The unfortunate lesson is that you don’t need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.

Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat’s strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total.

Not a whole lot to be happy about with this win by Franken but at least now they own everything. They have a filibuster proof Senate. Either everything they have whined about for the last eight years gets fixed or they are outright liars. Scott said it best in the comments:

DEMS OWN IT NOW.

What’s it?

IT is EVERYTHING.

2010 midterms:

• if unemployment is still worse than when Obama took office, it’s their fault
• if GDP is still falling it’s Democrats’ fault
• if every American-EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN and most illegal aliens-don’t have the same high-quality/free medical coverage as Barack Obama…it’s their fault
• if Iran has nukes or is still pursuing them…it’s the Democrats’ fault
• if Pakistan is still on the brink…it’s the Democrats’ fault
• if Mexico is still on the brink…it’s the Democrat’s fault
• if there is still war in Afghanistan…it’s the Democrats’ fault
• if American troops are still in Iraq FOUR YEARS after promising to end the war…it’s the Democrats’ fault
• if there is a budget deficit…it’s the Democrats’ fault
• if there is a single pork spending program in ANY bill…it’s the Democrats’ fault
• if America is still dependent on foreign oil…it’s the Democrat’s fault

the list goes on. We can debate who caused what and how (and it’s ALWAYS a bi-partisan source), but the fact is that Democrats have unchecked power now, and should be able to do everything they’ve promised. If not, it’s their fault for misleading, and their supporters’ fault for believing the people who have lied and misled this nation and the world so grossly since 2002.

Call me crazy but me thinks once they fail at all of the above their fellow Democrats will make excuses for it all as Obama has done everyday since he has been in office.

Yesterday, Curt posted on this highly racial statement by the Black Panthers at a Philly voting location:

Racially charged statements by armed black panthers who happen to work for the Dem party in Philly.  No surprise the DOJ spiked the charges against the three black panthers.

From the Washington Times:

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.

The incident – which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube – had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.

~~~

The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.

~~~

People directly familiar with the case, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution, said career lawyers in two separate Justice offices had recommended proceeding to default judgment before political superiors overruled them.

Tensions between career lawyers and political appointees inside the Justice Department have been a sensitive matter since allegations surfaced during the Bush administration that higher-ups had ignored or reversed staff lawyers and that some U.S. attorneys had been removed or selected for political reasons.

The complaint said the three men engaged in “coercion, threats and intimidation, … racial threats and insults, … menacing and intimidating gestures, … and movements directed at individuals who were present to vote.” It said that unless prohibited by court sanctions, they would “continued to violate … the Voting Rights Act by continuing to direct intimidation, threats and coercion at voters and potential voters, by again deploying uniformed and armed members at the entrance to polling locations in future elections, both in Philadelphia and throughout the country.”

To support its evidence, the government had secured an affidavit from Bartle Bull, a longtime civil rights activist and former aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Mr. Bull said in a sworn statement dated April 7 that he was serving in November as a credentialed poll watcher in Philadelphia when he saw the three uniformed Panthers confront and intimidate voters with a nightstick.

Inexplicably, the government did not enter the affidavit in the court case, according to the files.
“In my opinion, the men created an intimidating presence at the entrance to a poll,” he declared. “In all my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation and in my efforts in the 1960s to secure the right to vote in Mississippi … I have never encountered or heard of another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location.”

Mr. Bull said the “clear purpose” of what the Panthers were doing was to “intimidate voters with whom they did not agree.” He also said he overheard one of the men tell a white poll watcher: “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

He called their conduct an “outrageous affront to American democracy and the rights of voters to participate in an election without fear.” He said it was a “racially motivated effort to limit both poll watchers aiding voters, as well as voters with whom the men did not agree.”

Readers may recall the political firestorm which descended on President Bush when he fired three U.S. Attorneys. Will there be a similar firestorm for the direct political interference in this case to protect voting rights of people who might not vote for Obama?

Don’t hold your breath!

The president has now decided that although the fight against terrorists might not be war as usual, it nonetheless calls for special powers and the infringement of certain liberties. In this he is surely correct. The attacks of September 11 2001 and subsequent terror plots show that the US is dealing with a tenacious and resourceful enemy, willing to kill as many innocents as its weapons allow, loosely organised around the world but organised nonetheless. This enemy is no ordinary criminal enterprise and suppressing it calls for extraordinary measures.

Mr Obama has conceded, in effect, that the Bush administration was right about this

Now, instead of Democrats trying to use the Bush Administration as a scapegoat and distraction again via hearings, investigations, and indictments, it’s those Democrats who are coming under the legal looking glass.

During a scantly noticed exchange in a Thursday Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) asked Attorney General Eric Holder a potentially explosive question — given the furor over Nancy Pelosi’s 2002 interrogation briefing.

Alexander wanted to know if the AG would consider investigating what House and Senate members knew about torture and when they knew it. And Holder didn’t exactly reject the idea.

ALEXANDER: Should you follow these facts and continue in an investigation if you’re investigating lawyers at the Department of Justice who wrote legal opinions authorizing certain interrogations, wouldn’t it also be appropriate to investigate the CIA employees or contractors or other people from intelligence agencies who asked or created the interrogation techniques or officials in the Bush Administration who approved them or what about members of Congress who were informed of them or know about them or approved them or encouraged them? Wouldn’t they also be appropriate parts of such an investigation?

HOLDER: Well there is, as has been publicly reported, an OPR inquiry into the work of the attorneys who prepared those OLC memoranda. It is not in final form yet and I have not reviewed that report. I will look at that report and make a determination as to what we want to do with it. It deals, I suspect, not only with the attorneys, but people that they interacted with, so I think we will gain some insights by reviewing that report. Our desire is not to do anything that would be perceived as political or partisan. We do want to report, to the extent that we can do that, but as I said, my responsibility is to enforce the laws of this nation and to the extent that we see violations of those laws, we will take the appropriate action.

ALEXANDER: If you’re going to investigate the lawyers whose opinion was asked about whether this is legal or not, I would assume you could also go to the people who created the techniques, the officials who approved them, and the officials in Congress who knew about them and may have encouraged them.

HOLDER: Hypothetically that might be true

BAGHDAD — The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said Al Qaida worked closely with former operatives in Saddam Hussein regime.

Officials said leading members of the Al Qaida network have coordinated operations with Saddam aides since 2003. They said Al Qaida and Saddam forces attacked Shi’ites in an effort to spark a civil war in Iraq.

“They agreed that Al Qaida would carry out the suicide attacks, while the Baathists [Saddam's ruling party] would do the remote-control bombs,” Al Maliki said.

The Al Qaida-Saddam link, asserted by then-U.S. President George Bush in 2002, came in wake of the reported capture of a leading Al Qaida commander in Iraq.

At the very least, it’s 100% clear (hindsight is 20-20) that yes, Saddam’s regime and the Al Queda network did have operational ties in 2003, and that means the invasion of Iraq
HAS ALWAYS BEEN PART OF THE WAR ON TERROR.
ht regimeofterror
Mark Eichenlaub

As usual, I go with the sum total idea: that the bigger the problem-the more causes there are. To that end, it should be no surprise that a simple thing like Miss California repeating the Obama policy on gay marriage can act as a relief valve for closed-minded-pseudo liberals (especially those who have come out of the closet and who are still in it…as seen here in this insightful debate over the Obama policy that she echoed)

What? You mean you didn’t see Perez Hilton calling Michelle Obama a cunt for echoing her husband’s position on gay marriage? Why would that be? She’s a lovely, successful, intelligent woman who stands by her husband at every turn. Why complain about the issue to Miss California and not the President who actually MAKES the policy?

Yes, I know, President Obama is The Infallible Supreme Leader, and shall not be questioned. Still, I wonder how many times he can embrace a Bush Administration position, and have “progressives” not question him, not let loose like they have on Miss California? While overall his popularity is good, his strongly disapprove rating is almost as high as his strongly approve rating, and that suggests the same thing we see in the video above, the same thing you hear when you talk to an Obama voter, the same thing you see every day on this website…there are some really REALLY angry people out there, and they’re angry at Bush policies which Obama and Dems spent years opposing as fiercely as possible….only to have their anointed/infallible one embrace them himself.

Now, I thought the popularity crash would happen between April and May, and I was wrong, but I also underestimated the seething, hatred that is oozing out from the misled masses (again, watch the video and remember that they’re talking about President Obama’s policy). I can’t see how that “progressive” hate can stay under the surface for almost 4years, and when it comes out-when they dare to talk about Barack Obama’s genitals the way they talked about Miss California’s…George Bush will look more popular. Given that almost all of Bush’s policies have been continued or expanded by Obama, he’s already looking smarter and certainly more politically courageous.

“The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.”

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 30, 8:08 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Millions of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring.

The government is going to want some of that money back.

The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month.

But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time.

At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the public: married couples in which both spouses work; workers with more than one job; retirees who have federal income taxes withheld from their pension payments and Social Security recipients with jobs that provide taxable income.

The Internal Revenue Service acknowledges problems with the withholding tables but has done little to warn average taxpayers.

No word on if Treasury Sec/head of the IRS/confessed tax cheat Tim Geithner will be paying this or not.

Ryan was decorated for valor several times in his first tour of Iraq. He seems to be a really nice guy by all accounts and of unusually good character for the MTV series.

Ryan voted for Obama
Ryan voted to end the War in Iraq
Ryan was happy
Obama did not end the War in Iraq.

Obama knew during the campaign that the Department of Defense and generals and his own military advisors told him that a 16-month withdrawal was not a responsible withdrawal. Still, he promised it, and he deliberately misled people like Ryan.

Obama has instead chosen to follow President Bush’s timeline to end the war in Iraq (a tentative 23-month withdrawal started last fall rather than the 16-months he promised), and so Ryan was called back to Iraq again.

Ryan is not happy
Ryan is a young man who Barack Obama misled and used as nothing more than a means to power.

My sympathy and most sincere hopes for Ryan’s safety go out to him. Godspeed Ryan, and I’m sorry Obama and the Democrats’ Congress were able to lie to you without condemnation.

Here two of Ryan’s roommates watch last night’s episode and reflect on Ryan:

Ryan gets the call:

The latest twist in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount came this morning, when the Al Franken campaign hit Ramsey County with a lawsuit, seeking the names of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected.

The DFLer’s campaign hopes to force counties across the state to cough up the lists of rejected voters who, if later found eligible, could tip the balance in the closest Senate race in the country, between Fanken and incumbent Repubilcan U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.

Marc Elias, lead recount attorney for the Franken campaign, said that both Ramsey and Hennepin counties had already rejected its request, forcing the campaign to take legal action.

His justification for such a move? It seems the Franken crowd have found a woman who’s signature doesn’t match that of her “pre-stroke” signature.

Is this guy banking on a vast amount of “strokes” in the electorate??

How convenient, then, that the HBO movie, which aired this past Sunday, has this disclaimer: “based on certain facts”. Like the fact that this movie is written by, for, and about Gore-supporting Democrats? No revisionist partisan parsing of the facts present, right? Wrong.

The movie is passing itself off as a docudrama that is supposedly even-handed in its account.

One of the movie’s consultants is ABC’s Jack Tapper who admits to Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz:

the film is “a fictional version of what happened” and “tilts to the left because it’s generally told from the point of view of the Democrats.”

Entertainment Weekly’s Gillian Flynn (by way of NewsBusters):

Recount may not be downright blue, but it’s not as purply as it wants to appear. Despite its ”equal time” approach, Recount is an underdog story, and thus a Democrat story.

A good number of Americans are not aware of the political propaganda and partisan dishonesty that goes into a “docudrama” like this. It has the effect of indoctrinating more and more Americans to the liberal mindset and beliefs, that 2000 was a stolen election and Bush heir to an illegitimate presidency that was handed over to him by the Supreme Court. But as Richard Baehr writes, “the U.S. Supreme Court action probably prevented the theft of the election in Florida from occurring.”

President Bush won. So how could he steal what was already his? It was Al Gore and his blitzkrieg of lawyers who attempted to steal the 2000 presidential election, by being selective in their recount methods.

The left likes to say that the United States Supreme Court gave the election to Bush. They did no such thing. What they did was reverse the Florida Supreme Court’s effort to keep on counting until Gore won. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v Gore may not have been a model of jurisprudence, but the left also ignores the fact that the decision to over—rule the Florida Supreme Court was not a 5—4 decision dictated by the five conservative members of the Court, but a 7 to 2 decision. Even two liberals on the Court were offended by the machinations of the Florida court and its creation of a chaotic vote counting system for the ‘undervotes’.

~~~

The US Supreme Court decision over—ruling the Florida Supreme Court had two parts: the first a 7 to 2 vote over—ruling the vote counting system established by the Florida Supreme Court ; the second a 5 to 4 vote, requiring the vote count to be concluded almost immediately so that Florida could participate in the Electoral College process.

Had the second decision been 5 to 4 the other way, it is likely that the Florida count would not have been concluded in time for the state to determine a winner and select a slate of electors to the Electoral College. In that case, one of two scenarios would have played out. One is that the Florida legislature, Republican dominated, would have selected the Bush electors to vote in the Electoral College. Alternatively, no Florida electors would have been selected, and neither Bush nor Gore would have won a majority of the Electoral College vote. In that case, the US House of Representatives, voting by states (as in 1824), would have picked Bush since the GOP controlled more state delegations than the Democrats. So even if the 5—4 portion of the U.S. Supreme Court decision had gone the other way, Bush would still have become our President.

Antonin Scalia on 60 Minutes, April 27, 2008:

“People say that that decision was not based on judicial philosophy but on politics,” Stahl asks.

“I say nonsense,” Scalia says.

Was it political?

“Gee, I really don’t wanna get into – I mean this is – get over it. It’s so old by now. The principal issue in the case, whether the scheme that the Florida Supreme Court had put together violated the federal Constitution, that wasn’t even close. The vote was seven to two,” Scalia says.

Moreover, he says it was not the court that made this a judicial question.

“It was Al Gore who made it a judicial question. It was he who brought it into the Florida courts. We didn’t go looking for trouble. It was he who said, ‘I want this to be decided by the courts.’ What are we supposed to say? ‘Oh, not important enough,’” Scalia jokes.

“It ended up being a political decision” Stahl points out.

“Well you say that. I don’t say that,” Scalia replies.

“You don’t think it handed the election to George Bush?” Stahl asks.

“Well how does that make it a political decision?” Scalia asks.

“It decided the election,” Stahl says.

“If that’s all you mean by it, yes,” Scalia says.

“That’s all I mean by it,” Stahl says.

“Oh, ok. I suppose it did. Although you should add to that that it would have come out the same way, no matter what,” Scalia says.

Analysis from the National Research Center study on Florida Ballot Project comprehensive review, sponsored by major news organizations, found that the selective county by county recount advocated by the Gore lawyers would still have resulted in a Gore defeat and Bush victory.

Every newspaper in Florida did their own little investigation, and concluded that President Bush won the Election.

“African voter disenfranchisement”? Not a single black voter ever came forward with a credible claim, and voter turnout for black Floridians was higher than in previous elections. (*cough*military absentee ballots*cough*)

“Butterfly ballots”? Designed and approved of by Democrats.

Instructions were provided at every polling station in Florida where punch-card ballots were used; so if your chad is hanging or pregnant, take responsibility for the most important decision you’re about to cast. Old Soldier said it best:

in regards to voting; where does the government’s responsibility end and the voter’s responsibility begin? I believe the government has a responsibility to provide a voting process by which a vast majority of the voters can render a lawful vote. I also believe it is encumbant upon the government to institute measures to regulate voting and establish consequences for failure to comply with the laws governing voting. That means that the government should ensure a voter is a citizen who is elligible to vote, is properly registered and renders a vote that complies with the specified requirements. Failure on the part of a voter to render a lawful vote should not become a burden upon the government. To wit, failure to render a lawful vote bears the consequence of not having that vote counted. Every polling place I have ever entered has had election commission oversight and paid helpers to assist the voters in any manner possible to ensure their vote is indeed ‘lawful.’

One final sidenote:

About 20% of votes gets thrown out for various reasons in every election and in every state already, right?

Well, Florida was indeed a very, very close race. That being acknowledged, did you know that 4 other states were also within less than half of one per cent in difference? I forget one of them, but three of them were Iowa (I’m pretty sure), Wisconsin, and New Mexico (only 300 votes differentiated Gore and Bush- in Florida it was something like 500 a 500 vote differential). And guess what else? Gore won these 4 other states, no different really than Florida; what if Bush wanted to pull the same stunt as Gore did over Florida? At a certain point, this only hurts us, and one can probably draw questions regarding many elections, tying us up forever.

Further to my point about those states which were close wins for Gore: Florida is worth only 25 electoral votes. These 4 other states were worth 30 each, from what I can recall.

Richard Baehr, makes the same point in his article:

It is also worth noting, that with the exception of Florida, every other state that was decided by less than 1% in the 2000 election went to Gore: New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Oregon. These four states combined had 30 Electoral College votes, 5 more than Florida. While there were murky circumstances surrounding the Gore victories in every one of them, the results were not contested by any Bush ‘lawyer blitzkrieg’ in any of them. In fact, the Democrats know more about winning close federal elections than the Republicans, in recent years. In the past five years, Democrats have won Senate elections in South Dakota, Nevada and Washington State, by an average margin of 0.1% of the total vote cast.

So “stolen election Democrats”: Get over it. It was almost 8 years ago. YOUR president and MY president, George W. Bush, will be out of office in 6 months.

But of course, releasing this movie in the middle of a presidential election year is about the future, isn’t it? Thanks. It’s good to be reminded that if it isn’t close, Democrats can’t cheat.

In the end, as Republican lawyer, Ben Ginsberg, puts it: “Republicans won the recount. Democrats won the movie.”

Enjoy your HBO fantasy movie, and dream on, Democrats!

“It was 5.30pm on election day in Ukraine when the thugs in masks arrived armed with rubber truncheons.

Vitaly Kizima, an election monitor at Zhovtneve in Ukraine’s Sumy region, watched in horror as 30 men in tracksuits stormed into the village polling station.

“They started to beat voters and election officials, trying to push through towards the ballot boxes,” he told The Telegraph.

“People’s faces were cut from blows to the head. There was blood all over.”

The thugs – believed to be loyal to the pro-Russian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovich from his stronghold, Donetsk – were repulsed only when locals pushed them back and a policeman fired warning shots.”

“Maya Syta, a journalist working at polling station 73 in a Kiev suburb, witnessed ballot papers destroyed with acid poured into a ballot box. “The officials were taking them out of the box and they couldn’t understand why they were wet,” she said.

“Then I saw they started to blacken and disintegrate as if they were burning. Two ballots were wrapped up into a tube with a yellow liquid inside. After a few moments they were completely eaten up.”

“And late last week Mr Yushchenko’s headquarters released an audio recording in which senior members of Mr Yanukovich’s campaign team were allegedly caught red-handed discussing how to fix the election result.

In the telephone conversation, a member of the team can be heard saying that he ordered a local election commission to disqualify votes.”

What is the MSM reporting about this situation? Not a damn thing. You have incidents of real voter fraud and they are still crying about exit poll data.

Now news today from Ukrayinska Pravda

“Yuschenko lays down an ultimatum to Kuchma ? otherwise former president will be blocked in his dacha

www.PRAVDA.com….ua , 29.11.2004, 00:33

The national salvation committee has laid down an ultimatum to current president Leonid Kuchma.

The committee requires Kuchma to perform 4 main conditions during next 24 hours:

1. to dismiss Prime minister Yanukhovich for his support in falsifying elections and participating in separatist actions;

2. to present new composition of the Central elections committee pursuant to the request of the Supreme Council, formulated in the resolution of Supreme Council from November, 27.

3. to dismiss the chiefs of Donetska, Luganska and Kharkivska oblast administrations ? who in fact are igniters of separatism.

4. to order, that the Security Service of Ukraine and the office of Prosecutor General initiate criminal proceedings against the separatist governors.

Should Mr. Kuchma fail to comply with the request contained in the ultimatum, “his inactivity will be considered as the crime against the people of Ukraine, and it may have the consequences, stipulated by the Criminal code of Ukraine,” the ultimatum continues.

“Should the request be ignored, we will start blocking movements of Mr. Kuchma on the territory of Ukraine. We know well, where he is now and what would be his further movements. And we are able to disable his only step, should he fail to follow our request,” ? Julia Tymoshenko said, while reading the ultimatum on the meeting.

Add the following from Captain Joe

“Yushchenko warns of a possible attempt to break up the rallies and declare emergency law about 20:00.
Victor Yushchenko has warned that the authorities are considering declaring emergency law and moving to break up the rallies in Kiev.

“Already for two days there has been talk about introducing emergency law which would allow them to break up this demonstration and raze the tent city around 20:00″ – Yushchenko said at the rally in Kiev’s Independence Square.”

and you can see a real disaster about to take place.

Tulip Girl who is reporting from the Ukraine that the police may be gathering for an assault on the tent city.

“There are several reports of Kuchma planning on declaring martial law and possible attempting to raze the tent city at 8pm local time. Please pray that peace will prevail, Kuchma will not use violence, and the protesters will remain level-headed.”