostile voter: maybe voting should be on paper, forever, in the most advanced nation and the most poor.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
still showing up here there & everywhere
should it not be considered that the domestic threats to all of us/our
freedoms be intervened on/removed, so we wouldn't be compelled to hide our
sentiments, &/or the truth, about ANYTHING, including the origins of the
hymenology council, & their sacred mission? with nothing left to hide,
there'd be room for so much more genuine quantifiable progress?
you call this 'weather'? much of our land masses/planet are going under
water, or burning up, as we fail to consider anything at all that really
matters, as we've been instructed that we must maintain our silence (our
last valid right?), to continue our 'safety' from... mounting terror.
meanwhile, back at the raunch; there are exceptions? the unmentionable
sociopath weapons peddlers are thriving in these times of worldwide
sufferance? the royals? our self appointed murderous neogod rulers? all
better than ok, thank..... us. their stipends/egos/disguises are secure,
so we'll all be ok/not killed by mistaken changes in the MANufactured
'weather', or being one of the unchosen 'too many' of us, etc...?
truth telling & disarming are the only mathematically & spiritually
correct options. read the teepeeleaks etchings. see you there?
diaperleaks group worldwide.
How would you like to have all of your money, no government, and have to protect it every night against people trying to steal it? That would be a great improvement!
The title should be "Court filing on how the 2004 Ohio election was hacked".
And the republicans do the same thing.
The sad thing is. Both parties do it, and it is an injustice to the American people. It's nothing more than two groups of greedy bastards trying to get money and power at the expense of the sheeple who won't do anything about it.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I'm not sure they haven't. I have been following this story for years, since I learned there were shenanigans going on with the electronic voting. Back before the 2008 election, Hillary pulled a surprise victory in the New Hampshire primary, defying exit polling. After what went on in 2000 and 2004, it caught my notice. If you accept the theory that there is a power elite that stands behind the government, these rigged voting machines could be used to swing elections in any number of ways.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
LOL. I am sure that works for you on the Glenn Beck forums.
There are several links to this on Reddit, along with the 2008 diagram showing the MITM SmarTech system. http://www.reddit.com/search?q=SmarTech
Yeah. That's exactly it. Most single earner families making less than $60k (yeah, that's right - 60 grand - more than half the households in the US make less than that) pay less than 2% of their gross in Federal income taxes. The big chunk on the paystub is social security and medicare. And yet I haven't heard a single Republican (or Democrat, for that matter) suggesting that we eliminate those programs to save working class people the 7.5% - almost 4X what they pay in Federal Income tax.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Oh, there is way more to this one than mere liberal whining and "it could have happened, therefore it happened." I fully concede that the whining over the 2000 election was unwarranted (and frankly made the Dem's look like sore losers, which was embarrassing). But in the particular case of Ohio in 2004, there was some REALLY FISHY stuff going on there. The CEO of the company making the e-voting machines was a major Bush fundraiser (which is highly unethical and a serious conflict of interest in and of itself), promising to help deliver Ohio for Bush in fundraising letters. Combine that with the discrepancy between the results and the exit polling, and you have a situation where serious questions have to be raised about the whole situation there. And O'Dell later resigning from Diebold amid charges of insider trading a year later didn't exactly bolster a reputation for honesty on his part. The whole thing cast a real cloud over the legitimacy of the results in Ohio.
Does all that NECESSARILY point to corruption? Of course not. But it sure as hell raises the question of it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Both parties do this after every election.
Mr Connell was president of GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications. A web designer, he had created a website for Ohio's secretary of state that presented the results of the 2004 election in real time as they were released
He had refused to testify or to hand over documents relating to the systems he had created for the 2004 and 2006 elections but was compelled to do so by subpoena in October and appeared in court in Cleveland, Ohio – the state which gave President George W Bush victory in 2004 – to give a deposition the day before Barack Obama won the presidential election.
source : George Bush aide dies in plane crash.
I'm just glad to have a job, which I wouldn't have, were it strictly a Republican rule for an extended period of time. So, yeah, I'll take the tax hit.
Then again, I'd probably be stuck on welfare/disability if it were a Democrat rule, which would also suck.
I can safely say, I'm happy to have a mix, those two groups fighting each other lets the American population have some defense against their predation.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Actually, what you need is a political culture in your state that values integrity and good ideas over party loyalty. A great example of this is New Hampshire: Their Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, has been in office since 1976, throughout both Democratic and Republican governorships and legislatures, mostly because he's very good at his job and widely seen as valuing clean elections expressing the will of the voters.
Compare that to Ohio, where Secretary of State is often a very politicized position and where Ken Blackwell (the defendant) was doing everything he could to ensure that his party would win. These kinds of things were widely reported in newspapers:
- Rejecting voter registrations from heavily Democratic areas because they were on the wrong paper stock.
- Rejecting voter registrations from liberal political groups because they had, in order to comply with applicable laws, submitted all the registration forms they got, including ones from Mickey Mouse and the like.
- Refusing to do anything at all about churches explicitly endorsing Republican candidates (if a religious body endorses a candidate, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status).
- Putting fewer voting machines in precincts likely to vote Democrat than in precincts likely to vote Republican, so that Democratic voters had to wait for hours to vote while Republican voters took about 15-30 minutes.
I am officially gone from
Spoonamore also swore that "...the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen. The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."
The 2004 election was stolen the new fashioned way. If people haven't they should really Google Stephen Spoonamore. He has this shit down.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
No, the fact is that he won. Whether you win by pure methods or win by cheating you still win. I understand he won by Hanging Chad. I'm not sure why Chad needed to die, or why they didn't use lethal injection, but apparently it was a move that allows for a win. Some strange rules on the US side of the pond for sure...
That depends on how you recount. If you recount the entire state gore wins. If you only do the contested areas then bush wins.
As someone from Ohio, I have mixed feelings about this one. Kenneth Blackburn was one of the most corrupt public officials we've had, so I wouldn't put any of this past him. He was one of those guys that wasn't just a liar, he was an unabashed poor liar.
But the 2004 election was lost solely because of the gay community. Bush riled them up with his whole 'defense of marriage' amendment and all the homosexual interest groups took the bait. Kerry actually came out against gay marriage but only in the same wishy-washy way that Obama is. So for many Ohio voters, it was a choice between the guy from Massachusetts who was wishy-washy on gay marriage and the guy from Texas* who was staunchly opposed to gay marriage.
Basically, Karl Rove calculated that just by proposing a defense of marriage amendment the gay community would freak out and many moderate democrats and independents would rather vote Republican than take the 'gay' side. If the gay community actually believed in getting a Democrat into office they wouldn't have held all those protests and written all those editorials and railed on and on about their right to marriage. It was obviously, at the time, a losing battle. In politics you have to know when to pick your battles. Rove did, Democrats didn't. Four years of Bush because of a bunch of uppity homosexuals.
*Connecticut, but the people who voted this way didn't know that
Minorities came out to vote in larger numbers than the rich old whites did.
Honestly, you Repubs should be very afraid. If someone finally motivates the Poor and Minorities to get out and vote, all of your GOP candidates in every election will lose in a landslide as the poor outnumber you 100 to1.
The problem is that most poor and minorities do not trust anyone in government as all they do is screw them. If someone get's past that you are utterly doomed.
Honestly, the best thing Obama could do is have press conferences publicly smearing the GOP. "The republicans want to protect the rich while screwing the poor, I am fighting for the poor! remember this in the next election!"
If he pulled that on TV in every speech and was able to motivate the masses.... it would be game over.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm not crazy about monolithic elite-class conspiracies, but I could buy into competing elite-class conspiracies. I don't think the same interests would be served by both GWB and HRC administrations.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
You are correct. Unemployment is closer to 25%.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes, pretty much, it does.
And the court document described in the article certainly does.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Computerized election security is atrocious, and has always been atrocious. This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened." Exit polls don't mean squat.
Except that, until recently, the exit polls pretty much matched up with the election results. When they began to diverge, the reaction was, "Gosh, why are the exit polls so far off?" Hint: It wasn't the exit polls that were off.
RTFA, this issue goes way beyond "It could have happened, therefore it did". It has been shown to have happened. Additionally, this is a non-partisan issue. Stephen Spoonamore, one of the most outspoken and credible critics of electronic voting, is a Republican.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
But while we're at it, why not replace the old fashion voting with an American Idol style one? I mean, it's not like money didn't already rule the whole deal, let's at least be honest about it. And while we're at it, we could use that lot of 1-900 money to balance the budget.
It's not like it matters what sock puppet sits on the throne.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?
All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.
Yeah, I'm sure that's it. Because that was Kerry's platform after all...
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I got yer hanging chad right here.
Not only that, but the Secretary of State in Ohio - they guy charged with making sure the voting process was fair and uncorruptable, and that all precincts had enough resources - was the leader of the Bush campaign for Ohio. The systems engineer was a Rove operative. Everything's done in secret and no one can audit the system. And when the votes are cast, there's a deviation from the poll results that make statisticians suspicious.
What? The? Fuck? How does that pass ANY sniff test, ever? Especially Blackwell's conflict of interest?
You know, you can have one orange finger and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Two orange fingers, and you'll still get the 'innocent until proven guilty' treatment. But when your whole hand is orange and there's cheese powder on your lips and teeth? Dude, I didn't have to see you do it to know that you stole the fucking cheetos.
I can see the fnords!
Check your facts. News orgs. did check in FL after the 2K election and found that Bush would have won. He did not steal the election. However, I disagreed with the Supremes when they wrote that it was too late and gave Bush the win.
I'd like to see where you saw this. Everything I've read says that if the entire state was recounted, Gore would have won. The problem was that Gore only asked for a few counties to be recounted and that's where the U.S. Supreme Court stopped him. The U.S. Supreme Court should not have intervened because voting is a matter for the states (in Republican speak, "states rights"). The Florida Supreme Court was about to rule in Gore's favor, that is, he would have gotten his recount.
As for Ohio, it's like someone said, he stole it the old fashioned way.
Fortunately, as we sow so shall we reap. George W. Bush will likely go down in history as the worst U.S. President. I'm sure Jimmy Carter's thankful for W.
Hmm, a quick Google, and I find that unemployment rates under Bush peaked at about 7% when he left office (average over his terms looks to be between 5% and 5.25%, based on a quick eyeballing of the graph).
Since then, it's been higher, though it looks like it may have peaked at about where it is now.
Note that these numbers are the official numbers, and thus don't include people who are no longer collecting unemployment.
Note further that the unemployment extensions voted into place over the last few years would tend to result in an apparently higher unemployment rate, IF people tend to be unemployed for longer than the "standard" unemployment period, but not so long as the "revised" unemployment period. Otherwise, it would tend to hide the long-term unemployed from counting as unemployed.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No, they weren't. The projected unemployment rate was 8.8% without stimulus and just under 8% with stimulus, with a footnote that some private forecasters said it would get as high as 11%. There are numerous other sources for that report, that was the administrations take on it, and their model was clearly crap one way or another since the actual unemployement rate with stimulus was higher than their models allowed for without it. There is no actual evidence that the stimulus decreased unemployement (it may have provably saved a few specific jobs, but those could have come at the expense of others). Politifact continues to use numbers from the CBO, which are useless for actually proving that jobs are saved, if for no other reason than they use the same model that was proven wrong by reality already.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
How would you like to have none of your money, 100% government control, and be unable to protect yourself from the masses? That would be a great improvement! You can be a normal fucking person and realize that "too much in taxes" doesn't mean "I want no taxes or government" it just means "I think this is too much in taxes." Or you can cast people who disagree with you off in to a position that isn't theirs, but you don't have to think about and can reject on its face. That's political discourse, right?
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Even if they prove this last time I checked George W isn't in office anymore and you can't go back in time.
That depends on how you recount. If you recount the entire state gore wins. If you only do the contested areas then bush wins.
If you change the rules and recount the whole state, then Gore may have won. However, as I remember it, James Baker, the representative for the Republicans in FL 2000 wanted a full state recount but the Gore people rejected it, opting to only recount the heavily Democratic areas trying to squeeze every vote out of the areas where he was likely to get more votes and leave the Republican areas as they were.
If what you say is true, and I have heard nothing to back that up, then it sounds like the Democrats screwed themselves. So Bush didn't steal the election. Democrats gave it to him.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Uh. You're completely reversing the analogy.
You are supposed presume innocence, but you still do your best to investigate something suspicious.
You presume Bush got elected correctly because that's what the results show, but you still investigate if the elections were hacked.
Please don't apply "reasonable doubt" willy-nilly to support whatever side of the argument you're on if you don't want debates to devolve into stupid "uh huh"/"nuh-uh" arguments.
"Just remember, this is the United States of America. We write 80 million checks a month. There are millions and millions of Americans that depend on those checks coming on time," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
Well, THERE's your problem.
And of course, it seems the more he talks, the less people like him.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
(if a religious body endorses a candidate, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status) - only if its a 501(c)(3) a church doesn't have to be 501(c)(3) to be tax exempt
Here's what's really annoying about that particular quote: I can't find the full text of it, least not in 15 minutes of noodling around on Google. There are tons of references to that quote, plenty of references to the responses to the quote, but nothing at all which could put that quote into context. I'm not saying it's a case of misinterpretation... but I am saying that we don't have the facts. What we have is a great soundbite.
Then we have this FTA:
Spoonamore also swore that "...the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen. The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."
Which sums it up nicely. The filings show how it could have been stolen - but do not prove that it was stolen. It seems to me that the same can be said of any election using this equipment and architecture.
In spite of that, I agree with your statement. The old fashioned way seems to be the one that is most foolproof. While that process can obviously be hacked as well, it typically needs to be done on a machine by machine basis and is quite a bit more traceable.
Democrats made a stupid mistake prosecuting the court case, and it cost them. Shows you the problem with an adverserial justice system.
I am trolling
Most of the accusations of voter fraud stem from one horrible shortcoming in American elections. Quite simply, it's a lack of transparency. If the election work was done out in the open for all to see, we wouldn't have so much fraud. But that's exactly why it's done in secret. Both sides WANT fraud. When things aren't going their way they want to have all sorts of leverage to shift the election to them. Ballot stuffing has a long and glorious tradition in this country. The Republicans are being accused today, though there isn't any hard evidence that would convict beyond a reasonable doubt (again, transparency). The Democratic machine in Chicago is legendary for their fraud. If elections were done out in the open where people could see what's going on, a lot of this fraud would become substantially more difficult.
But here's the kicker. It really doesn't make all that much difference who actually gets elected. We had a Republican who got us into two wars. He was replaced by a Democrat promising to get us out of war but all he did was get us involved in a third war. Every time one party takes over, they seem to outspend the party they just replaced. And it doesn't matter which party replaces which, the spending just keeps going up. For all of the talk about about the other issues, it seems to me that day to day life doesn't change. All of the bickering about the hot button topics (abortion, gay rights, gun rights, the environment, etc.) is just a way for the parties to pander to the masses, keeping them distracted from what's actually going on behind the curtain. I firmly believe that the Tea Party movement was engineered by the Republicans to distract the more radical portion of their base. They get themselves in a lather about everything, yelling slogans and rallying against big government but end up voting for the Republican candidate as a means of voting against the Democrat. Win for the Republican machine.
I've said it for a long time. The only real difference between the parties is who they take money from and who they give it to.
That would be closer to the truth if the sock puppet wasn't able to start wars (whether he calls them wars or not) at a whim and with no oversight.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
Or, take a look at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401441.html where you have the evidence of election staff being -convicted- of tampering with the election! Ohio law requires that 3% of votes be manually counted as selected at random, and if there's a discrepancy, to have a full recount to weed out potential tampering; this is a case where workers were convicted of picking ballots they knew would not force a recount.
We need to actually have a system for revotes rather then recounts in our elections. We've had multiple tainted elections now. Wish to god people cared enough to have fair elections in America.
Actually it just proves that we should trust neither slashdot nor truth-out.org for headlines. If you read TFA it essentially says that a case is made that the architecture made it *possible* for fraud to have occurred; and TFA is apparently trying to slant that as proof that it *did* occur. It is less clear whether or not those pursuing the case are trying to make the same point; or if their point is only to prove that the architecture allowed the possibility of fraud.
Or you can cast people who disagree with you off in to a position that isn't theirs, but you don't have to think about and can reject on its face. That's political discourse, right?
It seems you have been paying attention to the world around you. Yes, that is the essence of politics: trying to demonize the "other side" and try to get the idiot populace to hate and/or look down upon them.
So long as each state is wholly responsible for their own election standards and processes, even for presidential elections, there will be no way to address problems centrally in an organized fashion.
The voting machines are not beyond doubt. Any time they are being used, the losing side can cry foul. Even if they were "secure", which they are not.
The reason is that the majority of affected people cannot verify their honesty. I could audit them. Probably. Provided I'd be allowed to. Can you? Possibly. Can Joe Randomvoter? No. Joe'd have to trust us. But why should he? Why should he trust you or me? We could be part of the big conspiracy. We've been bought by those that want to steal the election. And there is actually no good way to disprove it.
With pen and paper, it's easy. Here, Joe, have all the voting cards, you can read, you can count, go check. It's very easy to debunk conspiracy theories like that with good ol' paper voting. Nearly everyone can recount that.
This is why voting machines are dangerous to democracy and faith in it. Not because they are insecure and can be rigged. The danger is that it is very hard to prove beyond doubt to technical illiterates that their pet candidate didn't lose because of shenanigans.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
+1 insightful.
I agree with you, if he called it for what it is, a class rebellion, the 1000x poor folks vs the 1x rich folks would finally have their say!
but think about it - 100.0% of the politicians are NOT the poor folks! they and their cronies will be up against the wall when the rev comes. no one in power WANTS the revolution; they have everything to lose!
calling attention on class struggle is never going to happen here. obama, while black, still acts like a 'rich spoiled white guy'. he's not a leader of his people OR the poor or even the middle class.
you can't expect the fat cats who are PART of the system to want to change the system. that's foolishness.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
And the usual state IT guy, Bob Magnan, sent home, and an outside contractor brought in.
And the website gwb43 tied to the servers doing the count, a website ran out of the Whitehouse on election night.
And both switch to that server DESPITE there being no failure.
And the server being placed such that it can change both the tally and the count.
And the sudden swing in the predicted outcome after that switch.
So it's not that there *could* be, there are strong indications that it both *was* and was designed to steal the election.
This is sufficient that criminal investigations need to be pursued, and if they have nothing to hide them Bush supporters for 2004 should not oppose such an investigation. Only those who have something to hide should fear it.
If what you say is true, and I have heard nothing to back that up, then it sounds like the Democrats screwed themselves. So Bush didn't steal the election. Democrats gave it to him.
In more ways than one. The outrage over Clinton's handling of the Elian Gonzalez debacle enraged the quite sizable Cuban American community in Florida. And while Gore did some half-assed back pedaling on the issue, there were probably more than 500 people who were so mad over how Clinton, and by extension Gore, handled the whole thing that they either changed their vote, voted for a 3rd party, or abstained. Had Clinton just let the whole thing slide then the election may have turned out very differently.
I guess you could consider the whole thing a study in chaos theory. Had Gonzalez's family waited another year to try to flee Cuba history may have turned out differently.
Monstar L
And you recounted the entire state? No doubt using the "hanging chad" methodology?
You don't know shit.
"Or you can cast people who disagree with you off in to a position that isn't theirs,"
I didn't cast this person or their position anywhere, I suggested that if his position was taken to an extreme the results would be deliterious.
So take your own advice and don't cast my position into one i didn't advocate.
bush brought religion to the US from day-1. sorry, but I consider that to be his worthless act #1.
after that, it was an endless stream of crimes against americans. liberties taken, wars started, economies collapsed, companies getting more powerful and the state also getting more powerful. government in your bedroom and 'every child left behind'.
you want more? I got LOTS more.
he was a hated asshole and I hope he has a very bad terminal illness and suffers great pain for the rest of his life. he fucked us REAL good and I hope he gets justice for what he did.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Yeah, because poor people are poor as a result of rich people stealing from them. Yeah, this works with uneducated people, and people who for whatever reason are just born with fewer mental capabilities. But, as you said, not only do some blame others for their poverty or other problems in their lives, they also have that same outlook in politics. Somebody else is responsible for the morons that get sent to Washington.
In reality, of course, those people who feel that they are primarily responsible for their outcomes tend to do things to improve their own lives. They also tend to be more conservative, and try to spread the message of their success to others. As a result, they are often vilified as some servant of the white/rich man, as if they were a paid spokesperson. Instead of looking at the success and learning from it, the feeling of victimhood and jealousy and anger intensifies.
This does indeed work for some socialists, especially if they have some public speaking skills. They are able to harness that emotional response, tie it in with the rest of their platform, and get some votes. Between those, and the wealthy individuals who have a subconscious sense of superiority ("they can't help themselves, we should do it for them!") while maintaining a conscious sense of guilt (albeit a small one, as they want to give someone else's money away), they manage to win elections in mostly urban areas. One needs only look at the messy candidates that rise out of New York and Chicago. Especially in State-level politics.
Luckily, there are enough people still living in rural America who really have to put their nose to the grindstone to become successful. They can't rely on a city job to make a lot of money by the time they are 35. It usually takes more time, and they learn while they earn. They learn how hard it is to start and run a business, to meet payroll obligations, work shifts when employees are sick, deal with various state and federal regulatory agencies. Some consider themselves to be Democrats (mostly due to family history). They will vote for Obama. Start talking in a direct way about how the rich are screwing the poor, and they will vote for the other guy. They may stay "Democrat", but future "D" candidates will be more coy about their class warfare politics.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
A "court document" means shit. It was submitted by party with a vested interest and essentially says "See! see!? They COULD have done it."
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The bottom line is Bush was a lying, cheating hack but really who is suprised? He lied about WMDs, started wars for the hell of it, made a trillion dollar surplus turn in to a billion dollar deficit, tanked the economy and couldn't speak to save his life. He was the worst president we have ever seen. His legacy will be one of corruption and f*ckups. The best part is the GOP and Rep. want us to believe the problems with the economy is the fault of the Dems. What actually happend though is the Rep. took control with a surplus that was left in place for the previous Dem.(Clinton), drove the economy through the ground and we are now trillions in the whole. This country began to fall apart when the Rep. took control and the GOP and Rep. want to try and put the blame on the Dem. Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining. The GOP and Rep are only good for one thing....target practice with a .50 cal. Happy hunting.
I always kinda liked this saying by WC:
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” -- Winston Churchhill
(Actually, it applies in other places too :)
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
When was the last time a Democrat didn't explicitly or implicitly ("fair share "bullshit) call for raising taxes?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What if there were an anti-hacking group actively monitoring the progress of the election and once they saw the effects of hacking they went in to the machines and corrected the error? But of course everyone knows that nobody but Republicans would engage in stealing elections.
Nice. How about doing it yourself instead of insisting someone else give it to you?
You Americans! You set up a system where the guy who gets most votes sometimes doesn't win - Gore received more votes than Bush in 2000. Then you have the supreme court decide that it's more important to get a fast answer than to get it right. Then you have rampant voter fraud in key states.
Strange thing is that every weird thing gets decided in favor of republicans. I guess they subscribe to the view "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."
And you have the unmitigated gall to try to tell other countries how to run an election.
> War is a necessary thing
I'll let Switzerland know.
> This was not a war we needed to fight
Except for our "global political goals"?
> --at least not so viciously.
I here we've already booked Joan Baez and Amy Grant for Warstock Iran, sponsored by Nerf, Bungie, and Patagonia.
Voting intimidation is eliminated when you vote in your own home and you don't have to deal with crowded poll places. I don't understand why more states don't do this.
And now for the tangent, more and more we are seeing the evil republican label. Similarly, it is the socialist, Marxist liberals. Both labels are hyperbole. The two parties aren't all that different really, they agree on most things. The thing that kills me is people don't realize that to make it to congress, you must be at least millionaire. You want to know why the Bush tax cuts haven't expired? Why the democrats haven't beaten the republicans over the head with it? They don't want to see their own taxes go up, just like the republicans. They just have to talk a good game to continue to be elected.
It is only when their supporters really get pissed off that they do something, because they like their cushy job and free, government run health care.
As for claims of vote hacking, neither side really wants an investigation. Think about it, right now the US is seen is fat, lazy and stupid. Do you really want to add slow to that mix? While it would make a lot of us feel good, from the outside, if a former president is put in jail, what does it look like?
Probably something like, we're stupid, fat, lazy, slow and cannot properly investigate a crime. The last thing anyone on either side wants to do is suggest that our law enforcement is somehow inadequate, it would just invite others to exploit that. It is the same security theater as TSA, just on a different stage.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
And the Democratic media called Florida for Gore before polls closed in the heavily conservative panhandle parts of Florida, deterring residents there from registering their preferences. There are a thousand and one counterfactuals about things that might have changed the results but didn't.
Minorities came out to vote in larger numbers than the rich old whites did.
Honestly, you Repubs should be very afraid. If someone finally motivates the Poor and Minorities to get out and vote, all of your GOP candidates in every election will lose in a landslide as the poor outnumber you 100 to1.
The problem is that most poor and minorities do not trust anyone in government as all they do is screw them. If someone get's past that you are utterly doomed.
Honestly, the best thing Obama could do is have press conferences publicly smearing the GOP. "The republicans want to protect the rich while screwing the poor, I am fighting for the poor! remember this in the next election!"
If he pulled that on TV in every speech and was able to motivate the masses.... it would be game over.
Yes, fear the ignorant, unhealthy folks and the minority of people!
There are some documents that were released in the court proceedings, but I didn't really see anything new here. The details on the backup/man-in-the-middle arrangement were already well known. The info on Michael Connell was already out there, including that he did work for Karl Rove (like the web site Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) and he still got the contract to host voting results for Ohio.
Here's a good article about the whole thing. It also includes details on the plane crash and an interview with Michael Connell's wife who thinks her husband's death may not have been an accident.
Your position, taken to an extreme, would also be deleterious. Guess what: Most people don't take their own positions to the ultimate extreme. People who don't want to engage the other person's actual position do that. It is called attacking a straw man.
obama, while half black, still acts like a 'rich spoiled half white guy'.
FIFU
Actually, what you need is a political culture in your state that values integrity and good ideas over party loyalty. A great example of this is New Hampshire: Their Secretary of State, Bill Gardner, has been in office since 1976, throughout both Democratic and Republican governorships and legislatures, mostly because he's very good at his job and widely seen as valuing clean elections expressing the will of the voters.
Compare that to Ohio, where Secretary of State is often a very politicized position and where Ken Blackwell (the defendant) was doing everything he could to ensure that his party would win. These kinds of things were widely reported in newspapers: - Rejecting voter registrations from heavily Democratic areas because they were on the wrong paper stock. - Rejecting voter registrations from liberal political groups because they had, in order to comply with applicable laws, submitted all the registration forms they got, including ones from Mickey Mouse and the like. - Refusing to do anything at all about churches explicitly endorsing Republican candidates (if a religious body endorses a candidate, they are supposed to lose their tax-exempt status). - Putting fewer voting machines in precincts likely to vote Democrat than in precincts likely to vote Republican, so that Democratic voters had to wait for hours to vote while Republican voters took about 15-30 minutes.
Honestly, these seem like bogus claims after the fact to justify the result. Just giving some possible explanations to these generic claims. Wrong paper stock? Could be due to mass manufactured forms and fake names. Rejecting voter regs from liberal political groups. I notice you carefully don't say all forms were rejected. Proof of church related sponsorship of a candidate would need to be implicit and you know, have actual proof, not hearsay. About the number of voting machines? Some places always have longer wait times to vote. Couching it as a election manipulation is just sad unless there is again more than hearsay.
And the real bitch? They didn't need to hack shit to rig the election, just run off those they didn't want to vote. Look up videos taken in Ohio of the 04 election and you'll see the poor neighborhoods would get one or two broke ass machines while the rich areas got MUCH more machines than required, those that tried to hand voters a slip that pointed out their right to ask for a provisional ballot, since they were making people wait several hours in line only to tell them "you're in the wrong place" and expect them to go do it all over again were first threatened and then arrested, the whole thing was a scam from the word go.
Of course with BOTH parties now owned legally by the megacorps thanks to Citizens United you might as well not bother, hell the ballots might as well only have two choices "Show your love, vote for supermegacorp!" or "Teach those guys in DC a lesson, vote for supermegacorp!".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Honestly, you Repubs should be very afraid. If someone finally motivates the Poor and Minorities to get out and vote, all of your GOP candidates in every election will lose in a landslide as the poor outnumber you 100 to1.
I agree with most of your sentiment, but this is a little ridiculous. If the poor outnumber the rich 100-to-1, that makes them 99%+ of the population. In that case, unless you're defining the entire nation as impoverished (which would be really shallow considering third world conditions), they're not poor, they're average. The remaining 1% would just be richer than average.
Unless of course I misinterpreted and you're suggesting that 99%+ of the population constitutes a minority rather than the "poor"...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Look up videos taken in Ohio of the 04 election and you'll see the poor neighborhoods would get one or two broke ass machines while the rich areas got MUCH more machines than required, those that tried to hand voters a slip that pointed out their right to ask for a provisional ballot, since they were making people wait several hours in line only to tell them "you're in the wrong place" and expect them to go do it all over again were first threatened and then arrested, the whole thing was a scam from the word go.
You do realize that elections, even federal ones, are handled locally, right? This means that if "poor neighborhoods" had faulty equipment, then it was the fault of the local officials who brought in faulty equipment. It's not like Karl Rove sat in his command center and dictated which precincts would get what equipment. These decisions are made locally, just as the "butterfly ballot" in Florida 2000 was designed by a Democrat.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Why am I talking to myself in the 3rd person?
So long as each state is wholly responsible for their own election standards and processes, even for presidential elections, there will be no way to address problems centrally in an organized fashion.
You could also say:
So long as each state is wholly responsible for their own election standards and processes, even for presidential elections, there will be no way to corrupt them centrally in an organized fashion.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Why was this moderated "Troll"? It's an observation of what MIGHT have actually occurred. Why attribute malice to something that's easily explained with other things- it can go either way there.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
One of the magic phrases in your note was "and that all precincts had enough resources". The new electronic voting machines were complex and had lots of parts that you needed, and some precincts didn't get all the parts, or enough of them to run all their machines, and ended up opening late with two-hour lines out the door on a rainy election day. (I think this was Columbus, but might have been Cincinnati; it's been a while since I saw the movie that documented it.) Surprisingly, this did not happen in the mostly-white suburban precincts that were likely to vote Republican, it happened in the black urban precincts which were likely to vote Democrat, and where people were more likely to have jobs where they had to go to work instead of professional flex-time jobs, so a 2-hour wait meant they couldn't vote. The movie that documented it showed one precinct where they were only able to open because there was a local city council woman who came to the precinct and started making lots of phone calls to get the election people to show up.
MITMing the reporting and generating fake votes were theoretically possible, but this was an Offense In Depth strategy.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Not to comment at all on the rest of it (I've got a paper to write!) but, I thought it was strange people jumped on that number and conflated it to mean that our government is supporting 80 million freeloaders (not saying you specifically, but if you look at the rabid articles about it on the internet, that's the impression I get)
a) There's no comparison made to other countries, so that's just an arbitrary measurement in arbitrary units (If I told you the higgs boson was 114 GeV, and didn't give you any sense of scale, would you think that was big or small?)
b) When you look at the breakdown, 55 million of those checks come from only social security. Are we now arguing that people who collect SS are freeloaders?
c) Of the remaining 35 million checks, 10 million checks comes from tax refunds (they obviously cluster around april 15th, but when you amortize it, it's 10 million/month)
d) We're down to 25 million checks then, and pay for veterans benefits (4.1 mil), retirements (2.6 mil), and contractors (1.4 mil) out of that leaving us with ~16.9 million or so checks.
The breakdown I found has more categories, but I picked off all the things that would be pretty non-contentious (I didn't include medicare or medicade, which seems to be a lot of people's big target these things). It's not like our government is a freewheeling money-printing machine like people keep making it out to be
-Bucky
Glad to see killing thousands of innocent hard working people, screwed over by global scale events outside their control, though starvation is worth killing a few genuinely work-shy bastards as well, nice to know how much you value human life.
The second-hand source seems to be this New York Times article:
MACHINE POLITICS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/business/yourmoney/09vote.htm
But, like you, I cannot find a copy of the alleged letter *anywhere*. Strange.
- aj
Republican success money raising and voter turnout is clearly a winning strategy, and then you wonder why so many Democrats are eager to take the money and issues? Wow.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Unemployment is closer to 25%.
Citation provided.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Actually it just proves that we should trust neither slashdot nor truth-out.org for headlines. If you read TFA it essentially says that a case is made that the architecture made it *possible* for fraud to have occurred; and TFA is apparently trying to slant that as proof that it *did* occur. It is less clear whether or not those pursuing the case are trying to make the same point; or if their point is only to prove that the architecture allowed the possibility of fraud.
TFA is guilty of not having any idea how computers work. They claim the vote totals were manipulated by a "man in the middle" machine that received votes from the precincts, changed them, and then forwarded them on be counted. The site assumes that electronic data is the same as paper data, meaning that once you send it, you no longer have a copy of it. The article never makes any attempt to show that the data forwarded by the supposed "man in the middle" computer was somehow different than the data it received and even implies that such verification would be impossible. All TFA does is say that the servers that collected the data changed it, as if it were fact, for no other reason than a result they didn't expect, even though it matched polling data prior to the election.
Here is just a single example of the crap from the article (emphasis mine):
The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.
So the vote totals went from the precincts (article doesn't say how GovTech received the data or where from, so we have to assume), and sent it to a "partisan Republican server", (can a server be partisan?) out of state, which is where the vote totals changed. What happened to the totals after they hit SmarTech? Does SmarTech host a website that simply posts vote totals to the public? Article doesn't say. We are left to assume that somehow, SmarTech then forwarded the totals to the Ohio Secretary of State. So, according to TFA, the votes went like this: precincts --> GovTech --> SmarTech --> (We don't know, but somewhere official), instead of precincts --> Secretary of State servers. Why?
Seriously? No independent, or even partisan group has bother to look at the vote totals, reported precinct by precinct on every news network in America received directly from the precincts themselves, and realized that the numbers that reported then were different than the final count?
This article is pure BS. I think the point is to accuse Republicans of vote tampering to insulate the Democrats from any accusations in the next election. Or maybe they are just hoping that GWB was never really elected. Who knows. It's BS either way.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
At the very least you are saying that the poor shouldn't be able to place votes if they can't afford the machines. Sad really to see the long term results of the reactionary media on otherwise logical people.
It's not 'their' country. It belongs to the rich and the corporations. The bottom 98% are just fuel for the machines and the sooner they learn their place and glory in their usefulness to their betters, the smoother this transition will be.
Government worker, huh?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I guess Clinton didn't in his second term, because he'd already raised taxes for everyone in his first.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No, Obama said that the stimulus would keep unemployment from going over 8%. Didn't work out so well, did it.
I was going to say "you must be new here", but your ID is one digit smaller than mine.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
He was using 'tax exempt' as a shorthand for donations to it are tax exempt.
There are various types of non-profits that exist in various ways. 501(c)(3) is 'charitable' organizations. To be a 'charity', which means people can donate money to it and those donations be tax deductible, it cannot endorse a political candidate. It must serve the public good, or at least not do various things that the government explicitly excludes from 'the public good' list, and promoting individual candidates or legislation is the most obvious exclusion. (And the other most obvious one is that it must be organized to help society at large, or at least some subset of society, and not just members.)
Other non-profits, generally under the 501(c) area of code, do not have to, for example, pay income tax, but people cannot deduct donations to them from their taxes. For example, the Freemasons are a 501(c)(10). You cannot deduct the dues to the Freemasons from your taxes.
Almost all churches attempt to fall under the 501(c)(3) 'charity' banner. If they endorse candidates, they risk losing their 'charity' status, which means people cannot get a tax deduction from donations to them.
The law's over here. Although the 'you can deduct the donation from your taxes to a 501(c)(3)' rule is somewhere over under the personal income tax code.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
And they counted any ballots that had a small dent next to Gore for Gore, and they counted any overvoted ballots that happened to have a vote for Gore, and they... STFU.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The thing is, he didn't win, he stole the election. The same thing happened in Florida.
You're taking that on faith, not on evidence. That's a poor way to make decisions.
It would be straightforward to add a paper trail to e-voting machines:
1) e-vote
2) results are printed on a paper ballot, which is displayed behind a clear panel
3) if the paper ballot is correct, hit "confirm" and it drops into a locked bin, otherwise hit cancel and it visibly gets shredded/mangled/voided and drops into a different bin
4) electronic results are available instantly, paper trail is there for validation
You do realize that elections, even federal ones, are handled locally, right? This means that if "poor neighborhoods" had faulty equipment, then it was the fault of the local officials who brought in faulty equipment.
That is true, if by "locally" you mean "whoever controls the state level or lower". The state (at least my state, in Wisconsin apparently it's whatever political hack holds the county clerk job and has a copy of Excel on her personal computer) "type approves" equipment and software. ((rant)My municipality has chosen to use Ranked Choice Voting, but three years later is still hobbled because the state has not approved equipment and software. OSS is not in the running because it doesn't have a "manufacturer" who will pay the fees and post bond. ( /rant)) Local (county or municipal) officials purchase, maintain, assign equipment to voting places. The "poor neighborhoods" have little control on their own, it's whoever controls the municipal/county political machine.
thanks for the clarification
Guess I don't understand things. I thought that the mantra last year was Republicans were large numbers of ignorant rural tea party types in the flyover states like the one I live in. And that they were the unwashed hoards that eroded Democrat numbers in the elections last year.
But now, you're saying that they're old rich whites and few in number.
Or is it all the result of vote fraud. Like the well known legacy of vote fraud in that Republican bastion of Chicago?
(Actually, I think it proves you have a somewhat distorted view of the electorate, and what the voters in both parties are really like. Here's a clue. You likely met at least one of each in the past day and thought them quite unremarkable. i.e. "They", whichever "they" you're referencing are us.)
You're taking that on faith, not on evidence. That's a poor way to make decisions.
And you know this how exactly?
Switzerland is QUITE prepared for war, and when somebody invades Switzerland there will be a VERY short and VERY efficient war. If someone THREATENS to carpet bomb Switzerland, I don't imagine they'll hesitate long to mobilize--not longer than it takes to make it quite clear that the pompous ass threatening them will either disarm or be burned to the ground.
Nobody has tried because nobody sees any end result beyond having their ass handed to them.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Why am I talking to myself in the 3rd person?
And why am I always arguing with myself? Seriously, it's like I got 50 alts in here with me...I wish I would just leave me alone!
Help! AC nervous breakdown in progress! Somebody? Anybody? ...
RNC uses computers.
DNC uses dead union members.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Frankly, things were, and are still shady in Florida when it comes to voting. Votes not being counted to due to incorrect precincts (error on the part of the state, not the voter), "Felons" who were never felons or already had their voting rights restored. Now they are doing away with clemency, wonder who that helps? There were literally thousands of uncounted democrat votes. Anyone who lives here and votes here (especially if your live in the inner city) knows just what a dog and pony show it all is.
The fact that it matters that he's "half anything" is the biggest problem. I was kind of hoping that we would have gotten over the whole race thing and not made such a big deal about the color of our President but it seems that racism still has some way to go. I guess it's pure naivety on my part since we still have organizations setup simply to "benefit" people based on race.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
CmdrTaco: Truthout.org? Seriously?
This is your source? The people that "scooped" the "Karl Rove has been indicted" story? And they never retracted it, even when it became apparent that there wasn't even a scintilla of fact to it?
And from the story you linked:
"That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory."
This is demonstrably false. Bush led in pre-election day polls in Ohio, as other posters have noted here. My link... which actually has verifiable evidence... shows that Bush led Kerry in close to a dozen major polls the week leading up to the election, and that the Ohio results near-exactly matched those poll averages.
You have, whether deliberately or not, I'm not sure, promoted a conspiracy theory.
Truthout? Is Slashdot's credibility worth that little to you?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Bush did pretty good until he started a war.
Depends what you mean by "pretty good". He spent a large percentage of his time on vacation in Texas, basically ignored National Intelligence Estimates about Al Qaida, and the only major legislation he pushed through before 9/11/2001 was the giant tax cut, mostly for the wealthy, that now has the budget in a serious hole. So if you like tax cuts on principle, you think he did pretty good. If you think the job of the president includes protecting the US from terrorist attack and responding appropriately if they are attacked, then he did a lousy job.
And then, as you noted, started not 1 but 2 wars that were basically unnecessary, accomplished exactly 1 of the stated goals after 10 years (for the record, longer than WWI and WWII combined), at enormous cost.
I am officially gone from
No, the elections are run by the state they're in, not "locally". In Ohio, they're run by the Secretary of State, who was Ken Blackwell. That's why Blackwell is the defendant in this court case. Blackwell was also simultaneously the Bush/Cheney 2004 Ohio Campaign Manager, the clearest possible conflict of interest. Evidently that conflict itself is not illegal in Ohio, though it's probably up to the SoS (Blackwell) whether that conflict is prohibited. But in this case the conflict evidently saw the Bush/Cheney campaign manager to change the votes cast to hand Bush/Cheney the state's Electoral Votes. Not to mention how the conflict saw Blackwell short poor/Black (Democratic) neighborhoods of machines in which to cast original votes.
And of course Ken Blackwell executed directly to whatever plans Karl Rove dictated to him. That's what state campaign managers' jobs are. And both of them have lied about it for years now.
The real question is why you are lying about how elections are run. You're a Republican, right? And don't tell me you're a "Libertarian", or an "independent". Did you vote for Bush in 2004? 2000?
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Just imagine how great it would be if there was more than 2 effective parties, huh?
"It belongs to the rich and the corporations."
In 1992 Clinton ran on a platform to lower taxes. In 2004 Senator Kerry said that he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $200,000, but not the middle-class tax cuts, which he would make permanent. He also proposed a new refundable tax credit for higher education expenses, and changes to the estate tax. On balance, these provisions would reduce federal revenues by at least $425 billion over ten years. For businesses, Senator Kerry proposed a 5 percent (1.75 percentage point) reduction in corporate tax rates, financed by increasing the tax on US corporations that produce goods and services overseas for third-country markets and by the elimination of corporate tax loopholes. From http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/1000634_KerryPlan.pdf
So it's not quite a stark as you seem to think, but your knee reflex is working just fine.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The top 2% of Americans own 80% of the wealth. That's 99% "poor" compared to the vastly richer people at the top. The bottom 20% own less than 1%.
The ratios aren't precisely 100:1, but the actual ratios are bad enough.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't care if you are rich or poor.
The stupid though should be prevented from voting at all costs.
"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."
* Carthago Delenda Est *
A dear friend of mine, one of the most talented and intelligent women I've ever met, fluent in 6 languages and a certified pilot on several large jets incl Boeing 767s complained on Facebook that Obama ( who she likes and voted for ) annoyed her by interrupting her viewing of the Bachelorette.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Then you have the states.
10 Million people getting unemployment checks.
Fuck. In California they have decided that there are not enough people getting food stamps.
In order to get more they changed the name of the program to "Cal Fresh" and are spending shiloads of tax dollars to advertize
how awesome it is to get government handouts.
Don't get me wrong. I have no love for the Pubs.
I live in California though. Here the Dems have 100% control over the state.
When they tell me they need to spend more of my tax money because not enough people are taking full advantage of my tax money
I get upset. I get upset at the program of course but more than that it pisses me off that you can say that.
Shouldn't that have to be some hushed up back room deal that could never see the light of day to work.
How did we get so all fuck stupid that we can sit there and watch commercials encouraging people to get on "The Welfare"?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
ditto for arrogant, self-aggrandizing dolts.
It's a liberal politial non-profit working on the side of the Democrats that mainly publishes liberal opinion pieces. They were rabidly anti-Bush during his term..
These are the people who claimed Karl Rove had been indicted over the Plame thing, and when told it was false continued to press the claim. Rove was never indicted.
Not guilty and not elected are both the null hypothesis.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What's next? Elections being treated as people like corporations?
Seriously, it might serve to edit headlines a little better. The election *was* hacked, perhaps.
The breakdown I found has more categories, but I picked off all the things that would be pretty non-contentious (I didn't include medicare or medicade, which seems to be a lot of people's big target these things).
What's contentious about MediCare, unless you're an extremist? MC is just like SS: it's something you pay into when you're young, and then you receive payments when you're old. It just has a different aim; SS gives you a pension, while MC is health insurance for old people. But it's certainly not freeloading, because you have to pay into the system with your FICA taxes of 15% while you're working. Taking away MC is basically stealing, because those people paid into the system for decades of their working years, so it's only fair that they receive the benefits they were promised in return for their contributions.
Medicaid of course is a separate issue as it's not funded by contributions from working people to be returned to them later, it's a hand-out to the poor who never paid into the system, and that money has to come from somewhere.
b) When you look at the breakdown, 55 million of those checks come from only social security. Are we now arguing that people who collect SS are freeloaders?
Actually, many of them are. SS isn't one system, it's two systems with the same name. Part of the system is a retirement pension system, where people pay in when they're working, and then collect a pension after they retire. This obviously is not freeloading at all, and IMO should be strongly protected because these people were made a promise. The other part of the system is for poor and disabled people who frequently haven't paid into the system at all. This part is rife with abuse, and isn't funded by contributions from the recipients. How many of those 55 million checks are going to illegal immigrants with anchor babies, people who have a "bad back", etc.? While some recipients here may be genuinely needy, it's not a system funded by the recipients' contributions, but by the taxpayer, and worse it's full of people who are leaches on the system.
Humm...how about: Motive + Opportunity = ?
Simple math.
There goes most of /. (me included ;-) )
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I was kind of hoping that we would have gotten over the whole race thing and not made such a big deal about the color of our President but it seems that racism still has some way to go.
The problem is that all his supporters still make a big deal out of his color, and worse, accuse anyone who doesn't like him of being a racist, even when he's doing things exactly the way Bush did, or in some cases, doing things much worse than Bush. I don't think 6-year-old children had to worry about being molested at airports when Bush was President, but now with Obama in office, they do. There were also a lot less troops in Afghanistan when Bush was Pres, but with warmonger Obama we're now involved in not two, but three wars.
Thanks for that clear, concise and cited explanation ("cexplanation"? ;).
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yeah voter turnout is real great when you get the votes for everyone, not just the people that voted for you as well as disallowing people to vote against you to vote at all.
I got here through a series of tubes
Doesn't this allow people to sell their votes? I'm against any system that allows people to prove that they voted one way or another, which allows coercion.
John Quincy Adams in1824
Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876
Benjamin Harrison in 1888
George W. Bush in 2000
That's the American system.
"In Florida, back then, the Republicans clearly proved that they were in this to win the presidency, not win an election."
So was Gore, trying to win an already lost presidency in the courts. He thought it was owed to him as VP. Guess not.
Do the judges get 1 save to use to override a vote and save their favorite candidate?
So if there's a guy who sleeps with a loaded gun under his pillow, that proves home invasion robberies are necessary?
"Just remember, this is the United States of America. We write 80 million checks a month. There are millions and millions of Americans that depend on those checks coming on time," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
Well, THERE's your problem.
I have no idea what your point actually was, if you even had one, but assuming it was intended to be related to the post you responded to here goes...
80 million checks a month has little to do with the poor and suggesting otherwise reeks of ignorance and/or intentional deceit. That number includes active duty, reserves, VA, federal employees, student loans, as well tens of thousands of federal contractors and other service providers (doctors who are paid by medicare/medicaid) who otherwise would not have the ability to meet private payrolls.
Social security (which is a large part of the 80) isn't strictly related to poverty. I'm comfortably above the median household income and I qualify to get one of those checks when I retire. So I may be among the few who don't strictly "depend" on a check per the Geithner quote. Then, if the 80 million figure is based on a yearly average including tax refunds, those would account for over ten million checks a month (111M individual refunds a year, which is before counting businesses & non-profits), which again is not related to poverty. Again, many of these aren't included in the "depending on" category but many are, including small private businesses.
Rhetoric-debunking aside, shutting down government, which the Republicans nearly did on the budget, and are so casually playing around with again now is a serious short-term issue to millions of citizens even before the longer-term implications of default. If those millions properly attributed their hardship to the Tea Party and its blind faith in a ridiculous economic anti-theory and acted on it, election results would be obvious, as Lumpy pointed out.
As for your quip about people not liking Obama because of his speeches, the WaPo article doesn't state that. Rather, it's that people are eating up his opponents' rhetoric about a supposed lack of job increases and an "obsession with tax hikes" as well as the usual misattributed economic conditions (e.g. the $80 gasoline bit, which isn't under presidential control, yet they always get blamed for it). If anything reflects on the president himself it's his lack of ability to act (the expectation built during his campaign) which is distressing those who voted for him. There's no evidence that people are turned off by what he has to say- that's just you pushing the right-wing agenda in portraying Obama as the extreme leftist he most certainly is not.
10 Million people getting unemployment checks.
That. They. Paid. For. You and your employer pay unemployment premiums so that if you get laid off, you have *something* coming in.
Now ask yourself what caused so many people to get laid off? It wasn't anything Obama did....
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
And they counted any ballots that had a small dent next to Gore for Gore, and they counted any overvoted ballots that happened to have a vote for Gore, and they... STFU.
Liar.
The DNC will just try to get more people in to vote. There are plenty of graveyards that they haven't canvassed yet, especially in Mexico.
You do realize that the machines in question were owned by the State of Ohio and the machines for poor neighbourhoods were re-allocated by Kenneth Blackwell, the states returning officer and head of the state campaign to elect George Bush (an obvious conflict of interest that should never have been allowed) to more affluent neighbourhoods?
This decision was made by a guy who publicly promised that his state would vote for G.W.B. before voting had even started.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Honestly, the best thing Obama could do is have press conferences publicly smearing the GOP. "The republicans want to protect the rich while screwing the poor, I am fighting for the poor! remember this in the next election!"
Isn't that exactly what he does in every single speach he gives? He blaims the republicans, he blaims George W Bush, and he blaims rich white people. He never accepts the fact that HIS actions have caused most of the current problems.
He has spent more during his first two years than ALL of the previous presidents combined. Now the government needs the debt ceiling raised, again. This he blaims on rich white people.
He has not been able to get a budget to vote, even though the democrats had a supermajority, and could force laws through, like Obamacare, without a single republican vote. Yet he blaims this on the republicans.
The arabs hate him, the Israiles are starting to. All he wants is to have the nuslems love him, so he snubs the Israil prime minister, making him use the servents entrance at the White House, and tells them that they need to give up even more to people who are constantly killing them. It hasn't worked in the past, but Obama is sure that it will work this time.
The unemployment figure is over 9% for most of his term, even though he has spent over $200,000 per job to save/create them. And that figure doesn't include those who have completely given up. If you include those, it's probably over 17%. His solution, tax the rich white people. Obviously taking even more money from business owners will create more jobs.
I guess I'm a typical white person, who is terrified when he sees a black person. Can't even name all the 58 states. I'd say more, but my teleprompter just shut down.
Wow, way to rip Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner a new one, since it's a direct quote from him that upsets you so much.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
No, there already is a way to corrupt them centrally in an organized fashion: it's called political parties.
As long as the same parties are running in each state, then there will exist a central organization to corrupt them. In fact it's probably much easier to corrupt the election without anyone noticing when you have 50 different sets of arcane rules.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I wish more technical people would volunteer to work the polls, and could spread the word about the controls built into our voting process.
The first thing they'd learn is that votes are counted at the PRECINCT level. There's no "master server" in the sky where votes can be manipulated. The real votes are counted machine-by-machine, under the eye of volunteers who swear under oath that it has been operated properly. The machines print out a paper receipt of the tally, and that gets backed-up on hard disk and flash. The paper tape total is called into the Registrar. The paper records of the vote are certified by a local Board of Election, the machines are sealed, and the paper and flash media is typically also sealed and sequestered under a local Court.
The servers used at the state levels are merely there to REPORT the results of the counts made at each precinct. They are not the actual vote tally. If the database is wrong, the Board goes back to the paper trail and updates it with the correct tally.
Paper receipts at the voting machines are actually NOT a good idea, IMHO. Paper is a horrible medium for conducting an election: it can get lost, smeared, ripped, crumpled, folded, etc. There's a reason we don't run our accounting systems using ledger-books anymore, but instead use a computer. Those reasons apply double for voting. A computer-based tally is a dream to manage compared to the nightmare that is paper.
I would like to see better use of paper for making spot-certifications that a machine is operating properly, but I would never want to run a whole election using paper. The error rate of paper can run as high as 1-2%. The error rate of a computer tally is minuscule by comparison.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Which sums it up nicely. The filings show how it could have been stolen - but do not prove that it was stolen. It seems to me that the same can be said of any election using this equipment and architecture.
In spite of that, I agree with your statement. The old fashioned way seems to be the one that is most foolproof. While that process can obviously be hacked as well, it typically needs to be done on a machine by machine basis and is quite a bit more traceable.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Seriously?
They faked the results of a recount to try and avoid a full recount.
Smartech was owned by Bush and Blackwell hired them to server as a "mirror" in case of failure, then when it looked like Bush wasn't going to win in Ohio even with the other dirty tricks he pulled, Blackwell sent the people responsible for running the systems home and moved operations over to the "failover", giving Bush (and more importantly Cheney) direct control over the machine where the vote counts were being stored. Yeah, I'm sure that's perfectly legit. There's absolutely no conflict of interest in the Head of the Ohio Campaign to elect Bush to unilaterally turn over the final vote counting to a company owned by Bush. Frankly, we may never know absolutely 100% sure if fraud occurred, but frankly, if it looks like fraud, smells like fraud, and sounds like fraud, it probably is fraud.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Exactly. If you don't like the way your vote got counted become an activist at the state level. Not the Federal level. Regulate your state's problems within your own state. Leave the other states alone.
What I have seen is the opposite. In many states, ID requirements are weak, and urban districts are notorious for less than robust verification of IDs. Illegal aliens have a number of ways to slip through the cracks and vote. Although the Ohio system may have been designed to facilitate fraud, the low-tech systems of other states were designed to facilitate other types of fraud. There are many ways to rig an election.
The beneficiaries of tax-and-spend policy are those who receive the spending, not those who pay the taxes. Considering how much money gets pumped into welfare and medicaid, I find it hard to believe that poor people are under-represented at the voting booth.
Sorry, I wasn't really articulate. I wasn't trying to say that people collecting SS or medicare/medicaid were freeloaders. I was just frustrated at the number of people who saw the 80 million checks/month quote, then conflated it to mean that there was 80 million people getting money from the government every month, and they're obviously all idiots and we should cut all that spending, etc etc..
-Bucky
What about using paper ballot, then you put your ballot into a hardware scanner (like a dollar bill in a vending machine) after you complete the voting to have it counted? That way there is a backup for hand count, you can still get instant polling figures, and the voter can be satisfied their vote WAS counted real-time and not rejected due to hanging chads (if the machine can tell what you meant then so can a recounter).
Seriously, we have this tech in schools for students to take multiple choice tests, why not bring it to the ballot box and reject ballots that have errors on them so the person can "fix it" rather then have their vote not counted?
That's pretty much been the problem with all these electronic voting initiatives since day one. They all seem to be purposely designed to make any kind of auditing or verification impossible, and any complaints to that effect are hand-waved away.
Democratic elections require trust to be considered legitimate. These systems seem purposely designed to undermine that trust. Still can't figure out why anyone who isn't making money from selling them is in favor of them.
Which sums it up nicely. The filings show how it could have been stolen - but do not prove that it was stolen.
This case is being tried in civil court. One need merely prove beyond a preponderance of evidence, not to the much more difficult beyond a reasonable doubt. In such cases often mere motive and opportunity is enough. (c.f. OJ Simpson)
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
"Here's what's really annoying about that particular quote: I can't find the full text of it, least not in 15 minutes of noodling around on Google."
Your google noodling needs work. Three minutes: http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/wally-odell-letter.pdf
The top 2% of Americans own 80% of the wealth
Nope, it's closer to 20% own 80% of the wealth:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/estimates-of-wealth-distribution-are-widely-wrong
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#half-of-america-has-25-of-the-wealth-2
Is it fun pulling numbers out of the air to try to make your point?
And just because you aren't in the top 2% or top 20% doesn't make you poor.
The ratios aren't precisely 100:1...
If by 'aren't precisely' you mean 'aren't anywhere close too', then your statement is correct.
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/7659/71024.html
Google keywords: o'dell 2003 letter full text
First link given.
Sorry if I'm being a nit-picker, I was just pointing out that 1) only a nut would describe Medicare recipients as "freeloaders", but 2) part of those Social Security checks (the non-pension ones) in fact DO go to "freeloaders", and your numbers don't separate the two SS programs.
In fact, according to Wikipedia, Medicare is actually part of Social Security, or more properly, the "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" (OASDI) program. From Wikipedia: "The larger and better known programs are:
* Federal Old-Age (Retirement), Survivors, and Disability Insurance
* Unemployment benefits
* Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
* Health Insurance for Aged and Disabled (Medicare)
* Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs (Medicaid)
* State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
* Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
* Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"
Many of these can certainly be called "freeloading". The first line lumps together retirement pensioners, survivors, and disability recipients. The first is certainly not freeloading, the second might be, and the third easily could be (and from what I've seen, is rife with abuse). The second line isn't freeloading, as that's generally paid by separate unemployment insurance contributions I believe. But the third is obviously something that could be called "freeloading", as it's not paid by the recipients. The fourth is Medicare which isn't freeloading, the fifth is Medicaid which is, the sixth certainly is freeloading (children can't work to pay into a program), the seventh (SSI) is freeloading as it's a hand-out to low-income people and comes out of the general Treasury fund, and the eighth is ObamaCare which has some provisions that are freeloading (changing requirements for Medicaid, subsidizing people up to 400% of poverty level to purchase health insurance, etc.).
So if your number for SS checks includes all these "freeloading" programs, and that's 55 out of 80 million checks, then that's quite a large number of those checks that can be said to be going to "freeloaders".
Now, before anyone gets their panties in a bind and starts calling me horrible for not wanting to give money to the poor or somesuch, I'm only pointing out that there's a big difference between government programs that take money from a group of people for a specific purpose, and then give it back to those same people later, and programs which take money from taxpayers in general and give it to people who haven't earned it in some way, either through contributions during their working years, or through a career of military service (which is the justification for VA pensions). If you want to have a social safety net, that's fine, but you have to admit that this is a separate issue from these other programs, and are basically a hand-out, and a valid target for anyone wanting to cut such programs.
Why do reactionaries think that they are so clever when implying corruption without proof?
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
You think it may do that without first consulting the hand in its ass?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sure, why change a system that has been proven? It worked well in 2000, didn't it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you agree that we need some level of taxes?
Can you convince your like-minded folks to seriously shut the fuck up about how government's stealin' your money and switch the conversation to how much money they should be stealing?
It's like we've got a debate going on about which color to paint something, and you idiots keep yelling "I want it to be square!" It's not productive and does nothing to further the discussion.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
...it *isn't* taxpayer money given to corporations enjoying record profits, it *isn't* a few percentage points extra on the "relative" handful of people making over $250,000 per year, it *isn't* money for blowing shit up in the Middle East and it *isn't* money to chase marijuana smokers to their graves.
Anything else is only speculation at this point, but we know what isn't on the table...
The beneficiaries of tax-and-spend policy are those who receive the spending, not those who pay the taxes lol what? I pay $120 something a year to drive my car around, plus like $0.16 per gallon when I do. In return, I get to use a rather damn-well built interstate system where I can drive from Maine to California in a few days. Hell, in PA it was only $36/year with a higher per gallon tax, but it's a damn miracle that even gets me ONE road that is, shockingly, plowed every once in a while.
And the Democratic media called Florida for Gore before polls closed in the heavily conservative panhandle parts of Florida, deterring residents there from registering their preferences. There are a thousand and one counterfactuals about things that might have changed the results but didn't.
Lol... Democratic media my ass. You hyper-partisan types will always see massive bias, but don't realize it's just your own reflection. And it was called based on exit polls, which are usually pretty accurate. Guess that doesn't apply if someone's been screwing with the votes though.
Of course you dismiss the disenfranchisement of thousands of people based on your idea that the violation of one of their most basic Constitutional rights in our democracy is somehow not a major problem because you see bias in the media. Interesting to see where far-right conservatives are willing to overlook such violations of people's rights when it suits them.
I went to the link [http://www.truth-out.org/new-court-filing-reveals-how-2004-ohio-presidential-election-was-hacked/1311603015] in the article. It froze my PC. I had to disable JavaScript in order to regain control.
One of the reasons why the Tea Party did so well as unseating House Democrats last year was because most of the extra people who turned out to vote for Obama in 2008 STAYED HOME.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Read his others posts in this topic...of course he doesn't see the conflict of interest.
You're taking that on faith, not on evidence. That's a poor way to make decisions.
Seems to work quite well for the right-wing as a decision-making process.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Regardless of country or culture, any citizen who is afraid of a (government/tyrant/dictator/power structure) shutdown is a threat to freedom and a minion for the status quo.
I think very few people want no taxes, but at the next meeting I'll bring it up.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Did you get that nonsense off a stick of gum? I hear Ethiopia is lovely this time of year. You'll love it there- shutdowns are the status quo. France is a good alternative- segments of their economy come to a standstill on an almost predictable schedule.
If a shutdown serves a purpose, that's perfectly fine by me. An economy grinding to a halt, market instability, and people who can't feed their kids aren't my idea of a good time.
My guess is you don't drive much, because you are certainly not paying attention at the gas pump.
The national average for gas tax is 48.1 center per gallon (of which 18.4 cents is federal). I don't know which state you live in, but there are zero states in which you are paying anything less than 18.4 cents. In my state, they collect property tax on motor vehicles, hefty fees for registration, the second highest gax taxes in the country, and now adding tolls. Even so, I don't mind paying for what I use, and the highway system is one of the few government programs that operates anywhere near a break-even level.
Rest assured, the highways were not paid for with "other people's money". You ARE paying for it, you might as well enjoy it.
Bush didn't win his home state, either. He's from Connecticut, not Texas. Same thing went for Poppy Bush.
Morans.
The beneficiaries of tax-and-spend policy are those who receive the spending, not those who pay the taxes.
Right. Unfortunately, those people also generally vote Republican: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html
"It's not like it matters what sock puppet sits on the throne."
The thing is... it actually does. Maybe not as much as it should, but in ways that are still important, it does.
I don't know what would have happened afterward if it had been Al Gore listening to kids read a book about a goat on the morning of 9/11, but I'm sure the world would be a recognizably different place today. Possibly for the worse, probably for the better. But definitely different. I don't know who Dukakis would've nominated to the Supreme Court when Thurgood Marshall retired, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been Clarence Thomas. On a more personal level, I don't know what John McCain would've done last year if his staff told him about a campaign of online videos assuring gay teens that "it gets better", but I'm sure it wouldn't have been this.
So yeah: it matters.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Good find; I did the same search but without the year, and got page after page discussing the results but no primary or secondary sourced links to it. The context does tend to support my original thought - he's not promising the Diebold as a company will deliver the election, in spite of the slant that numerous blogs gave it - he's only saying that he as a party member wants to make sure that Bush gets Ohio's votes (doubtless the old fashioned way - money for bribes, etc ;)
Once the evidence supports the hypothesis of one conspiracy, it necessarily supports the concept that there may in fact be several conspiracies operating independently of one another, but potentially still inter-linked. For instance, the same group of people that rigged the Ohio election in 04 are probably NOT the same group that rigged the New Hampshire election for Hilary. The theory that best fits the facts is absurdly simple. People in power are corrupt, they rig elections and otherwise manipulate information to gain more power for themselves and their interests. There is no monolithic structure of deceit, this is simply how american politics works. It's how it has worked for more than 50 years, and it doesn't show a single sign of changing.
Which brings up the only really pertinent question... what are we gonna do about it?
Unfortunately, the answer appears to be nothing what so ever.
Rural America is the biggest taker of Federal money. They live off Farm subsidies. The ones who don't are on welfare.
because you don't like who actually won. We are talking about actual fraud, not someone having a partisan hissy-fit.
As some of these posters have shown, they wouldn't believe in fraud if they guy pulled a "side show bob" on fox news.
Don't care if you are rich or poor.
The stupid though should be prevented from voting at all costs.
Tempted as I am to agree, I'll continue instead to insist on your right to vote not being abridged.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
....
I live in California though. Here the Dems have 100% control over the state...
Which is why when the looting of PG&E came back to bite everyone on the backside, Democratic governor Gray Davis was able to escape any fallout and serve out his full term until another Democrat was elected to the office.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Although I wonder if you can call the top 10 states Republican, you can definitely say the bottom 10 are mostly Democrat. Either way, I wish they would adjust that list for the effect of indirect federal spending. For example, Connecticut is ranked 48th at 69 cents on the dollar. But it's also Santa's workshop as far as Pentagon spending is concerned. What Connecticut fails to receive in direct federal spending it receives via indirect Pentagon spending. Connecticut is where they make submarines, helicopters, jet engines, tank engines, and all sorts of avionics. Defense spending is the ultimate perpetual "stimulus" program. Other states have large federal facilities (such as NASA and military bases) that probably escape the tax ROI calculation.
There were quite a bit of shenanigans in the 2000 election as well. Of over 90000 excluded voters in Florida, purportedly because of felony convictions, over 95% of them were found to have been unfairly excluded.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Sure, you're pulling numbers from 2007, and so getting them wrong. In 2007 the actual distribution left the top 1% with 43% of wealth; the next 4% with 29%; the next 5% with 11%; that's the top 10% with 83% of wealth. The next 10% (80-90%ile) with 10%, and the bottom 80% with 7% of the wealth. The bottom 20% owns something like 0.1%; the 20% above the bottom owns something like 0.2%; that's the bottom 40% owning maybe 0.3%. And that's 2007. But even then, top 20% owning 83% of the wealth (and a top 20%er owns 554 times a bottom 40%er) is pretty disproportionate, and extraordinary among nations.
Since 2007 the Financial Crisis (4+ years now) deleted much of the wealth below the top tiers, but added it back to the top tiers. The richest get bailed out; the poorer lose their jobs, pensions and investments.
You're just another person picking numbers that support their totally skewed image of how wealth is distributed here. Look at that page I linked to for Figure 4, the summary of research by Norton & Airely and Johnston in 2010 showing how wrong people are about how wealth is distributed, grouped by their income and other related factors.
--
make install -not war
...I fully concede that the whining over the 2000 election was unwarranted ...
Google "Ray Lemme" and see if you still feel that way.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Speaking of Florida, google "Ray Lemme".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
llegal aliens have a number of ways to slip through the cracks and vote.
LOL. If I were in the country illegally the last thing I'd want to do is draw attention to myself by voting. Seriously, can you point to even one instance of enough illegal voters voting to change an election? Maybe in an election decided by one or two votes but not likely.
For state elections this is fine, but for presidential elections I find it unsuitable. Presidential elections should follow federal election guidelines. As in, there should be federal election guidelines to help ensure election of the president is somewhat uniform. Any election other than presidential is a different game.
He has spent more during his first two years than ALL of the previous presidents combined.
Why should I believe a single thing you way when you spout ridiculous shit like that?
s/way/say/
That hand is going to change along with the sock puppet. Rove doesn't tell Obama what to do, after all. Someone else gets that job.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
One party is the Borrow & Spend.
The other is the Tax & Spend.
One party is Steal from the rich & give to the poor.
The other is Steal from everyone to "protect" us because We know what's good for you better than you do.
Sure, you're pulling numbers from 2007...
Uh, the first link is from a 2010 article (although it does not list what year the data is taken from). The 2nd is from 2007. They both match up (more or less). And your link also supports my numbers.
...and so getting them wrong
No, that would be you, as evidence by your next statement:
In 2007 the actual distribution left the top 1% with 43% of wealth; the next 4% with 29%; the next 5% with 11%;
So, the top 10% own 83%, so your original statement of 2% owning 80% is only off by a factor of 5. Well done.
You're just another person picking numbers that support their totally skewed image..
Hilarious, considering that you picked the chart that put the number closer to your skewed image. You picked financial wealth over total net worth. Had you picked total net worth (which is, you know, how much total assets people have), the numbers would be 20% controlling 85% of the wealth, which would have put you off by an entire order of magnitude.
Look at that page I linked to for Figure 4
I did, and it supports my statement (20% own 80%), not yours (2% own 80%). Strange that you didn't use that chart, hmmm?
Since 2007 the Financial Crisis (4+ years now) deleted much of the wealth below the top tiers, but added it back to the top tiers.
Really? What do you base that on? Nothing, I'm guessing.
showing how wrong people are about how wealth is distributed
Wow, random, average people don't know the distribution of all of the wealth in a country of 300 million? Shocking. And not really relevant to your original wrong statement.
Anyone strong enough to kill me and/or take my money away is already the de-facto government.
Perhaps unemployment officially peaked at about 7% under Bush but the economy was shedding over 800,000 jobs a month (IIRC) when he left office and that's something Obama wasn't going to turn around instantly no matter what he did. I'd have to give Obama at least a 6 month pass on that after he took office.
The stimulus wasn't big enough and included too much tax break and not enough actual stimulus.
Exit polls don't mean squat.
You know, before the advent of DRE electronic voting machines exit polls were in general remarkably accurate reflections of the actual voting.
Correlation is not causation but it makes you think.
Well, and since I don't believe ANY President has any meaningful ability to do anything about the economy in general and joblessness in specific (except muck it up), I'd give him a pass on that too.
And for longer than six months, to boot.
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that his stimulus package and attempts to keep unemployment low (since he claimed his attempts would keep unemployment below 8%, he's on the hook for it - never claim that you'll fix something you can't) didn't have the desired/intended effect. Hence his low approval ratings right now.
It should be noted that there have been three one term Presidents since WW2 (and one of them wasn't even elected at all - not to President, not to VP). The elected one term Presidents both lost out on a second term due to economic conditions. And Obama is headed in the same direction right now.
Course, that could change in a heartbeat if the economy takes off this next year. Which won't happen till the government stops monkeying with it and just lets things stabilize a bit.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I lived in Butler County in Ohio in the 2004 election and I voted in that election. The votes were not completely paperless. Being a regular Slashdot visitor I was worried that my vote wouldn't count. However, when I finished voting it printed my electronic ballot onto a roll of paper under glass, so there was a paper trail. I cannot speak for all counties and districts.
When was the last time a Republican didn't explicitly or implicitly say that lowering ("job killing") taxes would solve all of our problems?
Umm... The unemployment numbers have always been garbage. The length of time that unemployment could be collected has been increased, so the numbers went up.
This isn't insightful. It's fucking wrong. The amount of people using unemployment benefits is not a factor in calculating the unemployment rate.
Seriously, do you think that if all unemployment benefits were cancelled, the government could claim that everyone is working?
If you want to be a partisan shill, that's fine, but at least back it up with TRUE facts (not just the ones you want to believe are true). But when you come across with accusations like that based on falsehoods, you not only look like a dumbass, you make everyone on your side look like dumbasses.
On the bright side, you are not the dumbest one in the room. I'm afraid that award would have to go the non-functioning retard that modded you comment up.
You're probably right, a President doesn't have as much ability to affect the economy as most people think.
You know, I voted for Ford over Carter. That was the last Republican I've voted for for President (although I did vote for independent John Anderson).
LOL wut? Dude the red states are the poorest in the nation by a pretty long shot. States like MS, AR, LA,OK, these states are traditionally poor as fuck and vote republican year in and year out.
Now if you wanna argue that the MIC is sitting there with their hands out and we waste money on crap like planes and aircraft carriers we don't even need? Right there with ya pal. But trying to say people vote D because they are getting a check simply doesn't jive with the numbers. Hell every one of the poorest states voted McCain in 08!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Why is he a 'douchebag'. Because he doesnt agree with you? And he's the douchebag? nice
No, because he decided to smear an entire group of people as being unemployed freeloaders without anything to back it up. Maybe he should look at the facts before he starts shitting on people who were stuck in ridiculously long lines because the Ohio government fucked them over by ensuring that they wouldn't get a decent number of voting machines in their district. Some people couldn't afford to wait and had to go to work, losing their chance to vote. Of course this self-righteous motherfucker will shit on them because he believes himself superior.
Election Fraud Analysis: Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide
Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)
http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/2004-election-fraud-analysis-confirmation-of-a-kerry-landslide/
Introduction: To Believe Bush Won
1. When Decided
2. Bush Approval Ratings
3. The Final 5 Million Recorded Votes
4. The Final Exit Poll: Forced to Match the Vote
5. Within Precinct Discrepancy
6. New Voters
7. Party ID
8. Gender
9. Implausible Gore Voter Defection
10. Voter Turnout
11. Urban Legend
12. Location Size
13. Sensitivity Analysis
14. Did Kerry Win 360 EV?
15. Election Simulation Analysis
16. Exit Poll Response Optimization
17. Florida
18. Ohio
19. New York
Appendix
A. Election Model: Nov.1 Projection
B. Interactive Monte Carlo Simulation: Pre-election and Exit Polls
C. 1988-2004 Election Calculator: The True Vote
D. The 2000-2004 County Vote Database
E. Statistics and Probability: Mathematics of Polling
This is the WHOLE point... We can't change the past! We can't remove the damage Bush have done. What we CAN do is try and secure that it does not happen again. Putting those responsible in jail (If it was the other way around, the conservatives would ask for the responsible being killed in a public square somewhere!) and remove the possibility to forge results in the future.
E-Voting is not inherently evil or flawed, there are ideas and like E-Banking in Europe, if the ideas are first tested and an open std. is selected that have been thoroughly tested by anyone who wanted to (As with encryption) the system will work. One of the major problems is recounting, so a paper-trail needs to be simultaneously produced. This could easily happen with a slip being printed when you have made your selection, you verify that the paperslip contains the same candidate you voted for, and then put it in a monitored container like you do with a paper ballot now. Then the estimated fast-counts of the paper-slips should roughly coincide with the computer result, otherwise an "error" have happened. A simple measure but very effective against this sort of manipulation.
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
is viewed at the candidate level, it will obscure the real problem. it's not a kerry/bush problem, it's a hacking problem. can either political party be trusted?
I have no problem with you blaming anyone you want.
My problem is that I look around and see people who have made a choice that collecting unemployment for a year or two is a better financial choice than getting a shitty job.
Once you make collecting a government check better than not collecting one you have set up things to only get worse.
There is NO WAY that will ever work out well.
Except that does not actually bear out. People like Ted Turner are the recipients of Farm Subsidies. But it was nice of you to prove my point about the attitudes of wealthy liberals towards people who have lower incomes.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2002/04/Farm-Subsidies-for-the-Rich-amp-Famous-Shattered-Records-in-2001
Farm subsidies have been opposed by fiscal conservatives since their inception. They have been supported and expanded by leftists, often against the wishes of the farmers they purported to help.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
My problem is that I look around and see people who have made a choice that collecting unemployment for a year or two is a better financial choice than getting a shitty job.
And you know this *how*? Sources please. Show me anything that shows a significant percentage of people collecting unemployment *want* to do that rather than work. A few cases don't make your point, you need to show that lots of people are doing this.
The economy sucks, there aren't jobs available to take. Worse, companies are now saying they won't hire people who aren't currently employed or are only recently unemployed. Having college grads take minimum wage jobs isn't the answer because then the HS grads can't get work and everybody is worse off.
Once you make collecting a government check better than not collecting one you have set up things to only get worse.
If that were the case, then you are assuming that everyone is a lazy SOB. Why are you a lazy SOB? oh wait you aren't, just 'them'. Who is 'them'?
And again sources, how is unemployment better than collecting a paycheck? Comparing to not getting anything is not a fair comparison. Unemployment payments create more money than they cost. Literally. Why? Because unemployed people still need to eat. So that money goes directly into the economy and starts returning tax revenue as the retailers then by product to replace what was bought with the unemployment insurance.
Unemployment insurance is like the shock absorber in your car. It softens the bumps but makes them last a little longer. In the long run the ride is smoother.
Reducing spending *will* hurt the economy. If the government stops spending $1 trillion dollars, that's $1 trillion dollars that isn't being paid out into the economy for goods and services. What effect do you think that will have? The only solution to this crisis is to bring tax rates in line with spending. That will require movement of both sides, tax rates up and spending down....over time. In a recession, cuts will only make the recession worse.
There will be increased cost associated with continued deficit spending in terms of the interest paid, but it will be far far less then pulling something like 8% of the economy out of circulation.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
no way. if Gore or Kerry had won we'd have pretty much exactly the same shit today but for different rhetoric, different inconsequential bones thrown out, but as far as wars for Israel and laws that affect the cash flow, identical
QED: Obama
look sig is kool
My problem is that I look around and see people who have made a choice that collecting unemployment for a year or two is a better financial choice than getting a shitty job.
Really? And these shitty jobs are just.. you know, out there for anyone to have?
Do you have an education? And a good job? If so, you don't know how how difficult it can be to get one of these shit jobs that you think are abundant.
Unless it's a limited time or contract job, employers don't want to hire people who will bail immediately because they get a better job offer, nor do they want someone who feels like they're above the work that they'd be doing.
So if you're well-educated and have experience working a non-shitty job, you'll find yourself shut out from the crappy jobs because you're 'overqualified.' Doesn't matter how good you'd be at the job, how much you need the work, or pretty much any other factor unless you get lucky. Having trained for 'good' jobs means they'll be the only offers you'll get. You and the many other hundreds applying for the same few dozen jobs you are.
I liked the tax cut because, 6 years later, I decided to play with the numbers and I found that, a year and a half later, the GDP (not GNP; GDP is in adjusted dollars) went up 20%. That means the nation as a whole got wealthier. The federal income dropped--by almost 0%, just a bit more than that.
These tax cuts happened in 2001 and 2003. It looks like in the surrounding years (up to 2006), the rich got somewhat richer (from $113,000/year average for those over $70,000/year to $126,000/year average). It looks like the average for each group below that didn't go up; however, the proportion of people in the lowest income groups shrunk and the proportion of people in higher income groups grew. In other words, rich got richer; poor got richer. Probably a result of more jobs opening up.
At the moment, I dislike this analysis because it's fuzzed over by a war occurring at the same time; war has strange effects, often being mistaken for making the economy better while it's making it worse.
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This wasn't a proof argument, it was a consequences of trying to invade Switzerland argument. The original argument was an insinuation that war is not necessary for Switzerland; in truth, Switzerland doesn't have to worry about wars because Switzerland is highly militarized. In other words: Switzerland has seen that a war is the well and good choice in response to an invasion, and has made itself very effective in that response. If Switzerland had been a state of non-violence and peace and diplomacy for its entire existence, with no guns and no weapons and no martial training at all, it would have been overrun long ago and taken for slaves and resources.
Quit playing with undistributed middle arguments.
In America it's quite simple: there are cats and there are mice. Mice can't hurt cats; mice are afraid of cats. Cats toy with mice and kill them as they please; other mice do not attack the cats. In many places in America, people will stand around and not make a move to help someone being beaten to death because they fear for themselves... so nobody is afraid to rape and mug people.
Criminals with guns are playing a risk game: the gun makes them a kind of god, with unlimited powers and the ability to command men to their bidding; but if they're arrested, the gun is a huge liability and ends in a MUCH harsher sentence. Many criminals stick to fists and knives because everyone's a pussy anyway and nobody will stand up for anyone else. Harsh penalties for illegal possession or illegal use of a gun are good; I'm not so sure eliminating legal guns is an effective strategy (worked for drugs, right?) versus regulating legal gun ownership in an effective way.
Of course, I've little interest in firearms. If you taught every individual Judo and you told them that they should take up for those who can't take up for themselves (liberal philosophy seems to only like that concept when money is involved), what would you have? A bunch of criminals who knew Judo, that's what. Now, tell me who wants to rape a girl who knows Judo, win the ensuing miniature Judo match, and continue the rape with a broken arm? More generally, who wants to pull a knife in an alleyway to mug some guy who knows Judo, and risk 6 other guys who know Judo noticing this while passing by? Do you want to fight 6 guys who know Judo? I sure don't.
I wouldn't go for a unilateral strategy--or even a weapons-free one. I want to instill a sense of honor and god damn responsibility for others into the people of this country. I'm not stupid enough to send them all out to scream and flail at each other; self defense training is a good thing. Everyone should learn some basic hand-to-hand martial arts--something soft (Judo, Aikido, Pentjak Silat), something hard (Muy Thai kickboxing), not necessarily mandatory that everyone study the same thing--but also should be allowed to pursue personal interests. That can mean honing their skills with their bodies (fists, legs, etc) or taking up a weapon (sword/bokken, three sectional staff, jo, etc).
I feel that this flexibility allows people to become comfortable with a part of themselves--for example, I hate knives and will reject a knife in favor of my bare hands, but I instantly found an affinity for the Jo and could wield it somewhat skillfully, moreso than anything I'd actually practiced with. I dislike knives because they're too limiting... I can do a lot of non-leathal damage and bruising with a jo, but knives are exclusively for cuts and gnashes and crippling and fatal blood loss.
That comfort, the confidence in their ability to competently defend themselves, a feeling of community with other people who will come to your aid and who you feel a responsibility for if they require aid, and the ever present fear of immediate and unavoidable retribution from society (as in everyone, not just the police that you're so sure won't ever catch you) for violating the very base rule of society (that is: a society must
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I'm only pointing out that there's a big difference between government programs that take money from a group of people for a specific purpose, and then give it back to those same people later
Is that really the case though? I'd love to see some numbers on how many people, say, end up getting more in Social Security than they had originally put in, and the same with Medicare. There are, of course, those on the other side, who pay in more than they end up withdrawing. In fact, I'm willing to bet that a number of the conservative arguments look at it from that angle, that they'd rather have it handled in a more 401k style where each individual's personal allowance is tied to exactly how much they deposited.
Ah. So government == tyrant == dictator.
There were also a lot less troops in Afghanistan when Bush was Pres,
Actually, that was a problem, not a desirable state. Afghanistan is all sorts of fucked up precisely because Bush decided to launch into Iraq.
Not that Obama is really better, what with the whole three wars thing. Calling what's currently happening in Iraq today a 'war' is a bit of a stretch. It's more like "two wars and an annoying occupation."
Farm subsidies have been opposed by fiscal conservatives since their inception. They have been supported and expanded by leftists, often against the wishes of the farmers they purported to help.
Actually farm subsidies are supported by any politician who think it's extremely important to carry Iowa in the primaries and the general election.
He has not been able to get a budget to vote, even though the democrats had a supermajority, and could force laws through, like Obamacare, without a single republican vote. Yet he blaims this on the republicans.
What I find amazing is that both Obama and Boehner are not in control of their own parties. Obama, supposedly the leader of the Democratic party, has little rein over Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Similarly, Boehner has little control and ability to force the Republicans into a compromise, Eric Cantor as the unofficial Tea Party spokesman is in control. I'm not sure we've had a point in recent history where the two major negotiators for the political parties were little more than ambassadors for other power-holders. Unfortunately, it doesn't say good things for either Obama or Boehner.
Is that really the case though? I'd love to see some numbers on how many people, say, end up getting more in Social Security than they had originally put in,
Everyone gets more out than they put in; that's the whole point of "investments": they grow in value over time, even if they're crappy investments like T-bills. There wouldn't be much point to a retirement system where you only got out what you put in, thanks to inflation.
Now, if you're talking about adjusting the numbers for both inflation and interest accrued by the T-bills that SS is supposed to be invested in (if it weren't constantly raided by Congress), that would be an interesting thing to look at.
and the same with Medicare.
Um, do you even understand the whole point of insurance??? The idea is a large number of people pay a small amount of money into a fund, and then a small number of them have problems that force them to make claims, and receive large payments out of that fund to cover their expenses (in this case, due to health problems). You're supposed to get more out than you put in, if you have problems. If you don't have problems, then you're subsidizing those who do, but again that's the point of insurance: they're there to cover you IF you have a problem. Why do you think people buy fire insurance? It's a good system as long as the claimants aren't taking more money than is put in, but this is true for any insurance system, not just government-run ones.
There are, of course, those on the other side, who pay in more than they end up withdrawing.
Yes, that's the entire point of insurance, even medical insurance. Do you even know what insurance is?
And yes, this happens with Social Security (retirement) as well, as it's sort of a cross between an insurance program and a retirement investment account. You get more out if you pay more in (your pension is based on how much money you put in over your lifetime, and when, as it's adjusted by CPI), but ONLY if you survive to retirement age, and only as long as you live past that age. But again, this is no different from any other pension plan. Before the 401k system came out, it was quite common for people to work for the same big corporation their whole life and then draw a pension after retirement, until the day they died (unions also provided this benefit to people in some industries, taking the place of the employer in administering the pension plan). SS is no different. If you're a trucker that's part of the Teamsters and you work 40 years and then retire on their pension plan, and then die a month later, you only get one month of pension; they keep the rest of the money you contributed and that finances all the other people who retire and live longer.
The whole idea behind these kinds of things is that there's safety in numbers; by contributing to a common fund, you don't have to worry about suffering extreme hardship if fate is cruel to you, even though there's a chance you won't get out as much as you put in, or as much as other people put in. If you're an Ayn Rand follower, this may be anathema to you, but for most civilized people, it's a good exchange, and that's why they purchase insurance, and why governments frequently require people to have insurance if, for example, they drive a car or run certain types of businesses.
Actually, that was a problem, not a desirable state. Afghanistan is all sorts of fucked up precisely because Bush decided to launch into Iraq.
Wrong. Afghanistan is "all sorts of fucked up" because it's Afghanistan, just like Zimbabwe is "all sorts of fucked up" because it's Zimbabwe. Sending troops in there and installing a puppet government is not going to change it, in fact it just makes it worse. And, it costs a fortune, and gets lots of our soldiers maimed and killed, for nothing. All those troops who have died or had limbs blown off in Afghanistan did it for nothing (except maybe the ones involved in the initial actions where they were bombing AQ facilities and destroying their ability to train terrorists, but that was done a long time ago, and has nothing to do with the rest of the country).
You can't force a nation to be a prosperous, civilized place by stationing troops there. The only sensible thing to do is pull out, just like we finally did in Vietnam. These days, Vietnam is actually a pretty decent place, and improving rapidly, no thanks to the Americans. They had to get the fuck out and leave them to their own devices before they got their act together.
Calling what's currently happening in Iraq today a 'war' is a bit of a stretch. It's more like "two wars and an annoying occupation."
War, occupation, same thing. I didn't bother to differentiate the two, as there's little difference: troops are on the ground shooting at the locals and getting shot back at.
An ideal electronic voting system uses three machines:
1) Key card issuing machine - Provides a scan card with public and private keys printed in a bar code at the top. The private key is in a tear-off portion.
2) Selection machine - scan card is inserted and citizen makes selections. When finished, after proper review of selections, an encrypted bar code is printed in the remaining blank portion of the scan card.
3) Tally machine - The user then proceeds to the tally machine, where they are instructed to tear off the private key portion of the card (leaving the public key intact, along with the selections), and they insert the scan card into the tally machine, which provides feedback on the results read from the encrypted card to the voter.
The tear off portion can be kept, and a readable number on the card can even be used to verify the vote is in the system over the web (the key might even be used to verify the identity of the voter, without actually being TIED to the voter).
The scan card would then provide traceability, and the voter's tear off strip provides further confirmation. The cards could easily be re-scanned if there was an issue with the vote count.
Just my 2 cents worth... not that any politician, on either side of the aisle, would want a verifiable, reliable voting system in place.
If they hate them so much why do they keep accepting the money?
Considering the republicans are the ones who are supporting farm subsidies I have trouble seeing how it is a leftist policy.
You seriously ask that question? How is one farmer supposed to survive trying to compete against farmers who get subsidized by the government? How can he sell his product in a free market fashion at a price high enough to support the running of the farm when no one else needs to get that price. There are myriad other issues involved, none of which you seem to be aware of. Nor would you care if you were. The existence of these troubling facts threatens your flimsy ideology.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
No flimsy ideology here. If they hate these subsidies so much they would either make due or vote against them. Yet year after year these people vote for the politicians that promise to bring the subsidies to bumfuck iowa and the rest of the corn belt.
All they have to do is retain plausible deniability long enough to survive initial scrutiny.
By the time anyone starts digging up the public's already lost interest and nobody cares enough.
Also, by that time the regime's most likely entrenched enough to whitewash whatever doesn't look good.