muddysmind.com

"Unless France backs down, the Commission will be forced for the first time to issue specific recommendations on how a member state should run its finances."

That EU sure sounds like a big ol' barrel of fun!
I hope France stands up to them like they did to us. If they don't then it'll be all the more obvious that they are Anti-American and not just a super power wannabe.

Frankly I don't know.
It's good to fix some limits on the budget deficits but on the other hand there's a slow down now and the EU federal bank is not really helping enough...

The government is rather right wing and it plans to reduces taxes for the richest instead of doing useful investments or helping spending ...

We're not super power wanna be any way.
We're just an old colonidal power that knew the mess you'd end up in.

I would say it would be rather more consistent for France to comply with EU just like it wanted the USA to comply with the UNO.

DF I'd rather we leave the U.N. as it's nothing more than hot air. The U.N. is a big waste of time, I put NO faith into an organization that puts Libya! of all countries in charge of human rights, what a bunch of screw ups the UN is.

no way did FRANCE have the forsite to see what being a world power would do to us, "We're just an old colonidal power that knew the mess you'd end up in." the french hate us for the power we hold and how much better off americans are then the frenchies or any other country for that matter... and i agree with the mud-man- no way do we need some stinky UN. We're better off forming a new alliance called the WOYS. (we own your ass) consisting of the british and the americans !!! YEA BABY

WOYA?? LOL your on it tonight man, haha..

. The U.N. is a big waste of time, I put NO faith into an organization that puts Libya! of all countries in charge of human rights, what a bunch of screw ups the UN is.

The UN did not put it in charge... Let's say the europeans voted Lybia because they did not want the US in charge. See we do stupid things too...

the french hate us for the power we hold and how much better off americans are then the frenchies or any other country for that matter...

Lol. We're far better off in France than you are in the USA. D y a know i have 6 weeks vacations. public medical unemployment and retirement "insurances". We all have.

Enjoy your quagmire...

(sarcasm)
So you admit you (not you personally) do stupid things?
Ha!
(/sarcasm)
hehe...

we do our share of course : we subsidize our agriculture to death. We're not clean on patents on drugs that could cure third world major disease, we are about to pass a law that would allow patent on software (in europe till now this was protected by author rights)
we do many stupid things. And I do some of my own. Like spending time here (I like it though) or ... many anyway.

ANy way I think this website has been lacking real debate recently and being americans and bush supporters you should know the truth about his election. So here it is.
I've been appaled when I started reading "the best democracy money can buy" by greg palast. Have a look.
see also www.gregpalast.com
and if you dare, read this

Winning the Election – The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida
The Weekly Dig, Boston, MA
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
E-Mail Article
Printer Friendly Version


Winning the Election – The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida

by Liam Scheff

When future historians want to know what happened to America in 2000, they’ll read Greg Palast’s The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. The book follows the paper trail of perjury, deception and incompetence left by the Bush family, and the billionaires who fund them, as they trample through the world – from mining disaster cover-ups to the California energy scandal to the pre-9/11 intelligence black-out that let a handful of Saudi terrorists slip past the NSA, FBI and CIA.

The book also uncovers inside documents on the IMF and World Bank, Pat Robertson‘s unholy money-schemes, and the co-opted US media that won‘t report what the rest of the world gets on the front page.

The book opens with the crime that keeps on stealing – the 2000 presidential election. George Bush lost the popular election by 500,000 votes, but won the electoral vote by winning hotly contested Florida, the state that tipped the scales, and the state where his brother Jeb is governor. His tiny 500-vote win there was accompanied by a torrent of hanging chads and unhappy voters, who claimed their votes were stolen. Last week Palast came to Boston to promote the new edition of The Best Democracy… I asked him exactly what he uncovered.

What really happened in Florida?

Five months before the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered the removal of 57,700 names from Florida’s voter rolls on grounds that they were felons. Voter rolls contain the names of all eligible, registered voters. If you’re not on the list, you don’t get to vote.

If you commit a felony in Florida, you lose your right to vote there, and you‘re “scrubbed” from the rolls. You become a non-citizen, like in the old Soviet Union. This is not the case in most other states; it’s an uncivilized vestige of the Deep South.

My office carefully went through the scrub list and discovered that at minimum, 90.2 percent of the people were completely innocent of any crime – except for being African American. We didn’t have to guess about that, because next to each voter’s name was their race.

When I questioned Harris’ office about the high percentage of African Americans on the scrub list, they responded, “Well, you know how many black people commit crimes.”

But these people weren’t felons, so why were they scrubbed?

The Florida Republicans wanted to block African Americans, who largely vote as Democrats, from voting. In 1999 they fired the company they were paying $5,700 to compile their felony “scrub” lists and replaced them with Database Technologies [DBT], who they paid $2.3 million to do the same job. [DBT is the Florida division of Choicepoint, a massive database company that does extensive work for the FBI.]

There are a lot of Joe Smiths in the Florida phonebook. DBT was hired to verify which Joe Smith was a felon and which was not. They were supposed to use their extensive databases to check credit cards, bank information, addresses and phone numbers, in addition to names, ages, and social security numbers. But they didn’t. They didn’t use one of their 1,200 databases to verify personal information, nor did they make a single phone call to verify the identity of scrubbed names.

So where did DBT get their data?

From the Internet. They went to 11 other states’ Internet sites and took names off dirt-cheap. They scrubbed Florida voters whose names were similar to out-of-state felons. An Illinois felon named John Michaels could knock off Florida voter John, Johnny, Jonathan or Jon R. Michaels, or even J.R. Michaelson. DBT matched for race and gender, but names only had to be similar to a certain degree. Names could be reversed, and suffixes (Jr., Sr.) were ignored, but aliases were included. So the felon John “Buddy” Michaels could knock non-felon Michael Johns or Bud Johnson Jr. off the voter rolls. This happened again and again.

Although DBT didn’t get names, birthdays or social security numbers right, they were very careful to match for race. A black felon named Mr. Green would only knock off a black Mr. Green, but not a single white Mr. Green. That’s how DBT earned its $2.3 million.

Why didn’t DBT use their own databases?

They didn’t, because the state told them not to. Choicepoint vice-president James Lee was grilled by a Congressional committee, headed by Cynthia McKinney, and he admitted everything, but said DBT was following state directives. Florida state officials told DBT to knock off voters by incorrectly matching them with felons.

Congresswoman McKinney led this commission to her own peril. Choicepoint is in her Atlanta district. She was destroyed in the last election by fabricated quotes and a vicious propaganda campaign.

Is this the only way votes were stolen?

No. There were 8,000 Floridians who had committed misdemeanors, but were counted as felons. Their votes were scrubbed. Katherine Harris’ office illegally scrubbed people who’d served time in other states, then moved to Florida, and Jeb Bush’s office illegally barred these people from registering to vote at all.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered “spoiled“ and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up – with approval from Bush and Harris – to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was “spoiled.” What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren’t told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren’t permitted to re-vote.

When Ted Koppel investigated voter theft in Florida, he concluded that blacks lost votes because they weren’t well educated, and made mistakes that whites hadn‘t. He didn’t even bother to ask how the machines were set up. This is the kind of reporting we get in America. In Britain, this story ran 3 weeks after the election, when Gore was still in race. It was in the papers and on TV. In the US, it was seven months before the Washington Post ran it, and then it was only a partial version. After the election, Gadsden County replaced its voting commissioner. In 2002 they only lost one in 500 votes. So you can say blacks in Gadsden got smarter in one way – they elected a black elections chief.

What happened to Choicepoint?

Bush is handing them the big contracts in the War on Terror; immigration reviews, DNA cataloging, airport profiling, and their voting systems are being rolled out across the country.

It wasn’t reported in mainstream press, but the NAACP sued Harris and the gang for the black purge, and won. The state threw up its hands immediately and said, ‘You got us! We’ll put these people back as soon as we can.’ We’re still waiting.

DF: The only two comments I'm going to make are- and boy, THIS is rare about me when it comes to you (no offense):

1st: How do YOU know "...the co-opted U.S. media won't report what the rest of the world gets on the front page"? Do you spend alot of time in the US watching the news...I do. Of course, I DO live here so it would only make sence that I catch "our" news...and I can tell you that they DO - at least the ones I have watched before anyway - report on what is on the "headlines" of the papers in other countries.

2ndly: The only thing I will say about your "Republican scandle" is the fact that it comes off very one sided...I mean, if your going to "report" on what the liberals have to say about the Republicans, you should at least allow the other side to give IT'S side of the story....after all, it IS the only fair way to "report" on a "story".
....and by the way, before you go assuming anything about me, know that I am NOT a republican...I just like getting BOTH sides of the story...it's the ONLY way you can get to the TRUTH...which, by the way, is the ONLY "platform" I support.

Mrs Muddy,
What I think and say is different from what gregory Palast an american, journalist of the observer thinks and says. Your comments apply to his work.
He says his papers, the one he wrote were available months before the "election" of bush was finally validated by the US supreme court.
No media dared publish them.

I've not heard of any scandal concerning major electoral frauds made by a democrat governor, if you have any athand, please publish them.
Fact is jeff bush stole the election for his brother George Walter, and it is this man who is leading your country and the planet earth to a major crisis.
SOme one elected by fraud goes to Irak to preach democracy. WHat do you think about that ?
And if you're looking for truth, phone the judges, local organisations quoted. The truth is athand for those who care to see it.

Ifyou'relookingfor truth
www.gregpalast.com
Call these people
Gadsden County election comittee
Governor of Florida
Choice Point
NAACP
Get a copy of the verdict when NAACP sued choice point.
This is your country, you should care.

DF:
1st of all it's.....George WALKER Bush....and his brother is JEB Bush. Of course I'm sure you don't give one iota about that.

2ndly: Some people refer to anything they don't like or agree with (such as the outcome of the 2000 election ) as a "scandle"...that's where I was getting it:-)

3rdly: I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. Maybe someday (when I don't have a dozen things on my plate at once) I'll actually look into those papers that that Palast guy wrote...and I will keep an open mind, however, it is common knowledge (with all due respect to the democrates of this country) that the majority of the dem. politicians and SOME dem. citizens are just still "pissed off" and whinning because they lost the election. Personally, do I believe Bush has been a perfect President....of course not. NO ONE would begin to qualify for perfect. Has he don't "stupid" things....of course and I'm sure he will continue to make mistakes...he's only human, BUT, AS an american who loves her country... and yes your right, "This is your country, you should care"....and I do....and what I care about is the fact that Cliton (Bill...that is) is FINALLY gone (for he never followed up on terrorist attacks the way he should have...in fact he treated it as though it almost never happened...America didn't need his crap) and Al Gore DIDN'T win (Thank GOD...for he came off just as bad...in MY opinion). Neither one of them would have been up to the challange of traking down terrorism and making them pay for what they did (granted terrorism will never be completely done away will this side of the rapture anyway but that's another story/debate entirely.).

DF to put it in simple terms, President Bush is NOT perfect, he's screwing up about as much as he's doing right. It's all partisan politics and the Democrats are just a stupid as the republicans.
I personally favor banning all political parties and voting on the actual person and what they stand for rather than for parties.

I see what your saying but it's all pointless now. We can't change the past
I say we move forward and wipe out political parties, lobyists and special interest groups.

Here, here....I second that vote!!!!! ...and, by the way ..."sweety"...what do you mean, "to put it in simple terms...":-) Did I not explain things well enough? Hummmmmmmmmmmmm?:-)

Not at all, Meaning simple so it bridges the language barrier.

Ahh....nice save:-)

(tease, tease, tease)

mmmhh
if you read greg Palas, you'll see George WALKER bush prevented the CIA and other intelligence services from investigating too close the oussama ben ladin case... You know ... He was an oil guy. Part of the family.

My point was not on who lost or won, but on how democracy has disappeared, teared down by politicians with no morals.

John Mac Cain is republican, (is he still) he looks like a guy with morals, someone to be trusted.

N e way. The middle east is turning sour way fast...

I don't believe in this last recovery.
Reagan years are over. The green will grow out of the dark coming soon.