Samantha
Samantha's JournalThere was no provision in Florida's state constitution for a statewide recount
The only way Gore could have received one would be through permission of the Governor (and we all remember who that was) or by court order. The Florida Supreme Court did order the statewide recount, and it should have had the last word. The Constitution clearly delegates the right to run Presidential elections to the states, and each state must outline its election laws in the state constitution. The Supreme Court jumped in and took the appeal from the Florida Supreme Court.
The "Republican rules" referred to in this thread was the older version of the rules which had been amended about two years earlier. The revised rules were the ones that Gore referred to in selecting a small number of counties for a sampling recount. Gore used the right rules; Bush illegally used the old ones because the Bush operators thought it was to his advantage.
Two years prior to Election 2000, a candidate for mayor was elected I believe in Miami (but I could be wrong) whose opponent hotly contested the win, saying the "winner" had stolen the election. The issue went to court. After a long trial, the "winner" was declared the loser, and the "loser" took over the mayoral seat. And that is why Florida revised its election law so it would never face this type of embarrassing situation again. Little did it know ....
The Supreme Court tried to justify stopping the recount by two laws: the Safe Harbor Law, a law passed centuries earlier when the states sent their slate of electors to Washington to be counted BY PONY EXPRESS. Often the riders and the horses did not get going until too late to reach DC by the time of the vote. Thus we received the Safe Harbor law to prevent a more timely dispatch of votes. In the year 2000, when slates were dispatched via more expeditious methods than by pony express, this law was one of the main laws used to stop the recount -- the potential violation of the Safe Harbor deadline.
The second law regarding equal protection of the vote was also cited as a reason for stopping the recount. Should Gore prevail in the recount by having votes not counted the first go-around but included in the second round tallied which made him the winner of the election, that would be less than fair to the original voters whose votes were first counted. The thinking stated was that a greater weight would be given to votes picked up in Round 2 than Round 1, and that would not be fair to the original voters. So the Supreme Court disallowed the recount on that equal weight issue. In handing the election to Bush*, the Supreme Court essentially offset the votes of nearly 500,000 people nationwide, the approximate popular vote win Gore achieved over Bush.*
If this sounds crazy to you, it is due to the fact that the whole thing was just that. As I said above, the Supreme Court had no authority to overrule the Florida Supreme Court, and this judgment handed down by it was based on political preferences as opposed to following the supreme law of the land.
And that is exactly why Bush was considered by many to be illegitimate, the protests happened at his inauguration, and this very website sprang into existence. I will always be thankful for the creation of DU because it carried me and many others through the deep, dark years of the Bush* selection.
Sam
Bernie's influence, his ideas, his suggestions, his work
will remain in our society while the bulk of his supporters continue to work for the goals he set out for us. Much has been done already that people do not realize.
300+ people are now running for elective office all over the Country on Bernie's platform. They are not taking corporate money to finance their elections. Additionally, when Bernie asked for a call for action for supporters sincerely interested in making a change to consider running for public office, approximately 7,000 people signed up at his website to get the information he was giving potential candidates to organize a campaign. This was just last week.
There is a political party getting up and running for the last year dedicated to the principle of removing from elected office those who represent the wealthy and corporate interests as opposed to the benefit of the people. They have a plan and they are implementing it as I type this post.
Bernie Sanders' fingerprints will be all over this society in changes we will see made slowly over the next few years. People who are now more aware of what they can do to change this country will step up to the plate and start doing.
I feel we owe Bernie Sanders so much for just showing people the way. He is an incredible politician and well as a great humanitarian.
Sam
You know I have been sitting here analyzing the Guardian website (live results voting)
and I just don't see what all the crowing has been about.
First of all, I think Hillary jumped to a big lead in California because they counted the mail in votes, which many of her supporters do. Over the last hour as I tediously watched, her percentage has very slowly been dropping and Sanders has very slowly been inching up. When last I looked, she was at 59.7 and he was at 39.3 with 36 percent of the vote counted. I don't know what percentage of the overall vote the mail-in constitutes, but at this point, I don't know how anyone knows how California ends up. Now this from looking at the Guardian website.
She did do well in NJ as expected, winning by 26.6 points when I last looked, and that was with 99.1 percent of the vote in. That is about what was projected.
She won New Mexico by 3 points. That was one that could have gone either way. They both hoped to take it, she did but only by 3. Won't make a big difference.
Montana Bernie won as was expected. When last I looked with 77.4 percent of the vote he won by about 5.4; don't know what the final numbers will be but that is respectable and it has been called for him.
Bernie hoped to win both the Dakotas -- he lost SD by 2 points but won ND by 38.6 points. The Dakotas gave him a good night!
So we just have to have wait for California to finish and we do have the comfort of knowing the election is being monitored by the Election Integrity group since there are no exit polls. So I think it too early to tell if that early AP maneuver hurt him or not.
But I am proud of Bernie Sanders performance, and I am proud to be his supporter. Nice going, Senator Sanders.
Sam
We have lost "The Greatest" but his legacy will endure forever
I first saw him dancing across the Olympic boxing ring when I was very young, and I could not take my eyes off him. He was mesmerizing. As a young sports enthusiast, I loved basketball, volleyball, many competitive activities but absolutely not boxing. It was just too violent. Yet here I was watching a man dancing across the boxing stage "floating like a butterfly but stinging like a bee." I followed his career the rest of my life, and he became a superhero to me in many, many ways.
Not the least of these ways by any means was his willingness to protest the Vietnam War by refusing to serve. What type of person does something like that when he or she is at the top of his game and stands to lose everything? A humanitarian does that.
In 2008, during the election, I wrote a piece and posted it here. It received some attention away from this site. I knew this when the election was called, and Chris Matthews remarked to the panel words to the effect that Obama was floating like a butterfly but stinging like a bee, and they all laughed. The piece I wrote compared similarities between these two great men who came out of nowhere and against all odds ended up sitting on top of the world.
I would like to share that thread with you in case you missed it. Here are the first few paragraphs and a link to the rest. I still have the two pictures mentioned in the thread proudly hanging on my hallway wall, and I count them as true treasures.
Sam
From: Political Sporting Comments from Inside the Beltway, May 17, 2008
He danced across the Olympic boxing stage more quickly than a tae kwon do tornado, whipping down to earth as if a killer whirlpool. So graceful was his footwork across the ring, Michael Jackson must have gazed at the sight of him in open awe. His punches were lightning-bolt swift and just as electrifying. He fought the bruising battle like a giant smashing a bug with a swat too quickly to be observed with the naked human eye. His float like a butterfly, sting like a bee motto could not have been more fitting. He was mesmerizing – this man to be known as Muhammad Ali.
And so I watched from across the room with unabashed thrill at the sight of a man participating in a sport I had vigorously avoided all my young life. It was simply too barbaric a thing - that sport called boxing -- for me to observe. Yet here I stood in my Republican father's living room, saying "look at him, look at him!" The man from Tennessee watched momentarily and then responded, "He's no Joe Lewis." "But that's why I like him," I excitedly yelled.
I followed the career of Muhammad Ali the rest of his professional life. As a young female who migrated from Knoxville to Washington, my ears were roundly boxed at times by all my Southern family members. "What do you possibly see in him - this guy who's going to ruin boxing?" was their constant admonishment.
As his career started to take off, I found myself some years later just a few short miles from where he set up his training camp to prepare to fight Jimmy Young. By then, I was married to an artist, who himself practiced tae kwon do by night, and indulged in photography with a gifted eye. This man I married had zero interest in the boxing world. But knowing of my fascination with Muhammad Ali, he came home to tell me one night of the training camp just down the road from where we lived.
"Would you like to go -- I could take some pictures for you," he asked.
Later that evening, there my artist mate was at ringside, snapping away with the press photographers. Roll after roll of film he took. It was simply one of the best nights of my life. When the film was developed, he asked me to pick two that he would enlarge. Today, these two are among my most valued treasures. One of them is a close up of a young Muhammad Ali. Every muscle from the waist up is captured in one of the photographs, showing beads of perspiration dripping from the ripples of those incredible muscles after his dazzling workout in the ring. The other is a full body shot which showcases the perfect position of the man in action, pulverizing the leather of a full body bag, with the bag in full swing into the air, and the body of the boxer throwing a perfectly-executed punch. Both are simply beautiful.
More at: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6005693
I believe we will never see the likes of someone like him who through a myriad of avenues taught us all a very important life lesson: it doesn't matter what people say about you, it doesn't matter what people think about you, but when you are knocked down, you have to always get back up and keep following that personal road to your destiny. And that is how one becomes "The Champ."
Peace to the soul and to the family of the Great Ali. We will never forget and the love will never die.
Sam
"It is all about me"
and the money, too, of course. That is what it is about for Hillary Clinton.
I am surprised at a couple of things you said (meaning I didn't know you knew them) but I will throw in a couple of thoughts.
Yes, she has endangered President Obama's term in office. I knew that when I read about another incident I do not want to describe here right now. Many people think that he will "save" her but the truth of the matter is, I am going to put this politely, he will not influence her future.
There is a legal perspective under which one can say President Obama is responsible for the acts of Hillary Clinton, but I don't want to talk about that either. I want him to be able to leave office in a dignified manner unscathed by this debacle. He has done a wonderful job for the most part, and he deserves credit for that. A lot. Not an impeachment.
I do not know what will be the outcome of this whole devastating debacle, but I do know that some time ago the FBI's opinion was that it had enough evidence to nail down her indictment and conviction, and that if it did not happen that would be for political reasons, in which case many agents and probably Comey as well would resign. The DOJ seems to agree that the evidence is there, but the problem is other people think the ramifications of an indictment are potentially too earth-shattering to touch. Hard to imagine, isn't it?
I personally hope that Hillary after seeing all of the evidence the FBI has negotiates a deal that allows her no time in prison.
Sam
"Bernie Sanders Could Still Win the Democratic Nomination -- No, Seriously" says Huff-Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/bernie-sanders-could-still-win-the-democratic-nomination----no-seriously_b_9898436.htmlAfter Clinton’s Indiana loss, John King had told CNN viewers that “if Sanders were to win nine out of ten of the remaining contests, there’s no doubt that some of the super-delegates would panic. There’s no doubt some of them would switch to Sanders. What he has to do is win the bulk of the remaining contests. Would that send jitters, if not panic, through the Democratic Party? Yes. Yes it would.”
* * *
Super-delegates would be meaningless if their only purpose were to validate the primary and caucus results, which is why that consideration had absolutely nothing to do with their creation. When super-delegates were created in 1984, it was in fact to avoid a repeat of what had almost happened in 1980: a candidate with no shot at winning the general election almost becoming the popular-vote and pledged-delegate winner. It may seem counter-intuitive to some now, but the Democratic Party in 1984 wanted a mechanism available to vote down the Party’s prospective nominee — the popular-vote and pledged-delegate winner — if that person couldn’t be elected in the November general election. So when Howard Dean, former presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee Chair, said several months ago that he would cast his super-delegate vote without regard for the popular vote or pledged-delegate race, he was only stating what has been true about super-delegates for 32 years now: their role in the process is only “activated” either (a) to validate a historically weak front-runner who isn’t able to clinch the nomination via pledged delegates alone (in which case the super-delegates are “active,” and yet things would be no different if they didn’t exist), or, more profoundly, (b) to preclude the nomination of someone who can’t win the general election.
* * *
If Sanders runs the table in 2016, it will mean the following has (by June 7th) happened:
Sanders has won 19 of the final 25 state primaries and caucuses (not a typo);
Sanders is within a few hundred thousand votes of Clinton in the popular vote;
Sanders has won 54 percent of the pledged delegates since Super Tuesday; and
Sanders is in a dead heat with Clinton in national polling.
Much, much more at the above link. And kudos to CNN's John King, who appears to have initiated the "run the table" scenario on CNN.
So cheer up, Sanders' supporters, and the next time someone tells you Sanders can't win, smile and tell them he is running the table.
Sam
Here is a strange thing
For the first time since this campaign started, I sensed last night something bubbling underneath the surface. I started thinking about it, but then the phone rang. It was my Republican brother from Florida. I told him what I was feeling, and he said he felt the same thing.
Things are not the way they were even last week. When I watched the coverage of the West Virginia primary, I couldn't believe CNN. It was actually civil, occasonally complimentary, of Bernie. Today we read Rupert Murdock wants people to vote for Bernie Sanders (pardon me while I step out for a heart attack). And then yesterday we had Comey stepping out of the shadows saying, this is not a security review. This is an investigation. Not a big deal, but certainly done for a reason....
It is a lot of little things starting to come together that makes me feel something is bubbling underneath. Perhaps it is a combination of a political volcano erupting over a mountain of alleged criminal allegations which leaves us uneasy.
Sam
Absolutely correct
Additionally, the first early states to vote where chosen for the perception they would all go for Hillary. Sanders at that time was a virtual unknown in that part of the Country. Most in the South had never heard his name or heard him speak. During that time frame, both Sanders and O'Malley were experiencing "The Big Ignore" from the MSM, which enhanced Hillary's odds. Those successive wins by Clinton allowed her to jump to an amazing early lead, after which she started staying she was inevitable.
Maybe someone should have told Hillary the only things inevitable are death and taxes.
Looking at the tools Bernie Sanders had on hand to compete with the Clinton machine, and looking at where he is now, it is clear what he has achieved is Herculean. The integrity, intelligence and the platform on which he stands has riveted the masses in a manner I personally have never before observed, and I have been watching for decades.
Sam
Bill Press just said, as the former Chairman of the California Democratic Party, I think Bernie wins
it. I also think he will carry Oregon and maybe Kentucky. Press is sitting on the CNN commentary panel this evening, and the whole panel wonderfully has been fair and impartial. CNN also ran a good bit of Sanders' speech this evening.
I personally think if the voters in Kentucky are as impacted by Clinton's remarks about doing away with coal miners' jobs as were the people of West Virginia, Bernie Sanders might add a second southern state to his quiver of wins.
He is doing well driving home the point he has the better chance of defeating Trump in the General Election.
It also seems noticeable he has fully recovered his fighting spirit and is indeed in it to win it.
Sam
Why did you say this? I am interested because that is also where I believe this is going
A special prosecutor takes Loretta Lynch off the hook. It will also delay a finding for probably two years. If Hillary wins the Democratic primary and should triumph over Trump, sitting in the Oval Office as President will give her a certain protection she does not now have. While the talk of a Republican impeachment rattles around, perhaps those spreading this do not realize a President can only be impeached for conviction of crimes committed during his or her term in office. A President cannot be impeached for a crime committed during the time frame before he or she took office. That is not to say a President cannot be forced out via other means; for instance, Nixon was talked into resigning based on the fact if he did not, the votes were there to impeach him. Nixon's crimes however were committed while he was in office.
The point is Hillary once she assumes her role as President (if she does in fact) cannot be impeached over crimes committed prior to her presidency. I do not see how a Special Prosecutor's investigation would be concluded before Inauguration Day. In other words, appointing a Special Prosecutor would be a stall tactic by the DOJ to drag this matter out so long it would simply fizzle from a lack of gas.
I heard the info from a Constitutional expert about the crime must have been committed during the President's term in office, not before. It was an interview some time ago, and I believe it was Jonathan Turley. I have found this which seems to back that up:
Relating to the President’s Official Duties
The fourth view is that an indictable crime is not required, but that the impeachable act or acts done by the President must in some way relate to his official duties. The bad act may or may not be a crime but it would be more serious than simply "maldministration." This view is buttresses in part by an analysis of the entire phrase "high crimes or misdemeanors" which seems to be a term of art speaking to a political connection for the bad act or acts. In order to impeach it would not be necessary for the act to be a crime, but not all crimes would be impeachable offenses.
- See more at: http://litigation.findlaw.com/legal-system/presidential-impeachment-the-legal-standard-and-procedure.html#sthash.GuEPMiqj.dpuf
litigation.findlaw.com/legal-system/presidential-impeachment-the-legal-standard-and-procedure.html
In other words, this is a wordy way of saying what is a simple concept: drag the thing out until it dies on its own.
Sam
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