Bush wins Ohio!
December 30th, 2004 at 1:26 pm by David FarrarWhile most people have accepted Bush was re-elected, there are a few loonies who have spent the last eight weeks with a variety of conspiracy theories.
In mid December they asked the Ohio State Supreme Court to delay the electoral college voters from voting for Bush.
The loonies, led by former Democratic presidential nominee Jesse Jackson, have proceeded with a recount in all 88 counties. They hoped that if the result changed, then the House which ratifies on Jan 6, could change the result.
Well the recounts have been finished and they show Bush’s majority in Ohio has shrunk – from 118,775 to 118,457. This is a 0.27% reduction in the majority.
Not that this will of course stop Scoop from continuing to ‘expose’ the stolen election.
No tag for this post.
December 30th, 2004 at 4:17 pm
The problem with ohio was the polling place irregularities (this state replaced Florida this time). By initiating recounts, the delays and other problems DURING the voting could be highlighted. This has also played a small morale booster for Democrats, but the diligence paid off in Montana where the state legislature ended up being controlled by the Democrats after ONE VOTE gave one extra seat to the democrats. The other win was Oregon where a recount meant a democrat won the governors race by a 100 or so votes. The Republicans have gone to court to try and reverse that one, no mention of those people being deadenders.
Vote:December 30th, 2004 at 5:19 pm
I would have thought the difference was obvious. Montana had been declared a dead heat, margin of zero. The other race you refer to is Washington, not Oregon, where the margin is 129 votes out of 2.8 million. I’d be fighting recounts that close also.
But when the margin is 119,000, one is crazy to honestly think that sort of result is going to change.
Vote:December 30th, 2004 at 5:56 pm
If you want a good geopolitical conspiracy you should check out this v good BBC doco screened BBC 2 Oct-Nov 2004: THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES / THE RISE OF THE POLITICS OF FEAR. 3 parts: Here’s the intro to Part III.
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VO: In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this. But their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered to their people. Those dreams failed. And today, people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life. But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand. And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism. A powerful and sinister network, with sleeper cells in countries across the world. A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror. But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It’s a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.
VO: This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created, and who it benefits. At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives, and the radical Islamists. Last week
Vote:December 30th, 2004 at 6:36 pm
The problem with you David is that you need to be a sweating nasty fanatic that is more self-interested than someone who cares about good graces and working on “next time”. I mean, Democrats could also demand a recount in Texas, because if they won this under recount then Ohio can go to hell.
After all, Florida has been replaced by Ohio and clearly we are dealing with an illegitimate US President who channels Adolf Hitler in his dreams and is about to march Arabs and Democrats into camps.
Or maybe I should just go back on the tablets.
Vote:December 30th, 2004 at 6:52 pm
Really ZTEV, Pres Clinton:
Killed more Iraqi’s with his sanctions
Sent cruise missiles that killed a camel blew up a tent to deal with UBL after he bombed WTC, 2 African cities, several civilan compounds in Arabia and the USS Cole.
Didn’t stop the Asian Financial Crisis (fortunately he acted to prevent the Latin American Financial crisis afterwards)
Admited he ‘dodged the draft’
Bush is a far superior President!
Vote:December 30th, 2004 at 7:12 pm
Michael,
None of this really matters because Bush is an alien who is a member of the Skull and Bones Club, which as we all know is responsible for the gravitational pull of this planet and the imminent introduction of the inflation-causing 99c coin, and hence the reason why clever people like myself wear non-metal sole shoes and tin foil hats at night.
Vote:December 30th, 2004 at 8:10 pm
While I agree that any recount is most unlikely to change the outcome, it should be recognised that the recount was dubious at best. It only entailed hand counting 3% of ballots in selected precincts. That’s a long way from a full recount of 88 counties.
Vote:If you were to read wider from a non-partisan point of view, you would find that this issue has grown way beyond the few loonies, and in fact is being supported by Americans of all political stripes, and from every walk of life.
I believe the matter has some further developments pending. Time will tell.
December 31st, 2004 at 6:23 am
Exactly right Spurtle. The problem is that as soon as one mentions the word “conspiracy,” everyone leaps to the assumption that everything said thereafter HAS to be a bunch of horseshit. If one would keep an open mind as they analyse this stuff (not that it’s true, nor that it’s false, but that it’s possible), one might start seeing the dynamics in play now that have the potential to change our way of life. Such as: the new global alliance forming between China, Russia, India, Brazil announced in mid-December – there are significant consequences. China taking up oil supply contracts with Iran, Venezuela, Yukos. The breakup of Yukos. The developing (as yet undeclared and unnoticed by MSM) cold war II between China and US (one sign of which is PLA troop build-up on the Nth Korean border), US/Israeli action in Iran & Syria, etc. There are serious dynamics behind all of these events, but in most case even the events themselves are not well noted, by most of the press sources that most people read, until it’s too late, leading to constant surprise (by most people).
I strongly suggest that you start looking into this fringe stuff with an open mind as some of it genuinely explains our rapidly changing world and the impact of pending possible events to our way of life begs your attention. If you think I’m deluded or exaggerating, then e.g. as something concrete and publicly available, look into what the Patriot Acts I & II have done to US citizen’s constitutional rights. Also view that BBC doco I mentioned in a previous post in this thread.
Having said all of the above, do you imagine I didn’t have seriously skeptical reactions as I introduced myself to this stuff? It took me months, night after night, reading this stuff starting soon after 911 in an effort to get to the TRUTH, thinking ‘these guys are nuts, this is fantastic, the world does NOT work like this.’ I persisted only because I needed to know about it and because thoughout I consciously kept an open mind – it MAY be possible. Of course out of the many facets to this stuff, some of them are completely off the wall, some however, are not. You should ask yourself why MILLIONS are beginning to express disquiet about various aspects of world politics. For example, why did a Zogby poll in NY show over 50% of New Yorkers thought the govt was hiding something over 911?
The central point I make is that we are living in interesting times, and if you think you know what’s happening and what’s coming up, without reference to the “fringe” material, I stongly suggest you are omitting important references. (BTW, I also read sites like Stratfor but they omit a lot of relevant info.)
In this field there is a lot of light-weight BS which of course I don’t dabble in. Happy to provide serious reference sites to those who ask – email me if you wish. Not interested in responding to ad homina references to tin foil hats etc. I’m sticking my neck out here by revealing my interest in this stuff only because the world is very sad and by all reports is about to become much sadder over the next few years, however forewarned is forearmed and those who know will be better off than those who don’t.
Vote:December 31st, 2004 at 11:41 am
Great stuff. Why not recount PA similar margins and numbers. Because the fever swamp’s candidate carried PA. Exit polls had President for the afternoon Kerry wining VA, SC & NC. Better call the UN.
Vote:January 4th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
The entire recount issue is far more complex than David let’s on. There are numerous reasons to suspect that very odd things were happening in specific states only — those states without a paper trail for voting.
I was watching vote counts in real time on the net from the Secretary of State’s office in Ohio. One minute Bush was behind by 2%. The next second he was ahead by 2% and gained something like 80,000 votes in a matter of seconds. All the other candidates saw a zero increase in their votes during the same period. Unlikely to happen.
In some counties Bush got more votes than there were registered voters. In black, inner city precincts, the Libertarian unexplainably got a huge percentage of the vote compared to the rest of the state. Not likely even if I wish it were so. At the same time the number of votes for the Democrat dropped to unusually low levels in the same wards.
I watched the Green candidate’s vote totals jump up and down. Vote counting should be cumulative but Cobb went from 14,000+ down to zero, back up to 14,000 down to zero again, up to 14,000, then up from that, then back down to zero then up to a couple of dozen votes. It was bizarre.
There are only two states where I know such problems were rather routine. Ohio and New Mexico. In both they had “phatom” voters. That is where precincts reported finally vote totals in excess of the total number of registered voters.
It didn’t happen in Pennsylvannia that’s why there is no challenge there. And contrary to David’s view the challenges were not led by Jesse Jackson who, as usual, jumped on someone else’s bandwagon. Nor was it brought by the Democrats. It was brought jointly by the Green and the Libertarian candidates for president neither of whom thought a recount whould put them in the White House. Both of whom got reports on election day of electronic voting machines failing to register votes properly.
Vote:January 5th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Greens and Libs are only two of about 40 fever swamp groups who jointly contested the final result. Together they claim massive statewide fraud and conspiracy by a large number of Democrat and Republican election board officials.
Yes Jackson claims his own party committed fraud to push the Bush over the top and this is why Kerry is just not interested. In FL Bush haters were also gearing up for legal challenges but these were quietly dropped when the tally was overwhelmingly for Bush.
Vote: