Yes, but unemployment improvement is always on the trailing edge of an economic recovery because companies will not hire until they know for sure that they will be growing.
We have had positive and substantial growth for the better part of 2 quarters now, and the stock market is trading at year highs. Consumer spending is up, and capital spending increased substantially last quarter. It won't be long until unemployment improves substantially.
While I'm sure Hitler thought he was doing the right thing by killing 6,000,000 Jews, it doesn't change the fact that it was just plain wrong.
There always has to be a universal moral ground to fall back on. And killing 6,000,000 people just because you don't like them, or hijacking commercial airliners and crashing them into civilian buildings is universally wrong, despite the fact that the perpetrators thought they were right.
It is if they say it is. I had a friend get escorted off the campus where I work because he brought a digital camera into the building to show pictures of his newborn to coworkers. Most companies have clear policies about recording or photographing anything on company property.
"In the Salon Politics article "Florida's flawed 'voter-cleansing' program," it was incorrectly stated that Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a company, ChoicePoint, to create a voter "purge" list. The company was hired in 1998 before Harris was elected to her post."
Wrong. A judges responsibility is to interpret the strict letter of the law, and he did that. The system is set up (as the parent pointed out), with checks and balances to ensure that no single branch of the Government has too much power. In this case, it worked the way it was supposed to. It didn't matter if 50,000,000 people signed up on the list if the Executive Branch (the FTC) had not been granted the power to enforce the law by the Legislative branch.
Today, the system has worked as it should once again. The Legislative branch realized that the majority of constituents that they represent wanted this law and so they voted it in.
I think this is a perfect example of why our system works so well. Sure, there will always be people who disagree politically with those who are in charge, but the ultimate power is granted by the people.
The argument that the Judge should have had "common sense" and granted this power without the legislatures permission is very dangerous. Can you imagine the trouble that we would be in if every judge started to interpret the law based on what they thought the "spirit" of the law was rather than the concrete, strict letter? "Your Honor, I know the law says that I'm not supposed to run red lights, but the spirit of the law is to avoid accidents, and because I didn't get into an accident I didn't violate the spirit of the law..."
I didn't read the whole thing but here is a quote that seems to corroborate Greg Palast's allegations: In 2000, Florida contracted with DBT Online (Choicepoint) to purge the central voter list. The Commission found that the use of a private entity without clear and effective guidance from the highest state levels, coupled with the absence of uniform and reliable verification procedures, resulted in the disenfranchisement of countless eligible voters in 2000.
Here is the executive summary of the USCCR findings. The most important point is found in the 8th paragraph: "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."
Basically, the report found that even though some voters may have been disenfranchised, they do not believe it was Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris conspiring to do it, and that no intentional discrimination occured. This collaborates with this NAACP Settlement: "Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."
In fact, the main findings of the report were harshly criticized in this Dissent, which says 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."
Despite the claims of widespread voter and minority disenfranchisement, the comission could not find a single person who testified that they were incorrectly included on the felons' list and were not allowed to vote. They only found anecdotal evidence from a few people about irregularities (such as people getting a busy signal when they tried to call the election officials) and used this to levy a very serious charge.
Greg Palast claims to have 2 CDROMS with the complete felons' list. I suppose it would be a violation of privacy and stuff but it would be nice if they were published so we could look at them ourselves
The felons' list that was compiled by DBT/Choicepointe is largely irrelevent. DBT was hired in 1998 after the Florida Legislature passed a requiring the state to compile a list of voters who potentially should not be allow to vote. They were instructed (by the Florida Legislature, and Ethel Baxter -- the Democrat director of elections) to compile a list with as many names as possible. They knew that many invalid names would be on the list, and they required local county officials to verify every name on the list. It turns out that many counties did not do this and eventually discarded the lists entirely, and this was the reason for the NAACP suit. Florida changed this proceedure even before the NAACP settlement took place.
It is also interesting to point out that the state Democratic party officials were concerned that Janet Reno would win the 2002 Gubernatorial primary after they endorsed McBride, so they petitioned the Secretary of State to include as many names on the felon list as possible, fearing that ex-convicts would be more likely to vote for Reno because of her "light" stance on crime.
I was able to find this Salon article that says 173,000 names were removed from the voter roles, and that 8,000 of them were people who were convicted for misdemeanors, not felonies.
Hilarious. Instead of trusting the "party line" from Fox News, CNN, and every other news organisation in the country, we should trust a blatantly partisan "journalist" who has renounced his US citizenship, and is desparately trying to make a buck from his criticism of President Bush.
Palast has broken some of the biggest stories of recent years - how Katherine Harris stole the 2000 election for Bush by illegally removing African-Americans from voter rolls (named Salon's Politics story of the year)
I guess Greg never bothered to check the Salon Corrections retracting the accusations against Catherine Harris. Maybe thats why nobody else bothered to cover this "story"?
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...
It is impossible to determine the extent of the disenfranchisement or to provide an adequate remedy to the persons whose voices were silenced by injustice, ineptitude, and inefficiency.
In fact, read the entire summary of the USCCR report. You will find such damning stories like:
A poll worker in Palm Beach County testified that she had to use her personal cell phone to attempt to contact the election supervisor's office. Despite trying all day, she only got through two or three times over the course of 12 hours.
One potential voter waited hours at the polls because of a registration mix-up as poll workers attempted to call the office of the supervisor of elections. The call never got through and the individual was not allowed to vote. A former poll worker herself, she testified that she never saw anything like it during her 18 years as a poll worker.
A poll worker in Miami-Dade County with 15 years of experience testified, "By far this was the worst election I have ever experienced. After that election, I decided I didn't want to work as a clerk anymore."
Take note of the secion titled "Purging Former Felons from the Voter Rolls". Note that they failed to come up with a single name of any individual who was incorrectly added to the rolls. The only recommendations are:
The Division of Elections failed to recommend the same cautionary steps before the November 2000 presidential election that were taken before the 1998 election. At that time, supervisors of elections were asked to verify the exclusion lists with the greatest of care. They were asked to provide opportunities for persons to vote by affidavit ballot in those instances in which the voter made a credible challenge to his or her removal from the voter registration rolls.
Inadequate supervision of Division of Elections staff allowed irresponsible decisions to be made, including an official of the Division of Elections encouraging an error-laden strategy that resulted in the removal of a disproportionate number of eligible African American voters from the rolls.
State officials should have provided adequate training to supervisors of elections in purge verification procedures.
So, besides a few people having to hold on the phone for more than 10 minutes, there isn't very much concrete evidence that a significant amount of voters were disenfranchised. This prompted the harsh dissent on the report findings.
Florida elsection officials decided to pay DBT millions of dollars to come up with a list of fellons when in the past a different company did the same for $5000
Correct, and the Florida election official that decided to pay DBT this amound of money was Ethel Baxter (Florida Director of Elections), a Democrat.
Catherine Harris instructed them not to AGAINST state regulations.
Thats funny. DBT was comissioned in 1998, before Catherine Harris was in office. Why would she be giving them any instructions before she was elected into office?
Might want to check your sources from your google search.
You'll also note that Florida 98.0975(4) does not say the county supervisor of elections must verify this list, only that they must 'attempt' to do so. A phone call unanswered, or a postcard that gets lost, and the law is satified.
How is this Jeb Bush's fault? If county election officials only "attempt" to verify the list, then why are they not ultimately responsible for invalid inclusions on the list? Jeb Bush and Catherine Harris had nothing to do with voter exclusions from the 2000 election, the local county election officials did. I guess that convienently doesn't fit your story as all the county election officials in the counties in question were all Democrats.
You also do not seem well informed on legal challenges to the purge list. The NAACP has sued a list of people over it. This includes the company that made the list, and several counties that have settled out of court.
You might want to read the actual Settlement. From page 1-2 (ephasis added):
Defendants have taken an oath to support,
protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Florida, and
are dedicated to act in a manner consistent with the requirements of federal, state and local
election law. Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory
manner toward any group. It is further understood by the Parties to this Agreement that
following the November 2000 general election, new laws, rules and procedures were implemented in Florida that affect the registration and voting process. Defendants contend that these changes have made necessary some of the practices called for within this Agreement.
Even the NAACP was quick to point out that there were no charges of discrimination levied against the defendants, and that most of the changes that they were suing for were implemented prior to the settlement agreement.
Odd. I though we were blaming Jeb Bush and Catherine Harris for the Florida Election Fiasco.
The agreements, for example, call for county officials to identify and restore the voting rights of people incorrectly removed from voter rolls as a result of errors on the felon lists provided by the state Division of Elections,
If there were no voters purged incorrectly, why is this part of the settlement between the U.S. Government and the counties of Florida?
Re:Why do you think Bush gave them tax cuts?
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what about 'anything that takes away the money from some people who worked for it and gives it to other people who did absolutely nothing to earn it'?? Does that sound better?
Why stop there? We should put a ceiling on the amount people can spend too. Why not put a ceiling on the size of our houses, and the kinds of cars we drive. Let's put a ceiling on the amount of food we can buy, and the kinds of clothes we wear. In fact, why don't we make it simple and just build the same kinds of houses and cars and force everybody to live in them. Force everybody to wear government approved clothing, and eat government approved food, so we can enforce it. Just to keep it fair, we better make sure everybody does the same amount of work in a government sponsored job. And to make sure that no family is too taxing on the system, I think we should have a government regulated cap on the amount of children we can have.
Now we're talking. I'll bet this system is going to work really well!
Really? Are you sure? The socioeconomic seperation that existed in the 60's and 70's wasn't nearly as pronounced as it is today. Have you seen the unemployment rate recently? Millions of jobless people. Declining benefits, declining salaries, shaky job security, citizen's apathy for the declining political system.
I don't believe that an honest and hard working person can become a multimillionaire.
So only dishonest and lazy people can become multimillionaires?
The US indoctrinates everyone with this attitude that anyone can make it. Nobody realises that it is only at the expense of someone else.
The liberal "zero-sum" myth does not hold any water. There is not a finite amount of wealth available, and somebody gaining wealth does not automatically correlate to somebody else loosing wealth. Quite the opposite happens, as a rising tide lifts all boats.
So Bill Gates manages to sell someone elses quick and dirty OS to IBM and eveyone else. Does that make him deserve to be the richest man in the world?
No, what makes him deserve to be the richest man in the world is that he took this quick and dirty OS and turned it into something that billions of people want and even think that they need.
Don't we live in the best country in the world. The only place where people have the freedom to screw everyone over on their way to the top. Where only the rich can afford medical care or a decent education. Where the government solution is less funding and more "Compassion" and "Faith Based volutary groups". Sure I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sure there are alternatives. However, they have not worked all that well in the past.
I don't understand why you think you should have some kind of say in what kind of car other people drive. People buy an SUV because they want it. I don't give a damn if they are never going to get it dirty or if they don't pull a trailer. Its none of my damn business what they do with their car, and its none of your damn business either.
There are a lot more productive things you could be doing than critiquing how everybody else uses (or doesn't use) their car.
You're denying the fact that a vast majority of SUVs aren't used for their 'intended' purpose?
I see many SUVs with 1 person in them on their commute to work.
Apparently, when they bought their SUV they intended to drive it to work. You have no right to disagree with that. I can't force you to drive the kinds of cars I like, can I?
1) He is an American who exiled himself to Britain and then subsequently exiled himself back to the US.
Sounds reasonable. I mean, it's common and rational to move to a different country everytime your (current) government pisses you off.
2) ChoicePoint was commisioned on a high-ball bid by Katherine Harris working on behalf of Jeb Bush. Remember, Katherine Harris was wearing two hats at the time. The first hat was the supreme impartial jurist of Florida election law. The second hat was the Florida campaign head for Jeb Bush's brother. Even a crackpot neo-con couldn't dismiss a conflict of interest without a chuckle.
ChoicePoint was paid a FUCKLOAD of money over their $5700 competitor. You would think that someone would get something in return for that. Is it no wonder that the list came up with 50,000 registered voters who WERE NOT convicted of felonies in florida, and virtually all blacks and democrats.
Its amazing how ignorant people can be. Lets go over this again. DBT (which was later bought by ChoicePointe) was comissioned in 1998 to create the voter "purge" list. Jeb Bush was elected in November of 1998 and sworn into office in 1999. Catherine Harris was elected in 2000. I would have thought even you might have picked this up from the Salon.com Corrections. Was it magic? Did they go back in time to hire DBT?
"In the Salon Politics article "Florida's flawed 'voter-cleansing' program," it was incorrectly stated that Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a company, ChoicePoint, to create a voter "purge" list. The company was hired in 1998 before Harris was elected to her post.
3) Greg Palast spends a fair amount of time railing against the sins of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Blind partisans typically stick to throwing stones at the other sides like the metamorphic chameleonic Rush Limbaugh.
Just like a liberal, he spends all his time complaining about what he doesn't like but never offers any useful solution or contribution. And just to let you know (because you obviously wouldn't be listening), Rush Limbaugh has been extreemelycritical of George W. Bush, particularly with regard to the amount of money he his spending.
The Miami Herald did a similar study that actually COUNTED the ballots and found Al Gore the winner.
No, the Miami Herald/USA Today study found that "Bush would have stayed ahead under the strictest standards for judging votes, while Gore would have broken on top under the most liberal." They even admit that using the rules before hte election there was no dispute that Bush was the winner.
The true story of the election can be found at www.gregpalast.com. Yes, Greg Palast DOES have an axe to grind. He hates liars and hypocrites. The first two chapters of "The Best Democracy Money" is available their.
If this is where you get your "true story" you might want to follow up on the author. 30 seconds on his site shows that not only is he blindly partisan, but he is clearly trying to capitalize on peoples emotions about the 2000 election. The guy isn't even from America -- why does he care about our elections?
DBT Online/ChoicePoint was selected as a high-ball at $2.3 million dollars. The company who had previously did the job charged $5700.
You would think that if Palast was suggesting that Bush bought the 2000 election (as his book title suggests) he would at least check who paid the money. DBT/ChoicePoint was commissioned in 1998 by the Democrat Florida Elections Supervisor Ethel Baxtor. This was after the democrats complained that there were illegitimate Republican voters in the 1998 eleciton. You would think that the Democrats would have enough sense to at least rig the election in their favor!
They were supposed to record cross-checking against public databases and verification phone calls. They did none of this. They were instructed NOT TO.
ChoicePoint was instructed to search for similar names and reduced Jack to John etc... It was supposed to create the maximum number of matches provided the individuals.
As outlined by the Florida Legislature (not Jeb Bush or Catherine Harris), this list was supposed to identify as many names as possible and those names would be passed to county election officials for verification. The idea (which was later changed due to the NAACP lawsuit) was to cast as wide a net as possible so no illegitimate voter would slip under the cracks.
The County offices were ORDERED to scrub everyone on the list without doing verification because ChoicePoint was SUPPOSED to have done that verification.
Wrong. County election officials were given the responsibility to verify each of the names on the list and notify each person in writing prior to the eleciton. If you were notified, you were given 30 days to dispute the listing and be added to the voting registration. There were at least a half dozen counties that completely ignored the list after they saw some inconsistancies with the names on the list.
Actually, those figures you cited are mostly Bush I administration. The numbers only go to 1995 and do not include the surpluses generated in the later years of the Clinton administration.
What surpluses? Clinton claimed to have a budget surplus, but if you check the facts the U.S. National Deficit increased every year under the Clinton administration, raising a total of $1.4 Trillion during his administration. How is that a "surplus"?
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Oh, my mistake. It was only 5.5 Million. I don't know why I used such a gross exagguration to prove a point.
Unemployment is still pretty bad.
Yes, but unemployment improvement is always on the trailing edge of an economic recovery because companies will not hire until they know for sure that they will be growing. We have had positive and substantial growth for the better part of 2 quarters now, and the stock market is trading at year highs. Consumer spending is up, and capital spending increased substantially last quarter. It won't be long until unemployment improves substantially.
Righteousness is relative
While I'm sure Hitler thought he was doing the right thing by killing 6,000,000 Jews, it doesn't change the fact that it was just plain wrong.
There always has to be a universal moral ground to fall back on. And killing 6,000,000 people just because you don't like them, or hijacking commercial airliners and crashing them into civilian buildings is universally wrong, despite the fact that the perpetrators thought they were right.
It is if they say it is. I had a friend get escorted off the campus where I work because he brought a digital camera into the building to show pictures of his newborn to coworkers. Most companies have clear policies about recording or photographing anything on company property.
You sure about that?
Guess you didn't read the update.
"In the Salon Politics article "Florida's flawed 'voter-cleansing' program," it was incorrectly stated that Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a company, ChoicePoint, to create a voter "purge" list. The company was hired in 1998 before Harris was elected to her post."
I don't know what planet you're from, but here on Earth Bush inherited a large budget surplus
Apparently, you are not all that interested in looking at actual facts (Bushwatch.com?? Really??).
Here is the real data. You might notice that Federal Debt increased every year under Bill Clinton. So much for that "budget surplus" he bragged about.
Oh, and Public Debt as a percentage of GDP has actually declined from 33.6% to 32.7% under George W. Bush.
At least from the statistics of my site, IE has dropped from 95% to around 75% in the last year and a half. Netscape varients are up to about 20%.
Maybe this means we will start to see some more innovations to recapture market share.
Wrong. A judges responsibility is to interpret the strict letter of the law, and he did that. The system is set up (as the parent pointed out), with checks and balances to ensure that no single branch of the Government has too much power. In this case, it worked the way it was supposed to. It didn't matter if 50,000,000 people signed up on the list if the Executive Branch (the FTC) had not been granted the power to enforce the law by the Legislative branch.
Today, the system has worked as it should once again. The Legislative branch realized that the majority of constituents that they represent wanted this law and so they voted it in.
I think this is a perfect example of why our system works so well. Sure, there will always be people who disagree politically with those who are in charge, but the ultimate power is granted by the people.
The argument that the Judge should have had "common sense" and granted this power without the legislatures permission is very dangerous. Can you imagine the trouble that we would be in if every judge started to interpret the law based on what they thought the "spirit" of the law was rather than the concrete, strict letter? "Your Honor, I know the law says that I'm not supposed to run red lights, but the spirit of the law is to avoid accidents, and because I didn't get into an accident I didn't violate the spirit of the law..."
I didn't read the whole thing but here is a quote that seems to corroborate Greg Palast's allegations:
In 2000, Florida contracted with DBT Online (Choicepoint) to purge the central voter list. The Commission found that the use of a private entity without clear and effective guidance from the highest state levels, coupled with the absence of uniform and reliable verification procedures, resulted in the disenfranchisement of countless eligible voters in 2000.
Here is the executive summary of the USCCR findings. The most important point is found in the 8th paragraph:
"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."
Basically, the report found that even though some voters may have been disenfranchised, they do not believe it was Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris conspiring to do it, and that no intentional discrimination occured. This collaborates with this NAACP Settlement:
"Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."
In fact, the main findings of the report were harshly criticized in this Dissent, which says 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."
Despite the claims of widespread voter and minority disenfranchisement, the comission could not find a single person who testified that they were incorrectly included on the felons' list and were not allowed to vote. They only found anecdotal evidence from a few people about irregularities (such as people getting a busy signal when they tried to call the election officials) and used this to levy a very serious charge.
Greg Palast claims to have 2 CDROMS with the complete felons' list. I suppose it would be a violation of privacy and stuff but it would be nice if they were published so we could look at them ourselves
The felons' list that was compiled by DBT/Choicepointe is largely irrelevent. DBT was hired in 1998 after the Florida Legislature passed a requiring the state to compile a list of voters who potentially should not be allow to vote. They were instructed (by the Florida Legislature, and Ethel Baxter -- the Democrat director of elections) to compile a list with as many names as possible. They knew that many invalid names would be on the list, and they required local county officials to verify every name on the list. It turns out that many counties did not do this and eventually discarded the lists entirely, and this was the reason for the NAACP suit. Florida changed this proceedure even before the NAACP settlement took place.
It is also interesting to point out that the state Democratic party officials were concerned that Janet Reno would win the 2002 Gubernatorial primary after they endorsed McBride, so they petitioned the Secretary of State to include as many names on the felon list as possible, fearing that ex-convicts would be more likely to vote for Reno because of her "light" stance on crime.
I was able to find this Salon article that says 173,000 names were removed from the voter roles, and that 8,000 of them were people who were convicted for misdemeanors, not felonies.
Salon.com was also forced to post
Hilarious. Instead of trusting the "party line" from Fox News, CNN, and every other news organisation in the country, we should trust a blatantly partisan "journalist" who has renounced his US citizenship, and is desparately trying to make a buck from his criticism of President Bush.
What is even more hilarious is his biography:
Palast has broken some of the biggest stories of recent years - how Katherine Harris stole the 2000 election for Bush by illegally removing African-Americans from voter rolls (named Salon's Politics story of the year)
I guess Greg never bothered to check the Salon Corrections retracting the accusations against Catherine Harris. Maybe thats why nobody else bothered to cover this "story"?
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...
It is impossible to determine the extent of the disenfranchisement or to provide an adequate remedy to the persons whose voices were silenced by injustice, ineptitude, and inefficiency.
In fact, read the entire summary of the USCCR report. You will find such damning stories like:
A poll worker in Palm Beach County testified that she had to use her personal cell phone to attempt to contact the election supervisor's office. Despite trying all day, she only got through two or three times over the course of 12 hours.
One potential voter waited hours at the polls because of a registration mix-up as poll workers attempted to call the office of the supervisor of elections. The call never got through and the individual was not allowed to vote. A former poll worker herself, she testified that she never saw anything like it during her 18 years as a poll worker.
A poll worker in Miami-Dade County with 15 years of experience testified, "By far this was the worst election I have ever experienced. After that election, I decided I didn't want to work as a clerk anymore."
Take note of the secion titled "Purging Former Felons from the Voter Rolls". Note that they failed to come up with a single name of any individual who was incorrectly added to the rolls. The only recommendations are:
The Division of Elections failed to recommend the same cautionary steps before the November 2000 presidential election that were taken before the 1998 election. At that time, supervisors of elections were asked to verify the exclusion lists with the greatest of care. They were asked to provide opportunities for persons to vote by affidavit ballot in those instances in which the voter made a credible challenge to his or her removal from the voter registration rolls.
Inadequate supervision of Division of Elections staff allowed irresponsible decisions to be made, including an official of the Division of Elections encouraging an error-laden strategy that resulted in the removal of a disproportionate number of eligible African American voters from the rolls.
State officials should have provided adequate training to supervisors of elections in purge verification procedures.
So, besides a few people having to hold on the phone for more than 10 minutes, there isn't very much concrete evidence that a significant amount of voters were disenfranchised. This prompted the harsh dissent on the report findings.
Florida elsection officials decided to pay DBT millions of dollars to come up with a list of fellons when in the past a different company did the same for $5000
Correct, and the Florida election official that decided to pay DBT this amound of money was Ethel Baxter (Florida Director of Elections), a Democrat.
Catherine Harris instructed them not to AGAINST state regulations.
Thats funny. DBT was comissioned in 1998, before Catherine Harris was in office. Why would she be giving them any instructions before she was elected into office?
Might want to check your sources from your google search.
You'll also note that Florida 98.0975(4) does not say the county supervisor of elections must verify this list, only that they must 'attempt' to do so. A phone call unanswered, or a postcard that gets lost, and the law is satified.
How is this Jeb Bush's fault? If county election officials only "attempt" to verify the list, then why are they not ultimately responsible for invalid inclusions on the list? Jeb Bush and Catherine Harris had nothing to do with voter exclusions from the 2000 election, the local county election officials did. I guess that convienently doesn't fit your story as all the county election officials in the counties in question were all Democrats.
You also do not seem well informed on legal challenges to the purge list. The NAACP has sued a list of people over it. This includes the company that made the list, and several counties that have settled out of court.
You might want to read the actual Settlement. From page 1-2 (ephasis added):
Defendants have taken an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Florida, and are dedicated to act in a manner consistent with the requirements of federal, state and local election law. Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group. It is further understood by the Parties to this Agreement that following the November 2000 general election, new laws, rules and procedures were implemented in Florida that affect the registration and voting process. Defendants contend that these changes have made necessary some of the practices called for within this Agreement.
Even the NAACP was quick to point out that there were no charges of discrimination levied against the defendants, and that most of the changes that they were suing for were implemented prior to the settlement agreement.
Odd. I though we were blaming Jeb Bush and Catherine Harris for the Florida Election Fiasco.
The agreements, for example, call for county officials to identify and restore the voting rights of people incorrectly removed from voter rolls as a result of errors on the felon lists provided by the state Division of Elections,
If there were no voters purged incorrectly, why is this part of the settlement between the U.S. Government and the counties of Florida?
what about 'anything that takes away the money from some people who worked for it and gives it to other people who did absolutely nothing to earn it'?? Does that sound better?
Why stop there? We should put a ceiling on the amount people can spend too. Why not put a ceiling on the size of our houses, and the kinds of cars we drive. Let's put a ceiling on the amount of food we can buy, and the kinds of clothes we wear. In fact, why don't we make it simple and just build the same kinds of houses and cars and force everybody to live in them. Force everybody to wear government approved clothing, and eat government approved food, so we can enforce it. Just to keep it fair, we better make sure everybody does the same amount of work in a government sponsored job. And to make sure that no family is too taxing on the system, I think we should have a government regulated cap on the amount of children we can have.
Now we're talking. I'll bet this system is going to work really well!
You are full of crap.
US Unemployment Rate since 1948
US Inflation Rate History
US Per Capita Income History Since 1950
I don't believe that an honest and hard working person can become a multimillionaire.
So only dishonest and lazy people can become multimillionaires?
The US indoctrinates everyone with this attitude that anyone can make it. Nobody realises that it is only at the expense of someone else.
The liberal "zero-sum" myth does not hold any water. There is not a finite amount of wealth available, and somebody gaining wealth does not automatically correlate to somebody else loosing wealth. Quite the opposite happens, as a rising tide lifts all boats.
So Bill Gates manages to sell someone elses quick and dirty OS to IBM and eveyone else. Does that make him deserve to be the richest man in the world?
No, what makes him deserve to be the richest man in the world is that he took this quick and dirty OS and turned it into something that billions of people want and even think that they need.
Don't we live in the best country in the world. The only place where people have the freedom to screw everyone over on their way to the top. Where only the rich can afford medical care or a decent education. Where the government solution is less funding and more "Compassion" and "Faith Based volutary groups". Sure I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sure there are alternatives. However, they have not worked all that well in the past.
Good thing we have ctxspy here to tell us what kind of car to buy. He apparently is the only person who is smart enough to cut through all the hype.
I don't understand why you think you should have some kind of say in what kind of car other people drive. People buy an SUV because they want it. I don't give a damn if they are never going to get it dirty or if they don't pull a trailer. Its none of my damn business what they do with their car, and its none of your damn business either.
There are a lot more productive things you could be doing than critiquing how everybody else uses (or doesn't use) their car.
So I guess we should pass legislation forcing people to buy cars they don't like. That should solve everything....
You're denying the fact that a vast majority of SUVs aren't used for their 'intended' purpose?
I see many SUVs with 1 person in them on their commute to work.
Apparently, when they bought their SUV they intended to drive it to work. You have no right to disagree with that. I can't force you to drive the kinds of cars I like, can I?
1) He is an American who exiled himself to Britain and then subsequently exiled himself back to the US.
Sounds reasonable. I mean, it's common and rational to move to a different country everytime your (current) government pisses you off.
2) ChoicePoint was commisioned on a high-ball bid by Katherine Harris working on behalf of Jeb Bush. Remember, Katherine Harris was wearing two hats at the time. The first hat was the supreme impartial jurist of Florida election law. The second hat was the Florida campaign head for Jeb Bush's brother. Even a crackpot neo-con couldn't dismiss a conflict of interest without a chuckle. ChoicePoint was paid a FUCKLOAD of money over their $5700 competitor. You would think that someone would get something in return for that. Is it no wonder that the list came up with 50,000 registered voters who WERE NOT convicted of felonies in florida, and virtually all blacks and democrats.
Its amazing how ignorant people can be. Lets go over this again. DBT (which was later bought by ChoicePointe) was comissioned in 1998 to create the voter "purge" list. Jeb Bush was elected in November of 1998 and sworn into office in 1999. Catherine Harris was elected in 2000. I would have thought even you might have picked this up from the Salon.com Corrections. Was it magic? Did they go back in time to hire DBT?
"In the Salon Politics article "Florida's flawed 'voter-cleansing' program," it was incorrectly stated that Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a company, ChoicePoint, to create a voter "purge" list. The company was hired in 1998 before Harris was elected to her post.
3) Greg Palast spends a fair amount of time railing against the sins of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Blind partisans typically stick to throwing stones at the other sides like the metamorphic chameleonic Rush Limbaugh.
Just like a liberal, he spends all his time complaining about what he doesn't like but never offers any useful solution or contribution. And just to let you know (because you obviously wouldn't be listening), Rush Limbaugh has been extreemely critical of George W. Bush, particularly with regard to the amount of money he his spending.
The Miami Herald did a similar study that actually COUNTED the ballots and found Al Gore the winner.
No, the Miami Herald/USA Today study found that "Bush would have stayed ahead under the strictest standards for judging votes, while Gore would have broken on top under the most liberal." They even admit that using the rules before hte election there was no dispute that Bush was the winner.
The true story of the election can be found at www.gregpalast.com. Yes, Greg Palast DOES have an axe to grind. He hates liars and hypocrites. The first two chapters of "The Best Democracy Money" is available their.
If this is where you get your "true story" you might want to follow up on the author. 30 seconds on his site shows that not only is he blindly partisan, but he is clearly trying to capitalize on peoples emotions about the 2000 election. The guy isn't even from America -- why does he care about our elections?
DBT Online/ChoicePoint was selected as a high-ball at $2.3 million dollars. The company who had previously did the job charged $5700.
You would think that if Palast was suggesting that Bush bought the 2000 election (as his book title suggests) he would at least check who paid the money. DBT/ChoicePoint was commissioned in 1998 by the Democrat Florida Elections Supervisor Ethel Baxtor. This was after the democrats complained that there were illegitimate Republican voters in the 1998 eleciton. You would think that the Democrats would have enough sense to at least rig the election in their favor!
They were supposed to record cross-checking against public databases and verification phone calls. They did none of this. They were instructed NOT TO. ChoicePoint was instructed to search for similar names and reduced Jack to John etc... It was supposed to create the maximum number of matches provided the individuals.
As outlined by the Florida Legislature (not Jeb Bush or Catherine Harris), this list was supposed to identify as many names as possible and those names would be passed to county election officials for verification. The idea (which was later changed due to the NAACP lawsuit) was to cast as wide a net as possible so no illegitimate voter would slip under the cracks.
The County offices were ORDERED to scrub everyone on the list without doing verification because ChoicePoint was SUPPOSED to have done that verification.
Wrong. County election officials were given the responsibility to verify each of the names on the list and notify each person in writing prior to the eleciton. If you were notified, you were given 30 days to dispute the listing and be added to the voting registration. There were at least a half dozen counties that completely ignored the list after they saw some inconsistancies with the names on the list.
Actually, those figures you cited are mostly Bush I administration. The numbers only go to 1995 and do not include the surpluses generated in the later years of the Clinton administration.
What surpluses? Clinton claimed to have a budget surplus, but if you check the facts the U.S. National Deficit increased every year under the Clinton administration, raising a total of $1.4 Trillion during his administration. How is that a "surplus"?
U.S. National Debt per year
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 2,125,302,616,658.42
12/31/1985 1,945,941,616,459.88
12/31/1984 1,662,966,000,000.00
12/31/1983 1,410,702,000,000.00
12/31/1982 1,197,073,000,000.00
12/31/1981 1,028,729,000,000.00
12/31/1980 930,210,000,000.00