Wednesday 10 February '10 show notes

  • Guests:
  • Topics:
    • Government Fannie Mae worked great, private Fannie Mae was a disaster...let's go back to nationalized Fannie Mae.
    • Have the banksters bought the White House? First the communists were coming to get us, then the Muslims were coming to get us…now they own us!
    • Given how the Supreme Court has turned our government over to corporations, should progressives join the far-right militia movement in pushing back against any sort of government intrusion into our lives?
  • Bumper Music:
  • Today's newsletter has details of today's guests and links to the major stories and alerts that Thom covered in the show, plus lots more. If you haven't signed up for the free newsletter yet, please do. If you missed today's newsletter, it is in the archive.
  • Quote: "If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion." -- Justice William J. Brennan.
  • Article: Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote By Ford Fessenden and John M. Broder, November 12, 2001.

    The media consortium included The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Tribune Company, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The St. Petersburg Times, The Palm Beach Post and CNN.

    If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very narrow margin. For example, using the most permissive "dimpled chad" standard, nearly 25,000 additional votes would have been reaped, yielding 644 net new votes for Mr. Gore and giving him a 107-vote victory margin...

    Using the most restrictive standard — the fully punched ballot card — 5,252 new votes would have been added to the Florida total, producing a net gain of 652 votes for Mr. Gore, and a 115-vote victory margin.

    All the other combinations likewise produced additional votes for Mr. Gore, giving him a slight margin over Mr. Bush, when at least two of the three coders agreed.

    In a finding rich with irony, the results show that even if Mr. Gore had succeeded in his effort to force recounts of undervotes in the four Democratic counties, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia, he still would have lost, although by 225 votes rather than 537. An approach Mr. Gore and his lawyers rejected as impractical — a statewide recount — could have produced enough votes to tilt the election his way, no matter what standard was chosen to judge voter intent.

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