Posted on 11/04/2004 11:50:51 PM PST by Ol' Sparky
Palast's argument has just gone up in smoke (even if it hadn't before this point) with that sentence. The report that he makes reference to is a bad joke. The Civil Rights Commission is run by a noxious, arrogant, downright evil conservative-hating witch named Mary Frances Berry who is more rabidly partisan than anyone in Washington that I can think of. And the research for that "study" was done by a former consultant for Al Gore.
From a thread I authored based on a June 21, 2001 Washington Times article about the CRC report:
It's amazing that on one hand, liberals will insist that conservatives fix ballots because blacks are too dumb to figure them out, and on the other hand, those same liberals will say that blacks and other minorities should have lower academic standards to gain admittance to medical and law school.
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission´s study that concluded Florida blacks were disenfranchised in last year´s presidential election was conducted by a consultant to former Vice President Al Gore, The Washington Times has learned.To obtain the raw data from this study, the commission´s two Republican appointees said they have been reduced to submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to their own commission.
They said the group´s Democratic majority has been slow to provide this and other information they need in order to write their dissenting opinion before Senate Democrats begin hearings next week.
The study, which Democrats on the commission leaked to The Washington Post and the New York Times, was conducted by American University history professor Alan Lichtman, who is listed on the school´s Web site as "consultant to Vice President Albert Gore Jr."
"He´s obviously very pro-Gore," said Russell Redenbaugh, one of two conservatives on the eight-member commission. "The Lichtman statistics are arcane and controversial. The statistical methodology used is not at all mainstream and not universally accepted."
Mr. Lichtman yesterday emphasized that he also has done consulting work for Republicans, including Lee Atwater and New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, although he has never worked for President Bush.
"I haven´t been a consultant for Gore for six years," he said. "So it´s really unfair of them to be attacking me personally."
Republican Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom said Mr. Lichtman´s attempts to portray himself as bipartisan were "hilarious."
"The fact is he´s a hired gun for minority plaintiffs in voting rights cases," she said. "He´s very driven by his commitment to finding disenfranchisement and finding violations of the Voting Rights Act. I mean, it´s just blatant in all his work."
Les Gin, staff director for the Democrat-controlled commission, said the staff did not know when they retained Mr. Lichtman that he had been a consultant to Mr. Gore.
"If we had known, would it have made any difference?" he asked rhetorically. "The truth is, it probably would not have."
Mr. Gin said Mr. Lichtman was hired partly because the staff liked his testimony during the commission´s hearings in January in Tallahassee, Fla.
"I think he did a very nice job of presenting as a witness down in Tallahassee," he said. "At that point, I think there was a feeling that Dr. Lichtman was a very good person to finish this project."
But the commission´s Republican appointees cited Mr. Lichtman´s January testimony as proof that his conclusions about black disenfranchisement were a foregone conclusion.
"While I´ve done no study of my own, I´ve handed out to you a New York Times article from Nov. 29, which does show that in fact there are disparate election systems used in the state of Florida," Mr. Lichtman testified at the time.
"Minorities perhaps can go to the polls unimpeded, but their votes are less likely to count because of the disparate technology than are the votes of whites," he added.
After the commission appointed him, Mr. Lichtman conducted a statistical analysis that claimed to confirm that thesis. But Republicans said the study should have been conducted by a statistician, not a historian, and certainly not by someone who once worked for Mr. Gore.
Moreover, the GOP appointees complained that Mr. Lichtman´s study was sprung on them just two days before the commission´s June 8 hearing. Mr. Redenbaugh, who is blind, did not have enough time to arrange for someone to read him the report.
"It´s an [Americans with Disabilities Act] violation, even though he won´t say anything because he hates being in the category of disabled and making a fuss about it," said Mrs. Thernstrom.
"I mean, we´re discussing a report page by page that a commissioner who is blind has not had an opportunity to read," she added. "He had no access to that report, in effect. They treated him as not a commissioner who was entitled to read this document."
Mr. Redenbaugh downplayed his lack of timely access to the report.
He said the important point is that Democratic members of the commission have refused to provide the raw data on which the study is based.
Both Mr. Redenbaugh and Mrs. Thernstrom have filed FOIA requests to obtain this and other information they say is crucial for their dissenting opinion, which is due next week.
"It´s appalling that we have had to submit a FOIA request," Mrs. Thernstrom said. "But we can´t get the data. We´ve got some paper, but we can´t enter all these numbers and make them machine readable. I want his disks because the taxpayers paid for them."
But Mr. Lichtman said he has no computer disks containing statistical databases or models. Besides, he said, he provided paper copies of the raw numbers and listed the Web sites for his source materials.
"It´s all on the Web," he said. "In my report, I point out all the Web sites. I mean, this data has been available for months. There´s no secret data and they got a hard copy of all the data as well. So this is nonsense."
Mr. Gin agreed.
"I´m a little surprised by the fact that they´ve filed FOIA requests, because that´s not the way we do business with commissioners," he said. "Dr. Lichtman does not have that data on a disk; he doesn´t have it in one place. He just took the information off the Internet."
Republicans rejected the idea that they should re-create Mr. Lichtman´s study by trying to duplicate from scratch his collection methods and analysis of data from numerous sources.
They accused the Democrats of deliberately stonewalling so that the dissenting report will not be published before Wednesday, when Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, convenes hearings on the election.
The first two witnesses at the hearing will be Mrs. Thernstrom and the commission´s liberal chairman, Mary Frances Berry. Miss Berry, who has given $19,000 to Democrats since 1992, did not return phone calls for this story.
What happens, and this guy doesn't get it, is that the surveys come back and then are applied to a mathematical model, a guess, of who's voting and when it's all over they're adjusted to mirror the *actual* voting so the networks and others can do analysis of the electorate's reasoning and demographics.
He's a sniveling moron and will never admit, like Michael Moore, some of the race hustlers and that kook and conspiracy wing of the Democrat Party, that despite all the funds from Soros, all the 527s, the MSM, the vandalism, the burglaries, the SERIES of "October Surprise(s)" and more, George Walker Bush won reelection.
And, did he ever stop and thing, if minority areas have disproportionately high "spoilage" that maybe, just maybe, if they embraced education and not hip-hop slacker values, their votes would be cast LEGALLY rather than ILLEGALLY? No, of course not... Democrats want to divine the "intent of the voter" via Ouija boards and channeling.
According to exit polls conducted outside of Fenway Park in the ninth inning of Game 4, the New York Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox and won the American League Pennant four games to none.
All right thinking Americans wish the Yankees luck in the World Series.
Thank you!
I've seen a lot of desperate attempts to "prove" the results were wrong based on the disparity between them and the early exit poll data.
This helps dispel that notion.
Palast doesn't believe this. But he knows some Dims are DUmb enough to believe it. And most are Dishonest enough to say they do.
Heh heh. I was watching SeeBS coverage that night. Blather was interviewing Blackwell concerning the Ohio vote. At one point, Blackwell laughed him off because of his nutty behavior, when Dan was losing it. (Paraphrase) "Mr. Blackwell, I'm serious, this is serious business."
(Blackwell, with a big smile on his face) Yes, Mr. Rather, we'll ensure alllll the votes will be counted."
I was LMAO. Great stuff. Blackwell is cool.
When this evil drivel is exposed to the light of day it is uncanny how fast it shrivels and goes up in smoke...
A little prayer:
Dear Lord, thank you for not making me a liberal journalist who reports personal opinions and wishful thinking as facts, to the everlasting amusement of people who know better. Amen.
I'd somehow forgotten about her and her little fiefdom. Another victory won with Bush's reelection.
thank god no one actually READS that magazine. but the pictures are nice.
We need to tell them to MYOB. Our elections and the rules that govern them are NOT decided by the OSCE. Outsiders should NOT have access to our polling places. They will expect to monitor every election now. Doesn't this worry any of you?
"Barbara Haering: These elections met most of the requirements demanded by the OSCE. There were problems and irregularities but not many. However, we are critical of the new law [Help America Vote Act] introduced in 2002 . It leaves a lot of room for interpretation and that has to change.
International observers must also be assured free access to all polling stations in all states.
B.H.: The US is in the middle of a long-term, exhaustive process to reform its electoral system. It was the first time that a national law was dictated to the state governments. The wording of the law introduced two years ago must become more precise, and I’m sure our recommendations will be considered."
this "article" is a good example of why i can no longer stand democrats...they are always a victim of something or another.
This guy's on some goooood drugs.
Do they ever do anything but whine and complain. I hope we don't have to listen to this diatribe for the rest of our lives.
Please, please! NO ONE CONTACT THIS WRITER AND TRY TO SET THEM STRAIGHT. We need the left to believe their delusional rantings, else they may wake up out of their stupors and actually examine why they lost.
"Shows how stupid some liberals are. They need to start pushing for affirmative action for mental nitwits then maybe they could compete."
"They need to learn to push out a chad first."
Remedial Voting
Cliff Notes version . . . we didn't lose, you cheated, and I'm telling.
I'm beginning to wonder if that really is the endgame for these neo-marxists running the DNC.
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