BANNED FROM DAILYKOS

The Dailykos banned at least two of election integrity activists yesterday, including CEPN's Lisa. See the story here:

http://tinyurl.com/hx5yq

Then read how Kos admires Chuck Hagel here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/6/153221/1163

(I hope everyone knows that Chuck Hagel was President of ES&S when that voting equipment elected him as senator of Nebraska!)

Finally, here's a diary on the recommended diary list up right now where you can post your opinions -- if you're logged on to that website.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/20/163445/184

...and promoting "free speech".

I think we see his agenda now.

Embrace. Control. Extinguish.

know what I'm $ayin?

...$o I can under$tand Better?

Sniff out those agendas can't you.
:puke:

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

I'm really glad you guys had me look up Anonymous Army. It puts all of this hand wringing into perspective.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/19/20555/1560

Why on earth you would publicize his efforts is beyond my reasoning skills.

This is what the diary says -



In other words, at least Hagel is what he is, while it is painful to see
McCain grovel and kiss neo-con butt.

Dems used to think McCain was reasonable, but he is not his own man.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:tC-bW7Fy6mkJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/6/153221/1163+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

I don't see this as Kos providing an endorsement for Hagel, and I
don't see any campaign ads for Hagel posted at Kos, either.

Additionally, I post a diary on election integrity issues from time
to time, and none have been deleted.

...first amendment freedoms to us on forums, websites, blogs and message boards. I realize these sites are private property, but there should be more tolerance of alternative viewpoints than there is on KOS and even here for that matter. Only posts that threaten the lives of others should be censored or pulled. Good or bad threads should be allowed to sink or swim on their own merit based on the response of the membership.

The mods at KOS appear to have fragile egos, and need to get over themselves and start thinking about the good of the country, upholding the Constitution and furthering the rights of the citizens of this country. If they are not doing that, why bother existing. They will quickly morph into just another "spin" site lacking in truth and credibility. Mods should let criticisms that don't threaten another poster or public figure's life run off them like water off a duck's back. If the democrats have any hope of ever winning another election, they MUST publicize the issue of voter fraud IMMEDIATELY and continuously until it is rectified. KOS is out of touch if he doesn't realize that, and his site will become pointless and irrelevant if democrats can not win most elections because the vote is rigged. He is cutting off his nose to spite his face, so to speak. He must implement safeguards against unwarranted censorship by the mods and admins on his site - and discuss the issue of censorship at his yearly conventions.

Everyone thinks that KOS himself is the reason the site is so populuar, but it's not about him really. IMO, the reason the site is so big is because of the posters that flock there who SHARE his viewpoint. KOS provides an outlet for them to unify their collective voices so their message is ampliefied and thereby more effective. KOS's site promotes "their" cause, which ultimately serves the greater good. The sooner KOS realizes this, the better chance he'll have of avoiding the pitfalls of having his "popular" site slide into the utter boredom of the spin cycle. If that happens, people will go elsewhere and unifiy under a new "it" blogger to find equality and unity of expression. Recycling centrally dictated talking points is a no no and a waste of time and if KOS indulges in ego stroking the admin/mod staff over there, he will shrink his site faster than a silk shirt in the hot cycle.

working now.

Broken link.
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory ;sid=2006/6/19/21232/4395

corruption often follows. Not saying anything much about KOS since I'm not following it to speak of and only gather that some people aren't thinking too highly of KOS these days (seems like I heard Al Franken saying something that wasn't entirely flattering---I could be wrong).

The truth is, however, if the DAILYKOS does become less than ideal in it's behavior, I'm sure there are plenty of other forums to take their place--one or more directly or simply the dispersal of it's members across the range of liberal/progressive sites.

I get a "500 Internal Server Error" page.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/6/153221/1163

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, kos@dailykos.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Apache/1.3.34 Server at www.dailykos.com Port 1244

just pasted the url in google
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:tC-bW7Fy6mkJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/6/153221/1163+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

seems to be running very slowly right now. The link worked fine yesterday.

System error or was it pulled? I dunno. . . .

n/t

All of a sudden, lots of wedges flying around the Left Blogosphere in recent days. Why?

to sow dissention and confusion here on DU. You can almost always spot them because they introduce subjects not for discussion but rather condemnation. It won't work because most people on DU are fairly intelligent.

She pretended to be a responsible conspiracy researcher to try and skirt the rules at kos. It turned out she was a flaming loony that thought the site rules were for everyone else.

Much like the people here who post their pet theories in GD knowing full well the will get moved but who are so selfish they think there opinion supersedes the rules.

I find it strange that anyone here gives a shit what can or can't be posted on Kos.

Is it a case of being pissed off that he has chosen to seek out mainstream high profile diarists over the whack job 9/11 truth movement types, and the obnoxious bbv crowd who insist ever word typed not related to diebold is a waste of time?

election integrity activist.

But I also have come to learn she's a respected researcher who was recently on a documentary on PBS and has written several books.

BUT the point is her opinion--whacky or not. The point is the censorship of the yellow cake story and the mainstream media and mainstream blogs promotion of it--metaphorically speaking.

Except for this time, we're talking about the real inconvenient truth: elections in this country are now bought and there's no recourse.

If you try to scream about it, you are tarred and feathered and asked to leave the premises.

Or as she said Discovery Channel? Which is it?

You have no idea why Kos banned her. I wouldn't be surprised if it was sock puppet related as well (considering the amount of bbv'ers that use them on Kos) as her flagrant disregard for the rules.

I think Kos would rather have presidential contenders posting at Kos than the bbv'er who tell everyone there is no point voting unless their issues are addressed, which now include loose connectors that can shock poor little old ladies.

But this sock puppet hypothesis is interesting. Isn't everyone a sock puppet for their ideas. And since no one really knows who anyone else around here the mere fact that we all use nom de blogs I guess is evidence of our sock puppet. So, when a ruse is universal is it a ruse? I mean is anyone falling for it. It's obvious by what people say where they're getting their fuel for fire (whether intellectual or monetary).

You, for instance, seem to highly motivated to lump the bannee with BBV, which we all know is an epithet on the DU. Why? Devil's advocate or? I'm trying to figure that out. So, let me ask the key question:

What rule is it that you think the bannee broke?

Kos has NO MORE censorship than DU. What Kos decides to censor may be different but I could argue the way mods remove posts here is far more censorial than the Kos community hiding inappropriate comments, after all the community can un-hide comments unfairly troll rated. That can't happen here.

Second, you aren't using the term sock puppet correctly. A sock puppet is a second username being used to bolster your argument or to pile on to a critic. Much different than a nom de blog.

bbv is not only an epithet on DU, but it has become synonymous with sloppy logic and poor research skills regarding electronic vote fraud conspiracies.

I don't think the bannee broke the "no conspiracy theory" rule, I know she did. The question should be, is that why she was banned?

Many things foisted on us are denigrated on the grounds that they're "conspiracy."

And I do appreciate the "sock puppet' explanation. I had never heard that before.

As for BBV, I think they've come a long way from that initial branding. I think most of us activists were not prepared for the public scrutiny and made a lot of mistakes early on.

When I ask, "So, what have they done for us lately?" I think everyone ought admit they've done a lot. And California they lead to the VSTAAB report that showed us just how bad the Diebold vote rigging devices really are.

Markos owns his site, he's free to have whomever he wants representing its' voice -- or not. Similarly, if someone stands on my front lawn peddling Jesus it isn't censorship if I tell them to get off my lawn. And you're not buying a voice by donating to dKos either. There's no contract that says that. All you're doing is rewarding the site owner for providing a web site that you enjoy.

Or let me put it this way. Would you let Febble and OnTheOtherHand constantly berate the idea that there was significant, widespread fraud through electronic vote flipping in 2004 on your own site?

Agree or disagree with Kos and his associates. It's his site and nothing is stopping anyone else from developing a site as equally popular. And no one is censoring anybody.

Just to clarify for the record, I don't think Kos does donations. He sells subscriptions which basically is selling the ability to turn off the ads.

I don't enjoy Kos very much (nothing against Markos or the regular kossacks, it's a fine site) so I flubbed on Markos' funding method. Which is ironic because that underscores my point about private ownership even more.

Maybe the better analogy is to a night club with an open mike night?

I don't think you flubbed it much. It also seems DU is going the same route, which I think is a good thing.

I like kos but respect everyone's opinion as long as it's based on legitimate reasoning, which yours it seems is.

:toast:

Don't worry though. I'm sure to say something stupid or offensive any time now. I'm very reliable that way. ;-)

Belated welcome to DU. :hi: :toast:

troll-rated Febble last year for supposedly not acknowledging that "the exit polls predicted the outcome correctly in the Senate race but not in the Presidential race." Which actually isn't true, so I guess it is just as well that Febble didn't acknowledge it.

Febble, always the pugnacious hothead, came right back with "You seem to be rather aggressive about this."

Funny, I've seen lots of people strafe Febble over their own misinformation, but it ticks me off every single time. Oh well. (Real History Lisa had some posts I really respected, although she certainly had some that I didn't respect at all.) So much for that bout of meta.

I think the mental anguish from Karl Rove's nonindictment is making us eat our own.


Lisby

because, the way I have the Plame case figured (and I'm not alone in this), Rove was a political operative in the outing, but not the mastermind. The mastermind is Cheney, Rumsfeld or both. (I tend toward Rumsfeld). And the non-indictment of Rove might be a good thing, in the long run, if he is cooperating as a witness, to keep himself from being indicted for perjury. Fitzgerald already has one perjury trial on this hands--Libby obstructing his view of the main crime and its higher up perps. ANOTHER perjury trial (and he sure seemed to have Rove on perjury, from what I could see) was not his goal. He goal was to extract something from Rove with the threat of a perjury indictment. A perjury indictment would entirely spoiled Roves' phony miraculous Bushite "comeback" narrative for the fall. So Rove didn't want that. And a second perjury case would have been a sort of failure for Fitz. As it is, I think he got some daylight--maybe Rove finally giving Libby up (out of revenge for Libby trying to nail this thing on Rove--or just to get himself out of trouble), and Fitz now has a better chance to crack Libby, or trip him up during trial. Rove testified to the GJ five times. That wasn't about nothing.

There are a lot of unknowns in this case--and there are not enough knowns to really have definitive feelings about it either way. Luskin (Rove's attorney) has been playing such games in the press as late as today (calling the blogs "nutty" and "nonsensical" and all) that you gotta figure Leopold/TO were onto something (re; their story that Rove had been indicted). There are still two downside possibilities (and Rove NOT being indicted is not one of them--that is actually potential good news!). One is that there might have been a behind-the-scenes "Saturday Night Massacre" in which A.G. ( torture memo writer--and Bush Cartel toady) Gonzales pulled a powerplay on Fitz, to get him to back off on a Rove indictment. The thing about this is that Fitz has the goods on Gonzales as well (for obstruction, early on). Hard to see Gonzales winning that one. (Or maybe a Bush secret pardon of Rove?).

And the other possibility is that Leopold/TO got royally burned by Rove and Luskin (a la Rove's burn of Dan Rather)--with an apparently well-sourced story that Rove HAD BEEN indicted--but even this is a sort of left-handed compliment to Leopold/TO. Idiots and trolls got on Leopold/TO's case for going with the story--which is just what Rove would love to see, if he had burned them. Dissension on the left! They ragged them and ragged them, day after day. But everybody with any sense realized that, a) Leopold/TO wouldn't risk their reputations on a poorly sourced story; and b) if they did get burned, they deserve our sympathy and support, not burning at the stake.

The jury is still out (so to speak) on a lot of this. People might have felt anguish if they were relying on Fitzgerald, like a "white knight," to rescue our democracy all by himself--and especially wanted an indictment of Rove before the '06 elections. But this was a wrong-headed hope all along. Fitz is up against master deceivers and highly dangerous people. Our justice system is shaky at best. The Diebold Congress is beyond useless. They are a menace. And we have a whole lot of work to do to rid ourselves of Bushite-controlled electronic vote rigging and massive illegal vote suppression. We shouldn't be idling away hoping for a Savior.

I can't say I wouldn't have been delighted to see Rove frog-marched, but THAT would very surely have meant the end of Fitz's investigation--with little hope that TWO perjury trials, with one perjurer protecting Cheney (and likely Rumsfeld) and the other protecting Bush, would get anywhere. He needed to crack somebody; there is hope that he cracked Rove. Luskin appears to be covering something up (a Rove deal with Fitz?), and Fitz has said absolutely nothing. Not one word. Hasn't exonerated Rove. Nothing. The investigation and Libby trial are going forward.

Add to that the well documented history of Fitzgerald and his absolute, single minded devotion to dame justice.

His reputation as Mr. Incorruptible contrasted with the giddy "free at last" performance of Mr. Corruption Rove just adds to the curiouser and curiouser dearth of predictability of this whole mess.

Thank you, PeacePatriot. Your clarity of thought on what seems to be happening at this stage of l'affaire Plame goes a long way toward restoring my faith in DU. It's the wisdom of people like you who make DU a vibrant, interesting place to exchange ideas.:toast:

and letting the courts sort them out, because as you said, Fitz has Rove dead-to-rights on perjury/OOJ.

As you say,

"He goal was to extract something from Rove with the threat of a perjury indictment", but maybe Fitz had to file that indictment in order for it to be really real for Rove. At which point, Rove actually has to come to the table with something seriously more important to the overarching investigation than his own sorry rind, and negotiate a sealing of said indictment.

The 2006 midterms are critical to these guys. If they lose the majority, it's all legal fees for them. Rove will do whatever outrage is necessary to carry this off. If he's fucking Cheney and Rummy, God help him. If thinks he's fucking Fitz, even God won't take his side.

I read that it was a very big surprise. Not so much now, huh?

It was an open seat. Hagel ran against Ben Nelson, who later ran again and won.

Ben Nelson was the incumbent governor of Nebraska in 1996, I believe.

Sometimes these factoids sort of rip loose from their moorings. I've seen statistics from the 2002 election attributed to the 1996 run.

In 1996, the last poll conducted by Gallup for the Omaha World-Herald (10/30-11/1) showed Nelson and Hagel tied 47-47, with an apparent movement toward Hagel from the preceding poll, within the margin of error (there were only 457 likely voters in the sample).

http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/6/19/193419/323

(cut and paste the whole link)

"Everything is not relative.."

His rules are clear about anything approaching conspiracy theories. As far as I can see it's the only thing he doesn't allow.

Bush uses the word "terrorist."

It's a convenient attribute to anything he doesn't like.

Many of you will remember that soon after the 2004 election one diarist called Georgia10 challenged Armando (who was filling for with Kos) to post the election was not legit story if there was sufficient knowledge.

She wrote a magnificent compendium called "Eye on Ohio."

Everyone agreed she not only met but surpassed the challenge.

Many wondered why a higher degree of proof was needed for this issue than for any other.

After all, we have the GAO report, the Conyer's hearings, miles of documentation by Fritrakis, Crispin-Miller, RFK, and even that plump British guy who loved the Iraq war.

We have Professor Avi Rubin saying we now have the nuclear bomb of voting vulnerabilities. And we have Prof. David Dill saying we cannot trust the equipment.

How on earth is this a conspiracy???<\b>

Kos tried to refuse to put the story on the front page. Reluctantly, I think he finally allowed Armando to give it space somewhere.

It was scandalous treatment. Why? Because if flies in the face of the facts.

It's not about conspiracies, it's about keeping people asleep while our democracy gets raped.

Not only was it diaried, but to this day the only topic not allowed is bbv stole 04 diaries. RFK was front paged AND sat at the top of the rec list for three days.

Just this weekend the top of the rec list featured a diary with "Stolen Election" in the tittle.

What more do you want from him, all bbv all the time?

I don't understand. The point is Kos kicked a reputable election integrity activist off his website, and he has repeatedly threatened to kick others off for posting on this topic. That's the point I'm trying to make.

That doesn't make the guy evil or a shill for the Republicans. He may be both, we don't know, but either way he certainly has a right to decide on what to allow and disallow on his site. And as big as dKos is, it's still only one website.

the perception that Kos is a liberal free-thinking site.

Similarly, I think Salon.com is a fake "alternative" site.

It's the corporate message repackaged for those who wear light blue.

With that said, I've posted on Kos for quite sometime now with no trouble. But the threats are always there that we're pushing the line. I thought things were improving. Though when I heard Lisa and another were kicked off yesterday, I felt it was time to question if Kos is getting his election integrity advice from the former ES&S president Chuck Hagel.

Many of us are just getting weary of getting "out-FOXed."

#: )

First you were concerned about censorship on dKos and when it was pointed out that there can be no such thing as censorship in regards to a privately owned website you've now switched to questioning Kos' liberal creds, which is not even relevant to the conversation at hand. Again, dKos belongs to Markos. It's his to do with as he pleases and it doesn't matter if he's lib, con or Aum Shinrikyo. If you don't like the way Markos runs dKos, you're perfectly free to go start your own competing site. You're a smart person, and from what I've seen elsewhere, have a likable writing style so I'm sure you'd be able to attract an audience quickly. There's certainly many who agree with you.

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

oh, gawwwwwd, could you please not inject Bev into this, unless you have a really, really good reason to believe she belongs? Do we really need more paranoia?

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

Please understand, I set a pretty high bar for such accusations because they are so often directed at me. Well, I hope that isn't the main reason. But the fact that I agree with Republicans that Bush won the election doesn't make me a Republican, and the fact that Einsteinia agrees with Bev about some things doesn't make her a BBV agent. She does her own work, and she expresses lots of opinions that don't seem to have anything to do with Bev.

I happen to disagree with most of the opinions Einsteinia has expressed in this thread (at least it feels like most).

Unless you want to accuse me also of being such because I posted about BBV's report on Diebold's Rob Pelletier and BlackBoxWatchdog on my own site (and in Einsteinia's thread here at DU):
http://www.neuralgourmet.com/2006/06/05/diebold_disinfo_dealers_demasked

The tendency to accuse everyone of being a "bev bot" who simply points to positive things BBV has done, or negative things done to BBV, is as tiresome as the tendency for Bev Harris to create "bev bots".

OTOH is right. There's no need to open that can of worms.

to her twice in my life. I'm not a supporter or non-supporter of BBV. I am for all election integrity research that moves our cause.

This jingoistic tribalism of team identity is tiresome at best and destructive our cause at the worse.

As far as my Kos posts, read through them. I think out of all them there are possibly two references to BBV and the rest are about other facets of the election integrity cause.

I suggest that you put your cheap spy camera back in your pocket. But with that said, the NSA is still looking for a few good dogs.

As the two posters above rightly point, out the less Bev the better, and she is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Would you however concede that your ability to post at Kos after the diaries you have written renders your thesis invalid and Lisa's ban was obviously not a result of censorship?

been kicked off there. But if Lisa got kicked off for what she posted, I feel it's only a matter of time. When that happens I wonder who will care. Is it an issue. If so, why?

And that's why I wrote this post.

This says it all...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/3/03619/14280

I find the statement at this link just dreadful.

How do they un-ring that bell? An apology perhaps?

Wouldn't hurt.

Markos hasn't EVER threatened to ban election integrity activist. He bans people that post extraordinary claims without evidence.

You are carrying water for the gop who are desperate to discredit dkos. You are making false accusations and not offering any proof to back them up. Much like the people who ARE banned by kos.

Kos banned Bev Harris, is that who you are calling a reputable activist?

why Kos banned Real History Lisa? (From the thread context, surely that is whom Einsteinia is referring to.)

I'm just asking. I totally agree that he doesn't go around banning "election integity activist(s)" per se.

Could we hold off on the argument about who is "carrying water for the gop" for another hundred posts or so? just hoping. You didn't go there first.

EDIT TO ADD: Well, now I know why I would have banned her. Nothing to do with conspiracy theories, everything to do with sliming other Kossacks. That's just me.

But, if the op is talking about Lisa she has a long way to go to prove she is a reputable activist.

'Lisa" seems to discredit her own argument about kos' censorial attitude about election integrity on her own blog.
http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2006/06/democracy-slipping-away.html

The op also said this..
"But I also have come to learn she's a respected researcher who was recently on a documentary on PBS and has written several books."

Here is Lisa's own description of her TV appearance..

"I'm going to be one of the talking heads on the Discovery Channel program "Conspiracy Files: CIA Mind Control," which will air Thursday, May 25th, at 9pm Eastern and Western."

Alex Jones has been a talking head on reputable programs does that mean he is reputable as well?

Here is the description from the Discovery Channel..

"DSC — Conspiracy Files
CIA Mind Control

It has all the makings of a government plot, and in this case, it happens to be true. The CIA did perform experiments with LSD as a mind-control agent. But conspiracy theorists insist it was on a much larger scale than officials ever admitted."

And here is Lisa talking about conspiracy theories on Kos weeks ago yet she was only banned yesterday. Please see her comments in that thread and tell me she is a reputable activist.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/22/23521/3651

Uncle. Don't make me think about Sirhan Sirhan any longer!

My impression is that Real History Lisa sincerely wants to distinguish between good evidence and bad evidence, but doesn't recognize when she is out of her depth. I don't know. I don't know what makes anyone actually believe that the 2004 exit polls were correct. The more time I spend trying to understand them, the more puzzled I get. (I mean, I can understand it as careless acceptance of purported expert authority -- but it doesn't take much expertise to see the elaborate intellectual contortions required to believe that Kerry won New York by 30 points.) I don't know enough about Sirhan Sirhan to know whether this argument is similarly stupid all the way down, or whether it is stupid in its own way. I am curious, but luckily not curious enough. (Please, oh universe, let me be not curious enough....)

Lisa did her part to feed a vicious spiral of invincible ignorance by trashing someone who knows more than she does, and I emphatically disrespect that.

That she also buys into RFK Jr.'s other lunacy -- the 'mercury in vaccines causes autism' PCT. All I see her doing is simply picking and choosing the PCTs she believes in based on whether they align with her values system and worldview. That's fine for a religious apologetic but if one is making factual assertions it doesn't fly.

You may be exactly right. Certainly I don't understand her values system and worldview nearly well enough to judge whether she sometimes rejects even PCTs that align with them. I'm not sure what worldview it is that makes someone believe that mercury in vaccines causes autism, although believing that experts routinely engage in massive cover-ups conceal or ignore the truth certainly helps.

(EDIT to, conceivably, clarify my point -- I don't want to waste any more of my life in stupid arguments about what counts as "massive.")

Hmm, I think you may actually have used, somewhere, an interesting phrase for beliefs that are contrary to prevailing expert understanding, yet buttressed by the confidence that the experts have some predisposition to conceal or to ignore the truth. (This plays into the 2004 election debate in spades. Why don't political scientists think the 2004 election was stolen? Well, maybe they value their academic comfort too much, or they are funded by right-wing think tanks, or they lack the interdisciplinary background, or they aren't properly trained in math, or they don't understand the nature of evil.)

Anyway, "That Woman" doesn't matter enough to me for me to take the time to figure out whether you are right or not. The conclusions I've already drawn are damning enough, at least for me, so I will leave it there.

Michael Barkun defines it as claims to truth that claimants regard as verified despite marginalization of those claims by experts within the field (I'm paraphrasing -- his def. is much longer more precise) and includes:
* Forgotten knowledge -- e.g. "ancient wisdom"
* Superceded knowledge -- e.g. astrology
* Ignored knowledge -- e.g. folk medicine (claims from low prestige social groups)
* Rejected knowledge -- e.g. UFO abductions
* Suppressed knowledge -- e.g. suppressed cancer cures (it seems to me a great deal of political conspiracies fit here)
Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520238052
(I really should start giving out my Amazon affiliate link on these things)
Barkun's homepage: http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/psc/faculty/Barkun.asp

Anyway, I know what you mean. For myself, trying to understand why people believe extraordinary claims even in the face of massive evidence to the contrary is important. I can see where that would not be your thing (or most people's thing). Either way, trying to understand this particular person, not so much and it is pretty pointless.

Misleading toward the truth



Peter Sandman's point both explains why people may legitimately believe in conspiracies by experts (experts do suppress information for fear people may react to it in ways that may be injurious either to themselves or to others), but also, ironically, why I believe it is so important that in making the case for election reform, we do not "mislead towards the truth". In the end, I don't think it works.


edited to add a paragraph to the quote that got lost in cut-and-paste

I actually spent several minutes fumbling to make a similar point, but finally gave up.

The premise that Experts Can't Be Trusted is pretty reasonable. But by itself it leads nowhere at all. Everyone trusts someone about something, no matter how bravely he or she speaks about evaluating all the evidence independently.

Umm, I will just shut up now and encourage people to read your post a few more times. It's deceptively short.

Because we need other people to act as filters for us. No one has the time or energy or knowledge to sift through every claim and evaluate it properly. So when Steven Weinberg says something about physics, for instance, I tend to believe him a priori because many other people I trust vouch for his credentials and the things he's said in the past have proven themselves to be accurate. OTOH, I tend to immediately distrust Pat Robertson when he speaks about biology because I *know* he is not credentialed, has never invested any time in serious independent study and everything he says on the topic of biology ultimately shows itself to be utter crap. Also, I think over time we learn to detect that "paranoid style" or crank quality. For example, when I view the Nature's Harmonic 4-Sided Day Time Cube website I instantly recognize it as the work of a crank (or brilliant satirist -- I'm not sure which). With RFK Jr. it becomes a little harder to recognize that crank style.

"Dr. Gene Ray offers Wikipedia $10,000.00 to disprove math that 1 rotation of 4 Earth quadrants within the 4 quarter Harmonic Time Cube does create 4 simultaneous 24 hr. days." Why, that's vaguely reminiscent of Kathy Dopp. Actually, Kathy offered not to distribute one of her critiques if I made a cash contribution to her organization. That generous offer to accept money was withdrawn, but not her plea to "any reputable mathematics department" to confirm that the work of Fritz Scheuren -- former president of the American Statistical Association -- is "mathematical balderdash."

I think of that as classic crank: the Great Mind who prefers to work alone, overturning conventional wisdom. The Great Idea comes first; the conspiracy, it seems, is tacked on to explain the world's failure to accept the Great Idea.

Yes, I think the bad Election 2004 stuff (of course I don't think it has all been bad) has been a dialectic of Great Ideas and degenerate conspiracy thinking.

For at least a certain class of conspiracy theories, they're subservient to the Great Idea.

I think too, part of avoiding crankdom has to do with recognizing your own inner crank and when he/she is expressing his/herself. Whatever the hell that means.

Anyone who doesn't understand why this is funny probably has never waded into the actual quantitative specifics of the exit poll debate -- not that there is anything wrong with that. It has nothing to do with mocking the possibility of fraud.

Full disclosure: this was imbedded in a comment on a DKos thread that autorank linked to (#115). I choose not to link to the comment because the rhetoric is pretty sharp and takes a whack at DU -- and I'm really no more interested in BB wars than in the BBV wars.

is "revised 8/2/05"

monomaniacal? moi? Naw. I even like puppies.

As I recall, the biggest quant evidence about the Hackett-Schmidt race was that the Republican unaccountably ran better in the larger precincts -- although the same thing was true for the 2nd Congressional District in the 2004 presidential race, and (before anyone gets excited) the 2004 chief justice race, and even the 2002 governor's race. Another instance of citing an anomaly without establishing an empirical regularity.

And there are conspiracies every day. In politics we're familiar with quite a few -- Watergate, Iran-Contra, Enron come immediately to mind.

The difference though between a conspiracist and someone who merely believes in something that the majority does not has more to do with the style of believing (how that person decides who and what information to believe) and their worldview. As Hofstadter said, "...the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good." Basically a conspiracist see the entire world politics driven by conspiracy, and not small event conspiracies but grand, over-arching, interlocked, systematic conspiracies and lately superconspiracies. It's an inflation in scope, scale and time (duration) whereas real conspiracies are always limited in scope, scale and time. There's also a certain Manichaean quality to a conspiracist worldview.

So yeah, sometimes it's legitimate to believe in a conspiracy. The problem comes though when one accepts or seeks to employ conspiracism as an explanation for all events.

Kos bans "Bullshit Conspiracy Theories".

From reading the tinyurl, that's what happened here.

The Stolen Election "research" is just an excuse not to go out and actually win the NEXT one.

It's so much easier to sit around the old computer monitor and Google shit than to go out and recruit voters.

oh brother. These aren't the droids you're looking for. :eyes:

Kos can do what he wants. That's his calculation to make.

So can RFK Jr. And Levin* Papantonio. And the DUers and other Americans who disagree.

Let's see *your* research that would refute all this, for mere starters:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=435094

it didn't take place in every distric and there is no smoking gun on the diebold machines. So running around claiming it to be true - with no witnesses or verifiable facts.. will just alienate the moderates who 'somehow' trust Bush a little more than DUers do.

We have to get out the vote!

equipment and way the 2000 and 2004 elections were conducted were proper?

And that the outcomes should be relied upon?

Many of the people working on election fraud and it's impact are party workers as well, people who
put in a lot of time getting Democrats elected and people who give as much as they can. That's the
case for me and many of the people you are dismissing.

Also, they'll steal anything if it's not nailed down. Read this about the Ohio special issues
election. "Poll Shock" http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

So when you hurl your general insults to people you don't know keep this in mind:

2000 was stolen, in case you missed that

2004 was very likely stolen, in case you didn't read Kennedy and the wealth of information.

People who care about this issue WANT TO WIN and WORK FOR-GIVE TO THE PARTY in many, perhaps most cases.

Koehler writes that Issue 1 was "accurately forecast in the poll (predicted yes vote, 53 percent; final yes vote, 54 percent)." Then he comments on how far off the results were for Issues 2 and 3. Then he writes, "The results of issue 4, to control gerrymandering by establishing an independent board to draw congressional districts, were only slightly less dramatic. Prediction: 31 percent yes, 45 percent no, 25 percent undecided. Result: 30 percent yes, 69 percent no."

Now, the attentive reader will note that that is exactly as far off as Issue 1 (one point on the Yes proportion).

I'm sort of tired of wading through articles that depend upon readers being inattentive.

See also
http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/11/columbus_dispat.html
http://polysigh.blogspot.com/2005/11/fraud-in-ohio-doubtful.html

as blogs do online, that there'd be similar flair-ups.

I also think there have been some, or maybe one planted situation(s), um, MAYBE, and that there are an awful lot of people into fanning the flames.

Everyone has something to offer, and everyone has an editorial policy.

Except Salon. They suck, and they'll have to work awfully hard to come clean.

a bunch on uninformed posters jump in with uninformed hit and run comments, always sarcastically negative, just "know-nothings" stirring up trouble, interspersed with less lethal and likely more innocent posters who tell us how they feel about something, but aren't very informative and are sometimes very misinformed. I don't want to see such a tiresome and divisive feud here about Daily Kos. We just went through one regarding Truthout that was stupid and needlessly destructive--and replete with trouble-makers who contributed NOTHING to our understanding of TO/Leopold's dilemma regarding sources on a Karl Rove indictment, or to understanding the federal case in question.

But I do think that we SHOULD discuss substance. And DK's treatment of 2004 election fraud is a substantial issue, related to Democratic Party policy.

I experienced DailyKos's shutdown of the 2004 election fraud issue shortly after the election. It felt as if an "Iron Curtain" had come down. I figured they had gotten the word from Terry McAulife and Donna Brazile that the issue was verboten, and decided to go along for reasons good or ill, I couldn't tell. I haven't been back since. I am not interested in Democrats who are comfortable with two Bushite corporations counting all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code and virtually no audit/recount controls. If they are not concerned about the egregious non-transparency in our election system, and how that came about so fast, during the 2002-2004 period (engineered by the two biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney, with their so-called "Help America Vote Act"), and what that means with regard to the evidence for a wrong outcome in the 2004 election, then I really don't think they are that serious about democracy, and are more into political games. Political games are fun, and important, and are part of democracy. But Bushite corporations controlling the counting of our votes is so serious an assault on the most fundamental condition of democracy--transparent elections--that I personally don't see the point of spending a lot of time on the issues, or the candidates, to the exclusion of the POWER MECHANISM by which these things are decided. If we have lost that power mechanism--and it surely looks to me like we have, or very nearly have--then I think we have an obligation to the future and to the world to get it back. It's impossible to see any other issue as having more priority than this one: our power to implement change; indeed, our very power as a sovereign people.

Please catch my qualifying words here. I said, "spending a lot of time on the issues, or the candidates." To me, the issues are very, very, very clear. Americans, in huge numbers, don't want illegal war, don't want the torture of prisoners, don't want $10 trillion deficits, don't want massive theft from our treasury, don't want their pension funds looted, want peace, want real national security, want fair taxation, want jobs with a living wage, want decent medical care for all, want good schools, want an election system they can trust, want somebody to bust the asses of energy-gouging corporations and other miscreants--and aren't getting anything of what they want. And it's important to discuss candidates, and their stands on these issues, AND TO SUPPORT GOOD candidates. But the non-transparency of our election system, and its control by corporations who are hostile to the desires of most Americans, makes any lengthy discussion of these things seem rather like shouting to the wind.

And if our support for candidates does NOT include grave concern about who is counting the votes and how, then how serious are our efforts?

We do most certainly have a problem with the war profiteering corporate news monopolies--and their 24/7 propagandizing of the American people (not very effectively, according to their own issue and approval polls). But this, too, strikes me as a matter of fundamental power. We don't have the power to bust up these news monopolies, and we should have--as a sovereign people. These are our airwaves! Where has our power gone? Why, when nearly 60% of the people opposed the Iraq invasion, did we still invade? Why, when more than 70% of the people want this war to be over, does it still go on? Why, when 63% of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances," is our government still torturing people?

Is it because we failed to get out the vote? Not true in 2004. We beat the pants off the Republicans in new voter registration, nearly 60/40, in 2004, and increased voter turnout by 20 million votes over 2000. Was it the Naderites? No, they almost all voted for Kerry. So, what's wrong with this picture? These are the kind of questions that led me to very close examination of our election system itself, and of all of the 2004 election fraud evidence, and have led me to the very grave concern that we are wasting our time on political debate if Republicans are assured control of our government by recently installed, Republican-controlled, secret, corporate voting systems. I think all the overt, nasty suppression of poor, black and other Democratic votes in Ohio in particular, flows from this--from the Bushites heady "trade secret" power over the new electronic voting systems. A criminal culture has developed in which they feel they can do anything they wish--including blatant crimes--with impunity.

I don't know for a fact that "word came down" from the Democratic powers-that-be, to Daily Kos, to shut up about election fraud. But DK was completely consistent with the way the issue was handled in other Democratic forums, blog or not blog, that are heavily influenced by the leadership. I have yet to understand this silence. How could Democrats be silent about Bushite corporations counting all our votes under a veil of secrecy? Are they insane?

I've since sorted it out into a couple of categories of suppression: 1) fear (it was the Anthrax Congress, after all, that passed the nefarious "Help America Vote Act", and now all the Democrats are stuck with secret, non-transparent, Bushite-controlled vote counting, and are beholden to these corporations and to the corrupt election officials who bought into them for the sake of the $4 billion electronic boondoggle that Delay and Ney kindly provided; these Dems were scared into it, and now can't get out of it); 2) corruption and corporatism (for instance, Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Bilderberg 'Democrat' who colluded with Delay and Ney on HAVA; also, Dem election officials and legislators who have succumbed to Diebold/ES&S's lavish lobbying, such as the week of fun, sun and high-end shopping at the Beverly Hilton last August, and election officials like GA Sec of State Cathy Cox and Los Angeles elections head Connie McCormack, who do sales brochures for Diebold and promote paperless voting); and 3) other kinds of corruption, for instance on the Iraq war (voting for it, wanting it to continue, not caring what the American people thought or think, not caring if their votes are stolen, playing power games--about half the Democrats in Congress).

I am a Democrat, and a loyal Democratic Party supporter and activist for more than forty years now. I can understand wanting to form coalitions with Corporate Democrats and/or War Democrats, to get certain things done. That's how I hope we can get election reform done. We need the Party to do it. It is not terribly feasible any other way. It is a must do, priority one matter--or our democracy is over. But that does not mean that I should not tell the truth as I see it, on a Leftist blog. I am not picking a fight with anybody. I want to analyze and inform, and I seek the truth. I think our country is sick unto death from lack of truth, and from a sense of unreality fostered by the corporate news monopolies and their collusion with government. If we are to climb out of the morass of unreality and fascist policy, we need to look at the facts plainly. What I have told you about our election system is the truth, and, if you think that the Bushites, having deliberately set up a NON-TRANSPARENT, Bushite corporate-controlled election system, WOULDN'T USE that capability to steal the 2004 election, then I think you need to do a reality-check. Are you going to vote on faith that Diebold and ES&S are counting your vote--and not just 'disappearing' it with their "trade secret" formulae?

As to seeking the truth, I appreciate those who have posted that DK permits some discussion of election fraud. I'm glad to hear it. I think their decision to virtually ban it from the site after the election was terribly wrong-headed. I don't know their reason, and I am not willing to assign one. It's quite possible they had a GOOD reason for it (wanted to get closer to the Dems and pull them to the Left, and had to get past the verboten topic, for instance).

DU has its flaws as well. We had a dreadful row here about BBV. I joined right in the middle of it, and was appalled at the personal nature of it and at its destructiveness. It was much too similar to another disastrous row in an organization I belonged to, that I was just recovering from. So I avoided the BBV controversy like the plague. And the monitors had the good sense eventually to segregate it. I hope I never see such a thing here again. But it's a far more open forum than DK, and thus vulnerable to different things.

But DU had the great strength of being THE place to get involved in the election investigation. I love the forum's openness. And I think that the GREAT VALUE of free speech was demonstrated on this issue. The debate was lively and rigorous. It was full of trolls, but no matter. We could handle them. And every day was a revelation--as we assembled a mountain of evidence, that just got higher and higher, and more solid, that the 2004 election had the wrong outcome. Everything was picked apart. Experts contributed. Organizations were born. Information sites were born. Books and papers were planned. Campaigns were undertaken--for instance to support the Black Caucus challenge of the Ohio Electors, and to convince Sen. Boxer to avoid the disgrace to the Dem Party of 2000, when the Party completely abandoned black voters.

We made history here. And I'm sorry DK missed out, and I think they will one day regret it. I think that we here at DU collectively found the truth. It's a hard, hard truth. But it's one that we need to face if we want our country back. It IS fixable--at the state/local level--by collective effort. That's the hopeful part.

dont forget the deafening silence of Moveon!

The fighting takes a toll, and I wonder how many times--in repetitious post after post, in multiple threads and with the same tone--any of us have to express anger before it becomes meaningless, unless the goal is to demoralize and exhaust one another.

Or merely to just demoralize and exhaust...us.

But do does repeating ad nauseam unproven and questionable conspiracy theories.

Not too long ago many issues around election fraud were considered "conspiracy theories". Not so much anymore. A majority of Democrats now believe the election in 04 was stolen.

Whether it was or wasn't...our elections are unverifiable, and they lack transparency. There's nothing much to prove there...it's just the way it is, and that is 100% unacceptable in a Democracy. it is in fact, shockingly appalling.

:thumbsup:

tell me what you found here on DU that proves anything that is not reported on KOS.

Nobody has proved the machines stole anything, and voter suppression is a hot and viable topic of discussion on kos.

There is a reason Kos attracts high profile democrats to his blog, and I think we all benefit from kos providing a forum where mainstream candidates can engage the net roots without the baggage 9/11 and vote fraud issue carry.

The fact he is helping legitimize the net roots draws more and more eyeballs to the internet.

I visited DU from a link on KOS and I've seen many people that want to discuss 9/11 or election fraud pointedto this very forum.

We all have our roles, and all progressive sites have their place.

1. Not the first time, either. You rock, PP!

2. You all who think the Dems just need to get out the vote ? You think failed electronic elections are hypothetical?

Spend 10% of your political time catching up to the evidence on how elections can be stolen. Make that 20%. If you do the work (and I won't claim you can "get" this stuff in 15 minutes), REALLY do the work to understand what's going on, you'll find steam coming out of your ears and your hair will be on fire.

For instance, did you know that there are 51 documented instances of computers switching votes or incorrectly counting votes?

These happened in lots of states, with varying kinds of equipment, in some cases involving thousands of votes.

Go and check it out.

Vote-Switching Software Provided by Vendors
A Partial List - 51 Ballot Programming Flaws Reported in the News
These were detected; how many were not?
June 2006
http://www.votersunite.org/info/mapVoteSwitch.pdf

Flaws? Or Fraud? Dunno.

But, if you found 51 banks with money missing, banks with no audits, would you swear they were ALL the result of innocent error? Or, would you want an investigation?

Read the RFK piece carefully, too.

I have a neighbor, and I have been talking about this stuff to her for probably a year. She read that piece, and she now GETS IT!

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.:
"Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House."
Rolling Stone
Issue 1002, June 15, 2006
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen

Out of over 100 000 000 votes cast.

That is the hypothetical question. The question is: what elections, if any, have been stolen. (Of course, that can be divided into lots of distinct questions.)

And if you are about to tell me that it doesn't matter, please look again at the title of that RFK Jr. article.

Unfortunately, the idea that the 2004 election was stolen by massive vote switching via rigged electronic voting machines and the exit polls are proof is not a substantive idea. In fact, it's a pretty silly one that has been shown to be incorrect by many people. That some in the election reform community cling to this notion is beyond comprehension when it amounts to a red herring at best and stigmatizes election reform as being the purview of conspiracists at worst.

There are problems with the elections in this country. There are problems with the electronic voting machines being provided by Diebold and other vendors.

• Gerrymandering is widely understood to be rampant and it acts as an incumbency protection mechanism. It is the equivalent of the candidates choosing their voters.
• Vote Suppression refers to everything from voter intimidation to voter roll purges to inadequate allocation of voting machines to switching polling places without adequate notice and more.
• The machines are faulty. The software is horribly written, buggy and insecure. The machines are insecure. Touch screens have been misaligned, and memory cards have failed or had pre-existing data on them. Further the machines in many districts still do not allow for transparent and auditable elections, and worst of all perhaps is that the source code is proprietary which means the public is unable to verify the software being run on the machines.
• Ill-defined procedures and protocols refers to amateurism and inadequate means for dealing with recounts and audits at the local level. It can also mean poor procedures for handling the voting machines (i.e. allowing employees to take them home) or running tests.

All of these are documented, demonstrable and provable problems that exist with our election system currently. Not every district has every problem, some have none and the problems are not always a result of corruption or incompetemce. But any one of these problems should give voters cause for concern and enough districts have at least one of these problems that if the case were presented factually and without hysterics that any sane person would conclude that election reform is a topic that needs to be addressed.

These should be enough for anyone.

a hard core republican I work with. He said he would sign your petition in the mall.

He mocks mercilessly the "stolen election crowd".

Tell him we'll be doing the PTA bake sale next week. Don't be stingy.

And please someone tell me how and why the vast, vast majority of "errors" made by these "faulty" and "insecure" machines goes in favor of Republicans and against Democrats?

If you examine the statistics, what has happened time and time again in favor of the GOP is basically impossible. The odds are like one in billions. As Randi Rhodes says, "It's a MIRACLE!"

It's done by both sides and is somewhat of a venerable tradition for in-power parties in this country. I wouldn't call it stealing because no laws are (usually) broken but the net effect is to pre-cook the election. It's functional disenfranchisement and stinks.

Vote Suppression is deplorable and could be considered stealing if it swung the election. That's debatable but I'm far from convinced that it did. Again, you don't need the 'stolen election' metaphor to convince anyone that Ken Blackwell's behavior is immoral and illegal.

Your second statement is nonsense.

n/t

direct partisan corporate control of the vote count in highly non-transparent conditions. It was quite deliberate. Tom Delay PREVENTED a paper trail provision from getting out of committee. Diebold and ES&S have fought a paper trail from day one. They devote millions of dollars of lobbying money to prevent it. They have insisted on counting all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it. Secret vote counting. No paper trail.

This doesn't make you suspicious? It sure does me. Would you trust Josef Stalin to count all the votes in secret? Tyranny has the same mode always--secrecy and non-transparency--whether it's tyrannical communists or tyrannical global corporate predator capitalists.

This is the CAPPER for corporate corruption of our election system. They started with pig trough campaign donations, and every other kind of political corruption. They've ended with taking the matter of voting OUT OF OUR HANDS. That done, we have now NO POWER anymore to change any of the OTHER ways they control election outcomes.

The Bush junta is the be-all and end-all of corporate control of our government. Their devious, non-transparent, "trade secret" vote tabulation election system, installed between 2002 and 2004, is the be-all and end-all of Corporate Rule. I don't know who exactly used this deliberately created secret control over the vote count--the Bushites themselves, or their corporate buds at Diebold and ES&S on their behalf. But both had....

Means. Motive. Opportunity. And a history of criminal behavior.

Election fraud investigators were/are thus working under the severe handicap of deliberately created NON-TRANSPARENT conditions, to try to figure out what happened. And we have unearthed a mountain of evidence of a wrong outcome in 2004, including, but certainly not limited to, exit polls that show an impossible skew to Bush in the vote count, and studies showing an impossible skew to Bush in electronic vs paper ballot voting. This occurred amidst a culture of Bushite criminality--from the war and Halliburton and billions of missing dollars, to Abramoff, Cunningham, Noe and massive bribery and other financial crime. The blatant, overt, illegal vote suppression against poor, black and other Democratic voters in Ohio and other places occurred BECAUSE of the IMPUNITY granted by BLATANTLY NON-TRANSPARENT VOTE COUNTING that has the built-in deliberate capability to insure the election of Bushites and warmongers forever more--BECAUSE it is NON-TRANSPARENT and you therefore CAN'T PROVE IT DEFINITIVELY. *BECAUSE* THEY HAVE MADE IT NON-TRANSPARENT!

Means. Motive. Opportunity. And a history of criminal behavior.

The WAR PROFITEERING CORPORATE NEWS MONOPOLIES who brought us "Mission Accomplished" ALSO control the exit polls, which is one of the chief tools used worldwide for verifying elections and checking for fraud. The exit polls said Kerry won. They ALTERED the exit poll results to FORCE THEM TO FIT the results of Diebold/ES&S's "trade secret," proprietary, NON-TRANSPARENT vote tabulation. This is not done in any other democracy in the world. Exit polls everywhere else are used to COMPARE WITH not to CONFIRM official vote counts.

The Repub Party, the Bushites, the Bush White House and Congress, the electronic voting corporations themselves--mainly Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia--the corporations who own our airwaves (and have subsidiaries and investments in war), and--as it turns out--many Dem Party leaders, all have an interest in covering up direct, non-transparent corporate control of vote counting.

Means. Motive. Opportunity. And a history of criminal behavior.

Many financial criminals have gone to jail on less evidence than there is for 2004 election fraud. The case for election fraud is necessarily inferential because they didn't just shred the paper trail, they PREVENTED a paper trail from ever existing in one third of the country, and imposed a high-speed, hackable, insecure and highly non-transparent vote tabulation system with entirely inadequate audit/recount controls everywhere in the country. Virtually all votes were centrally tabulated with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, controlled by the following...

Diebold: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer" up there with Ken Lay), who promised (in writing) to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and

ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by far rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things).

Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Tod and Bob Urosevich. These are people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls, by deliberate design.

The third major player in the election theft industry--Sequoia--employs former Repub Calif Sec of State Bill Jones, and his chief aide Alfie Charles, to peddle their machines (the highly corrupt practice of "revolving door" employment--Jones and Charles brought "trade secret" vote counting to Calif, now they sell it.)

Those who deny the case for election fraud, given the above, are like Stalinists in Soviet Russia who would say to any citizen questioning the vote count: "Prove it!"

Our election thieves are cleverer than Stalin, who got 99.9% of the vote. They know that here they must maintain a more convincing illusion of democracy, so they permit an opposition to run, and devise 51%/49% scenarios. In all or nothing elections, it doesn't matter. Once the fascists are in power, they grab ALL POWER, as the Bush junta is doing.

Election fraud deniers are also like the "good Germans" who didn't think it was so bad to make everyone carry papers and other identifiers by race and religion, and to create vast IBM databases of who was Jewish and who was not, and so on. It was all very modern, scientific and cool. Most people didn't know that it was the PRELIMINARY to the death camps. They also looked the other way when Hitler's "brownshirt" thugs stuffed the ballot boxes, and when Hitler (whom I guess you could say was more or less legitimately elected, if you ignore all the intimidation and vote stealing) claimed emergency power over all the levers of government.

"Trade secret," proprietary programming, with virtually no audit/recount controls is the PRELIMINARY to fascist control of ALL the levers of government.

You have to look at the whole picture--the CONTEXT in which secret vote counting was instituted (the leadup to the illegal war on Iraq), and what Bush has done SINCE. He's claimed enormous unconstitutional powers, on the basis of a 50.5%/49.5% SECRET vote count. He's placed codas on 750 bills by Congress, stating that parts of these laws do not apply to HIM and his regime. He's asserted the power of vast domestic spying. How can he do these things? How can he get away with them? BECAUSE the corporations are GUARANTEEING election for Bushites and warmongers with SECRET VOTE COUNTS.

We must look at the exit polls, and all election theft evidence, IN CONTEXT. Would they steal the election? Of course they would! They stole another by different means. Did they set up the electronic theft capability deliberately? Yes. Was the election non-transparent as a consequence? Yes. Did the corporate news monopolies who support their fascist agenda blackhole and coverup the non-transparency AND falsify evidence of fraud (the exit polls)? Yes. Did the corporate news monopolies ignore all other criminality in the election (Ohio) which, in itself, adds up to enough votes to change the outcome? Yes. Do the Bushites use fear, intimidation, blackmail, black ops, and corruption to control people? Yes. Could the Bushites have used these, and control of the corporate newsstream, to shut the Democratic leadership up about the non-transparency of this election? Yes. Are they ACTING LIKE UNACCOUNTABLE TYRANTS Yes.

Those of you concerned about gerrymandering and all the other means heretofore used to entrench power must realize that Bushite-controlled "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code in our election system, is, a) a plot against you and against democracy; and b) has been and will be used to PREVENT you from reforming any other aspect of our election system and our government.

And if you think they are not USING this new secret power over vote counting to CEMENT their control of our government, then you are naive.

Why not have transparent elections? Hm? Are they so difficult? The non-transparency was DELIBERATE.

This is why I have no interest in what takes place at Daily Kos. The convergence of interests in covering up Bushite-controlled secret vote counting comes together there, some of it naive, some not. Some of it weak-minded, some not. Some of it rational or at least understandable (legit concern about voter turnout, and fundraising), some not.

I don't think we can proceed in this democracy on the basis of untruth any more. Things have gone too far. The Democratic Party leadership's collusion with the Corporate Rulers, and now with the Bush junta, has gone too far. The Corporate assault on our democracy has gone too far. But I try to keep a wide open view of human behavior and of possibilities for the good to win out. We must work with what we have, and with what's possible. In this 51%/49% contrived situation, we are obliged to fundraise, to field good candidates, and to get out the vote, just to be in a starting position for potentially taking power. I am not against DK and MoveOn and others doing that, in and of itself. But I do think that getting good people elected is no longer a matter of persuasion. Most Americans want the Bushites out, and have wanted this for a long time. It is a matter of WHO COUNTS THE VOTES, AND HOW. It is a matter of POWER, of who controls the mechanism of voting. Vote counting is no longer in the public venue. THAT is the problem.

Bushite controlled electronic voting...and that's your title.

You certainly can't prove anyone had the means or opportunity. The closest thing you have to opportunity is "the lock down" in ohio, but even then that would invalidate your theory that the machines are easily hacked because if they were the 'bushites' wouldn't have created such a suspicious situation they would have just 'flipped' the votes.

Your rhetoric rings hollow. All you have is motive.

You are criticizing those that demand evidence for extraordinary claims when you have none.

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

is disrespecful, and discrediting to your own posting.

If you want to garner credibility here, you've got some fine-tuning to do.

Questions -



How are Diebold and ES&S' computer architecture similar?
They don't use the same operating system or similar software.



They could be described as similar in the same way that a Buick is similar to a Toyota -
they are both cars, and they have wheels, transmission and a motor.

How else did you mean that they had similar computer architecture?



Shouldn't you use the past tense for this phrase?
Weren't these two brothers employed by Global Business Systems or some other company?
Is it correct that there are no Urosevich brothers employed by ES&S at this time?

Isn't Thomas Swidarski running the Diebold Elections Division now?
Wasn't it Wally O'Dell before him?

The Ahmanson in question may not be Howard, but a brother who may not be part of the Foundation.

If nothing else, the machine architecture may have only secret vote counting in common.

Another one is the "Jim Dixon's group getting $1MM from Diebold rap". Not sure that's accurate, either. May have been $26K. And it may have been to settle an ATM lawsuit BEFORE Diebold got into voting.

Meanwhile other details, some more damning, go unheralded.

I'd be pleased to see activists stick with updated and verifiable facts as enthusiastically as they call for a verifiable vote.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 1, 2000


Diebold and NFB Partner to Develop Next Generation
Voice-Guided ATMs

...
NFB and Diebold will promote the improved ATMs to NFB members via posta mailings. Diebold will also introduce NFB to industry associations in which Diebold is actively involved. Further, the two organizations will develop a new Web site promoting the locations of voice-guided ATMs and the technologies used to upgrade them.

“NFB has long been actively involved in promoting adaptive technologies which allow the blind to live and work independently in today's technology-driven world,” O'Dell said. “Diebold is proud to be a part of that effort and trust that we can make a meaningful contribution to NFB's work.”

Over the next five years, Diebold will contribute $1 million toward the construction of NFB's National Research & Training Institute for the Blind. Diebold also will install and operate a voice-guided ATM at the organization's National Headquarters.

http://www.nfb.org/tech/diebold.htm

Thanks. That nails the source of the $1MM story, the date (preceding Diebold's venture into voting), and the destination of that money to the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Jim Dixon is with a different group, the Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD).

Now to be logical, it's still possible that Diebold gave that much to AAPD. But...

Next, any idea about a $26K donation Diebold may have made to some group, and/or a lawsuit settlement. Perhaps that was AAPD.

*I am still looking for his relationship with the NFB, I think there is one, but meanwhile....


"As well, Dickson told us today that his group, the AAPD, has taken no money from Diebold. Yet Wired reported in their same story from October '04:

By Kim Zetter Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter
2004-10-14 18:09:00.0

The NFB isn't the only disability group to receive money from voting companies. The government lobbyist for the American Association of People with Disabilities, who has traveled around the country testifying on behalf of touch-screen voting, acknowledged this year that his organization received at least $26,000 from voting companies, but only after first denying it.

When asked in April, Jim Dickson, vice president of government affairs for the AAPD, told Wired News his organization had never received money from voting companies. But in June, he told The New York Times the organization had gotten money.

Dickson didn't disclose the gifts at hearings in California this year, where he tried to convince officials not to decertify touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold and other companies. Nor did he disclose the information in Washington in May when he participated in hearings with the federal Election Assistance Commission

Here is the wired news article link:

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,65292-1.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1

According to the Wired article, the NFB got the million for dropping a lawsuit against (pre-voting) Diebold for inaccessible ATMs.

Jim Dickson/AAPD got $26,000 from Diebold, I'm assuming post Diebold's entry into voting, or about 2.5% of what some election reformers claim his group was paid.

OK everybody? Jim Dickson's group got $26,000 from Diebold, not $1MM.

You can still be mad about that, and now, thanks to WYVBC, you can have your facts straight, too.

investigations - it looks like DK has a policy of not dealing with it.

Good post btw.

When you AGAIN work your butt off for 2006 and 2008, and you AGAIN wake up on that Wednesday morning in November with NeoCons still in control of Congress (and maybe Jeb in the White House after 2008!), you'll know whether or not this was a conspiracy "theory".

But by then it'll be too late.

Election integrity is a non-partisan issue and getting transparency in how our elections are conducted should be of interest to all.

Besides both the dems of repubs are funded by the same corporate gravy train, and they are both carrying that agenda.

But I do think historians will hang this debacle subverting our democracy on the radical renegades now in power--the Leo Straussian win at all costs folks.

These Neo-Cons truly believe they may lie for the people cannot understand. It's a bad behavior rationalizing philosophy that would have made the FIRST King George proud.

... I have presented it both ways (partisan and non-partisan.) I have spoken to wildly 'liberal' groups and on ultra-conservative talk shows. I have presented it to GOPs and Dems and Greens, and Libertarians and Independents.

It's easy to frame this for pretty much any group. Yes indeed, it is nonpartisan (or MULTI-partisan.) Everyone wants their vote to be counted accurately.

All that said, if the Democratic Party on all levels does not get a handle on this issue (and I mean ALL the disenfrachising that is going on, from the "faulty" unverifiable machines to the modern day Jim Crow vote suppression stuff that we have seen) IT WILL LOSE AND LOSE BIG. Again and again. Mark my words.

We must protect the vote for all voters because it is the right thing to do for our democracy, but the Democratic party needs to do it to protect its own interests, too.

If the true will of the people is not followed and people are sworn into office who were not truly elected, all your GOTV work, all the great candidates you recruit and run, all the money you raise, and all the great intentions and potential the Democratic Party claims to have will mean squat.

"Election integrity is a non-partisan issue and getting transparency in how our elections are conducted should be of interest to all."

Well, stop accusing republicans of stealing the 04 election without proof and you might convince a few before you turn them off completely.

"Besides both the Dem's of repubs are funded by the same corporate gravy train, and they are both carrying that agenda."

Where have I heard the "two sides of the same coin" BS before?

"But I do think historians will hang this debacle subverting our democracy on the radical renegades now in power--the Leo Straussian win at all costs folks."

But you just said they were both the same, surely historians will see that as clearly as you.

"These Neo-Cons truly believe they may lie for the people cannot understand. It's a bad behavior rationalizing philosophy that would have made the FIRST King George proud."

No I'm sorry you haven't got that right. The Straussians/neocons don't think they can lie because people cannot understand, and it has nothing to do with rationalizing their bad behavior.

They lie because they believe in the NOBLE lie. They believe it is necessary to lie to the people FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. A stark difference, and I see many people on our side who also believe in telling noble lies.

"Besides both the Dem's of repubs are funded by the same corporate gravy train, and they are both carrying that agenda."

Where have I heard the "two sides of the same coin" BS before?

"But I do think historians will hang this debacle subverting our democracy on the radical renegades now in power--the Leo Straussian win at all costs folks."


But you just said they were both the same, surely historians will see that as clearly as you.

>>> The point is there are 3 sides: the Neo-cons and two-party system

"These Neo-Cons truly believe they may lie for the people cannot understand. It's a bad behavior rationalizing philosophy that would have made the FIRST King George proud."

No I'm sorry you haven't got that right. The Straussians/neocons don't think they can lie because people cannot understand, and it has nothing to do with rationalizing their bad behavior.

They lie because they believe in the NOBLE lie. They believe it is necessary to lie to the people FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. A stark difference, and I see many people on our side who also believe in telling noble lies.

>>> Precisely, because THEY think it is for their own good. I don't think you could possibly create a less democratic precept. It is what monarchs believed. It's a variant on the sun-king thesis.



 

Your message

Election fraud is the predicate for "election integrity." In one important sense, both are non
partisan because you won't find many people who support stealing elections. If it's presented
at all (it's been hidden as best CM can), there is overwhelming support. It's partisan now because
the huge theft is for the Republicans. So, it's who would oppose this + look at the clear evidence of theft
.
Even absent major news media coverage, the public wants to reject e-voting by a huge margin and is
approaching a majority on believing 20204 was actually stolen.

Lesser point: My understanding is that the neocons used to know that they were lying but now many
of them actually believe the lie. Very dangerous stuff, that system...

Ultimately,there is no real argument here w/Einteinia and you, just approaches. There are those who
try to make electronic fraud a bits and bytes issue only. Einsteinia is not one of them. So as
the guy said after LA lit up,

"Can't we all just learn to get along." :hug:

... of the moderators at KOS are pretty fragile. Censorship just plain sux and it doesn't look like she did anything to deserve it other than disagree with them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4460551

Not a pretty picture...the roots of intolerance range far and wide and the first manifestations come
in the form of anti intellectual diatribes, "forbidden subjects," etc.

Voila, view the mess....."WORST OF THE WORST"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4460551

on the the bullseye--what this is really about.

Thank you Autorank!
:bounce:

Wants, NEEDS to be "credible to the mainstream", which means not at risk of being attacked by the radical right's shark pack.

I.e., don't want to look like a kook for suggesting that the Earth is round (heresy!), or that it revolves around the Sun (heresy!), or that God's week of creation might actually have lasted 4.5 billion years (heresy!).

If you want to be a "player", you'd better know the rules, and who is setting them.

Me confused!

MSNBC reporter Norah O'Donnell, recently excoriated by MediaMatters.org for the great disparity in the kinds of questions she used in interviewing Howard Dean (full of accusatory RW talking points) and George Allen (do you like sunny days? Aren't puppies the cutest?)

She wants to go along to get along, and I'm afraid that's what Kos had done, banishing talk of "election fraud" so that Daily Kos (which is a tremendous creation) will remain credible, and not dismissable as a lunatic left-wing website.

Alas, we know more about the fraud of the 2004 election than Markos. Granted, he's busy administering and writing and promoting (and more power to him, at every step), so I can certainly forgive him for not getting what happened.

And, I decided that DU was the place for me, because there was a very active Election Forum with great minds at work, even if DU wasn't taking some officially enforced stance that everyone must believe that the election was stolen.

Again, check out the tag: http://dailykos.com/tag/Election%20Fraud (that's just one tag).

It is simply, obviously untrue that Kos has banished talk of election fraud. Speculating about facts is tricky enough; let's at least sort out the facts.

We don't know why RHL was banned. We do know that she recently wrote about appearing in a documentary to argue her case that Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK Sr. (perhaps with blanks) under the influence of hypnosis as one of two shooters (maybe more? I haven't read that far). And she made an emphatic claim about the WTC that probably would have been shunted to the 9/11 forum here. Kos might well conclude that a policy against "bullshit conspiracy theories" would apply to RHL, regardless of anything she ever posted about the election. There is no reason to assume that she was banned because of her last comment.

now I get it!