So, how totally unprepared were Boss Esser and his boys on caucus straw poll day?
My friends in the traditional media tell me that initially, the WSRP told them that they wouldn’t have caucus results until sometime in mid March, to which the press corps collectively responded… “What the fuck?” (Though not exactly in those words; we all know that real reporters never swear.) Then, when the state Dems announced that they would report results same-day, the R’s relented and said that they would report by the end of the day too. Only they couldn’t. So apparently, they made the whole damn thing up.
They made the whole damn thing up.
Esser understood that his data was garbage — that’s why they initially weren’t going to report results until March — and yet to keep pace with the Dems he reported “results” anyway, eventually declaring McCain the winner, with 14% of who-knows-what left uncounted… and just in time to change the narrative in the Sunday morning headlines. Esser lied to reporters.
On some level, equal to a $10,000,000 primary that didn’t count (thanks democrats!)
The Fascist Party turns out to be an undemocratic institution — this is a surprise?
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@1 Worry about your own party. We don’t need your help to run ours.
Roger Rabbit will not attend DL tonight because he’s sick.
Roger Rabbit says:
“Roger Rabbit will not attend DL tonight because he’s sick.”
Yeah, you got that right, rodent!
Change of subject:
Why do you guys give a flyin’ fuck what the Republicans do with their caucus? I’d be worried about this “super delegate” shit over with the Democrats. There’s a chance her highness, Queen Hillary, will use the super delegate stuff to steal the nomination away from Obama. Now that would be un-Democratic indeed!
Goldy — the state GOP has NEVER reported precinct caucus “results” in the past. And why should they, since the caucus “results” are not necessarily meaningful in the first place? Okay, the caucus mean something, but the results don’t have a very precise meaning at all.
And there should have been no compulsion on the part of Esser the Suppressor to report meaningless “results”.
If anything was reported, the preferences of caucus attendees as a whole would have been more meaningful that those of precinct delegates. Because the number of precinct delegates can vary widely between counties, and have a quite different proportion in relation to state convention delegates.
But reporting precinct delegates obfuscates the process — especially since Democrats also report precinct delegate numbers. This obscures the fact that only 20 to 30 thousand people attended the Republican caucuses, versus over 200 thousand Democrats.
The Democratic precinct delegate numbers are more meaningful, since each precinct statewide gets 1 delegate for every 50 people (or fraction thereof) who voted for Kerry statewide. The number of Republican precinct delegates, in comparison to Republican voting strength, can vary wildly from county-to-county within the state.
[Deleted — Darryl, see HA Comment Policy]
Richard Pope @ 6,
“the state GOP has NEVER reported precinct caucus “results” in the past. And why should they, since the caucus “results” are not necessarily meaningful in the first place?”
Exactly! Given the way they conduct their “caucus,” Luke Esser should have kept his mouth shut. The real scandal is that a Republican state chair announced a winner in (what seems to be) a close Republican presidential primary—but without real data!
The way they get trace amounts of gold out of low-grade ores is to pile up the ore on a pad and then spray it with a cyanide solution. This technique is called heap leaching.
The cyanide leaches into the ground and never breaks down; the mining site remains polluted for millions of years.
Roger Rabbit @ 8
Why do we need to destroy the environment to mine gold? It is not like there is any shortage of gold. Competing uses yes, but to the extent gold is actually used productively, there is at least 10 times as much used for vanity or as to method to “store wealth”.
@9
The real scandal is that a Republican state chair announced a winner in (what seems to be) a close Republican presidential primary—but without real data!
Exactly. Even the Republicans are now admitting this, that Esser’s declaration of a McCain victory was meant as a PR gift for McCain.
The way they get trace amounts of gold out of low-grade ores is to pile up the ore on a pad and then spray it with a cyanide solution. This technique is called heap leaching.
Although the cyanide itself breaks down fairly rapidly when exposed to sunlight, heap leach mining leaves behind other pollutants of a persistent nature. Also, the cyanide not infrequently leaches into groundwater and sometimes has spilled into rivers, completely destroying not only the fish population but the entire food chain.
Because of cyanide’s toxicity to humans and the pollution associated with heap leach mining, several states (e.g. Montana) have banned this mining technique.
(Disregard comment #10; I didn’t post it, it posted itself, before editing was completed.)
“Worldwide shortages and skyrocketing prices for gold and copper are fueling the push for Pebble Mine, which holds an estimated $300 billion in gold, copper and molybdenum.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....old12.html
@5: You got us there, doofus! I don’t actually give a damn about the GOP caucuses. However, some of the people who actually participated, and discovered how absolutely undemocratic they were, might have other opinions, and some of what I read in the papers makes me think some of them were pretty unhappy and felt disenfranchised. But hey – indeed, why would I give a flying fuck if you screw and alienate your own party members and allies?!
Goddamn, you people make me laugh. When you conduct yourselves this way, how could anybody think anyone in the GOP is fit to serve in any office at all?
@14:
Roger, typical GOP – extract everything, even when the benefit/cost ratio is vanishing! Just like ANWR. Of course, it makes it easier to show a profit when you are allowed to externalize all the costs to the innocent bystanders.
Roger Rabbit @ 10
Cyanide actually isn’t so bad. Cyanide will break down over time — the Carbon-Nitrogen triple bond is one of the more biodegradable bonds out there. Obviously, cyanide sounds ominous due to its toxicity. But it is not like lead or mercury. A person could consume sub-lethal amounts of cyanide practically forever, since the body actually does metabolize cyanide. 65 milligrams can easily kill a person if consumed at once. But a milligram a day will not kill and will be metabolized.
The problem with gold mining by the leaching process is all the other crap that results. Leaching tends to also remove and concentrate the lead, mercury and other heavy metals in the ore. These heavy metals are relatively safe left buried in the ground, but will cause a lot of harm if released into streams, rivers and oceans. That is why massive impoundment ponds are built.
If the impoundment dams fail — something which tends to happen a lot in the real world — then the cyanide concentrations tend to kill fish and other aquatic animals almost instantly. But the cyanide will biodegrade and go away over time when released to the environment. It is the heavy metals which really cause the lasting environmental damage.
Getting Dems to agree on a lot of things might be like herding cats, but damn it feels good to belong to a party that conducts it’s candidate selection transparently. GoOPers, it must suck to be you right now!
The article in the Seattle Times doesn’t say a damned thing about “cyanide”, or about all the heavy metals that are concentrated during the mining process:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....old12.html
It almost sanitizes the whole process: $300 billion in minerals in exchange for destroying 10 square miles. (In reality, hundreds of square miles are destroyed — 10 square miles merely being the impoundment size. And the costs are probably far greater than $300 billion, with a net profit resulting only because of public subsidies.)
Yes, cyanide is acutely toxic. But it is true that the release of heavy metals from ore and tailings is the real problem with this kind of mining – metals and organometals are just a disaster in the aquatic and marine environment. Copper and zinc are very toxic to marine life, and others like lead, arsenic, and mercury just get into the food chain and cause problems all the way to the top (that’s us and the orcas and polar bears, folks).
with a net profit resulting only because of public subsidies
And, of course, externalizing the costs to the environment and people from the resulting pollution!
Can you just try to imagine the reaction of the cowardly right if the situation were reversed? These nutjobs would be going berzerk. Their heads would twist right off of their necks. This whole thing has done something for the GOP that I thought was impossible – make them look more stupid than they actually are – and that’s saying a great deal given the fact that the GOP is as stupid as it comes.
Politically Incorrect @5 – As the owner of a pet rabbit, I object to RR being referred to as a rodent!!! Rabbits are Lagomorphs, not Rodents; two different orders within the Mammals.
So, are these the same Yum-yums that were calling for Dean Logan’s head?
I hope this pisses Huckabee off enough to run as a “true conservative” on an independent ticket this year this year. We need another Ross Perot to make the forthcoming democratic landslide even bigger.
Roger, Richard and tazertroll @ 10-21 above:
What you are forgetting is that a “modern” heap leach mine is built to not let the metals escape and kill all the fishies. That is why God invented EIS’s, litigation, codes, regulations, the EPA etc. Don’t you agree that before this mine is permitted every environmental group in the US will have hired guns try to find “inadequacies” in its design and environmental safeguards? If it passes that test it is as good as a mine can get. That is the process, live with it Luddites.
You guys crack me up. What would you rather have, no mines at all? Metals are in everything electronic, not just jewelry. And the mine has to be where the ore is. Get real.
another thread that careened hopelessly off topic within hours of the post. i’m with goldy on this. “they made the whole damn thing up.” that’s the story. the republicans are changing the subject, the dems follow their bait like lost children, and the msm is on to britney’s next fart.
so what have we learned from all this? that there are no shortage of republican apologists (“useful idiots”) who, hating democracy, will spin themselves into pretzels and come up with desperate and bizarre arguments to assert their party’s right to deprive them of their vote. guess that’s why i dont belong to that party. and why do i care, if im not republican? because protecting the right to vote for all americans is, i believe, the duty of every American citizen. “it’s a democracy thing – you wouldn’t understand.”
we now return you to your regularly scheduled illusions…
@23
But, are Republicans mammalia?
@26: I am with you Mike. Primaries are supposed to select candidates in some type of consistent and fair manner. The republican rules for the caucus are just nonsense. That the state party chair (Lesser), calls the primary for his best buddies man (McCain), without the actual data and before the election is even fully counted, tells me about all I need to know concerning republicans, fairness and the concept of representative democracy.
If I were a Huckabee supporter I would be sueing the pants off these pseudo-politicians.
What if they qave a caucus and no ones vote counted? I am with Mike – I want to protect the right of everyone to vote. Disenfranchisement is wrong no matter who is doing it. Good ol’ boy networks in the good ol’ party affect me too. I want to know the republicancandidate is REALLY their choice on the ballot.
I might even vote for a good moderate republican that is untainted by corruption, believes in a real balanced budget and is against unnecessary wars – if I can find one.
@17 See last sentence of #13.
5 We just thought we’d use this moment to point out to you whiners the supreme hypocrisy of your own party. You GOPers can’t even run a little precinct caucus!
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Roger Rabbit Quiz
Which party had the most fraudulent votes thrown out by Dino Rossi’s handpicked Republican judge in his handpicked Republican county?
[ ] 1. Republican Party
[ ] 2. Republican Party
[ ] 3. Republican Party
[ ] 4. Republican Party
[ ] 5. All of the above
@28 i hear you on the last line of your post. i’ve always been irritated that the party i vote for can’t quite seem to stand up for what they claim to believe in (today’s vote in the senate bother anyone in here?) after all that the dems have signed off on or given in to over the last 7 years i sure don’t call myself one. years ago i thought McCain might be such a republican as you postulated, but that sure went away. and since it appears that the corporate criminals and petty thieves have taken over that party here in this state (post topic) just as sure as they have the national, it looks like i’ll be voting a straight Dem ticket again this fall in WA state. ah well, whoever it is among the dem front runners, at least i won’t hafta hold my nose like i did when voting for Kerry. this time its gonna be fun!
wow. just read this fantastic quote from pudge today over at effinunsound.
man you just can’t make this stuff up! unless of course you’re, well…
pudge: “our caucuses worked perfectly well. Period. It was only the announcement of some made-up “results” that was messed up.”
i’d say he pretty much nailed it.
Mike in Seattle: Our side counts the primary and yours doesn’t, so I’ll wait to see who gets the most primary votes. Since yo peeps count the votes, it’s “transparent” eh?
See the deleted post of Pelletizer. You can’t miss it as the thread policeman struck. That’s where the thread went down the toilet as Pelletizer drops his daily thread pellet and then scurries off chuckling as he does.
Later,