Oops! Russian gov't. admits Crimea vote turnout inflated

This is the first U.S. media outlet I've seen that picked up on this story that was broken by TSN.ua in Ukraine [emphasis mine]:

Yesterday, however, according to a major Ukrainian news site, TSN.ua, the website of the President of Russia’s Council on Civil Society and Human Rights (shortened to President’s Human Rights Council) posted a report that was quickly taken down as if it were toxic radioactive waste. According to this purported report about the March referendum to annex Crimea, the turnout of Crimean voters was only 30 percent. And of these, only half voted for the referendum–meaning only 15 percent of Crimean citizens voted for annexation.

The TSN report does not link to a copy of the cited report. However, there is a report of the Human Rights Council, entitled “Problems of Crimean Residents,” still up on the president-sovet.ru website, which discusses the Council’s estimates of the results of the March 16 referendum. Quoting from that report: “In Crimea, according to various indicators, 50-60% voted for unification with Russia with a voter turnout (yavka) of 30-50%.” This leads to a range of between 15 percent (50% x 30%) and 30 percent (60% x 50%) voting for annexation. The turnout in the Crimean district of Sevastopol, according to the Council, was higher: 50-80%.

Does the truth about Crimea's sham referendum matter at this point?  Probably not, only the "facts on the ground."  It's a shame.


Putin's 'Human Rights Council' Accidentally Posts Real Crimean Election Results
By Paul Roderick Gregory
May 5, 2014 | Forbes

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/05/05/putins-human-rights-council-accidentally-posts-real-crimean-election-results-only-15-voted-for-annexation/

Bogus Cato anti-welfare study

Nowadays, thanks to the Internet and the abundance of hawk-eyed journalists and economists, it takes only days to debunk the dishonest, slanted "research" of Koch-funded think tanks like the Cato Institute, that attempted to prove that welfare pays better than a job.

Rick Ungar of Forbes summarizes what's wrong with the Cato "study":

Cato has rigged the result by taking only the most highly paid recipients of welfare (women with two children) as their basis for comparison, and then proceeds to pretend that all of these recipients receive benefits from each and every one of the eight programs included while completely omitting those on welfare who receive dramatically less. Then, for extra measure, the study falsely pretends that working families receive absolutely no welfare benefits whatsoever in order to make minimum wage earners look like their income is lower than a welfare recipients’ take.

Ungar concludes thusly:

If the problem is real—and I acknowledge that, to some extent, it is—you ought to be able to provide real data to get to your proposed solutions. When an organization like Cato is forced to offer up one of the most bogus studies I can recall as the means in which to make a point, rest assured that reasonable, thinking Americans will be left to conclude that the conservative side of this argument offers no real solutions—only false propaganda—and that will benefit exactly nobody.

The Conservative Case For Welfare Reform Suffers Massive Blow Via Cato Institute Study

By Rick Ungar

September 3, 2013 | Forbes

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/09/03/the-conservative-case-for-welfare-reform-suffers-massive-blow-via-cato-institute-study/