Putting aside the details of what happened on 9/11...

[spooked911]

isn't it obvious by now how incredibly corrupt the business, govt and military elites in this country are? And unfortunately it is not just the Republicans.


Who really thinks that these elites had nothing to do with making 9/11 happen? Why are people defending these elites day after day on this board?

9/11 is an incredibly Democratic issue, as the elite fucks are using 9/11 and other big scams to take away our freedoms and our wealth and our ability to really make this country more democratic. This should be clear.

Beyond any reasonable doubt the elites in this country are guilty up to their eyeballs in scamming us every which way.

[SDuderstadt]

1. i don't believe the ''elites'' had anything at all to do with...

''making'' 9/11 happen. a number of them exploited it.

[spooked911]

3. Yeah-- they are corrupt, selfish and murderous

but it's just so hard to believe that they actually had something to do with setting up 9/11....

[Octafish]

53. They like to keep the economy humming or dimming or whatever that's in their favor.

"One of the things that is interesting about reading conspiracy theory is that much of what folks think is conspiracy is really many people acting in concert to make or protect their money." - Catherine Austin Fitts

"Money to get the power. Power to keep the money." -- Niccolò Machiavelli

"Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty." -- George W. Bush

Bush and the outfit he fronts for are part of an organized criminal society the likes of which Ian Fleming dared not speak. They are a living, breathing conspiracy that is global in reach and scope. They make war for profit. They kill those who oppose them. They steal what they want and from whom they want. Their ranks include traitors, NAZIs, eugencists and klansmen, Commies, psychopaths and sociopaths. And that's just what can be proved.

[BeFree]

54. Yep

I live for the day when all support for any Bushco action is truly known for what it is and all those that continue to support Bushco are treated as they should be by being incarcerated forever.

[procopia]

2. The big picture

is being overlooked while debate gets bogged down in minutia, probably by design.

Cui bono?

[spooked911]

4. I agree though also I think

that the truth about 9/11 is so outrageous by design-- so most people simply can't accept it.

[defendandprotect]

62. A shocking number of people do accept that it was an "inside job" --

[JuniperLea]

7. Nailed it... eom

[Realityhack]

5. "Putting aside the details of what happened on 9/11..."

"Who really thinks that these elites had nothing to do with making 9/11 happen?"

Two whole sentences before you jumped the shark. Congrats on a new record.

[spooked911]

23. way to not answer the question

are you telling me that you think that no elite members of the govt, military or business world in this country had any idea 1) about 9/11 before it happened, 2) had a hand in setting up the attacks?

Keep in mind the corrupt venal behavior I alluded to in the OP.

[Ohio Joe]

6. Placing blame on the evil group it belongs to...

is not defense of a different evil group.

[spooked911]

24. it is when you willfully ignore evidence that

this different evil group was involved

[Ohio Joe]

27. Evidence? What evidence have I ignored?

The mini nukes? yeah... No planes? yeah... Sorry to be blunt but these ideas are just plain stupid.

[spooked911]

52. except they are not if you look at the evidence

[Ohio Joe]

59. Yes, they are stupid

Since there is zero evidence for either, they are stupid.

Mini nukes - Small enough to vaporize the inside of the building but cannot be seen from the outside and leave no radiation - Bullshit. Stupid.

No planes - Amateur video analysis that is crap. After all this time has no one thought to go to a professional? - Explain the witnesses that saw it. No bullshit like "they are all related to the govt." without real proof of such a statement, detail how every witness is really a govt. agent. Start with my mother. Tell me how this liberal woman that has protested against the govt. since the 60's is really in Bush's pocket. Tell me how friends I've known since grade school secretly became employees of bushco and are lying to everyone they know. Tell me why these anti-war protesters have openly, vocally, been against Bush's wars yet keeping this big lie secret. Explain it to me.

[LARED]

8. You really need to spruce up on logic

I do not think the so called elites (whomever they might be) made 9/11 happen.

There is no logical path that follows if I believe this I am defending these so called elites. (again, whomever they might be)


9/11 is an incredibly Democratic issue

What in the name of the good Lord does that even mean?

I have news for you. This country is as democratic as it's citizens want it to be. We elect representatives, that are supposed to reflect our values. If we vote in people that limit our liberty we have no one to blame but ourselves

[NowHearThis]

9. WE didn't "vote in" Bushco. He stole his way in.

Most citizens of this country abhor politician/dictator wannabes who start aggressive wars, use torture, and steal elections.

[LARED]

10. Could I ask you a question?

What exactly is Bushco? Many people toss that moniker around, but frankly it's never been clear to me what people mean. Obviously the term includes Bush, and his family, but what else does it include?

[NowHearThis]

11. You agree that the 2000 & 4000 elections were stolen and ...

WE didn't "vote in" Bushco. He stole his way in. And that
Most citizens of this country abhor politician/dictator wannabes who start aggressive wars, use torture, and steal elections.

You agree with the above, right?

[LARED]

12. I've never been convinced

Bush stole the 2000 election. It's possible. 2004 was won by Bush.

I would agree most citizens abhor political / dictators wannabes, etc, etc.

Will you answer my question now?

[NowHearThis]

13. That's a copout response if I ever saw one.

nt

[LARED]

14. The irony

I answered your question and you cop out to answering me and accuse me of coping out.

Typical truther

[LARED]

19. So please explain how my response was a cop out, or are you

just a mouth?

[defendandprotect]

17. If Bush had "won" . . . the Gang of 5 would not have had to intercede to appoint him .. .

Further, the concensus by the press in the recount is that Gore won, including

in Florida -- no matter how you count the vote.

Additionally, since computer voting has been with us beginning in the mid-late 1960's,

I'd suggest that the steals have been going on that long.

Certainly, 2004, was another steal.

[LARED]

18. So based on that logic if Gore had

"won" by the gang of 5 interceding to find him the winner, he really would not have won.

Yes?

[defendandprotect]

21. There was a GOP fascist rally to stop the vote . . .

The Gang of 5 interceded to stop the vote counting and give the election to Bush . .

As long as elections are still based on counting all the votes what you are saying is illogical.

When they counted all the votes Gore won - including in Florida.

[LARED]

25. Yes, I understand lots of people believe that

I have already stated I have never been able to satisfy myself that the 2000 election was stolen. I know you feel your "incredibly compelling" post above should be enough to settle the matter forever, but although I have spend considerable effort to understand what happened, I've remained unconvinced it was stolen, but willing to change my mind.

[defendandprotect]

33. No . . .I feel my post would be ...

blown off by you, as you have done --

However, when I post, I post with the thought in mind that others here may read it -
not simply the poster I'm responding to.

:)

[LARED]

34. Dude, you're a no-planer.

and you are not going to be able to provide any new information regarding 2000.

So yes I would blow you off. The no-planer thing is difficult for me to get past. I'm sure you'll get over it.

[defendandprotect]

37. Let's make the . . .

"blowing off" easier on both of us ---

I'll put you on ignore -- you put me on ignore.

[LARED]

39. I've never put anyone on ignore and will not start now nt

[NowHearThis]

46. They won't put you on ignore. That would defeat a huge part of...

what brings them happiness, if not gold. If you were put on "ignore", then your messages might well stand without
any personal insults, irrelevant questions, demands of proof for trivialities, and all the rest.

[OnTheOtherHand]

35. as long as we're talking about 2000...

At this point I feel that I should be able to remember what everyone thinks about everything, but not so much. Are you questioning whether Al Gore received more votes than Bush in Florida, or whether the Supreme Court can be said to have "stolen" the election, or what?

For me, "stolen" is so ambiguous that I don't bother to agree or disagree with it.

[LARED]

38. Stolen is somewhat ambiguous to me as well

My understanding of the 2000 election can be summed up as follows.

1. The actual Florida totals are difficult to discern as there are a number of different ways that votes are deemed valid or invalid, and those processes became so muddled as the recounts progressed I am unclear where the final Florida tallies actually fell. I believe the consensus was that Bush did win more votes by a very small margin.

2. Regarding the Supreme Courts roles, I think both courts followed the law as best as they could.

[OnTheOtherHand]

40. OK

I think it's fair to say that NORC's study of Florida ballots found that (1) no way of resolving undervotes alone would have given Gore the win, but also that (2) counting overvotes statewide when voter intent could be unambiguously discerned would have given Gore the win. See Dan Keating's paper, for instance at PDF page 8. (I don't know why this paper is posted at AEI, but it wasn't an AEI project.) I'm not sure what you mean by "the final Florida tallies," but when the Supreme Court interceded, no one had ordered a statewide recount of the overvotes. So the debate about "who would have won" often hinges on dueling counterfactuals: would the recount have continued exactly as it was proceeding, or would a Federal judge have ruled that the overvotes be counted? I would say that Gore "should" have won, if all the ballots were scrutinized using a voter intent standard.

I have way too much respect for the dissenters in Bush v. Gore to embrace your conclusion that "both courts followed the law as best as they could" -- but there really was a problem with the way the recount was going forward. If the Florida Supreme Court had done a better job, I doubt that SCOTUS would have stepped in. All very messy.

[greyl]

42. Gore was the rightful winner in 2000. He won Florida, and he won the USA.

With all the votes in every Florida county counted, Gore comes out ahead. Gore's legal team fucked up by not asking for a recount in all counties.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/bugliosi
http://makethemaccountable.com/coverup/Part_05.htm

Bugliosi:

1. A total of 3,718,305 votes were cast in the Florida election under the Votomatic punch-card system, and 2,353,811 votes were cast under the optical-scan system. The percentage of votes not picked up using the punch-card system was 3.92 percent, the rate under the more modern optical-scan system being only 1.43 percent. Put in other terms, for every 10,000 votes cast, the punch-card system resulted in 250 more nonvotes than the optical-scan system. Siegel v. LePore, No. 00-15981. See also Ford Fessenden, "No-Vote Rates Higher in Punch-Card Counts," New York Times, December 1.

2. The ruling was so bad that it was very difficult to find even conservative legal scholars who supported it, and when the few who attempted to do so stepped up to the plate, their observations were simply pathetic. University of California, Berkeley, law professor John Yoo, a former law clerk for Thomas, wrote that "we should balance the short-term hit to the court's legitimacy with whether...it was in the best interest of the country to end the electoral crisis." Translation: If an election is close, it's better for the Supreme Court to pick the President, whether or not he won the election, than to have the dispute resolved in the manner prescribed by law. Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec unbelievably wrote that "the ruling of the US Supreme Court was not along partisan or ideological lines," and that its ruling "protected our cherished democratic tradition with a soundly reasoned, per curiam voice of restraint." I won't dignify this with a translation.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/bugliosi/7

[OnTheOtherHand]

44. yeah, I think I agree with all that

I don't think Bugliosi is the best source to try to figure out what happened, but I think it's true that even conservative scholars generally didn't like the per curiam in Bush v. Gore.

[LARED]

45. I like your term of "rightful winner", It is far more

accurate than "stolen". Even then I am not wholly convinced he was the rightful winner. I say this because there are laws governing elections, and I'm not sure those laws could provide for the extent of recounts needed by Gore to win. His team could not have known or perhaps was not even be allowed to ask for a recount in all counties. Why would his team ask for a recount in counties he won; could he legally ask for a recount in a county he won?

Bottom line for me is, it was messy, and ugly, but not stolen.

[NowHearThis]

47. Bottom line for me is: stolen, messy, and ugly - complete with...

right-wing thugs from the Brooks Brothers brigade sent in to intimidate vote counters and shut down the process. I AM totally
convinced that BUSHCO stole BOTH the 2000 and the 2004 elections. Most Americans don't actively seek out and vote for
the kinds of politicians that head the GOP ticket. Many voters, sadly, can be fooled and conned into voting against their interest, but even so, the evidence is convincing that BUSHCO stole both of those elections.

Some readers might recall that the then Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, actually began his legal
career as a so-called poll watcher in Arizona, where he challenged minorities who were trying to exercise their right to vote.

The GOP has had to steal elections since the 1950's because most Americans reject their agenda.

[OnTheOtherHand]

48. hey, I'm willing to give you another chance

Are you sitting on evidence that "BUSHCO" stole the 2004 election? Or is this one of those "trivialities" you refer to in #46?

[OnTheOtherHand]

49. he did ask for recounts in counties he won

And it seems that he could have asked for a statewide recount. Here's a pretty good contemporaneous story about it -- but I'm not an election lawyer, so I can't vouch for the legal analysis. (ETA: The Times had sort of a victim-blaming bent all year.)

[SDuderstadt]

50. It was my understanding that, in 2000, there was no mechanism in Fl law...

to request a statewide recount and that a candidate would have to request a recount county by county within 72 hours of the election. One of those days within the 72 hours was Veteran's Day, meaning county offices would have been closed, so Gore's team would have had to physically go to every canvassing board (county) and request the recounts within 48 hours, which would have not been physically possible. This contributed to their strategy to ask for recounts only in select counties, but I don't recall any of those counties being ones he won, although that is entirely possible, at least in the protest stage, as opposed to the contest stage.

[OnTheOtherHand]

51. I think that's true initially

As I vaguely recall, the protest phase goes county by county. The contest phase is more 'wide open.'

[procopia]

55. When a candidate wins by illegal means,

is the election not stolen?

Thousands of Florida voters were illegally removed from voter rolls, illegal ballots were counted for Bush, and recounts were illegally obstructed by Republican staffers from Washington D.C. Those are just a few of the things we know about.

[Name removed]

56. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. "certainly"?

No, it is very far from certain that 2004 was stolen. Sorry to quibble with your dogma.

[NowHearThis]

28. Especially, if you ignore the evidence that it was stolen.

"it is very far from certain that 2004 was stolen."

[OnTheOtherHand]

29. please, be my guest

I will be interested to see whether you evince any more interest in what happened in 2004 than you've evinced in what happened on 9/11.

[OnTheOtherHand]

43. crickets?

Do you know of any evidence that I'm presumably ignoring? Or was that just a little drive-by?

[SidDithers]

32. Yeah, I'd kinda like to know exactly what "Bushco" is too...nt

Sid

[BeFree]

41. You don't know?

Don't you read much else of DU? Bushco has been used for years and years on thousands of posts and even here in the dungeon it's been used hundreds of times, and you still don't have a clue? You mean you've seen it all this times and just went: Duh?? Without even asking til now?

[defendandprotect]

16. Political violence destroys democracy . . . whether assassination or stolen elections . .!!

I think the best description of all this is Fletcher Prouty's "The Secret Team" --

[spooked911]

22. Hello-- have you followed politics at all for the past eight years?

Or are you being deliberately dense?

[LARED]

26. Yes, I've followed politics quite closely for many years.

Although it's unclear how your post even remotely addresses my post.

[defendandprotect]

36. What helps cover the oddity of ...

these views is that our corporate-press continues to fail to acknowledge the
political violence of the last almost 50 years now!

IMO, that also includes stolen elections going back probably to Nixon/Humphrey
when the computers began to come in -- the large ones were first used
by "media" to report and predict election results. Jumps in votes of popular
candidates were often followed by computer crashes and when reports resumed, usually
the unpopular candidate had was leading. Quite some power -- and played in the open
during the 2000 election by John Ellis/Fox News.

[defendandprotect]

15. Right . . . 9/11 continues to be used to argue for torture and Patriot Act, Homeland Security--!!!

And who knows what more may be down the road aways ???

[jakeXT]

30. I was thinking about it when I listened to Joe Rogan

He mentioned Northwoods and the interviewer has never heard of it, but he agrees on the broken and corrupt system.
Yet I think the interviewer still believes the official story, although he accepts that the gov would kill it's own citizens to invade other countries


Isn't this somezhing like doublethink ?

doublethink - Reality Control. The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them

http://www.adamcarolla.com/2009/05/01/acp-20090501-adam-and-joe-rogan/
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/cioffi.cachefly.net/2009.05.01ACP.mp3

[NowHearThis]

31. Provoking wars has a long tradition (here and abroad)

President Polk wanted to purchase New Mexico and California. He sent a diplomat to offer the Mexican government the equivalent of
Bush's "carpet of gold or carpet of bombs" initiative. The Mexican government didn't bite, so Polk provoked the Mexican army into
defending what the Mexican government considered it's territory. Once the Mexican army took the bait, the U.S. had its war
excuse and the result was an increase in size of the U.S. empire. Sacrificing innocent civilians on 9/11 and in Iraq and Afghanistan
is merely the continuation of diplomacy by other means.

Under General Wesley Clark, the U.S., in 1999 deliberately bombed a TV station in Belgrade, killing numerous employees there. That was, by definition, a war crime. You may also recall the U.S. deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

If it makes it go down any easier, the U.S. isn't the only country that willingly sacrifices its own citizens.

[biermeister]

57. who benefited?

If you can answer that question, you can usually find the guilty party or parties.

[Bolo Boffin]

58. Life is not an Agatha Christie novel. n/t

[leftofthedial]

60. the elites have defenders everywhere in this country.

[defendandprotect]

61. Totally agree...

Understand there's a new bill coming up HR1826 --

FAIR ELECTIONS NOW ACT --

My Republican representative . . . Lance -- actually signed a PLEDGE to support it--!!!

Common Cause called - they're trying to get more Repugs to sign up --

If you have a Repug Rep or Senator call them --

We're not going to be able to change anything until we change this system of bribery/