corrente

From Salt Lake City, that well known hotbed of anarcho-syndicalism, a commentator (an anesthesiologist at LDS Hospital and former instructor at Harvard Medical School) actually uses "the F word":

Little did I know that walking next to me in the halls of Olympus High School that year was a friend who would shape history in 2004 as profoundly as these events did in 1968, the year Karl Rove and I were 17.

Karl was the only 17-year-old I'd ever met whose dreams were limited to being a political operative, period. One mutual friend said, "Karl would stare at a sunset and see only the political implications of it." I never remember Karl talking about making the world a better place.

His next milestone: At age 22 he conducted a conference for young Republicans on the art of dirty-tricks politics.

Thirty years later he has accumulated a remarkable winning streak at political gamesmanship, but with the Machiavellian mantra of the end always justifies the means. The means have been astonishingly brutal.

If Karl the Terminator would pause long enough to turn his head a little to either side he would notice that in the movie of real life the victims scattered all over the highway are not just the Democrats but democracy itself. An electorate distracted by dirty tricks is less able to vote to protect the public interest, which is the whole purpose of democracy. A distracted, deceived and fearful electorate is the precursor of fascism.
(via Salt Lake City Tribune)

In a very, very Red state... Stop, children, what's that sound...

NOTE That's the real story, and an amazing one. An anaesthesiologist in Salt Lake City uses the F-word (OK, qualified with "precursor") to decribe the Bush administration. Talk about framing! Modo, that dried-up worthless twit, once again obscures the real point with blather.

For those who can't follow along at home, Inerrant Boy is definitely not preaching on this text:

1: Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2: "Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3: But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4: so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5: "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
6: But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Revised Standard version)

Bottom line: The Jeebofascists, and Bush, are exactly the people Jesus warned us against.

Looks like Bush undermanning the Iraq invasion force caused more problems:

American intelligence agencies have tripled their formal estimate of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems believed to be at large worldwide, since determining that at least 4,000 of the weapons in Iraq's prewar arsenals cannot be accounted for, government officials said Friday.
(via the and-then-they-came-for-you Times)

Wow! Looks like those missiles got privatized! Feeling safer yet?

This is way beyond "what it is ain't exactly clear." This is, as Lambert noted, getting into Reichstag Fire territory.

The link earlier was to a brief USA Today piece. This is from the local Raleigh News & Observer:

RALEIGH - Vandals attacked the state Republican Party headquarters late Friday leaving behind busted windows, kerosene-soaked rags, vulgar slogans and a charred effigy.

Three protesters were arrested and charged in connection with the damage and attempted arson.

Commotion erupted in two spots on Hillsborough Street shortly after 11 p.m. -- one group of 100 people blocked the road across from the N.C. State University Bell Tower while another 100 gathered at the GOP building.

As officers responded to the illegal demonstration in the street, they passed the group vandalizing the North Carolina Republican Party headquarters at 1506 Hillsborough.

Raleigh police Maj. Dennis Lane said he could not confirm that the two events were related.

When police arrived, both groups scattered in all directions. Many of those who were at the party headquarters fled into the Cameron Park neighborhood.
Police caught none of the protesters in either area. But two neighbors did.

Hearing a commotion, John Robbins and a neighbor captured and detained three protesters until police arrived.

"I found them between the garages taking off their black clothes," Robbins said, adding that one of the female protesters bit him on the shoulder.

"They were saying they didn't hurt anybody, but my thing for going out there was to hold them responsible for the damage they had done," he said. "Doing this sort of thing just isn't right."

UPDATE: Very alert reader gene 214 raises a damn good point about Mr. Robbins: "Perhaps I'm missing something, but this guy Robbins issued this statement to police right after holding a couple of people who "were changing clothes between garages" immediately after they had apparently committed their little act of armed resistance. Unless this guy lives right next door to the Gop office, how the hell did he know about the damage these people caused??"

Good question, gene, let's hope somebody at the Nando thinks to ask it.

To continue with our story...

Vanessa Marie Zuloaga, 24, and Melissa Lynn Brown, 18, both of Columbia, S.C. and David Reuben Hensley, 20, of Raleigh were each charged with one count of causing malicious damage to property by use of an incendiary device, a felony. All three remained in the Wake County jail late Saturday, each being held on the $50,000 bail.

Saturday morning, Robbins discovered a black flag and crowbar in his yard and handed them over to police.

John Denton found all sorts of odd stuff during his morning walk including a duffel bag, a torch, bandannas, gloves, a roll of duct tape and even a discarded drum. He pointed it all out to officers. Denton said he too heard lots of unusual noise Friday night.

Besides the spray-painted slogans "Hang em high" and "No more prez," the vandals scrawled a capital "A" inside a circle, an anarchist symbol, on the blond brick building and on its sign.

Anarchy symbols also appeared on the Bank of America automatic teller machine across from the Bell Tower and on another nearby brick building, both on Hillsborough.

The N.C. Independent Media Center web site published what appeared to be a firsthand account of the vandalism, describing the march preceding it as featuring "anarchist, anti-capitalist and revolutionary" banners carried by demonstrators who "danced to the beat of several drums" and "decorated the streets with graffiti."

Bill Peaslee, state GOP chief of staff, said the party plans to make repairs and move forward.

Asked if he thought the attack was partisan, he said: "They didn't hit down the street," referring to the state Democratic Party headquarters on Hillsborough closer to the Capitol. Police said they are trying to protect that building.

"The thing that is the most disturbing is that these people don't have a better way of expressing themselves," said Peaslee, who was wearing a "W 2004" ballcap Saturday morning. Ever the party leader, he even offered a backhanded compliment to the protesters. "They were very well organized."

The police investigation continued Saturday afternoon, Lane said.

"We're trying to determine if we can identify any additional suspects," he said.

Now let's look this over. I have no links to the anarchist community but just on the face of it I would have trouble believing that they (1) number 200 active, willing-to-show-up-for-a-rave members in Raleigh-friggin'-Durham North Carolina, or that (2) all 200 would agree to engage in this project, or most especially that (3) a group that size would not have as many police infiltrators as actual members, if not more.

The fact that somebody does things they've seen self-proclaimed "anarchists" do on TV, like the spraypainting of "A", does not prove anything except that they watch TV. And why the automatic assumption, not just by the local Head GOoP but the cops and even the newspaper reporter, that these people must be, or be affiliated with, Democrats? Hell, we have enough trouble keeping our own factions marching together, I never once in the course of a long campaign heard of any outreach to the black-beret folks.

And out of 200 people rampaging in the streets the police caught exactly ZERO? Does this not seem just a tad odd to anybody?

And an Indymedia site, yeah the outfit that had a batch of their servers seized by police in a bizarre international effort just before the election, happens to be the one they mention as having a remarkably quick story about this action?

And doesn't the aforementioned Head GOoP, Mr. Peasley, sound remarkably calm about all this? Just barely a tut-tut, followed by a compliment on the organizational skills of a rampaging, property-destroying, raving MOB for chrissakes?

Correntians in the area, or who have contacts there, let us know what the local chatter is. Anybody know these three arrested parties? Previous affiliations of a political nature? What's the neighborhood like, what's the nearest college, etc.

Followup will be conducted here.

You know, this story shows why Kerry should never have conceded until all the votes were counted. That would have given the SCLM a frame for the story immediately. (No, there was no point litigating Ohio. What Kerry should have said is that "Yep, it looks like Bush won. And I'll concede officially when all the votes are counted. And now the country can go about its business." It's FOLLY to concede the Republicans anything.) And now we see why:

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida's counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

More visual analysis of the results can be seen [here], and [here].

Note the trend line – the only variable that determines a swing toward Bush was the use of optical scan machines.

(via Common Dreams)

What could enable such a discrepancy in the counties with optical scanners? The answer could be in the network architecture that Diebold adopted: A central server where the votes from the polling places are tabulated, which stores the data—I kid you not—in Microsoft Access. The whole system is totally insecure and eminently hackable:

Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.

[Says Bev Harris:] "What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

"So," Dean said, "anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?"

According to congressional candidate Fisher, it makes far more sense that the exit polls were right - they weren't done on Diebold PCs - and that the vote itself was hacked.

And not only for the presidential candidate - Jeff Fisher thinks this hit him and pretty much every other Democratic candidate for national office in the most-hacked swing states.

Still in the interesting if true category. The story is kinda schizzy—the lede is about Fisher and the FBI, but the statistics in the story don't give a clue to what Fisher actually has. And why hack the optical scan machines, since those are the ones that leave a paper trail?

It's also interesting that the Harris quote comes from an interview with Howard Dean. Where is he on this?

UPDATE Interesting statistical analysis on California here.

As young people in iWaq are forced on all sides to kill each other for the sake of W, and hospitals are bombed, and morality and values are ballyhooed, the election ain’t over.

I just got back from the meeting of local Dems from the region, sort of a confab for those who were pollwatchers and canvassing board watchers during the election, to compare notes and talk to lawyers and party bosses, and I am pissed. Really pissed. I followed up with a bunch of phone calls and compared notes around. Everybody’s pissed. And here’s a list of reasons why:

ORGANIZATION. We’re disorganized as hell. Total fascist efficiency would scare me, and I wouldn’t want that, but come on…Two county HQ’s didn’t even have computers, and no central list of volunteers even on hard copy. GOP HQ’s in all counties, on the other hand, all had computers, and runners to get the numbers in real time on E-day, and now have a complete list of who did and did not show up in their precincts on E-day to vote. Think that’ll be handy in the next election? Think the county part bosses can use that info? The Dems have voter registration lists, that’s all, no record of who voted. While the GOPers had lunches taken to their workers, and regular runners to check on them, at fifty of the precincts no Dem runner even showed up to check on things, and cell phone use was banned, and if you left the polls you weren’t allowed back in, so nobody could call in a lawyer if they needed to. Five pollwatchers were sent to precincts where there were already pollwatchers, and had to be moved, and so didn’t see the machines fired up. Of course, when they got there, the GOP-watchers were already there. Only twenty precincts had any Dems 100ft. away to watch what was going on outside and wave people in. Anecdotally, it seems the GOPers had people with signs at damn near all of the polls. LESSON: Organize, goddamit!

IRREGULARITIES. Everybody reported nothing but minor problems at the precincts themselves. This is the good news. The bad news? In at least one county, the clerk’s office opened up the bags containing the absentee ballots and later, the provisional ballots, without even a single outside witness. They broke the seals open and sorted the ballots and then proceeded to see which ones they would disqualify without any outside monitoring. And not in the presence of the canvassing board, either (and in many states, the county commissioners are the canvassing board—yet another reason to organize and run locally, me hearties). And the clerk was a GOPer. In one county, they allowed absentee counters who entered votes that were rejected by the machine to “interpret” the ballots differently than the machine would have; e.g., counting an undervote as a straight party ticket vote. It took a judge to send a TRO to stop that and get a recount according to machine standards. The clerk wasn’t going to do it because the staff was “tired.” Talk about “Oh, it’s only a few votes, don’t worry.” Some of the provisionals were rejected because the voters had been purged for inactivity—but nobody could verify right then when they had last voted. In one county there was only one Dem to watch ALL of the provisionals being counted. Plenty of GOPers, though. Redistricting sent many voters to the wrong precinct because they never bothered to check and see if it had changed, and many didn’t bother to find the right one after that. Point is, even in counties where the precincts didn’t report problems, weird shit might have gone on, or (especially in Ohio and Florida) be still going on at the county courthouse, and your local Dems might be not even be there to watch. LESSON: If you don’t know who’s watching the count, find out. NOW, before the SoS certifies the election and the lawyers go home. Find out who’s watching the canvassing board. Ask questions. Be a pain the ass. At party HQ, too. The party has rights Joe Citizen doesn’t, to appoint watchers, for example.

TIMIDITY. Then, the Dem bosses wanted to argue about whether or not to challenge these rejected ballots and counting irregularities legally, or go to the press, or both, because the GOPers might scream that we were “whiners.” Argue? Hell, yes! all the pollworkers all said. One party boss said we should wait to go to the press until after contacting the SoS, because the SoS is the one to take legal action. One guy pointed out there was no reason not to do both. In fact, logically, it might even build a fire under the SoS if there’s a lawsuit behind it. So, supposedly, they’re going to have a lawyer “look into it” at the next party meeting. You can bet it’ll end up in the papers, though, oh yes. At least in the letters. Whiners indeed. So now it’s “whining” if you insist on having every vote counted?

FOLLOWUP: If it’s like this around here, what’s it like in your area, your county, your precinct and local party? Yeah, these records have to be stored for a period of time, and the Dems could review them at any time, but #1 and #3 seem to be standing in the way. Whether it changes the election or not, isn’t it reasonable to insist that every damn vote be counted? And take steps to assure this NEVER happens again? Nationally, I mean? Because if elections are left up to locals, and states, the GOP will do it again. And again. They are a deadly efficient machine, especially locally.

I guess my point is this: Dems can’t be standing on the sidelines waiting for a final tally, folks, assuming that No! They would never do that! Or thinking that just because it looked clean on the precinct level, that means it’s clean. Things happen in your canvassing boards and county clerk’s office and party HQ, too. Bad things. Immoral things, if you believe in democracy for real, having every vote counted.

I came away thinking that we will never know the real results, myself. I think I’m becoming cynical, again. Or I may just have to switch party affiliations from Green to Dem and show these fuckers how it’s done. I dunno. Right now, I take a taste of medicinal whiskey. Any other pollwatchers or canvass watchers out there?

Hey, like Grover Norquist said, "bipartisan" is a synonym for date rape. So, yawn.

I mean, people who are, um, openly Democrats can't even get into a Partei rally, and are thrown out, or arrested, or thrown to the ground and stomped if they reveal their political affiliation.

Seems to me the best way to protect the 49% of the country who didn't vote for Bush from what He has in store for them is to tell Bush to go Cheney himself. We'll see how the Beltway Dems handle it.

Riverbend has more on the subject of what is happening in a city where actual people once lived actual lives, you know, going to work, to school, to the doctor, or to the market to shop and gossip, people who celebrated birthdays and graduations, for whom family means the large, extended kind, and for whom a neighborhood is a web of personal connections. Weirdly, the whole city has become a center of terrorism. All those people leading everyday lives have turned into terrorists, or potential terrorists. Or so we're told. Thus the entire city is "fair game," and "in play," sort of like John Kerry's Vietnam medals, only more deadly. Falluja has become a city of targets to be attacked from the air. Well, this is war and war is hell, and didn't the Iraqi's attack us first? Oh, that's right, they didn't. Damn, I keep forgetting we're there to liberate them. Increasingly the question becomes, who will liberate them from us?

Meet a mother and her children, refugees in their own country, who have left behind in Falluja, the father and the oldest son. I'll let Riverbend do the introductions.

She also reacts to the election results. Ours. With unblinking wit.

In addition to all that, she points us to an effort to provide help to the refugees from Falluja and other cities under attacked initiated by the Jarrar family. I'm still a bit unclear on exactly how to contribute; a hoped for Paypal account hasn't worked out. Do check it out; I can't imagine a more worthy cause for any American to support, and even small contributions will go a long way in Iraq, or Jordan, where supplies are to be purchased, toward helping to provide the kinds of help all refugees need.

How odd.

(via dKos)

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.

It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act.

Here's a weird a little tidbit:

[The Marines] are awaiting orders from interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to launch an all-out assault [on Stalingrad Fallujah].
(via AP)

Weird. Either Bush has abolished our own sovreignty by handing over control of our troops to another country, or Iraq has no sovreignty.

Which is it?

Nice to see Bush making himself accountable, right out front, for the timing of the latest assault on Fallujah. Oh, wait....

Here?

Feel the fear....

UPDATE Gee, our troll is all over this one (off-topic, of course, in another thread). Gee, this guy is such a barometer. It's almost like it's a permanent campaign, or something, and everything is still being co-ordinated by the Gaulieters. Naah... What am I thinking.... That's tinfoil hat stuff!

At the American Politics Journal.

And in fact, the Lexicon does seem to have some small effect—Corrente shows up at Wecovery and YABL (#7) as well as SCLM.

Now, none of these hits are in the 10,000s let alone the 100,000s. But it still shows connections being made. Leading to two conclusions:

1. Obviously, after 11/2, "invective" (memes...) is not enough. Frames and/or design patterns (back) might be more effective.

2. What's needed is some technical approach to allow people to "connect the dots," where the dots are both the people themselves, ideas, values, and events; a better way to be reality-based, and to manufacture the frames/patterns we need, by working togethre. And the approach needs to be federated, not concentrated (like the rest of the media and, now that I think about it, blogger).

I'm not sure whether blogs in themselves are this techology, though they clearly point the way to it.

Not in my name. No, no. In the name of the “morals and values” crowd:

A hospital has been razed to the ground in one of the heaviest US air raids in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Witnesses said only the facade remained of the small Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city. There are no reports on casualties.

A nearby medical supplies storeroom and dozens of houses were damaged as US forces continued preparing the ground for an expected major assault.

UN chief Kofi Annan has warned against an attack on the restive Sunni city.

US strikes raze Falluja hospital

And in other “morals and values-based” developments:

Four Car Bombs, Attacks Kill 37 in Iraq's Samarra

Weapons: U.S. Expands List of Lost Missiles

20 U.S. Soldiers Wounded in Ramadi

U.S. Army Report Sees No Fault in Iraq Hotel Attack

I filled out the Massacree with the four-part harmony. Wrote it down there just like it was and everything was fine. And I put down my pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there . . . on the other side . . . in the middle of the other side . . . away from everything else on the other side . . . in parentheses . . . capital letters . . . quotated . . . read the following words: "Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"

I went over to the sergeant. Said, "Sergeant, you got a lot of god-damned gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself! I mean . . . I mean . . . I mean that you send . . . I'm sittin' here on the bench . . . I mean I'm sittin' here on the Group W bench, 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind! We're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington"!

And, friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.

And the only reason I'm singin' you the song now is 'cause you may know somebody in a similar situation.

There’s a meeting at Dem HQ today here to discuss what pollwatchers saw that was weird. I’ve been invited. If anything interesting comes up, I’ll be sure to post.

Meanwhile, I’ll just marvel at what passes for “morals and values.”

1% doth not a Bush mandate make (put your coffee down before clicking). In a just world.

But pragmatically, Bush is going to rule just like He had a mandate. And because 49% of the people are being taxed without being represented, He's going to get away with it (for awhile).

So, the rules aren't working for us. In fact, the rules have been systematically rigged against us, and the refs turn a blind eye. So maybe rather than trying to play the same game better, it's time to change the rules.

Catherine Austin Fitts has one way of changing the rules, called Solari. She has a considerable and impressive body of work. Here is one passage that caught my eye:

We have the power of our votes in the marketplace.

We are going to exercise that power now!

Beginning with our kickoff this past July 4th, we are calling for 600,000 people worldwide to join us in pulling our checking accounts, certificates of deposits, credit cards and other business out of multi-national banks such as Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and switching to a local, well managed community-friendly bank or credit union...
(via Declaring independence)

Catherine Austin Fitts is right. Follow the money. A cut of the profits from the multinationals goes to the campaign contributions that fuel Republican dominance. If it were business as usual, and "honest graft," that would be OK, but it isn't business as usual any more.

If you want a local, well managed community-friendly bank in Philly's Center City, try The Asian Bank in Chinatown (and here).

And check out the Solari site. What do you think? The slogan "Follow the money" makes a lot of sense to me.

P.S. Note that the Sinclair episode proves that 49% of the people do—duh!—have marketplace power. But wouldn't it have been great if, instead of stopping the un-FUX network at the national level, we had been starting something at the local level? That's the kind of logic Fitts is using.

It has been brought to our attention that, again, some writers and alert readers are not exhibiting due deference to Dear Leader. Such slovenliness and covert defiance can no longer be permitted.

Therefore, let me give you guidance on this matter:

WRONG: The Bush mandate means that he ...
RIGHT: The Bush mandate means that He ...

Capice?

Bush Will Not Seek Mass Resignations

In His great mercy...

Of course, what that means is that Bush and Rove are making a list right now of the lucky duckies to heave over the side... Where they will promptly make fortunes writing "tell all" books that, in fact, tell nothing important. Except, of course, for the mid-level scientists and whistleblowers who risked their careers, out of a sense of professionalism—dare I say "moral values"—to try to protect us all.

Mass casualties, though... That's another thing....

Does anyone know of a source or a method for developing/using political design patterns? (A more informally styled site here).

Sure, these sites are about developing software, and politics is about developing wetware. So?

An example of a design pattern would be the "TTT" (trick, trust, transfer) Confidence Game (back) pattern that the Republicans have used so successfully. Note, however, that the work to put the TTT pattern into a larger pattern—where the con is recognized, resisted, and exposed has yet to be created (and shown to work in actual political situations).

I am thinking of political design patterns as an alternative/complementary methodology to Lakoff's frames.

Where to begin? It would appear that the liberal segment of the flock has gone astray. Strayed from The Way of the His Word and coaxed by Cain and Francois Marie Arouet down the crooked shadowy "values" barren path of modernism, enlightement, and skeptical decadence. And ultimately into the gnashing jaws of faithless sin. At least that's the noise, as I've decoded it, ringing from the belltowers and wafting from the incensed altars of cable TV Nooze BabbleOn. The high toothless priests and priestesses of jabber and lore are holding forth on the dire consequences of secular political sermonizing. Warning this blessed land's wayward tribes of Blue State lefties to get Right with Republican Jesus or prepare to be set upon by the Chosen Red State swarms. Consumed by fire like so many Amalekites being pounced upon by Saul. Prepare, transgressors, to have your asses smote and your sucklings heaved into the waves with the swine if you should once again fail to heed the fabulous signs and wonders before you!

Show up on Sunday, librul', and pay the preacherman like a good Gawd-fearin' real Murican', or prepare to be lashed to a post in the public square, come 2008, and switch-whipped like a slutty barefoot chambermaid passed out drunk in a stable.

Howard Dean 2008! Forget it.

Unless he changes his name to Jimmy. Jimmy Dean, the breakfast sowsedge guy, not the fruity dead Hollywood actor. Then again, nah, that won't work either. Too obvious. But our next candidate's first name could be Dean. As long as he's not the Dean of anything academic or snooty or elitist or "coastal" or book larn'd or ungodly strange like that. But Dean something? Dizzy Dean! Possibility? Not Dean Martin, no. How bout' Dean Autrey? Hey...maybe? Ok, forget "Dean".

How about Beauregard M. Whiteman? Yes! That's our guy!

"Beau fer sho" - in 2008!

So then, "Who is Beauregard M. Whiteman?" you ask. Well lemme' tell ya: B.W. (as we like to call him around the traditional non-metrosexual male barber shop) is a plain-spoken well-mannered liberal-like church goin' God fearin' southern Methodist Christian gentleman. Family man, former Navy Seal and commie assassin, Democrat, small business owner, Little League umpire, and member in good standing of the National Association for the Advancement of Foniks, and the Celebrated Southern Sons of Celebrated Southern Realtors. Never missed a parade or a chicken a la king dinner in a church basement. A man who don't always talk real good neither and is married - to a woman - (and a piston pumping hottie to boot... heh... if ya know what i mean fellas) - who loves watching NASCAR on the TeeVee and knows how to stuff a fat turkey and seal a driveway and wipe a screeching baby's ass and be the first to spy a cheery uplifting rainbow on a blustery day. All at the same time, if need be. Beau and the missus will have a son named Roy who wants to be a fireman or a jet pilot or a speed boat racer, or something that involves burning gasoline, and a daughter named Ashley who wants to be a veterinarian or a mommy or a country music singer or anything that doesn't involve performing medical science on humans. They must have a dog. A dog named Cadet. Must not have a butler named Rhett. Must have a gun cab-in-ett. With lots of guns in ett. Ok, ok, i'll stop.

Especially scary looking guns. With scopes. And antique dueling pistols. B.W. likes to spend his free family guy time hitting golf balls into a corn field with a four wood or taking the whole family on picnics to Civil War Battlefields. B.W. also has a crazy lovable younger brother foil who drinks too much cheap American beer and eats fried twinkies and chases cocktail waitresses around buffet tables in Vegas. And other manly Red State Christian regular guy things like that. Must also own a pile of dried brush. Which he can be photographed, on occasion, moving from here to there and from there to here. If he does not possess a dried pile of brush one will be provided for him.

Potential candidate must NOT: have any prior history or incident involving long lost relative left alone wailing like an animal in the charred smoldering ruins of a burned family farmhouse. Unwelcome surprises like that - will be unwelcome.

Plus, the new Democrat dream preacher, I mean candidate, must extend a welcoming paw to Alan Keyes. I think Dems need to finance third party challenges to moderate and semi moderate and even fanatical semi moderate Republicans. Especially in key battleground states. In order to split the sword of the lord vote and elect good church going pew shining liberals to key positions of leadership and faith and other stuff. And Alan Keyes is just the guy to help split the rock right down the middle. And hey, Alan Keyes is like a human bowiling ball anyway. He even looks like a effing bowling ball. Every few years he rolls back up out of the shoot and someone picks him up by his ears and flings him down a buffed hardwood alley in the hopes he'll knock down some pins at the other end. What's so hard to figure out about about that? Eh? Sheesh. Dems need to pay the guy at the counter, rent the funny shoes, and start bowling with Alan Keyes.

Hopefully I will be invited to appear on cable television TV shows with meatheads like Chris Matthews or eerie cackling Falangist crypt minders like Pat Buchanan to discuss my plans for the future of the new Jesus shoutin' liberal agenda. The sooner the better. So, CNNMSGOPFOXNewzi producers, fire an email my way, and let me know when the limo will arrive to transport me to the bright lights and glamour of high stakes Calvinist revival punditry.

BTW: I have alerted the Justice Departmart and Chris Dodd and Harold Ford to the old liberal HULLABALOO menace amongst us. John Ashcroft's Final Days Avengers should be kicking in the door to Digby's little subversive parasite infested Socialist Republic of Santa Monica nest any minute now.

It's the least I can do for the future of THE PARTY.

BTW again. Homosexuals: Shut the friggin' heck up and get back in that cedar finish log cabin closet you filthy fairy touched Irish Catholic Christ kill—..., I mean homos!... you filthy fairy Hollywood homos! Oh my dear God I din't mean that part about the Irish Christ killers, it was just a joke!!!! Well shit, I mean poopy! ...there goes the South Boston vote.

But hey, think on the bright side. I may have just picked up a few hundred votes in Colorado Springs.

Beauregard Moses Whiteman - 2008!

[Ed note: this post has not been spell checked by pompuss elitist fuckwit professer moonbats or anything lame like that.]

*

Quickly, before BLOGGER'S MASSIVE SUCKITUDE prevents me from posting again...

[Noises off; bottles smashing, dull thudding as of head pounding wall.]

I mean, WTF? After a billion dollar IPO?

Maybe BLOGGER'S MASSIVE SUCKITUDE was the reason Atrios took the weekend off. Who knows? Hey, maybe in a couple of days they'll have servers that, like, actually serve...

[Presses Publish Button. Holds breath. Begins to pound head on wall.]

UPDATE Heh:

Then again, a map that plots red, blue, and 50/50 red/blue counties looks a lot more hopeful than the previous red/blue post.

Maybe we need to stop thinking in terms of states entirely, and in terms of something like riversheds—it's fascinating how much blue there is near the Atlantic, Pacific, Mississippi, Ohio, and the Great Lakes (including Lake Champlain ;-).

Who knows?

NOTE: The table is sorted by rank in 2003 (the right-most column). Red states, red numbers, blue states, blue numbers. Thus, red New Mexico, in 2003, paid the least in taxes, and gained the most in subsidies.

Source: Tax Foundation, from Census Bureau data.

All taxpayers know that the federal government uses tax and spending policy to redistribute income from citizens with high incomes to those who make little, but citizens are less aware about geographically based income redistribution. Tax Foundation Senior Economist Scott Moody compares the federal tax burden in each state with Census Bureau data (2003) on federal spending in each state. The result is a ranking of which states got the best deal in 2003 from Uncle Sam’s tax and spending policies.

If some states are beneficiaries, then naturally some must be benefactors—those states where so much is collected in federal taxes that any federal spending they receive is overwhelmed.

Combining the third highest tax burden per capita with the ninth lowest federal spending, New Jersey had the lowest federal spending-to-tax ratio (57¢). Other states that had low federal spending-to-tax ratios in FY 2003 are New Hampshire (64¢), Connecticut (65¢), Minnesota (70¢), Nevada (70¢), and Illinois (73¢).

Federal spending on defense and other procurement dollars are often funneled to the states of powerful Members of Congress, and state governments can grab more federal grant money by skillfully manipulating their spending to comply with federal regulations.
However, demography may be more influential than politics. States with more residents on Social Security, Medicare and other large federal entitlements are bound to rank fairly high. Similarly, the high spending levels in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia are explained by the predominance of federal employees.

On the tax side of the equation, states with higher incomes per capita—New Jersey stands out—pay much higher federal taxes per capita because of the income tax’s progressive structure. The citizens in these high-income, high-tax states do not always live better or save more than people in low-income, low-tax states because the cost of living is usually that much higher or more.

Since they are, after all, nothing more than politicians?

If Leno and Letterman (and Jon Stewart) can poke fun at Bush, Kerry, and The Arnis™, why can't they do the same with Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the rest of the gang? Are they, um, sacrosanct?

And then there's this guy. John Pastore Pastrami:

Christian Conservatives [sic] Must Not Compromise
Voters reject liberalism, an evil ideology.

Quite simply, a majority of Americans have rejected John Kerry and John Edwards and the left because they are wrong. They are wrong because there are not two Americas. We are one nation under a God they reject.

Thanks, LA Times. More like this. Lance the boil:

The nation has now resoundingly rejected the left and its agenda. We do not want to become European. We do not want to become socialist. We do not want to become secular. We are exceptional. We are unique. And we are the greatest force for good in the world, despite what the left, the terrorists or the United Nations may claim. It is for these reasons that we remain the last great hope in the world for freedom.

Well. All I can say is, good luck! And get this guy on Letterman ASAP!

UPDATE OK, OK, so I got Pastrami's name wrong. Sue me. Or send me to Hell. Whatever.

Sorry, everybody!

When are they going to count the votes in Ohio? I can't find any reference to them counting the votes anywhere on the web.

I'm pretty sure Kerry lost in Ohio but I'd appreciate knowing the final tabulation. I assume the state is still planning to count the votes, right?

Just because Kerry conceded the race doesn't mean they don't have to finish counting the votes, right?

UPDATE Tom cites this story in comments. Looks like the story that the election was clean is starting to unravel already. CNN:

An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

Interesting. I wonder why they don't respond? —Lambert

A dollar a day and then $4.50 on Sundays—I think paying over 500 bucks for the privilege of risking a coronary is too much. AP, Knight-Ridder... Still SCLM, but at least I still don't have to wonder why Judith "Kneepads" Miller still has a job, or listen to Dan "Bud Man" Okrent explain to me again why his readers are wrong and abusive.

Anyhow, it's clear that the Times really doesn't want to be in the news business for much longer. The news had a good ride, but it's turning from a cash cow into a dog. Just like GM really makes its money on financing, not bending metal, the Times really isn't a newspaper anymore. I mean, what did they roll out this year? A new arts section, and a style magazine. The arts are great, so is style, but in the midst of a war? In the midst of the most important election campaign in a generation? Couldn't the newsroom have gotten some funding? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be.

So long, Paul! Find yourself a better outlet. Say, when is some billionaire going to throw some seed money to some new-line newsgathering organizations, anyhow?

Crude futures rise

And we really don't have any notion of how crude the future will be, do we? My guess is: Mighty crude.

As always, Corrente believes in changing the tone of our discourse, bringing a new sense of moderation and civility to the voices in the public square. On the other hand, fafblog.... Well:

The election results have come in and they have surprised no one... no one on the side of Giblets that is! It is Giblets in a landslide! Giblets by a whopping three percentage points! Only 49% of the population rejected Giblets! VICTORY! AMERICA HAS SPOKEN!

With this broad mandate, it is time to push aside the mealy-mouthed timid campaign rhetoric Giblets has toyed with before! Giblets will not be "conciliatory" after this historic moment! Tariffs on reading! A flat tax on gay sex! Mandatory prayer before monuments to the Ten Commandments in every class room! A war in every garage, a tortured Arab civilian in every pot! The streets will run with the blood of liberals!

But do not think Giblets will continue to divide the country. Oh no. The days of the bitterly partisan "pro-Giblets" and "anti-Giblets" Americas are over. Giblets is a uniter, not a divider. And he will unite America... UNDER THE CRUSHING FORCE OF HIS IRON HEEL!
(via Fafblog)

Reuters:

Christians See Court Appointments as Top Bush Aim

Wow. All Christians? So sayeth the headline, but the body says:

Christian conservative [my italics] leaders say their top priority in President Bush's second term is the appointment of conservative judges to the Supreme Court and throughout the judicial system.

I didn't know all Christians were conservative! You could knock me down with a feather.

And remember the old joke about the Holy Roman Empire? "Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire"?

Maybe it needs updating. "Christian conservatices? Neither Christian, nor conservative." Certainly true of the leadership, if not all the rank and file.

Unless you think theocracy is conservative, of course.

Man, the air is getting all thick with... something. I just got some spam from Business Week about Bush's "triumph."

He gets elected, that's a triumph? I mean, the first time is always great, but ....

So there I was, sitting in the remains of the Mighty Corrente Building, wearing my sackcloth, eating ashes and scraping my boils and sores with a potsherd, when who should happen by but Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org who asked, “What’s wrong with you?” And I told her that I was being punished by the Invisible Cloud Being for being a gay-loving, anti-imperialist, Liberal, socialist type, even though he didn’t exist, which I thought was unfair. She kicked me in the ass and told me to get up and start asking, Wuz We Robbed? “Huh?” I asked, spitting out a mouthful of ashes. She said, “Before you continue with the postmortem of the Liberal corpse, it might be a good idea to take a closer look at the election.” “No--!” I began to say. And she said, “I know, they would never do that.” She wasn’t wearing a tinfoil headdress, so I said, okay, fuck this martyrdom, what can I do?

THURSDAY Nov. 4 2004: If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit.
Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history.

We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence.

TUESDAY Nov 2 2004: New information indicates that hackers may have targeted the central computers that are counting our votes.

Freedom of Information requests are not free. We need to raise $50,000 as quickly as possible to pay for records and the fees some states charge for them. We launched one major FOIA action last night, and have two more on the way, pell-mell. Now is the time. If you can't donate funds, please donate time. E-mail to join the Cleanup Crew. Media calls: 206-335-7747 (congestion) - 206-778-0524 E-mail

No! They Would Never Do That! Would they?

UPDATE: More on the potential for fraud. However, the lawyer says the election is not open to litigation. Wonder why he says that, after documenting all of the weirdness? via Group finds voting irregularities in South

Democratic shibboleths to ditch: Teddy Kennedy. I've been to Chappaquiddick (or "Chappy" as we WASPs say). Along with Terry McAulliffe. And Al From. And everybody who's thinking in terms of "left," "right," and "center." Whatever's going on in this country, that's not the spectrum it's happening on.

Never let it be said Kerry had no coattails:

(via AP via NYT)

CICERO, Ill. (AP) -- Michelle Chavez didn't plaster the town with campaign signs. She didn't hold fund-raisers, hand out leaflets or even bother responding to a reporter's questionnaire before the election. But she was on the ballot as a Democrat, and apparently that was enough for voters in this Chicago suburb to elect her as a state representative over the Republican incumbent.

"I can't think of an instance when someone ran such a low-scale candidacy and won,'' said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. ``It's kind of like a virgin birth in the General Assembly.''

The Cicero Democrat believes Chavez was a ``shill candidate'' put on the ballot by her opponent's supporters to prevent legitimate candidates from running. The only problem, he said, is that rather than go down to defeat, Chavez caught a wave of support for presidential candidate John Kerry and other Democrats on the ballot.

``It's obvious people just pulled the Democrat ballot,'' Sandoval said. ``They didn't know who Michelle Chavez is.''

Chavez, an administrative assistant with a local janitorial company, dismissed such a suggestion, saying ``nobody put me to run against anybody.''

Leticia Chavez, the candidate's niece and campaign manager, said the reason Chavez won was because she and an extended family of close to 30 took the campaign trail door-to-door.

Damn but I wish I had thought of this. I need a job.

Leaving my personal problems out of the matter, I never again want to pick up a paper on the day they print the ballot for the upcoming elections and see ANY seat occupied by a person with an R at the end of their name, and a blank space where an opponent's name should be.

Now that W and the boys have shot their wad with the anti-gay marriage amendments in the swing states, what bigoted homophobic proposal will they use to cynically manipulate the fundies into turning out in 2008?

Will they just take the next step and propose a federal constitutional amendment requiring the burning of homosexuals at the stake?

If that happens perhaps Canada could change its tourism slogan to "Come to Canada: Where Sodomy is Always Safe and Legal."

Or better yet, perhaps they could change it to "Canada: Where the Back Door is Always Open." (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Just a thought.

What are we fighting for?

Country Joe's answer ("Don't ask me I don't give a damn / next stop is VietNam") can't be ours.

The "Anybody But Bush" slogan was symptomatic. That's a negative slogan, and a negative attitude.

What are the Democratic positive core values?

Can we put them on an index card, like Bush did?

Can we endlessly repeat them, like Bush did?

I can give a hundred reasons why what Bush is doing is wrong—but if I have to give the one right reason to vote Democratic, I can't do it. The one who came closest to being able to do this was (you got it) Howard Dean. Where are you, Howard?

Most of the signs are down. All of ‘em in my square mile. The Dem’s anyway. If Bushco’s aren’t down by manana, I drop a polite letter to the editor… I’m gonna keep them as a reminder of how far we have to go. And got back just in time to crack open a bottle and see this in comments and follow it. First time I’ve smiled, even a little, in two days. The picture it put in my head...

Molly Ivins:

AUSTIN, Texas -- Do you know how to cure a chicken-killin' dog? Now, you know you cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise.

Some people think you cannot break a dog that has got in the habit of killin' chickens, but my friend John Henry always claimed you could. He said the way to do it is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog's neck, good and strong. And leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad that no other dog or person will even go near that poor beast. Thing'll smell so bad the dog won't be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won't kill chickens again.

The Bush administration is going to be wired around the neck of the American people for four more years, long enough for the stench to sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans.

And at least Democrats won't have to clean up after him until it is real clear to everyone who made the mess…

…So, fellow progressives, stop thinking about suicide or moving abroad. Want to feel better? Eat a sour grape, then do something immediately, now, today. Figure out what you can do to help rescue the country -- join something, send a little money to some group, call somewhere and offer to volunteer, find a politician you like at the local level and start helping him or her to move up.

Think about how you can lend a hand to the amazing myriad efforts that will promptly break out to help the country recover from what it has done to itself. Now is the time. Don't mourn, organize!

via Mourning in America

To her list I can add, join the ACLU, write letters, wear your gay pride stuff, and let your freak flag fly! Anybody got any more actions we can take while we watch Bushco screw itself and us?

Love the gay subtext!

This would make a nice Google Bomb, wouldn't it. Can someone technical get that started?

Once more:

Love The Bush Mandate!

As Mark Twain noted, if there is a God, available evidence indicates that He is a malign thug.

(via MSNBC)
WASHINGTON - The wife of former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards has been diagnosed with breast cancer. A spokesman says Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed yesterday, the day her husband and John Kerry conceded the presidential race.

I have volunteered (sigh) to go take down election posters and signs before they abuse the environment, so this is all from me for today probably, but some readers were wondering about Florida and this was very interesting regarding that:

Global monitors find faults

By Thomas Crampton International Herald Tribune Wednesday, November 3, 2004

The global implications of the U.S. election are undeniable, but international monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures being used in the extremely close contest fell short in many ways of the best global practices.The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system."To be honest, monitoring elections in Serbia a few months ago was much simpler," said Konrad Olszewski, an election observer stationed in Miami by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

More on how the monitors weigh in if you want.

Here come the Jeebo-fascists. The boodle snatcher train is running right on time.

ARLINGTON, Va. - Exulting in their electoral victories, President Bush's conservative supporters immediately turned to staking out mandates for an ambitious agenda of long-cherished goals, including privatizing Social Security, banning same-sex marriage, remaking the Supreme Court and overturning the court's decisions in support of abortion rights.

"Now comes the revolution," Richard Viguerie, the dean of conservative direct mail, told about a dozen fellow movement stalwarts gathered around a television here, tallying up their Senate seats in the earliest hours of the morning. "If you don't implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?"

By midday, however, fights over the spoils had already begun, as conservatives debated the electorate's verdict on the war in Iraq, the Bush administration's spending and the administration's hearty embrace of traditionalist social causes.

SEE: Right Wing 'Revolution'

Didn't take the greedy goosesteppers long to begin fighting over the carcass.

*

(AP) - The White House claimed a second-term mandate Thursday for President Bush's agenda to keep taxes low and revamp Social Security, appealing to Democrats to help bridge America's political divide after a bitter election. "The American people spoke clearly about the agenda they want for the next four years," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. Bush reached out for the broad support of Americans on Wednesday, even those who voted against him. via White House Claims Mandate for Bush Agenda

Quick tally here, Karl. My first grade math is rusty, but 51% does not make a mandate. My county voted solidly Democratic, for example—county commission, judges, congress and state legislature. Most of swing state races were (and are) too tight to call. Your minions had to resort to moving precincts around, long lines and uncounted ballots to win. I’m still not convinced that the results in Florida and Ohio and NM are kosher. Nixon really had a mandate in ’72, only lost one state. You don’t have a mandate. The 49% of us who voted against your pet really don’t like you, him, or your agenda. We really don’t. Kerry conceded, we didn't. Face facts, what you have supporting you is a bloc of right-wing loonies who can’t think for themselves and who will abandon you as soon as you dig a little too deep into their pockets, or as soon as you tank their social programs, or… well, you get the idea. The rest of us living in Free America didn’t before, don’t now, and never will support your greed and hate agenda.

In fact, those of us still living in Free America are working hard to get your lies and crimes to catch up with you. The truth will catch up with you. Oh yes.

Mandate, my ass. What you feel tickling your neck now, Karl, is the hot breath of justice. And the facts will catch up with you, and August 8, 1974 will replay, only this time with you and your shock-buzzer trained smirking frontman in the starring role. But hey, you’ll like prison—you could organize a straight white pride gang in no time, I’m sure. Oh, and Scott, don’t worry—when the house of Card falls down, you’ll be okay. Used car lots are always looking for a guy who can sell junk with a straight face to a gullible public.

What's going to catch up with you first? Plame? Iraq?

Oh, and in case you forgot what it looks like: Nixon's Resignation Letter

Oh, and a big shout-out to my peeps in those 11 states that banned gay marriage. I'm sure that in schoolrooms across America, future generations will study how these brave citizens solved their higher-than-average divorce rates by making it harder for love to express itself. They can also study how their ancestors propagated their rugged individualist values to slacker blue states by increasing their drain on the public purse and shifting the tab for the rest of their subsidies to the very kids studying the origins of the renaissance of their country. That's the genius of a morally righteous democracy at work.

I'm still ticked about this—Bush was playing a dominance game, and Kerry bowed his neck. He should never have done so.

Conceding before the votes are all counted ("No retreat, no surrendur") trashes the voting process: It says the long lines are OK, the intimidation is OK—since those are the Republican tactics that made it necessary to do the math instead of waiting for, um, the facts.

If Kerry wanted to spare the nation trauma, he could have said why he thought the result would be a Bush win, and delayed his official concession 'til the Constitutional process was complete. That would have sent a better message.

Charismatic rule has long been neglected and ridiculed, but apparently it has deep roots and becomes a powerful stimulus once the proper psychological and social conditions are set. The leader's charismatic power is not a mere phantom - none can doubt that millions believe in it. ~ Franz Neumann, 1942.

[CHRIS] MATTHEWS: How much does personality matter here? Is it Bush's charm that makes him difficult to beat because even if he isn't the expert on something, he seems to have that facility to sort of win.

[JOHN] MCCAIN: I'm not sure it is his charm as much as it is the belief that this guy really believes what he says. And when he says it, I can take it to the bank. And he's my leader. - Hardball/MSNBC/Sept. 22, 2004

"We did not believe that Bush would be as disciplined as he was. He was extremely disciplined," recalls George Shipley, who was then [Ann] Richards' campaign adviser. "Karl gave him 10 index cards and said, 'This is what you are going to say. Don't confuse yourself with the issues.' It's the model for the presidency." - Guardian UK

Behind Bush were two banners. 'King of Kings', proclaimed one. 'Lord of Lords', said the other. - The Observer (UK), Sunday November 2, 2003.

*****

The personality "leadership" cult is an interesting critter. Especially with respect to authoritarian movements which have historically depended upon such theatrical mass appeal to unquestioning faith, obiedience, authority, and moral absolutes. So, I decided to make a comparrison using an extreme example, namely the Fuhrer cult model, as described by Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler, Hubris, and Philip Gourevitch's Sept. 2004 New Yorker contribution titled Bushspeak.

Anyone who has ever witnessed the Bush campaign's carefully stage managed and theatrically orchestrated political rallies will recognize Gourevitch's descriptions below. But what is creepy are the paralells to Kershaw's descriptions of Hitler's rise to power in Germany. The repetitious emphasis on "leadership" and "moral authority", "certitude" and the imagery of warrior protector redemer of the homeland. In any case, it's altogether eerie in too many respects, and I have no doubt personally that Karl Rove keeps a copy of "My Struggle" tucked carefully away in an nightstand drawer. Right there next to his Gideon.

But, you be the judge: Excerpts below from Ian Kershaw's "Hitler 1889-1936:Hubis", pages 279- 282, and Philip Gourevitch's 2004 New Yorker piece linked above.

THE TOUGH GUY IN THE BUBBLE:
{Kershaw} Journalists might be permitted to see him for a few minutes, if an interview had been prearranged. But scarcely anyone else was allowed an audience.

{Kershaw} ...his heroic self-image of 'greatness', the necessity of upholding the aura increasingly attached to him by his supporters, and the olympian detachement from the intrigues and in-fighting of his subordinates demanded a high degree of isolation. Beyond this, the distance he deliberately placed between himself and even high-ranking members of his movement was calculated to emphasize the sense of awe and admiration in those admitted to his presence, or encountering him at a theatrically staged mass meeting or rally. At the same time, it enhanced the enigmatic in him.

{Gourevitch} Four years ago, Bush ran for President as a champion of compassion at home and humility abroad. After the September 11th attacks, he recast himself as a man of action, a warrior, whose basic message to the world is: They messed with the wrong guy.

{Kershaw} He was above all a consummate actor. This certainly applied to the stage-managed occasions - the delayed entry to the packed hall, the careful construction of his speeches, the choice of colorful phrases, the gestures and body-language. Here, his natural rhetorical talent was harnessed to well-honed performing skills. A pause at the beginning to allow the tension to mount; a low-key, even hesitant, start; undulations and variations of diction, not melodious certainly, but vivid and highly expressive; almost staccato bursts of sentences, followed by well-timed rallentando to expose the emphasis of a key point; theatrical use of the hands as the speech rose in crescendo; sarcastic wit aimed at opponents: all were devices carefully nurtured to maximize effect.

{Gourevitch} Bush’s voice has a surprising range: he can get a shouting attack going, and he can fall suddenly quiet to create emphasis and declare his seriousness. But the most effective quality is the harsh staccato that overcomes him when he speaks about his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the boundless, all-encompassing, and perhaps eternal war on terror. He acquires a drill sergeant’s punctiliousness—pro-noun-cing ev-er-y syl-lab-le, hit-ting ev-er-y con-son-ant, singing out the sibilants, and bending words, drawing them out, or isolating them between stark silences, [...] He leans in over the microphone, and to make no mistake about his message he reads from a script: "See, our—our fu-ture de-pends on our willing-ness to lead in the world. If America shows uncertainty and weak-ness in this decade, the world will drift toward" —pause— "tragedy" —pause. "This will not hap-pen on my watch." Bush’s right hand, held out flat, beats steadily up and down, patting the lectern in accompaniment to his robotic rhythm. He is nothing if not insistent.

CODPIECED FLIGHTSUIT to COATTAILS to ROLLED UP COTTON SHIRT SLEEVES:
{Gourevitch} He wore no tie, and his sleeves were rolled up, and the simplicity of the proposition, the easy conversational forthrightness, seemed so natural, so obvious and reassuring, that it was easy to forget, as he wound on through his stump speech, that he had promised to lay out a plan for the future. He offered no such plan, or even any new initiatives. He just declared the past four years a success, and said that more and better was to come.

{Kershaw} As in the meticulous attention to detail in the preparations for the party rallies at Weimar in 1926 and Nuremberg in 1927 and 1929, Hitler was preoccupied with impact and impression. His clothing was also selected to match the occasion: the light-brown uniform with swastika armband, belt, attached diagonal strap crossing over the right shoulder, and knee-high leather boots when among the faithful at big party meetings and rallies; dark suit, white shirt, and tie, when appropriate to conveying a less martial, more 'respectable', appearence to a wider audience.

THE MASK of the FOLKSY REGULAR GUY:
{Kershaw} 'He could play the parts as required. 'He was a kindly conversationalist, kissing the hands of ladies, a friendly uncle giving chocolate to children, a simple man of the people shaking the calloused hands of peasants and workers.' He could be the model of friendliness in public to someone he was privately castigating and deriding. The play-acting and hypocrisy did not mean that he was solely a cynical manipulator, that he did not believe in the central tenets of his 'world-view'. This fervent belief, coupled with the strength of his domineering personality , carried conviction among those drawn to his message. But for one perceptive and critical observer, the one-time Gauleiter of Hamburg, Albert Krebs, Hitler's ability to sway the masses rested essentially on a 'very conscious art' of manipulation - cool calculation, 'without inner sympathy and truthfulness'. Krebs summed up: 'The art of the mask and dissimulation should not be forgotten. It made it so difficult to grasp the core of Hitler's being.' (kershaw page 280-281)

{Gourevitch} Bush spends a good deal of time on the stump deriding his rival, and the rest of the time he projects the attitude of a man who is running unopposed—which he could be forgiven for thinking if the election depended simply on who is the better campaigner.

{Gourevitch}"I'm sorry Laura's not here," he told the breakfast-hour crowd in Las Cruces, and they moaned in sympathy. "I understand," he said, and got a big laugh. "I kissed her goodbye in Crawford this morning and said, 'I've got to go to work.'" More laughter. "She said, You git over to New Mexico and you remind 'em that her kinfolk were raised right here down the road in Anthony. I'm proud of Laura. She's a great mom, a wonderful wife." Loud yips and applause. He continued in a deadpan: "I'll give you some reasons why I think you ought to put me back in. But perhaps the most important one of all's so Laura's the first lady for four more years."

{Gourevitch}When Bush appeared in person, moments later, he seemed surprisingly ordinary. "I'm here to ask for the vote," he told the audience. "I believe it's important to get out and ask for the vote. I believe it's important to travel this great state and the country, talkin' about where I intend to lead the country." He made this sound like an original idea, and perhaps a controversial one, and the way he repeated the words "I believe" carried an air of defiant conviction: I'm not here offering myself to you because that's how it's done in a democracy but because that’s just how I am, and I don’t give a damn who says different.

MANLY CHARACTER and STEELY RESOLVE:
{Kershaw} The irresistible fascination that many - not a few of them cultured, educated, and intelligent - found in his extrordinary personality-traits boubtless owed much to his ability to play parts. As many attested, he could be charming - particularly to women - and was often witty and amusing. Much of the time it was show, put on for effect. The same could be true of his rages and outbursts of apparently uncontrollable anger, which were in reality often contrived. The firm handshake and 'manly' eye-to-eye contact which Hitler cultivated on occasions when he had to meet ordinary party members was, for the awestruck lowly activist, a moment never to be forgotten. For Hitler, it was merely acting; it meant no more than the reinforcement of the personality cult, the cement of the movement, the bonding force between Leader and followers. In reality, Hitler showed remarkably little human interest in his followers. [...] The propaganda image of 'fatherliness' concealed inner emptiness. Other individuals were of interest to him only in so far as they were useful.

{Gourevitch} Bush's performance on the stump is more a rap than a speech, a sequence of talking points strung together by applause lines. In style and substance, his discourse is saturated in churchiness: he touts the rights of the unborn, pooh-poohs same-sex marriage, speaks of marshalling the "armies of compassion" and transforming America into a "culture of responsibility" and an "ownership society" by changing "one heart and soul, one conscience at a time." But, for all his God talk, he is remarkably lacking in humility. No fault, no blame, no regret, no room for shame attends him as he goes about changing the world. Nor does he appear to entertain the possibility that the changes he is imposing could be anything but improvements. To hear him tell it, the economy is terrific, public education is thriving, health care is better than ever, terrorists are on the run, democracy is spreading throughout the Middle East, and everywhere America is living up to what he describes as its "calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom." Because Bush does not appear able to recognize his own errors, much less admit them, he is incapable of self-correction. Indeed, he boasts tirelessly of his resolve and steadfastness, making a virtue of rigidity. Like it or lump it.

"You know I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office." - George W. Bush, 1989

I'm not suggesting that George W. Bush is another Adolph Hitler. Although I do think he is attended to by people who posses such qualities and employ a good deal of the same rhetorical bark and bluster and ambitions. But I don't think Bush is interested in such responsibilities himself. Maybe I'm wrong about that but I don't even think he makes most of the decisions that his administration advances. George W. Bush, I'm convinced, is little more than a front man, a useful Jeremy Diddler raising the big wind. What does worry me however is that the Right in this country, especially the theocratic/dominioist religious faction, could (and is)advancing a hybrid variety of Falangist Franco Way (Monarchy/theocracy) corporatist governance. As a matter of fact I think that's exactly what they are doing. And that, I believe, is one to keep a careful watch upon. But that's another post.

*

Well, vacation is over so it's back to the old grind. Find stories, post stories, comment on stories, invite readers to do likewise. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, dung beetles gotta...well, anyway, we all do what we do:

(via Kristof/nyt)

Thomas Frank, author of the best political book of the year, "What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America," says that Democratic leaders have been so eager to win over suburban professionals that they have lost touch with blue-collar America.

"There is a very upper-middle-class flavor to liberalism, and that's just bound to rub average people the wrong way," Mr. Frank said. He notes that Republicans have used "culturally powerful but content-free issues" to connect to ordinary voters.

To put it another way, Democrats peddle issues, and Republicans sell values. Consider the four G's: God, guns, gays and grizzlies.

"The Republicans are smarter," mused Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat. "They've created ... these social issues to get the public to stop looking at what's happening to them economically."

"What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that."

Now I am not the world's biggest Kristof fan and I omitted his conclusion (we must do more of the Jesus talk) because I disagree with it. There are those who can in our party--Obama and Clinton come to mind. Others just plain can't. Some of us don't believe in it (either the particular religion in question or the injection of religion into public discourse) and others, like John Kerry, believe deeply but just can't put it into the sort of code words that resonate with Kristof's 4-G's crowd.

To pull a couple of examples I've seen on TV over the last couple of days (no links, sorry, I can't even remember what networks they were on, it all blurs together):

--(Unfortunately Ex-)Sen. Bob Kerrey narrowed it down to abortion as the key "Values" issue and said (heavily paraphrased) that we've been losing on it by running away from it, as well as letting it be framed as "save the babies" rather than "save women's lives."

Now him I wholeheartedly agree with and it needs to start now. We need to talk about a return to back alleys and coathangers for the poor and trips to Europe for the rich and respectable "D&Cs for menstrual blockage" for the dwindling insured middle class. Work on the assumption that we lose Roe v Wade in the next four years, but remember that after abortion goes "back to the states", i.e. illegal again they'll go after birth control.

--Newly reelected (thank you God and New York City) Sen. Chuck Schumer was on The Daily Show tonight and he and Jon Stewart kicked the "values" subject around too. Catch the rerun tomorrow as I tried to remember too many points and therefore forgot them all, but it was good. In fact I almost didn't watch the show, fearing it would be a downer, but dammit it was good. TDS ain't surrendering either.

As to Kristof's other points I frankly thought the guns thing was over with a long time ago and was blindsided by its reemergence. My brother in law is not a "gun nut" but he is a hunting nut and was somehow persuaded that John Kerry wanted to keep him from ever getting a deer again. Was there a hate-radio person who harped on this? It had to travel underground because I saw nothing, nada, zero public advertising or other push on this subject.

I will leave the "grizzlies" issue for a separate post, except to note we could combine it with the previous one if we wanted to get all Rovian win-at-all-costs about it--we could support the right to arm bears.

As I empty another bottle and toss it over the side of my tiny cot in my room under the stairs at The Mighty Corrente Building....

I think Maybe, Goddammit, index cards work.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The massage is the medium.

Eh?

NOTE A big Tip of the Ol' Corrente Hat to Paul Lukasiak, for providing us with a backup site on election night.

UPDATE An excellent Big Picture post at Kos, on theocracy. Eesh.

Bush:

[T]he best way to prevent future attacks is to go after the enemy.
(via WhiteWash House)

Well, modulo things like strategy, tactics, and above all logistics....

Just asking.

The phrase "moral values" just slays me. It's so pig ignorant. "Immoral values"? "Morals that are not values"? Etc.

Oh, wait. It's code for "God hates fags." Phew. Now it all makes sense. My faith was almost shaken, there!

Straight from the Department of "How Stupid Do They Think We Are?":

[BUSH] So today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent: To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.
(via WhiteWashHouse.gov)

Please. Man runs for President while holding rallies that are "private events" (back) to which only people who sign a loyalty oath are invited? And then wants to be President of all the people? I don't think so.

NOTE I hope I have the spelling of "Fuggedaboutit!" correct. Readers?

My email from Kerry today:

Dear Supporter,

Earlier today I spoke to President Bush, and offered him and Laura our congratulations on their victory. We had a good conversation, and we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity for finding the common ground, coming together. Today, I hope that we can begin the healing.

In America, it is vital that every vote counts, and that every vote be counted. But the outcome should be decided by voters, not a protracted legal process. I would not give up this fight if there was a chance that we would prevail. But it is now clear that even when all the provisional ballots are counted, which they will be, there won't be enough outstanding votes for our campaign to be able to win Ohio. And therefore, we cannot win this election…

My email to Kerry today:

Dear John:

Earlier today I woke up to discover that you had made that phone call. I usually get up much earlier, but you see, I had been up very late watching the polls at a nearby precinct for you, so that nobody could steal the election, so that every vote could count, and I was very tired.

I had assumed we were all on the bus together—that it was understood that we are dealing with a man and a party that has no desire to “come together for the common good,” a party that, if it wins, intends to drag this country and its people deeper and deeper into its totalitarian vortex where gays are bashed, wars fought for nothing, the rich get richer, and lies are truth. I had assumed that this meant a fight to the finish. In other words, with every vote counted, every legal option explored.

You may actually think that your concession was an act of graceful acceptance, and that it will make it possible for the country to come together. If so, you’re wrong. You do realize who we’re dealing with, right? We are now on the brink of the abyss, and you have gone home. Or, you may just be tired. I know we are.

So, while I accept your thanks for our hard work, I would like for you to know that YOU CONCEDED. WE HAVE NOT.

Yours in Disenfranchisement,

RDF

PS. I’ll be sending you copies of my bills for gas and lost time from work. Maybe, you know, you can help out since I’ll be living in the Uniter’s economy until we can get him impeached, with or without your help. Shrill? You bet.

If you're reality-based, that is:

Unofficially Bush wins Ohio, but voters won't know the official count for a few weeks.

At 1 a.m., Ohio Republicans declared victory. Hours later, it wasn't a clear cut victory and it still isn't.

There are still 135,149 provisional ballots that haven't yet been counted, but that number will grow. It will grow because 10 Ohio counties still haven't added up the number of provisional ballots they have.

Those numbers will be known by 2 p.m. Wednesday.

Take the number of known provisional ballots, add in the unknown absentee ballots and you're close or over the margin between Bush and Kerry in Ohio, which is just over 136,000 votes in Bush's favor.

Statistically, it would be tough for Kerry to win on the provisional ballots in Ohio. Last election, about 10 percent of all the provisional ballots were thrown out. If that holds true again, Kerry would have to win nearly every single provisional vote that was valid.

It is a tough, if not impossible feat.

Despite his concession, the official Ohio count will begin Thursday and continue the next few weeks.
(via WBNS, Columbus)

I guess I don't see what the trauma is in waiting to count all the votes.

WTF, an "unofficial" win? What is this, a banana Republic?

Nuthin' as in none of the three branches of government.

And though Daschle is a nice guy... And it's too bad... Oh, heck, now I'm helping to form a circular firing squad. I mean at least he didn't join the Republicans, like Lieberman is going to. Oops, I did it again!

Here:

A Kerry adviser said the campaign had concluded that the too-close-to-call battleground state of Ohio was not going to come through for the Democrats.

The adviser said there was no way to gain votes on Bush without an "exhaustive fight," something that would have "further divided this country."
(via CNN)

Maybe someone can tell me what's wrong with an "exhaustive fight"? And how it would be possible to further divide the country than it's already divided? Why is it that Democrats are the ones who are always being the responsible ones and doing shit for the good of the country? Who was the advisor? Warren Christopher? Beltway thinking....

June 4th 1940 (as amended by RDF on November 3, 2004)

... I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our freedom, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of the Reality-Based Community, every one of them.

The Various Members of the Reality-Based Community, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the end their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.

Even though large tracts of America and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in the Statehouses, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island of Sanity, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our enlightened brothers and sisters beyond the seas, would carry on the struggle, until, in good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

May 13th 1940 (as amended by RDF, November 3, 2004)

I would say to the Sane, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage a war of words, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that Sweet, Sweet Reason can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, seldom surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival…

I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

I am exhausted, nauseous, hung over, and trembling with fear and loathing. But the stickers stay on the truck. The button stays on the lapel. I have fired up the engines of impeachment. The fight begins anew, now against the entrenched power, as an action to prevent the complete death of freedom and justice; instead of an effort to oust them from power, it is now an effort to prevent the Big Darkness and herald the New Dawn. As soon as I sleep for a day.

OHIO
100% of Precincts Reporting
George W. Bush 2,794,346 - 51 percent
John Kerry 2,658,125 - 48 percent

2,794,346 - 2,658,125 = 136,221

175,000 provisional votes * 66% = 115,500 (result: misery)

200,000 provisional * 66& = 165,000 (result, happiness)

So, if the Republican Secretary of State in Ohio is lowballing the number of provisional votes by only 25,000 (and I've seen the numbers as high as 250,000) and Kerry gets 66% of them, which is the rate he's achieved in those precincts, Kerry wins.

Get a grip. Start spinning. It ain't over 'til it's over. And now I AM done for the day.

In fact, He was going to, then flip-flopped

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said today he is convinced President Bush has defeated Sen. Kerry, but that Bush will not make a statement until later today. "President Bush decided to give Sen. Kerry the respect of more time to reflect on the results of this election," he said. With three states still up in the air, neither candidate has the necessary 270 electoral votes.
(via CNN)

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Bush "respects" Kerry! Oh, that's almost too rich.

Three states still counting, so I wouldn't call this too gracious.

Meanwhile, Kevin Drum disgraces himself with a display of Beltwat Dem wussiness. He actually accepts the Republican secretary of states numbers on the provisional votes! Puh-leeze!

NOTE Atrios asleep, Drum asleep, Josh asleep.... Shit, guys, get outta bed!

And remember, it isn't over until Kerry concedes. Have we remembered nothing from 2000? Maybe Kerry will do that in the next 1/2 hour; I don't know. But until then, Bush triumphant is utterly untrustworthy, as is the SCLM. We know this. So, why believe what they say?

And with that, I'm going to take a long nap.