As someone who fails to see the double-standard...

Post #167,925 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 2:54:54 PM Reply	As someone who fails to see the double-standard... How is telling the truth about one person equivalent to lying about the other? It is true that if the Florida election was fair, Bush would not have been elected. But he was declared elected by a margin of 5-4 in the Supreme Court (with 2 of the 5 having ties to the candidate that in many eyes meant that they should have recused themselves). And now under Bush's watch the job scene went to shit (not entirely his fault), the deficit skyrocketed (some his fault, some not), our level of international support has gone to crap, and we're now committed to a disasterous situation in Iraq. I could add more well-known things in his personal history. By contrast it is a lie that Kerry did not earn the recognition that he got in Vietnam. (Whether that means that he would make a good president is another story...) Now if you want to be unhappy with Kerry, and tell the truth, I'll respect that. Like [link\|http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=354&row=1\|http://www.gregpalas...m?artid=354&row=1] does. But if you want to say that nasty lies are equivalent to nasty truths, then I can't respect that. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #167,926 by boxley 8/6/04 2:58:53 PM Reply	now now show me the ruling of the USC that states "we declare candidate bush to be the elected winner of florida" Bork Bork Bork :-) thanx, bill "delayed incessantly by people whose prevalent qualification was an excess of free-time" Philip Atkinson questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #167,928 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 3:13:34 PM Reply	You know as well as I that no ruling used those words. But the net effect of the rulings at [link\|http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/\|http://www.flcourts....pubinfo/election/] was the same. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #167,930 by boxley 8/6/04 3:29:22 PM Reply	Let me quote from the ruling [link\|http://www.flcourts.org/pubinfo/election/12-22-2000/SC00-2431-remand.pdf\|http://www.flcourts....0-2431-remand.pdf] Moreover, upon reflection, we conclude that the development of a specific, uniform standard necessary to ensure equal application and to secure the fundamental right to vote throughout the State of Florida should be left to the body we believe best equipped to study and address it, the Legislature. punted to the group which was ready to appoint repo electors to estableh "state wide" rules for manual counts so for every vague scratch for Gore in west palm wasnt counterbalanced by two votes from the panhandle which a palmist held to her head and declared Bush. thanx, bill "delayed incessantly by people whose prevalent qualification was an excess of free-time" Philip Atkinson questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #167,947 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 4:09:27 PM Reply	As I said, the net effect was the same To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #167,955 by bepatient 8/6/04 5:06:07 PM Reply	Actually. If they would have stayed out of it and done as Gore had asked or even as ordered by the FL SC, Bush would have won. Gore request for recounts of all ballots in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Volusia counties Result: Bush by 225 Florida Supreme Court of all undervotes statewide Result:\tBush by 430 [link\|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2000#The_Florida_Ballot_Project_recounts\|source] So, could we please, once and for all, get over it already? According to any standard that would have been used IRREGARDLESS of the USSC, Gore would have lost FL and thus the election. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #167,959 by Another Scott 8/6/04 5:19:05 PM Reply	Nit: Your choice:Regardless or Irrespective. Not both. ;-)
Post #167,963 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 6:01:49 PM Reply	Actually, not [link\|http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?011224ta_talk_hertzberg\|http://www.newyorker...ta_talk_hertzberg] If the recount had gone forward as planned and only counted undervotes, then Bush would have won. If the recount had gone forward as planned and also counted overvotes (as many believe was likely) then Gore would have won. Both by small margins. If the infamous scrub list had not happened, or if its effects were estimated, Gore would have won by much nicer margins. If the punchcard machines all were set to tell all voters when they had a spoiled ballot, or all were set to not tell voters that (rather than having them set, precinct by precinct, according to how that precinct is likely to vote), then Gore would have won by an estimated 200,000 votes. But, I can hear you say, it's only democracy. Why bother getting heated up about it? To which I have to point out that George Bush fully agrees with you. As he pointed out, his life would be much easier if he was a dictator. He certainly doesn't seem to believe in listening to people! Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #167,964 by bepatient 8/6/04 6:43:56 PM Reply	There were 2 rulings. One the asked for recount in 4 counties. The other the FL SC decision. Both would have resulted in the same Bush victory. Any OTHER scenario is changing the rules in place. The scrub list was ignored in 20 counties...allowing 8000 votes that should not have been cast, which would likely offset those incorrectly on the list. Ballot reject mechanisms and other tabulation issues are problems, yes. But unless you subscribe to some farreaching conspiricy that knew, in advance, that FL would determine the entire election, then playing the game of "if there wouldn't have this or that" is basically disingenuous. It didn't go according to the "rules"...agreed. But if it had the results would have been the same according to the rules in place at the time. (ie..if the Feds would have done the correct thing and not ruled at all) If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #167,967 by Another Scott 8/6/04 7:06:16 PM Reply	Timeout everyone. Thread starting with #17834. [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=17834\|#17834], and the replies there. I think we've beaten this horse pretty well dead. Several times. :-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #167,969 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 7:35:39 PM Reply	And I, respectfully, disagree My latest post in this thread said a lot of things that I don't recall having been said in past threads. In particular I added material on how the recount would have progressed which was not public knowledge when the previous thread that you pointed out came up. Material that changes the outcome. Furthermore I believe that we haven't hit a point of deadlock on this issue. If we do, I'll exit. But right now Bill and I appear to be having constructive dialogue. We've been known to do that - even on things that we disagree deeply about. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #167,970 by Another Scott 8/6/04 7:39:31 PM Reply	Sorry. A preemptive strike based on faulty intelligence. :)
Post #168,005 by boxley 8/6/04 10:09:39 PM Reply	I got a stars and bars that disagrees wit you "delayed incessantly by people whose prevalent qualification was an excess of free-time" Philip Atkinson questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #167,968 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 7:31:07 PM 8/6/04 9:29:39 PM Reply	Please recheck those facts The FL SC decision would have done the recount under the direction of district judge Terry Lewis. In interviews afterwards, which are backed up by documentation at the time, Terry Lewis claims that he would have counted both overvotes and undervotes. If he had done that, then Gore would have won. That was a significant oversight on the part of the newspaper articles which claimed that, had the recount gone forward as planned, Bush would have still won. They were mistaken about what was actually planned. You would have known this if you had read the link that I provided. In fact I suspect that you did know part of this based on how precisely you stated your claim. Now your claim of 8000 votes being case that should not have been cast is kind of interesting. Let's review, shall we? There were 57,700 "ex-felons" on the list. The one county that checked each of the 694 names on its local list could verify only 34 as actual felony convicts. Which suggests that about 95% of the people on the list should not have been. If that rate held for the rest of the list, then that list had fewer than 3000 real felons on it. Not all of whom would have voted. (Probably about half.) So where did your 8000 votes that should not have been cast come from? Were they 8000 people who you're counting as guilty because they were on that scrub list? (A scrub list which Florida was successfully sued about.) If the rate remained at the dismal success that it had when spot checked, only 400 people "wrongly" voted (in many states they would have had the right to vote, but I digress). 400 excess votes hardly offsets tens of thousands of people wrongly denied the vote. Tens of thousands of people who are disproportionately black and therefore disproportionately Democratic. While I agree that the excess votes offsets the excess scrubs, the relative magnitudes of the numbers makes the offsetting pretty negligable. As for your comments about a "farreaching conspiracy", nice ad hominem. No wild-eyed accusations are being made. The claim is not that Bush planned on Florida being the key, it is that Florida was a mess and Florida was the mess that was looked at in the most detail. Both parties attempt to manipulate the system. The Democrats are hardly clean (in fact seeing a Daley lecture on fair voting was one of the best ironies in 2000). However in recent the Republicans have been willing to get a lot dirtier than the Democrats, with an unfortunate amount of success. No, they didn't just manipulate Florida. Several other states had messes in 2000 as well, Florida is just the one that got a spectacular amount of press due to a perfect combination of issues. For instance when I pointed out the (successful) attempt to systematically manipulate ballot spoilage to the advantage of the Republicans, the estimate that I have seen is 200,000 black votes lost in Florida. But that wasn't just happening in Florida, nationwide that manipulation is estimated at 2,000,000 votes. Now let me cut you off before you jump up and down and say that I'm claiming a Republican conspiracy. In fact I am claiming a Republican conspiracy. The question is whether I'm claiming an unreasonable conspiracy. I submit that any fair look at the history of US elections (yes, including Chicago in 1960) will show that the kind of manipulations that I am talking about are hardly unprecedented. We have a two party system, and whichever party is in power attempts to maintain that power. They do it by changing rules, bending rules, breaking rules, selectively enforcing rules..you name it, they've done it. Both sides. But it is something that the American people as a whole have historically had little sympathy for. Our collective unwillingness to accept "political manipulation as usual" is the biggest check out there on attempts to manipulate politics. When it comes to that question, I know what side I'm for. I'd hope that somewhere deep inside you feel the same way. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court] Edited by ben_tilly Aug. 6, 2004, 09:28:18 PM EDT Edited by ben_tilly Aug. 6, 2004, 09:29:39 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #168,006 by bepatient 8/6/04 10:14:23 PM Reply	Agree on several fronts. One of them being that this is a very dead horse. However, the FL SC ordered the manual recount of >undervotes<. This was specified in the rulings. In interviews later he can say all he wants...he would have been going beyond his court ordered mandate and likely would have been challenged and overruled. Actually my 8000 number was pulled incorrectly. The actual issue is that the felon list was ignored in 20 counties, I don't have a list of which those were. I've also seen [link\|http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a41f7e24141.htm\|stories] that don't lend alot of creedence to the validity of the vote in Philadelphia and other cities, where there are more registered voters than eligible voters and quite a few precincts reported 100% turnout (pretty neat, more votes than eligible voters). So swing states such as PA could have gone Rep without this type of corruption. So we both are making the point from different sides, that by now we, the people, should have figured out a way to keep this crap from happening in our electoral process. I, however, think that the public is overwhelmingly apathetic to this..which is why in this day and age we still have chads on ballots. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #168,017 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 10:56:46 PM Reply	I think that we've reached agreement To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]
Post #168,008 by boxley 8/6/04 10:16:56 PM Reply	without them the Florida Legislature had a large majority ready to select electors directly which could not be challenged in state court only federal and the constitution sez as ashton likes to put it cha cha cha. Now if that happened the US house could have tossed the electors which would have had the New Mexico electors tossed for sinilar reasons. This would throw the election into the federal house and would hace resulted in a Bush victory anyway. I wish the USSC had stayed out which would have let the constitution do its work, it would have made the country stronger and the people who dont understand politics would finally get a clue about checks and balances. thanx, bill "delayed incessantly by people whose prevalent qualification was an excess of free-time" Philip Atkinson questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]
Post #168,016 by ben_tilly 8/6/04 10:55:23 PM Reply	You may well be right But I still stand by my original claim that if the election was fair, that Gore would have taken Florida. Cheers, Ben To deny the indirect purchaser, who in this case is the ultimate purchaser, the right to seek relief from unlawful conduct, would essentially remove the word consumer from the Consumer Protection Act - [link\|http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=1246&Page=1&pagePos=20\|Nebraska Supreme Court]

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