…..You won’t be startled to hear that alt-right believers were more inclined to dehumanize, in evolutionary terms, their disfavored racial and ethnic groups, rating “White people” as more “evolved” than, say, “Mexicans, Nigerians, and Blacks.” Or rather you won’t be startled if you’ve been paying attention to our reporting here on the role of evolutionary thinking among racist right-wingers. (The left has its own racialists, but that’s a different discussion.)
Before anyone was talking about the alt-right, the racialist right was enamored with Darwinian theory as a justification for its prejudices. Not unlike some more conventional conservatives, they were impressed by its academic prestige and the way that it seemed to give support to preferred opinions.
As of a couple of days ago, white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups were being pulled offline by their web hosts. One of those groups is Stormfront.org. Back in 2009, in the wake of a shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, I described Googling the phrase “natural selection” as it appeared among writings of the website’s users. The shooter, James von Brunn, had composed a manifesto, highlighting his idea that “Natural Law: the species are improved through in-breeding, natural selection and mutation. Only the strong survive. Cross-breeding Whites with species lower on the evolutionary scale diminishes the White gene-pool.” Such thinking, more or less sophisticated in how it presents itself, finds an audience on the less extreme right.
Even the most respectable conservatives have to be wary. In 2012, I wrote about how National Reviewhad acted correctly in cleaning out two contributors with racialist or white nationalist ties. One was John Derbyshire, long known to us as a vitriolic critic of intelligent design. The other, Robert Weissberg, had spoken at an event that, I pointed out, was “heavy with evolutionary, Darwinian and eugenic themes, sponsored by a group [American Renaissance] with similar interests.” See “With Concerns about Darwinist Racialism in Mind, National Review Cleans House.”
In 2015, another white nationalist shooter, Dylann Roof, contributed his own manifesto, complete with a nod to pseudoscientific racism. Media reports tied Roof through a series of associations to activists who lean on scholarly sounding evolutionary racial theory. See “In Explaining Dylann Roof’s Inspiration, the Media Ignore Ties to Evolutionary Racism.”
In 2016, when the alt-right came to light under that now familiar name, I noted that, “Though this has escaped focused attention, the alternative right draws heavily on themes of evolution-based racism,” including eugenics, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary “race realism,” and more. I pointed to alt-right leader Richard Spencer’s Radix Journal (also now shut down by its web host) as the “mother lode of pseudo-conservative, pseudo-scientific racism.” See “Evolution and the Alt-Right.”
Of Spencer and his journal, National Review noted the other day that “The Alt-Right Carries on Margaret Sanger’s Legacy of Eugenics.” The evolutionary backdrop to this is, though, typically missed. Darwin himself, of course, a kindly figure, was no proto-Nazi. However, Darwinian theory and Darwin’s own writings have fueled racial and eugenic thinking for more than a century and a half, including that of Margaret Sanger, as John West has detailed at The Stream (“The Line Running from Charles Darwin through Margaret Sanger to Planned Parenthood”) and as we have noted here repeatedly. In his books, historian and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Richard Weikart meticulously describes the intellectual descent from Darwin to Hitler. Ranking the human races in relationship to gorillas is straight out of Darwin’s Descent of Man…….
What is the alt-right? What is its worldview? How big is it? Michael Knowles, bestselling author and host of The Michael Knowles Show, took a deep dive into alt-right culture. Here’s what he learned.
On June 23, 1865, in what was the last land battle of the war, Confederate Brigadier General and Cherokee Chief, Stand Watie, finally surrendered his predominantly Cherokee, Oklahoma Indian force to the Union. He was the last Confederate General “standing.”
…That same month, Watie’s command surprised a group of soldiers that included troops from the 79th U.S. Colored Infantry who were cutting hay for livestock at the fort. Instead of accepting the surrender of the African Americans, the Confederates killed 40 of them. Such exploits earned Watie promotion to brigadier general… (HISTORY BUFF)
A caller tells a story of a friend of his and how she had to kill her infant in order to keep herself and others hidden from the Nazis. This get Dennis Prager to poignantly explain where the onus lies for such things. Great addition to the quiver of clarity!
Here is a portion of that WASHINGTON EXAMINER article Prager is reading from:
Friday marked Sebastian Gorka’s last day at the White House. Democrats, progressives, and even many Republicans cheered. The Federalist published his resignation letter, although anonymous White House officials told the New York Times and Washington Post that he had been fired. The truth might lie in the middle: Chief of Staff John Kelly’s reported decision to withdraw Gorka’s clearance led Gorka to resign. Alas, few if any reporters were self-aware enough to recognize the cognitive dissonance: How could they have reported for months that Gorka lacked a clearance when, indeed, he had one all along?
Regardless, there was no shortage of criticism about Gorka. These centered on three broad themes:
Gorka was a right-wing extremist with ties to Neo-Nazi groups.
Gorka was not a real terrorism expert.
Gorka appeared on television too much.
Consider them in order:
First, the accusation that Gorka was a sympathizer with violent, fascist, Nazi-sympathizing groups in Hungary began when a left-wing blogger suggested that he wore a Vitezi Rend medal to the inaugural ball and that its display suggested ideological sympathy with neo-Nazis. Gorka responded to the accusation here. That the same blogger had earlier left the Center for American Progress under a cloud after Obama White House officials expressed concern at his and his colleagues’ use of anti-Semitic dog whistles in targeting Jewish policymakers, again, was an irony lost on those who seized upon the story uncritically.
The story grew when The Forward, a Jewish website and publication with socialist roots, purported to uncover a video affirming Gorka’s support for a Hungarian party subsequently accused of anti-Semitism. It subsequently emerged, however, that The Forward spliced the video to omit key portions in which Gorka warned against anti-Semitism or its flirting with anti-Semitic groups.
Here’s the key point: While many progressives and opponents of the regime accept with certainty that Gorka is a Nazi, a white nationalist, or an extremist, they have not been able to find a single statement or essay by Gorka or account of his speeches or comments supporting such positions. Given the volume of his previous writing, that should have been a red flag. The Nazi accusation is about as logical as concluding that a picture of Gorka absent his glasses represents a secret endorsement of the Khmer Rouge.
The situation gets worse: Three Democratic senators — Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durban, and Ben Cardin — have seized upon the calumny to suggest the Justice Department consider whether Gorka should have his citizenship revoked.
This sets a dangerous precedent. Politics in Washington are poisonous, with extremists on both sides of debates losing civility and seeking to criminalize policy debate. Donald Trump was guilty of that as a candidate, and Mike Flynn’s “lock her up” chants at the Republican National Convention were cringe-worthy, but threats to strip citizenship are a new low. Given the poison of dual loyalty accusations made by anti-Semites against Jews serving in public capacities, it is especially disturbing to hear Jewish-American senators seeming to use similar cards of insufficient loyalty to the United States against political opponents.
Second, what about the idea that Gorka was a non-expert? Long before Trump’s surprise rise to the presidency, I had the privilege of hearing Gorka lecture at the Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany; to the FBI; at the U.S. Marine Corps University; and to U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg. To suggest that he was unknown is simply dishonest. Indeed, his lectures tended to receive rave reviews.
Here’s what many proponents of the ‘amateur’ argument miss: The same charges many critics level at Gorka could just as easily apply to any other counter-terror specialist. Daniel Benjamin, who served as counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department during the Obama administration and worked on counter-terrorism during the Clinton administration at the National Security Council, got his start as a Time Magazine reporter. Francis Townsend, whom Condoleezza Rice picked as her terrorism advisor, got her start as a prosecutor focusing on organized crime.
Many of the academics who criticized Gorka as out of his depth at certain academic conferences would have or have had their theories ridiculed by practitioners such as the FBI and U.S Special Forces as out of touch with reality. There is also a touch of jealousy: Gorka has a New York Times best-selling book; they did not.
Even during the Obama administration, counter-terror practitioners reached out to Gorka. ….
“We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.” ~ C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady
This was first uploaded to my MRCTV account Sept 2012, and later to my VIMEO April 2014. Needed to share it here on YouTube. In this Ultimate Issues hour, Dennis Prager discusses why people chase after a lost concept. Religious vs. secular: religious people think it is a future state — secularists try and make it on earth. Islam is a religious/political system that wants “heaven-on-earth.”
Pastor MacArthur answers the following questions about Roman Catholicism in THIS video:
1. Does church history support Romanism? 2. What about late forming Romanist doctrines? 3. Is there such as thing as apostolic succession? Does this prove Romanism true? 4. Is there circular reasoning in saying that Catholicism is infallible? 5. What is the definition of the church? 6. Does the lack of authority in diverse protestant churches prove the need for a monolithic Roman Church? 7. What about scripture alone? 8. When tradition contradicts scripture which has the authority? 9. Does the Bible teach that traditions are inspired & authoritative? 10. 2 Corinthians 5:21 – What is the true gospel? 11. Why did Jesus live a full life here on earth for 33 years? 12. How is Rome’s gospel different than the gospel of the Bible? 13. How does mass, purgatory, good works, etc take away from the true gospel? 14. What about works & James 2:24? 15. What is the difference between justification & santification? 16. Does Rome preach a false gospel & is it damnable heresy? 17. What about Romanist baptismal regeneration? 18. Can a person be saved without water baptism? 19. What about spirit baptism? 20. Has Romanism changed since Vatican II? 21. Are Roman Catholics our brothers & sisters in Christ? 22. What is wrong with the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” document? 23. What if you are an ecumenical evangelical?
…While media outlets are suggesting climate change is to blame for exacerbating Hurricane Harvey’s conditions, a much worse hurricane hit Texas more than a century ago—before Americans drove to work.
The media have been quick to blame climate change for the devastation, which as of this writing has resulted in 30 flood-related deaths.
There was a time when Americans were not flying, and hardly any were driving. And the storms were worse.
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the most deadly natural disaster in American history, which led to an estimated 8,000 deaths. Kevin Murnane writing for Forbes notes the many similarities between Galveston and Harvey, including that both were category 4 hurricanes when they hit landfall off the Texas coast. Winds from Galveston were faster, at 145 mph compared with Harvey’s 130 mph, and its height of the storm surge was 15.7 feet, also higher than Harvey.
[…..]
Many media reports blaming climate change for Harvey used Michael E. Mann, a professor at Penn State and author of the controversial global warming “hockey stick” graph, as their source. Mann’s graph was widely used in the late 1990s to connect human activities to global warming.
Mann was later found to have “exaggerated” the impact of global warming in the graph by using “inappropriate methods.”
While careful to say climate change did not directly cause Harvey, the Washington Post said it “exacerbated the storm conditions,” linking to a piece written by Mann in the Guardian, calling it a “fact” that climate change made Harvey worse.
“Human-caused warming is penetrating down into the ocean,” Mann claims. “It’s creating deeper layers of warm water in the Gulf and elsewhere.”
“Harvey was almost certainly more intense than it would have been in the absence of human-caused warming, which means stronger winds, more wind damage and a larger storm surge,” he added.
Mann ignores the fact that the Galveston Hurricane had a storm surge of 15.7 feet, higher than the 7- to 12-feet storm surges seen from Harvey.
Man-made global warming is mainly attributed to carbon emissions, from industry and from transportation. There were only 8,000 vehicles in the entire country in 1900. Only 663 million tons of CO2 were emitted, compared with 5.333 billion today….
See also:
How Climate Change Is Being Blamed For Harvey After A Dozen Years Without A Major Hurricane (WASHINGTON TIMES)
Michael Mann’s claims that Harvey was caused by global warming are destroyed by an operational meteorologist (WUWT)
Take particular note of the four records in Texas:
Galveston 1871 – 3.95” in 15 minutes
Woodward Ranch 1935 – 15.0” in 2 hours
Thrall 1921 – 36.4” in 18 hours
Alvin 1979 – 43” in 24 hours
Storm Harvey never got anywhere near these sort of totals. And we find a very similar picture when we review global records, with the most recent record being as long ago as 1980.
Perhaps a more intriguing question is how did its companion, disturbance 92L, come all the way across the Atlantic in a classic arcing path through Florida and up the East Coast *and fail to develop? What does that tell us?
There is much being made of Harvey and climate change. Meteorologically, as far as the intensity of the storm, let’s see where it ranks among landfalling Category 4 or 5 storms.
It’s tied for 14th. Look at the storm above it, Hazel. Now, let me ask you: Which is the more extreme as far as deviation from normal with pressure, which is a good metric to objectively evaluate how extreme a tropical cyclone is — a storm that hit in mid October in North Carolina, or one that hits on the central Texas Gulf Coast in late August? Let’s also look at Harvey in relation to other hurricanes in Texas. Behind it is the 1915 Galveston hurricane. That is the lesser of the two evils, because of 13th right above Harvey is the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 6,000-12,000 people. And right above that one is the Freeport hurricane of 1932. Notice when these are occurring. Then there is the 1916 cyclone in Texas — just a year after the 1915 Galveston hurricane — and Carla in 1961. Again, this all occurred over 50 years ago. Then there is the 1886 Indianola hurricane.Tthey are all hitting in the area that Harvey hit. So the question becomes, if those same storms, almost all stronger, from many years ago hit today, would they be a sign of climate change? Why is Harvey — and not to downplay the storm, but it was one of many and less intense than most — a sign the climate is changing, but these other storms would not be?
[…..]
So if the 1935 Labor Day hurricane — the most powerful storm to be recorded hitting the US, a storm that went from a tropical storm to a Cat 5 in 36 hours — occurs again, why would it be climate change now, but not then?
If the 1938 storm comes back — a storm that took down two billion board feet of trees in New England, had major river floods in western New England, flooded Providence with 13 feet of water in a storm surge, and had a wind gust of 186 mph at blue hill — occurs again, why would it be climate change now, but not then?
[…..]
I can go on and on with countless storms.
The answer: It is nature doing what nature does. And coming out after the storm and claiming it’s something else reveals either ignorance of the past or, if you do know, an agenda based on deception. If I saw the people commenting on this now making a preseason forecast, or even five days before when the obsession was the eclipse, then perhaps I would be more open to those ideas. But telling people why after the what is Monday morning agenda-based quarterbacking. Perhaps that is the lesson of Harvey.
“THE DAILY CALLER caught up with Gesualdi, who says his experiences reveal how humorless the Antifa protesters are and how dangerous they can be — especially when there are no alt-right protesters for them to fight against.”
….“As a comedian I am obviously a big free speech advocate, which is why this recent wave of protests bother me,” he says. “Though most of the protesters have good intentions and show up simply looking to exercise their free speech rights, many come for the sole purpose of starting fights and causing destruction. That’s not how we solve problems in America.”
“What I do is bring a bit of absurdism to the venue, to hopefully keep things lighthearted while also showing how ridiculous it is to characterize these protests as if they are the battlegrounds of a civil war,” says the comedian. “These kids may think they are badass street soldiers fighting against the forces of evil, but it’s hard to maintain that narrative when you’re being heckled by a peanut vendor.”
Gesualdi says that unlike the last time, the protest site was “almost devoid” of right-wing voices, many of whom were chased off by the large Antifa turnout, or because they were warned not to go by the organizer.
“I saw one group of people being chased into the police station by a group of leftists,” he says. “There’s actually a great video of this on LiveLeak, which pans over to me hawking my wares.”
The comedian says that the normal Berkeley protest crowd was peaceful, with “lots of people laughing, asking for pictures, etc.” A trio of Juggalos — fans of Insane Clown Posse — even treated Gesualdi to a bottle of Faygo and he got to sing along to “I’m Gonna Let It Shine” with older hippies.
“It was only when I got too close to the Antifa camp that things started to go south,” he says, describing how he was attacked by two separate black-clad groups.
“One group of Antifa-types took issue with the tiny American flags attached my vendor’s tray of snacks,” he described footage that was captured on his video. “Declaring them symbols of colonialism and white supremacy, they ripped them off and burned them in front of me. I was surprised they were so brazen about it, and parts of the crowd even cheered as the flags burned.”
Gesualdi was confronted by another set of Antifa later on in the day, when one of them declared him a “troll” and encouraged the group to accost him. “Knowing this could end badly I attempted to walk away from the situation, but they followed behind, ringing a cowbell for some reason. Very intimidating.”
He speculates that the reason he was targeted was because few right-wing voices had come out for them to attack, so they were happy to go after him. “They lobbed some rotten tomatoes at me, but thankfully, none of them could throw worth a damn. They blared rape whistles in my ear and got some tomato juice on my shirt, but stormed off in anger when I just ignored their nonsense and kept trying to sell them bags of popcorn.”
Gesualdi says that what really surprised him about the protest was how many people there were going on about the “evils of capitalism.”
“They seemed too much like a stereotype of the classic clueless communist who knows capitalism is evil but isn’t really sure why,” he says. “One young man tried seriously explaining to me that people didn’t want to pay because they were socialist, though I actually had commenters from socialist countries tell me that of course they pay for their food and that kid was a clueless idiot.”
“Others told me to cease my selling and ‘seize the means of production.’ I will have to look into seeing if the state is willing to acquire me a free peanut factory.”
Gesualdi says he won’t let the bad experience deter him from going to future rallies if it allows him to keep exposing their absurdity, but he worries that Antifa will paint a target on his back if he becomes a regular face.
“The Berkeley police were nowhere to be seen on both occasions I’ve gone and I honestly believe it’s only a matter of time before someone gets killed at one of these things,” he says.
Where are the Social-Justice Warriors on this? Why isn’t this labeled as racist but if it were an attack of opposite political values it is hailed as racist by the media?
Twenty-months after he claims he was beaten by two union activists, while he tried to sell conservative buttons outside a Congressman Russ Carnahan town hall forum on health care reform, Kenneth Gladney now has a court date.
The case against two Service Employees International Union members accused of attacking Gladney is scheduled for July 11th, according to St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Reddington.
SEIU members Elston McCowan and Perry Molens are charged with misdemeanor assault. Both men pleaded not guilty and requested a jury trial.
Earlier, Gladney had complained that the delay in scheduling a trial was “political” and he pointed the blame at Reddington and fellow Democrat, County Executive Charlie Dooley.
Reddington countered that the delay was caused soley by the defendant’s request for a jury trial. Her municipal court system has no jurors, so she had to work with he state courts to set up a court room and a jury, Reddington said.
“Conservative buttons” vs. “Service Employees.” The question I have, have you EVER heard the media reference buttons or anything for sale at Democratic activist gatherings as “liberal buttons,” or, “progressive items for sale”? These buttons are in fact worn by Democrats and Independents who are part of the Tea Party. To say we are taxed enough already (T.E.A.) and top call the government to some fiscal responsibility is not a partisan concept. However, less spending does mean less government… this is where the basis for the difference of the parties kinda becomes partisan. But I digress. Would the media call this [above/right] a “progressive button?
Somehow I doubt it, even thought SEIU stuff was for sale at the same event… you will never hear “liberal” or “progressive” used of any item or person by the media. This should come as no surprise since the following is believed by the majority of the press/media:
The media will not only not identify Democrats typically, like they label persons as conservative or Republican, they will often times misidentify persons.
This paper is in response to a conversation about voting in my son’s VISUAL ARTS CLASS that climaxed with the teacher saying “that the only reason that President Bush won the 2000 election in Florida was that he had a brother as governor and that some votes were not counted.” (I am assuming that because the teacher mentioned the two together – that is, disenfranchisement and Governor Jeb Bush – that she believes in a conspiracy through all levels of the Florida government and Supreme Court to make sure that then Governor George W. Bush would win the election. This is the clear implication of what was said in the classroom.) The Military vote, point-in-fact, is the only provable vote that was withheld.
I wish to say here that any teacher has the right to own her or his opinion. We all have that right, you, me, anyone. However, one cannot own his or her own facts. And this is where the teacher may have crossed the line when she said (mind you I am going off what my son told me, as I was not there in the classroom at the time), “the only reason Bush won…”, you see, this goes beyond opinion within the realm of impressionable seventh-graders. Unchallenged in this environment, teachers in many classrooms in this valley and elsewhere get away with bringing a point of view that is unfounded by the facts of a reasonable investigation of “what did happen” in Florida. It isn’t nearly as infamous as the teacher put it.
I will use a partial excerpt from a paper I wrote to my son’s sixth-grade computer teacher (who was really a parent volunteer). Obviously this incomplete outlook on the election is widespread enough for me to respond to it almost every year since. I will explain some of the reasoning behind this apparent acceptance of something so easily explained away once the panorama of facts about the Florida recount are brought together rather than isolated, such as in Fahrenheit 911.
RECOUNT ~ THE SKINNY
Eight counties were recounting ballots in Florida. All eight counties were using different standards to determine which ballots were to be allocated to Gore and which were to be allocated to Bush. First and foremost, all eight counties were Democratic counties, they had Democrats who were in charge of that counties election, and democrats devised the ballots themselves years before. Republicans were in the minority in these districts. This is rarely addressed. This aside, what would have been the outcome if the counts were allowed to continue? I want to answer this with an example (used in a prior letter to a teacher) from a poli-sci class I took at C.O.C.:
… last week I went to visit the professor at C.O.C. to give him a paper I wrote for his amusement, when I walked in the classroom the students were discussing the fact that President Bush went before the 911 Commission with Dick Cheney, one girl asked if Cheney had to hold Bush’s hand – sarcastically of course. Another student mentioned that Bush was not under oath or in a public setting for his hearing. I asked to interject; the professor gave me the green light, so I mentioned that President Clinton was not under oath, nor was his hearing public, and that he took along Bruce Lindsey and Sandy Burger. I then turned to the girl and asked if Bruce had one hand while Sandy had the other – sarcastically of course. Laughs abounded again.
Another student blurted out that Bush stole the election in the Florida debacle – so called. I responded simply to him that the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and four Florida newspapers: the Orlando Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and the St. Petersburg Times all recounted the votes multiple times, and each time Bush came out the winner. (In fact, they recounted the votes for the entire state eight-times and Bush won all eight-times. They did it eight-times so they could try each of the different counting “techniques” that each of the eight counties were using in their recounting efforts due to Gore bringing the matter into our courts.)[1] This is not including the military vote that Gore successfully withheld a part of, which would have even widened Bush’s lead considerably. This student had never heard a good response to this objection that he had been blurting out for four years to conservative classmates, friends and family…
This answers one aspect of the problem in regards to what would have happened. However, I want to explain why Florida was so “close.” I have a documentary that shows the actual graphics displayed by ABC, NBC, etc, during the original counting of the Florida ballots, what did their numbers show? At no time during the entire period of ballot counting in Florida was Bush ever behind in actual hard votes cast! One vote tally showed a 100,000-vote lead, another showed 150,000 lead prior to its drop.
TIME ZONES
The real problem lies in Florida being in two time zones. So when the polls closed in the eastern side of the state, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and the like (except FOXNews), all said the polls had closed in Florida. Then CBS called Florida for Gore even though the hard tally count said otherwise, the other media moguls followed. The voters in the western part of Florida turned away from the polls in droves.
These voters who were told that Florida had already been called for Gore, and that the polls were closed, lived in a part of the state that is predominately Republican. Three groups did separate investigations into what type of voters decided not to go to the polls. All three came to the separate conclusion that anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 Republican votes over the “disparaged” total [which included voters from both parties] were lost to this miscall by the media. So, if one were to add the military vote kept out by Gore and the lost votes from the western part of Florida, the gap in Bush’s lead would have been beyond the state recount minimum.
In fact, no news organization put Florida back into Bush’s column until after the polls closed across the country. The media outlets up to this point all mentioned that without Florida, Bush would lose the election, even FOX. The amount of Republicans deciding it useless to go to the polls in other time zones has not been calculated. I believe, though, it would mirror the three separate organizations that tallied western Florida’s disparaged voters, but on a grander scale. In fact, I believe that the popular vote would also be in Bush’s hands in 2000 if the media had not so egregiously miscalled the state of Florida. (Keep in mind this is my “opinion” based on the voters reactions, both Democratic and Republican, tallied by scientific means from three organizations investigations in western Florida. You see, this is opinion based on logic and science, not un-founded paranoia and suppositions alluded to by my son’s teacher.)
Again, though, even with all the above put aside, Bush won all the recounts, and the New York Times simply states that if the recount was allowed to continue by the U. S. Supreme Court that Bush would have been the clear winner.
WHY THE BAD CALL?
Part of the miscall in the 2000 election can be tied directly to the early miscall in the 2004 election, in way of example. “Exit Polling” is the main culprit in this aspect of the problem. MSNBC and FOXNews had computer models of who was winning this time around that included the Exit Polling information. This skewed the election as going strongly to John Kerry. In fact, Kerry was gearing his thinking to a win. However, when MSNBC, FOXNews, ABC, CBS, and the like, dropped the Exit Polling info from their computer models half-way through the day, Bush surged about 5-percentage points.
These statistics were even worse during the 2000 election, allowing for the early and thus incorrect call for Florida. Let me state once again unequivocally, in the hard tallying of actual votes minus Exit Polling data, both in the 2004 election as a whole, and specifically in the 2000 debacle, Bush was never behind in the count.
5 TO 4, OR 7 TO 9
Some are under the impression that the U.S. Supreme Court was split on the final decision along party divisions that had the five “conservative” Judges voting along demagogic lines for Bush, and the four “liberal” Judges for Gore. This is in fact untrue. On the heart of the case (that is, equal protection for the voter as well as for Bush and Gore) the U.S. Supreme Court was almost unanimous. A seven/two split! The most liberal Supreme Court Judge agreeing that the eight differing standards in what is and is not acceptable for a Gore/Bush ballot allocation shouldn’t be allowed to continue.
These seven Judges took into consideration the Constitutional aspects of the problem, as well as the Florida Constitution’s limitations to time in regards to a recount. All seven agreed that there was insufficient time to bring a fair and homologous procedure to all these eight (and possibly more) counties.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
So why all the “hub bub, bub?” Partisan politics, period! I can speak from experience, using in fact, an example from my own past. When Clinton became president, there were documentaries released by the “right” that had all kinds of conspiracy theories as to all the “misdealings” within the history of the Clintons political road to the Whitehouse. The most popular of them being The Clinton Chronicles. This montage of clippings, newspaper headlines, testimonies, and video shown in this documentary is quite convincing at first glance. And I was convinced. However, as I am one to poke and prod (which is why my home library has ballooned to over 3,000 books and hundreds of video/DVD documentaries), the conspiracies revolving around the Clintons have been shown quite baseless. What are, if any, the equivalent to the Clinton based documentaries? Michael Moore!
FAHRENHEIT 911
While space here is limited to the subject at hand, that is, the Florida recount, I am open to discussion about any “fact” thought to be authoritative that was presented in any of Moore’s documentaries.[2]
Near the beginning of Fahrenheit 911 we are shown a newspaper headline that states Gore won one of the recounts in Florida. Yes, an actual photo of a newspaper headline, or so we are led to believe. What isn’t shown is the original article. In fact, this wasn’t an article at all!
What it was, was a letter to the editor from a reader of a newspaper who wrote in responding to the recounts all going Bush’s way. This person was a private citizen whose letter was placed in the “Letters to the Editor” section of the opinion part of the newspaper. What Moore did was take this column-and-a-half letter to the editor, expand and enlarge the headline to stretch across the entire top of the “page,” even going so far as changing the font, and then spreading out and enlarging the letter portion to more columns, thus making it look like a newspaper headline. In other words, Michael Moore used deception to tweak information to legitimize his view that Gore won the election. Which ALL investigations have shown to be false.
And I do mean all. For instance, all the examples of people being stopped from voting by force in Florida have proven vacuous. One example:
POLICE ROADBLOCKS
One story still mentioned by partisans today, and mentioned by Moore is that of a roadblock by police officers stopping black voters from making it to the polls. When a civil rights group went down to Florida and held hearings on this (and other) matter[s], they found that there was a robbery nearby, and the police were setting up a perimeter to catch the suspect.
In fact, the possible[3] irony of all this is that most likely, taking into consideration the racial population in the area where this crime was committed, and that a disproportionate number of crimes committed by said racial group that populates this area of Florida all point to the disenfranchisement of these minority voters by a fellow minority resident. Irony at its best… if proven true that is.
TO CONCLUDE
So the point of this long, drawn-out response to a statement made as a fact in my son’s seventh-grade Visual Arts class, is this:
When statements like these are made as de-facto-truth – de-facto because when the teacher is in a position of authority over these malleable young minds and are given the benefit of the doubt by the students thinking that these adults have researched what they state as fact within the realm of the classroom in a fashion deserving that of an adult mind – when in fact they are easily dismissed as “other-than,” then we as parents must not allow such misstatements to be made without challenge.
The matter of who won the Florida recount has been put to rest, almost four years ago. Partisan politics keeps it alive however. And to engender students to look upon their President, no matter what political affiliation that President finds himself or herself to be aligned with, with suspicion is a serious matter. This is not the place for a teacher to steer their students towards unfounded opinions based on unsupported suspicions that would cause or call into question the respect due a President in the classroom setting.
While a parent has the right to engender whatever they wish with their own children, the teacher must be diligent to keep such misgivings about such matters to themselves and their own children, teachers lounge, or wherever such opinions are relevant or warranted. I am not angered by such an opinion stated within the classroom, in fact, I have come to expect it. I only wish that the teacher[s] understand that when they speak on such matters, that they do so in a manner that engenders our sons and daughters understanding of government, rather than the political opinions of said teacher[s].
I hope to hear back from the school on this matter. I also invite those teachers on the Heart Team who enjoy political discussion as much as I do to feel free to open up lines of communication with me. I don’t bite. Sometimes within the limited time people have and the demographic they find themselves in, their opinions are passed unchallenged or without taking into consideration another point of view. I understand this.
“Thank You! ~ Much Thought, Sean G”
Thank you for you patience in reading this parent’s rebuttal and concern about something said in the classroom. I hope this letter will engender positive discussion among the teachers on my son’s team, and a greater understanding of an excitable topic.
Footnotes
[1] In fact, there is no newspaper headline in the entire United States that showed Gore ahead in any of the recounts. I will deal with the only headline produced that showed gore ahead, it can be found in Michael Moore’s movie, Fahrenheit 911.
[2] My e-mail address is at the top of the page. I will discuss these matters as I have here: in a calm, logical manner that takes the sociological extremisms (e.g., The Clinton Chronicles on one side versus Fahrenheit 911 on the other) from both sides into consideration. For instance: in a recent poll, 29% of Democrats polled believe Bush stole the 2004 election. No evidence of foul play, just paranoia that any sociologist could do a doctoral thesis on.
[3] I am only guessing here and do not know all the parameters of the case – more of a thought experiment.
UPDATES
This first addendum comes from NEWSBUSTERS: (May 2008)
George W. Bush would have won a hand count of Florida’s disputed ballots if the standard advocated by Al Gore had been used, the first full study of the ballots reveals. Bush would have won by 1,665 votes — more than triple his official 537-vote margin — if every dimple, hanging chad and mark on the ballots had been counted as votes, a USA TODAY/Miami Herald/Knight Ridder study shows. The study is the first comprehensive review of the 61,195 “undervote” ballots that were at the center of Florida’s disputed presidential election….
That look was followed in November by an analysis by a consortium of media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN and AP. It determined that George W. Bush still would have won under either legally possible recount scenario which could have occurred: The Florida Supreme Court ordered recount of undervotes statewide or Gore’s request for a recount in certain counties. The New York Times led its November 12, 2001 front page article, “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote,” by reporters Ford Fessenden and John M. Broder:
A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year’s presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.
Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court’s order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.
Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations….
In the first full study of Florida’s ballots since the election ended, The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled “undervotes” — ballots the voter has noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through — to be counted.
The study, conducted by the accounting firm of BDO Seidman, counted over 60,000 votes in Florida’s 67 counties, tabulating separate vote totals in several standards categories.
While the USA Today report focused on what would have happened had the Florida Supreme Court-ordered recount not been halted by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Herald pointed to one scenario under which Gore could have scored a narrow victory — a fresh recount in all counties using the most generous standards.
In their reports, the newspapers assumed counts already completed when the court-ordered recount was stopped would have been included in any official count. Thus, they allowed numbers from seven counties — Palm Beach, Volusia, Broward, Hamilton, Manatee, Escambia and Madison — to stand, but applied the most inclusive standards to votes in the rest of the state. If those numbers did not stand, the Herald reported, a more generous hypothetical revisited recount would have scored the White House for Gore — but with only a 393-vote margin.
Under most other scenarios, the papers reported, Bush would have retained his lead…..
HEH, here is a VERY recent update via PJ-MEDIA (August 2017):
Al Gore told Bill Maher on his HBO “Real Time” show that he thinks he carried Florida in the 2000 election.
Gore also believes that rising temperatures will doom mankind to extinction unless we revert economically to the Middle Ages. Which ignorant belief is dumber?
[…..]
Anyone not named Al Gore (or apparently, Bill Maher) knows that two independent studies by media organizations proved that Bush won the 2000 race in Florida and hence, the election.
The most comprehensive review was done by a consortium of media companies, including:
The [New York]Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Tribune Company, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The St. Petersburg Times, The Palm Beach Post and CNN. The group hired the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago in January to examine the ballots.
The consortium examined the 43,000 ballots that remained to be counted when the Supreme Court stopped the process. They determined:
Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court’s order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.
Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.
Another media group headed up by USA Today and the Miami Herald also conducted an extensive study and came to the same conclusion:
A USA Today/Miami Herald/Knight Ridder study after the election concluded in May 2001 that Bush would have won a hand count of Florida’s disputed ballots, called “hanging chads,” if a standard advocated by Gore had been used.
“Bush would have won by 1,665 votes — more than triple his official 537-vote margin — if every dimple, hanging chad and mark on the ballots had been counted as votes,” the study concluded.
But liberals hate it if they’re not being seen as suffering under the yoke of oppression. The election was stolen! Gore should have been president!
We’re seeing the exact same effort to delegitimize Trump. Hillary didn’t lose the election. Trump colluded with the Russians and stole it! Outrage! Call for a special counsel. Start the impeachment!
