Hillary Clinton's Campaign Finance Director Indicted
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I don't think this can be used to hurt Hillary that much, as the alleged fraud was a while ago.
I also doubt that this is a political ploy. However, I will outline some basics in the near-impossible case that it is. This could be punishment for opposing the conformation of Bush's reelection; it could also be a threat to prevent Hillary from running for prez in 2008, or a later election. If this is punishment, it happened incredibly quickly, so republicans would have to know well beforehand that some would oppose the confirmation of Bush as president. If it was a threat, then it is a useless one, because Hillary has virtually no chance of reaching a higher office than senator. Additionally, it seems that Barbara Boxer was the only senator to oppose the verification, which is usually a ceremonial affair and hasn't been opposed for more than a century. Because of the opposition, the joint session had to split into the House and Congress to vote individually; both endorsed the election with near-nil opposition (though there are 31 idiots in the House). Here is an article that describes in more detail, much of which you either know already or don't want to read. And here is a Smoking Gun report. Those Smoking Gun guys are great at finding original documents.
In an interesting note, John Edwards actually got one electoral vote for president. What idiot gave Edwards a vote? I was more afraid of Edwards than Kerry. Kerry at least has some idea of how to run the country, though I believe he would run it into a ditch, but Edwards hasn't the slightest idea at all.
I might as well debunk something while I'm at it. Boxer claims her objections are over "a number of problems in Ohio, including rejection of provisional ballots, long lines and inadequate numbers of voting machines in urban neighborhoods that tended to back Kerry". For that "long lines" point, I suspect that she means there were too few poll workers to handle the voters. Guess what, some (if not all, I don't know my state's regulations) were volunteers. That means that, if democratic areas didn't have enough poll workers, then the democrats in that area have only themselves to blame, because a few more people should have volunteered to work at those under-manned polls.
Now, about these stupid voting machines. Machines should be far more accurate than hand counts. And, only idiots believe that counting machines will be rigged so one candidate gets more votes than another. I don't even know how that can be done, if it is possible at all. Now, if votes were manipulated, the manipulator would be the intermediary between the counting machines and the media. Someone could easily misreport the numbers from the machine; it'd be a lot easier than the alternatives. Now, I am under the impression that machines can be very accurate. In fact, that's one of two reasons that humans use machines at all; the other reason is that they are faster and more powerful than humans. For example, the countless filled-in bubbles on SAT tests must be counted with near-perfect precision (I'll admit that the SAT machines are slower, but there are probably far fewer of them). I honestly don't know how voting machines can be so different. I'll bet the largest source of incorrect votes is based on a mistake by the voter, rather than the machines.
Of course machines can have problems, and when machines have problems, they are big problems. However, such problems can be eliminated somewhat by a paper trail from the machines. I'm sure you're getting tired of reading this, so I'll end the post here, and work on another one.
I don't think this can be used to hurt Hillary that much, as the alleged fraud was a while ago.
I also doubt that this is a political ploy. However, I will outline some basics in the near-impossible case that it is. This could be punishment for opposing the conformation of Bush's reelection; it could also be a threat to prevent Hillary from running for prez in 2008, or a later election. If this is punishment, it happened incredibly quickly, so republicans would have to know well beforehand that some would oppose the confirmation of Bush as president. If it was a threat, then it is a useless one, because Hillary has virtually no chance of reaching a higher office than senator. Additionally, it seems that Barbara Boxer was the only senator to oppose the verification, which is usually a ceremonial affair and hasn't been opposed for more than a century. Because of the opposition, the joint session had to split into the House and Congress to vote individually; both endorsed the election with near-nil opposition (though there are 31 idiots in the House). Here is an article that describes in more detail, much of which you either know already or don't want to read. And here is a Smoking Gun report. Those Smoking Gun guys are great at finding original documents.
In an interesting note, John Edwards actually got one electoral vote for president. What idiot gave Edwards a vote? I was more afraid of Edwards than Kerry. Kerry at least has some idea of how to run the country, though I believe he would run it into a ditch, but Edwards hasn't the slightest idea at all.
I might as well debunk something while I'm at it. Boxer claims her objections are over "a number of problems in Ohio, including rejection of provisional ballots, long lines and inadequate numbers of voting machines in urban neighborhoods that tended to back Kerry". For that "long lines" point, I suspect that she means there were too few poll workers to handle the voters. Guess what, some (if not all, I don't know my state's regulations) were volunteers. That means that, if democratic areas didn't have enough poll workers, then the democrats in that area have only themselves to blame, because a few more people should have volunteered to work at those under-manned polls.
Now, about these stupid voting machines. Machines should be far more accurate than hand counts. And, only idiots believe that counting machines will be rigged so one candidate gets more votes than another. I don't even know how that can be done, if it is possible at all. Now, if votes were manipulated, the manipulator would be the intermediary between the counting machines and the media. Someone could easily misreport the numbers from the machine; it'd be a lot easier than the alternatives. Now, I am under the impression that machines can be very accurate. In fact, that's one of two reasons that humans use machines at all; the other reason is that they are faster and more powerful than humans. For example, the countless filled-in bubbles on SAT tests must be counted with near-perfect precision (I'll admit that the SAT machines are slower, but there are probably far fewer of them). I honestly don't know how voting machines can be so different. I'll bet the largest source of incorrect votes is based on a mistake by the voter, rather than the machines.
Of course machines can have problems, and when machines have problems, they are big problems. However, such problems can be eliminated somewhat by a paper trail from the machines. I'm sure you're getting tired of reading this, so I'll end the post here, and work on another one.
posted by Chris at
11:00 PM
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