We know this. That is why we are here. Cheaters prosper. The end justifies the means. The theory of evolution is wrong.

The BCFOL will fall. Time and truth are on our side.

re #1: Truth Seeker: What is "the BCFOL"?

I've tried using Google but it keeps saying "Blount County Friends Of the Library" ... that can't be what you meant, can it?

WP -

Bush/Cheney Foes of Liberty?

Now add the total of all of those perfectly valid concerns to the fact that more 13 million Americans are criminally disenfranchised, more than half of them by the Jim Crow drug war of the right wing, and you see that no one who is not preordained by the right wing of America can EVER win national office on America again.

The New York Times in Dec. last year described this way the criminal disenfranchisement and forced displacement of mostly minorities to rural GOP controlled district prisons: "The practice recalls the early United States under slavery, when slaves were barred from voting but counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportioning representation in Congress."

MORE: How America's right wing has successfully subverted our democracy
The castration of the Voter Rights Act

John Conyers, the NAACP and Jesse Jackson have, for years now, denounced the mass disenfranchisements of the Jim Crow drug war. Jackson, at the 2000 Shadow Convention put it as succinctly as it can be put.

"Because if you're young, or poor, or black or brown and don't have a lawyer there is no category called youthful indiscretion. For the young, the poor, the black, the brown, youthful indiscretion is not a forgivable sin. And not permissible in court."

(snip)

"When we speak of equal protection under the law what are we saying? Of those in the jails, African Americans are 12% of the population and 55% of the jail population. Hispanics 20% of the jail population. So 3/4 of those in jail are black or brown. What is wrong with that picture? "

"If you will, 85% of all rural arrests are white. 75% of all urban arrest are white. But 75% of those in jail are black or brown."

MORE THAN 13 MILLION AMERICANS DISENFRANCHISED AND HAULED TO RURAL GOP CONTROLLED PRISONS WHERE THEY ARE COUNTED FOR APPORTIONMENT THAT BENEFITS THE GOP!

Winter,

I sent you an email, but I just had to post this right away.

I think this deserves a siren, BB style.

It is a copy of an email I just received from PDA. Sorry it is so long. And it isn't even fascinating. But, I quote the source. I am not a Democrat (not anymore). Kerry makes me want to throw up. He needs to be strung up by his Skull and Bones balls/ testicles/ small brain.

email text below

-----------------

Dear Friends,

We have learned that the Kerry/Edwards campaign is preparing to withdraw from the Ohio recount case, which is pending in federal court. This move comes as Federal Judge Carr in Toledo prepares to hold a status conference on August 30 on this case, along with two other pending voting rights cases.

When most others stood aside, PDA stood for voting rights and untainted elections in Ohio and in the halls of Congress. We stood to make sure that every vote counts. We have continued to fight together without slowing down.

Yesterday, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. issued a letter to Senators Kerry and Edwards urging that they not withdraw from this case. Here is a link to the letter:

Congressman Conyers Urges Kerry and Edwards Not to Withdraw From Ohio Recount Case

The National Voting Rights Institute and its general counsel John Bonifaz, a PDA National Advisory Board Member, represent 2004 presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik in their request for a meaningful recount of the 2004 Ohio presidential vote. During the recount last December, NVRI and its clients documented extensive irregularities in the way county boards of election conducted the recount. This included evidence that the Triad corporation had tampered with voting machines prior to the start of the recount, as well as evidence the county election officials had directly violated rules and procedures so as to avoid a full hand count of the ballots.

In late December, Cobb and Badnarik filed amended counterclaims in this case alleging the recount was not conducted in accordance with basic equal protection and due process guarantees under the US Constitution. At stake in this case today is whether the court will grant the plaintiffs declaratory judgment, setting forth the constitutional standard for how recounts should be conducted in future federal elections. This is a critical precedent to set for any future presidential or congressional election.

Please call/write/email Kerry today urging that he not withdraw and that he join Cobb and Badnarik's amended counterclaims on the way the recount was conducted. To contact Kerry/Edwards campaign office, go to:

http://www.johnkerry.com/contact/

In light of the upcoming August 30 hearing before Judge Carr, time is of the essence. If the proper precedent - of creating a constitutional standard as to how recounts should be conducted in regard to due process guarantees - is set in this case, it will help assure that future elections can and will be held without taint or improper interference. Kerry and Edwards must not back away from this all-important struggle. If they do, they will not only be abandoning all those who stood for them in the campaign and all those who fought for a fair counting of the votes, but they will also be abandoning the fight to make sure that elections in this country do not become the murky purview of corporations whose machines and managers cannot be trusted. Please contact them today and tell them to keep standing for the vote.

In peace and solidarity,

Tim Carpenter
http://www.pdamerica.org

Kerry would not stick with the Ohio recount because the right wing DLC Democrats have always depended on the same system manipulations that the Republicans have used with such success in the past two presidential cycles. Its the pot calling the kettle black.

John Kerry is also a career drug warrior and so has been as much a part of the mass disenfranchisement of minorities and nonconformists in the past thirty five years as has the GOP.

This is why I ONLY support candidates who oppose the drug war. Nader Independents, Greens and Libertarians. The fringe folks who still fight for a real democracy for America.

Here's another throw up moment. Just when I was breathing a sigh of relief that we weren't nuked today.

Surely there must be a better way of getting to Kerry and Edwards (call me an optimist) than sending Johnny an email? Phone #s anyone?

Count Every Vote

snip----

Senator John Kerry is committed to making sure that all Americans have faith in future elections that the votes they stand in line to cast are counted.

--- more at the throw-up zone----

It is important to get the evidence and facts out about how the PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION was STOLEN. The real question to the people on this site is will the system get fixed before the next election? At this time there's a chance but it doesn't look good. Congress is over run by thoughtless uncaring greedy robots who are programed to get their bushit administration bills passed into law. Go ask Bernie Sanders and John Conyers Jr. about how Congress works in 2005. It's controlled by corporate interest groups and right wingers with their crooked cross view of how America should be in the sieg heil Bushit police state they created out of 911. You trolls won. You don't have to tell us America is run by clueless loser goons with an iron fist agenda. The real question is how long will it will take a majority of stupid Americans to figure out their vote doesn't count??? Maybe the bushits can put a mark on good people who stand up against the machine like they did back in the 60's? Whatever mutherfcker. Something I was brought up with called American values will prevail when we let all the drug users (individuals convincted for the crime of using drugs on themselves) out of American jails so we can make room for all the crooked lying murderers destroying the earth for their own dime in the Bushit admininstration. Drug users need help with their addictions. The Bushit administration needs hard time behind bars to pay up for what they've done to our country and the world. Yourrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr tiiiiiiiiiiiime isssssssssss gonnnnnna commmmmmmmmmmmmmme! MF.

Hey GBD #8,

I am feeling so po-ed myself. But I keep getting drawn back into the fight, silly optimist me. Are you saying that there is no point in trying to contact Kerry/ Edwards?

I kinda think so myself, but something in me wants to keep trying. Whaddya think?

On the other hand (?), I did think "Well, the only paper trail Kerry knows about is the one he wipes his ass with."

Sorry, I'm not usually so crude, but.... seems appropriate for the situation.

Whadda I think?
Go for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winter,
Thank you so much for Dr. Loo's piece. Another fellow Bradblogger, RLM, had mentioned it also. Thank you, Robert!
I gotta remember to write to Harper's & thank them for that Mark Crispin Miller article, too, as I think you suggested on an earlier thread. A good idea.

Valley Girl,
I SO concur! And I gotta say after reading this li'l bit you wrote....

"Kerry makes me want to throw up. He needs to be strung up by his Skull and Bones balls/ testicles/ small brain"

....girl, you got a way with words, lol!!

I'm thoroughly sickened by Kerry. And that was & is such a HUGE disappointment after having seen the tape of him on the Dick Cavett Show in '71. I'd been so impressed with his courage & conviction. WHAT happened to the man?

TruthSeeker,
Yeah, please, what IS "the BCFOL"??

Winter Patriot, I'm sorry to break this to you, but Loo's article is full of errors. You are doing the cause no good by posting it.

I specialize in analyzing Florida electoral statistics. I have corresponded with Loo and pointed out faults serious enough that I think he should have issued a correction.

One simple example. He claims in point 4 that "Florida’s reporting of more presidential votes (7.59 million) than actual number of people who voted (7.35 million), a surplus of 237,522 votes, does not indicate fraud." I asked him what the source was. It was an article in the Orlando Weekly by Alan Waldman. I go back the article and see that it claims that of these 237, 522 phantom votes, 51,000 were in Miami. As it happens, a progressive organization called MDERC did an audit and found that most of these were probably simple clerical errors. They alleged, if I understand correctly, that there were fewer than 200 fraudulent phantom votes and no more than a few thousand questionable votes. I would be more specific but unfortunately MDERC has failed to answer my questions about the report.

200 fraudulent votes is 200 crimes and a few thousand questionable votes are a few thousand too many. But these do not add up to 51,000, as Waldmann (and hence Loo's) article would imply.

So, the claim of 237,522 phantom votes collapses.

A mountain of evidence means nothing unless it adds up to an allegation of a specific crime by a specific person or group of people. When some of the evidence is tainted, it just makes the work that much harder. I should be finishing up my next article on the real evidence that Florida was stolen and instead find myself pouring hours into correcting a false record created by an academic with no understanding of Florida electoral statistics.

But keeping the record clear is just as important as generating new research.

Keep on the lookout for the Paul Krugman editorial tomorrow:

"What They Did Last Fall."

"There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as
there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the
next election may be worse....

"Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election....despite a host of
efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes,
most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised
large numbers of valid voters.

"But few Americans have heard these facts."

Woo-Hoo! The media freeze is thawing!

Oh and I just found the article again that is on answers.

This one is so unbelievable, I am flabbergasted.

Doug E.

The Raw Story article, about the San Diego citizens proving DIEBOLD gave the GOP candidate a 4% swing, is HUGE! Is this going anywhere?

And those people are my heroes, because they have given us the idea to do parallel voting for the 2006 elections. What the San Diego citizens did, should be done widespread across the nation for the 2006 elections, to once and for all prove widespread vote fraud on electronic voting machines and optical scanners.

Are there any movements going, to do what the San Diego citizens did, but on a national scale for 2006? Here's our chance. These patriotic heroes proved vote fraud on DIEBOLD machines, but on the scale of one election.

Was this important story, one of the biggest of our time in my opinion, in the mainstream media? Or just on Raw Story?

The San Diego story is even bigger than Dennis Loo's story, because they did it "real time". They had the people who just voted, vote again with them! These stories like Dennis Loo's (and hundreds of others) have proven PAST election fraud, and that's good, don't get me wrong.

But this San Diego story happened real time, and the MSM isn't jumping on it! I can't believe it!

Didn't they just prove, real time, just a day ago, that DIEBOLD machines gave a GOP candidate 4% more votes? Am I going crazy?

re #12 Thanks, Oliver, for the correction.

Unlike you, I am NOT an expert on election irregularities in Florida [or anywhere else] ... and my intention in posting the article was not to do a disservice to the cause but to generate some discussion ... and to that end I ask whether you can explain your comment a bit further...

Specifically, are you saying that Florida reported more than 230,000 phantom votes due to clerical errors? And that there is nothing suspicious about this? Were those errors caught and corrected before the "official" vote count was "certified", or are the errors still represented in the "official" total?

Perhaps I'm overly suspicious about everything, but it strikes me as suspicious that MDERC has "failed to answer" your "questions about the report". One would think they would want the truth to be as widely known as possible.

On the other hand, I understand why ACVR doesn't answer questions.

Just one more thing: are you really sure about this: "A mountain of evidence means nothing unless it adds up to an allegation of a specific crime by a specific person or group of people."??

We have the same question in the aftermath of 9/11. In my view, a mountain of evidence is sometimes useful --- even if it doesn't "add up to an allegation of a specific crime by a specific person or group of people" --- simply because we can point to it and say: "See that mountain? It wasn't there before! Wonder where it came from?" ... And even if it leads to no specific allegations, it's still important because so many people claim to believe there are no mountains, only prairies.

Thanks again for your input and please keep up the good work.

The proof that Diebold is choosing the winners is clearly exhibited in the allegiances of the politicians, once they are in office.

What to do to stop this FRAUD is in REVEALING the details of how the criminal did their deeds.

We need many worker bees on this front. As the overt tyranny increases our numbers will grow exponentially!

Their desparation is our best recruiter for the truth.

This morning at DU

Krugman quotes Gumbel: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."

Hey look - the link generator worked for me now. No more "messing up the blog." (In response to the spanking I got earlier this week) lol

Oliver Dawshed, #12

I'm not a vote investigator either.. nor am I a statistician, even though I've taken several advanced math courses (including 2 statistics-only courses). But, I -have- taken logic courses, and am a Software Engineer with a BS in Computer Science (and a pretty smart guy.. or so I'm told once in a while).

Here's the flaw in your logic about "237,000 votes is not an accurate estimate, so the whole thing is wrong".. First, you make a point about 200 crimes. That has -nothing- to do with "more votes reported than there are voters".. correct? Then you go on to show "one county" (Miami).. and say there were some "51,000 extra votes reported", but say the "investigation showed most of them to be clerical errors"?? Um.. ok.. so, some how, that county "accidently" added up some extra 51,000 votes? VOTES?.. lemme say that again.. V.. O.. T.. E.. S ??? Then, you're saying "a few thousand -fraudulent- votes".. yet, you JUST also said the auditors talked about MORE than "200 crimes and a few thousand [that -might- be crimes]", but DID acknowledge that the -bulk- of the 51,000 'might have been simple clerical errors".. agian, with VOTES? in ONE county?

To then try and make it seem that Loo (and Waldmann) made up the numbers? Don' t you see how you already said the "auditors dismissed the over-reported numbers as clerical errors", but that does NOT change the FACT that they were "reported"? So, using "proper" logic.. Miami REPORTED 51,000 MORE votes then voters.. isn't that the fact? and the auditors said "those are mostly clerical errors"? so.. was there a "recount" and "new final count" and "new numbers" that were -not- clerical errors? If so, then the NEW numbers should be in the article, I agree. But, to try and "dismiss the numbers" as errors, but NOT finding the REAL NUMBERS is -not- a valid position.. not to me.

So, when Loo says there are 237,000 extra 'reported' votes in Florida, and there are NO NEW NUMBERS that were used in the descision for who became president.. then, as he says, you'd have to believe that 237,000 more votes than voters isn't fraud (or some heinous clerical error with our most sacred of rights and duties as American Citizens). 200 "crimes", "thousands of suspicious" accounts (and, thousands.. hmm.. 50 thousands? after all, 50 isn't much..).. all totaling to an "official reporting" of 51,000 -extra- votes?

Sorry, given MDERC's lack of willingness to talk, and no information indicating that the "extra, fraudulant, and criminal votes" were actually "taken out of the official counts", I have to agree that it smells of FRAUD. Is it fraud? not sure.. but doesn't that (with 17 other VALID concernes) warrent -investigating- it with proper authorities and resources and criminal implications? I think so..

You can't say "oh.. we accidently reported a quarter million extra votes, but it was pretty much kinda sorta mostly largely just a bit of clerical error".. I, for one, aint buying it..

from NRO's The Corner:

Paul Krugman tells a whopper today in his column about media recounts in the 2000 election: "Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore." Um--no. Wrong. Bzzzzz. One of those groups was led by USA Today, and here's what they found in a May 15, 2001 USA Today story headlined "Newspapers recount show Bush prevailed": "George W. Bush would have won a hand count of Florida's disputed ballots if the standard advocated by Al Gore had been used, the first full study of the ballots reveals. Bush would have won by 1,665 votes — more than triple his official 537-vote margin — if every dimple, hanging chad and mark on the ballots had been counted as votes."

Olliver, you weren't there on the ball when this all broke out.

If you want real evidence of Florida's serious phantom votes, see Here

There's also an article on www.answers.com that is by far and away the largest study.

Doug E.

Valley Girl said on 8/18/2005 @ 7:11pm PT...

Valley Girl...

FYI:

1) Kerry/Edwards has NOT said they were bowing out of the Ohio Recount cases. They are still very much involved.

2) PDA references Conyers' letter to Kerry/Edwards, but leaves out an all important part of the letter: Conyers in his letter said "I am deeply concerned to learn of the possibility, however remote, that you may be considering withdrawing from the 2004 election recount case in Ohio." NOTE the wording --- "possibility, however remote." Conyers letter is posted in full here - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=272

3) The Conyers letter was to confirm unsubstantiated rumors. RUMORS. Not fact. It has not been verified.

4) I have contact with Kerry people on a regular basis. While I can not reveal the source for this, this comes directly from a Kerry source:
"We just went through a big thing with MoveOn on this, and once they understood our involvement and thinking they came to understand what we were doing. We're involved in two lawsuits. The third, I believe it is the Yost lawsuit, is not considered by our lawyers, including MoveOn's lawyer to be a strong suit. Kerry has done more than anyone else on this in Ohio. It's important to be effective."

5) PDA, Cobb, et al can make all the claims they want, but the fact is whatever investigation into voter fraud that the Kerry/Edwards team may still be persuing will not be made public until such time as they have solid proof. If they want to be effective and win this in a court of law it would be assine to run around spouting off at the mouth about what they are doing. COMMON SENSE 101!

Honestly, get a grip. Your rantings are offensive and show the level of your understanding of politics, the law and general good sense.

LOL @ #23

Still confused....Kerry is doing something? Something nobody hears about?

Does any of this have to do with the league of women voters lawsuit and other challenges in Ohio?

After all the bribery I've seen, I think at least several BOE employees should be going to jail. That is just in Ohio, what a cesspool.

Doug

Bluebear2 #20

WOO-HOO!!! I'm so happy you got it to work. I guess Torqued found the problem & fixed it.

(Sorry about the spanking --- you know we love you, don't you?)

Hello Pamela ... somebody needs a nap.

WP #2

Bush Crime Family Of Liars

Doug

Maybe folks here need to get around a little more.

John Conyers on Paul Krugman’s OP/ED
August 19th, 2005

Yesterday I posted a copy of John Conyers’ letter to Kerry/Edwards regarding the Ohio Voter Fraud cases. Unfortunately Conyers’ letter started a firestorm. Anyone on PDA’s email list or frequents DU, knows what I am talking about. Today John Conyers’ posted a piece on his blog about Paul Krugman’s OP/ED, which Ron posted about earlier today. I found that post from John Conyers’ to be particularly helpful in sorting this mess out.

MORE - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=287

Kira

Some people have a direct line to Kerry info, some don't.

Consider that while you were napping, others were finding out the truth.

Hi Kira,

Echo congrats to Bluebear2!

Oh, yeah, I guess "politics" means different things to different people.

VG

Ncodcr #22
Stop supporting NeoCON liars and criminals!

Gore's Victory

By Robert Parry --- November 12, 2001

[snip] So Al Gore was the choice of Florida’s voters --- whether one counts hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won.

Gore won even if one doesn’t count the 15,000-25,000 votes that USA Today estimated Gore lost because of illegally designed “butterfly ballots,” or the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away from the polls.

Gore won even if there’s no adjustment for George W. Bush’s windfall of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict standards to Democratic ones, a violation of fairness reported earlier by the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Put differently, George W. Bush was not the choice of Florida’s voters anymore than he was the choice of the American people who cast a half million more ballots for Gore than Bush nationwide. [For more details on studies of the election, see Consortiumnews.com stories of May 12, June 2 and July 16.]

...“Full Review Favors Gore,” the Washington Post said in a box on page 10, showing that under all standards applied to the ballots, Gore came out on top. The New York Times' graphic revealed the same outcome.

Earlier, less comprehensive ballot studies by the Miami Herald and USA Today had found that Bush and Gore split the four categories of disputed ballots depending on what standard was applied to assessing the ballots – punched-through chads, hanging chads, etc. Bush won under two standards and Gore under two standards.

The new, fuller study found that Gore won regardless of which standard was applied and even when varying county judgments were factored in. Counting fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots, Gore won by 115 votes. With any dimple or optical mark, Gore won by 107 votes. With one corner of a chad detached or any optical mark, Gore won by 60 votes. Applying the standards set by each county, Gore won by 171 votes.

This core finding of Gore’s Florida victory in the unofficial ballot recount might surprise many readers who skimmed only the headlines and the top paragraphs of the articles. The headlines and leads highlighted hypothetical, partial recounts that supposedly favored Bush.

Buried deeper in the stories or referenced in subheads was the fact that the new recount determined that Gore was the winner statewide, even ignoring the “butterfly ballot” and other irregularities that cost him thousands of ballots. [snip]

~~~more~~~

Oh really Pamela? I meant YOU needed a nap LOL!

I've been totally awake in this rotten political scene. Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway?

I campaigned for Kerry. I've written him many letters showing him the reasons he should never have conceded without counting all the votes (as Edwards said they would.) I've only received from "Kerry" canned email reponses with no mention of my letters to him (as a supporter of his) but with a plea for more money --- for an entirely different project. Yes, we've been frustrated. The country is in a shambles and the NeoCons are gaining more power. It's difficult to know if there is anyone we can trust.

Anyhoo --- your attitude sucks. We don't happen to have a direct line to Kerry. How do we even know we can trust you?

You obviously don't know basic blog etiquette --- but you can read about it if you google. It's a good idea to use it. We happen to be a group of nice people over here --- and sorry to disappoint you --- we don't nap much at all.

re #28 Thanks for that, TruthSeeker. I had the first four letters figured out but I couldn't decide whether the L stood for Lunatics or Liars.

Kira #34,

Thanks for the information about your experience. My experience with Kerry and the aftermath of the 2004 "election" was very similar to yours. No response to the issues I raised, only requests for more money. Hey, what happened to the $6 mil?

If Pamela can learn anything from reading here, and does, indeed, have a direct line to Kerry, then she should explain to him that my pithy comments and your more measured ones reflect the current climate of opinion among many ex-Kerry supporters.

In fact, many former Kerry supporters may be so disaffected that they are former Democrats. I'm one of those. In future, I'm not going to buy into the idea "my vote is wasted unless I vote Dem in a contentious election". My vote (and Dem $$ contributions) is wasted anyway, until the Dems have the (whatever) to stand up and fight against rigged elections, and do what Kerry claimed he would do in 2004.

VG

Think you can trust dems. I have blogged on kos for about a year....noticed they discouraged discussion of election fraud. They have so many bloggers who will chime in with snark. That's why I liked them actually. read on bradblog that they took diebold money. when I posted that rumor I was censored everytime..also on americablog

This is to supplement Kira's #33 because #33 does not directly
address the 5/01 reports that Bush won the Florida recount.

# 22 HCOCDR quotes NRO: "Paul Krugman tells a whopper."
("NRO" is "National Review Online.")

The early 5/01 reports on the Florida ballot study DID say Bush
would have won the "recounts". But the final study, which was
ready to release early in September, showed that Gore actually
got more votes.

By November, when the study was released, the political
situation had changed. Bush was the War President and there
was anthrax in the mails and nobody cared about hanging
chads any more. Almost all the newspapers put on a heavy
spin bolstered Bush's legitimacy--at the bottom of the article
you'll see that Gore got more votes, but you'll think it doesn't
matter.

WaPo's was unusually forthright on the matter, because Dan
Keating was close to the study:

WaPo article here

WaPo link for reference:

http://www.washingtonpos...es/A12623-2001Nov11.html

It's totally wrong to say that Bush won the 2000 election according to the final analysis. That was by an early calculation that was later proven incorrect.

Gore won the election. Period. Which fact makes Kerry's early concession doubly ridiculous. We were warned it would happen again...it did...and the
guy it happened to said, in effect, "Let's move on," and leaves for Iraq while another senator challenges the result in Congress in his behalf. Since he's returned from Iraq, he's spoken out on every conceivable issue EXCEPT ELECTION FRAUD.

What's to be said for a guy like that?

Thank You, PetGoat, for saving my ass!

Glad you posted that link to the WaPo.

Re: RLM #39

Pamela --- would you like to address this issue with us or with Kerry? I'm danged ready to hear something from the Kerry Camp. Surely you can get him to talk to us about this issue. I mean --- you are hoping to win people back into his fold, aren't you?

Do you hate censorship among so called progressive blogs, or is it just me. I have been saying kos took diebold money here and there because I thought it was just a rumor...I am so censored ..can't even link on to a diary. Why try? Most of them are blah, but this one interested me Rush's audience down by 43% or something like that. Guess they have a right to censor but it sure makes them look like they took diebold money.

Here's a recent post by John Conyers on his blog: What Happened Last Fall?

It has much to say. But I found this part a good addition to/ counter to going only by the "numbers" game:

----snippet---from JC Blog----

The problem with answering my fellow progressives' challenge for numbers is that so much of what happened in Ohio centered on unquantifiable events that makes counting the number of disenfranchised voters impossible. How can we determine exactly how many Kerry voters turned around and went home facing hopelessly long lines at the polls? Or how many voters were never registered, and were turned away on election day, because of bizarre and conflicting Ken Blackwell edits about the weight of voter registration forms? Or how many votes were lost because of machine defects or manipulation?

----------more at link--------------

For Kerry to comment on election fraud without proof would be political suicide. I think he is properly taking the high road. The investigation should be done by others. With the liars and cheaters in charge of the machines and the count, Kerry would have needed a 60%+ plurality to win. That was not possible with the fake war and the brain-washed, fundamentalist zombie vote.

It is for us, the truthseekers, to expose the liars (BCFOL) again and again until the evidence overwhelms the populace. Only then will the BCFOL be ousted. Why do you think McCain is supporting the BCFOL? He knows that he cannot win in 2008 without their backing.

First of all
PAMELA, Jesus H. Christ! One can disagree with somebody without being such a flaming rude bitch!
Learn some manners!

I had the same experience with Kerry: donated, went door-to-door to get out the vote, wrote letters, made phone calls, etc, etc...got $ requests from K's people.

TruthSeeker..I'm willing to concede (GOD I HATE that word!) that MAYBE K is working behind the scenes but I have no choice but to doubt that. If I'm proven wrong, I will be thrilled, believe me!!

Re who really won, though:
At this point in time that question really is irrelevant!
What IS relevant:
Immediately after the election rightwing lackeys jumped in to RICICULE & DISCREDIT that mountain of evidence instead of investigating it;
They scoffed at the lack of proof before LOOKING for proof;
They ignored & are STILL ignoring evidence showing electoral fraud to be possible & easy;
They are ignoring numerous allegations of CRIMINAL behavior.
How can ANYONE look at this picture & not see fraud staring them in the face?
And though we keep talking about Ohio & sometimes Florida, those are NOT the only two states that need to be looked at, as I'm sure you all know.
It's not just our electoral system that stinks: the odor of bullshit emanating from our Congress is enough to choke a horse. With the exception of about 30 congresspeople, the House & Senate are whores for the drug, oil, insurance & gun lobbies.
It is SICKENING.

So I finally got my printer fixed & I can start printing out stuff from The Whispering Campaign again.
Most of you are familiar with The Freeway Blogger, I think. If not, go here:

http://freewayblogger.com/

I LOVE this guy! (girl?)
Along with 'Whispering' this is the BEST idea to fucking spread the word. Easy & cheap. Try not to get arrested.
God knows the "media" isn't gonna do it.

Can anybody read the word balloon? The words are too tiny on my screen.

Just right click and click view image to get the full story, you "airhead" sweetie .

I can't read it either. Who is that, Ivana Trump?
Give us a clue, Pamela.

Ah. Thanks for the clue, honey. I see you're still in bitch-mode. )

Kira #26 and Valley Girl #32,

Thanks, I took it all in good humor, at first I thought "messing up the blog" was a little harsh, but that pales in comparison to some of the venom flowing here over the weekend.

Wish there was a recent open thread to post at: Winter - hint hint

Bluebear2
Winter's been feeling under the weather the last few days, so his energy for blogging has suffered.

Join us at open thread (top on front page) and listen to the live Brad Show from Crawford, TX!!

August 30, 2005
CRAWFORD CRICKETT
STOP THE PRESSES!
JOHN KERRY WINS OHIO!
KERRY BALLOTS DISCOVERED IN RIVERS AND STREAMS!!!
BUSH PISSED!!!!!!!!!

Do you guys have any idea just how funny y'all sound? Face facts, people: nobody believes you, and this constant whining just makes people not take you seriously.

Bush won, Gore lost. Then Bush won, and Kerry lost. When y'all come up with something that the American people are going to vote for, maybe you'll win something. Keep looking back and whining, and you'll keep getting your feelings hurt on election night.

Apologies for not responding sooner.

I am more convinced than ever, Savanster and Doug Eldritch, that the claim of 237,000 phantom votes in Florida 2000 is simply wrong. Doug, first off, I published my first article on Florida electoral statistics in July, 2000, after six months of research. So, I don't know when you think I should have gotten "on the ball when this all broke out," to merit your interest. Also, giving a link to the VotersUnite website rather than a specific article was not helpful. Similarly, the Wikipedia article is long. It's not reasonable to ask someone to pick through looking for what you might be trying say. I'm certainly willing to hear evidence that contradicts what I think, but I'm not willing to chase it when a proper link or quotation would do.

I should have provided the link to the MDERC report when I posted on August 18th. Here it is:
www.reformcoalition.org/Ressources/GetItRightTheFirstTime.pdf

The leadership of MDERC includes organizations like ACORN, ACLU, and SEIU, hardly under the control of the GOP. Please go read it, at which point I think you'll recognize that the personal comments you have made to me are completely uncalled for.

The point here is that people who want their allegations to be taken seriously have to take pains to make sure that the details are accurate. They have to take personal responsibility to familiarize themselves with the full story and to be scrupulous in the facts they present. They have to look at other explanations and listen to opponents. If you don't want to be heard, fine, don't listen to what others are saying.

What is agreed to is that Alan Waldman reported in the Orlando Weekly a mismatch between the number of voters reported to have signed in and the number of ballots counted. When there are more signins than votes, it may be due to ballot spoilage. When there are more votes than signings, these are called "phantom votes". Such mismatches are always a possible indicator of fraud.

However, they are more usually an indicator of tired, underpaid poll workers, who sign certifications without checking their arithmetic. This is what was discovered in a searching review of Miami's ballots by MDERC. In the end, they reduced the number of disputed ballots by more than 90%, and were only willing to formally allege that 0.5% of the phantom votes were due to anything other than human error.

Does this prove that there wasn't massive fraud in Palm Beach, in which there were something like 90,000 reported phantom votes? Of course not. Does it prove there was zero fraud? No. What the MDERC report does is provide an alternative explanation that those who want to allege fraud must consider if they want to be taken seriously.

Winter Patriot, I agree with you that it is totally irresponsible of MDERC to fail to respond to an inquiry. While staff might have ignorance of the requirements of scientific and legal integrity as an excuse, I cced the law professor who oversaw the audit and expressed an interest in further conversation. I got no reply from Professor Mahoney.

I can tell you that I have turned away absolutely no person who has asked for information, data, or analysis, including one who I am pretty sure is a Republican operative and several who were less than polite. If the data is correct and the analysis is sound, it can survive criticism, even by hostile opponents. Indeed, I gave the guy who I think is a Republican operative an Acknowledgement in my first paper, because the question he asked spurred me to look at my data again. I discovered an entry error, and the corrected data was even stronger evidence of fraud. Dealing openly and fairly with opponents is the mark of a professional, but it also strengthens one's own conclusions.

Or, in a phrase, I am sincerely p---ed off by MDERC's failure to respond.

However, it's unfortunately not unusual for Florida. Indeed, basic standards for professional integrity that we all took for granted a few decades ago are history.

You asked, Just one more thing: are you really sure about this: "A mountain of evidence means nothing unless it adds up to an allegation of a specific crime by a specific person or group of people."??

Yes. Unsubstantiated allegations are like the tip lines that police establish whenever there's a serious crime. They often have to sift thousands of items, ranging from the astute but incorrect to the Trans-Rigellian loopy, and perhaps one or two will become leads. We see with cable news what happens when unsubstantiated rumors are thrown into the mix. Can you imagine the chaos that would result if Bill O'Reilly and David Horowitz were responsible for investigating 9/11? They throw out all sorts of wild, inflammatory allegations and simply confuse the issue.

I don't expect people to shut up. If they have a beef, they should feel free to talk. But they also have a responsibility to listen.

What's needed is an effective sifting apparatus, so that unsustainable allegations are quickly put to rest and the serious allegations can get the attention they deserve. I have no answers, but I think that the vision behind USCountVotes.org is somewhere in the ball park.

BTW, total off-topic, here are some of the things that Dana Pico (above) thinks are common sense:

1. Catholic politicians should have their congressional votes be dictated by the Pope. If they actually try to represent their constituents' views rather than impose the doctrine ordered by Rome, it's ok to question the sincerity of their faith. In fact, they should be denied the sacraments, thereby (in Catholic doctrine), sending them to hell, rather than admit that the Catholic Church has not been entirely infallible over the course of its history. It is also just common sense not to remember that it was concerns just like these that made it impossible for a Catholic to be elected president until 1960. Everyone knows that Catholics want to be marginalized and ignored.

2. There is a moral equivalence between a man joining an extremist organization, briefly, over half a century ago and an investigation started by John Ashcroft at the request of the CIA and conducted by a Republican regarding the exposure of a covert operative for political purposes, an act that may have led to the deaths or jailings of her contacts. In a double bagger, it is also not hypocritical of the GOP to proclaim its dedication to the rights of African Americans as the party of Lincoln, even while recruiting unreconstructed racists like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond.

3. The US pullout from Vietnam caused the massacre of two million Cambodians, even though the Cambodians were the bitter enemies of the Vietnamese and even though the US is generally credited with indirectly causing the deaths of half a million of those people, and even though the US supported the murderous Pol Pot regime while it was doing the killing. Meanwhile, just to make sure that the historical memory has been wiped clean, you must *not* remember that although there was plenty of unpleasantness in Vietnam, leading to an exodus of boat people, there were no massacres.

4. Dana Pico is infallible he is still carrying uncorrected reports about the shooting of the Brazilian fellow in the wake of the London bombings weeks after it has been clear that the police picked up the wrong man, shot him while he was pinned, helpless, and lied about it to cover up their crime.

Some people never get the memo. Dana Pico isn't even on the mailing list.

Oliver Dawshed doesn’t like Common Sense Political Thought

I said above:

Do you guys have any idea just how funny y'all sound? Face facts, people: nobody believes you, and this constant whining just makes people not take you seriously.

Bush won, Gore lost. Then Bush won, and Kerry lost. When y'all come up with something that the American people are going to vote for, maybe you'll win something. Keep looking back and whining, and you'll keep getting your feelings hurt on election night.

I think that is good advice. Terry McAuliffe, then Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, promised to make George Bush pay for what Mr. McAuliffe thought was stealing the 2000 election, by defeating his brother’s reelection effort for governor of Florida in 2002. Apparently bitterness did not work well as a campaign issue, because Jeb Bush won reelection, and did so quite handily.

Nor did bitterness about 2000 secure a presidential victory for John Kerry last November; not only did President Bush win reelection, he won with an absolute majority of the popular vote. The media wanted to play this up as a close election, that being how they sell newspapers and attract viewers, but it really wasn’t. All of the major opinion polls save one (Zogby’s) had President Bush with a lead of between 1½ and 5 percent on the last Sunday of the campaign; the election results wound up right in the middle of that range.

The presidential election isn’t about the popular vote, however; it is a contest for presidential electors. And there were really no surprises there, either; only three states voted differently in 2004 from the way they voted in 2000, and two of those (Iowa and New Mexico) were very close in 2000; Vice President Gore had carried New Mexico by a whopping 366 votes in 2000. New Hampshire, a Bush state in 2000, was carried by Senator Kerry fairly easily, but that was what the polls said would happen.

The biggest problem that Senator Kerry had was that he offered the American people nothing. He was against the Bush tax cuts . . . but offered tax cuts of his own. He was against the war, or was he, it really depended on how the question was asked. His famous flub of “I actually voted for the $87 billion, before I voted against it” was perfectly in character with his campaign: he was trying to be everything to everybody, and wound up retaining his Senate seat.

I have said it several times: when the Democrats can come forward with a positive agenda, rather than just one of opposing Republicans, they’ll have a much better chance at the ballot box.

Oliver Dawshed didn't like what I wrote, but rather than complain about what I said in my comment above, he chose to go to my website and critique it. That's fair: it is an open political website. It might not be appropriate to defend the entire site here, in this somewhat restricted forum, but I have thoroughly addressed Mr. Dawshed's complains at Oliver Dawshed doesn't like Common Sense Political Thought

Hi, Oliver it is nice to hear from you again. I think we're quite ok on most of what we've been talking about but on one point I feel as if I've been straw-manned. I'll assume it wasn't on purpose [which to use your terminology, is something that sincerely p---es me off] and go on with civillized discourse ... still I must say:

There is a world of difference between
"A mountain of evidence" that does not add "up to an allegation of a specific crime by a specific person or group of people".
and
"Unsubstantiated allegations ... unsubstantiated rumors ... all sorts of wild, inflammatory allegations"

When I say "evidence" I mean it. I don't mean any unsubstantiated anything. In any non-trivial investigation, there's all sorts of evidence... including, in many cases, evidence which does not connect the perpetrator to the crime but nonetheless establishes the fact that a crime has been committed.

Evidence of this sort is by no means meaningless and it has nothing in common with "unsubstantiated rumors" or "wild, inflammatory allegations". And it's a friendly disagreement but I still disagree with the statement I quoted.

"A mountain of evidence means nothing unless it adds up to an allegation of a specific crime by a specific person or group of people."

I still say: If you've got a mountain of evidence, it means something.

As I understand it, you're saying "a pile of unsubstantiated rumors, no matter how high, is still worthless" and I agree with you about that.

But that's not what I was talking about.

There was of course no intent to diss you, WP. I'm pointing to Republican cable as an example of what happens when orderly logical process fails. As the saying goes, some people's sole function in life is to serve as an example to others of what to avoid.

Turning to the issue at hand, subsequent to my first post, Dennis Loo asked me to specify the errors that I found in his paper.

Out of 18 bullet points, I found four that look to me to be plainly wrong, and three more that amount to the fallacy of using past behavior to predict future behavior (for example, as everyone can tell you, the stock market went up 20% each year for the last five because that's what it did during the 1990s.) There are probably others, but I hesitate to call something an error unless I am almost certain, and that can take hours of research.

The issue of phantom voters is an example where a journalist, Alan Waldman, did good work, collecting figures available at the time he did his work. Dennis Loo accurately reported what the journalist had said, and provided a citation. The only problem is that the initial figures were far larger than what could be substantiated. MDERC recently corrected the record, but anyone familiar with elections could have predicted that the initial numbers were way off.

The phantom vote discrepancy that Waldman produced is the basis for an allegation (e.g., "I allege there may have been fraud because the sign-ins don't match the ballots"). Unfortunately, it was not substantiated on closer examination. Such allegations are not meaningless, just as tips to a police tip line are not meaningless. Some may prove to be vital. But unless the ones that do not pan out are specifically corrected, they circulate forever. To his credit, I understand that Dennis Loo is seeking to publish a correction on the phantom voter issue.

I've also discussed in some depth why connecting evidence to a specific crime is so important. For example, there's a mountain of evidence that the Palm Beach ballot in 2000 was defective. The Miami Herald reported that many ballots were so poorly printed that people couldn't properly align them. In addition, some Election Data Corp. templates were defective, making it almost impossible to record a vote. The problems seemed to be synergistic.

But what does that mean? If it was just the result of sloppy workmanship and poor oversight, there's no basis for overturning the election. If, however, one could prove that defective equipment was deliberately delivered to deprive people of their votes, that would be a crime.

The amount of evidence is not as critical as context. Find just one ballot that George Bush definitely personally ordered to be altered, and you have a felony and an impeachable offense. Find a million ballots which were sloppily printed and for debatable reasons ended up in mostly Democratic precincts and you have a topic for barroom debates.

I respect raw data. I also know that much of what gets printed on the Net gets unfairly discounted because raw data circulates long after certain elements have been found not to be correct. People who want to get it taken seriously have to take extraordinary steps to keep the record straight.

you goddamned idiots. you god-fucking-damned simple-minded idiots. you actually fucking believe this shit.
the reason that nigger-Kerry lost is quite simply because good will always triumph over evil. that nigger and all cocksucking retarded fucks like yourselves who believe in the liberal drooling fuck-minded drivel you morons always parrot lost the election very simply because people like you and Stalin and Hitler and everyone else who want to control the lives of the proletariat MUST DIE. and you will - you always will; if not by the vote, then by the trigger-fingers of the people whom you seek to control vis-a-vis the very constitution that affords sick fucks like you the freedoms you don't deserve. DEATH TO LIBERALS AND THEIR FUCKING CHILDREN.

Oliver wrote: "Turning to the issue at hand, subsequent to my first post, Dennis Loo asked me to specify the errors that I found in his paper... Out of 18 bullet points, I found four that look to me to be plainly wrong, and three more that amount to the fallacy of using past behavior to predict future behavior (for example, as everyone can tell you, the stock market went up 20% each year for the last five because that's what it did during the 1990s.)"

Oliver is correct on one thing, anyway. The Waldman assertion of excess votes over registered voters in Florida WAS incorrect and I withdrew the item when I learned this.

I would encourage readers to go to read my article themselves at http://www.projectcensor...wsflash/voter_fraud.html.

Regarding Oliver's claim that past behavior doesn't necessarily predict future behavior: this is true in a general, generic sense, but it doesn't apply in this case. Why? Consider the following facts:

1) The Harris and Zogby pre-election polls showing a Kerry win;

2) the polls in the last week and on the eve of the election showing momentum turning sharply against Bush;

3) Bush' s approval rating of 48% before Nov. 2;

4) the overwhelmingly Democratic trend in pre-election voter registrations (running 5:1 against the GOP in Florida and 6:1 and higher against the GOP in Ohio) together with record breaking levels of voter registrations nationwide;

5) the record turnout on election day with longlines in especially strongly Democratic districts (partly due to the paucity of voting machines courtesy of Messr. Blackwell, but mainly due to the overwhelming desire by people to kick Bush and Cheney out).

For Oliver to be right - that all of these things were suddenly turned on their heads on Nov. 2 after trending this way decidedly before the election - is just absurd. Why would all of those people who registered to vote Democratic in such overwhelming numbers and who DIDN'T STAY HOME on Nov. 2 but came out in droves, suddenly change their minds in the voting booth and vote for Bush? The fact that they were mistaken that they could actually get rid of Bush through the ballot box (a point I go into at some length in my article) doesn't change the fact that this was their intent.

There had to be some trend, some factor that countervailed these trends and was strong enough to overcome them. No such thing occurred.

As for his other claims of other items in my list being "plain wrong" he has yet to tell me or anyone else what those things are.

I and Peter Phillips are co-editing a book scheduled for release this summer entitled: Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney. In it I have expanded my argument about the election and discuss the road forward. The book as a whole will have a very powerful collection of chapters showing why this regime must be driven from office and everything it stands for repudiated.

Oliver wrote: "Turning to the issue at hand, subsequent to my first post, Dennis Loo asked me to specify the errors that I found in his paper... Out of 18 bullet points, I found four that look to me to be plainly wrong, and three more that amount to the fallacy of using past behavior to predict future behavior (for example, as everyone can tell you, the stock market went up 20% each year for the last five because that's what it did during the 1990s.)"

Oliver is correct on one thing, anyway. The Waldman assertion of excess votes over registered voters in Florida WAS incorrect and I withdrew the item when I learned this.

I would encourage readers to go to read my article themselves at http://www.projectcensor...wsflash/voter_fraud.html.

Regarding Oliver's claim that past behavior doesn't necessarily predict future behavior: this is true in a general, generic sense, but it doesn't apply in this case. Why? Consider the following facts:

1) The Harris and Zogby pre-election polls showing a Kerry win;

2) the polls in the last week and on the eve of the election showing momentum turning sharply against Bush;

3) Bush' s approval rating of 48% before Nov. 2;

4) the overwhelmingly Democratic trend in pre-election voter registrations (running 5:1 against the GOP in Florida and 6:1 and higher against the GOP in Ohio) together with record breaking levels of voter registrations nationwide;

5) the record turnout on election day with longlines in especially strongly Democratic districts (partly due to the paucity of voting machines courtesy of Messr. Blackwell, but mainly due to the overwhelming desire by people to kick Bush and Cheney out).

For Oliver to be right - that all of these things were suddenly turned on their heads on Nov. 2 after trending this way decidedly before the election - is just absurd. Why would all of those people who registered to vote Democratic in such overwhelming numbers and who DIDN'T STAY HOME on Nov. 2 but came out in droves, suddenly change their minds in the voting booth and vote for Bush? The fact that they were mistaken that they could actually get rid of Bush through the ballot box (a point I go into at some length in my article) doesn't change the fact that this was their intent.

There had to be some trend, some factor that countervailed these trends and was strong enough to overcome them. No such thing occurred.

As for his other claims of other items in my list being "plain wrong" he has yet to tell me or anyone else what those things are.

I and Peter Phillips are co-editing a book scheduled for release this summer entitled: Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney. In it I have expanded my argument about the election and discuss the road forward. The book as a whole will have a very powerful collection of chapters showing why this regime must be driven from office and everything it stands for repudiated.

Oliver wrote: "Turning to the issue at hand, subsequent to my first post, Dennis Loo asked me to specify the errors that I found in his paper... Out of 18 bullet points, I found four that look to me to be plainly wrong, and three more that amount to the fallacy of using past behavior to predict future behavior (for example, as everyone can tell you, the stock market went up 20% each year for the last five because that's what it did during the 1990s.)"

Oliver is correct on one thing, anyway. The Waldman assertion of excess votes over registered voters in Florida WAS incorrect and I withdrew the item when I learned this.

I would encourage readers to go to read my article themselves at http://www.projectcensor...wsflash/voter_fraud.html.

Regarding Oliver's claim that past behavior doesn't necessarily predict future behavior: this is true in a general, generic sense, but it doesn't apply in this case. Why? Consider the following facts:

1) The Harris and Zogby pre-election polls showing a Kerry win;

2) the polls in the last week and on the eve of the election showing momentum turning sharply against Bush;

3) Bush' s approval rating of 48% before Nov. 2;

4) the overwhelmingly Democratic trend in pre-election voter registrations (running 5:1 against the GOP in Florida and 6:1 and higher against the GOP in Ohio) together with record breaking levels of voter registrations nationwide;

5) the record turnout on election day with longlines in especially strongly Democratic districts (partly due to the paucity of voting machines courtesy of Messr. Blackwell, but mainly due to the overwhelming desire by people to kick Bush and Cheney out).

For Oliver to be right - that all of these things were suddenly turned on their heads on Nov. 2 after trending this way decidedly before the election - is just absurd. Why would all of those people who registered to vote Democratic in such overwhelming numbers and who DIDN'T STAY HOME on Nov. 2 but came out in droves, suddenly change their minds in the voting booth and vote for Bush? The fact that they were mistaken that they could actually get rid of Bush through the ballot box (a point I go into at some length in my article) doesn't change the fact that this was their intent.

There had to be some trend, some factor that countervailed these trends and was strong enough to overcome them. No such thing occurred.

As for his other claims of other items in my list being "plain wrong" he has yet to show me how they're wrong. The other thing here is that the evidence of fraud is SO extensive that even if hypothetically someone COULD show that most of my list is wrong, the argument would still hold up that this election was stolen. Some of the items on the list (and in additional items in the expanded version of my article that is in a forthcoming book described below) are not just highly improbable; they are outright impossible in and of themselves.

I and Peter Phillips are co-editing a book scheduled for release this summer entitled: Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney. In it I have expanded my argument about the election and discuss the road forward. The book as a whole will have a very powerful collection of chapters showing why this regime must be driven from office and everything it stands for repudiated.

Oliver wrote: "Turning to the issue at hand, subsequent to my first post, Dennis Loo asked me to specify the errors that I found in his paper... Out of 18 bullet points, I found four that look to me to be plainly wrong, and three more that amount to the fallacy of using past behavior to predict future behavior (for example, as everyone can tell you, the stock market went up 20% each year for the last five because that's what it did during the 1990s.)"

Oliver is correct on one thing, anyway. The Waldman assertion of excess votes over registered voters in Florida WAS incorrect and I withdrew the item when I learned this.

I would encourage readers to go to read my article themselves at http://www.projectcensor...wsflash/voter_fraud.html.

Regarding Oliver's claim that past behavior doesn't necessarily predict future behavior: this is true in a general, generic sense, but it doesn't apply in this case. Why? Consider the following facts:

1) The Harris and Zogby pre-election polls showing a Kerry win;

2) the polls in the last week and on the eve of the election showing momentum turning sharply against Bush;

3) Bush' s approval rating of 48% before Nov. 2;

4) the overwhelmingly Democratic trend in pre-election voter registrations (running 5:1 against the GOP in Florida and 6:1 and higher against the GOP in Ohio) together with record breaking levels of voter registrations nationwide;

5) the record turnout on election day with longlines in especially strongly Democratic districts (partly due to the paucity of voting machines courtesy of Messr. Blackwell, but mainly due to the overwhelming desire by people to kick Bush and Cheney out).

For Oliver to be right - that all of these things were suddenly turned on their heads on Nov. 2 after trending this way decidedly before the election - is just absurd. Why would all of those people who registered to vote Democratic in such overwhelming numbers and who DIDN'T STAY HOME on Nov. 2 but came out in droves, suddenly change their minds in the voting booth and vote for Bush? The fact that they were mistaken that they could actually get rid of Bush through the ballot box (a point I go into at some length in my article) doesn't change the fact that this was their intent.

There had to be some trend, some factor that countervailed these trends and was strong enough to overcome them. No such thing occurred.

As for his other claims of other items in my list being "plain wrong" he has yet to show me how they're wrong. The other thing here is that the evidence of fraud is SO extensive that even if hypothetically someone COULD show that most of my list is wrong, the argument would still hold up that this election was stolen. Some of the items on the list (and in additional items in the expanded version of my article that is in a forthcoming book described below) are not just highly improbable; they are outright impossible in and of themselves.

I and Peter Phillips are co-editing a book scheduled for release this summer entitled: Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney. In it I have expanded my argument about the election and discuss the road forward. The book as a whole will have a very powerful collection of chapters showing why this regime must be driven from office and everything it stands for repudiated.

Oliver wrote: "Turning to the issue at hand, subsequent to my first post, Dennis Loo asked me to specify the errors that I found in his paper... Out of 18 bullet points, I found four that look to me to be plainly wrong, and three more that amount to the fallacy of using past behavior to predict future behavior (for example, as everyone can tell you, the stock market went up 20% each year for the last five because that's what it did during the 1990s.)"

Oliver is correct on one thing, anyway. The Waldman assertion of excess votes over registered voters in Florida WAS incorrect and I withdrew the item when I learned this.

I would encourage readers to go to read my article and the revised list of 16 at http://www.projectcensor...wsflash/voter_fraud.html.

Regarding Oliver's claim that past behavior doesn't predict future behavior. What is true is that past behavior doesn’t NECESSARILY predict future behavior, but it depends upon what phenomena one is examining. The ups and downs of the stock market that he cites as an example is inapt. Who knows and who can predict what the stock market will do? If, as they say, one could do this, then a whole lot of people would be rich. The future behavior in the instant case has to do with tracking polls, buttressed by past patterns and behaviors in presidential elections. Voting behavior is subject to far fewer variables than stock price fluctuations. If Oliver’s statement that past behavior doesn’t predict future behavior were true as a rule, then the whole of social science ought to be abandoned.

Consider just the following facts:

1) The Harris and Zogby pre-election polls showed a Kerry win;

2) The polls on the eve of the election showed momentum turning sharply against Bush;

3) Bush' s approval rating was at 48% before Nov. 2;

4) Pre-election voter registrations ran overwhelmingly against the GOP (running 5:1 against them in Florida and 6:1 and higher against the GOP in Ohio), TOGETHER with record breaking levels of voter registrations nationwide;

5) The record turnout on Election Day with long lines in especially strongly Democratic districts (partly due to the paucity of voting machines courtesy of Messr. Blackwell, but mainly due to the overwhelming desire by people to reject Bush and Cheney);

6) The confirmation of ALL OF THE ABOVE trends by the exit polls showing that Bush was going down decisively - until the exit polls were “adjusted” at 1:36 am EST Nov. 3, adjusted in mathematically impossible ways.

For Oliver to be right - that all of these obvious trends were suddenly turned on their heads in the course of the wee hours of Nov. 3 after trending against Bush decidedly BEFORE the election and INTO the first several hours of the returns - is just absurd. Why would all of those people who registered to vote Democratic in such overwhelming numbers and who DIDN'T stay home on Nov. 2 but came out in droves, suddenly change their minds in the voting booth and vote for Bush? Where is the evidence of the putative late GOP surge of voters when all observers (including GOP officials) reported an absence of activity in GOP strongholds late in the day?

As for his other claims of other items in my list being "plain wrong" he has yet to show me how they're wrong. The evidence of fraud is SO extensive that even if hypothetically someone COULD show that most of my list is wrong, the argument would still hold up that this election was stolen. Some of the items on the list (and in additional items in the expanded version of my article that is in a forthcoming book described below) are not just highly improbable; they are outright impossible in and of themselves.

Peter Phillips and I are co-editing a book scheduled for release by Seven Stories Press this summer entitled: Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney. In it I have expanded my argument about the stolen elections and, perhaps even more importantly, discuss the road forward. The book as a whole will have a very powerful collection of chapters by people like Howard Zinn, Mark Crispin Miller, Dahr Jamail, Nancy Snow, Larry Everest, Jeremy Brecher, Paul Craig Roberts, Richard Heinberg and others showing why this regime must be driven from office and everything it stands for repudiated.

Clarification: Apparently, the first version of my posting went up along with my slightly expanded subsequent version. To save yourself time, I'd suggest you read the second version. Sorry.