It’s only a small percentage of the precincts reporting, but damn! Chris Bell, Democratic nominee for the Governorship of Texas, is only seven points behind the incumbent Rick Perry?! Wow. I am surprised.
What happens when the dog finally catches the car?
Nancy Pelosi becomes the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
On the subject of the UN’s usual anti-Israel resolution nonsense, Democratic Congressman John Dingell said on Tuesday to a local news station in Detroit (emphases mine):
DINGELL: First of all, our problem is that we must be a fair and honest broker and a friend to all parties. The resolution didn’t make us that. We have to have the trust of both of the people of Israel and the people of the Arab countries around it, in order to help resolve the problem. If we don’t, the possibilities of regional war, calamitous situation with regard to israel [sic] which has 5 million people amidst a billion and a half Arabs are a real potential for calamity. Having said at that, what we have to do is to see to it that finally we begin to address the problems that exist to abate the difficulties that are preventing a– a honest solution to the problem and a negotiated end. It takes– it takes a lot of work to get the trust that it takes to do this. The resolution did not instill that kind of trust and the end result would be quite frankly, the real solution to the problems that exist in the middle east would probably have been and probably will be put off.
ANCHOR: Overall majority of your colleagues didn’t see it that way and some would suggest that if– even though there are obviously a lot of issues with Lebanon and with Palestinian cause wrapped up in this, that this largely boils down to israel [sic] against Hezbollah and Hezbollah is a group that the United States has deemed a terrorist organization, that there’s only one side for the Americans to come down on in this fight.
DINGELL: Well, we don’t, first of all, I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah or for or against Israel.
ANCHOR: You’re not against Hezbollah?
DINGELL: No, I happen to be — I happen to be against violence, I think the United States has to bring resolution to this matter. Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence, but I think if we’ve got to talk to them and if we don’t — if we don’t get ourselves in a position where we can talk to both sides and bring both sides together, the killing and the blood let is going to continue.
Dingell’s equivocations are embarrassing enough, but one must understand that this particular Dhimmicrat is a US Congressman from Dearborn, Michigan —home of the second largest concentration of Arabs in the United States.
So, see, he’s not so much against Hizballah as he is against, you know, “violence.”
Fucking wanker.
My friend Steve Soto at The Left Coaster brings us a mammoth Rolling Stone article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the theft of the 1960 2004 Election.
Turns out, there was a giant conspiracy involving Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, Diebold, and the Illuminati:
Traditionally, anyone in Ohio who reported to a polling station in their county could obtain a provisional ballot. But Blackwell decided to toss out the ballots of anyone who showed up at the wrong precinct — a move guaranteed to disenfranchise Democrats who live in urban areas crowded with multiple polling places. On October 14th, Judge [James] Carr overruled the order, but Blackwell appealed. In court, he was supported by his friend and campaign contributor Tom Noe, who joined the case as an intervenor on behalf of the secretary of state. He also enjoyed the backing of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who filed an amicus brief in support of Blackwell’s position — marking the first time in American history that the Justice Department had gone to court to block the right of voters to vote. The Sixth Circuit, stacked with four judges appointed by George W. Bush, sided with Blackwell.
Blackwell insists that his decision kept the election clean. ‘’If we had allowed this notion of ‘voters without borders’ to exist,'’ he says, ‘’it would have opened the door to massive fraud.'’ But even Republicans were shocked by the move. DeForest Soaries, the GOP chairman of the Election Assistance Commission — the federal agency set up to implement the Help America Vote Act — upbraided Blackwell, saying that the commission disagreed with his decision to deny ballots to voters who showed up at the wrong precinct. ‘’The purpose of provisional ballots is to not turn anyone away from the polls,'’ Soaries explained. ‘’We want as many votes to count as possible.'’
What Kennedy fails to mention —besides the almost stunning degree of electoral fraud that his own grandfather, father, and uncles committed in 1960— is that voting is a proactive endeavor. It is, by its very nature, an act requiring affirmative measures: you must register to vote. You must vote where you are eligible. You must be able to prove your own identity and eligibility to vote. You really ought to know what you are voting for and the reasons you might have for doing so, but that’s just me dreaming, baby. Just dreaming and thinking of the agora and the rule of the deme.
But back to business: Kennedy’s post mortem deserves to have a wide audience. That’s what Soto and other [center-Leftists] think —and so do I. Maybe for different reasons, but let us have transparency and thoughtfulness. Let us have dissent and redress.
And let’s have a debate. Is exit-polling and its clinical sibling —sampling— the same as a head count? I don’t think so. Maybe we haven’t yet acknowledged what living in the age of electronic voting asks and demands of us as knowable, trackable, and responsible individuals, but that day will come.
In the meantime, just gimme a receipt. When I take my (very) petty cash from an ATM, I get a receipt. So when I vote for the election of the President of the United States, I want a receipt for that, too. Okay?
I spoke for an hour or so this afternoon with my beloved aunt —a 71 year-old woman who lives in the vicinity of the President’s ranch near Crawford. We talked mostly about family and her cats, but just as I had to go, she registered a very rare complaint.
Very rare.
My aunt —a staunch Republican, a God-fearing grandmother, and an old country girl living in the reddest patch of Red America— said of the President: “He just can’t get anything done.”
She may as well have called him a godless commie sonofabitch.
My aunt is very frustrated with our President.
And that, my friends, is the very definition of a bellweather tolling down upon this Administration’s heads.
When you lose my aunt, you’re very probably going to lose at least one house of the Congress. I would be surprised if it happens otherwise.
So what is the final verdict on electronic voting? Is the opposition to it shared by all Democrats or just the ones who lost or who supported one who lost? Because it would be helpful to know if this should be added to the list of regressive opinions held by the [progressive] Democrats.
Electronic voting is a logical route for us as a technologically-savvy country to take. It’s fast, efficient, eco-friendly, and probably accurate.
Very probably accurate —perhaps to the point that it would be helpful if intellectual Democrats actually stood up to say that there really isn’t anything wrong with the idea itself. Is there? Maybe they don’t like its implementation or the political persuasion of the head of Diebold, but they should either say that electronic voting is a smart thing to do or that we should go back to paper ballots.
Casting doubt on the idea itself just because you’re on a losing streak is irresponsible.
I recall having a similar view of O.J. Simpson’s defense team. They brought what I feared would be disrepute onto the idea of using DNA at criminal trials. They told an amazingly stupid and distorted story about what DNA is —and I suspect that they have done harm to the people who can least afford to be confused about the science involved.
