DUmmie FUnnies 05-06-05 ("TomPaine.com: What didn't happen in Ohio")

DUmmieland is in an uproar because the Leftwing TomPaine.Com website published an article claiming that there was NO vote fraud conspiracy in Ohio. This is heresy in the eyes of the DUmmies because one of their most treasured beliefs is that the EVIL Republicans STOLE the election by rigging the votes in Ohio. One side effect of this belief is that it made Bev Harris a very rich woman since she scammed the DUmmies for at least $300,000 by making them think she was only $10 away from proving vote fraud in Ohio. There are actually two DUmmie threads expressing their OUTRAGE over the TomPaine.Com article. The first THREAD is titled, "’What Didn't Happen in Ohio’ This article DEMANDS a response!” and the second THREAD is simply titled, “TomPaine.com: What didn't happen in Ohio.” Both these threads have the typical lunatic DUmmie responses so both will be DUFUed. As usual, the rantings of the DUmmies unable to let go of their sacred Ohio vote fraud beliefs are in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, with $10 in his pocket that he did NOT send to Bev Harris, is in the [brackets]:

“For casting doubt on the conspiracy theory, TomPaine.com and I received virtual barrels of e-mail, most from angry anti-Bush activists who could not believe that their hard work had been for naught. I also heard from Steven Freeman, a University of Pennsylvania professor and author of a widely cited study that served as the primary basis for the pro-theft-theory folks, The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy . His remarks, and my response to them, appeared on TomPaine.com.”

[For casting doubt on the Ohio vote fraud conspiracy, I brand you a HERETIC!!! Let the Auto Da Fe begin!]

“Privately, I heard from many Democratic officials, election reform advocates and analysts from inside Ohio and elsewhere, who believed my reporting to be accurate, and who were more than a little perturbed by the frenzy, which they found a counterproductive distraction from the serious ongoing effort to reform election practices. Since the debate refuses to die, this seems a good time to trumpet the arrival of not just one, but two, new technical analyses that cast further doubt upon the conspiracy theories out there. The author of the first is an earnest young fellow in San Diego named Rick Brady.”

[Privately I’ve heard that the only loons left believing in the Ohio vote fraud conspiracy are the DUmmies and Teh-RAY-suh Heinz.]

”So, absent the emergence of true polling methodology experts screaming theft, we may reasonably conclude that no evil genius rigged the results. Instead, what we experienced was probably an amalgam of system failings, miscalculations, incompetence, and, in some cases, the variably successful exertions of biased election officials. These are, at worst, symptoms of gaming the system, a deplorable practice hardly limited to this election or, historically, to one party. The anomalies being cited, including by Christopher Hitchens—apparently without any notable independent verification—in a widely cited Vanity Fair piece, may prove to be invalid, or attributable as well to other factors. Perhaps fraud occurred on an isolated basis, but no one has come forward with careful documentation—as opposed to hysterical—unscientific allegation.”

[No! No! Don’t wanna hear this! Don’t you know that Karl Rove was the EVIL genius that rigged the election?]

“Until the public becomes confident in the underlying integrity of the electoral apparatus in this country, none of the urgently needed improvements to that system can take place. That’s why the conspiracy-mongering must cease. Can we instead please turn now to the many substantive proposals already being proffered to make things better—including pending legislation? Let’s keep our eye on the real ball that’s in our court.”

[Hey! Don’t tell me when I have to cease my mongering! Now that we have seen portions of this article, let us now take a look at the DUmmie outraged reaction to it.]

Bullshit! I saw it with my own eyes. I heard it w/ my own ears. I live in Columbus, Ohio too.

[And I saw space aliens land on Washington Mall with my own eyes. I heard it w/ my own ears. I live in the state of Insanity.]

[When even the far left TomPaine website thinks that the DUmmies are a bunch of moonbats, you know they are really far gone.]

Two very close elections. Two Republican Secs of State. Both Republican Secs of State doing double duty as Bush's state campaign chairs. Diebold machines manufactured and in use in key counties in both states. Big GOP donors running Diebold. Not least, a strong racist undertone re voter-access -- longer lines in heavy black precincts, etc. In sum, that is the infrastructure of cheating. Bush-Cheney cheated. Kerry-Edwards won.

[You certainly do present a convincing case…. that your oxygen supply was turned off at a young age.]

my response is that he's right on…And I would add that I've suspected for a long time that some of the "activism" is actually intended to deliberately create and nourish unwarranted distrust in the system for malicious reasons.

[And this Dummie wins a Kewpie doll for having a very brief moment of mental clarity!]

Thought you'd appreciate this....

Save Andy - And Save America, Too!
by Thom Hartmann

www.OpEdNews.com

Just as we occasionally see community fundraising efforts surface with donation collection cans in convenience stores for local folks experiencing medical emergencies, today the progressive community is working to save one of its own.

Andy Stephenson is an activist, a vigilant worker on behalf of clean voting in America. He has worked tirelessly to help uncover details of electronic voting fraud in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections. He's devoted years of his life to making America a more democratic nation.

And now his friends are passing the hat to help pay for surgery to save him from pancreatic cancer. The surgery will cost around $50,000, but the hospital wants $25,000 up-front before they'll begin. People can send contributions to Andy Stephenson, P O Box 25624, Seattle, WA 98165-1124, or can visit Paypal and contribute to email address Andy_Stephenson@comcast.net .

We are the only developed democracy in the world where such a spectacle could take place.

Dickens wrote about such horrors in Victorian England - Bob Cratchit's son, Tiny Tim, in need of medical care that was unavailable without a wealthy patron like Ebenezer Scrooge - but the UK has since awakened and become civilized.

Even the tyrants of Communist China provide health care to their people, a bitter irony for the unemployed American factory workers they've displaced, and the Wal-Mart workers who sell their goods.

Andy Stephenson's story is something that could only happen in an oligarchic banana republic - or in the USA.

We live in a nation that can afford for Bill Frist's family to make billions of dollars by taking formerly public hospitals and health-care facilities and privatizing them, adding to an explosion in the cost of health care, but claims it can't afford national health insurance.

We have the most expensive health-care system in the world, but are 27th in the world in the quality of our health.

We've produced health-care billionaires and millionaires in America, but have 45 million uninsured.

And even health insurance in America is not much damn good - about a quarter of all bankruptcies last year in this nation were among insured people who were wiped out by co-pays, deductibles, and "non-covered" hospital and health care expenses. (Of course, thanks to the efforts of the good Dr. Frist, along with 100 percent of Congress's Republicans, George Bush Junior, and a toxic handful of Democrats, such bankruptcies will be infinitely more difficult in the future.)

Ever since Democratic President Harry Truman proposed a national, single-payer health insurance system, Republicans and "conservative" Democrats have fought it. Nonetheless, LBJ did manage to slip a single-payer system through Congress, in the form of Medicare.

And Medicare terrifies the corporate cons, because it has the potential - with a single stroke of legislation - to overnight become a program that covers every American, a national single-payer heath insurance system.

This is one reason why Republicans inserted a poisoned drug benefit into it - mandating that Medicare cannot negotiate wholesale prices with drug companies but must always pay full retail. Thus Medicare's "crisis" - the next domestic terror attack by the cons - isn't forty years down the road, but will come in the next year or two.

Medicare is today tottering on the edge of running in the red, and the drug benefit will push it over that edge. Cons in the right-wing think tanks and in Congress are hoping the upcoming Medicare financial "crisis" will provide a good excuse to then privatize it and kill it off.

Yet Medicare is spectacularly successful. While private for-profit insurance companies (and HMOs, PPOs, etc.) keep anywhere from $15 to $35 of every $100 that passes through their fingers to pay for stockholder dividends, profits, multimillionaire CEO salaries, private jets, marketing, fancy headquarters, and an army of phone banks to deny claims, Medicare keeps only $2 to $3 of every $100.

There are some things that government does do better than private for-profit industry, and providing affordable health care is one of them (as you can see with a visit to Japan, Germany, or any other advanced nation whose system isn't under assault from corporate cons).

While George Bush Junior (who hates to be called "junior") whines about a Social Security system that won't face a crisis for another forty years, Andy Stephenson is facing a crisis today. As are tens of millions of other Americans.

We can help Andy to survive and return to his work by sending him a donation today. And we must help America awaken and become the sane and civilized nation we have always thought ourselves to be by expanding Medicare to cover all Americans.

Thom Hartmann's website is www.thomhartmann.com.
--

This is too old to be a DUMMIE ALERT!, as it is from mid-afternoon, but some issues that may arise tomorrow (Tuesday) in DUmmieland.

scubed (634 posts) Mon May-09-05 03:43 PM Original message ANDY WILL HAVE HIS SURGERY TOMORROW - RELAX! Andy has a check to give the hospital to cover the amount they have not already received. It's a loan against the money that has been donated, in case Pay-Pay can't be unlocked today. No way are we going to let Andy miss his surgery!I did reach someone in disputes resolutions, who did take the issue seriously and promised to work on it. Also, sfexpat is working with paypal and the hospital.

Uh, one wonders if that "check" is any good, or its source. The felonious DUmmie Andy Stephenson does have a "friend" who works for Johns Hopkins--a computer programmer, or keyboardist, or something like that--and one wonders if that "friend" has put his income and job-security on the line.

Also, two days ago, the DUmmie "flyarm" stated bluntly that the felonious DUmmie Andy Stephenson had "gotten into" Johns Hopkins under false pretenses, lies, and moaned to the DUmmies that her husband "might" lose his job because of it.

In any case, I seriously doubt the DUmmies have culled even the first $25,000 (of the $50,000 allegedly needed) from Paypal, amazon, checks in the mail, or this "loan."

Maat (1000+ posts) Mon May-09-05 03:52 PM Response to Original message 8. Also, I hope Skinner and the Adms and the Mods forgive Andy for putting a thread up (that got locked), and I'm sure they have or don't think there is anything to forgive.Andy's under a whole lot of pressure.We found a way to get things done without breaking DU rules.We need Andy thinking about getting well.Kudos to all DUers!I still say this will go down as one of the better Progressive Movement actions in the long run.Supporting Air America will be another.

I remain curious; why did the Grand DUmmie "Skinner" "lock" those fund-raising threads?

What were the DUmmie "rules" that got violated?

seabeyond (1000+ posts) Mon May-09-05 03:53 PM Response to Original message 10. you need to get more donations, from checks that arent going to be received, but promised. and from fees attached to these orginizationsi think

"You need to get more donations....."

Ah, a perceptive DUmmie.....

Stay tuned.....Okay, I need to go to bed now.

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