patrick.net

Homeboy says

Most of the people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore had Nader not been running.

I think you have no fucking Idea what in the hell you're talking about.
Nader was the only "Get out and vote candidate" that didn't or never marketed him self as such. Before Nader I was already 26-27 years old and never voted in my life. I was not even registered. Nader inspired me to get out and register. To this day, I'm still registered as NPA "That's (No party Affiliation) for you folks that still thinks America is a cut and dry Left and Right snow globe.?

And I'll tell you this, had there never been a Nader, I doubt I would be a registered voter today. And had the Liberals not tried so hard to disenfranchise my vote, cajole, pigeonhole to hijack my vote as well my intentions.

I most certainly would not be as much of a vocal critic against the Liberals. As much as I despise Republicans, Liberals will always hold a special place in Hell for me.

Homeboy says

George W. Bush was the absolute worst president we have ever had, and did irreparable damage to the country.

Oh his talents were superseded by Obama's mastery.

It is a strange place America has become, where those who stand for freedom and rights are ridiculed. I'm talking Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader.

We have become a nation where government can do anything they wish, take away any rights, and send anyone into a secret prison. And most Americans today, are ok with that for some reason.

I've written letters to my congresswoman, got a formal letter as a response, but not much action on the issue. I think we are just slowly turning into a dictatorship.

Quigley says

People like to say that the Supreme Court gave the election to bush, but as I remember it, they ruled that they had no authority to rule.

I love how the Revisionist in this country have their own reality.

Weren't there also a lot more votes for Buchanan than in previous years in the 2000 Florida election?

I caught an episode of "How the States got their shapes" over the week end. The episode concluded that because of the outcome of the 2000 election. The media started taking a bigger role in influencing how candidates are picked, as well as who wins the election. They were impartial(to an extent) before that point.

So Fuck you Very much Al Douchebag Gore for destroying democracy as we knew it. You big fucking cry baby sore loser. LOSER!

thunderlips11 says

Weren't there also a lot more votes for Buchanan than in previous years in the 2000 Florida election?

Homo Economicus. A Legendary Creature, like Bigfoot, claimed to exist by Pseudoscientists.

Nader had about 97k Florida votes. Buchanan and the Libertarian/Reform/Constitution candidates combined had about 37k votes.

Also, Nader had 22k votes in New Hampshire, which Bush carried by 7k votes.

To deny that Nader cost Gore the election in 2000 is to deny math and reality.

In the same breath, Ross Perot cost HW Bush his second term. You give and take with third party candidates...without that quook we wouldnt have had Clinton.

FortWayne says

It is a strange place America has become, where those who stand for freedom and rights are ridiculed. I'm talking Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader.

Amen brother.

david1 says

To deny that Nader cost Gore the election in 2000 is to deny math and reality.

That's like saying I ONLY have $10,000 in my bank account because you have a $1,000,000 in yours. Thus your capitol has taken from my personal wealth.
Wait that IS exactly the new Liberal argument.

We're screwed!

Al Gore was even more unelectable than Mitt Romney.

Daily Trader says

Al Gore was even more unelectable than Mitt Romney.

Al Gore was elected.

CaptainShuddup says

That's like saying I ONLY have $10,000 in my bank account because you have a $1,000,000 in yours. Thus your capitol has taken from my personal wealth.
Wait that IS exactly the new Liberal argument.
We're screwed!

LOL. Yeah, it's exactly like what I said.

Dan8267 says

Daily Trader says

Al Gore was even more unelectable than Mitt Romney.

Al Gore was elected.

Not only did Gore lose, he lost to a retarded person. That's pretty embarrassing for guy coming out of a popular presidency during a strong economy.

Daily Trader says

during a strong economy.

The dot com bubble burst in March/April 2000, 6-7 months before the election in November 2000.

Dan8267 says

Still, Nadar sounds like an angry old man in the video.

He has run as an independent candidate twice in a completely rigged two-party system. You have to cut him some slack for sounding pissed off about the electoral process.

And his views on the current presidential candidates are pretty much dead on.

david1 says

The dot com bubble burst

That was a controlled demolition, perpetrated by the Wizard Greenspan.
The tech industry as well as ".com" is as powerful and big as ever, if not bigger. Who lost were the companies who's stock majority were held by Marge and Bill average Joe day traders, that made big in the market. Who won were the Companies that were backed by large financial institutions.

Understand most of the people that were winning in the .com bubble were stay at home day traders. Not corporation employee 401K contributors, managed by fund and index managers. These were rogue Millionaires and Al Greenspan found them out right repulsive.

Most major players that are still around today, were direct beneficiaries of the technologies those companies either pioneered, or the fire sales that resulted from the ".com bubble crash".

Leave it to the captain to have a convoluted twist on things.

Everyone knows that there was irrational exuberance and in fact many funds and large institutions took huge hits. IF a day trader happened to be blindly bullish (which most sensible ones would not be) then yes they did okay probably, but certainly did not drive the secular rally. It was group behavior or so called animal spirits. Nothing all that new.

Looking forward to the 21st century had a natural psychological affect that was combined with very real but over blown markets for new technologies.

Now the market is back up, primarily due to low interest rates (where else can people invest) and high productivity high profit margins.

CaptainShuddup says

companies who's stock majority were held by Marge and Bill average Joe day traders

This is right up there with the silliest things you've ever said.

CaptainShuddup says

Understand most of the people that were winning in the .com bubble were stay at home day traders. Not corporation employee 401K contributors, managed by fund and index managers.

Do you even know what day trading is ?? They are in and out. At any given time they are equally likely to be out, or even short (or long puts = synthetically short).

Actually a lot of ordinary long term investors or short term investors who had normal jobs bought in to the dot com boom. Same thing for venture capitalists, banks and mutual funds.

I was not a believer and thought the turn of the century would be a classic "buy the rumor sell the fact" situation.

Your understanding of the stock market is very similar to your understanding of the crude oil market. How exactly does a person get to be so clueless ? Do you ever read anything or learn from others ? Do you only trust supposed facts that you completely pull out of some orafice ? Why just make this shit up when there are plenty of good sources for reliable information.

But yes, the fed impact on interest rates was a factor in the crash. Just as the current low interest rate are one bullish factor for stocks now, increasing rates back then were a bearish factor for stocks.

Recessionary pressure and 9/11 were factors too.

Daily Trader says

Not only did Gore lose, he lost to a retarded person. That's pretty embarrassing for guy coming out of a popular presidency during a strong economy.

It's been mathematically proven that Al Gore won the election. No amount of time is going to change that fact.

Since 2000 there has been much electoral fraud, almost all of which was perpetrated by republicans. Evidently republicans cannot win without fraud.

Both parties are mired in dirt, Dan. Did you forget that democrats actively sought to invalidate absentee military ballots in 2000?

And Nader recently earned his day in court in Maine, due to Democrats concerted efforts to keep him off the ballot in 19 states in 2004.

Daily Trader says

Both parties are mired in dirt, Dan.

Politics is a cynical game of money, power, lies, propaganda, intimidation, and character assasination.

Greed and Fear. It drives business, the stock market, politics, foreign policy, and damn near everything else at some level.

FortWayne says

We have become a nation where government can do anything they wish, take away any rights, and send anyone into a secret prison.

Those things were all done by George W. Bush. If Nader hadn't been the spoiler in the election, we would not have the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, or Homeland Security.

And most Americans today, are ok with that for some reason.

I am most certainly not o.k. with it. Funny thing, though - if I had voted for Nader for president, we would still be in the same situation, wouldn't we?

coriacci1 says

kiddo, it's time you changed your meds.

Says the person who believes that the US government, Larry Silverstein, Enron, and al Qaeda conspired to crash planes into buildings, even though they were already going to blow them up with magic thermite, and Silverstein would admit to it on camera but then say he didn't do it.

Yes, *I'm* the one who needs meds.

Daily Trader says

Both parties are mired in dirt, Dan. Did you forget that democrats actively sought to invalidate absentee military ballots in 2000?

And Nader recently earned his day in court in Maine, due to Democrats concerted efforts to keep him off the ballot in 19 states in 2004.

SILENCE!!!

Daily Trader says

Not only did Gore lose, he lost to a retarded person. That's pretty embarrassing for guy coming out of a popular presidency during a strong economy.

He lost because the people who voted for Bush ARE retarded. They thought Gore was too smart, but Bush seemed like a "guy they would like to have a beer with". Great, have a beer with him, but don't let him have his finger on the fucking "nukular" button.

I mean, for fuck's sake, your last post seems to be saying he was unelectable because he kissed his wife. What the hell?

Quigley says

People like to say that the Supreme Court gave the election to bush, but as I remember it, they ruled that they had no authority to rule. This decision let the previous decision by the Florida Supreme Court stand, which held that the vote counting was over as per official statement.

That is the opposite of what happened. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount, which was underway when the SCOTUS ordered them to stop counting votes and handed the election to W. The SCOTUS at that time consisted of 7 Republicans and 2 Democrats, and 5 Republicans voted to hand the election to the Republican candidate. Two Republicans voted not to, including Justice Souter, who was so upset about the unprecedented decision that he nearly resigned.

Quigley says

It had gone on for so many weeks by then that the nation was getting seriously ancy.

The commercial media did present it that way, and I found that fascinating. The TV news are brought to you primarily by PhRMA (count the ads, you'll see), and who pays the piper calls the tune. The commercial media started running the impatient narrative about how it's been going on too long, perhaps due to their overwhelming impatience generally ("Give us something new to distract people with") or perhaps in anticipation of megabucks for PhRMA (think Medicare D). In reality, Congress counts the electoral votes in January, so there was plenty of time to count the people's votes in Florida. The Republicans in the Florida legislature were talking about sending a Republican slate of electoral votes to Congress, as a rival to the possible Democratic slate if the recount favored Democrats, but then the Congress could have decided which slate to count as per the Constitution. Most people thought the SCOTUS would refuse to hear the case, but a few predicted the outcome, including an obscure litigator named John Roberts, whom W later appointed Chief Justice. That isn't to allege a grand conspiracy per se, but the Republicans play politics as a team sport, and look for opportunities to advantage their team.

Probably the biggest factor though in Gore's ultimate loss was that he conceded on election night based solely on TV news projections before the votes had even been counted. At various times during the campaign, it seemed like he didn't even want to be President. Remember him sighing through the debates? And at other times saying, "Well, I agree with that" instead of offering voters a choice of policy? And there was that bizarre Michael Jackson-like stage kiss with now ex-wife Tipper, I did hear one person say she would vote for Gore because of that, but I wonder how many simply dismissed him entirely. He wouldn't even let Bill Clinton campaign for him, in order to avoid being associated with the Monica Lewinsky episode, which most voters didn't even care about. Whatever people think of Al Gore today, he was not a great candidate in 2000.

Waa Waaa Captrain'Troll

"I mean, for fuck's sake, your last post seems to be saying he was unelectable because he kissed his wife. What the hell?"

That kiss more more than just a kiss. It was a failed attempt to make Gore not look so robotic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/20/weekinreview/the-nation-when-a-kiss-isn-t-just-a-kiss.html

Remember all his embarrassing attempts to reinvent himself? The "i don't wear a tie" preppy Gore. The "cowboy boots and tight jeans" Gore.

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is still (just) a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by...

And Gore was just a bore
he's still quite the snore
Obama lies like a rug
like Rush on a drug
As time goes by...

I'm proud to be his partner. We've had triumphs, we've made mistakes, we've had sex.

George Bush (b. 1924), U.S. Republican politician, president. Speech, May 6, 1988, College of Southern Idaho. quoted by Alexander Cockburn in New Statesman (London, May 27, 1988), repr. In Corruptions of Empire (1988). Bush's gaffe occurred in a speech extolling the Reagan/Bush administration. He corrected himself: "Setbacks, we've had setbacks.... I feel like the javelin competitor who won the toss and elected to receive."

Daily Trader says

Both parties are mired in dirt, Dan. Did you forget that democrats actively sought to invalidate absentee military ballots in 2000?

1. Any illegal actions by one party, do not justify illegal actions by the other party.
2. Unlike the blatant voter suppression laws passed by the republicans, in 2000 the only invalidated absentee ballots were ones that actually invalid.
3. There were 680 fraudulent absentee ballets in Florida in 2000 compared to only a few cases of in person voter fraud found over all of American history in all states together.

From Princeton

Although not widely known until much later, Al Gore received 202 more votes than George W. Bush on election day in Florida. George W. Bush is president because he overcame his election day deficit with overseas absentee ballots that arrived and were counted after election day. In the final official tally, Bush received 537 more votes than Gore. These numbers are taken from the official results released by the Florida Secretary of State's office and so do not reflect overvotes, undervotes, unsuccessful litigation, butterfly ballot problems, recounts that might have been allowed but were not, or any other hypothetical divergence between voter preferences and counted votes. After the election, the New York Times conducted a six-month investigation and found that 680 of the overseas absentee ballots were illegally counted, and almost no one has publicly disagreed with their assessment.

The bottom line is that Bush lost the election and it is only through fraud that Bush got to be president. Furthermore, the Republican Party is clearly the undisputed champion of voter fraud and voter suppression. I'd be surprised if there weren't any democrats doing it, but it's not rampant like in the Republican Party.

And this is coming from someone who hates the Democrats. It's just that the Republicans are even more despicable.

uomo_senza_nome says

He has run as an independent candidate twice in a completely rigged two-party system. You have to cut him some slack for sounding pissed off about the electoral process.

I completely agreed. I just don't think he came off very well in the video.

The only solution short of fiat at gunpoint is for a third party to do the following in order.

1. Get as many people elected in local government and state legislating bodies.
2. Take control of as many House seats as possible.
3. Win governorships of states.
4. Win Senate positions.
5. Get powerful senate appointments.
6. Win the presidency.

They can't get to step 6 before steps 1 to 5. Third parties really need to attack goals in this order.

CaptainShuddup says

Since when is it winning to demand honest elections? How low is your bar?

Dan8267 says

CaptainShuddup says

Since when is it winning to demand honest elections? How low is your bar?

He can't reach the bar. His intellect won't reach it.

He holds the opinion of a child and administers what little he understands and knows like a brat who had his candy taken away from him when Obama became President.

Dan8267 says

Since when is it winning to demand honest elections? How low is your bar?

Demanding honest elections brought us electronic voting and everyone knows you can't rig electronic voting machines that were built with no bid contracts from one single company. Right?

Boo Hoo Poor Poor Liberals they can't get a fair election. Welcome to the Independent Voter's hell buddy. You'll get no such comfort here, not from a bonefide Nader voter, I can promise you that fucking much.

CaptainShuddup says

Boo Hoo Poor Poor Liberals they can't get a fair election

Child move to China, you'd be happy there. Forced abortions, no votes, corporatist's everywhere..

Politicofact says

Child move to China, you'd be happy there. Forced abortions, no votes, corporatist's everywhere..

Why don't you come over and load the truck?

Dan8267 says

1. Get as many people elected in local government and state legislating bodies.

Houston, we have a problem at Step 1.

What Nader misses when he calls Obama and Bush war criminals for conducting drone strikes in sovereign countries is that these strikes are privately or tacitly approved.

The case where this is most clear is Pakistan, where most of the strikes occur. Pakistani leaders must publically decry the attacks as violations of its sovereignty. Local populist politics require this. But it's abundantly clear from their policies that they don't care. The geopolitical reality is that Pakistan has tremendous leverage over the U.S. by way the supply routes into Afghanistan. When the U.S. does something Pakistan really disapproves of, they close the supply routes. They did this over the bin Laden raid, and when we accidentally blew up a number of their soldiers last year.

Yemen has no such leverage, but in Yemen, AQAP is actively seeking to unseat and supplant the local government. The notion that Al-Hadi would privately tell Obama 'no' to a drone strike on AQAP is more than a little absurd. As long as the approval is private, Al-Hadi is free to publically say whatever is most convenient for him politically, and our national interests are in perfect alignment.

Neither government has any operational sovereignty over the areas we bomb. Neither government lodges formal complaints with the ICC. Occasionally one hears feigned righteous indignation out of these countries, but actions and interests speak louder than such words.