Ben Barrack:
When asked about how he plans to confront ISIS in Syria, President Barack Obama made a stunning admission saying, “We don’t have a strategy yet”. He said this at a time when the intelligence community is reporting a “significant increase” in terror chatter as the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/JePNVyW4Oeg[/youtube]
Reasons why Obama has no strategy for dealing with ISIS are varied but as Shoebat.com has reported, chief among them likely involves Turkey. As evidence becomes increasingly overwhelming that Turkey has a lot riding on the ISIS horse in Syria, the U.S. is in a bigger and bigger pinch.
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants Bashar al-Assad gone. The best way to ensure that happens is for the U.S. to let ISIS make that happen. A defeat of ISIS by the U.S. would be a defeat for NATO ‘ally’ Turkey.
Reports also suggest that Erdogan is increasingly angry with the Obama administration and that the two haven’t spoken since February as Shoebat.com reported. In the minds of the neo-Ottomanists like Erdogan, Assad should have been removed a long time ago and it’s the U.S. which hasn’t been able to make that happen. Erdogan would see any successful Obama ‘strategy’ to deal with ISIS as another thumb in the eye to Turkey.
The Benghazi attack two years ago reportedly ended a covert weapons trafficking operation that shipped weapons to the Syrian rebels; this is said to have angered Erdogan. Then after attempts by Turkey to get Obama to declare Assad had crossed the ‘red line’, the best opportunity to get Obama to take the bait came last August with the chemical attack in Ghouta.
That didn’t work either. Credible reports suggest Turkey was behind it in an attempt to frame Assad and create the political appetite for finishing him off; that didn’t happen.
Seymour Hersh put it this way:
@retire05, #50:
I have yet to hear a any detailed suggestions from the right concerning how to better deal with Putin’s aggression against Ukraine that anyone with a lick of sense wouldn’t consider totally irresponsible. Russia is a nuclear power, should you happen to have forgotten. Vladimir Putin isn’t the sort of personality it’s a good idea to play a game of chicken with. His outward behavior suggests the sort of authoritarian personality that could be compensating for deeply buried fears and personal insecurities. He might call a bluff or suddenly up the ante entirely as a matter of ego defense.
Ukraine isn’t a NATO nation. The security assurances of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum give the West justification to intervene, but the Memorandum doesn’t create a specific obligation to intervene militarily. The rational course is to provide support to Ukraine while simultaneously apply increasing economic sanctions against Russia. That will give Putin strong motivation to back off without dangerously backing him into a corner.
If you’ve got a better idea, let’s hear it. I think most objective people have realized by now that the right tends to attack and criticize anything and everything the Obama administration does, without ever providing any intelligent and detailed alternatives of their own.
@Greg:
I do not have access, unlike Obama and the Congress, to foreign policy experts or military experts. I just know that the weak-kneed response by Obama in the form of sanctions against Russia will not work. Russians can sustain pain that would destroy most other nations. But then, you don’t have the answers either, and to pretend you do is simply hyperbole on your part.
I also know that as long as our southern border remains a sieve, we are subjected to more and more attacks like Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon. Obama needs to seal the border today.
I have already told you that I was in agreement with Obama’s decision to not arm the FSA (although I believe he was funneling arms to the FSA via Libya). There are no good guys in Syria. Sooner or later, they will ALL come after us. So what you said is just blatantly false.
@retire05, #52:
The right seems to offer little more than attitude, and, in the case of any particular issue, an attitude that often ignores certain highly significant facts. You’ve clearly got an attitude about Ukraine, for example, but no specific suggestions concerning how to proceed , and seem to ignore the fact that Russia is led by a prime minister who appears to be compensating for a Mini-Me personality disorder and who has a former global super power’s nuclear arsenal at his disposal. Yet you’re quick to damn an approach that does take those facts into account, dismissing a quick summary of the approach and the rationale behind it as hyperbole, and describing the president who’s taking that approach as weak-kneed.
I think increasing economic sanctions against Russia is entirely rational and, if continued, will be effective. I can’t speculate about the right’s alternative approach, since they have never clearly revealed what it is. As with Ukraine, so it is with ISIS, and with any number of other issues.
The right is primarily concerned with the fall election, and with regaining political power. For that effort they’re relying entirely on voter dissatisfaction and anger, which they have spent nearly all of their time and energy on over the past 5 1/2 years. They will whip that horse until it drops. Meanwhile, they’ll risk voicing no specific alternatives in connection with anything, because:
(1) they know that any specific details are subject to criticism; and
(2) there are surprisingly few details that they can agree on, even among themselves.
This renders them totally useless, and at times worse than useless. There have been passing moments when I’ve thought it might almost be better if they took the Senate in the mid-term, so they could plainly reveal themselves in their full dysfunctional glory before the 2016 elections. The big worry, of course, is that they could do the nation an incredible amount of damage as they self destruct.
@Greg:
If you are a graduate from the War College, or have had training in foreign policy, then let me know. Until then, your opinion is just that, nothing more, and really not worth anyone’s time. If you have all the answers, perhaps you should get a gig on CNN or some other left wing propaganda outfit.
Then you have never bothered to study the personality of the Russian people. Only someone as ill informed as you thinks sanctions, no matter how severe, will move Russia to doing what the West wants them to do.
And you think the Democrats are not? Really, stop proving what a fool you are, Greggie. Why do you think Obama is doing endless fund raisers? He’s not running again, and these fundraisers are to drum up dollars for Democrat candidates. But then, I guess you think the Democrats are not interested in retaining power in the Senate, or trying to gain a majority in the House of Representatives. So you criticize Republicans for doing the same damn thing the Democrats are doing.
You are truly delusional. Americans are dissatisfied all right. But they are dissatisfied with Obama as he has proven to be an abstract failure. And Harry Reid, with over 300 bills passed by Congress sitting on his desk, many of them passed on a bi-partisan vote, refuses to do anything about them. Meanwhile, Harry Reid goes out and insults Asians. Yeah, that’s the way to build votes.
Read any of the liberal rags that call themselves media lately, Greggie? Obama, and the Dems, are getting their heads beat in. Now, I know you’re a big fan of Slate, so at least you have that Marxist publication to fall back on, but when Dianne Feinstein bashes Obama on national TV, your party has problems.
That’s not a worry for you, Greggie, it’s wishful thinking. But when you are losing the female and Hispanic vote, and watching your numbers drop with even the black vote, your party has major, MAJOR problems.
They will whip that horse until it drops. Meanwhile, they’ll risk voicing no specific alternatives in connection with anything, because:
@retire05, #54:
Republicans are making big gains among female, Hispanic, and black voters? It would certainly be interesting to know what recent shifts in republican agenda and rhetoric have brought that change of heart about. Offhand, I can’t think of any. What exactly is the GOP offering that would improve the lot of most women, Hispanics, and blacks?
@Greg:
Where did I say Republicans were making big gains among female, Hispanic and black voters?
You see, Greggie, it’s not an “either or” situation. When people don’t have jobs, and they see their grocery bills skyrocketing, their gas bill remaining high, their utilities bills getting higher, they may not think to themselves “Oh, the Republicans can fix that so I’ll vote Republican” but they do see that the 2/3rds of the government held by Democrats is not working so they just don’t vote.
The Democrats are not worried about a higher Republican voter turnout, they are worried about a pathetic low turnout in Democrat voters. Every voter that does not vote for a Democrat is one less vote the Republican challenger needs.
You really don’t know much about how elections work, do you?
@retire05: The Democrats are trying desperately to get the low information voters out to vote. They are so desperate they are importing them by the thousands. Add those illegal voters to those who can not reason their way out of a wet paper bag and the Democrats may have another few years in power to completely destroy this country. Our buddy Greg is likely out campaigning right now without knowing what the real issues are.
@Randy:
Why do you think Eric (Just-Us) Holder is fighting voter I.D. so hard? When you have states like mine, where a utility bill, pay check stub, or library card with your name on it was an acceptable form of I.D. to register to vote, there is a massive prospect for voter fraud. How about same day registration that the Democrats so heartily approve? Vote fraud central.
@retire05:
Even the NYT agrees that the Dems are using everything to get out the votes of the uninformed. How would you classify FA trolls? Low information voters, just hired dunces, just plain ignorant or ones who haven’t a clue?
@Randy:
Randy, blacks, especially those in positions of leadership, know they are at a cross road. There is a demographic shift going on in the U.S. and Hispanics now outnumber blacks. The concerns of Hispanics, in the political realm, are not the same as blacks. Hispanics, who are now achieving more educationally than blacks, at least in the high school graduate rate, are leaving blacks in the dust, and will gain more and more power than blacks at time goes along.
Hispanics also don’t suffer from “white guilt” which allows those like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to flourish. And while you have the radicals like Raul Grijalva, Joaquin Castro and Luis Guiterrez, they are being balanced out with those like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bill Flores and other Hispanic Republicans.
So yes, blacks are going to pull out all the stops to try to win elections for Democrats who will continue to pander to them. They will, eventually, fail since Hispanics really don’t care about the “but…..but…..but slavery” mantra.
@retire05 #52:
“I also know that as long as our southern border remains a sieve, we are subjected to more and more attacks like Fort Hood and the Boston Marathon. Obama needs to seal the border today.”
You might try constructing a logic diagram of the above statement. If you had, I doubt that you would have included it in your otherwise reasonable answer to Greg.
The Fort Hood “assassin,” one Doctor/Major Hasan, a U.S. citizen, was born in Arlington County, Virginia, to Palestinian parents who legally emmigrated to the U.S. from al-Bireh in the West Bank. There is no evidence that they passed through our “Southern Border.”
The Boston Marathon bombers, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, emigrated legally to the United States with their family in 2002, applying for refugee status. At the time of the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, having become a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012. There is no evidence that any of the Tsarnaevs passed through the “Southern Border.”
It is significant that all three of these mass murderers are (or were) Muslim, but none of them entered the United States by crossing the border you are arguing to seal. If you are attempting to make the point that terrorists are passing through our Southern border, wouldn’t it be more convincing to give a few examples of terrorists who had actually entered via that route?
Or are you using that crystal ball of yours (the one that has a blind spot in the direction of the Supreme Court) to PREDICT that terrorists who INTEND to enter the country illegally will start to come in through the “Southern Border” at some time in the future?
Otherwise, you are right about the voting issue, and Greg is right that Republicans are refusing to offer their own solutions to the current problems that Obama is facing down while pulling out knives that Republicans keep sticking in his back.
Regarding the topic of this thread, what sort of brilliant strategy would include telling your enemy exactly what course of action against him you planned to pursue?
“Hello, Enemy? You there? Good. Look. I’m coming at you tomorrow, in from the East, just behind your flank. Thought you should know…”
@George Wells: Actually, in a anti-terrorist course I attended 7 years ago, we were given the statistics of terrorist who have entered our southern borders. The number will astound you if you had the current number. I can tell you since the number is now unclassified that there are more than 60 Hezbollah terrorist organizations being monitored in the US. Do not kid yourself that terrorist in the US are only born here or given residential status by our government. If you wanted to enter the US and attack a shopping mall, concert, football game, how would you try to infiltrate? The terrorist leaders might be radical, but they are not stupid. They are able to get people to commit suicide to further the terrorist causes. Why would they not prepare people to cross our southern borders? In fact, there is a training school in South America that does train Middle Eastern terrorist to speak Spanish, dress properly and act like a refugee from Central or South America so they can pass our southern border while not being detained. This administration believes that ex-military individuals are more of a threat to the US than anyone coming across our southern border. We should all be very afraid of the way this administration is
protectingpretending to keep us safe.@George Wells:
Obama talks too much trying to make himself sound like a leader. He isn’t. A leader acts. Reagan dropped a few bombs on Gadhafi. The Middle Eastern cultures only recognize strength, not debate or diplomacy. When Obama drew a line in the sand in Syria and the Ukraine, he needed to do something or not draw the line in the first place. Obama’s failures in foreign policy has limited the responses he can now take. Instead of one or two leaks in the dike of foreign policy, there are more holes than Obama has fingers and toes to plug them. Right now, the solutions that remain are mostly military. Since few if any other countries trust this president, it is not likely they will ally with the US. They believe he will leave them holding the bag like he did in Iraq and soon in Afghanistan. Look at Libya. Terrorist are now swimming in our embassy pool.
@retire05, #56:
So republicans are counting on women and minorities deciding that voting is essentially futile and not showing up at the polls at all. Perhaps the thought that their votes no longer matter, taken together with the curtailment of Sunday voting, the reduction of early voting hours, the elimination of same-day registration, the elimination of student identification cards as acceptable evidence of identity, and requirements that students vote in their counties or states of origin rather than in the counties where they’re presently living to attend college, will be sufficient to gain republicans an edge during mid-term elections that generally have much lower turn-outs to begin with.
Never let it be said that republicans don’t actually have strategies.
@Greg:
It is not Republicans that are whining how voter turn out for their party is going to be so dismal this November. The Democrats are the ones that are worried that their base is not going to bother going to the polls.
No one should be allowed same day voter registration when every state in the Union offers voter registration by internet. If you don’t have internet service, you can call your local voter registrar’s office and they will send you a Motor Voter application. As to students; if they have a valid driver’s license in the state where they are attending college, they should be allowed to register in that state. But far too often, we have seen college students vote absentee in their home state only to vote again in the state where their college is located. Student I.D. is not an acceptable proof of residency for a passport. Why should it be for a voter registration card?
Do our votes still matter? Not when the Democrats use the Box 13 tactic in spades. Do you really think Al Franken won his first election? If you do, your mind has been permanently damaged by crack.
A hundred years ago people would travel miles and a whole day just for the privilege of voting. Now the voter rolls are so perverted that we don’t know who is really eligible. And Eric Holder wants to make sure it stays that way by suing states that have enacted Voter I.D. laws. If Democrats had to win honestly, they would never win.
@retire05, #65:
Right wing propagandists have been pitching that line of bullshit incessantly as rationalization for their full spectrum of voting changes, a few of which are actually defensible, but the majority of which are highly questionable and clearly politically motivated. They have never been able to demonstrate wide spread voter fraud exists with hard evidence, despite having made heroic efforts to find some. Invariably when that fact is noted they begin trotting out anecdotal reports having about as much probative value as reports of bigfoot sightings.
Everybody with a brain knows what they’re actually up to, just as everybody with a brain knows what extending an individual citizen’s guaranteed Constitutional rights to corporations is really all about. It’s not about protecting the democratic principles that were enshrined in the Constitution.
@Greg: If everyone with a brain knows, why do you not know? Guess you already answered that question.
@Randy #62:
Thank you Randy, for calling attention to that which Retire05 needed to make her point. I wouldn’t have challenged what she said (I actually advocate quite strongly for the aggressive end of illegal immigration by lethal means) except that Retire05 used the Ft. Hood massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing as reasons for tightening the Southern Border, presenting a particularly disconnected logic.
And don’t be too quick to point at the Obama administration as the only problem. NO president I am aware of has “sealed the borders” or enacted an effective deterrent to illegal immigration or managed to protect the United States from attack from abroad. Not Democrat, not Republican. Our current measures are so incredibly inadequate that if we EVER do fix this problem, it’s going to look like we’ve gone mad. It will change how we view freedom, and it will change how the World views us.
All the same, I suspect that the minute you close one hole in the dyke, those seeking illegal entry will simply find another, always taking the path of least resistance. Locking down the Southern border from the Pacific all the way to the Gulf of Mexico will cost enormous quantities of manpower and treasure, and will probably stop migrant workers but not would-be terrorists, who will adapt like mutating viruses. To seriously reduce the threat of terrorism here at home, we would have to:
Institute a National ID program.
Make failure to present a valid National ID grounds for summary execution.
Deport MASSIVE numbers of people who have immigrated in the past 50 years, INCLUDING a few million U.S. citizens.
These measures are outrageously aggressive, and would obviously require a major reconsideration of states’ rights, due process, etc., etc. But if the threat of terrorism here at home grows to the proportions predicted by the inflamed rhetoric here at Flopping Aces, Americans will eventually exchange their civil rights for safety and adopt just such measures. Higher fences and withheld foreign aid won’t do the trick.
@Greg:
We know that vote fraud is wide spread, and rampant. But radical left wing rags like the NYTimes will pooh-pooh that because there are few arrests and convictions for vote fraud. And not all states share their voter registration rolls with other states, which they should.
Like I said; if Democrats had to win honestly, they would never win.
@Randy #63:
“The Middle Eastern cultures only recognize strength, not debate or diplomacy. When Obama drew a line in the sand in Syria and the Ukraine, he needed to do something or not draw the line in the first place.”
ABSOLUTELY true. I would dispute that Obama’s past performance has limited his options, save for the likelihood that allies are now less likely to stand by our side. But we have never really relished allied engagement – not in World War 2 and not in the Middle East. We bristle at being constrained by European sensitivities that are often economically motivated, and we only warm to accepting military help when our adventurism threatens to bankrupt us.
But Obama COULD be executing a cleaver feint. I seriously doubt that he is, sadly. But wouldn’t it be grand if he DID act so indecisive on Tuesday and then bomb the living crap out of ANYBODY on Wednesday? The Tuesday ruse would be the perfect prep. If he did that just ONCE, our allies would get the picture and get back in line. For that matter, Islam would lose the “tell” it has on Obama that it currently depends on to great advantage.
@George Wells:
Taking a realistic approach to terrorism and immigration would allow the emphasis to be placed on real threats instead of people like me and another vet. It would not make good press though since generated intel would need to be held closely instead of broadcast to the media as is current policy or practice.
@retire05 #69:
“We know that vote fraud is wide spread, and rampant.”
Another crystal ball assessment. No proof.
UrbanRepublican myth.@George Wells: Actually, there is proof, but few prosecutions. Just like there were no prosecutions for illegal campaign contributions from middle east sources.
@Randy #71:
“Taking a realistic approach to terrorism and immigration…”
With all due respects, Randy, there IS no “realistic” approach to this problem. Our borders are enormous, and they will REMAIN porous no matter what we do to them. We are in a sad fix, with the only possible solutions being indigestible AT THIS TIME. So we’ll muddle along, Dem admin. after Rep. admin. throwing ribbons at the problem, until terrorists hurt us enough that we agree to give up some serious rights. Obviously a few thousand innocents dead won’t do it. Maybe a million? You don’t see that this problem isn’t going to evaporate the next time a Republican gets the top job? No matter WHAT he does?
@George Wells: Look at the list of terrorist threats made by the DHS. Instead of concentrating on conservative organizations as terrorist threats, we should be looking at those who pose realistic threats.
@Randy:
Randy, don’t you know that the claims of vote fraud are just right wing conspiracy theories, at least according to the left?
Things like this:
and this:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-politics/2014/05/08/iowa-secretary-of-state-voter-fraud-report-matt-schultz/8858595/
are just fictional in the minds of conservatives.
Never mind that the vote stealing/selling in Texas affected both Democrats and minorities, not white Republicans or even Hispanic Republicans. An honest Democrat Hispanic can easily lose to a crooked Hispanic Democrat. It all depends on who has the most cash and can buy the most votes. Those votes that are being fraudulently cast are disenfranchising the vote of other Hispanics. But hey, nothing to see here, move on and continue to claim that vote fraud only affects Republicans so why bother trying to clean it up?
So the bottom line is that the very party that bases its street cred on looking out for the minority, doesn’t care about minorities when it comes to voter fraud.
And maybe Greggie can explain to me the reason that after Texas passed its Voter I.D. laws, in the very first election that required acceptable I.D., black turnout in a mid-term election was higher than it had ever been. In my county alone, with over 20,000 votes cast, there were two cases of the person not having I.D. They were both allowed to cast a provisional ballot, one was legit, the other was not. What percentage of 20,000 is 2?
@Randy #75:
I am sure that you will agree that our country is best served by a two-political-party system, if only to keep the human frailties of greed and corruption – that members of each party are subject to – in check. “Too much power” is roughly equivalent to “being in power too long,” and power corrupts. I don’t want Democrats in power for long any more than I want republicans in power for long. Given the opportunity, both parties tend to get themselves into trouble that ends up costing the taxpayers more money than they ought to be paying.
Now, with that in hand, perhaps you can understand that each political party has a sort of instinct for survival, much like living organisms have. Each party gets full of itself regarding the inviolability of its particular dogma when it is well ahead in the polls and/or holds the majority of power in at least two of the three branches of government. But when either party gets behind in those polls, they become rather overly concerned with the public’s ability to stomach their “message.” Platforms get watered down, candidates flip-flop on issues (or “evolve,” LOL) and everyone rushes toward the “center”.
Concentrate on the “real threats?”
What, exactly are the “real threats,” and in whose eyes?
Both parties have done their share of mischief in the name of threat pursuit. Sure, the IRS has been up to no good lately, but I seem to recall that Republican’s had their J. Edgar Hoover rooting out “subversives” and “activists” (a.k.a: Democrats) for decades, and he is widely appreciated to have overstepped at least as many constitutional and/or legal limits as have recent, overly-enthusiastic Democrats. I’m not condoning either, I’m just noting that the tendency isn’t party-dependent. It’s all part of “politics.”
@George Wells: I think Hoover was the result of both Democratic and Republican administrations. He was a power onto himself.
@George Wells: So you believe that every decision made by a politician is political? Not one has the mental proficiency to determine who is a threat to the US or not? There has been a great many people who have identified the threats to the US long before the threat matured into action. The real issue here is are we electing real leaders or are we electing the person least likely to screw up?
@Randy #$78:
Hoover certainly endured over a number of different administrations both Republican and Democrat, but Hoover was a Republican, and his mischief was tolerated. There are conflicting theories on why. Times have changed, and Obama’s overreaches attract swift and brutal objection. I’m not arguing against that objection. I’m arguing against the characterization that the tendency is purely Democratic. Fair is fair.
Do I believe that politicians’ decisions are largely self-serving and “political?”
Yes. Not exclusively, I’ll grant. But politicians who are guided exclusively by higher ideals generally don’t last nearly as long as those who remain enslaved by the whims of their constituencies.
Note the distinction I made between “political courage” when the polls are with you and the lack of it when they are against you. Is this not self-evident? Is this not at the very core of being a “politician?”
@retire05, #69:
Knowing all sorts of things in the absence of credible supporting evidence is part of your problem.
@Greg:
Greggie, I linked just two articles for your edification. I can present many, many more. What is NOT wide spread is prosecution of voter fraud. Many county DAs are reluctant to even prosecute those cases as they are hard to prove that the person WILLFULLY committed voter fraud and a very expensive use of tax payer funds.
Creditable evidence, as you call it, are the actual cases that have been prosecuted with a verdict of guilty. But that brings us to the question; how much voter fraud is acceptable to you? 2% of the ballots? 10% 40%? And as a liberal, who I am sure would claim to want to do what is best for minorities, why are you not outraged that most voter fraud occurs in precincts that have a strong minority? Do you not care if black, or Hispanic, votes are disenfranchised due to voter fraud? How many were convicted of voter fraud in just East St. Louis, Illinois, a predominantly black town?
For every fraudulent ballot that is cast, it cancels out a legitimate ballot, and therefore disenfranchises the voter who cast the legitimate ballot. But you don’t care, do you? If you did, you would admit that even one case of voter fraud is wrong and should be prosecuted with the full vigor of a county DA.
@retire05, #82:
You posted an article about Texas politiqueras that included the following sentence:
You’re conflating a traditional means of turning out the vote in Hispanic communities with voter fraud, suggesting that the entire practice is all about vote buying.
You posted a second article about an investigation in Iowa that involved a claim of 117 illegally cast votes, which ultimately led to only 6 convictions. The following quote is from that article:
Over 125 million votes were cast in the most recent presidential election. Compared with that number, the total number of documented cases of voter fraud is so tiny as to be statistically insignificant. What’s rampant is the number of claims of voter fraud. The number of proven instances—even with the right beating the bushes to find them—is properly described as miniscule. The perception of a serious problem has been promoted by the right to provide justification for a calculated multi-state program of voter suppression. If you’re looking for fraud, there’s one to think about.
@Greg #82:
Retire05 says in her #82 that “Creditable evidence, as you call it, are the actual cases that have been prosecuted with a verdict of guilty” and adds that such credible evidence is exceedingly rare. It sure is.
Never mind that it is rare.
Never mind that your baseless assertion that most of the voter fraud you CLAIM is occurring you also claim occurs in precincts that have a strong minority.
Must we to accept these numerous propositions Retire05 makes on faith?
She adds that “… you (s)ould admit that even one case of voter fraud is wrong and should be prosecuted with the full vigor of a county DA.”
Sure we do admit that. I agree, and I’m sure that Greg does, too.
The problem is that whether one case of voter fraud is prosecuted or not isn’t the issue.
The issue is that you can’t make up your mind.
On the one hand you are explaining why you DON’T want to prosecute voter fraud (because it costs too much… really?) And on the other hand you WANT the prosecution.
Which is it?
@Greg:
You ignored this part:
So in your mind, Greggie, what is an acceptable percentage of vote fraud? 1%? 5% 25%
@George Wells, #84:
I have absolutely no problem with prosecuting anyone who commits voter fraud. It does sometimes happen and needs to be dealt with when it does. What I’m arguing against is the assertion that voter fraud is rampant. There’s absolutely no evidence suggesting that it’s widespread or statistically significant. Some of the proposed “cures,” however, are very likely to deprive a great many entirely legitimate voters of their opportunity to have their say at the ballot box. It’s also apparent that this effect will not be a politically neutral one. That’s where the real motivation for many of the recent registration and polling place changes are coming from.
@retire05, #85:
Many things that are not categorically “acceptable” have real-world consequences that are so trivial it’s not worth the more damaging measures that would be required to totally eradicate them. You wouldn’t cut off the entire tip of your finger to be rid of a recurring hangnail. You don’t potentially disenfranchise millions of legitimate voters just to be rid of a statistically insignificant number of fraudulent votes. Unless, of course, you have other motives for doing so.
Yep. “Anonymous sources on the ground in Benghazi said…”
Some people never seem to notice when such totally meaningless claims are used to manipulate their perceptions and opinions. It has become totally routine.
@Greg:
That’s not an answer, so again, I ask you: what is an acceptable percentage of vote fraud? 1%? 5% 25%
Or are you going to play that game of Dodge the Question you are so lousy at?
It is an answer, unless you happen to be as dumb as a box of rocks.
@Greg:
Nice attempt, but no cigar. It is a really simple question, Greggie. Simple enough that even a lame brain like you can understand it. What is an acceptable percentage of vote fraud in your mind?
You are such a joke, Greggie. You make all kinds of statements then when someone asks you are question, you run like a scared rabbit.
@retire05, #90:
What do you believe an acceptable percentage of fingers with hangnails is, before you think it’s necessary to begin chopping the end joints off?
You’re obviously wanting me to express the thought that some degree of voter fraud is acceptable, so that you can hop up on a soap box and begin expounding on how democrats (which are the equivalent of Marxists) consider voter fraud to be perfectly OK. Sorry. I’m not going for it.
@Greg #92:
While you’re at it, why not tell Retire05 when you stopped beating your wife? It’s the sort of question she is bound to throw at you sooner than later – she’s a bit of a one-trick-pony with her no-right-answer questions – so just answer it preemptively and be done with it.
You are right, of course, as she demonstrates whenever she adds the “ie” to the end of the name of who she is addressing. You’d think that people who chat on a site called “Flopping Aces” would understand the concept of a “tell.”
@Greg:
OK, then. So while you have been ranting about voter fraud being “so trivial it’s not worth the more damaging measures that would be required to totally eradicate them” you are not willing to state what percentage of vote fraud would warrant actions to eradicate them.
You’re like every other linguini-spined liberal when pressed on making your position clear. You run for the hills and come out with some neener-neener comment. You never fail to disappoint, Greggie. You are simply the same little weasel you were when you first appeared here at FA.
@retire05 #94:
Greg is exactly as “spineless” as someone who, with mountains of past decisions and a full compliment of legal analyses of the arguments on merit, still refuses to predict how the gay marriage case will ultimately be decided.
Your recurring obsession with an acceptable percentage of voter fraud is precisely the same symptom of delusional disorder that you have accused others of suffering from. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander.
Hypocrite.
Is any level of voter fraud acceptable? Didn’t you see the deranged woman who proudly stated on TV that she voted 5 times for Obama? Voting in this country is so important to the success of our country that there should be no fraud. When humans are involved, there will be mistakes, but there should be a vigorous defense of the integrity of our system of electing those who represent us. That is what makes a strong republic. Anything less is unacceptable.
When this country is living in a age where every person needs to have a government ID to navigate life, why do we minimize the requirements to vote? Only illegal aliens can board a plane in the US with out government ID. If even one person votes illegally, our system of government is compromised. A compromised government looks like Iraq use to look. Or the USSR, or China. Is that what liberals want this country to resemble? If Greg represents the liberal stance, then that is exactly what this country will look like. It is already moving in that direction.
@Randy #95:
“Only illegal aliens can board a plane in the US with out government ID.”
Dude, who are you talking to, and what are you talking about?
Have you flown on an airplane at any time in the past ten years?
Have you heard of the Homeland Security Administration or the Transportation Safety Administration?
Have you attempted to obtain a boarding pass from an airline agent without presenting a government-issued photo ID?
Have you tried to pass through airport security screening without government-issued photo-identification?
What planet have you been hiding on, anyway?
Try again.
@George Wells:
http://patriotupdate.com/2014/07/tsa-allowing-illegals-planes-without-id/
There are many more reports from Border Patrol agents who are concerned about Illegals flying with out valid ID.
@Randy:
Letter from TSA to Congressman Kenny Marchant:
“If a passenger can only present a Form I-862, TSA will attempt to establish the passenger’s identity through DHS partner Components, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If other DHS Components are able to provide corroborating information (such as that the I-862 was issued to an individual with the name provided) to permit TSA to verify an individual’s identity when taken together with all other information available, the passenger is permitted into the screening checkpoint to undergo screening. If unable to verify the passenger’s identity, TSA will deny access to the screening checkpoint.”
IOWs, yeah, all that is really needed is the I-862, which does not include a photo, or any biometric form of identification, about the passenger. And what is “all other information available?” Many of these illegals have no I.D. at all. That is why it is so hard to identify them when they are found dead in the brush. And how does other DHS “components” know that these people, with a I-862 in hand, are actually who they say they are?
Hello, BP? We have a guy here who says his name is Juan Gonzales. Did you guys give a I-862 to a Juan Gonzales, about 5’8″, 145 lbs, dark hair, dark eyes? You did? OK, TSA, they got him on their list. Let him through.
@retire05: Thanks for the support. I only had a few minutes to reply since I am totally exhausted from transporting a 700 lb bull elk from the forest to the butcher. Too old to do this by myself, but still proud I can do what is necessary.
@Randy:
No problem, Randy.
BTW, did you get a good rack from that elk? Dove season opened here last Saturday. And bow season is right around the corner.