The new and improved, fight-free Romney vs. Obama thread!

Did you sleep through the Bush years? From your beloved Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21ridge.html

WASHINGTON — Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, asserts in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote.

After Osama bin Laden released a threatening videotape four days before the election, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pushed Mr. Ridge to elevate the public threat posture but he refused, according to the book. Mr. Ridge calls it a “dramatic and inconceivable” event that “proved most troublesome” and reinforced his decision to resign.

 

Ashcroft.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=woLQI8X2R6Y

 

Ouch ...

 

Wrong!

In Texas, for instance, they are, at minimum, $6.

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/DriverLicense/dlfees.htm

 

Four pack of PBR pounders, $3.99. Pwned.

Oh wait, you said good.

 

No mention in that article of Ashcroft giving political speeches.

Ridge "suspected" the "pressure" was intended to influence the vote.

His spokesperson denies it even happened:

But, other than that...

Also, what's with the, "beloved Times" snark? Are you mocking me, the Times, or both? Why?

Did I miss the political speech in that clip?

 

It can, however, cost a significant amount for the documentation required to obtain the free IDs.

 

It's not paying a fee to vote. That's silly.

I had to pay $20 for a copy of my son's birth certificate as part of the verification process when he was selected to his district all-star baseball team last summer. I had lost the original and had to pay for the replacement or he wouldn't be allowed to play.

When we're working that hard to make sure some 19-year-old flamethrower with a goatee doesn't try to pass himself off as a little leaguer, is it unreasonable to verify that prospective voters in a presidential election are who they say they are?

 

Unless your son has a Constitutional right to play Little League, I'm not sure what your point is.

You can't charge people to vote. You can't put unnecessary hurdles in front of people to vote.

And when every one of these laws will disproportionately affect races of people other than caucasian, it isn't hard to connect the dots. What's more, the fig leaf "problem" these laws are supposed to address has been shown over and over and over and again not to exist.

Here endeth the lesson.

 

Please Zeke. I find your "lesson" hilarious coming from the supporter of a party that:

A. Was the original disenfranchiser of the same poor Southern black voters you purportedly seek to protect.

B. Made no bones about fixing God-knows-how-many elections in our current POTUS' home city.

I also find it curious that you think it's somehow "unnecessary" to force someone to verify that they are who they say they are before they're given the right to vote.

Sorry, but I don't trust a bunch of Democrats raised on crooked-ass Chicago machine politics to walk the straight and narrow with the Oval Office on the line.

 

You know that every election someone, somewhere, votes when he/she shouldn't. To say otherwise is being disingenuous. You also know that such instances have little practical effect; elections aren't decided (in the main) by such votes. Finally, you know that there is a ton of wiggle room in "unnecessary hurdles" ... just because the hurdle's been raised doesn't necessarily mean we've crossed over into unnecessary territory.

I'm not going to get bent out of shape either way. I don't see any constitutional problem with a modest verification program, inasmuch as everyone will be held to the same standard. But then again, the shenanigans played by either party in redistricting bothers me way the hell more than the idea that someone out there's voting who shouldn't be.