No Secret Ballot for Military Personnel? 402
belmolis writes "According to this editorial in today's New York Times, US military personnel for whom regular absentee ballot procedures are inconvenient are being provided with a questionable alternative, the Electronic Transmission Service, run by a private contractor, Omega Technologies. According to the NYT, the secrecy of ballots could be breached when they are faxed or emailed from the field, when they are in the hands of Omega Technologies, or when they are in the hands of local officials. The NYT was unable to obtain any information on security procedures from the company or from the Pentagon. A manual describing the system can be downloaded here [pdf document]. Like Diebold, Omega is far from non-partisan. Omega President and CEO Patricia Williams has donated $6,600 in this election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee and is a member of its Business Advisory Council."
K5 article on this (Score:3, Informative)
Compromised ballots? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ballots could be compromised by the electioneers at your local library/fire station/place of baloting-- that was never the real check. The check on ballot tampering has always been:
- statistical anomalies to spot possible tampering
- ballot counting to verify/disprove tampering.
This may seem simpleton, but it's how things have been done for the length of the republic. I don't see how adding some more stages (with the same checks at each stage) would fundamentally alter that-- unless you're a newspaper trying to raise the spectre of a rigged election 2 months before voting starts...
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially in the military it seems to me that anonymity is critical to the practice of democracy.
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:2)
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then don't vote using Absentee Balot. After all, they have to see how you voted and you have to sign the sheet in order to vote. In fact, why not just outlaw absentee voting altogether? Why not just make it impossible for anyone that is outside their district on election day to vote? Like a good large chunk of college students that go to school out of state or more than 30 min from where they live and people that are overseas (military, ambassadors etc).
No matter how you do absentee voting, you give up a lttle anonymity. And if you didn't have to sign the sheets, you'd have a lot of voter fraud. "Lets see, 300 absentee voters, 300,000 absentee votes. I wonder which are the fake ones."
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:4, Insightful)
why don't they just arrange beforehand voting soon enough that the votes can be transferred normally, or is this just "hey lets cut the costs and BUY this service instead of doing what were supposed to"?
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:3, Interesting)
- statistical anomalies to spot possible tampering
Do you think they really bother checking anything at all?
For example, what should be made of Philadelphia's (mostly democrat)voter registration rate of over 98% [seventy.org] in the 2000 election?
There's nothing fishy about 98%+ of eligible voters being registered?
They must have an incre
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:2, Insightful)
But it's still been an important one. I, for one, am volunteering to be a precinct observor in my city, ensuring that neither side gets any unfair advantage.
When you've got the whole process happening behind closed doors, this type of observing is not an option.
Re:Compromised ballots? (Score:5, Informative)
At the beginning of the day, an elections worker opens a ballot box to make sure it is empty, under the watchful eyes of observers from contesting political parties (e.g. a Democrat and a Republican). Given their contrary desires about election outcome, no observer would consent to pre-stuffing the ballot (i.e. they might like fake ballot of their own party, but not of the other party).
Then the ballot box is sealed, and a lock is placed on it. The box is also watched by those mentioned observers during the course of the day, so stuffing becomes difficult.
At the end of the day, everyone watches the box being unlocked; watches the ballots being pulled out and shuffled (to increase anonymity for early- or late-voters by eliminating sequence).
Then under the watchful eye of all the observers (and of several elections workers), the ballots are counted and sorted. Totals recorded. Vote tallies posted at the polling place. Procedures signed off on by judges and observers. And the records sealed back up into envelopes or lock boxes.
NONE of these safeguards exist in Omega's secret system that lacks any observers.
That is only one corruption of thousands. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are many, many situations of this nature. See Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government [futurepower.org]
It's been going on a long time: 24 wars in 59 yrs. (Score:4, Insightful)
No partisan interest here. It's been going on a long time: 24 wars [hevanet.com] since WW2. Creating fear so rich [hevanet.com] people [hevanet.com] can profit.
However, you seem to say that the 3 movies and 35 recently published books in this article are all wrong, even though they written by all kinds of people, Republicans, Democrats, generals, former government leaders, a Pulitzer Prize winner, political commentators, editorial writers, environmental organizations, and members of the public: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government [futurepower.org].
Name ONE statement that is in error. I'll investigate (again), and if you are correct, I will change it.
Most people don't know that the situation in Iraq began in the 50's, when hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran [gwu.edu] (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. The U.S. government supported Iraq against Iran, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein at a very high profit for the rich owners of U.S. weapons companies. The Bush family has long owned part of a company that owns weapons companies. Cheney was head of Halliburton, a company that profits when there is war, especially since Halliburton was able to arrange a secret, no competitive bid contract.
What do you say about that? Is the university that hosts the documents all wrong?
Obviously, there is too much material for any one article. Should I not discuss the corruption of today because there was corruption in the past?
She's operating under conflict of interest. (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed the point. She's operating under conflict of interest. The money and her position with the Republicans is only supporting evidence.
--
Bush's education improvements were fraud [cbsnews.com]
If i understand the editorial correctly (Score:5, Insightful)
As if this wasn't bad enough already (though you might make an argument that it is justifiable in some extreme situations), the company that handles the ballots is far from non-partisan and there is no way to independently verify that the ballots are handled the way they should be handled.
Finally, as an outside observer, I just don't get it that after the distater of the last presidential election in Florida, that also involved problems with absentee ballots from military personal, btw., things like these are still possible in the US. I get the feeling, that either the US can't get its act together (though I think that is very unlikely), or those in charge don't want to get their act together.
Not a big deal - yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Human rights violations with 9/11 as an excuse raise a vague concern that someday a "pro-terrorist" vote will become an issue. But as of today, anyone who is affraid of being punished for voting Democratic or Republican probably should be isolated from society because of mental instability.
Re:Not a big deal - yet (Score:3, Insightful)
The right to a secret vote is one of the fundamental principles a democratic society is build on. To simply call anyone who is concerned about the weakening of that fundamental principal a loony is, ehm, interesting.
Besides, nobody said they were prosecuting people for the way they vote, but not voting secretly at least opens the possibility that you might face some form of negative consequences for your vote. Even if this fear is totally unfounded, this may well influence the vote of s
Re:Not a big deal - yet (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia has details. [wikipedia.org]
Not sure what relevence this has to the thread, so mod me down if you want, but I find it kind of interesting that a mere convict colony developed this 'fundamental principle a democratic society is built on'.
Re:Not a big deal - yet (Score:3, Informative)
The marbles being oftentimes spherical, this is where the name ball-ot derives from.
The things you learn in high-school..
Though IIRC there were earlier examples of secret ballots, going back to either ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, I forget which.
Re:Not a big deal - yet (Score:2)
why voting anonymous anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
stendec@gmail.com
Re:why voting anonymous anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe not you, but lots of other people might feel uncomfortable to vote Democrat if their boss votes Republican. A threat doesn't need to be a threat to your health and lifelyhood; a threat to your career is more than enough.
And then, there's the specter of "vote buying". If ballots are secret, it's much more difficult to buy votes, because you cannot be sure that they guy whose vote you bought really voted the way he promised ;-)
And then, the special case of the armed forces. Even if Joe the Soldier is brave enough to vote Democrat (knowing full well that his hierarchy would prefer Republican), and does not care that his might lead to his removal from the armed forces, we still have a problem: Now suddenly the Republicans have an army at their disposal which they know that they can trust. No risk of the army siding with the people, if ordered to commit unconstitutional acts, because the Republicans will have "weeded out" the untrustworthy elements before.
Re:why voting anonymous anyway (Score:2)
On the other hand, if you weed out the "untrustworthy" elements, and then try shenigans, you run the risk of having a bunch of pissed off, highly trained, recently-ex soldiers taking independant action. And as spies and freedom fighters all over the world have demonstrated, it's far, far easier for loosely grouped individuals to fade int
Re:why voting anonymous anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I guess they need to do it to combat the systematic infiltration of our nation's educational systems by Democratic pot-smoking radicals, who as we all know are trying to corrupt our youths into sharing their absurd moral relativ
Re:why voting anonymous anyway (Score:2)
Who says your boss is going to be telling the truth as to the reason he/she fired you? And as for looking for a new job, I think we all know about that one now.
Wow you are stupid or young. Often the same thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Now go and read a book.
And you, sir, are ignorant... (Score:3, Interesting)
The "McCarthy witch hunts" [thefreedictionary.com] were NOT witch hunts (read the end). McCarthy's basic argument was "should we have people who are communists (many self admitted) in sensitive positions within our government?"
He was not only right, but underestimated the extent of soviet infiltration, as the release of the Venona Project [nsa.gov] transcripts now reveal (summary here [thefreedictionary.com]).
Now go and read a book [amazon.com].
Re:And you, sir, are ignorant... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a significant difference between allowing communists (self-admitted, reported, suspected, or just disliked by others) in sensitive positions and allowing known spies in sensitive positions. The best option is to have no clue about someone's political views, to avoid fallacious thinking. That's why employers are required to disregard religion, ethnic background, political view, etc. when hiring -- none of it matters. What does matter is the integrity of the individual, which can only be judged on a per-case basis.
The secret ballot helps preserve this distinction, but we must be ever vigilant against this sort of profiling. A communist is not a traitor, and neither is a republican. A more effective spy would pose as a moderate, and might even be a moderate -- who said money can't buy allegiance, regardless of political conviction?
Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:5, Informative)
Thousands Registered to Vote in 2 States-Report [yahoo.com]
"But the newspaper found that between 400 and 1,000 registered voters voted twice in at least one election, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68 percent are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 16 percent didn't align themselves with a party, the newspaper reported on Sunday."
Feel any better?
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:5, Insightful)
Those percentages are an artifact of the sample - people from New York City who summer in Florida. Do you know what the votes were like in New York City in the 2000 presidential election? 1,633,525 for the Democrats, 375,792 for the Republicans (I'm counting the party votes, not the individual votes - see the official report here [nyc.ny.us], specifically here [nyc.ny.us] - because we don't know how the New York Daily News would have categorized votes for "conservative" and "liberal" in their study - it's interesting that those numbers show a much closer split, 25,130 Conservative [Bush] versus 29,386 Liberal [Gore]) out of a total of 2,283,261, for total percentages of 71.5 percent Democrat, 16.5 percent Republican (if you include the Liberal numbers with the Democrat, you get 72.8%, and if you include the Conservative numbers with the Republican, 17.6%). For a sample size of 46,000 out of 2.3 million, those numbers are pretty similar.
Note, too, that it gives the percentages of people that are registered in both states - 46,000
Of the 46,000 registered in both states, 68 percent are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 16 percent didn't align themselves with a party, the newspaper reported on Sunday.
- but not of people it thinks VOTED in both states - 1,000 at worst:
But the newspaper found that between 400 and 1,000 registered voters voted twice in at least one election, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
That 1,000 is not a good sample of the 48,000, because their motivations are different. The difference between those two numbers is the difference beween neglect and deliberate fraud. The 48,000 are simply registered in two states - since registrations usually aren't "closed" - you usually don't call the town you're moving out of and ask them to take you off the voter rolls - they could very well be people who registered to vote in Florida, and voted in Florida, when they got down there, and registered to vote in New York, and voted in New York - in a different election - when they got up there. You can't apply the "neglect" numbers to make an argument about which party is more likely to commit intentional voter fraud.
Since the percentages almost exactly reflect their sample, the study tells us nothing about Democratic versus Republican voter fraud. Indeed, the newspaper study (from an historically conservative newspaper), at least as it is characterized by the Reuters article, looks as though it deliberately limited its sample to New York City in order to come out with a result that would embarrass the Democratic Party. Now you'll probably say "well, they chose New York City because it's a New York paper and that's what their readership would care about." Ahh, but you see, the Reuters article cited the percentages, but didn't contextualize them by citing the overall voter percentages of their sample - a classic tactic of those who want to lie with statistics. So either the Reuters article is representing what the New York Daily News reported, or they left out the context, and thereby distorted what the New York Daily News reported.
Note that this took me 6 minutes to work out, using Google and your posting. I'm sure that the New York Daily News author, or the author of the Reuters article, could have done the same thing. I wish I knew whether they did or not.
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:2, Flamebait)
That's bad, but aren't those individual acts?
What we know for sure (see link below) is that the Republican Party rigged the 2000 election to allow the person who got fewer votes to take the White House.
Whether it was Florida's counting illegal military ballots, whether it was Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris' use of databases to
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:3, Interesting)
Trust me it hurts much more to watch it happening to my own country. Now that Bush apparently has a double digit lead, It is begginning to become obvious that not only will BU__SH__ probably
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:2)
Re:Your rights and freedoms are being thrown away (Score:2)
"Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Basically putting them on par with federal
Full disclosure, please (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it really so terrible to give money to a political campaign? At least one member of the family which owns the New York Times (Dr. Judith P. Sulzberger) donated $2000 to the John Kerry campaign, $5000 to 'Victory Campaign 2004', and $20000 to the Democrat National Committee.
Does this mean I can no longer trust the New York Times to treat facts with a modicum of fairness? Is it inappropriate for me to get factual information about political campaigns from them?
The NYT editors should quit their whining. Almost every person in the US has some political preferences, whether he or she has given money to a campaign or not. Having a strong political preference does not automatically make a person untrustworthy.
They should stick to criticizing the process here
Re:Full disclosure, please (Score:4, Insightful)
If the company I work for would support a political party there's a (good) chance it would not be the party of my choice.
I would be very upset if money that was partially made through my efforts would go to these people.
Commercial entities have no business spending their money on influencing what should be a democratic process.
The people (voters) should be the only allowed to finance parties, maybe with some very tightly controlled subsidies from the government to give start-ups a chance.
On a side line, what is democratic about some people being able to spend thousants or even millions of $$ on a party while others could hardly afford a 10 bucks contribution every four years?
Limiting donations to $10.- per year would as well end the ridiculous circus elections have become and force politicians to stay on topic.
Re:Full disclosure, please (Score:2)
If the company I work for would support a political party there's a (good) chance it would not be the party of my choice.
I would be very upset if money that was partially made through my efforts would go to these people.
Commercial entities have no business spending their money on influencing what should be a democratic process.
Are you sure companies give this money?
As far as I can tell, the money always comes from individuals.
Sure, they've got to report who it is they
Re:Full disclosure, please (Score:2)
You trust the NYT as unbiased? Idiot! (Score:3, Interesting)
When you don't have choice, for example, in the way that vote is taken and passed, then that is something to worry about. Nobody forces you to buy the NYT or to watch Fox.
Re:Full disclosure, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Ms. Sulzberger doesn't count the votes, or get to see them. A business entrusted with the kind of power that Omega Technologies has ought to be above reproach, preferably non-partisan or bipartisan, but definitely transparent and accountable. Omega Technologies, however, seems to be none of those.
Newspapers are supposed to be biased (Score:3, Insightful)
Omega Technologies are not subject to public fact-checking, so they should not be used.
A couple of points (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, the Business Advisory Council is (in my opinion) a total crock of shit. I used to work for a company whose CEO won the Business Advisory Council's "Businessman of the Year" award. Let me tell you, the award is (in my opinion) pretty much given to people who donate large sums to the party. Oh did I mention that the company mentioned above is now under the control of a receiver, and is also under investigation by the IRS Criminal Investigvation Division? Oh, did I mention the grand jury preceedings? But I digress......
Remember, you cannot trust anyone, the whole damned system is corrupt, and all parts biased, one way or the other. (The "in my opinion" statements above are merely a CYA thing)
What pissed off the military last time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What pissed off the military last time... (Score:2)
Eeek, that's waaay too scary. People in the military getting enraged over votes!
Re:What pissed off the military last time... (Score:2)
Re:What pissed off the military last time... (Score:2)
Re:What pissed off the military last time... (Score:2)
The grandparent poster gave a link to fraudfactor.com, which asserts that military absentee votes were discarded due to not having postmarks. Having an armed escort deliver the ba
Re:What pissed off the military last time... (Score:2)
The reactions here are scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously without even bothering to read the article people tell us that everyone who is concerned about these kinds of things should take of their tin foil heads.
They tell us that 6 000$ isn't much, as if this was the point.
And they immediately start the old Democrats vs. Republicans game. For every instance of republican foul play I will post at least one instance of the democrats doing something wrong. As if it did matter who deprived voter of their basic rights.
Now take into account that this story is not the only reason to be concerned (Diebold anyone?) and what has hapend in Florida during the last Presidential election and it should be clear to anyone that there is reason to be concerned.
The moment the outcome of an election is decided not by the people voting but by judges who decide if counting the votes one side wants to count or counting the votes the other side wants to count something is wrong and needs fixing. Seeing what is happening lately in the US this situation seems far from solved, on the contrary seems to get worse.
What will happen to a country whose citizens don't seem to be concerned if their most basic right is undermined?
Paranoia (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's try not to make too much of the fact that organizations outside the gov't having to do with voting (Diebold, Omega, et al) support conservatives moreso than liberals, politically.
This is largely because the right is much more pro-business and -capitalism than the left, who are typically seen to increasingly resent the wealth builders and creators with the more wealth they build and create.
If some organization seemed intent on taxing and regulating me out of business, I probably wouldn't support them much, either.
What party a business supports in a moot point, regardless. If someone is paranoid enough to have visions of conspiracy by right-supporting businesses, then the same untrustworthiness must therefore be assumed about all left-supporing organizations as well. While I don't understand paranoia all that well, maybe in the minds of those so afflicted, these two opposing conspiracies would cancel each other out...?
There's no substitute for thinking.
Re:Paranoia (Score:3, Insightful)
I live overseas (Score:5, Informative)
It's quite obvious that it's not some crazy conspiracy, if you fax in you must also incude your voter card (or else someone will do a DoS attack) The mail in letter is unique and could be easly identified as a fourge.
Forget conspiricy - it's amateur hour (Score:2)
If these incompetants don't get replaced, then those who hired them may have to have their sources of lobbying money examined - and criminal charges of bribery applied where appropriate.
Absentee ballots rigged in Florida (Score:5, Informative)
You'd think they would have straightened it out, but as this story reports [commondreams.org] the absentee process in Florida if anything has gotten worse!
Now, four years later and the process is not fixed, and is arguably worse than ever. Accidental or planned?
Re:Absentee ballots rigged in Florida (Score:2)
If I were you, I wouldn't hold out for much objectivity or unbiased analysis from a group that still believes the 2000 election was 'stolen'.
Re:Absentee ballots rigged in Florida (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the way the US Constitution works -- it's happened 3 times since the US Civil War (1860s). The people don't select the president, the states elect the president through an obscure undemocratic process known as the "Electoral College."
The US is not a democracy, it's a republic. Worse, it's a republic written with a Constitution whose wealthy authors w
Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
prejudice.. I don't think that word means what you think it means..
I don't know how it works in the USA, but I've worked several elections up here in Canada. Not only are people wearing any party symbols not allowed in the voting room, any past or present member of a political party is not allowed to work in the room, period.
It has nothing to do with prejudice (as there's no pre-judging going on. when you donat
Not only for troops ! (Score:2)
That's great! As an American who resides abroad I should have applied for an absentee ballot at least 60 days before the election, which was yesterday. With the Electronic Transmission Service (ETS) I still may vote!
So a service that was made to
Why Fight em? (Score:2, Interesting)
Soap, ballot, ... (Score:2)
I found info about Jury Nullification on this [mauricereeves.com] page, but that's about it.
There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. -Ed Howdershelt
thanks!
Okay. (Score:2, Insightful)
Secondly.. it's kind of funny to hear complaints about them not being "non partisan".
Just about every American I know feels strongly about one party or the other, and given how US politics work, that makes sense.
Are we trying to say that those who are making voting systems and services should not be entitled to political opinion?
Of course not...
What they SHOULD have to do is keep their services as transparent and w
Not News for Nerds (Score:2)
Why not... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't this the very reason votes are private?
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually I've discussed the question with a few military people, and none planned to vote for Bush. Indeed, one Army officer pointed out to me that, given the "backdoor draft" going on, members of the Guard and Reserves "would be idiots" (his words) to vote for Bush. (Of course, I live in a pretty solid "blue" state.)
Right, I'm going to take the word of an Anonymous Coward on this. As if all the bombing and shooting was actually just an old Iraqi way of greating visitors.
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:3, Insightful)
What they hate is George Bush and his policies.
As for the Demos wanting us all terrified, that is undoubtedly true - they're politicians after all.
However, it is DOUBLY TRUE for the Republicans who started this shit.
It was a REPUBLICAN a
Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd have to say from my own experience (former military officer talking here) that the percentage is probably higher than they think. I can count on one hand the number of real liberal democrats I encountered during all my years in the military.
Bush is respected by almost all the current and former US military personnel I know, in distinct contrast to Bill Clinton. When I was in the service, many officers and enlisted so despised Clinton that they refused to display any certificates, awards, decorations, citations, etc with his signature on them. Despite the prohibition on using "contemptuous words" against the commander-in-chief and elected officials, most guys were (privately) very frank about how they felt... The level of enmity was really remarkable.
Re:Ummm... (Score:2, Insightful)
I had expected to see a decline in the number of deaths since the beginning of the "Iraqi" government on June 28, 2004. However, my analysis shows that deaths per day has actually increased from 1.83 deaths per day (during the pre-Iraq Occupation phase) to 2.02 deaths per day in the post-Iraqi government phase (the invasion phase had 4.12 deaths per day).
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Informative)
You must have been out a while.
While there are still a large number of military who are pretty firmly GOP, I'd have to disagree with that "almost all" assessment. I'm active duty, and I've gotten into many a political conversation at my command, only to be surprised by just how many of my fellow servicemen are not Bush supporters at all. There are a surprising number (I'd estimate about 1/3 to 1/2 of those I've discussed it with) that are backing Kerry, mainly due to the Iraq war, which isn't supported as whole-hog in the military as some would think.
From my (admittedly anecdotal and unscientific) observations, the staunchly GOP ones in ranks are usually the older, more senior enlisteds and officers (I'm Navy, so for me that is the senior CPO's and Commanders/Captains/Admirals). But many "blueshirts" and junior officers, I'd hazard to say a majority, are against a second Bush term...even those who normally roger up Republican. The Iraq war is a big hot-button issue driving this.
It's interesting to me, in fact, to see how some reacted recently to the new "Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal" and "Global War on Terrorism Service Medal". These were awarded to those who served in units that were in certain actions listed as being under the GWOT. One of these was Operation Iraqi Freedom. I know several people who questioned the award of the GWOT medals for Operation Iraqi Freedom, as they didn't believe OIF was part of the GWOT. This started a rather heated debate recently (I managed to get right in the middle), with one officer telling people to jolly well not wear the medal if they didn't agree with it. I've not decided yet...I rate the medal since I served on a ship involved directly in OIF, but I question OIF being part of the GWOT myself. I don't wear the ribbon yet (though honestly I rarely wear a uniform that includes ribbons/medals...we don't wear ribbons/medals in our everyday working uniforms).
But to get back on topic, the military isn't as solidly GOP as people would think. Many junior soldiers/sailors won't come out and say it for fear of publicly disagreeing with the brass, but if you get a fly-on-the-wall perspective of deckplate discussions you'd see there is a lot of Kerry support in the ranks.
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you talk with the some of the guys who may have done the war college or some of the more intelligent ring knockers they may bring up the strategic implications of the show of force on the region (in theory what was probably the attempt, not how well everything has been executed to date). People often use Libya as an example which the counter to that is that they were going that way anyways, but the desired effect was there.
The point is we can't invade every country that harbors terrorists but we can show them that they can be invaded and deposed. That the majority of the Iraqi regime has been eliminated would be the fear we would want to put in the minds of ruling parties in order to get them to think twice about supporting and maybe clamp down on terrorist activities in their country. Strategically if all we had done was invade Afghanistan it may not have had that effect on rulers in the middle-east region.
Anyways, some aspects of the Iraq war likely do have something to do with a strategic initiative for deterring state support of terrorism. The "war on terrorism" is actually more of an attempt at making fewer places hospitable to them and reducing their means of acquiring resources to carry out attacks.
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
And I think it's safe to say that there are significant elements of the top brass that are not Bush/Rumsfeld supporters.
This was most clearly illustrated when Gen. Shinseki, the-then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was forced into retirement for publicly stating that he would need "hundreds of thousands" of troops to secure Iraq.
When the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff job opened up -- the wet dream job for every general in the military -- no general stepped forward. Rumsfeld had to call one of his cronies out of retirement to take the position. That speaks volumes! The generals know that Bush/Rumsfeld threw out the "Powell Doctrine" so painfully learned after Vietnam, and they don't like it.
but I question OIF being part of the GWOT myself.
Why, just because "Operation Iraqi Freedom"[sic] was planned well before 9/11?
Do people forget Bush's hand-picked Treasury Secretary, lifelong Republican Paul O'Neill -- one of the highest officials in the US gov't, going on TV on "60 Minutes" showing a map of Iraq carved up among American and British/western oil companies and saying that the map was made long before 9/11 and the plan to attack Iraq started as soon as Bush took office?
My question is: why do you have questions?! The answer is as solid as you're going to get!
Re:Ummm... (Score:4, Insightful)
But we've been concentrating on Iraq, which, by all the post-invasion data [9-11commission.gov], had nothing to do with 9-11/al Qaeda and no longer had the much-debated WMD's.
Article gives a different number (Score:3, Insightful)
64% is a far cry from 80%, also please not this study was done before Iraq, stop-loss orders, sold
Re: Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Much of the ill will regarding clinton came from his history. He stated that he "loathed the military", and subsequently dodged the draft. Despite this, he still managed to get himself elected commander in chief... that really rankled the older vietnam-era guys that were still around... some of them couldn't say Clinton's name without spitting. They resented very much having to salute and take orders from him (the younger guys resented Clinton for the same reasons, but it was really palpable among the older guys).
Clinton's sexual indiscretions were also a huge liability. Military members can be prosecuted under the UCMJ for adultery alone; sexual indiscretions with a subordinate (ie. Miss Lewinsky) are even worse. Many active duty members felt that Clinton, as commander in chief, should be held to the same standard. It's a pretty terrible example to set when the commander gets off for something that would earn a lowly Sergeant a court-martial...
Note: we haven't even started talking about his politics.
Anyway, that'll get you started... I'm sure some others in this forum can add some additional thoughts.
Re: Ummm... (Score:2, Funny)
Its not his fault that he has powerful relatives, who are entirely capable of acting without his input. I'm not saying that he didn't ask for any help, but luck (being born right) happens to some. There are still questions about his service, but at least he did something.
Re: Ummm... (Score:2)
If the war had gone on longer, he would have accumulated the requisite number of flight hours, and been eligible for the PALACE ALERT program.
Clinton, OTOH, ran as far as he could.
Re:Bush never said "I loath the military" (Score:4, Informative)
Bush, Clinton, and the military (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ummm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I think it's fairly clear that Bush used huge political influence to avoid Vietnam. The former Texas Lt. Gov. from the 70s has recently publicly stated that he pulled strings to get Bush and other sons of the elite into the Nat'l Guard.
Bush obviously didn't want to go to Vietnam (I can't blame him), since he checked the box saying he didn't want to go overseas.
It's also clear that Bush was a deserter. After his father sent him away from Texas for being a drunk [guardian.co.uk] he went missing from the Nat'l Guard for a year. You mean to tell me that some of the supposedly hundreds of people that served with him are not stepping forward to claim the thousands of dollars in rewards [awolbush.com] for saying they served with Bush?! That's insane.
Then there's the military records. I remember how fat my 201 file was and how the military loved to keep paperwork. There's no way those records are "lost" -- I think it's far more likely that Bush cronies cleaned house on his records.
I also think it's fairly likely that Kerry worked an angle to get 3 purple hearts and to get out of Vietnam. Hell, I would not have wanted to go to Vietnam. But then again, when an explosion went off and Kerry got a butt-ful of rice, dirt, and some shrapnel, do we honestly think he was knew about that explosion or was calculating how it would impact on him? When he was grazed with a bullet, do we really think he was volunteering to be shot "just a little" so he could get the hell out of Vietnam and go back home?
Hell no. He got lucky. He got lucky repeatedly, saw an angle to get out, and got the hell out. I can't say as I blame him -- he did his time and played by the rules.
But that's a helluva lot more than you can say about Bush's "service"[sic]. The fact that this deserter organizes campaigns to criticize Kerry or McCain says a lot about his lack of character.
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:3, Insightful)
Linear regression calls the election for Kerry. [electoral-vote.com]
Actually, the data is too unstable to suggest that linear regression could adequately predict Kerry will win. As we keep hearing, it's too close to call. But anyone believing there is an impending Bush landslide has been watching too many Fair & Balanced (TM) infomercials masquerading as Fox News.
Poli
Re:Gain control over the military first (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They donate both sides (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.campaignmoney.com/finance.asp?type=i
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
OMEGA TECNOLOGIES INCORPORATED/PRES
VA
600
03/04/2003
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE - REPUBLICAN
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
OMEGA TECNOLOGIES INCORPORATED/PRES
VA
1,250
04/29/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,000
06/27/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,250
06/30/2003
NATIONA
Williams, Patricia A Ms.
Omega Tecnologies Incorporated/Pres
VA
1,250
07/30/2003
NATIONA
Note that it's all soft money - none directly to the candidate. That's a sign of an insider. There is nothing listed at Campaign Finance
I can't in the 10 minutes I've chosen to dedicate to research this particular one manage to find evidence that Ms. Williams is on the Business Advisory Board, but here's a description of that board:
What is the Business Advisory Council?
The Business Advisory Council is a small, prestigious group of conservative businessmen and women, who have joined with the NRCC to advocate a progressive, conservative, pro-business agenda. The Business Advisory Council allows for these individuals to pool their expertise and know-how to to bring some common business sense to Washington.
(I have to admit that I find the use of the term "progressive, conservative" hilarious, as they are by both their dictionary definitions and their historical ideological meanings antonyms.)
Great Research!!! (Score:2)
Excellent research. Mod parent up!!
--
24 wars [hevanet.com] since WW2: Creating fear so rich [hevanet.com] people [hevanet.com] can profit.
Re:They donate both sides (Score:2, Informative)
As the poster above has pointed out, contributors to campaigns have to identify their employers. This doesn't mean the COMPANY is involved in any way.
In this case, it looks like an individual giving money, not the corporation. Ms. Williams certainly appears to have strong political interests, but so what? The MoveOn crowd's not upset that George Soros and dozens of celebrities are deliberately using their money or public standing to stump for a candidate. How's Bruce Springsteen's political tour any diffe
Re:They donate both sides (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They donate both sides (Score:3, Informative)
Well, that's true in most of the world, but in Canada...
We had for many years a party called the "Progressive Conservatives". (It just disappeared via a hostile takeover from itself, but I digress from my digression). It must have meant something to the people involved, since in the east their voters dropped them li
Re:They donate both sides - parent LIES!!!! (Score:2)
The "reference" (the url) of grandparent doesn't work, probably it's cut, but this one works:
http://www.campaignmoney.com/finance.asp?type=io& c %20ycle=04&criteria=OMEGA+TECNOLOGIES+INCORPORATED %2F [campaignmoney.com]
Re:They donate both sides - parent LIES!!!! (Score:2)
Re:They donate both sides - parent LIES!!!! (Score:2)
Re:They donate both sides (Score:2)
Wait, is it companies that donate money or individuals that donate money?
I think it most all the money comes from individuals. Sure, they've got to report who it is they work for (CEOs included), but they're still considered individual donors.
Re:ROFL (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ROFL (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in 2000 we had an election where the winner got less votes than the looser[1], yet there were no riots! I have to say that I don't see much difference.
Over here bosses are concerned about the bottom line too. However there have been instances in history where someone (normally not the boss, but some criminal who wanted his friend to be sherif) did care who was elected and was willing to use force. There have also be cases in third world countries where someone has cared enough to force people to
Re:Anonymous voting is a right? (Score:2)
Your employer/union boss/abusive spouse who votes the other way.
Its because those who know, do nothing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously, voting is something that should be left in the hands of the people and not some corporation with who knows what agenda.
But where are the volunteers to step up and implement and open and robust voting system?
Of all the people here who bitch about "our rights being thrown away" - how many of them have even volu