Incluso yo me perdi, y soy completamente
bilingüe, como lo atestiguan mis errores al escribir ambos idiomas :)
De
todos modos en una segunda lectura me di cuenta de que como informacion acerca
de la situacion en general, es cierto, es lo mejor que he visto en cuanto a
comentario de la decision judicial. Ademas de ser comiquisimo en algunos
momentos, como cuando comenta el hecho de que los jubilados judios se hayan
puesto de acuerdo para votar por el neo-nazi Buchannan. No tiene
desperdicio.
Perdon por el formato pero se lee mejor
si se puede diferenciar bien entre la pregunta y la respuesta.
Saludos
Marcela
Posted 12.15.00
A Simple Q&A that
Every American Should Read
Dear friends,
Please take a few moments
and read this excellent piece on the Supreme Court's decision that made Bush
"president." Pass it around to all your friends. It's the best thing I've
seen.
Yours,
Michael Moore
http://www.theawfultruth.com/
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
mmflint en aol.com
A LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO
THE SUPREME COURT DECISION
IN BUSH V. GORE
by Mark H. Levine, Attorney at Law
Q: I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand
the recent Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Can you explain it to
me?
A: Sure. I'm a lawyer. I read it. It
says Bush wins, even if Gore got the most votes.
Q: But wait a second. The US Supreme
Court has to give a reason, right?
A:
Right.
Q: So
Bush wins because hand-counts are illegal?
A: Oh no.
Six of the justices (two-thirds majority) believed the hand-counts were legal
and should be done.
Q: Oh. So the justices did not believe that the
hand-counts would find any legal ballots?
A. Nope.
The five conservative justices clearly held (and all nine justices agreed) "that
punch card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which
are not punched in a clean, complete way by the voter." So there are legal
votes that should be counted but can't be.
Q: Oh. Does this have something to
do with states' rights? Don't conservatives love
that?
A: Generally yes. These five justices, in the
past few years, have held that the federal government has no business telling a
sovereign state university it can't steal trade secrets just because such
stealing is prohibited by law. Nor does the federal government have any business
telling a state that it should bar guns in schools. Nor can the federal
government use the equal protection clause to force states to take measures to
stop violence against women.
Q: Is there an exception in this
case?
A: Yes, the Gore exception. States have no
rights to have their own state elections when it can result in Gore being
elected President. This decision is limited to only this
situation.
Q:
C'mon. The Supremes didn't really say that. You're
exaggerating.
A: Nope. They held "Our consideration
is limited to the present circumstances, or the problem of equal protection in
election processes generally presents many
complexities."
Q: What complexities?
A: They don't
say.
Q: I'll
bet I know the reason. I heard Jim Baker say this. The votes can't
be counted because the Florida Supreme Court "changed the rules of the election
after it was held." Right?
A. Dead wrong. The US
Supreme Court made clear that the Florida Supreme Court did not change the rules
of the election. But the US Supreme Court found the failure of the Florida
Court to change the rules was wrong.
Q: Huh?
A: The Legislature declared
that the only legal standard for counting vote is "clear intent of the
voter." The Florida Court was condemned for not adopting a clearer
standard.
Q: I thought the Florida Court was not allowed to
change the Legislature's law after the election.
A:
Right.
Q: So
what's the problem?
A: They should have. The US
Supreme Court said the Florida Supreme Court should have "adopt[ed] adequate
statewide standards for determining what is a legal
vote"
Q: I
thought only the Legislature could "adopt" new law.
A:
Right.
Q: So if
the Court had adopted new standards, I thought it would have been
overturned.
A: Right. You're catching
on.
Q: If the
Court had adopted new standards, it would have been overturned for changing the
rules. And if it didn't, it's overturned for not changing the rules. That
means that no matter what the Florida Supreme Court did, legal votes could never
be counted.
A: Right. Next
question.
Q:
Wait, wait. I thought the problem was "equal protection," that some
counties counted votes differently from others. Isn't that a
problem?
A: It sure is. Across the nation, we vote
in a hodgepodge of systems. Some, like the optical-scanners in largely
Republican-leaning counties record 99.7% of the votes. Some, like the
punchcard systems in largely Democratic-leaning counties record only 97% of the
votes. So approximately 3% of Democratic votes are thrown in the trash
can.
Q:
Aha! That's a severe equal-protection problem!!!
A:
No it's not. The Supreme Court wasn't worried about the 3% of Democratic
ballots thrown in the trashcan in Florida. That "complexity" was not a
problem.
Q: Was
it the butterfly ballots that violated Florida law and tricked more than 20,000
Democrats to vote for Buchanan or Gore and Buchanan.
A:
Nope. The Supreme Court has no problem believing that Buchanan got his
highest, best support in a precinct consisting of a Jewish old age home with
Holocaust survivors, who apparently have changed their mind about
Hitler.
Q:
Yikes. So what was the serious equal protection
problem?
A: The problem was neither the butterfly ballot
nor the 3% of Democrats (largely African-American) disenfranchised. The
problem is that somewhat less than .005% of the ballots may have been determined
under slightly different standards because judges sworn to uphold the law and
doing their best to accomplish the legislative mandate of "clear intent of the
voter" may have a slightly different opinion about the voter's
intent.
Q:
Hmmm. OK, so if those votes are thrown out, you can still count the votes
where everyone agrees the voter's intent is clear?
A:
Nope.
Q: Why
not?
A: No time.
Q: No time to count legal votes where
everyone, even Republicans, agree the intent is clear? Why
not?
A: Because December 12 was
yesterday.
Q: Is December 12 a deadline for counting
votes?
A: No. January 6 is the deadline. In
1960, Hawaii's votes weren't counted until January 4.
Q: So
why is December 12 important?
A: December 12 is a deadline
by which Congress can't challenge the results.
Q: What does
the Congressional role have to do with the Supreme
Court?
A: Nothing.
Q: But I thought
---
A: The Florida Supreme Court had earlier held it would
like to complete its work by December 12 to make things easier for
Congress. The United States Supreme Court is trying to help the Florida
Supreme Court out by forcing the
Florida court to abide by a deadline that
everyone agrees is not binding.
Q: But I thought the Florida Court was going to just barely
have the votes counted by December 12.
A: They would have
made it, but the five conservative justices stopped the recount last
Saturday.
Q:
Why?
A: Justice Scalia said some of the counts may not be
legal.
Q: So
why not separate the votes into piles, indentations for Gore, hanging chads for
Bush, votes that everyone agrees went to one candidate or the other so that we
know exactly how Florida voted before determining who won? Then, if some ballots
(say, indentations) have to be thrown out, the American people will know right
away who won Florida.
A. Great idea! The US Supreme
Court rejected it. They held that such counts would likely to produce
election results showing Gore won and Gore's winning would cause "public
acceptance" and that would "cast[] a cloud" over Bush's "legitimacy" that would
harm "democratic stability."
Q: In other words, if America knows the truth that Gore
won, they won't accept the US Supreme Court overturning Gore's
victory?
A: Yes.
Q: Is that a legal reason to stop
recounts? or a political one?
A: Let's just say in all of
American history and all of American law, this reason has no basis in law.
But that doesn't stop the five conservatives from creating new law out of thin
air.
Q: Aren't
these conservative justices against judicial activism?
A:
Yes, when liberal judges are perceived to have done
it.
Q: Well, if
the December 12 deadline is not binding, why not count the
votes?
A: The US Supreme Court, after admitting the
December 12 deadline is not binding, set December 12 as a binding deadline at 10
p.m. on December 12.
Q: Didn't the US Supreme Court condemn the Florida Supreme
Court for arbitrarily setting a deadline?
A:
Yes.
Q: But, but --
A: Not to
worry. The US Supreme Court does not have to follow laws it sets for other
courts.
Q: So
who caused Florida to miss the December 12 deadline?
A:
The Bush lawyers who first went to court to stop the recount, the mob in Miami
that got paid Florida vacations for intimidating officials, and the US Supreme
Court for stopping the recount.
Q: So who is punished for this
behavior?
A: Gore, of course.
Q: Tell me this: Florida's laws are
unconstitutional, right?
A: Yes
Q: And the laws of 50 states that allow
votes to be cast or counted differently are
unconstitutional?
A: Yes. And 33 of those states
have the "clear intent of the voter" standard that the US Supreme Court found
was illegal in Florida.
Q: Then why aren't the results of 33 states thrown
out?
A: Um. Because...um.....the Supreme Court
doesn't say...
Q: But if Florida's certification includes counts expressly
declared by the US Supreme Court to be unconstitutional, we don't know who
really won the election there, right?
A: Right.
Though a careful analysis by the Miami Herald shows Gore won Florida by about
20,000 votes (excluding the butterfly ballot errors).
Q: So, what do we do, have a
re-vote? Throw out the entire state? Count all ballots under a single
uniform standard?
A: No. We just don't count the
votes that favor Gore.
Q: That's completely bizarre! That sounds like rank
political favoritism! Did the justices have any financial interest in the
case?
A: Scalia's two sons are both lawyers working for
Bush. Thomas's wife is collecting applications for people who want to work
in the Bush administration.
Q: Why didn't they recuse
themselves?
A: If either had recused himself, the vote
would be 4-4, and the Florida Supreme Court decision allowing recounts would
have been affirmed.
Q: I can't believe the justices acted in such a blatantly
political way.
A: Read the opinions for
yourself:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/supremecourt/00-949_dec12.fdf (December 9 stay stopping the recount),
and
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/00-949.pdf (December 12
final opinion)
Q: So
what are the consequences of this?
A: The guy who got the
most votes in the US and in Florida and under our Constitution (Al Gore) will
lose to America's second choice who won the all important 5-4 Supreme Court
vote.
Q: I
thought in a democracy, the guy with the most votes
wins.
A: True, in a democracy. But America is not a
democracy. In America, in the year 2000, the guy with the most US Supreme
Court votes wins.
Q: Is there any way to stop the Supreme Court from doing
this again?
A: YES. No federal judge can be
confirmed without a vote in the Senate. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster.
If only 41 of the 50 Democratic Senators stand up to Bush and his Supremes and
say that they will not approve a single judge appointed by him until a President
can be democratically elected in 2004, the judicial reign of terror can end...
and one day we can hope to return to the rule of law.
Q: What do I do
now?
A: E-mail this to everyone you know, and write or
call your senator, reminding him that Gore beat Bush by several hundred thousand
votes (three times Kennedy's margin over Nixon) and that you believe that VOTERS
rather than JUDGES should determine who wins an election by counting every vote.
And to protect our judiciary from overturning the will of the people, you want
them to confirm NO NEW JUDGES until 2004 when a president is finally chosen by
most of the American people.
? MarkLevineEsq en aol.com