There is also the issue that in Canada we only vote for our local representative. No ballot iniatiatives, no Senators, no President, no dog catchers, garbage person, judges or any of the myriad of other things the various US districts see fit to put on one piece (or several pages) of paper during the most important vote in the country. So to make this 'easier' they try and come up with more 'user friendly' systems.
I'd say at least 80% of troubles could be cleared up by getting the states to set some sort of guidlines limiting federal ballots to federal positions such as just congressmen, senators and President. All other state issues should be done on a seperate ballot in any of the off years. Sure you'd have to go vote 1 more time every 2-4 years but it would save a lot of hassle. With only 2-3 things to vote for paper ballots would be much easier to handle.
Gore didn't start with that request because that's not how Florida law works
I wasn't commenting on what Gore should or shouldn't have done, merely that under every counting method put forward during the whole debacle Bush won. As for the Supreme court, their job is to interpret exisiting law, not make new ones. If Florida doesn't have provisions for a statewide recount and various districts have set deadlines then that's all they can rule on. You can complain about it all you want but the fact is, according to the non-partisan media sponsored review, that no decision made by the State or Federal courts impacted the final outcome of the 2000 election. Period. End of story.
I generally don't mention baseless Republican talking points. What did happen was some media sources erroneously called the state early for Gore, and then trampled the other way when Karl Rove's cousin called the state for Bush.
CBS alone announced 18 times that the polls were CLOSED prior to the actual closing of the panhandle districts. Not that the vote was going one way or another but that the polling stations were closed. And every other major network also repeatedly announced the poll closures. It's not a 'talking point' it's fact and not open to interpretation. The networks even admitted it on their post election reviews.
On the economy, you can blame a lot of people for the current mess but most of the leaders involved do not have a "R" after their name in the House registry. From preventing any oversight into the insane (and often illegal) actions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to raising the miminum wage by $2 (increasing minimum wages, especially by such a large number, has almost universally led to a slow down in employment as was the case after the Dems passed their bill), Democrats have done all they could to hurt the economy. Even Bill Clinton has come out complaining about how the Democrats have worked for the last decade to prevent anyone putting any restrictions on Freddie and Fannie.
As for Katrina, could you remind me as to the party affiliation of the Mayor and Governor who have the actual legal responsibility to handle the disaster as dictated by the Constitution? Despite what you may think, the President doesn't actually have any legal standing to send national troops into a state uninvited. They can simply provide service and support on request and in many instances those services were either not requested or directly interferred with for political gain by the Governor's office (just check out the Red Cross's experieces with Blanco). That's not to say things went peachy on the Federal side, but as FEMA is not a first responder agency, it wasn't actually their responsibility to do many of the things they were being held accountable for. And even to give Blanco a bit of cover, the problem was made even worse by an overzealous media that continually hampered rescue efforts by reporting unsubstantiated stories and rumors as fact (most have since been debunked but only after the damage had been done). It's hard to send in a rescue crew into an area when CNN/FOX etc are reporting what turns out to be non-existant sniper fire.
Of course I'm not expecting too much from someone whose entire ability to analyze a situation seems to be based on a Stephen Colbert joke. But then again, I guess people like you do tend to see a liberal bias in your reality since you seem to just reject out of hand any facts that don't fit your already fixed picture of the world.
The full report says that if a full recount had taken place Gore may have won by between 60 and 171 votes. Of course the report also found a statistically signifigant variation within their own examiners as to who counted what as a mark or intent to vote. For example, men tended to include marks that women didn't. There were also over 2200 'problem' ballots that could not be found. So the full recount totals are highly debateable due to the large pool (over 171,000 votes) and the tiny differences.
However, no such count was ever formally requested and under every recound method requested by both parties at the time Bush won, and in much larger numbers (between 154 and 537). And since the study of the requested recount methods used a much smaller pool (since they were of candidates selected counties) the numbers can be considered more accurate.
So in summary, Bush won according to Florida law, with or without the completion of the requested recounts at the time of the election.
And as for the felons list, because of issues raised prior to the election most districts ignored those list all together so while those mistakenly stricten could in fact vote, so could legitimate felons. And most of the 'illegal' overseas votes were from persons serving in the military which, because of mailing standards, due not always receive postmarks (which was the main point of contention). These votes are pretty much uniformly accepted country wide.
You did leave out the part about the news stations declaring the polls closed before the polls in the heavily republican districts of the pan handle actually were. That alone could account for hundreds, if not thousands of votes, mostly Republican.
The general point is, it was a screwed up election,which is what happens when you have a constitution that puts the responsibility of setting election guidlines to the various states, and I'm sure we'll all live to see many more screwed up elections but that one happened 8 years ago so everyone just needs to get over it.
The 14 cases in Ohio were all people who spent at most 30 days in the state. In one case the person went to Ohio, registered and requested an absentee ballot and voted all within 1 week (I believe it was actually 3 days). All of his id's were for his home state and not Ohio (since he never changed anything to the Ohio residence they were renting from a friend).
As for the actual campaign worker, even the Obama campaign acknowledges he voted they just contest the definition of "Ohio resident", even though the law clearly states persons residing temporarily in the state due not constitute residents.
Now the fact they were all real people doesn't change the fact that they were all registered illegally and therefore voted illegally.
Talking about long lines, due to the American system in which districts are generally run by one of the two parties (which makes no sense at all), most of these urban areas with problems are in democratic controlled districts where everything from funding, training, choice of ballot and machine are controlled by the Dems. It can't be helped if democratic politicians can't get their acts toegether to run a simple election. The butterfly ballot being a prime example of what a mess of things the wrong supervisors can make.
since every state is different it just matters where you live (or used to live).
In South Dakota, depending on the day of the month you died, then no it doesn't count. If the election happens before the state elections board discovers your dead, which is done by a automated check every couple of weeks, then it would count but in general, if they know you're dead your ballot is dismissed.
In Florida as long as you were alive when you filled in your ballot then everything is legal.
From what I could see as to the problems with voter access and understaffing it was almost entirely within Democratic controlled districts.
Since the voting districts in Florida are relatively self managing, meaning they pay for their own elections and set their own rules (although the local governments can request additional state funds if required), wouldn't this put the blame for poor voter services on the Democrats who ran those districts? The infamous Butterfly Ballot being a perfect example of how Democrats manage to screw up election they have 100% control over and yet still blame the Republicans.
Interesting definition of "supression" you have there, of course its the same one Dems use every election; "Requiring people to in any way validate their eligability to vote is supression". There is also the famous "making people stand in long lines is voter supression". In that last one the part they normally forget is that in many if not most of the areas with polling station problems are Democratically controlled. Meaning everything from which machine to use to the number ot have to the instructing of volunteers to the design of the ballot is in the hands of the local Democrats. But of course, if anything goes wrong it's all the evil Republicans fault. How many people could tell you that the infamous 'butterfly ballot' that caused so much trouble in Florida was a Democrat design run through Democrat controlled districts.
The case you linked was about requiring the Ohio Secretary of State to actually follow election law and create a link to the DMV or IRS to help validation voter registration information with at least one other verifiable data source. It was dismissed because the way the law is written, the GOP members filing the suit could not show standing in the court, meaning there was nothing wrong with the merits of the case, just that the people filing it were not the proper complaintants.
From the article itself 1/3 of new registrations in Ohio were found to have fraudulent information. And with most of the ACORN and ACORN like groups policies of deadline filing of registrations to flood the offices and reduce validation checks that can lead to a lot of inelligble people being listed on the voter rolls.
And if you want some more cases of voter fraud just check out the 14 Obama workers (one an official campaign worker and 13 others who work for an affiliated organization) who all did drive by voting. All registered to vote in Ohio (and several already did) when they had no intention of ever becoming an actual resident; a direct violation of Ohio law. They basically went to the state for 30 days to work on 'get out the vote' projects and then went home when done, making sure to vote there instead of the actual home states.
Just to get back to your first point the term 'prosecutable' is a very important. Who exactly do you prosecute when poll stations show registered votes for people who have been dead for several years? Or how about when cities have 105% voter registration? Very few cases of fraud are ever prosecuted because it's simply too hard to track down the actual culprits and Dems work as hard as possible to make sure that any effort to stop fraud up front are stopped dead in it's tracks.
Honestly, how hard is it for local governements (state or municple) to simply hire people to go door to door and register people and then offer a way for people who were missed to obtain registration papers later and then require some form of ID (either license or even a power bill with your address on it) to prove your identity when you show up at the polling station. They waste enough money on other things, why not on the most fundemental aspect of a democratic society.
The problem with that thinking is that people are stuck on the concept of physically showing up to vote. As most states have some form of absentee voting system many of these fraudulent registrations can lead to actual votes.
There have already been reported cases of dead people voting through absentee ballots both federally and in the primaries.
Two words for this line of thinking: Absentee ballot.
Registration fraud is not just about making it possible to walk in and vote illegally in person, it also about just getting on the rolls so that a ballot can be requested by mail. And with the minimal validations being enforced in most states, it's not all that hard to do. There have already been reported cases of dead people having already voted, both federally and in the primaries.
Then of course there is the drive by voting trend that seems to be becoming more popular where people just enter a state long enough to register vote and leave (in direct violation of state voting laws). At least 14 cases have already been well documented (one an official Obama campaign worker and 13 others in an Obama associated 'get out the vote' group).
But to be fair in this stories case, this was more about a voter registration group just bulk mailing forms.
And how exactly is Abortion Rights less liberal than pro-choice? If anything the former more strongly implies that abortions are a good thing (not the actual procedure but the unfettered access).
And "Anti-abortion rights" is actually a pretty common used term when referring to pro-life in articles.
And yes, if you use the term anti-gun control it is favoring the gun control side. Since gun control is an actual constitutional right clearly stated out your example actually proves my point. By referring to people who directly oppose the 2nd amendment as 'Gun control' activists they are softening their side, and I have no issue with that. Technically they are "anti-2nd ammendment" activist but once again, that doesn't sound good and is also not the way they self describe.
Whenever you routinely take one side of an issue and refer to them as the anti- side you are by default claiming the pro side as the norm. It's not a hard concept to understand.
According to Pew 35% of National journalists self desribe themselves as liberal, 7% as conservative.
And thats just their admitted bias but in studies of voting patterns, of which there have also been many, journalist has consistently voted Democrat even when the vast majority of the populace has voted Republican, upwards of 80%. I'm running to a movie so here is a link referencing the other studies.
The 80% number is also pretty consistent with donation patterns among journalists as well as journalism professors.
And just to get back to the point, of all media sources the New York Times was the one rated as the most liberal by the journalists themselves, even those who refuse to admit their liberal ideology while only voting for the most liberal candidates.
So basically this just fits in nicely with all the studies that find that liberals have a harder time identifying liberal bias either externally or their own; some of which are linked above.
So according to this logic because I hold 2 degrees, live in my nations capital, and have traveled to London, Paris, Switzerland, Italy and Monte Carlo my opinion can not be questioned for any reason.
Perhaps you are willing to surrender your free will to you perceived betters, but I tend to look more at the empirical evidence and make up my own mind. But to each his or her own.
And for a very simple example of how liberal bias has manage to infiltrate the media all you have to do is look at the AP style book; the guide used by all journalists for the Associated Press.
abortion: Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions; use a term such as abortion doctor or abortion practitioner.
By defining one of the two side of a issue as the "anti" side you are taking an obvious position. The same problem would have been true if they had gone with Pro-life and anti-life (which would just as clearly fit the definition of the purpose of an abortion). It's a small example but I believe a very clear one as to how simple it is to slip bias into the media.
If you look above you can see polls done by a variety of non-partisan agencies, uniformly showing a perceived liberal bias.
Using studies and reports from one a single admittedly "progressive" media watchdog organization does not really do too much to strengthen you case.
Those were only a small sample of the reports and polls I found with a simple search but if the source was decidedly conservative I excluded them, no matter how valid their methodology, simply because I was looking for unbiased sources.
Surprisingly, in all of the studies I looked at none found a widespread conservative bias.
I didn't think that FDR reference was that well hidden in my comment.
âoeWhen the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didnâ(TM)t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.â
For those historically challenged, the market crashed during Hoovers admin in 1929. Second, TVs weren't commercially available till 1939.
This is not a new thing for Biden, he has a long track record of making up stories and facts when they are needed, even very personal ones. Google his stories about his wifes accident and his campaign against drinking and driving (alcohol played no part in the tragic accident).
It's much the same as Obama's tendency to insert himself into historical moments or create ties to historical characters; Selma, the Kennedy's being the most blatant lies.
And as for the debate itself: - On the more personal front, the restaurant he mentioned on his many voyages throughout his home town closed 15 years ago.
- On meeting with Ahmedinijad: Barack has repeatedly said he would meet unconditionally with the Iranian President; in one case asked if he still felt that way directly by a reporter and after directly naming the Iranian President in the question. His website still list meetings with no preconditions as a policy.
- On the General's quote about using surge tactics in Afghanistan. The General did in fact say may facets of the Iraqi surge would work there just that it would have to be customized for the region; exactly as Palin said.
- His entire story about kicking Hezbollah out of Lebanon.
- Many of the positions he stated for bills he, Obama and McCain were present for were inaccurate. Often changing McCain's vote to the opposite of what it was.
And that's after I give him stretches like the often repeated 4 billion in Oil industry tax cuts by McCain because it's technically true. The part he leaves out is that McCain is not offering any tax cuts specifically for the oil industry, he is simply proposing to cut the corporate tax rate by 10% across the board.
These studies are not too hard to find. Just Google media bias and they pop up all over the place. The Media bias Wiki page also references some more studies.
But at least with Biden you'll always have the suprise as to what fact he'll make up on the spot next.
Like in many of his, speeches several of these spontaneous facts showed up last night so part of the fun in watching is just trying to figure out what statements he's making are real and what ones are simply pulled out of his hat. Not an easy thing to do since he can be just as forceful and passionate while defending a completly made up fact as a legitimate one.
Voting records, policy stances, even the existance of a diner that he visits all the time are all very flexible facts when he starts talking. His FDR TV address during the Great Depression answer to a Couric question the other day is just a glowing example of a standard Bidenism.
And yet every poll shows that more and more people see a very liberal bias in the media, and according to a Rasmussen poll from last year, the Times is seen as the most liberal (of included newspapers) with over 40% perceiving a liberal bias and just 20% seeing it as objective (11% thought it was conservative).
The bias is so obvious to people that it was the only paper to actually be rated as having a more liberal bias than conservative one by liberals themselves, and they as a group see every media outlet as having a conservative bias.
So I guess it's pretty easy to see what side of the political divide you call on.
But hey, those are just the trends in pretty much every published media related poll so I guess the pollsters are just having problems finding those people who have your "reasonable" standards.
Except for the fact that the current crisis has little to do with deregulations or Haliburton and Oil and everything to do with the feds need to impose their will on the free markets, you're right on; oh wait that was your entire argument.
This mess was started with the CRA which was passed under Carter and made worse through the various programs that allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to effectively rewrite the lending rules all on their own. Instead of people receiving loans based on their ability to repay, pressure was placed on banks to give loans based on race and financial status (and not in a good way).
CRA scores were used to prevent banks from expanding or merging making it almost a business requirement to give out loans to poorer or minority apllicants in order to get your score to an 'acceptable' level. ACORN was one of the leaders in applying this type of pressure. In fact, training the very people who helped make this a problem was one of Obama's 'community organizer' jobs (google Madeline Talbott).
Added to that was the gov't, through Freddie and Fannie, creating a market for what was essentially bad paper, by buying everything they could in order to raise homeownership rates (a policy started under Clinton but continued through Bush). A nice idea but not a very economically sound one.
Of course, for the past 8 years every time legislation for any oversight or any type of controls over Freddie and Fannie's out of control spending was raised (by Senate and House Republican's including John McCain and even the President) with this very problem being predicted, house Democrats killed the bills and claimed everything was good. That may have something to do with the excessive amounts of donations made to them from Freddie and Fannie employees and PACs or it may have to do with the fact that most Freddie and Fannie execs just happen to be Democrats.
And for the record, Haliburton has always received no-bid contracts, even under the Clinton administration. It has something to do with the fact they are one of only a very small number of companies in the world capable of providing the special services they do; in some situations they are the only company. That's not to say it's a good or bad policy, just that it's a fact. Sometimes the government needs something done quickly and spending 6-12 months running through the standard procedures just doesn't work.
By Clarke's own account Bush increased CIA resouces for the purposes of anti-terrorism 5 fold. But besides that point you are talking about one man, out of thousands, that are advising the President on all range of issues foreign and domestic every day. Many of his suggestions pre-9/11 were valuable, but many weren't (in early '99 he was one of the main proponents for a Bin Laden/Saddam connection). Even with all of Clarke's suggestions in place there was really nothing that would have uncovered or prevented the September 11 attacks. As I've said in another response, hindsight is 20/20. You can always use past event to pick out who was right or wrong for a specific situation but that doesn't necessarily help you with making decisions for the future.
As for the rest of your points, I'm thinking you are confusing the position of POTUS with Superman. Due to the nature of the makeup of the various branches of government in the US the President is actually relatively powerless to act without approval from some other branch.
In the case of Katrina, even with the declaration of the area as a national disaster, almost all legal power is still within the hands of the governor. And in New Orleans case Blanco did her very best to make matters bad as possible. Excluding members of FEMA and other aid agencies from almost all high level meetings, holding political meetings while people were awaiting orders, refusing to nationalize the National Guard; which she was asked to do, by the President, prior to landfall and for several days afterward). Even the Red Cross put a post up on their site directly attributing problems they were having in getting necessary resources to the city with their dealings with the governors office. Why do you think all the other impacted states didn't have half the trouble LA did. The press didn't help much either in that their almost uniformly false reports of snipers and murders made it impossible for rescue workers to get permission to enter certain parts of the city for fear that they too would become victims.
FEMA definately didn't do their best work but as they, up to that point, were considered an aftermath assistance department and not a first responder (which was how the press and various politicians redefined their mission after the fact) they were being held to an impossible level of expectations. In fact they were on the scene faster than for most of the hurricanes in Florida, even though they were covering a much wider area. As for the clean up process, a bill was passed handing billions to the area, so unless you expect the President to go down and lay carpetting himself (which you'll then complain about as he won't be in the oval office to also change the copier toner or whatever other crisis is 100% his responsibility according to your determination) there is not much else he could do.
As for the economy, I suppose you missed both the President as well as several Republican members of the the various houses, including John McCain, making statements and pushing legislation to try and pull back on the reins of Freddie and Fannie as far back as 2000 and I believe as recently as last year, even mentioning the pending sub prime mortage crisis directly. Of course it's understandable that you never heard of these attempts because in each and every case the Democratic leadership made sure that no legislation was passed that in any way restricted the actions of one of their largest sources of campaign income. And despite what you seem to think, the President, even if he has the will, has no way of actually passing any legislation without the support of both houses.
I've never understood Americans who place all the blame on the shoulders of the President for anything that goes wrong but are then more than willing to lay praises on their elected officials at every other level when things go right. From a legal viewpoint the American President is little more than a figurehead whose only real legislative power is the ability to veto which can be overturned
You people really need to get out of Daily Kos kool-aid swamps.
You try and make it sound like there was actual intel pointing to an attack when the text of the "Bin Laden determined" memo, as well as most verbal warnings by the accounts of those who gave them, were very much filled with generallities, and only included concepts that had been repeated since '97.
Hindsight is 20/20 but that shouldn't lead to trying to re-write the actual events that occured pre-9/11. By September 11th, Bush had been President for about 234 days yet your expectations are that he could have completly overhauled the entire US intelligence community in that time, while also handling everything else, all based on what was effectively 4 year old intel just re-submitted.
And please don't try and bring up the whole vacation meme again. You make it sould like a President simply goes to club med for a week and turns off his phone where the real truth is that with the exception of face to face visits, which aren't all that common anyway, all of the President's "vacation" homes are heavily equipped with telecommunications eq to handle all of his need and he still receives all his daily briefings while there.
There were also several successful terrorist attacks under Clinton; WTC in 1993, Oklahoma City in 1995, various military bases, embassies and US residential areas in various countries, USS Cole in 2000. So what was your point again?
And no ones knows exactly what Bin Laden was thinking. Most likely he was expecting what had become the standard response of only targetting those directly involved in the attack and generally ignoring the higher ups and their enablers so that they could sit back and plan their next attack. But again, no one besides Bin Laden (if he is even still breathing) and the goats he is sharing his cave with know what he's thinking.
As for being a success, I doubt the complete decimation of Al Queda was high up on Bin Ladens list of objectives but he seems to have made it happen none the less.
The gist of the memo was Bin Laden doesn't like us and since 1997 has been looking for a way to hit the US directly. That's it.
No details, no leads, just a summation that he may possibly want to hijack a plane to be used as a negotiating tool (not as a weapon) or perhaps do something else, like a truck bomb. As far as I know most people boarding planes were being searched for what was considered dangerous weapons prior September 11th, so what were they suppose to do with such general 4 year old intel? What difference would anyone else sitting at that desk make?
There was also a call to create a Department of Homeland Security like agency, but anyone who believes that an entirely new governmental department created in the summer of 2001 could have done anything to prevent an attack in the fall of 2001 is delusional at best. The way government works I doubt a director could have even been named and vetted through congress by that time.
9/11 would have happened on anyone's watch. The fact of the matter was that due to walls put up between different intelligence departments at all level of government knowledge sharing was not an easy thing to do. So even if one group had information on a suspicious activity, if it did not fall directly under their authority to act on it they couldn't really tell anyone about it.
That has since been changed but we are seeing the result right now, and the reasoning behind the walls in the first place. Attacks are down, or non-existant, but criminal cases are in serious doubt because not all manner or intel gathering comply with what are considered criminal rights.
Or do you seriously believe that if someone just sends out a memo "crooks determined to steal stuff in Los Angeles" the mayor will, with the flick of his pen, be able to drop the crime rate down to zero?
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There is also the issue that in Canada we only vote for our local representative. No ballot iniatiatives, no Senators, no President, no dog catchers, garbage person, judges or any of the myriad of other things the various US districts see fit to put on one piece (or several pages) of paper during the most important vote in the country. So to make this 'easier' they try and come up with more 'user friendly' systems.
I'd say at least 80% of troubles could be cleared up by getting the states to set some sort of guidlines limiting federal ballots to federal positions such as just congressmen, senators and President. All other state issues should be done on a seperate ballot in any of the off years. Sure you'd have to go vote 1 more time every 2-4 years but it would save a lot of hassle. With only 2-3 things to vote for paper ballots would be much easier to handle.
Gore didn't start with that request because that's not how Florida law works
I wasn't commenting on what Gore should or shouldn't have done, merely that under every counting method put forward during the whole debacle Bush won. As for the Supreme court, their job is to interpret exisiting law, not make new ones. If Florida doesn't have provisions for a statewide recount and various districts have set deadlines then that's all they can rule on. You can complain about it all you want but the fact is, according to the non-partisan media sponsored review, that no decision made by the State or Federal courts impacted the final outcome of the 2000 election. Period. End of story.
I generally don't mention baseless Republican talking points. What did happen was some media sources erroneously called the state early for Gore, and then trampled the other way when Karl Rove's cousin called the state for Bush.
CBS alone announced 18 times that the polls were CLOSED prior to the actual closing of the panhandle districts. Not that the vote was going one way or another but that the polling stations were closed. And every other major network also repeatedly announced the poll closures. It's not a 'talking point' it's fact and not open to interpretation. The networks even admitted it on their post election reviews.
On the economy, you can blame a lot of people for the current mess but most of the leaders involved do not have a "R" after their name in the House registry. From preventing any oversight into the insane (and often illegal) actions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to raising the miminum wage by $2 (increasing minimum wages, especially by such a large number, has almost universally led to a slow down in employment as was the case after the Dems passed their bill), Democrats have done all they could to hurt the economy. Even Bill Clinton has come out complaining about how the Democrats have worked for the last decade to prevent anyone putting any restrictions on Freddie and Fannie.
As for Katrina, could you remind me as to the party affiliation of the Mayor and Governor who have the actual legal responsibility to handle the disaster as dictated by the Constitution? Despite what you may think, the President doesn't actually have any legal standing to send national troops into a state uninvited. They can simply provide service and support on request and in many instances those services were either not requested or directly interferred with for political gain by the Governor's office (just check out the Red Cross's experieces with Blanco). That's not to say things went peachy on the Federal side, but as FEMA is not a first responder agency, it wasn't actually their responsibility to do many of the things they were being held accountable for. And even to give Blanco a bit of cover, the problem was made even worse by an overzealous media that continually hampered rescue efforts by reporting unsubstantiated stories and rumors as fact (most have since been debunked but only after the damage had been done). It's hard to send in a rescue crew into an area when CNN/FOX etc are reporting what turns out to be non-existant sniper fire.
Of course I'm not expecting too much from someone whose entire ability to analyze a situation seems to be based on a Stephen Colbert joke. But then again, I guess people like you do tend to see a liberal bias in your reality since you seem to just reject out of hand any facts that don't fit your already fixed picture of the world.
Well you're both right.
The full report says that if a full recount had taken place Gore may have won by between 60 and 171 votes. Of course the report also found a statistically signifigant variation within their own examiners as to who counted what as a mark or intent to vote. For example, men tended to include marks that women didn't. There were also over 2200 'problem' ballots that could not be found. So the full recount totals are highly debateable due to the large pool (over 171,000 votes) and the tiny differences.
However, no such count was ever formally requested and under every recound method requested by both parties at the time Bush won, and in much larger numbers (between 154 and 537). And since the study of the requested recount methods used a much smaller pool (since they were of candidates selected counties) the numbers can be considered more accurate.
So in summary, Bush won according to Florida law, with or without the completion of the requested recounts at the time of the election.
And as for the felons list, because of issues raised prior to the election most districts ignored those list all together so while those mistakenly stricten could in fact vote, so could legitimate felons. And most of the 'illegal' overseas votes were from persons serving in the military which, because of mailing standards, due not always receive postmarks (which was the main point of contention). These votes are pretty much uniformly accepted country wide.
You did leave out the part about the news stations declaring the polls closed before the polls in the heavily republican districts of the pan handle actually were. That alone could account for hundreds, if not thousands of votes, mostly Republican.
The general point is, it was a screwed up election ,which is what happens when you have a constitution that puts the responsibility of setting election guidlines to the various states, and I'm sure we'll all live to see many more screwed up elections but that one happened 8 years ago so everyone just needs to get over it.
The 14 cases in Ohio were all people who spent at most 30 days in the state. In one case the person went to Ohio, registered and requested an absentee ballot and voted all within 1 week (I believe it was actually 3 days). All of his id's were for his home state and not Ohio (since he never changed anything to the Ohio residence they were renting from a friend).
As for the actual campaign worker, even the Obama campaign acknowledges he voted they just contest the definition of "Ohio resident", even though the law clearly states persons residing temporarily in the state due not constitute residents.
Now the fact they were all real people doesn't change the fact that they were all registered illegally and therefore voted illegally.
Talking about long lines, due to the American system in which districts are generally run by one of the two parties (which makes no sense at all), most of these urban areas with problems are in democratic controlled districts where everything from funding, training, choice of ballot and machine are controlled by the Dems. It can't be helped if democratic politicians can't get their acts toegether to run a simple election. The butterfly ballot being a prime example of what a mess of things the wrong supervisors can make.
Short answer: sometimes.
since every state is different it just matters where you live (or used to live).
In South Dakota, depending on the day of the month you died, then no it doesn't count. If the election happens before the state elections board discovers your dead, which is done by a automated check every couple of weeks, then it would count but in general, if they know you're dead your ballot is dismissed.
In Florida as long as you were alive when you filled in your ballot then everything is legal.
From what I could see as to the problems with voter access and understaffing it was almost entirely within Democratic controlled districts.
Since the voting districts in Florida are relatively self managing, meaning they pay for their own elections and set their own rules (although the local governments can request additional state funds if required), wouldn't this put the blame for poor voter services on the Democrats who ran those districts? The infamous Butterfly Ballot being a perfect example of how Democrats manage to screw up election they have 100% control over and yet still blame the Republicans.
Interesting definition of "supression" you have there, of course its the same one Dems use every election; "Requiring people to in any way validate their eligability to vote is supression". There is also the famous "making people stand in long lines is voter supression". In that last one the part they normally forget is that in many if not most of the areas with polling station problems are Democratically controlled. Meaning everything from which machine to use to the number ot have to the instructing of volunteers to the design of the ballot is in the hands of the local Democrats. But of course, if anything goes wrong it's all the evil Republicans fault. How many people could tell you that the infamous 'butterfly ballot' that caused so much trouble in Florida was a Democrat design run through Democrat controlled districts.
The case you linked was about requiring the Ohio Secretary of State to actually follow election law and create a link to the DMV or IRS to help validation voter registration information with at least one other verifiable data source. It was dismissed because the way the law is written, the GOP members filing the suit could not show standing in the court, meaning there was nothing wrong with the merits of the case, just that the people filing it were not the proper complaintants.
From the article itself 1/3 of new registrations in Ohio were found to have fraudulent information. And with most of the ACORN and ACORN like groups policies of deadline filing of registrations to flood the offices and reduce validation checks that can lead to a lot of inelligble people being listed on the voter rolls.
And if you want some more cases of voter fraud just check out the 14 Obama workers (one an official campaign worker and 13 others who work for an affiliated organization) who all did drive by voting. All registered to vote in Ohio (and several already did) when they had no intention of ever becoming an actual resident; a direct violation of Ohio law. They basically went to the state for 30 days to work on 'get out the vote' projects and then went home when done, making sure to vote there instead of the actual home states.
Just to get back to your first point the term 'prosecutable' is a very important. Who exactly do you prosecute when poll stations show registered votes for people who have been dead for several years? Or how about when cities have 105% voter registration? Very few cases of fraud are ever prosecuted because it's simply too hard to track down the actual culprits and Dems work as hard as possible to make sure that any effort to stop fraud up front are stopped dead in it's tracks.
Honestly, how hard is it for local governements (state or municple) to simply hire people to go door to door and register people and then offer a way for people who were missed to obtain registration papers later and then require some form of ID (either license or even a power bill with your address on it) to prove your identity when you show up at the polling station. They waste enough money on other things, why not on the most fundemental aspect of a democratic society.
The problem with that thinking is that people are stuck on the concept of physically showing up to vote. As most states have some form of absentee voting system many of these fraudulent registrations can lead to actual votes.
There have already been reported cases of dead people voting through absentee ballots both federally and in the primaries.
Two words for this line of thinking: Absentee ballot.
Registration fraud is not just about making it possible to walk in and vote illegally in person, it also about just getting on the rolls so that a ballot can be requested by mail. And with the minimal validations being enforced in most states, it's not all that hard to do. There have already been reported cases of dead people having already voted, both federally and in the primaries.
Then of course there is the drive by voting trend that seems to be becoming more popular where people just enter a state long enough to register vote and leave (in direct violation of state voting laws). At least 14 cases have already been well documented (one an official Obama campaign worker and 13 others in an Obama associated 'get out the vote' group).
But to be fair in this stories case, this was more about a voter registration group just bulk mailing forms.
And how exactly is Abortion Rights less liberal than pro-choice? If anything the former more strongly implies that abortions are a good thing (not the actual procedure but the unfettered access).
And "Anti-abortion rights" is actually a pretty common used term when referring to pro-life in articles.
And yes, if you use the term anti-gun control it is favoring the gun control side. Since gun control is an actual constitutional right clearly stated out your example actually proves my point. By referring to people who directly oppose the 2nd amendment as 'Gun control' activists they are softening their side, and I have no issue with that. Technically they are "anti-2nd ammendment" activist but once again, that doesn't sound good and is also not the way they self describe.
Whenever you routinely take one side of an issue and refer to them as the anti- side you are by default claiming the pro side as the norm. It's not a hard concept to understand.
According to Pew 35% of National journalists self desribe themselves as liberal, 7% as conservative.
And thats just their admitted bias but in studies of voting patterns, of which there have also been many, journalist has consistently voted Democrat even when the vast majority of the populace has voted Republican, upwards of 80%. I'm running to a movie so here is a link referencing the other studies.
The 80% number is also pretty consistent with donation patterns among journalists as well as journalism professors.
And just to get back to the point, of all media sources the New York Times was the one rated as the most liberal by the journalists themselves, even those who refuse to admit their liberal ideology while only voting for the most liberal candidates.
So basically this just fits in nicely with all the studies that find that liberals have a harder time identifying liberal bias either externally or their own; some of which are linked above.
If it walks like a duck...
So according to this logic because I hold 2 degrees, live in my nations capital, and have traveled to London, Paris, Switzerland, Italy and Monte Carlo my opinion can not be questioned for any reason.
Perhaps you are willing to surrender your free will to you perceived betters, but I tend to look more at the empirical evidence and make up my own mind. But to each his or her own.
And for a very simple example of how liberal bias has manage to infiltrate the media all you have to do is look at the AP style book; the guide used by all journalists for the Associated Press.
abortion: Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions; use a term such as abortion doctor
or abortion practitioner.
By defining one of the two side of a issue as the "anti" side you are taking an obvious position. The same problem would have been true if they had gone with Pro-life and anti-life (which would just as clearly fit the definition of the purpose of an abortion). It's a small example but I believe a very clear one as to how simple it is to slip bias into the media.
If you look above you can see polls done by a variety of non-partisan agencies, uniformly showing a perceived liberal bias.
Using studies and reports from one a single admittedly "progressive" media watchdog organization does not really do too much to strengthen you case.
Those were only a small sample of the reports and polls I found with a simple search but if the source was decidedly conservative I excluded them, no matter how valid their methodology, simply because I was looking for unbiased sources.
Surprisingly, in all of the studies I looked at none found a widespread conservative bias.
Sorry too much cutting and pasting on the way out of the office.
I think this was the link to the Pew study from above.
I didn't think that FDR reference was that well hidden in my comment.
âoeWhen the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didnâ(TM)t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed.â
For those historically challenged, the market crashed during Hoovers admin in 1929. Second, TVs weren't commercially available till 1939.
This is not a new thing for Biden, he has a long track record of making up stories and facts when they are needed, even very personal ones. Google his stories about his wifes accident and his campaign against drinking and driving (alcohol played no part in the tragic accident).
It's much the same as Obama's tendency to insert himself into historical moments or create ties to historical characters; Selma, the Kennedy's being the most blatant lies.
And as for the debate itself:
- On the more personal front, the restaurant he mentioned on his many voyages throughout his home town closed 15 years ago.
- On meeting with Ahmedinijad: Barack has repeatedly said he would meet unconditionally with the Iranian President; in one case asked if he still felt that way directly by a reporter and after directly naming the Iranian President in the question. His website still list meetings with no preconditions as a policy.
- On the General's quote about using surge tactics in Afghanistan. The General did in fact say may facets of the Iraqi surge would work there just that it would have to be customized for the region; exactly as Palin said.
- His entire story about kicking Hezbollah out of Lebanon.
- Many of the positions he stated for bills he, Obama and McCain were present for were inaccurate. Often changing McCain's vote to the opposite of what it was.
And that's after I give him stretches like the often repeated 4 billion in Oil industry tax cuts by McCain because it's technically true. The part he leaves out is that McCain is not offering any tax cuts specifically for the oil industry, he is simply proposing to cut the corporate tax rate by 10% across the board.
I believe this is the summary you're looking for. You'll have to dig a bit deeper to see the actual questions.
A Rasmussen report on just the NYT favorability ratings. Lots of interesting numbers in that one, none of which looks good for the Times.
A Rasmussen poll specificall about this election: 49/14 Media will actively try to help Obama/McCain
Here's a Zogby poll summary from last year: results 64/28 liberal/conservative bias.
From the Pew report. The Times is rated at 18% for credability.
Another Rasmussen report that shows over 50% believe the media tried to activly hurt Palin.
A write up of a Harvard study with some other studies referenced at the bottom.
These studies are not too hard to find. Just Google media bias and they pop up all over the place. The Media bias Wiki page also references some more studies.
But at least with Biden you'll always have the suprise as to what fact he'll make up on the spot next.
Like in many of his, speeches several of these spontaneous facts showed up last night so part of the fun in watching is just trying to figure out what statements he's making are real and what ones are simply pulled out of his hat. Not an easy thing to do since he can be just as forceful and passionate while defending a completly made up fact as a legitimate one.
Voting records, policy stances, even the existance of a diner that he visits all the time are all very flexible facts when he starts talking. His FDR TV address during the Great Depression answer to a Couric question the other day is just a glowing example of a standard Bidenism.
And yet every poll shows that more and more people see a very liberal bias in the media, and according to a Rasmussen poll from last year, the Times is seen as the most liberal (of included newspapers) with over 40% perceiving a liberal bias and just 20% seeing it as objective (11% thought it was conservative).
The bias is so obvious to people that it was the only paper to actually be rated as having a more liberal bias than conservative one by liberals themselves, and they as a group see every media outlet as having a conservative bias.
So I guess it's pretty easy to see what side of the political divide you call on.
But hey, those are just the trends in pretty much every published media related poll so I guess the pollsters are just having problems finding those people who have your "reasonable" standards.
Except for the fact that the current crisis has little to do with deregulations or Haliburton and Oil and everything to do with the feds need to impose their will on the free markets, you're right on; oh wait that was your entire argument.
This mess was started with the CRA which was passed under Carter and made worse through the various programs that allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to effectively rewrite the lending rules all on their own. Instead of people receiving loans based on their ability to repay, pressure was placed on banks to give loans based on race and financial status (and not in a good way).
CRA scores were used to prevent banks from expanding or merging making it almost a business requirement to give out loans to poorer or minority apllicants in order to get your score to an 'acceptable' level. ACORN was one of the leaders in applying this type of pressure. In fact, training the very people who helped make this a problem was one of Obama's 'community organizer' jobs (google Madeline Talbott).
Added to that was the gov't, through Freddie and Fannie, creating a market for what was essentially bad paper, by buying everything they could in order to raise homeownership rates (a policy started under Clinton but continued through Bush). A nice idea but not a very economically sound one.
Of course, for the past 8 years every time legislation for any oversight or any type of controls over Freddie and Fannie's out of control spending was raised (by Senate and House Republican's including John McCain and even the President) with this very problem being predicted, house Democrats killed the bills and claimed everything was good. That may have something to do with the excessive amounts of donations made to them from Freddie and Fannie employees and PACs or it may have to do with the fact that most Freddie and Fannie execs just happen to be Democrats.
And for the record, Haliburton has always received no-bid contracts, even under the Clinton administration. It has something to do with the fact they are one of only a very small number of companies in the world capable of providing the special services they do; in some situations they are the only company. That's not to say it's a good or bad policy, just that it's a fact. Sometimes the government needs something done quickly and spending 6-12 months running through the standard procedures just doesn't work.
By Clarke's own account Bush increased CIA resouces for the purposes of anti-terrorism 5 fold. But besides that point you are talking about one man, out of thousands, that are advising the President on all range of issues foreign and domestic every day. Many of his suggestions pre-9/11 were valuable, but many weren't (in early '99 he was one of the main proponents for a Bin Laden/Saddam connection). Even with all of Clarke's suggestions in place there was really nothing that would have uncovered or prevented the September 11 attacks. As I've said in another response, hindsight is 20/20. You can always use past event to pick out who was right or wrong for a specific situation but that doesn't necessarily help you with making decisions for the future.
As for the rest of your points, I'm thinking you are confusing the position of POTUS with Superman. Due to the nature of the makeup of the various branches of government in the US the President is actually relatively powerless to act without approval from some other branch.
In the case of Katrina, even with the declaration of the area as a national disaster, almost all legal power is still within the hands of the governor. And in New Orleans case Blanco did her very best to make matters bad as possible. Excluding members of FEMA and other aid agencies from almost all high level meetings, holding political meetings while people were awaiting orders, refusing to nationalize the National Guard; which she was asked to do, by the President, prior to landfall and for several days afterward). Even the Red Cross put a post up on their site directly attributing problems they were having in getting necessary resources to the city with their dealings with the governors office. Why do you think all the other impacted states didn't have half the trouble LA did. The press didn't help much either in that their almost uniformly false reports of snipers and murders made it impossible for rescue workers to get permission to enter certain parts of the city for fear that they too would become victims.
FEMA definately didn't do their best work but as they, up to that point, were considered an aftermath assistance department and not a first responder (which was how the press and various politicians redefined their mission after the fact) they were being held to an impossible level of expectations. In fact they were on the scene faster than for most of the hurricanes in Florida, even though they were covering a much wider area. As for the clean up process, a bill was passed handing billions to the area, so unless you expect the President to go down and lay carpetting himself (which you'll then complain about as he won't be in the oval office to also change the copier toner or whatever other crisis is 100% his responsibility according to your determination) there is not much else he could do.
As for the economy, I suppose you missed both the President as well as several Republican members of the the various houses, including John McCain, making statements and pushing legislation to try and pull back on the reins of Freddie and Fannie as far back as 2000 and I believe as recently as last year, even mentioning the pending sub prime mortage crisis directly. Of course it's understandable that you never heard of these attempts because in each and every case the Democratic leadership made sure that no legislation was passed that in any way restricted the actions of one of their largest sources of campaign income. And despite what you seem to think, the President, even if he has the will, has no way of actually passing any legislation without the support of both houses.
I've never understood Americans who place all the blame on the shoulders of the President for anything that goes wrong but are then more than willing to lay praises on their elected officials at every other level when things go right. From a legal viewpoint the American President is little more than a figurehead whose only real legislative power is the ability to veto which can be overturned
You people really need to get out of Daily Kos kool-aid swamps.
You try and make it sound like there was actual intel pointing to an attack when the text of the "Bin Laden determined" memo, as well as most verbal warnings by the accounts of those who gave them, were very much filled with generallities, and only included concepts that had been repeated since '97.
Hindsight is 20/20 but that shouldn't lead to trying to re-write the actual events that occured pre-9/11. By September 11th, Bush had been President for about 234 days yet your expectations are that he could have completly overhauled the entire US intelligence community in that time, while also handling everything else, all based on what was effectively 4 year old intel just re-submitted.
And please don't try and bring up the whole vacation meme again. You make it sould like a President simply goes to club med for a week and turns off his phone where the real truth is that with the exception of face to face visits, which aren't all that common anyway, all of the President's "vacation" homes are heavily equipped with telecommunications eq to handle all of his need and he still receives all his daily briefings while there.
There were also several successful terrorist attacks under Clinton; WTC in 1993, Oklahoma City in 1995, various military bases, embassies and US residential areas in various countries, USS Cole in 2000. So what was your point again?
And no ones knows exactly what Bin Laden was thinking. Most likely he was expecting what had become the standard response of only targetting those directly involved in the attack and generally ignoring the higher ups and their enablers so that they could sit back and plan their next attack. But again, no one besides Bin Laden (if he is even still breathing) and the goats he is sharing his cave with know what he's thinking.
As for being a success, I doubt the complete decimation of Al Queda was high up on Bin Ladens list of objectives but he seems to have made it happen none the less.
The gist of the memo was Bin Laden doesn't like us and since 1997 has been looking for a way to hit the US directly. That's it.
No details, no leads, just a summation that he may possibly want to hijack a plane to be used as a negotiating tool (not as a weapon) or perhaps do something else, like a truck bomb. As far as I know most people boarding planes were being searched for what was considered dangerous weapons prior September 11th, so what were they suppose to do with such general 4 year old intel? What difference would anyone else sitting at that desk make?
There was also a call to create a Department of Homeland Security like agency, but anyone who believes that an entirely new governmental department created in the summer of 2001 could have done anything to prevent an attack in the fall of 2001 is delusional at best. The way government works I doubt a director could have even been named and vetted through congress by that time.
9/11 would have happened on anyone's watch. The fact of the matter was that due to walls put up between different intelligence departments at all level of government knowledge sharing was not an easy thing to do. So even if one group had information on a suspicious activity, if it did not fall directly under their authority to act on it they couldn't really tell anyone about it.
That has since been changed but we are seeing the result right now, and the reasoning behind the walls in the first place. Attacks are down, or non-existant, but criminal cases are in serious doubt because not all manner or intel gathering comply with what are considered criminal rights.
Or do you seriously believe that if someone just sends out a memo "crooks determined to steal stuff in Los Angeles" the mayor will, with the flick of his pen, be able to drop the crime rate down to zero?