The term is "without preconditions." Preconditions are things like, "you must disarm before we'll talk to you," an absurd proposition given that disarming is what you want to talk to them about in the first place. Jumping into this conversation a little late and misinformed, aren't we?Electryc wrote:No we need to meet with the man who said that the Holocaust was a fairy tale unconditionally.
Why, good sir, those "dark-skinned people" can register all they want! I just happen to have a slight problem with "those people" registering 76 times. . .Mulu wrote:Yes, how dare they register dark-skinned people. The nerve. Why that's just as bad as sitting on the board of an organization trying to educate inner city youth (by appealing to black liberation theology, a racist religious ideology!) With a leftist (former terrorist & 60s radical) professor no less!
Yeah, it's bizarre. Saudi Arabia should be our enemy and Iran our friend, really--if it weren't for oil, the whole "whoops we overthrew Iran's government" business, and the Cold War it might've turned out that way. The Iranian people like us a hell of a lot more than the Saudis do.fluffmonster wrote:Hell, its not like they're even worse than the Saudis. In terms of shared values, we've got much more in common with the persians than the saudis.
The ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee parted ways with his party's presidential nominee Wednesday by endorsing Democrat Barack Obama's approach to diplomacy.
In a lengthy speech at the National Defense University, Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar weighed the benefits of talking to foreign leaders, including U.S. enemies, against other actions, such as military force. The issue marks one of the sharpest divides between Obama and John McCain, who has called the Democratic nominee naive for suggesting that he would sit down with leaders such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Lugar, however, praised Obama, noting that isolation often does not resolve contentious issues.
"He correctly cautions against the implication that hostile nations must be dealt with almost exclusively through isolation or military force," Lugar said in a prepared remarks released before his speech. "In some cases, refusing to talk can even be dangerous."
Lugar, however, said McCain is right to warn that "there are times when diplomatic approaches to rogue regimes have little efficacy." But he cited North Korea, which was just removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror, as a diplomatic success story and urged more contact with Syria and Iran.
How couldn't you? Pakistan democraticly elected government overthrown by a radical regime friendly to the Taliban, allies to Al-quda. I think there are a few jihadists who's wet dream is to toss a nuclear missile at the great satan or kiwi lovers.Swift wrote: I guess you havn't been watching the downward spiral of Pakistan then.
Hence the comment. I am far more concerned about the state of Pakistan than "some nutjob" in Iran. Iran is stepping out and carving their place in the region and showing that you don't have to bow to the west (maybe not going the best way about it), but Pakistan is a god damned mess. I got good money that there will be a nuked launched from the sub-continent long before Iran puts their finger on the button.Electryc wrote:How couldn't you? Pakistan democraticly elected government overthrown by a radical regime friendly to the Taliban, allies to Al-quda. I think there are a few jihadists who's wet dream is to toss a nuclear missile at the great satan or kiwi lovers.Swift wrote: I guess you havn't been watching the downward spiral of Pakistan then.
WaPo wrote:ACORN
McCain said that ACORN, the large anti-poverty and affordable housing organization, is perpetrating one of the greatest voter frauds in the history of the country.
This is greatly overstating the allegations that have been brought against the group in recent weeks. Nearly all of the handful of investigations that are now underway around the country involve charges that ACORN workers submitted fraudulent registration forms to election officials. Some of the forms were obviously fraudulent -- one for "Mickey Mouse," others with the names of the Dallas Cowboys. But there is a difference between submitting bogus forms and actual voter fraud. It is not voter fraud until someone shows up at the polls pretending to be Tony Romo or Mickey Mouse and tries to vote. And there is no evidence yet of a wholesale push to send people to the polls under bogus names. At this point, the primary target of the fraudulent registrations has been ACORN itself, which is being tricked by workers into paying them for bogus forms. ACORN has itself reported some of the bogus forms after filing them and is cooperating with investigators, since in some states it is required by law to submit all forms that it receives from workers instead of screening them itself.
That is not to say that the bogus forms are totally harmless -- they bog down election officials who are now struggling to process hundreds of thousands of legitimate forms. In that regard, the bogus forms may be indirectly hurting Obama, who is counting on the processing of the hundreds of thousands of new voter registrations that his own campaign workers has drummed up. But there is no evidence at all of the massive attempt to destroy the 'fabric' of American democracy that McCain describes.
Officials: FBI investigates ACORN for voter fraud
Oct 16 01:03 PM US/Eastern
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is investigating whether the community activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.
A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The Associated Press on Thursday. A second senior law enforcement official says the FBI was looking at results of recent raids on ACORN offices in several states for any evidence of a coordinated national scam.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because regulatons forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, says it has registered 1.3 million young people, minorities and poor and working-class voters—most of whom tend to be Democrats.
Oh wait, Mulu and Kate say it's nothing. Call off the FBI.CINCINNATI - Close to one in every three newly registered Ohio voters will end up on court-ordered lists being sent to county election boards because they have some discrepancy in their records, an elections spokesman said Wednesday.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party on Tuesday and ordered Brunner to set up a system that provides those names to county elections boards. The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.
"Things already are in motion to comply," Kidder said. "We're working to establish these processes on how we can make this work. The computer work actually began last week."
About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January.
Brunner previously cross-checked new-voter registrations with databases run by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle and the Social Security Administration and made the results available online, but the 6th Circuit said the information was not accessible in a way that would help county election boards ferret out mismatches.
Brunner, a Democrat, told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer on Wednesday that she is concerned the court decision is a veiled attempt at disenfranchising voters. Brunner said she'll urge counties not to force these people to use provisional ballots.
The court gave Brunner until Friday to get election boards the information but it was unclear whether that deadline would be met. The court set no penalty for missing the deadline.
County election officials were trying to determine Wednesday how they will respond once they get the information.
"I'm very concerned with these new requirements as we get closer to Election Day," said Steve Harsman, director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections in Dayton. He said his staff already is working 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
"It's clearly going to have an impact in regard to resources we have to expend to resolve discrepancies," said Jeff Hastings, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland.
"We've had about 100,000 (registrations) since January and of those about 34,000 since the primary. We will do whatever is required of us."
Also Wednesday, the Ohio Republican Party said it has filed public records requests with all 88 counties for copies of forms submitted by newly registered voters, especially those who registered and cast an absentee ballot on the same day during a one-week window earlier this month.
Brunner has said that 13,141 Ohioans registered and voted immediately during the window.
"We've seen reports of fraudulent registrations, and we want to see those forms first-hand," said Jason Mauk, the state GOP's executive director.
