And you believe him? Say, mofangongren, Iâve goot some beautiful land down in Florida that I can sell to you for a good price⌠special price, just for you⌠[/quote]
Yes, Byrd must be really sneaky ⌠repudiating the Klan and biding his time for decades amassing a voting record in the Senate that gets a 100% approval rating from the NAACP.
In comparison, I can only imagine what sort of condemnation you would give to a Republican who could bear benefitting from racial-based mudslinging like what was done to McCain. Nowâs a great time for you to speak out against the GOPâs efforts to stop blacks from voting.
I remember that. What an utterly reprehensible thing to have done, and by members of oneâs own organization! I guess even McCain adheres to the âmeans justified by endsâ mindset that characterizes the socio-darwinian Republican manner of conducting affairs â and so he forgave Bush and Rove. The most hilarious thing about them is that while engaging in the most nefarious behavior imaginable (torture, kidnapping, vote-fixing, unparalled cronism, profit-motivated exploitation of natural disasters, slander, overly racist and sexual orientatist policy making, et al), they have the nerve to accuse progressives of being âmoral relativistsâ!
Not all Republicans are racists, of course, but the sheer amount of energy devoted within that party to ensure that black people cannot vote makes one wonder what the heck is going on. Their âChristian rightâ base comes from Bob Jones University, where race-mixing isnât allowed. David Duke and Hal Turner remain highly popular figures. We also get a good idea what Sen. Frist is teaching his son:
[quote=âmofangongrenâ]Not all Republicans are racists, of course, but the sheer amount of energy devoted within that party to ensure that black people cannot vote makes one wonder what the heck is going on. Their âChristian rightâ base comes from Bob Jones University, where race-mixing isnât allowed. David Duke and Hal Turner remain highly popular figures. We also get a good idea what Sen. Frist is teaching his son:
David Duke is far more âmainstreamâ than most Republicans would like to admit. Time for them to clean a little house, perhaps.[/quote]
John Gibson of Fox News: âTwenty-five years and the majority population is HispanicâŚThe rest of you: Get busy. Make babies.â When asked to explain himself, he said ââŚhalf of all babies in America under five are minorities and the majority of those were Hispanic. I said fine, but it was also a good idea if people other than Hispanics also got busy and had more babies.â
Bill OâReilly: âmany far-left thinkers believe the white power structure that controls America is bad, so a drastic change is needed.â So, Bill, you admit that there is a white power structure in America.
Now are they racists? I donât know, but their statements are certainly aimed at racist viewers in an attempt to tap their deepest fear - that whites will lose power in the US - and motivate them to act.
David Duke is a fringe candidate that is popular mostly in his home state of Louisiana where the fiasco with the hurricane was more than evident. What is it with the locals of that lovely state?
As to the rest of this ludicrous comments, one merely need point to the very high level positions held by Colin Powell and Condi Rice. For such a racist administration to appoint Blacks to the highest level Cabinet positions ever is surely deviously disenguous, right? AND how does one explain the popularity of Powell and Rice with the average Republican voter? Does anyone doubt that Powell or Rice would probably get the nomination if either were willing to run?
Then, there is education. Who is alongside the 70 percent plus of Black parents who support school choice and vouchers? The Democrats or Republicans? Given that education remains one of the key ways to get ahead in life, why isnât this venue of more interest to Democrats? Why donât the Democrats support the vast majority of Blacks who favor vouchers?
How does that happen exactly? If students are FREE to choose to leave their school and no one is FORCING them to leave to choose what are often RELIGIOUS schools, what is the big deal? Has it come to this? That liberalism and multiculturalism are now so established as the official religions of the school system that even offering the choice to go somewhere else to leave a failing school must not be allowed if that alternative choice is somehow tied to a CHRISTIAN most likely CATHOLIC school? I notice no such concern when the alternative is a Muslim-funded and Muslim-based education. Why the difference?
David Dukeâs certainly got the hearts and minds over at the Frist household! Of course, Frist wouldnât have moved on up in the Senate if Trent Lott hadnât positively gushed with emotion at the thought of how much better weâd all be off if the Thurmond âDixiecratâ ticket had won the presidency on its promises of strengthened segregation. Republican candidate and major radio personality Hal Turner (along with David Duke) have been regular guests on Fox News, despite his own vocally anti-semitic views.
Colin Powell, the only guy with any major lifelong military experience and the co-developer of the âPowell Doctrineâ was utterly blown off by the Bush Administration, backburnered in an administration that prefers foreign policy put together by the Defense Department. The only time they listened to the man was when the got the poor sucker to destroy his own credibility with that speech full oâ lies they got him to tell the UN in the weeks right before we invaded Iraq.
Do you suppose that the Republican Party would let them run? How willing would Rove or other key strategists who have made a healthy living from playing to white fears/hatred of blacks be to let them run?
Please provide a link to the â70 percent plusâ statistic youâve cited. Why donât Republicans like to adequately fund schools at the state and local level? Why is it that initiatives to ensure minimal funding levels arouse so much ire? Why do Republicans like to foist junk creationism science off on our children? Why is it that Republicans claim to be against abortion but then want kids to rely on whatever junk they hear about contraception from other kids? Why is it that Republicans keep trying to keep valid black voters from voting?
[quote]St. Albans School in D.C. has a $2.1 million financial aid budget, and almost a quarter of its students receive aid. Tuition is nearly $25,000, but the average grant is $17,000. Tuition at Gonzaga, a Jesuit high school in D.C., is less than half that at St. Albans, but class size averages 25 students, compared to 15 at St. Albans. [/quote]
So we have one of the top, most elite private schools in DC charging less than $12,500 per student and that is actually lower than the average being spent by the government on each pupil in the miserably failing DC public school system. Would you like to rephrase your statements MFGR? Hmmm?
Remember your deserter in chief commentsâŚ
[quote]The records show that National Guard officials credited Bush with enough points to meet minimum requirements for the 12-month period ending May 26, 1973, the period of the original alleged âgapâ in his records. An Air Force âReserve Personnel Record Cardâ shows Bush received a total of 9 points for active duty training, 31 points for inactive duty training, and 15 points awarded for his membership in the reserves. The points total 56, exceeding the 50-point requirement for satisfactory service during the period, though barely.
Other documents include one-page Air Force Reserve summaries of points earned in the 12-month period ending in May 1973, and the subsequent period running through Bushâs last credited service in July 1973. (See âsupporting documentsâ).
Also released were copies of microfilm payroll records summarizing the days for which Bush was paid in 1972 and 1973. Though blurry and hard to read, they reflect payments for 82 days of services in 1972 and 1973.[/quote]
[quote]A second recount of Floridaâs votes by the Miami Herald and a consortium of major news organizations confirmed that George W. Bush won the 2000 election. Also, investigations by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the U. S. Justice Departmentâs Civil Rights Division found that no blacks were denied the right to vote in the 2000 election.
If even one black person had been denied the right to vote, that personâs name would have been blasted on the front page of every newspaper in this country. The record shows that in June 2001, following a six-month investigation that included subpoenas of Florida State officials from Governor Jeb Bush on down, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that found no evidence of voter intimidation, no evidence of voter harassment, and no evidence of intentional or systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.The U. S. Justice Departmentâs Civil Rights Division conducted a separate investigation and also found no evidence that Floridians were denied the right to vote during the November 2000 election.
During the 2004 election, Democratic Party operatives continued to perpetuate the myth that black voters were disenfranchised during the 2000 presidential election. If blacks had been denied the right to vote, then why did all of the Democratic Party senators, including John Kerry, John Edwards, Bob Graham and Bill Nelson refuse to support the filling of a voter fraud lawsuit by the Congressional Black Caucus?
Notably, the claim by Democratic Party operatives that âmillionsâ of blacks were denied the right to vote seems ludicrous on its face since ballots do not record the race of the voter. Not mentioned by those claiming voter intimidation is the fact that in 24 of the 25 Florida counties with the highest ballot spoilage rate, the election supervisor was a Democrat. In the 25th county, the election supervisor was an Independent. As for the âfelon purge list,â the Miami Herald found that whites were twice as likely to be incorrectly placed on the list as backs. The real shame here is that some Democrats, for short-term partisan advantage, are only too willing to exploit the painful history of black voter disenfranchisement, ironically by Southern Democrats.
The only identifiable black voters who were actually disenfranchised during the 2000 election were members of the military stationed overseas whose ballots, along with those of other overseas service members, were thrown out because of phony challenges by lawyers hired by the Democratic Party.
Every election cycle, the Democratic Party goes into the black community with the same message of incitement, not empowerment. The message to blacks is âyou are a victim,â and you must cast a revenge vote in anger to stop Republicans from taking away your right to vote or letting the Voting Rights Act expire. Does that seem familiar?
Democratic Party activists are now in 2006 showing a film entitled American Blackout with false claims about black voter disenfranchised in 2000 and 2004. Starting in 2002, Democratic Party operatives began showing a film called Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election that also contains the false accusation that blacks were denied the right to vote by Republicans. This accusation in those two films is designed to generate hatred among black voters toward Republicans.
The American Blackout film was made by a left-wing radical, Ian Inaba, whose company is called âGuerilla News Network.â The film âUnprecedentedâ was made by reporters for the BBC, the British Broadcasting Company, and was shown to be biased against both the American and British governments by an independent investigating commission. MoveOn.Org and the African Peopleâs Socialist Party, a revolutionary organization that equates our soldiers and country to Nazis and Nazi Germany, sponsored the âUnprecedentedâ film. Apparently those liberal, left-wing socialist groups do not know that the word âNazisâ is the German acronym for the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party, a left-wing, socialist organization.[/quote]
[quote]Peter Kirsanow of the US Civil Rights Commission comments:
Last Thursdayâs challenge by certain congressional Democrats to the certification of the 2004 presidential election was but the latest chapter in the urban legend that began four years ago in Florida. Back then, activists claimed that dogs and hoses were used to keep black voters from the polls. Claims that thousands of blacks were disenfranchised, harassed, and intimidated from voting ran rampant. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted a six-month investigation of the charges and found absolutely no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of black voters. The civil-rights division of the Department of Justice also found no credible evidence that any Floridians were intentionally denied the right to vote.
These findings did little to dispel the myth of massive disenfranchisement. Politicians and activists persisted in circulating outlandish stories of nefarious schemes to steal votes, stories that became more numerous and absurd during the run-up to November 2004. Speaking before predominantly black audiences, John Kerry repeatedly suggested that a million black votes were stolen in the 2000 election. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Tex.) asserted that George W. Bush lost the popular vote in Florida, despite the fact that every official and media count showed that Bush clearly won. In July, 2004 Johnson led a group of a dozen congressmen who requested that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan provide U.N. election observers to monitor the November election to prevent a repeat of âthe nightmare of the 2000 presidential election.â
As the November 2004 presidential election drew near, the mythologists issued dire warnings of Election Day calamities. When polls gradually began to make clear that Ohio would be 2004âs electoral ground zero, thousands of election lawyers and observers swarmed to the state. The mythologists railed against inevitable black-voter suppression and intimidation. The media braced for a repeat in Ohio of the narrow popular-vote margin and ensuing recount circus that occurred in Florida 2000.
But then, much to the chagrin of the mythologists, Bush defeated Kerry in Ohio by 119,000 votes. The army of election lawyers and observers reported no major problems. The predicted calamities failed to materialize: no stolen votes; no harassment and intimidation; no widespread confusion.
Letâs look at some of those claims:
ALLEGATION: John Conyers alleges âwidespread âŚintimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to voteâ.
RESPONSE: at the US Civil Rights commissionâs November 12, 2004, meeting, the staff reported . . . absolutely nothing.
ALLEGATION: Barbara Boxer (D., Cal.) says 5-10,000 black voters in Columbus abandoned voting lines out of sheer frustration. Rep. John Conyers (D. Mich.) says âwe should be as concerned about voter disenfranchisement in our country as we are in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Iraq.â
RESPONSE: From Peter Kirsanow:
If there was a conspiracy to disenfranchise Ohio voters, black or white, its execution was profoundly inept. Ohio voter turnout increased from 4.9 million in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2004. Estimated black-voter turnout alone rose by 25 percent.
Stop and think about this for a second. I was unable to get separate white vs. black voter turnout rates for the 2004 election. However, if total voter turnout for 2005 was 5.5 million, then I believe that makes the increase 5.5/4.9 or about 12%? Perhaps Mr. Menace will correct me if Iâm wrong - being left-handed I always have to look up ratios. I tend to reverse them. If estimated black voter turnout increased by 25%, compared to a 12% increase for the general population, then it appears that blacks turned out at the polls in roughly twice the proportions of the general population.
Some voter suppression effort. Way to go, RNC. Mr. Kirsanow continues:
Many of these black voters apparently failed to pay attention to the subtext of the disenfranchisement claims â that Republicans were trying their best to prevent blacks from voting. Yet President Bushâs percentage of the black vote in Ohio increased from 9 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2004. The total number of black votes cast for the president in Ohio increased by more than 100 percent.
The massive voter turnout did result in long lines. Long waits, however, were not peculiar to Ohio nor to predominantly black areas. And thereâs scant evidence to support Sen. Boxerâs contention that as many as 10,000 black voters left long lines in Columbus.
On the subject of Republican efforts to prevent blacks from voting, political analysts had this to say:
âThere was an effort to turn out the black vote and the black vote turned out,â David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies told BlackAmericaWeb.com. Blacks cast about 11 percent of all votes [nationally], said Bositis. Based on estimates that 120 million people cast ballots this election, blacks accounted for an estimated 13.6 million votes, he said.
These numbers suggest an additional three million blacks voted, compared to the 2000 election, Bositis said.
âThe problem that Kerry had in Ohio was not that black turnout wasnât good enough, but that that 16 percent of black voters in Ohio voted for Bush.â [/quote]
Fred, Would you care to rephrase your comments? Whereâs your study showing that 70+% of black parents in America who âsupport school choice and vouchersâ? Just making stuff up again? In fact, isnât your Heritage Foundation secondary source just making stuff up as well? One look at the actual numbers and I was surprised by the aggressive rounding up thatâs been done.
Many problems have been noted with the attempts by the GOP to spin the 1999 JCPES survey. The voucher question was not well drafted and provided respondents with not much information on which to base an informed opinion. One might as well say: âWould you like a vanilla ice cream cone?â without explaining the options or that the cone is not free.
Whatâs also funny is that a 2002 study covering the same issue was conducted by the same organization, but you definitely donât want to cite to that because the numbers are also nowhere close to the 70+% figures you made up out of wholecloth.
As to the supposed study by the âUS Civil Rights Commission,â letâs take a look at what the chairwoman said:
[quote]But so far I would say that something very bad, awful happened during the election, leading up to the election, on Election Day and after. And that election officials in Florida, according to their sworn testimony, either didnât think that it was necessary to prepare, especially, or to give any attention or review to what happened during the election because of the heavy turnout and the heavy registrations. Or they, in fact, were totally insensitive, Iâm sot sure which.
But I am convinced, at this point, that some very bad things happened to people to see to it that their right to vote was somehow interfered with, and we have to find out who did it and make some recommendations for change.[/quote]
In looking at the actual report, the Commission did find that voters had been denied their right to vote. Have you done that yet? I suggest you check out the Commissionâs own website at http://www.usccr.gov, which has a wealth of information. Check out the executive summary if you donât have time to do this.
Also check out this:
[quote]The disenfranchisement of Floridaâs voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters. The magnitude of the impact can be seen from any of several perspectives:
Statewide, based upon county-level statistical estimates, black voters were nearly 10 times more likely than nonblack voters to have their ballots rejected.
Estimates indicate that approximately 14.4 percent of Floridaâs black voters cast ballots that were rejected. This compares with approximately 1.6 percent of nonblack Florida voters who did not have their presidential votes counted.
Statistical analysis shows that the disparity in ballot spoilage ratesâi.e., ballots cast but not countedâbetween black and nonblack voters is not the result of education or literacy differences. This conclusion is supported by Governor Jeb Bushâs Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology, which found that error rates stemming from uneducated, uninformed, or disinterested voters account for less than 1 percent of the problems.
Approximately 11 percent of Florida voters were African American; however, African Americans cast about 54 percent of the 180,000 spoiled ballots in Florida during the November 2000 election based on estimates derived from county-level data. These statewide estimates were corroborated by the results in several counties based on actual precinct data.
Poor counties, particularly those with large minority populations, were more likely to possess voting systems with higher spoilage rates than the more affluent counties with significant white populations. There is a high correlation between counties and precincts with a high percentage of African American voters and the percentage of spoiled ballots. For example:
Nine of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of African American voters had spoilage rates above the Florida average.
Of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of white voters, only two counties had spoilage rates above the state average.
Gadsden County, with the highest rate of spoiled ballots, also had the highest percentage of African American voters.
Where precinct data were available, the data show that 83 of the 100 precincts with the highest numbers of spoiled ballots are black-majority precincts. [/quote]
Now, Fred, you might have nearly been persuaded by your secondary sources that the Commission had come up with a great whitewash of the efforts to prevent blacks from voting, but check out what the Commission recommended:
[quote]The Commission calls upon the attorney general of the United States to immediately begin the litigation process to determine liability under the VRA and appropriate remedies. The Commission is a fact-finding body, authorized to investigate allegations of voting discrimination, fraud, and other irregularities. However, it does not adjudicate violations of the law, hold trials, or determine civil or criminal liability. It is within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice and Florida law enforcement officials to seek appropriate sanctions and remedies. In addition to calling on the attorney general to initiate the litigation process on this issue, the Commission requests this action on a number of other issues as well, such as Floridaâs handling of its voter roll purge and its failure to accommodate voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency.
The Commission recommends that Florida retain knowledgeable experts to undertake a formal study to ascertain the reason for the racial disparities in vote rejection rates between white voters and persons of color. Once this is completed, the state should adopt and publicize procedures to eliminate this disparity. As a start, the state could identify and promote the âbest practicesâ of counties in Florida or around the nation that performed well during the 2000 presidential election.[/quote]
Did Attorney General Ashcroft ever do this? Of course not. After all, that would conflict with Rovian political principles of ensuring blacks canât vote.
Check out the NAACP v. Harris case that they had to settle when it became apparent that the GOP had done everything possible to ensure blacks couldnât vote.
As to your supposed point about Washington, D.C., schools, I canât help wondering if you really think that the city government there is actually a good example of âgovernment in actionâ? Do you think that Washington, D.C., is a âtypicalâ school system?
Finally some stir about the Republican âcaging listsâ that started this threadâŚ
[quote]On one page of the book, Palast reproduces a copy of a confidential Bush-Cheney campaign email, dated August 26, 2004, in which Griffin directs Republican operatives to use the âcagingâ lists.
This is one of the emails subpoenaed by Congress but supposedly âlostâ by Roveâs office. Palast obtained 500 of these, fifty with âcagingâ lists attached.
âCagingâ lists are âabsolutely illegalâ under the Voting Rights Act, noted Kennedy on his Air America program, Ring of Fire. The 1965 law makes it a felony crime to challenge voters when race is a factor in the targeting. African-American voters comprised the bulk of the 70,000 voters âcagedâ in a single state, Florida.
Palast wrote in his book, âHereâs how the scheme worked. The Bush campaign mailed out letters,â particularly targeting African-American soldiers sent overseas. When the letters sent to the home addresses of the soldiers came back âundeliverableâ because the servicemen were in Baghdad or elsewhere, the Republican Party would, âchallenge the voterâs registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted.â
The Republicans successfully challenged âat least one millionâ votes of minority voters in the 2004 election.
Kennedy, a voting rights attorney, fumed, âWhat he [Griffin] did was absolutely illegal and he should be in jail. Instead [Griffin] was rewarded with the US Attorneyâs office.â[/quote]
Nice. Didnât the Republicans promise to ârestore honor to the officeâ or something to that effect? Disenfranchising soldiers⌠canât get much less honorable than that.
Say, mofangongren, Iâve goot some beautiful land down in Florida that I can sell to you for a good price⌠special price, just for you⌠
[/quote]