Has kos ever apologized for shutting down the discussion of OH 2004?

[EFerrari]

I never read that site after he did that.

But I'm curious. Did he ever say anything about what was found in Ohio? I know this is a little OT in this forum.

[ORDagnabbit]

1. No because KOS is a tool and has no real need for transparent and verifiable elections

[EFerrari]

2. That's sort of what I suspected but thought I'd ask instead of assuming. n/t

[truedelphi]

5. I'm delighted to hear that

I'm in your good company!

[Howardx]

3. he had a front page post this morning

making fun of people who thought there were irregularities in new hampshire if that tells you anything

[truedelphi]

4. Onlyproves to us that haven't been going there why we don't

Bother going there.

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. I think much of this is mythical, frankly

Here is kos in September 2004 promoting a diary about Blackwell's paper-weight hijinks.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/29/121813/53">Here is kos on October 29 talking about late attempted purges.

So, kos was front-paging Conyers Report content before the election. It's a matter of record.

Here is the debut of "Armando's Challenge" (I think some drafts may've been posted earlier) -- and here is the version that Armando front-paged. georgia10 later became a front-pager herself.

Here is Febble's kick-ass diary on machine misallocation in Franklin County, and here is another kick-ass diary, for which Febble was ba-- no, just kidding. I don't know that anyone has ever gotten into trouble at DKos for posting solid evidence-based diaries about election fraud. In fact, some pretty lame-ass stuff survives.

Here is where kos says of Florida-13, "As is, this election appears to have been stolen."

And Here is where kos says, "South Carolina needs to move to voting machines with a verified paper trail." But apparently we're supposed to be mad about that diary, because he also complained about "morons across the internet charging fraud" -- which, I've got to say, I remember actually happening (I can't verify the "morons" part), and I think the DU mods would support me on that.

What kos says -- and what kos appears actually to mean -- is that he opposes "bullshit conspiracy theories." Admittedly that term is somewhat subjective, but as far as I can see, anyone who can't identify any bullshit conspiracy theories about 2004 isn't trying very hard.

If anyone actually has evidence that kos "is a tool and has no real need for transparent and verifiable elections," then it should be presented. Personally, I think it's silly to cast this guy as an enemy. I'm sure he has a big ego, I'm sure he's sometimes rude, I'm sure he's sometimes wrong, but I daresay those things could be said of other people as well.

[mod mom]

7. Will you explain to me why Fitrakis' (et al) investigative work was good enough for Conyers

and the House Judiciary (and the Congressional Progressive Caucus for that matter) but not good enough for kos? It must mean that Markos holds higher standards than Chairman Conyers I guess :eyes:

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. what are you saying?

If you want to set up an argument between Conyers and Kos, you need to start by identifying something that they actually disagree about, then examine why they disagree.

Are you saying 'Fitrakis thinks the election was stolen, Conyers used some of Fitrakis's stuff, therefore if Kos doesn't think the election was stolen, then he disrespects Conyers'? That's thin. And it's totally personalized, shedding no light on what Kos actually thinks about anything.

I'm not especially interested in Kos's opinions as such, but if people are going to characterize them, why not get them right?

[EFerrari]

8. I have no investment in tarring him. Am I mistaken that he shut down

the debate about 2004?

[Febble]

9. Yes, that is a mistake

Kos has never, to my knowledge, shut down evidence-based debate about election fraud, and at least some diaries on the subject have been front-paged, including Georgia10's amazing review of the evidence in Ohio.

[EFerrari]

13. That's so odd. Because I distinctly remember that he did

around January 2005. I was just trying to figure out how to register over there and then decided that there was no need to.

[OnTheOtherHand]

11. part of the problem is...

some people feel that they are contributing to a "debate" when, in good faith, they post misinformation that some very persuasive (and often very sincere) person represented as truth -- and, in some sense, they are. But apparently Kos and a lot of the front-pagers got sick of rehashing those parts of the "debate," rather like the DU admins and mods recently got sick of rehashing silly stuff about New Hampshire -- and make no mistake, there was silly stuff about New Hampshire.

I imagine that if you ran a discussion board (or maybe you do!), you would at least be tempted to delete on sight any post that so much as mentioned Bev Harris (ETA: in a positive way, I meant). Probably you would impose some limits, at least. It's fair to say, I think, that you don't consider Bev a reliable source of information and insight. If you restricted Bev-related content in any way, some people would in fact attack you as a left-wing gatekeeper who was trying to control or shut down the "debate" on election integrity -- no matter how often you stated agreement with key election integrity priorities. People would (and, I think, do) accuse you of vicious personal attacks on True American Patriots. And, in general, they would mean it.

For purposes of this illustration, it really doesn't matter what either/any of us thinks Bev's motives are. As it happens, I think you have a harder line on Bev than I do, which makes it an interesting example. My point is that it isn't so hard to understand both Kos's point of view and that of his critics. (Of course the example won't work if you truly don't understand why anyone trusts Bev.)

[EFerrari]

12. I don't care about that grifter's motives. They are none of my business.

Her destructive behavior is. And I do understand why people trust her. She's manipulative as hell and most decent people try to see the best in others.

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. there ya go

I agree, the motives are irrelevant. But anyway, my post wasn't 'really' about Bev. It's about the phenomenon of a particularized hostility toward a certain kind of behavior being misinterpreted or characterized as a generalized hostility toward "election integrity."

Did Kos ban some people? Absolutely. Did he "shut down discussion"? I would say absolutely not. Do some people firmly believe that he did? Of course.

[EFerrari]

15. What in the heck am I remembering then? lol

There was a long sort of upset post by him iirc in or around Jan 2005, with an announcement that OH was off limits. Maybe someone else remembers better than I do or ? I stopped going over there at that time and have no idea about what has been happening since then unless it gets posted here.


But I do see what you're getting at -- that the part can be mistaken for the whole.

[Febble]

16. Well, Kos was persuaded

as am I, that Kerry didn't win the popular vote as some have implied is evidenced by the exit polls. He was prepared to front-page, on occasions, coherent arguments that the election was unjust, especially in Ohio, and even coherent arguments that Kerry might have won Ohio and thus the presidency (hence Georgia10's front-paged diary, which was the culmination of several weeks work that included contributions from a great many posters).

But not putting diaries on the front page of your blog is not the same thing as "shutting down the discussion" of a subject. There was plenty of discussion, and, as I said, some of it even got front-paged.

[EFerrari]

17. Something happened over there. I remember reading this, for example,

although it's earlier than the action I am thinking of. This is the last paragraph of the entry:

I fully expect to be troll rated since that seems to be the new deal here at KOS with those who aren't toeing, for want of a better term, the party line. So be it. But speaking truth to power is still the right thing to do, whether it is to the Old Guard of the party or, in this case, the Nouveaux Guard as reflected at sites such as DailyKos. So, if I offend you, you might wish to examine why within yourself, rather than just be offended because it's easy to dismiss what I've said, that way. But in the end, that's up to you. We all have free will, after all.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/15/9734/4841

[gkhouston]

18. I thought that something happened later, say around the time the

electoral college votes were officially received? I remember there being some good things posted at dailykos before then, although usually not on the front page, and then bam! it was The Subject Which Hath Sprouted Cooties. That was when (and why) I stopped visiting dailykos on a regular basis.

[Febble]

20. Well, the thing is

that DKos isn't moderated by either moderators or by Kos. But people who hang around a lot eventually acquire "Trusted User" status, and can award zero rates to posts (non TU members used to be stuck with 1 to 4, but I think now it's only 4). And after enough troll ratings, a post automatically disappears from non TU view.

So "I fully expect to be troll-rated" means I expect other users will troll-rate me. But the thing is, you CAN'T troll-rate a diary (or you couldn't then) and Shanikka knew that. So she knew her diary would stay up, and it did. It was up there for ages, because it was massively recommended by:

Meteor Blades, jcbhan, JD SoOR, Serephin, pontificator, Leslie in CA, Marisacat, kimo, sdf, gong, Ace Pumpkin, colleen, Colorado Luis, racerx, edverb, spyral, MRL, Thumb, Passing Shot, Lestatdelc, Glenn Rehn, wilfred, selise, anna, Rumblelizard, Roadie, nattering nabob, zeke L, Mavin, libby, scott, cslewis, BrooklynBoy, steveb, DavidW in SF, Preston, Go Vegetarian, nofundy, EmmaAnne, SteveLCo, zentiger, MediaRevolution, Jon Meltzer, bullcity, Nathan in MD, daria g, kn74, estraven, Cowalker, Mogolori, xysrl, Peace JD, James Benjamin, Lcohen, elizsan, musing graze, randompost, BCF, amoses, chrischross, Magrardy, murphy, SMucci, Grand Poobah, lanshark, Kansas, raincat100, Rayne, SarahLee, hyperbolic pants explosion, dalemac, bluecayuga, Dancing Larry, Marie, NYCee, kate mckinnon, gaianne, pluffmud, Trendar, veracious, ali in nyc, Ivan, AlanF, Oregon Bear, Tulip, moon in the house of moe, yerioy, Sedge, gattogrosso, katerina, Jeff Simpson, CA JAY, aed, GreenSooner, Delaware Dem, Gooserock, Pandora, pHunbalanced, TrueBlueMajority, Tuffy, Categorically Imperative, msl, mattman, its simple IF you ignore the complexity, juls, RunawayRose, wytcld, Winger, SpiderHole, DjW, Citizen Clark, FaeryWalsh, destiny6, doug r, Conshieguy, michael in chicago, my dixie wrecked, Elizabeth D, kolors, Common Sense Mom, billlaurelMD, Andrew C White, bornadem, Planet B, moosepa, shumard, DCDemocrat, Liberation Learning, Imp of the Perverse, histopresto, Calee4nia, indyjones48, JaneKnowles, yatdave, LEP, baracon, Lufah, spideymike, beagleandtabby, cybo, sandra1113, etatauri, dsb, djinniya, moira977, ignatz, DEA, movie buff, bubbles, lostian1, ashke, bcb, elial, savior self, whozat, jeremyr13, lilorphant, ackfoo, voltayre, Carnacki, wild salmon, object16, Joe B, Flora, mysteve, twistandshout, bumblebums, givmeliberty, outofthebox, cgilbert01, editman, bookt, FirePombo, bookbear, HighSticking, Entheate, GreekGirl, wallyh, AbyssAndApex, Predator Saint, Ruth in OR, Bogleg, dnamj, Christopher Day, JollyBuddah, memberofthejury, Plan9, copyboy, Soy Lechithin, Eternal Hope, RubDMC, BTF, fabooj, Polarmaker, catnip, DJ Adequate, checkmate, eyeswideopen, vinifera, jpschmid, mlafleur, Cho, joyous, EvieCZ, tyler93023, Ash Tree, concernedamerican, hoodooguru, bronte17, KB, UpstateVlad, Intellectually Curious, northcountry, segmentis, westegg, indybend, Dusty, GeekGirl, cyberKosFan, JLongs, landrew, macdust, mentaldebris, Bug, amsterdam, Mary Julia, tompaine2004, brooklynben, futureexpat, understandinglife, perfecttiling, Juan Pablo, Tacoma Narrows, jos, MD patriot, LFischer, TinFoilTiara, Catriana, polluck0, chaminade, desiree, brown girl in the ring, jmanyeah, kingcritical, biscobosco, ShadowRunning, quake, RabidNation, bigskiphazzy, KMc, wickerman26, stevetat, joe pittsburgh, brackdurf, Crimson Buddha, shock, Big Jack Stark, upstate guy, rimroot2shoes, sukeyna, rum, political, repeat, Darknyte7, mkfarkus, Sasha Bear, kgerber, DickSteele, Nicholas Phillips, ewokninja, Frederick Clarkson, llih, someRaven, PoliSigh, badlands, nargel, larryrant, timeno, GinnyfromWI, Mean Green, Bearpaw, superba, kaus, bobsquatch, Brian Nowhere, Shaniriver, Major Tom, ctsteve, setb, diana04, potaroo, nowness, blueheron, Alna Dem, debraz, Disobey The Pope, tejassaluki, nerro, Alohaleezy, jbalazs, sonandar, Janet Strange, c1star, SpaceDust, deafmetal, b6, ricardo4, BarbinMD, Rithmck, shoreliner, rcvanoz, Miss Alabama, NYC Sophia, HelenAnneC, astrodud, chk89, Miss Jones, coconutjones, pointsoflight, Chicago Lulu, sympa, dove, Sycamore, Mindmouth, SKB, visitor, casperr, limaike, DianeL, Febble, ajr1111, poultrynow, brainwave, candice, grannyhelen, alivingston, Timoteo, Jay Boilswater, NotInMyName, Rageaholic, TXsharon, Sorceress Sarah, SeattleLiberal, GrainofSand, Voting Dem, Andrea inOregon, cdelia, bartona, duncanidaho, Fearless Jupiter, wont get fooled again, spiggz, wdrath, OuijaBoy, newore, sidv60, yarps, Black Maned Pensator, joan reports, Oy the Billybumbler, Benjamin Brothers, chantedor, Chirons apprentice, politichic, DeanFan84, Roger Otip, Nan, Sychotic1, PitPat, Ottawa Guy, mnaware, applegal, Maria in Pgh, fromthecorner, Calidrissp, jmknapp, Illegitimi non carborundum, Ascendent, DriftawayNH, leesanne, produceus, Bedouin, cincinnati blues, Eddie Haskell, sommervr, lcrp

including, Meteor Blades, a highly respected front-pager. Also me. In fact I'm wondering if you found it from one of my links, as I've linked to it a lot. I think it is one of the best pieces written on the subject of electoral injustice in that election.

Kos didn't front-page it, and IMO, he should have, but actually it got more exposure in the diaries, as it was kept at the top of the rec list for longer than front-page pieces tend to (on Daily Kos, only recommended diaries get "kicked" - front-paged ones don't).

But he certainly didn't shut it down, as you can see.


(edited to fix tags)

[OnTheOtherHand]

19. here's what you are looking for, I think

The Fraudsters and electoral reform
(I wasn't active on DKos at the time -- don't think I even had an account yet.)

An excerpt -- I recommend that you read the whole thing.

If we want to talk fraud, then by all means, do so. Reform? The system obviously needs it. But "Kerry won" nonsense? I'm sick of it. I'm sick of Bev Harris, clearly a headcase who has burned every bridge that paved her way to prominance.

I admit that I have trouble keeping track of all the trouble Bev Harris has caused. I thought I was being more hypothetical than that.

[Febble]

21. I'd forgotten that one.

It bears re-reading, as do the pieces he links to at the end, Georgia10's big piece, and a diary by eugene.

[troubleinwinter]

22. It's hardly a secret

what my opinions of Bev Harris are.

A frequent contributor to this forum PMed me a few days ago expressing the opinion that links to Bev's site and rants should probably be banned from DU. I disagreed.

Bev (and her multitudinous sockpuppets) has been banned, a proper and necessary action.

I don't support banning links to her posts (except directly to her donation links). I respect that DU admins have permitted open discussion and debunking of her unadulterated bullshit.

"I imagine that if you ran a discussion board... you would... be tempted to delete on sight any post that so much as mentioned Bev Harris"

Surely, it would have been simpler and easier for Mods/Admins to shut down these highly incendiary threads.

I think DU Admin has shown openness in permitting discussion of a difficult, controversial and unpleasant subject.

[OnTheOtherHand]

24. I think I agree

Basically, wherever board admins (whatever the board) place themselves on this and related issues, they can expect some guff from all sides. I've given DU admins some guff myself, but I hope I've been respectful about it.

I don't really care whether people like Kos's policy decisions or not. Different boards, different rules. But I think it's weird to portray someone who has called for a DRE ban as an enemy of election integrity.

[Land Shark]

23. Fact: interpreting the secret vote counts in 2004, 2006 or 2008 is a political Rorschach test

and as such, pretty much everyone can see what they want. There's no inherent validity in endorsing the speculations of "respectable" pundits who have pollyanna attitudes about possible cheating vs endorsing things more like "conspiracy theories." To the extent Kos, or anyone else, takes a pure side one way or the other they have precious little or no evidence to support doing so, and so it's an exercise of pure bias. (I'm not saying kos as shut down the debate now or before, even though charges of "conspiracy theory" tend to do precisely that, i'm just saying that to the extent this is true, it's pure bias since there's equal OR LESS evidence to support the reported vote counts than there is to support alternative evidence).

All because virtually all of the evidence of the counts that would settle the issue is deliberately kept secret, creating the Political Rorschach test phenomenon I'm talking about.

[Febble]

25. Geez, Paul

that is a classic, even for you: "to the extent kos, or anyone else, takes a pure side..." If a position is only taken "to an extent" then it's not exactly "pure" is it? "To the extent that this water is uncontaminated, it is pure".

And in any case Kos's position was by no means "pure", as can be seen in this post here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/3/135759/4341

And what "pure bias" means, I frankly have no idea.

And of course interpreting the "secret vote counts" isn't a "Rorschasch test". I'll admit that the way some people have approached the data has sometimes looked rather rather Rorschach-like, but there is such a thing as systematic investigation and evidence-based inference, and plenty of that has been done.

And it is simply not true that "there's equal OR LESS evidence to support the reported vote counts". There is plenty of corroborative evidence to suggest that Bush got more votes than Kerry. There is also plenty of evidence that Kerry should have got many more votes in the official count had the election been clean.

But "fraud-of-the-gaps" arguments don't advance the cause of electoral justice, IMHO.

BTW, you might be interested in this historical document:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/14/151344/81/515/79822

[Land Shark]

26. How about, ALL opinions on political Rorschach tests are BS

maybe that's more clear.

It's either secret vote count (which it is) in which case it's a Rorschach test to interpret that count or claim evidence to support it since a zillion things can happen on the way to the voting booth (not just voter suppression, but that too).

As Hobbes I think (first) pointed out when underlying terms are not defined debate is necessarily irresolvable differences of opinion.

Or, alternatively, its not secret vote counting at all (enter land of absurdity here) on electronic vote counting machines and all underlying data and so forth will be disclosed in which case we could get somewhere eventually. But we know that's not going to happen, not even in a congressional election contest like FL-13 separated according to "official" results by only a few hundred votes where the trial judge denied discovery into the code running the machines.

As far as Febble's claim that goes far afield to Bush and kerry: There's not any 'corroborative evidence' supporting a bush victory that didn't ALSO exist the minute prior to the election vote counting getting started (i.e. just before there were any vote counts) -- so such arguments/trends, etc. aren't really any direct evidence at all of the real count. At least there's No ADMISSIBLE evidence relevant to those counts since the very definition of ballot or holdings related to ballot in jurisdictions i've read is that NOTHING outside the ballot itself is allowed to impeach or modify the meaning of what's on the ballot. The ballot stands alone, so to speak. The ballot counts, of course, are the only "real deal". The examples you seize on to support the idea of a bush victory would not be admissible in court to show that the loser truly was the winner. Possibly they might be admissible for the purpose of showing a new election was needed because we don't know the true winner, but that would depend and probably vary around the country

All of the anecdotal stories one could tell to support one side or the other don't get us anywhere. What matters is the vote counts, and we've got Febble hovering over those vote counts to take out exit pollsters for their actual or alleged sins, leaving us with nothing but secret vote counts which are nothing but pure conclusions, without any evidence to support them.

[Febble]

27. Well, not really more clear

A Rorschasch test is a stimulus that has no intrinsic meaning, so that any meaning that the subject infers from it is deemed to be purely from the subject.

The votes counted in the 2004 have plenty of intrinsic meaning. And the exit polls corroborate them, in that there is strong correlation between the exit poll estimates of vote-share, and official vote share.

What is interesting, of course, is that the correlation isn't perfect, and that there is an overall bias, suggesting that either the exit poll over-estimated Kerry's vote share or the official count underestimated.

And given the justified suspicion over the integrity of the official count, it is worth examining the evidence to evaluate the probability that the latter was the case.

But this process isn't anything like a "Rorschasch test". The data is highly meaningful, and lurking within it are some answers.

Kos was persuaded that the answer was that Kerry didn't win the popular vote, and that he probably didn't win Ohio. That's not Kos reading Rorschash inkblots, that's Kos reading systematic analysis from people who had looked at the actual data. And, as you will see if you actually read the piece I linked to, that he was perfectly sympathetic to the view that that the election was unjust. What he wasn't sympathetic to was the view that Kerry didn't really lose.

As for the rest of your post, I can't actually make any sense of it.

What does this mean:

As far as Febble's claim that goes far afield to Bush and kerry: There's not any 'corroborative evidence' supporting a bush victory that didn't ALSO exist the minute prior to the election vote counting getting started (i.e. just before there were any vote counts) -- so such arguments/trends, etc. aren't really any direct evidence at all of the real count.

Or this:

and we've got Febble hovering over those vote counts to take out exit pollsters for their actual or alleged sins, leaving us with nothing but secret vote counts which are nothing but pure conclusions, without any evidence to support them.

I honestly have no idea what your point is.

[Land Shark]

28. Feedback from others is that they get it. So I'm satisfied.

I know from past posts you don't defend the secret counts, so I'm resting my case. The rest is detail, and often irrelevant to the core problem

[Febble]

29. Look, Paul

You used my name twice in your posts. Please explain what you are contending in regard to me. Perhaps others "get it" - but I don't, and if I don't, I can't either defend myself, or, alternatively concur.

Please clarify.