Salon.com examines RFK Jr.’s Rolling Stone article,
By on Jun 3rd, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Salon.com examines RFK Jr.’s Rolling Stone article,
which argues the 2004 election was stolen. Writing for Salon, Farhad Manjoo concludes “the evidence [Kennedy] cites isn’t new and his argument is filled with distortions and blatant omissions.”
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Whatever his aim, RFK Jr. does not appear intent on fixing the problem.
I suppose ye get tired, and so does this man acknnowledge that their is a problem with these machines?
Yes he does.
Now, that alone shows the machines to be suspect, however the author of the Anti-Kennedy claim never even begins, as far as I have read, to address IRDA ports, nor the buffer overflow problem that is inherent in many systems, the Author also does not address the hacks devised by others that do work.
IE no windows program, or any executable binary file, is exempt from Viruses, hacks, or trojans.
enuff said.
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:09 pmErgo, and this is important, manjoo has no computer science degrees, nor does he seem to be proficient in the API of the Windows architecture. Sadly The man is a politician and not a computer programmer, nor even a decent hacker.
Farhad Manjoo (born 1978) is a staff writer for Salon.com.
Manjoo graduated from Cornell University in 2000. While there, he wrote for the Daily Sun student paper. Before taking a staff position at Salon.com, he wrote for Wired News. Manjoo frequently writes on new media, politics, and controversies in journalism.
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:14 pmIn Rolling Stone, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argues that new evidence proves that Bush stole the election. But the evidence he cites isn’t new and his argument is filled with distortions and blatant omissions.
By Farhad Manjoo
(emphasis mine)
This is the same argument used by members of this administration to downplay the Downing Street Memos — the evidence wasn’t new. Using that logic, let’s forget the whole thing, ok? /sarcasm off
Farhad Manjoo has a blog, and on this blog he talks about what he learned on Wikipedia today, isn’t that cute? But his last entry was on 5/31/06, which isn’t all that new these days, so nevermind.
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:17 pmGood article and very truthfull, but the corporate press will never give it massive media exposure, but instead will try to undermine it!
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:28 pmI am referring to Rolling Stone article and NOT the Salon hit piece!
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:31 pm#5 – Whew! I thought you’d lost your mind!
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:44 pmFunny…Greg Pallast has already published mostly the same conclusions using the same body of information, but no one seriously questions what he wrote; I guess that wearing the Kennedy moniker just naturally makes a person’s conclusions suspect in certain circles. If one were to take seriously the Salon article, then one would also conclude that there’s no basis whatsoever for the traditional election day motto in Chicago: “Vote early, vote often!” (Apologies to all in Chicago who are part of the honest electorate.)
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:58 pmgood one, Tom Smeltzer – i just read that piece yesterday:
How They Stole Ohio
The GOP 4-step Recipe to ‘Blackwell’ the USA in 2008
Abracadabra: Three Million Votes Vanish
AN EXCLUSIVE BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Greg Palast
i am downstate illinois – ever “downtrodden” by chi-town :)
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:06 pmalso – http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/03.html#a8561of kennedy with wolf on situation room… also a link to another opinion on the salon story…
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:10 pmI’m an Illinoisan too. (Nice day we had today huh Katy?) I’m upstate though, in the heart of the city.
Never heard the vote early and often remark though. All I know is that we do not support Republicans. All politicians are corrupt in my opinion but the Pugs are dirtier than a maggots ass.
On topic: I thought Salon was a sensible source of info, when did that change?
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:13 pmPost 10 Salon used to be more liberal minded, but recently the articles are more right wing so Salon must have been purchased by a Republican leaning corporation or individual?!
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:27 pma very nice day Stupid R., but there is an amazing variance of weather between yours and mine, it’s hard to say with any certainty just what kind of day it was in illinois – AND, if you’re not happy with it now, just wait and it will change shortly (not verbatim, but another popular illinois adage)…
Never heard the vote early and often remark though. – i’m guessing you are under age 25 then… i think it may have been coined in/about chidago politics, but has been adopted by many localities since…
about salon – i was under that same impression, but have heard it has been co-opted lately, so i’m not too sure…
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:29 pmKaty, I just asked my girl about the vote early and often thing. I guess it originated in the 60’s with Richie Daley’s dad. I was born in 61 and wasn’t paying much attention to politics back in the 60’s. I do remember when NIxon was running against Humphrey and our class held an election. I voted against Nixon and was shunned by my classmates. I guess I showed those dumbasses huh?
Are you familiar with Sandoval or Centralia? A friend of mine has family down there and I have hit all 5 bars in Sandoval.
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:46 pmI guess there’s more than one angle to this topic, and to try and make any point at all seems like howling against the wind…
But it’s a fact, that whatever problem there may have been in allowing for all of those qualified voters in Ohio to vote on that day, and then to have an honest and accurate counting of those votes, is a problem for the people of Ohio.
As much as it may seem (if you believe it at all) that the election was stolen from the Democratic candidate, in truth the election would have been stolen (if you believe it at all) from those Ohio voters who voted for the Democratic candidate that day, and may have made up a majority of Ohioans that day.
And all of this questioning after the fact (two years after the fact), is way too little way too late; the time for ensuring the integrity of an election is in the months and days leading up to it, and then especially on the day of the election and the day after; but to question this much after the fact is an embarrassing waste of effort (a little like seeing people fire-hosing down the charred remains of the house: where were you when it mattered?)
If they weren’t allowed to vote, or Ohio’s vote was counted dishonestly and inaccurately to the disadvantage of of those who voted for the Democratic candidate, then the problem is Ohio’s.
Under the Constitutionally-mandated “electoral college” system, each state not only has only so many votes to cast for president, but each state becomes solely responsible for who casts those votes, and how they are cast and counted (the Constitution mandating the State Legislatures the authority; those same State Legislatures, all 50, then devolving that right or authority on it’s People as voters).
As unsettling (and upsetting) as it may be to the People in the other 49 states, if the People of Ohio don’t care enough about their right to vote in a presidential election (again, a right not given them by the Constitution, but granted them by their own State Legislature), then a minority in the state of Ohio can steal the election from the majority (that is, if you believe that’s what happened).
And not only is there nothing anybody can do about it in the other 49 states (but everything that Ohioans can do, or try to do about it), but there’s nothing people in the other 49 state should do about: Let each State be completely responsible for who casts it’s votes for president, and how they’re cast and counted.
That’s not only the way it is, it’s the way it should be (or at least it is both what the Constitution says, and the intention of those who wrote it; or else we mistakenly set up something whereby those from outside the State can corrupt the casting and counting of votes within the State; which is what the “electoral college” is meant to prevent).
As for my State, we don’t allow “electronic voting”.
Just how lazy and stupid and trusting is that?
I mean, what’s so hard about casting a paper ballot, marked by you (even initialed and/or signed by you if you like); it becomes a permanent and verifiable record of your vote. A permanent and verifiable record of your vote, which you can never get with “electronic voting”.
And how hard is it to count those votes locally? Not counting millions State-wide, or hundreds of thousands County-wide, but counting them at each precinct and polling station, and reporting the tabulation to the State authority; what’s so hard about that? It worked for all our forefathers for generations, before electronics.
You trust “electronic voting”?
They don’t in my State, and for good reason.
But if they’re that stupid or that lazy or that trusting in Ohio, then so be it I guess (much to the unsettled and upsetting concern of the people in the other 49 States).
Lastly, if you live in a State where that’s what they give you on election day, some sort of “electronic screen” to touch, or some other method of “electronic voting”, and you are uncomfortable with (or mistrusting of) that method, then bring a pen and piece of paper, and write the names of your choices on it… and initial it, or even sign it, or put the last four digits of your Social Security number on it (to easily verify it as yours, should you ever want or need to), and submit it that way; make them count it that way…
At the very least you’d be assured of the integrity of your vote, and in the process, have also registered your mistrust of “electronic voting”.
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:48 pmPost 14 if you write anything on a ballot other than a candidate’s name on a fill in line, the ballot gets called “Spoiled” and usually thrown into the trash uncounted!
If voters in Ohio or any other State for that matter want cheating to occur for their Reps or Senators, then I could care less, but if their screwed up voting causes the Electoral College to falsely confirm the wrong candidate for president, then that affects the entire nation!
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:01 pmStupid R. – yes, familiar with sandoval and centralia – they are SSW of my town… you have passed through my town on your way there… EVERYbody passes through my town…
5 bars in sandoval???
ah, yes, the honorable richard j. … and my guess at your age was way off – surprised you hadn’t heard of that one, being a local and all…
by the way – i love your city… a great place to visit and play…
that’s all for me tonight… play nice…
June 3rd, 2006 at 10:13 pmI think the point of Robert Kennedy Jr’s article is the fact that we have all this information and we are not doing anything with it. The fact that voter fraud was master minded by the GOP and we have the Whitehouse we do. Would that make Bush an illegal president? As the head of his party would the blame fall on him?
Sounds like a terrific book idea to me. Instead of looking for ‘new’ news on a subject, let us look at the hard news that is already out there and ACT upon it.
June 3rd, 2006 at 11:23 pmFrom north of the border, I really wonder if this is going to be allowed to happen. How can the right-wing corrupt and callous agenda be allowed to flourish and mock the rights of regular Americans? Are people just that gullible and Fox News just that mind numbing? Do Democrats have no courage to stand up for their own right to govern?
June 4th, 2006 at 12:06 amThe beginning of the 22nd Amendement:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
If GWB has never been elected, can he run again in 2008?
June 4th, 2006 at 12:09 amAnother thought. Should the slogan in 2008 be “Re-elect Gore” or “Re-elect Kerry”?
June 4th, 2006 at 12:20 amClaim: Blackwell engineered a “purge” of 300,000 voters in Ohio’s major cities.
…
Reality: Scrubbing the voting rolls of people who hadn’t voted in prior elections isn’t an arbitrary move. It’s the law. Here’s the relevant section of the Ohio code, 3503.19, which states that a person who “fails to vote in any election during the period of two federal elections” shall have his registration “canceled.”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/03/kennedy/index1.html
Ohio 3503.19, does NOT say: “fails to vote in any election during the period of two federal elections”
It says:
“If a notice of the disposition of an otherwise valid mail registration application is sent by nonforwardable mail and is returned undelivered, the person shall be registered and sent a confirmation notice by forwardable mail. If the person fails to respond to the confirmation notice, update the person’s registration, or vote in any election during the period of two federal elections subsequent to the mailing of the confirmation notice, the person’s registration shall be canceled.”
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/ebook/part1/eligibility_rules_os.html
There is a big difference between what the laws say and the clipped version manjoo provides. Kennedy says letters were mailed out 11 days before the election. After somebody got a letter they would have to sign it and mail it back. Then Ohio would still have to have time to purge voters from the roles before the election. Doesn’t sound doable.
The whole salon article is hash. manjoo wasted a lot of letters and white space.
June 4th, 2006 at 12:25 am“Whatever his aim, RFK Jr. does not appear intent on fixing the problem.”
What a blatant lie. The problem was the partisan SecState, who did everything in his power, legal and illegal, to violate the rights of Ohioans. WE PAID $125,000 FOR A COURT-ORDERED RECOUNT OF OHIO, AND BLACKWELL REFUSED TO GIVE IT TO US.
ANY ELECTION WHERE A PARTISAN OFFICIAL REFUSES A LEGALLY-ORDRED RECOUNT IS A STOLEN ELECTION, PERIOD.
Refusing recounts, even under threat of CONTEMPT OF COURT, as in Ohio, is considered vote-fraud and a stolen election in EVERY DEMOCRATIC STATE IN THE WORLD.
“I suppose ye get tired, and so does this man acknnowledge that their is a problem with these machines?
Yes he does.”
The problem was, in part, Triad Systems, getting CAUGHT changing out circuit boards in tabulation computers to be recounted, statewide. THOSE ARE FELONIES IN EVERY CASE.
They also, according to election officials, supplied FALSE NUMBERS TO BE REPORTED, also felonies.
Ohio is so corrupt, we could not get a legal election in 2004. The same effect was produced nationwide, WITH EIGHTY PERCENT OF ALL U.S. VOTES PROCESSED BY SECRET-SOFTWARE, PARTISAN ELECTRONIC TABULATORS.
We haven’t had a legal election since 1999. TP ought to be fighting on the RIGHT side of this fight, and not supporting the clowns at Salon and their LIES.
June 4th, 2006 at 12:45 amI wonder how it is legal for a supposed impartial government official as K. Harris in Fla 2000 and K. Blackwell in Ohio in 2004 can hold both an office that directly oversees the election…and also be the campaign head for one of the parties in the election…isn’t that sort of a conflict of interest?
June 4th, 2006 at 1:02 am#23 par for the course in the US – try doing that in a real democracy. Try counting the votes in a proprietary automatic box instead of having citizens count them one-by-one in real democracies. US democracy is a joke.
June 4th, 2006 at 1:06 amAs if that clears it all up. No, Kennedy made sense, and the information has been coming out steadily since the election.
Of course it was stolen, and probably by machine.
June 4th, 2006 at 1:06 amBesides, the people who still read Salon are not very inquisitive or thoughtful as a whole, and many, I believe, will support hillary.
June 4th, 2006 at 1:08 amI can’t for the life of me figure out why Think Progress has linked to this article. I read it, and the man can’t even do simple math for crying out loud. But, we’re supposed to listen to him above Robert Kennedy, and his reputable sources? I don’t think so.
C’mon, we have enough trouble cutting bs out of the msm.
June 4th, 2006 at 1:11 amClif,
Not being from the US, I was rather perplexed when I first read that someone can run a candidate’s local campaign and run the local election. I thought I had misread.
It is difficult to think of a more glaring example of a conflict of interest.
June 4th, 2006 at 1:15 amI was not enlightened by the claim in the Salon piece that Democrats were overrepresented in the exit polls. Compared to what? To a 50/50 baseline? If there were more Democrats voting, wouldn’t there be more polled? The point was lacking in clarity.
June 4th, 2006 at 2:47 amThere may be some descrepencies in RFK Jr’s piece on the stolen election of 2004 that the right wing wants to dispute and therefore discredit the entire story, the validity of it’s findings and conclusions. One thing that cannot be disputed is that both the stolen election of 2000 and the stolen election of 2004 were decided in two key states Florida and Ohio that were undisputidly controlled by republican party political machines. A coincidence? I think not!
There are stories coming out to dispute the article, salon for one, that is attempting to do what we have all come know as a typical right wing approach to any issue that questions the truth and is an attack on their way of thinking and that is to “Swift Boat” the article.
June 4th, 2006 at 7:56 amI heard on Air America yesterday that the Ameican Media is NOW owned by 4 companies. Before BushCO. it was 55. The Media was bought up by the conservatives. And now it’s harder for the “truth” to get out.
This makes me sick.
Last night I watched “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — The dirty politicians tried to control the media then (in the movie). The same ol’ shit is happening today.
Thank GOD for Air America.
So,for the mainstream media to take on this story and all the countless other “truths” is getting more and more remote.
I must somehow go beyond being angry — we must all do something. To have the media in control of a few is just what Hitler did.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:11 amI find it astonishing and totally inexplicable that certain blogs have been so afraid of this. We need a citizen movement to take back our elections. One would think that the blogs are very well positioned to help spread the word and organizing, as they have done on other issues with growing success, but instead, we get precisely the same attitude, for example, the Dems took wrt Feingold’s censor motion – pretty much silence. Why? I really, really dont get it. I’d really like to see a good explanation for why this issue is such a 3rd rail – an explanation that deals with the evidence. I thought that was what progressives were about – reality-based phenomenon like EVIDENCE.
It’s doubly depressing because if we just sit back and let the “experts” and political hacks decide it, not only will elections become mere formalities but the very roots of the Western scientific enlightenment will be systematically dismantled. That is exactly what is happening right now with exit polls. The lack of defense of exit polls is particularly troubling.
Democrats have to fight on absolutely every level. There can be no mere fight on the substantive issues – there also has to be a fight on procedural fairness in every aspect of American politics. If Democrats are unwilling to do this, it is left to the blogs and activist groups to do it. But that’s not heppening with the most fundamental institution of our Democracy – the franchise. How many people died in wars and the civil rights struggles so that Diebold and Ken Blackwell can fix elections, and Salon and others can make excuses for it??
Time to get going on this with both guns blazing.
June 4th, 2006 at 11:23 am“Not being from the US, I was rather perplexed when I first read that someone can run a candidate’s local campaign and run the local election. I thought I had misread. It is difficult to think of a more glaring example of a conflict of interest.” –Wallaby
It is a potential conflict of interest, but the general practice is to AVOID ALL IMPLICATION OF BIAS in such cases. In a conflicted election, it is NORMAL for a partisan SecState to recuse themselves.
In the Bushco Scam, anything that can be corrupted, is. By using our WEAKNESSES as skeleton keys into our treasury, this kind of traitor conspiracy pretends to be justice. After all, he constantly says, if you left me in power, you must have agreed with my policies. So watch this swing, watch this nuke, watch this rape of your grandmother. If you loved your grandmother, you wouldn’t have let us break her door down and rape her.
You’re a bad grandson, so consequently Bushco is having a good time. You would yourself, if you could figure out how. You’re a loser for following the law.
A great bit pile of CRAP on Think Regress for attacking our help, siding with the enemy in time of war, and giving succor to thinktank rebuttals to clearcut cases of massive vote fraud. Good show, and I hope your grandmother survives her lesson in the failures of democracy, in spite of you.
June 4th, 2006 at 3:55 pmA great BIG pile of CRAP, say it again.
But because I typed it wrong, you’re off the hook! After all, had this been a REAL emergency, the fire engines wouldn’t have been able to come, because I typed the request wrong.
That’s just common sense.
I just wish I could communicate HOW MUCH you have broken faith with your readership, TR.
June 4th, 2006 at 3:59 pm““Not being from the US, I was rather perplexed when I first read that someone can run a candidate’s local campaign and run the local election.”
Oh, note that this isn’t ‘local’ elections. This is state elections. A lot of foreigners may not understand that a U.S. state is not the same as the glorified administrative districts found in other countries, though U.S. states have been weakened almost to that point.
One would ordinarily not expect Secretary of States to ladle sewage on their heads like Bushco criminals can’t wait to. That’s the problem with criminal conspiracies.
One would not ordinarily expect liberal blogs to join in ATTACKING WHISTLEBLOWERS.
It’s a definite flaw to allow them to be partisan in elections, but that’s not our biggest problem. We don’t even have a statute right to elect a president by popular vote, and idiots run our blogs.
June 4th, 2006 at 4:07 pmChris Bowers of MYdd is taking the DNC approach. Blame it on the voter/victim. Do like he did. Run for office and the go down to the village post office and watch them count the votes. (I’m being sarcastic) This is cross posted on Daily Kos and it is concerning. I wrote a comment on Kos’”Heard you took Diebold money.” Banned for life….Have to do something to earn that money.
June 4th, 2006 at 5:26 pmI made a podcast with samples from Wolf Blitzer’s chat with Kennedy, and it’s wierd, everytime Kenndy talks it’s clear, but when Wolf talks or the Republican press droid talks it’s really distorted. Odd.
June 4th, 2006 at 5:32 pm“Banned for life….Have to do something to earn that money.” — Molly
Apparently, that’s the inherent result of either being insane, or right.
Why DON’T the major blogs report and discuss the theft of our voting rights? Why DOES Kos ignore the vote-fraud, while diaries over there are rife with public anguish about stolen elections.
The truth behind the coup that put 80% of U.S. votes through partisan vote-washing machines in 2004, is going to put even MORE through such machines this coming Fall.
Why is a wonderful word. Ask it today.
June 4th, 2006 at 8:55 pmPaul in LA.
The conflict of interest is real and not potential. It does not arise upon there being a dispute. From the outset the official has an interest in having their candidate elected and an interest in running a fair election.
My use of “local” was intended as a contrast to national. We have a single electorate (same as a congressional district) three times larger than California, and cattle stations larger than glorified soveriegn states such as Rhode Island. Local is a matter of perspective.
A simple statute won’t give the right to directly elect the President. You’ll need an amendment to the Constituion for that.
June 4th, 2006 at 10:18 pmI’m a professional freelance writer, and allow me to just chime in to say that among REAL online journalists, Salon is a joke and has been for a very long time.
June 4th, 2006 at 10:32 pm“The conflict of interest is real and not potential.”
Ultimately, that can be said about many aspects of democracy. They depend on fairness and following the law and its spirit. There isn’t much we or any democracy can do about that.
“It does not arise upon there being a dispute. From the outset the official has an interest in having their candidate elected and an interest in running a fair election.”
That’s true, but a SecState has many responsibilities in addition to election duties. And generally the conflict-of-interest is not as blatant or as unapologetic as with the Bushovik traitors. They really don’t care how many laws and standards they break. Indeed, like all true dictators, they enjoy it.
“My use of “local†was intended as a contrast to national.”
But that isn’t correct; certainly not to a Californian such as myself.
“We have a single electorate (same as a congressional district) three times larger than California,”
With very few of the actual distinctions of being a state. California has its own constitution — does your district have that? No, it doesn’t. So the situation is complex here, to our occasional advantage.
“A simple statute won’t give the right to directly elect the President. You’ll need an amendment to the Constituion for that.”
That’s true, but the point was that WRITTEN law in ANY democracy is insufficient, if traditions and practice are ignored, suddenly, by a dictator. “Parchment barriers” will never stop a dictator — that much has been known for a long time.
Anyhow, changing out partisan SecStates for nonpartisan, or developing a separate registrar of voters at the state level, would require constitutional amendments in EVERY state. So that’s not really what we have to rely on for honest elections.
Our laws and our practices have been violated, to the point of rape on hundreds of counts. It remains the case that freedom anywhere in the world is only as real as the health of the political and legal culture. In the U.S., the primary failure has been in the judicial branch. The Department of Justice refused to investigate massive vote-fraud in 2004; and the Supreme Court is a laughingstock for its traitorous Bush v. Gore betrayal.
We’re at sea, and even when we have political blogs of the otherwise excellent TP sort, the blog writers seem not to be able to overcome their own prejudices and ostrichisms — rushing in, in this case, to embrace the Swiftboating of an issue that tens of thousands of Americans are fighting at the state and local level. I know many activists taking time off and spending money to fly to Sacramento for hearings that change dates as often as the activists hear of them. To those fine Americans, the betrayal of Think Regress this last week, along with Tristero at Hullaballoo, and the now-traditional refusal to cover these issues at Kos and Eschaton, and I hear, MyDD, leave us ever more dependent on ourselves to ‘keep the faith’ with democracy.
These major blogs are too busy getting themselves wired into the system, apparently.
June 5th, 2006 at 12:26 amThe folks at Salon would do the world a favor if they went back to posting articles by people who are enthralled with their own genitals, aged hookers and “Mothers Who Think Too Much About Being Mothers”. They should leave politics to writers who know something about the subject.
June 5th, 2006 at 6:24 amWhat i can say is the main thesis of Kenedy’s article is that there was an obvious and conceted effort by the GOP in the State of Ohio and others to suppress the vote, by all means possible. That includes legal methods, whether ethical or not, and illegal methods. Kenedy uses the available reported sources of information ans supports his thesis, credibly. Manjoo, however, simply gives the benefit of the doubt to the other side to basically say Kennedy doesn’t prove anything. The elephant in the room is that the last 2 Pres. elections were hugely controversial. Both were not allowed to be re-counted, nor legally contested. Each time any evidence to show fraud was discounted as tin foil hat conspiracy.
There may have been no provable fraud; But there is definitely provable suppression of the electorate and outright disenfranchisement. The case for fraud would necessarily result in a new election. This can’t be proven nor would it be allowed to be proven. i.e. SCOTUS and partisan Sec.s of State. Disenfranchisement can be proven to an extent but the result of the disenfranchisment cannot prove the outcome of the election because we do not know how the voters would cast. Accurate re-counts are a result that prove something went wrong, but not what. Therefore if you stop the re-count you never get to the other questions, fraud, suppression, or disenfranchisement.
The bottom line is this article (Manjoo’s) does exactly what it argues that Kennedy does. Nothing new, and ommissions that misleads to make the argument more plausible. They can argue that the discrepancies and an errroe are negligible or inaccurate and prove nothing, but that cannot argue that the election results were accurate of on the up and up. All they say is there’s always problems and these are just normal elections. The evidence has raised the doubt now they must prove it is accurate by clear and convincing evidence.
June 5th, 2006 at 1:06 pm“The evidence has raised the doubt now they must prove it is accurate by clear and convincing evidence.” –txexspeedy
Such as we will all have after November, and events between now and then, reminds people why leaving a coup in power is a bad idea.
Put obvious dictatorship up against obvious vote-fraud. Gee, looks like the people who are willing to stop at nothing are willing to stop at nothing. What a shock.
June 5th, 2006 at 3:32 pmPaul in LA.
The electorate I mentioned has none of the elements of being a state. It is a federal electorate. It is geographically situated within a soveriegn state which has a constitution. That state is part of our federation.
Guess what? At state and federal level we have fair elections – as do many other developed countries. I reckon, as foreigner. I have a better idea of how your electoral system works than many of your compatriots. Unlike half of Americans, I can locate New York on a map. (I suspect the 10% who cannot even locate the US on a map do not vote.)
The fact remains around half of US voters TWICE chose as President probably the dumbest guy to to ever hold that office. Getting rid of electoral fruad is only a necessay start to fixing your once great democracy.
June 5th, 2006 at 10:05 pm“Guess what? At state and federal level we have fair elections – as do many other developed countries. I reckon, as foreigner.”
Prior to the installation/fraud/conspiracy of this electronic vote-stealing/flipping equipment in 1999, we had comparatively fair elections as well.
“I have a better idea of how your electoral system works than many of your compatriots.”
That wasn’t necessarily the case, which is why I may have seemed pedantic. I have found that people from parliamentary systems especially have a hard time imaging the American system.
“Unlike half of Americans, I can locate New York on a map. (I suspect the 10% who cannot even locate the US on a map do not vote.)”
Indeed, and if you don’t think that half of your population isn’t stupid on several counts, you don’t get out much. This kind of America-bashing is just frustration — I understand — but not far from bigotry nonetheless.
“The fact remains around half of US voters TWICE chose as President”
You are quoting the results of stolen elections. That’s exactly the kind of stupidity that is celebrated by the immediate downing of RFK Jr.s article by Think Regress. After nearly five years fighting for Bush’s impeachment and recognition of his crimes and of the rightwing theft of our elections, we FINALLY get a major magazine to publish the allegations and facts — and Think Regress springs into action, to embrace the ‘debunking’ (re-concealing).
“probably the dumbest guy to to ever hold that office.”
If you think that traitor is just a ‘dumb guy,’ you really don’t understand fascism.
“Getting rid of electoral fruad is only a necessay start to fixing your once great democracy.”–Wallaby
There isn’t anything that wrong with America that a restoration of our Constitutional government won’t go a long ways toward fixing. Since your ass is right over the line with all of us who are fighting this coup as best we can, how about canning the America-bashing and get real about what is really going on?
And, in any case, good talking with you.
June 6th, 2006 at 1:36 amPaul,
You don’t seem to read very closely. An excerpt from RFK jr’s article:
“Any election, of course, will have anomalies. America’s voting system is a messy patchwork of polling rules run mostly by county and city officials. ”We didn’t have one election for president in 2004,” says Robert Pastor, who directs the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University. ”We didn’t have fifty elections. We actually had 13,000 elections run by 13,000 independent, quasi-sovereign counties and municipalities.”
Sounds rather local to me.
As to bashing America: I stated some facts. I realise some of my countrymen cannot count past 12 without taking off their socks.
June 8th, 2006 at 4:47 am