Originally Posted By SuperDry <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3709176.html" target="_blank">http://www.chron.com/disp/stor y.mpl/ap/nation/3709176.html</a> "SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — The California Republican Party suspended its practice of paying people who sign up GOP voters while prosecutors investigate whether some registrations are improper. ... "The state party paid workers $3 for each voter they registered as Republican ... "However, election officials in San Bernadino County found that thousands of GOP registration forms may have been filled out by the signature gatherers rather than the voter. Additionally, some non-citizens may have been registered ...Similar problems were discovered in Orange County.
Originally Posted By SuperDry What I find amazing about this and some other recent stores on WE is how silent some other members have been. I can think of at least one member that is quite proliferate in posting links to news stories, and appears very concerend about the issues of corrupt politicians, voter fraud, and illegal immimgration, frequently posting links to stories about these issues whenever they occur. But this poster has been conspicuously silent on certain topics recently. Scandals involving Border Patrol agents under arrest for taking bribes to release illegals would be something that would appear just the kind of thing that he'd be interested in, especially since this took place in his back yard and the story I linked to appeared in a newspaper that he otherwise frequently links to. Also, there was the recent story about the Republican Congressman "Duke" Cunningham being sentenced to 100 months in federal prison for what "Prosecutors told the judge it was the worst case of its type, made more egregious by Cunningham's bullying of government officials. They said Cunningham steered contracts the military neither sought nor needed to contractors in exchange for money and gifts." This Congressman is from the local area of the LP poster I'm thinking of (and quite possibly might actually have been his Congressman), so this story can't possibly have escaped his notice. Despite this, and an apparent concern over political corruption in general, the silence is deafening. Then there's the story in my post #1 on this thead. It's a triple-whammy: voter registration fraud involving a political party and (potentially illegal) aliens. Any one of those topics would typically warrant a news story link by the poster I'm thinking of, but he's conspicuously silent on this one. I wonder why that is?
Originally Posted By cmpaley You forget, superdry. It's OKAY if you're a Republican. Being a member the The Party covers a multitude of sins.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Looking into the story in #1 a bit more, I was surprised to learn about this only in my local newspaper, based some 1200+ miles away from the incident. Much of what I find out about political corruption and voter fraud comes from links on Drudge Report, but for some reason this story wasn't mentioned on Drudge. I wonder why that is? What's especially interesting is that my local newspaper (and many others from my search on news.google.com) carried this story under an Associated Press newswire byline. You'd certainly expect a story of this nature to be widely covered, wouldn't you? In addition to searching the Drudge Report archives via the link on that website (found nothing), I decided to search the AP and Reuters archives during the last 14 days via the links on Drudge. I found nothing. Now this seems particularly strange. How could a story I read recently in my local newspaper from the Associated Press not appear in a 14-day search of the AP newswire? Upon further checking, it looks like that the "Search AP" function on the Drudge Report website doesn't actually search all AP stories, but as far as I can tell only those that have been picked up by the Washington Times. Similarly, the "Search Reuters" function on Drudge doesn't actually search all Reuters stories, but only those that appear in the Washington Times. So, someone that uses Drudge Report as one of their primary news sources (and I know MANY people that use it as their ONLY source), especially since it basically consists of links to the "mainstream" press and relatively few Drudge-originated news stories, might never come across this story of the GOP allegedly paying to have aliens registered as Republican voters in California. And even if they caught wind of such a story appearing in the Associated Press, if they did an AP news article search on Drudge, they wouldn't actually find a link to this article, since Drudge as far as I can tell only provides a filtered search of AP stories (without disclosing such). Finally, I thought I'd be able to get the straight scoop from a source that everyone knows is Fair & Balanced: FOX News. I went to www.foxnews.com and searched for the story. Like some other sources mentioned above, this story seems to be right along the subject matter in several ways that FOX News talks about ad nauseum: voter fraud, aliens, political corruption. Yet, I found no reference to this story on that website either. I wonder why that this? It's almost as if all of the news sources I mention above, while claiming to not only provide fair and balanced reporting but seem especially fixated on the very issues involved in this story, have chosen to simply not even mention it. I wonder why that is?
Originally Posted By Beaumandy This is a story because the democrats are supposed to own this trick. Go figure.
Originally Posted By mele I live in WA state and I have zero faith in our voting system. It just seems like there are far too many "mistakes" going on (on both sides). I wonder if politics will ever be honest again. I doubt it. Sad.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper If it hadn't been going on in both parties for years I might actually be surprised by this. The two-party system blows.
Originally Posted By patrickegan The GOP is always behind the curve on this stuff! Next cycle watch for stuffed ballot boxes floating in SF bay.
Originally Posted By bboisvert RE: Post #4 <a href="http://mb.laughingplace.com/default.asp?WCI=MsgBoard&WCE=T-73231-P-13&Refresh=0312065328" target="_blank">http://mb.laughingplace.com/de fault.asp?WCI=MsgBoard&WCE=T-73231-P-13&Refresh=0312065328</a> Someone there seems to have "proof" that the Drudge Report is actually a left leaning site. So, what you are saying cannot be true at all. ;-)
Originally Posted By woody I don't see anything wrong with the practice, because the problem is the work itself. Wrong information will always come back to bite the political doing the work. No one works for free these days. What's wrong will paying someone to gather Republican's voter registration? I don't think the person signing people up is capable of doing a background check. Give me a break!!!
Originally Posted By patrickegan I think the “rabid left†has finally found a down side to “undocumented†immigration!!!
Originally Posted By Dabob2 One wouldn't have to be "rabid left," "rabid right," or straight down the middle to know that this practice is wrong. SuperDry makes some great points, though, about the unackowledged filtering going on at Drudge, for example, that I didn't know about. Nice job.
Originally Posted By cmpaley I must say that Post 13 is the most substantive post ever by DouglasDubh.
Originally Posted By DlandDug Obviously, anyone who routinely links articles critical of liberals wouldn't have the slightest interest in this story. Just as those who routinely link articles critical of conservatives or the GOP would jump on it. But to misrepresent the story... Ah, that's a different matter. Let's look at the lead of this story, without those pesky ellipses. The material removed from the article (doubtless to make it more succinct) will be enclosed in brackets: >>The California Republican Party suspended its practice of paying people who sign up GOP voters while prosecutors investigate whether some registrations are improper. ["Having just one instance of voter fraud is too many," state party Chairman Duf Sundheim said in a statement Tuesday. "Any sign of voter fraud must be investigated and those responsible for the fraud should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."] The state party paid workers $3 for each voter they registered as Republican [_ a practice also followed by Democrats.] However, election officials in San Bernadino County found that thousands of GOP registration forms may have been filled out by the signature gatherers rather than the voter. Additionally, some non-citizens may have been registered, [and some Democrats may have registered as Republicans.] Similar problems were discovered in Orange County.<< Reads a little differently, doesn't it? In actuality, the GOP suspended using a company (Tom Bader and Associates) when it was discovered that their workers were engaged in possibly illegal actvities. Not nearly as sensational as the GOP itself engaging in wholesale fraud, but hey-- why not tart the story up as much as possible? (P.S. The statistical information in that other thread didn't say that Drudge was left leaning-- it said the news content of Drudge was left leaning. A minor distinction to some, but one I am sure we should all appreciate.)
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Let's look at the lead of this story, without those pesky ellipses. The material removed from the article (doubtless to make it more succinct) will be enclosed in brackets: Reads a little differently, doesn't it? In actuality, the GOP suspended using a company (Tom Bader and Associates) when it was discovered that their workers were engaged in possibly illegal actvities. Not nearly as sensational as the GOP itself engaging in wholesale fraud, but hey-- why not tart the story up as much as possible? >>> "What did I post that wasn't true?" I am very much aware of what you say above, and in fact I did it on purpose as a parody of sorts as commentary on a particular posting style. My comment really was in post #4, not #1. You'll notice that #1 in this thread and several others that I've started recently have the following characteristics: 1. They are taken from the mainstream media. 2. They quote parts of the original story verbatim. 3. They are presented in a matter-of-fact manner without commentary. So, what's the problem with this? "What did I say that's not true?" Well, DlandDug, the problem is exactly what you point out above. What's so insidious about this is that unless someone realises what's going on (which apparently few do), they might come away from the situation thinking they're informed. This is true whether they're reading "news" stories linked to and quoted without commentary here on WE, on Drudge Report, or some other similar source.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Another interesting point is how some people get really bent out of shape when a story that doesn't mesh with their world view is posted. It's not happened this week, but if you read WE a lot I'm sure you'll remember at least a couple of times in the past where someone has seemed to have a big problem with me posting a link to a news story and launched into a visious personal attack. Yet, when stories are posted by the dozen that have the subconscious effect of reinforcing their world view, it's just "fair and balanced" reporting not worthy of comment one way or the other - after all, they're just reporting the news, right?
Originally Posted By DlandDug Any personal attack is against Community Standards. Period. Further, seeing a reply based entirely on the personality of the poster, rather than the content of the post, illustrates how devoid of response the critic is. That's why I find all the complaints about DarkBeer's posts so absurd. Rather than complain about HIM, why not do as I did? Read the source, and offer comments about the IDEAS, rather than the PERSONALITIES. (Barring that, ignore 'em. Goodness knows I exercise that option often enough.) As far as people getting bent out of shape when their world view isn't "meshed with," it seems to me that that is coming mostly from the left-of-center side of WE these days. Devoid of ideas, or just not inclined to make the effort to present some?
