bush won...

scudman Mon Nov-24-03 12:26 AM

#60612, "RE: Says who?"

>True enough. Our last Presidential "election" proved that.

I'm getting tired of hearing this tired argument that the U.S. Supreme Court decided the 2000 election. Haven't you seen all of the reports that every drawn out re-examination of the chads and the ballots by independent organizations still resulted in Bush getting more votes than Gore in FL? The Supreme Court may have curtailed the recounts and sped up the process, but the result would have been the same either way.

I'm not even a diehard Bush fan, but perpetuating bad logic hurts the good points you make.

deej Tue Nov-25-03 03:02 AM

#60689, "RE: Says who?"

>Haven't you seen all

>of the reports that every drawn out re-examination of the

>chads and the ballots by independent organizations still

>resulted in Bush getting more votes than Gore in FL?

No, I haven't. In fact, I haven't seen a single one. Of course, I did generally tune out anything remotely political after the media-induced numbness of the last election.

I'd love it if you could provide a credible source. I think I'm recovered enough to think about it again.

But if we go there, let's take it over to the politics forum (which I still don't read).

Doug69 Tue Nov-25-03 03:18 PM

#60727, "Bush won on the votes"

>I'd love it if you could provide a credible source. I think

>I'm recovered enough to think about it again.

Deej - Do you think the New York Times is "credible"? They concluded DEFINITIVELY that Bush would have won had all votes been re-counted or had Gore been given the re-count he wanted.

Here's the key except from the abstract of the article on the New York Times site:

NATIONAL DESK | November 12, 2001, Monday

EXAMINING THE VOTE: THE OVERVIEW;

Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote

By FORD FESSENDEN and JOHN M. BRODER (NYT) 2527 words

Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 1 , Column 1

ABSTRACT -

Comprehensive review of uncounted Florida ballots from 2000 presidential election, conducted by consortium of eight news organizations and professional statisticians, indicates George W Bush would have won election even if US Supreme Court allowed statewide manual recount of votes ordered by state Supreme Court; finds, contrary to allegations by partisans of Vice Pres Al Gore, that Supreme Court did not award election to Bush; says that Bush would have retained slender margin if Florida court order to recount more than 43,000 ballots was not reversed by Supreme Court, and that even under strategy Gore pursued at beginning of standoff, of filing suit to force recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties, Bush would have retained lead . . . .

It won't change anything, Ethan. Remember - this article and the study it describes - was announced in November, 2001 - more than TWO FUCKING YEARS AGO.

And it wasn't announced in the Podunk Register. It was a joint effort of 8 of the largest newspapers in the country, including The New York Times.

So all of the people here (and elsewhere) who run around calling Bush "Unelected" and accusing the U.S. Supreme Court of conducting a "coup" and implanting him in office undemocratically KNOW that they are lying, because these studies DISPOSITIVELY revealed that even had the recount as ordered by the Florida Supreme Court proceeded, OR had Gore's requested recount been conducted, Bush would still have unquestionably won the vote in Florida.

But they don't care about the facts - AT ALL. Facts don't deter them. They are blind partisans who sacrifice their concern for reality at the altar of their political agenda. It's genuinely sad to watch.

I don't even like Bush - I can't wait to see him lose, as I know is true for you as well. And yet, it's fucking unbearable hearing them run around shrily harping on the 2000 election and screaming that he's "unelected" based upon claims that everyone knows are false.

Aside from the fact that they are wallowing in falsehoods (even as they scream every day that Bush is a "LIAR!!!"), they also can't grasp that most citizens aren't as wild-eyed and crazed and rabid as they are in their hatred for Bush, and all they are doing with these sorts of tactics is alienating open-minded people who are willing to vote against Bush but who don't want be aligned with lying freaks whose predominant attribute is blind hatred.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

"alienating open-minded people"

hehehe (But Bush IS a liar! Except he is really keeping his promise to control government spending.)

RE: bush won his appointment to office

How's that coffee? Strong tonight?

Oh... and you sound "shrill".

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Am I not right in recalling, however, that Bush did not get a majority of the votes across the country? That is, he won the electoral college but not the popular vote?

Also, if there were these irregularities in Florida, what else was there across the country that should have been looked at? Surely Florida didn't have the only counties that made the US election look like an amateur night shambles?

After all, it seems likely (I gather) that Richard Nixon actually won the 1960 election over JFK, but JFK was helped into the White House by the determined efforts of the Cook County Democratic Party machine in Chicago to stuff the ballot boxes with enough Kennedy votes to get him over the line.

There is a sad history of electoral fraud even in modern times, which casts a pall over any close result, regardless of who wins. It may be small scale, but in a close result it is enough to have the potential to alter the result, and hence debase the mandate that the winner is supposed to have.

And that comment is made despite the fact that in the vast majority of elections, there are honest and hardworking staff who are seriously doing their best to make sure the election is honest and above board. The winning margins for every President since JFK have been so large that nobody could really question the validity of the result.

That is, until Bush in 2000. Do we really need another one to encourage some of the sloppier counties to get their act together?

RE: bush won his appointment to office

>Am I not right in recalling, however, that Bush did not get a

>majority of the votes across the country? That is, he won the

>electoral college but not the popular vote?

If you accept the ballot count in Florida, then yes, Bush won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote. In fact, the margin by which Gore defeated Bush in the popular vote is larger than the margin by which Nixon defeated Humphrey in 1968.

I have seen reports of several independent studies showing that a recount of all Florida ballots cast would have resulted in a slim victory for Bush in that state.

Those studies don't deal with the issue of whether some of the ballots marked for Bush were valid and should have been counted, however. If I recall correctly, several thousand absentee ballots marked for Bush in two Florida counties were submitted improperly and should not have been counted. Florida law requires that paperwork in connection with absentee ballots be executed solely and exclusively by the voter himself in each case; but the registrars of elections in those counties allowed local Republican party officials to execute the paperwork instead, so that under Florida law the ballots in question should not have been accepted. Had the law been followed, Bush would have lost the state. And the election.

For people who are tired of hearing about the 2000 election controversy, no one is forcing you to read about it or respond to posts about it. If others want to talk about it, why is that any of your business?

For the rest of us, the controversy serves as a reminder that our system of elections sometimes does NOT operate to produce the result that the voters actually want.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

But remember, Gore only wins if they count dimples and chads, even though the wording of that statute would not allow it. You can't apply the law strictly to hurt Bush, and loosely to help Gore. That was how the whole mess started, if you recall. Gore asked the All Democrat Supreme Court of Florida (from which Republicans have been excluded by discrimination for decades), to alter the law by imperial decree to allow the counters to divine the intent of the voter, without respect to the wording of the statute. The Democrat Supreme Court, of course, obliged, and that opened the door for the Supreme Court to intervene to prevent a denial of equal protection under the Constitution.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

What everyone fails to mention is the large amount of "reclassified" registered voters who were shifted over to the "convicted felon" category by Jeb Bush's cronies before the election, and in fact the majority of them were falsely deleted from the voter registry. 173,000 names were 'cleansed" by an outside firm hired by Ms. Harris (who was registered twice herself evidently)

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/print.html

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how they MAY have voted -- too bad we'll never know! There were so many other reports of fraud and "irregularies" it's funny ANYONE on here can possibly protest others still doubting this entire affair. Don't insult us.

First of all, this is yet another example of the inequality of voting laws in this country. They are not the same in every state: 13 states refuse to let people convicted of felons to vote AFTER they have served time for their crimes. OK -- we know the Republican Creed about "States Rights" which in this case is yet another odd hold-over of interpreting the Constituation in pre-Lincoln manners which is convenient.

Consider for a moment the SHRILL screaming of Ed Gillespie and The Collective about "The Reagans" (vs. their SILENCE when Johnson is stragely portrayed in that History Channel thing recently) and imagine if Al Gore's brother was governor of New York state and this same scenario had played out in reverse. I mean EVEN the Supreme Court count was off by one! And evidently Souter reported that given one more day of deliberation (reported in the Guardian) the vote likely would have gone AGAINST Bush.

This may be old and stale news to some but there's ALWAYS much more that can be said. Trilingual was correct -- this will be looked upon holistically one day by historians and I can't wait to read the final verdict.

Of course, if anyone says ANYTHING about Bush they'll be slapped as treasonist and accused of "revisionist historians" -- reminds me of how some scream "anti-semitic" if someone is anti-Israeli-current-policies... sorry, that's NOT the same.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

PLEASE buy a dictionary.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Thanks for that substantive commentary Miss Coulter.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

your calling others shrill was any better? i see...

the fact is that your posting was nearly unintelligible for all of the misused and misspelled words. throwing in all the big words you can think of--without considering whether they are appropriate or not--doesn't make you seem like an intellectual and it doesn't strengthen your argument. rather, it makes you seem an idiotic fraud and it weakens the arguments you sought to bolster.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

kinda like writing all in lower caps

RE: bush won his appointment to office

there IS a difference. my grammar, syntax, and diction are beyond reproach. i eschew capitalisation when communicating online. it doesn't detract from my arguments.

you, on the other hand, don't know the meaning of the words you use. you try to make yourself sound either important or smart by using big words--words whose meanings you clearly do not know.

end of discussion.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Frankly I don't particularly see any "big words" in my post. But if they seem "big" to you, well -- what can I say?

Should we compare gross income, careers... SAT scores? You just seem so smart I don't know if I have what it takes.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

>But remember, Gore only wins if they count dimples and chads,

>even though the wording of that statute would not allow it.

>You can't apply the law strictly to hurt Bush, and loosely to

>help Gore. That was how the whole mess started, if you recall.

>Gore asked the All Democrat Supreme Court of Florida (from

>which Republicans have been excluded by discrimination for

>decades), to alter the law by imperial decree to allow the

>counters to divine the intent of the voter, without respect to

>the wording of the statute. The Democrat Supreme Court, of

>course, obliged, and that opened the door for the Supreme

>Court to intervene to prevent a denial of equal protection

>under the Constitution.

Ah, the propaganda machine at work. The Florida Supreme Court is not all "Democrat," to the best of my knowledge. The justices come from both parties. Also, before it was usurped by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida court was busily issuing rulings over disputed issues in the Florida election. A number of those rulings went against the Gore campaign. In fact, of all three branches of the Florida government, it was the judiciary that behaved the best and acted the most impartially.

Also, the adjective is "Democratic," not "Democrat." But one hardly expects people whose necks are red to use good English.

And no, nobody knows what the true result of the Florida election would have been. Even the review of ballots by the eight news organizations wasn't a complete recount. Furthermore, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there were many more issues at stake than just dimples and hanging chads. The various absentee ballot issues were never resolved, there was never a complete recount as required by state law, etc., etc. Had the Florida Supreme Court been allowed to perform its duty, those issues would have been resolved and there would have been a definitive final result of the 2000 election. Instead, all we have is speculation. Just so nobody puts words in my mouth, the truth is that thanks to the usurpation by the U.S. Supreme Court, we don't know and will never know how the Florida election actually came out. We only know that whatever the result, it would have been very narrow, and even if he had won the state, Bush would still be a minority president, because he lost the nationwide popular vote by a significant margin. Although that would have made him a legitimate president under the Constitution, it would hardly be a mandate for the kind of headlong stampede back to the 19th Century that he and the other Greedy Old Plutocrats are trying to ram down America's throat! Under the actual circumstances of his appointment to office, he has no mandate at all.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Hey! Don't forget that one seat advantage in the Senate!

RE: bush won his appointment to office

pyell and trilingual both mention that bush is a "minority" president since he did not win a majority of the votes. the same can be said for bill clinton who did not win a majority in either of his two elections.

what ever party controls a state does what it can to help its candidates. the way districts are designed is shameful. in my state of missouri, the polls were kept open beyond the legal time in st louis (strongly democratic) to give more time for people to be rounded up and taken to the polls. both parties play "games" and seem to do anything to "win".

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Tri, you are simply wrong about the Democrat Supreme Court of Florida. There was not a single Republican justice on the entire court. And yes, it was the result of careful, calculated discrimination on the part of the Democrats who controlled the process. And the problem started when the Democrat Supreme Court ruled that in the selected Democrat counties to which Gore's suit applied, the counters could go beyond the terms of the statute and attempt to divine the intent of the voters even if they had not punched out the hole. But the ruling only applied the the Democrat controlled counties in the suit. It was without doubt a dishonest, partisan decision, which forced the US Supreme Court to act to preserve electoral honesty. And, I use the term Democrat advisedly. Since the Democrat party consistently works to undermine and weaken our democracy, they cannot honestly be called democratic.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

>Since the Democrat party consistently works to

>undermine and weaken our democracy, they cannot honestly be

>called democratic.

Right. That's why the Republicans are pushing the Patriot Act, and its successors, PA 2 and the so-called Vicotry Act, which deliberately udnermine the Constitution and our civil liberties. THAT'll strengthen a democracy.

As to Florida, there is also the little fact that Katherine Harris, then secretary of state under JEB!, deliberately disenfranchised thousands of black voters by removing their names from the rolls of eligible voters. Voters who naturally would have tipped the election in Gore's favor. I am sure it is no coincidnece that the man she helped steal the election appointed her an ambassador.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Merlin:

Is your stupidity and hypocrisy organic or learned behavior? Inquiring minds want to know.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Since you lack the intellect to discuss issues like this and have no choice but to resort to name-calling, you should stay out of the Politcs forum.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

...and then Merlin turns around and calls kjun names! Hypocrisy or just republican behavior?!

Why after 3 years is this still being discussed/argued over? It is a done deal, and pointless to continue the debate. Just vote him out of office next year!

RE: bush won his appointment to office

>Since you lack the intellect to discuss issues like this and

>have no choice but to resort to name-calling, you should stay

>out of the Politcs forum.

We sure haven't seen any of your intellect here....you only seem capable of parroting whatever Doug69 has to say.....not an original thought in your head.

As for staying out of the politics forum, you've got to be kidding. Don't hold your breath, Polly.

RE: bush won his appointment to office

Hmm, repeating yourself, aren't you Lucky?

http://cagle.slate.msn.com//news/RushLimbaugh/RushGIFS/signe.gif