Our favourite lying, wealthy, propagandist is up to the same tricks again. I am not a Bush apologist. I don’t agree with a great many decisions the Bush administration has made. But Moore is intolerable, and the distortions, outright lies, and FUD that Kerry supporters (or perhaps more accurately Bush haters) spread is simply unreal. I’ve heard some whoppers from Bush supporters too, but this year the Liberals are putting on a fine display of mocking the Truth. Quite simply this election year has been a great opportunity to witness how people’s world views (on both sides politically) act as blinders to the truth. The truth is secondary to their agenda, which is almost defensible, but what really bothers me is when they use the truth when it is convenient as if they are staunch supporters of what is True and Right. Give me a break, liberals and conservatives.
Tags: Personal
October 7th, 2004 at 5:12 pm
hi.
all this moore-says this, others say that and so on.
i am not sure about facts anymore
like..moore says that no weapons of mass destruction were found in iraq.
then one article there says that the opposite is true.
moore interviews a soldier in his movie.
then a website says that that soldier told other things too, which were not shown in the movie and so on.
and now i am tired of all these things. i mean…. can any of the PROVE it to me? what if that soldier is lying? what if he is simply an actor? what if? and so on.
what i wanted to write here, is that what the anti-moore webpages write, those things can be also false.
i am not trying to defend moore… it’s just… you wrote that he’s doing his tricks again… maybe he is…but how can you be sure that those websites criticizing him are telling the truth?
October 7th, 2004 at 7:29 pm
Is this all you’ve got? Michael Moore tries to encourage voter registration by a gag gift (giving people underwear), and you and your cohorts are all excited about sending him to jail? Mind you, he’s just asking people to vote, so the moral argument behind laws on vote-buying don’t apply. People who vote for Bush get their underwear too.
If, in fact, this is a crime in Michigan, clearly Moore didn’t know about it, and it’s a stupid law.
For years now, there have been local businesses in California that gave some bonus to customers for showing their ballot stub or “I voted!” sticker. Are you saying that this is a crime in Michigan?
If so, it’s an immoral law that should be changed.
As for gabor farkas, it’s not Moore saying there are no WMD in Iraq, it’s the man George Bush himself sent.
October 7th, 2004 at 8:06 pm
I give up on this stuff.
October 7th, 2004 at 8:06 pm
I give up on this stuff.
October 7th, 2004 at 8:57 pm
Actually, this is exactly what the law applies to, though I’m not surprised you try to dismiss it so quickly. The actual law is thus:
“Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.“
“This statute prohibits “vote buying” in the broadest terms possible by forbidding any “payment” or “offer of payment” that is made to a would-be voter “for voting” or to induce unregistered individuals to get onto the electoral roles. A “payment” encompasses anything of material value including lottery chances.“
Voting Rights Act of 1965 ( and more specifically the 1973 amendment, 42 U.S.C 1973i(c))
The user by name of paratrooper did the research on this over at moorewatch.com.
He did a few other articles on this as well.
Here
Here
And Here
Pay particular attention to the following:
“or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
You don’t have to buy a specific vote to break this law, you only have to buy the registration, and as the law said, you can buy that with ANYTHING of monetary value. So, Moore is, indeed, breaking the exact thing this law is written against. Also, at the time he offers monetary compensation for registering, he ENDORSES A SPECIFIC CANDIDATE.
And for more fun reading, check this out:
The Truth about F-911
That link is for the person who asked for specific sited evidence of the VAST amount of Michael Moores lies and deliberate falsehoods. It cites and references all documents.
October 8th, 2004 at 12:41 am
Moore won’t be going to jail and Bush is still a bonehead. Next topic?
October 8th, 2004 at 2:43 am
Thank you for posting the first intelligent politic related posted on Planet GNOME. Bored of the Kerry Moore Rather trio even although I’m spanish.
October 8th, 2004 at 5:19 am
Well, I’ve just read the introduction to “The Truth about F-911″. Obviously, it is extremely biased. You just _can’t_ start a well-informed review by calling Moore a goddamn liar (between the lines) and try to second-guess his intention with the film.
That the document has references is not enough to prove anything. You need to check that the referenced material is of good quality.
I find it amusing that the document attacks Moore for trying to mind-read Bush, when the document itself obviously is trying to the same with Moore.
It’s appalling that the people who pretend to be well-informed critics of Moore resort to the same tactics as Moore does.
October 8th, 2004 at 11:24 am
Beware the right-wing spin machine (and the left-wing spin machine, too). Sorry, Jamin - you fell right into their clutches with this one. So, Moore asks two or three students in his audiences who’ve never voted to come up on stage and promise to register - in exchange for gag gifts like a plastic cup of Ramen noodles or a pair of clean underwear. Alert the media! Arrest this man! If that’s a violation of the letter of the law in Michigan, so be it - but let’s not pretend that it’s a violation of the spirit of the law, nor that the right-wing media campaign to spin this as “Moore buying votes!” is anything but that - spin.
The truth? Republicans are alarmed by the surge in new voter registrations (in Michigan and across the country). So they’re filing complaints in every county they can, for any reason they can come up with, hoping to derail the process and trim some of those new voters - likely Kerry-voters - off the rolls. By trumping up the idea that Moore is buying votes, they hope to win support for that effort. (Roles reversed, I suspect the Democrats would do much the same, though probably with less vitriol.)
In other words, this is just politics as usual - which in itself is the real crime. Don’t get suckered into the spin; whatever your opinion of Moore, this is a non-story. Raising your hackles about it is just being gullible.
October 8th, 2004 at 11:32 am
My point wasn’t that Moore was buying votes, though technically he was according to the law since he was offering items of monetary value in exchange for a promise to vote while endorsing a specific candidate. My point was the fact that it was all a publicity stunt. He picked the silly gifts so that he could call them ‘gag gifts’ and make the republicans who complained look silly while still getting his agenda accomplished. You can practically hear the wheels in Moore’s head spinning, looking for ways to subvert, spin, and distort.
October 8th, 2004 at 12:43 pm
Boy does that conspiracy theory fail the Occam’s Razor sniff test! This isn’t about “complaining” and “looking silly” - Moore has performed this bit across the country for months, and nobody made a stir about it, nobody said a peep, nobody took it for more than the obvious gag it was, until the Michigan GOP - without warning - filed criminal charges against Moore in four counties. My friend, you need to realize that the Republicans, just like the Democrats, are perfectly capable of making *themselves* look silly.
October 8th, 2004 at 12:49 pm
Sure the republicans have looked just as silly. I said that in my original weblog entry.
I’m not a republican.
October 8th, 2004 at 1:15 pm
I think Republicans are probably alarmed by not only the methods, but the legitimacy of the voter registration surge. Seems like registration deadlines and procedures are just suggestions now:
And the Dems aren’t vitriolic? What color is your sky again? Ever seen a “Kerry = Hitler” bumper sticker? Heard about any Republicans raiding Democratic campaign headquarters? Granted, this is politics, but the Dems are particularly shrill and petty this time around.
And if you questioned the legitimacy of elections before, guess who’s coming to dinner: Foreign election monitors driven by leftist political agenda. Biased monitors. And Jimmy Carter thinks this is an improvement…
October 8th, 2004 at 2:07 pm
“Heard about any Republicans raiding Democratic campaign headquarters?” You’re kidding, right? Can you possibly expect anyone to take any of your comments seriously when you make a statement like this? Go have a chat with G. Gordon Liddy.
October 8th, 2004 at 2:14 pm
So Jamin, I think the comment above (by Mr. Whats-a-Watergate) supports my original response: this Moore-buying-votes-buzz is just a part of a larger campaign to derail, slow, or dispute the voter registration process in response to a huge number of new (and likely pro-Kerry) registrants across the country. The comment above is part of the larger spin campaign. It’s all nonsense. Democrats do it, Republicans do it, and we should all be smarter than to ingest-and-repeat their spin unthinkingly.
October 8th, 2004 at 2:19 pm
Someone too scared to post a name was heard to utter:
“”Heard about any Republicans raiding Democratic campaign headquarters?” You’re kidding, right? Can you possibly expect anyone to take any of your comments seriously when you make a statement like this? Go have a chat with G. Gordon Liddy.”"
Allow me to translate:
“I have no good comeback or legitimate argument against this fact, so I will instead mock the person making it. I hope to make you look foolish since I have no hope of combating you in a real debate involving facts.”
October 9th, 2004 at 1:48 pm
Good point, Jim. I guess if you can’t refute my points, you’re left with getting personal, which ironically sounds a lot like G. Gordon Liddy. Of course we all know about Watergate. But I don’t remember Republicans firing bullets into the Watergate hotel. Physically intimidating people isn’t exactly very “Democratic”, is it?
As for a “campaign” to derail voter registration, did Mr. Don’t-Eat-The-Spin actually read any of those bulleted links? I have no problem at all with people registering to vote. What I have a problem with is people trying to submit registrations after the deadline has expired, or turning in incomplete registrations that they still want processed. That sounds like more of a “campaign” to me. I also find it interested, though not necessarily damning in itself, that at least one county has received more voter registrations than the census says they have eligible voters. Or that 46,000 New Yorkers were also registered to vote in Florida in 2000, which is a felony under federal law. Of those, 68% are Democrats (though you’ll notice that the New York paper focuses mainly on Republicans who admit to double-voting; guess they’re bad at cheating). More fodder for the voting argument in Florida, since it doesn’t appear that the problem has been addressed. Al Gore won 60% of the vote to Bush’s 35% in New York, BTW.
I do agree: there is spin on both sides. Moore and Franken on the left, Limbaugh and Liddy on the right. So, yes, think for yourself. Filter out Moore and Limbaugh. Check the records when Bush claims to have cleaned the air, or Kerry swears he won’t raise your taxes. Dig for the truth, but remember that facts that differ with your position are not “spin”.
October 11th, 2004 at 4:44 pm
“The truth is secondary to their agenda”
Well said.
October 19th, 2004 at 12:48 pm
Nah, no voter registration fraud to worry about. It’s all just a groundswell of support for Kerry. Uh, huh:
Crack for votes