Florida law states that the Sec. of State had the authority to declare the winner at a certain point. She did.
You're ignoring the Florida law that allows for recounts in the event of a close election.
That didn't sit well with Gore, who sued.
Nope. Bush was the first to file a lawsuit.
The State supreme court ruled that that law didn't apply, but then didn't come up with an alternate method to meet the 200+ year old timeline other than "keep counting".
Um, no. As best as they were able to determine the intent of the voter, and all that.
Was it equitable? Pehaps not. But Gore's plan - remember, he was the one who was suing, so he needs to ask for specific relief - was designed around NOT counting every vote equally: he requested only certain counties be recounted, and not the rest.
Gore was following state law, which allowed for recounts but on a per-county basis. There weren't provisions for a statewide recount.
And when asked, point blank if the votes would be counted by the same criteria, Gore's lawyer didn't even equivocate - he just said "No."
Of course wildly different methods of voting are going to have different criteria. Opscan ballots aren't going to have problems with hanging chads, for example.
Add to this the fact that Gore used up the normal period allotted to contest the election by tryiong to game the recount - remember, some counties and not others - put them close to the electoral college deadline.
Um, no. The only date that matters is when Congress meets in January to certify the electors. There is already precedent for this, when in 1960 Hawaii's votes were first certified for Nixon but a recount showed they should have gone to Kennedy.
Should the electoral college be abolished? Yes, but it's not like Gore was ignoring it - he campaigned much harder in the heavy electoral states than the light ones, so it's not like he had that big a problem with it before it bit him in the ass. He bought into the system - he was just pissed that the check came due and he had to pay.
What are you talking about? He won the popular vote by 500,000 votes and should have won the electoral vote as well. It was the Republicans where worried about the opposite situation, where Bush won the popular vote but Gore took the EC.
In fact, pretty much the only way Gore would have lost was by sticking to his four-county plan.
And the reason he was going for recounts in certain counties rather than a statewide recount is because Florida allowed for the former, but did not have provisions for the latter.
I'm sick of pedants dodging the fact that the US Supreme Court forced the election to be halted when they could have remanded the case back to the state court with instructions, or at least refused to take the case which would have forced Florida to deal with it themselves which would have properly kept it a state issue for Florida to wring their hands over without dragging the rest of the country into the mess.
Yup. And there was already precedent for such a delay: when Hawaii's electoral votes were delayed during Nixon's election. The only date that matters is when Congress meets in January.
Yes, there was displeasure with the Bush Administration's policy; however, the American public doesn't want to see a pullout that would make the situation worse than it is.
Ah, no. The worst thing we can do is maintain the status quo. Our light force isn't stopping the violence, it's only getting killed in the violence. We either need to pull out completely, or find another 400,000 troops to send in.
Although I think most will agree that Al Gore was a good candidate, he had an absolutely horrible campaign.
No, he didn't. The media lynched Al Gore in 2000. The "he ran a bad campaign" line is a lame excuse on their part rather than face up to the fact that they screwed him and the country over. If they had given Gore a fair shake, they might have spent a little less time reporting on the "Inventing the Internet" yarn and a little more time on things like, say, George Bush taking credit during a debate for health care legislation passed in Texas that he actually vetoed as governor. If the media had given Gore a fair shake, the election wouldn't have been close.
Yar, the problem with defending the indefensible is that you make really pathetic arguments. And you are defending the indefensible. Look, this is how it works: there is probable cause that you have committed a crime. So you are brought before a court of law, where charges will be made against you, evidence presented, and you have the opportunity to defend yourself. Impeachment hearings are NO different. We have probable cause that Bush has committed crimes. So you bring impeachment hearings against him, evidence will be presented and he will have an opportunity to defend himself. Then just as in a criminal trial, the vote goes to a jury - in the case the Senate. Just what part of this is a "witch hunt"? Do you think the prosecution of Duke Cunningham was a "partisan witch hunt?" How about Ted Bundy? You break the law in this country, you have to deal with the consequences. Even if you are the President of the United States. Just what part of this do you not understand?
To use your term: straw man
Look up the definition of straw man and try again.
You say that, but you don't bring any real evidence to the table. You just say that you are certain that it must exist. Somewhere.
Oh, do pull your head out Yar. Jose Padilla, American citizen, held in solitary confinement for years with no trial, subjected to sensory deprivation. NSA wiretapping. The DOJ firing United States Attorneys because they wouldn't bring bogus voter fraud cases against Democrats just before election time. DOJ memos on torture. Signing statements. We had enough to start impeachment proceedings years ago.
Your points on socialized medicine are completely valid, and your opinion is completely reasonable. However, you have to work with people who disagree with you - and who also have completely valid and reasonable opinions.
People are entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own set of facts. And the fact is that socialized medicine is superior to what we have now.
Do you actually have anything to support this assertion? You are aware that no one can be denied emergency care, right?
Emergency rooms only have to get you patched up well enough to leave, not cure what ails you.
That you can't see the logic and reasonable side of other people's opinions is what is wrong with you.
Problem: there is nothing reasonable about shielding Bush from the consequences of his lawbreaking. There is nothing reasonable about a healthcare system where the money you pay for care is used by a middle man to find reasons to deny you the very care you are paying for. As someone once said, compromise is great when a Republican and a Democrat help a blind lady cross the street. It is not great when they smash her head in and run off with her purse because it was done with bipartisanship. And compromise is not great when they settle for merely running off with her purse instead of mashing her head as well.
In other words, there are issues where no, you do not compromise. Torture and health insurance for kids are two of them. The Democrats learned the wrong lesson from the government shutdown of 1995; they seem to think that when Congress forces an issue with the president, that Congress will lose. The real lesson is that the unpopular side will lose. Take the Iraq war for example: the vast majority of the country supports and end to the war. If Congress forced the issue by refusing to pass any funding for Iraq that did not include a firm withdrawal date, they would do so with firm backing from the public.
I don't believe you're going to see the Wii remote be the de facto controller from now on. It works well for some games, not for others.
And this is different from the mouse how? I wouldn't want to use a drawing program with a keyboard, but I also wouldn't want to use a mouse to write an essay.
But it's got a long way to go before you or anyone else claims it's as revolutionary as the mouse.
Not really. Take golf, baseball, or bowling. You can swing the Wiimote in a somewhat realistic fashion to resemble the actual motion, as opposed to twiddling a button on a controller.
Opera? Isn't that a little subversive? Reminds me of the time I saw a Bush/Cheney sticker on a Honda Insight. I wanted to stop and ask the guy if the other Republicans knew about this.
If you are seriously arguing that governments are efficient at allocating capital then we'll just have to disagree.
Then you disagree with reality. Governments do tend to be quite poor when running production on farm or factory. They do tend to do quite well when running services or promoting research. And even if Big Pharma is better on the research side, they still waste *billions* on advertising, lobbying, and making their top executives filthy rich. Why do you think that is a better allotment of capital than the government giving that money to hospitals and universities for more research?
Publicly funded research has an extremely important place in the mix but eliminating private drug R&D is hardly the solution to all our woes.
Who said anything about eliminating private R&D?
Governments arguably waste even more money.
I've always been curious by this notion that a group of individuals working in government == waste but the same group working in private industry == efficiency.
But that does not automatically mean governments will do a better job because governments have their own incentive problems.
Well, the government's priority is helping the people. A businesses 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priorities are making money.
I'm open to being convinced but I simply do not see a logical argument why a purely taxpayer funded model of drug development is clearly better than the mixed public/private model we have today.
Okay, let's say the government develops, tests and manufacturers a drug for treating Parkinson's for $900 million dollars. Then it is sold at cost through a universal health care plan. Now lets say Super Duper Pharma is able to do the same development, testing and manufacturing for a mere $200 million. But then they turn around and sell the drug for $80 million a year for the 17 year length of the patent, and use the profits to buy advertising, another congressman, and a third Bentley for the CFO. Which approach makes more sense? And this is giving Pharma a big head start.
I think your dislike of Ron Paul stems from his pro-life stance
I would be equally disparaging of anyone advocating the position that abortion two minutes before birth is A-OK because the baby hasn't been born yet. It's an asinine position, just as saying that life begins with conception. And saying that abortion should be left up to states is a valid libertarian, states rights position. Defining conception as the start of life at the *federal* level is not.
The option to tax is not the requirement to tax. The income tax was temporary on the wealthiest 5% to pay for WWI, the entry into which by the U.S. has parallels to the unethical invasion of Iraq. Repealing the income tax would just put the U.S. back to between the founding of the Constitution and WWI.
And how do propose we adjust to pre WWI spending levels? At the time, far more people worked on farms, rode horseback for transportation, and an 8th grade education was sufficient for most jobs. Our economic, infrastructure, and educational needs are somewhat greater now. And again on income disparity - eliminating the income tax eliminates most of the taxes paid by the wealthy and more of the tax burden will fall on the middle and lower classes. And given the fact that the minimum wage would be $50-$60 per hour if it had risen at the same pace as CEO pay, I'm not sure why we need to do that.
There is no need for this to be handled at the federal level -- states can handle it just fine.
Because some states wont do it. I don't think the question of whether or not a child gets treatment for diabetes or asthma should be a question of if he was born in New York or Texas.
I personally would stretch the commerce clause to cover the environment since air and water do not know state boundaries, but I can go with Ron Paul's approach of first having the federal government "do no harm", such as by eliminating corporate welfare to big oil.
Ending subsidies might mean Exxon doesn't quite make $10 billion next quarter, but it's not going to make a dent in global warming.
Going on a gold standard, as Ron Paul advocates
We are on a gold standard, of sorts: black gold. As oil is sold in dollars, it insulates our currency from wild inflationary or deflationary pressure.
As I've mentioned here before, I make 4x now as a seasoned professional than I did 20 years ago when I just graduated. Yet when using CPI computed according to pre-Greenspan formulas, it's 8% per year and I make less now than I did 20 years ago.
I imagine CEO's getting paid 400 times as much as the average worker might have something to do with that as well. Or the decline of unions. Or that you are probably getting pushed into higher tax brackets via inflation while billionaire hedge fund managers are taxed at half the rate you are.
He does not believe liberty should be extended to illegal immigrants, but would like to expand legal immigration somewhat once the incentives for illegal immigration are removed: welfare, education, healthcare, and birthright citizenship.
Which would would also deny them to regular Americans, yes? Sounds more like a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
So, every YouTube video should have a Wikipedia page? Or just all the ones with 1 million views? What about 900 thousand views? What about 9 thousand? Who gets to draw this line? Or is it just videos that you personally really really like?
Straw man. No, someone didn't write a wiki because the clip passed some magic number of hits, but because it was a popular clip based around a complete redub of an episode of a cartoon show of a cultural icon: the X-Men.
No not perjury, but in the words of Her Honor "Simply put, the president's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. (Monica) Lewinsky was intentionally false and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false".
Still. Not. Perjury. Nor. Obstruction. Of. Justice. Nor. Witness. Tampering. We have laws and courts to prosecute criminals, not make innocent people jump through hoops until they become criminals.
As for "malicious prosecution" by Starr... Janet Reno was the one who authorized the investigation be enlarged to encompass what is referred to above.
She authorized an investigation, not a witch hunt. Starr did the latter.
I don't even know how to respond to that other than to say they were *arguably* doing their job and a number of Democrats joined them.
Did their jobs, eh? Like when the same people who supported Clinton's impeachment for supposed perjury called for a pardon for Scooter Libby's perjury conviction? Fred Thompson, who voted to convict Clinton in the Senate, went so far as to make a speech where he passionately called for the rule of law - and then equally passionately called for a pardon for poor old Scooter.
Furthermore, nothing has proven that the Republicans were full of shit on Clinton's impeachment like Bush and the last six years. Where were the multiple Republican investigations into Bush skipping out on his Air Guard commitments or Harken Energy, where Bush sat on the companies audit committee and sold his shares after being warned that the company would lose money? If Republicans were "doing their jobs" by impeaching Clinton over a blow job, where's the Republican impeachment of George W. Bush for violating FISA laws, the 4th, 5th, and 8th Amendments, laws preventing the use of federal agencies for partisan gain, and of course outing a covert agent in a fit of pique? They haven't. Because IOKIYAR.
He has to be directly tied to one of the things you mentioned
Specifics like what was ordered when are covered up by claims of "executive privilege" and exactly the sort of thing uncovered in impeachment hearings, where executive privilege doesn't apply.
AND it has to outrage enough people to spark action.
If you aren't outraged, something is wrong with you.
Like it or not, a lot of people actually agree with the wiretaps
What people. And "a lot of people" also supported lynchings and forcing school prayer into schools. Doesn't make it right or legal.
and since they are international calls it's not even an open-and-shut FISA case.
And since one end of those calls were in the U.S., yes of course it is an open and shut case.
I don't know what 4th amendment search-and-seizure rules you are referring to.
Wiretapping without warrants.
I think that you are referring to Gitmo with regard to the 5th and 6th amendments, but he has followed the letter (though not the spirit) of the law there and complied with Supreme Court rulings so it would be hard to make a case against him.
No, he hasn't, and no, it isn't. There are still hundreds of people being held that have been there for years without a trial or an attorney.
Would you put congress on trial for treason every time they pass a law that is later found to be unconstitutional?
Look up the definition of treason and try again.
I'm not aware of how he has been directly tied to 8th amendment violations.
Waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques. If you're going to insist on the "directly involved" red herring again, this is the sort of detail turned up in impeachment hearings.
So yeah, your extremism
Bush. Broke. The. Law. And. Violated. The. Constitution. That you are still babbling about anyone who wants to hold him accountable for his actions as being "extremist" is an extreme case of pot calling the kettle black.
making Bush out to be some kind of war criminal. He might be a bad president, he might be an idiot, and he might make really bad decisions - but he's not a war criminal.
Straw man.
This is exactly the kind of unhelpful disinformation that I was talking about. First, the children's bill had nothing to do with Iraq
Straw man.
As it happens, there is a very legitimate concern that raising the minimum salary level too high will cause people to drop kids from their employer's plan and go with the government's free plan. Why didn't we hear discussion about how to prevent this from either side, instead of the partisan attacks on both sides of the aisle.
Yes, more people should be moved to the governments plan. The whole damned country in fact. With private insurance, you are paying exorborant premiums only to have the insurance companies take that money and use it to try and deny you claims. They've gone so far as denying claims for a late night miscarriage by calling it an elctive abortion. We pay over twice as much money per patient as other western countries for worse care. Freaking Cuba, which spends 1/30th as much per patient as we do, is catching up to us in quality of care.
There's nothing innately more "right" about the $8 billion that Bush wanted or the $30+ billion that the Dems wanted - just a matter of opinion, so don't make it out like the Bushies are evil. You know what? Even if they wanted the feds to pay exactly $0 to the healthcare of children, it wouldn't make them evil. It's a perfectly legitimate opinion.
Well lets see....some kids will inevitably die without that $30 billion for a well-managed program. That you say that paying zero for these kids is a perfectly legit opinion once again shows that something is seriously wrong with you.
Public research does not solve the economic incentives problem.
You are right, publicly financed research isn't as good economically as privately financed research. It is, in fact, far better because billions of dollars wont be wasted on advertising and making sure each member on each board of directors gets their $50 million annual bonus.
We already have world class public research in the US via academic institutions and the NIH among others.
Many drugs that are patented and sold at high prices were in fact developed with public financing, because the Bayh-Dole Act allows universities to patent their discoveries, even if those discoveries were paid for with taxpayer money. That is one thing that would have to be changed, along with mandating open access to the results of taxpayer funded research.
Drug trials are very expensive (sometimes into the billions of dollars) and most fail. Would you rather pay for drugs via tax dollars or via higher drug prices? You're going to pay either way, and the drug trials don't get cheaper just because the government picks up the tab.
And just where, exactly, do you think drug companies come up with the money for drug trials?
Betting that the government can allocate capital efficiently is mostly what caused the Soviet Union to collapse.
No, that was because the people wouldn't put up with communism any more after perestroika and glasnost.
Even if a drug gets to market there are still significant financial risks, especially litigation.
So, you will support the upcoming War for Copper? Or how about a War for Wood? Or are you living in some utopia where you do not use wood, or any metal, concrete, or stone? And no glass either. And your food does not use any phosphate or potassium fertilizers? All those goodies are to be provided on demand, and cheap, from where, exactly? And let's not forget the silicon in the computer you used to post your reply. That came from where again? A Mine? Oh No!
Oh, do regale of the tales of when and your out of work buddies became bandits, raiding local Wal-Marts and and Home Depots for food and supplies, then racing back to the hills in your Ford Rangers.
I was unaware that he had turned over the office to Al while he was giving that deposition. If he didn't, then he was President. And therefore what he did was in an official capacity. Military personnel are still subject to the UCMJ even if they are off-duty, on leave, and out of uniform. And he is Commander in chief.
The president is not a member of the military, dipshit. This country was set up as having the military being strictly under civilian control. And he's only the Commander in Chief in wartime.
I just ask em how many invasions Australia and New Zealand have had to put up with because they don't spend hundreds of billions per year on defense and don't have thousands of nuclear weapons.
There was one game, I wish I could remember the site, where you just clicked in a box. Every few clicks, it would tell you "you have killed a troll" or "you have advanced to level 4" or "you have found a fire amulet." Just like Diablow, only without the graphics.:)
The Republican members, in particular, will be forced to declare openly and publicly whether their loyalty is to their country or to their political party. It's obvious to rational, sane, people that their loyalty has long been only to their party, but by publicly defending the worst traitor our nation has ever seen, even some of the bottom of the barrel nitwits who constitute Bush's sole support at this point might just start pulling their heads out of their asses.
And what we do know about is what has filtered through a complicit Republican Congress and reflexive claims of "executive privilege." Impeachment hearings, even if they don't result in a conviction in the Senate, will cut through those executive privilege claims. And aside from forcing Republicans to stand with the law or stand with the most unpopular president in history, it will drag all the skeletons out of the closet for criminal prosecution or civil claims after they leave office.
Since when is holding officials accountable when they repeatedly break the law "extremist?" Were prosecutors "extremist" when they sent Duke Cunningham to jail for accepting bribes? How about Bob Ney? Or Dan Rostenkowski?
You sound exactly like the idiot Republicans that were behind the Clinton impeachment.
The only thing idiotic is your comparison. Republicans investigated Clinton because they wanted to remove him from office by any means necessary, not because it was revealed that he broke the law. Whereas we know for a fact that Bush has broken the FISA laws on wiretapping, the 4th Amendment on searches and seizures, the 5th Amendment on due process, the 6th Amendment on speedy public trials, the 8th Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment, laws on using federal agencies for partisan gain, and of course, outing covert agents. So, Yar, just what the fuck does Bush have to do before you'll say he should be impeached?
If congress and Bush had our best interests at heart, they would have sat down and negotiated an increase for the program that they all could have lived with.
Or he could have just remembered his campaign slogan "compassionate conservatism" and signed the damn bill. But I guess helping sick kids is less important that getting older kids killed in Iraq at the cost of hundreds of billions per year.
You're still barking up the wrong tree. Reid isn't forcing Republicans to filibuster, but they are still blocking legislation through cloture votes. At a rate three times higher than any previous Congress. And while Bush hasn't used his veto pen much, his is threatening to veto appropriations bills:
The Bush Administration has threatened to veto almost all appropriations bills that provide more funding than the President has requested, such as the bill funding the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for fiscal year 2008, which starts October 1.
Uh huh. So who did you vote for in 2000 and 2004? Do you have a sticky spot on your bumper where a Bush/Cheney sticker used to be? Conservatives who opposed Bush from the beginning are like Boomers who went to Woodstock: only a few people actually went, but now everyone claims to have gone.
If you recall, in 2000 Bush ran on a VERY conservative platform: lower taxes, increase moral accountability in the executive office, lower taxes, rein in U.S. spending and nation-building, and lower taxes.
Actually, he ran on a moderate sounding platform. Compassionate conservatism, and all that (sorry, SCHIP). Once elected, he moved hard right and stayed there. As for "moral accountability", that's just a slogan. Remember all the members of the GOP that either had affairs or were currently cheating on their spouses when they were impeaching Clinton for getting it on with an intern, and all the current Republicans getting busted for hetero and homosexual affairs.
And low taxes and government spending for the sake of low taxes and spending is no better than high taxes and spending for the sake of high taxes and spending. "Limited government" gets you thinks like Katrina and the 35W bridge collapse and screwed in the event of a pandemic because emergency rooms have been closed to reduce "excess capacity."
No, he didn't do any of those things. First of all, "sexual relations" was defined as intercourse in the Paula Jones case. As blow jobs are not intercourse, he did not lie when he said he did not have sexual relations with Monica. Secondly, even if he did lie, it's not perjury because the lie happens to be relevant to the case at hand. As the judge ruled that whatever happened between Bill and Monica was irrelevant to the Jones case, it wouldn't have been perjury if he lied through his teeth. Witness tampering: weak allegations from Republicans. Obstruction of justice: just what justice was Clinton obstructing, exactly? The right of Republicans to remove him from office because they really, really didn't like him? We have laws and courts to punish the guilty, not conduct baseless investigations over and over, and when those turn up nothing, start asking questions about your sex life until they can manufacture a perjury charge.
The impeachment of Bill Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with upholding the law. Republicans impeached him because they wanted to impeach him, and nothing has proved how full of shit they are like the last six years. We not only know for a fact that Bush has broken laws and violated the Constitution, he's proud of it. You had the same god damn people who called for Clinton's impeachment over supposed perjury passionately calling for a pardon of Scooter Libby's perjury conviction. For all their obsession with Whitewater, it was a bad real estate deal where the Clinton's lost money. Compare that to Harken Energy, where Bush sat on the audit committee yet dumped most of his shares in the company after being warned that it would lose money, and failed to date the sale. He made nearly a million dollars. But he was cleared in a quick investigation by the SEC, which was headed by his father's appointee. Where are the multiple Congressional investigations of Harken Energy then? Where's the special prosecutor with a vendetta and $60 million to burn?
You don't think that's going to immediately happen as soon as the new administration is in place?
Apples to oranges. Republicans, at the very best, had probable suspicion that Bill Clinton committed any crimes. We know for a *fact* that Bush has broken laws and greviously violated the Constitution; he's proudly admitted it. We had enough to impeach Bush years ago, and it's pathetic that members of Congress can't do their basic duty and remove him from office. And yes, it is a duty: every senator and representative took an oath of office promising to defend the Constitution. When an official violates it repeatedly, it's their *duty* to remove him.
So yes, I do expect special prosecutors to be appointed. The difference is that they will be investigating actual wrongdoing, instead engaging in a baseless witch hunt.
Pragmatism is taking first seat over the rule of law here. If Bush or Cheney are subject to impeachment, it will reduce the degree of Democratic victory in 2008.
Then pragmatism needs to check out the polls from last year showing corruption as one of the top issues of concern to voters across the country. Even given the large amounts of corruption & law breaking that we know about, keep in mind we've learned this through a thick veil of secrecy on the part of the Administration and complicity by a Republican Congress all to happy to cover up executive misconduct. So how much has happened that we don't know about?
Even now that Democrats have control of Congress and started to break out a few subpoenas, the Administration continues to stonewall over even simple matters with the old claim of "executive privilege." Well, there's only one thing that can cut through that stonewalling like a hot knife through sour cream, and that's impeachment hearings. An impeachment vote might not result in a conviction in the Senate, but it will force Republicans to stand on the side of the law and the basic principles of our republic, or with the most unpopular president in history. And no chances to waffle on cloture votes, as those don't exist in impeachment proceedings. An impeachment vote might not even clear the house, but the hearings will drag their skeletons out into the light, opening up administration officials to criminal prosecution or civil suits outside of Congress.
It's a question of justice versus the medium-term political gain.
That's why the actions of the Dem leadership don't make any sense: if they were acting in principles, they would challenge Bush to end his corruption and restore our Constitutional rights. If they were acting out of selfish political interest, they would challenge Bush the vast majority of the American public opposes the war in Iraq, supports SCHIP and stem cell research, etc etc. But they do neither, and their approval rating is in the gutter.
Slashdot Mirror
Florida law states that the Sec. of State had the authority to declare the winner at a certain point. She did.
You're ignoring the Florida law that allows for recounts in the event of a close election.
That didn't sit well with Gore, who sued.
Nope. Bush was the first to file a lawsuit.
The State supreme court ruled that that law didn't apply, but then didn't come up with an alternate method to meet the 200+ year old timeline other than "keep counting".
Um, no. As best as they were able to determine the intent of the voter, and all that.
Was it equitable? Pehaps not. But Gore's plan - remember, he was the one who was suing, so he needs to ask for specific relief - was designed around NOT counting every vote equally: he requested only certain counties be recounted, and not the rest.
Gore was following state law, which allowed for recounts but on a per-county basis. There weren't provisions for a statewide recount.
And when asked, point blank if the votes would be counted by the same criteria, Gore's lawyer didn't even equivocate - he just said "No."
Of course wildly different methods of voting are going to have different criteria. Opscan ballots aren't going to have problems with hanging chads, for example.
Add to this the fact that Gore used up the normal period allotted to contest the election by tryiong to game the recount - remember, some counties and not others - put them close to the electoral college deadline.
Um, no. The only date that matters is when Congress meets in January to certify the electors. There is already precedent for this, when in 1960 Hawaii's votes were first certified for Nixon but a recount showed they should have gone to Kennedy.
Should the electoral college be abolished? Yes, but it's not like Gore was ignoring it - he campaigned much harder in the heavy electoral states than the light ones, so it's not like he had that big a problem with it before it bit him in the ass. He bought into the system - he was just pissed that the check came due and he had to pay.
What are you talking about? He won the popular vote by 500,000 votes and should have won the electoral vote as well. It was the Republicans where worried about the opposite situation, where Bush won the popular vote but Gore took the EC.
In fact, pretty much the only way Gore would have lost was by sticking to his four-county plan.
And the reason he was going for recounts in certain counties rather than a statewide recount is because Florida allowed for the former, but did not have provisions for the latter.
I'm sick of pedants dodging the fact that the US Supreme Court forced the election to be halted when they could have remanded the case back to the state court with instructions, or at least refused to take the case which would have forced Florida to deal with it themselves which would have properly kept it a state issue for Florida to wring their hands over without dragging the rest of the country into the mess.
Yup. And there was already precedent for such a delay: when Hawaii's electoral votes were delayed during Nixon's election. The only date that matters is when Congress meets in January.
Yes, there was displeasure with the Bush Administration's policy; however, the American public doesn't want to see a pullout that would make the situation worse than it is.
Ah, no. The worst thing we can do is maintain the status quo. Our light force isn't stopping the violence, it's only getting killed in the violence. We either need to pull out completely, or find another 400,000 troops to send in.
Although I think most will agree that Al Gore was a good candidate, he had an absolutely horrible campaign.
No, he didn't. The media lynched Al Gore in 2000. The "he ran a bad campaign" line is a lame excuse on their part rather than face up to the fact that they screwed him and the country over. If they had given Gore a fair shake, they might have spent a little less time reporting on the "Inventing the Internet" yarn and a little more time on things like, say, George Bush taking credit during a debate for health care legislation passed in Texas that he actually vetoed as governor. If the media had given Gore a fair shake, the election wouldn't have been close.
That's the formula for a witch burning.
Yar, the problem with defending the indefensible is that you make really pathetic arguments. And you are defending the indefensible. Look, this is how it works: there is probable cause that you have committed a crime. So you are brought before a court of law, where charges will be made against you, evidence presented, and you have the opportunity to defend yourself. Impeachment hearings are NO different. We have probable cause that Bush has committed crimes. So you bring impeachment hearings against him, evidence will be presented and he will have an opportunity to defend himself. Then just as in a criminal trial, the vote goes to a jury - in the case the Senate. Just what part of this is a "witch hunt"? Do you think the prosecution of Duke Cunningham was a "partisan witch hunt?" How about Ted Bundy? You break the law in this country, you have to deal with the consequences. Even if you are the President of the United States. Just what part of this do you not understand?
To use your term: straw man
Look up the definition of straw man and try again.
You say that, but you don't bring any real evidence to the table. You just say that you are certain that it must exist. Somewhere.
Oh, do pull your head out Yar. Jose Padilla, American citizen, held in solitary confinement for years with no trial, subjected to sensory deprivation. NSA wiretapping. The DOJ firing United States Attorneys because they wouldn't bring bogus voter fraud cases against Democrats just before election time. DOJ memos on torture. Signing statements. We had enough to start impeachment proceedings years ago.
Your points on socialized medicine are completely valid, and your opinion is completely reasonable. However, you have to work with people who disagree with you - and who also have completely valid and reasonable opinions.
People are entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own set of facts. And the fact is that socialized medicine is superior to what we have now.
Do you actually have anything to support this assertion? You are aware that no one can be denied emergency care, right?
Emergency rooms only have to get you patched up well enough to leave, not cure what ails you.
That you can't see the logic and reasonable side of other people's opinions is what is wrong with you.
Problem: there is nothing reasonable about shielding Bush from the consequences of his lawbreaking. There is nothing reasonable about a healthcare system where the money you pay for care is used by a middle man to find reasons to deny you the very care you are paying for. As someone once said, compromise is great when a Republican and a Democrat help a blind lady cross the street. It is not great when they smash her head in and run off with her purse because it was done with bipartisanship. And compromise is not great when they settle for merely running off with her purse instead of mashing her head as well.
In other words, there are issues where no, you do not compromise. Torture and health insurance for kids are two of them. The Democrats learned the wrong lesson from the government shutdown of 1995; they seem to think that when Congress forces an issue with the president, that Congress will lose. The real lesson is that the unpopular side will lose. Take the Iraq war for example: the vast majority of the country supports and end to the war. If Congress forced the issue by refusing to pass any funding for Iraq that did not include a firm withdrawal date, they would do so with firm backing from the public.
I don't believe you're going to see the Wii remote be the de facto controller from now on. It works well for some games, not for others.
And this is different from the mouse how? I wouldn't want to use a drawing program with a keyboard, but I also wouldn't want to use a mouse to write an essay.
But it's got a long way to go before you or anyone else claims it's as revolutionary as the mouse.
Not really. Take golf, baseball, or bowling. You can swing the Wiimote in a somewhat realistic fashion to resemble the actual motion, as opposed to twiddling a button on a controller.
Opera? Isn't that a little subversive? Reminds me of the time I saw a Bush/Cheney sticker on a Honda Insight. I wanted to stop and ask the guy if the other Republicans knew about this.
If you are seriously arguing that governments are efficient at allocating capital then we'll just have to disagree.
Then you disagree with reality. Governments do tend to be quite poor when running production on farm or factory. They do tend to do quite well when running services or promoting research. And even if Big Pharma is better on the research side, they still waste *billions* on advertising, lobbying, and making their top executives filthy rich. Why do you think that is a better allotment of capital than the government giving that money to hospitals and universities for more research?
Publicly funded research has an extremely important place in the mix but eliminating private drug R&D is hardly the solution to all our woes.
Who said anything about eliminating private R&D?
Governments arguably waste even more money.
I've always been curious by this notion that a group of individuals working in government == waste but the same group working in private industry == efficiency.
But that does not automatically mean governments will do a better job because governments have their own incentive problems.
Well, the government's priority is helping the people. A businesses 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priorities are making money.
I'm open to being convinced but I simply do not see a logical argument why a purely taxpayer funded model of drug development is clearly better than the mixed public/private model we have today.
Okay, let's say the government develops, tests and manufacturers a drug for treating Parkinson's for $900 million dollars. Then it is sold at cost through a universal health care plan. Now lets say Super Duper Pharma is able to do the same development, testing and manufacturing for a mere $200 million. But then they turn around and sell the drug for $80 million a year for the 17 year length of the patent, and use the profits to buy advertising, another congressman, and a third Bentley for the CFO. Which approach makes more sense? And this is giving Pharma a big head start.
I think your dislike of Ron Paul stems from his pro-life stance
I would be equally disparaging of anyone advocating the position that abortion two minutes before birth is A-OK because the baby hasn't been born yet. It's an asinine position, just as saying that life begins with conception. And saying that abortion should be left up to states is a valid libertarian, states rights position. Defining conception as the start of life at the *federal* level is not.
The option to tax is not the requirement to tax. The income tax was temporary on the wealthiest 5% to pay for WWI, the entry into which by the U.S. has parallels to the unethical invasion of Iraq. Repealing the income tax would just put the U.S. back to between the founding of the Constitution and WWI.
And how do propose we adjust to pre WWI spending levels? At the time, far more people worked on farms, rode horseback for transportation, and an 8th grade education was sufficient for most jobs. Our economic, infrastructure, and educational needs are somewhat greater now. And again on income disparity - eliminating the income tax eliminates most of the taxes paid by the wealthy and more of the tax burden will fall on the middle and lower classes. And given the fact that the minimum wage would be $50-$60 per hour if it had risen at the same pace as CEO pay, I'm not sure why we need to do that.
There is no need for this to be handled at the federal level -- states can handle it just fine.
Because some states wont do it. I don't think the question of whether or not a child gets treatment for diabetes or asthma should be a question of if he was born in New York or Texas.
I personally would stretch the commerce clause to cover the environment since air and water do not know state boundaries, but I can go with Ron Paul's approach of first having the federal government "do no harm", such as by eliminating corporate welfare to big oil.
Ending subsidies might mean Exxon doesn't quite make $10 billion next quarter, but it's not going to make a dent in global warming.
Going on a gold standard, as Ron Paul advocates
We are on a gold standard, of sorts: black gold. As oil is sold in dollars, it insulates our currency from wild inflationary or deflationary pressure.
As I've mentioned here before, I make 4x now as a seasoned professional than I did 20 years ago when I just graduated. Yet when using CPI computed according to pre-Greenspan formulas, it's 8% per year and I make less now than I did 20 years ago.
I imagine CEO's getting paid 400 times as much as the average worker might have something to do with that as well. Or the decline of unions. Or that you are probably getting pushed into higher tax brackets via inflation while billionaire hedge fund managers are taxed at half the rate you are.
He does not believe liberty should be extended to illegal immigrants, but would like to expand legal immigration somewhat once the incentives for illegal immigration are removed: welfare, education, healthcare, and birthright citizenship.
Which would would also deny them to regular Americans, yes? Sounds more like a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
So, every YouTube video should have a Wikipedia page? Or just all the ones with 1 million views? What about 900 thousand views? What about 9 thousand? Who gets to draw this line? Or is it just videos that you personally really really like?
Straw man. No, someone didn't write a wiki because the clip passed some magic number of hits, but because it was a popular clip based around a complete redub of an episode of a cartoon show of a cultural icon: the X-Men.
No not perjury, but in the words of Her Honor "Simply put, the president's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. (Monica) Lewinsky was intentionally false and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false".
Still. Not. Perjury. Nor. Obstruction. Of. Justice. Nor. Witness. Tampering. We have laws and courts to prosecute criminals, not make innocent people jump through hoops until they become criminals.
As for "malicious prosecution" by Starr... Janet Reno was the one who authorized the investigation be enlarged to encompass what is referred to above.
She authorized an investigation, not a witch hunt. Starr did the latter.
I don't even know how to respond to that other than to say they were *arguably* doing their job and a number of Democrats joined them.
Did their jobs, eh? Like when the same people who supported Clinton's impeachment for supposed perjury called for a pardon for Scooter Libby's perjury conviction? Fred Thompson, who voted to convict Clinton in the Senate, went so far as to make a speech where he passionately called for the rule of law - and then equally passionately called for a pardon for poor old Scooter.
Furthermore, nothing has proven that the Republicans were full of shit on Clinton's impeachment like Bush and the last six years. Where were the multiple Republican investigations into Bush skipping out on his Air Guard commitments or Harken Energy, where Bush sat on the companies audit committee and sold his shares after being warned that the company would lose money? If Republicans were "doing their jobs" by impeaching Clinton over a blow job, where's the Republican impeachment of George W. Bush for violating FISA laws, the 4th, 5th, and 8th Amendments, laws preventing the use of federal agencies for partisan gain, and of course outing a covert agent in a fit of pique? They haven't. Because IOKIYAR.
He has to be directly tied to one of the things you mentioned
Specifics like what was ordered when are covered up by claims of "executive privilege" and exactly the sort of thing uncovered in impeachment hearings, where executive privilege doesn't apply.
AND it has to outrage enough people to spark action.
If you aren't outraged, something is wrong with you.
Like it or not, a lot of people actually agree with the wiretaps
What people. And "a lot of people" also supported lynchings and forcing school prayer into schools. Doesn't make it right or legal.
and since they are international calls it's not even an open-and-shut FISA case.
And since one end of those calls were in the U.S., yes of course it is an open and shut case.
I don't know what 4th amendment search-and-seizure rules you are referring to.
Wiretapping without warrants.
I think that you are referring to Gitmo with regard to the 5th and 6th amendments, but he has followed the letter (though not the spirit) of the law there and complied with Supreme Court rulings so it would be hard to make a case against him.
No, he hasn't, and no, it isn't. There are still hundreds of people being held that have been there for years without a trial or an attorney.
Would you put congress on trial for treason every time they pass a law that is later found to be unconstitutional?
Look up the definition of treason and try again.
I'm not aware of how he has been directly tied to 8th amendment violations.
Waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and other "enhanced interrogation" techniques. If you're going to insist on the "directly involved" red herring again, this is the sort of detail turned up in impeachment hearings.
So yeah, your extremism
Bush. Broke. The. Law. And. Violated. The. Constitution. That you are still babbling about anyone who wants to hold him accountable for his actions as being "extremist" is an extreme case of pot calling the kettle black.
making Bush out to be some kind of war criminal. He might be a bad president, he might be an idiot, and he might make really bad decisions - but he's not a war criminal.
Straw man.
This is exactly the kind of unhelpful disinformation that I was talking about. First, the children's bill had nothing to do with Iraq
Straw man.
As it happens, there is a very legitimate concern that raising the minimum salary level too high will cause people to drop kids from their employer's plan and go with the government's free plan. Why didn't we hear discussion about how to prevent this from either side, instead of the partisan attacks on both sides of the aisle.
Yes, more people should be moved to the governments plan. The whole damned country in fact. With private insurance, you are paying exorborant premiums only to have the insurance companies take that money and use it to try and deny you claims. They've gone so far as denying claims for a late night miscarriage by calling it an elctive abortion. We pay over twice as much money per patient as other western countries for worse care. Freaking Cuba, which spends 1/30th as much per patient as we do, is catching up to us in quality of care.
There's nothing innately more "right" about the $8 billion that Bush wanted or the $30+ billion that the Dems wanted - just a matter of opinion, so don't make it out like the Bushies are evil. You know what? Even if they wanted the feds to pay exactly $0 to the healthcare of children, it wouldn't make them evil. It's a perfectly legitimate opinion.
Well lets see....some kids will inevitably die without that $30 billion for a well-managed program. That you say that paying zero for these kids is a perfectly legit opinion once again shows that something is seriously wrong with you.
Public research does not solve the economic incentives problem.
You are right, publicly financed research isn't as good economically as privately financed research. It is, in fact, far better because billions of dollars wont be wasted on advertising and making sure each member on each board of directors gets their $50 million annual bonus.
We already have world class public research in the US via academic institutions and the NIH among others.
Many drugs that are patented and sold at high prices were in fact developed with public financing, because the Bayh-Dole Act allows universities to patent their discoveries, even if those discoveries were paid for with taxpayer money. That is one thing that would have to be changed, along with mandating open access to the results of taxpayer funded research.
Drug trials are very expensive (sometimes into the billions of dollars) and most fail. Would you rather pay for drugs via tax dollars or via higher drug prices? You're going to pay either way, and the drug trials don't get cheaper just because the government picks up the tab.
And just where, exactly, do you think drug companies come up with the money for drug trials?
Betting that the government can allocate capital efficiently is mostly what caused the Soviet Union to collapse.
No, that was because the people wouldn't put up with communism any more after perestroika and glasnost.
Even if a drug gets to market there are still significant financial risks, especially litigation.
Litigation, smitigation: meet soverign immunity.
Nice troll there Captain Flamebait. Godwin's law is hereby invoked.
And you ignore the other 14 points he made. Convenient, that.
So, you will support the upcoming War for Copper? Or how about a War for Wood? Or are you living in some utopia where you do not use wood, or any metal, concrete, or stone? And no glass either. And your food does not use any phosphate or potassium fertilizers? All those goodies are to be provided on demand, and cheap, from where, exactly? And let's not forget the silicon in the computer you used to post your reply. That came from where again? A Mine? Oh No!
Oh, do regale of the tales of when and your out of work buddies became bandits, raiding local Wal-Marts and and Home Depots for food and supplies, then racing back to the hills in your Ford Rangers.
I was unaware that he had turned over the office to Al while he was giving that deposition. If he didn't, then he was President. And therefore what he did was in an official capacity. Military personnel are still subject to the UCMJ even if they are off-duty, on leave, and out of uniform. And he is Commander in chief.
The president is not a member of the military, dipshit. This country was set up as having the military being strictly under civilian control. And he's only the Commander in Chief in wartime.
I just ask em how many invasions Australia and New Zealand have had to put up with because they don't spend hundreds of billions per year on defense and don't have thousands of nuclear weapons.
There was one game, I wish I could remember the site, where you just clicked in a box. Every few clicks, it would tell you "you have killed a troll" or "you have advanced to level 4" or "you have found a fire amulet." Just like Diablow, only without the graphics. :)
The Republican members, in particular, will be forced to declare openly and publicly whether their loyalty is to their country or to their political party. It's obvious to rational, sane, people that their loyalty has long been only to their party, but by publicly defending the worst traitor our nation has ever seen, even some of the bottom of the barrel nitwits who constitute Bush's sole support at this point might just start pulling their heads out of their asses.
And what we do know about is what has filtered through a complicit Republican Congress and reflexive claims of "executive privilege." Impeachment hearings, even if they don't result in a conviction in the Senate, will cut through those executive privilege claims. And aside from forcing Republicans to stand with the law or stand with the most unpopular president in history, it will drag all the skeletons out of the closet for criminal prosecution or civil claims after they leave office.
You are part of the problem with your extremism.
Since when is holding officials accountable when they repeatedly break the law "extremist?" Were prosecutors "extremist" when they sent Duke Cunningham to jail for accepting bribes? How about Bob Ney? Or Dan Rostenkowski?
You sound exactly like the idiot Republicans that were behind the Clinton impeachment.
The only thing idiotic is your comparison. Republicans investigated Clinton because they wanted to remove him from office by any means necessary, not because it was revealed that he broke the law. Whereas we know for a fact that Bush has broken the FISA laws on wiretapping, the 4th Amendment on searches and seizures, the 5th Amendment on due process, the 6th Amendment on speedy public trials, the 8th Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment, laws on using federal agencies for partisan gain, and of course, outing covert agents. So, Yar, just what the fuck does Bush have to do before you'll say he should be impeached?
If congress and Bush had our best interests at heart, they would have sat down and negotiated an increase for the program that they all could have lived with.
Or he could have just remembered his campaign slogan "compassionate conservatism" and signed the damn bill. But I guess helping sick kids is less important that getting older kids killed in Iraq at the cost of hundreds of billions per year.
Uh huh. So who did you vote for in 2000 and 2004? Do you have a sticky spot on your bumper where a Bush/Cheney sticker used to be? Conservatives who opposed Bush from the beginning are like Boomers who went to Woodstock: only a few people actually went, but now everyone claims to have gone.
If you recall, in 2000 Bush ran on a VERY conservative platform: lower taxes, increase moral accountability in the executive office, lower taxes, rein in U.S. spending and nation-building, and lower taxes.
Actually, he ran on a moderate sounding platform. Compassionate conservatism, and all that (sorry, SCHIP). Once elected, he moved hard right and stayed there. As for "moral accountability", that's just a slogan. Remember all the members of the GOP that either had affairs or were currently cheating on their spouses when they were impeaching Clinton for getting it on with an intern, and all the current Republicans getting busted for hetero and homosexual affairs.
And low taxes and government spending for the sake of low taxes and spending is no better than high taxes and spending for the sake of high taxes and spending. "Limited government" gets you thinks like Katrina and the 35W bridge collapse and screwed in the event of a pandemic because emergency rooms have been closed to reduce "excess capacity."
I know. Still not perjury. And where are the charges of malicious prosecution for Starr and the Republicans in Congress, eh?
No, he didn't do any of those things. First of all, "sexual relations" was defined as intercourse in the Paula Jones case. As blow jobs are not intercourse, he did not lie when he said he did not have sexual relations with Monica. Secondly, even if he did lie, it's not perjury because the lie happens to be relevant to the case at hand. As the judge ruled that whatever happened between Bill and Monica was irrelevant to the Jones case, it wouldn't have been perjury if he lied through his teeth. Witness tampering: weak allegations from Republicans. Obstruction of justice: just what justice was Clinton obstructing, exactly? The right of Republicans to remove him from office because they really, really didn't like him? We have laws and courts to punish the guilty, not conduct baseless investigations over and over, and when those turn up nothing, start asking questions about your sex life until they can manufacture a perjury charge.
The impeachment of Bill Clinton had nothing whatsoever to do with upholding the law. Republicans impeached him because they wanted to impeach him, and nothing has proved how full of shit they are like the last six years. We not only know for a fact that Bush has broken laws and violated the Constitution, he's proud of it. You had the same god damn people who called for Clinton's impeachment over supposed perjury passionately calling for a pardon of Scooter Libby's perjury conviction. For all their obsession with Whitewater, it was a bad real estate deal where the Clinton's lost money. Compare that to Harken Energy, where Bush sat on the audit committee yet dumped most of his shares in the company after being warned that it would lose money, and failed to date the sale. He made nearly a million dollars. But he was cleared in a quick investigation by the SEC, which was headed by his father's appointee. Where are the multiple Congressional investigations of Harken Energy then? Where's the special prosecutor with a vendetta and $60 million to burn?
You don't think that's going to immediately happen as soon as the new administration is in place?
Apples to oranges. Republicans, at the very best, had probable suspicion that Bill Clinton committed any crimes. We know for a *fact* that Bush has broken laws and greviously violated the Constitution; he's proudly admitted it. We had enough to impeach Bush years ago, and it's pathetic that members of Congress can't do their basic duty and remove him from office. And yes, it is a duty: every senator and representative took an oath of office promising to defend the Constitution. When an official violates it repeatedly, it's their *duty* to remove him.
So yes, I do expect special prosecutors to be appointed. The difference is that they will be investigating actual wrongdoing, instead engaging in a baseless witch hunt.
I prefer "Diablow II: Blow Harder." There's also World of Warcrack or Evercrack. But my all time favorite is Divorcequest.
However, I can proudly say I've never played any of these games, just as I've never watched American Idol or Survivor.
Pragmatism is taking first seat over the rule of law here. If Bush or Cheney are subject to impeachment, it will reduce the degree of Democratic victory in 2008.
Then pragmatism needs to check out the polls from last year showing corruption as one of the top issues of concern to voters across the country. Even given the large amounts of corruption & law breaking that we know about, keep in mind we've learned this through a thick veil of secrecy on the part of the Administration and complicity by a Republican Congress all to happy to cover up executive misconduct. So how much has happened that we don't know about?
Even now that Democrats have control of Congress and started to break out a few subpoenas, the Administration continues to stonewall over even simple matters with the old claim of "executive privilege." Well, there's only one thing that can cut through that stonewalling like a hot knife through sour cream, and that's impeachment hearings. An impeachment vote might not result in a conviction in the Senate, but it will force Republicans to stand on the side of the law and the basic principles of our republic, or with the most unpopular president in history. And no chances to waffle on cloture votes, as those don't exist in impeachment proceedings. An impeachment vote might not even clear the house, but the hearings will drag their skeletons out into the light, opening up administration officials to criminal prosecution or civil suits outside of Congress.
It's a question of justice versus the medium-term political gain.
That's why the actions of the Dem leadership don't make any sense: if they were acting in principles, they would challenge Bush to end his corruption and restore our Constitutional rights. If they were acting out of selfish political interest, they would challenge Bush the vast majority of the American public opposes the war in Iraq, supports SCHIP and stem cell research, etc etc. But they do neither, and their approval rating is in the gutter.