Supreme Court announcement @9:45 eastern time, what's it gonna be?

[Russ]

IBhacknU,

Actually, Bush has a couple of viable avenues open on that front. Hopefully, he will not decide to be a "gentlemen" and not pursue them. He needs to attack the democrats in the same manner, and with the same ferocity they have attacked the American system.

Russ, NCNE

 

[DefRef]

Russ: Yeah, it seemed pre-ordained, but I can't believe that so many people are just going to sit by and watch it happen.

The ability of Democratic controlled canvassing boards to take "dimpled" ballots (which could mean that someone WAS going to vote for Gore and then decided not to, meaning that their NON-VOTE would be counted inthe affirmative!:|) and use their mystic powers to make up the difference in votes (only need a thousand!) and then have the 100% Democrat Supreme Court legislate from then bench the rule changes necessary to allow this travesty.

No matter how much they disliked Bush, Gore supporters shouldn't be cheering for this perversion of the process. Al Gore has been able to prove that NO ONE'S VOTE MATTERS. If anyone can find a way to have cronies overturn an honestly cast vote to reverse the TRUE will of the people, then our participation doesn't matter.

This is a very sad night for anyone who still believed that the law matters.

 

[Hulk]

Clinton has led the way for the rule of law to be ignored.

Forget the fact that so many Democrats just don't understand the subjective nature of counting these votes by hand. They are making decisions that the machines make without prejudice. That's why the machines were supposed to be used and that's why there was a deadline. In an election with millions of votes subjective counting could go on forever with no decided outcome. Different counters produce different results.

If the Democrats had a shred of decency they would be demanding an entire state recount. But nooo! Only the heavily Democratic counties.

 

[cavingjan]

I want Bush to win but at this point, but I think it would be better if Bore won. Whoever wins this one is going to cost their party a lot of seats in congress (and probably the white house) in the next set of elections.

 

[charrison]

russ,

I think this may require some phonecalls from an angry public. Got any numbers we can start with?

 

[Russ]

Well, Bore has already said, on the record that, unlike Bush who has a life to return to, this is all he has, and he will do everything he can to get it. If he is unable to hijack the election, he is politically dead for all time to come.

Russ, NCNE

 

[JellyBaby]

<< If he is unable to hijack the election, he is politically dead for all time to come. >>

No, Russ, even if he does hijack the election he's dead-in-the-water. Lieberman might somehow survive either way but not the Liar-in-Chief. His own party will divide and the rest of us will treat a thief as a thief...with a watchful eye and a hand on our wallets at all times.

 

[Michael]

Russ - dimpled ballots have been counted as votes forever. This is nothing new. The Republicans can protest each count towards Gore or against Bush to a judge after the recounts are done. Just like the Democrats can do the same.

The PBC canvassing board was going to work through the holiday while the counters had a few days off just to catch up. They ain't got a prayer of keeping up with the disputed ballots. That's their own fault for being slow about getting going.

Miami-Dade has been counting dimpled ballots from the get-go, so I wouldn't expect their results to sky rocket.

Broward is close to done with the &quot;normal&quot;, fairly restrictive counts. They have plent of time to examine the questionable ones.

Bush can (and I expect will) appeal this to the US Supreme Court. There are two avenues to attack the ruling - separation of power and fairness. The Florida Supreme Court specifically stated that counting votes is all important but only the select few counties are being counted. This leaves the door wide open for some of the smaller, Republican counties to recount all their ballots. If they find more Bush ballots, then they can include the counts.

In the end, if Gore wins on the recounts, and if it holds up in court, I will not feel that he stole the election. Bush lost all the battleground states and didn't do well in a state where his brother is a pretty popular governor. Gore will pay for his &quot;victory&quot; and the Democratic party will pay. He will get zero of his pet projects through the House and Senate.

Note that I expect both candidates and both parties to fight for victory. either one giving up when there was/is no clear leader does not make sense.

Michael

 

[JellyBaby]

Red,

It should have been certified on the 17th. Do to a Dark Hand it continues. Sniveling? Oh yes, plenty. I'll try to keep my whining down just for you but even to a moderate-libertarian this smells so foul my nose hairs fell out.

The court changed the law in the middle of an election. Does anyone else but me see this as insanity???

 

[JellyBaby]

Michael,

The problem is you had one standard for counting during the election and first auto-recount. Now you have three counties each using a different standard to manually recount ballots even those previously thrown out. Nothing in that is fair or accurate. What's happening in FL is a despoiling of process. It's illegial in my mind but apparently not to most partisans.

 

[Michael]

There is no conflict of standards between the machine counts and the manual counts. Obviously, the manual counts can take into account more than the machine counts can, and case law over the years supports that. Changing standards for the manual counts half way through is BS and I oppose it. It isn't illegal, as far as I can tell.

Michael

ps - The tighter deadline may be the Supreme Court's way of telling Miami-Dade that they're out of luck for not starting sooner and PBC that they should have gotton going as well.

 

[MrChicken]

I see counting dimples as just being politics. This probably has always been a good ole boys unspoken rule.
If you're in power (canvassing board), you get to &quot;fudge&quot; the vote a little by reading dimples. Sort of like &quot;home field advantage&quot;.
The politicians surely had this figured out long ago and let it be. Now the honor among thieves has worn thin and they are pushing this in the courts. The good news here is that after this election, those parts of the election law that allow this sort thing are going to get nailed down tight.

 

[DefRef]

Very scary column by Thomas Sowell about the extremes that the Democrats will go to retain power.

A big excerpt:

A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal mentioned in passing &quot;a quiet intelligence-gathering operation&quot; begun by the Gore camp, &quot;checking into the backgrounds of Republican electors, with an eye toward persuading them to vote for Mr. Gore.&quot;

But if the Gore operatives are merely trying to &quot;persuade&quot; Bush electors to defect, then why this hush-hush digging into the past of these electors?

All this is going on while the Gore spokesmen are saying on TV at
every opportunity that &quot;every vote should count.&quot; But a Bush voter's
vote will not count if his elector who actually votes in the electoral
college decides to vote for Gore, rather than have some scandal from
his past made public.

This is only the latest in the desperate and ugly tactics used by
the Gore camp, in order to take the presidency by all means necessary.
Nor is this a new tactic for the Clinton/Gore administration.

It was used against Congressman Bob Livingston and Chairman Henry Hyde, whose old extra-marital affairs were dug up and made public on the eve of the impeachment hearings. It was used against Linda Tripp,
whose confidential personnel files were made public, with an assurance from Attorney General Janet Reno that the person who made them public would not be prosecuted.


The &quot;politics of personal destruction,&quot; which Bill Clinton has publicly deplored, has been his method of operation for years, going all the way back to his days as governor of Arkansas. Al Gore has now taken over the techniques of his mentor, with his operatives' innuendoes about Ralph Nader's sex life on the eve of
the election and their digging up George W. Bush's minor brush with the law 24 years ago.

More is involved here than &quot;dirty tricks&quot; or the character flaws of those who engage in them.

These corrupt ways of operating are a danger to the very nature of American government. If you can steal an election by blackmailing members of the electoral college, then democracy becomes a farce.

Constitutional checks and balances mean nothing if you can blackmail anyone who would expose your illegal actions and ruin a few of them just to show that you mean business. Bob Livingston was scheduled to
become Speaker of the House, but now he is not even a member of Congress. Who would ever want to prosecute any president for anything and be subjected to months of character assassination like Kenneth Starr, including reckless and inflammatory charges that Starr had violated the law? These charges all turned out to be wholly unsubstantiated when examined in a court of law, but that did not stop them from being repeated anyway on nationwide television during the
impeachment hearings.

If the government of the United States is going to be run like the mafia or a Third World despotism, what does our freedom amount to? Any of us could be thrown into prison and kept in solitary confinement for months like Wen Ho Lee, until we &quot;confessed&quot; to something -- however minor -- just so we could get out, and so that the administration gets off the hook legally and Janet Reno can discount our statements as those of a &quot;criminal.&quot;

Is this America? Do we want another administration like this?

I just got off the phone with a friend who voted for Nader and she was thoroughly disgusted at the latest news. She made an interesting point that I'd like to pass along here...

A lot of people here were Gore supporters and that's fine, but I'm curious: Do you REALLY want to win this way?

Can you feel good that the winner may be the one who used political cronies to swipe the election? (This applies to BOTH sides.) How should the nearly 50 million people who DIDN'T vote for Gore (Bush, Nader, Browne, etc.) feel that the entire nation's votes don't matter if EIGHT Democratic County Canvasers and SEVEN Democratic &quot;justices&quot; can change the rules AFTER the election is held to engineer a victory for their party's candidate?

 

[Russ]

DefRef,

Prepare for the attacks on Sowell's credibility because he happens to be a Conservative. Never mind that he happens to be one of the most brilliant intellects in America.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Tripleshot]

Do you REALLY want to win this way?




YEP ! ! !

 

[JellyBaby]

This mess is another great reason to go libertarian. After all if federal jurisdiction and power is reduced to about what it should be under the constitution, then it wouldn?t matter if the single national election was stolen, bought or in any other way compromised. Well, yes it would matter but less would be at stake.

Separation of powers was a damn good idea. The Fathers must have had a crystal ball.

DefRef,

<< Can you feel good that the winner may be the one who used political cronies to swipe the election? >>

Did you really need to ask that question? You know they feel the ends justify the means 100% of the time.

 

[Russ]

<< You know they feel the ends justify the means 100% of the time. >>



JellyBaby,

As the post directly preceding yours so clearly illustrates.

Russ, NCNE

 

[DefRef]

I'd seen this Beckles guy on &quot;Hardball&quot; over the weekend and he was basically exuding a &quot;Yeah, what of it?&quot; attitude when Chris Matthews asked if this was his plan.

It's fine to differ over your candidates and political beliefs, but there's no denying that a lot of dirt seems to come out at strategic moments against Republicans. Are Democrats really cleaner than a preacher's sheets that we never hear about what they're up to?

I guess the difference between the GOP and the Dems is that the Dems will do anything, include pervert the system, to win while the GOP is content to lose honestly. Very noble, but still puts you on the outside.

I just can't believe that the majority of Gore voters would approve of this &quot;any means neccesary&quot; election rigging. The extreme partisans might, but the John and Jane Q. Public couldn't have been supporting this. They wouldn't want to have friends that would lie and cheat and steal on them, so why would they vote for the same? Too weird.

 

[glenn1]

thank goodness that someday, i'll be able to tell my grandchildren, that i once lived in America when it was a democratic republic. If this was going on in Bolivia or Bosnia, or any other so-called 'third world' state, we would decry the entire process.

Congratulations Gore supporters... you just ceded our national sovereignty to the lawyers.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< John and Jane Q. Public >>

Hey I know these guys. Both too busy to really care. They?re feeding little Timmy Q. Public, deciding on which new SUV to purchase, watching sitcoms on the Teletube, going to the bars, etc. Oh and that?s when they?re not apathetic.

Damn election years always bring out the best in me.