One of the costs of a one-party, single newspaper state is that outright corruption goes unchecked, unreported, and openly tolerated.
A prime example is in the petition lawsuit that was decided yesterday by Federal judge Mossman. Mossman probably made the correct decision on the technicalities of the question in front of him, which turned on pretty arcane questions of whether there is a constitutional right surrounding initiative petitions as there is in voting.
He said there was not, and maybe this is correct. This question has nothing to do, in my mind, with the REAL issue at hand: Bill Bradbury openly cheats, and when caught, knows that there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
And The Funny Paper looks the other way, because they got the result they wanted. So do all the Democrats. Ends justifies the means.
In case you don't know what I am talking about: There was an attempt to refer to the ballot the gay marriage law that passed last session. Enough signatures were excluded to barely keep it off the ballot. The problem was that lots of the signatures that were tossed were actually valid, and the people who signed them went into the county elections office and verified that it was indeed their signatures.
But the county election officials still refused to count the signatures! Even though the deadline had not even passed!
So, here is where we stand: Bill Bradbury can exclude any signature he wants from the ballot, and there is no way to challenge or appeal any one of those decisions. His determination is final. So he literally has the power to keep any initiative off the ballot, and there is no appeal, no challenge. If he says the signatures don't match, that is all that matters.
The state lawyers said that all that matters is if, in the opinion of the bureaucrat who looks at the signature, there is not a match. It doesn't matter, according to Oregon law, if the signature actually IS the person's signature. That is of "no moment" under law.
Here is why that cannot be true: that would mean that a forged signature that was traced, and therefore matched perfectly, would have to be accepted, even if the person whose signature it was told officials that they did not sign it. After all - if the only thing that matters is if the signatures match, then the forged signature is valid.
Absurd.
The real crime here is all the Democrats and The Funny Paper who stand silently by as our government officials simply cheat to obtain the result they want.
They are all discussing the court decision, and pretending that the constitutional question is the real issue. It's not. The real issue is integrity, and I have to question the integrity of anyone who pretends that this kind of thing is OK.
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Marriage is a basic civil right. For the truth about gay marriage check out our trailer. Produced to educate & defuse the controversy it has a way of opening closed minds & provides some sanity on the issue: www.OUTTAKEonline.com
The entire system - not just Bradbury - is corrupt. The Legislature, the Courts, all our statewide elected officials. It would make Mayor Daley and Tammany Hall blush. It is why the good people are leaving Oregon in droves.
Government entities are four of the top 10 employers in Multnomah County, and are signficant employers in most communities around the state. It is a cancer. People seem to have accepted that we will be killed by it.
Charlotte:
Whether or not marraige is a civil right isn't at issue here. The issue has nothing to do with gay marriage. The issue is cheating by our government officials.
I would hope that people who would vote in favor of gay marraige would still be of the opinion that these signatures should be counted, and that Bradbury is acting unethically.
It is too bad that the issue that brought Bradbury's dispicable policies to light wasn't a liberal one, and too bad Bradbury isn't a conservtive Republican. In either case, the leading politicians in the state and most of the newspapers would be screaming their outrage and the problem would be fixed, and I suspect the judge would have ruled the other way.
No one can defend Bradbury's actions, except on grounds that the issue at hand is a politically incorrect one and thus the certified smart people do not have to defend the right.
Where was the ACLU on this one? Oh yeah, I forgot, they support gay marriage. See my point?
Both political parties have slid to the left. To say Bush spends money like a drunken sailor would be degrading to the sailor. Democrats have the same respect for voters as communist, making them Democrats in name only. I was a Democrat once, but became an independent when I realized what they are now, communists.
Don't you wish it was that simple. It's not. If you think it's only about the signatures, I'd ask you to take a look at the instigators behind the court case: Alliance Defense Fund is a far right conservative christian based organization from Arizona whose focus is to "protect traditional marriage." They are the funders behind the legal questioning of the signatures. They, and you, are simply hiding your bigotry behind the veil of crying foul. You can't change the rules when you don't like the outcome.
Anon 13:00:
Your line of argument is PRECISELY what is so corrupt. Classic "ends justifies means" reasoning. Since in your view the ADF is not legitimate because they hold different views from you, it is OK to cheat to stop them.
You say "you can't change the rules when you don't like the outcome."
Nobody is asking any rules to be changed, just that our elected officials operate with integrity. Apparently they have the same situational ethics that you display with your argument, so we have an integrity free zone at the SOS office.
There's a lot of examples of "public servants" openly disobeying the law and challenging you to sue them ...Knowing full well that the average person does not have the $50,000.00 to challenge it in court.
And the citizens are getting sick and tired of that attitude. Basically they get what they want because they can hire the lawyers to get it for them - using taxpayer money taken from the citizens, of course.
Here in The Dalles where the local power company Wasco Electric Co-op has two board members serving unlawfully. The bylaws - the rules the board themselves put in place - state clearly that a board member must be term limited out after a certain time. Wasco Electric has admitted that is the case but will not remove the board members saying, in effect, "sue us". They know that the average person does not have the means to challenge them and their rate-payer paid lawyer. Of course the lawyer loves this situation as the more trouble he makes the more money he makes.
This arrogance must end.
"Whether or not marraige is a civil right isn't at issue here."
It's entirely the issue.
If it's a liberal cause, then rules, laws, ethics and voters rights are optional.
The worst corruption is the corruption of the plain meaning of words.
Can't understand a Democrat? Doesn't matter. There is no meaning there. Being self-contradictory is a passion of the Left. It's "zen-like". Duality and such.
The saddest thing is that this non-meaning approach is being taught to our kids. Our kids are learning how to respond to questions with non-meaningful answers. They know it. Perhaps the teachers feel they are pulling one over on us.
But, the kids know. It also explains why so many have decided against college. Who needs four more years of this? Get a job. Shut your trap. Get along.
Live in modern America.
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