Yes, but they were even better off under Mosadegh. You know, the popularly elected guy that the CIA removed from power because he had the gall to nationalize Iran's oil for the benefit of his people?
I am amazed at how historical fact of these events has been twisted by the blame-America-first crowd.
Fact: The Shah was the legitimate Constitutional leader of Iran. The Mossadeq was only elected Prime Minister by partial vote of the parliament. The parliamentary vote was stopped as soon as a quorum was reached to prevent the Mossadeq's opponents in parliament from voting.
The Mossadeq's plans to nationalize the Iranian oil industry were very controversial inside Iran. The only way he was able to accomplish the nationalization was by strong-arming the Shah and the parliament into granting him authority over the military, which he then used to force the Shah into exile so he could assume total control of Iran.
It was at this point that the US and Britain secretly helped bring the Shah back to regain his constitutional power.
The Mossadeq was not the democratic hero that you want to make him out to be. He ascended to Prime Minister under a questionable election and immediately began to grab as much power as he could, implementing policies that severely destabilized Iran in the process. The idea that he would have been better for Iran is pure conjecture that isn't supported by his actions during the 2 years he was Prime Minister.
At issue wasn't just Rush accusing Michael J. Fox of misrepresenting himself, it was also the bobbling around making light of a serious illness which will eventually kill Michael J. Fox. It was another asshole move.
The only way you could read into that video clip that Rush was trying to make light of Michael J Fox's condition is if you already had your mind made up that you don't like Rush and were looking for anything to justify that.
Rush was describing what he saw to a radio audience. Most of the audience had not seen the ad yet unless they live in MO, and they were used to seeing a normal looking Michael J Fox on TV every week. Rush was being descriptive. He wasn't mocking.
And Rush's accusation that Michael J Fox was "either acting or off of his medication" was essentially proven. It turns out that he didn't skip his medication for the ad (like he had done previously for his congressionaly testimony), but instead he had taken too much medication. Either way he manipulated the situation to get as much sympathy as he could for his cause (which, by the way, was a bill that he had never read himself supporting stem cell research that has never produced anything but cancer, let alone a cure for any disease).
fter claiming for years that drug users should be treated harshly, we find that this is just a bunch of hypocrisy
Yeah, because developing an addiction to pain killers after a painful back injury is morally equivalent to selling crack to teenagers on the streets. Moron.
I'm sure that listening might not have seemed so offensive as SEEING him make fun of Fox's symptoms in the video of the program. Watch the video and listen to the whole segment, and it's obvious that El Bimbo was a) Making fun of Fox's disease and b) accusing him of faking or exaggerating his disease for political gain
Oh, and claiming that video shows Rush making fun of Michael J Fox is equally ignorant. Rush was attempting to describe Michael J Fox's actions in the TV ad to an audience that had likely not seen it yet and was used to a Michael J Fox that appeared somewhat normal every week on TV. Rush was being descriptive. He wasn't mocking.
And were you aware that the Rush-hating media sped up the video clip of him demonstrating Michael J Fox's actions when they played in on TV in an attempt to make him look bad? I can't believe that is the media you chose to trust...
his is besides the point however, Rush explicitly accused him of exaggerating his symptoms and "acting" which Fox WAS NOT doing.
Bzzzt. Rush said that the Michael J Fox in the ad was so different than the Michael J Fox that he saw every week on Boston Legal that he thought Fox was "acting or off his medication". These words have meaning, you know, and you look like an ignorant sheep when you feign outrage based on a few words that Rush's political opponents cherry pick out of an entire monolog.
And as it turned out, Michael J Fox had a history of manipulating his medication to get the greatest visual impact in his public appearances in favor of stem cell research. Rush was wrong on the specifics of his manipulation in that ad- he didn't skip his medication, he took too much of it- for which he offered an adequate apology.
Nothing of the sort. Mutliple White House, Pentagon and DOJ officials went on air to bloviate about the Geneva Provisions being quaint and pontificate on virtues of water-boarding and "stress positions".
Well then, if "multiple" officials have done this, it should be easy for you to find an example...
And then of course Abu Ghraib happened and the last shreds of credibility of the admistration/Pentagon/CIA/Haliburton "contractors" flew right out of the window.
The fact that you think that the criminal abuse that happened at Abu Ghraib (which was identified through internal mechanisms and swiftly prosecuted resulting in several convictions) is even closely related to this tells me that you have already made your mind up on the issue regardless of the facts.
When you say that the Bush administration is "on record" about applying torture, of course you really mean that an anonymous CIA source alleged this. It has been the policy of the United States long before President Bush was in office to not give details about our interrogation methods, and on record they have only stated that they do NOT torture. The most controversial of these alleged methods is waterboarding, but there is little outside of this anonymous CIA source that suggests that we do this.
I remember a radio interview a while back with Vice President Cheney where he said that he thought it was okay to "dunk" people in water, and some people immediately pounced on that as an admission of waterboarding, but the White House immediately clarified that he was not talking about waterboarding.
In fact, let me look up exactly what the Vice President said: Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President "for torture." We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.
Thats hardly an "on-record" endorsement of torture.
*sigh*. This one has been so thouroughly debunked that I wonder why you mention it.
Er, I didn't mention it. You did. Anyway, I didn't think that I needed to spell this out so explicitly, but I guess I do, so here goes.
Claiming that we justified the war because Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa is patently absurd. Here are the three major public speeches that were given right before the war explaining the reasons for it. You will notice that none of them even mention Iraq's attempts to procure uranium: 1, 2, 3.
The conclusion that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium in Niger had nothing to do with the forgeries found in Italy. In fact, multiple sources had already confirmed Iraq's uranium efforts in Africa before the forgeries even existed (again, I refer you to the Butler report).
Saddam's attempts to buy uranium in Africa are documented fact, confirmed by multiple sources including Joe Wilson himself. I don't know how you can claim that it has been "debunked".
Yeah, world leaders spouted lies - some unknowingly.
I defy you to find any lie or untruth in Tony Blair's speech that I linked to (and that you so trivially dismissed).
Do you understand how it is different from zoning laws?
The point that just majestically soared over your head is this- we already compromise freedoms in exchange for safety in almost every aspect of our daily lives. To feign outrage and single out the PATRIOT act because it invades privacy and impinges on freedoms is disingenuous.
That said, you do have some pretty extreme misunderstandings about what the PATRIOT act authorizes. Lets have a look at your claims:
"they authorize the president to fire US Attorneys"- The President has been authorized to fire US Attorneys since 1789 when the position was created. 28 USC 541(c): US Attorneys are "subject to removal" by the President.
"secretly arrest citizens" - Pure fiction. Just what section do you think authorizes this? The closest I can think of is section 412 that mandates the arrest and detainment of non-citizens that are engaging in terrorism, with an explicit right to petition for habeas corpus and continued judicial review (in other words, nothing like what you said).
"secretly try them in a secret jail with secret evidence for secret crimes" - Again, this is pure fantasy. The PATRIOT act authorizes nothing like that. Not even close.
I don't know if it could be any more clear that you do not know what you are talking about. If you would like to clarify which section of the PATRIOT Act it is that you think authorizes this hyperbole, I will be all ears.
This is an outright lie. To wit:
Fascinating. You accuse me of lying, and the only "evidence" you have to support that is a quote that completely backs up what I had written. What gives? It is exactly as I said before: prior to the PATRIOT Act, when a US Attorney was fired, the interim appointee could serve up to 120 days without Senate confirmation. The PATRIOT Act removed that 120 limit. Considering it hasn't even been 120 days since the attorneys were fired, and that all of the internal memos that have been made public indicated that they intended on submitting the new appointees for regular Senate confirmation, this change is pretty irrelevant, don't you think?
Although I see nothing wrong with your accusations against Bush
Of course you don't...
Object to the substance, or lack thereof. For example, the Iraq war cassus belli proved to be fraudent.
If you truly think that the Nigerian Yellowcake claims were the casus belli for the war in Iraq, that can only mean one of two things: either you are intentionally trying to distort the issue, or you were not paying any attention to what world leaders were saying in the buildup to the war. Either way, the United States' claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Nigeria was based on British intelligence that had nothing to do with the forgeries, and it was later confirmed by Joe Wilson when his Nigerian contacts told him of a visit by an Iraqi envoy seeking uranium. Fraudulent? I think not.
The patriot act does indeed invade our privacy and does indeed impinge upon constitutional freedoms.
Of course it does. So do traffic laws, or zoning restrictions, or any one of the number of limitations we have accepted in modern society. The concept of a finding a balance between freedom and security is not new, nor is it surprising.
Oh, and by the way, the USA firings are authorized by an obscure clause of PATRIOT act.
Not quite. It has always been legal to fire political appointees such as US Attorneys at any time for any reason. This "obscure" clause in the PATRIOT act only modified the 120 day deadline to have replacements confirmed by the Senate, which has nothing to do with the recent manufactured controversy because it hasn't even been 120 days since the attorneys were fired.
You can add "protecting big tobbacco" to the list of unintended Patriot Act consequences. Don't dismiss the abuse of the PATRIOT act to damage the DOJ in order to protect big tobacco just because you don't like how it sounds.
That's a nice "talk left" rant, but it has nothing to do with the PATRIOT act. It is the job of political appointees (like US Attorneys) to further the agenda of the administration that appointed them- period. That is the way that it has always been, and that is the way that it should be.
Okay- then why don't you point out anything in the PCIe spec that refers to it as a bus (I'll accept anything from the 1.0, 1.0a, 1.1, or 2.0 specs). They use the word "link" religiously. I wonder why that is...
I am an individual that likes President Bush a heck of a lot. Based on my experience interacting with people that share your political views, I'm guessing the discussion went more like this:
hxnwix: I can't believe how much of a criminal that Nazi Shrub is! neocon: What law did he break? hxnwix: (interrupting) WHAT LAW HASN'T HE BROKEN? THE EVIL MORON LIAR CHIMP FIRED 8 ATTORNEYS! neocon: He has the constitutional authority to staff political appointees as he sees fit. Why are we even talking about this? hxnwix: THOSE WHO GIVE UP FREEDOM FOR SAFETY GET NEITHER! DON'T YOU SEE? neocon: See what? hxnwix: IT WAS A CONSPIRACY BY ROVE AND HALIBURTON! YOU ARE JUST BRAINWASHED TO NOT SEE THAT WE LIVE IN A POLICE STATE! neocon: Huh? hxnwix: BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED! DICK CHENEY! neocon: Well, I'm glad that two people can still have a rational debate in this country. hxnwix: NIGERIAN YELLOWCAKE! WMD! NO BLOOD FOR OIL! WTC BUILDING 7! SADDAM HATES AL QAEDA! *gurgle* *spit*
You're going to have to accept that you're just a loaded bank of Republican talking point triggers, and stop projecting your foregone conclusions on people like me, at least in public, where your agenda shows like brown undershirt.
Wait, wait, wait. You come here with the obvious agenda of discrediting the President spouting off about how thousands of people were disenfranchised even though there is no evidence to support this, and you have the nerve to accuse me of projecting foregone conclusions? Good freak- you even tried to cite Greg Palast, the king of left-wing talking points. You are a hypocrite, and an annoying one at that.
You mean that your comment about Bush burning down the White House was not a reference to Hitler burning the Reichstag? What the hell were you talking about, then?
You can't even read - for example, I said "90% of their 57,000 voters", which should be enough for anyone who cares about democracy.
You are missing the point. Yes- the list had false positives (although it was nowhere near 90%- the USCCR estimated it to be less than 15%). That is a given. The Florida Legislature planned for this, so they added safety checks to the process to ensure that people wouldn't be disenfranchised just because of the list.
What has that got to say about ChoicePoint and Harris? NOTHING. They made the list, did what harm they could. That action by the counties says nothing but that even a bunch of $8:hour county bureaucrats couldn't hold their noses and just follow the Secretary of State's criminal orders.
This wasn't the Secretary of State's orders- it was the Florida Legislature! Katherine Harris's predisessor contracted with ChoicePoint because she was required by law to hire a public firm to generate the list.
The Secretary of State doesn't have the legal authority to disenfranchise anybody. Neither does ChoicePoint. The county election supervisors have exclusive control over the voter registration in their individual counties! The Secretary of State provided the felon list to the counties because she was required to, just like the county election supervisors were required to verify the names before any action was taken. And from all available evidence, that is EXACTLY what happened because there are zero documented cases of people actually losing their vote because they were incorrectly identified as a felon.
Like I said before, the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the felon list was not that innocent people were disenfranchised, but that it allowed too many convicted felons to vote!
You're another Republican zombie with your foregone conclusion, who grabs any talking point that will support it. I sure hope you like what you've got in your White House, because your boy is going to be burning it down for another few years.
What a weak-minded attitude. You have yet to provide any evidence that the felon list actually caused any innocent person to lose their vote (mainly because the evidence doesn't exist). Instead, you dismiss anybody who disagrees with your faulty conclusion as a zombie. How weak.
And can we please stop with the comparisons to Nazi Germany? It is only making you look more irrational.
That's because you haven't looked at the list. Mistake? 90% of their 57,000 voters wrongly disenfranchised is a "mistake"? Hank Asher, is that you?
There were not 57,000 voters that were wrongly disenfranchised. In fact, there is no evidence that ANYBODY was disenfranchised because of the felon list. Unless you can show me somebody who:
was incorrectly identified as a felon on the list
lives in a county that used the list, because most counties just ignored it
was actually removed from voter registration by the election supervisor because the supervisor didnt do their job to verify the names
didn't follow the proceedures to dispute their removal from the registration after they were notified
would have voted anyway
The error rate of the list is completely uninteresting- the law was designed to compensate for an imperfect list. In fact, the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the felon list is that it allowed too many felons to vote!
I've grown tired of trying to show reality to people determined to hold on to a fanciful interpretation of the facts.
So, you have somehow interpreted the Florida law that says that the county election supervisors have "exclusive" control over the voter registration rolls in their county to mean that the county election supervisors do not have exclusive control over the voter registrations in their county...
Not only is that a fanciful interpretation, its a retarded interpretation too.
What part of "statewide voter registration database" do you find unclear? To claim that the DoE doesn't have the authority to remove someone from the list in disingenuous.
1) A supervisor of elections shall be elected in each county at the general election in each year the number of which is a multiple of four for a 4-year term commencing on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January succeeding his or her election.... (3) The supervisor is the official custodian of the registration books and has the exclusive control of matters pertaining to registration of electors.
The votes were counted on election day. Those results were within the margin to trigger an automatic recount, and that happened the next day. I repeat- the mandated recount did happen, and it did not change the outcome. After that, when Gore still didn't have the results that he wanted, he started pushing for hand recounts in 3 heavily Democrat counties, and those were the recounts that were halted by SCOTUS (and rightfully so).
Most importantly, your claim that the felon list was in any way just a suggestion is flat out 100% untrue. You can see the law for yourself at http://www.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?App_mod e=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0097/ch0097.htm which clearly states that the chief election officer is ordered to (11) Create and maintain a statewide voter registration database.
Ha! Classic. Yes, the Dept of Elections was required to create and maintain a felon list... which was then given to each of the County Election Supervisors to verify and act on. The responsibility for the voter rolls is clearly on the county election supervisors. Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris don't have the legal authority to remove anybody from the voter registration. This is all handled by the counties.
Actually, yes. Yes I can. Let's replace "Florida election officials" with "the RIAA and MPAA", "felons who have not received clemency" with "consumers without a distribution license" and "vote in Florida" with "share copyrighted songs on the Internet".
Oh brother. It is sad that actually think that this is a valid argument. Lets leave the red herrings out of this, ok?
Say to yourself "the ends do not justify the means". Now say it again. Try it a few more times until it sinks in. If I toss out 19 legitimate voters for every 1 felon, that's not even close to making a halfway decent effort.
Repeat this a few more times for it to sink in- there are ZERO documented cases of legitimate voters that were actually prevented from voting because of the felon list. The USCCR was unable to find a single person that was disenfranchised because he/she was incorrectly identified as a felon.
OK, if it's not the responsibility of the state to maintain voter rolls, what the hell were they doing spending $2.3 million of taxpayer money to make a list of people that shouldn't have been on the county rolls? The sure sounds like the state trying to have its say in maintaining the voter lists. And even if that was the case in 2000, it's no longer true. The Help America Vote Act requires states to centralize their voter database as of 01/2004.
The felon list != the voter registration. The felon list was commissioned by the Florida Dept of Elections because they were required to by law. This is really simple stuff here.
Slashdot Mirror
Fact: The Shah was the legitimate Constitutional leader of Iran. The Mossadeq was only elected Prime Minister by partial vote of the parliament. The parliamentary vote was stopped as soon as a quorum was reached to prevent the Mossadeq's opponents in parliament from voting.
The Mossadeq's plans to nationalize the Iranian oil industry were very controversial inside Iran. The only way he was able to accomplish the nationalization was by strong-arming the Shah and the parliament into granting him authority over the military, which he then used to force the Shah into exile so he could assume total control of Iran.
It was at this point that the US and Britain secretly helped bring the Shah back to regain his constitutional power.
The Mossadeq was not the democratic hero that you want to make him out to be. He ascended to Prime Minister under a questionable election and immediately began to grab as much power as he could, implementing policies that severely destabilized Iran in the process. The idea that he would have been better for Iran is pure conjecture that isn't supported by his actions during the 2 years he was Prime Minister.
Rush was describing what he saw to a radio audience. Most of the audience had not seen the ad yet unless they live in MO, and they were used to seeing a normal looking Michael J Fox on TV every week. Rush was being descriptive. He wasn't mocking.
And Rush's accusation that Michael J Fox was "either acting or off of his medication" was essentially proven. It turns out that he didn't skip his medication for the ad (like he had done previously for his congressionaly testimony), but instead he had taken too much medication. Either way he manipulated the situation to get as much sympathy as he could for his cause (which, by the way, was a bill that he had never read himself supporting stem cell research that has never produced anything but cancer, let alone a cure for any disease).
And were you aware that the Rush-hating media sped up the video clip of him demonstrating Michael J Fox's actions when they played in on TV in an attempt to make him look bad? I can't believe that is the media you chose to trust...
And as it turned out, Michael J Fox had a history of manipulating his medication to get the greatest visual impact in his public appearances in favor of stem cell research. Rush was wrong on the specifics of his manipulation in that ad- he didn't skip his medication, he took too much of it- for which he offered an adequate apology.
Spoken like somebody who has never actually listened to Rush's radio show.
When you say that the Bush administration is "on record" about applying torture, of course you really mean that an anonymous CIA source alleged this. It has been the policy of the United States long before President Bush was in office to not give details about our interrogation methods, and on record they have only stated that they do NOT torture. The most controversial of these alleged methods is waterboarding, but there is little outside of this anonymous CIA source that suggests that we do this.
I remember a radio interview a while back with Vice President Cheney where he said that he thought it was okay to "dunk" people in water, and some people immediately pounced on that as an admission of waterboarding, but the White House immediately clarified that he was not talking about waterboarding.
In fact, let me look up exactly what the Vice President said:
Q Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President "for torture." We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.
Thats hardly an "on-record" endorsement of torture.
Er, I didn't mention it. You did. Anyway, I didn't think that I needed to spell this out so explicitly, but I guess I do, so here goes.
- Claiming that we justified the war because Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa is patently absurd. Here are the three major public speeches that were given right before the war explaining the reasons for it. You will notice that none of them even mention Iraq's attempts to procure uranium: 1, 2, 3.
- The conclusion that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium in Niger had nothing to do with the forgeries found in Italy. In fact, multiple sources had already confirmed Iraq's uranium efforts in Africa before the forgeries even existed (again, I refer you to the Butler report).
- Saddam's attempts to buy uranium in Africa are documented fact, confirmed by multiple sources including Joe Wilson himself. I don't know how you can claim that it has been "debunked".
I defy you to find any lie or untruth in Tony Blair's speech that I linked to (and that you so trivially dismissed).The point that just majestically soared over your head is this- we already compromise freedoms in exchange for safety in almost every aspect of our daily lives. To feign outrage and single out the PATRIOT act because it invades privacy and impinges on freedoms is disingenuous.That said, you do have some pretty extreme misunderstandings about what the PATRIOT act authorizes. Lets have a look at your claims:
- "they authorize the president to fire US Attorneys"- The President has been authorized to fire US Attorneys since 1789 when the position was created. 28 USC 541(c): US Attorneys are "subject to removal" by the President.
- "secretly arrest citizens" - Pure fiction. Just what section do you think authorizes this? The closest I can think of is section 412 that mandates the arrest and detainment of non-citizens that are engaging in terrorism, with an explicit right to petition for habeas corpus and continued judicial review (in other words, nothing like what you said).
- "secretly try them in a secret jail with secret evidence for secret crimes" - Again, this is pure fantasy. The PATRIOT act authorizes nothing like that. Not even close.
I don't know if it could be any more clear that you do not know what you are talking about. If you would like to clarify which section of the PATRIOT Act it is that you think authorizes this hyperbole, I will be all ears.Fascinating. You accuse me of lying, and the only "evidence" you have to support that is a quote that completely backs up what I had written. What gives? It is exactly as I said before: prior to the PATRIOT Act, when a US Attorney was fired, the interim appointee could serve up to 120 days without Senate confirmation. The PATRIOT Act removed that 120 limit. Considering it hasn't even been 120 days since the attorneys were fired, and that all of the internal memos that have been made public indicated that they intended on submitting the new appointees for regular Senate confirmation, this change is pretty irrelevant, don't you think?Okay- then why don't you point out anything in the PCIe spec that refers to it as a bus (I'll accept anything from the 1.0, 1.0a, 1.1, or 2.0 specs). They use the word "link" religiously. I wonder why that is...
This will be fun.
I am an individual that likes President Bush a heck of a lot. Based on my experience interacting with people that share your political views, I'm guessing the discussion went more like this:
hxnwix: I can't believe how much of a criminal that Nazi Shrub is!
neocon: What law did he break?
hxnwix: (interrupting) WHAT LAW HASN'T HE BROKEN? THE EVIL MORON LIAR CHIMP FIRED 8 ATTORNEYS!
neocon: He has the constitutional authority to staff political appointees as he sees fit. Why are we even talking about this?
hxnwix: THOSE WHO GIVE UP FREEDOM FOR SAFETY GET NEITHER! DON'T YOU SEE?
neocon: See what?
hxnwix: IT WAS A CONSPIRACY BY ROVE AND HALIBURTON! YOU ARE JUST BRAINWASHED TO NOT SEE THAT WE LIVE IN A POLICE STATE!
neocon: Huh?
hxnwix: BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED! DICK CHENEY!
neocon: Well, I'm glad that two people can still have a rational debate in this country.
hxnwix: NIGERIAN YELLOWCAKE! WMD! NO BLOOD FOR OIL! WTC BUILDING 7! SADDAM HATES AL QAEDA! *gurgle* *spit*
Question: When is it illegal for the White House to fire and replace political appointees like US Attorneys?
Answer: Never.
Game over.
Its good to see that your idiocy in politics carries over to technology. There is no such thing as a PCIe bus- its point-to-point, moron.
You think its a freudian slip to call President Bush "the President"?
I think maybe it's past your bedtime...
That Reichstag "reference" was all in your mind.
Ok- I apologize for reading into your statement.
You're going to have to accept that you're just a loaded bank of Republican talking point triggers, and stop projecting your foregone conclusions on people like me, at least in public, where your agenda shows like brown undershirt.
Wait, wait, wait. You come here with the obvious agenda of discrediting the President spouting off about how thousands of people were disenfranchised even though there is no evidence to support this, and you have the nerve to accuse me of projecting foregone conclusions? Good freak- you even tried to cite Greg Palast, the king of left-wing talking points. You are a hypocrite, and an annoying one at that.
You mean that your comment about Bush burning down the White House was not a reference to Hitler burning the Reichstag? What the hell were you talking about, then?
You can't even read - for example, I said "90% of their 57,000 voters", which should be enough for anyone who cares about democracy.
You are missing the point. Yes- the list had false positives (although it was nowhere near 90%- the USCCR estimated it to be less than 15%). That is a given. The Florida Legislature planned for this, so they added safety checks to the process to ensure that people wouldn't be disenfranchised just because of the list.
What has that got to say about ChoicePoint and Harris? NOTHING. They made the list, did what harm they could. That action by the counties says nothing but that even a bunch of $8:hour county bureaucrats couldn't hold their noses and just follow the Secretary of State's criminal orders.
This wasn't the Secretary of State's orders- it was the Florida Legislature! Katherine Harris's predisessor contracted with ChoicePoint because she was required by law to hire a public firm to generate the list.
The Secretary of State doesn't have the legal authority to disenfranchise anybody. Neither does ChoicePoint. The county election supervisors have exclusive control over the voter registration in their individual counties! The Secretary of State provided the felon list to the counties because she was required to, just like the county election supervisors were required to verify the names before any action was taken. And from all available evidence, that is EXACTLY what happened because there are zero documented cases of people actually losing their vote because they were incorrectly identified as a felon.
Like I said before, the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the felon list was not that innocent people were disenfranchised, but that it allowed too many convicted felons to vote!
You're another Republican zombie with your foregone conclusion, who grabs any talking point that will support it. I sure hope you like what you've got in your White House, because your boy is going to be burning it down for another few years.
What a weak-minded attitude. You have yet to provide any evidence that the felon list actually caused any innocent person to lose their vote (mainly because the evidence doesn't exist). Instead, you dismiss anybody who disagrees with your faulty conclusion as a zombie. How weak.
And can we please stop with the comparisons to Nazi Germany? It is only making you look more irrational.
There were not 57,000 voters that were wrongly disenfranchised. In fact, there is no evidence that ANYBODY was disenfranchised because of the felon list. Unless you can show me somebody who:
was incorrectly identified as a felon on the list
lives in a county that used the list, because most counties just ignored it
was actually removed from voter registration by the election supervisor because the supervisor didnt do their job to verify the names
didn't follow the proceedures to dispute their removal from the registration after they were notified
would have voted anyway
The error rate of the list is completely uninteresting- the law was designed to compensate for an imperfect list. In fact, the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the felon list is that it allowed too many felons to vote!
I've grown tired of trying to show reality to people determined to hold on to a fanciful interpretation of the facts.
So, you have somehow interpreted the Florida law that says that the county election supervisors have "exclusive" control over the voter registration rolls in their county to mean that the county election supervisors do not have exclusive control over the voter registrations in their county...
Not only is that a fanciful interpretation, its a retarded interpretation too.
Oh really?
The votes were counted on election day. Those results were within the margin to trigger an automatic recount, and that happened the next day. I repeat- the mandated recount did happen, and it did not change the outcome. After that, when Gore still didn't have the results that he wanted, he started pushing for hand recounts in 3 heavily Democrat counties, and those were the recounts that were halted by SCOTUS (and rightfully so).
Most importantly, your claim that the felon list was in any way just a suggestion is flat out 100% untrue. You can see the law for yourself at http://www.flsenate.gov/statutes/index.cfm?App_mod e=Display_Statute&URL=Ch0097/ch0097.htm which clearly states that the chief election officer is ordered to (11) Create and maintain a statewide voter registration database.
Ha! Classic. Yes, the Dept of Elections was required to create and maintain a felon list... which was then given to each of the County Election Supervisors to verify and act on. The responsibility for the voter rolls is clearly on the county election supervisors. Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris don't have the legal authority to remove anybody from the voter registration. This is all handled by the counties.
Actually, yes. Yes I can. Let's replace "Florida election officials" with "the RIAA and MPAA", "felons who have not received clemency" with "consumers without a distribution license" and "vote in Florida" with "share copyrighted songs on the Internet".
Oh brother. It is sad that actually think that this is a valid argument. Lets leave the red herrings out of this, ok?
Say to yourself "the ends do not justify the means". Now say it again. Try it a few more times until it sinks in. If I toss out 19 legitimate voters for every 1 felon, that's not even close to making a halfway decent effort.
Repeat this a few more times for it to sink in- there are ZERO documented cases of legitimate voters that were actually prevented from voting because of the felon list. The USCCR was unable to find a single person that was disenfranchised because he/she was incorrectly identified as a felon.
OK, if it's not the responsibility of the state to maintain voter rolls, what the hell were they doing spending $2.3 million of taxpayer money to make a list of people that shouldn't have been on the county rolls? The sure sounds like the state trying to have its say in maintaining the voter lists. And even if that was the case in 2000, it's no longer true. The Help America Vote Act requires states to centralize their voter database as of 01/2004.
The felon list != the voter registration. The felon list was commissioned by the Florida Dept of Elections because they were required to by law. This is really simple stuff here.