Hate speech of the left

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but the real issue is the removal of thousands of (mostly minority, so mostly Democratic) voters from the rolls by misusing a database.
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A blacklist burning for Bush
The more you look the more disbarred and 'disappeared' Gore voters you find. You'd almost think it was deliberate

Gregory Palast
Sunday December 10, 2000
The Observer

Hey, Al, take a look at this. Every time I cut open another alligator, I find the bones of more Gore voters. This week, I was hacking my way through the Florida swampland known as the Office of Secretary of State Katherine Harris and found a couple thousand more names of voters electronically 'disappeared' from the vote rolls. About half of those named are African-Americans. They had the right to vote, but they never made it to the balloting booths.

When we left off our Florida story two weeks ago, The Observer discovered that Harris's office had ordered the elimination of 8,000 Florida voters on the grounds that they had committed felonies in other states. None had. Harris bought the bum list from a company called ChoicePoint, a firm whose Atlanta executive suite and boardroom are filled with Republican funders. ChoicePoint, we have learned, picked up the list of faux felons from state officials in - ahem - Texas. In fact, it was a roster of people who, like their Governor, George W, had committed nothing more than misdemeanours.

For Harris, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his brother, the Texas blacklist was a mistake made in Heaven. Most of those targeted to have their names 'scrubbed' from the voter roles were African-Americans, Hispanics and poor white folk, likely voters for Vice-President Gore. We don't know how many voters lost their citizenship rights before the error was discovered by a few sceptical county officials, before ChoicePoint, which has gamely 'fessed-up to the Texas-sized error, produced a new list of 58,000 felons. In May, Harris sent on the new, improved scrub sheets to the county election boards. Maybe it's my bad attitude, but I thought it worthwhile to check out the new list. Sleuthing around county offices with a team of researchers from internet newspaper Salon.com, we discovered that the 'correct' list wasn't so correct.

One elections supervisor, Linda Howell of Madison County, was so upset by the errors that she refused to use the Harris/ChoicePoint list. How could she be so sure the new list identified innocent people as felons? Because her own name was on it, 'and I assure you, I am not a felon'.

Our 10-county review suggests a minimum 15 per cent misidentification rate. That makes another 7,000 innocent people accused of crimes and stripped of their citizenship rights in the run-up to the presidential race. And not just any 7,000 people. Hillsborough (Tampa) county statisticians found that 54 per cent of the names on the scrub list belonged to African-Americans, who voted 93 per cent for Gore.

Now our team, diving deeper into the swamps, has discovered yet a third group whose voting rights were stripped. The ChoicePoint-generated list includes 1,704 names of people who, earlier in their lives, were convicted of felonies in Illinois and Ohio. Like most American states, these two restore citizenship rights to people who have served their time in prison and then remained on the good side of the law.

Florida strips those convicted in its own courts of voting rights for life. But Harris's office concedes, and county officials concur, that the state of Florida has no right to impose this penalty on people who have moved in from these other states. (Only 13 states, most in the Old Confederacy, bar reformed criminals from voting.)

Going deeper into the Harris lists, we find hundreds more convicts from the 35 other states which restored their rights at the end of sentences served. If they have the right to vote, why were these citizens barred from the polls? Harris didn't return my calls. But Alan Dershowitz did. The Harvard law professor, a renowned authority on legal process, said: 'What's emerging is a pattern of reducing the total number of voters in Florida, which they know will reduce the Democratic vote.'

How could Florida's Republican rulers know how these people would vote? I put the question to David Bositis, America's top expert on voting demographics. Once he stopped laughing, he said the way Florida used the lists from a private firm was, 'an obvious technique to discriminate against black voters'. In a darker mood, Bositis, of Washington's Center for Political and Economic Studies, said the sad truth of American justice is that 46 per cent of those convicted of felony are African-American. In Florida, a record number of black folk, over 80 per cent of those registered to vote, packed the polling booths on November 7. Behind the curtains, nine out of 10 black people voted Gore.

Mark Mauer of the Sentencing Project, Washington, pointed out that the 'white' half of the purge list would be peopled overwhelmingly by the poor, also solid Democratic voters.

Add it up. The dead-wrong Texas list, the uncorrected 'corrected' list, plus the out-of-state ex-con list. By golly, it's enough to swing a presidential election. I bet the busy Harris, simultaneously in charge of both Florida's voter rolls and George Bush's presidential campaign, never thought of that.

But enough is never enough, it seems. We have discovered a fourth group of Gore voters also barred from the polls.

It was Thursday, 2am. On the other end of the line, heavy breathing, then a torrent too fast for me to catch it all. 'Vile... lying... inaccurate... pack of nonsense... riddled with errors'... click! This was not a ChoicePoint whistleblower telling me about the company's notorious list. It was ChoicePoint's own media communications representative, Marty Fagan, communicating with me about my, 'sleazy disgusting journalism' in reporting on it.

I was curious about this company that appears - although never say never in this game - to have chosen the next President for America's voters. Its board dazzles with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone and Home Depot tycoon Bernard Marcus, big Republican funders.

Florida is the only state to hire an outside firm to suggest who should lose citizenship rights. That may change. 'Given a new President, and what we accomplished in Florida, we expect to roll across the nation,' ChoicePoint told me ominously.

They have quite a pedigree for this solemn task. The company's Florida subsidiary, Database Technologies (now DBT Online), was founded by one Hank Asher. When US law enforcement agencies alleged that he may have been associated with Bahamian drug dealers - although no charges were brought - the company lost its data management contract with the FBI. Hank and his friends left last year and so, in Florida's eyes, the past is forgiven.

Thursday, 3am. (I should say both calls were at my request). A new, gentler voice giving me ChoicePoint's upbeat spin. 'You say we got over 15 per cent wrong - we like to look at that as up to 85 per cent right!' That's 7,000 votes-plus - the bulk Democrats, not to mention the thousands on the Texas list. Gore may lose by 500 votes.

I contacted San Francisco-based expert Mark Swedlund. 'It's just fundamental industry practice that you don't roll out the list statewide until you have tested it and tested it again,' he said. 'Dershowitz is right: they had to know that this jeopardised thousands of people's registrations. And they would also know the [racial] profile of those voters.'

'They' is Florida state, not ChoicePoint. Let's not get confused where the blame lies. Harris's crew lit this database fuse, then acted surprised when it blew up. Swedlund says ChoicePoint had a professional responsibility to tell the state to test the list; ChoicePoint says the state should not have used its 'raw' data.

Until Florida privatised its Big Brother powers, laws kept the process out in the open. This year, when one county asked to see ChoicePoint's formulas and back-up for blacklisting voters, they refused - these were commercial secrets. So we'll never know how America's president was chosen.

ChoicePoint complains that I said Harris signed their contract. It was a Beth Emory. I'm still more than 85 per cent accurate.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,409137,00.html

Columns - Theft of Presidency
http://www.gregpalast.com/columns.cfm?subject_id=1&subject_name=Theft of Presidency
 
Before I forget...

No discussion of Hate Speech would be complete without mention of

EIGHT YEARS (and counting)

of baseless attacks on our previous felon-in-chief and his lovely wife.

C'mon, guys, which of the countless accusations, allegations, smears, slanders, and outright lies turned out to be true?

db
 
good thing i just adjusted my tinfoil hat...

you all do know that long after G.W. was sworn in, many journalistic institutions (newspapers) had painfully scrutinized the election results and using even more liberal rules than gores team wanted and after MANY recounts. the results always ended up the same.. gore lost.. sometimes by only a few votes statewide, but still lost.

big deal you say ? well we'd be halfway through the gore administration today if he had jsut managed to win his HOME state.

This rattle is brought to us over and over by the same people that cant count.... like the fact that our "go it alone" coalition in Iraq is actually some 60+ countries signed on... minus france, germany and russia who illegally sold stuff to saddam but we wont mention that.
plus the 30+ countries with troops on the ground.

back to original topic.. i'm surprised the Boston Globe would print such a piece. and it sure does seem there is quite the double standard. libs vs. cons. regarding off color comments.
 
you all do know that long after G.W. was sworn in, many journalistic institutions (newspapers) had painfully scrutinized the election results and using even more liberal rules than gores team wanted and after MANY recounts. the results always ended up the same.. gore lost.. sometimes by only a few votes statewide, but still lost.

We're ignoring "recounts" here. Read the previous sentence again out loud.

You don't need a tinfoil hat. You need a basic reading comprehension course.

Try your local community college.

also:

like the fact that our "go it alone" coalition in Iraq is actually some 60+ countries signed on

How many troops did those 60 (+) countries send to Iraq?

db
 
why ignore the recounts ? you're just like the rest of the haters profiled in the editorial (remember, the original topic of this thread?) how come Gore couldn't win his home state ? nice pejorative about my education level, pal. typical of your ilk as described in this Boston Globe editorial.

dude... read my post 60+ countries in the coalition, 30+ with troops. yes some only sent small contingents as opposed to the many thousands we have. but that is not the point. you're kind say we're there alone.

hmmm Colorado... wasnt GunKid from Colorado ? see ya troll
 
Different recounts will give different results, and everyone can pull theirs out to bolster their case. Recounts don't account for the thousands of voters who were turned away at the polls on election day. This was nothing short of the theft of an election. Gore chose not to contest it, I don't know why, but it could have thrown the country into a near civil war.
 
We have discovered a fourth group of Gore voters also barred from the polls.
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Democratic voters are not denied their right to vote. All they have to do is move to Chicago and die..they can then vote for all eternity.

WildtheoutfitAlaska
 
While we're talking about "disappearing" and "disenfranchised" Gore voters, how about the number of Florida panhandle voters who stayed home after the Media talking heads declared Florida for Gore while the polls were still open? Nobody will ever know for sure. But keep this in mind: The panhandle region is a heavily Republican area.

One other thing about Gore's supposed "popular vote" win. Leaving aside that the popular vote decides absolutely nothing in Presidential races, the number of votes Gore was up is within the margin of error.
 
While we're talking about the stealing of elections, what about the Gore plan that kept the polls open in St Louis for a few extra hours? The planned lawsuit that was filed on election day. Didn't someone go to jail over that?

Jeff
 
Coupla observations

I actually tried the old Washington Post on-line recount. It let you pick Bush or Gore depending on which votes you'd allow (hanging chads, dimpled chads, write-ins with the same name that was punched).
Sometimes Bush won, sometimes Gore won. There was no unique result.

Butterfly ballots have been around for years and have always been confusing. A lot of them are much worse than the one that was shown here. We need to bite the bullet and waste a lot more paper.

Arguably Gore blew it when he initially conceded on election night. If he'd never conceded, the disputed ballots could have been examined overnight before the court process started.
 
Recounts don't account for the thousands of voters who were turned away at the polls on election day.
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Oh, please. That charge was investigated by Democrats and found to be totally wihtout merit.


Of course, that part doesn't matter to the Gore followers. "Makie it big and tell it often."


Your tired old "Bush stole the election!" mantra just shows your desperation.


Let's not talk about the systematic effort by the Gore campaign to avoid counting absentee ballots.
 
Jeff, I was just about to mention that. The polls were held open---by a Democrat judge--in heavily-Democrat St. Louis and closed on time everywhere else in Missouri. It was blatantly illegal and unethical, and for some reason, it hasn't gotten much attention, which is odd in a country where the national press is not at all biased in favor of the left or the Democratic party. :uhoh:

Not to mention, of course, the tricks in Chicago. I don't actually know what specific dirty tricks were played in Chicago, it's just assumed now. :D

Then there were the homeless people in Milwaukee who were picked up from shelters, given free cigarettes, and taken to the polls, where they were instructed to vote their consciences and remember that the Gore campaign was the one that passed out free cigarettes. :barf:

The stories about the voter databases in Florida give the reason for the extra felons as people with similar names. Unless most black people have the same names--both first and last--it would be impossible for such a method to be used to pick on minority voters. The whole thing is ridiculous. It's obviously unfortunate that anybody was mistakenly denied franchise, but it could have happened to you or me just as easily. I found it particularly funny that the names were about half minority and half white according to Palast. If, as he claims, the line between minority/Democrat and white/Republican is so simple and clear, that would seem to remove about an equal amount of votes from both sides.

I didn't vote for George Bush, either, but these wild stories. . . . .
 
I don't think anyone can honestly say Al Gore won the popular vote. Absentee ballots were only counted in very close races where the number of absentee ballots could affect the election outcome in the state. Two thirds of absentee ballots are statistically Republican votes (they seem to have the responsibility gene). If you take two thirds of the absentee ballots that were not counted and give them to Bush, he would win the popular election by a statistical margin. Saying that Gore won the popular election is only theory unless you don't want "every vote counted".

Just a thought...are any Democrats smart enough to see the game Gore was playing in trying to get recounts only in heavily Democrat counties. What about errors in counties that tended to vote Republican? Only a statewide recount would have been fair.

Another thought....if Democrats are so intellectual, why is it that most successful business people vote Republican and most wellfare recipients vote Democrat. Do I want my country run by the wellfare recipient choice?

I don't think that Democrat politicians are stupid. I think they are sociopathic egotists that want a totalitarian state run by themselves. Look at citizens murdered by their own socialist governments in the last 100 years. Same. Same Same. My personal doctrine is to never knowingly do business with hard core Democrats, they are either stupid or clever and evil.

I have been in communist countries and know what I speak about.
 
BS! Just buy ........

.............a copy of "Hit the ground a running." by the McKrells and forget all this nonsense!

I did. Now I'm happy.

Good bye,
rr
 
You say:
So, Sean, your rebuttal is more name-calling. Impressive
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Based on this:
I see, the (left-leaning) New York Times was part of a massive conspiracy to protect a (Republican's) supposed theft of the election? Do tell... terribly persuasive... no, really...
Click to expand...

Where was the name-calling again? :rolleyes:
 
why ignore the recounts ? you're just like the rest of the haters profiled in the editorial (remember, the original topic of this thread?) how come Gore couldn't win his home state ? nice pejorative about my education level, pal. typical of your ilk as described in this Boston Globe editorial.

You're right, and I'm sorry.

However, my point remains that Florida used a database - against the instructions of the people who compiled it - to remove voters, most of them likely to have voted Democratic. Thousands were stripped of their right to vote, and Bush's margain was a few hundred.

That is why Bush is the President, and not back home in Tejas waiting for his daddy's friends to buy him another business.

I see, the (left-leaning) New York Times was part of a massive conspiracy to protect a (Republican's) supposed theft of the election? Do tell... terribly persuasive... no, really...

Your name calling is evident in two ways:

The familiar references to the 'left-leaning media' as exemplified by the NYT, and

your eagerness to judge something on the basis of peripheral issues like 'who approved of something somebody else wrote', instead of the merits of the thing itself.

Did you read the article?

db
 
hmmm Colorado... wasnt GunKid from Colorado ? see ya troll

That's good. Anyone who disagrees with you is a troll?

db
 
There hasn't been an on-topic post since way too far back.

There are way too many personal attacks.

Enuf of this nonsense. My grammaw's ashamed of a bunch of folks who oughta know better.

:(, Art
 
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