posted December 13, 2003 12:21 PM            

Kathleen Harris oversaw the Florida election according to the laws, rules, policies and regulations established by the Florida legislature, which is the law in Florida. It is the obligation of every citizen of the state to register or reregister to vote; if they have not registered before, have not voted for a certain number of years or have moved since the last election. Further, those convicted of a felony were not eligible to vote in Florida elections, one of the penalties for criminal behavior, as it should be.

A private company was hired to update the voter rolls for the state, a procedure followed by many other states. Neither Kathleen Harris or Jeb Bush struck any voters, either qualified or unqualified from the voter rolls. Effectively, those disqualified from voting in the election disqualified themselves by their own actions or inaction. The duty is on the citizen to register not on the state to get anyone registered or qualified to vote. I moved between the elections of 1996 and 2000. First thing I did was have the power, water and phone service turned on----and the same day, I reregistered to vote in my new precinct. It was really difficult, took all of 3 minutes and 2 weeks later, my new voter registration card showed up in the mail at my new home. I can see how it would be a real bother for the apathetic and lazy who later want to use the issue as a smokescreen for their own lack of responsibility.

Since Bush wasn't President, he could not have suspended the election laws in Florida or any place else for the 2000 election. The Electoral College elects the President----after all the states have certified their votes and that's exactly what happened in the 2000 elections.

You're making a lot of charges. So how about listing all the rights you've lost "as a citizen" of the United States during the Bush Presidency that you had before he became President?

So, the President is suppressing democracy in Taiwan. Is that your allegation Motherkonfessor? How unfortunate for you to suggest that, given the fact it's the United States which guarantees Taiwan's security interests from China. Further, there is a "democratic" form of government on Taiwan.

So, you are in favor of a war with China over Taiwan's independence? Because that's exactly what's at stake and it's almost a foregone conclusion it would be a nuclear war. You in favor of that Motherkonfessor?

I think the President is in favor of Taiwan's independence--when Taiwan can guarantee it's own security.

posted December 13, 2003 12:26 PM            

Maybe Ken named himself that because he didn't want the world to know true identity if he proved himself an idiot with all those court hearings and didn't have a leg to stand on. SO,he chosed the very first thing he saw,the big giant pentagram with a goats head in the middle of the floor of the Oval office(left there by the first Bush)! The markings are still there,underneath the big carpet with the giant Presidential Seal!

The extra "R" is just there,just because he didn't want give the Bush Family secret away!

posted December 13, 2003 01:16 PM            

Get a grip. You are such an angry person when all I wanted was for you to use a proper analogy for your crazy propaganda. I don't care if you hate me, that is obvious, but it doesn't affect me in any way. However, you did just prove your tendency to go off the deep end with your response.

I brought it up because I DO work in the cattle / dairy business and I am a member of a national cattlemen's organization as well as several state organizations. I also have had the pleasure of working with horses, poultry and other livestock animals.

The thing is, regardless of your hate for Bush, which I don't care about since you are entitled to your opinion, I just wanted to know WHY you hate Texas so much and keep denegrating ranchers. A majority of my family is from Texas and Kansas. So I do find it offensive that you spew such venom towards the entire state.

I guess I have never experienced a person that can be so incredibly polarized against a population, state or administration, that they would bend any example to fit their need. It would be like using Peanut farming as an evil industry because one hated Carter with such venom. I find it a bit funny, in an awkward was as well.

Hate me all you want. I will still post my opinion (and for the record, I only got on your case once - I have not led any attacks on you - that is a thought born in your own mind / imagination). Your feelings for me will not impact my everyday life, my future or that of the great state of Texas. But you are good for a chuckle now and again.

posted December 13, 2003 02:38 PM            

You won't have to worry anymore about that knock on the door from the secret police, wonder if that black helicopter is after you, the secret police have your phone tapped or are tracking every keystroke on your keyboard Next time, that knock on the door might be a government employee with a check.

Call your Congressperson for the official book of government programs, something in there for everyone. They've got grants, no pay back, and low interest loans for just about every purpose. Suggest you try for a grant to write a book since most of what you write is fiction anyway. Just like MS Cleo. Might as well get paid for your flights of fancy, eh?

Thinking about writing one myself, non fiction of course. "Democrats, Socialists and Lemmings," "A March into Oblivion." Or perhaps "Compendium of Lies," "Clearing the Clinton Smoke, From White Lies to Damned Lies".

Now, if you'll just post a picture of the carpet rolled back in the Oval Office showing that pentagram with the goat's head, my day will be complete.

Ummm, did I mention that I like Texas and Texans?

jwhop

posted December 13, 2003 03:57 PM            

juniperb

posted December 13, 2003 06:15 PM              

i looked at your profile and it says that you are a veteran. were you in the persian gulf war? what branch of the military did you serve? what area did you work with?

my dad served as an US air force pilot during the viet nam war. he left the service after the war ended and became a high school french teacher and social worker.
seems like a reverse 180. though i hadn't asked him if that were indeed the case.

he is retired now and lives in a little town on northern california's coast. far, far away from life's hustle and bustle. he is focused on taking care of his teenage daughter, josephine. isn't that a pretty name? i think he's done a pretty good job keeping her focused on school and going to college. and he cooks!

so that's my story about a scorpio dad.

take care,

posted December 14, 2003 11:07 AM            

juniperb

posted December 14, 2003 01:07 PM            

My Dad was in Veit Nam too as a Flight Lieutenant flying those Hueies,I forgot what company he fought with,but he did tell my sister once that HE WAS at X-ray. He loved to cook too. He has passed away around a year and a half ago.

posted December 14, 2003 01:38 PM            

I`m a landscaper too I prefer working with perenials and annuals. My back isn`t up to much more than bushs... trees I have to leave to someone else. I make a good straw boss there I love designing with our beautiful multi colored granite stone

juniperb

posted December 14, 2003 03:13 PM            

I'm sorry that my first impression of you wasn't a good one,but YOUR the only one that has given me that impression(right from the word "GO"),so if your so surprised over the fact,I don't see how.

posted December 14, 2003 06:11 PM            

quote:

---

I was proud to be an American because at least I knew I was free.

---

Presumably, you're not proud to be an American anymore FishKitten, seeing a tyranny in every action the government takes.

Your comparison of the governments of the Soviet Union and the United States is offensive, in the extreme. The Soviets came to power in a bloody revolution, and maintained their grip on the nation by mass murder, estimated to approach 100,000,000 of their own citizens. Just like the United States huh?

If your post was intended to answer the question, "what rights have you lost as a citizen of the United States", it falls short. Since you seem to think your rights have been lost, you should be able to clearly and specifically enunciate which rights you no longer have that you had before.

There are no United States citizens being held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. There are foreign born terrorists captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and elsewhere who represent no legitimate government involved in the conflict. They are not entitled to prisoner of war status nor are they entitled to the Constitutional rights granted to citizens of the United States. They are not entitled to a criminal trial in the United States under our prevailing laws either.

Just so you know, the enemy combatant/unlawful combatant and enemy belligerent designation was used by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 to detain without bail, legal counsel or other rights, saboteurs engaged in acts of sabotage against the United States in favor of Nazi Germany. One of those saboteurs was an American citizen, Herbert Hans Haupt, who was tried in a military court, convicted and executed. This action by the President and Congress was upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
Nothing really new with these designations of terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay.

jwhop

posted December 15, 2003 12:14 AM            

Our Constitution includes rights far beyond basic human rights. I like it that way but those rights don't include everything some people take for granted.

The terrorists being detained are receiving basic human rights but not the full array of rights US citizens enjoy. They are not under the jurisdiction of the US Court system and should not be. In the mean time, they are being given basic human rights, food, clothing and shelter along the same lines as prisoners in mainstream prisons in the US.
If and when they are tried, they will have legal representation and an opportunity to participate in their own defense.

If you truly want to see human rights extended to all people on earth no matter where they live then you must be in favor of seeing the governments of North Korea, China, Cuba, Burma, Libya, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia et al. swept off the face of the earth. Right?

posted December 15, 2003 12:34 PM            

juniperb

posted December 15, 2003 02:13 PM              

In 1982, there were countless dictatorships in Latin America. Today, all the countries of the area, except Cuba, have a government elect by the people with democracy.

Latin America, including Brazil, was during years the scenery of dictatorships formed by military coup d'état that had a total and unrestricted American support.

Everything in the name of the "free, Western and Christian world", as they used to say in those Cold War days.

I’ll give you just a few examples-all documented- of what I just wrote...

In 1964, Lincoln Gordon, the U.S. ambassador in Brazil, together with the CIA station chief in Brazil, involved themselves in the plans for a coup against the elected Brazilian President.
At that time, CIA and Pentagon put together "Operation Brother Sam," complete with aircraft carrier, guided missiles, tanks, destroyers, and 6 tons of ammunition to be used if needed.

They had success and the military government assumed the power in April of 1964. Washington joined the chorus chanting that the coup d'état of the "democratic forces" had staved off the hand of international communism.
So, from 1964/1985 Brazil has a repressive military regime...

The establishment of a new kind of military dictatorship in Brazil-the "modernizing" dictatorship forever- opened the road to the other similar ones in the continent: Argentina in 1966, Bolivia in 1971, Uruguay and Chile in 1973.

On September, 11, 1973...yes, Sept.11...the President of Chile Salvador Allende, who was supported by a left-wing coalition, was overthrown by the military coup headed by general Augusto Pinochet that lasted 17 years.
It was one of the bloodiest interventions of United States in Latin America…There’s an excellent movie which was based on real facts about that period: "Missing", by Costa-Gravas.

Thanks God, today, we don’t have to seek communist even under the beds...maybe because now they are authorized to be communist...especially if they come from China...

Anyway, I don't want to transform my post in an ideological attack to capitalism, even because economy has reasons that the own reason ignores.

What I want, sincerely, it’s to present a type of antidote to the mistaken ideological content that some people try to impose, in a certain way, a dictatorship of reasoning: capitalist= democratic; socialist=anti-democratic.

Recently, the great philosopher of present time, George W. Busch, said that the world is divided between the good and the evil and competes to all of us the choice between support the United States, being beside the good, or to be considered, unavoidably, beside the evil, in that case in opposition to the American purposes.

I think we have capacity to produce more relevant thoughts than those and I refuse, for that, any type of unjustified speech, just based on ideological postures. To say that “any manifestation of indignation against the social injustice provoked by the world capitalism”,is equal and qualifies someone as a dictator and anti-democratic it is an authentic terrorist attack against the scientific knowledge and the humanity's evolution.

Jackie

posted December 15, 2003 02:45 PM            

I can only hope(from our experience with your countries and yours with ours)that we can work out our differences with a more concidered amount of diplomacy without having to use any weapons of any kind for the safehold agenda of peace...

...since there is no more Cold War to worry about!

posted December 15, 2003 02:59 PM            

I never hated you. I only jumped your case when I felt you attacked someone for something that was uncalled for. I wasn't even the one that asked for the thread to be closed.

At any rate. I don't appreciate you saying that me and my cop family just stand, smile and nod while terrible things happen.

My father comes from a large family that started out poor but with good strong Texas convictions. They worked hard and they worked together in a time when American Indians, especially those of mixed blood, were spit on. They do not hold hatred in their heart and over half the kids went on to defend this country.

My father, before becoming a police officer and later a Special agent for the state, fought in Vietnam. He was in the paratrooper in the Green Beret and watched many of his friends die in that war. The only time I have seen my father break down and cry was at the memorial a few years back. I took him to the wall and there he stood, looking the names of soldiers he fought with. I watched as the man I idolized broke down and shook all over. BUT, he NEVER regretted fighting for THIS COUNTRY.

Now he and I may not always agree about politics, but we are not the kind of family that sits by and just hopes for crumbs to fall of the table. We work hard, we contribute and we vote.

My Father is going to finally retire from the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement as one of the top agents in his field. EVERYDAY he put his life on the line to make the streets better for people he does not even know. He does this because that is the type of man he is and that is how he raised us.

So many people bash on cops, but how many of you have fathers, sons daughters, mothers or spouses that you say goodbye to everyday and not know if you will ever see them again becaues of their jobs? Their job is to protect those people they have never met and if 1% of them are corrupted there are still 99% of them who wear those badges because they believe in humanity.

We cry that we are unfairly treated in a protest, well let me ask you. If you had to wear the uniform and protect a building that you have no ties to against people you don't know, but they already hate you, how would you feel? People pick on cops as though they are apart of some "force" that stands on it's own only to hurt others - never once thinking that those cops are PEOPLE.

My father has been marked for a hit on several occasions, so has my family. Has your family ever had to "hide out" because some drug dealers wanted to kill you? No, I didn't think so!

posted December 15, 2003 03:54 PM            

For the sake of any kind of goodness,the 20th century has brought on alot of bad mistakes from us all(worldwide),but this is now a good time to (at least)to try to change all that! FOR THE BETTER!

I know too many cops that have faced the life of danger on a daily basis,that they would never know whether or not they would EVER come back home,that they have seen alot of unimaginable things whenever out on duty and off duty,there is NO LOVE on the streets for the "Blue Knight" and for they're spouces and children,sometimes the refletion is there,like as if it has NEVER left them(the horrors that they see out there in the REAL WORLD)and when it is all over and done with,they just stand there like as if there is something missing,like as if no matter how far away from THAT reality they are,they still feel as if it is still close by,for it is,it is within themselves(like a cross that they have to carry that is even more heavier than other peoples)and the blood that they have seen shed was only wished to be they're own,rather then the victims that THEY would have to be in presence of that was subject to such a thoughtless,stupid mistake that should have never had been! The carelessness of the ones that have provoked it,when will it be the day that WE ALL are truely free?

But I know also that there are cops out there that never have to worry about having to face all that,that all care about is the NEXT RANK! I'm sure your father knows of them as well.

Your wrong Pidaua,for their was a time(during the 70's and 80's on the streets of New York City)MY dad was a detective that was transfered from Mannhattan,to Brooklyn,to some serious parts of The Bronx and parts of Queens(when back then it was nothing more then a warzone)and NOW my little brother is out there(a little safer now),but what exactly does THAT mean?