OT: Elections/Politics thread, part 5

[wco81]

Speaking of Congress, a Republican congresswoman from a suburb or Minneapolis says Democratic members of congress should be investigated for anti-Americanism.

Palin says "real" Americans are only in small cities.

GOP pundit says, from Arlington, VA, that northern VA is not "real" Virginia.


Joseph McCarthy would be proud.

[Brando70]

The new issue of Esquire (with Halle Berry on the cover) has an endorsement section for every member of Congress across the country, as well as their 10 best and 10 worst Congressmen. It's more entertaining than persuasive but still pretty interesting.

I agree. It was entertaining seeing how they could manage to justify picking the Democrat in 99% of the races despite knowing absolutely nothing about the respective candidates

Hey, they went Republican for 5 out of 19 Illinois districts. That's higher than Soriano's playoff batting average

[RobVarak]

Joseph McCarthy would be proud.

LMFAO Did your parents put you to bed each night with tales of HUAC and Uncle Joe? McCarthyism lurks around every corner for you, like some sort of bogeyman with Barry Goldwater glasses

I would understand the obsession if it were only the GOP using divisive rhetoric and class warfare to its advantage, but the Left is every bit as guilty of demagoguery.

Trotsky would be proud.

On an unrelated note, one of my favorite legal minds is going to get a lot of dirty looks at the Hyde Park co-op. Emphasis is mine:

Richard Epstein

Chicago - My Obama number is one. I know him through our association at the University of Chicago Law School and through mutual friends in the neighborhood. We have had one or two serious substantive discussions, and when I sent him e-mails from time to time in the early days of his Senate term, he always answered in a sensible and thoughtful fashion. And yet, for assessing the course of his likely presidency, I don't know him at all.

It should come as no surprise that the traditionally liberal Hyde Park community is a veritable hotbed of support for Obama. So my manifest reluctance on his candidacy raises more than a single eyebrow: Loyalty for the home team counts.

The odd point is how his many learned and thoughtful supporters couch their endorsement. Almost without exception, they praise the man, not the program. Their claim is that Obama has proved himself to be a consummate politician who understands that the first principle of holding high office is to get reelected. His natural moderation in tone and demeanor, therefore, translate into getting advisers who know their substantive areas, and listening to them before making any rash moves. The dominant trope is that he will be a pragmatic president who will move in small increments toward the center, not in bold steps toward the left.

But is it all true? The short answer is that nobody knows. Virtually everyone who knows him recognizes that he plays his cards close to the vest, so that you can make your case to him without knowing whether it has registered. At this point, my fear is that the change in office will not lead to a change in his liberal voting record, as reinforced by a hyperactive Democratic platform. My great fear is that a landslide victory will give him solid majorities in both Houses of Congress, so that no stalling tactics by Republicans can slow down his legislative victory procession. At that point his innate pragmatism will line up with his strong left-of-center beliefs on issues that have thus far been muted during the campaign.

Put otherwise, Obama's vague calls for change that "you can believe in" are, to my thinking, wholly retrograde in their implications. At heart, he is an unreconstructed New Dealer who can see, and articulate, both sides on every question--but only as a prelude to championing the old corporatist agenda with a vengeance.

That program has three key components, which, taken together, can convert a shaky financial situation into a global depression. The first of these is his anti-free trade attitude that loomed so large in the primaries. But even Obama cannot repeal the principle of comparative advantage. Any efforts to scuttle NAFTA, deny fast-track approval to other agreements, or limit outsourcing will not be as dramatic as the Smoot-Hawley tariff. But combined, they would act as a depressant on general economic growth. Everyone would suffer.

Second, Obama is committed to strengthening unions by his endorsement of the Employer Free Choice Act, a misnamed statute that forces union recognition without elections and employment contracts through mandatory arbitration thereafter. That one-two punch could tie up the very small businesses that Obama seems determined to help. Tax relief won't work for firms that won't get formed because a labor fight is not in their initial budget.

And third, he is in favor of progressive individual taxes and high corporate taxes. It is as though the U.S. does not have to compete for labor and capital in global markets. My fear is that with his strong egalitarian bent, he has not internalized the lesson that high rates do not offset declining revenues.

Thus, even before we get to the added bells and whistles of the modern welfare state--windfall profits taxes, ethanol subsidies, health care--an Obama administration could lock us into a downward spiral by ignoring the simple fundamentals of sound governance. Boy, does this stalwart libertarian ever hope that his friends are right and his gloomy prediction is wrong!

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/ ... stein.html

[GTHobbes]

It's a rebate to the poor. And I don't see what the big deal is.

I know people like to throw the "S" word around any time the government takes something from people with a lot and gives it to people without very much. In the conservative world, the government can spend money on killing foreigners, paving roads, and delivering tons of unsolicited marketing material to your mailbox. But the minute the government does anything charitable, they drag out the Karl Marx pinata and beat it with the socialism stick.

I understand if someone is philosophically opposed to giving a tax refund to someone who doesn't pay taxes. I'm not exactly crazy about it. I'm more for bringing back work-based New Deal kinds of programs, where you have to earn your welfare. If you're unemployed, you can pick up a broom and sweep your street. But that seems even less fashionable than handing somebody a check and foodstamps.

These rebates are not really going to alter much. The poorest Americans will still be poor. The rich will remain rich. People in the middle, like me, probably won't notice the difference. That doesn't exactly sound like a Bolshevik revolution to me.

Great post, Brando. Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the topic.

[XXXIV]

Speaking of Congress, a Republican congresswoman from a suburb or Minneapolis says Democratic members of congress should be investigated for anti-Americanism.

Palin says "real" Americans are only in small cities.

GOP pundit says, from Arlington, VA, that northern VA is not "real" Virginia.


Joseph McCarthy would be proud.

Joseph Stalin would be proud.

[Jackdog]

I understand if someone is philosophically opposed to giving a tax refund to someone who doesn't pay taxes. I'm not exactly crazy about it. I'm more for bringing back work-based New Deal kinds of programs, where you have to earn your welfare. If you're unemployed, you can pick up a broom and sweep your street. But that seems even less fashionable than handing somebody a check and foodstamps.

Not to me. I'd take it a few steps further. When I was in the Army we were weighed every month to make sure we meet the standards held by the goverment. Welfare recipients should have to do the same. To break the system of having kids to collect,they also should only get paid for two kids max. I also think that if the children of welfare recipients act up in school,the parents should have to go school and baby-sit their child to recieve their benefits. If the kid or kids don't start acting right,then you recieve no benefits.

I have no problem with helping those that need it,but when people abuse it. They should lose it. Unless your disabled,you should have a limit on how many months you can recieve benefits,just like unemployment. I am tired of supporting ignorance.

[XXXIV]

How can you get a tax rebate if you didnt pay taxes?

[Jared]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

[XXXIV]

My favorite SNL political sketch of all time, "Dukakis After Dark."

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88ddukakis.phtml

I never pictured you as an anti-Hellenist.

[XXXIV]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

Bad management?

[Naples39]

It's a rebate to the poor. And I don't see what the big deal is.

I know people like to throw the "S" word around any time the government takes something from people with a lot and gives it to people without very much. In the conservative world, the government can spend money on killing foreigners, paving roads, and delivering tons of unsolicited marketing material to your mailbox. But the minute the government does anything charitable, they drag out the Karl Marx pinata and beat it with the socialism stick.

I understand if someone is philosophically opposed to giving a tax refund to someone who doesn't pay taxes. I'm not exactly crazy about it. I'm more for bringing back work-based New Deal kinds of programs, where you have to earn your welfare. If you're unemployed, you can pick up a broom and sweep your street. But that seems even less fashionable than handing somebody a check and foodstamps.

These rebates are not really going to alter much. The poorest Americans will still be poor. The rich will remain rich. People in the middle, like me, probably won't notice the difference. That doesn't exactly sound like a Bolshevik revolution to me.

Great post, Brando. Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the topic.

I have no problem with people believing in some support system to the poor. Many Americans feel that way even if I personally would prefer less.

My biggest issue has always been that many voters have no idea what they're voting for. Obama has steadfastly been reassuring voters that he will cut taxes for 95%, and people have bought into the rhetoric. You can't cut taxes for people who don't pay them, and it's misleading at best and an outright lie at worst to claim otherwise. Where have the fact-checkers been on this one since the line proved to be such a hit at the democratic convention, and has been repeated at every debate?

Obama's plan would have far less support from moderates and independents if he called it welfare or a support system, and the very fact that he insists to stretch the definition of the term 'tax cut' to absurd levels is evidence of a tacit admission to the fact.

People are voting for the image and the words of the man, not for his policies. That should be unsettling to anyone.

[Naples39]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

Because they appear to be negligently and/or intentionally committing election fraud on a national level. I think that's a pretty justifiable thing to get upset about.

[Jackdog]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

If your voting for Obama nothing I guess. If your a tax paying citizen that isn't, then you should have a big problem with your money being spent to promote his agenda. It is supposed to be non-partisan. That ain't happening.

[RobVarak]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

Let me try this, as Chicagoans we dealt with ACORN long before there was an ACORN. Many of the problems with ACORN are endemic to any organization that actively "gets out the vote," which in many cases means terraforming the electoral landscape.

There are two principle problems with these sorts of organizations: First, the fact that they are essentially an extension of a campaign (in this case Obama, but it can be any candidate), and secondly that they are flooding the system with bogus registrations.

Obviously, trying to get people to exercise their franchise is an admirable goal. The problems come in when the methods that you use to do so are extensions of a campaign. Where the line should be drawn is often ambiguous, but there are some things that are clearly over the line. The voter isn't really exercising his or her own rights if they are ignorant of the extent of those rights or coerced into casting a vote for a particular candidate or party.

If someone approaches a poor or uneducated voter and gets them to register, that person often has undue influence over the newly registered voter.

For generations the Chicago machine has lived on this like oxygen.

They would use committeemen and "block captains" to sign up the unregistered and in doing so make sure that the voter was properly "educated." The few voters who expressed dissent would find their registration papers mysteriously lost before election day. Newly registered voters almost always feel indebted to the people who went through the trouble to register them.

The more troubling problem that ACORN is presenting is a result of their committing nationwide registration fraud by absolutely flooding the system with bogus registrations.

ACORN's defenders emphasize the distinction between registration fraud and voter fraud. What that distinction ignores is that the former is often an opening barrage for the latter. In states that require no voter ID or allow easy absentee voting, the fake registrations are easily translated into fraudulent votes.

Even states that are able to enact voter ID laws are presented with a problem with the false registrations. They allow for the casting of enormous amounts of provisional ballots, which creates confusion and may raise credibility issues with respect to any recount.

A third and far less discussed problem is that many polls use the voter registration numbers to weigh polling data. They use them in regressions to improve their projections. If Democrats claim to have registered millions of new voters in a given jurisdiction, polls will reflect that fact. The ultimate result could be a serious polling error that could affect the way that candidates allocate resources, voter turnout etc.

It would be one thing if ACORN were just an arm of the Democratic Party or the Obama campaign, but it receives substantial taxpayer money as well. Coincidentally, it is the organization that most often brought lawsuits against banks for redlining mortgages and contributed to the subprime mess as well LOL

Registration fraud, voter fraud, bank extortion: That's a lot of bang for the taxpayer's buck.

[Jared]

But they don't seem to be committing election fraud on a nat'l level. Instead, it seems like these whole ACORN/national fraud are right-wing hysterics that omit a lot of the relevant information. For example:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/h ... d-fra.html

ACORN has become the 24/7 story on Fox News, too, on account of reports that it has submitted several thousand phony registration forms to local boards of elections. These reports appear to be true. Nevertheless, the “scandal,” as Fox calls it, is itself on its face as phony as Mickey Mouse’s social security number.

During this election cycle, the Times reported today, ACORN has deployed thirteen thousand mostly paid workers, who have registered 1.3 million new voters. One or two per cent of these workers turned in sheaves of forms that they filled out themselves with fake names and bogus addresses, and, even though at least a hundred of these workers have already been fired, the forged forms have been submitted to election boards.

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that groups like ACORN are required by law to submit them, even if they’re obvious fakes. This is to prevent funny business, such as trashing forms that look like they might be Republican (or Democratic, as the case may be).

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that ACORN normally sorts through forms, flags those that look fishy, and submits the fishy ones in a separate pile for the convenience of election officials.

Sounds suspicious—until you reflect that the motivation of the misbehaving registration workers is almost always to look like they’ve been doing more work than they really have, and that the victim of the “fraud” is actually the organization they’re working for.

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that even if one of these fake forms results in a nonexistent person actually being registered, now under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, “any voter who has not previously voted in a federal election” must provide identification in order to actually cast a ballot. This will make it tough for Mickey Mouse, even if registered, to vote, no matter how big, round, or black his ears. Likewise, members of the Duck family (Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie) who turn up at the polling place will have a hard time getting into the voting booth. (Uncle Scrooge might be able to bribe his way in, but he’s voting Republican anyway.)

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that despite all the hysteria, from 2002 to 2005, only twenty people in the entire United States of America were found guilty of voting while ineligible and only five of voting more than once. By contrast, consider the lede on this story, published a week ago today:

"Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times. "

[matthewk]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

They are trying to get Mickey Mouse to vote.

[wco81]

Registration fraud is meaningless. It's still going to take a voter to risk committing a felony to vote under false pretenses.

Right-wing screeching over nefarious doings in Ohio (where Freddie Johnson of Cleveland testified that ACORN encouraged him to sign 73 voter-registration forms—all in his own name) overlooks the fact that all 73 registrations would still have allowed Freddie to vote just once. The connection between wrongful voter registration and actual polling-place vote fraud is the stuff of GOP mythology. As Rick Hasen has demonstrated, here at Slate and elsewhere, even if Mr. Mouse is registered to vote, he still needs to show up at his polling place, provide a fake ID, and risk a felony conviction to do so.

Large-scale, coordinated vote stealing doesn't happen. The incentives—unlike the incentives for registration fraud—just aren't there. In an interview this week with Salon, Lorraine Minnite of Barnard College, who has studied vote fraud systematically, noted that "between 2002 to 2005 only one person was found guilty of registration fraud. Twenty others were found guilty of voting while ineligible and five were guilty of voting more than once. That's 26 criminal voters." Twenty-six criminal voters despite the fact that U.S. attorneys, like David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired for searching high and low for vote-fraud cases to prosecute and coming up empty. Twenty-six criminal voters despite the fact that five days before the 2006 election, then-interim U.S. Attorney Bradley Schlozman exuberantly (and futilely) indicted four ACORN workers, even when Justice Department policy barred such prosecutions in the days before elections. RNC General Counsel Sean Cairncross has said he is unaware of a single improper vote cast because of bad cards submitted in the course of a voter-registration effort. Republican campaign consultant Royal Masset says, "n-person voter fraud is nonexistent. It doesn't happen, and ... makes no sense because who's going to take the risk of going to jail on something so blatant that maybe changes one vote?"

There is no such thing as vote fraud. The think tank created to peddle the epidemic has evaporated. A handful of cases have been prosecuted.

http://www.slate.com/id/2202428/

[wco81]

Can someone explain to me why ACORN is so horrible?

Because they appear to be negligently and/or intentionally committing election fraud on a national level. I think that's a pretty justifiable thing to get upset about.

What is "election fraud?"

Are you referring to fraud in turning in registration forms with false data or fraud in the votes cast?

Regardless, what proof do you have besides the GOP screeching about ACORN in various states?

What proof do you have that ACORN directed its workers to falsify voter registration forms?

Is "appearing" to do something the only burden of proof you're looking for?

[Naples39]

What proof do you have that ACORN directed its workers to falsify voter registration forms?

negligently and/or intentionally....

Is "appearing" to do something the only burden of proof you're looking for?

I'm not a criminal prosecutor looking for a conviction, nor have I committed a thorough investigation of their activities.

The point is many red flags have been raised about suspicious behavior in many states about ACORN activities. Because there's no smoking gun of a memo that says "hey guys, commit fraud!" we should just ignore what's happening? The point isn't whether or not ACORN employees should be arrested, the point is that we should recognize that what is happening is a problem and look into it.

If something is happening in several states that enables widespread 'voting fraud' (to use a proper term of art) I don't see how anyone could possibly take the position that it's not something to be concerned about it.

Would it not concern you if someone piled up all your valuable possessions by the door to make them easier to steal later, because hey, no one has actually stolen anything yet?

I appreciate yours and Jared's links, but that does not justify simply dismissing all registration fraud as harmless.

[JRod]

There's a difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud.

Voter fraud actually means that Mickey Mouse shows up to the polls, gets a ballot and votes. Voter registration fraud just means Mickey Mouse was submitted to the local clerks office. That doesn't mean he gets a ballot.

And ACORN was the one that actually turned themselves in.

[FatPitcher]

Palin says "real" Americans are only in small cities.

Joseph McCarthy would be proud.

You probably also think that bands who praise the city hosting their gig are mistaken for not taking into consideration what other cities around the country have to offer before offering their platitudes.

[FatPitcher]

There's a difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud.

And ACORN was the one that actually turned themselves in.

You can't have the first without the second.

And was that before or after they were raided by the FBI?

[Jared]

If something is happening in several states that enables widespread 'voting fraud' (to use a proper term of art) I don't see how anyone could possibly take the position that it's not something to be concerned about it.

Would it not concern you if someone piled up all your valuable possessions by the door to make them easier to steal later, because hey, no one has actually stolen anything yet?

I appreciate yours and Jared's links, but that does not justify simply dismissing all registration fraud as harmless.

But I don't think that ACORN's voter registration methods enable widespread voting fraud. ACORN legally has to turn in all of their voter registration forms, even if they are marked as "Mickey Mouse", or even if someone registers 100 times. When turning the forms in, they separate out the dubious ones, and they fire the workers that do things like "Mickey Mouse" registrations.

Then, if Mickey Mouse tries to vote, he won't be able to (unless he has a fake ID). Or if the guy with 100 registrations votes, he'll only be able to vote once (as the elections office likely won't count them 100 times).

So it doesn't seem like there is any evidence that ACORN is enabling voter fraud.

[wco81]

I'm not a criminal prosecutor looking for a conviction, nor have I committed a thorough investigation of their activities.

The point is many red flags have been raised about suspicious behavior in many states about ACORN activities. Because there's no smoking gun of a memo that says "hey guys, commit fraud!" we should just ignore what's happening? The point isn't whether or not ACORN employees should be arrested, the point is that we should recognize that what is happening is a problem and look into it.

If something is happening in several states that enables widespread 'voting fraud' (to use a proper term of art) I don't see how anyone could possibly take the position that it's not something to be concerned about it.

Would it not concern you if someone piled up all your valuable possessions by the door to make them easier to steal later, because hey, no one has actually stolen anything yet?

I appreciate yours and Jared's links, but that does not justify simply dismissing all registration fraud as harmless.

OK and why don't you think federal prosecutors under a GOP administration and many state prosecutors under GOP control are looking into it?

Could it be that they have been looking into it but they haven't seen merit to prosecute or try to get a grand jury to indict?

All this ACORN noise is coming from the political operatives, who incidentally have tried to get prosecutors to investigate.

A bigger issue is the purging of possibly as many as millions of voters from the voter rolls in just the swing states alone. Of course, such purging will probably help the Republican cause so you won't hear any complaints about those actions, even though the magnitude of the problem is much greater.

[pk500]

My biggest issue has always been that many voters have no idea what they're voting for. Obama has steadfastly been reassuring voters that he will cut taxes for 95%, and people have bought into the rhetoric. You can't cut taxes for people who don't pay them, and it's misleading at best and an outright lie at worst to claim otherwise.

You also can't cut taxes when you're proposing massive government spending programs, especially in this deficit-rich government budget environment.

Just once, I would like to hear one reporter or one commentator ask either McCain or Obama: "Senators, both of you are proposing tax cuts for a majority of Americans yet both of you are proposing large government spending increases in a variety of areas. Considering Uncle Sam just wrote a $1 TRILLION check for the bank bailout and we're running record deficits, just how in the hell do you plan to pay for these new programs and increased spending?"

It's such a simple question, yet no one ever seems to ask it.

P.S.: Bob Barr was damn good and very clear and eloquent last night on "News Hour" with Judy Woodruff, as Jim Lehrer was off:

http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/10/20/ ... im-lehrer/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics ... 10-20.html

Take care,
PK