The current administration attempted to justify this war with Iraq as an extension of the "War on Terrorism". Iraq had massive WMD stockpiles they said. These could be readied for use within 45 minutes they said.
Last week, The London Telegraph interviewed the Iraqi Colonel responsible for the 45-minute WMD claim. Guess what? He still stands by the claim. In fact, he says that they had weapons ready to fire within 30 minutes of a go-ahead by Saddam, and the only reason they were not used was because of dissention among Iraqi troops.
Iraq had definite links with Al Qaeda they said. All lies. There have been no WMDs found, even the Bush adminstration now admits that such claims were over-exuberant, and no evidence of any links with Al Qaeda has been presented
Terrorism != Al Qaeda
The President declared a war on terrorism, not Al Qaeda. There didn't need to be any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda (although many have been uncovered, which you choose to ignore). The only justification that we needed was that Iraq (and its WMD) posed a threat to our national security, and nobody has tried to deny that claim.
Eventually some people who complained a lot got their vote counted and their right to vote restored.
75% of the people who testified had their voting rights restored. If there were over 100,000 legitimate voters who couldn't vote, why couldnt the USCCR find a single one of them? The only person they found that could not vote had in fact been convicted of a crime.
But Harris and Bush succeeded in keeping over a hundred thousand voters off the rolls, most of whom were illegally and illegitimately denied their right to vote
Well, it doesn't look like you want to pay attention to the facts. Lets try this again (not that you are going to pay any attention). Bush and Harris had nothing to do with the voter rolls. Per Florida Law it was the responsibility of local county election officials to maintain the voter rolls. Per Florida Law, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris had no authority to change the voter rolls. How can you keep pounding your agruement with a straight face? You are blaming Bush and Harris for:
A law that was passed before they took office
A voter scrub list that was not commissioned by them, but was commissioned by a Democrat
Changing Voter rolls that they had no authority or method of changing
Voter disenfranchisement where nobody was willing to testify that they were disenfranchised (several people testified that they were inconvienenced, but not disenfranchised)
Why can't you see how ridiculously partisan you sound?
Ah so a dissenting statement by a group of Republicans proves that there was no electoral fraud!
And a factless report by a group of partisan Democrats does prove it?
BTW the dissent disputes the findings by rejecting all the testimony and facts found as 'anecdotal' they provide no contradictory claims, nor do they dispute the evidence in detail, they dispute the claim that the returning officer and governor had responsibility, which is odd when you look who was responsible for compiling the list at the center of the claims and for distributing the wrong and illegal advice to the returning officers.
Lets look at the "facts" represented by the USCCR report.
Willie D. Whiting, Jr., a member of the clergy and registered voter in Tallahassee, who went with his family to vote at his assigned polling place, Precinct 42 in Leon County. When Apostle Whiting presented his driver's license for identification purposes, the poll worker said his name was not on the registration list and called the supervisor of elections for Leon County to verify his registration status. Apostle Whiting asked to speak with a supervisor at that office, and he was told that an individual named Willie J. Whiting, born two days after Apostle Whiting, had been convicted of a felony in the state of Florida. Consequently, Apostle Whiting learned he had been wrongfully removed from the registration list. After Apostle Whiting threatened to contact an attorney, he was allowed to vote.[204]
William J. Snow, Jr., a Miami-Dade resident, testified that he received notice that he would be ineligible to vote in the November 2000 election because of a felony conviction. Receiving the notice "caused a great stress" upon Mr. Snow's heart because he had never been convicted of a felony. Mr. Snow testified that the problem has been corrected. Mr. Snow has been a Miami-Dade County resident for more than 33 years and voted in the 1996 election without incident.[205]
Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct. When she called the supervisor of elections office, she was told that their rights had been taken away from them due to an alleged felony conviction. She was further instructed by the supervisor's office that she could not inform those voters of the reason for their removal from the rolls, but she was instructed to "tell them to call downtown at a later date."[206]
Professor Darryl Paulson testified that the Hillsborough County supervisor of elections estimated that 15 percent of those purged were purged in error and they were disproportionately African American. According to Professor Paulson, another source estimated that 7,000 voters, mostly African Americans and registered Democrats, were removed from the list.[207]
According to news reports, even those who had received a full pardon for their offenses were listed on DBT's exclusion list.
Reverend Willie Dixon, a Tampa resident, received a full pardon for drug offenses in 1985, and has since become a youth leader, a bible preacher, and a "pillar of the Tampa African American community who has voted in every presidential election."[208] But despite his 15 years of voting status, Pam Iorio, the supervisor of elections for Hillsborough County, sent Reverend Dixon a letter informing him that he had been removed from the rolls because of a prior conviction.[209] Eventually, Reverend Dixon was able to verify his status as a registered voter.[210]
Media accounts also captured the impact of list maintenance activities and the frustration they caused for Florida voters.[211]
Wallace McDonald, in 1959, was convicted of a misdemeanor, vagrancy, for falling asleep on a bench in Tampa while he waited for a bus. In 2000, Mr. McDonald received a letter from Ms. Iorio informing him that
Harris and Bush willfully disobeyed a rack of court orders that required voters with the right to vote to be allowed to register. They also selected ChoicePoint to scrub the voter lists despite the fact they were the most expensive by 25 times the cost of the cheapest bid.
Again, you are misinformed and are obviosly basing your argument on factless partisan rhetoric. Harris and Bush had nothing to do with the selection of DBT/ChoicePoint. DBT/ChoicePoint was hired in 1997 (before Bush and Harris were even in office) as a result of Florida statute 98.0975 passed by the state legislature (again, before Bush and Harris were in offic), and they were comissioned by the Florida Director of Elections Ethel Baxtor, a democrat.
Bush and Harris also had nothing to do with the "scrubbing" of the voter list. As specified by Florida state law, this was the responsibility of the local county election officials. This means that if anybody was incorrectly removed from the voter registration, they were removed by their county election officials (who shockingly happen to be democrats in heavily democratic counties).
However the facts found by the report validate the claim that the ballot was rigged in a massively partisan manner.
Facts? What facts? The commission heard testimony from 5 people who were inaccurately included on the list, 4 of which were eventually allowed to vote after clearing up the problem. Are these the "facts" that you use to cite a rigged ballot in a "massively partisan manner"??
The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.
The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did.
Isn't it interesting that the only "source" for these allegations is a so-called "reporter" who has renounced his US citizenship? It's quiet apparent that he has a vestedinterest in discrediting the Bush Presidency.
The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.
Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".
The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters
This conclusion led to a harsh Dissent from comissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh, who said in part:
The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.
The only reason you won't see the US media looking into this story is simply because there is no story at all to report.
DRM tech adds NOTHING in terms of value to any entertainment media I would choose to buy.
Without DRM, you wouldn't even have the choice to buy it because it wouldn't even be available. If you were a media executive, would you spend money to develop and market digital media if you had no control over people illegally giving it away?
Erm did you even read the report? This excerpt from chapter 5 adresses the issue of false positives right here
Nobody is denying that there were false positives on the list. In fact, the Florida legislature intended to cast a wide a net as possible to make sure no names slipped through the cracks. This is why they required local county election officials to verify every name that was given to them by DBT.
The issue here is whether or not somebody was actually denied the right to vote because of a false inclusion on the list. The USCCR heard testimony from many "false positives" that were able to clear things up and vote. They could not find a single person who had not comitted a crime and was incorrectly barred from voting because of their inclusion on the list.
Actually, Katherine Harris has been found guilty of violating election laws in the past, so I wouldn't be too confident if I were you that she was innocent in the 2000 election. It is simply a question of the Bush bros. being unwilling to investigate her conduct.
And exactly what law is it that you believe the supreme Court enforced? Their guilt isn't in what they did, but rather, what they didn't.
Florida State Law (Section 102.112) specifies that all Florida elections have to be certified at 5:00PM on the 7th day after the election. Katherine Harris complied with the law. Gore got the Florida Supreme Court to change the law after the fact, and the US Supreme court said they couldn't do that. Despite what you (or Gore) wanted the US supreme court to do, they ruled according to the constitution.
Absolutely not. And why should I? The man doesn't bother to hide his many crimes against humanity or the Constitution. He steals from us in plain sight, and with a straight face. There hasn't ever been as contemptable a president as George Bush. It's not even close. The man is a monster.
You'll come around to my point of view here soon enough. And there will be plenty of time to rue the day this man seized the office.
Give me a break. Your rantings resemble a crazed lunatic in a padded cell. Monster? At least he hasn't been taking 6yr old boys at gunpoint or blowing up compounts full of innocent church members or throwing cruise missles around the same day that a Grand Jury hearing is being held on his criminal actions. There are plenty of things that politicians do that I disagree with, but I will stop well short of calling any of them a "monster".
Yes. If you want to make the claim that the democrats deserved Florida for their complicity in the war on drugs, you will get no debate here
So, you admit that the recent democratic administration was a major accomplice to the war on drugs, and yet you still blame Bush for the supposed "voter disenfranchisement" that was a result of it?
Even assuming this is true it doesn't change the fact that this election was a fraud.
Translation: It doesn't matter how wrong I am, it doesn't change the fact that I think I am right.
We are taxed on income, not wealth, so your point is irrelevant. Even if we were taxed based on wealth and not income, we would see an even more slanted scale with the rich paying an even higher percentage of the income tax base.
The USCCR held hearings on this issue and heard testimony from those affected in the 2000 election. Look at Chapter 5 of the report. Scroll down to the section titled "Human Consequences of Felon Exclusion List". There are 6 anecdotal testimonies about voter exclusion list inaccuracies. Of these testimonies, only one person testified that they were not allowed to vote, but their inclusion on the list was accurate because of a criminal conviction in the 1950's. The rest of the testimonies are either vague ("Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct") or the problem was corrected. Yet, the comission concluded that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in the 2000 election based on these testimonies.
This prompted a harsh dissent from commissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh about the conclusions of the USCCR report. They wrote, in part:
The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.
Nope. Look at the linked spreadsheet. The richest 50% account for 96% of the income tax base, but only 87% of the income. So the poorest 50% earn 13% of the nations income, but only pay 4% of the nations tax.
Then numbers become more disparaging the higher you go. The top 5% of wage earners pay 56% of all taxes (yes, over half!), but only earn 35% of the income. The top 1% pay 35% of all taxes while earning only 20% of the income.
We've got evidence that Diebold tampered with results
Your "evidence" is from a middle-aged freelance writer who found a Web site "on about the 15th page of Google" with this information. And, as we all know, everything you read on the web is true. Especailly if you write for such respected publications as The Conspiracy Planet.
we've got evidence that blacks were denied the opportunity to vote
According the Jesse Jackson, the only blacks who were "disenfranchised" either:
Forgot their photo ID
Forgot to register
Were too confused by the ballot
I fail to see how this could have anything to do with Bush "buying" the election.
we've got Katherine Harris and we've got the supreme Court and oh yeah we've got the Governor of Florida who just happens to be the First Retard's brother
Katherine Harris and the US Supreme court enforced the laws as they were written. And by calling the President names, I guess you don't really try to hide your bias.
We could go on with how the war on drugs disenfranchised some hundreds of thousands of blacks thus preventing them from voting, in violation of the Constitution
You mean the war on drugs that Clinton increase spending by 10% each year on? I guess he was trying to buy the election for Bush as well.
we could talk about how recounts were illegally obstructed and in some cases denied.
Maybe you don't remember that it was Gore who was limiting recounts to 3 counties where he thought he could gain the most votes, and it was Gore who was trying to block absentee ballots that were perfectly valid according to Florida state law.
There is a vast amount of evidence that large numbers of people were denied the right to vote because they had a similar name to that of a known criminal
So how come the US Civil Rights Comission failed to find a single person who was denied to vote on this basis?
Those running the election (Katherine Harris) employed a company now owned by Diebold (I believe) to construct the list used
No, Katherine Harris didn't employ ChoicePoint (formally DBT Online). She wasn't even in office when Choicepoint was comissioned. They were hired in 1997 by Ethel Baxtor, who was the Florida Director of Elections (and who is also a Democrat).
This list included people from other states who had prior criminal records but were allowed to vote under FLORIDA law - however they were removed from the voter's role.
No, this list did not remove anybody from the voters role. That was the responsibility of the local county election officials after they had verified the names on the list and given notice to those who were ineligible to vote. This is how the state law was written.
this deliberate policy of ignoring FLORIDA state law by it's governer and the electoral commitees disadvantaged the Democrats as most poor and black voters vote democrat.
Lets go back to Government 101. The Executive Branch (i.e., the Governor) do not write the laws. In this case, the Florida Legislature passed chaptor 98.0975 in 1997 (before Jeb Bush was elected to office) requiring the list to be compiled, (ironically it was the Democrats who were calling for this list because of supposed votor irregularies in the 1997 Miami Mayoral race). No laws were ignored. The list was compiled because the legistlature passed a law requiring it.
You might want to check a few facts before you start foaming at the mouth trying to discredit the Bush presidency.
So you would rather have us be screwed by tax-the-poor-give-back-to-the-rich Republicans
I know this is hard for you to comprehend, but the poor can't give anything back to the "rich republicans" because they don't pay any taxes in the first place. Here are the actual US Treasury figures. The bottom 50% of tax payers (those making less than $27,600 per year) pay less than 4% of the total tax base.
So the converse means that the "rich" 50% (those making more than $27,600 per year) pay 96% of all taxes, and half the country is riding on their coattails.
Weapons that actually exist in the real world, compared to the Iraqi weapons - which exist only in the fevered imaginations of certain deranged individuals.
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years
I remember the UN not condoning the US actions...you are pretty much claiming that the US had to ignore the UN to go against Iraq because Iraq was ignoring the UN
Wrong. The US actions were a direct result of Iraq's violation of UN security counsel resolutions. The US was not ignoring the UN, they were enforcing the resolutions that were passed by the UN.
Jeez, so when you invade a country, kill thousands, and spend billions under the pretense that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And now that none are found, you claim that is "irrelevant"?
The point of this war was not to go find all the clever places that Saddam hid his weapons. It was to neutralize the threat that those weapons posed to our national security. With Saddam removed from power, this threat has been reduced, and we will stay there until the threat is eliminated.
I specially liked your "he got rid of the weapons in secret", so let me get this straight. He had weapons of mass destruction (according to you, you know he had them
There was no question whether or not he had these weapons. This fact was accepted by the worldwide intelligence community and was recognized by the UN security counsel. Even President Clinton knew Iraq had WMD. Clinton attacked them because they were not cooperating with the UN weapons team. To claim that these weapons do not exist, despite Iraq acknowledging they had them (as they did in 1993), and having used them in the past, is both ignorant and dangerous.
Saddam gets invaded, and according to you the first reaction of this crazy psychopath is to hide them. I mean whoah...
He had 12 years to hide them, including 4 years without any monitoring or observation from the UN weapons team (because he kicked them out, remember that?). He had no reason to believe we would actually attack -- for 12 years we would only slap his wrist. Saddam was trying to call our bluff to prove we were weak. By the time we were dropping bunker busters on his "secret" location, it was too late for him to do anything about it.
Let see, page 1 of your link and there is already a blatant lie:
Here's how it worked: Mostly, the disks contain data on Florida citizens - 57,700 of them. In the months leading up to the November 2000 balloting, Florida Secretary of State Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local elections supervisors to purge these 57,700 from voter registries. In Harris's computers, they are named as felons who have no right to vote in Florida.
This is completely wrong. Katherine Harris wasn't even in office when this list of 57,700 was created. This list was created as a result of 1997 Florida Statute 98.0975 passed by the legislature (That's right -- in the US, the Legislature writes state laws, not the Governor) and was commissioned by Ethel Baxtor, the 1998 Democrat Florida Director of Elections.
And per the Florida statute, it was the local county election officials who were assigned to purge the felons off the voter registration after they had verified the names on the list, and given notice of how to dispute the listing.
If any blame is to be placed on voter issues in the Florida 2000 election, it rests solely on:
The Florida Legislature, because they wrote the law
Ethel Baxtor, because she commissioned the list
The 63 county election supervisors, because they did not verify the lists as they were required to
Any blame on Jeb Bush or Secretary of Stat Harris simply shows arrogance and blatant partisanship.
What you conveniently left out is how many innocent people would have died if the US had not gotten involved in the above conflicts.
From Hiroshima to Iraq, the US has fought to protect freedom and civility. We would be far more hated and dispised if we had not fought against Hitler, Pol Pot, Tojo, Sung, Omar, Milosevic, Hussein, Bin Laden, and the scores of other dictators that account for over 100 Million Murders this century alone.
If anything, September 11 should have taught us that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, this administration has not stepped up to admit the U.S.'s mistakes of the past, nor has it worked sufficiently to prevent the memes -- the political, ideological motivations -- from spreading.
You seem to forget that when the US did practice isolationism, we were still hated and still attacked. September 11 reminded us that no matter what we do, there will always be somebody out there who is willing to kill us, and that we need to take measures to protect ourselves and our freedoms.
We, the Good Guys, have killed a lot of folks over the years, probably more than Hitler. Doesn't that make us Bad, too?
Bzzzt. Here is a brief summary of civilian deaths caused by governments and dictators in the past century. Note that the first US leader shows up at #13. Another significant difference is that the US only shows up on the list when they were fighting to stop other tyrannical leaders who had already killed far more people.
A valid point, however there is a significant difference that you are missing. Without those 2 bombs, far more would have died (from both sides) as the war continued. Those bombs were dropped to stop the killing.
If you want to argue that the US is evil because they dropped these bombs, keep in mind that we could have lobbed a few into Tokyo to kill 50 times more people. We could have leveled every city and pissed on the ashes, but we didn't because we wanted to stop fighting and we saw this as the fastest way to do that.
Everyone - people and countries - make horrible mistakes. And making an honest mistake doesn't make them evil. But to say that one side is "good" by definition, by someone's fiat, and the other side is "bad" - this is just blind arrogance and jingoism of the worst head-in-ass kind.
Might as well tear down the prisons and let 'em all go. Guess we won't need a police force any more, either, cause all those killers, rapists, molesters, and robbers are not "bad" or "evil", the just made honest mistakes. After all, they all thought that they were doing the right thing, so we can't punish them for it.
Slashdot Mirror
The current administration attempted to justify this war with Iraq as an extension of the "War on Terrorism". Iraq had massive WMD stockpiles they said. These could be readied for use within 45 minutes they said.
Last week, The London Telegraph interviewed the Iraqi Colonel responsible for the 45-minute WMD claim. Guess what? He still stands by the claim. In fact, he says that they had weapons ready to fire within 30 minutes of a go-ahead by Saddam, and the only reason they were not used was because of dissention among Iraqi troops.
Iraq had definite links with Al Qaeda they said. All lies. There have been no WMDs found, even the Bush adminstration now admits that such claims were over-exuberant, and no evidence of any links with Al Qaeda has been presented
Terrorism != Al Qaeda
The President declared a war on terrorism, not Al Qaeda. There didn't need to be any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda (although many have been uncovered, which you choose to ignore). The only justification that we needed was that Iraq (and its WMD) posed a threat to our national security, and nobody has tried to deny that claim.
75% of the people who testified had their voting rights restored. If there were over 100,000 legitimate voters who couldn't vote, why couldnt the USCCR find a single one of them? The only person they found that could not vote had in fact been convicted of a crime.
But Harris and Bush succeeded in keeping over a hundred thousand voters off the rolls, most of whom were illegally and illegitimately denied their right to vote
Well, it doesn't look like you want to pay attention to the facts. Lets try this again (not that you are going to pay any attention). Bush and Harris had nothing to do with the voter rolls. Per Florida Law it was the responsibility of local county election officials to maintain the voter rolls. Per Florida Law, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris had no authority to change the voter rolls. How can you keep pounding your agruement with a straight face? You are blaming Bush and Harris for:
A law that was passed before they took office
A voter scrub list that was not commissioned by them, but was commissioned by a Democrat
Changing Voter rolls that they had no authority or method of changing
Voter disenfranchisement where nobody was willing to testify that they were disenfranchised (several people testified that they were inconvienenced, but not disenfranchised)
Why can't you see how ridiculously partisan you sound?
Ah so a dissenting statement by a group of Republicans proves that there was no electoral fraud!
And a factless report by a group of partisan Democrats does prove it?
BTW the dissent disputes the findings by rejecting all the testimony and facts found as 'anecdotal' they provide no contradictory claims, nor do they dispute the evidence in detail, they dispute the claim that the returning officer and governor had responsibility, which is odd when you look who was responsible for compiling the list at the center of the claims and for distributing the wrong and illegal advice to the returning officers.
Lets look at the "facts" represented by the USCCR report.
Willie D. Whiting, Jr., a member of the clergy and registered voter in Tallahassee, who went with his family to vote at his assigned polling place, Precinct 42 in Leon County. When Apostle Whiting presented his driver's license for identification purposes, the poll worker said his name was not on the registration list and called the supervisor of elections for Leon County to verify his registration status. Apostle Whiting asked to speak with a supervisor at that office, and he was told that an individual named Willie J. Whiting, born two days after Apostle Whiting, had been convicted of a felony in the state of Florida. Consequently, Apostle Whiting learned he had been wrongfully removed from the registration list. After Apostle Whiting threatened to contact an attorney, he was allowed to vote.[204]
William J. Snow, Jr., a Miami-Dade resident, testified that he received notice that he would be ineligible to vote in the November 2000 election because of a felony conviction. Receiving the notice "caused a great stress" upon Mr. Snow's heart because he had never been convicted of a felony. Mr. Snow testified that the problem has been corrected. Mr. Snow has been a Miami-Dade County resident for more than 33 years and voted in the 1996 election without incident.[205]
Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct. When she called the supervisor of elections office, she was told that their rights had been taken away from them due to an alleged felony conviction. She was further instructed by the supervisor's office that she could not inform those voters of the reason for their removal from the rolls, but she was instructed to "tell them to call downtown at a later date."[206]
Professor Darryl Paulson testified that the Hillsborough County supervisor of elections estimated that 15 percent of those purged were purged in error and they were disproportionately African American. According to Professor Paulson, another source estimated that 7,000 voters, mostly African Americans and registered Democrats, were removed from the list.[207]
According to news reports, even those who had received a full pardon for their offenses were listed on DBT's exclusion list.
Reverend Willie Dixon, a Tampa resident, received a full pardon for drug offenses in 1985, and has since become a youth leader, a bible preacher, and a "pillar of the Tampa African American community who has voted in every presidential election."[208] But despite his 15 years of voting status, Pam Iorio, the supervisor of elections for Hillsborough County, sent Reverend Dixon a letter informing him that he had been removed from the rolls because of a prior conviction.[209] Eventually, Reverend Dixon was able to verify his status as a registered voter.[210]
Media accounts also captured the impact of list maintenance activities and the frustration they caused for Florida voters.[211]
Wallace McDonald, in 1959, was convicted of a misdemeanor, vagrancy, for falling asleep on a bench in Tampa while he waited for a bus. In 2000, Mr. McDonald received a letter from Ms. Iorio informing him that
Harris and Bush willfully disobeyed a rack of court orders that required voters with the right to vote to be allowed to register. They also selected ChoicePoint to scrub the voter lists despite the fact they were the most expensive by 25 times the cost of the cheapest bid.
Again, you are misinformed and are obviosly basing your argument on factless partisan rhetoric. Harris and Bush had nothing to do with the selection of DBT/ChoicePoint. DBT/ChoicePoint was hired in 1997 (before Bush and Harris were even in office) as a result of Florida statute 98.0975 passed by the state legislature (again, before Bush and Harris were in offic), and they were comissioned by the Florida Director of Elections Ethel Baxtor, a democrat.
Bush and Harris also had nothing to do with the "scrubbing" of the voter list. As specified by Florida state law, this was the responsibility of the local county election officials. This means that if anybody was incorrectly removed from the voter registration, they were removed by their county election officials (who shockingly happen to be democrats in heavily democratic counties).
However the facts found by the report validate the claim that the ballot was rigged in a massively partisan manner.
Facts? What facts? The commission heard testimony from 5 people who were inaccurately included on the list, 4 of which were eventually allowed to vote after clearing up the problem. Are these the "facts" that you use to cite a rigged ballot in a "massively partisan manner"??
The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission
Bull. Did you even read the commission report? From the Executive Summary:
The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.
The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did.
Isn't it interesting that the only "source" for these allegations is a so-called "reporter" who has renounced his US citizenship? It's quiet apparent that he has a vested interest in discrediting the Bush Presidency.
The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.
Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".
The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters
This conclusion led to a harsh Dissent from comissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh, who said in part:
The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.
The only reason you won't see the US media looking into this story is simply because there is no story at all to report.
DRM tech adds NOTHING in terms of value to any entertainment media I would choose to buy.
Without DRM, you wouldn't even have the choice to buy it because it wouldn't even be available. If you were a media executive, would you spend money to develop and market digital media if you had no control over people illegally giving it away?
Erm did you even read the report? This excerpt from chapter 5 adresses the issue of false positives right here
Nobody is denying that there were false positives on the list. In fact, the Florida legislature intended to cast a wide a net as possible to make sure no names slipped through the cracks. This is why they required local county election officials to verify every name that was given to them by DBT.
The issue here is whether or not somebody was actually denied the right to vote because of a false inclusion on the list. The USCCR heard testimony from many "false positives" that were able to clear things up and vote. They could not find a single person who had not comitted a crime and was incorrectly barred from voting because of their inclusion on the list.
Actually, Katherine Harris has been found guilty of violating election laws in the past, so I wouldn't be too confident if I were you that she was innocent in the 2000 election. It is simply a question of the Bush bros. being unwilling to investigate her conduct.
And exactly what law is it that you believe the supreme Court enforced? Their guilt isn't in what they did, but rather, what they didn't.
Florida State Law (Section 102.112) specifies that all Florida elections have to be certified at 5:00PM on the 7th day after the election. Katherine Harris complied with the law. Gore got the Florida Supreme Court to change the law after the fact, and the US Supreme court said they couldn't do that. Despite what you (or Gore) wanted the US supreme court to do, they ruled according to the constitution.
Absolutely not. And why should I? The man doesn't bother to hide his many crimes against humanity or the Constitution. He steals from us in plain sight, and with a straight face. There hasn't ever been as contemptable a president as George Bush. It's not even close. The man is a monster.
You'll come around to my point of view here soon enough. And there will be plenty of time to rue the day this man seized the office.
Give me a break. Your rantings resemble a crazed lunatic in a padded cell. Monster? At least he hasn't been taking 6yr old boys at gunpoint or blowing up compounts full of innocent church members or throwing cruise missles around the same day that a Grand Jury hearing is being held on his criminal actions. There are plenty of things that politicians do that I disagree with, but I will stop well short of calling any of them a "monster".
Yes. If you want to make the claim that the democrats deserved Florida for their complicity in the war on drugs, you will get no debate here
So, you admit that the recent democratic administration was a major accomplice to the war on drugs, and yet you still blame Bush for the supposed "voter disenfranchisement" that was a result of it?
Even assuming this is true it doesn't change the fact that this election was a fraud.
Translation: It doesn't matter how wrong I am, it doesn't change the fact that I think I am right.
We are taxed on income, not wealth, so your point is irrelevant. Even if we were taxed based on wealth and not income, we would see an even more slanted scale with the rich paying an even higher percentage of the income tax base.
The USCCR held hearings on this issue and heard testimony from those affected in the 2000 election. Look at Chapter 5 of the report. Scroll down to the section titled "Human Consequences of Felon Exclusion List". There are 6 anecdotal testimonies about voter exclusion list inaccuracies. Of these testimonies, only one person testified that they were not allowed to vote, but their inclusion on the list was accurate because of a criminal conviction in the 1950's. The rest of the testimonies are either vague ("Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct") or the problem was corrected. Yet, the comission concluded that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in the 2000 election based on these testimonies.
This prompted a harsh dissent from commissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh about the conclusions of the USCCR report. They wrote, in part:
The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.
Nope. Look at the linked spreadsheet. The richest 50% account for 96% of the income tax base, but only 87% of the income. So the poorest 50% earn 13% of the nations income, but only pay 4% of the nations tax.
Then numbers become more disparaging the higher you go. The top 5% of wage earners pay 56% of all taxes (yes, over half!), but only earn 35% of the income. The top 1% pay 35% of all taxes while earning only 20% of the income.
Your "evidence" is from a middle-aged freelance writer who found a Web site "on about the 15th page of Google" with this information. And, as we all know, everything you read on the web is true. Especailly if you write for such respected publications as The Conspiracy Planet.
we've got evidence that blacks were denied the opportunity to vote
According the Jesse Jackson, the only blacks who were "disenfranchised" either:
Forgot their photo ID
Forgot to register
Were too confused by the ballot
I fail to see how this could have anything to do with Bush "buying" the election.
we've got Katherine Harris and we've got the supreme Court and oh yeah we've got the Governor of Florida who just happens to be the First Retard's brother
Katherine Harris and the US Supreme court enforced the laws as they were written. And by calling the President names, I guess you don't really try to hide your bias.
We could go on with how the war on drugs disenfranchised some hundreds of thousands of blacks thus preventing them from voting, in violation of the Constitution
You mean the war on drugs that Clinton increase spending by 10% each year on? I guess he was trying to buy the election for Bush as well.
we could talk about how recounts were illegally obstructed and in some cases denied.
Maybe you don't remember that it was Gore who was limiting recounts to 3 counties where he thought he could gain the most votes, and it was Gore who was trying to block absentee ballots that were perfectly valid according to Florida state law.
There is a vast amount of evidence that large numbers of people were denied the right to vote because they had a similar name to that of a known criminal
So how come the US Civil Rights Comission failed to find a single person who was denied to vote on this basis?
Those running the election (Katherine Harris) employed a company now owned by Diebold (I believe) to construct the list used
No, Katherine Harris didn't employ ChoicePoint (formally DBT Online). She wasn't even in office when Choicepoint was comissioned. They were hired in 1997 by Ethel Baxtor, who was the Florida Director of Elections (and who is also a Democrat).
This list included people from other states who had prior criminal records but were allowed to vote under FLORIDA law - however they were removed from the voter's role.
No, this list did not remove anybody from the voters role. That was the responsibility of the local county election officials after they had verified the names on the list and given notice to those who were ineligible to vote. This is how the state law was written.
this deliberate policy of ignoring FLORIDA state law by it's governer and the electoral commitees disadvantaged the Democrats as most poor and black voters vote democrat.
Lets go back to Government 101. The Executive Branch (i.e., the Governor) do not write the laws. In this case, the Florida Legislature passed chaptor 98.0975 in 1997 (before Jeb Bush was elected to office) requiring the list to be compiled, (ironically it was the Democrats who were calling for this list because of supposed votor irregularies in the 1997 Miami Mayoral race). No laws were ignored. The list was compiled because the legistlature passed a law requiring it.
You might want to check a few facts before you start foaming at the mouth trying to discredit the Bush presidency.
So you would rather have us be screwed by tax-the-poor-give-back-to-the-rich Republicans
I know this is hard for you to comprehend, but the poor can't give anything back to the "rich republicans" because they don't pay any taxes in the first place. Here are the actual US Treasury figures. The bottom 50% of tax payers (those making less than $27,600 per year) pay less than 4% of the total tax base. So the converse means that the "rich" 50% (those making more than $27,600 per year) pay 96% of all taxes, and half the country is riding on their coattails.
Bush's Justice Dept. doesn't go after his buddies.
Are you sure about that?
Weapons that actually exist in the real world, compared to the Iraqi weapons - which exist only in the fevered imaginations of certain deranged individuals.
... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Feb 18, 1998
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
"There is no doubt that
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years
I remember the UN not condoning the US actions...you are pretty much claiming that the US had to ignore the UN to go against Iraq because Iraq was ignoring the UN
Wrong. The US actions were a direct result of Iraq's violation of UN security counsel resolutions. The US was not ignoring the UN, they were enforcing the resolutions that were passed by the UN.
Jeez, so when you invade a country, kill thousands, and spend billions under the pretense that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And now that none are found, you claim that is "irrelevant"?
The point of this war was not to go find all the clever places that Saddam hid his weapons. It was to neutralize the threat that those weapons posed to our national security. With Saddam removed from power, this threat has been reduced, and we will stay there until the threat is eliminated.
I specially liked your "he got rid of the weapons in secret", so let me get this straight. He had weapons of mass destruction (according to you, you know he had them
There was no question whether or not he had these weapons. This fact was accepted by the worldwide intelligence community and was recognized by the UN security counsel. Even President Clinton knew Iraq had WMD. Clinton attacked them because they were not cooperating with the UN weapons team. To claim that these weapons do not exist, despite Iraq acknowledging they had them (as they did in 1993), and having used them in the past, is both ignorant and dangerous.
Saddam gets invaded, and according to you the first reaction of this crazy psychopath is to hide them. I mean whoah...
He had 12 years to hide them, including 4 years without any monitoring or observation from the UN weapons team (because he kicked them out, remember that?). He had no reason to believe we would actually attack -- for 12 years we would only slap his wrist. Saddam was trying to call our bluff to prove we were weak. By the time we were dropping bunker busters on his "secret" location, it was too late for him to do anything about it.
Is this why Osama released a tape shortly before we attacked Iraq encouraging the entire Islamic world to unite against the US and drive us out?
Here's how it worked: Mostly, the disks contain data on Florida citizens - 57,700 of them. In the months leading up to the November 2000 balloting, Florida Secretary of State Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local elections supervisors to purge these 57,700 from voter registries. In Harris's computers, they are named as felons who have no right to vote in Florida.
This is completely wrong. Katherine Harris wasn't even in office when this list of 57,700 was created. This list was created as a result of 1997 Florida Statute 98.0975 passed by the legislature (That's right -- in the US, the Legislature writes state laws, not the Governor) and was commissioned by Ethel Baxtor, the 1998 Democrat Florida Director of Elections.
And per the Florida statute, it was the local county election officials who were assigned to purge the felons off the voter registration after they had verified the names on the list, and given notice of how to dispute the listing.
If any blame is to be placed on voter issues in the Florida 2000 election, it rests solely on:
The Florida Legislature, because they wrote the law
Ethel Baxtor, because she commissioned the list
The 63 county election supervisors, because they did not verify the lists as they were required to
Any blame on Jeb Bush or Secretary of Stat Harris simply shows arrogance and blatant partisanship.
Germany today clearly knows that the atrocities it committed during the first part of the 20th century were a Bad Thing
And the only reason we know this is because we stood up against them and made them stop.
What you conveniently left out is how many innocent people would have died if the US had not gotten involved in the above conflicts.
From Hiroshima to Iraq, the US has fought to protect freedom and civility. We would be far more hated and dispised if we had not fought against Hitler, Pol Pot, Tojo, Sung, Omar, Milosevic, Hussein, Bin Laden, and the scores of other dictators that account for over 100 Million Murders this century alone.
If anything, September 11 should have taught us that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, this administration has not stepped up to admit the U.S.'s mistakes of the past, nor has it worked sufficiently to prevent the memes -- the political, ideological motivations -- from spreading.
You seem to forget that when the US did practice isolationism, we were still hated and still attacked. September 11 reminded us that no matter what we do, there will always be somebody out there who is willing to kill us, and that we need to take measures to protect ourselves and our freedoms.
We, the Good Guys, have killed a lot of folks over the years, probably more than Hitler. Doesn't that make us Bad, too?
Bzzzt. Here is a brief summary of civilian deaths caused by governments and dictators in the past century. Note that the first US leader shows up at #13. Another significant difference is that the US only shows up on the list when they were fighting to stop other tyrannical leaders who had already killed far more people.
A valid point, however there is a significant difference that you are missing. Without those 2 bombs, far more would have died (from both sides) as the war continued. Those bombs were dropped to stop the killing.
If you want to argue that the US is evil because they dropped these bombs, keep in mind that we could have lobbed a few into Tokyo to kill 50 times more people. We could have leveled every city and pissed on the ashes, but we didn't because we wanted to stop fighting and we saw this as the fastest way to do that.
Everyone - people and countries - make horrible mistakes. And making an honest mistake doesn't make them evil. But to say that one side is "good" by definition, by someone's fiat, and the other side is "bad" - this is just blind arrogance and jingoism of the worst head-in-ass kind.
Might as well tear down the prisons and let 'em all go. Guess we won't need a police force any more, either, cause all those killers, rapists, molesters, and robbers are not "bad" or "evil", the just made honest mistakes. After all, they all thought that they were doing the right thing, so we can't punish them for it.
What a bunch of nonsense.