sigh... How different things might have been.

when I heard the announcement on the radio. Didn’t care if any neighbors happened to hear me.

Something inside me just knew it was going to end badly.

I often think how different the world would be if he had fought harder. You know he actually won Florida and should have been president. He should have not shut out popular President Clinton, but did so because of the unseemly Monica Lewinsky scandal, which seems quaint AF right now.

There most likely wouldn't have been a 9/11/01 attack (GeeDumbya ignored the warnings), so no illegal, immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Cheney The Dick wouldn't have made $39.5B from no-bid war contracts for Haliburton; and the solar panels St. Ronnie Raygun removed would have been put back on the White House, among many other things. I hate Rethuglicans.

And they quietly let the Supreme Court, that W's daddy had put into place, violate the US Constitution. Plus they kept the media busy with the poor loser name calling and suppression of strong liberal protest voices.

There is no place in the Constitution for the Supremes to get involved in the outcome of a presidential vote. The decision goes to the Senate and Congress.

I wish Gore had asked for a march on Washington. I was so angry at the blatant unconstitutional ruling by a bunch of neocon judges. I bet a lot of people would have shown up for him if he had just pushed it.

I have no doubt that Karl Rove was heavily involved in the Bush/Florida 2000 election theft. It's important to remember that Bush had the media in his hip pocket from day 1 of campaign 2000. The pro Bush media made no effort to hide their bias in favor of Bush. They let Bush get away with lie after lie while they viciously attacked Al Gore under many false pretenses. The only record of the pro Bush media's bias in favor of Bush in campaign 2000 can be found in the archives of the Daily Howler at www.dailyhowler.com.The pro Bush media did not want campaign finance reform because they make so much money from expensive tv, print and online campaign ads, they don't want to pay their fair share of taxes, they don't want women, people of color, working people, etc. to be treated fairly. The pro Bush media was squarely on the side of the Bush anti-democracy behavior during the election dispute and they were clueless concerning Florida election law that clearly required that the uncounted votes be counted. The pro Bush media went so far as to invent vote counting scenarios that didn't exist in Florida election law with their alleged 2001count of the uncounted Florida votes in order to not count all of the uncounted votes and hide the truth that Al Gore got the most votes in Florida and nationally. To this day, the pro Bush media refuses to do a full and fair investigation of Bush/Florida 2000 because they know that it'll uncover the ugly fact that Bush had no business ever occupying the White House. Sadly the progressive media also refuses to fully investigate Bush/Florida 2000 which is even more inexcusable imho.
I fully agree that the SCOTUS Bush vs Gore ruling was totally unconstitutional and anti-democracy. BTW, it's the U.S. House of Representatives that's designated by the U.S. constitution to settle a disputed Presidential election, not the U.S. Senate. The fix was in there too because the GOP controlled the U.S. House. I will also sadly point out that not 1 U.S. Senate democrat could bring themselves to co-sponsor the Congressional Black Caucus's challenge to the fraudulent Florida vote count because too many of them wanted to run for President and they didn't want the competition. I sadly now understand why George Washington hated political parties.
In conclusion, the pro Bush media failed miserably to keep we the people fully and accurately informed. The founders of our country never imagined that the media would be owned by greedy, big corporations who put their own selfish interests ahead of we the people and the preservation of democracy. As I've said previously, the blame for Bush/Florida 2000 belongs squarely with Bush and his election stealers with the pro Bush media helping them at every turn.

As someone who actually spent 15 years volunteering on election campaigns (everything from local state legislative campaigns all the way to Presidential campaigns when I lived in Florida in one of the disputed counties), I'm long past tired of people blaming Al Gore for the Bush/Florida 2000 election theft because the actual facts of what really happened.clearly show that Bush and his election stealers are squarely to blame. Nader's big lie and the illegal butterfly ballot in Palm Beach county made it possible for Bush to get close enough in Florida to have his little brother and Florida campaign co-chair steal the election by flatly refusing to enforce Florida's clear election laws that required that every vote be counted. Here is a fraction of highlights of what the Bush campaign did to kill democracy in 2000 in Florida. Most of the uncounted votes are located in the largest and most heavily democratic voting counties in Florida. Most of the votes not counted were cast by voters of color, especially women of color. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who they voted for. The Bush campaign knew it would lose if all of the uncounted votes were counted. Let's also not forget the 1999/2000 "felon purge" by Jeb and Harris where more than 50,000 legally registered, mostly African American democrats were illegally removed from Florida's voting rolls by wrongly identifying them as felons in an illegal effort to reduce the number of democratic voters. Let's also not forget the 11/22/00 (Kennedy assassination anniversary) attack by Brooks Bothers suit wearing GOP operatives on Government Center in Miami, that was organized and paid for by the Bush campaign that stopped the legal vote count in Miami-Dade County. None of these rioters was ever prosecuted by the DOJ. It's a tragedy that there was no Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House in 2001 to launch a Congressional investigation to shame the DOJ into doing it's job as there was in 2021 Let's also not forget that all of this anti-democracy law breaking by the Bush campaign in Florida in 2000 was then rubberstamped by 5 unelected, anti-democracy GOP SCOTUS judges who stopped the legal Florida vote count and took away we the people's right to decide who occupies the White House. These anti-democracy tactics used by the Bush campaign in Florida in 2000 are the very same anti-democracy tactics now being used by Trump tp try to steal the 2020 election and will likely be used by Trump again in 2024. This is the real, ugly story of what really happened in Florida in 2000 and the blame belongs squarely with Bush and his election stealers.

Blame the morons on the Left as well for not simply voting for Hillary and plaguing this nation with Trump.

It's not enough to just blame that Nader apologists who bought Nader's big lie. W and his anti democracy surrogates carried out a full blown coup in Florida in 2000 and that must be dealt with as well especially since it's become the roadmap that Trump is now using for more election stealing.

It's not enough to just blame that Nader apologists who bought Nader's big lie. W and his anti democracy surrogates carried out a full blown coup in Florida in 2000 and that must be dealt with as well especially since it's become the roadmap that Trump is now using for more election stealing.

Clinton is a huge asset on the campaign trail. He is a master campaigner.

Sadly, later Sandra Day O'Connor said that in hindsight, she regretted her vote. How different the world might be today.

Sandra Day O'Connor's hollow 2013 apology is too little too late. She and her anti-democracy GOP SCOTUS partners in crime knew exactly what they were doing in 2000. Scalia's description after the fact of the Bush vs Gore decision being "shit" rings just as hollow as O'Connor's 2013 comments. They knew they were ending democracy in America and they did it anyway.

I remember getting that same feeling that I got when Ford pardoned Nixon.

that butterfly ballot in Palm County...those misplaced Pat Buchanan votes were probably important.

I actually remember voting punch cards back in the day with a similar design (not in FL). I could see how some folks could have been confused. And this was self inflicted since I think Palm County, FL was democratic at that time.

I consider the whole sorry mess an example never to believe someone who says your one vote won't make a difference or a better example of the butterfly effect. Never needed that argument because I had a great High School civics teacher who inspired me to vote in nearly every election I qualified for over the years.

The Pat Buchanan votes turned out to be critically important. The Palm Beach county butterfly ballot violated Florida ballot design laws at every turn. Florida ballot design law in 2000 required that all candidates be listed underneath each other in 1 row of candidate names with the punch hole located to the right of each candidate's name. The butterfly ballot had 2 rows of candidate's names along side each other with the punch holes for both rows located right next to each other with some to the right of the candidate's names and some to the left of the candidate's names. I can also see how it could cause confusion which it tragically did. Palm Beach county was heavily democratic in voting in 2000 and was one of the most heavily democratic voting counties in the country. The county parties were responsible for monitoring the county ballot designs in Florida. County ballot designs would vary by county because of local county races and local county ballot initiatives. I will say that the Palm Beach county democratic party failed miserably to monitor the design of the Palm Beach county ballot in 2000 as it had been required to do by the Florida democratic party and our country will never be the same because of that 1 egregious mistake. That was the 1 ruling that I thought that the Florida Supreme Court got wrong because the law was totally clear.

So much damage in eight years.

Pretty sure they weren't on Al Gore's short, or even long, list.

Now, that's all they are.

This is a quote from the decision..."The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. "
Even though they decided it on the equal protection clause...this was part of the opinion.
It's my guess that this was the spring board for their fake elector scheme.

The GOP SCOTUS shredded the equal protection claim with their anti-democracy, unconstitutional Bush vs Gore ruling. There are in fact 10,000 absentee ballots that the counting machines couldn't read that were hand duplicated and counted and are in the Jeb/Harris fraudulent Florida vote total. The only media outlet to ever report this fact was the Orlando Sentinel on 5/7/01 with the article, "Mangled ballots resurrected". Most of these absentee ballots are located in the most heavily republican voting counties in Florida and they favored Bush by more than 2 to 1. Florida law in 2000 allowed for the hand duplication and counting of ballots that the counting machines couldn't read as a remedy for making sure that all of the votes were counted. The law required the county election supervisors to keep detailed records of every ballot that was hand duplicated and counted This law applied to all ballots that the counting machines couldn't read and not just absentee ballots in heavily republican voting counties. These republican ballots that the counting machines couldn't read were clearly counted and treated vastly differently than the ballots that the counting machines couldn't read in the heavily democratic voting counties that were not counted because the GOP SCOTUS stopped the legal vote count. It's the GOP SCOTUS who blatantly violated the equal protection clause in order to install their personally preferred candidate in the White House.
The GOP SCOTUS Bush vs Gore decision represents judicial activism and a shredding of the U.S. constitution at its worst. It ignores the first 3 words, "we the people" The U.S. constitution does not give the unelected SCOTUS the authority to settle a disputed Presidential election. The U.S. constitution gives the elected U.S. House of Representatives the authority to settle a disputed Presidential election. In 2013, O'Connor finally admitted that the SCOTUS should never have taken the case, (ya think?) and Scalia has since called the decision, "shit", his word not mine even though I agree with the description.
The insurrection stands on the shoulders of the GOP Brooks Brothers riot that attacked Government Center in Miami on 11/22/00. The GOP SCOTUS claiming that they have the right to take away the people's right to vote smells of the radical, anti-democracy independent state legislature theory where the state legislature can decide elections without judicial review that 3 of the GOP SCOTUS judges supported in 2000 and that also reared its anti-democracy head again in the Moore vs Harper SCOTUS ruling in 2023 where the current radical GOP SCOTUS rejected it for now but made clear that they would interfere in future elections if they so decided.

our downfall started with reagan. Our politics has always been dirty. Our downfall is more out in the open now though. The repubs have let some dangerous folks take over. The very rich want more tax cuts. The Christian Nationalist want their version of Christianity. This is our fight. There's more of us & GOTV matters more than ever.

Trump used it in 2020 and he'll use it again in 2024.

When they finally called it for W, I watched all these campaign people go scrambling for the bar.
Sigh.

Unreality started becoming a constant. So did lying. By people in power.

Small world, isn’t it?