The Phantom Legion
When Mark Twain said “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” he was underscoring a principle in information systems before the term was invented. Above all never corrupt your own database. The most dangerous lie you can make up is the one you go on to believe yourself.
When grassroots organizers working for the Democratic party went to follow up Wisconsin black voters off a 2008 list they discovered a curious thing. ”Sixty percent of Milwaukee’s black voters have disappeared.” Slate explains:
This spring, the League of Young Voters, which was created to mobilize young minority communities, collaborated with the liberal Wisconsin Voices coalition to dispatch teams of young canvassers. Starting in April, they spent eight weeks knocking on 120,882 doors across 208 of Milwaukee’s 317 wards to raise awareness of the gubernatorial recall election scheduled for June. The doors had one thing in common: the voter file said they were all home to a registered voter whom a commercial data vendor had flagged as likely to be African-American.
But the voter file represented a fiction, or at least a reality that had rapidly become out of date. During those eight weeks, canvassers were able to successfully find and interact with only 31 percent of their targets. Twice that number were confirmed to no longer live at the address on file — either because a structure was abandoned or condemned, or if a current resident reported that the targeted voter no longer lived there.
The Slate article suggests that the explanation for the missing voters is the extraordinary hardship which this demographic labors labors under. It links to an NPR article which says that similar efforts at finding Obama voters are reaching similar conclusions. They’re gone to parts unknown. NPR theorizes this is the result of the housing crisis.
Organizers are discovering scores of vacated homes in key battlegrounds that contributed strong turnouts in the 2008 election. In the past four years, more than 3.7 million homes have been lost to foreclosure, according to market research firm CoreLogic.
And canvassers have been left with voter databases — an indispensable tool for getting out the vote — riddled with outdated addresses and phone numbers.
Since the housing crisis went full tilt in 2008, the same states continue to have the worst foreclosure markets, such as California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.
Today, three of the eight states with the highest foreclosure rates are presidential battlegrounds: Florida, Ohio and Nevada. Candidate Barack Obama won these states in 2008, but voter frustrations about his economic policies have since led each state to elect Republican governors.
Both the Obama and Romney campaigns say they are working to locate displaced voters, but declined to discuss their methods.
Given months of polling showing that likely Republican voters are more engaged in the election, Democratic officials and strategists in both parties say the Obama campaign has the greater challenge of mobilizing its base.
But foreclosure rates are proxy indicators of other things besides repos — such as hard times or no jobs or declining welfare budgets. Thus one hypothesis is that core Obama voters have drifted off to other states, cities or neighborhoods with better job prospects or public assistance without leaving a forwarding address.
Although the media spotlight for the next few days will be on millionaire actor Clint Eastwood, the really big uncovered story may be what is happening to the Obama voter base. A Washington Post article hints that Romney is aware that not all is quiet under the Big Tent. Romney is targeting former Obama voters, an indication that he sees the possibility of making gains there.
Starting Friday, he’ll be able to tap his huge stockpile of general election cash, a chunk of the $177 million he had on hand as August began. Obama’s campaign and party had $127 million available, according to the most recent public data.
Romney’s cash will be spent primarily on television advertising and get-out-the-vote operations in the most competitive swing-voting states: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado and New Hampshire. He’s also targeting North Carolina. And he’s looking at making a more aggressive play for Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where outside groups have been on the air for weeks.
Is there disquiet among the Obama faithful? Or does it reflect the possibility there were fewer faithful to start with than commonly reckoned. A political analyst who I spoke to said that many of the 2008 Obama voters were individuals who normally did not vote. They came out in the last election cycle because they were strongly motivated at the time. But in the intervening years hard times rekindled their apathy and they have either moved away or crawled back into the margins of poverty their hopes having been raised — and dashed.
Thus, the missing 60% of respondents from the League of Young Voters blockwalking list could really represent the falling away of a phantom army, straggling from the inflated baseline of Obama supporters, one time joiners whose reappareance in 2012 cannot be taken for granted.
That would explain why Obama was “energizing the base”. It would also explain why Romney was targeting it.
The true facts are the only true guidelines in both physical and political conflict. It would be incorrect to say that the Obama voter base has evaporated without empirical confirmation. But it would also be incorrect to say that it is still there, simply because it was, waiting for its leader’s call to hurl themselves against the Castle Romney. What is the truth? Who has got the numbers?
What do we know for sure that is so?
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No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
They should have ACORN canvas for those voters. They know where to find them.
Fortunately for Obama and the Democrat party, there is one cohort of Democrat voters who have not moved — and will not move — this election cycle: the dead. And I expect them to vote in even larger numbers this year.
That’s just terrible for the Bamster – but worse yet, the guy who helped create our financial crisis that forced those people out of their homes, The Bernank, has gone AWOL. From The Bernank’s Jackson Hole Speech:
“Substantial further expansions of the balance sheet could reduce public confidence in the Fed’s ability to exit smoothly from its accommodative policies at the appropriate time.”
Translation: there will be no huge money print before the election to save Buraq’s butt. What’s a loony lefty like Buraq gunna do now?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bernanke-fails-deliver
From Zerohedge on Fed Guv Robert Heller’s comments on what was said:
“Perhaps it is the weight that is lifted from having to tow the propaganda life while under the influence of the Fed, but Robert Heller (ex Fed Governor) just laid out the ‘translated’ version of Bernanke’s speech this morning. “I don’t think the Federal Reserve will take any action, certainly not until the fiscal cliff, the fiscal uncertainties are actually addressed,” which is similar to our interpretation of Bernanke’s comments as he added “if they’re not addressed and the economy falls off the cliff; yes, then you may get QE3,” but “I don’t see that happening before the election!”
Where’s a good slimy Keynesian PrintMaster when ya need him?
Maybe a lot of those voters went back to Mexico or Canada.
hdgreene is correct. We can’t find them now because they never existed. Whoever registered the nonexistent voters should go to jail. Just remember, “Senator” Al Franken.
We need Republican poll workers. Please right now wherever you are sign up to work the election.
Come now. we all know perfectly well why all those voters disappeared; vote fraud by the Democrats is epidemic and totally ignored by the Leftist media.
Maybe a lot of those voters didn’t really exist?
KRB
As an aside of sorts:
One thing that is commonly speculated on these blogs — and I have speculated as much myself — is that violence might erupt in certain urban neighborhoods if Obama loses.
Maybe not. You need the numbers, the motivation, and the fervent loyalty to arouse people to such actions. If they’re not there or don’t care, then a morose silence will descend on America’s inner cities instead should The One lose.
Has anyone checked 92 miles south of Milwaukee, i.e. in Chicago?
“canvassers were able to successfully find and interact with only 31 percent of their targets”
if they really existed wouldn’t this be somewhat reflected in public school enrollment?
if they really existed wouldn’t this be somewhat reflected in public school enrollment?
And on the Medicaid and the welfare rolls. Some smart database mechanic should compare those rolls with the voter registrations, and calculate how many virtual ‘voters’ there really were in 2008, and how many there might be today.
hard times rekindled
their apathy …
Complete this haiku?
… November
cannot come too soon.
… damage done
they return to sloth.
… Obama
ground them into dust.
Burma Shave.
I visited one of those Milwaukee neighborhoods this past Spring and found, not empty houses, but empty hopes and dreams.
I had such hopes, the woman said
In such a quiet voice
She said she thought she’d get ahead
That’s why she made the choice
To vote for him back in oh eight
His vision and his dreams
Were hers as well but as of late
They’ve turned to scattered reams
Of so much paper promises
That haven’t any truth
Now we’re all Doubting Thomases
Who’ve moved now to Duluth
Though some have gone to better climes
Down South for Red State jobs
My neighbors felt that in these times
Obama weaves and bobs
And takes us all for granted when
It’s time for us to vote
She asked where I was going, then
Said, “Wait, I’ll get my coat”
Josh/12
into dust
we all must turn
after which
in grave or urn
we then
return to cast our votes
across the styx
on dem crat boats
This election will likely come down to fraud, or more specifically, degree of fraud. People on the right are fond of saying, ‘if it ain’t close, they can’t cheat’ but that is not true. If it ain’t close, that just means they have to cheat more. And when the chips are down, they will cheat and cheat more, unless there are seriously increased efforts to stop them.
People talk about Pennsylvania being in play. PA has a new voter ID law, and lots of Philly D’s are announcing they will not enforce it. Philly is possibly the worst vote fraud locations in the country (others are Chicago, and South Texas, along the border).
I know someone (not me) who claims to have witnessed (while an R poll watcher in a heavily D Philly) a bus of people, apparently a combination of homeless and hispanic, pull up to the polling station, and a stream of people got off. There wasn’t much of a line, but the rush created one. By the end of the line to sign in, a hispanic man when asked for his name….hemmed, hawed, and left, went back to the bus, talked to the walking around money guy, and returned, announcing his name, apparently slavic/polish. It turns out there were two people of that name, probably father and son or something like that, so the person working the polls asked for his address. He returned to the bus, talked to the guy on the bus (who never entered the polling place) and came back with both his name and address. He proceeded to sign his name, looking nothing like the signature on the registration, and apparently misspelled his own name. The R poll watcher tried challenging the voter as likely fraud, and was shot down by the election judge. His vote counted.
That is what we are up against.
That bus, and scores of others, very likely drove from polling place to polling place all election day. About thirty people, voting probably a dozen or a score of times each. The poll watcher said they had about two dozen busses of people at his polling place. He estimated that about half were ‘legitimate’ GOTV based on relatively modest number of people (6-10), and ethnicity roughly matching names, looking like they were from the neighborhood, and about half were clearly fraud. The R poll watchers weren’t there to stop that…they were there to keep track of how many voters actually came. Polling places with R watchers generally show about 50-70% turnout. Lots of polling places in Philly without R watchers (or where R watchers were thrown out) regularly report 100% turnout. Every single eligible voter supposedly showed up and voted. For the Democrat. For those, they probably don’t bother with the busses.
That was just the in person fraud, conventional wisdom is that the bigger fraud is in absentee ballots. A local talk show host caught a pair of ACORN workers red handed leaving a prison with a pile of absentee ballots. Most prisoners are felons, and felons can’t vote legally, and it is illegal for anyone in PA to posses more than 2 absentee ballots. Did not stop them.
They will cheat, and cheat some more, and cheat some more. If the fraud is not stopped, Philly will turn out enough D voters to keep PA in Obama’s camp. It doesn’t matter if every eligible voter in Philly has to turn out to vote. It doesn’t matter if every voter has to turn out twice. It doesn’t matter if the whole population of PA has to turn out in Philly to vote for the D. It doesn’t matter if the whole population of China has to show up to vote for the D in Philly. They will do it, if they can get away with it. That is a specifically Philly/PA problem, but that Philly machine is the same as the Chicago machine that Obama came from. However, the real risk is that what the D’s have been focusing on have been exporting that fraud machine national. That is what ACORN is about. That is what Obama for America is about. They aren’t content with owning Philly and Chicago. They need to take Cleveland, and Des Moines, and Tampa, and Norfolk and Las Vegas, and Denver. That is Obama’s campaign…expand D voter fraud from D strongholds to swing state cities. Obama intends to make all of America as disenfranchised as downstate Illinois republicans, or deep red central PA clinging to their guns and bibles.
Americans will either stop it, or we won’t. And that will determine who will ‘win’ the election. That is what is coming.
Daedalus/15
I’m a long time Philly guy, and I second all you wrote. But you forgot one. Black churches routinely send ushers up and down the aisles on the Sundays before election passing out absentee ballots, all made out, asking the congregants to sign them. The congregants then are free to vote again on election day. So prevalent is this practice that it, and other types of voter fraud, was reported on by, of all people, The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the most liberal leftwing papers in the US.
Keep flyin’, bro.
“This election will likely come down to fraud”
I firmly believe that criminal voter fraud is S.O.P. for the DNC. I believe that some substantial portion, or perhaps even all of Obama’s 3,000,000 vote margin in 2008 was similarly fabricated. These canvassers just didnt get the memo.
Missing Obama voters… did they look in the cemetary?
What is interesting about this story is that it is an indicator that some sort of GOTV infrastructure has broken down somewhere. There are a number of possibilities:
1) Those voters were real in 2008, and have now moved to greener pastures just like the story says. The GOTV effort must now re-find and re-motivate them, using up valuable effort and money that they didn’t plan on.
2) Those voters never existed, the ACORN operatives that were minding the lists are out of business, and somebody accidentally sent naive but honest students to canvass the fraudulent voters.
3) The voters never existed, the canvassers are no more honest than usual, but there’s a clever mole in the GOTV effort who fed the story to the media wrapped in spin that would make it palatable for dissemination.
Which one is true? Beats me, but none of them are good news for the President.
Wretchard wrote:
“Is there disquiet among the Obama faithful?”
No. And there never will be, as long as there is even a slip of a chance of a government check that can be directed their way.
But there is a lack of enthusiasm amongst the squishy center. That is an area where Romney can make inroads, if all goes well.
Don Rodrgigo #8:
“One thing that is commonly speculated on these blogs — and I have speculated as much myself — is that violence might erupt in certain urban neighborhoods if Obama loses.
Maybe not. You need the numbers, the motivation, and the fervent loyalty to arouse people to such actions. If they’re not there or don’t care, then a morose silence will descend on America’s inner cities instead should The One lose.”
Hmmm. I’m not so sure about this, Don. As I pointed out to Wretchard above, the core are not any less motivated now than in 2008. And the irrational terror of government checkus interruptus is a force of tremendous power and evil.
Make the “doomsday” happen and the explosion will, in my estimation, happen as well. If I’m wrong then I’ll apologize to you and everyone. But I don’t see a Romney victory without people (of all races) who depend on the government for their wherewithal laying down a marker in the form of violence.
Did we not hear not too long ago about cities like Detroit that are having to expand their boundaries into the suburbs in order to secure enough votes to maintain their clout in the legislature? There is other evidence that the people are not there.
The New Orleans Post-Katrina example is just the the most extreme example of the death of the old order.
Daedelus #15.
In the 2000 election it became obvious why there were so many hanging and dimpled chads on ballots in Florida. The only way you get that is to stick a half dozen of the ballots in the machine and try to do them all with one effort. The cheaters were not just cheaters, they were lazy.
In Florida they recently upped the requirements for getting or renewing a driver’s license significantly. They want a birth certificate and multiple other forms of ID, including ones that show your home address. I would have thought my military retired ID and Cape Canaveral access badge would have substituted; in fact they did not even care about those forms of ID. I understand this is beocming common; Missouri and some other states are doing the same thing.
To me it is obvious that each polling place should have video cameras continuous recording who is in there, perferably without anyone’s knowledge. They would not be able to see how people voted but would be able to see how many voted and if some people did more than once. The cost to do this would be trivial.
Neil, I think no. 2 is correct, and it’s hilarious. One election cycle’s registration fraud completely confounds a future cycle’s GOTV efforts. Imagine these naive PIRG college kids traipsing around bad neighborhoods looking for people who never existed. Talk about being hoist by your own petard!
For the 2004 election, check out the population/voter registration numbers for Milwaukee and compare them to the results. It seems quite possible that Kerry won WI only through fraud. Not surprising with same-day registration.
Check the same numbers for Detroit in 2008. I don’t doubt that Obama would have won MI anyway, but the numbers clearly look very suspicious. Does anyone know the procedure for voter registration in Michigan? The percentage of registered voters compared to general population seems very high.
“if it ain’t close, they can’t cheat’ but that is not true.”
Define close. If 110 million people vote and the winner wins by 20 million votes, that is just to large a number to fudge. A few thousand is easy a few hundred thousand not so easy. A few million is out of reach. Obama won by 8%, IIRC. I have no doubt the Donks cheated. They are Donks. Obama won the ’08 election because the market crashed. He was down a point the day before, up 7 the day after. He built on that lead to the end.
Besides. what is important is winning the Senate and holding the house.
Charlie don’t surf.
This piece indicates that the old style of stealing elections is on its way out. Where there are a lot of (illegals), motoring voters, phantom ballots
etc only effects a few precincts—-which were gonna vote “D” anyhow. Net effect is a lot of work just to increase party totals statewide a bit. Unlikely to alter the Electoral College.
Nope, the new scam is to load the census and registration lists with great hordes of people who are not there or are there illegally AND WHO DO NOT VOTE!
That way you get lots more cash from Washington to go along with the increased number of Congressional seats allocated to your state. And fewer ballot boxes that need stuffing.
When I left there in 2004 California appeared to be on track to have at least 150 Congressional seats within the next 3-4 decades but only have 800,000 registered voters and only have about 300,000 of those actually voting.
Lack of employment has now halted that trend and any reduction in unearned transfer payments could certainly reverse it. But the scheme itself is still there and desired.
Looks like Wisconsin tried to replicate the process but lacked the warm bodies
so they faked census/registration data.
Let us say that the Obama voter base remains AWOL, and the problems with its existence become public knowledge. Then let us say that Obama still “wins”. Does that not indicate that this, and who knows how many other elections, are fake. And that the legitimacy of the government, and subservience and obedience to it are null and void? And that will not take long to spread through our society.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai @ 25: “And that the legitimacy of the government, and subservience and obedience to it are null and void?”
Our host raised the subject of governmental legitimacy a few threads back. We have clearly reaching a point where the overwhelming majority of citizens have serious doubts about their own government. How else to explain those occasional polls reporting that (in a country with democratic elections!) Congress is less trusted than used-car salesmen?
Stepping back, there is no doubt that a lot of Democrat Party activists considered the election of GW Bush with less than a plurality of popular votes to be illegitimate, regardless of the Constitution’s Electoral College. The “election” of “Senator” Al Franken shows how little legitimacy activist Democrats now accord to the electoral process. And the failure of Institutional Republicans in the Senate to prevent the seating of the illegitimate Franken shows unequivocally which interests they are serving.
Democrat activist loss of regard for the legitimacy of government may also explain the current regime’s militarization of a broad range of agencies. Since citizens will eventually catch on and recognize the same loss of legitimacy in the Federal Government that Democrat activists have already espoused, the activists’ government needs to be ready to impose their will on the hoi polloi.
This militarization of police and agencies is a dangerous tactic for Democrat activists. The Shah of Iran fell in part because elements of his own forces turned the weapons he had supplied them against the Shah’s regime. In the US, much more than in the Shah’s Iran, it is reasonable to expect that many of those militarized individuals will have only tenuous loyalty to the Democrat Party regime.
It is hard to see how this progressive loss of governmental legitimacy can be resolved without tears.
@ stoicheon “what is important is winning the Senate and holding the house.”
Agree that winning Senate and holding house are important. Saw an interesting article about this on The Corner a few days back. http://bit.ly/OP7aB6
“If Obama is reelected, said McConnell, he (the president) will be able to do no legislative harm. He can do no legislative harm now. There are too many Republicans. But there is other harm: Federal regulators have great power. There’s little that Congress can do to limit them. So it would be hard to slow Obama down . . .”
It’s just as important to win the White House too.
Milwaukee county -
2008 Presidential election.
Obama – 319,819
McCain – 149,445
2012 Recall vote.
Barrett – 250,476
Scott – 143,455
Census
2000 – 940,164
2010 – 947,735
I am at the bottom of this thread so I’ll make my comments short.
1. It is highly possible that those lost black voters were comprised of sheer voter fraud. I know this is “America” and we are supposed to have checks and balances but voter fraud was clearly highlighted by James O’Keefe’s voter fraud investigations. I am sure Richard has seen plenty of voter fraud in the Philippines. It can happen in America.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/04/09/Okeefe-Holder
2. Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke can’t “pump money” into the economy fast enough to re-inflate asset values in time to save 0bama’s plummeting campaign. There is a large lag factor in pumping money into a system with an already deadly real zero interest rate policy. In fact, Bernanke should do the opposite and let bank interest rates rise to their natural level (to attract real investment capital). Bernanke is just scaring depositors away from re-liquefying the banking system with his peddle-to-the-medal pumping policies.
There is no reason why “Republicans” in the House don’t have all sorts of investigation going on voter fraud… They Don’t! There is no reason House Republicans aren’t investigating Bernanke for monetary fraud or even skewing the financial markets for 0bama… There isn’t! Why? Why aren’t Republicans screaming everyday from the roof tops about the illegal Executive Orders? Where’s the “Censorship” of Reid for his ether blatant lying about Mitt’s Tax Records or the investigation into how Reid received such information? Why? Why? Why. It really has a bad smell why they don’t, Demoncrats don’t waste any time intimidating Conservatives and Tea Party members with Government Organs such as the IRS…
Like General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia streaming out of Richmond, the 2008′ers are fading into the forests of apathy. They’ve thrown down their weapons and wrapped their feet in their uniform tunics. They’ll never survive this winter.
That quote from Twain I’ve always heard came from Will Rogers.
My first thought on reading this was that someone was paid to build a database, so he/she simply populated the spreadsheet with names (maybe from a phonebook), turned in the result, got paid, then split.
Another thought: How does this square with the census? How does 60% missing affect the districting for the state house? Shouldn’t it?
29. T2costkeeper
It is highly possible that those lost black voters were comprised of sheer voter fraud.
That’s what I’m thinking. The reason Democrats are so opposed to voter ID and call it racist is because, if implemented, a lot of black “votes” might mysteriously “disappear”.
We may even discover that blacks really don’t vote 90%+ Democrat.
” Net effect is a lot of work just to increase party totals statewide a bit. Unlikely to alter the Electoral College.”
To wit,
AlGore calls for elimination of the electoral college
Voter fraud?
“We may even discover that blacks really don’t vote 90%+ Democrat.”
Last election they certainly did, plus. This election? His failures will not be blamed on his better half. I predict less than 90% this time around. And who knows what people do in the privacy of the polling booth. An African-American acquaintance of mine in 2008 did the ol’ “psst, I’m a Republican…. don’t tell anybody!”
There is peer pressure then there is the notion for some anyhow that voting against Barrack is rude. Certainly saying that you are going to. If Obama wins, there’s going to be around 100 million extremely pissed off citizens. If he loses, there will be around 20 million, half of them public union employees.That’s my take.
This electoral collage will be checking transcripts.
25. Subotai Bahadur
Yes everybody is pissed off. There is a huge difference between being pissed off and taking action. The Roman secret to good government was bread and circuses. Keep the masses fat and entertained and they do not revolt. Still works.
For the last few years I figured it was impossible for any politician to be as stooopid as Obama is. He had to have a motive for doing what he did. So I prepared.
Back in the 90′s I was sinking my dot com profits into land. So I have places where I can cache weapons and supplies. I have 4 now, in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri. 3 are the same. A lever action Marlin carbine (to fit in the container) in .357 and a GP100. With 400 rounds to share between them. A weeks worth of MRE’s, 2 gals of distilled water, a first aid kit and sundries such as bic lighters, hooks and fishing line and a cheapo knife, axe combo kit. Either a Remington 870 or a Winchester 1300 camp defender. I prefer the camp defender but I was having trouble finding 4 in good enough shape.
Everything is wrapped in plastic and placed in a plastic barrel as is used in road construction. Then I filled them with expanding foam, glued a lid on and buried them. Spent about 2 years doing this.
Now I feel foolish.
Obama really IS that st@@@@@@@@pid. Plus Americans are the fattest people to ever live on planet earth. Who needs circuses when you have 24/7 reality TV?
There will not be any revolutions in America. Most of the citizens are unhappy but way short of taking up arms. Not even if Obama declares an emergency and becomes a tyrant. The few that do will be hunted down by America’s very efficient police forces.
You know how that works. The shift commander comes in and starts passing out warrants to be served. You check that it’s been signed and then you serve it.
Maybe some rookie in the back of the room will ask what the warrant is for, depending on how that jurisdiction handles warrants. He will be told that’s not his job. The DA handles that part of it. You go there, show them the warrant, cuff them, put them in the car, take them downtown.
The worse that will happen is a riot or two. The riot police will earn their money. Nothing new about that.
”For the last few years I figured it was impossible for any politician to be as stooopid as Obama is.”
He is not stupid, he is crafty and cunning and doing exactly what he set out to do: make us pay for our prosperity which he believes was achieved at the expense and exploitation of poor people everywhere. Thus we need to be brought down and they lifted up (remember what he said to Joe the Plumber?).
Again, read the books by D’Souza and you’ll understand all—he is not stupid but he is ignorant and uninformed about a vast amount of things. And … he can’t pronounce ”corpsman”.
27. starling
Mitich is not the sharpest blade in the drawer. Congress can get rid of any regulator it wants gone with a simple vote. Congress has the power of the purse, which in a capitalist democracy is equal to a 100 megaton bomb.
Don’t like the EPA regulations on coal fired power plants? Put the EPA under the Interior department as a non-regulatory agency charged with keeping climate records.
Nothing the EPA can do to prevent that.
I would rather shower at Penn State then vote for Obama.
But the voter file represented a fiction, or at least a reality that had rapidly become out of date. During those eight weeks, canvassers were able to successfully find and interact with only 31 percent of their targets.
I read on another thread that discussed this topic that inner city blacks move a lot–like several times a year. Why? Because they can’t pay the rent. So they move.
(I wouldn’t doubt much too that there was some fraud.)
#41 stoicheion
With all due respect, in reference to the first paragraph; note “Congress”. In the absence of a vote in both Houses of Congress, nothing happens. The Democrats have refused to allow votes in the Senate, thus the House of Representatives is stymied. Further, the power of the purse is irrelevant in a country where there has not been a constitutional [or any kind of real] budget for 4 years.
At the same time, said EPA, operating with no oversight, can cripple the economy further in the district of any who support such a change. We are not under the rule of law, or the Constitution. This election is the last chance to start the move back to that rule electorally. Making the assumption that a) the elections happen, b) that the votes are counted honestly, and c) the regime both reveals the honest vote and honors it. That is a narrow gate to get through, and it must be realized that a majority of this country may well honestly vote for its dissolution as a constitutional republic.
Subotai Bahadur
#43
The President as chief executive can take the money Congress authorizes for the EPA and push it down a rat hole. There is little that compels a President to spend the money authorized, and as the good Obumbler has aptly demonstrated, with executive authority AND executive orders, a President can pretty much do what the hell he wants for at least 4 years, or forever, if not challenged by a divided Congress.
I don’t know if Romney has the will or the stones to do it, but “solving” the deficit problem AND kicking the economy in gear takes no superior knowledge. JUST DON’T FUND the left-wing mandates. In the name of “national economic crisis”, defund the Cabinet positions until Congress can eliminate them -hell leave them unfilled and lay off enough appointee managers to freeze decision making at these agencies.
Take the f’ing WRAPS off the economy, off energy, off entrepreneurs, while sealing up tight all the leftist-infiltrated regulatory agencies.
One thing for certain Romney should do is say, absent war, THE DEFICIT ENDS THIS YEAR. Close down every unnecessary expenditure until the tax base expands again sufficiently to grow the government needed. Museums? Mothball em. Social services? Push them down to the states in block grants, and waive unfunded portions of mandates.
TIE ANY AND ALL STATE AID to public employee pension and general spending reform? If Jerry Brown wants to go his own way, let him find the extra $Billions to fund it.
More important than anything else: Reestablish integrity to government reporting. Are illegal immigrants a drag on the economy (especially, California and the Western states)? Hell, I don’t know, but why don’t we find out?
Oh, and one last thing that would make Romney a god to me (well, maybe at least a Bishop). Find out the friggin’ truth about Obama’s history, and PROSECUTE actual crimes (not just poor judgement) from activities such as “Fast and Furious”.
One thing that Obama has failed, failed, and failed again on, is transparency. There is good reason to suspect Obama isn’t a citizen, or if he is, isn’t the person he has portrayed himself to be. There reasonable doubt to believe that all of the $Trillions that have been shoveled out the White House back door ended up in legitimate expenditures, while one would expect that a good percentage ended up in private pockets of Obama operatives (who, it would be reasonable to believe, will return a percentage for “Obama’s stash”).
“Truth” has been conspicuously missing from government in the USA for the past four years. It would be refreshing to see it return.
These phantoms just won’t sit down and be counted will they? Thinking chairfully about this; how many phantoms can sit in one empty chair? Or am I just splitting chairs here?
Young and very mobile, think college kids. Dead or incarcerated. Never existed. Dodging debt collectors or subpoenas or the law. Now homeless or even homeless in 2008. By and large the average Democrat doesn’t really resemble the relatively stable middle classes. I am not surprised they could only find 31% which is why their party is so afraid of cleaning up the voter rolls, reforming registration, or requiring voter IDs. I sympathize with their plight but want only citizens voting in the districts where they live.
I suspect that the majority of vote fraud is carried out with absentee ballots and trucked in “voters” who are not who they claim they are organized by union poll watchers and other left wing groups. There are probably some individuals out there knowingly voting out of district or twice but the big stuff rarely gets either investigated or prosecuted because it happens in safe one party strongholds ti influence statwide and national politics i.e Chicago, Milwaukee, Philly, Detroit.
@23 stoechion
The election is not a popular vote. Total national votes don’t matter. Swing states matter, and by definition, swing states are close. It doesn’t actually take millions of fraudulent votes, look at the vote totals by state, and see how many votes it would take to flip the five closest states. One million votes, spread strategically in swing states, is easily enough to flip enough states to turn a landslide loss into a marginal win. For example, NC went to Obama by 14k votes. Do you doubt that ACORN didn’t or couldn’t generate 15K fraudulent votes there? D’s won Indiana with less than 30k vote margin, you don’t think ACORN could produce that in Indianapolis? Obama lost Missouri by 4k votes. Do you think he is going to let that happen again, or do you think there are going to be D operatives active in Kansas City, ready to manufacture ten or twenty thousand votes as needed?
Obama beat McCain by 10mm in the popular vote, and thrashed him in the electoral college 365 to 173, which is what counts. Given the actual vote counts, spot me a million extra votes for McCain, strategically located just where I need them, and I bet I could show a 9mm popular vote margin for Obama with a comfortable electoral college margin for McCain.
One of the lessons R’s in PA have learned is to hold back reporting your vote totals until the last minute. The D precincts in Philly are ‘assigned’ how many votes they have to make up, the R’s try to prevent the D’s from knowing how much fraud they have to commit to win. Lessons like that are going to be needed in the swing states not used to that level of D corruption.
It depends on when the voter rolls were last purged of vanished voters. Some cities and states do this more often than others. The ones that avoid purging as much as possible generally have furthering of vote fraud as a motive. Note, though, that purging the voter rolls of vanished voters is a non-trivial expense and that local governments have had significant money problems since 2008.
If they were slow doing so prior to 2008, vote fraud is a more likely motive. But policy changes since 2008 could be simple lack of money. Across the board generalizations here are not helpful unless municipal financial resources are considered.
re: fraud, etc.
Perhaps the widespread availability of smartphones w/ pretty good cameras can offset the Left’s tactics, and even their army of lawyers. We just need a statistical sample that shows the same buses, same persons voting in multiple places to make the case.
Someone should write an app and cloud-service called “audit the vote” which posts a running stream of geo-referenced and time-stamped pictures to the cloud, and use the face extracting and feature matching tools to sort by probability of match – with a crowd-sourced (or mechanical Turk) service to do multiple verifications (where a match is only counted if three sets of eyeballs say “same voter”).
And it could arguably be claimed to be non-denominational – i.e. both parties should agressively use the tool to prove their point, underwrite their position.
Volunteers should do this as they go vote – each spending another 5 or 10 minutes running the application (panning the line of voters) while sitting on a nearby bench or even in their car. Geotagged and timestamped pictures make promiscuous and multiple snapshots of the same person a goodness, not a challenge. Perhaps the app should have a mode that hides the fact it’s taking picture after picture – some sort of game that requires occassional phone movement, say..