[WARNING: This is a somewhat political post. If you don't like reading political posts, what are you doing here? More to the point, you might want to skip this posting.]The other day I went to see the new Robin Williams movie, "
Man of the Year". The basic premise is that he's a late-night comedian who runs for president, and, through a 'bug' in the computerized voting machines,
wins.
Good movie. Funny movie. But that's not the point. It's not hard to figure out that the voting machine company who knows of the software flaws and tries to cover them up for it's own advantage is a thinly disguised version of
Diebold. The link back there gives a pretty good description of the outstanding issues with Diebold's machines.
It's been noted in the news recently that the white house, specifically George W. Bush and Karl Rove, has been
blithely confident that, despite the recent scandals and the
very unfavorable polls, the Republicans are going to
retain control of both the House and Senate.
From the Washington Post: Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats — shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term. ...
The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence — based on Bush's and Rove's electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command — or of self-delusion. Even many Republicans suspect the latter. Three GOP strategists with close ties to the White House flatly predicted the loss of the House, though they would not do so on the record for fear of offending senior Bush aides.
Hubris? Refusal to face the likely reality? Or, possibly, do they
know something about the upcoming results of the election in advance? Do they have
good reason for their confidence? In ordinary times I'd consider the possibility of massive election-rigging in the U.S. to be ludicrous; but this administration has shown their willingness to violate accepted standards, any laws that get in their way, and even ignore the constitution when it's to their benefit. They've even got a
history of suspicious election results.
It's a more-than-scary thought. I hope I'm wrong.
I've gotten flak elsewhere for linking to this blog, on the grounds that it's too political and the content will start controversy. Well, it's SUPPOSED to incite controversy. That said, though, keep the commentary HERE. Don't go off into endless back-and-forth colloquy on other boards. First of all, it uses their bandwidth instead of mine. Second, many folks there don't care about political matters, vehemently disagree with all the expressed opinions, and don't want to see the verbal foodfights.
