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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Nov. 7, 2006 at 1:05 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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142 Comments
Here’re the simple facts–
Out of the 26 houses between 1100 and 1200 S. Governeour, the average appraised value is 119,000 dollars. The highest appraisal is 139,300. The lowest is 102,800.
All these facts are at http://www.sedgwickcounty.org in the right hand column under tax appraisals.
What about the State Representative Bonnie Huy? Even though hers is not the smallest, even though her spacious basement is finished, even though her siding is brick, and even though her garage is 3 car, her appraisal is only 97,000 dollars, lower than ALL the other 26 houses around her.
AND, while everybody elses taxes went up between 12 to 19 percent from 2000 to 2005, hers went up only TWO PERCENT!
This is a miracle. This is impossible.
Unless . . . do you think there could have been some kind of . . . collusion going on?
Nah, I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.
Like cronyism.
Quote of the Day:
“The amount of multiculturalism in any society is directly proportional to the corruption at the top of a political system and inversely proportional to national unity.” A Patriot
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!
I hope that you leftists have contingency plans IF the repukes manage to steal the election? :)
HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTIONby Greg Palastfor The Guardian (UK), CommentMonday November 6, 2006
Here’s how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.
Note the past tense. And I’m not kidding.
And shoot me for saying this, but it won’t be stolen by jerking with thetouch-screen machines (though they’ll do their nasty part). Whileprogressives panic over the viral spread of suspect computer blackboxes, the Karl Rove-bots have been tunneling into the vote vaultsthrough entirely different means.
For six years now, our investigations team, at first on assignment forBBC TV and the Guardian, has been digging into the nitty-gritty of thegaming of US elections. We’ve found that November 7, 2006 is a day thatwill live in infamy. Four and a half million votes have been shoplifted.Here’s how they’ll do it, in three easy steps:
Theft #1: Registrations gone with the wind.
On January 1, 2006, while America slept off New Year’s Eve hangovers, anew federal law crept out of the swamps that has devoured 1.9 millionvotes, overwhelmingly those of African-Americans and Hispanics. Thevote-snatching statute is a cankerous codicil slipped into the 2002 HelpAmerica Vote Act — strategically timed to go into effect in thismid-term year. It requires every state to reject new would-be voterswhose identity can’t be verified against a state verification database.
Sounds arcane and not too threatening. But look at the numbers and youwon’t feel so fine. About 24.3 million Americans attempt to register orre-register each year. The New York University Law School’s BrennanCenter told me that, under the new law, Republican Secretaries of Statebegan the year by blocking about one in three new voters.
How? To begin with, Mr. Bush’s Social Security Administration has failedto verify 47% of registrants. After appeals and new attempts toregister, US Elections Assistance Agency statistics indicate 1.9 millionwould-be voters will still find themselves barred from the ballot onTuesday.
But don’t worry: those holding passports from their ski vacations toSwitzerland are doing just fine. And that’s the point. It’s not thenumber of voters rejected, it’s their color. For example,California’s Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson figured outhow to block 40% of registrants, mostly Hispanics. In a rarecounter-move, Los Angeles, with a Hispanic mayor, contacted thesecitizens, “verified” them and got almost every single one back on therolls. But throughout the rest of the West, new Hispanics remain victimsof the “José Crow” treatment.
In hotly contested Ohio, Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State and theRepublican’s candidate for Governor, remains voter-rejection champ –partly by keeping the rejection criteria a complete secret.
Theft #2: Turned Away – the ID game
A legion of pimple-faced Republicans with Blackberries loaded with listsof new voters is assigned to challenge citizens in heavily Black andHispanic(i.e. Democratic) precincts to demand photo ID that perfectlymatches registration data.
Sounds benign, but it’s not. The federal HAVA law and complex new IDrequirements in states like New Mexico will easily allow the GOP squadsto triple the number of voters turned away. Rather than deny using thesevoter suppression tactics, Republican spokesmen are claiming they are”protecting the integrity of the vote.”
I’ve heard that before. In 2004, we got our hands on fifty confidentialinternal memos from the files of the Republican National Committee.Attached to these were some pretty strange spreadsheets. They calledthem “caging lists” — and it wasn’t about zoo feeding times. They werelists (70,000 for Florida alone) of new Black and Jewish voters — avery Democratic demographic — to challenge on Election Day. The GOP didso with a vengeance: In 2004, for the first time in half a century, morethan 3.5 million voters were challenged on Election Day. Worse, nearlyhalf lost their vote: 300,000 were turned away for wrong ID; 1.1 millionwere allowed a “provisional” ballot — which was then simply tossed out.
Tomorrow, new federal ID requirements and a dozen new stateshow-me-your-ID laws will permit the GOP challenge campaign to tripletheir 300,000 record to nearly one million voters blocked.
Theft #3: Votes Spoiled Rotten
The nasty little secret of US elections is that three million ballotsare cast in national elections but not counted — 3,600,380 not countedin 2004 according to US Election Commission stats. These are votes lostbecause a punch card didn’t punch (its chad got “hung”), a stray markvoided a paper ballot and other machinery glitches.
Officials call it “spoilage.” I call it, “inaugurating Republicans.”Why? According to statisticians working with the US Civil RightsCommission, the chance your vote will “spoil” this way is 900% higherfor Black folk and 500% higher for Hispanics than for white voters. Whenwe do the arithmetic, we find that well over half of all votes spoiledor “blank” are cast by voters of color. On balance, this spoilage gameproduces a million-vote edge for the GOP.
That’s where the Black Boxes come into play. Forget about Karl Rovemessing with the software to change your vote. Rather, the big lossesoccur when computers crash, fail to start or simply don’t respond toyour touch. They are the new spoilage machines of choice with,statistically, the same racial bias as the old vote-snatching levermachines. (Funny, but paper ballots with in-precinct scanners don’t gorotten on Black voters. Maybe that’s why Republican Secretaries of Statehave installed so few of them.)
So Let’s Add it Up
Two million legitimate voters will be turned away because of wronglyrejected or purged registrations.
Add another one million voters challenged and turned away for “improperID.”
Then add yet another million for Democratic votes “spoiled” by bustedblack boxes and by bad ballots.
And let’s not forget to include the one million “provisional” ballotswhich will never get counted. Based on the experience of 2004, we knowthat, overwhelmingly, minority voters are the ones shunted to thesebaloney ballots.
And there’s one more group of votes that won’t be counted: absenteeballots challenged and discarded. Elections Assistance Agency data tellus a half million of these absentee votes will go down the drain.
Driving this massive suppression of the vote are sophisticated challengeoperations. And here I must note that the Democrats have no nationalchallenge campaign. That’s morally laudable; electorally suicidal.
Add it all up — all those Democratic-leaning votes rejected, barred andspoiled — and the Republican Party begins Election Day with a 4.5million-vote thumb on the vote-tally scale.
So, what are you going to do about it? May I suggest you … stealback your vote.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!!
The Maggot Punks went to Phill Kline’s press conference. This time we came prepared with a fishing pole because we heard the spot was great for fishing for medical records.
http://www.maggotpunks.com/mp.html
For some reason the Kline supporters weren’t amused and became rather violent.
Doug,
Why are you always on the receiving end of violence from pro-lifers? Are you provoking those folks?
V.L.R.B!!
We just had a nice, young lass go out to the press conference. She was surrounded by Republicans so I figured they would have been more interested in other men. How wrong I was.
Well, it seems as if some of these so-called academics are just now catching on. The truth about RACE is becoming obvious to anyone with half a brain and it will justify anything that we will be forced to carry out!
Low IQs are Africa’s curse, says lecturer
Researcher accused of promoting racist stereotype wins backing from LSE
Denis CampbellSunday November 5, 2006The Observer
The London School of Economics is embroiled in a row over academic freedom after one of its lecturers published a paper alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries.Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is now accused of reviving the politics of eugenics by publishing the research which concludes that low IQ levels, rather than poverty and disease, are the reason why
life expectancy is low and infant mortality high. His paper, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, compares IQ scores with indicators of ill health in 126 countries and claims that nations at the top of the ill health league also have the lowest intelligence ratings.
Paul Collins, a spokesman for War On Want, the international development charity, said the research ‘runs the risk of resurrecting the racist stereotype that Africans are responsible for their own plight, and may reinforce prejudices that Africans are less intelligent’.
Collins added: ‘The notion that people in poor countries have inferior intelligence has been disproved by much research in the past. This is another example, which other academics will shoot down.’
Philippa Atkinson, who chairs the LSE student union’s 85-strong Africa Forum and teaches in the school’s Department of Government, said the paper ‘reflects the now discredited theories of eugenics, which should have been left behind’.
‘Eugenics was a very influential discourse for centuries,’ she said. ‘It’s the discourse that colonialism and racism in America until the Sixties were based on, and was part of the basis of apartheid too. Nobody could prove that there are racial or national differences in IQ. It’s very, very controversial to say
that national IQ levels are low in Africa, and completely unproven. It’s a surprise that the odd person would try to bring it back,’ she said.
However, she said the research contained some interesting ideas and merited serious consideration, and stressed that academics such as Kanazawa should not be deterred from exploring controversial subjects.
The reaction to Kanazawa’s paper will reopen the simmering debate about whether academics are entitled to express opinions that many people may find offensive.
The Observer revealed last March that Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies at Leeds University, supported the Bell Curve theory, which holds that black people are less intelligent than whites. He also believed that women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men and backed the ‘humane’ repatriation of ethnic minorities. Initially, the university backed Ellis, despite protests by students and teaching staff, but he took early retirement in July.
Kanazawa declined to comment on either War on Want or Atkinson’s allegations about reviving eugenics because, he said, other academics had come up with the national IQ scores that underpinned his analysis of 126 countries. In the paper he cites Ethiopia’s national IQ of 63, the world’s lowest, and the fact that men and women are only expected to live until their mid-40s as an example of his finding that intelligence is the main determinant of……http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1939891,00.html
Viva La Revolucion Blanco!!!
Where’s Mr. Smith when we need him?
Out there fighting Neo? ;-)
AMERICA HELD HOSTAGE:
DAY 2119
Presidency held hostage:805 Days left.
Congress held hostage:60 Days left.
HAVE A NICE DAY.
Bumper sticker I recently saw -
“God Bless the Whole World: No Exceptions.”
Made me think of Ian’s posts.
CapA – you are always looking for a conspiracy. If you have some proof that something is being done illegal then present it. If not then go back to your little TV station that allows you to present undocumented information. You are such an angry little man.
Doug…
Violent???? Hahahahahahaha…. I think my son was the one messin with your stupid fishing pole… and he was just having some teenage fun!! They came home laughing their tails off about the drunks with the fishing pole….
What I really noticed was that the Pro-Lifers had a big rally… and NONE of the media saw fit to even report it, even though they were all there! Media bias maybe???
I guess the fishing pole lady supports euthanizing babies about ready to be born naturally.
Maybe I shouldn’t call it euthanizing, because that’s what they humanely do to animals when they are terminally ill or injured.
Babies aren’t so lucky.
If mommy is feeling depressed about her responsibilities as a mother, she can have old Doc Tiller just kill her baby and then he willscrap the remains out…you know, crush the skull, tear legs and arms off…all that.
That way mommy isn’t inconvenienced with responsibility.
Oh yeah, not talking about rape, incest, mother with life threatening conditions; just those depressed mommies that just so don’t feel like giving birth to a child.
Make a grandparent proud! Get your baby killed, multilated and scraped out in the trash!
Hmm, too radical?
No, I don’t think so, not for baby murderers.
George Tiller, the new “mother’s little helper”?
What strange worlds some of you people live in…
Have a good day, though. And don’t forget to take your meds.
Sogaysaid–
I’m an angry little man? Nope, I’m an angre BIG man . . . and I get the distinct feeling, although I can’t prove it, that I could really kick your ass.
As far as proving the allegations, I already have. It’s called statistics. It’s part of the “reality-based” community to which we liberals belong.
There’s no possible way Bonnie Huy’s house should be appraised 6,000 dollars (6 percent) lower than the next cheapest house among two dozen of her neighbors.
There’s no possible way that Huy’s taxes could stay virtually flat, lower than inflation, for six years while everybody else’s went up a minimum of 12 percent.
I don’t have to prove a conspiracy. The facts are all on my side.
She has to prove how this obvious evidence of collusion ISN’T a crime.
And since you don’t mind, Sogaysaid, that her taxes are so low compared to all her neighbors, how about if the appraiser just ups your property taxes 12 percent HIGHER than all your neighbors?
You wouldn’t mind that, would you? Nothing unfair about that, is there?
It helps when you have a friend in our GOP-dominated county government.
Yeah, I saw the big ad she ran thanking Paul Rosell in Saturday’s paper.
He’s been awfully quiet on this one, hasn’t he . . .
LMRFSAO!!!!!!!!
CapnGalahad is wobbling out of control, AGAIN!!!!
Capn, are you gonna whup my backside as well?????
V.L.R.B!!!
And JM throws off the pretenses and reveals himself as a full blown kook.
Ian–
Some people . . . well, let me rephrase that . . . YOU aren’t worth responding to.
When you get over your obsession with racial superiority that was already bad science fifty years ago, then we’ll talk.
Until then, just stay out of my way.
I didn’t see Saturday’s paper. Huy thanks Rosell? I’ll have to check that out.
And here we go:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2634388&page=1
Interesting – states currently run by Republicans where they are expecting large Democratic turnouts. ESPECIALLY OHIO!
Instead of little ‘i Voted’ stickers, can’t we have purple thumbs like the Iraqis?
Hey libs!Shouldn’t you at least wait for the polls to close before starting to cry about a stolen election?
“And JM throws off the pretenses and reveals himself as a full blown kook.”Posted by: J R | November 07, 2006 at 08:44 AM
Oh, so you approve of baby killing?
Some interesting sign locations – Barnett, Kline and Tiahrt signs in the traffic islands Central/Maize; also on right-of-way on Kellogg. LOTS of sogns right along curbside on main roads.
What part of the law do these guys not understand?
hotlick – maybe we hope that early notice will lead to someone rectifying the situation.
JM is sounding dangerous and a bit deranged.
Has anyone ever noticed that the angrier some of the pro-lifers get, the more insane their words become? How they do love to take things to the extreme and build on them to the point of being dangerously ridiculous.
But then who can expect peaceful “protest” from people who put their kids in the middle of the street and under cars? Nothing wrong with that, huh? Not until something bad happens to one of them, right? Child endangerment, anyone?
Pro-life, my @ss.
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty.’–Theodore Roosevelt
hmmmm….
did you notice the Sebelius and Morrison signs right there with them like I saw just across the street from my voting location?
they are ALL doing it.. the big deal is if noone picks them up in the next few days!!!
kssam … along my commute route I saw only those and Huy in right-of-ways.
hmmm,
I took down 28 Phillllllllll Kline signs myself last night from the center lane planting strip on Webb Road and on the side strips at Oliver and Kellog. At present, they’re resting comfortably in a dumpster on the west side of Wichita.
What does the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Kansas NOT understand about following the law? Quite a bit, evidently.
hotlick,
Repubicans have been sending out robocalls illegally for a week trying to keep down Democratic turnout in various states–Kansas included. The only way to drive off roaches like you is to shine a light and stomp you flat.
the other ones are there…. maybe not on your route, but others….. I just ignore them ALL anyway… like they are going to change someone’s mind TODAY!! NOT!
my gosh everyone… stop complaining… it’s politics.. I got one Tiahrt call, a Sebelius call, and at least 3 Morrison calls…. I hung up on all of them!!
JM? We have done and done again and again the matter of a womans right to choose on these threads. Regular posters know that I have been on both sides of that issue. There are TRULY pro life folks here that I respect like J M Walker and Mary Caruso. Let’s just see if you can join them. For now my guess is that you are just “pro life”. The folks who use the sorts of terminology you do are usually the biggest hypocrites. I’ll be waiting to see your take on the next welfare, or subsidized child care, or “no child left behind” thread that comes along.
“JM is sounding dangerous and a bit deranged. Has anyone ever noticed that the angrier some of the pro-lifers get, the more insane their words become?”Posted by: RD | November 07, 2006 at 09:28 AM
I’m deranged because I don’t approve of killing babies? I see, wow, Dems are so compassionate about life…not.
Okay, here’s some logic for you. Abortionist claim that if a fetus can’t survive outside the womb it’s not a human.
Okay, how about preemies (premature babies) that are born naturally 6-9 months that need respirators and monitoring to live. Is it okay for Doctors to kill them as they see fit just because they can’t live outside the womb on their own?
The only separation we are talking about here is an umblical cord. So, I guess those are supporting late term abortions are relying that the umbilical cord is their only moral stance for executing babies.
And according to Tiller, if a woman puts down depression as a reason to have a late term abortion, that’s okay. So, by that logic, a woman who is depressed and kills her preemie baby is not committing murder because she might just be depressed.
Go ahead and call me a kook, but if you can’t back up your rhetoric with logical argument, then you are worse; just another sad amoral name calling sideliner.
Capn! I can tell you the connection to Bonnie’s lower property tax question.
Ron Estes (Sedgwick County Treasurer) is the Husband of Susan Estes (Vice Chair of the Kansas GOP). Both are huge GOP mover and shakers and they love Bonnie Huy because she’s their lap dog. They tell her exactly how to vote on every bill and she follows their orders. They are control freaks to say the least. Even how Ron Estes won his position as Treasurer, he strong hold the Sedgwick County Repulican Party to keep any other person running in that position, so he can win without competition.
They reward Bonnie with the lowest property taxes in the neighborhood.
Also! Dig into Bonnie’s rental property she owns in College Hill. You’ll find more favors.
cf-How exactly “robocalls” could keep anyone from voting is beyond me. Would you care to explain?
“Nope, I’m an angre BIG man . . . and I get the distinct feeling, although I can’t prove it, that I could really kick your ass.”Posted by: CapnAmerica | November 07, 2006 at 08:34 AM
You can’t count flabby stomach and buttocks as being big or maybe in your case, you can.
Joe Williams,
I knew a bit about the Ron Estes thing, but you’ve got the big picture. And the rental property on College Hill—! Damn. Who knew?
Kudos, Joe Williams.
Witness the meltdown of JM. Told ya. Like RD and I both said, the more “passion” the less compassion behind the post.
Hey JM? If you have statistics that substantial numbers of women get late term abortions because they are “depressed” then post them. I call it BS. Pregnancy is one of the most arduous changes that can be demanded of the human body. I SERIOUSLY doubt very many women go through six months of it and then bail. As to preemies, you then are willing for society to pony up to pay the substantial medical bills of such a baby? If not then you are all bs.
JM, don’t worry, if Tiller was killing babies as you claim then he’d be arrested immediately. He isn’t sitting is jail, therefore it’s safe to conclude he isn’t killing babies as you claim.
Perhaps that’s why you are a kook.
hotlick, as I heard it explained last night by pundits on the tube: the “robocalls” start out mentioning the name of the candidate opposed by the party employing the automated calling service; the recipient of the call hears a few seconds of the call, including the name, and hangs up in disgust; as the call did not run to its end, there is another call, another hang up, etc., perhaps implanting the name of the opposition candidate in the mind of the voter receiving the calls, who, then, (hopefully for the sponsoring party) votes against that candidate because he/she has bothered them repetively with the automated calls. Any required ID as to the caller’s sponsor, etc., is at the end of the call, so is never heard by the great majority of recipients, who just hang up in disgust.
hotmanonmanlicker,
By calling voters by name, and threatening them with arrest if they vote. As, for example, in Virginia. This is from the James Webb for Senate site, and there’s a WAV file of the phone call.
********************************
“Tim Daly from Clarendon got a call saying that if he votes Tuesday, he will be arrested. A recording of his voicemail can be found online at:
http://www.webbforsenate.com/media/phone_message.wav
The transcript from his voicemail reads:
“This message is for Timothy Daly. This is the Virginia Elections Commission. We’ve determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote on Tuesday. If you do show up, you will be charged criminally.”
Daly has been registered to vote in Virginia since 1998, and he has voted for the last several cycles with no problem. He has filed a criminal complaint with the Commonwealth’s attorney in Arlington.”
**********************************
Caught red-handed. Care to comment, hotmanonmanlicker?
“Abortionist claim that if a fetus can’t survive outside the womb it’s not a human.”
Basically, a fetus is a parasite. If I, as a woman, can accept that, why not a lowly man who will NEVER become pregnant (some forced), carry a fetus full term, and give birth, changing her body forever?
JM, YOU are the sideliner.
“Okay, how about preemies (premature babies) that are born naturally 6-9 months that need respirators and monitoring to live.”
Abortions are legal. There ARE laws, as well there should be, to oversee that it is done in a legal manner. But apparently you don’t trust the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the independent doctors who must report in writing, a Sedgwick County grand jury and the State Board of Healing Arts.
“And according to Tiller, if a woman puts down depression as a reason to have a late term abortion, that’s okay.”
Really? Do you have a direct quote from Tiller on that, or are you taking your information from O’Reilly, who never said that either?
When the IRS considers a fetus in the womb, no matter how far along the pregnancy, a deduction on income tax, then you can scream all you like.
“Hey JM? If you have statistics that substantial numbers of women get late term abortions because they are “depressed” then post them. I call it BS.” Posted by: J R | November 07, 2006 at 09:47 AM
JM, don’t worry, if Tiller was killing babies as you claim then he’d be arrested immediately. He isn’t sitting is jail, therefore it’s safe to conclude he isn’t killing babies as you claim.Perhaps that’s why you are a kook.Posted by: Doug | November 07, 2006 at 09:49 AM
In addition to Kline’s subpoenaing the records of Tiller’s clinic because of child rape, why else do you think he’s subpoenaing those records?
Because he isn’t doing late term abortions?
No, because Tiller is performing late term abortions and the women are told just to put down depression as their reason for getting the late term abortion.
I am not a supporter of Bonnie Huy. However, there is an explanation concerning the apparent discrepancy in valuation for her real property, other than naked collusion of the County Appraiser and County Treasurer.
How many of you have appealed your real property valuation when it is received from the Appraiser’s office? If you have, then you understand what is required to attack the valuation. Now, Mrs. Huy is a real estate agent, and in possession of current information as to selling prices, etc., for “comparable” real properties in her area. Armed with this data, which is available to those willing to work at appealing their valuations, she files an appeal with the Appraiser, and at the informal hearing presents her evidence. As the resident of her home, and as a real estate agent, I am sure she knows of its general condition, and the effect such condition has on sales prices, which she also uses to her advantage.
I suspect many of her neighbors do not appeal their valuations; most people of my acquaintance do not. Again, I’m not a fan of hers; but, there is a facially rational explanation to be considered.
cf-If you got one of those calls, what would you do? Probably the same as me. We’d go and vote. The ones who fall for something like those obviously fake calls, probably should stay home.
“When the IRS considers a fetus in the womb, no matter how far along the pregnancy, a deduction on income tax, then you can scream all you like.”Posted by: RD | November 07, 2006 at 09:54 AM
Oh, so tax status is the determining factor in determing what a human being is.
I must have missed that in biology.
hotmanonmanlicker,
So, that means that it’s OK for the GOP to send out false, illegal calls?
Seriously, hotlicker–how big an asshole are you?
Vaughn Tolle,
Indeed. But EVERY SINGLE YEAR, for five years?
More to the point, why shouldn’t Bonnie Huy pay her fair share, like her constituents? Just because one can game the system doesn’t mean one should.
That wasn’t the point and you have failed to address it. Nobody can defend those calls.I’ll repeat, if you got one of those calls, what would you do?
CF, I have clients who appeal every year for a variety of reasons. Rhetorical question: is it gaming the system to show errors in valuation?
So, that means that it’s OK for the GOP to send out false, illegal calls?Posted by: CF | November 07, 2006 at 09:59 AM
CF,
Same as when I got all though scare phone calls from Dems saying that Kline was trying to get your private medical records when they knew that the only records subpoenaed were from Tiller’s Abortion clinic and those records were expunged of any identity of the patient.
I should say phone calls and flyers that passed on false information.
hotlickinist guy on the blog,
That is absolutely the point. What would or would not do isn’t the issue. The issue is whether voter intimidation is legal. It isn’t. The GOP’s robocalls are illegal on a number of levels, and are indefensable.
More to the point, hotlicker, if the robocalls are as ineffectual as you seem to want to insist, why would the GOP make them in the first place? If, as you want me to say, they would have no effect on my willingness to vote, this raises the question of why the GOP is willing to spend millions of dollars on them.
If robocalls, whether merely deceptive or actually threatening, didn’t work, the GOP wouldn’t pay for them. The fact that they do so pay for them suggests that they are demonstrably effective–regardless of whether or not they would have such an effective on political operative such as myself. You and I are not necessarily representative of the general public, hotlick, for whom voting should be made more accessable, not more difficult or threatening.
Vaughn Tolle,
Fair enough. I would like to get a look at assessment documents and appeal documents related to this property. That will tell the story.
cf-I didn’t say they were ineffectual. I said anybody who paid any heed to them is an idiot.I’ve heard that the “Republican vote on Tuesday, Democrats vote on Wednesday” worked. Worked on who? Idiots.
hotlicker,
I’m shocked: a Republican blaming the victim.
So, there should be no punishment for lying to “idiots,” since they’re “idiots” who deserve to be lied to? You really might want to quit, though you’re hardly ahead.
Bottom line: as we’re seeing today, and have seen in the last four national elections, the GOP will break laws and mislead voters if that’s what it thinks it must do to win an election.
Vote Democratic–for a change.
cf-”So, there should be no punishment for lying to “idiots,” since they’re “idiots” who deserve to be lied to? You really might want to quit, though you’re hardly ahead.”Please review my post. No where have I said that there should be no punishment for the lieing. Where did you get that? Have you fallen for those kind of phone calls?I will repeat- Anybody who falls for it is an idiot.P.S. You vote tomorrow, cf.
Predictions:
Sebelius 60-40Morrison 55-45Tiahrt 60-40Thornburg 70-30Praeger 70-30Jenkins 70-30
Dems take HouseSenate GOP 51-49
Lieberman beats Lamont.
New Democrat motto:
“If we don’t win, they cheated.”
If the election doesn’t go our way, let’s just create doubt in the entire system. Destroy faith in the election process. Paper ballots are confusing! Electronic machines can be corrupted!
Why have elections at all? Just appoint Democrats!
Mike,
Why have elections at all? Republicans will just take the results to court and fight to override the will of the voters.
hotlicker,
The blame was implied, not stated. But I forgot–Repubican plausible deniability! My bad.
As for your p.s., too late. I voted last week–on a paper ballot with black, fill-in circles.
Wow! More Florida 2000 discussion?
Don’t you remember independent counts by the Miami Hearald and New York Times? Bush won in every recount there was. Court or no court.
GET OVER IT!!!
…and thank you for proving my point.
Predictions:
Sebelius- 53-47Philllll- 51-49Tiahart- 60-40Thornburg – 65-35Praeger- 70-30Jenkins- 70-30
Democrats win 22 seats and take HouseSenate GOP- 52-48
Mike – I tend to use the same standards that the US State Deaprtment uses in looking at an election. In Ukraine and Georgia the ‘official’ results favored the pro-Russia candidates. However, other data, notably exit polls, showed otherwise. It was the ‘other data’ that the US State Department and other international observeros used to claim fraud in the ‘official’ count.
The conclusion was that since the non-Russian supporters didn’t win the election officail cheated.
Obviously, the State Department had it wrong. Count the votes, not the polls. Did you know the polls that we see analyzed on TV are often a sample of under 1,000 people? Exit polls don’t sample that many either. I have never been sampled by an exit poll. Count the votes!!!
And what authority does the State Department have in the Ukraine? Would we want Russia to oversee our elections? No, thank you.
Mike,
Don’t yell at me, you punk.
hmmmmm-Ben Huie has used that one over and over again. The exit polls in the USA were so off, they have been revamped. They are doing it differently this year. See John Fund’s column.libs = still whining about losing elections
CT,
The first step to healing is admitting you have a problem.
John Fund’s column? Can you give a link?
How were they off compared to other countries?
I just hope whatever the results are that we have confidence in them. I do have that confidence locally since I know people involved (Bill Gale etc). I have a fair amount of confidence in KS with Thornburg. Less so with some states that have ‘histories’ – which BTW includes IL and Chicago.
Mike – I think the State Department’s interest is generally in fostering transparent democratic processes. And, in many cases, it has worked well.
Today’s comics:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364×2600685
hmmmm-Here’s the link, second paragraph
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009204
An exit poll can be corrupted much easier than an official vote. So how can we use an exit poll to verify the result of an election?
As for the State Department, their intentions could have been golden, I just don’t want a foreign body looking into an election.
Dan Rather is not around to announce a win for Democrats by using exit polls. I wonder if Katy Couric will repeat the same mistake?
Doesn’t matter, JM. Nobody is watching her.
thanks hl … I also like his timeline for tonight – I assume he is referring to eastern Time?
Whoa, Joe Williams! I’m looking at you with new eyes, my friend.
I knew Estes was a huge rapture-right wing nut job, but I did not know about Huys’ owning other property that they also don’t pay their share on.
You just earned your pay for the month.
Consider that bet we had PAID IN FULL.
Mike,
The Miami Herald and NYT statistical tabulations left something out: namely, spoiled ballots. This analysis was done by Lance deHaven Smith, Professor of Political Science at Florida State. Here are some excerpts.
*********************************
http://www.rinr.fsu.edu/winter2005/features/battlefield.html
“LdHS: It’s an embarrassing outcome for George Bush because it showed that Gore had gotten more votes. Everybody had thought that the chads were where all the bad ballots were, but it turned out that the ones that were the most decisive were write-in ballots where people would check Gore and write Gore in, and the machine kicked those out. There were 175,000 votes overall that were so-called “spoiled ballots.” About two-thirds of the spoiled ballots were over-votes; many or most of them would have been write-in over-votes, where people had punched and written in a candidate’s name. And nobody looked at this, not even the Florida Supreme Court in the last decision it made requiring a statewide recount. Nobody had thought about it except Judge Terry Lewis, who was overseeing the statewide recount when it was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The write-in over-votes have really not gotten much attention. Those votes are not ambiguous. When you see Gore picked and then Gore written in, there’s not a question in your mind who this person was voting for. When you go through those, they’re unambiguous: Bush got some of those votes, but they were overwhelmingly for Gore. For example, in an analysis of the 2.7 million votes that had been cast in Florida’s eight largest counties, The Washington Post found that Gore’s name was punched on 46,000 of the over-vote ballots it, while Bush’s name was marked on only 17,000.
RinR: For your research, you merged this set of data with detailed profiles of Florida’s electoral precincts. What did you find?
LdHS: One of the things I found that hadn’t been reported anywhere is, if you look at where those votes occurred, they were in predominantly black precincts. And (when you look at) the history of black voting in Florida, these are people that have been disenfranchised, intimidated. In the history of the early 20th century, black votes would be thrown out on technicalities, like they would use an X instead of a check mark.
So you can understand why African Americans would be so careful, checking off Gore’s name on the list of candidates and also writing Gore’s name in the space for write-in votes. But because of the way the vote-counting machines work, this had the opposite effect: the machines threw out their ballots.”
**********************************
Add this to the well-documented (and successful) effort by Katherine Harris to throw legitimate minority (read: African-American) voters off the voting rolls, and presto! you have the reason CF, for one, will never “get over it.”
Bush stole the Presidency in Florida, in 2000, and we Americans have been paying for it ever since.
Gee, hotlick, I only voted for one of those on your list, and I bet I see more winning that I did vote for than just that one.
Time will tell.
JM,
All you have is conjecture. No facts. Typical republican male.
“I must have missed that in biology.”
Apparently you missed Government class completely.
The evidence is clear and overwhelming that if the over-votes in Florida had been counted, as they should have been under Florida law, and probably would have been if the Repukes hadn’t staged hallway riots to bring the re-count to a halt, Gore would have surely won.
The chads and the military absentee ballots were a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of over-votes for Gore.
But Mike said something especially stupid even for a stupid Repuke, “exit polls can be more easily manipulated than the official count.”
WRONG! The whole purpose of the exit poll is to find out what the result of the official count is.
Why would the exit pollster want to “throw” the results which would just be revealed a phony when the official count comes out soon after?
Any suspicion of someone doing this would immediately result in that pollster blacklisted from further work in the field.
The “official” count in Ohio were SIX PERCENT off from the exit polls. They are normally within HUNDREDTHS of a percent of error.
If you understand statistics and research methodology, you see that this cannot be a result of “error.”
This was election fraud, pure and simple.
Hey, Joe W.–
You don’t happen to have an address for the Bonnie Huy property in College Hill do you?
So… the conclusion is that people that are too stupid to vote tended to vote for Gore.
Look, I’m sure this college professor is very independent and has no political slants himself. I’m sure he took into account the overseas ballots from military men and women that Gore didn’t want to count. I’m sure he took into account the men and women stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle who were discouraged from voting when the state was called by the networks before the polls closed. They don’t vote democrat.
But we don’t hear college professors fighting for disenfranchised airmen do we?
No, because that wouldn’t help Gore.
And I say again…
GET OVER IT!!!!!
One thing I like about the machine I used last week is that ‘overvote’ is impossible. It also forced me to review my ballot and alerted me to ‘non-votes’.
I think Bill Gale has done a good job; particularly in view of limited resources.
Vaughn–I’ll grant you that maybe the Huy’s are badgers in the appraiser’s office and that keeps their appraisals down.
BUT two problems–
I had an appraisal that went way up for no apparent reason one year and I went downtown and got it reduced. But the key word is “reduced.”
I still had a significant increase.
Her taxes virtually never went up for six years. There’s no argument in the world that can justify how in a red hot housing market that was 2000-2005, your appraisal only goes up TWO percent.
What, did they have a leper colony in the basement?
2. She is in a position of power as a state legislator. Maybe her technical job description doesn’t include fair property tax appraisals in Sedgwick County, I don’t know, but as a practical matter, if she knew she was getting “over appraised,” shouldn’t she have assumed that all her constituents were too, and thought about them.
Not if you’re Republican, apparently.
Taxes are for the “little people.”
“Why would the exit pollster want to “throw” the results which would just be revealed a phony when the official count comes out soon after?”
BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE YOU WON’T BELIEVE THE OFFICIAL COUNT!
Good God you people are crybabies. “Selected not elected.”You keep refusing to throw in Ralph Nader’s stealing of democrat’s votes. You keep refusing to remember that if Gore had won his own state, he would have won.libs = blinded by ignorance
Hanging chads notwithstanding; Al Gore lost because he did not hold his flank against Nader. Had Gore gotten the Nader votes he would have easily carried FL and NH. hl – you are correct on that.
Mike wants me to “get over” having my democracy stolen from me.
Now, what kind of patriot would I be if I did that?
I’ll never “get over” it, just like I’ll never “get over” Vietnam or the illegal war against Nicaragua or the immoral imperial adventure the Bush administration calls “fighting terrorism” in Iraq.
As I am an American patriot, I’ll fight this injustice with every fiber of my being.
“We won’t believe the official count.”
Now you’re just question-begging, Mike.
Look it up.
This has to be the funniest thing on this blog in the last five minutes. The ‘pacifist weasel’ whose solution to gun violence is to run and hide is claiming he can ‘kick ass’. The only thing better would be to pick a name of some comic book superhero as a nic.
Funny stuff.
I’ve coach middle school basketball for many years. We have lost some close games. Many of the kids complained that the referee lost it because of a poor call(s) somewhere along the way. The truth is that we lost because we made too many mistakes at the wrong time. It’s the same with your “stolen” elections. They weren’t stolen, they were close and you made mistakes.libs = middle school whiners
We’re not talking about stolen democracy. That is just what you are doing by destroying faith in elections.
We’re talking about DENIAL. You are in denial that someone like Bush could beat Gore.
You need to “get over” your denial. And quit dilluting the value of my vote by spreading your conspiracy theories to convince others that every election that does not result in a Democrat victory means that it is a fraud.
A fundamental problem is that we simply do not have a mechanism for dealing with a tie result. Statistically, FL was a tie in 2000. With all of the distrust there no matter what the ultimate result there would have been many who would not accept it.
Locally we had a somewhat similar situation in a County Commission race. Recount switched the results. The advantage we had here is that Marilyn Chapman is generally highly regarded and people believed her results. I think the situation with Bill Gale is similar – he is a technician and will do his best to give us a good count tonight.
That said, if a race were decided by very few votes I would still wonder – but at least that would be statistics and not dishonesty. I think Gale would acknowledge that even with his sophisticated equipment and his diligence the there are limits to the precision of the results.
This is a link to an independent non-profit group who examined the Ohio exit polling. They contend that the reasons given (by the poll authors) for the disparity between the exit polling and final vote count do not make sense. They believe that something was wrong with the vote count. They are not alleging fraud, but they present clear and convincing evidence that something was wrong.
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf
Without fair and accurate voting, democracy is imperilled. Why do conservatives hate democracy?
…and who thought of the tag, “repuke”? That isn’t even clever.
Presented with evidence and counterarguments, all Mike can do is blow his wad, while hotlicker is reduced to insisting on analogies that don’t apply.
Repubicans stole the 2000 Presidential election, and they’re trying to steal today’s election. They lied about it at the time and they’ll go on lying about it forever.
Vote Democratic–for a change.
Mike,
Your ‘erection protection’ GOP-spin isn’t going to work here. By raising doubts, I’m harming you? Typical Repubican: raise an objection and they accuse you of harming them.
What crybabies y’all are. And liars.
Al Gore “lost” in 2000 because our dysfunctional, corporate owned MSM smeared him with RNC misquotes, spins, and lies.
And because of lazy U.S. citizens who gullibly believed everything that media said.
This is why we have the leadership in this country that we do. When you prefer to simply insult someone as opposed to debate, you get representatives that do the same. When you believe any anti-Bush conspiracy you can find on the internet, you get representatives that don’t make sense either.
This applies to both sides of the aisle.
You people are a waste of time. I clearly have over-estimated the political maturity of those who blog on this site.
Care to talk about Choice-Point and those WEREN’T allowed to vote in Florida, folks? Some of whom were due to be felons in the year 2007. . .I am not making this up.
The Onion has accurately captured the spirit of things:http://www.theonion.com/content/node/54718
If the election results were as Davis says they were, why didn’t Kerry fight it? It makes no sense. That’s because the election was fair. Kerry said so by not contesting it.
Why didn’t Kerry fight the election results? That is a good question, because he had the money on hand (from his campaign)to do so.
Maybe he is just a dumb ass.
The election was clearly not fair. Which I point out again is different from alleging fraud.
That was a dumb statement. Kerry clearly is a dumb ass. Witness his “stuck in Iraq” statement as undeniable proof.
Well don’t let us keep ya Mike. And don’t let the door hit ya on the way out!
On your way out, you tell me what the majority intent of the American people was in 2000. Did they want bush? Or did they cast more votes for Gore?
Osta la bye bye
I see the leftists are still crying about the election Gore lost in 2000…
This is ponderous, man, ponderous.Gore didn’t win Tennesee period!libs = no wonder they hate America, America was too stupid to vote for us.
ProudLip–
I’m not a pacifist, so get that outta your head.
When you wrestled from seventh grade through college, there’s not a lot sh*t you have to take, if you know what I mean.
And a resounding 30 percent of Americans are still happy with Bush.
Congratulations.
You won.
Boy, did you win.
Nathan is sitting in a sandbox eating dust, but by God, he won!
You are absolutely correct, Gore bombed in his home state. He ran a lousy campaign. Add to that losing that critical fraction to Nader and he screwed himself. The Nader votes would have swung FL and NH; either would have been enough electoral votes to swing the election.
He lost Arkansas too – I think that also would have been enough to swing it.
JM–
Your description of me isn’t even close to accurate.
Been looking in the mirror again, eh.
Too bad . . .
POLITICAL MATURITY??HAHAHAHAH, HEHEHHE HOHOHO
Now that’s funny!A new oxymoron.
Let’s hear it for Mike and the party of POLITICAL MATURITY!!
Mikie—GET OVER IT!!!!
Election year 2000, hmmmm…
Didn’t two independent newspapers do a recount after the election was decided and Bush still won, even with larger margins than was reported?
Out of curiosity, let’s say Dems win and take a majority in the House of Representatives.
Is there a requirement that Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker or can someone else be voted/selected?
The answer I found says that even a non-member of the house can be nominated to the Speaker of the House. Not sure exactly what non-member would be defined as.
So, if the Democrats wanted to nominate a moderate to the position, it appears they could choose to do so.
Gosh JM, what a MATURE post.
JM – in theory anyone could be elected Speaker. In fact, my dream would be for a coalition of moderates from both sides of the aisle to elect one. It does not have to come from the majority party caucus.
That said it would be likely her simply for seniority and “paid her dues” reasons.
“Your description of me isn’t even close to accurate. Been looking in the mirror again, eh. Too bad . . .”Posted by: CapnAmerica | November 07, 2006 at 01:58 PM
So, if you had to compare your physical attributes to a famous person would it be:
Tom CruiseBill ClintonRosie ODonnellTom SelleckJeff FoxworthyAl Gore (before and after weight gain)Osama Bin LadenQueen ElizabethPrince CharlesTerrel Owens (T.O.)James Arness (Matt Dillion, Gunsmoke)Mickey RooneyHomer Simpson (well, he’s not a real person, but perhaps you could identify with some characteristics)
JM,I’m a taller cross between Rooney and Homer.D’oh!
If the Dems win the House (and they will), you will not hear the Repubs crying about it. And as far as who they choose as the Speaker, I hope it is Pelosi. Maybe then the American people will see how far left the Democratic party has become.Can you say Schumer, Durbin, Kennedy, Finegold, Clinton, Rangle and on and on.
Yep, we’ll be kissing trees and killing babies by this time next week.Progress ya’ know.
I doubt the kissing trees part.
Okay, how bout:We’ll be hiring illegal alien terrorists and stealing from the wealthy while we kill babies.Better?
You people don’t hire anybody. You work for people who do hire illegal aliens.You won’t be kissing the trees. You will be kissing the terrorists.You will be stealing from the “wealthy” (whatever that is).Your party platform will allow for more dead babies.
Yep, that sounds closer
This document provides an interesting contrast on liberal vs. conservative values.
http://www.elroy.net/politics/liberal2.html
Hotlick,Am I reading correctly that you coach in a middle school. Does that mean that your degree was in P.E.
Wasn’t it Jack Black who said that “those who can’t do, teach and those who can’t teach, teach P.E.”?
My degree is not in P.E.P.E. is one of those majors that I think is kind of silly. Like art history. At least one can make a living with P.E.
I’m back, trolling other posters. Makes me feel important.
John Holmes.
Now, for the real news of the day!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/07/britney.divorce/index.html
What will all those tabloids do now? :)
hotlick when you gonna start posting from Iraq?
I agree ’somewhat’ with you on a PE degree hotlick. One area I do think might be increasingly lucrative is a version of that – trainers for us ‘baby boomers’ as we try to repair decades of damage to our bodies.
Strange …
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/breaking_news/15952814.htm
Woman fatally bitten by snake in church
I think repuke sums up the very essence of Republicans. They are like vomit that just keeps repeating.
Hotclit,
It looks like your side is losing. What shall you do?
Sorry.
Do you teach at, or predend to teach at, a public or private school?
Happy new order to you.
should have been “pretend” instead of “predend”.
Late night you know…
http://www.ohjjl.com
http://serp.com
http://serp.com
http://serp.com