Monday, December 27, 2004

Nightmare on Conservative Street

Following the revote in the Ukraine and the completion of the vote counting in Washington state, one has to wonder if a number of conservatives aren't getting a good night sleep these days.

It's not that they aren't sleeping well because they fear that Sen. John Kerry will be able to overturn the results in Ohio, rather they may not be sleeping well because of the fear that the day is coming where the mantra "count every vote and every vote counts" becomes an accepted standard in the United States.

Afterall, if the state of Washington and the country of Ukraine can work to make sure that the will of the voter is respected then that kind of view could spread to every state, county city and township in America. No longer will it be acceptable to stop counting before all votes are counted.

One can only imagine the nightmares conservatives have. One would be that it's November 2000 and the presidential election won't be settled until all the votes are counted. Deep down in most conservatives' hearts they know exactly what that means and one can only imagine the cold sweat that causes.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

What Would the RIght Done to Gore?

Ever wondered what would have happened if Al Gore had been allowed to win the Presidential election in 2000? Afterall, only extremist challenge the fact that Al Gore got more votes nationally than George Bush. It was only through Jeb Bush's assistance in Florida that Bush was able to edge ahead by around 530 votes and "win" Florida's electoral votes, despite leaving nearly 180,000 votes uncounted.

What if those 180,000 votes were counted? GOPers point out that Bush would have won if the four county recount was allowed to continue, however that ignores the fact that
Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, who was overseeing the recount, would have allowed more of the 180,000 ignored votes to be counted. And the result according to the review - Gore wins.

Al Gore was the choice of Florida’s voters -- whether one counts hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won.

So Gore won. What would the Right have done next? One only needs to look to Ukraine where the "winning" side apparently is pulling a page out of the Right's 2000 playbook. For those who forgot, GOP congressional aides staged a fake riot in Florida in order to stop the recount Miami Dade County.

Seeing how well that worked, in a story in the Washington Post, Ukraine Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said that he would not accept a victory by his opponent in the Dec. 26 rerun of Ukraine's contested presidential race and that his supporters were likely to turn out into the streets en masse to block such an outcome.

"Even if Mr. Yushchenko wins, he will never be a president of Ukraine," Yanukovych said in a 45-minute interview at his campaign headquarters in Kiev. "The people who voted for me, they will never recognize him. They are talking about it even now."

Yep, that's what conservatives would have done in America. Right and wrong were, and are, never important to conservatives, only winning. They would have fought tooth and nail to capture what they didn't win, despite the harm it would have done to the country they allegedly love.

So were the Democrats right not to fight? While it may have protected America in the short term, in the long term it may allowed 9/11 to occur, it allowed Bush to turn the world against us, and it pushed the country financial chaos. So in an attempt to be "good Americans," Democrats allowed great damage to be done to the country.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Why We Count

A few conservatives who apparently don't understand democracy or what happened in Florida in 2000 are wondering why some Democrats and others are pushing for recounts in Ohio.

The Wall Street Journal's online OpinionJournal said some of its readers
"have written us asking if there is a possibility that the Democrats actually will manage to steal the election." (You mean like the GOP did in 2000?) No, the Journal blamed the vote recount effort on bitterenders not willing to accept Bush as president;others pushing to establish permissive standards for future close elections; and an attempt by Democrats to go after promising conservative blacks like Ohio's Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

In the Journal's proud tradition of turning a blind eye to reality, the Journal misses the point.

Yes, some people (i.e. most of the world) have a hard time accepting that a majority of Americans could be so foolish that they would vote for Bush. And permissive standards are only bad if you believe the idea that
in America it is vital that every vote count, and that every vote be counted is radical or unAmerican. But it is the conservatives and the GOP who are playing the race card so that Republican Hispanics and blacks can not be criticized, for if Democrats dare to do so, then they are racists. So Clarence (beating inmates in Louisiana isn't cruel AND unusual) Thomas and Ken (sorry, that's only 70 pound paper) Blackwell can not be criticized

But the real reasons people want to count all the votes is the knowledge that because not all votes were counted in Florida in 2000, George Bush was installed as president. Despite Jim Baker's false protestations that the
vote in Florida was fully counted and then recounted, a number of counties only checked their totals and did not recount the vote and Bush ended up ahead by around 600 votes while 180,000 were left uncounted. If all votes were counted, Gore would have won.

The Journal had the right idea that one party is trying to set standards for future elections, except that it is the GOP that is trying to set a bad standardsfor future elections. If the GOP can intimidate Democrats into not standing by the idea of "count every vote and every vote counts" then it will be easier to steal future elections.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Yes, Kerry was right on that also....

George Bush is trying to soothe the damage uncovered by the recent Q&A with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by troops in Kuwait. The major damage is that this is yet another episode (luckily after the election) of how the Bush Administration has messed up again.

After Rumsfeld was bombarded with criticism from U.S. soldiers based in Kuwait, Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect military forces. Bush U.S. troop concerns about inadequate equipment for Iraq combat are being addressed

As Reuters reported the latest complaints put the administration further on the defensive. Bush had rejected charges from Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in the campaign for last month's election that military forces in Iraq did not have sufficient protection.

Of course the Bushies tried to say Kerry voted against body armor by pointing out that Kerry voted against the $87 billion defense bill covering Iraq after seeing his admonition making the rich pay for the war defeated. So was the vote against armor or the payment scheme? The following is what Kerry said:

When say I voted for it, I was willing to vote for the $87 billion providing we paid for it! Providing we asked Americans to sacrifice, all of us together. So Joe Biden and I...brought an amendment to say, Hey America—rather than have a $690 billion tax cut for everybody over the next ten years who are earning over $200,000, why don’t we take just $600 billion, and that way we pay for the war right up front and not add it to the deficit. Guess what? George Bush said no. The Republicans said no.

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Oh yeah, we were wrong on that also

On his way out the door, Tommy Thompson, soon to be former Director of the Health and Human Services, decided to say the Bush administration is screwing things up.

Anyone not wearing Blindfolds for Bush isn't surprised and most GOP true believers no longer pay enough attention to the news, or listen to FOX News, so there will be little questioning of the administration..

So what did Thompson say? Besides Sen. John Kerry was right? Lets see, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post pointed out that Thomson said he wished Congress had given him the authority to negotiate with drug makers for lower prices under the new Medicare prescription bill. This was only a central question in the debate over the far-reaching legislation. Billions of dollars in potential savings were at stake. But the White House line was that this would lead to price controls, so Thompson waited until the bill was law and he was halfway out the door before sharing.

So the government will have to pay a great deal more for drugs, increasing the deficit and possibly raising taxes long term. The VA is able to negotiate on prices, just not HHS.

This is a major example of the incompetence of the Bush administration for which the American people will have to pay for years. But no matter, but gay marriages for people like Mary Cheney won't be permitted.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Failing the Global (Credibility) Test

In discussing America's right to preemptively attack another country, Sen. John Kerry said during the 2004 debates that "you've got to do it in a way that passes the, the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people, understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

Republicans were quick to make fun of Kerry claim for a need for presidential actions to pass a credibility test but recent actions have shown that the Bush administration has failed the global test.

Consider what Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post said regarding Iran (one of three members of the Axis of Evil) and the European Unions attempt to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The EU's problem is that they don't trust the Bush administration approach on Iran. Even Bush's most reliable ally, Tony Blair, has jumped ship on this one. The real-world effect of the failure to find WMD in Iraq is on display in today's agreement. In the face of U.S. skepticism, most nations want to bolster the United Nations not bypass it. With little credibility and many skeptics, the Bush administration is effectively on the sidelines now. This is ironic because the Iranian nuclear ambitions more developed than Saddam Hussein's. But because of the invasion of Iraq--and its chaotic aftermath--the world is even less willing to check it.

So as a result of Bush's failure to pass the global (credibility) test of getting his countrymen and the world to accept his actions, the world is less safe. Congratulations George and Karl.