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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 12:06 PM
Original message
Huge disapproval of Bush & his policies points to election fraud
Bush's dismal approval ratings--since before the election, sinking to FORTY-NINE PERCENT on his inauguration day (!)--underscores the mountain of evidence of election fraud. The opinion polls have been demonstrating this, time and again, across the board, on every issue, and consistently now for two years. Recent polls show support for Bush and policies sinking to unprecedented levels. This man and his gang of mass murderers and thieves does not represent the majority of Americans.

Here's the latest (from the AP-Ipsos poll):

"The public's dissatisfaction with President Bush and the Republican-led Congress is growing…. The Republican president's job approval is at 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. Only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of the work being done by Congress, according to an AP-Ipsos poll."

"Bush's job approval was at 49 percent in January, the same month in which he was sworn in for a second term, while Congress' was at 41 percent."


"The number supporting Bush's handling of some domestic issues dipped between March and April, to 42 percent for the economy and 38 percent for issues such as education and health care, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs."

"Support for the president's approach to his top domestic priority, Social Security, remained at 36 percent, while 58 percent oppose it."


"The president's poll standing has been in the mid-40s to low-50s for the past two years, said Matthew Dowd, who was a strategist and pollster for Bush in the 2004 presidential campaign."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_AP_IPSOS_POLL?SITE=PAPIT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=election.htm

Apr 8, 10:42 PM EDT

-----

And here's February:

NYT/CBS poll 3/3/05

--63% disagree with Bush domestic policy
--58% disagree with Bush foreign policy
--4 out of 5: government should insure decent living standard for elderly
--50% (vs 31%) say Democrats are right on Social Security
--63% (inclu 48% of conservatives) disapprove of Bush on the deficit
--90% say deficit is very serious or somewhat serious problem

Other recent polls

--57% oppose war in Iraq
--63% oppose torture under any circumstances
--asked, was Iraq war "worth it": 44%-yes (Oct '04), 39% yes (Jan '05)

-------

NYT/CBS polls (registration required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/politics/03poll.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1109912880-9FJIlEsrSmsZ/Plcuih5Vg

-------

That a recently "re-elected," 2nd term president took his oath of office on a day when his approval rating sank to 49% is incredible. That the great majority of Americans disapprove of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, is amazing, given the Bush Cartel's claims of a "mandate."

These polls represent a huge "vote of no confidence" by the American people, and we should be citing them in support of the massive evidence of election fraud. Every speech on election fraud should start with these statistics.



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DulceDecorum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 12:18 PM
Response to Original message
1. Message to Rove: GAME OVER
You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.

Now ev’ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
’cause ev’ry hand’s a winner and ev’ry hand’s a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
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BillZBubb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 12:20 PM
Response to Original message
2. Sorry, but polls showing disapproval do not mean election fraud.
They mean people at the time of the poll and for that poll expressed a certain view. They prove nothing about what happened on election day.

An election is an entirely different matter. It's not do you approve of policy X, or Y, or Z. It's pick one of these guys. They may disagree with Bush's policies, but enough sheeple bought the lies that Kerry was going to be worse than Bush.

If you want to cite election fraud, you need solid proof--a smoking gun. You need a Diebold insider to step forward with software or a Repug operative who was made to tamper with votes. Inference based on polls won't get you anywhere.
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The Doctor. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. True.
But one would be justified in stacking this little anomaly up with the mountain of circumstantial evidence that continues to suggest that the chances of this having been a legitimate election share the same level of probability as a whale and a potted plant spontaneously materializing in geo-synchronus orbit 300 miles above above the White House.

Highly improbable.
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tommcintyre Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #5
17. Hmm... I'd lay odds on the "whale and a potted plant" happening first ;)
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yurbud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #2
37. How often do you get a Perry Mason, court room confession for any crime?
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yurbud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #2
38. Were Bushies wrong to cite poll-vote count differences in the Ukraine?
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Cocoa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 12:20 PM
Response to Original message
3. no need for an election then
or a campaign. Just use the polls at some arbitrary point in time.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 12:43 PM
Response to Original message
4. The gap in logic
is astounding. I disagreed with numerous Kerry policy positions. Still, I held my nose and did the right thing.

I'm sure most conservatives, most people in fact, can do the same and choose the lesser of two evils if they don't find the ideal candidate. And obviously, more people found Bush to be the lesser of two evils for them.

I don't believe there was any substantial amount of election fraud, or the Kerry campaign would have been over it like tight on a tick. The fact that he did absolutely nothing is enough, by itself, to convince me that there wasn't any. All the fraud theorists have are "statistics", and there are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

I know I'm gonna get flamed, so let me make my point. Until we figure out 'why' we keep losing to the Republicans, we will continue to do so. In the past, we've blamed the candidates for being wooden personalities. So we keep nominating liberals from New England. We've blamed the media for their coverage. We blamed the party for not getting the message out there. But we do nothing to change any of these things. And we never wonder if maybe parts of our message are just a little radical for the American voters.

But what if it isn't the candidate, or the media, or the party? Maybe parts of our message are what's turning off the electorate? Then what do we do? I'm not suggesting any specific changes here. I think the subject should be open for debate, and I think that some groups may have to be satisfied with slower progress. Not retreat, but a strategic pause.

Somebody, I forget who and will not google while on dial-up, once said, "I'd rather be right than be President". Which is quite noble, in it's way. But did that attitude advance his ideas one iota? Will it in our case?
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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. You are so totally wrong!
I saw the rigged election happen right before my eyes in Maryland, I saw the machine I was voting on default to Bush 5 times, I have seen the total vote for my precinct listed as 944, when I waited to vote for 2 hours and estimated there were at least 400 people there at that time alone. Not to mention that the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator was left off the ballot in 3 Maryland counties on November 2nd. What does it take to make you listen, a pint of my blood and a pint from all the other victims. The reason that Kerry and the Dems were not all over it, was that the hokey pokey only happened at the top of the ticket (in many places) so all the other dems elected on November 2nd for the senate, the legislature and the states elections DON"T want to jettison their own butts out of OFFICE by
questioning the results of the election.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. OK, then
I can agree that most Democratic office holders are not in it for the principles they can advance, but for their own careerist ambitions. So we have an illegitimately elected President, and a bunch of wimpy, cowardly, lying, buck-passing Democrats in office??

What it will take for me to listen is some real proof presented in a court case. You can keep your blood. I have absolutely no doubt that cheating occurred in some places, by both sides. But I don't think enough of it occurred to swing the election. I wish I could think differently, but I've examined the evidence, and it's pretty worthless, more worthy of conspiracy nuts like the John Birch society than anything else I can think of.

In the meantime, you haven't addressed my real question: what if the American voter has actually rejected our ideas? What do we do about it? Change? Try to educate them better? Shut off their right to free speech? Throw pies in their faces? I'm looking for solutions, not complaints.
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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 02:01 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. If they rejected our ideas
Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 02:14 PM by MissWaverly
Then why do 96% of the people polled today on CNN say that their
elected official do not represent their views? Look, I think that the Republican are a Trojan Horse, they rode to victory inside the RW radio ranters that they owned. Many people believed that Fox news was true, they believed that George Bush was just a buddy, a friend of the workingman like O'Reilly, now we have the DeLay scandals, the social security gutting proposal and people are waking up to an ugly reality. Plus I never said that my Dem reps were wimps,
cowardly or liars, I think they are just trying to fight a total
corruption of our society by ruthless, corrupt liars, it was not the
Dems who said there were WMD's and we should invade Iraq, it was not
the Dems who wrote or distributed the Terri Schiavo memo to turn a
tragic situation into a political opportunity. Also about this crap that there was cheating on both sides. The democrats have gone down in a major defeat in 2004, they fail to gain a majority in the legislature or the White House, if there was widespread cheating by
the Dems then what was the result? The fact is that all the irregularities consistently benefited 1 party during the 04 election
and that is the party of neocons.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 02:22 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. You put too much
reliance on polls. I disagree with a lot of stuff my Representative stands for, and he's a Democrat. I also disagree with a lot of the stuff my Senators stand for, they're Republicans. I also agree with some things both stand for. 96% sounds like a poll conducted in the Soviet Union, or maybe Saddam's Iraq. I don't believe much on CNN anyway, but I would definitely have doubts about this one.

All the irregularities didn't benefit 1 side, but I'm not going to do your research for you. However, the history of the Democratic party is full of voter fraud and election fraud. As is that of the Rs, of course. But 2 million votes?? I don't really think so. And I want to see evidence of a non-statistical nature. A smoking gun, documentation, orders from Rove, a whistle-blower with some credibility. Something. I'd be glad to see it. Glad indeed.
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Blue Shark Donating Member (225 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 02:32 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. You might as well be talking to the hand...
...People like ForgetHell are bright and articulate, but ultimately incurious. If he or she had read even a bit of the evidence that has thus far been uncovered, they would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Conyers report, the USCountsVotes report, Palast, The New Yorker article, all amount to a smoking cannon...let alone a gun.

...Kerry walked away because he was tired and got bad advise. Un-fucking-believealbe that they were unprepared for the eminintly forseeable outcome of the "reported" vote count and that the fight for the presidency started...not ended...on November 3rd.

...So...we have gone from the foremost Democracy in the world to a Facsist State. The Republicans have found a way to guarantee the WH, the Senate, the US House, the media, and most of the Judiciary. They got it made right?...Wrong. They have absolute power and they are absolutely corrupt and the evidence continues to mount daily. Their undoing will come from within and it seems to be occuring pretty rapidly.
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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 02:40 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Agree
Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 03:04 PM by MissWaverly
Why is it that everyone can believe election fraud is so impossible.
If I were to buy 1 lotto ticket and there was a jackpot of say 70 million that they could then track down the winning ticket among all those entries, that's a lot harder to do than keeping track of approximately 2,000 votes per precinct. And if he refuses to believe in election rigging. He should go to SOS Blackwell's own website where he states that you don't need an ID to vote in Ohio elections.

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/voter/index.html
Do I need an ID with me to vote?
No.

http://www.electionprotection2004.org/archives/cat_ohio.html
Ohio: Black Voters Reportedly Being Singled Out for Identification
In Cuyahuga, Ohio, a caller reported that all black voters are being asked to show ID, while white voters are not. Caller report that he is black and had to show ID while his girlfriend is white and did not have to show ID.
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whometense Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 04:54 PM
Response to Reply #11
14. I have no proof myself,
but have believed since election day that the election was hacked/stolen/etc (all of the above), and I still believe it today. I don't usually joint these conversations because I haven't any new evidence to offer, but I still believe you are right.
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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 05:19 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. Thanks for the support
After my debate above, I ran to the DNC website and gave a contribution in the name of DU. For all DU'ers who are fighting the good fight,I salute you, for all the freepers who delight in baiting us, I offer you my sympathy, you are in for a crash landing when this whole stinking mess reaches critical mass.
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #10
24. You seem to have
Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 07:53 PM by forgethell
rushed to judgment somewhat precipitously. I am neither 'incurious' nor unread in this subject. I have tracked the threads on DU and read most of the articles.

Un-fucking-believealbe that they were unprepared for the eminintly forseeable outcome of the "reported" vote count

Exactly. That's why I don't believe it. They were prepared, but they thought it was going to be close, like the last time. There is a definite case for 2000 being stolen, a good case. Not for 2004. We had our asses handed to us.

But get me some proof. Not a bunch of zombies all repeating what they have been told, and playing with numbers. No matter how matter many people repeat a lie, no matter how many times, no matter how loud or bright these people are, it is still a lie. This is like those guys that keep predicting when Jesus will come again. They keep adjusting the numbers to get their "correct" prediction. Nobody's been right, yet.

Get me some documentation. Also, can the crap on a Fascist state. We've a way to go, yet. The elections were held, they will be held again in 2006. There are no concentration camps (yeah, yeah, I know). The trains still don't run on time, metaphorically speaking.

If we had concentrated more on Bush's actual faults we would have had a much better chance to win the last election than we would with all the "Bush lied" crap. I don't mean about the Iraq war. I mean all the calling every statement by some low-level functionary that turned out to be wrong, or had to be modified, a "Bush lie". It diluted the effect of the actual, verifiable lies. In economics it's called "the law of diminishing returns".

Also, I wouldn't believe everything you read about "the coming conservative crack-up" or whatever article you read. The Repukes are rock solid for the time being. Of course, everything ends. But when the Democratic Party regains power, it may not, probably will not, be the same party it is today.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 09:56 PM
Response to Reply #24
29. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 08:59 AM
Response to Reply #29
33. There are a few of us
who want to win far more than we want to vent. If we want to stop the Republican juggernaut, we've got to have a better plan than shaking our fists at them.:-)
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Fly by night Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-12-05 08:47 AM
Response to Reply #33
47. Read anything that berniew1 has posted here on DU
The analyses he has done of the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) have nothing to do with statistics or polling. His analyses are of voters reporting their own personal experiences with the election -- their personal experiences with intimidation, suppression, dirty tricks, electronic vote manipulation, "lost" registrations, "moved" precincts, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, AD NAUSEUM.

Whoever the hell you are, forgethell, you are not even marginally well-read.

Now shut up and read, 'k?
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davidgmills Donating Member (651 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 09:13 PM
Response to Reply #4
25. Three kinds
There are three kinds of elections: fraudulent ones, fraudulent ones, and really fraudulent ones (i.e., a coup).
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Dancing_Dave Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 09:29 PM
Response to Reply #4
26. Kerry just never did get it about electronic fraud!
Others, including Howard Dean were aware of the strong criticisms computer scientists had made of the very corruptable systems which were being sold to states, but Kerry could never be bothered. Unless a canidate understood this huge potential problem BEFORE the election, there is no way they could quickly make a decision to contest it afterwards.

It has taken time to assemble the evidence that fraud actually occurred on a scale that changed the election. Now it's up to us to reform the election laws to eliminate it state by state...there is nothing effective that Kerry can do about it in a Republican controlled congress.
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politicasista Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 09:46 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. How do you know he couldn't be bothered?
Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 09:51 PM by politicasista
Hopefully Dean will be more forceful about this issue. You know there is a lawsuit still pending in Ohio. No matter what Kerry does, people here will always say he just walked away. Somebody else would have fought, bla, bla, bla,. People never can get over the primaries. Let's all just blame Kerry for NOT doing what WE asked/wanted him to do and for another four years of Smirky. :bounce::rofl: :sarcasm:
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forgethell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 09:03 AM
Response to Reply #26
34. I strongly support
all efforts to reduce or eliminate all election fraud, by anybody.
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 04:39 PM
Response to Original message
12. A number of the posters above are missing my point, and are...
...ignoring the content of the news articles that I posted (or cited), which indicate CONSISTENT and WIDESPREAD disapproval of Bush and his policies, by the majority of Americans, now, during the inauguration period, during the election, and prior to the election, going back two years.

Pollsters at the time of the election were saying that Bush's low approval ratings were unprecedented. They have now sunk even lower--and specific opinion on every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, confirms it.

This is NOT a one-time poll. This is all relevant polls, by different organizations, on all major issues, with the general approval/disapproval rating spanning two years time.

It's so remarkable, in fact--and so strange--that I would think that even the news monopolies would be commenting on it. (They haven't said much about it, as far as I know.)

It is a great distortion of what I said, to treat this as evidence of election fraud, as if I were arguing that. I said it UNDERSCORES the mountain of evidence of election fraud. If it were only the opinion polls--even with this widespread, consistent and unprecedented disapproval--I would be less inclined to think of election fraud, and more inclined to think that the Democrats failed in their presidential campaign.

However, when you study the election data, one of the things you find is that the Democrats had a blowout success in new voter registration in 2004. Is that failure? Another thing you find is that Kerry won the exit polls by 3%, that his win of those polls has been confirmed by at least nine Ph.D.'s in statistics, and that THEY found that the exit polls were actually skewed to Bush (meaning that Kerry's margin of victory was even larger than 3%). They also found that the particular way that the official result was skewed to Bush (vs. the exit polls) was virtually impossible (ten million to one odds against it), and they found evidence of a skew to Bush at the precinct level in the electronic vote vs. other methods of voting.

Then you find out that a whole team of OTHER statisticians, working separately (the UC Berkeley team), found 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush in Florida's three major Democratic counties, also in electronic voting vs. other methods.

Then you find....well I won't go into it all. It goes on and on. But one other thing I will cite is that the American people were denied the information, on election day, that Kerry had won the exit polls. The TV networks CHANGED this polling data--"adjusted" it, to fit the official result (that Bush won). That's not done in other countries. It wasn't done in the Ukraine--where people could see the two different figures--exit polls vs. official result--and knew that something was very wrong.

Americans were denied that information--that plain evidence of fraud. Naysayers think they can pooh-pooh it now, because time has passed. That's definitely what the fraudsters had in mind, disinformation and forgetting. But what if Americans had been given the true exit poll results on election day?

We'd have a very different scene now, regarding election fraud--and possibly a very different country.

John Kerry had no chance in the BushCon Congress. No amount of evidence would ever have moved them to oust Bush. They spin. They lie. They are Bush "pod people." They don't care what is true or what is just. I think that's part of why Kerry conceded. The TV networks had lied to the American People; had given them doctored information. How could he fight that, when he was also up against a Bush Congress? (I also think that Kerry was poorly advised, and possibly misinformed, by bad old DNCers, who were pro-war and anti-grass roots--the same players who failed to inform voters that the election system itself was compromised, and extremely non-transparent, with the vote tabulation controlled by major donors to the Bush campaign, using secret, proprietary programming code.)

Kerry's concession cannot be used as proof of no election fraud. It's the other way around--it is yet more proof of a fascist coup. The VISIBLE fraud, in Ohio alone--involving egregious violations of the Voting Rights Act by Republican election officials--was sufficient for a Congressional investigation, and delay of acceptance of those Electors--or would have been, if fairness and justice were any sort of factor in our country any more. A fair hearing wasn't possible. (Also, given Kerry's concession on 11/3, before the Ohio vote count was even finished, and before the election crimes were all reported, you have to wonder what went down that night, vis a vis the Bush Cartel. What threats might have been issued?)

People who naysay election fraud really have an obligation to address that evidence specifically. Just what part of the analysis by the 9-Ph.D. group (US Count Votes) do you disagree with? These people are experts in this field, at top universities, and are putting their reputations on the line to cry foul on this election. What do YOU have to say? What is YOUR analysis of this data? I'm supposed to accept some anonymous blogger's OPINION of the election, or this airy dismissal of all the polls saying one thing: Bush is not supported by a great majority of Americans?

I've read a lot of opinions here. Some I agree with. Some I don't. But I've never seen an election fraud naysayer address these experts head one, in any specific way, and mostly they just mouth off and don't address the evidence or the analysis at all.

I've read and assessed EVERYTHING. Every report. Every analysis. Every set of data that is available. I've weighed all this evidence--and it is, indeed, a mountain of evidence--carefully. And I am absolutely convinced that Bush stole this election. The consistent, widespread disapproval of Bush by a majority of Americans in different opinion polls, over a long period of time, only confirms it.

If you want to disprove my conclusions, don't start by ignoring the facts (such as that all of the above post represents a one-time poll--when it plainly states just the opposite, and even quotes a Bush strategist to that effect). Naysayers are going to have to do some hard intellectual work to disprove all of this evidence. I don't see any sign that they are willing to work that hard.








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Helga Scow Stern Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 04:43 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. It is getting harder and harder to deny fraud....
you are right. Naysayers have more work to do. They keep getting countered and the facts just don't bear them out.
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whometense Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. Wonderful post.
Thank you.
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liam_laddie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 05:25 PM
Response to Reply #12
18. TOtally with you, PP! Great post!
Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 06:24 PM by liam_laddie
In fact, I'm helping gather info in SW Ohio which I hope leads to
the smoking cannon. I know these opinion polls are within some acceptable MOE to be used as "national." Are they always phone surveys? Are they weighted someway? Since some 30%
(+/-) of Americans didn't vote, are these polls limited to those who actually voted in 11/2/04 Prez race? If not, is it statistically possible that a good part of the samples might be non-voters? They would have an opinion, yes? How would this affect the results? Could a large % of non-voters in the poll, who dis Bush, skew the disapproval rate up? 'Cuz I'm not an analyst...I can't estimate if this factor would affect the opinion either way.
These are close estimates, rounded to nearest million...
Voting age population - 205MM,
Registered voters (using 85%) which is at lower end of past
statistics - 175 MM (?)
Same, (using 90%) possible with the apparent increase of
new voters above population growth - 185MM (?)
Votes cast 2004 - 122MM
Turnout% either 66% or 70%, depending on registered total.
So, is it possible that the 30-34% (53-63MM) of registered voters who did not vote, but some of whom might be polled, would
have an effect on the opinion poll results? What real number of non-voting and non-registered citizens does it take to result in these opinion shifts say 51% down to 44%. I would assume the opinion is for the entire 18+(?) population. THIS is why I'm not a survey designer or a pollster or... but some of you out there are; please tell me if this are useless questions.
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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 05:33 PM
Response to Reply #18
19. Hooray for you!
Look, I keep praying that there is a real response to the stinking mess that our state house is reviewing on Maryland's Diebold election-November 04, how can we have a valid election when the dem candidate for the U.S. senate was left off the ballot in 3 counties? What happens now, do we can a partial rebate for this mockery? Oh, well the machine that you voted on didn't work right,
but you don't realize how badly we feel about that.
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Zan_of_Texas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 06:01 PM
Response to Reply #12
20. I heard what you were saying, PP.
I was looking at the polls that were showing Bush has 45% support now.

With just a few reasonable assumptions, this leads one to some amazing conclusions. Namely:

If the 45% number were applied to Bush on November 2, then instead of the original 3 million vote margin for Bush (which the Bush people call a "mandate"), Bush would lose by 11 million votes!

Okay, how did I get that? Follow along.

I also find a mountain of evidence that the presidential election in most states and many many counties was flawed, sometimes fatally.

But, let's play with the 45% number and just see what happens to the much ballyhooed "mandate." (The mandate claimed after the election was a popular vote margin of 3.5 million votes. Actually, according to the official numbers below, the popular margin was 3 million votes. The real difference, of course, was electoral votes -- one highly contested state, Ohio, and about 118,000 votes.)

If you assume that those who voted and those who were polled are similar, and assume that "support" is similar to "would vote for", then Bush either didn't get his 50.8% claimed in November 2004, OR he has lost the support of seven million people who voted for him in November, in just five months.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One Poll:
Poll Shows Bush's Job Approval Rating Slumps to 44 Percent; Congress Slips Further, to 37 Percent
By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=652602
WASHINGTON Apr 8, 2005 -
~~~~~~~~~~~
Another Poll:
Another poll, I got in an email. I consider polls more for entertainment than fact. But, I found this entertaining.

Perhaps Bush's numbers haven't really changed since the election, and these reflect something of the truth....

Gallup: Bush Approval Rating Lowest Ever for 2nd-Term Prez at this Point

By Editor & Publisher Staff

Published: April 05, 2005 11:45 AM ET

NEW YORK It's not uncommon to hear or read pundits referring to President
George W. Bush as a "popular" leader or even a "very popular" one. Even
some of his critics in the press refer to him this way. Perhaps they need to
check the latest polls. President Bush's approval rating has plunged to the lowest level of any
president since World War II at this point in his second term, the Gallup
Organization reported today.

"All other presidents who were re-elected to a second term had approval ratings well above 50% in the March following their re-election," Gallup reported.

Bush's current rating is 45%. The next lowest was Reagan with 56% in
March 1985. More bad signs for the president: Gallup's survey now finds only 38% expressing satisfaction with the "state of the country" while 59% are "dissatisfied." One in three America! ns feel the economy is excellent or good, while the rest find it "only fair" or poor.

...
Here are the approval ratings for presidents as recorded by Gallup in the March following their re-election:

Truman, 1949: 57%.

Eisenhower, 1957: 65%.

Johnson, 1965: 69%.

Nixon, 1973: 57%.

Reagan, 1985: 56%.

Clinton, 1997: 59% .

Bush, 2005: 45% .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First off, John Kerry tallied 48.3% of the vote on November 2nd -- 3.3% more than the poll numbers are currently showing for Bush. Say, so does that mean that on November 2, Kerry polled a 3% higher mandate than Bush has right now?!?!

But, what if the current poll numbers are right and the election tally was wrong?

What if Bush actually got 45% instead of 50.8% in the election? Let's look at it. Just for grins.
The numbers are rather astounding. I surprised even myself!



REPORTED VOTE TALLY
Presidential Election of 2004, Electoral and Popular Vote Summary


InfoPlease Almanac http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922901.html

Bush
Popular Vote . Percentage
62,028,772 . . 50.8

Kerry
Popular Vote . Percentage
59,026,150 . . 48.3

Electoral Votes: 286 to 252

MY NOTES:
1. That's a 3.0 million vote difference. Not the 3.5 million vote difference the press are found of bandying about.
2. Once again, the "winner" of the US popular vote in 2004 was "NONE OF THE ABOVE". Of the voting age population, 90 million did not vote. That compares to 62 million tallied for Bush and 59 million tallied for Kerry.


NOTE: Total electoral votes = 538. Total electoral votes needed to win = 270. Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding and other candidates.
Source: Figures are from the Certificates of Ascertainment and Certificates of Vote sent to the Archivist of the United States in December 2004. www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/index.html <http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/index.html> .
Voting age population (Census Bureau Population Survey for Nov. 2000): 205,815,000
Estimated number of voters in 2004 election was 115.7 million (Associated Press).
Information Please® Database, © 2005 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

NOTE: In the calculations below, I used a presidential vote total of 122,155,616, which is implied by the 50.8 and 48.3 percentage numbers and total votes for Bush and Kerry. I have no idea why the AP estimated that there were 115.7 million voters.
ASSUMPTIONS: (1) Bush got 45%. (2) Kerry gets the votes that Bush seems to have gotten wrongly. (3) Total presidential voters were 122,155,616.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HERE ARE TALLIES ADJUSTED TO SHOW 45% FOR BUSH
Bush
Popular Vote . . Percentage
54,970,027 . . . . 45.0

62,028,772 - 54,970,027 = 7,058,745 less votes for Bush, if the 45% figure is used

If all those votes should have gone to Kerry, add those to his total and you get:

Kerry
Popular Vote . . Percentage
66,084,895 . . . . 54.1

So, in other words, if Bush's actual vote was 45% on election day, and the votes that were tallied wrongly somehow for him are put into Kerry's column, the election comes out

. . . . . Bush 45% to Kerry 54.1% (percentage margin = Kerry + 9.1%)
rather than Bush 50.8% to Kerry 48.3% (percentage margin = Kerry - 2.5%)

Bush gets 7 million less votes than were tallied. Kerry's new total becomes 66 million votes.

If the 45% number were applied to Bush on November 2, then instead of the original 3 million vote margin for Bush (which the Bush people call a "mandate"), Bush would lose by 11 million votes!


At a minimum, if the poll is right and the election was right, Bush has lost the support of 7 million voters in five months.

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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 06:16 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. You are right
In Maryland the tally was:
1,340,778 registered Dems voted
733,643 registered Republicans voted
vote tally (The other voters were Independents, Greens and others)
Kerry 1,334,493 votes
GWB 1,024,703 votes

That did not happen
I gave Kerry an estimated 78.89% of all the Dem votes
and GWB 81.37% of all Republican votes here's what I
came up with
final tally for Kerry 1,589,474
final tally for GWB 806,125
Now the funny thing about this is that is about the same ratio
of 2 x 1 which is the proportion of registered Dems who voted vs
registered Republicans who voted
and I think this is what the actual vote was after the rigged machines are ruled out
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tommcintyre Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 06:24 PM
Response to Reply #12
22. Good post PP - "points to election fraud" NOT "proof"
I'm amazed how often the naysayers try to distort what we say.

They constantly set up a "straw man", trying to misrepresent/change our of claims of "indications" ("points to") of fraud, to claims of "proof". And then they cheerfully "knock down" (discredit) their self-created straw man.

Our job is to find the info that "points to" a stolen election. When enough info like this is uncovered (we're WAY past the point); an official investigation (with the necessary resources) should then investigate, and PROVE the fraud.

We only need to show a "reasonable doubt" that the election was fair; then the appropriate resources should be applied to "prove it".

It amazes me the lengths that some people (who should know better) will go to, to maintain their illusion: "All we need to do is run better candidates, appeal to more voters, etc."

Please "GET IT" - for once and for all! NONE OF IT MATTERS IF WE DON'T FIX THE "BROKEN SYSTEM"!
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politicasista Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 09:46 PM
Response to Reply #12
28. Amen to that!
:applause:
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bleever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #12
30. Peace Patriot, thank you for being one of the voices who will not
Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 09:59 PM by bleever
stop speaking the truth. Thanks also for doing it so well, and so thoroughly.

Everybody: take a step back. The president with unprecedented disapproval ratings won in a landslide?

Didn't happen.

Time has a way of making things known.

Thanks, PP, for your company on the road to seeing this fraud undone.
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KaliTracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 10:16 PM
Response to Reply #12
41. great post peace patriot!
thanks for all you do!

:applause:
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tommcintyre Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 06:31 PM
Response to Original message
23. You don't need the voter's "approval" if you can just steal the election!
:mad:
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waytogo Donating Member (2 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-09-05 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #23
31. found this today
We've Been Had

by Edgar J. Steele

November 8, 2004

"It's amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity and incumbency."
--George W. Bush, June 14, 2001, speaking to Swedish Prime Minister Goran Perrson, unaware that a live television camera was still rolling

"You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays, everybody's crazy."
-- Charles Manson, serial killer and one-time cult leader

I'm glad that Kerry lost. However, I am horrified that Bush won. Or did he?

We get the government we deserve, it is said. What, exactly, did I do to deserve this? And I'm a conservative, too. Imagine how the liberals must feel.

For every person I know who voted for Bush, I know four who voted for Kerry or a third-party candidate, not to mention another six who didn't vote at all! But, then, I run in some unusual circles. Even so...

The Zogby Polls, which usually are pretty accurate, had Kerry winning a clear majority, not just a plurality, and sweeping the Electoral College. Exit polls, which are even more accurate, had Kerry winning going away, especially in the key "Battleground States" of Ohio and Florida, both of which inexplicably ended up in Bush's column at the end. I noticed that, for once, none of the network anchors really discussed either type of poll, though CNN has been accused of jiggering its report of exit poll results. In an excuse switch reminiscent of Iraq being blamed for possessing weapons of mass destruction, suddenly the blame for the voting-booth conversion to Bush is being placed upon the desire of the common man to stamp out homosexual marriage. As comedienne Judy Tenuta likes to say: "It could happen!" Yeah...right.

Dick Morris, ex Clinton political consultant, wrote an article for The Hill, read by a great many Washington insiders, in which he said, "This was no mere mistake. Exit polls cannot be as wrong across the board as they were on election night."

Yes, I called for Bush's ouster well over a year ago (IMPEACH BUSH NOW and Bush Must Go!), but I'm still pretty much a conservative. Aside from the lunatic-fringe Christian fundamentalist/dispensationalists, many conservatives started talking about Bush that way at about the same time. That's just paleoconservatives, however; we who predate neoconservatives, those who are but old liberal whine in new battles. That's why you should listen to my ilk more closely than the liberals who just upped their intake of Prozac, alcohol and a variety of other reality-altering substances. They would be railing against anything Republican or conservative just now. People like myself are a different matter altogether. And there are a lot of us. Which is why Bush's victory quite simply does not pass the smell test.

It seems clear to me that Bush didn't win fairly. I think Kerry actually won the election and allowed Bush to steal it. In retrospect, it appears to me that Al Gore did the same thing, albeit less abjectly than did Kerry. But, this time Bush got caught with his hand in the ballot box. I've just had a heel-of-the-hand-forehead-thumping "aha" experience. How could I, of all people, have missed something so obvious?

Yes, I have noted rampant vote fraud in the past and expected it this time, as well. I have witnessed it first hand at the local level. I have read many credible reports from others at all levels, concerning past vote fraud. Yet, I did not believe it was so blatant...so massive as what obviously just occurred. How could I possibly expect others to see it now if I didn't see it coming? How could I be so...dumb?

Now comes the hard part: How do we make clear that free elections in America were a thing of the past as long as four years ago?

It's a good thing that Kerry won't be in the Oval Office; but, another four years like we just had? America won't make it. On the other hand, that could turn out to be the good news, I suppose, for survivors of what America is about to become.

Bad as Kerry would have been, he would have been gridlocked by the Republican Congress. None of that for Bush, though, who has presided over the biggest runup in deficits and most criminal war that America has ever seen. Kerry could never have obtained the blank check for war that Congress handed to Bush - and will again. Expect the upcoming mid-term election in 2002 to produce more of the same miraculous Republican victories and give Bush the 60-Republican Senate edge that he needs to advance any legislation without danger of Democrat filibuster.

The smell left over from Election Day is bad enough, all by itself, but there is evidence, lots of evidence, of vote fraud on a scale not seen since the heydays of Communist Russia. Next we will see ballots with only one name appearing in each slot (given our "choice" of candidates, we essentially got there years ago, however).

How on earth did despicable Democrat Tom Daschle get beaten? Mind you, the only Senators I would be more pleased to see go are Hillary, Feinstein and the execrable Charles Schumer, but it seems extremely unlikely that Daschle's constituents would have voted him out of office in a fair election. Is it just coincidence that Daschle has been a particularly nettlesome thorn in George W. Bush's side for the past four years?

The problems in Ohio on election day are starkly outlined by attorney Ray Beckerman in his Basic Report from Columbus: "Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG." One precinct in suburban Columbus reported that nearly 4,000 votes were "accidentally" credited to Bush. Mr. Beckerman also reports that lines in predominantly-Democratic precincts were 5-10 hours in length, versus near nonexistent in Republican strongholds, for the simple reason that precincts expected to line up in the Republican column had five times as many voting machines as others. Beckerman outlines a number of other irregularities in one of this election's two key "battleground" states, the one that gave the election to Bush, just as Florida did four years ago with a healthy assist from the US Supreme Court. Is all of this simply coincidental in an election where the disputed votes decided the outcome?

The other key battleground state, Florida, reported similar problems: "(S)everal dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen...In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush..." (Globe and Mail, 11/3/04). More coincidence?

But, the machines don't have to be obviously in error to be rigged. Ronnie Dugger, in How They Could Steal the Election This Time, several months ago described the November 2004 election machinery: "36 million (votes) will be tabulated completely inside the new paperless, direct-recording-electronic (DRE) voting systems, on which you vote directly on a touch-screen...you get no paper record of your vote...you never know, despite what the touch-screen says, whether the computer is counting your vote as you think you are casting it or, either by error or fraud, it is giving it to another candidate. No one can tell what a computer does inside itself by looking at it; an election official 'can't watch the bits inside,' says Dr. Peter Neumann, the principal scientist at the Computer Science Laboratory of SRI International and a world authority on computer-based risks...The four major election corporations count votes with voting-system source codes (which) are kept strictly secret..."

Even if they aren't obviously in error or secretly rigged, these new machines can still have their tabulations changed, with nobody the wiser. One of my favorite Internet columnists, Devvy Kidd, two weeks ago predicted "monstrous problems that will make Florida 2000 pale in comparison." Quoting from the December 1996 issue of Cincinnatus News Service, a vote fraud newsletter, Devvy went on to note, "The missing link in the vote fraud investigation has been found. The November 1996 issue of Relevance Magazine reveals that two-way hidden modems are being built into the ever growing number of computerized optical scanner/direct recording voting machines in use all across the country from New England to California...these hidden modems are accessible by remote cell phone technology...these voting machines can be accessed and manipulated from a central super computer without a phone line connected to the wall, and without the local precinct workers knowing that anything is happening at all." I wonder why Dan Rather didn't tell us about this?

Just look at all the "user login" notations in this rare audit log from Washington State's King County, where a number of voting tabulation irregularities are now under investigation. No notation is made, of course, of what those anonymous users did, once logged into the database. Go here for an interesting report and speculation about how and by whom the voting machines are being hacked - particularly, note the Republican connection through an attorney.

Diebold, Inc., is one of the country's biggest suppliers of paperless, touch-screen voting machines. Diebold's CEO, Walter O'Dell, wrote a letter four months ago soliciting major-league campaign contributions for Bush, in which he said, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Diebold is based in Canton, Ohio. Coincidence?

Convinced yet? I am.

This year apparently wasn't the first to see this new technology exploited, either. In "The Stolen Election of 2004: Welcome Back to Hell," Larry Chin reports on touch-screen "black-box" voting: "The technology had a trial run in the 2002 mid-term elections. In Georgia, serviced by new Diebold systems, a popular Democratic governor and senator were both unseated in what the media called 'amazing' upsets, with results showing vote swings of up to 16 percent from the last pre-ballot polls. In computerized Minnesota, former Vice President Walter Mondale - a replacement for popular incumbent Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash days before the vote - was also defeated in a large last-second vote swing. Convenient 'glitches' in Florida saw an untold number of votes intended for the Democratic candidate registering instead for Governor Jeb 'L'il Brother' Bush." More coincidence, do you suppose?

Now pay particularly close attention to the very next sentence from Mr. Chin's article: "A Florida Democrat who lost a similarly 'glitched' local election went to court to have the computers examined - but the case was thrown out by a judge who ruled that the innards of America's voting machines are the 'trade secrets' of the private companies who make them." So, the legal system steps in and removes any chance of our being able to audit what these things do. Coincidence?

And it's not just the touch-screen voting machines that are susceptible. CommonDreams.org's Thom Hartmann notes that "(I)n Florida's smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - seem to have been reversed" (Evidence Mounts that the Vote was Hacked, Rense.com). Mr. Hartman's analysis shows that Florida would have gone to Kerry, had those small-county anomalies been more consistent with actual party affiliation registration by voters. Do you believe in coincidence? Did all those rural Floridian Democrats really vote for Bush, do you suppose? Florida, alone, would have changed the outcome of the election.

Also in Florida, the other key "battleground" state that was widely expected to go Kerry, the official election results of Palm Beach's (of 2000's "butterfly ballot" fame) disclosed that, while 454,427 people voted, 542,835 votes were tallied, a discrepancy of 88,000 votes. Shortly after this oddity was picked up and reported by The Washington Dispatch, officials inexplicably "found" over 91,000 additional absentee ballots which had, somehow, already been counted, thus balancing its own tally. More coincidence, I suppose.

Americans seem to believe that the world thinks as we do; that, somehow, Bush is viewed favorably. He is not, as vividly demonstrated by England's Danny Dayus in his article, Don't Be American: "According to recent opinion polls, a majority of people in the USA actually believe that most of the world favoured the re-election of George W Bush as president - this despite several surveys that suggest that support for Kerry over Bush in the wider world was something between a 2:1 and 10:1 ratio."

At left: George W. Bush in an increasingly typical pose. Talk about character. Can you imagine George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy or, even, Richard Nixon ever doing this publicly? Why is this man's obvious mental imbalance, intemperance and lack of propriety not apparent to every American? This is precisely the image of America now held by the rest of the world.

This election was a foregone conclusion, as some noted beforehand. Greg Palast, Harper's editor who investigated American vote fraud on behalf of the British Broadcasting System, reported on November 1 that upwards of one million votes, expected to be cast overwhelmingly for Kerry, would not be counted "(B)ecause, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas..." More coincidence, of course.

Houston, we have a problem. Many have taken me to task recently for advocating voting - just not voting for Democrats or Republicans - rather than pointedly not voting. In view of the massive and unprecedented vote fraud that now is apparent, my attitude concerning this is undergoing revision...and I'm leaning toward not voting. Of course, I'm having some other leanings, too - leanings that might get me put in jail, were I to share them with you.

Look - the people apparently disenfranchised this time around primarily are those with whom I generally disagree, but it is the fundamental unfairness of what has taken place that most offends me, not to mention the path down which America now treads. If I really believed this election showed the true color of conservatism, I would join the liberals in a heartbeat and replace my "Nuke the Whales" bumper sticker with one that says "Save the Baby Seals."

If this is what it means to be conservative today, I want to be liberal.

New America. An idea whose time has come.

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MissWaverly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 10:44 AM
Response to Reply #31
35. thanks way to go
the mods of DU will edit it down to 4 paragraphs but I'm glad I had a chance to read it. No matter how many times a naysayers screams in
my face, no matter how many people snicker at liberals, I will say this, I am liberal, I pay taxes just like you and my vote was stolen from me. And the last liberal that we had in office, had pay as you go, and balanced the books and did not invade a country with a preemptive strike. It does not matter how the conservatives rant, they put GWB up to run again in 2004, they supported another 4 years of this man, WE did not. No matter how much they insult liberals, we have never stood for the principles of GWB, Tom DeLay, torture memos, GITMO or any of a number of regretable things which passes for US policy in this administration.
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 05:14 PM
Response to Reply #31
39. waytogo, could you post the URL for "We've been had"? Where did it...
...appear?

Thanks for posting this. It is always heartening when someone of a different political persuasion can see (and admit) how wrong election fraud it, and how radical Bush and the Oil Cartel is. Our country has always worked best--and been the most prosperous--when there is consensus on certain common ground issues, such as the non-partisan adminstration of elections, a balance of power among political parties, the branches of government, and in labor vs. business, support for education and infrastructure, and a fair playing field for all.

Prosperity also seems to be related to progressive social policy--especially to inclusiveness with regard to minorities and women. It's when the super-rich seek to be even richer and even more powerful--and start sucking people dry, damaging and neglecting our common resources, breaking laws with impunity, and taking advantage of the power their money gives them, to throw off all regulation and avoid taxation, that our country suffers economic depression and social disruption (for instance, all the homeless living on the streets--what a disgrace to our nation! --and the racist and sexist scapegoating that we see signs of).

It's generally only in such a climate (greed and thievery by the rich) that scapegoating occurs--the rich manipulating the poor to battle each other for the few scraps from the table--as is now occuring, for instance, with some blaming joblessness and economic woes on immigrants, and different manifestations of racism and sexism (although, this stuff is generally coming from loudmouth Bushites with more news power than their views merit--they really have to out-shout the majority, which is much more inclined to progressive, inclusive values).

When our society is working properly--when we all protect our common ground and our common values--we all prosper, and the benefits to the rich of general prosperity are equivalent to those of the poor--living in a safe, just, fair society, making money honestly by creating jobs, paying fair wages, and providing needed products and services, protecting the environment and the work place, and contributing to the general good (rather than being caught in the hell of selfishness, greed and egotism).

One other thing: I go way back. I remember that it was the REPUBLICANS who were the environmentalists. Environmentalism is a form of CONSERVATISM--which means to CONSERVE, whether it's conserving people's savings in safe Savings & Loan banks, or conserving forests and water supplies and wild animals. Conservatism means thinking of the common good, and planning for the future.

This radical mania of the Bushites and the corporatists--of exploiting and destroying every resource for profit, bankrupting the federal government, using the U.S. military for an oil war, bending and breaking the U.S. Consititution, and going beyond all this, now, to even loot Social Security--is NOT conservative. It is very extreme. And you have to go back to the days of the Robber Barons to find a parallel in U.S. history. And even they did not have the power of the corporatists today, whose global reach is unprecedented.

We have never had such radicals running our country. (The other horror that it is reminiscent of, is Hitler's Germany--and also, to some extent, Stalinist Russia, re: political and news control.)

Anyway, good to see a dissenting view in "conservative" circles. Two others like this can be found at

http://www.chuckherrin.com (Republican hacker who figures the Bushites stole the election, and shows how).

http://makethemaccountable.com/articles/Ohio_s_Odd_Numbers.htm (Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair, March 2005)
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tommcintyre Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-11-05 08:34 AM
Response to Reply #39
43. Here's the original post of it, but...
Edited on Mon Apr-11-05 08:36 AM by tommcintyre
The author's web site/author is "controversial" ("Defensive Racism, a book by Edgar J. Steele - Now shipping!" "An unapologetic look at racial relations" <YIKES!> ). I still think the article is valuable. Personally, I can separate out it's value from the rest of the views of the author(just as I do with the other views in the article itself - Daschelle "despicable"?).

Here's a better place to link to it:
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/bushwon.htm

Or choose another link here:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22We%27ve+Been+Had%22+by+Edgar+J.+Steele&btnG=Search
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tommcintyre Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-11-05 08:41 AM
Response to Reply #39
44. I forgot about Christopher Hitchens. I will add it to the article below.
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tommcintyre Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-11-05 08:14 AM
Response to Reply #31
42. REAL conservatives are concerned too! We need to find/reach out to more.
<This is a work-in-progress. I will post it as a thread AFTER the first Carter Election Reform Hearing (April 18th). This hearing will be my main focus until then. However, anyone who happens to see this here, I would welcome any comments/additions/suggestions etc.>

Excellent article! We DO need to reach out to REAL conservatives. They feel just as disenfranchised - maybe even more, since their party was hijacked! They will be very motivated if they have more info - and know what actions to take.

We need to heed this advice from the National Election Reform Conference: "...start talking to someone who doesn't know about it yet."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x355044

I just spent the better part of today researching the info in the rest of this post, and I'm surprised how few Conservatives of ANY stripe are aware of the possibility of election fraud. Read some of the posts at second to the last link in this post ("Senate 2006 - Filibuster-proof possible"), and you will see what I mean. They blithely make predictions of both Dem and Repub winners and losers as if its "business as usual"! I don't think its just classic denial at work here. I sense genuine ignorance of the very existence that massive fraud is possible - even the repubs/conservatives that consider it in their favor!

Clearly, we need to educate the moderate repubs/conservatives who have at least as much to lose as we do.
------
Another Republican, who is a promoter of exposing the 2004 election fraud, is Chuck Herrin:

"...write your elected officials and tell them you want Hand-Counted Paper Ballots. Now."
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

-----------------------------------------------------------
Check this post (about how Freerepublic has changed) to get more of an idea how the "rank and file" moderate ("paleo" as opposed to "neo") conservatives feel about the takeover of their party:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3007140&mesg_id=3018665

"...it has turned into a censorship organization where nothing can be said against the current administration." "Rarely can you find an intellectual review or comparison article like once before." "The purpose of the original site seems to have been lost!" <I would think "hijacked" would be a more accurate description - like the Repub party has been.>

<another conservative commenter:>
"FreeRepublic is no longer Conservative, it is REPUBLICAN" <He must mean the "new" Repubs (Bill Maher described the way the neocon/religious right took over the Repub party as akin to the movie, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers").> "The original intent of being a "grassroots conservative forum" has morphed into a "Re-elect George W. Bush at all costs" forum." "Many conservative posters have left FreeRepublic and now post at Libertypost.org, a NON-CENSORED conservative site." <I registered there a couple of months ago when I first discovered this post. I haven't had time to really check it out, but I did discover they have some sort of election fraud section there (I just didn't have time to figure out how it worked there.)>
---------------
I'm sure we can find (and educate) MANY more moderate conservatives. And we need all the help/support we can get! Besides, having significant bipartisan support will only increase our credibility.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Here are some elected conservatives that may be a "friend" to election fraud investigation and election reform:

Christie Whitman (former Bush EPA administrator): She was very critical of Bush in her book "It's My Party Too". "Christie Whitman wants to be the Republicans’ Zell Miller – or so says the dustjacket of her forthcoming It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America" http://www.patrickruffini.com/archives/2005/01/whitman_vs_the.php

Interestingly, in my research on her, I came across this recent (April 5th) DU thread (New Jersey forum). "Christie Whitman for President? Surely you jest." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=167x1709

Hmm... Maybe she's especially motivated for fair elections since we wouldn't stand a chance against the "Bushco fix".

Also, interestingly, her web site http://www.itsmypartytoo.com now points to WorkingForChange ("WorkingForChange is an online journal of progressive news and opinion published by Working Assets" - affiliated with Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream fame, who now devotes full-time to progressive causes.)

"Muckraker: Party girl Christie Whitman's forthcoming book assails GOP's rightward lurch" "the book examines the "rightward lurch" of the GOP under the Bush administration, which is causing a rift between moderate and hard-right Republicans..." "Whitman fears this rift could threaten the long-term viability of the Republican Party."
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=18394

I found the following quote while searching for Whitman on the Daily Show: "Once the Democrats get serious (spending cuts, not raising taxes) about fiscal responsibility, I'll be the first to join them. Especially, if the Dem leader is serious about fighting the WOT. I guess you could call me a CTW Republican." http://republicans.redstate.org/story/2005/2/10/232435/124

To watch her on the Daily Show (1/29/05):
http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/videos_celeb.jhtml?startIndex=13&s=stewart

On NPR Fresh Air:
1/27/05 - Christine Todd Whitman: Battle for the GOP Core
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4468239

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Moderate Repubs I can think of to consider soliciting to support Election Fraud/Reform issues are:

Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI)http://chafee.senate.gov/
"Sen. Chafee: I will probably not vote for Bush"
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/20/162844/239
"The Republican said the party's direction in the future will determine his political career as well. He said he's "not OK" with the conservative platform from the Republican convention, but would not say if he'd consider switching parties in his next election in 2006.

"It wasn't that long ago that moderates had more of a voice," Chafee said. "It's a cycle that I hope will come back." "
-------------
Olympia Snowe (R-ME): http://snowe.senate.gov/
"Snowe is part of that near-extinct breed of Republican moderates. She formed the Senate Centrist Coalition in 1999 with Louisiana Democrat John Breaux, but the following 5 years saw more bitter partisanship and Republican bullying than ever before. In 2001, Snowe unsuccessfully begged fellow New England Republican Jim Jeffords not to leave the party, saying that their voices would more easily be heard and respected if they remained Republicans. She has been repeatedly attacked for being moderate on abortion and gay issues, with Catholic bishops threatening to deny her Communion unless she renounces her pro-choice stance. In 2003, she was the subject of ugly attack ads by the far-right, extremist Club for Growth, who derided her for her "Franco-American" opposition to a third round of federal tax cuts for the rich. Due to 25% of Maine's population having French ancestry, the ads backfired, but extremists continue to taunt and jeer Snowe, threatening to foist a far-right primary challenge on her in 2006 <she has strong reason to support election reform>."
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Olympia_Snowe
----------------
Susan Collins (R-ME): http://collins.senate.gov/
"This independent thinker from Maine shakes off pressure to run with the pack. Collins and five other Republicans recently signed a letter opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in an attempt to block this unpopular legislation from being tacked onto a spending bill. She also reliably fights attempts to weaken the Clean Air Act (in fact, she's said it should be strengthened)."

From: "Maine Democrats: The Way Blogs Should Be" (03.30.05) "Sen. Collins paused to take a poke at several Bush policies and distance herself from Republican colleagues during discussion of policy issues with the editorial board of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram."
http://mainedemocrats.org/index.php?cat=7

--------------------------------------------------------------
While we're at it, why not the only Independent?:

Jim Jeffords (I-VT): http://jeffords.senate.gov/
March 26, 2005 "Jeffords expects to be GOP bullseye"
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2783449,00.html

"BRATTLEBORO -- There's no doubt about it: The 2006 U.S. Senate campaign has begun and it's already getting ugly, Sen. Jim Jeffords said Friday.

The Vermont independent also said he expects to be the Republican Party's "No. 1 target." He said he expects to be treated like former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who was pounded by the GOP during the last election cycle and, as a result, lost his re-election bid.

"The nasty part of (the election) has already started, too, which I hate to see," Jeffords told the Reformer during a visit to downtown Brattleboro.

The three-term senator is entering his first election season since abandoning the Republican Party in May 2001. The decision came after a dispute with the Bush administration.

The move threw control of the Senate over to the Democrats. Republicans have since regained control of the chamber, but are still brooding over Jeffords' switch."

-------------------------------------------------------------
May as well add any Dems in "high risk" positions in 2006; or would otherwise be helpful:

March 10, 2005 Maria Cantwell (D-WA): http://cantwell.senate.gov/
"Democrats See Cantwell as Republicans' Number-One Target"
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200503%5CPOL20050310b.html

"(CNSNews.com) - President Bush and Karl Rove are "working on a plan to attack Democrats in the U.S. Senate," and their number one target is Maria Cantwell of Washington, according to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In an email message to Democrats, DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned that Republicans, buoyed by electoral gains in 2004, want to increase their majorities in Congress in 2006.

"With increased majorities, they know they can appoint right-wing judges at will, pass legislation to restrict a woman's right to choose, and rollback our precious environmental protections," Schumer wrote.

Republicans have already drawn up a list of "targets" -- politicians to be defeated -- and Cantwell, the U.S. Senator from Washington, tops the list, he said."
--------
<Some interesting info here, including a list of who's up for re-election in 2006.>
Senate 2006 - Filibuster-proof possible
http://election.redstate.org/story/2004/11/4/10189/9444
Senate 2006
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/53612/9073
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waytogo Donating Member (2 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-11-05 12:38 PM
Response to Reply #42
45. url link to story
This is the original link...

http://www.conspiracypenpal.com


I had been a Republican my entire life until I saw what GB did to the country. Voted for Kerry in the general election and Dean in the primary.
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Carolab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-12-05 12:12 AM
Response to Reply #31
46. YUP.
"It seems clear to me that Bush didn't win fairly. I think Kerry actually won the election and allowed Bush to steal it. In retrospect, it appears to me that Al Gore did the same thing, albeit less abjectly than did Kerry."

Don't tell me Kerry wasn't "aware of the threat of e-voting". The guy ISN'T STUPID.
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AtLiberty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 08:10 AM
Response to Original message
32. Thank you PeacePatriot
!!!
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smartvoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 01:10 PM
Response to Original message
36. Yep. They said it was historic for below 50 to re-elected. nt
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Joe Chi Minh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-10-05 06:29 PM
Response to Original message
40. The circumstantial evidence
could not be more comprehensive and compelling. The results were laughable at the time, and they sure haven't gained in plausibility in the meantime, with the copious, detailed, expert analyses carried out.
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