Third Party & Independents: Archives

And you’re an independent… how?

Trivial Point:
Honest question- where you bitter when a decorated war hero who had lost use of one of his limbs lost in 1996 to someone who basically dodged the draft? If you were, you are consistent and I will tip my hat to you. If not, I will ask you if the coolaide really tastes all that good…

More important point:
Sean Hannity is a demagogue- like Micheal Moore, and the left of the radical left. Both Hannity and Moore do not have the decency or intelligence to show the other side respect. I am seeing the divide grower deeper and deeper between “true beleivers”, who think the other side is all evil, and rational people who are willing to disagree but do so while respecting the other side’s motives and character.

I am paying very close attention to people who post on this board, and people who I talk to in general. There are those who seriously read Frankan and Coulter- who believe this election was “also stolen” or who believe the left is in league with the radical islamists to destroy America- who are, frankly, no longer worth trying to reach with reason. I do think that there are many intelligent people remaining- who dont write off all Bush voters are religious biggots and dont write off all Kerry voters as those who want to appease terrorists. Those are the people who will move this country foward in this challenging time- all with the background noise of the demagogues of the world shouting ephithets..

Chops:

Because I’m not a Democrat.

Misha:

I disagree about Moore. I believe Moore is a compasionate man. One who cares deeply for people and believes in what he is doing. Of course he loves his art form, and he loves to express his opinion. Hannity’s motives? Possibly the same. I haven’t read what he thinks well enough to say. I just basically disagree with him on his opinions. Coulter? I think she is moron. Anyway… I digress.

I was 14 in 1996. I was more concerned with Nintendo than with Bob Dole. I disagree about this idea though because war was not the main issue in that race. It’s not that I think a better war candidate should win. It’s just that Bush and his Hawks pushed this war and pushed this war, and then they pushed it some more. Bush calls himself a war president but he wages terribly planned wars.

Adam,
every time I think back to the way Bush sold the war in Iraq I am reminded of Grocho Marx in
“Duck Soup”, in my opinion one of the best
anti-war movies ever made.
I also remember the glee with which Hannity reported the body counts at the begining of the conflict. I also remember the cries of treason and traitor when anybody dared question the resons for going into Iraq, that anybody who showed the least little disent was unpatriotic.
I was around for Dole, I worked as a technician at the Republican National Convention. He is a good man who lost the election by a huge margin. Why would anyone who saw the results of that election be bitter?
Clinton is also a good man that had some pecadillos, dispite his problems he actually did a good job for this country and I don’t remember him trashing Dole in the mud-slinging sense.
It’s hard for me to understand how anyone could take Hannity or Coulter or even Franken or Moore seriously. Each are partisan to their own message. How else could they sell their books or movies. Besides each of them are preaching to the allready converted.

This post is nothing but “more partisan nonsense.”

You stated, “I just don’t understand it” and “Tell me how that makes sense.”
Those of us in the middle have posted many opinions on what it would take for us to vote for a democrat. But we hit nothing but a brick wall.
The “liberal way or no way” thinking now dominates the left.
Instead of working together and honoring the Constitution, both sides want to “force” their agenda onto the other.
Ignoring and disrespecting the beliefs of one side or disregarding the rights of all Americans, accomplishes nothing.

Election funk? No. Just a way of thinking that continues to divide.

Adam:

You asked questions in your initial post, but you then showed your point of view. Regardless of your age, if you are going to bring up the “veteran vs. fratboy” issue in THIS election, you should recognize that 1996 had its own version (decorated war hero Dole vs anti-war protester, draft avoiding Clinton). Its either an issue in both elections or not an issue in both elections.

I think both parties want relatively fair elections without fraud. Both parties realize that there will be instances of fraud in virtually any election. In the 2004 election, there has been no fraud proven that would have affected the outcome, and some of what is being claimed “fraud” is simple mistakes. Fraud is done with intent, mistakes happen.

I dont know enough about Coulter and Hannity to talk specifics, but I know they are certainly partisan. To view Michael Moore as compassionate, however, is to either radically misuse the word, or to not know anything about Moore. He is as partisan as they come, and has lined his pockets with silver, while projecting the man on the street image. More power to him for making money and achieving a level of fame, but compassionate? I dont think so.

I think Kerry lost because he really doesn’t belive in anything except getting elected.
Pro enviroment and anti gun sold well in Mass, not so great on a national scale.

If he had made envio issues a bigger part of his platform he loses alot of union votes, UAW on fuel standards, Coal miners on the coal fueled power plants, Teamsters on ANWAR, ect.

He wanted to be for and against everything, depending on who he was talking to.

Its very hard for anyone from congress, expecially the N.E. to run for Pres. To get elected to office in their home state, they must be left of center on most issues, with a voting record to match.

To run, and win the Whitehouse, you need to at least “appear” to be moderate on the isues.
This is why Governors always have an edge in running for President,(no long voting record in congress).
I’m not bashing Kerry or his views,(I’m not sure what his real views are at this point), Just my opinion of why he lost.

I have an idea to level the playing field for everyone in Presidential elections.
Have All pres. primarys on the same day, Rep, Dem, and Ind.
That would keep all groups from nominating a “pander bear”.
Everyone would HAVE to run on their views, and in Nov. every group would have “the biggest DOG in the fight” based on their views.

Would’nt that be fun ?

Adam

Re voting fraud. Republicans are less interested in it now because the race was not close. When it’s NOT close, they can’t cheat. My guess is that there were some fraudulent votes and my belief is that there were more for the Democrats than the Republicans. But it was not enough to turn the election.

We have to reform the voting system. Voters should be required to show photo ID, for example, to prove their identity. It would be good to get more voting machines, but I am not sure we can ever address the problem of long lines. I had to wait for about an hour and a half. That was more than most, but less than the extreme cases because I went in midmorning when the crowds were lighter. Other times it was more crowded, sometimes less. It is the same when I take the subway to work. I got to vote faster than my wife. She has a different last name. The line for her part of the alphabet was longer. These things happen. I read about the people in Afghanistan crossing treacherous mountains and braving terrorist bullets to vote. We can stand a little inconvenience to do our duty.

Well, if you get rid of all that empty space, you end up with much less red.

JB —

That’s an interesting map. Still looks like a Red majority but not nearly so overwhelming. Interesting that almost all the urban areas (with the exception of Mappelthorpe-hating Cincinnati) were Blue, while almost all of their suburbs were Red. I’d be intrigued the see the same map based on income distribution.

Still looks like a Red majority but not nearly so overwhelming.

Still, most of the red is low density red, near the lowest in fact.

It would be nice to see one by income.

Joseph & Alejo

CNN has the election broken down by income. The richer half of the U.S. population goes mostly for Bush, the poorer half goes mostly for Kerry. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html. Are Democrats surprised.

Adam

Re How we treat the lesser among us.

Liberals try to take the high ground and claim that only they care about the poor. The fact is, we differ about methods and their effectiveness to eradicate poverty.

There are two dominant ways to look at helping the poor that correspond roughly to the liberal and conservative points of view. One is that we give aid to the poor and help them directly; the other is that we remove barriers that are hindering the poor from helping themselves. Giving aid to the poor is a short-term solution and can create dependency, but it looks compassionate. The only way to help the poor in the long run is to eliminate the barriers that are keeping them poor, and that means a free market.

From ancient time, through the Middle Ages and into the modern era, there was no free market for anything. The governments and/or unions/guilds set “fair” prices, dictated working conditions and generally ran the show. They licensed, regulated and taxed their most productive enterprises out of business. It has only been in the relatively recent past that we have seen anything like a free market. Until about 250 years ago, everyone in the world was poor. France was the greatest country in Europe. The perks of being the King of France were great, but if you assessed things like the variety and wholesomeness of the food he ate, the medical care he received, the quality of his plumbing and his general level or well being, you would classify old fat Louis as poor by today’s standards. Everybody else was worse off. There was a lot of talk about redistribution of wealth, but there was not much wealth to redistribute. All the wealth in Europe, fairly distributed, would have left everyone on the continent well below the today’s poverty line. Life was nasty, brutish and short. From that time until today, states thrive in relation to their economic freedom. Freedom creates inequality, but it is worth the price. Imagine if someone had succeeded in creating a “just” society by redistributing all the wealth of the world in 1750. We would all be equally poor. Why does anyone think that kind of thing would work any better today.

Jack —

Why would the Democrats be surprised? I think it follows a historical trend for the poor to vote Democrat. (They never did fall for that “trickle down” theory.)

Liberals try to take the high ground and claim that only they care about the poor. The fact is, we differ about methods and their effectiveness to eradicate poverty.

This is true. And you seem to bolster the argument with your closing paragraph:

Freedom creates inequality, but it is worth the price. Imagine if someone had succeeded in creating a “just” society by redistributing all the wealth of the world in 1750. We would all be equally poor. Why does anyone think that kind of thing would work any better today.

I don’t agree with the handout mentality and I don’t agree with the bootstraps mentality either. It seems to me the best way to help everyone long-term is to make sure everyone has a decent education.

Jack asked: “Why does anyone think that kind of thing would work any better today.”

Because of the constant arrogance of people- especially people in power. They believe they know better how to manage people’s economic affairs than people know how to manage themselves. They believe they “know” that social security is better for everyone, even though all evidence shows that the average person gets much less from social security than from any safe, long-term investment on the same money. They believe they can create regulations to “rationalize” people’s behaviors, because government is far more rationale than individuals. They believe they can establish hours reqs, wage reqs., forced retirement schemes ect- all out of the benevolent force of government “take care” of people. Paternalism is a powerful instinct- and a hard one to resist.

Also, i am always amused that those who would offer absolutely no legal protection for unborn children’s lives can claim to be the protectors of the weak and defenseless (granted, about 25-30% of democrats are pro-life, so obviously this comment does not apply to them).

Joe:

“Its either an issue in both elections or not an issue in both elections.”

1996 is not the same as 2004. This is war time. What war was going on in 1996? Bush said he is a war president and he is doing a crappy job on the war. If we were faced with Bill Clinton vs. Bush this time around it would seem more logical for Bush to win since Clinton had no war experience, and dodged the draft. I don’t understand how 1996 stacks up to 2004 on this issue.

Jack:

I agree on the disagreement between how to handle poverty. To me this is not a “fish or teach to fish” example though, as it seems to be to many conservatives. Let’s be real here and take the fish example to the extreme. Does every person have the oppurtunity to learn to fish? Who provides for them while they learn? What happens if people know how to fish, but can’t find a place to fish. What if certain people just cannot learn to fish because of health conditions? Anyway, this fish example is getting old. I hope you get my point. It’s not as simple as saying, “Here. Now help yourself.” What we are doing is not removing barriers often, and instead creating holes for our poorest citizines to fall through.

What we are doing as a nation is not helping. Democrats, and Republicans alike. What is the answer? Privatization? I don’t believe so. I believe government programs are the answer. Taxes to pay for them? Why not? Work for a smart tax code, don’t roll back taxes across the board. We have a war, and huge tax cuts to help pay for it? How insane is that? Anyway…

I’m just ranting now. I’ll write more later….

hey adam….careful man…those fish you are catching are loaded with mercury….

Adam:

1996 is not the same as 2004. This is war time. What war was going on in 1996? Bush said he is a war president and he is doing a crappy job on the war. If we were faced with Bill Clinton vs. Bush this time around it would seem more logical for Bush to win since Clinton had no war experience, and dodged the draft. I don’t understand how 1996 stacks up to 2004 on this issue.

If you can tell me that you would vote in 2004 for Bush over Bill Clinton, I’d find that hard to believe. Its a hypothetical so we’ll never know, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that you would find other reasons to vote for Clinton. Most people are not 1 issue voters, even if they say they are.

The comparison stands on its own merit. That we were not at war in 1996 isnt the issue, in my opinion. The issue is that neither Clinton nor Bush were in combat, while Kerry and Dole were in combat. Both combatants lost the election—proof that other issues were considered more important.

Rob:

Thanks for the advice on the fish. It may be too late though. I think it must have already caused some madness, because I still can’t figure out why America wants Bush instead of Kerry.

Joe:

Would I vote for Bush over Clinton? Or Dole over Clinton? No. I would not. I don’t believe in war. What I’m saying is that Iraq was one of the top issues in the election. It doesn’t make sense to me that somebody who is a veteran like Kerry would get defeated by Bush, who went AWOL during the vietnam war, and in the Iraq war can’t make a decent exit plan to save a a soldiers life.

I still stand by the idea that veteran or not makes less of a difference when there is no war. We are in war, and Bush has done a bad job of it. Elect the one with experience in war. Maybe he’ll do a better job.

But it’s too late now. We see that either the American people don’t care that Bush is running a bad war, or that they believe contrary to myself and others that Bush is running a good war. Either way, they want him to continue doing what he is doing.

Of course there are other issues here, but again, Iraq was a top issue.

By the way, explain to me more why Moore is not compassionate?

As for the voter fraud, I will change my word to mean voting mishaps. Whatever the cause, it needs addressed. It wasn’t addressed before 2004 even though it all happened the same way in 2000. We need to fix these problems before 2006 and definatly by 2008. My point was that there is silence inside the conservative circles now. It’s not just about stealing the election. It’s about votes counting.

Adam
“We see that either the American people don’t care that Bush is running a bad war, or that they believe contrary to myself and others that Bush is running a good war.”
- Or we believe that kerry would have done an even worse job than Bush in dealing with Iraq.

“By the way, explain to me more why Moore is not compassionate?”
- Sensationalizing tragic events to make a buck is one reason.

- Preaching that everbody should give 70% of their income to the govt to help the poor, but not caring enough about those poor people to do it himself. Doesn’t sound very compassionate to me.

- Lying and distorting the facts in order to make a movie is another.

I could go on and on. Moore is an idiot who uses partisanship and fear to get rich.

Adam-

We see that either the American people don’t care that Bush is running a bad war, or that they believe contrary to myself and others that Bush is running a good war.

Or we’ll understand that there are a lot of people in the middle who think that Bush has done a poor job in the war, but didn’t vote for Kerry for _other_ reasons, not the least of which being that no matter who was elected, a good exit strategy would not materialize.

By the way, explain to me more why Moore is not compassionate?

Perhaps because of his blatant disregard for accurately representing reality? His obvious cut-n-paste of quotes, completely out of order or lacking appropriate context? I can’t be absolutely sure of his motives, but a lot of work has gone into misrepresentation of fact, it sure can’t be accidental. And its not just the right who’s recognized it …

__________________________________________
Regarding Election 2004:
__________________________________________
The nation was very divided this election, more so than past elections,
In a democracy, we sometimes have to accept the majority vote.
Some presidents I’ve supported, some I didn’t.
Some I liked, some I disliked, and I was indifferent about others.

Regardless, there’s too much exaggeration on both sides.

Now that the election is over, I’d like to figure out a way to end the
irresponsible pork-barrel spending in Congress.

(1) To start with, ONE item per bill would greatly simplify things.
No pork can be attached to the ONE item bill, and no politician
can obscure the reasons voting for or against the bill.

(2) Make all voting on all bills public ( on the internet ).
Insist on transparency everywhere (that is, everywhere that
it is not a security risk).

(3) Take away Congress’ special retirement and put them
on the same Social Security and Medicare system that they
screwed up. Also, take away Congress’ right to vote themselves
a raise. Let the voters decide their raises.

Remember, Congress is MOSTLY responsible for what
happens in this country. The election is over now until 2008.

__________________________________________
Regarding the issue of war in Iraq:
__________________________________________

I don’t like war either.
But, sometimes war is unavoidable.

And the longer a gathering threat is ignored, the more unavoidable and more difficult the war will become. The increased severity of most wars and conflicts is a direct result of ignoring the oppressors and terrorists. If the world community would simply enforce their resolutions to protect the rights of people in all nations, and fight to eliminate oppression, many of the wars and conflicts would be avoided.

Bush used the potential threat of WMD as his main reason for liberating Iraq.
Most of Congress supported Bush and the action. After WMD was not found, many still supported the endeavor and choose to complete the difficult task started in Iraq.

The primary reason there are so many terrorists in the middle-east, and some other regions, is because those people are oppressed by their governments.

Oppression breeds poverty,
ignorance, lack of education, starvation, hatred, propaganda, and terrorism.

Saddam was a terrorist, and had thousands of
terrorist followers and supporters in Iraq
(many in the Sunni triangle, and Falluja).

When the terrorists are mixed amongst
the civilians, hiding in mosques, schools,
hospitals, and civilians’ homes, it is very
difficult. Civilians, unfortunately, get hurt. However, it’s important to remember that’s the fault of the terrorists, and the sympathizers amongst the terrorists that harbor the them.

Should we ignore nations whose governments oppress their people (which breeds terrorists), and wait until those nations have deteriorated to the degree they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, N.Korea? Iran ? Germany 1940 ? Or wait until their terrorism to spill over the borders to harm other countries ? Or, do nothing ?

If we do nothing, oppression continues, and results in situations similar to the Taliban and Alqaeda in Afghanistan, Saddam in Iraq, Kim Jong IL in N.Korea, Hitler in Germany, slavery and civil war in the United States, etc.

History is littered with these examples.
And, each time a dictator or government oppresses their people, and then attacks other countries or abuses their own people, as in World War 1, WW2, and the U.S. Civil War, the price we all pay for ignoring the oppression is many times worse than necessary. With increasingly powerful nuclear, biological, and other WMD, can we always afford to ignore oppression, knowing that it breeds terrorism, hatred, poverty, ignorance, and self destruction ?

The fact is, you can’t ignore oppression forever. You can only ignore oppression for a while.

Eventually, the oppressors and the terrorists and hatred they breed will spread to you, to the point where you have no choice but to fight for your life, or be destroyed by the oppressors and their terrorists.

So, perhaps, “sooner” would be better than “later” ?

That does not mean all countries that oppress their people should be invaded and dealt with militarily in all instances. For instance, if that country has never (or relatively recently) attacked and pillaged other countries, then the world community should use political and economic incentives to discourage the oppression. However, when a country such as Iraq (Saddam) has a long track record of attacking its neighboring countries, breeds and encourages terrorism, and oppresses and brutalizes its own people, and defies all the U.N.’s resolutions and warnings, it’s probably best to deal with that dictator and government before the situation gets worse.

N.Korea is a touchy situation.
They have not (not relatively recently or significantly) attacked any other countries. Thus, N.Korea does not have a recent track-record that justifies any action against that country. That doesn’t mean N.Korea is not dangerous. It just means we’ll have to wait and see what happens. If N.Korea starts sponsoring terrorism and attacks against other countries, there may be retaliation.

Like wise with Iran. Aside from the American hostages (eventually released) in the 1980’s , Iran has not substantially committed numerous crimes that would justify military action. That doesn’t mean Iran is not dangerous. It just means we’ll have to wait and see what happens. If Iran starts sponsoring terrorism and attacks against other countries, there may be retaliation.

__________________________________________

Why Michael Moore is not compassionate. (among other reassons)

July 12, 2004
Family of Major Stone Upset Over Michael Moore’s Movie

The family of Idaho Air Guard, Major Gregory Stone said they’re being exploited by filmaker Michael Moore.

Major Stone’s family said a video clip from the funeral service last year at Arlington National Cemetery was included in Moore’s controversial movie Farenheit 9-11.

The Boise man who was on active duty with the Air Force was killed in a grenade attack in Kuwait at the beginning of the Iraq War. Stone’s aunt said the family was stunned to see scenes from the funeral service in the film. “There was no permission for it. Greg’s dead, he can’t defend himself or say what he really thinks. There’s no way he would ever let himself be affiliated with Michael Moore,” said Katie Gallagher, Stone’s aunt.

The mother of the major labeled Mr. Moore a “maggot that eats off the dead.”

There’s no doubt about Michael Moore.
He is definitely a master-cheater-parasite.
I think most people dismiss him as such.
He wanted to influence the election, and
he may have succeeded to a very small degree.
But, not the way he had hoped for.
I saw his 9/11 movie. It didn’t change my
opinion at all. It was so weak on real
investigation, I just could not take it too
seriously.

Jack:
“My guess is that there were some fraudulent votes and my belief is that there were more for the Democrats than the Republicans. But it was not enough to turn the election.”

You are jumping the gun, Jack.
Ohio has not yet been certified and already we know it is definitely going to being recounted - the huge fees have been met. A bit of that money came from yours truly.

Then, there is this little story from Florida which happened this past Tuesday.

From Bev Harris’ website - Blackboxvoting.org:
“TUESDAY NOV 16 2004: Volusia County on lockdown
County election records just got put on lockdown

Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew catching it all.
Here’s what happened so far:
Friday Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up the Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. “No, Bev, please don’t do that!” Lowe exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be, folks. Black Box Voting didn’t back down.
Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.
Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for “privacy” reasons they can’t make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin’ time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.
Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn’t have to stand there “looking dumb” when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.
Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 Tuesday morning, Nov. 16. There was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered them out. Well, they couldn’t see why because there she was, with a couple other people, handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on them. Harris and Wynne stepped out and Volusia County officials promptly shut the door.
There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. Harris looked into it and what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there. They came out and glared at Harris and Wynne, who drove away a small bit, and then videotaped the license plates of the two vehicles marked ‘City Council’ member. Others came out to glare and soon all doors were slammed.
So, Harris and Wynne went and parked behind a bus to see what they would do next. They pulled out some large pylons, which blocked the door. Harris decided to go look at the garbage some more while Wynne videotaped. A man who identified himself as “Pete” came out and Harris immediately wrote a public records request for the contents of the garbage bag, which also contained ballots — real ones, but not filled out.
A brief tug of war occurred, tearing the garbage bag open. Harris and Wynne then looked through it, as Pete looked on. He was quite friendly.
Black Box Voting collected various poll tapes and other information and asked if they could copy it, for the public records request. “You won’t be going anywhere,” said Pete. “The deputy is on his way.”
Yes, not one but two police cars came up and then two county elections officials, and everyone stood around discussing the merits of the “black bag” public records request.
The police finally let Harris and Wynne go, about the time the Votergate.tv film crew arrived, and everyone trooped off to the elections office. There, the plot thickened.
Black Box Voting began to compare the special printouts given in the FOIA request with the signed polling tapes from election night. Lo and behold, some were missing. By this time, Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson had joined the group at Volusia County. Some polling place tapes didn’t match. In fact, in one location, precinct 215, an African-American precinct, the votes were off by hundreds, in favor of George W. Bush and other Republicans.
Hmm. Which was right? The polling tape Volusia gave to Black Box Voting, specially printed on Nov. 15, without signatures, or the ones with signatures, printed on Nov. 2, with up to 8 signatures per tape?
Well, then it became even more interesting. A Volusia employee boxed up some items from an office containing Lana Hires’ desk, which appeared to contain — you guessed it — polling place tapes. The employee took them to the back of the building and disappeared.
Then, Ellen B., a voting integrity advocate from Broward County, Florida, and Susan, from Volusia, decided now would be a good time to go through the trash at the elections office. Lo and behold, they found all kinds of memos and some polling place tapes, fresh from Volusia elections office.
So, Black Box Voting compared these with the Nov. 2 signed ones and the “special’ ones from Nov. 15 given, unsigned, finding several of the MISSING poll tapes. There they were: In the garbage.
So, Wynne went to the car and got the polling place tapes she had pulled from the warehouse garbage. My my my. There were not only discrepancies, but a polling place tape that was signed by six officials.
This was a bit disturbing, since the employees there had said that bag was destined for the shredder.
By now, a county lawyer had appeared on the scene, suddenly threatening to charge Black Box Voting extra for the time spent looking at the real stuff Volusia had withheld earlier. Other lawyers appeared, phoned, people had meetings, Lana glowered at everyone, and someone shut the door in the office holding the GEMS server.
Black Box Voting investigator Andy Stephenson then went to get the Diebold “GEMS” central server locked down. He also got the memory cards locked down and secured, much to the dismay of Lana. They were scattered around unsecured in any way before that.
Everyone agreed to convene tomorrow morning, to further audit, discuss the hand count that Black Box Voting will require of Volusia County, and of course, it is time to talk about contesting the election in Volusia.”

And finally, there is this from a website similarly called Blackboxvoting.com:
“A recently found computer glitch in the voting machines in Franklin County, Indiana has given a democrat enough votes to bump a republican from victory in a County Commissioner’s race.
The glitch in the machines recorded straight Democratic Party votes for Libertarians.
The votes were re-counted last night, by hand.
The company who made the voting machine is also checking into programming of it’s equipment in nine other Indiana counties.”

Believing that Kerry somehow won a majority of the vote is like believing in UFO, ghosts, vampires and the theory of Atlantis. I don’t suppose anyone can disprove these things to the satisfaction of true believers, but I would be careful about trusting their judgment.

In one of my earlier jobs, I was assigned as point man to deal with the nut cases who came by with odd requests. One woman accused the United States of sucking all the fish out of the Arctic Ocean and asked me to prove she was wrong. Another guy came in and claimed to be an American citizen because he had been president of the U.S from 1955-9. In neither case could I prove – to the recipient’s satisfaction – that they were wrong. In both cases, they had written sources that they said proved their cases. Once I even met John the Baptist. I thought he was dead, but this guy assured me I was mistaken. His proof was that he was standing right in front of me.

Jack,
I’ve posted on this before, so I won’t belabor the point. I agree, it’s very unlikely voter fraud occurred to the extent that Kerry drew more popular votes than Bush. However, it would have been well within the ability of a small group to change enough votes in Florida and/or perhaps Ohio to alter the electoral vote outcome. There was means in the form of poorly secured networks. There was motive. There was opportunity- without no paper trail, it would have been disgracefully easy to execute. An poorly secured network and lack of paper trail… unbelievably negligent.

So, it was possible. Did that mean anything actually happened? No, not until it’s proven, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Oregon uses vote-by-mail, which seems to work well. It’s convenient, no lines, voter participation is high, and it allows you to think through votes before casting them. In light of the 2000 vote debacle in Florida, it’s astounding that state government couldn’t get its act together over the past four years.

Don

Daniel,
Sometimes war is unavoidable. Somtimes war is very avoidable. In the case of Iraq, the US conducted a ‘war of choice.’ According to the Duelfer Report, Saddam Hussein’s capabilities were degrading, not increasing. He was thoroughly contained.

Nice theory about oppression, but it bears little resemblance to reality. I suppose you could blame the Civil War on the oppression of slavery. I’m hard pressed to tie the causes of WWI- militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism- to oppression.

“Oppression breeds poverty, ignorance, lack of education, starvation, hatred, propaganda, and terrorism.”

Again, I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, the historical record doesn’t consistently support the idea. For example, while Nazi Germany did breed hatred & propaganda, it certainly didn’t breed poverty or starvation. Just the opposite, in fact, at least until the war’s end. It certainly did not breed terrorism.

If I may be so bold as to suggest, the problem comes when you mix up nations with terrorist movements. With the exception of Aghanistan’s Taliban, they usually don’t coincide. States may surrepticiously support terrorist movements, but it doesn’t involve the issue of opporession.

Just out of curiousity, do you believe the Israelis oppress the Palestinians?

Daniel, I know you give posts considerable thought. As a courtesy, just want to let you know I won’t be able to return to this until tomorrow night. It makes the give and take difficult. Hopefully daytime computer problems on my end will be resolved by next week.
Don

Okay, okay. Gosh. I didn’t know so many of you hated Michael Moore so much. I have no further comments.

Phx8,

You wrote (see responses below):

Sometimes war is unavoidable. Sometimes war is very avoidable. Daniel: I agree with both statements. In the case of Iraq, the US conducted a ‘war of choice.’ I don’t think it was a bad decision. Saddam was a terrorist, and sponsored terrorism (e.g. paying Palestinians to blow themselves up to kill Israelis), and had a track-record of attacking other countries, and managed to corrupt the U.N. Iraq is a country that is full of terrorists, and a haven for terrorists. Saddam created an Iraq that was a breeding ground for terrorists. Saddam also had ties to foreign terrorists. According to the Duelfer Report, Saddam Hussein’s capabilities were degrading, not increasing. He was thoroughly contained. Saddam was still able to sponsor terrorism, was breeding more terrorists, and still brutalizing his own people. I do not think it was a bad decision to liberate Iraq. Iraq was full of terrorists. We were going to have to deal with Saddam eventually. If the U.S. and coalition troops removed Saddam when we was weakest, then that was a wise move that will probably go unnoticed.

Nice theory about oppression, but it bears little resemblance to reality. I suppose you could blame the Civil War on the oppression of slavery. Yes. Slavery is definitely oppression. I’m hard pressed to tie the causes of WWI- militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism- to oppression. If you think about it, those four reasons are symptoms of oppression. And, oppression is root in fear and laziness. Study almost any negative human aspect, and you’ll find that fear and laziness usually the root cause.

“Oppression breeds poverty, ignorance, lack of education, starvation, hatred, propaganda, and terrorism.”

Again, I wish it were that simple. Oppression is indeed the problem. Poverty, ignorance, and lack of education are typical symptoms. In Germany in the 1940s, the tool was racism. Racism falls under the “hate” category. Thus, oppression most indeed is a root cause of World War 1 and 2. Oppression resulted in the poverty and death for millions of Jews. Unfortunately, the historical record doesn’t consistently support the idea. For example, while Nazi Germany did breed hatred & propaganda, it certainly didn’t breed poverty or starvation. It did breed poverty and starvation and death for millions of Jews…the Nazis oppressed the Jews. Just the opposite, in fact, at least until the war’s end. It certainly did not breed terrorism. I would categorize the systematic and calculated extermination of the Jews terrorism. And the Germans also attacked Britain, France, Poland, Italy, and Russia. To me, that passes for terrorism also, and on a very large scale. Hitler fired V2 rockets at Britain, primarily to terrorize them, because they were not that effective at accurately hitting a target. The German U-boats terrorized the oceans. They sunk an astonishing number of boats…many with innocent passengers. That would also qualify as terrorism.

If I may be so bold as to suggest, the problem comes when you mix up nations with terrorist movements. With the exception of Afghanistan’s Taliban, they usually don’t coincide. True. Oppressive governments and nations are not always terrorist nations. Not yet. However, given time, they will become terrorist nations, because it is the nature of the oppressed to pursue those they believe to be responsible. The Oppressors use skillfully propaganda to cleverly divert their people’s attention, and to trick the people they oppress into hating someone else. That’s usually the United States. Ironically, the oppressed populations hate the very people that would attempt to liberate them. States may surrepticiously support terrorist movements, but it doesn’t involve the issue of opporession. It does not seem possible to support terrorism, and NOT be oppressive. Oppression is anyone who violates the rights of others. Oppression by a governments is usually on a large scale over a period of time. The oppression was substantial in Iraq, and is currently substantial in other middle-eastern countries, N.Korea, and Iran. For instance, consider the restricted rights of women in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Libya. Libya, at one time, sponsored terrorism. There are also a few reports that Iran and N.Korea may be sponsoring terrorism. There is no doubt that Saddam supported terrorism.

Just out of curiousity, do you believe the Israelis oppress the Palestinians? No, I do not believe the Israelis (generally speaking and excluding some exceptions) oppress the Palestinians. I believe the Palestinians bring much of their problems onto themselves, and the Palestinians encourage and sponsor terrorism. Too many Palestinians are too full of deep rooted hatred, and racism. Too many Palestinians seem unable to co-exist with the Jews (or anyone perhaps; as you may recall, many Palestinians were cheering and celebrating in the streets when the 9/11/2001 attacks on the Twin Towers occurred in New York City). You may also recall, the Jews immigrated to the region that is now Israel. Many Jews were simply fleeing the persecution of the Nazis. Arabs resented the immigrants, and unprovoked by the Jews, attacked the Jews. But, the Jews proved to be strong, and they have survived many attacks over many decades, which fueled the humiliation of the Arab armies. As the many decades of conflict passed, atrocities on both sides occurred. The Palestinians did not want to co-exist with the Jews, and neighboring Arab countries would not let the Palestinians immigrate into the surrounding Arab countries. So the Palestinians remained in Israel. So, much pent-up anger and hatred has developed over many decades between the Arabs & Palestinians and Jews. I believe the Israeli’s would like to try to co-exist peacefully, but the deep-rooted hatreds make it seem impossible.

Daniel, I know you give posts considerable thought. As a courtesy, just want to let you know I won’t be able to return to this until tomorrow night. It makes the give and take difficult. Hopefully daytime computer problems on my end will be resolved by next week.
Don No problem.

jbod, you need to get your terminology straight. Draft dodgers were those who circumvented the laws to avoid the draft by dropping out or moving to Canada. Those who used the laws to avoid the draft through student deferments or medical deferments were NOT draft dodgers. Draft dodging was an illegal act. The President’s cabinet has a number of folks who obtained legal deferments from the draft, and one cannot defensibly call them draft dodgers.

The U.S. did not put jobs, careers, the economy, and needed professionals on hold or the back burner until the Viet Nam conflict was over. Quite the contrary, which was why student deferments were granted legally, our nation needed young people of draft age to continue their education during Viet Nam so that our nation would continue to have an uninterrupted supply of engineers, lawyers, doctors and the like.

Clinton’s deferment was well spent, he did afterall use his college education to go on to become President two terms in a row. Just as Cheney did to become VP two terms in a row. Neither gentlemen was or is a draft dodger.

jack, the single most productive move the U.S. could take to diminish long lines at the voting booths is to hold elections on a Saturday. There is a spike in the number of voters waiting in line right after the polls open, from 11:15 AM to 1:45 P.M, and a huge spike from 4:45 PM until poll closing. That would suggest that the single most contributing factor to long lines is folks trying to squeeze their vote in just prior to going to work, during their lunch hour, and after getting off work.

The other option is to declare national elections a holiday so folks can show up at the polls on a fairly evenly distributed time table throughout the election day.

Please read this press release before telling me I’m nothing but crazy, a “true believer”, whatever…

biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041118/sfth066_1.html

To look at all the data:

http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/

No doubt because it comes from Berkeley it’ll be judged completely invalid by the rightwingers simply because they won, but to anyone else who actually gives a damn about fairness and accuracy in our elections, just do me a favor and at least take a look at it, okay?

Daniel—

If oppression is the root cause of conflict perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the Iraqis are feeling pretty oppressed right now — by the United States military. Oppression for a noble cause is still oppression.

Adrienne

I looked at the links you so kindly provided

It has been awhile since I studies statistics, but I don’t recall ever hearing anyone say that they were 99.9% certain, as it does in the summary of the findings. I don’t think 99.9% is statistically possible and that makes me suspect the bona fides. In addition, the sample size is too small for statistical analysis. The authors take counties as units for their regression analysis. There are not enough counties and they vary too much in their makeup to form a valid group. Besides, regression shows correlation and can’t prove causality.

It looks like this study represents an assertion surrounded by a bodyguard of numbers. The numbers make the assertion look scientific, but in the end they are meaningless. This is probably an undergraduate project that shot to fame because of its subject matter. I think we are still dealing with the UFO crowd here.

Finally, the authors boldly state that the irregularities “may have” given 130,000 votes to Bush. Even if you take their maximum number, you still need to find 247,216 more, since Bush won Florida by 377,216 votes.

David:

I think you are referring to Adam’s comment that Clinton was a draft dodger. What I said was to compare Dole and Clinton by saying “decorated war hero Dole vs anti-war protester, draft avoiding Clinton”.

I specifically used the term “avoider” because its common knowledge that Clinton avoided the draft. I did not claim he did anything illegal, but he did use his connections to avoid the draft.

I do find it worth mentioning that Adam claimed that Bush was AWOL during Viet Nam, and you let that slide. No comments from you about the legal accuracy of using the term AWOL, no condescending suggestion that he get his terminology correct.

I wonder what it was that caused you to focus on a correct comment about Clinton, while ignoring an obvious INcorrect comment about Bush.

Don:

Oregon uses vote-by-mail, which seems to work well.

Without impugning Oregon’s method at all, since I know nothing about it, it does seem that a less than honest mailman could easily create fraud within such a system.

My point is to suggest that ANY voting system will have its inherent flaws. We need to find a standard national system, or simply accept the fact that with different voting systems, there will be multiple flaws.

The 2004 election was among the most closely watched in history, and there is no credible indication of any problems severe enough to influence the election. You can, however, find a lot of what I’ll facetiously call INcredible information, even in this blog.

Adam:

For my part, I don’t hate Michael Moore. I recognize well his ability to put factual information into such a context as to make them appear to lean one way or another. He is a skilled movie maker.

That said, he is NOT a documentary maker, since documentaries by definition are not supposed to be so influenced by the opinion or leanings of the filmmaker. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Moore’s politics, no one can rightly look at his body of work and not see the manipulation and editing of information that he uses.

Alejo,
You wrote… (see response below):
_____________________________________
Daniel—

If oppression is the root cause of conflict perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the Iraqis are feeling pretty oppressed right now — by the United States military. Oppression for a noble cause is still oppression.
_____________________________________

———-Response————-
Alejo,

Most Iraqis want the U.S. to finish removing the terrorists and Saddam loyalist dead-enders, BEFORE abandoning them. Remember the looting that occurred when there was insufficient security. Iraqis don’t want that chaos to occur again. The U.S. and coalition want to leave as soon as possible…. as soon as the nation is safe and capable of maintaining its own security. For you to dare to call the U.S. and coalition oppressors is very revealing.

Alejo, your statement above where you say the U.S. and coalition troops are oppressors is offensive and shameful and a disgraceful insult to those that are fighting and dying to remove the terrorists in Iraq. It’s also a huge insult to the Iraqi people, Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police who support the action in Iraq and who also want to eliminate the terrorists.

P.S. Fear and Laziness and Insanity are the root causes of all crimes, including oppression , and
oppression encompasses many other symptoms and crimes such as starvation, poverty, aggression, plunder, theft, hate, anti-Semitism, racism, and terrorism.

Joe, and David:

Alas, more than once in this comment section I’ve used the wrong terms. Draft dodger, AWOL, etc. I’ll be more precise in the future.

As for Moore, I feel his record of service and film making show he has a great concern for the quality of living of the American people. Like John Stewart of the Daily Show, he finds irony and humour in the American political system and the role of comedian is rarely lost on Moore.

People don’t dispute his facts, just the way he arranges them. That is the funny thing. Documentaries are first based on fact over all else. What facts are off in his films? Moore’s work falls in the category of “creative documentary” where the facts are presented with artistic liscense. Whoever said a documentary has to be objective? What art is objective? I don’t understand that claim against Moore.

Daniel —

Alejo, your statement above where you say the U.S. and coalition troops are oppressors is offensive and shameful and a disgraceful insult to those that are fighting and dying to remove the terrorists in Iraq. It’s also a huge insult to the Iraqi people, Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police who support the action in Iraq and who also want to eliminate the terrorists.

I think if you re-read my post that Iraqis feel oppressed by US soldiers. I did not suggest, nor did I mean to suggest, that the military is an oppressive force. There are many Iraqis, I’m sure, who see US soldiers and are grateful, just as there are Iraqis who look at American soldiers and feel resentment that their country is being occupied by an army of foreigners. It’s simply inevitable that some of them feel oppressed.

Now, as for all the accusations you leveled at me: Please read closely before impugning me or my words. If people FEEL oppressed, could it not be argued that they ARE oppressed? It doesn’t matter whether the (perceived) oppressor has good intentions or not.

Don’t throw the flag in my face. I’m as much a patriot as you are.

Adam:

Documentary: of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; broadly : FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE (emphasis mine)

I don’t think anyone would suggest that Moore’s films are objective, though I’d agree they are factual. Its that the facts are taken out of context in order to make them appear to support a specific viewpoing that I have a problem with.

Allow me to give you some facts about a historical person:

He had a policy to spend a few hundred thousand dollars every year in charity, supporting widows, paying poor people’s doctor bills, enabling them to send their children to school, giving them baskets of groceries on holidays, etc.

He gave millions to charity over the years.

He opened and funded 53 soup kitchens during the Depression.

He encouraged merchants to give clothes to the needy at his own expense.

Based on these facts, you could conclude that this man was a great philanthropist. Only when viewing these facts IN FULL CONTEXT does one realize that this great compassionate philanthropist was none other than Al Capone.

Manipulating a message while using facts is relatively easy. Michael Moore has made it an art form, and he is truly gifted at this. But that doesnt make it right, it doesnt make it objective, and it doesnt make it accurate.

Michael Moore is proof that you can present facts without presenting the truth.

Alejo,

You wrote:
___________
If oppression is the root cause of conflict perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the Iraqis are feeling pretty oppressed right now — by the United States military. Oppression for a noble cause is still oppression.
___________

Alejo,
What you said speaks for itself and is revealing.
You called it oppression, which is it not.
It’s too late to spin it another way now.

Daniel —

Now you’re accusing me of spin. Thanks. I’ll remember to respect your opinion in the future as well.

Alejo,

Those are your own words.
You called what the U.S. troops are doing oppression.
Trying to deny it now IS spinning it.

While I disagree with your opinion,
I respect your right to it. Analysis
of your opinion does not constitute disrespect.
The most disrespectful thing I’ve read here
ever is your statement that the
U.S. troops are oppressive.

Alejo,
This is what you wrote. It speaks for itself:
______________
Daniel—

If oppression is the root cause of conflict perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the Iraqis are feeling pretty oppressed right now — by the United States military. Oppression for a noble cause is still oppression.
______________

Re Michael Moore

Joe did a good job with his Al Capone story. Facts exist in context if the content is altered the “fact” can become a lie.

The effect of Michael Moore on the election is debatable. Most of the people who were convinced by his movie were probably convinced before his movie. The sight of Moore himself (not the most attractive spokesman) probably pushed some voters toward George W. Bush. He also provided Republicans with a convenient scapegoat. “What you are saying is just like Michael Moore,” was enough to get some people to either be quiet or revise their thinking. Ask yourself, if Moore approached you on the street (and you didn’t know who he was) wouldn’t you cross the street and/or put you hand on your wallet.

http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i21election.htm

Daniel —

I remember what I wrote. I’m sorry you found it offensive. I would also imagine that Iraqis who have had their relatives killed by accidental US gunfire, had US soldiers break down their doors and put black bags over their fathers’ heads, and seen US soldiers touch their manacled fathers’ private parts and laugh — well, I’d imagine they’d find your outrage at my remarks pretty offensive too.

Anyone care for a smoking gun?

“93,000 Extra Votes In Cuyahoga County - Outrage In Ohio”
By Teed Rockwell, Sonoma State University
11-12-4

“Smoking Gun

You may have seen the associated press story about the precinct in Cuyahoga county that had less than 1,000 voters, and gave Bush almost 4,000 extra votes.
But that turns out to be only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. The evidence discovered by some remarkably careful sleuthing would convince any reasonable court to invalidate the entire Ohio election.
In last Tuesday’s election, 29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters - at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website:
Bay Village - 13,710 registered voters / 18,663 ballots cast
Beachwood - 9,943 registered voters / 13,939 ballots cast
Bedford - 9,942 registered voters / 14,465 ballots cast
Bedford Heights - 8,142 registered voters / 13,512 ballots cast
Brooklyn - 8,016 registered voters / 12,303 ballots cast
Brooklyn Heights - 1,144 registered voters / 1,869 ballots cast
Chagrin Falls Village - 3,557 registered voters / 4,860 ballots cast
Cuyahoga Heights - 570 registered voters / 1,382 ballots cast
Fairview Park - 13,342 registered voters / 18,472 ballots cast
Highland Hills Village - 760 registered voters / 8,822 ballots cast
Independence - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Mayfield Village - 2,764 registered voters / 3,145 ballots cast
Middleburg Heights - 12,173 registered voters / 14,854 ballots cast
Moreland Hills Village - 2,990 registered voters / 4,616 ballots cast
North Olmstead - 25,794 registered voters / 25,887 ballots cast
Olmstead Falls - 6,538 registered voters / 7,328 ballots cast
Pepper Pike - 5,131 registered voters / 6,479 ballots cast
Rocky River - 16,600 registered voters / 20,070 ballots cast
Solon (WD6) - 2,292 registered voters / 4,300 ballots cast
South Euclid - 16,902 registered voters / 16,917 ballots cast
Strongsville (WD3) - 7,806 registered voters / 12,108 ballots cast
University Heights - 10,072 registered voters / 11,982 ballots cast
Valley View Village - 1,787 registered voters / 3,409 ballots cast
Warrensville Heights - 10,562 registered voters / 15,039 ballots cast
Woodmere Village - 558 registered voters / 8,854 ballots cast
Bedford (CSD) - 22,777 registered voters / 27,856 ballots cast
Independence (LSD) - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Orange (CSD) - 11,640 registered voters / 22,931 ballots cast
Warrensville (CSD) - 12,218 registered voters / 15,822 ballots cast

The Republicans are so BUSTED.

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us//BOE/results/currentresults1.htm#top 

…is the official website of the Cuyahoga county election board, providing irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000. Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere.
I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election. I’d say the game’s up.

America, it looks pretty much like you’ve been had.”

Nothing the US Military is doing in Iraq is deserving of any respect whatsoever. They are the antagonists, the attackers, the OPPRESSORS. They are there, collectively, to do one thing, control the Middle Eastern oil. It has nothing to do with fighting “terrorism”, defending “freedom”, spreading “democracy”, or any of the other bogus reasons the Bush administration has voiced time and time again. Individually, the troops are there because they are too stupid and cowardly to challenge their orders to report for duty in an illegal war.

As far as the American people supporting Bush, and voting him in again (although I believe the popular vote was manipulated once again) there is one simple reason: the American people are clueless morons, just like the (p)Resident.

Alejo,
(see responses below):

Alejo, you wrote:
___________________
Daniel—

If oppression is the root cause of conflict perhaps it’s worth pointing out that the Iraqis are feeling pretty oppressed right now — by the United States military. Oppression for a noble cause is still oppression. ____Alejo, your sentence above calls what the U.S. troops are doing oppression. Do you deny that?

___________________
Daniel —

I remember what I wrote. I’m sorry you found it offensive. ______The sincerity of such an apology is questionable in light of spin in the response that follows. Yes, Alejo, you calling U.S. troops “oppressors” is offensive…especially to those U.S. and coalition, and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police fighting and dying to fight the terrorists. Do not apologize to me. Apologize to the U.S., coalition, and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police, and Iraqi people._____ I would also imagine that Iraqis who have had their relatives killed by accidental US gunfire, had US soldiers break down their doors and put black bags over their fathers’ heads, and seen US soldiers touch their manacled fathers’ private parts and laugh — well, I’d imagine they’d find your outrage at my remarks pretty offensive too. ________None of my remarks in no way condone crimes against innocent civilians. That’s just more of your spin and tactic, to cloud the issues, change the subject, obscure the facts, only to justify you shamefully calling U.S. troops oppressors. The harm caused to civilians is the fault of the terrorists hiding amongst them, in mosques, schools, hospitals, and civilian homes, and the fault of the civilians that harbor the terrorists. Not the U.S., coalition, and Iraqi troops trying to eliminate terrorists._____
___________________

This is the Independent Column - why aren’t any of you discussing what Nader, Cobb and Badnarik are doing right now?

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us//BOE/results/currentresults1.htm#top

This website shows that this county voted 2:1 for Kerry. If republicans doctored the vote in this county, they forgot who their candidate was.

Daniel said: “None of my remarks in no way condone crimes against innocent civilians.”

But Daniel, you did say that anyone who criticizes our actions in Iraq or Bush’s decision to invade are unpatriotic and unAmerican and you implied they are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. How can one both NOT condone crimes and rebuke any who would criticize our actions there in the same breath.

Your posture has been unreasonable - as most partisans are - you define patriotism as following leadership like sheep - yet our Founding Fathers cautioned us to watch our leaders like hawks and hold them accountable lest we lose our freedoms. Patriotism comes in many forms, critiquing government and leadership is but one of the those forms. And to attack the press or the public who criticize leadership toward the goal of improving it and its effects, is, in my opinion, about as undemocratic, unpatriotic, as it gets, though, sadly, all too American.

German fell under the influence of facism and dictatorship due almost entirely to “patriotism” of your kind. That is what makes rhetoric such as yours so dangerous and causes so many folks as found in this column to take your words to task. Your opinions are a threat to our democracy and our Constitutional rights and freedoms. For if you had the power, you would silence such voices of discontent - and that is the road to dictatorship, my friend and that makes your words the enemy of what America stands for, freedom of dissent, freedom of asembly, and freedom of political speech, among other things.

Daniel —

Now I see. If I question what the United States does, if I suggest that the military could be taking questionable actions in its occupation of Iraq, if I come out and say we are oppressing anyone, I’m offensive. Well, go right ahead and be offended. Call me shameful, call me obscuring, call me offensive. Call me any name you want. I’d like to point out that I have not used such language when referring to your posts, but it’s clear we’re beyond courtesy here.

The harm caused to civilians is the fault of the terrorists hiding amongst them, in mosques, schools, hospitals, and civilian homes, and the fault of the civilians that harbor the terrorists. Not the U.S., coalition, and Iraqi troops trying to eliminate terrorists.

I see. So whatever the United States military does — torturing prisoners, firing rockets into crowds, invading homes — that’s all to be blamed on the terrorists, and my bringing it up is smokescreen and spin. Your blind devotion to country is not patriotism, it’s fanaticism. You can shout at me all day long, accuse me of lying, use boldface type all day long — that won’t change the fact that our military is supplying the Iraqis with reasons to hate us. Neither will I shut up about it.

Escobar wrote:

_______________________
Nothing the US Military is doing in Iraq is deserving of any respect whatsoever. They are the antagonists, the attackers, the OPPRESSORS. They are there, collectively, to do one thing, control the Middle Eastern oil. It has nothing to do with fighting “terrorism”, defending “freedom”, spreading “democracy”, or any of the other bogus reasons the Bush administration has voiced time and time again. Individually, the troops are there because they are too stupid and cowardly to challenge their orders to report for duty in an illegal war.

As far as the American people supporting Bush, and voting him in again (although I believe the popular vote was manipulated once again) there is one simple reason: the American people are clueless morons, just like the (p)Resident.
________________

Escobar, your statement above also speaks for itself. It is quite revealing. I believe you have just jumped to 1st place. Please go spout that to the faces of the Marines, Army, Airforce, coalition troops, Iraqi troops, Iraqi police, and Iraqi people who want to be rid of the terrorists. Even if you don’t agree with the reasons for the war, it is disrespectful and ungrateful to call the troops “oppressors”. But, that’s the great thing about the U.S. You are entitled to shame yourself if you wish, and you are entitled to your opinion, regardless of its worth.

“This website shows that this county voted 2:1 for Kerry. If republicans doctored the vote in this county, they forgot who their candidate was.”

No it doesn’t. Bush won in that county - though obviously by Ohioans who don’t even exist.
Here are the election results in Ohio by county from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/county.000.html

All i can say is …..Puhleeeeeez!!!!

David R. Remer, Alejo,
There ya’ll go again. Keep it up, because I find it entertaining to see you both struggle to defend your positions by drawing conclusions and non-sequiturs at every turn, twisting my words, and inventing things I never said.

Alejo, I never said it’s not OK to question the actions of your country. However, calling the U.S. troops oppressors (like Escobar did above) is in my opinion, disrespectful, and untrue. But the U.S. is a free country, and you are free to be disrespectful to them if you want to. Did you read Escobar’s post above. What do you think of that ?

David R. Remer,
Your posture is as unreasonable to me as mine is to you. Nothing I’ve said is in contradiction. You attempt to paint me as partisan or a mindless robot, because I disagree with you. That’s fine. Still, you haven’t provided any arguments or data that would convince me to believe as you do. I still believe the efforts of the U.S., coalition, Iraqi troops, Iraqi police, and Iraq people to eliminate the numerous terrorists is an honorable and noble cause. It is unfortunate that civilians are harmed, but that is the fault of the terrorists and those that harbor them. There is NO other way to remove the terrorists. The terrorists must be removed. That is what most Iraqis want. Otherwise, the terrorists will continue to kill other Iraqis, and U.S., coalition, and Iraqi troops. In Falluja, the civilians were encouraged to temporarily leave Falluja. Most did. A few remained because they were too old or unable to travel. Some simply chose to defiantly stay (very foolish). Many (not all) that stayed were terrorists, and terrorist sympathizers. Unfortunately, some of the terrorists did not stay to fight. So, you see, U.S., coalition, and Iraqi troops are trying very hard not to harm civilians. However, when the terrorists start shooting at them, civilians may get hurt. That is unavoidable and it is the fault of the terrorists.

So, now that we’re there in Iraq, what do you suggest the troops do to remove the terrorists ?
The terrorists are killing innocent Iraqi people also. Or would you just leave now, and let the terrorists have Iraq ?
I’m curious. How would you solve this problem ?

And, lets say we never went into Iraq.
How would you deal with Saddam and his thousands of terrorists ?

How would you have dealt with the Taliban and Alqaeda in Afghanistan ?
How would you now deal with N.Korea ?
How would you now deal with Iran ?

Just curious. Do you think we should take actions in some of these cases, and not in some others ?

Daniel,

I can see we are accomplishing nothing here, but I cannot let a blatant insult go by.

I do not believe I have shamed myself in any way, shape or form by my comments. My “opinion” if you wish. This illegal war and everyone and anyone who is involved in it or supports it in any way shames the entire nation (our nation) if not the entire world.

Who is creating the most terror in Iraq? That’s right, you guessed it. The U.S. Military. If you think that honorable or worthy of respect, you’re nuts. That country did NOTHING to us. We attacked it. Problem is, those of us who pay taxes in this country are supporting the oppressive actions of our troops.

Support our troops. Bring them home. Alive.

Any comments I made that are offensive to you are intended that way. I simply like to piss off anyone who thinks defending our troops in an illegal war is the right thing to do. Get over it.

By the way folks, we are all way off the topic of this post.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/county.000.html

This site shows that Kerry won Cuyahoga county by the same 2:1 margin. Are we talking about differenty counties here?

I guess you guys aren’t going to get what I was trying to say in my last post because of the way I said it - so let me clarify. Bush won - in that county and in every other county in Ohio, but how he did so is the real question. If 93,000 extra votes could be added in just Cuyahoga County - how many extra votes were added to the rest? As my link to the CNN results from Ohio demonstrates, it doesn’t matter who won in a single county - it only matters that he may well have taken enough votes from each to win the election.

Escobar,

Ooooohhh…. someone must have hit a nerve to cause such a rant.
Please continue Escobar.
Show us more please.
It is most revealing. : )

Escobar wrote:

_______________________
Nothing the US Military is doing in Iraq is deserving of any respect whatsoever. They are the antagonists, the attackers, the OPPRESSORS.

Daniel,
I can see we are accomplishing nothing here, but I cannot let a blatant insult go by.

I do not believe I have shamed myself in any way, shape or form by my comments. My “opinion” if you wish. This illegal war and everyone and anyone who is involved in it or supports it in any way shames the entire nation (our nation) if not the entire world.

Who is creating the most terror in Iraq? That’s right, you guessed it. The U.S. Military. If you think that honorable or worthy of respect, you’re nuts. That country did NOTHING to us. We attacked it. Problem is, those of us who pay taxes in this country are supporting the oppressive actions of our troops.

Support our troops. Bring them home. Alive.

Any comments I made that are offensive to you are intended that way. I simply like to piss off anyone who thinks defending our troops in an illegal war is the right thing to do. Get over it.

By the way folks, we are all way off the topic of this post.

_______________________

Daniel—

I’m glad to have amused you and your superior intellect. I still won’t shut up and you still don’t see my point.

Over and over you say that the US is doing good and that anything they do that appears to be wrong is the fault of the terrorists. It’s clear now that you can’t see the difference between the INTENT of an action and the PERCEPTION of that action by those acted upon. In your eyes, since it’s for a good cause all the Iraqis know that it’s for a good cause and will all forgive us any mistakes we make. In a perfect world, that would be true — however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is not a prefect world.

Anyway, I’m done with this. You can bash me some more if you like but I’m through with this argument.

I think everyone “gets” Adrienne’s point. Bush won the election and Kerry graciously conceded. Those on the left who want to squeeze juice out of the sour grapes are doing so by claiming the election was again stolen. It apparently doesn’t matter how great the conspiracy, how many faults are found in the theories, nor how many times even the Democratic party insists that the election was fair. The comeback is simply…..”Oh, you’re just too stupid to understand” or “Oh, you’re just part of the conspiracy”.

It’s really all nonsense, but lets all patronize those who believe it and let them think they are getting somewhere with their faulty logical constructions.

So with that, I say to Adrienne, “Well done. Very insightful post. Thanks for all the great statistics. Keep up the good work.”

Alejo,

Please see responses below.

______________________________
Daniel—

I’m glad to have amused you and your superior intellect. ___If you say so. Thank you. ____ I still won’t shut up and you still don’t see my point.

Over and over you say that the US is doing good and that anything they do that appears to be wrong is the fault of the terrorists. It’s clear now that you can’t see the difference between the INTENT of an action and the PERCEPTION of that action by those acted upon. In your eyes, since it’s for a good cause all the Iraqis know that it’s for a good cause and will all forgive us any mistakes we make. ____Yes. I believe the majority of them believe we are trying to help. To claim we’re doing for the oil is easy to say, but not prove, because we’re not taking the oil from Iraqis. We’re helping them repair their oil production. _____ In a perfect world, that would be true — however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is not a prefect world. ______Of course it’s not perfect. I agree with you on that._____

Anyway, I’m done with this. You can bash me some more if you like but I’m through with this argument. ______I never bashed you or anyone else. I disagreed with you, and anyone who calls the U.S. troops oppressors. There’s a difference. I even acknowledged that everyone is entitled to their opinion. And, I stated my opinion also, as you and others have, and never resorted to angry name calling as some have when they can’t convince others to believe as they do. Please don’t go away angry._____
______________________________

BUSH’S ECONOMIC: TAX CUT FOR THE RICH, EXPORT 10,000,000 AMERICAN JOBS TO RED CHINA, AND BORROW MONEY FROM RED COMMUNIST CHINA TO FINANCE HIS 9 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT -GOD HELP US AND OUR GRAND CHILDREN WHO HAVE TO PAY THE COMMUNIST CHINA FOR MR.BUSH’S CORRUPTION AND FRIVOLUS EXPENDITURE

RED Republicans raise our national debt ceiling to pay for BUSH’s 9 trillion dollar debt. These RED Republicans have taken the nation from 5 billion in annual surplus to nine trillion in national deficits by giving tax incentives to companies who outsource our jobs to RED communist China, and give money to their campaign

Alejo,

Please see responses below.

______________________________
Daniel—

I’m glad to have amused you and your superior intellect. ___If you say so. Thank you. ____ I still won’t shut up and you still don’t see my point. _______I never told you to shut up. Please continue. I see your point, but don’t be surprised if I never agree with your point._____

Over and over you say that the US is doing good and that anything they do that appears to be wrong is the fault of the terrorists. ____I never said that. That’s your spin.____ It’s clear now that you can’t see the difference between the INTENT of an action and the PERCEPTION of that action by those acted upon. In your eyes, since it’s for a good cause all the Iraqis know that it’s for a good cause and will all forgive us any mistakes we make. ____Yes. There’s a difference and I believe the majority believe we are trying to help. To claim we’re doing it for the oil is absurd, because we’re not stealing oil from Iraqis. In fact, we’re helping them repair their oil production systems. _____ In a perfect world, that would be true — however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is not a prefect world. ______Of course it’s not perfect. I agree with you on that._____

Anyway, I’m done with this. You can bash me some more if you like but I’m through with this argument. ______I never bashed you or anyone else. I disagreed with you. I disagree with you statement that the U.S. troops are oppressors. Still, I acknowledged that you and everyone is entitled to their opinion. I stated my opinion also, as you and others have, and never resorted to angry name calling as some have when they can’t convince others to believe as they do. Please don’t go away angry._____
______________________________

There was a $5.6 trillion dollar national debt BEFORE Bush ever got into office.

There was a $4 trillion BEFORE Clinton got into office.

The national debt increased $1.6 trillion during Clintons 8 years in office, and the national debt increased $1.9 trillion during Bush’s first 4 year term.

Thus, the U.S. has NEVER had a $5 trillion dollar surplus? Curiously, I also once heard Kerry say we once had a $5 trillion dollar surplus ??? As you see below, the U.S. has NEVER had a surplus in the last 125 years, because the U.S. has been in debt for over 125 years. The U.S. has had a national debt of over $2 trillion dollars since 1986 (see below).

_____
National Debt History for prior fiscal years.
Years 1900 thru 2003:
Date: $Amount (U.S. dollars):
————- ———————————-
09/30/2004 about $7.5 trillion U.S. dollars
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 $2,125,302,616,658.42
12/31/1985 $1,945,941,616,459.88
12/31/1984 $1,662,966,000,000.00
12/31/1983 $1,410,702,000,000.00
12/31/1982 $1,197,073,000,000.00
12/31/1981 $1,028,729,000,000.00
12/31/1980 $930,210,000,000.00
12/31/1979 $845,116,000,000.00
12/29/1978 $789,207,000,000.00
12/30/1977 $718,943,000,000.00
12/31/1976 $653,544,000,000.00
12/31/1975 $576,649,000,000.00
12/31/1974 $492,665,000,000.00
12/31/1973 $469,898,039,554.70
12/29/1972 $449,298,066,119.00
12/31/1971 $424,130,961,959.95
12/31/1970 $389,158,403,690.26
12/31/1969 $368,225,581,254.41
12/31/1968 $358,028,625,002.91
12/29/1967 $344,663,009,745.18
12/30/1966 $329,319,249,366.68
12/31/1965 $320,904,110,042.04
12/31/1964 $317,940,472,718.38
12/31/1963 $309,346,845,059.17
12/31/1962 $303,470,080,489.27
12/29/1961 $296,168,761,214.92
12/30/1960 $290,216,815,241.68
12/31/1959 $290,797,771,717.63
12/31/1958 $282,922,423,583.87
12/31/1957 $274,897,784,290.72
12/31/1956 $276,627,527,996.11
12/30/1955 $280,768,553,188.96
12/31/1954 $278,749,814,391.33
12/31/1953 $275,168,120,129.39
06/30/1953 $266,071,061,638.57
06/30/1952 $259,105,178,785.43
06/29/1951 $255,221,976,814.93
06/30/1950 $257,357,352,351.04
06/30/1949 $252,770,359,860.33
06/30/1948 $252,292,246,512.99
06/30/1947 $258,286,383,108.67
06/28/1946 $269,422,099,173.26
06/30/1945 $258,682,187,409.93
06/30/1944 $201,003,387,221.13
06/30/1943 $136,696,090,329.90
06/30/1942 $72,422,445,116.22
06/30/1941 $48,961,443,535.71
06/29/1940 $42,967,531,037.68
06/30/1939 $40,439,532,411.11
06/30/1938 $37,164,740,315.45
06/30/1937 $36,424,613,732.29
06/30/1936 $33,778,543,493.73
06/29/1935 $28,700,892,624.53
06/30/1934 $27,053,141,414.48
06/30/1933 $22,538,672,560.15
06/30/1932 $19,487,002,444.13
06/30/1931 $16,801,281,491.71
06/30/1930 $16,185,309,831.43
06/29/1929 $16,931,088,484.10
06/30/1928 $17,604,293,201.43
06/30/1927 $18,511,906,931.85
06/30/1926 $19,643,216,315.19
06/30/1925 $20,516,193,887.90
06/30/1924 $21,250,812,989.49
06/30/1923 $22,349,707,365.36
06/30/1922 $22,963,381,708.31
06/30/1921 $23,977,450,552.54
07/01/1920 $25,952,456,406.16
07/01/1919 $27,390,970,113.12
07/01/1918 $14,592,161,414.00
07/01/1917 $5,717,770,279.52
07/01/1916 $3,609,244,262.16
07/01/1915 $3,058,136,873.16
07/01/1914 $2,912,499,269.16
07/01/1913 $2,916,204,913.66
07/01/1912 $2,868,373,874.16
07/01/1911 $2,765,600,606.69
07/01/1910 $2,652,665,838.04
07/01/1909 $2,639,546,241.04
07/01/1908 $2,626,806,271.54
07/01/1907 $2,457,188,061.54
07/01/1906 $2,337,161,839.04
07/01/1905 $2,274,615,063.84
07/01/1904 $2,264,003,585.14
07/01/1903 $2,202,464,781.89
07/01/1902 $2,158,610,445.89
07/01/1901 $2,143,326,933.89
07/01/1900 $2,136,961,091.67
_____

Currently, the U.S. borrows $1 billion per day.
The interest on the national debt is $1 billion per day. That’s about $360 billion per year.
So the U.S. government is borrowing each day what it owes in interest each day. That’s about one fourth of the total annual revenue that is paid in interest on the national debt, and the debt is still growing. To shrink the debt, the Federal government must pay over $1 billion per day to shrink the national debt. That is, each payment must exceed the interest, otherwise, the debt principal continues to increase.

If the U.S. government stopped borrowing $1 billion per day and started paying down the national debt by $1 billion per day, it would take another 113 years to pay off the current $7.5 trillion dollar national debt.

Don’t just blame the president(s).
Congress is more to blame for the debt than
any president. Congress approves spending. So direct your attention at Congress.

If Congress doesn’t start focusing on this debt, there will be negative economic impacts. Inflation will increase. Social Security and Medicare will cease to exist. Ironically, Congress will then increase taxes. GDP will decline. Health Care will be unaffordable. Poverty will increase. Education will decline. Businesses will fail. There will be more job losses. It will take awhile (about 20 to 40 years), but it will happen if we don’t start dealing with this crushing debt soon. When it does happen, there will be unrest, which could conceivably, lead to revolution.

NOTE: An interesting thing to note above is the acceleration of the national debt in the last 20 years.

Posted by: John Wiley at November 19, 2004 08:14 PM

BUSH’S ECONOMIC: TAX CUT FOR THE RICH, EXPORT 10,000,000 AMERICAN JOBS TO RED CHINA, AND BORROW MONEY FROM RED COMMUNIST CHINA TO FINANCE HIS 9 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT -GOD HELP US AND OUR GRAND CHILDREN WHO HAVE TO PAY THE COMMUNIST CHINA FOR MR.BUSH’S CORRUPTION AND FRIVOLUS EXPENDITURE

RED Republicans raise our national debt ceiling to pay for BUSH’s 9 trillion dollar debt. These RED Republicans have taken the nation from 5 billion in annual surplus to nine trillion in national deficits by giving tax incentives to companies who outsource our jobs to RED communist China, and give money to their campaign

There was a $5.6 trillion dollar national debt BEFORE G.W. Bush ever got into office.

There was a $4 trillion BEFORE Bill Clinton ever got into office.

The national debt increased $1.6 trillion during Clintons’ 8 years in office, and the national debt increased $1.9 trillion during Bush’s first 4 year term.

Thus, the U.S. has NEVER had a $5 trillion dollar surplus? Curiously, I also once heard Kerry say we once had a $5 trillion dollar surplus ???

As you see below, the U.S. has NEVER even had a surplus in the last 105 years, because the U.S. has been in debt for over 105 years. The U.S. has had a national debt of over $2 trillion dollars since 1986 (see below).

_____
National Debt History for prior fiscal years.
Years 1900 thru 2003:
Date: $Amount (U.S. dollars):
————- ———————————-
09/30/2004 about $7.5 trillion U.S. dollars
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 $2,125,302,616,658.42
12/31/1985 $1,945,941,616,459.88
12/31/1984 $1,662,966,000,000.00
12/31/1983 $1,410,702,000,000.00
12/31/1982 $1,197,073,000,000.00
12/31/1981 $1,028,729,000,000.00
12/31/1980 $930,210,000,000.00
12/31/1979 $845,116,000,000.00
12/29/1978 $789,207,000,000.00
12/30/1977 $718,943,000,000.00
12/31/1976 $653,544,000,000.00
12/31/1975 $576,649,000,000.00
12/31/1974 $492,665,000,000.00
12/31/1973 $469,898,039,554.70
12/29/1972 $449,298,066,119.00
12/31/1971 $424,130,961,959.95
12/31/1970 $389,158,403,690.26
12/31/1969 $368,225,581,254.41
12/31/1968 $358,028,625,002.91
12/29/1967 $344,663,009,745.18
12/30/1966 $329,319,249,366.68
12/31/1965 $320,904,110,042.04
12/31/1964 $317,940,472,718.38
12/31/1963 $309,346,845,059.17
12/31/1962 $303,470,080,489.27
12/29/1961 $296,168,761,214.92
12/30/1960 $290,216,815,241.68
12/31/1959 $290,797,771,717.63
12/31/1958 $282,922,423,583.87
12/31/1957 $274,897,784,290.72
12/31/1956 $276,627,527,996.11
12/30/1955 $280,768,553,188.96
12/31/1954 $278,749,814,391.33
12/31/1953 $275,168,120,129.39
06/30/1953 $266,071,061,638.57
06/30/1952 $259,105,178,785.43
06/29/1951 $255,221,976,814.93
06/30/1950 $257,357,352,351.04
06/30/1949 $252,770,359,860.33
06/30/1948 $252,292,246,512.99
06/30/1947 $258,286,383,108.67
06/28/1946 $269,422,099,173.26
06/30/1945 $258,682,187,409.93
06/30/1944 $201,003,387,221.13
06/30/1943 $136,696,090,329.90
06/30/1942 $72,422,445,116.22
06/30/1941 $48,961,443,535.71
06/29/1940 $42,967,531,037.68
06/30/1939 $40,439,532,411.11
06/30/1938 $37,164,740,315.45
06/30/1937 $36,424,613,732.29
06/30/1936 $33,778,543,493.73
06/29/1935 $28,700,892,624.53
06/30/1934 $27,053,141,414.48
06/30/1933 $22,538,672,560.15
06/30/1932 $19,487,002,444.13
06/30/1931 $16,801,281,491.71
06/30/1930 $16,185,309,831.43
06/29/1929 $16,931,088,484.10
06/30/1928 $17,604,293,201.43
06/30/1927 $18,511,906,931.85
06/30/1926 $19,643,216,315.19
06/30/1925 $20,516,193,887.90
06/30/1924 $21,250,812,989.49
06/30/1923 $22,349,707,365.36
06/30/1922 $22,963,381,708.31
06/30/1921 $23,977,450,552.54
07/01/1920 $25,952,456,406.16
07/01/1919 $27,390,970,113.12
07/01/1918 $14,592,161,414.00
07/01/1917 $5,717,770,279.52
07/01/1916 $3,609,244,262.16
07/01/1915 $3,058,136,873.16
07/01/1914 $2,912,499,269.16
07/01/1913 $2,916,204,913.66
07/01/1912 $2,868,373,874.16
07/01/1911 $2,765,600,606.69
07/01/1910 $2,652,665,838.04
07/01/1909 $2,639,546,241.04
07/01/1908 $2,626,806,271.54
07/01/1907 $2,457,188,061.54
07/01/1906 $2,337,161,839.04
07/01/1905 $2,274,615,063.84
07/01/1904 $2,264,003,585.14
07/01/1903 $2,202,464,781.89
07/01/1902 $2,158,610,445.89
07/01/1901 $2,143,326,933.89
07/01/1900 $2,136,961,091.67
_____

Currently, the U.S. borrows $1 billion per day.
The interest on the national debt is $1 billion per day. That’s about $360 billion per year.
So the U.S. government is borrowing each day what it owes in interest each day. That’s about one fourth of the total annual revenue that is paid in interest on the national debt, and the debt is still growing. To shrink the debt, the Federal government must pay over $1 billion per day to shrink the national debt. That is, each payment must exceed the interest, otherwise, the debt principal continues to increase.

If the U.S. government stopped borrowing $1 billion per day and started paying down the national debt by $1 billion per day, it would take another 113 years to pay off the current $7.5 trillion dollar national debt.

Don’t just blame the president(s).
Congress is more to blame for the debt than
any president. Congress approves spending. So direct your attention at Congress.

If Congress doesn’t start focusing on this debt, there will be negative economic impacts. Inflation will increase. Social Security and Medicare will cease to exist. Ironically, Congress will then increase taxes. GDP will decline. Health Care will be unaffordable. Poverty will increase. Education will decline. Businesses will fail. There will be more job losses. It will take awhile (about 20 to 40 years), but it will happen if we don’t start dealing with this crushing debt soon. When it does happen, there will be unrest, which could conceivably, lead to revolution.

NOTE: An interesting thing to note above is the acceleration of the national debt in the last 20 years.

Daniel-
Clinton had to deal with the debt legacy of Reagan and Bush Sr. This includes the interest on this debt, since all deficit spending is paid for by bonds which pay interest to the bearer when they mature. Yes, the debt did increase under Clinton, but its increases decelerated and Clinton added to that debt at a quarter of Bush’s speed. Your own figures bear what I write out, just look at them.

Bush is to blame, ultimately. His branch of the goverment asked for more money than they were taking in, and they knew what would result. Given the chance to put in checks and balances that would prevent their tax cuts from unwisely cutting into revenues in thin times, they balked. Bush signed those budgets into law, likely full well knowing the consequences. let me put it plainly: I think Bush doesn’t care. I think he hopes the economy saves the day, like he’s been told it will.

Truth is, pressure must applied at all levels, and it must come from within the Republican party. Otherwise, you will never get the results you want.

Stephen Daugherty wrote: (please see responsesbelow)…
________________
Daniel-
Clinton had to deal with the debt legacy of Reagan and Bush Sr. This includes the interest on this debt, since all deficit spending is paid for by bonds which pay interest to the bearer when they mature. Yes, the debt did increase under Clinton, but its increases decelerated and Clinton added to that debt at a quarter of Bush’s speed. ___Yes, that is correct and I do not attempt to deny that whatsoever. There was much more spending and debt under Reagan, Bush 41, and G.W. Bush._____ Your own figures bear what I write out, just look at them.

Bush is to blame, ultimately. ___The Presidents are to blame, but Congress is more to blame. Presidents come and go, but many in Congress have no term limits. Kerry has been in Congress 20 years. Teddy Kennedy has been in Congress even longer. Tom Daschle was in Congress for a long time. Many have been in Congress for decades. The 425 people in Congress are more responsible._____ His branch of the goverment asked for more money than they were taking in, and they knew what would result. Given the chance to put in checks and balances that would prevent their tax cuts from unwisely cutting into revenues in thin times, they balked. Bush signed those budgets into law, ___Yep. Bush should have vetoed a bunch of pork….but neither Democrats adn Republicans would have liked that._____likely full well knowing the consequences. let me put it plainly: I think Bush doesn’t care. I think he hopes the economy saves the day, like he’s been told it will. ___Perhaps. Afterall, few in Congress or the Executive branch have degrees in math or economics. You won’t ever catch me defending Congress or other politicians of about their irresponsible spending._____

Truth is, pressure must applied at all levels, ___That I agree with. ONE item per bill would be a good start. That way, no port can be attached to each bill, and everyone can easily see how each Congress person votes on each single item bill._____and it must come from within the Republican party. ___All parties must be responsible_____ Otherwise, you will never get the results you want. ___Citizens need to start voting out irresponsible encumbents each term until they clean up their act._____
_______________

It seems there is one piece of conservative vs. several independents in this thread.

Suggestions to independents: avoiding arguing with “me-can-never-be-wrong” right-wingers is the best way to save your time.

Yeah, don’t those conservative “me-can-never-be-wrong” right-wingers drive ya nuts ?

Maybe someone should write a book ?

“How to talk to a conservative; If you must.”

: )

Daniel, you’ll need to revise your figures tomorrow. Bush is going to sign an extension to the debt ceiling tomorrow by 800 Billion Dollars. So at the end of 2005 we will be at 8.3 Trillion national debt in addition to close to 400 Billion dollars a year of American taxes going to interest on that debt. 400 Billion per year and growing for which the U.S. taxpayer receives nothing in return for the hard work.

The 388 Billion dollar spending bill signed by Congress yesterday includes millions to keep N. Dakota birds from eating sunflowers, a few hundred million to build a new court house for Las Cruces, New Mexico and a host of other pork barrel spending. Can you justify why American federal tax dollars are being spent to build a courthouse for Las Cruces? How about the Sunflowers? Where is Bush’s veto pen? It has been out of ink for 4 years.

Daniel, you clearly don’t understand credit financing. The 370 Billion we will pay in interest this year accrues this year. The Borrowing is spending in excess of revenues and increases the national debt. By increasing the national debt, we increase the interest on that debt. Thus our debt continues to grow, which in turn increases the interest that must be paid year to year, before any revenues can be applied to budgetary spending or paying down the principal on the national debt.

Your equation of our borrowing just about as much as we are paying in interest is a snap shot view which utterly fails to represent the time dimension of credit borrowing over time and interest due on a current basis. The national debt continues to enlarge, and thus the hole future tax revenues will be poured into also deepens.

Greenspan (a Republican) stated just last week that the deficit spending is one of the greatest threats to America’s future, as well as every American tax payer in the future. His words are falling on deaf ears in the GOP and White House, despite the fact that most conservative think tanks all agree with Greenspan.(check them out, very enlightening - the GOP in control of the Congress and White House, are no longer following conservative fiscal policy).

David R. Remer,

Yes. The National Debt is becoming alarming.
Bush, the Executive Branch and Congress are spending WAY TOO much.

And it can NOT all just be blamed on the cost
of the war on terror. Too much of is pork.

Bush hasn’t vetoed anything in four years.
So Bush is also to blame.
Congress is mostly to blame for the climbing
National Debt for the last 105 years.
Voters are also responsible for ignoring the
National Debt.

Here’s what we all should consider doing:

Here’s all the U.S. Senators, Representatives, and Executive Branches contact information.

SENATORS
REPRESTATIVES
EXECUTIVE BRANCH

E-Mail this to all of them and insist on the following 9 point plan:
________________________________________________
(1) ALLOW ONLY ONE ITEM PER BILL:
Introduce and pass an “Only ONE item per bill”
amendment. This will cut out the pork currently
attached to bills consisting of thousands of pages
that no one reads or scrutinizes.
This ONE SIMPLE change will make things MUCH better.
This will allow Voters to easily see how politicians voted.

(2) TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY:
All voting on all bills must be made
public on the internet, so that everyone
can see the voting records of all
Congress persons. Transparency and
access to all information must be allowed
(the only exception would be for national
security). Transparency will effectively
discourage abuse and corruption, and
make it easier to identify those accountable.

(3) SIMPLIFY GOVERNMENT:
Start limiting the functions of the
Federal government. Initially, the
Federal government was only supposed
to provide for a National Defense.
Perhaps we should get back to that
single purpose. That would solve
a LOT of problems, and the Federal
government wouldn’t need nearly as much
money. The Federal government has
mushroomed into a bureaucracy of nightmare
proportions, and it must stop trying to
meddle and control everything.

(4) LAWS and ENFORCEMENT:
Congress, please stop over-complicating
everything, please stop creating and growing
costly entitlement programs, please stop
creating new laws that are unnecessary and
duplicate numerous existing laws.
Please simply enforce the existing laws better,
and, remove the President’s right to pardon
convicted felons. Also, ALL laws should be
based upon and derived from one very
fundamental principle: A person has the
right to do anything they wish as long as
they do not violate the inalienable rights
of any other person.
Government must enforce the laws to protect
the rights of all people.

(5) LEGAL PLUNDER:
End multi-million dollar retirement benefits
for members of Congress and the Executive branch.
Eliminate Congress’ right to vote
themselves a raise. The voters should
vote when Congress should get a raise.
Perhaps Social Security and other entitlement
systems would not now be bankrupt, and perhaps
a $8 trillion dollar National Debt would not exist,
had Congress been limited to the
same Social Security system they
plundered and mismanaged.

(6) END ENTITLEMENTS:
Phase out Social Security and Medicare,
and all other entitlement systems.
This is another form of legal plunder
and wealth redistribution.
Finalize all current recipients of
Social Security as scheduled, until their
deaths, and start paying back (or a
portion of) all funds already
paid into Social Security & Medicare.
Bite the bullet now, because it’s
only going to get worse.
The Federal government has already
proved that it can not manage it correctly.
The Federal government needs to
quit trying to put itself in the
position of redistributing wealth,
because the Federal government
always abuse it. Most of what the
Federal government does, could be
done much better at the local and state
levels. Also, much of what the Federal
government does now, doesn’t need
to be done at all. Let states decide
whether they want to foolishly implement
similar entitlement programs.

(7) BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT:
Introduce and pass a
“Balanced Budget Amendment” bill.
The ONLY exception allowed for
over-spending is for national
emergencies, and those funds are
limited ONLY for national emergencies.

(8) START PAYING DOWN THE NATIONAL DEBT:
The Federal government must begin (now)
paying $1 billion per day to pay down the debt,
which will take about 120 years to pay off completely.
The daily debt payment must slightly exceed
the daily $1 billion dollars of interest accrued daily;
otherwise the $8 trillion dollar national debt will
continue to grow larger forever.
Many will argue that this is impossible, but it is not.
The Federal government only needs about $300 billion
U.S. dollars annually for defense, $550 billion for
Social Security and Medicare. The other $400 billion
could come from spending cuts, and phasing out
Social Security and other similar entitlements would
also eventually (in about 50 years) reduce the burden.

(9) BASIC CORE PRINCIPLES:
Educate the voters and teach them
to recognize that these entitlement systems
are always mismanaged, and cleverly abused,
Voters must learn to recognize the tactics,
and methods that politicians and lawyers use to
over-complicate everything, cloud the issues,
obscure the facts, talk endlessly, tax, spend,
and legally plunder all tax payers.
Teach the voters they must learn to
keep a close watch on government, and
demand transparency wherever possible.
To ignore government invites abuse
and corruption. The Voters CAN bring about
this simple change, if they ignore the petty
partisan politics and squabbling (which
serves as a clever distraction from the
real issues). Educate the voters to recognize
and reject legal plunder. Voters must learn to
recognize and reject the greatest myth
perpetuated by pandering politicians …
that We (everyone) can all live at the expense of
the state (everyone else). Before long, everyone
is riding in the wagon, while no one is left to
push the wagon. Voters must understand that
they, the Voters, are ULTIMATELY accountable.

__________________________________________
CONCLUSION:
Many important issues exist, but
core changes must take place FIRST.
There is no hope for any improvement
where there is no common sense and
understanding of these basic core principles.
If implemented, many other subsequent improvements
would naturally follow.

QUESTION:
But, what if some politicians don’t feel compelled
to implement these 9 simple changes? Good question.
ANSWER:
Vote the incumbents out of office.
The Voters will always arrange for alternative candidates
on all ballots, and upon every election, identify the
irresponsible incumbents who voted against the
best interests of the people, and vote them out of office.
If politicians want to remain in office, they’ll have to
adhere to consider the wishes of their constituents.

If these 9 simple changes are implemented,
many more improvements will probably
subsequently result after these 9 simple
core changes.
________________________________________________

Daniel,

“Federal government was only supposed
to provide for a National Defense.
Perhaps we should get back to that
single purpose.”

If you look Defence id the largest single item in the budget.

David R. Remer wrote ( see responses below ):
Daniel, you clearly don’t understand credit financing. ____That’s a pretty arrogant thing to say. I actually know a lot about credit finance. I’ve written numerous C/C++ software programs and spreadsheets that calculate loan payments, mortgages, accrual, etc._______ The 370 Billion we will pay in interest this year accrues this year. The Borrowing is spending in excess of revenues and increases the national debt. By increasing the national debt, we increase the interest on that debt. Thus our debt continues to grow, which in turn increases the interest that must be paid year to year, before any revenues can be applied to budgetary spending or paying down the principal on the national debt. ______Who’s arguing that? The National Debt is alarming. You’re trying make an argument where none exists._______

Your equation of our borrowing just about as much as we are paying in interest is a snap shot view which utterly fails to represent the time dimension of credit borrowing over time and interest due on a current basis. ____$billion per day is about the current starting interest due daily. Of couse it changes as time goes on. You seem excited to point out something most people already know. Payments have to exceed interest to shrink the principal…otherwise the total debt continues to increase._______ The national debt continues to enlarge, and thus the hole future tax revenues will be poured into also deepens. _______Yes, who’s arguing that? Where did anyone say anything contradictory? The National Debt is becoming alarming._______

Greenspan (a Republican) ______So, you don’t like Republicans? Most all politicians want you to be distracted with the petty partisan politics.______ stated just last week that the deficit spending is one of the greatest threats to America’s future, as well as every American tax payer in the future. ____I agree with this whole heartedly.______ His words are falling on deaf ears in the GOP and White House, despite the fact that most conservative think tanks all agree with Greenspan.(check them out, very enlightening - the GOP in control of the Congress and White House, are no longer following conservative fiscal policy). ____And none of them have for many decades. All of the politicians are for sale, and in search of pork to bring home. Bush, all presidents, and all of Congress, for the last 105 years are responsible. Don’t expect Bush to want to or to be able to fix it. Only the voters can fix this. Only the voters can hope to force Congress to tax and spend responsibly. A good start would be to only allow ONE item per bill, so that we can all see how they vote (transparency).______

___________
The following simple payment schedule is
based on a simple fixed payment amount;
it does not take into account changing interest
rates, inflation, etc. But, it demonstrates that
a $8 trillion dollar National debt would take
about 128 years to pay off if the U.S. started
now paying $30.1 billion per month (about $1 billion per day), until it was paid off completely.
__________________________________________
Payment = Principal * (I * (1.0 * I)^n)/((1.0+I)^n -1.0)
n = total number of payments
I = (%Interest Rate) / (100.0 * (PaymentsPerYear))
PeriodsPerYear = 12
Periodic Interest = ((%Interest Rate)/(PeriodsPerYear * 100)) * (Remaining Principal)
__________________________________________

National Debt: $8.0000E+12 (E+12=Trillions, E+9=Billions)
Monthly Interest = $2.9998E+11 per month (beginning)
Daily interest: = $986,842,105 per day
= $41,118,421 per hour
= $685,307 per minute
= $11,422 per second

Principal = National Debt = $8.0000E+12
Periods Per Year = 12
Interest Rate % = 4.500000
Payment = 3.01E+10
Periodic Rate = 0.00375
Starting Year = 2005
Starting Month = 1

_______________________
_____ Date:__Interest_________Principal Remaining
$0.00 $8,000,000,000,000
01/01/2005 $30,000,000,000 $7,999,900,000,000
02/01/2005 $29,999,625,000 $7,999,799,625,000
03/01/2005 $29,999,248,593 $7,999,698,873,593
04/01/2005 $29,998,870,775 $7,999,597,744,369
05/01/2005 $29,998,491,541 $7,999,496,235,911
06/01/2005 $29,998,110,884 $7,999,394,346,795
07/01/2005 $29,997,728,800 $7,999,292,075,596
08/01/2005 $29,997,345,283 $7,999,189,420,879
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
05/01/2131 $969,605,730 $229,431,133,766
06/01/2131 $860,366,751 $200,191,500,517
07/01/2131 $750,718,126 $170,842,218,644
08/01/2131 $640,658,319 $141,382,876,964
09/01/2131 $530,185,788 $111,813,062,753
10/01/2131 $419,298,985 $82,132,361,738
11/01/2131 $307,996,356 $52,340,358,095
12/01/2131 $196,276,342 $22,436,634,438
01/01/2132 $84,137,379 0
02/01/2132 $0
__________

Rocky,
Entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) is the largest cost (about $600 billion annually; about 55%). Defense spending is only about 28% of the total budget.

Thank you for limiting spam & some keep your comments shorter, please (unless request editors ask you to post an article to be commented on —by Independents or non-ideological Moderate/Swing voters.

And, Adrianne, thanks for the Election Info that was on Topic.

I guess John Kerry went into the primary without a plan to win the election.

Kerry could not even stay loyal to his own party. He kept offering a republican the Vice President slot. However, John McCain kept turning him down. He was so desperate to get McCain on the ticket as Vice President that he even offered him the jobs of Vice President, Secretary Of State and Secretary Of Defense all at the same time. McCain turned it down making remarks that that was not likely even constitutional.

They had liberal thugs ransacking Bush-Cheney headquarters,
stealing Bush-Cheney signs and slashing the tires of Bush-Cheney get- out-the-vote vans on Election Day. In Colorado, they traded voter registrations for crack cocaine. In Ohio, they attempted to registered Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy.

In Colorado, they had people calling military families telling them that their sons had died in Iraq. After being corrected, they stated that their sons would die unless they voted for Kerry.

In Florida, Kerry told retired folks that Bush would take away their Social Security Checks. He insinuated to young people that if they voted for Bush, he would draft them and send them to Iraq to die. One Kerry supporter even tried to run over Katherine Harris with his car and was arrested.

John Edwards told people that if Kerry was President, Christopher Reeves would not only not have died, people in wheel chairs would get up and walk.

During the debates both Edwards and Kerry gay-baited the President and Vice President by making remarks about Mary Cheney in order to get votes.

Mrs. Kerry said that Mrs. Bush never had a real job and at various times told people to, �shove-it� and called people �scumbags� and �idiots.�

Days before the election, John Kerry went goose hunting for the first time to show people he�s just a regular guy evidently unaware that his goose had already been cooked.

In the end, after all that-Kerry got rejected not elected and the American people told him he was the wrong candidate, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dan Rather was so shocked, he almost dropped the C in CBS and is seeing red all over the place.

Ralph Thomas

First of all, neither party is above reproach.
I voted for my choice, but now we should
search for ways to fix a troubled system.

Neither Kerry or Bush have much room to
criticize others, and neither does Congress.

Seriously, distracting petty partisan politics
is exactly what the politicians like to see.
Instead of falling for that crap, scrutinize all
of the politicians. Otherwise, nothing will ever change.

See the following and send it to as many in Congress as possible. Please comment or criticize on each of the nine items.

Here’s a list of all U.S. Senators, Representatives, and Executive Branches:

SENATORS
REPRESTATIVES
EXECUTIVE BRANCH

E-Mail this to all of them and insist on the following 9 point plan:
________________________________________________
(1) ALLOW ONLY ONE ITEM PER BILL:
Introduce and pass an “Only ONE item per bill”
amendment. This will cut out the pork currently
attached to bills consisting of tens of thousands of pages
that no one reads or scrutinizes.
This ONE simple change will make things MUCH better.
This will allow Voters to easily see how politicians voted.

(2) TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY:
All voting on all bills must be made
public on the internet, so that everyone
can see the voting records of all
Congress persons. Transparency and
access to all information must be allowed
(the only exception would be for national
security). Transparency will effectively
discourage abuse and corruption, and
make it easier to identify those accountable.

(3) SIMPLIFY GOVERNMENT:
Start limiting the functions of the
Federal government. Initially, the
Federal government was only supposed
to provide for a National Defense.
Perhaps we should get back to that
single purpose. That would solve
a LOT of problems, and the Federal
government wouldn’t need nearly as much
money. The Federal government has
mushroomed into a bureaucracy of nightmare
proportions, and government must stop
trying to meddle and control everything.

(4) LAWS and ENFORCEMENT:
Congress, please stop over-complicating
everything, please stop creating and growing
costly entitlement programs, please stop
creating new laws that are unnecessary and
duplicate numerous existing laws.
Please simply enforce the existing laws better,
and, remove the President’s right to pardon
convicted felons. Also, ALL laws should be
based upon and derived from one very
fundamental LAW: A person has the
right to do anything they wish as long as
they do not violate the inalienable rights
of any other person.
Government must enforce the laws to protect
the rights of all people.

(5) LEGAL PLUNDER:
End multi-million dollar retirement benefits
for members of Congress and the Executive branch.
Eliminate Congress’ right to vote
themselves a raise. The voters should
vote when Congress should get a raise.
Perhaps Social Security and other entitlement
systems would not now be bankrupt, and perhaps
a $8 trillion dollar National Debt would not exist,
had Congress been limited to the
same Social Security system they
plundered and mismanaged.

(6) END ENTITLEMENTS:
Phase out Social Security and Medicare,
and all other entitlement systems.
This is another form of legal plunder
and wealth redistribution.
Finalize all current recipients of
Social Security as scheduled, until their
deaths, and start paying back (or a
portion of) all funds already
paid into Social Security & Medicare.
Bite the bullet now, because it’s
only going to get worse.
The Federal government has already
proved that it can not manage it correctly.
The Federal government needs to
quit trying to put itself in the
position of redistributing wealth,
because the Federal government
always abuses it. Most of what the
Federal government does, could be
done much better at the local and state
levels. Much of what the Federal
government does now, doesn’t need
to be done at all. Let the states decide
whether they want to foolishly implement
similar entitlement bureaucracies.

(7) BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT:
Introduce and pass a
“Balanced Budget Amendment” bill.
The ONLY exception allowed for
over-spending is for national
emergencies, and those funds are
limited ONLY for national emergencies.

(8) START PAYING DOWN THE NATIONAL DEBT:
The Federal government must begin (now)
paying $1 billion per day to pay down the debt,
which will take about 120 years to pay off completely.
The daily debt payment must slightly exceed
the daily $1 billion dollars of interest accrued daily;
otherwise the $8 trillion dollar national debt will
continue to grow larger forever.
Many will argue that this is impossible, but it is not.
The Federal government only needs about $300 billion
U.S. dollars annually for defense, $550 billion for
Social Security and Medicare. The other $400 billion
could come from spending cuts, and phasing out
Social Security and other similar entitlements would
also eventually (in about 50 years) reduce annual
outlay costs and National Debt.

(9) BASIC CORE PRINCIPLES:
Educate the voters and teach them
to recognize that these entitlement systems
are always mismanaged, and cleverly abused,
Voters must learn to recognize the tactics,
and methods that politicians and lawyers use to
over-complicate everything, cloud the issues,
obscure the facts, talk endlessly, tax, spend,
and legally plunder all tax payers.
Teach the voters they must learn to
keep a close watch on government, and
demand transparency wherever possible.
To ignore government invites abuse
and corruption. The Voters CAN bring about
this simple change, if they ignore the petty
partisan politics and squabbling (which
serves as a clever distraction from the
real issues). Educate the voters to recognize
and reject legal plunder. Voters must learn to
recognize and reject the greatest myth
perpetuated by pandering politicians …
that We (everyone) can all live at the expense of
the state (everyone else). Before long, everyone
is riding in the wagon, while no one is left to
push the wagon. Voters must understand that
they, the Voters, are ULTIMATELY accountable.

__________________________________________
CONCLUSION:
Many important issues exist, but
core changes must take place FIRST.
There is no hope for any improvement
where there is no common sense and
understanding of these basic core principles.
If implemented, many other subsequent improvements
would naturally follow.

QUESTION:
But, what if some politicians don’t feel compelled
to implement these 9 simple changes? Good question.

ANSWER:
Vote the incumbents out of office.
The Voters will always arrange for alternative candidates
on all ballots, and upon every election, identify the
irresponsible incumbents who voted against the
best interests of the people, and vote them out of office.
If politicians want to remain in office, they’ll have to
consider the wishes of their constituents.

If these 9 simple changes are implemented,
many more subsequent improvements would
natually follow. The United States would flourish
knowing it has a plan and is on a better path.
________________________________________________

Daniel,

“Entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) is the largest cost (about $600 billion annually; about 55%). Defense spending is only about 28% of the total budget.”

The Defence budget is the single biggest appropriation in the federal budget.

Daniel,
If America is going to change, than “We the People” need to start investing back into this country and forcing commerce back in its cage. Our fore fathers were right about allowing constitutional regulation of commerce on Local, State, and Federal levels. These regulations are not only a way of raising funds, but force businesses to behave a certain way.

National Debt, Balanced Budgets, and Effective Government are real issues, but unless we increase taxes or start investing in treasury notes so we can modrenizing our governments agencies. All other issues will still remain because of the players and the lack of the American people interest.

Rocky,

You wrote:

If you look Defence id the largest single item in the budget.

The Defence ____BTW: It’s “Defense” with an “s”____ budget is the single biggest appropriation in the federal budget.

Rocky,
I’m talking about federal spending.
Here’s a chart of federal government spending:
Spending

You’ll see that interest on the national debt is almost as much as Defense spending, and Social Security and Medicare (entitlements) EXCEEDS Defense spending by about $120 billion dollars. The three largest categories are:
___Social Security, Medicare: 2004: $550 billion
___Defense Spending: 2004: $420 billion
___Interest on Debt: 2004: $390 billion
___Other 2004: about $300 billion
________________________________________
_________________TOTAL about $1.7 trillion

So, as you can see, spending on Health and Human services exceeds Defense.
There’s no doubt that there’s lots of waste in all categories, including Defense.

Henry Schlatman,
Yes. I agree completely with all of that. However, it’s a bad idea to allow Congress to increase taxes until Congress becomes responsible and accountable. WE should NEVER increase taxes, because Congress will simply spend MORE. And Congress already has more than enough money to spend. WE first have to limit spending and pork and borrowing, and those that do it. Regarding the players and apathy, you sadly may be right. Americans must start voting out the incumbents. Unfortunately, the favorite past-time in Congress is finding ways to bring home the pork, and most of the pork is unnecessary spending, and it is robbing the taxpayers.
Pork Barrel Spending
Americans need to learn that EVERYONE can not all live at the expense of EVERYONE else. That requires education.

RETRACTION/CORRECTION (regarding spelling of “defense” and “defence”:
I apoligize. “Defence” is found in Websters 1913 dictionary:

Pronunciation: di’fens

Definition: \De*fense”\, n. & v. t.
See {Defence}.

Definition: \De*fence”\, n. & v. t.
See {Defense}.

Synonyms of “defense”: defence, demurrer, denial, refutation, vindication

Definition:
\De*fense”\, n. [F. d[‘e]fense, OF.
defense, fem., defens, masc., fr. L. defensa (cf. LL.
defensum), from defendere. See {Defend}, and cf. {Fence}.]
1. The act of defending, or the state of being defended;
protection, as from violence or danger.

In cases of defense it is best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems.

de·fence
n. & v. Chiefly British variant of “defense”.

Daniel, so what you are saying is that Social Security “AND” Medicare are greater than the Defense budget.

I am very disappointed in the people who are Independent and Third Party article writers. You are not discussing what the candidates you voted for are currently doing. Nader is presently involved in a recount in New Hampshire, and Cobb and Badnarik have joined forces for a recount in Ohio, but none of you are writing about these developments. What gives?

Has this column been reduced to a place for merely arguing various opinions rather than discussing actual News?
Watch Blog began as an _Election Blog_ and news surrounding the election isn’t over yet!
You’re failing your readers - why is this?

Rocky wrote:

Daniel, so what you are saying is that Social Security “AND” Medicare are greater than the Defense budget.

Rocky,
Yes.
In the beginning, entitlements were supposed to
be a separate trust fund, but
Congress later chose to borrow (plunder) from those
funds, so it became, essentially, part of the federal budget.
The shame of it is that the National Debt is what
should now exist in the entitlements trust fund.
This is ample proof that you should NEVER
trust governments to watch your savings for you.
This is why all entitlement systems should be discontinued
by the Federal government. It’s already bankrupt anyway.
Let state governments choose (foolishly) to implement
such systems if they want.

Based on spending (not just a budget), defense
spending is about 1/4 of all spending.
What is worrisome about spending in the
last 20 years is the acceleration.
Congress and Bush spent more
in 4 years ($1.9 trillion) than Clinton in
8 years ($1.6 trillion).

I wonder what people think will be the end result
of an $8,000,000,000,000 ( trillion ) dollar debt that
is projected to be $10 trillion by 2009 ?

Recession(s) ?
Depression ?
Revolution ?

Does anyone really believe that the
National Debt will ever be paid off ?
After all, even if Congress had the discipline to start
now paying $1 billion per day against the National
Debt, it would take about 128 years (e.g. about
the year 2132) to pay off the debt completely.
That’s going to be hard to bring about, since the
federal government is borrowing about $1 billion per day.

Does anyone really believe Social Security can be saved ?
Even though I’ve paid into the system for 32 years,
I’m not going to rely on it when I retire.
There’s going to be trouble when there’s nothing
left for.about 77 million baby boomers that paid
into Social Security their entire life, interest on
the National Debt exceeds tax revenues.
and governments are raising taxes simultaneously,

_______________________________________________
Adrienne,

Your wrote:

I am very disappointed in the people who are Independent and Third Party article writers. You are not discussing what the candidates you voted for are currently doing. Nader is presently involved in a recount in New Hampshire, and Cobb and Badnarik have joined forces for a recount in Ohio, but none of you are writing about these developments. What gives?
Has this column been reduced to a place for merely arguing various opinions rather than discussing actual News?
Watch Blog began as an _Election Blog_ and news surrounding the election isn’t over yet!
You’re failing your readers - why is this?

Why is Nader, Cobb, and Badnarik recounting votes?
Does Nader really think that there were so many errors
and problems in the vote counting to change the results,
or is it to investigate voting irregularities (which should be
investigated)

Adrienne, after the abyssmal display by the American public at the polls supporting keeping everything the same, I think all the independents and third party writers are busy trying to find jobs and visas in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland and beyond.

A hard look at the campaign issues between Bush and Kerry showed very little difference between them, and all third party candidates combined barely got over 1 million votes. It was not for lack of policy and issue contrasts from the two major parties. It was the general lack of interest and intestinal fortitude and ignorance of the 116 million or so of the electorate who chose winning and power over change for the better, that resulted in such an abyssmal showing at the polls for third party and independent candidates.

What good is it fight a corrupt electoral system if the electorate en masse could care less about anything other than winning? I am sure some of us are just taking a well deserved break, and will weigh back in. The direction of the country and the issues at play by current power holders are the only games in town at this point however.

Third Parties and independents have been rendered useless and ineffective by the Republocrat electorate mind set. The best they can do now is wait for the corruption by power in D.C. to harm 10’s of millions of Americans. When that occurs, third party and independents will find their voice again and justify the money and effort to speak loudly again for a change.

Daniel, I owe you an apology. Your comments regarding deficits and debt are reflective of an accurate understanding of the history in this area. I wrongly, and as you said, arrogantly, assumed from previous comments that your understanding of these issues were wrong. I was clearly wrong in that assumption. We apparently agree on these issues discussed. I apologize.

I think if America suddenly switched to Instant Runoff Voting as a method for electing leaders (You know, the one where you rank your choices and each candidate is compared to each other candidate - the one that’s used in almost every other Western democracy), the third party vote would instantly skyrocket. I think a lot of people who want to vote third party are too afraid to, just because that would give an advantage to the Republocrat they most dislike.

Daniel, why do you shout so much (with the bold face type)?
You wrote:
“Why is Nader, Cobb, and Badnarik recounting votes?”

There are a lot of questions regarding the fairness and accuracy of the election - things that make no sense, questions about the Diebold touch screen machines, questions over voter disenfranchisment in Ohio, questions regarding the lack of voting machines but only in Democratic precincts, etc.
Nader, Cobb, Badnarik, and yes, Kerry also, are trying to get to the bottom of those questions.

“Does Nader really think that there were so many errors
and problems in the vote counting to change the results, or is it to investigate voting irregularities (which should be
investigated)”

Possibly to the first question, definitely to the second.
Why? Because as much as Dubya would like to think he has a mandate, the election was so close that it bears looking into, whether it changes the outcome or not. Nader is doing the recount in New Hampshire only because the filing fees were only 2 thousand dollars - but he thinks there are plenty of irregularities there that may call into question a whole bunch of things which happened in many of the other states. Ohio had so many inconsistencies and problems that Cobb and Badnarik (and a few other groups like the Alliance for Democracy and The League of Pissed Off Voters) raised the money for a recount there. Florida’s results are currently being called into question, as well.

So far, Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) is the only news anchor on TV who has had enough balls to talk about what is going on - and what the “liberal media” doesn’t seem to want We the People to find out about.

If anyone is interested you might want to check these links out:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/110077402787260.xml

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/899

Here’s a message from Kerry where he alludes to what is going on with these questions about the election:

http://www.johnkerry.com/petition/everychild.php

I apologize also to you and Rocky.
I should not have belittled someone’s spelling.
Especially, when my own ignorance reveals that
I didn’t know that defence is the common
variation in Britain and Australia for what is spelled as defense in the U.S.

Adrienne,

I only bold some things
to make them more visually identifiable as
a response. Sometimes, I misplaced some
of the bold formats.
Sorry about that.

However, I thought all UPPERCASE was
considered SHOUTING?

I’m not sure bold
is also considered shouting ? Especially
when only portions are bolded.

I write a lot of technical documentation,
and the use of bold,
underline, and italics are
commonly accepted as ways to emphasize or
visually differentiate blocks of text.
Thus, that is why I used bold responses within
another persons’ writing; to visually make
it easier to distinguish what one person
wrote and what another person responded.

For example:

Adrienne wrote (see responses below):
___________________________
Possibly to the first question, definitely to the second.
Why? Because as much as Dubya would like to think he has a mandate, the election was so close that it bears looking into, whether it changes the outcome or not. Nader is doing the recount in New Hampshire only because the filing fees were only 2 thousand dollars - but he thinks there are plenty of irregularities there that may call into question a whole bunch of things which happened in many of the other states. ____Very well. No argument there. I also believe irregularities should be investigated. Any crimes discovered should be prosecuted.____ Ohio had so many inconsistencies and problems that Cobb and Badnarik (and a few other groups like the Alliance for Democracy and The League of Pissed Off Voters) raised the money for a recount there. Florida’s results are currently being called into question, as well. ____Again, that’s understandable. We should all know the truth and we should prosecute anyone involved in any voting crimes.____

So far, Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) is the only news anchor on TV who has had enough balls to talk about what is going on - and what the “liberal media” doesn’t seem to want We the People to find out about. ____Maybe, the media doesn’t feel like there’s substantial evidence yet?____
_________________________

Daniel, bold appears as shouting. The customary useage here is the use of the em tags instead of the b tags, which creates italicized text which sets quoting off from 1st person wordage without appearing to shout.

Adrienne, Theresa Amato, Nader’s campiagn manager has the following to say regarding the recounts:

Nader-Camejo believes every vote should be counted correctly. Unlike the Democratic Party’s abdication here, those are not just words for us – they require action to ensure every vote – be it write-in, provisional, absentee, paper or electronic — is counted regardless of whether it affects outcomes at the national, state and local levels. Therefore, we are looking at reports of irregularities in the vote count not just in New Hampshire but in other states to determine what steps, if any, are possible or required to protect the vote.

They are also seeking additional contributions as the second phase of the recount in New Hampshire will require another $12,000.00.

For those wishing to contribute to insure every vote is counted, click on this Nader link.

Free Press.org

Bob Fitrakis
“How the Ohio election was rigged for Bush”
November 22, 2004

“Following four community public hearings in Ohio about election irregularities and voter suppression – two in the capitol, Columbus, and one each in Cincinnati and Cleveland – a clear pattern and practice of voter disenfranchisement is emerging.
In order to understand the extent of the voter suppression in the inner city of Columbus and Franklin County, overwhelmingly Democratic wards, start with the phrase: “Machines Placed By Close Of Polls” on the last page of the county’s 17-page voting machine allocation report.

This phrase at the end of the spreadsheet may be the key in unraveling a deliberate and unprecedented plan to repress African American and poor central city voters. In statistics, when you see a bizarre definition or measurement, it sends up red flags. Why doesn’t the Franklin County Board of Elections have a number for “Machines Placed By Opening Of Polls”?
It now appears that the Franklin County BOE placed scores of machines too late in the day to alleviate the long lines of voters who gathered to vote before work and at lunchtime.

To better understand what the BOE did on Election Day, consider the following analogy. The near east side of Columbus needs four buses to move the population to the downtown business district. Each bus will move 100 people. At the start of the business day at 6:30am, there are only two buses running and another one with a dead battery. After a few hours, the third bus is put into use. Finally, towards the close of the work day at 6pm, a fourth bus is deployed. The Central Ohio Transit Authority then reports it had four buses operating by the end of the business day. What matters is not how many buses, or voting machines, were operating at the end of the day, but rather how many were there to service the people during the morning and noon rush hours.

Questions remain as to where these machines were placed and who had access to them during the day.
Pacifica reporter Evan Davis reported that a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day. The county’s own documents reveal that they had 2,866 “Machines Available” on Election Day. This would mean that amid the two to seven hour waits in the inner city of Columbus, at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day. Ward holds the exclusive three-year contract to deliver voting machines in Franklin County.

If the BOE only had 2,741 placed initially, this would explain the long lines in Columbus and voters leaving the polls during the morning voting rush. According to the Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE), in the city of Columbus, where voters waited in the heavily Democratic wards between 2-7 hours to cast the vast majority of their votes for John Kerry, voter turnout was 52.7%. In the affluent white suburbs of Columbus, with far more voting machines available, the turnout figure was 76.15%.

By contrast, 66.31% of registered voters went to the polls in Cincinnati and turnout was 76.82% in the suburbs. In Cincinnati, where more voting machines were available, the difference between the city and suburbs was only 10.5% compared to 23.45% in the Columbus area. Cincinnati and Columbus have similar demographics.

The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that 68 voting machines were never placed on Election Day. In addition, Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted on Friday, November 19, that 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day.
Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy criticized Damschroder for calling the elections “well-funded and well-planned and that problems could not have been averted, …” according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Damschroder, the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party, told the Franklin County Commissioners, “From our perspective, this election was a success.”
Despite an increased registration of more than 167,253 new voters, Damschroder admits he ran the election with a “fixed and exhausted” pool of voting machines, the Dispatch reported. Kilroy pointed out that Damschroder and Franklin County election officials told her “We’re fine, we’re fine” and never requested additional money over the initial allocation.

The Washington Post reported “Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Control’s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system.” Franklin County’s voting machine allocation report shows that Damschroder deployed his Danaher (formerly Shooptronics) voting machines, which have been in use since 1992, in a formula that favored Bush over Kerry.

In precinct 55-B on Columbus’ near east side, there were 1,338 registered voters and, according to Franklin County Board of Elections estimates, 956 active voters who had voted in the last two federal elections. Despite voter registration being up 17%, and by the BOE’s own guidelines the polling place requiring ten machines (one per 100 voters), the polling site had only three machines, one less than for the 2000 elections.

The Election Protection Coalition that visited the voting site between 7:30-8:30 a.m. documented a dozen people leaving the polls, six to go to work and six who were either elderly or handicapped. But things were worse in other areas of Columbus.

In precinct 1-B where there were 1,620 registered voters, a 27% increase in voter registration, the precinct had five voting machines in 2000 and only three in 2004. Where did they go? Out to Republican enclaves like Canal Winchester, where two machines were added since 2000, for a total of five to service 1,255 registered voters? Or were they re-routed to Dublin 2-G where 1,656 registered voters apparently needed six machines, twice the number of Columbus’ 1-B?

Nearby in Dublin precinct 3-C, 910 registered voters were allocated four voting machines. No doubt machines were shifted from precincts like Columbus 44-G with 1,620 voters and registration up 25%, which lost one machine from the 2000 elections to 2004.

In Cleveland, where a public hearing was held on Saturday, November 20, there was a different pattern of voting irregularities. These include heavily Democratic wards with abnormally low reported rates of voter turnout, three under 20%. In Precinct 6-C where Kerry beat Bush 45 votes to one, allegedly only 7.1% of the registered voters cast ballots. In precinct 13-D where Kerry received 83.8% of the vote, only 13.05% reportedly voted. In precinct 13-F where Kerry received 97.5%, the turnout was reported to be only 19.6%.

One explanation comes from Irma Olmedo, who provided the Free Press with a written statement of her activities in the heavily Hispanic ward 13, which contained the three low voter turnout precincts.

“Ohio does not have bilingual ballots and this disenfranchises many Latino voters who are not totally fluent in English … there were 13 poll workers at the school and none knew Spanish. Some could not even find the names of the people on the list because they couldn’t understand well when people said their names… . Some people put their punch card ballots in backwards when they voted and discovered that they couldn’t punch out the holes. They had not read the instructions which were in English, that they had to turn the card around in order to vote,” Olmedo stated.

Olmedo translated at precinct 13-O, where 90% of the votes were for Kerry and only 53 votes were counted. The turnout of 21% was due to the lack of Spanish instructions and the misspelling of names: “I noticed that one named Nieves was misspelled as Nieues and the pollworkers were not able to find his name, these people were told to complete a provisional ballot because their names were not on the list.”

In Cuyahoga County, according to the Secretary of State’s website there are 24,788 provisional ballots, most of them from the city of Cleveland, not its surrounding suburbs. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell served as Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Ohio reelection committee.

There also seems to be an abnormally high vote count for third party candidates who received less than one-half of one percent of the statewide vote total combined. For example, in precinct 4-F, the right-wing Constitutional Law candidate Peroutka received 215 votes to Bush’s 21 and Kerry’s 290. In this precinct, Kerry received 55% of the vote where Gore received 91% of the vote in the year 200. These numbers suggest that Kerry’s votes were inadvertently or intentionally shifted to Peroutka.

In Cincinnati, sworn testimony was taken on vote buying, the lack of machines in African American neighborhoods and the deliberate destruction of new voter registration cards by a private company hired to process the forms.

Exit polls on Election Day from both the polling firm Zogby International and CNN projected John Kerry winning the state of Ohio. University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven Freeman calculated the odds that the exit polls in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania all being wrong are 250,000,000 to one. Pollster John Zogby, President of Zogby International, is quoted as telling the Inter Press Service of Stockholm that “something is definitely wrong.”
Zogby commented that he was concerned about the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official vote tallies stating “We’re talking about the free world here.”
The Alliance for Democracy-Ohio is preparing a lawsuit challenging the outcome of Ohio’s election results due to the massive voting irregularities that have emerged in sworn testimony and affidavits.”

Regarding Election / Voting Fraud / Bio-metrics

It seems like we will never be rid of voting fraud until either:
(1) we all become perfect and honest , OR
(2) we implement bio-metrics and other
methods that create transparency and
make fraud much more difficult.

The biggest problem with current methods
of identification is that none are reliable.
It’s much too easy to make a Drivers’ License,
Passport, Voter Registration Card,
Credit Cards, Birth Certificate,
Social Security Card, etc.
It’s too easy to vote more than once.

Bio-metrics could even eliminate the
need for a Driver’s License, Passport, etc.
No need to carry those things around anymore.
Often, police stop criminals for a mere
traffic violation without knowing that person
is wanted for a serious crime, because the
person has presented a fake Driver’s License.

BENEFITS of BIO-METRICs:
(1) Bio-metrics could easily eliminate
almost all problems with identification, voting
registration, etc. (using finger prints, retina,
iris, face, and eventually DNA information).
(2) Computerization and several separate
independent (non-replicated) nationwide
databases could quickly verify identities,
and make it very difficult to falsify and
manipulate information.
(3) Voters could verify their own vote.
(4) Criminals and illegal aliens could be traced
or denied use of mass-transit systems (e.g.
subways, airlines, buses) if they could easily
and quickly be identified. The other day, a
plane leaving France destined for the U.S.
had to return because a person on board
was on the Terror watch list. It would have
been nice if that had been known before
departure. Thus, it could make it difficult for
criminals to move about.
(5) Identity theft would be reduced or eliminated.
This is currently a BIG problem that causes
many people a lot of grief and expense.
Bio-metrics could be used to quickly identify
fraudulent purchases. For instance, it’s difficult
to be in Miami and Seattle at the same time.
Bio-metrics could be used to more easily locate
the perpetrators of such crimes.
(6) Voter fraud would be reduced or eliminated.
(7) Property Theft could be reduced if owner
identity information was stored within
certain property.
(8) It could conceivably help to locate missing
persons, children, etc.
(9) It could provide valuable information in the
event of an accident.
(10) It would no longer be necessary to
carry around a Driver’s License, Passport, Credit Cards, etc.
Simply use your finger-print, iris, face, retina, or DNA.
(11) The sum result could increase security
and safety for all citizens, and help make
law enforcement more efficient and effective.

There’s many other possible benefits.
Of course, many will oppose this due to
fears that the information will be abused and
used somehow against honest citizens.
That’s possible perhaps, but it would not be
undetected or tolerated for long.

It will probably happen anyway someday.
$Billions are already being spent now to develop
numerous bio-metric systems. The government
and some corporations are already using
bio-metrics internally.

So, Daniel, what you’re saying is Orwell was only 20 years off on his prediction.

Yep !

It’s almost here now. Check it out…
_____________
border security
GCN.com
symposium
Ethics
BioMetrics
tibs
BlackwellSynergy
_______
Just don’t let them start burning books :)
NinePointPlanToFixUSA
_______

Not really.
We’re a long way from the world portrayed in Orwell’s 1984, or Fahrenheit 451.
Biometrics could offer a lot of advantages, but the potential abuses must be closely watched. But, then, we should always keep a close watch on government. To ignore government is to invite corruption.