Gerrymandered

Hollow; I see your State has a operative that districts should consist of whole counties whenver possible. To create the district I'm in now, they gutted 4 counties.

munk
 
yes but those districts are really big.

For instance the 2nd stretches from Mason Co, which is about an hour from Columbus OH to only an hour or two from DC. Mason Co Is rural farming community where the counties in the Eastern Panhandle have a lot of people who have moved from DC so really there's no real demographic that all votes one way.

Congressional_Districts.jpg
 
Yes, but as you know, I'm a computer moron. I'll give you the address and write the directions down:



sos.mt.gov

then click : Elections
:candidate info
:Legislative districts

When you get done with that, you'll want to go back several years to looks at where the districts used to be.

I'm currently trying to find out what percentage the ranchers voted Republican: north of Mo River to US route 2, approximately 200 + mile swath.

munk
 
I'll check it out tomorrow. I'm at home now and my computer at home is so slow, especially when it rains(former evil neighbors shot the phone cables with a shotgun and rain seeps in) that it literally takes me over 5 minutes to make a single post. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 minutes for a page to load.

WV districts were changed too because of population shifts within the state.
 
Hollow, I've found out more about the new district. Write me if you'd like. Some of the things I'm learning are nothing I want to speak of in a public forum.

munk
 
OK, Hollow, you say it wasn't gerrymandering? I must speak very carefully here, because this issue is huge and involves a lot of people.
The combined district, State congressman and Senatorial, goes across 6 or 7 Counties and about 250 miles. There are normally two Republicans, and two Democrats on the districting commission. A Republican resigned, and a Native American Democrat appointed. This left the commission with three Democrats to one Republican. They then drew this district now known as the Muskrat district, though I'll always think of it as plain rat. Three ndn reservations hundreds of miles apart were linked by this new district. If you saw the map, you'd laugh. It does indeed look like a large Muskrat gobbling up Montana. There is no district like it in the entire state. Districts normally follow Couny lines.

That's as much as I can say now. There is much more.
I'm going to write a paper on this, and submit it to a local newspaper. People need to know what happened.
A good man named Greg Pattison lost his distict because of this. Something happened in the State house I've yet to uncover. He had enemies.

See? I don't want to get sued blued or tatooed by speaking recklessly.

Pattison almost won in the new district, but then something strange happened: A whole bunch of ballots showed up from one Reservation.

On the Browning reservation, there is a large sign erected by a public highway: (paraphrased) "If you want to preserve your native heritage and traditions, vote Democrat." Browning does not belong to the Muskrat district, though.

There are nothing but Democratic signs on the Reservations every election.
I think this sad because of the enabling relationship Political parties sometimes develope with voting blocks.

There is though, a people who are trying to get Federal recognition, the Little Shell. They've gotten the State, but the Feds are a long road to hoe.
I guess life is the same everywhere, though regarding influence and favor: The Little Shell are backing Burns, because he is for their recognition.

Anyway, I'm not the only American in the US who finds himself in the wrong district because of politics.

As you can imagine, I edited this post very heavily.

munk
 
Looks like the Tester/Burns race is still too close to call.

On the local level here I was sad to see Mike Callaghan lose to incumbent Shelly Moore Capito in the 2nd congressional district(I'm in the third) however almost all of the candidates supported by scab coal lord Don Blankenship, who spent almost 2 million in the election got defeated. In 2004 he spent millions and managed to unseat populist supreme court judge Warren Mc Graw using negative ads.
 
Tester's going to win. I think the dems will get the seat in MO, too, so the Dem world is looking bright.
It's all because of that 25 dollars you sent Tester; that changed the space time continuim of North America.


munk
 
munk said:
Tester's going to win. I think the dems will get the seat in MO, too, so the Dem world is looking bright.
It's all because of that 25 dollars you sent Tester; that changed the space time continuim of North America.


munk
Click to expand...

:D ;) :thumbup:

Actually the one WV candidate I sent money to lost. :thumbdn: :mad:

However if Tester and Webb win I'll be 2 for 3:)
 
It's never gotten in the way of Chicago.

Rumsfeld has resigned.
You know Hollow, I'm darned sorry now we did not have more troops on the ground. Check mark to the Democrats. It requires more troops to hold than take, though I'm not sure the 'heavy boot' would have been understood sympathetically by our Middle Eastern neighbors. But maybe, just maybe, we might have secured Iraq.



munk
 
munk said:
It's never gotten in the way of Chicago.

Rumsfeld has resigned.
You know Hollow, I'm darned sorry now we did not have more troops on the ground. Check mark to the Democrats. It requires more troops to hold than take, though I'm not sure the 'heavy boot' would have been understood sympathetically by our Middle Eastern neighbors. But maybe, just maybe, we might have secured Iraq.



munk
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not sure that it would work now though. Stuff is so far out of control in a lot of the country.

Forget the terrorists and insurgents. Just think if you took, say New York and Los Angeles, and turned the power and water off 3/4 time and neither city had any real dependable police force. Besides the criminals who would take advantage, how many people who hate their ex wife, or who have been humiliated by someone, or who got the worse end of a business deal would kill the other party if they knew there was very little chance of getting caught?

I think when we intervened in the Balkan conflict we came in at a point where people had got to the point they were tired of fighting so it was easier to separate them. I think they've only just begun in Iraq.
 
It's always hindsight.
Lots of people said we needed more troops. But the commanders there did not say that. I guess it would depend upon how the mission was defined. Since we were not doing a complete blanket covering of Iraq, we had enough guys.

Has too much murder and retaliation occured for the factions to find their government, even if it were open? (allowing former Bath party members in, etc)
Those Moslems from neighboring states who came to Iraq to murder and create mayhem, to injure the United States, I would gladly see shot. Was it worth egg on our face?
What was Iran thinking? They wanted a puppet friend next door when the smoke cleared? Evil thinking.

At the time of liberation, the last thing we wanted was the appearence of take over, of a heavy hand. There is criticism about not having a plan. Some things cannot be planned. There were many voices in the West about this not being a liberation, but an invasion, an unlawful attack. What a scene in which to work in. That kind of voice gave the terrorists hope and attention.

With problems, and 'friends' like these, who needed enemies, or Iraq?
That area of the world is not culturally, intellectually or emotionaly prepared for democracy. We broke in when people were oppressed because we were unwilling to take a chance on Saddam that he was not a threat, and said: Here.

If France and Germany had not been in the take with the food for oil program, and cueing Saddam behind the scenes, we may have had a more accurate assessment of his actual war preparedness. There is blame to go around for all, though the US will take its share and more.

I hope good will come of this yet. Birth is painful.

End of my meandering post.
munk
 
It's just one person of course, and she is a secular educated Sunni woman, but to me it is interesting to see how Riverbends perspective has changed from one of halfway hope, to one of being sceptical to almost downright angry and desparate. If you have time compare some of her diary right at the beginning of the conflict till now.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

You said:

It's always hindsight.
Lots of people said we needed more troops. But the commanders there did not say that. I guess it would depend upon how the mission was defined. Since we were not doing a complete blanket covering of Iraq, we had enough guys.
Click to expand...

That's kind of a tough question. I mean before the invastion Gen Shinseki said we would need a few hundred thousand and Rumsfeld got rid of him.

The problem with Rumsfeld, and indeed the whole Bush admin is that they think of everything in political terms.

Both Bush and Rumsfeld pretty much get rid of anybody who refuses to tell them what they want to hear. The problem is that if you start out with an idea, and then you only choose data that supports your idea, and you get rid of anybody that disagrees with you because it doesn't suit your political agenda, then you can make some really bad mistakes.

I mean you can for sure win an election by staying on message and having your troops in the media demonize anyone that has a difft point of view, even questioning their patriotisim, but when you are dealing with real things, not just public opinion the facts have a tendency to become obvious even above the spin.
 
to me it is interesting to see how Riverbends perspective has changed from one of halfway hope, to one of being sceptical to almost downright angry and desparate. >>>>>>> Hollow

That's the human condition- far too often!

>>>>>>

I'm glad if I have to have a Democrat represent me in Montana, we get a pro Gun one.

munk
 
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