corrente

On Tuesday I'm going to go vote for John Kerry.

I can't wait.

Now most of the horserace polls are now showing the race dead even.

However, here's what counts.

OHIO From the pages of the Marietta Register Leader, 1929:
[SNIP] Frederick Bender 69, retired, drove a fourpenny nail into his head in an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide Tuesday. The nail has been removed, and barring infection it is believed the aged man will live. Members of the family heard unusual sounds coming from Mr. Bender's room and when they investigated found him suffering intense pain from the self-inflicted wound. They summoned Dr. S.E. Edwards to attend him. Standing in front of a mirror, and armed with a hammer, the victim had deliberately driven the nail into the top of his head. It pierced the skull at a point near the median line at the top of the head. The doctor tried with his regular instruments to remove the nail, but was unsuccessful, and it was necessary to get a pair of heavy steel pliers from the tool box of his automobile. With these the nail finally was withdrawn. [SNIP]


See, its like this: George W. Bush is like that nail and America is Fred Bender's sore sorry head. God only knows what made Fred do it. So, it's time we summon Dr. Kerry and Dr. Edwards to help repair the damage. Before the infection spreads and its too late. One dumb half-assed self inflicted bender is enough for four years. So, go to the poll box on Nov. 2, grab hold of the pliers, and yank that bent fourpenny Texas dolt from our collective national skull. And for all you braindead numbskull Bush-whacker zombies out there, still fanatically flailing away in the fog, well, just knock it off! Before you put us all in a shallow haunted grave.

*

Dear dipwad, jerk, incipient fascist, and/or drunken teenage subwoofer-addicted toad:

I'd sure like to thank you for swiping the "Kerry-Edwards" sign which has been sitting harmlessly, and, alas, rather unnoticed, in my yard for lo these last six weeks or so.

Mostly I am deeply grateful for the laziness, fear of legal retribution, pangs of conscience or, more likely, lack of attention span which caused you to chuck it out your passenger-side window into the ditch. It was just far enough down the road to be around a curve where I most likely wouldn't have found it if I hadn't been looking very closely for just such a sight.

Without the flood of fury and adrenaline your act inspired, I would probably never have thought to assemble some cheap little flags and drag out some solar lights I got on sale and have been keeping around to replace the ones circling the yard pond as they wear out or get battered by hail.

Really, the experience has both enhanced the look of my yard and fired up my determination. My gratitude is sincere. But touch my sign again, asshole, and I still have the 4x8 sheet of plywood in the shed, plenty of paint, and lots of cool tips for wording. And did I mention the shotgun?

A nice series of recipes here from a Virginia Democrat. Talking points for fundies, neo-cons, and paleo-cons.

Six weeks it sat there, unmolested. There isn't another official one to be found closer than Humphrey County according to the last reports I had at Dem HQ on Friday, and they may be gone by now as well.

So its Make Yer Own Sign time! As I have to go get paint, some big sheets of clear plastic (it's raining like mad here and is predicted to do so through Monday night at least) and other graphical-arts type accoutrements, I shall be busy for a bit.

Give me some ideas for details. I have a circa 3x4 sheet of cardboard to work with. It should be noted I lack any detectable artistic talent, so don't get too fancy if it can't be printed out and pasted on.

Figure a big "KERRY" in the middle (no room for Edwards, sorry Johnny). I'm thinking something like "Another Shotgun Owner For--" on top and "Steal this one, you sorry punk, I'll have another one up before you get to the hospital" on the bottom, but fear that's a bit wordy. And the top line's a fib too, so don't tell anybody.

This being West Tennessee I can't use profanity on the actual sign, but if your suggestions happen to include any such, feel free to leave them in comments. They're probably not nearly as nasty as what I'm thinking right now.

Um, how much of Iraq do we actually control, anyhow?

Here's a little statistic buried in a long thumbsucker about Bush plans to wage a Battle of Algiers-style dirty war in Iraq by "eliminating" Sunni rejectionists:

U.S. forces face substantial obstacles in bringing their plan to fruition. Commanders have identified 22 cities and towns in Iraq that must be brought under the control of the Iraqi government before nationwide elections, scheduled for January, can be held.
(via WaPo)

So, 22 cities and towns are under the control of the insurgents, when Iraq's population is 75% urban.

Stalingrad, anyone?

Nice work, Inerrant Boy!

But it gets better. While googling for the population figures, I looked at the CIA Factbook entry on Iraq; the entry has many mordantly humorous entries:

Government type: none; note - the Interim Government was appointed on 1 June 2004
Legal system: NA
Political parties and leaders: NA
GDP - real growth rate: -21.8% (2003 est.)
Industrial production growth rate: NA

I love it. "Government type: None." It's a winger's wet dream, isn't it? Maybe they drowned it in a bath tub? Lots of bathtubs in the Republican Palace, though of course not so many in the desert...

Nice work, Inerrant Boy! Looks like a cakewalk to me!

But the killer fact is this one, since demography is destiny:

Median age: male: 19.1 years
Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 3,654,947 (2004 est.)
Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 304,527 (2004 est.)

Half the country is under 19, and there's a population of 3.6 million angry, hungry, and unemployed young men for the insurgents to draw on.

Nice work on disbanding the Iraqi Army, Inerrant Boy!

But don't worry, we have a plan! In the mordantly witty words of the CIA Factbook:

[The] US-led coalition is planning to create a new Iraqi military force of men aged 18 to 40 to defend Iraqi territory from external threats (2004 est.)

I do think the analyst's "est[imated]" is rather fine. Don't you?

So, we've lost the cities, in a country that's 75% urban, and in a country where the median age is 19, the young men are shooting and bombing the troops, instead of joining the new Iraqi Army we are trying to build to replace the old Iraqi Army that we disbanded. And the new Iraqi military force is not going to have to handle "external threats," of course. It's going to have to kill other Iraqis, in a dirty civil war led by the US in the person of Ambassador Negroponte.

Think that's going to work real well?

Inerrant Boy, work with me.

Here is a Marine's definition of "clusterfuck":

clusterfuck—Marine slang -- [1.] A clusterfuck was any group of Marines big enough to draw enemy fire, or several Marines close enough together to be wounded by the same incoming round. More generically, [2.] a clusterfuck was something that was all screwed up, i.e. "That blocking operation was a giant clusterfuck!" Whenever three or more CAP Marines gathered in the open, talking or working on something, somebody was sure to call out "clusterfuck!" and one or more guys would walk away.

Yes, Inerrant Boy, Iraq is a clusterfuck—in both senses. If you'd actually served in the military, you might know that.

Sense 1, the tactical: The troops who staged the "sit down" strike, because they were being asked to convoy unusable gasoline, in unarmored vehicles (here), down an ambush alley in Iraq were avoiding a clusterfuck—they didn't want to be "close enough together to be wounded by the same" IDE or ambush.

Sense 2, the strategic: Bush has, through his handling of war, definitely created "something that is all screwed up." Like Stalingrad. Say.

Yes, I'd say "clusterfuck" is le mot juste.

How do you ask one of our children to be the last one to die in a clusterfuck?

Top Dog (via Josh Marshall) constructs this handy timeline from Woodward's Plan of Attack. He shows the correlation between Bin Laden's escape and Frank's doing war planning for Iraq. Funny how Woodward hid the truth in plain sight, isn't it?

NOVEMBER 2001
14. Kabul is taken by Northern alliance.
15. -- 16. --
17. Osama last seen leaving for Tora Bora.
18. --
19. Al Qaeda vows last stand at Tora Bora.
20. --
21. Bush asks CENTCOM to prepare for Iraq.
22. --
23. London paper says Osama is at Tora Bora.
24.
25. NY Times writes that Osama is at Tora Bora.
26. --
27. Franks meets with Rumsfeld about Iraq.
28. Osama is able to escape by...
29. ...walking into the mountains...
30. ...over the border to Pakistan.

DECEMBER 2001
1. Rumsfeld issues new Iraq orders for Franks.
2. -- 3. --
4. Franks reports to Pentagon on Iraq.
5. -- 6. -- 7. -- 8.

[ed note: For Top Dog's interactive graphic version of timeline above select link at top of post.]

So, while Bin Laden was escaping from Tora Bora, General Franks was "in meetings" on Iraq.

And from the decidedly non-whorish Knight-Ridder (via Atrios), here's what happened when Franks stopped paying attention, because Bush took his eye off the ball:

Knight Ridder reporters Barry Schlachter of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Jonathan S. Landay and photographers Carl Juste and Peter Andrew Bosch of The Miami Herald were at Tora Bora during the battle, and photographer David Gilkey of the Detroit Free Press and reporter Drew Brown traveled there a year later, interviewed Afghan fighters, retraced al-Qaida escape routes and talked to Pakistani intelligence officers who were tracking al Qaida.

Their reporting found that Franks and other top officials ignored warnings from their own and allied military and intelligence officers that the combination of precision bombing, special operations forces and Afghan forces that had driven the Taliban from northern Afghanistan might not work in the heartland of the country's dominant Pashtun tribe.

While more than 1,200 U.S. Marines sat at an abandoned air base in the desert 80 miles away, Franks and other commanders relied on three Afghan warlords and a small number of American, British and Australian special forces to stop al-Qaida and Taliban fighters from escaping across the mountains into Pakistan.

"We did rely heavily on Afghans because they knew Tora Bora . . . ," Franks wrote.

Military and intelligence officials had warned Franks and others that the two main Afghan commanders, Hazrat Ali and Haji Zaman, couldn't be trusted, and they proved to be correct. [The warlords] were slow to move their troops into place and didn't attack until four days after American planes began bombing - leaving time for al-Qaida leaders to escape and leaving behind a rear guard of Arab, Chechen and Uzbek fighters.

"Ali and Zaman both assured our people that they had forces in blocking positions on the Spin Ghar (mountains) when there were, in fact, no people there," a U.S. military official who played a key role in the campaign said. "So besides taking Afghans at their word, we had no plans to bring up sufficient forces to make up for perfidy."

U.S. reconnaissance photos showed what appeared to be campfires at high altitudes along the trails across the mountains into Pakistan. The Afghans said the fires belonged to sheep herders. Instead, "they were exfiltrators, pure and simple," said an AmZaman and Ali began trying to negotiate an al-Qaida surrender even before they began their ground attack. Then, on the second day of the attack, Zaman declared a cease-fire. Ali and a third commander, Haji Zahir, who joined the attack at the last minute, resumed fighting after a few hours, and the U.S. bombing never stopped. But Zaman left open an escape route through the Waziri Tangi valley.erican military official.

Sheep, huh? If it had been goats, my faith in Bush's competence might be shaken! But as it is, phew! No worries, eh?

UPDATE Alert reader riggsveda points out:

It might be of interest to recall that Sy Hersh, in Chain of Command, recounted that on November 25, 2001, the Northern Alliance took Kunduz, to the north, where it laid seige and surrounded about 4000 Taliban and Pakistani Al Qaeda fighters and sympathizers. The American command then allowed, on the White House's direction, about 3500 of the beseiged enemy to evacuate to Pakistan via Pakistani airlifts. It was supposed to be a limited evacuation for just crucial Pakistani intellligence people, but of course far more than those who were supposed to get out did. So just days before Franks spoke to the White House about Iraq, based on the timeline you have here, we were already clearing the airspace for the safe escape of thousands of little Osamas.

Inerrant Boy himself on the campaign trail in Lititz, Pennsylvania:

[BUSH]: And his policies make that clear. He says the war on terror is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence-gathering operation. Well, September the 11th changed me. I remember the day I was in the -- at Ground Zero, on September the 4th, 2001 [sic]. It's a day I will never forget. There were workers in hard hats there yelling at me at the top of their lungs, "Whatever it takes." I remember a man grabbed me by the arm, he looked me square in the eye, and he said, "Do not let me down." Ever since that day, I wake up every morning trying to figure out how to better protect America. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes. (Applause.)
(via White House Transcript)

A few points:

1. Bush, in the very same sentence where he says he will not forget, forgets. It's beautiful, isn't it? <sniff> "[Sic]" transit gloria W...

2.Then again, the way Bush does math, "4" and "14" might as well be the same!

3. Of course, Bush forgot whether he was "concerned" or not about Bin Laden, too. In front of millions. (See debate coverage (Scroll to Big Lie #1)).

4. Winger apologists will doubtless claim "It's just a date, just a slip of the tongue." Man, I know if Inerrant Boy got His wedding anniversary date wrong, He'd hear about it from Leadfoot. So, He muffs a date where 3000 of our people died, and we give him a free pass? Bien sur!

5. As Dana Milbank has reported (It's just another one of his stories), the "man" who "grabbed" Bush has never been identified, and the story about who "the man" is and what he said just keeps changing. Kinda like those TxANG stories, eh? Maybe if we offered a $50,000 reward?

6. Finally, who cares whether Bush will "never relent"?

Bush feels relentless. So what?

I want results.

And if you look at results, Bush has been a miserable failure.

Three years ago, Bin Laden was "wanted, dead or alive."

Now, Bin Laden is making tapes, looks the picture of health, and is dispensing sage foreign policy advice to the West on how to deal with the Islamic world and his coming Caliphate.

And the Republicans are trying to spin that as some kind of victory. Go figure.

NOTE Thanks to alert reader Jesus for the tip. And I'm pleased Bush made this screwup in PA.

UPDATE and:

7. I almost forgot. "Whatever it takes" is the name of the ad that Bush had to pull, because Kos nailed him (here) on the fact that the images of troops in the audience had, in back, been Photoshopped. (Elinor Clift, who pinged my memory on this, has an excellent takedown of the Bush campaign, with particular attention paid to Al Caca, here.

Really, that single paragraph from Bush's stump speech is a compendium of lies and distortions, isn't it?

UPDATE Alert reader Steve Bates does reality check on Bush's story about "the man" who "grabbed" Bush:

Anyone who grabbed Bush by the arm and looked him straight in the eye would almost instantly be so full of bullets delivered by the Secret Service that he wouldn't live long enough to say, "Do not let me down."

Funny how so much of what Bush says and does just dissolves when you look at it, isn't it. Not funny ha-ha, either.

UPDATE Alert reader sharpens the, um, implausibility noticed by Steve still more:

hree days after a terrorist attack and the Secret Service's Presidential guard unit is allowing all of these people walk up to the President at the site of the attack?

The chance of anyone not a known political figure, staff member, or member of the Secret Service protection team getting within 20 feet of the President: 0%.

See Josh Marshall on Republican vote suppression efforts in Milwaukee.

Question: Why would anyone take a voting list generated by the Republican Party seriously? I mean, what is it going to be but a cull of their campaign database, sliced by people who will never vote for the Republicans?

And while we're asking questions:

Here are the words of a worried Bush dupe supporter:

[A] real estate agent who attended a Bush rally on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich., said she was infuriated by Mr. bin Laden's interjection into the campaign. She was also a bit worried about it.

"He is trying to make the president look incompetent," [she] said. "I just hope people will realize that he is trying to influence our democracy and our election."

Fascinating, isn't it? It isn't about, um, facts—whether Bush is incompetent—it's about appearances—whether Bush looks incompetent. Totally post-modern...

Anyhow, I'd go with the facts. Clearly, Bush is incompetent.

Three years ago, Bush says "Bin Laden, dead or alive."

Today, Bin Laden's the picture of health, and making video tapes seen by millions.

Does that sound competent to you?

Image shamelessly stolen from World O' Crap.

There's this:





And then there's this:





And of course there's this:





But I hear the torchlight parades are beautiful!

"We let Mr. Bush get away with this. And we ought to be ashamed. Now, we need to do something about our own mistakes." ~ Jim Moore

Bush's Tactical Lying by Jim Moore ( author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential )

Being wrong is not very gratifying. Still, I had hoped I was mistaken about George W. Bush. But all of the evidence indicated my president was a liar, a man skilled at deception and changing the evidence to construct alternate realities.

I had been interviewing and writing about Mr. Bush consistently for over 15 years and had spoken with him on the record many times prior to his political ascension. I gave him the benefit of believing what he told me. This is what journalists do.

But they also verify. And when I began the business of corroborating and trying to check out George W. Bush and his various narratives, I began to have grave doubts.

[...]

Recently, Russ Baker got Herskowitz [ed note: Mickey Herskowitz, Bush biographer] to sit down to a taped interview and talk about what Bush had related when they began work on the Bush biography in 1999. And, according to Herskowitz, almost everything the public thinks it knows about Bush is wrong.

For 10 years, I have been trying to prove Mr. Bush has been lying and obfuscating about his time in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guard. Russ Baker's interview with Herskowitz proved I was right. As I traveled on the 2000 presidential campaign, I grew weary of hearing Mr. Bush claim that he had reported for duty in Alabama and then, in his biography, A Charge to Keep, he claimed he continued to fly with his Texas unit for many years.

Unless our president is pathological, he knew this was not true. I never found a record to prove Lt. Bush ever reported to duty in Alabama, yet the magnificent research work of Paul Lukusiak proved that Mr. Bush got paid.

[...]

My own research and writing indicated the future president was given a free pass to simply leave for Alabama and not report to any kind of duty ever again. And that's precisely how Mr. Bush related the story to Herskowitz back in 1999.

[...]

The Herskowitz interview with Baker is more evidence that the Bush organization is willing to recreate history, alter evidence, destroy documentation, and mislead anyone who is seeking the facts about their power.

Much more... read entire post at Democrats.com

*

The wingers think the OBL tape is a gift.

Yeah, right.

Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Refrain:

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right

'Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,
'Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,
And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,
Then we'll all live together and we'll all learn to say,

Refrain:

'Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
'Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of "me",
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
Then we'll all live together with a love that is real.

(Simple Gifts was a work song sung by the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (more commonly called the Shakers, an offshoot of the Quakers).

"And when we hear what others really think and really feel" sounds a lot like not living in the bubble. Eh?

Try singing this in the lines at the polls....

Hey, I bet our troll gets GOP Team Leader points for polluting your discourse:

Team Leaders get the inside scoop on what's going on at the Republican Party. Each week you will receive an update, The Team Leader, about the latest stories, bills, and actions around the country.

In addition to being given a "political edge" over the competition, you earn GOPoints for each Action Item completed. Action Items range from writing a letter to your editor to calling local voters and gauging public opinion. The GOPoints you earn can, in turn, be redeemed for collateral of your choice, ranging from leather PDA covers to folding chairs.
(via GOP Team Leader)

Hey, what about the beer coolers?

Line up, sign up, and re-enlist today!

That's not a prediction, that's an order. Win it by 50,000 at the very least, and then this Republican-projection-of-voter-suppression-charges horseshit will be a bit of post-election trivia. Let them count overseas absentees until the fifth of never, let all of them be for Bush (yeah, right) and let it mean nothing.

(via Phluffya Inkwire)

HARRISBURG - The state will count absentee ballots of Pennsylvanians living abroad and serving in the military overseas that arrive up to eight days after Tuesday's election under a compromise brokered yesterday by a federal judge.

Pennsylvania's 67 counties have sent about 26,700 absentee ballots overseas, but it is unclear how many were mailed to military personnel, who tend to vote Republican.

By settling on Nov. 10, the state leaves itself enough time to count the ballots and factor them into a new law triggering a recount in statewide races closer than half of one percentage point, said Mark Aronchick, a Philadelphia election-law expert hired by the Rendell administration.

For more than a week, Rendell has come under intense pressure from GOP officials who have accused him of trying to suppress the military vote.

His main phone line has been swamped by more than 1,000 calls, prompted by conservative talk-show hosts who have urged listeners to complain.

The Republican Party was exploiting the issue "big time... to try and create the impression that Democrats don't care about the military," Rendell said in one of two conference calls with reporters yesterday.

And speaking of information that wants to be free:

One last chapter of the investigation by the Sept. 11 commission, a supplement completed more than two months ago, has not yet been made public by the Justice Department, and officials say it is unlikely to be released before the presidential election, even though that had been a major goal of deadlines set for the panel.
(via the-actually-doing-some-reporting-these-days New York Times)

I wonder why it hasn't been made public? Perhaps the content of the report will provide a clue!

Drawing from this unpublished part of the inquiry, the commission quietly asked the inspectors general at the Departments of Defense and Transportation to review what it had determined were broadly inaccurate accounts provided by several civil and military officials about efforts to track and chase the hijacked aircraft on Sept. 11.

Besides the pursuit of the hijacked planes, the supplement, a monograph 60 to 70 pages long, revisits other subjects in the commission's final report of July - telephone calls made from the hijacked airplanes, airline security and orders issued that morning by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney - and provides additional detail or context, former commission members said.

Interesting.... But how, you ask, did this portion of the 9/11 report not get published? A series of unfortunate events:

The monograph was submitted to the Justice Department just as the commission's term expired on Aug. 21, a date selected by Congress after long negotiations to avoid bringing out the commission's report at the height of the presidential campaign.It arrived not only as the commission became legally defunct, but also as many commission members and the staff lost their security clearances, Mr. Corallo said. That meant no one from the commission could discuss with the Justice Department lawyers how to edit material that needed to be changed for security reasons, he said.

"Had the commission gotten it to them two or three days before the deadline, they could have resolved any issue in minutes, as they usually do," Mr. Corallo said.

As a result of these complications, the supplement is the first of the commission's documents to be completely controlled by the Bush administration. While the commission was still in business, it was able to exert pressure on the White House when all 10 members, 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans, simply issued a public request for cooperation.

Well, it's all very simple, isn't it? Bush should just order the release of the secret report...

Then again, why can't the newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers publish this? After all, doens't knowing the orders that Bush gave on 9/11 bear on his fitness to be elected President?

UPDATE It's interesting that this is the thread that our troll chose to infest. Always a good diagnostic about what the wingers hate and fear, eh? The last time, it was when CBS published evidence confirming what we already knew—that Bush did not fulfill his duty to the country in the TxANG; this time, it's the story that Bush is suppressing the orders he and Acting President Cheney gave on 9/11. I wonder why? Go for that beer cooler, trolls! You can do it!

Digby has the scoop.

"Free" as in "able to run like an antelope out of control," not free as in without cost or payment. This is of interest mostly to media junkies, but has some interesting points and a couple of (I know you're going to find this hard to believe) fibs by ass-covering members of the Hubbard clan...

(via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Monday night, former KSTP reporter Dean Staley called KSTP photojournalist Joe Caffrey to talk about an award the two had just won for their work in Iraq.

Their conversation turned to a story about missing munitions that had run that day in the New York Times and on CBS.

"Joe," Staley told Caffrey, "those bunkers in the story look awfully familiar. I think we were there."

The conversation led to a scoop that's made KSTP, Channel 5, the most popular girl at the media prom this week. News of its exclusive footage of U.S. soldiers sorting through explosives-filled bunkers spread like wildfire through the Internet, radio talk shows and conventional news outlets.

KSTP broke the story Wednesday during its 10 p.m. news. The footage, shot by Caffrey nine days after the fall of Baghdad, appeared to contradict Bush administration assertions that explosives missing from the Al-Qaqaa munitions complex had been removed before U.S. troops arrived.

Thursday night, ABC used its affiliate's footage and "from there it snowballed," said Caffrey. On Friday, KSTP's footage was the focus of a front-page New York Times story, a report on NBC's "Today" show, a Pentagon news conference and chatter on myriad Web sites.

We pause to blush at this point

On a normal day, KSTP's Web site attracts about 36,000 visitors. On Thursday, "it was viewed by 225,000," said general manager Rob Hubbard -- a pace that continued Friday.

It's the kind of news coup experienced by few stations and a somewhat ironic one for the Hubbard Broadcasting station, which has taken flak for its alleged conservative tilt. Now KSTP is the purveyor of a campaign "October surprise."

Now for the fib:

Hubbard also disparaged the political characterization of his family and said the story was an excellent example of its commitment to putting on the news in a fair manner.

"Neither my dad [Stanley S. Hubbard, chief executive of KSTP's corporate parent] nor anybody in my family is Republican," he said.

Google "Hubbard Broadcasting" if you find this assertion somewhat dubious. This is the company that the notorious "Joe Ryan Diaries" author works for. If they ain't Republicans they're the most pro-war Democrats since Zell Miller.

Way to support the troops, aWol! Sure, wave the flag, even pray, but as far as actually doing anything? Well, um, no.

When the 1544th Transportation Company of the Illinois National Guard was preparing to leave for Iraq in February, relatives of the soldiers offered to pay to weld steel plates on the unit's trucks to protect against roadside bombs. The Army told them not to, because it would provide better protection in Iraq, relatives said.

Seven months later, many of the company's trucks still have no armor, soldiers and relatives said, despite running some of the most dangerous missions in Iraq and incurring the highest rate of injuries and deaths among the Illinois units deployed there.

"This problem is very extensive," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former infantry platoon leader with the Florida National Guard in Iraq who now runs an organization called Operation Truth, an advocacy group for soldiers and veterans.
(via Times

Was Bush warned? Of course! Has he solved the problem? No! Sensing a pattern?

Before the 103rd Armor Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard left in late February,
some relatives bought those soldiers new body armor to supplant the Vietnam-era flak jackets that had been issued. The mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, a member of the regiment who was killed in April, bought a global positioning device after being told that the Army said his truck should have one but would not supply it.

And before Karma Kumlin's husband left with his Minnesota National Guard unit in February, the soldiers spent about $200 each on radios that they say have turned out to be more reliable - although less secure - than the Army's. Only recently, Ms. Kumlin said, has her husband gotten a metal shield for the gunner's turret he regularly mans, after months of asking.

"This just points to an extreme lack of planning," said Ms. Kumlin, who is 31 and a student. "My husband is part of the second wave that went to Iraq."

"If we're one of the richest nations in the world, our soldiers shouldn't be sent out looking like the Beverly Hillbillies," said the mother of one soldier in the unit, who, like many parents, asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions for their children.

No reality-based thinking must be allowed to pop Inerrant Boy's Bubble.

According to figures compiled by the House Armed Services Committee and previously reported in The Seattle Times, there are
plans to produce armor kits for at least 2,806 medium-weight trucks, but as of Sept. 17, only 385 of the kits had been produced and sent to Iraq. Armor kits were also
planned for at least 1,600 heavyweight trucks, but as of mid-September just 446 of these kits were in Iraq. The Army is also looking into developing ways to armor truck cabs quickly, and has ordered 700 armored Humvees with special weapons platforms to protect convoys.

Specialist Benjamin Isenberg, 27, of the Oregon National Guard, died on Sept. 13 when he drove his unarmored Humvee over a homemade bomb, the principal weapon of the insurgents, said his grandmother, Beverly Isenberg of McArthur, Calif. The incident occurred near Taji, the town north of Baghdad where the 18 reservists refused to make a second trip with fuel that they say had been rejected as contaminated.

"One of the soldiers in his unit said they go by the same routes and at the same times every day," said Mrs. Isenberg, whose husband is a retired Army officer and who has two sons in the military and another grandson in the Special Forces who was wounded in Iraq. "They were just
sitting ducks in an unarmored Humvee."

Unbelievable, outrageous incompetence. And will someone from the Kerry campaign please jump in this in the current news cycle?

Oh, and it's been nice to see the Presidential Proclamation thanking the military families for all their efforts, and the Executive Order to pay them back.... Oh, wait....

Visualize winning. (From alert reader scaramouche)

RDF:

Word is from de la fem, that the lines were long in CO, too. And someone beat her to the punch and had hot cocoa and cookies, but she was inside and didn't get to watch. No sign of polecats at the polls she sez, and volunteers welcome. Goddam I'm tired. Four more days and we can end four more years. Must keep repeating, must go on... The lines are long again today in NM, I'm told... so off we go again after training. I got posters and goodies. Hope the lawyers say it's o

Alert reader cgeye:

Tell Ms. de la Fem that the lines were long in Denver, too: At the local Safeway, the line went out the door, around the parking lot halfway to the street. Since it was a supermarket, as are most early sites in Denver, I figured snacks were a line-save away.

Readers?

Here's a riddle for you: The election is held as scheduled. None of the four candidates is subsequently killed or incapacitated in any way. On Jan. 20, 2005, John Edwards is sworn in as President of the United States.

How can this be? You always gotta read the fine print:

(via NYT)

The Constitution provides that the vice president becomes president if the president dies, resigns or is removed from office. But the 20th Amendment states that: "If a president shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the president-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the vice president-elect shall act as president until a president shall have qualified."

This story was up very, very briefly; I saw it last night but the link on the front page had vanished by this morning. It's still there, I just checked. Consider this your Saturday giggle.

Scarred for life...

Say, that "W" graphic really works. Remind you of anything?

Since actual news of the actual war has been rather crowded out by political stuff, we thought we'd catch you up:

AP

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- In a bloody day in Iraq, eight American Marines were killed in fighting west of Baghdad on Saturday, and a car bomb killed at least seven people in attack on an Arab television bureau in the capital. Iraqi troops fired wildly on civilian vehicles, killing at least 14 people, witnesses and hospital officials said.

The U.S. military said nine Marines were also wounded in the fighting in Anbar province west of the capital which includes the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

- A militant group showed a kidnapped Sudanese interpreter, Noureddin Zakaria, who was working for U.S. contractor Titan Corp. in Ramadi and demanded his company leave Iraq, in a video aired on Al-Arabiya.

Atlanta J-C

Travis Schnoor, 39, a former Army Ranger at Fort Benning, died Wednesday after the vehicle in which he was riding flipped over after hitting an improvised explosive device near Abu Ghraib, about 20 miles west of Baghdad, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported.

Schnoor's friend John Clements said he had wanted to help out in Iraq, but was too old to go back into the Army. So Schnoor resigned from the sheriff's department and joined Custer Battle of Rhode Island, a security consulting firm, Clements said.

Remember, of course, that the late Messrs. Zakaria and Schnoor do not count at "real" casualties, since they worked for contractors.

Overall, today's report--which keep in mind does not even include the final assault on Fallujah since that hasn't started yet--is summed up nicely by this historical ditty:

(via a comment thread over at Atrios)

Now sorry you all for the mess we made
It'sa way we figger that poker's played
Keep yer stinkin' Eye-raqi sand
Don't you fer'ners understand?
We'll all be free
's 'mocracy!
Now drop that RPG

And it's one, two, three
What are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop Eye-raqistan!
And its five, six, seven
No! No! Guantanamo Gate!
Who started this row?
All hat! No cow!
Whoopie! We're all AWOL now!

Come on bloggers around the globe
Post yer comments - and lock 'n' load
Come on journalists,
You know who you are
Bring the feathers and bring the tar!
Up on a rail
Heh Chimp! No bail!
AWOL a hitch in jail!

And it's one, two, three
What are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn
Next stop Eye-raqistan!
And its five, six, seven
No! No! Guantanamo Gate!
Who started this row?
All hat! No cow!
Whoopie! We're all AWOL now!

Ground War 2004/The Nation

The first reports show that it's clear GOP operatives are attempting to disenfranchise voters through intimidation, suppression and bureaucratic maneuvers in states coast to coast. In Ohio, thousands of Republican challengers are being deployed to polling places in heavily Democratic--and minority--areas to contest voters' eligibility. In Jacksonville, Florida, Suzanne Charlé reports that GOP officials have resisted calls to process new registrations and open needed polling places in black neighborhoods. And, as John Nichols details in the most recent Ground War 2004 dispatch from Wisconsin, Republican officials there have been playing dirty tricks to suppress the vote in liberal Milwaukee.

Ground War 2004 will provide cutting-edge coverage of the polling wars until the election is settled. Please feel free to link to, quote from, and pass along these important pieces from the key battleground states. - The Nation

"The best defense against voter suppression is to flood the polls." ~ Katrina vanden Heuvel

GOTV - To the phones
VoterCall.org:

VoterCall.org allows anyone, anywhere to make quick encouraging phone calls to young, low-income and minority voters in swing states. Progressive, nonpartisan groups have registered over 2 million of these new voters this year. If they vote, it will make a major difference, and that's why there are so many suppression efforts aimed at them. I hope you can spread the word about VoterCall. We launched a few days ago and have grown to 14,000 volunteers and rising fast. The more volunteers we have the more phone calls we can make. Millions need to be made to get the turnout we need. VoterCall is a project of Res Publica, supported by the National Council of Churches, TrueMajority, Rock the Vote, and National Voice (The November 2 Campaign)

Watch Republicans LIE (again)
Avedon Carol:

I watched tonight's (that is, Friday's) special Question Time in America, with Michael Moore, David Frum (RNC hack), Sidney Blumenthal, Richard Littlejohn (tabloid and TV hack), and Lida Rodrigues-Taseff (civil liberties attorney), with some discomfort as it devolved into an opportunity for Bushistas to recite their talking points, and particularly the one where the people registering new voters and then throwing out registration forms for the other party are Democrats throwing out Republican's forms. - Sideshow

*

Looks like Xan was right

See "From Fallujah To the Sea", where Xan wrote:

The "assault on Fallujah," which has been purported to start "any day now" for three weeks, will launch probably Friday, Saturday at the latest. And it will still be continuing on Election Day.

Just wanted to get that on the record. Not that I'm so cynical as to think BushCo would play games with lives and timing just to win an election or anything.

Well, Operation BOHICA looks like it's about to be given the green light:

The American military launched new airstrikes against suspected militant bases in Falljuah Saturday. They also carried out probing attacks on the city's outskirts, as they prepared for a major operation in the city.

U.S. officials say they're taking orders directly from Iraq's Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who has warned officials in Fallujah to root out and hand over militants in the past.
(via CTV)

I really love that "taking orders directly from Allawi" part. Either Bush has surrendured our sovreignty to the Iraqis, or Bush is really the one with his finger on the trigger. Which do you think it is?

I would only amend Xan's prediction as follows: "continuing on Election Day and until all the court challenges are resolved."

Feels like a roller coaster, doesn't it?

And with all these people running up and down the stairs, yelling, it's hard to sleep....

From the Times, no less!

Bin Laden Takes Responsibility for 9/11 Attacks in New Tape
(via Times)

I think if I were a winger, or of Those Who Have Taken The Bush Oath, my head would be exploding right now...

But wait a minute... If OBL says 9/11 and Iraq have nothing to do with each other, and Kerry says 9/11 and Iraq have nothing to do with each other... That makes OBL and Kerry moral equivalents, right?

I guess we'll be hearing that all weekend....

And what they're doing is illegal:

The Republican challenges in Ohio, Wisconsin and other battleground states prompted civil rights and labor unions to sue in U.S. District Court in Newark, saying the GOP is violating a consent decree, issued in the 1980s by Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise and still in effect, that prevents the Republicans from starting "ballot security" programs to prevent voter fraud that target minorities.

Debevoise, who scheduled a hearing for Monday, expressed concern that widespread challenges on the fear of fraud could unnecessarily disrupt polling places.

Courts in the past found that Republicans used tactics that were aimed at intimidating minority voters and suppressing their votes. The consent decrees in New Jersey stemmed from several incidents in the 1980s.

In 1981, the Republican National Committee sent letters to predominantly black neighborhoods in New Jersey, and when 45,000 letters were returned as undeliverable, the committee compiled a challenge list to remove those voters from the rolls. The RNC sent off-duty law enforcement officials to the polls and hung posters in heavily black neighborhoods warning that violating election laws is a crime.

In 1986, the RNC tried to have 31,000 voters, most of them black, removed from the rolls in Louisiana when a party mailer was returned. The consent decrees that resulted prohibited the party from engaging in anti-fraud initiatives that target minorities or conduct mail campaigns to "compile voter challenge lists."

Undeliverable mail is the basis for this year's challenges in Ohio. Republicans also sent mail to about 130,000 voters in Philadelphia, another heavily black and Democratic stronghold.
(via WaPo)

Well, well, well. Sound familiar? Of course it does.

But wait! It just keeps getting better. MyDD quotes the transcript of the hearing in Ohio where around a thousand Partei challenges were thrown out:

EXCERPT FROM TODAY'S SUMMIT COUNTY ELECTION BOARD HEARING:

General 2004 :: Thu Oct 28th, 2004 at 07:28:44 PM EST

MR. PRY: You have indicated in this challenge form that the person - that you believe that [Catherine Ann Herold] does not live at that residence; is that correct?

MS. MILLER: That's correct.

MR. PRY: And what is the basis for you making this challenge?

MS. MILLER: That was my impression that these items that I signed were for people whose mail had been undeliverable for several times, and that they did not live at the residence.

As if anyone the Democrats registered would agree to sign for mail sent from the Republican party!

MR. PRY: Did you personally send any mail to Ms. Herrold?

MS. MILLER: No, I did not.

MR. PRY: Have you seen any mail that was returned to Ms. Herrold?

MS. MILLER: No, I have not.

MR. PRY: Do you have any personal knowledge as we stand here today that Ms. Herrold does not live at the address at 238 30th Street Northwest?

MS. MILLER: Only that which was my impression; that their mail had not been able to be delivered.

MR. PRY: And who gave you that impression?

MS. MILLER: Attorney Jim Simon.

MR. PRY: And what did --

MS. MILLER: He's an officer of the party.

MR. PRY: An officer of which party?

MS. MILLER: Republican party.

I love it. "The party Partei"...

MR. PRY: What did Mr. Simon tell you with respect to Ms. Herrold's residence?

MS. MILLER: That the mail had come back undeliverable several times from that residence.

As if anyone would sign for registered mail that came from the Republican Party!

MR. PRY: And you never saw the returned mail?

MS. MILLER: No, I did not.

MR. PRY: Now, you've indicated that you signed this based on some personal knowledge.

MR. HUTCHINSON: (Joseph F. Hutchinson, Jr. Summit County Board of Elections) No

MR. ARSHINKOFF: (Alex R. Arshinkoff, Summit County Board of Elections) Reason to believe. It says, "I have reason to believe." It says it on the form.

MR. JONES: It says, "I hereby declare under penalty of election falsification, that the statements above are true as I verily believe."

MR. ARSHINKOFF: It says here, "I have reason to believe."

MR. HUTCHINSON: It says what it says.

MR. ARSHINKOFF: You want her indicted, get her indicted.

MR. PRY: That may be where it goes next.

MR. HUTCHINSON: Yeah, give it a try.

MR. MORRISON: I'm going to enter an objection.

MR. JONES: Can we have you name?

MR. MORRISON: Yes. Jack Morrison. I've just been informed by Mr. Pry that an indictment may flow out of this, and therefore I'm instructing Ms. Miller to exercise her privilege against self-incrimination. She will not answer any further questions

Beautiful! A Republican thug takes the fifth!

...on global warming in particular and environmental issues in general, does anybody in the Reality-Based Community want to shoot for eight?

I didn't think so. And note that Some Dear Leader we won't name has again failed his own global test:

(via NYT (science writer, not politics))

"These changes in the Arctic provide an early indication of the environmental and societal significance of global warming," the executive summary of the report says.

The study, called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, was commissioned four years ago by the eight nations with Arctic territory - Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States - and conducted and reviewed by 250 scientists and representatives of six organizations representing Arctic native communities.

The study was scheduled for release at a conference in Iceland on Nov. 9, but electronic copies of some portions were provided to The New York Times by European participants in the project, several of whom said that publication had been delayed in part by the Bush administration because of the political contentiousness of global warming.

Note that Inerrant Leader's "home" is a good long ways inland. Go read the whole thing, if only because He doesn't want you to. Might forward it to anyone who lives in Florida, Lousiana, or other coastal states, as well as Alaska which is most directly affected by the data in this report. Oh, btw, they are so fucked.

Once again, words fail me:

[DICK "DICK" CHENEY] "Afghanistan and Iraq will be studied for years for their brilliance."
(via AP)

Once again, Bush outdoes himself. When I lightheartedly (back showed a picture of Bush seeming to give a left-handed Nazi salute to his followers, I had no idea that, within 48 hours, I'd be reading about Bush followers taking an oath of allegiance to the person of Dear Leader. Once again, parody becomes an ugly, ugly reality:

"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."
(via John Marshall)

Um, I think there's a transcription error. Shouldn't that be "raise your right arm"?

The terrifying thing about this, is that once someone was actually gone down this road, pledged allegiance to the person of Goerge Bush, it's hard for to imagine them returning to anything resembling reality; the cognitive dissonance would be too great. These people are entrapped, doomed, lost forever.

Oh, and isn't the double repetition of "re-elect" precious? Like they're stamping down all doubt.

Sick. Disgusting.

UPDATE Billmon returns!

And as a five o'clock horror, no less:

The video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television, showed bin Laden with a long gray beard, wearing traditional white robes, a turban and a golden cloak, standing behind a table with papers and in front of a plain, brown curtain.

His hands were steady as he spoke and he appeared healthy.
(via AP)

Looks like that dialysis worked out just fine!

And nice work on that "Dead or alive" thing, Inerrant Boy...

TheCIA can't authenticate the tape:

After a technical analysis, the CIA cannot determine whether a videotape obtained by ABC News in Pakistan featuring a man claiming to be affiliated with al Qaeda is authentic, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday.

"We have been unable to verify the tape's authenticity," the official said.
(via CNN)

So much for "Shazzam the American" ....

As evidenced by this story, no one is buying the administration's furious spinning about the 380 tons of missing high explosives from al QaQaa.

Yet, even in this story, there's a weasely paragraph that comes straight from Rove that is supposed to show "balance" on the part of the stenographers in our press corps:

Still, 377 tons of explosives amount to a tiny fraction of the weaponry in Iraq. U.S. forces have already destroyed, or have slated to destroyed, more than 400,000 tons of all manner of Iraqi weapons and ammunition. But at least another 250,000 tons from Saddam's regime remain unaccounted for, and some has undoubtedly fallen into the hands of insurgents.

It's apparently supposed to make us feel better that the incompetents in this administration have also lost 250,000 more tons of weapons and ammunition?

That's pathetic.

And Atrios is right, by holding this press conference today they've made sure this leads the news cycle for another day.

How stupid was that, anyway?

Now this story is strictly nonpartisan. But take a look at some of these numbers and tell me who you think these people are voting for. Background: Gwinnett County, Georgia, is east-northeast of Atlanta:

(via Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

The first batch of voters started lining up at 4:30 a.m. Thursday, some plopping into lawn chairs outside Gwinnett's only early-voting precinct.

They were guaranteed at least a 3 1/2-hour wait until voting booths opened at 8 a.m. As it turns out, they had among the shortest stays at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center.

About 500 voters had lined up before the polls opened, county Elections Supervisor Lynn Ledford estimated.

The official end of an early voting day is 5 p.m., but those already in line are allowed to complete the process.

On Wednesday, the last of 2,200 voters finished at 9:45 p.m., Ledford said.

So, Karl, how's that voter-suppression campaign going? Eh? What's that? I can't seem to hear you, Karl....Karl? Are you crying, Karl?

Salon asks and Julian Bond answers:

Do you expect the tactics to be any heavier-handed this year than in the past?

Oh, yeah. I think it will be worse than in 2000. For one thing, in 2000 you did not have the law-enforcement apparatus of the government engaged on one side of the contest, as you do now. Attorney General [John] Ashcroft has instituted this so-called ballot integrity program. Yes, despite appeals to him to issue statements saying we're interested in protecting the voters' right to cast their votes, he's focused entirely on suspicions and allegations of fraud. I don't think anyone thinks that fraud is a widespread problem in the American electoral system. Instead, he's instructed his attorneys general across the United States to be on the alert for fraud, rather than be on the alert for people who are likely to stymie voters and keep them from casting their votes. The two parties are much more aware, taking a lesson from 2000, that every vote counts, and the Democrats take the lesson to mean we need to get all our people to the polls, while the Republicans take the lesson to mean we have to keep as many people as we can away.

Why don't you ever hear about intimidation tactics being used in predominantly white precincts?

You never hear about it because if you're walking down the street and you see a black face and a white face, you can make an informed guess that that black face is going to vote for the Democrats, and so minorities are the targets of people who want to suppress Democratic votes. That's true -- you never hear about this occurring in white precincts. And it's evidence of the partisan and pernicious nature of these practices.

As far as the hard-won right to vote is concerned -- and to have that vote count -- what's at stake for African-Americans in this election?

…It's because after years of trying to suppress and nullify black voters, they've [Republicans] now tried to slice away a wedge of black voters. And in 11 states, [they] have these so-called marriage amendments on the ballot [to prevent gay marriage] and have begun an aggressive campaign to solicit the support of conservative black clergy. And in some respects, they've succeeded. Now, the NAACP opposed the federal amendments, which failed, and opposed these state-level amendments. And Kweisi Mfume, the president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, and I as the chairman, have written letters to ministers in these 11 states, telling them of our opposition and saying that these state-level amendments are simply devices to split the progressive coalition.

via Suppression "WorseThan in 2000" (no day pass required--truthout)

There were long lines at the community center early voting station in Podunksville today, and many of the faces were brown, looking tired. So my traveling companion and myself, having rid ourselves of livestock and having a few dollars, bought a bunch of tiny doughnuts and little cans of juice and handed them out to the folks in line, encouraged them to stay. My companion had bought a Kerry mask at the mall, and so he wore that while handing out goodies, saying “compliments of the next president.” Got a lot of laughs and nobody stopped us. Of course, the line went around the building so probably nobody saw us, either, and I think we were outside the limit anyway. Besides, except for asking Dom to take off the mask, I don't think there's any legal basis to run us off--nothing illegal about handing out juice and doughnuts.

Had to take off our Kerry-a-bilia before we could go inside, but once there actually found other mostly brown faces working hard to get the voters through.

This is a good thing. But if Professor Bond is right, all too rare. I’m divided as to whether he’s right about fraud vs. suppression—I can’t say I’ve actually witnessed a big GOP GOTV effort around here except for annoying phone calls, but maybe I missed it. And there has been a real effort, as he says happened among black voters, to sway Native and Hispanic voters to Bush along Church lines. I’m pleased to say it doesn’t seem to be working around here very well. And I didn't see any people with intimidating clipboards or cameras today. But elsewhere? Anybody walked up to one of these folks and asked "who are you?"

Get the base to the polls, folks. Help keep the line happier with goodies and encouragement. And don’t hesitate to stick your head in the door. As long as you’re not partisan or rude, you can watch the democratic process. If your state—or nearby states—don’t have early voting, be ready for 11/2. Watch for suppression efforts, especially among minority voters.

Former Nixon administration Commerce Secretary issues S.O.S: Transcript

My name is Pete Peterson. I'm the cofounder and chairman of the Blackstone Group, I chair the Council on Foreign Relations. I've just stepped down as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

[...]

You have tax cuts, and we've become theological about tax cuts. You know, faith directe, more or less untouched by analysis, history, or evidence. And it's morphed into, "Any tax cut, any time." But a long-term tax cut is not a tax cut at all, unless it's accompanied by long-term spending cuts. It's what you'd call a deferred tax increase on the future, which is our children.

[...]

So we become a new oxymoron: the Big Government conservative. So my party has, in a sense, lost its moorings in recent years.

He [George W. Bush]'s a charming person. There were about a dozen of us, largely fat cats from Wall Street, and I said, "Well, sir, if you're elected president, there's a moral issue and a philosophical issue." And he said, "What's this moral point?" And I told him about the German theologian, Bonhoeffer, who said that the ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. And I said, "Sir, as I look at these fat cats around this table, I wonder about the morality of what we're doing here -- because while we're getting tax cuts, our kids are going to get huge tax increases, because of our largesse.

Well, you could see that I'd hit him in the solar plexus, or somewhere else, and I said, "I don't think tax cuts are immoral." He was somewhat shaken or irritated by my comment. And I said, "Sir, I didn't say tax cuts were immoral. I said tax cuts for people like us, before you've solved the costs you're going to be passing on to your kids, is in my judgment immoral. But you could just tell by his steely response that tax cuts are part of the theology.

I'm goin' with the "somewhere else" for purely aesthetic reasons.

*

Todd Gitlin (Mother Jones):

The Great Media Breakdown - The press admits it fell for the administration's line on weapons of mass destruction. But the media's failure goes far beyond Iraq.

But of late, the government has had plenty of help in its efforts at dominance. To a disgraceful degree, the organs of news have been grinding out its tune. Many are the reasons for deference. Reporters and editors are credulous, fearful, and flatly bamboozled. Timid about getting out ahead of a public they respect more when it is "conservative" (read: rightwardly radical) than when it is liberal, they bend over backward to accommodate spin doctors. They grant officialdom the benefit of the doubt. They fear risking independent judgment, which they have defined as occupational hubris. They are terrified of missing out on the perks of access. They fear that detailing the anatomy of official distortion will turn off readers and viewers. Their proprietors, seeking favor in high places, cool their critical engines. So the media yield to temptation and morph into megaphones, and falsehoods too often and too loudly repeated take on the ring of plausibility.

[...]

Yet even now, the news industry remains unwilling or unable to come to grips with the full scope and system of its failures, and the narrowness of the media's self-criticism does not inspire confidence that they will refuse to swallow government propaganda the next time. (Television news bigwigs, for one, have yet to admit any responsibility for having escorted the nation into a calamitous war.) In fact, the malfunctions extend far beyond the question of WMD, beyond even the routine deceptions of George W. Bush. The machinery of truth-telling has broken down. - continue...

Incestuous Assholification:
Defined as a condition indigenous to todays rightwing radio and cableTV "newspeak" media political culture. Where one only repeats "official" GOP talking points presented in lock-step agreement with reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for predisposed imbecilities.

*

Eesh. Last night was the last time farmer lures me out from under the stairs. And the pools with the sunken nymphs are for the executives. I just work at The Mighty Corrente Building, buffing the nymphs pools. I don't actually execute anything.

I hope somebody's figuring out how to make the long lines at the polls convivial...

Gave two cheerful drunks some change today and told them "Be sure to spend it on alchohol!" Does that make me a bad person? If they laughed?

Remember: It takes a village to stomp a weasel!

Busted.

The satellite image that the folks in the Pentagon are peddling this evening isn't even a photo of a bunker that held any of the explosives in question!

(See a rather revealing comparison photo here.)

(Of course, I haven't ever figured out how you could have squeezed 380 tons of explosives onto two tractor trailer rigs in the first place, but I digress.)

In short, they're lying to us once again.

Will our subservient press even point this out?

(link via Josh)

Many others have gleefully noted ABC's (!) takedown of the latest YABL on the looting of 380 tons of high explosive from an Iraqi warehouse because Bush didn't send enough troops to guard it. We've got pictures.

But the winger frothing and stamping has obscured the most amazing fact: It's the Iraqis themselves who say the explosives were looted! Which makes the transcendant genius of Bush claiming the Kerry is "leaping to conclusions" all the more mind-boggling. Alert reader riffle, in comments:

The IAEA has a PDF file that includes a page which looks a lot like this one (minus the "confidential" stamp, the border-lines in the table, and misc markings). It includes the text:

We would like to inform you that the following materials which have been included in annex 3 (item 74) registered under IAEA custody were lost after 9 April 2003, through the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security. Therefore we feel an urgent updating of the registered materials is required.

The PDF file is here: IAEA letter.
If that link doesn't work, here's the URL:

http://www.iaea.or.at/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaIraq/IraqUNSC25102004.pdf

So. Um. The goverment that Bush himself installed says the stuff was looted, and then Bush and the entire wingersphere says Kerry's jumping to conclusions. WTF?

No, this isn't the story about how Bush sent the troops into battle without body armor or enough armored vehicles, and didn't have a plan to win the peace.

This is the story about the Republicans desperate attempts to blame somebody, anybody, for letting 380 tons of high explosives get looted during the Iraq war. Ideal for IEDs, don't you think?

It's been quoted all day, but I have to quote it here, for the sheer pleasure of seeing hypocrisy in its rawest, purest, most odiferous skankiest form:

"No matter how you try and blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops who were there. Did they search carefully enough?" Giuliani said on NBC's "Today" show.
(via Reuters)

Right. It's the troops fault.

Why do the Republicans hate the troops?

Nice Kerry takedown of one of the index cards KaWen wrote up for Inerrant Boy:

Bush on Wednesday accused Kerry of opportunism, saying: "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as commander-in-chief."

Kerry threw the words back at the president during an appearance in Toledo, where he announced he was going "to apply the Bush standard" and declared: "Mr. President, I agree with you."

"George Bush jumped to conclusions about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein," he said. "George Bush jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction ... George Bush jumped to conclusions about how the Iraqi people would receive our troops. He not only jumped to conclusions, he ignored the facts he was given."
(via Reuters)

Yup.

I wondered why Rove would have Vlastos break the tape on a Thursday, but fifty slaps with a wet noodle for me! That's when the economic statistics come out!

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week by 20,000, the largest jump in a month, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The bigger-than-expected increase pushed total new claims to 350,000 last week and provided fresh evidence that the labor market is still under pressure even though the economic recovery is about to celebrate its third anniversary.
(via AP)

Don't you love that? Three years of recovery and the jobs market still sucks. Some recovery! Some "celebration"!

And—Oh wow!—the economists are wrong again! Can't we please outsource them?

The increase of 20,000 was sharply higher than the 6,000 gain that many private economists had been expecting and was the biggest one-week rise since a jump of 21,000 claims in the week of Sept. 25.

Andmdash;Oh wow!—again!

For September, the unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 percent, but businesses added just 98,000 new jobs, far below what analysts had been expecting.

Why do we believe the analysts? This is the policy result that Bush is aiming for! (A touch of the lash," back) Please, Mr. Overseer ....

You know—the one first leaked to Sludge? (back)

Read all about Azzam the American:!

Or would that be Shazzam the American?

As usual with Bush, I don't know whether to puke or go blind. I guess I'm too reality based. The message seems, um, a little bit mixed to me.


Bush Logic
The Bush logic seems to be:

1. Bush has been President for 4 years

2. There's going to be a terror attack right before the election!

3. Therefore, only Bush can keep the country safe!

QED.

Does anyone else understand this reasoning? Because I sure don't.

Is the tape authentic?
UPDATE Oh, uh, authenticity. Here's what the vry mild-mannered Christian Science Monitor has to say:

A new videotape that has surfaced in Pakistan threatens a massive attack against the United States by a purported American member of Al Qaeda. It is not yet known if the tape is an authentic Al Qaeda production, but it bears enough resemblance that some experts are taking the tape seriously.

Well, we'll be anxiously awaiting the word from the Superscript and Times Roman experts on how it's possible to authenticate digital footage from a Pakistani (intelligence?) source on the eve of the election. Eh?

After all:

[It] shows a high degree of sophistication and bears the logo of Al Qaeda's video production house, As-Sahab.

Hey, it's got an AQ logo on it! Say no more! Say no more!

On the video, the unknown man's face is masked with a Palestinian scarf and sunglasses. He stabs the air with his finger, which appears to be fair-skinned, as he delivers his warning in American-accented English.

Couldn't Rove find an authentic Arab? Or is this some subtle, subliminal suggestion about "the traitors among us"?

ABC doesn't know the tape is authentic, releases it anyhow
Great to see the wingers frothing and stamping about ABC doing what CBS did. Oh, wait... Anyhow, here's a look into the hopes and dreams of the ABC producer handling this story:

Gretchen [Peters] a producer for ABC News, worked with local journalists to obtain a tape from an English-speaking militant threatening attacks on the US (see story). She says that this kind of work often means paying people to transport material from these remote locations. "We did pay a courier $500 for bringing us the video," Gretchen says. "He wanted much more, but we bargained him way down. Normally I pay about $200 when people bring videotapes from tribal areas like Waziristan. These guys incur expenses; it takes several days to make the trip." She says that other news organizations also pay for delivery of material.

Still, Gretchen is confident that this didn't compromise the integrity of the information on the tape. While she hadn't worked with this particular courier before, most of the people she uses are local Pakistani journalists who work for reputable daily newspapers and radio stations. "Some people speculate that the tape is a hoax made by people who wanted the cash, but $500 would be a paltry sum to get for the amount of work that went into making that video," Gretchen says.

Oh, Gretchen. Gretchen, Gretchen, Gretchen. The question isn't whether your source made the video for $500. The question is, who made the video for the source? And why oh why did they have to use an Arabic speaker with an American accent?

"The speaker is fluent in English, is extremely articulate, the subtitling is in perfect Arabic, and he makes all the Al Qaeda arguments."

Wow! Good production values! Whoever made the tape had plenty of money! That proves the tape is authentic!

Gretchen agrees that ABC, which had not aired the tape by the time the Monitor went to press, must proceed with caution, especially in the wake of CBS News mistakenly using forged documents in a story critical of President Bush. The ABC tape features an anonymous speaker that the CIA can't identify. "We need to be 100 percent sure, but there are a lot of markings that indicate it is an Al Qaeda video," she says. "I feel it is the real deal. And I'm still hoping we can prove it."

We still hope we can prove it's real.... Oh. My. God. Man, that sure is proceeding with caution!

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

The essential Atrios makes two good points here: (1) Remember the good old days, when Condi said that the networks shouldn't air AQ tapes? What's changed between then and now, I wonder? (2) Drudge's source for the tape was doubtless VWRC operative and winger whore Chris Vlastos. Of course.

Out of the mouths of babes....
In fact, even the freepers think it's fake!




Wonder how long it will take for that post to be wiped? Perceptive comment on the Rovian subliminalness, though—the "traitors among us" would, of course, be gay.

Department of Cheap Little Ironies
The tape comes out on the same day that Bush pulls a doctored campaign ad. And the beauty part? The ad was named "Whatever it takes." Heh.

I ain’t no mathematician, but:

One Cheat:

Before one vote was cast in early voting this week in Florida, the new touch-screen computer voting machines of Florida started out with a several-thousand vote lead for George W. Bush. That is, the mechanics of the new digital democracy boxes "spoil" votes at a predictably high rate in African-American precincts, effectively voiding enough votes cast for John Kerry to in a tight race, keep the White House safe from the will of the voters. via Florida Computers Snatch Thousands of Votes From Kerry

Plus One Real Threat Bushco Ignores:

As I learned while embedded in Iraq, the highly lethal explosives stolen from Al Qaqaa are just a fraction of the mountain of poorly secured munitions that could be turned against U.S. soldiers and citizens. via Lethal Explosives: Tip of the Iceberg

Plus One Pissed Off Military:

Citing the insurgency, a lack of manpower and a plan to reorganize, the service's chief of staff says deployments cannot be shortened. The Army has abandoned the possibility of shortening 12-month combat tours in Iraq to six or nine months, its top officer said Tuesday. via Iraq Combat Tours

Plus One More Doctored Ad:

INDIANOLA, Iowa - President Bush's campaign acknowledged Thursday that it had doctored a photograph used in a television commercial and said the ad will be re-edited and reshipped to TV stations. via Bush campaign to re-edit doctored ad

Plus One Bunch of Liberated People:

(AP) A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months after the U.S. invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war. via Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths

Equals: One Stomped Weasel (as below with a hat-tip to Kos in the article)

With that brief polling primer, anyone can take a look at the numbers and get a sense for the state of the race. And a strict by-the-numbers calculation shows that Bush is in serious trouble.

In Ohio, Bush numbers range from 43-49%, failing to break 50% in any of the 12 Ohio polls in October. Indeed, there are signs that Bush has essentially abandoned the state, working to build his electoral majority by winning three out of four in Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. But October polling in those states also show an incumbent in serious trouble.

In 14 Florida polls, Bush hasn't broken 50% since a SurveyUSA poll conducted between October 1 and October 3. A subsequent SurveyUSA poll now gives Kerry a 50-49 lead in the state. In Iowa, a single poll has him at 51% while six others range between 46% and 49%. Wisconsin is giving Democrats heartburn, but Bush breaks 50% in only one of the nine polls this month. Two independent polls put him as far back as 43%. New Mexico has Bush in the 43-49% range, anaemic numbers in a state Gore won by less than 1,000 votes.

Much can happen in one week, and Republicans are doing their part to prevent a fair election. Perhaps the Bush campaign is right and the 50% rule won't apply to them this year. But the Bushies haven't been right about much of anything the past four years, while Democrats are vigorously challenging voter suppression efforts around the country. As of this writing, this is Kerry's election to lose. via Polling Truth

This is it. No more spinning "The Russians did it!" Guliani can take his "it's the soldiers' fault" and shove it, along with his reputation, rectally.

Let's go to tape, folks. This is from KSTP TV, a Minneapolis-St. Paul station owned by the Hubbard company, whose news director used to do PR work for Republican governors and whose owner has been gung-ho for this war all along.

(via Atrios)

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared.

The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS determined our crew embedded with them may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where that ammunition disappeared. Our crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa. On April 18, 2003 they drove two or three miles north into what is believed to be that area.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew bunker after bunker of material labelled explosives. Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get in and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

As of five minutes ago, MSNBC's lead on this story was still the Moonie Times' babble about the Russians, which incidentally mentioned neither the dubious nature of the Times, the questionable nature of the Times' source on the matter, nor the fact that the Russian defense department and government at all levels has flatly denied it.

Call all your local TV stations and ask if they have this tape yet. By damn I think we can turn a "he said, he said" story into a "he said, HE LIED, DAMMIT!" story by tonight's network newscasts.

Let slip the wolves of truth!

Maintained by the ever essential Orcinus.

Ever notice how when Democrats complain about Republican thuggery, it's stuff the Republicans have already done, and when Republicans complain, it's about stuff they say the Democrats are going to do? I guess it's the concepts of "evidence" and "reasoning" as opposed to faith-based pre-emption.... All over again.

Just in case anybody is STILL not motivated to get people to the polls, consider the words of Marjorie Cohn:

…The Supreme Court is currently divided by a razor-thin 5-4 margin. Regardless of the outcome of Rehnquist's illness, he has said he would not remain on the Court for another four years. Bush, if given a second term, would replace Rehnquist with a much younger, right-winger, who would remain on the Court for years to come. Bush would also have the opportunity to choose the next chief justice, who could significantly shape the Court. If Bush had his druthers, he would elevate Scalia or Thomas to Chief. But either choice would invite a nasty partisan battle in the Senate, which must approve the president's nomination by a two-thirds vote. Bush would probably find another right-wing zealot to assume the role of chief justice.

What would the Court look like if Bush were to appoint justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas? Roe v. Wade could be overturned. Abortion could become a crime in most states - back to back-alley abortions for poor, young women. Workers could lose family and medical leave. Gays could be imprisoned for having consensual sex in the privacy of their own homes. Equal voting rights for African Americans and other racial minorities could be at risk (not just de facto, the way they are today, but de jure, as well.) Affirmative action could be eviscerated.
Preservation of the environment could give way to corporate profits. Inmates in this country (not just in Iraq and Guantánamo) could be beaten with impunity…

…The future of the law of the land is at stake in this election. The differences between Bush and Kerry are stark on judicial appointments. During the third debate, Kerry said: "I'm not going to appoint a judge to the court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment or the Fifth Amendment or some other right that's given under our courts today, or under the Constitution." Kerry added: "And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right."

Voters will have a choice between an administration that fights to protect the rights of everyone, not just those of straight white rich religious men, and one that promises to remake the Court in the image of those who would deny basic liberties to many.

via Beware Scalia-Thomas Clones

Yes, fine, let fear clutch your heart for a minute. But consider, ye lubbers, that the W-world envisioned by the farmer, below, is not just a theory—if we don’t get out the vote, and then monitor it, and then watch the results, it will be the world we live in. Avast! Throw a voting party! Stage a cookout near a polling station! Volunteer to be a pollwatcher! Don’t take no for an answer! Direct action gets satisfaction! Create a village! Stomp aWeasel! It is possible to be tough and determined without being violent…especially when sweet, sweet reason is on your side.

I’ll be on the road until Sunday, selling off some sheep and chickens before winter (maybe giving a few away to the right causes), handing out GOTV propaganda and nagging people to the polls. Every little thing helps now—the friggin election is NEXT TUESDAY, me hearties.

And we are electing the next Supreme Court, not just John Kerry.

Between the uncomprehending, affronted reaction to Stewart's Crossfire appearance and Jim Rutenberg's column in today's Times, you really don't need much more evidence that, as Bob Somerby likes to put it, journalists are from another planet. They are certainly incapable of understanding anything resembling intelligent criticism spoken in plain English.


Witness Rutenberg's precis of Somerby's Daily Howler:

Bob Somerby, a comedian who runs a Web site called The Daily Howler that often accuses the news media of being shallow, lazy, bullied by Republicans and unfairly critical of Democrats, said a more genteel approach would not be effective. (He has referred to this reporter on his Web site as "dumb" and in "over his head" for being blind or turning a blind eye to Republican spin.)

"I've come to feel the only way you can really deal with the press corps is to beat up on them," Mr. Somerby said. Most political reporters interviewed for this article insisted that outside forces did not sway them from being fair, though a couple admitted they could not rule out having pulled punches in small and even subconscious ways.

Yeah, that's what Somerby's talking about. And Rutenberg's interviewed the targets of the criticism, and they all think it's very unfair and misinformed. It's that tenacious interrogation technique that helped keep us from being misled into war in Iraq. Thanks for another howler, Jim.

Speaking of man's best friend, substitute "Bias" for "Ginger" in the second panel of Larson's famous cartoon, and you have a snapshot of how the press interprets any and all criticism directed at it.

To see just how "over his head" Rutenberg is, you know what to do: just click here.

To the bunker! One of the boys signaled the choir and the whole flock began to sing. And the song they sang that night, on bowed knee before the jaundiced conformation of the Beast itself, in the ambient silver light of an August tuxedo moon, was none other than "the Yellow Rove of Texas" - and it went something like this:


When the campain cash is flowin', the TV lights are bright,
He stalks the halls of power, in the quite DC night:
He thinks we must remember, when we started long ago,
We promised to remain with him and never leave the show.

Oh now we hail Dear Leader, whose heart is burned to marl,
And we'll spin our lies together, our faiths in Uncle Karl:
We'll play the press corps daily, and take cheap shots galore,
And the Yall'r Rove of Texas shall be ours forevermore.

Yes sir. It was a sight it was, and not many folks have lived to tell of it. That, of course, is a brief snip from the 2004 Ratfuckers Ball held earlier this summer in Cuckoo, Virginia. I was there myself and saw it all. Disquised as the ghost of Vidkun Quisling, and claiming to represent Larry Pratt's Gun Owners of America, I mingled easily and made many new friends who read passages from old yellowing copies Der Angriff. I snapped the above photo with my secret spyblogger micro-mini camera which I had surgically implanted under my right eyebrow.

Topics discussed that evening were many, but, when it came to spellbinding crowd pleasing oratorical sway nothing could out match the thundering intoxicating praise for those who spoke on behalf of the tenets of Rovism.

I recorded much of what was said this summer evening on a secret hidden audio recording device baked inside of a sweet buttery Danish pastry which I squirreled away in my jacket pocket. Therefore, I have provided for all of you, some of audio excerpts of that historic evening.

Neal Gabler of the LA Times spoke first on the doctrine of ROVISM:

"Unwavering discipline, demonization of foes, disdain for reality and a personal sense of infallibility based on faith... [...] ...theocracy — the president as pope or mullah and policy as religious warfare... [...] ...Rovism is government by jihadis in the grip of unshakable self-righteousness — [...] It imposes rather than proposes." - more

Next up was Edith Fletcher (no relation to Jessica),

Rove does not compromise and brooks no contribution from outsiders. His facts are what he makes them, and the most agile minds are hired to twist words into blood-letting slogans and lethal sound bites.

He uses faith for his own purposes and provides religious strawmen and tar babies for unsuspecting opponents to flay at or get stuck to. And after all their flaying and cleaning off of mud and tar they end up looking silly and ineffective. They are ineffective -- at laying booby traps and political landmines in the Rovism way because he makes his "ism" swagger and look admirably tough to little people. - still more

The crowd was on its feet! Gabler couldn't contain himself and scrambled back onto the stage once again:

...Rovism is... [...] It is a philosophy and practice of governing that pervades the administration and even extends to the Republican-controlled Congress. As Robert Berdahl, chancellor of UC Berkeley, has said of Bush's foreign policy, a subset of Rovism, it constitutes a fundamental change in "the fabric of constitutional government as we have known it in this country."

[...]

All administrations try to work the system to their advantage, and some, like Nixon's, attempt to circumvent the system altogether. Rove and Bush neither use nor circumvent, which would require keeping the system intact. They instead are reconfiguring the system in extra-constitutional, theocratic terms.- still even more

The crowd went wild! Teutonic ninny wild! Es lieght in der luft! Laura Ingraham was on her kness crawling between the tables howling like an Alsatian she-bitch as champagne and jumbo shrimp were tossed into the torpid night air and long red banners displaying a black 'W' enclosed in a white circle fluttered regally in the warm summer breeze; wafting through the open doors as a great floor to ceiling searchlight display postitioned behind the stage lit up the heavens of the hall.


Oh it was something to behold alright. And then they all raised their arms in that creepy three-fingered 'W' salute and beagn to sing again: "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat - He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat - Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! - Our Dear Leader is marching on...

"Oh my fucking God!", I thought, "these people are crazy retro-crazed bastards!". And I fled the hall and made my way down the long drive just as it began to rain. I bumped into Jeane Kirkpatrick's limo driver. I informed him that I was so, goddamnit-all, the appointed leader of Vichy France and that if he didn't drive me to the car-pool parking lot in Gum Springs immediately I would have him reassigned to an aerodrome on the Polish frontier. Well, he didn't like the sounds of that, fuck no, who would, so off we went.

We easily located my stolen vehicle which I had borrowed for the evening and which I returned with a full tank of gas to the parking lot at Liberty University in Lynchburg. Then I located my trusty bicycle and, lashed by hail and thirty mile per hour head winds, peddled back to the Corrente building in Philly where I coaxed Lambert out from under the stairs with promises of pictures of torch light parades and audio tape recordings of Ted Olsen - no relation to the twins, as far as I know - singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."

BTW: I still can't figure out why Lambert hunkers under those damned stairs. The Corrente Building has dozens of available rooms each offering a warm complimentary pot of psilocybin laced fondue and sunken nymph pools teeming with exotic life, terra cotta tiled atriums littered with spent shotgun shells and talking furniture, resplendant with minature golden pear trees teeming with green vipers, and other really neato stuff. Whatever. In any case, it ain't like anyones hiding his mail or anything. Jeepers.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Rovism. It's kinda like a flesh eating virus. Remember them folks I told ya about above with the old yellowing copies of Der Angriff? Well, they're feeling frisky again. Here ya go:

We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. We become members of the Reichstag in order to paralyze the Weimar sentiment with its own assistance. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and per diem for the this "blockade" (Barendienst), that is its own affair. [...] We do not come as friend nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies: As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come. - Joseph Goebbels, Der Angriff, 1935

When democracy granted democratic methods for us in the times of opposition, this was bound to happen in a democratic system. However, we National Socialists never asserted that we represented a democratic point of view, but we have declared openly that we used democratic methods only in order to gain the power and that, after assuming the power, we would deny to our adversaries without any consideration the means which were granted to us in the times of opposition. - Joseph Goebbels, 1935

The parliamentary battle of the NSDAP had the single purpose of destroying the parliamentary system from within through its own methods. It was necessary above all to make formal use of the possibilities of the party-state system but to refuse real cooperation and thereby to render the parliamentary system, which is by nature dependent upon the responsible cooperation of the opposition, incapable of action. - Ernst Rudolf Huber, Nazi Party writer on issues of Constitutional Law.

DOCTRINE OF CERTAINTY:
"For how does one think to fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine if by continued changes in its outward construction one spreads uncertainty and doubt?"
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf, Vol.II, Chapter V, 'View of Life and Organization', page 681)

Yellow blockquotes cited above from:
Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression Volume I Chapter VII:
Means Used by the Nazi Conspirators in Gaining Control of the German State
ACQUISITION OF TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL CONTROL - First Steps in Acquiring Control of State Machinery. From The Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington. 1946

Are ya worried? I don't blame you. But hey, if the Boston Red Sox can 86 an 86 year old curse we can certainly strangle to death the curse of the 'W'. No blind faith required.

*

Red Sox win, and just a note to certain parties (you know who you are) who quibbled at me in Comments after the ACLS that the curse was not really broken until the World Series was won--nyah nyah nyah!

And the Harvest Moon becomes the Blood Moon this year. I've seen a number of lunar eclipses, being an astronomy junkie since childhood, and seldom if ever have I seen the degree of redness this one has. I am sure it is dreadful news relating to particulate matter in the upper atmosphere sure to lead to an increase in global warming, but the veneer of civilization is sometimes thin and legends seep out of the bones, and one thinks of omens.

Meanwhile, take a look at Lambert's story on good news from Ohio. Now, out of the land of my birth, comes the second good news of the day on the Republican Voter Suppression Campaign.

(via NYT)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- A judge declined to rule Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by Republican voters challenging a decision that allows Iowans to cast provisional ballots outside of their home precincts. He said the challenge was premature.

Polk County District Court Judge Arthur Gamble said Secretary of State Chet Culver acted within his responsibility as the state's top election official when he ruled such votes could be counted.

The judge said, however, five Republicans who sued Culver must wait until Friday to proceed in the case; Culver issues his final election rules Thursday.

Des Moines attorney Richard Sapp, representing the five Republican Iowa voters, vowed to refile the case if Culver failed to reverse his earlier instructions.

``Unless this court does something to stop it, the secretary of state ... is about to conduct the Nov. 2 general election in a manner directly contrary to Iowa's election laws,'' Sapp said.

Frankly I don't know what the big deal is about Iowa this year. Five damn electoral votes fer chrissakes? When if they would give me one, just one, trip, and I'll take Edwards or the Big Dog, put the former up in West Memphis and the latter into Nashville and I will take the state of Tennessee which is eleven EV goddammit and Zogby has us this fucking close and....

Ahem. What I was saying is that if Iowa's that damn important, then this is a good damn decision. Votes cast in error can be caught and removed from the tally if need be. Votes which are never cast because somebody intentionally fucked up the polling procedure for pure raw uncut political power of a fascist stench and, er, what was I saying? Votes never cast are just lost, never to be retrieved or revived.

Tom posted on this earlier (back, but allow me the pleasure of quoting winger whore Sludge:

[Snip] In the last week before the election, ABCNEWS is holding a videotaped message from a purported al Qaeda terrorist warning of a new attack on America, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The terrorist claims on tape the next attack will dwarf 9/11. "The streets will run with blood," and "America will mourn in silence" because they will be unable to count the number of the dead. Further claims: America has brought this on itself for electing George Bush who has made war on Islam by destroying the Taliban and making war on Al Qaeda.

ABCNEWS strongly denies holding the tape back from broadcast over political concerns during the last days of the election.

The CIA is analyzing the tape, a top federal source tells the DRUDGE REPORT.

ABCNEWS obtained the tape from a source in Waziristan, Pakistan over the weekend, sources tells DRUDGE.

"We have been working 24 hours a day trying to authenticate [the tape]," a senior ABCNEWS source said Wednesday morning, dismissing a claim that ABC was planning to air portions of the video during Monday's WORLD NEWS TONIGHT.

The terrorist's face is concealed by a headdress, and he speaks in an American accent, making it difficult to identify the individual. (via Sludge Report) [End Snip]

Cunning devils! Concealing their faces!

Well. Just few points.

1. Life's little ironies: I like the picture of ABC telling Rove that they have to be very careful about authentication, after what happened to CBS.

2. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain: I mean, isn't the Rove->Pakistani Intelligence Services->ABC three cushion bank shot just a little too obvious? I mean, how on earth could ABC authenticate this? I guess they would just have to, um, take it on faith.

3. From the Department of "How Stupid Do They Think We Are: "[T]he terrorist speaks in an American accent." Sheesh! Couldn't Rove's production company at least get a terrorist with the right accent?!

(The classic handwriting of the Bush White House: Inability to delegate beyond a small inner circle. If Rove had been willing to delegate faking the tape to the Pakistanis, ABC might have fallen for it; but he used his own production house....)

I'd post more, but blogger's seemingly intractable suckitude just makes that too hard.

When I stand up and start yelling and waving my arms at the computer (an "Error 500" from a billion dollar IOP?) I hit my head on the low ceiling under the stairs, and that hurts.

But I want to give a real shout-out to Xan for the best paranoid theory about a Bush November surprise.

Of course, Xan it's utterly inconceivable that Bush would time a new Fallujah offensive for voting day, and put troops at risk just to win an election.... Um...

Do you think He'll fly over there?

Looks like we'll actually have plans for election day: (1) a backup site in case blogger tanks, and (2) a small blogathon in Philly. It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it will be, perhaps, the end of the beginning....

This is, of course, the letter from the Iraqi government to the IEAE, informing them that tons of the explosives the IAEA had been tracking were now gone, due to looting.

Yes, they used the word "looting." But alas, the Times unhelpfully does not reproduce the letter at full size, though in the print version they did.

I mention this because it seems to be getting lost: the wingers are frothing and stamping, and Josh Marshall is trying valiantly to keep up with their ever-changing stories, but shit—

The Iraqi government—the very government that Bush installed, and whose head He just had over to the WhiteWash House for a fluffing sesssion—says the explosives were looted. Meaning, the explosives were looted because Bush didn't guard the site, because he didn't have the troops to do so.

Bush says this the charge that the explosives were looted is "wild." (Nice one, Karen!) If so, it's a wild charge that the "sovreign" Iraqi government itself is making.

A U.S. District Court judge yesterday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year's presidential race.

Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati issued an order preventing local election boards from going forward with plans to notify challenged voters and hold hearings until she hears legal arguments tomorrow. But because her ruling means that those election board hearings cannot take place within the time frame state law requires before the election, Dlott's ruling kills the GOP effort that had targeted 35,000 voters, Democratic and Republican party officials said.
(WaPo)

Thank God! She made the judiciary an independent and co-equal branch of government....

Oh, and a little lagniappe:

It was the second time that the GOP has lost on the issue.

Frivolous lawsuits... Listening, F/Buckhead?

No, but seriously folks.

Don't you think the photographs of Bush on the campaign trail have carried the Leni Riefenstahl/ Triumph of the W thing far enough?

Perhaps even too far?

Nicholas Confessore puts all the pieces together:

If Reuters were an opinion magazine, here's how they'd spell out the strategy. First, the GOP, using what appear to qualify as illegal methods, has attempted to mislead thousands of Democratic-leaning voters in Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, into thinking they'd be registered but are not. (And Ed Gillespie, whose own outfit is funding these efforts via Sproul & Associates and God knows what other firms and consultants, is alleging Democratic fraud in precisely those states! Black is white. Up is down.) Consequently, those thousands of people are going to show up at polls and probably run into a lot of confusion and paperwork and problems. At the same time, Republican secretaries of state and election officials in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere are pushing interpretations of election statutes that further muddy the waters for those who do get to vote.

I'd never connected this: The people who registered with the fraudulent Republican outfits—you remember, the outfits that threw Democrats registrations in the trash—will innocently show up at the polls and create disorder, lines, etc. Beautiful!

And now comes the key point:

Having done as much as possible to create the conditions for a confusing election, the GOP is getting ready to cast the inevitable results of that confusion -- people turning up in the wrong precincts, people who've moved from the neighborhood they originally registered and are trying to vote wherever they live now, and so forth -- as symptoms of outright election fraud.

Creating chaos to win power on the promise to make the chaos go away... That sounds familiar... From an old, old playbook. AH! I have it:

In the increasingly desperate situation of 1930, the Nazis managed to project an image of strong, decisive action, dynamism, energy and youth that wholly eluded the propaganda efforts of the other political parties, with the partial exception of the Communists. The cult of leadership which they created around Hitler could not be matched by comparable efforts by other parties to project their leaders ... All this was achieved through powerful, simple slogans and images, frenetic, manic activity.. which underlined the Nazi's claim to be far more than a political party: they were a movement, sweeping up the German people and carrying them unstoppably to a better future. What the Nazis did not offer, however, were concrete solutions to Germany's problems.....

More strikingly still, the public disorder which loomed so large in the minds of the respectable middle classes in 1930, and which the Nazis promised to end though the creation of a tough, authoritarian state, was to a considerable extent of [the Nazis] own making. Many people evidently failed to realize this....
(via Richard J. Evan's magisterial The Coming of the Third Reich, Penguin 2004)

As I said: An old, old playbook.

And why I suggest (back), and possible why RDF, in another wonderful post, suggests , that the answer to Republican thuggery is not, not, NOT violence—which will look very bad endlessly replayed on FUX—but patience, conviviality, food, music, and mockery.

And plenty of cotes. And plenty of pollwatchers. And plenty of bloggers, spreading the news.

A fascinating discovery:

On an isolated islet of Indonesia, scientists have discovered skeletons of a previously unknown human species — tiny, hobbit-sized figures who lived among dwarf elephants and giant lizards as recently as 12,000 years ago when modern humans already thrived worldwide.

Startled experts in human origins called the discovery — made public today — of a contemporary human species barely 3 feet tall the most important — and surprising — human find in the past 50 years.

The evidence of stone tools found near the remains suggests that this diminutive offshoot of humankind commanded fire, cooked, chiseled primitive knives and axes, hunted in groups and demonstrated by implication other basic elements of human behavior despite their small brains, the researchers reported.

All told, it appears that marooned on this jungle island, humanity took a giant step backward to survive.
(via LA Times)

Yes, now we have proof! Moderate Republicans once roamed the earth!

(And do vote for Hoeffel, OK?)

A case of undelivered absentee ballots unfolds in Florida (surprise!). Almost 60,000 absentee ballot requests never made it to the voters who asked for them.

U.S. Postal Service Inspector Del Alvarez, whose federal agency is independent from the U.S. Postal Service, said it had yet to be determined if the ballots reached the post office

"It's highly unlikely that 58,000 pieces of mail just disappeared," he said. "We're looking for it, we're trying to find it if in fact it was ever delivered to the postal service."

via Postal experts hunt for missing ballots in Fla.

Tried looking in the dumpsters, Del?

Meanwhile, with only 6 days to go until Big John wins in a popular vote landslide and takes the electoral by at least 20, not even rain and snow is stopping the cookout at the flea market parking lot across from early voting. Drove by this morning and it was going strong with a big tarp up to cover the area. There was even a guy walking back and forth along the median wearing a camo poncho, holding a Kerry/Edwards sign, and pointing people to the polls. I asked the lady cooking—someone new—what the plans were for the 2nd, and she said that they were planning to butcher a sheep and roast it. I told her if she needed an extra one, to let me know and she said sure, an extra one would be great. So I took one to her. If you can’t give money, give time. Or livestock. Or if it’s more your thing, herbal tea and sprout sandwiches. But give something, and hang out as near the polls as the law will allow. Why? Well, if you can’t think of any, Harold Meyerson of WaPo nails it:

With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.

Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Republican consultant Ed Rollins was all but drummed out of the profession after his efforts to pay black ministers to keep their congregants from voting in a 1993 New Jersey election came to light.

For George W. Bush, Karl Rove and their legion of genteel thugs, however, universal suffrage is just one more musty liberal ideal that threatens conservative rule. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.

Here’s a registration-free link to the whole thing: The GOP's ShamefulVote Strategy

And visit AIGA: Get Out the Vote to download some cool "non-partisan" GOTV posters. I printed up ten and am off to make copies now. Since they're "non-partisan" but aimed a lot at young folks, I am then off to put them up where they'll do the most good... and maybe drive a few folks to the polls if I catch any who ain't been yet... if corrente doesn't hear much from me, it ain't because I don't care but because I'm nowhere near a computer...

Avast, me hearties! To the crow's nest, and a sharp eye out for slackers who need to get to the polls!

No links on this one because it's just a Xan Prediction:

Bush doesn't have the balls to say so, but he would like to cast himself in the image of Abraham Lincoln.

--A president forced into a war by the actions of others (Fort Sumter/9-11).

--A president forced by the extremities of that war to take liberties with Constitutional rights (suspension of habeas corpus/Patriot Act)

--A resolute leader in a war seemingly without end, the reasons for which seem to shift as time goes on (preservation of the Union-->abolition of slavery/search for weapons of mass destruction-->whatever today's excuse is)

Lincoln was up for reelection in 1864, opposed by the best-known commander of the war, Gen. George McClellan, who Lincoln had fired for failing to win in the East and who bore a grudge. McClellan repudiated the "Peace Plank" in his party's platform which called for a negotiated end to the fighting, and swore he would not allow the Union to be divided, but was widely perceived as the peace candidate. A certain attitude of "ABL" prevailed in many areas.

In the summer of '64 things looked grim. Grant was bogged down in Petersburg. Sherman was moving south but every time he tried an attack he got whupped, so it became a war of maneuver--edge around the enemy's flank until he retreated for fear of being cut off. As long as the Confederacy held the breadbasket of the Shenandoah Valley, the cattle herds of Florida, and the cities of Atlanta and Richmond, they were in reasonable shape to hold out through election day.

Lincoln expected to lose that election--until Atlanta fell. The "big mo" shifted. Now Sherman was marching for the sea, Sheridan was burning the Shenandoah, Petersburg became a cage for Confederate forces who could do nothing about either. Lincoln swept to a decisive victory.

Fast forward, because things move faster now. The "assault on Fallujah," which has been purported to start "any day now" for three weeks, will launch probably Friday, Saturday at the latest. And it will still be continuing on Election Day.



Just wanted to get that on the record. Not that I'm so cynical as to think BushCo would play games with lives and timing just to win an election or anything.

Non-fans of Harry Potter may substitute the name "Nelson Muntz," "Eric Cartman," or other real or fictional snotty little cowardly bully of your choice:

(via WaPo)

Bully the military:

Thomas E. Ricks writes in The Washington Post: "Many military experts believe that reviving some sort of military draft is extremely unlikely, even impossible -- but not all of them."

Ricks writes that "a small minority of defense specialists say that, given the strains placed on the U.S. military over the past three years, they can imagine scenarios in which a new conflict would require significant numbers of new troops -- and in which the draft would be reinstituted."

Simply keeping up current troop levels in Iraq might create a need, some say. "Other experts worry that trouble elsewhere, in addition to the Iraq war, could trigger a need for more troops.

"An Army colonel at the Pentagon, who said he could not speak on the record about the draft without being fired, said that he does not believe a draft is politically possible, but that new crises could make it militarily necessary. 'The military right now is stripped down pretty thin,' he said. 'If the president decided we needed to go somewhere other than Iraq, it doesn't take a mental giant to figure out that we don't have the people to do that.'"

"Iran is mentioned frequently in such assessments."

Bully schoolchildren:

Bush stopped to speak at Cuba City High School yesterday.

Robert G. Kaiser writes for The Washington Post: "The kids were told that if they wore a Kerry button or made any rude interventions, they would be in big trouble. No one did."

Bully reporters:

From the pool report by Bob Hillman of the Dallas Morning News, filing from president's photo op at the Sylvan-T dairy farm in Wisconsin:

Bush returned to his bus. "Senior adviser Karl Rove lingered, though, looking to make mischief with a grocery sack of ice balls picked up earlier at the hockey rink in Onalaska.

"An ice ball fight of sorts ensued, and your pooler was iced on the head.

"Your pooler blamed Rove. He denied it. So, frivolous or not, it's up the lawyers now."

Bully reporters and cows:

And while Bush wouldn't answer questions about missing explosives, he did respond when Hilman lobbed him this tough one: Would he consider a few dairy cows for his Texas ranch?

"Only if you'll come and milk them," Bush said.

"All hat, no cattle" is now explained--Cowboy Bush is afraid of them. Let's not remind him that goats come in dairy varieties too.

Looks like the Colorado vote on splitting their electoral votes instead of doing it winner-take-all is on for sure:

(via NYT)

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit [Tuesday] that challenged the constitutionality of a state ballot proposal seeking to change Colorado's method for awarding its electoral votes for president, clearing the way for a popular vote next week on a measure that politicians and political analysts say could affect the outcome of the presidential race itself.

I have taken courses in Constitutional history and I still have never figured out just what the Founders had in mind with this cockamamie setup called the Electoral College. They claim it's supposed to benefit small states, and I suppose you could say it's stimulating the hell out of the economies of Iowa and Wisconsin at the moment, but still...

More importantly, I find it outrageous that this measure is going to apply to the same election in which it's being voted on. Talk about changing the rules in the middle of the game!

that my own state of Missouri is now in play folks!

The decision by both presidential contenders to shift campaign resources out of Missouri may have put the state back in play.

A new poll for the Post-Dispatch shows the race in Missouri tightening. President George W. Bush's earlier lead has slipped among the state's voters. But the Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, has so far been unable to close the gap, in part because the poll shows a growing number of Missouri voters view him unfavorably.

The survey indicates that Bush, a Republican, still is seen as better able to handle the war on terror, but those polled appear to be a bit more pessimistic about the war in Iraq and the nation's economy.

Meanwhile, Kerry's standing among women appears to have improved slightly. But his overall unfavorable rating among state voters has climbed from 23 percent in January to 45 percent in the latest poll.

The upshot: Bush and Kerry enter the final week before the election in a too-close-to-call race among likely Missouri voters. Of those polled, 48 percent back Bush while 45 percent support Kerry. The remaining 7 percent said they are still undecided or have chosen a third-party candidate.

Bush's lead is well within the margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, which means that any number could be that much higher or lower. In the newspaper's September poll, the president had a 49-42 percent lead, just at the edge of that poll's margin of error.

Oh yeah -- and apparently Arkansas and West Virginia are back in play as well.

With Kerry now pulling ahead in most of the national horse race polls as well (WaPo poll is here), I think that finally the wheels are starting to come off for W and the boys.

Isn't it past time for them to warm up the old "scare-o-matic" again?

Terror alert, anyone?

UPDATE Josh Marshall asks the same question.

UPDATE 2 Drudge claims the administration has a terror alert in the offing presumably for this weekend. Now isn't that a shocking surprise, huh?

I suspect W and the boys are going to try to scare people into voting for them over the weekend.

I'm guessing they'll wait until noon on Friday so they can get the most political bang for their buck. What do you think folks?

Thanks to reader Bruce in the comments to this post for the tip.

GOTV opportunity - Scare 'em silly.


Via Op-Ed News (lots of photos):

Throw your own Halloween Bush Bash.
The idea behind the Halloween Bush Bash is to have a fun get together and to parade through a high visibility area, mocking Bush. Carry Kerry/Edwards signs so it's clear to bystanders why you are there. Bring literature. Pick it up at a local campaign office, or print out this one page flyer. Why vote for Kerry and Against Bush: Here's a link to an MS Word file. Kerry supporters will love it. Bush supporters will hate it. They told us we should be ashamed of ourselves. Hah. That's the stock republican reply-- shame and fear. But how about those undecideds? Maybe the parade helped the few still undecided to see, with a sense of humor, what a lying, low-life loser Bush really is.

Oh boy. There are so many possibilities here I don't even know where to start. The irony of course is this: the whole Bush administration is fundamentally nothing more that one long ongoing ding-dong boo-scare trick-or-treat night on the town.

So, just for starters...

Dress up as George W. Bush and run around the cul-de-sac excidedly informing everyone you meet that the creepy guy next door with the funny accent has buried weapons of mass destruction under his aluminum tool shed. If anyone asks you to prove it just accuse them of treason or sedition or something like that and let the kid dressed up in the John Ashcroft Calvinist Avenger costume deal with it.

Dress up as the "Gay Agenda" and ring Rick Santorum's bell. Tell him you're looking for a lost puppy. Then ask him if his back door is unlocked and wink at him.

Dress up as Wolf Blitzer, and when some poor stupid unsuspecting bastard turns on the porch light and answers the door, just stand there with a blank stare on your face while robotically gabbering in an endless droning monotone until your victim begins crying like a tortured refugee or threatens to have their cable disconnected.

You don't even have to leave home for this one: Dress up as Bill O'Reilly and call your neighbors daughters and/or female co-workers up on the telephone and ask them if they'd like to jet down to St. Barts, get shit-faced, and masturbate in a hotel room shower while you sit on the pot juggling hot falafels. If they dare to report you to the "authorities" just accuse them of extortion, tell them to SHUT UP!, and threaten to send Roger Ailes over to their home to soap their windows.

This could go on and on and on and on for quite a while ya know. But you get the idea.

*

WTF?

Prime Minister Ayad Allawi blamed the American-led military forces on Tuesday for the weekend massacre of 49 freshly trained Iraqi soldiers, saying the military had shown "major negligence."

In a speech before the interim National Assembly, the prime minister said a committee had begun investigating the ambush, the deadliest of the guerrilla war. The assault took place Saturday night in remote eastern Iraq, as three minibuses of unarmed Iraqi soldiers were heading south on leave. Insurgents dressed as policemen waylaid the men at a fake checkpoint, killed all 49 soldiers and their three civilian drivers, mostly with shots to their heads, and burned the vehicles.
(via Times)

This is way too complicated for me. I mean, what next? Tony Blair says Bush punk'd him?

Readers?

We're putting various plans in place for next Tuesday... Like a backup blog in case blogger—incredible as the possibility might seem—crashes or slows to an even creepier crawl... Buffing the brass taps on the massive, mahogany bar in the Boardroom of The Mighty Corrente Building... Tying up the freight elevators for hours, bringing the massive, tubular, '50's style TV sets up from the third-level storage room to the Boardroom so that the Executives can watch the results unfold... Preparing the red, white, and blue bunting (or, alternatively, the black crepe) for the window treatments... Sending out the invitations for the after-party...

Seven days is not a lot...

Here.

But only if you're not into Sinatra. Or like that.

You can get at least some of them—and I mean stories, not analytical pieces—by typing "GOTV" into the search bar at the top.

(Kos is asking for them, so I thought I'd bring RDF's work, especially, to the attention of the Kossacks, assuming that any of them are reading here tonight.)

As TS Eliot once said: "Humankind cannot bear very much reality"...

Of course, we are talking about Dick "Dick" Cheney...

Anyhow, the American Conservative (!!!) published this today:

On Sept. 28, at the Vice President's request, the Agency provided a special briefing on the subject of Jordanian terrorist Mu'sab al-Zarqawi. The CIA's Counter Terrorism Center (CTC) reviewed all of the available intelligence on the subject and based its briefing on a just completed comprehensive intelligence analysis. The CTC concluded that Saddam Hussein had not materially supported Zarqawi before the U.S.-led invasion and that Zarqawi's infrastructure in Iraw before the war was confined to the northern no-fly zones of Kurdistan, beyond Baghdad's reach. Cheney reacted with fury, screaming at the briefer that CIA was trying to get John Kerry elected by contradicting the president's stance that Saddam had supported terrorism and therefore needed to be overthrown. The hapless briefer was shaken by the vice president's outburst, and the incident was reported back to Goss, who indicated that he was reluctant to confront the vice president's staff regarding it.
(via Justin Logan's blog)

They never learn, do they? They never, never learn. But then, how could they? Since they already know everything they need to know, what's to learn?

And I love "the hapless briefer was shaken." I'll say. Seeing my career go down the tubes always shakes me...

And I love even more that Goss just... wusses out. What a man.

The paragraph that really caught me in Greg Palast's latest expose of Banana Republicans shenanigan's in Jebbie's Florida was this one:

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.
(via The Beeb)

Raw intimidation in black neighborhoods. Shameful.What next? White sheets?

So, Republican vote suppression tactics in North Philly might go something like this: The Republicans contest a lot of voters, with no other purpose than to create long lines to make people get tired and leave, and they park a couple of crudely obvious surveillance vehicles to scare people away.

Philly has a lot of food trucks&mdasj;soul food, Chinese good, jerk chicken—and one of those food trucks should pull up right in front of the Rethuglican defective's car, so they can't film anything. Then feed the people, so it isn't waiting in line anymore, it's a party! Maybe bring in a sound system.... Meanwhile, somebody should put a banana up the tailpipe of the defectives car...

NOTE Inspired by RDF's wonderful post back here.

Yes, I've always thought that Colin Powell's one-liner was a good one: "I sleep like a baby. Every two hours I wake up screaming." Get a load of this, from Kevin Drum:

"Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has said Chief Justice William Rehnquist will return to the bench following cancer surgery, administration officials are quietly considering candidates to replace him and even the possibility of making a recess appointment. The officials said that they do not want to talk about the process publicly in the last week of the presidential campaign. However, one insider said that the West Wing is considering what would happen if the judge left the bench soon and if a close election next Tuesday meant an evenly split 4-4 court was to decide the winner. Such a situation would likely mean that a lower court's ruling on an outcome would be final and officials are worried that it would go against the President."
(via Washington Monthly)

Well, I'm sure this would have no effect on the perception that a second Bush appointment was quite as legitimate as the first. And please, refer all complaints to The Department of "No! They Would Never Do That!"

Here.

Of course, he may already have achieved his purpose by screwing up the absentee ballots....

I couldn’t resist. Those poor dogs.

Bush Blames Poorly Made Shirt for Bulge

"I don't know what that is," Bush said. "I mean, it is — I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."

Bush said there was no sound system or electrical signal.

"I guess the assumption was that if I were straying off course they would ... kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer and I would jerk back into place," Bush said. "That's just absurd."

The Bush campaign laughed off the speculation when it first blossomed on the Internet and then cropped up in news stories.

via Bush blames poorly-tailored shirt for bulge

Holy Ghost of Beauregard the ‘Ol Houn’ Dog! What the hell does he DO with his dogs? Anyone have pictures of the training regimen at the Ranch?

Once more into the breach, dear friends:

Unearthed under legal pressure, three-decade-old documents portray President Bush as a capable and well-liked Air National Guard pilot who stopped flying and attending regular drills two-thirds of the way through his six-year commitment - without consequence.

Not exactly without consequence. Bush was grounded for blowing of his medical exam (yet says he is "proud" of his service. Why?)

But gaps in the records leave unanswered questions about the final two years of his military service in 1972 and 1973. Chief among them: Why did Bush's commanders apparently tolerate his lapses in training and approve his honorable discharge?

Bush's commanders could have punished him - or ordered him to two years of active duty - for missing drills for six months in 1972 and skipping a required pilot's medical exam. Instead, they allowed him to make up some of his missed training and granted him an honorable discharge.

"Obviously, the commander saw the lieutenant's interest in the guard was waning," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver Jr., a former head of the Air National Guard. "Had he been good before? Yeah. Does that mean he should nail him to the wall? No. The culture at the time was not to enforce that."

And now comes the, um, surprise:

But the culture apparently did not apply to everyone. Although no records mention any punishment against Bush other than being grounded, the Texas unit's files show another airman was ordered to involuntary active duty in March 1972 as punishment.

Wow? I wonder why? I wonder if the other airman is alive today—or got killed? Of course, maybe they just asked Bush whether he wanted to go, and he said No. After all, when he applied for the TxANG, he did check off the box that said he didn't want to go to VietName....

There are also unresolved questions about what, if any, work Bush did while temporarily assigned in 1972 to an Alabama unit and why the future president suddenly switched back to training jets shortly before giving up as a pilot.

White House spokesmen say Bush fulfilled all of his obligations and was never disciplined for any wrongdoing while he was in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973. While Bush did not meet requirements for pilots in 1972 and 1973 and skipped months of training, there is no record of his commanders ordering him to active duty or initiating an investigation.

Bush's spokesmen and the Pentagon had insisted all of the president's files were made public last February when the White House released records it hoped would put an end to the questions.

Ha.

AP, however...

Nice "however." Ha.

... identified large numbers of documents that should have been produced under the Guard's 1970s regulations but had not been released, such as flight logs and mission orders. It sued in both federal and Texas state court to get answers.

Gee, if Bush wanted everything to come out, why did AP have to sue for it?

The Pentagon and Texas National Guard responded by conducting sweeping new searches that turned up more than 100 pages of new documents since August, including Bush's long-sought flight logs and dozens of orders showing what work the future president attended or missed.

But wait! There's more!

But even when the government insisted in sworn affidavits that all documents about Bush had been made public last month, AP persisted and won permission to allow two law professors to review boxes of files in Texas to make sure nothing was missed.

The professors found dozens of pages of new memos overlooked in the government's searches. The government's only explanation was that dust and rat excrement in the boxes made it hard to review the files.

Gee! You'd almost think there was some kind of cover-up going on.... Of course, to be reasonable, rat excrement is what you would expect rat fuckers to leave behind them....

The newly released flight logs also contain a mystery: Bush abruptly switched from his solo fighter jet to flying mostly in two-seat training jets about six weeks before his final flight as a Guardsman. The files don't explain why, and Bush's spokesmen could only opine that there might have been a shortage of fighter planes.

The biggest questions about Bush's service focus on 1972 and 1973. Payroll records show Bush failed to show up for training between mid-April and late October of 1972. At the time, he had relocated to Alabama to work on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of Winton M. Blount, a friend of his father. He was also supposed to do some training with an Alabama unit.

Except for a January 1973 dental examination, no records have turned up that show what, if any, work Bush did for the Guard while in Alabama.

The payroll records show Bush was credited for service in October and November 1972 and in January and April of 1973. An evaluation from Texas covering the period between May 1972 and May 1973 says Texas officers did not see Bush during that time.

The Texas Air National Guard grounded Bush in September 1972 for skipping a required medical exam. Although Air Force rules at the time required an investigation and report on every pilot who skipped his exam, no records of such an investigation have surfaced.
(via AP)

Wow! I wonder where the records—snort!—went?

TROLL PROPHYLACTIC Sans-serif fonts and superscripts are not relevant to this story.

Here (via the Amazin' Froomkin)

UPDATE The Kossacks find the hidden diamond—plans to suppress voting in Florida by slowing the process through challenges.

Are the rats leaving the sinking ship?

The Republican governor of Massachusetts expressed frustration Monday with the way the federal government tells states about possible terrorism threats.

During a speech at a conference on domestic security preparedness, Gov. Mitt Romney described how rumors and a lack of coordination appear to hamper the flow of essential information from Washington to local governments across America.
(via WaPo)

They've had three years to work on it. And it's still screwed up. Surprise!

Early polls close in Colorado on Friday, NM on Saturday… and the MBF brigades are on the streets. Someone yanked and scraped the stickers off my truck and deflated my nice new tires last night while I was out canvassing and I’d left it parked at a school. [I’ve got more stickers, don’t worry, and a friend came with a compressor for the tires--at least they didn't cut them.] But it’s the first time it’s happened. Granted, the community I was helping to canvass is heavily GOP, but still… I worry. Though it is soooo tempting, we must not emulate the MBF’s, me hearties. Comments I hear have me worried that a post e-day debacle could unleash violence in the streets, and I sure as hell hope everyone keeps their cool. Violent revolution, like war, is a last resort, arrrgghhh—think of MLK and Birmingham, Gandhi and the March to Dandi. Although a lot of stuff that happens makes me want to loose me cutlass, I admit, I remain in the nonviolent but extremely pissed off and shrill resistance camp. Choose your battles carefully—as Gandhi chose the salt tax and MLK the racist enclave of B’ham—and prepare either for a happy and peaceful victory celebration or a long period of civil disobedience and direct nonviolent action pointed in ways that are designed to bring satisfaction in end, without sacrificing enlightenment principles in the short term. No Paris Communes, a glorious tragedy. Make sure your neck of the woods is at least semi-organized and ready for concerted and carefully planned non-violent direct action, should the need occur. We don’t have a Gandhi or an MLK or and RFK this time. Folks have learned to keep a low profile, I guess. Think globally and work locally, perhaps. I’m trying to cool my own revolutionary rhetoric, and it’s difficult as hell sometimes. Maybe someone else has better ideas about this balancing act.

Meanwhile, the shitslingers ply their trade:

Election tactics push envelope

By Michael Riley Denver Post Staff Writer
Littleton teenager Aaron Oster-Beal woke up one morning last week to find the family's Kerry-Edwards yard sign on the porch covered with a rude surprise - a pile of dog excrement.
Voters in Jefferson County have received calls from someone posing as an election official and instructing them to throw away their absentee ballots.
A Colorado Springs woman recently received a call from someone claiming to be from Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign who expressed condolences about the death of her husband in Iraq. When the woman said she knew her husband was still alive, the caller said a vote for Kerry would help keep him that way.
The Kerry campaign said the stunt was so outrageous that it could only have been staged by someone trying to discredit the Democrat.
"Some of the tactics being perpetrated by folks as we get closer to the election are just disgusting," said Steve Haro, Kerry's spokesman in Colorado. - Denver Post

Truth is, no barnyard animal will be safe if we don’t get out the vote. A huge popular vote victory is vital to any resistance of a stolen illegitimate government (like the current one). Push the vote to e-day, get 'em to the polls, and PLAN for post e-day carefully, carefully... and no leaving the country! That's cheating. That's the best I can come up with. Of course, after I got home last night I got into the whiskey jar to calm my nerves, so my thinking this morning might not be my best...

As if anyone would believe this was anything other than a crude ploy to pick up a few undecideds. Ye Gods. Nice to see that the Dean position of a year ago has become the CW. Anyhow, FWIW:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 - Bush said in an interview this past weekend that he disagreed with the Republican Party platform opposing civil unions of same-sex couples and that the matter should be left up to the states.

Mr. Bush has previously said that states should be permitted to allow same-sex unions, even though White House officials have said he would not have endorsed such unions as governor of Texas. But Mr. Bush has never before made a point of so publicly disagreeing with his party's official position on the issue.

In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." ABC, which broadcast part of the interview on Monday, is to broadcast the part about civil unions on Tuesday.

According to an ABC transcript, Mr. Gibson then noted to Mr. Bush that the Republican Party platform opposed civil unions.

"Well, I don't," Mr. Bush replied.

He added: "I view the definition of marriage different from [sic] legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman. Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others."
(via Times)

Where, oh where to begin?

1. Obviously, if Kerry had perpetrated a flip-flop of this magnitude, the Times would have this story on A1, not buried on page A21. Not to mention what the Sabbath Day Gasbags would be doing. Not to mention the frothing and stamping by O'Lielly, etc. And there would probably be an inane story from Jodi Wilgoren about Kerry's penchant for [pick your bigoted cliche].

2. One can only wonder what The Base—and kudos to the New Yorker for noticing that The Base is what "Al Qaeda" translates to—thinks about this. For about thirty seconds. They know it's a ploy, something He "has to say" and so they won't call him on it.

3. The whole episode reeks of cowardice. Why doesn't Bush just break into a few bars of "Poor, Pitiful Me"? Those wicked Republicans! Forcing a platform on Him that He couldn't believe in! Well, if He didn't believe in the Republican platform, then why didn't He say so at the time? And isn't He, as the elected President the chief executive, also the head of his party? Couldn't either He, or the notoriously ruthless Acting President Rove, simply have gotten the platform changed?

4. Notice the contradiction: Bush claims that he's OK with civil unions as "legal arrangements that enable people to have rights." OK, fine. But if marriage—or at least that aspect of marriage that it is appropriate for the state to regulate—is not a "legal arrangement," then what is it? The only possible answer is that it is a religious arrangement. So, typically, Inerrant Boy wants to have it both ways: He wants (for the sake of the undecideds) to seem tolerate; but He also wants (for the sake of The Base) to write His religious views into the Constitution.

5. And that really is the crux of the matter, isn't it? The Republicans, purely to set a wedge issue in place for the 2004 election, proposed a Constitutional Amendment to take the power of the states to define marriage away from them, and to prevent gays from ever marrying. Now Bush doesn't like the evident consequences of that decision, as millions of parents, children, and lovers are revolted by the hypocrisy of it (listening, Mary?). So, He wants to tiptoe away from the mess. What a wuss.

Anf finally, 6., if this pathetic little concession from Bush is what He felt He had to give the Log Cabin Republicans to prevent them from leaving the (ha) Big Tent so close to election day, then the Log Cabin Republicans are even wussier than I thought they were.

UPDATE Following Xan, I added some fabulousness to Inerrant Boy's quotes.

What with Bill O'Reilly in full rut - albeit, nervously fondling his falafels and gnawing on the corner of a monogrammed Carinthian leather checkbook - Sinclair Broadcasting muckamuck David "Lick my Lollipop" Smith's old timey adventures in Baltimore beaver management - Antonin Scalia's Opus Dei olive oil orgies - Rick Santorum's strange animal husbandry fancies - Peggy Noonan's sleek brown shoe fetish - Ann Coulters usual bus station hooker micro-mini flash-dance "buy me" spasms - am I forgetting anything? - oh yeah!, that millionaire Republican disco-pimp who was married to the Star Trek character. Almost forgot about him. Anyway, just being reminded of all of this hot conservative gun lover bolt yanking action got me so worked up that I had to relieve myself all over a sleek and sexy glossy magazine photo of the new Benelli Super Black Eagle II semi-automatic with blue/syntheitic finish. Beyond perfection! Boy am I relaxed. (I hope the Benelli's ship me a valuable complimentary prize for that plug).

Anyway, let me pull my pants back up here :-) ...ok!... some time back I managed to bang out a post about Al Regnery (of Regnery Publishing) which mentioned a Penthouse magazine article from November, 1985 titled "The Truth and Alfred Regnery", by Larry Bush [no pun intended]. I'd remarked at the time that I'd like to look at the pict..., I mean read, read this article - and - if anyone out there had some time and could dig it up by all means let me know. Well, as fortune would have it, someone did find that old article and has written a summary of what is contained therein. Reader Aaargh was nice enough to write this one up for us and I've posted the entire submission below. So, here's Aaargh:

*****
Behind the Facade of Al Regnery
Contributed by Aaaargh

Regnery Publishing is well known for it's publication of conservative smear jobs such as Unfit for Command and Michelle Malkin's bizarre fear-mongering demand for institutionalized racism, In Defense of Internment. But little is publicly known about the sordid personal past of Al Regnery, the President of Regnery Publishing, Inc. and publisher of right-wing magazine The American Spectator. It turns out that proffering lies in an attempt to influence elections are nothing new in the Regnery family.

The public face of Al Regnery on the Regnery Publishing website is fairly inoffensive and nondescript:

"Alfred is also a practicing attorney and is Of Counsel to the Washington Law firm of Keller and Heckman. He served as Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Land and Natural Resources Division, both at the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1981 and 1986. Previously he served as Minority Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee and Chief Minority Counsel, Administrative Practice and Procedure Subcommittee. Prior to government service he practiced law for six years in Madison, Wisconsin."

Madison, Wisconsin, 1976.
What isn't mentioned in that summary above turns on events that took place in Madison, Wisconsin in 1976 while Regnery was practicing law with an old line conservative Madison firm. He decided to run for district attorney; against the urging of his employers. He would have been wise to heed their advice. Campaigning as a law-and-order hardliner - get tough bringer of justice to the lawless dopeheads and sex fiends of Madison - he opposed rehabilitation in favor of one week maximum security prison time for juvenile offenders.

When things started going badly for his campaign things also started to get a little strange around the Regnery household. Regnery's wife Christina, eight-months-pregnant, reported obscene phone calls that demanded that her husband drop out of the race. He claimed harassment and vandalism by supporters of his opponent James E. Doyle (now governor of Wisconsin), but, by the end of October the stakes got much higher.

According to Christina's story, as recorded in the police report, she was standing nude in the bathroom of her home on Halloween afternoon, with her children asleep in their bedrooms, when she suddenly saw "two men standing there," one white and one black. She reached for a towel but they told her to leave it behind and to step into the bedroom and smell something. She claimed that they told her that they had turned off the pilot light on the kitchen stove, turned up the burners, and would open the doors to the children's rooms if she did not cooperate. According to Christina they told her that Al should have taken their advice and quit the campaign. They then produced a paring knife, she continued, but decided it was too dull, and instead attempted to cut her breasts with embroidery scissors. Dissatisfied with that, she said, they found a razor blade and started cutting her very-pregnant stomach. According to her they raped her with a can of hairspray tucked inside a condom and then with a can of feminine deodorant spray. After that the two men took her, she claimed, into the bathroom where they forced her to perform fellatio on them. She stated that the men eventually left through a door in the basement. At least that's the story Christian Regnery gave to the police.

Christina is known to have awakened the children and gone to a neighbor claiming to have been cut with a razor and raped. Her neighbor urged her to call the police but she refused. She wanted to talk to Al first. Al states that he arrived home, found no one, and called the police himself. The officer took Christina's statement then took her to Madison General Hospital. She was found to have 73 slash marks, numerous scratches, 17 lacerations around her nipples, with 15 punctures on the left breast.

A shocking story indeed. The only problem was that Christina's story could not be true. The basement door that she claimed her attackers had used to exit the house was blocked by dusty boxes that clearly hadn't been moved in months. The police report stated: "This door is the door supposedly used by the burglars in the exit. However, this would be impossible." The police also observed that the kitchen stove was so caked with dirt it would be nearly impossible for the gas pilot light to be turned off and then relit. Furthermore, in the bedroom, there were no signs of a struggle, nor a single drop of blood in the rooms where she had supposedly been tortured. However, in the bedroom, the police did find some pornographic magazines that depicted acts very similar to those allegedly performed by the purported rapists. Including similar uses of bottles and cans. The condom supposedly used in the assault had been carefully removed from it's package which had not been carelessly ripped open. The children had heard nothing of what should have been a noisy assault. No neighbors reported any strangers in the area eventhough some had been out in their nearby yards doing chores at the time. Furthermore, according to the neighbor to whom she had gone to for help, Christina had been more concerned about drugs in the house than any supposed assault.

The police were highly suspicious and confronted Al Regnery noting that Christina's behavior was bizarre. "It appears entirely possible that Mrs. Regnery had in fact been the victim of self-inflicted injuries," the report notes. When police brought this to his attention Al Regnery admitted to the police that he had suspected as much. He stated that he had "given serious thought to it" himself; that his wife had been faking the obscene calls and vandalism as well. Despite Regnery's own suspicions he had felt free to later blame his political opponent James Doyle and his supporters. Using his wife's diseased mind and her stories of harassment for his own political gains. But Al Regnery wasn't finished.

A reporter from The Capital Times of Madison was waiting when Al came out of the room where the police had been interviewing him. Al, seeing an opportunity, immediately declared to the reporter that this assault was aimed at getting him to withdraw his candidacy. The headline the next day, just days before the election, read: "Two Attack Wife of D.A. Candidate." But it didn't do any good, Al Regnery, the law-and-order candidate, lost the election to James Doyle.

Christina was right to be concerned about pills. She had, with the knowledge of Al, become addicted to painkillers and sedatives, taking a grand total of 2,256 various pills during her pregnancy, including Percodan, Doriden, Empirin No. 4 and Dalmane, topping it all off with 75 Valiums. The Regnery's had been spreading these prescriptions around among several pharmacies to disguise the extent of her problem. When the police brought this issue forward to Al Regnery he acknowledged that she had become similarly addicted during her two prior pregnancies and that they had decided to let the fetus withdraw from the drugs rather than try to get Christina off the medication.

After the election the Regnery's asked that no further investigation be conducted and the police stopped looking for the "rapists." But the police noted that "The infliction of wounds on Mrs. Regnery are still questionable and may have been self-inflicted or done by other subjects known to her. There is no indication that any unknown subjects inflicted any of the injuries." The police timed Al Regnery's distance from the scene at about 22 minutes driving time. An indication that they considered him a possible suspect. Although the possible prosecution for filing a false police report was raised, Doyle, as the new D.A., decided it would look vindictive and the matter was dropped. But, Governor Doyle continues to recall the incident with disdain. "He [Al Regnery] used it for his own political purposes. If he had some involvement himself, then his behavior is obviously inexcusable."

But involvement in such scandalous conduct and hypocrisy didn't stop the rising young conservative. He moved to Washington and came under the wing of Sen. Paul Laxalt who was lobbying for the Family Protection Act. In 1980 he came to the attention of Ronald Reagan, through the auspices of the Heritage Foundation, when he urged that the Legal Services Corporation, which handles legal matters for the impoverished, be eliminated. Laxalt suggested that Al would be a good candidate to head the dismantling of the LSC. However, the American Bar Association blocked that move, and instead Al found a position in the Justice Department heading the Office of Juvenile Justice. That post required Senate confirmation. And then the ghosts of Madison came back to haunt Al Regnery. At least temporarily.

After all, a parent who allows his own infant to become addicted to painkillers during pregnancy might be considered a poor choice for handling juvenile affairs. In addition, it didn't help that his car displayed a bumper sticker reading "Have You Slugged Your Kid Today?" Nonetheless, a compliant Senate approved his appointment in 1983 even though that appointment was opposed by both Wisconsin Senators.

Despite the Regnery's obvious interest in hard-core pornography Al soon championed an antiporn crusade calling for an $8 million study of its impact on society. His first grants were so outlandish they even attracted the attention of Congress. One of these grants was an $800,000 award to Judith Reisman, whose main claim to fame was as a songwriter for Captain Kangaroo, and who once wrote an article claiming that "freedom of speech does not exist." Given his predilections for such matters mentioned above it's probably not surprising that he is also a close friend of Ken Starr; who seems to have strong prurient interests of his own.

Not having succeeded in dismantling the LSC Regnery was called upon in 1986 to eliminate his Office of Juvenile Justice. Al needed to find a new place to roost. Fortunately for him his father Henry Regnery owned a publishing business. Henry Regnery had started printing books for the right-wing lunatic fringe John Birch Society in 1947. The first three volumes printed by Regnery Publishing were tomes critical of the Nuremberg war crime trials and openly sympathetic to the Nazis. Subsidized by the CIA, Regnery Publishing had become, if not successful, at least profitable throughout the Cold War era.

But the collapse of the USSR just gave a new direction to the family's endeavors. Under Al Regnery's guidance Regnery Publishing has been reshaped into a veritable arm of the GOP dirty tricks machine. Regularly publishing allegations of Bill Clinton's reputed womanizing and cocaine use without any particular regard for truth. The smears and slime continue to this day. And considering the character of the president of Regnery Publishing it's not surprising that he is the very same publisher who now stands behind John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi's best-selling book "Unfit for Command" and Michelle Malkin's "In Defense of Internment"; which argues on behalf of racial profiling and internment during war - as a solution - if not the Final Solution.

[Much of the above information, including the police report quotations, from "The Truth and Alfred Regnery" by Larry Bush, originally published in Penthouse magazine, November 1985] link

*****
Thanks Aaargh. I'd also like to thank reader/commentor "WH'ho" who sent me this previously published Newsweek item:

From the start Alfred S. Regnery was a controversial choice to head the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. For one thing the 40-year-old Wisconsin lawyer had few relevant credentials -- apart from having been a Young Americans for Freedom official in 1965 and enjoying close ties to Ronald Reagan's Senate friend Paul Laxalt. At recent hearings, Regnery could not define delinquency or name a single one of the books he claimed to be studying on the problem of juvenile crime. Even more damning to some senators was the bumper sticker discovered on Regnery's car: "Have you slugged your kid today?" (Regnery said it was a joke.) And last week it was disclosed that a renowned Wisconsin pediatrician had warned three Washington legislators the nominee was emotionally unqualified for the job and in a subsequent interview, called Regnery "a danger to the health of our children."

Dr. William Ylitalo refused to elaborate, but newspaper reports in Wisconsin suggested that the pediatrician's objection stemmed from something Regnery said or did during the birth of his son in January 1975. There are also questions about his connection with a federal grant application for a book contract. The Senate vote on Regnery's nomination has been delayed until the FBI can investigate the various charges." (Newsweek)

So there ya go. Alfred S. Regnery, "family values" drummer boy, law and order conservative, and publisher of "Unfit for Command" [irony intended].

Vote Kerry/Edwards. Do it for the children and the farm animals and the fried balls of ground spiced chickpeas and fava beans lobby and....

8 more days.

*

In addition to the other eminently sound reasons why the latest Administration line about Al Qa Qaa is YABL, Josh Marshall misses possibly the most obvious. What are the odds that, if Saddam's people had indeed absconded with 350 tons of high explosives before the U.S. took Baghdad, the Administration would not have trumpeted it from the rooftops? After all, while they might not have been WMDs per se, they were known quantities of Very Bad Stuff. Along with mass graves and other pararphernalia of dictatorship, the missing explosives would have high propaganda value. Yet the Bush Administration said nothing--indeed, by all accounts it actively sought to suppress evidence of Saddam's perfidiousness, if this latest line is to be believed. Right. And I invented the Internet.

Remember when "I didn't have sex with that woman" was the height of bald-faced Presidential effrontery, the gold standard against which all other shameless prevarications fell short? It was the lie that launched a thousand moralistic little shits. Remember? Good times, that. Now it's like being trapped in the "To Jupiter and Beyond" segment of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with lies flying past so fast, time itself begins to warp, and it's hard enough just to hang onto one's own sanity.

8 more days...

Eight.

Those wild-eyed leftists at the Financial Times endorse Kerry:

Over the past three years, the gap between ambition and reality has created what could be termed a "Bush bubble".
(via Financial Times

And we know what happens to bubbles, don't we....

Rittenhouse.

Excellent!

UPDATE Oh, wow, blogger actually posted something. Won't it be great when blogger finally doesn't suck?

Nice takedown in the New Yorker (funny how the parts of the country in actual danger are the ones most likely to vote for Kerry, isn't it?):

On Tuesday, November 7, 2000, more than a hundred and five million Americans went to the polls and, by a small but indisputable plurality, voted to make Al Gore President of the United States. Because of the way the votes were distributed, however, the outcome in the electoral college turned on the outcome in Florida. In that state, George W. Bush held a lead of some five hundred votes, one one-thousandth of Gore’s national margin; irregularities, and there were many, all had the effect of taking votes away from Gore; and the state’s electoral machinery was in the hands of Bush’s brother, who was the governor, and one of Bush’s state campaign co-chairs, who was the Florida secretary of state.

Bush sued to stop any recounting of the votes, and, on Tuesday, December 12th, the United States Supreme Court gave him what he wanted. Bush v. Gore was so shoddily reasoned and transparently partisan that the five justices who endorsed the decision declined to put their names on it, while the four dissenters did not bother to conceal their disgust. There are rules for settling electoral disputes of this kind, in federal and state law and in the Constitution itself. By ignoring them—by cutting off the process and installing Bush by fiat—the Court made a mockery not only of popular democracy but also of constitutional republicanism.

A result so inimical to both majority rule and individual civic equality was bound to inflict damage on the fabric of comity.
(via New Yorker)

Well, yes. Except that this time we won't roll over. Exactly because we have the good of the country at heart.

Of course, there is the dictum: History does repeat itself: The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. So, we can expect November 3 to be a fun-filled riot of laughs!

We can tell that the esteemed Froomkin is a member of the Reality-Based Community, because he not only tells the truth himself, he goes out and finds other bits of the truth and passes them along to those who might not have heard them before. As, for instance, this item which I for one didn't see because WSJ is a pay-only site:

(via WaPo)

Scott J. Paltrow writes in the Wall Street Journal: "As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake months before the start of the war by stopping the military from attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country.

"The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers. . . .

"But the raid on Mr. Zarqawi didn't take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House, until word came down just weeks before the March 19, 2003, start of the Iraq war that Mr. Bush had rejected any strike on the camp until after an official outbreak of hostilities with Iraq."

We've known the basic facts on this story for quite awhile now, but this nails it right to the door of the White House.

Which address brings me to the second item from today's Froom. It's a letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times from a local resident--so local she lives right down the street from the park where this incident occurred--who was not impressed with the Prezwit's people's behavior:

Mary Villa of New Port Richey writes in a letter to the editor of the St. Petersburg Times that she and two Kerry supporter were turned away at the gate of the Bush rally in her home town.

"We were told, 'You may not come in. You are protesters. This is a private party, we paid for this park, and you do not have happy faces on.' "

Mary, I hope the Big Dog comes to the St. Pete area on his swing down there. You don't have to to be ordered to put on a happy face to see Bill Clinton, although to judge from the crowds in Philly today it just seems to happen an awful lot without any orders at all.

Consider this as you push people to the polls. Turnout is the key, and a true landslide popular vote victory for Kerry may be important in the long run.

Bush v Gore was theoretically decided by the Fuq’d Five based on their contention that a recount would be a violation of the equal protection clause.

I say “theoretically” because their real motives were completely partisan. And a lot of voters were willing to accept it and roll over for the sake of preventing “national chaos” and so we could have a “peaceful transition of power.” Even Gore rolled over when the Black Caucus handed him a weapon.

What about this year? Equal protection is equal protection. Interesting take from Mr. Dean, below. Even George Will is predicting May 2005 will roll around before we have a decision, though of course he does it with one finger up his ass.

Anyway, here’s ex-Nixon advisor, turned truth-teller John Dean. I just give you the intro and main points, which are all discussed in order in the complete article, linked at the end. I'm off to canvass for Kerry in a nearby burg this afternoon.

A storm warning of things to come if the vote is as close as expected.

This next presidential election, on November 2, may be followed by post-election chaos unlike any we've ever known.

Look at the swirling, ugly currents currently at work in this conspicuously close race. There is Republicans' history of going negative to win elections. There is Karl Rove's disposition to challenge close elections in post-election brawls. And there is Democrats' (and others) new unwillingness to roll over, as was done in 2000. Finally, look at the fact that a half-dozen lawsuits are in the works in the key states and more are being developed.

This is a climate for trouble. A storm warning is appropriate. In the end, attorneys and legal strategy could prove as important, if not more so, to the outcome of this election as the traditional political strategists and strategy.

Let's go over each factor that spells trouble - and see how they may combine.

A GOP Disposition for Nasty Campaigns

The GOP's Campaign Tactic of Attempting to Disqualify Votes and Voters

Rove's Refusal to Accept Defeat: The Knee-jerk Response of Suing

Still Too Close to Call: The Conspicuous Closeness of the 2004 Race

An Election for Attorneys: Neither Side Will Budge If Litigation Begins

The Nightmare Scenario: An Election up in the Air for Months

It may be days or weeks, if not months, before we know the final results of this presidential election. And given the Republican control of the government, if Karl Rove is on the losing side, it could be years: He will take every issue (if he is losing) to its ultimate appeal in every state he can.

The cost of such litigation will be great - with the capital of citizens' trust in their government, and its election processes, sinking along with the nation's (if not the world') financial markets, which loathe uncertainty. After Bush v. Gore, is there any doubt how the high Court would resolve another round? This time, though, the Court, too, will pay more dearly. With persuasive power as its only source of authority, the Court's power will diminish as the American people's cynicism skyrockets.

It does not seem to trouble either Rove or Bush that they are moving us toward a Twenty-first Century civil war - and that, once again, Southern conservatism is at its core. Only a miracle, it strikes me, can prevent this election from descending into post-election chaos. But given the alternatives, a miracle is what I am hoping for.

The whole thing--including a discussion of each "trouble factor" is at FindLaw or more easily at The Coming Post-Election Chaos

Arrrgghhh, me hearties! Getting them to the polls is only the beginning. In the words of another Nixon retread with far less brains and scruples than Dean, we could be in for a long, hard slog to victory. I just reckon it's worth thinking about now so nobody is surprised later and everyone's ready to rumble for months if need be. A huge popular vote victory for JFK would make the rumble easier, perhaps...

Amazing. Just amazing. Or not.

Florida does not need to create a paper record for touch-screen voting machines in case recounts are needed in tight races, a federal judge ruled Monday, upholding the state's emergency rule that set standards for e-voting recounts.

Touch-screen machines "provide sufficient safeguards" of constitutional rights by warning voters when they have not cast votes in individual races and allowing them to make a final review of their ballots, U.S. District Judge James Cohn ruled.
(via WaPo)

A little more on James Cohn:

Jordi, 36, an anti-choice extremist described by the Miami Herald as a "religious fundamentalist … [with] a tattoo of a flaming red cross," was arrested in November 2003 for allegedly plotting to bomb abortion clinics and commit violence against abortion providers, churches he thought do not oppose abortion strongly enough, and gay people.

In February he pled guilty to one count of attempted firebombing, the crime for which he was sentenced on Thursday, July 8, 2004. Although the prosecutor argued that Jordi's plot qualified as terrorism and thus merited a sentence of at least seven to 10 years, U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn said that the law did not support such a request. According to the Miami Herald, he did, however, tell those in the courtroom, "I have grave concerns regarding the future dangerousness of Mr. Jordi." In addition to the five years in prison, Judge Cohn sentenced Jordi to five months' probation and ordered him to enroll in a mental health program.
PPO)

Well, the guy is a "Christian"... So he can't possibly be a terrorist!

Apparently, the Republicans can't program computers correctly! Making their lawsuit, um, frivolous, eh?

State Republicans withdrew thousands of more than 35,000 challenges to new voter registrations because of errors in their filings apparently caused by a computer glitch.

Republicans filed the challenges Friday in 65 of Ohio's 88 counties, saying mail sent to the newly registered voters was returned as undeliverable.

Over the weekend, the party withdrew about 4,700 challenges in Hamilton County because the names and addresses on the GOP list didn't match voter rolls, and about two-thirds, or 2,800, of the 4,200 challenges in Franklin County, officials said.

It's too late to file a new challenge under the statute the party used, John Williams, election director in Hamilton County, said Monday. There appeared to be an error in the database program used to print the challenges, so that addresses weren't matched with the correct names, he said.

But the largest single batch of challenges, some 17,000 in Cuyahoga County, is still being processed because there were no errors, said Jane Platten, elections board spokeswoman.
(via AP)

Of course, since the suppliers and the testers of the computerized voting systems are also Republicans, my confidence in the process is still not complete....

And see? Stand up to them, and they back off. Now, what are the odds of the 17,000 in Cuyahoga being legitimate too? I would say quite high, since the obvious intent of the Republicans si to disenfranchise and intimidate voters, not to avoid fraud.

Loks like Mithas is blogging it here.

How damn desperate are they to get the Terrorist Assistance Act of 2003/4 off the radar screens?

This desperate:

(via MSNBC homepage headline)

Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist hospitalized with thyroid cancer

According to the TV version I just heard, he has in fact been in the hospital since Friday. And the news Just Happens to get out at noon EST on Monday?

Rove's got that red cape waving on overtime. Nice of his ol' pal Antonin to play along when they needed an assist with media management.



(A Note: Lest I sound excessively callous, yes I have lost people, including a spouse, to cancer and wouldn't wish it on anyone. It's the cape-waving I'm making fun of here, not the disease.)

There's a basic human tendency to regard any number much higher than ten (five in the case of some people, since you need one hand to count the fingers on the other) as a sort of blurry "lots and lots."

Three hundred and eighty? That's a lot.

380 tons? Oy.

So let's break it down a little. Okay, it looks rough in the beginning but it gets easier. Not nicer, mind you, but... here we go. This was mostly swiped from Atrios' comment threads from people who sound like they know what they're talking about. I would just as soon not leave my ISP's fingerprints on sites that would confirm this data by googling, so we're going to take their word for it:

EXPLOSIVE FORCE:

TNT: 2.76 Mpsi @ 7197 m/sec velocity
RDX: 5.03 Mpsi @ 8754 m/sec velocity
HMX: 5.70 Mpsi @ 9159 m/sec velocity

"Mpsi" is million pounds per square inch or how hard it blows up. "m/sec" is meters per second, or how fast it blows up. Or as the poster put it:

9159 m/sec is about 20,500 miles per hour.

The vast majority of this stuff is not manufactured for use in weapons or other military purposes, but for mining. Demolition (like those cool implosions of old smokestacks and sports arenas and such) uses most of the rest. Now why does this stuff about "speed of explosion" make a difference? Possibly The Flash could duck out of the way of TNT, the slowest of the lot, but I guarantee that neither you nor I could do so if it was anywhere nearby.

So who cares? Turns out it matters....

The difference is in the speed of the explosion. The reason [another "slow" explosive called ANFO] used in mining is because it has a slower reaction rate, producing gas and shockwaves that shove rather than shatter.

In most mines, high explosive sticks or gel packs are fired which shatters the rock and detonates the ANFO. The ANFO than pushes the shattered rock outward.

The shattering effect is what makes RDX and such so deadly. A barrel containing a small amount of ANFO and detonated will tend to rupture and separate into large chunks. If the pressure wave doesn't get you, you have pretty good odds of getting away unscathed because there are only a few large pieces flying around.

A barrel with RDX or another high explosive turns into a grenade, forming many more smaller fragments with much higher velocities.

Now you are at least a little bit of an explosives geek, able to discuss this Latest Bush Fuckup with the proper lingo and an informed air. Stomp anybody around the water cooler who tries to downplay just what a disaster this is, and is going to continue to be for years.

If that's not good enough, here's the even simpler version, from our own esteemed reader Amazed in CA down in comments to Tresy's original post on this horror:

Seven hundred and sixty thousand pounds of high explosive. One pound took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

Seven hundred and sixty thousand pounds. Seven hundred and sixty. thousand. pounds.

Enough to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 all over again, every hour, on the hour, for the next eighty-seven years.

UPDATE: Thanks to heading out and Keith in comments for correcting "miles per second" to "meters." Let's call it a typo rather than an admission of my own innumeracy.

'He is scared of the wolves,' Antonia whispered to me. 'In his country there are very many, and they eat men and women.' We slid closer together along the bench.

Listen:

There are six sleighs drawn by three horses each and carrying from six to twelve passengers. There is starlight on the snow and the road is through a forest. The first distant wolf howl does not drown the tinkle of the sleigh-bells or the laughter of the wedding guests. But the rallying cry is answered from many sides, the leaders of the pack draw nearer, and fear grips every heart. The bride sobs on the groom's bosom and the drivers lash their horses to breakneck speed. The rear sleigh upsets, the passengers sprawl out over the snow and the wolves are on top of them in a moment. The screams of horses being eaten alive are more dreadful than the shrieks of people whose entrails are being torn out. The cries of terror from the remaining sleighs are as loud as the cries of pain from the dying. The wolves are silent now - they have other work to do.

That's from "The Wolf-Pack", by Vilhjalmur Stefansson and published in 1927. Stefansson, as I'm sure many of you will recognize, is recalling the famous scene from Willa Cather's novel My Antonia, in which an entire wedding party is pursued and summarily gobbled up by hundreds of voracious Ukrainian wolves.

The wolves were bad that winter, and everyone knew it, yet when they heard the first wolf-cry, the drivers were not much alarmed. They had too much good food and drink inside them. The first howls were taken up and echoed and with quickening repetitions. The wolves were coming together. There was no moon, but the starlight was clear on the snow. A black drove came up over the hill behind the wedding party. The wolves ran like streaks of shadow; they looked no bigger than dogs, but there were hundreds of them. ~ (My Antonia)

Stefansson continues:

There are hundreds of them, you see, and the wolves have proverbially good appetites. Nothing will save the last sleigh but throwing the bride to the wolves. This Miss Cather accordingly does, and so do half the other authors of tales. But it seldom happens that quite everybody is eaten. Somebody has to be saved, to give the narrator a chance to portray the survivor's life of shame and remorse through many effective pages that lead to a distant and friendless grave.

Now his middle horse was being almost dragged by the other two. Pavel gave Peter the reins and stepped carefully into the back of the sledge. He called to the groom that they must lighten-- and pointed to the bride. The young man cursed him and held her tighter. Pavel tried to drag her away. In the struggle, the groom rose. Pavel knocked him over the side of the sledge and threw the girl after him. He said he never remembered exactly how he did it, or what happened afterward. Peter, crouching in the front seat, saw nothing. The first thing either of them noticed was a new sound that broke into the clear air, louder than they had ever heard it before--the bell of the monastery of their own village, ringing for early prayers. ~ (My Antonia)

Needless to say, keeping the wolf from the door by heaving newlyweds to the dogs isn't going to make you many friends with the local fire brigade. The bell tolls for thee. Pavel's momma wouldn't even look at him after that one and the two self preservationists would be cast to the four winds.

And thats the kind of depraved fright night scenario the Bush/Cheney ballyhoo machine wants etched into your optical nerve whenever you watch their latest campaign ads. Wolves in the shadows and future happy honeymoons horribly denied. And they want you to believe that John Kerry and John Edwards are the modern day equivalent of Cather's Pavel and Peter; preparing to lead the nation, like an unsuspecting wedding party, across a frozen midnight of grisly bestial gore splattered doom. A nightmarish sleigh ride of terror where we all will eventually be chucked overboard and consumed by snarling wild animals.

At night, before I went to sleep, I often found myself in a sledge drawn by three horses, dashing through a country that looked something like Nebraska and something like Virginia. ~ (My Antonia)

Never mind that it's the Bush administration itself that has been driving that lead sledge for the last four years. And never mind that it was the Bush administration that failed to take note, despite warnings, of the wulf in the hemlock before it struck that first carriage on 9/11. Forget that it's the Bush administration that decided to waste valuable lives commandeering a run amuck coach through the sands of Iraq rather than confronting fully the obvious danger flickering among the shadows. And forget that it's the Bush Cheney team that will apparently go to any lengths to save the skin on its own panic stricken rump whenever the occasion warrants. Forget all that. That's not the chase scene narrative the Bush/Cheney fiction writers want you to read. The right wing prophecy machine projects it's menacing message upon the theater screen.

Kerry and Edwards are the real potential threat you see, so goes the frightful yarn, and its up to vigilant party goers to preempt all future fiendish plots before either one of those guys have a chance to bonk you upside the head and fling your newly hitched blushing alabaster squeeze into a cold snowbank to be devoured by lupine horrors yet unrealized.

To flight with Pavel and Peter! Away with you liberal horsemen of the apocalypse! For you shall wander remorseful and shamed in America, and ultimately, to vanish into a "distant and friendless" political grave.

As a further public service it should be noted that Stefansson's article makes clear that wolf pack attack stories were something of a reoccuring staple of newspapers in the early 1900's.
Hundreds of them over the years apparently. Including the New York Times which ran a detailed account of a savage Christmas Eve attack by a pack of timber wolves upon an elderly Canadian trapper. This is an excerpted account of that attack which appeared (apparently) on the front page of New York Times on December 28, 1922.

Wolves Devour 3 Men In Northern Ontario. An Elderly White Trapper and Two Indians Fall Victims to a Hoarde of Hungry Beasts Port Arthur, Ont., Dec. 27 - A great roving band of hungry timber wolves has devoured three men... Last Saturday an elderly trapper left his cabin in the woods seventy miles north of Ignace to mush down to the settlement for his Christmas mail...There was no mail, however, and the old man said he would come back Christmasmorning. At noon he had not arrived. The postmaster sent two Indians to follow the trail. ... About two miles from the settlement the Indians found a spot pounded down in the snow. There was blood. Bits of dog harness torn to shreds were scattered about. In the midst of them the Indians found human bones. They hastened back to report their discovery. The lure of the bounty on wolves, however, urged the Indians to take to the trail again, with extra ammunition. They sped behind the dog team into the woods as the villagers waved good-bye. They did not return. Yesterday a new searching party departed. They found another patch trodden in the snow, with much more blood, about two miles from the first. The two guns the Indians had carried were lying in the crimsomed snow. Scattered about were bones, bits of clothing and empty shells. The carcasses of sixteen dead wolves - some half eaten - lay stretched in a circle about the remains of the two Indian hunters.

Yeeks huh? And a "White Trapper" no less! The outrage! Keep that in mind this holiday season when you're mushing your way down the driveway to retreive your Lillian Vernon catalog.

The only problem with this story, which appeared in the Times - Judith Miller are you listening - is that it apparently never happened. At least according to Stefansson, and those questioned about the story, including Ottawa's Commissioner of National Parks and residents of Ignace. No one had ever heard of any old trapper or Indians or a pack of wolves attacking anyone at all for that matter. Least of all on Christmas day. The story was apparently complete bunkum.

So whats the point? And why were hundreds of wolf pack attack stories supposedly circulating in US newspapers a-way-back-a-when?

Stephansson notes that at the time that the United States Government (the Bureau of Biological Survey) was responsible for the nations' "wolf-killing service", which, was also busy fielding "appeals" from ranchers in the western US who claimed the wolves were destroying their domestic herds.

Leaving the speculative possiblity that those old exaggerated wolf attack tales were perhaps little more than excitable boo-scare stories fed to the media by western cattle interests and intended to persuade the public at large of some looming furry menace to their ancestral food chain? Afterall, who wants to poke through the remains of poor grampa's half eaten bones on Christmas morn? Slurped down like a holiday ham while out checking his muskrat traps? Jeepers no.

So it doesn't surprise me that the Circle 'W' Ranch would come up with sinister Willie the Wolf attack allegories to titilate an easily spooked publics' imagination. These guys see themselves as shepherds to some kind of sheepish cud chewing domesticated moo-cow Republic. Tuxedo moon cowboy wardens to a herd of clanking frightened canaille. A huge stockyard for which they have a vested financial interest in corraling with space based barbed wire and harvesting on behalf of their own greedy appetites. Fear grips your heart!

I have no doubt that the Bush Cheney pack would be running werwolf attack ads against the Dems if they could get away with it. No tall tallyho is too unreal for these fly-by-night runaway bullshit jockeys.

I think we all know who the real wolves in this picture are.

*

I have got to stop hitting NYT and WaPo "just one last time before bed" or I'm going to be in a coma before election day.

The scandals, and I mean big ones, of the kind that special prosecutors' careers are made of, are hitting so fast I can hardly keep up. This one has my favorite word in it, "contractors", and the ones in question have some Friends in High Places...

(via NYT)

The top civilian contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers, charging that the Army granted the Halliburton Company large contracts for work in Iraq and the Balkans without following rules designed to ensure competition and fair prices to the government, has called for a high-level investigation of what she described as threats to the "integrity of the federal contracting program."

The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, said that in at least one case she witnessed, Army officials inappropriately allowed representatives of Halliburton to sit in as they discussed the terms of a contract the company was set to receive.

Her accusations offer the first extended account of arguments that roiled inside the military bureaucracy over contracts with the company.

Ms. Greenhouse said she would not grant interviews without permission from her employer, fearing possible retribution, Mr. Kohn said.

"Employees of the U.S. government have taken improper action that favored K.B.R.'s interests," the letter said, and Ms. Greenhouse "experienced repeated interference with her role" as chief monitor.

In the case of the 2003 Iraq oil award, Kellogg Brown & Root was given a secret contract months before to draw up plans for fixing oil facilities. Once the invasion began, as the letter relates, it was then deemed the only company in a position to carry out the plan.

There's more. Go read.

Just in case you were sleeping too well this week....

I first saw this story months ago and had pretty well forgotten it. Planes go missing sometimes after all. Africa's a big place. Somebody's always trying to arrange a military takeover, or smuggle animals, vegetables or minerals, whatever.

Then this story of the looted Iraqi explosives hits, and what do you know, by sheer coincidence this missing plane story surfaces again, just because a local guy from Florida is missing along with it.

(via St. Petersburg Times)

In May 2003, Ben Charles Padilla got a disturbing e-mail from a brother in Pensacola: Their mother had suffered a heart attack.

Padilla e-mailed back that he would call as soon as he could get to a phone. Relatives didn't hear from him again, but at first they weren't concerned. After all, he was 7,100 miles away in the African nation of Angola.

For several weeks before, the 50-year-old pilot and aircraft mechanic had been at Angola's main airport overseeing refurbishment of an aging Boeing 727. The plane had been parked so long that observers were surprised when, shortly before sunset on May 25, Padilla and another man climbed on board, revved up the engines and taxied out.

Witnesses were even more surprised to see the plane swerve back and forth, as though someone were wrestling for the controls. Then, with no flight plan or contact with the tower, the big jet roared down the runway and took off.

Did it disappear as the result of an insurance scam or garden-variety theft, only to resurface in another Third World county with a new paint job and registration number?

Or did something more sinister happen, as Padilla's family and others fear? Could the 727 - which had been retrofitted to carry tons of extra fuel - been hijacked by terrorists for use in a 9/11-style attack?

"In spite of months of searching and following up on several false leads, neither Mr. Padilla nor the plane has ever been located," a State Department official recently wrote.

"There has never been any evidence that would give us a clue as to what happened to Mr. Padilla. Given the efforts to date and the time elapsed since his disappearance we sincerely regret that we cannot offer more hope about his whereabouts."

Sweet dreams.

Back to the daily grind.... Will we know who the World Series winner is, before we know who the elected President is, I wonder...

And I wonder if Bush is flying to Baghdad, to be greeted by troops who have been ordered to adore Him, right now?

Ominous music. Night shots of wolves prowling. An open, unguarded barn door with a sign warning "HIGH EXPLOSIVES". Wolves go in, and one by one re-emerge with satchel after satchel clutched in their jaws. They amble off unhurriedly.

Farmer comes upon ransacked barn, looks about to see if anyone's watching, and removes the sign and closes the door. Off-camera we hear the farmer's wife' voice: "What was it, dear?" Farmer replies smoothly, "Nothing. Nothing at all. Go to sleep." Fade to black, as explosions and screams of the wounded and dying are heard.

COPY: BEFORE 9/11, GEORGE W. BUSH IGNORED WARNINGS THAT BIN LADEN WAS GOING TO ATTACK THE UNITED STATES. THEN HE COVERED IT UP.
AFTER INVADING IRAQ, HE ALLOWED TERRORISTS TO STEAL 350 TONS OF HIGH EXPLOSIVES FROM A KNOWN, UNSECURED FACILITY. THEN HE COVERED IT UP AGAIN.
ON NOVEMBER 2, VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO WILL LOOK OUT FOR YOU, INSTEAD OF HIMSELF.

Xan has mentioned this endorsement by the Des Moines Register in her excellent survey of editorial support across the nation for Senator John Kerry, but alert reader "Fred" sent us a url and a special recommendation and he was right.

The editorial is so good, so clear, so pointed, and yet so expansive, too, and functions as such a firm rebuke to the major cliches about John Kerry and his candidacy originated by Bush & Co, and then dutifully promulgated by much of the SCLM, it deserves to stand as a talking points memo, (one worthy of our very own TPM guy, Josh Marshall), as much on behalf of "truth" as on behalf of the Senator. It comes from the heartland, remember: I recommend you email the URL or the actual content to as many people as you know, with a request they do the same, and to help convince you, I've decided to quote from it at uncharacteristic length.

About half of Americans have lost confidence in President Bush, yet many hang back from embracing the alternative. That's unfortunate, because Senator John F. Kerry is a wise and decent man who has the makings of a fine president.

Still, there's little wonder that voters have doubts. Most of what they think they know about the senator comes from a masterful job of "defining the opposition" carried out by the Bush campaign and its surrogates before most people got a chance to know the real Kerry.

So Americans were introduced to Kerry the flip-flopper. Kerry the softie on defense. Kerry the wild-eyed liberal. Kerry the appeaser who will let terrorists attack America.

It's sad that an incumbent president chose to employ so much of his vast campaign resources to tear down his challenger, and not to cite his own accomplishments or to move the nation ahead. But perhaps that's precisely the difficulty the president faces.

His presidency has been one of bold leadership undermined by a failure to achieve meaningful results. The resolute leader Americans rallied behind after Sept. 11, 2001, sidetracked the country into a mess in Iraq. The fiscally responsible, compassionate conservative Americans thought they elected, the man we hoped would improve schools, lower the cost of health care and find more jobs, has failed to do so and instead run up an unprecedented national debt.

The president, whose swagger in adversity and plain-folks straight talk can be so appealing, has failed to see the reality of the problems or outline a road map for progress for the next four years.

National polls show the president's disapproval numbers hoving near 50 percent.

Now it is time to take the next logical step and recognize John Kerry as someone who could do better. It's time to see Kerry as the person he is, not as the caricature created in the president's campaign ads.

Kerry won the presidential debates because the man Americans saw on live television differed from the caricature. Americans saw a thoughtful, experienced, exceptionally well-informed candidate who cares deeply about his country and its people.

They didn't see Mr. Perfect. Kerry tends toward wordiness and overexplanation. His positions on some issues - such as being nearly indistinguishable from Bush on Iraq - are unsatisfactory. His New England reserve comes off as aloofness. It takes time to gain an appreciation of him.

A search for the real John Kerry should focus on his 22 years in elective office - unblemished service as Massachusetts lieutenant governor and U.S. senator. The strongest indication of his success is that the people of Massachusetts - the cradle of American liberty - chose four times to elect him to the Senate.

Yes, Kerry is liberal. But what's to fear from a liberal president? That he would run big deficits? That he would increase federal spending? That he would expand the power of the federal government over individuals' lives? Nothing Kerry could do could top what President Bush has already done in those realms.

Kerry is not the stereotypical liberal in any case. According to the "Almanac of American Politics," Kerry is "more respectful of economic free markets" and more inclined to an expansionist foreign policy than other liberal Democrats. He has been a champion of small business. He was an early supporter of the conservative Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit-reduction act.

An overview of Kerry's 20 years in the Senate shows a conscientious lawmaker, popular with the home-state voters. Kerry's legislative interests have run to investigating government wrongdoing, strengthening law enforcement, securing health care for children and preventing nuclear proliferation. He has a strong record on the environment.

Most interesting - and relevant to Nov. 2 - Kerry has a reputation for being able to work across party lines. He worked well with Republican Gov. William Weld for the common good of Massachusetts. He worked with Republican Senators John McCain and Bob Smith on POW/MIA issues.

That's a key quality, especially in an angrily polarized America. Of President Bush's shortcomings, the most disappointing is the betrayal of his promise to be a uniter. America should be united at times like these - and was for a shining moment after 9/11. But the president let that slip away, deepening divisions by adopting a my-way-or-the-highway cocksureness on both domestic and foreign affairs.

Xan has quoted from the next paragraph, but the quote bears repeating, and repeating and repeating:

It can be assumed that the next president, be it Bush or Kerry, will do everything in his power to make America safe from terrorism. That's job No. 1, and the American people will stand for no less.

Those two sentences, or variations thereof, strike me as the best response one can make to those undecided voters one hears being interviewed on NPR or views, with such frustration, on cable news shows, the voters who voice dissatisfaction with many of President Bush's policies, but, though not hardcore right wingers, question Kerry's committment to "protecting" Americans from terrorists. (Speaking for myself, I think that Kerry's ideas about Iraq are quite different from Bush's, but I worry about whether or not he will be able to act on those differences - an important issue that deserves it's own post)

But on the broad range of other issues, Kerry has more to offer. He is in touch with the middle class. He is better informed on health care and has sound ideas for creating jobs. He understands that protecting the environment need not be a drag on the economy but can be a great boon as new energy technologies are developed.

By nature, he is more of a uniter than Bush.

It won't be easy. The partisans on neither side will go silent on Inauguration Day. If Kerry wins, those who have been attacking him will do their best to undermine his presidency. The same will be true on the other side if Bush is re-elected.

But Kerry, we believe, has a better chance of overcoming that anger. It is the nature of the man to listen and to respect others. He does not tend toward vindictiveness or in-your-face triumphalism. There is a dignity about him. We have watched him from early in the Iowa caucus campaign through a grueling general-election campaign in a battleground state. We have seen Kerry grow and develop in presidential qualities to the point we're confident in recommending him as a person of common sense and decency - a leader who has what it takes to bring Americans back together.

I love that last paragraph, not only because it's true, because I think its truth will resonate with anyone who is genuinely undecided, even a voter leaning toward Bush. There is a dignity about John Kerry, and I would add to that, as Michael Berube has noted in reference to Theresa, there is about John Kerry a fundamental human decency.

This story's making the rounds, but it needs to get even bigger. We were saying months ago that it's the stories in the small-town papers that often point to bigger issues. If there's a single incident that typifies the Bush campaign this year, this has to be it:

(via Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice)

Depending on what side of the fence people are on, crowd control was at an all-time high or low at the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre Township during President Bush's visit Friday

A 27-year-old registered Republican and member of the U.S. Army, along with three other people around him, was forced to leave the arena before getting inside.

The Wyoming Valley [Scranton-Wilkes Barre area of PA, north of Allentown-Ed.] man who did not want to be identified by name because of his loyalty to his service members is being deployed to Iraq in two weeks. His Army service and status were verified.

He explained that he was attending the event in hopes of finding the right candidate to vote for on Nov. 2.

"I thought seeing Bush would be enough to sway my opinion one way or the other. After today, it definitely has swayed," he said.

While waiting in line, he noticed a stranger standing alone and invited the person to stand with him.

"I didn't think that would be a problem," he said.

It turned out to be.

Individuals from the Bush campaign spotted the individual with the soldier and identified the person as a Democratic supporter.

The spotters, and eventually police, asked the Democratic supporter to remove a jacket, a sweater and some other articles of clothing in what was described as basically a police search.

The soldier said the Democratic supporter did what was asked without any complaint. The person also provided a ticket to the event.

The soldier said that when he asked why the person was being hassled, the spotters said the Democrat's name wasn't on their "master list."

"So I asked if we could see the master list? They said they didn't have it," he said.

The soldier said he stood up for the supporter, but was in no way hostile, because he was there to see the president and hoped to justify voting for him.

Not long after showing his own ticket and being told he wasn't part of the "master list" either, the police asked the soldier to leave. He was told the event was for Bush supporters or undecided voters only.
Until Friday when he left the arena, the soldier was an undecided voter. Now he's voting for Sen. Kerry and volunteering for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

One other item is worth noting here. Anybody have a line to Ed Rendell who could ask him to explain what these guys were up to?

Wilkes-Barre Township Police Chief Robert Brozowski said that close to 150 people monitored the event. State and area police, Secret Service members and the state Game Commission made up many of the workers.

Rumor has it they were there to protect Dear Leader from wolves. It's hard to run in those height-enhancing shoes.

Eight ended up voting, but it’s all good. These were folks I’d never really met before except on the phone, and so it was cool just to know that there are other progressive types in the general vicinity I'd never met. Turns out either me or the driver misunderstood and one couple brought their kids, who, sadly, couldn’t vote. And me and him had already voted. But it was fine in the end because the chilluns livened up dinner. These folks all had their own transportation and could and maybe even would have gone to vote, but this made it an event. Plus, now we all have each other’s phone numbers and a friendly face to add to the list within driving distance. In this area, there are five early polling stations open in three little towns in the county—one at an old church annex, one at city hall, two at schools more out in the boonies, and one at a senior center on the rez. We were going to go to the one in town, but on the way in we noticed that the senior center one in the little town on the rez was open, with lots of signs: VOTE---> and so forth. And the door was open, and there were people, and early voting can be done at any open poll no matter your precinct, so we just went there to vote and then on into town for dinner. It was very nice, and that makes eight more darts in the heart of the Weasel.

Cool thing is this: across the street from the senior center, just outside the poll limits in a big old dirt clearing for parking on flea market days, I noticed a little crowd gathered around a steaming pot and a folding table with a big old Kerry-Edwards sign and a sign for some local folks running, and lots of goodies: cups, bottles of drink, napkins and newspapers, and another big old sign that said FREE 4 VOTERS. So, while everyone else was doing their civic duty and the driver and me were babysitting, me and him and the kids walked over there to see what was up. These folks, mostly older Native folk with their kids, had gotten the coolest idea—free hot cider and frybread for anyone who had an “I Voted” sticker. They weren’t asking questions about who voted for who, the consensus being nobody around there was going to vote for aWeasel anyway, but they were sure getting people to stop and eat and vote. The lady frying the bread told me and Hal we had to go vote before we could eat, but the kids could have some, and I told her we had already voted and what a cool idea it was she had. Could I do anything to help?

She said her nephew was one of the local guys running and he was springing for the goodies since he was in an open (no party) tribal election that was close, but that if I wanted I could bring some flour and salt and oil and some more drinks, sure. I told her that I’d be back tomorrow (yesterday) and so I went back after chores today with some stuff, and she must have rooked in 30 or 40 people in the couple of hours I was there. It’s the only main road going through to town, so everybody had to see the table. And who can pass up free food, even if you weren’t planning to stop and vote? She said someone would be there whenever the polls were open.

With turnout the key, maybe it’s an idea that could be transplanted to other places? Just be careful not to run afoul of the law about being too close to a polling place with propaganda. And those "no vending on public right of way" laws. And permits, if any. Don't want anyone getting busted, even if the propaganda is true, free and delicious.

(see farmer's latest) And read this:

Linda Farquhar, a house cleaner, gazed with similar intensity at Mr. Bush in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "He has integrity, he's forthright, he takes us forth to fight the terrorists," she said. "Bush is a godly man. He is a representative of Jesus."
(Times)

Too bad for this innocent that Bush is one of the POTL.

This AP story is worth detailed examination:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The bodies of about 50 unarmed Iraqi soldiers - many killed execution style with gunshots to the back of the head - were found on a remote road in eastern Iraq, victims of an ambush as they were heading home on leave after basic training, Iraqi authorities said Sunday.

The nature of the attack suggested an increased boldness and organization by insurgents, who, until now, have mainly used roadside bombs and suicide car bombs in their attacks on the Iraqi military and police.

An Associated Press reporter on the scene reported seeing the burned frames of two minibuses. Bloodstains were visible on the ground, along with human remains. Witnesses said the attackers stole some buses. Police said they had found 51 bodies from the attack place.

Initial reports citing witnesses that insurgents had initiated the attack by firing rocket-propelled grenades at several vehicles carrying the unarmed troops have not been confirmed.

Police said witnesses saw the soldiers' buses being stopped by the attackers before they were forced to leave the area.

Al-Azzawi said he believed the soldiers were training at the Kirkush military camp northeast of Baghdad. The soldiers had just finished their training course and were being given leave before reporting for duty, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said.

Diyala's deputy Gov. Aqil Hamid al-Adili told Al-Arabiya TV he believed the ambush had been set up.

"There was probably collusion among the soldiers or other groups. Otherwise, the gunmen would not have gotten the information about the soldiers' departure from their training camp and that they were unarmed," he said.

"In the future we will try to be more careful when the soldiers leave their camps. We will provide them with protected cars that can escort them home."

A U.S. military source in the region confirmed the incident, but was uncertain of the number of dead.
(via AP)

Several points:

1. Kudos to the AP reporter "on the scene." That takes real courage. (We need to create a media situation where actual reporting happens routinely,)

2. The effort to train the new Iraqi Army has (obviously) been infiltrated. More great intelligence work from us. Seems like if a problem can't be addressed with an airstrike, there's nothing we can do. Not a good sign.)

3. The US doesn't even know how many of the Iraqi soldiers died. Iraqi's just "don't count," do they? Not civilians, bien sur, but not soldiers either. Nice PR!

4. The whole disgusting, sad, and sorry episode shows the fundamental immorality of the flypaper theory—the ideas that it's better to fight "the terrorists" in Iraq than here in the States. Leave aside the fact that Saddam had nothing to do with AQ; did anyone tell any of these 50 Iraqis that they died so that we could be safe from terror? I didn't think so. And these guys call themselves Christians... What about a little informed consent, eh?

I'm sure the RNC is reimbursing you for this, yeah right:

Racing toward a finish line 10 days away in an election too close to call, Bush hopscotched by Marine helicopter to rallies in Republican-friendly areas of Florida, the state that put him in the White House four years ago. His chopper landings on baseball fields, before thousands of cheering supporters, underscored Bush's ability to use the powers of the presidency for his campaign.

And if the helicopter arrivals weren't showy enough, Bush had Air Force One fly over the NFL football stadium in Jacksonville where tens of thousands of people were waiting to hear him speak.
(via AP)

Hey, I wonder if your tax dollars paid for Inerrant Boy's height enhancing footwear" too ?(via Atrios)

And the answer can only be Yes! I mean, since Bush is the Chosen of God to be Our Dear Leader, who can deny Him His height-enhanching footwear? Especially since it must bring him closer to the only Father he listens to? Phew! Felt my faith waver there for a minute....

And a tip of the Ol' Corrente Hat to Tom and Ray:

The Republican official said polling for Bush showed him in a weaker position than some published polls have indicated, both nationally and in battlegrounds. In many of the key states, the official said, Bush is below 50 percent, and he is ahead or behind within the margin of sampling error -- a statistical tie.

"There's just no place where they're polling outside the margin of error so they can say, 'We have this state,' " the official said. "And they know that an incumbent needs to be outside the margin of error."
(WaPo via Kos diaries)

Could just be Republican disinformation, of course, but it does sound true. I mean, since the Republicans, by putting Condi-Lie-zaa and Tom "I'm Too Dull for a Nickname" Ridge on the campaign trail, they're so desperate that they've even politicized Homeland Security... Oh, wait....

Editor's note: I wrote this last night/this morning and chickened out (on account of I had been drinking just a tad) and didn't post it. Now Tresey's brilliant ad has made me jealous, so here's my contribution:

Farmer's the graphics wizard hereabouts. I have the curse of seeing great pictures in my head without the knowledge or talent to bring them into being. That said, here's the ad I'd like to see, as best as I can do it in words. And yes, dammit, with an "I'm John Kerry and I approve this message."

[NEWS STOCK footage:] A jet plane hits the World Trade Center. Flames explode. 5 sec.

[SPLIT SCREEN, more STOCK]: A classroom. George Bush sits in a small chair, holding the book "The Pet Goat." A man enters L., whispers in ear. Scene continues for 12 seconds.

[BLACKOUT. 2 sec. pause.]

[Screen stays BLACK.] [VOICEover]: "Can George Bush protect us from the next terrorist attack?

"Did he protect us from the last one?"

MUSIC underneath: last 30 seconds of "A Day in the Life", Lennon/McCartney. Hit final chord at 1 second pause after VOICEover word "one."

Cut.

Okay, the WaPo's endorsement was on the wimpy side. But take a look at the rest of this list. Not all are brand new, some I overlooked from last weekend. But some of the newer ones are huge:

Pittsburg Post-Gazette

There is no doubt that Americans have gone from a generally happy time in the 1990s to four years of deficit, discord and disappointment. We would pose the same question that President Reagan asked famously in the heat of his own campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

Relatively few, we think, would answer that with "yes." If your answer is "no" or "not sure," then we have a president for you. The Post-Gazette enthusiastically endorses John Kerry. It's definitely time for a fresh start.

Orlando Sentinel

Four years ago, the Orlando Sentinel endorsed Republican George W. Bush for president based on our trust in him to unite America. We expected him to forge bipartisan solutions to problems while keeping this nation secure and fiscally sound.

This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations. We turn now to his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, with the belief that he is more likely to meet the hopes we once held for Mr. Bush.

Our choice was not dictated by partisanship... Indeed, it has been 40 years since the Sentinel endorsed a Democrat -- Lyndon Johnson -- for president.

Kansas City Star

The country cannot afford four more years of such misguided leadership.

That's why The Kansas City Star strongly endorses John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Americans realize what is at stake: the United States' ability to lead in the world, protect its citizens at home, preserve its treasured liberties, and leave a legacy of hope and opportunity. George W. Bush's presidency has put all that at risk. Sen. John Kerry proposes a sharp course change.

The Star Tribune endorses John Kerry for president.

AP roundup:

The Des Moines Register, of Des Moines, Iowa, endorsed Kerry on Oct. 24:

"It can be assumed that the next president, be it Bush or Kerry, will do everything in his power to make America safe from terrorism. ... But on the broad range of other issues, Kerry has more to offer. He is in touch with the middle class. He is better informed on health care and has sound ideas for creating jobs."

The Union-Bulletin of Walla Walla, Wash., endorsed Kerry on Oct. 21.

Now this next one is big. Not unexpected, since cross-town rival Tribune went for Darth Bush, but still, we're talkin' a Rupert Murdoch rag here:

The Chicago Sun-Times endorsed Kerry on Oct. 24

"We want leaders to stay the course only when the course is a good one. ... The question that Americans need to ask themselves, going into the voting booth a week from Tuesday, is this: Do you like the direction our nation is heading? If the answer is no, then your vote should be for Sen. John Kerry."

Iowa City Press-Citizen, Iowa City, Iowa, endorsed Kerry on Oct. 23:

The Journal Times, Racine, Wis., endorsed Kerry on Oct. 23:

Newsday, Long Island, N.Y., endorsed Kerry on Oct. 22:

The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Ind., endorsed Kerry on Oct. 22:

Wausau Daily Herald, Wausau, Wis., endorsed Kerry on Oct. 22:

Those still under the sway of the Dark Side include (this is from the E&P and AP roundups, you want links to such drivel you are welcome to google it for yourself):

The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman endorsed Bush on Oct. 24

Houston Chronicle endorsed Bush on Oct. 24

The Chronicle of Centralia, Wash., endorsed Bush on Oct. 20

The Express-Times, Easton, Pa., endorsed Bush on Oct. 24

The Denver Post endorsed Bush on Oct. 23

The Cincinnati Post endorsed Bush on Oct. 23

The Gazette, Janesville, Wis., endorsed Bush on Oct. 23

Oshkosh Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wis., endorsed Bush on Oct. 22:

One rather stunning "No endorsement":

The Detroit News, on Oct. 24:

"The Detroit News will not lend its endorsement to a candidate who has made too many mistakes, nor to one who offers a governing philosophy we reject. This decision to remain silent will disappoint readers who expect The Detroit News to stand with the Republican presidential candidate come hell or high water. Their expectations are not unwarranted - we have never endorsed a Democrat for president, and only failed to endorse twice before, both times during the Franklin Roosevelt years. ... We will never feel obliged to defend a president whose blunders and misjudgments have hurt the nation. Nor will we settle for an equally bad choice."

We're still kinda puzzling over that one, perhaps they are suggesting we just leave the office vacant for four years. While that would very possibly be an improvement over the current squatter in Al Gore's house, it seems more likely that they are just wusses who, if asked their favorite color, would reply "Plaid." Final summary:

Editor & Publisher roundup

Bush gained the key Columbus [OH] paper...Bush also picked up the Denver Post, a switch from Gore in 2000.

Kerry has picked up 17 Bush papers from 2000, while losing only two Gore papers to Bush.

Kerry now leads Bush 70-58 in endorsements in E&P's exclusive tally, and by about 11.9 million to 7.1 million in the circulation of backing papers.

Meanwhile, E&P has learned from several sources at the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the paper's nine-person editorial board decided earlier this week that it wanted to endorse Kerry but Publisher Alex Machaskee, who has final say, has decided on Bush. The paper backed Bush in 2000.

This has caused consternation in some quarters at the Plain Dealer, with sources telling E&P that the endorsement editorial, which was expected to run Sunday, was put off.

Another vote for "plaid" I guess. Although skeptical about the actual impact of endorsements on changing anyone's vote, the groundswell for Kerry, particularly in terms of the size of the papers involved, could very well provide covering fire for the SCLM to resist the RNC talking points about the "inevitability" of a Bush win they've been trying to flog. And it gives the Sabbath Gasbags something to talk about.

Picked up this collectible at The PARTEI store on Saturday afternoon.





This was written on the back:

'W'ism, in short, is not only the giver of laws and the founder of institutions, but the educator and promoter of spiritual life. It wants to remake, not the forms of human life, but its content, man, character, faith. And to this end it requires discipline and authority that can enter into the spirits of men and there govern unopposed. Its symbol, therefore, is the 'W', the symbol of unity, of strength and justice.

That sounded really familiar to me and I was going to hunt up the original source for you but then CNN's Larry King came on the TV with important breaking news about the British royal family. Apparently Prince Ernie, or Louie, or whatever the hell his name is, may have been caught diddling a common waif following the annual Royal Hedgehog Hunt at Epsom - or stealing clootie dumplings from Her Majesty's scullery - or something tawdry and unseemly - whatever - gotta go - CNN's all over the story!

What would we ever do without CNN.

*

I'm really concerned that sblogger is going to fail—or do I mean "fail," since these are the guys that pointed to Tech Central Station during the winger triumphalism over the superscript fiasco.

Alert readers: Can any of you think of a backup plan for election day? For example, a server that could take our rather small load?

I'd be curious whether, in reporting the Bush campaign's current denials about what happened at Tora Bora, any major news outlet has made reference to their own earlier reporting which makes it clear that, as nearly as such things can be known, what the president is saying is simply not true.

Indeed, not only is what the president's campaign is saying not true, but as the April 2002 WaPo piece, discussed here, makes clear, what Kerry is charging is backed up to the letter by the administration's own formal and informal after-action analyses and reports about the mistakes made at Tora Bora.

It's really that clear cut.
(via Josh Marshall)

The closest thing I've been able to find to what Josh is asking for is this from CNN:

Kerry was referring to the widely held belief among U.S. military and intelligence officials that bin Laden was in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in December 2001, when U.S. and Afghan troops were assaulting the area. U.S. forces did largely rely on Afghan forces to go after him, but there is no definitive proof that the al Qaeda leader was really there.

Um, why don't you tell us what "definitive proof" you have backing the fairy tale that W, Dick and the boys are peddling right now? Shouldn't the president of the United States be, um, telling the truth?

In short, once again it's the same old cowardly "he said/she said" bullshit from the media.

For goodness sakes, I'll ask it once again: when will you lily-livered cowards in the media grow some balls?

Well, these are the guys who should know about myths:

The Republican National Committee is employing the services of a Texas-based activist who believes the United States is a “Christian nation” and the separation of church and state is “a myth.”

David Barton, the founder of an organization called Wallbuilders, was hired by the RNC as a political consultant and has been traveling the country for a year--speaking at about 300 RNC-sponsored lunches for local evangelical pastors. During the lunches, he presents a slide show of American monuments, discusses his view of America’s Christian heritage -- and tells pastors that they are allowed to endorse political candidates from the pulpit.

Barton, who is also the vice-chairman of the Texas GOP, told Beliefnet this week that the
pastors' meetings have been kept “below the radar.... We work our tails off to stay out of the news.” But at this point, he says, with voter registration ended in most states and early voting already under way, staying quiet about the activity “doesn’t matter.”

And the Republicans talk about "shadowy groups." Sounds like a very bad case of WPS (Winger Projection Syndrome) to me....

Barton’s main contention is that the separation of church and state was never intended by the nation’s founders; he says it was created by the Supreme Court in the 20th Century. ... Barton is also on the board of advisers of the Providence Foundation, a Christian Reconstructionist group that advocates America as a Christian nation. (Click here for an explanation of Reconstructionism.)
(Belief.net via Oliver Willis)

Well, I guess we know who's locked up the JeeboFascist vote, don't we?

Good editorial in the WaPo I missed entirely a week ago pointing out a subject that has been mysteriously missing from the campaigns--Abu Ghraib, and the larger issue of trashing the Geneva Conventions, and accountability. As they note:

Mr. Bush is obviously eager to avoid the subject of prisoner detentions. Maybe that's because his public stance on what happened at Abu Ghraib, and what caused it, is entirely at odds with the facts brought out by official investigations. When he last spoke of the matter, months ago, the president maintained that the abuse was the responsibility of a few low-ranking soldiers working the night shift. He has not acknowledged that scores of soldiers have now been implicated for crimes including homicide, or that a Pentagon-appointed panel has found responsibility at senior levels of the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House. Nor has he held anyone in his administration accountable.

Why bring this up now? Well, aside from "why the hell NOT?" there's the minor matter that this whole filthy story isn't at all over and done with yet:

(via Boston Globe)

Government documents made public Thursday provide fresh details about allegations of abuse by guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and other detention facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The latest documents were released after a federal court directed the Defense Department and other government agencies to comply with the ACLU's request under the Freedom of Information Act for more details about alleged prisoner torture and abuse.

''After more than a year of stonewalling, the government has finally released some documents, though many are heavily redacted," said Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff lawyer. ''Unfortunately, the government continues to withhold records that would show who was ultimately responsible for the systemic abuse of detainees."

A preliminary review of some of the newly released material showed one case in which three US soldiers were each ordered detained for a month, fined up to $750, and reduced in rank for an incident in October 2003 in which a female Iraqi prisoner was partially stripped, abused, and threatened with more physical harm.

I'd like to see flyers handed out in the street, full-page newspaper ads, a TV bliz, flyers tacked up to power poles and pasted to buildings, hell even biplanes towing banners asking about this. They could use the picture of the hooded guy on the box with the wires, with the message "A Vote For Bush Means You Approve of This."

God, that was hard. Like scraping, um, gum off your shoe:

The Supreme Court yesterday refused to place independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot in Pennsylvania, leaving in place a state court finding of flawed signatures on voter petition sheets.
(via WaPo)

Now—turnout, turnout, turnout!

Go read.

What a breath of fresh air, to be talked to like a normal human being. Kerry sounds great—relaxed, calm, thoughtful, in command. No bullying, no grandiosity, no code words for the base. What a relief a Kerry presidency is going to be. I thought this quote was good, though it's all good:

Did you get angry at Bush personally?

[KERRY] Look, I know politics is tough, and I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what they do to me. But I do worry, and I am angry, about what they do to the American people. That's what this race is about. It's not about me. I can take it -- I don't care. I've been in worse things. I was on those boats -- I got shot at. I can handle it.

What I worry about is that they lie to America. What I worry about is that they tell the middle class, "We're giving you a tax cut," and the top one percent of America gets more than eighty percent of the rest of the people. I worry that they are unwilling to do anything about the 5 million Americans who have lost their health care.

I worry that there are twenty-eight states in America where you can't go fishing and eat the fish, because of the quality of the water. I worry that they've gotten us into a war where young kids are dying, and they haven't done what's responsible to protect them. That's what I worry about. The rest of it is small pickings.

You don't get angry when Bush outright lies about you?

No, I don't get angry at it. I think it's sort of pathetic.

Were you surprised by how the Swift-boat thing blew up?

I was surprised that the media, even when they knew it was lies, continued to cover it and treat it as entertainment.

Looking back, do you think you handled it correctly?

I think so. Look, when people hold up something that's a complete and total lie, it takes a few days to show people and convince them. We did. They've been completely discredited.

Kerry is saying very tough stuff, in a very quiet way. More like this.

A cautionary tale..

Yes, I was walking through town on my way to the Reading Terminal, and—I know Republicans will find this almost impossible to believe—a young Democratic volunteer just gave me a ticket.

I didn't have to sign a loyalty oath, or anything....

Standing my watch on the ramparts yesterday (yes, I know trenches are by definition underground whilst ramparts are way up in the air. It's a ploy to confuse enemy spotters as to my actual whereabouts and screw up their targeting computers) there was a definite air of calm-before-the-storm.

Okay, actually it was just calm. A few people dropped in...one guy had just traded in his old truck for a new one and needed a new Kerry/Edwards sticker for the bumper. Couple of people came by for yard signs, happily for their neighbors who wanted to add to the classiness of the area rather than to replace ones which had been stolen. Supplies are short and we're living off midnight requisitions from Dem HQ's in surrounding counties for yard signs and stickers, but I keep reminding myself that it's better for demand to exceed supply than the reverse.

One fella, older guy, came in the door and handed me an unlabeled videotape. I was about to direct him to the video store a couple blocks down when he said "You seen '9/11' yet?" Seems he has both a DVD and a VCR and has been dubbing Michael Moore from the former to the latter and handing them out to folks who don't have DVD players yet. Sure wish I'd though of this myself, and earlier. Guerilla warriors come in a glorious variety of guises.

My own contribution to the agitprop front were some refrigerator magnets. We got these to put business cards on years ago, the magnets are the same size with a peel-off label on one side you stick the cards to. Had some old pre-perforated business card blanks, too, so I printed them up with this on it:

Just that, centered. No text, no comment. People would take them, and glance, and start to look away but then their eyes would get stuck and you could see a thought balloon forming overhead reading "WTF?"

Then they'd figure it out, and responses ranged from big ol' grins to outright howling laughs. One lady took three, explaining that she's an LPN who works at a local nursing home, goes to school for her RN in a nearby town, and does training shifts at the local hospital. (Ah, the energy of the young.) Thus does subversion work itself into unexpected places.

I don' tink so.


Gen. Nathaniel Lyon renders his opinion on the new "woof woof" RNC attack ad. Aide-de-camp A. J. Jackson concurs while conserving strength for the next battle.

Saturday cat blogging, since Atrios didn't put any up yesterday.

Here.

Well, well. So why can't we go get him? Iraq. That's opportunity cost. Read on:

CLAREMONT -- The Pentagon knows exactly where Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, it just can't get to him, John Lehman, a member of the 9-11 commission, said Thursday.

Bin Laden is living in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of the Baluchistan region, Lehman told The San Bernardino Sun after delivering a keynote speech on terrorism at Pitzer College in Claremont.

In the exclusive interview, Lehman noted, "There is an American presence in the area, but we can't just send in troops. If we did, we could have another Vietnam, and the United States cannot afford that right now."

"We'll get (bin Laden) eventually, just not now," he said. Asked how bin Laden was surviving, Lehman said he was getting money from outside countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and high-ranking ministers inside Saudi Arabia.
(via Claremont Daily News)

Gee, I thought Saudi Arabia was our ally? And Bush was really good friends with them? So how come the Saudis are still funding Bin Laden?

And why didn't we capture Bin Laden when we had him cornered at Tora Bora? (The increasingly shrill Josh Marshall tracks the Bush revisionism on Tora Bora) The answer: That's one of the opportunity costs (back)of Iraq:

Twenty months after the invasion of Iraq, the question of whether Americans are safer from terrorism because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power hinges on subjective judgment about might-have-beens. What is not in dispute, among scores of career national security officials and political appointees interviewed periodically since 2002, is that Bush's choice had opportunity costs -- first in postwar Afghanistan, then elsewhere. Iraq, they said, became a voracious consumer of time, money, personnel and diplomatic capital -- as well as the scarce tools of covert force on which Bush prefers to rely -- that until then were engaged against al Qaeda and its sources of direct support.
(via WaPo)

The test of a CEO, as any shareholder knows, is not whether the CEO made good choices with the shareholders money. The test is whether the CEO made the best use of it. The difference between good (granting the Iraq war to be good) and the best (really nailing AQ) is the opportunity cost. Bush traded Iraq for nailing Al Quaeda. Are you feeling safer? I didn't think so.

NOTE Bush already missed Zarqui—another opportunity cost. Now, apparently, Bush has sent the Marines into Fallujah to get him. Not "too little, too late," but "too many lives, too late." Typical

Yes, the same people who were promoted to work in Ohio!

Five people face charges in connection with absentee ballot applications that were filled out on some South Dakota college campuses, [Republican] Attorney General Larry Long and other officials said Friday.

They were identified as Joseph Alick, 28; Nathan Mertz, 20; Todd Schlekeway, 27; Rachel Hoff, 22; and Eric Fahrendorf, 24. Fahrendorf had been listed as a Republican Party employee. Officials said the rest were volunteers.

All had resigned earlier from a GOP get-out-the-vote effort after questions arose as to whether some absentee ballot requests were signed by the student in the presence of the notary public whose seal was affixed to the request.

"I don't think we found that it was policy, what we found was sloppy supervision frankly," Long said.

(via South Dakota Argus Leader)

Hmmm.... These days, you really have to recognize Republican "handwriting" (as LeCarre would call it). Does "sloppy supervision" remind you of anything? I'd say "plausible deniability," where the lower-ranking take the fall for the higher-ranking—as at Abu Ghraib. For the Republicans, it's all the same war, and they use the same tactics wherever they are.

Of course, faith is the evidence of things not seen....

after hundreds of interviews, scores of immigration arrests and other preventive measures, law enforcement officials say they have been unable to detect signs of an ongoing plot in the United States, nor have they identified specific targets, dates or methods that might be used in one.

"We've not unearthed anything that would add any credence to talk of an election-related attack,"
(via WaPo)

Possibilities, possibilities....

Possibility 1. A vigilant administration repelled the threat? Possible. But if it happened, it was most likely by chance. Here's the system the FBI is using:

The FBI's approach depends on "tripwires" to detect suspicious activity. The system, implemented last year and based on the behavior of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, generates alerts if a known subject buys an airline ticket, rents a car or applies for a driver's license -- in his or her own name.

In their own name. Um... And why would the next attack follow the same pattern as the last one? That's just what AQ doesn't do! Fighting the last war...

Possibility 2. Bush got gamed by bad information again; a second Chalabi told Him what he wants to hear. More likely, since that's a known Bush character flaw which the country's enemies are fully capable of exploiting:

Even as the government intensified its campaign, authorities discovered that one of the CIA sources they had relied on had fabricated his story, according to several counterterrorism officials. One intelligence official said the revelation "caused us to go back to square one and reassess where the plotting really is."

Other officials, however, played down the source's importance. "It's thought that what he had said was pure misinformation" designed to mislead the government, a different intelligence official said. But, the official added, that did not increase anyone's comfort level, because there are many other sources indicating that al Qaeda wants to launch an attack.

Possibility 3. If AQ attacked Spain to win political advantage, doesn't it follow that they have not attacked the US, becuase that is to their political advantage? After all, Bush is their most effective recruiter.

Possibility 4. There is no threat. After all, the entire Homeland Security apparat is out on the campaign trail in swing states (Condi, Ridge). Don't they have jobs to do back in DC? Oh, wait.... Electing Bush is their job... What was I thinking.

Possibility 5. All of the above....

I guess know we know why Inerrant Boy hasn't showed his face in Ohio for three weeks (here)—since he knows he can't win, he's going to rely on Republican election officials to steal it for Him:

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.

Ohio Democrats were struggling to match the Republicans' move, which had been rumored for weeks. Both parties had until 4 p.m. to register people they had recruited to monitor the election. Republicans said they had enlisted 3,600 by the deadline, many in heavily Democratic urban neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities. Each recruit was to be paid $100.

The Democrats, who tend to benefit more than Republicans from large turnouts, said they had registered more than 2,000 recruits to try to protect legitimate voters rather than weed out ineligible ones.

"Our concern is Republicans will be challenging in large numbers for the purpose of slowing down voting, because challenging takes a long time,'' said David Sullivan, the voter protection coordinator for the national Democratic Party in Ohio. "And creating long lines causes our people to leave without voting.''

Among the main swing states, only Ohio, Florida and Missouri require the parties to register poll watchers before Election Day; elsewhere, party observers can register on the day itself. In several states officials have alerted poll workers to expect a heightened interest by the parties in challenging voters. In some cases, poll workers, many of them elderly, have been given training to deal with any abusive challenging.

The recruits will be trained next week, said Mr. Trakas, who added that he had not decided whether to open the training sessions to the public or reporters.

The preparations for widespread challenging this year have alarmed some election officials.

"This creates chaos and confusion in the polling site," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, an international association of election officials. But, he said, "most courts say it's permissible by state law and therefore can't be denied."

In Ohio, Republicans sought to play down any concern that their challenging would be disruptive.
(via at-least-they're-covering-it-now-the-New-York-Times)

I'm sure that Republicans gathered around polling places will never seek to intimidate Democratic voters!

I guess I know what I'm going to be doing on November 2....

Like a cheap sweater. He...can..run..but...he...can...not...hide...

via Knight-Ridder (Philly Inquirer) under the remarkably subdued headline "Bush's volunteer service disputed":

MEG LAUGHLIN

Knight Ridder Newspapers

HOUSTON - President Bush often has cited his work in 1973 with a now-defunct inner-city program for troubled teens as the source for his belief in "compassionate conservatism."

But former associates of White, who died in 1988, have disputed in recent interviews much of Bush's version of his time at the program.

"I was working full time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project P.U.L.L.," Bush said in his 1999 autobiography, "A Charge to Keep." "My friend John White ... asked me to come help him run the program. ... I was intrigued by John's offer. ... Now I had a chance to help people."

But White's administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard. Instead, the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to Bush's father, who was honorary co-chairman of the program at the time, and Bush was unpaid. They say White told them Bush had gotten into some kind of trouble but White never gave them specifics.

"We didn't know what kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to put in the time," said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.
[snip]

A White House spokesman, told about the interviews, denied Bush had been in any trouble or Bush's father, who was ambassador to the United Nations at the time, had arranged the job at P.U.L.L. He acknowledged, however, Bush was not paid for his work there. Bush's father declined a request for an interview.

"It was incorrect to say he was working there," spokesman Trent Duffy said. "He was doing volunteer service and getting paid by the Guard."

This is pretty much the gist of it, the story is based on quotes from people who were there at the time. I doubt it will chelate the koolade from anybody except maybe diehard fans of the early-70's Oilers, if any such persons exist. But why must we rely on verbal testimony rather than documentary evidence? Hmm, good question:

No documents from Bush's time with P.U.L.L. exist. The agency, which closed in 1989, left most of its records behind when it moved to a new location in 1984. The building's owner, Southern Leather Co., said those were discarded. No one seems to know what happened to any remaining records after 1989.

UPDATE Um, what kind of trouble was Bush in, anyhow? And why did he feel he had to do the time? He certainly didn't feel he had to do the time in TxANG...—Lambert

For your pleasure—"Mosh," the Eminem anti-Bush song.

Wolves and boobies.

Sweet dreams!

Oh, and you are volunteering for a GOTV effort, right?

---

Here's how you can find where you should vote in Philly.

Thanks to Inerrant Boy, everyone can participate in this fun new game!

The calls kept coming. And coming. With 800 flu shots to give away, Montgomery County's Health Department began accepting names for its lottery at 8 a.m. yesterday.

By 10:30 a.m., about 2,000 high-risk county residents had gotten on the list.

"We only have 800 shots," school nurse Julie Olson said into her phone. "The lucky winners will get it."

The odds of winning -- in a county of about 900,000 people -- have become slight enough that some local media dubbed Montgomery County's solution the Flu Vaccine Powerball.
(via WaPo)

You too can be a lucky winner—or a dead loser.

Come to think of it, doesn't everything in Bush's America work like that? Except for Bush and his friends, of course.

Tickets here (via Mithras) Hey, and no loyalty oath!

Guess where?

Love Park! Back)

If the WiFi in the Park is working, maybe some enterprising blogger can cover it live....

I hope all you sk8ers are voting for Kerry.... Cause if you don't, The Big Dog will hunt you down...

Auditor, schmauditor!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

According to Pentagon documents reviewed by the Journal, the Army has acknowledged that the Houston-based company might never be able to account properly for some of its work, which has been probed amid accusations that Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit overbilled the government for some operations in Iraq.

The company has hired a consulting firm to estimate what Halliburton's services should cost, the report said.

The Journal also cited Pentagon records showing that $650 million in Halliburton billings are deemed questionable. An additional $2 billion is considered to have insufficient paperwork to justify the billing, the report said.
(via Reuters)

Wow! The Army's going to let Halliburton just pick a number! What could be more fair than that?

"Because blood is thinner than oil!"

Six blood relatives of President Bush who support John F. Kerry's bid for the presidency have launched a website to publicize their sharp disagreements with Bush's policies.

The site, www.bushrelativesforkerry.com, consists of personal statements from a group of decidedly liberal second cousins of the president, none of whom knows him personally. All are grandchildren of Mary Bush House, the sister of Prescott Bush, a former US senator from Connecticut and the father and grandfather of the two Bush presidents.

The introduction to the site opens with the slogan, ''Because blood is thicker than oil!" and states: ''As the election approaches, we feel it is our responsibility to speak out about why we are voting for John Kerry, and to do our small part to help America heal from the sickness it has suffered since George Bush was appointed President in 2000. We invite you to read our stories, and please, don't vote for our cousin!"
(via The Glob)

I guess they'll never be part of the dynasty....

The Nation.

With a handy PDF version for you to give your undecided friends (or any member of the reality-based community).

And there's good news tonight!

The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday rejected a move by Ralph Nader to get on the Ohio ballot, further reducing the chance that his third-party presidential candidacy will be a factor in the battleground state.

The court ruled 6 to 1 that Nader's backers waited too long to raise objections about the way nominating petitions were being processed. Objections to petitions designed to put Nader on the ballot in Ohio had left him short of the required number.

Nader issued a statement saying he planned to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, though it was not clear if that process could be completed before the Nov. 2 election.

Nader drew 2.7 percent of the popular vote nationally in 2000 and was widely believed to have cost Democrat Al Gore the election in the decisive state of Florida. In Ohio in 2000 he won 3 percent of the vote.
(via Reuters)

Wonder if the Supremes will find a way to step in ....

So there I was, fixing myself a late-night snack in the wholly inadequate Corrente kitchen, the only room in the old building that is not mighty, when I run into a troubled RDF who, somewhat reluctantly, informed me of a different take than mine on the strategy of a group of independent Green Party members whom I featured in a previous post, who are working to get Greens to vote for Kerry in the swing states.

"I don't know, Leah," RDF said. "I'm registered Green myself, and would love to see a Green Party with enough muscle to influence national policy."

"But I'm in the camp that thinks that's only going to happen if Greens start winning on a local scale: mayors, county commissioners, sheriffs, and so on. It's working for the Libertarians. Maybe in the future somewhere we can envision the means of production in the hands of the workers with enough grassroots work."

"But, in this election, no. In ANY state. I would ask--and have asked--any Green to vote for Kerry. Every vote for Kerry, this time around, is a dart in the heart of the beast that is the GOP, and that's all that matters right now."

Being an old-fashioned liberal, I tend to get mezmerized by any hint that there is a coalition somewhere waiting to be built, even a tiny one, so, though I would still recommend a visit to the website, Greens For Impact noted in my previous post, and though the two men heading the Green ticket are first- rate, except, of course, that the rest of us have not moved the political discussion in this country far enough toward where it was even as late as the early eighties for such a ticket to have a chance of being elected, and though I like the Greens' emphasis on getting public financing of elections as a central issue, the success of which, given our current Supreme Court's reading of the constitution, is a long way off, RDF is right; Kerry needs every vote to insure that he registers a decisive win in the popular vote. That is certainly why we're working so hard to get the vote out all over California, a state where the electoral college votes are as close to already won for Kerry as is possible in an imperfect world.

So here's where we appear to be at, a week and a half away from election day: the single most determinative factor in a Kerry/Edwards win, and let's not forget congress --we could still take the Senate, and advance Democratic numbers in the House -- is going to be getting everyone to vote: the Democratic base, left progressive who are often reluctant Democrats, all those new voters who have registered, minority voters, who are often thought of as part of the base, but who have their own issues with the Bush administration, and let's not forget you, your friends, relatives, neighbors.

This is RDF's territory, so here, for your convenience, are links to various RDF GOTV posts that are sprinkled through-out our recent archives, but are here arranged in ascending order, I hope; if not, the posts are pretty much stand alone calls to action you should look at if you missed any the first time around, and are worth a second look, too.

And here's a reminder to start visiting at least once a day eRiposte's Voter2004 page, wherein is being kept information about voting problems across the nation, the better to get onto fixing anything that's happening close to you.

Here are a few more newly discovered resources for you to check out.

Band Of Citizens.org. Here's how they describe themselves.

We are a band of citizens, powerful and passionate, who want their government to focus on solving the country’s big problems with common sense and plain dealing. Our mission is to be a voice for thoughtful Americans who want positive change.

In 2004, we want to make it easy for people to understand the importance of voting and why John Kerry is the stronger candidate for President, and also easier for them to pass this information along to people who are undecided.

Their way of making it easier is to provide what they call Citizenflicks, e-mailable ads that take on specific issues. An entirely neat idea. You can also contribute your own citizenflick. Check them out here.

A more old-fashioned type of grassroots GOTV effort, Voter Call has a lot to offer everyone who is determined to do all they can to get Bush/Cheney out, Kerry/Edwards in. Their mission is to make sure that all those newly registered voters actually exercise their franchise, and to that end, they've made a database that consists of the newly registered so that an interested citizen like you can pull up a list from any state and make a personal spiel to make sure such people actually vote.

It's a great idea. They are targeting groups who tend to hesitate to vote, like poor folks. So how you approach such calls gives you an opportunity to make a unique and creative contribution to this historic election. True Majority, the organization put together by ice cream mogul, the Ben of Ben and Jerry's, is one of the groups sponsers, which inspires my confidence. You can find all the information you need about what Voter Call is about by clicking here, and how it all works, by clicking here.

Changing subjects slightly, while I'm providing links to notable Corrente contributions, for those of you who missed the Farmer's graphic take on Bill O'Reilly post-sexual harrassement filing against him, you can find it here. I recommend it, because aside from the humor, farmer has caught the deeply unpleasant truth O'Reilly that the SCLM is going out of ther way not to notice. And if you missed the Farmer's ruminations on debate questions not asked by questioners not invited to ask them, have some fun and click here.

HONOLULU - Often dismissed as too small, too isolated and too Democratic to worry about in presidential contests, Hawaii suddenly has a close race. Neglected Hawaii emerges as swing state

Every state is a battleground state. Voter registration ends today in Alabama.

I’m no mathematician, but it seems to me that if we all take along one or two voters to an early voting place, no matter where we live, then we would triple the impact of our vote. Like in Alice’s Restaurant—

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine, fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends, they may think it's a movement.

And it is. It’s the Take Some Friends to Stomp a Weasel Movement.

We’re headed into town in the van in just a few. Got a little weasel-stomping to do. There will be twelve of us, and eleven voting early (I already voted.) Dinner afterwards. Arrrgggh. Hoist the Jolly Roger! To the cannons, me hearties! Need motivation? Picture Bushco walking the plank, one by one, metaphorically plopping into the shark-infested waters at the cutlass-wielding urging of your vote, and your friend’s vote, and your friend’s friend’s vote…

Or, picture the Supreme Court in four years. Avast, ye lubbers!

UPDATE:

Republican Group Accused of Voter Fraud (AP)

…Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona's Republican Party and the state's Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses Democrats of making things up…

Oh, well, that settles that. Golly. And I was suspicious for a minute. Read the whole thing if your stomach can take it: Republican-funded firm accused of voter fraud

They're trashing registrations all over, not just OR and NV. Get angry. And then take a THOUSAND people to vote! And check to make sure the ones who think they’re registered actually are. Low-life weasel bait fuckers might have trashed them.

Item below from the New York Sun, 1926.


SNIP:

Mrs. Kimball's affidavit charges cruel and inhuman treatment. They were happy until 1918, she said, when her husband took up the study of Christian Science.

"He wanted to try this new belief on me," she asserted. "This caused most of our trouble. On Columbus Day, 1923, I was cooking bacon and eggs when my husband said to me: 'If you have proper faith nothing can hurt you.' He took a spoonful of hot bacon grease from the pan and poured it on the back of my hand. I had a severe burn on my hand for several weeks.

"He had a habit of stepping with his full weight on my feet. Once he threw a chair at me. Another habit of his was to go into the hall where we lived and pray for me in a loud voice. He would ask forgiveness for me and ask that I be delivered from error."

How'd ya like to have a guy like that in charge of the nation's foreign policy and domestic policy and..., hey, wait a minute...

File for divorce on Nov. 3rd.

*

The new Republican attack ad is entitled "Wolves":

Moody and ominous, the 30-second ad mines the shadowy light-and-dark world of a mysterious forest, with an occasional nano-second flash of danger, before showing the large pack (sleeper cell?) of wolves ready to attack at the first sign of weakness. At the end, the pack is rousing, ready to pounce on....the election of President Kerry?

"Wolves" is the Democrats' worst nightmare -- slick, evocative, memorable, and utterly misleading.

You know what would be really nice?

If some artistically inclined reader would creates a parody ad.

The title? "Weasels." Take it from there ....

What would be even nicer would be if it were in the same news cycle.

Here's The original.

The increasingly shrill Josh Marshall raises a very good point:

Now, you'll remember from the 9/11 commission hearings earlier this year that the National Security Advisor is, or should be, the quarterback when the country faces a heightened or imminent threat of terrorist attack. She's the one who pulls together all the various threat reports and makes sure all legs and arms of the national security apparatus are working in unison.

If this whole 'al Qaida disrupting the democratic process' is on the level then we're entering the red zone right about now. We're ten days out from the election.

So why is the National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, out hitting the campaign trail?

Think about that for a second. Is there any possible good answer? Either all the effort to hype an election day al Qaida threat is just another effort to use the White House's control over the intelligence community as a campaign asset or Rice is shirking her duties at a moment of acute national peril.
(via Talking Points Memo)

Please refer all complaints to The Department of 'No! They Would Never Do That!

Not shrill, not shrill at all:

But we must not repeat the mistake of 2000 by refusing to acknowledge the possibility that a narrow Bush win, especially if it depends on Florida, rests on the systematic disenfranchisement of minority voters. And the media must not treat such a suspect win as a validation of skewed reporting that has consistently overstated Mr. Bush's popular support.
(via Times)

I would be more, well, shrill about it: There's no reason to accept a narrow Bush win as legitimate, especially if Bush's margin of 'victory' is smaller than the number that we already know have been illegally disenfranchised from Florida 2000.

So, for all our sakes, let's work for a convincing Kerry win, for decisive repudiation by reality-based America of all that Bush is, and all that Bush stands for. I'm taking November 2 off to GOTV. Are you?

Not that they care, of course, since science is reality-based:

researchers believe they have measured the effect that was first predicted in 1918 by using Einstein's theory of general relativity by ''precisely observing shifts in the orbits of two Earth-orbiting satellites.'' The finding constitutes the ''first accurate measurement of a bizarre effect that predicts a rotating mass will drag space around it,'' NASA said.
(via Miami Herald)

Now I know how Rush gets his listeners!

And Rush—speaking of a rotating mass.... Rotate this!

Ya know, I'm a big fan of quiet understatement. But really, Blogger should change its name to Slogger. Slogger dot com.

HAVE A NICE FUCKING DAY!!!!

*

I hope you're taking election day off to get out the vote or watch the polls.

The Republicans are taking Florida 2000 national.

Wow! I wonder why? See BradBlog for the scoop.

And worst of all, so many of the classics are missing! For example, "I'm not that concerned about Bin Laden."

Well, freedom's on the march, isn't it? And for once, Bush is telling the truth. At least, part of the truth. He means "freedom for Bush from any questions is on the march."

Democracy, you see, is all very well when it's a photo op in far away Afghanistan... But at home? Forget about it!

A magisterial summary by the ever essential Orcinus, who mentions Steve Gilliard, who writes "Diebold is a distraction, this is the real issue, naked voter fraud and supression. Which is why you need to work the polls." Gilliard in turn refers to Kos's Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse. Check especially for Nathan Sproul and Sproul Associates. Meanwhile, Rick Perlstein has a fine article in the Village Voice which pays particular attention to the Posner ruling (back).

Republican dirty tricks scare the hell out of me. But Posner giving the dirty tricksters cover scares me even more. I mean, after Bush v. Gore, doesn't a decision that contains the words "The Constitution does not in so many words confer a right to vote" (back) worry you?

Nice to see the SCLM all over this one... As if we could ever trust them.

There really is such a thing. Believe it or not. See actual evidence cited below and send a copy to every Republican or undecided or swing voter you know. And while you're at it, send a copy to every one you don't know too. What the hell.

A Former Republican Senator:
'Frightened to Death' of Bush
by Marlow W. Cook

I shall cast my vote for John Kerry come Nov 2.
I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions. I fall in the category of good conservative thinkers, like George F. Will, for instance, who wrote: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and having thought, to have second thoughts."

I say, well done George Will, or, even better, from the mouth of the numero uno of conservatives, William F. Buckley Jr.: "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

First, let's talk about George Bush's moral standards.

In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a man who was shot down in Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years — they used Carl Rove's "East Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned, to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina.

To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly has no moral character at all.

[...]

The writer, a Republican formerly of Louisville, was Jefferson County judge from 1962-1968 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1968-1975.

continue reading... HERE

*

Nice ad. Because Democrats always make nice.

Heh.

Thank God for Democrat Elliot Spitzer:

Like the universe itself, corporate chicanery just seems to keep on expanding. Unlike earlier versions, however, the latest scandals tend to implicate not just individual companies but entire industries.


Mr. Spitzer's suit, which detonated Thursday, was filed against Marsh Inc., whose parent, Marsh & McLennan, also owns Putnam Investments and Mercer Inc., the consulting unit. The suit was a shocker even to industry veterans because it disclosed Mr. Spitzer's findings of phony bids designed to direct business to certain insurers and to keep insurance rates high.

Besides bid-rigging, Mr. Spitzer's suit detailed the kickbacks from insurers that brokers receive for sending them business as well as the hidden fees charged to the companies buying insurance. These arrangements, known as marketing service agreements or placement service agreements, were openly used by the industry. But Mr. Spitzer argued that because they were used to steer business, they represented a breach of duty to Marsh's customers.
(via Times)

So, why hand Social Security, the biggest money pot around—and your money, too—to this shameless crowd of hucksters, con men, and thieves? Oh, wait. Campaign contributions! ("When they say it's not about the money, it's about the money".

Now it all makes sense. Phew! My faith was shaken there for a moment!

I love the free market, don't you?

Sagging performance and mounting legal costs in its electronic voting segment kept third-quarter earnings nearly flat at Diebold Inc., the company said Wednesday.

iebold shares fell 91 cents, or 2 percent, to close at $45.70 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange - toward the lower end of their 52-week range of $43.88 to $57.43.

Diebold's touch-screen voting machines have led to widespread criticism of security and to lawsuits. About 50,000 of the company's touch-screen machines will be used in 11 states in the Nov. 2 election.

Walden W. O'Dell, Diebold chairman and chief executive, said election systems issues in California "had a negative impact on earnings and margins during the third quarter. However, we expect that the modernizing of voting systems in the United States will continue in 2005 and beyond, and we should have better visibility of the direction of the U.S. election systems market after the November election."

Revenue from election systems was $34.4 million, down 28 percent from the $47.9 million recorded last year. Diebold reported the election systems business reduced earnings by 4 cents per share in the third quarter; election systems added 6 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.
(via AP)

Ah, we remember Walden O'Dell! He's the one who's "helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to [Bush] next year" (back, see how the entire e-voting process is owned by Republicans) Why is O'Dell so confident about the 2004 results? Does he know something we only suspect?

100,000 contractors voting with GOP help. WTF?

Interest Groups Mounting Costly Push to Get Out Vote
By Michael Moss and Ford Fessenden, The New York Times
Wednesday 20 October 2004

In a presidential race whose outcome is expected to hang on turnout at the polls, an army of interest groups is pumping at least $350 million into get-out-the-vote campaigns that are rewriting the tactics of elections.

….the fervor has even reached Baghdad, where a Republican lobbyist is trying to help an estimated 100,000 employees of American contractors in the Persian Gulf vote in time to be counted…

…The turnout campaigns are concerned not just with voters in the United States. Timothy B. Mills, a lobbyist working on Iraq reconstruction issues for the law firm of Patton Boggs and a former vice president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, has organized the effort in Baghdad to help the estimated 100,000 contractor employees in the region cast their votes. One plan is to send the ballots en masse to an office in Washington, where they would be separated and redirected to the appropriate local election site…

via Costly Push to Get Out Vote

I didn’t even know there were 100,000 of them over there. Ye gods! These people will stop at nothing!

Arrrgggh, me hearties! Raise the Jolly Roger! Point the ship toward the nearest group of slacker Dem voters and march them off to the early voting stations! Give them doughnuts. Give them free beer. Give them a guilt trip. But get them to the polls! Especially the young folks...

Will Bush cause a seismic youthquake? by Arianna Huffington

A taste from ol’ Huffington:

He has sparked a youthful uprising unseen since Robert Kennedy's tragically shortened run for president. Kennedy's 1968 campaign brought together a powerful coalition of progressive young white voters and disaffected young black voters, united in support of his twin platform of fighting poverty and ending the war in Vietnam. Bush's immoral war in Iraq and poverty-spreading domestic policies have brought those same groups together in an effort to topple him.

Bush is the photo negative of Kennedy. The anti-Bobby.

Of course, registration is just the first step -- it won't mean a thing if the new registrants fail to turn up at the polls or if, once they get there, they are turned away by a 2004 Katharine Harris wanna-be.

That's why the key to delivering the youth vote, and with it the keys to the White House, will be which side is most successful at getting out the vote. Studies have shown that the most effective way to do this is through peer-to-peer contact -- and with young people this means knocking on dorm doors and repeatedly following up with e-mails, cell phone calls and text messages.

Which is why the tipping point of 2004 may be reached not by the big, well-funded voter registration efforts, but by the under-the-radar efforts of the hundreds of small, independent, grassroots groups of young people that have joined in the effort to remove the president from office.

Let us hope.

A lot of sources are running the story of the Ranks and their lawsuit. This is the best one I've seen though, because it ties in the bigger story: John Kerry believes in freedom as well as reality, while Bush believes only in obedience (to Him) and faith (in Him).

(via Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Like many Americans, Jeff and Nicole Rank have an opinion about their president. They wore it on T-shirts they unveiled after entering the West Virginia State Capitol grounds to hear him speak.
The his-and-hers shirts included a photo of the president and the word "Bush" with the international "no" symbol. His shirt also said, "Regime change starts at home." Hers said, "Love America, Hate Bush."

Shortly after the Ranks revealed the shirts, two men they believe worked for the Secret Service or the White House demanded that they remove or cover them. The Ranks refused and were arrested, handcuffed and jailed on trespassing charges.

John Kerry has made fun of the tight security at Bush events. At almost every one of his more than 70 town hall meetings, Kerry has delighted in asking the audiences, "Did anyone have to sign a loyalty oath to get in?"

Hmm, we have a charge and a countercharge. Two statements, both of which purport to be true. Hey, how about an actual experiment? Remember that old "pre-September 11 thinking" stuff like evidence and rationality? Let's live dangerously:

John Prather, an Ohio University math professor, earlier this year tested the tolerance levels of each campaign. He wore a Bush shirt to a Kerry rally in Wheeling, W.Va., and reported that not a word was uttered about it.

The reaction was different when he wore a Kerry shirt to a Bush rally in Cambridge, Ohio. In a narrative about the event, Prather wrote that a "low-level security person" initially asked him to turn the shirt inside out, which he did.

A few minutes later, that same person tracked him down and said his superiors had told him Prather could not stay at the event with the Kerry shirt. Prather took it off and put on another shirt he had with him.

But that wasn't the end of it, wrote Prather, who added that he he had no intention of heckling or disrupting Bush's speech.

"After about 10 minutes, the first security person came up to me again, this time with a second, burlier gentleman. I was asked to stand with the second man in an area somewhat away from the main crowd, and again I complied," he wrote. "A couple of minutes later, a third man who told me he was with the president's advance team (or something like that) came up and escorted me out of the event. Still not wanting to cause trouble, I went out as I was asked, and waited for my friend, who was allowed to stay."

Prather said this week he remains unsure who the third man worked for. It could have been the Secret Service, he said.

Now we get to the giggle part:

Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, denied there has been any ongoing attempt to stifle protest or opposition at Bush rallies. The president, Mehlman said, is eager to speak to undecided voters and independents.

Ever tried to protect a hideously delicate object that's in the same room with a cat? Imagine how hard it is to protect a soap bubble like Bush lives in.

They had a story on NBC nightly news yesterday featuring a nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Hospital. In Nashville, Tennessee. She comes in contact with the sickest kids just this side of death, and she can't get a flu shot. This is her Senator:

(via NYT)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday that lawmakers on Capitol Hill who received flu shots in his office were either following federal guidelines or their own doctors' recommendations.

Frist was responding to criticism that his office was used as a makeshift clinic to administer shots to lawmakers two days after the federal government asked healthy adults to forgo the vaccinations because of a nationwide shortage.

``They keep mentioning my name as if I had done something exceptional, when I hadn't,'' Frist said after casting his ballot during early voting in Tennessee.

Frist, himself a physician, said he got his own inoculation before new federal guidelines were announced Oct. 5. Those guidelines urged healthy people to reserve remaining flu vaccine for older adults and young children who are most at risk for flu complications.

Frist also noted that one-third of Senate members are 65 or older, which is within the guidelines for receiving the vaccine.

Other lawmakers declined the shots to avoid the perception of preferential treatment, and legislation was introduced that would require Eisold to give any remaining vaccine to the Health and Human Services Department.

There's an old bit of doggerel about a disliked person named Dr. Fell, with which I have taken the following liberties:

I do not like thee, Doctor Frist
For reasons much too long to list
In '06 you're gone, and won't be missed
I do not like thee, Doctor Frist.

We know what you want, yes sir and/or ma'am. Better than you do, in fact. And we protect you from things you want but really shouldn't:

(via WaPo)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart canceled an order for a best-selling book by Jon Stewart and the writers of "The Daily Show" after executives learned that it contained a photo of nine naked, aged bodies, each with the superimposed head of a Supreme Court justice.

"We were not aware of the image that was in the book (when Wal-Mart ordered it) and we felt the majority of our customers would not be comfortable with it," said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Karen Burk. "We offer what we think our customers want to buy. That just makes good business sense."

The chain is offering the book on its Web site. Burk said the store's online customers are a "different audience" and that the company wanted to give an option to people looking to buy the book from Wal-Mart.

Bush to visit Saudi Arabia to secure purchase of really expensive French oil painting of naked ladies! Developing...

Or something like that. Rumor details via: Rubber Hose

*

No team in major league baseball had ever lost the first three games of the playoffs and come back to tie the series.

Needless to say, no team had ever done the above and then won the pennant.

Buncha Massachusetts Liberals (hell, I don't know their politics, I'm just naming them honorary members of the club) just did precisely that. My favorite observation so far, for a couple of reasons:

(via Backslider at Atrios)

Overheard in Hell a few minutes ago:

First Demon: "Man, where'd all this fucking snow come from?"

Second Demon: "Sox finally beat the Yankees. Dude, just be glad the Cubs didn't do shit this year, or we'd really be in for it."

So now we wait to see if the Red Sox get to play the Astros or Cardinals for the misnamed World Series. Much as I detest anything connected to Texas at the moment, I'm still a Cub fan. Don't ask me to call this one.

The Bambino is now at peace, that curse is dead. Maybe we can finally kill off the damn billy goat next year.

Had a nice experience getting off the train tonight in Philly—said "Good work!" to a young lady carrying some Joe Hoeffel signage.

Then shared my slogan with her: "It takes a village to stomp a weasel." She liked it, and then she gave me a bright yellow Hoeffel sticker, which I promptly decorated my laptop bag with.

And so to bed.

UPDATE Bush is going to be in Crawford on Saturday (via Atrios).

I wonder if He'll be preparing a surprise for Sunday or Monday?

And hiding behind the skirts of one of his many enabling women, sends Leadfoot instead:

The 35 million-member AARP invited Bush and Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry to speak at the Las Vegas meeting. Kerry, who opposed the Medicare law, is on Thursday morning's schedule, AARP spokesman Steve Hahn said Tuesday.

The Bush campaign said it is dispatching first lady Laura Bush to the AARP meeting. The campaign did not immediately explain why the president would not attend even though he will be in Las Vegas, slated to speak at a GOP campaign rally.

Ed Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said public opinion polling shows the law is unpopular among older Americans. "No presidential candidate wants to risk being booed off stage by thousands of seniors. This drug benefit is not the victory for seniors the president plugs it to be and the president and his handlers know that to be true," said Coyle, a critic of the law.
(via Salon)

Nice shot there, Ed—calling The Holy Gut™a "presidential candidate." Because the best shots is always the truth, isn't it?

And I wonder if Bush's plan to privatize Social Security might have something to do with this? Maybe, since he's about to fuck them over so badly, Bush is ashamed... No, strike that. That can't be it.

If you know anyone who is voting for Nader—or anyone who you suspect might vote for Nader—please share this information with them:

Less than two weeks before the election, dozens of former "Nader's Raiders" and other former Nader associates have announced their own opposition to his candidacy and are launching ads in battleground states in an attempt to keep the "Nader Factor" to a minimum. The letter released today from Nader's former Raiders urges voters not to support their former hero, expresses regret that Nader has taken support from right-wing groups, and says progressive voters can be the key to the election, by voting for John Kerry.

The letter, with 75 signatories including organizer Ken Ward, who has served as Executive Director of Rhode Island PIRG and New Jersey PIRG, and Robert Brandon, who served as director of Public Citizen's Tax Reform Research Group from 1972-1977, reads [in part]

"Dear Voters,

Many of us -- former Nader's Raiders and leaders of his organizations -- voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Many did not. This November, none of us will vote for Ralph. We believe there is nothing more important than defeating George W. Bush. Ralph argues that he is creating an independent political voice. In 2000, when he ran as the Green Party candidate, that may have been true.

In 2004, as the candidate of the increasingly reactionary, anti-immigrant Reform Party, and the recipient of financial and political support from right-wing funders and operatives, it is not credible. Unfortunately, Ralph is party to a disingenuous effort to split the progressive vote in key states.

With the major party candidates in a dead heat, Nader is poised to tip the election to Bush -- again. We do not agree with Ralph that there is little difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. We know that the country cannot afford another four years of Republicans controlling the White House, both chambers of Congress, the Supreme Court and the entire federal Judiciary. The price of a protest vote is too high for families who live from paycheck to paycheck, for those concerned about the realities of war, for those who lack decent jobs and access to health care, and for the environment. ....

Join us. Cast your vote for a progressive future and support John Kerry."

(via Salon)

Every time someone votes for Nader, a kitten dies...

Gee, universal health care's looking pretty good now, isn't it?

While patients are panicking over a shortage of flu vaccines in the United States, vaccination programs in Europe are progressing smoothly with a good supply of medicine, health authorities say.
(via Times)

Hey, freedom's untidy!

Sure, a Democratic pollster speaks, but it's still an interesting data point:

Bush has not campaigned in Ohio for three weeks, though he plans to stop there this week. Unemployment continues to rise in the state. "There is no other explanation for his absence," says Stanley Greenberg, Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign pollster, "other than his numbers go down when he's there. His position on jobs is implausible."
(via Guardian)

His numbers go down when he's there... Hey, Karl—get Diebold on the phone!

Clinton and Kerry to campaign together in Philly!

[Bush] wants to make it solely a contest on national security," Kerry said. "You know, the president says he's a leader. Well, Mr. President, look behind you. There's hardly anyone there.
(via Reuters)

I can think of something that is behind Bush. Here's a clue: He couldn't find it with both hands....

... and the last time I went to a sports bar, Smarty Jones didn't win the Belmont ("Fucking Philly!") so don't even tell me the score 'til it's over, OK?

I nominate this as a serious candidate for the real October Surprise. Whether it would be, after calm bipartisan debate and thorough technical analysis, a good thing or not I have no idea. I think it safe to say though, that thrown into the current environment, thirteen days before the election in question, it stinks to high heaven:

(via NYT)

Bowing to pressure from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, the Pentagon has decided to post a federal write-in ballot on its Web site for civilian and military voters to use overseas if their regular ballots fail to arrive in time.

Political wrangling and late primaries caused local election offices in at least eight swing states to miss the deadline of Sept. 19 for sending out ballots to ensure their timely return from far-flung locales where mail service is slow.
[snip]

Pentagon officials said that this retrieval system - available through the Web site, myballot.mil - could include only the military because they were using a Pentagon database to verify voter identities. But Mr. Richard, the Pentagon spokesman, acknowledged recently that some civilians working for military contractors could use the system because they are included in the verification database.

Ten states have agreed to make their ballots accessible through myballot.mil, while 23 have declined to participate citing security and other concerns.

No shit, Sherlock. I don't care if these "contractors" have been vouched for by St. Peter before the throne of God, they shouldn't be using a .mil system. And with some states accepting these "votes" and others refusing, they couldn't have set it up better for interminable legal challenges if they'd tried.

"Snafu" entered the language as a regular word so long ago that most have forgotten its origin as a military acronym: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. FUBAR is one step past that: Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. We may need new terms for a new centuries' wars. I suggest FUGBUS: Fucked Up in George Bush Usual Style

I have no idea which of the Gods George W. Bush or Pat Robertson talk to, (Lambert back), or which of the Gods listen to them.

What I do know, courtesy of Judd Legum of the ever-invaluable "Progress Report", a production of the ever-invaluable Center for American Progress, is that George W. Bush talks to Tim Russert, and lucky us, in that instance, what is said is recorded.

Your assignment - Compare and Contrast the following two bits of information and and ponder on what it tells us, if anything, about our current President and Commander-in-Chief

Regarding the impending invasion of Iraq:

Bush: "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." (to Pat Robertson, March 2003).

CUT TO:

Regarding the catastrophic success of the Bush invasion of Iraq:

Russert: "Are you surprised by the level and intensity of resistance?"

Bush: "No. I'm not." (Meet the Press, 2/8/04)

George Will once argued, in re our historically pathetic rate of voter turnout, that it was actually a healthy sign, because it signaled a general contentment with the status quo. Well, George, if you're right and my state's forecast is representative, your boy is in a heap o' trouble:

Highest voter turnout since World War II predicted
The white-hot 2004 election campaigns will probably result in the heaviest voter turnout in Washington since World War II, Secretary of State Sam Reed predicted yesterday.

He forecast a turnout of 84 percent of the state's more than 3.4 million registered voters and said it could even surpass the record of 84.6 percent set in 1944, a presidential year marked by an "intense feeling of patriotism" among wartime voters.

That was the highest in state voter-registration records that go back only to 1935, the year the state of Washington began permanently registering voters.
(via Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Yeah, we're feeling mighty patriotic about our kids dying for nothing. Mt. St. Helens isn't the only thing that's rumbling around in these parts. As a tunesmith once put it, Something is happening here/But you don't know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?

This may be the last of these polls before the election.

I wasn't really expecting it to be posted yet but it went up yesterday. I look at Tennessee still red on the Battleground States map and scowl.

My scowl lessens when I remember that at least this is the only poll that even considers Tennessee battleground, everybody else considered it a Bush lock all along. Based on a secret and highly technical statistical matrix of my own devising--namely, that no state with me in it could be considered any such thing--I disagreed.

Go lookee here. Wall Street Journal/Zogby. Scowl at the map as necessary but then go look at the numbers chart on the right.

Every single state still showing a Bush lead is within the margin of error. And some of them pretty damn teensy. In fact the longer I look at these numbers the more amazed I am. Remember Bush is already at his ceiling as the incumbent, there is nothing he can do at this point to get anyone who isn't already a True Believer.

We usually leave the polling stuff to our geek buddies over at dKos who know more about such matters, but this was just too good not to pass on. Keep your cutlasses loose in their scabbards still, but take heart, me hearties, these blackguards are goin' down.

When I can say it better, I will. After reading this I'm even more motivated. Direct action does indeed get satisfaction. Someone in Washington State give Paul Loeb a hug for me! A taste:

…On Election Day [2000], there were 15,000-20,000 of us statewide, holding up signs during morning rush hour, calling and recalling voters who hadn't cast their ballots, watching the polls to check off who had voted. As a result of everything we did, and all our previous efforts, not only did Al Gore carry the state by an ample margin, but after a recount, Democrat Maria Cantwell defeated hard-right Republican Senator Slade Gorton by 2,229 votes out of more than 2.5 million cast. If each volunteer accounted for just a fraction of a vote, our actions changed the outcome…

We've done part of the key work already [2004]. Grassroots canvassers have registered record-breaking numbers of likely Democratic voters, particularly in key battleground states. Americans Coming Together (ACT), which has coordinated many of the progressive efforts, together with MoveOn, expects to end up with 2.5 million new voters. Rock the Vote, less partisan, has registered close to a million young voters. The League of Independent Voters has been registering young voters at bars and clubs -- then going back again with guides to an entire slate of progressive local and national candidates. A Cleveland professor had her students register voters at a jail where people were awaiting trial, working with a local prisoner's rights group that registered 700 new voters…

But the Republicans are also registering voters, particularly through fundamentalist churches. They're organized, well-funded, and have skillfully cultivated a politics of backlash and fear. Combining both parties, a million new voters have registered in Florida alone. Since new registrants traditionally turn out far less often than those for whom voting is routine, how many and which voters show up will depend on what the rest of us do, from now through the election.

…For the moment, enough of us are united enough against Bush's destructive arrogance that we'll have decent numbers of volunteers. And most of us will recognize that just as when French voters united behind conservative Jacques Chirac to reject the threat of the ulra-rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen, this is no time for above-it-all purism, like voting for Ralph Nader. But do we recognize how much our individual electoral actions can matter when they're sufficiently multiplied? What would happen if every environmentalist or union member, every MoveOn member, everyone who feels that Bush has led this country down destructive paths, worked in some way to get out the vote? Or worked with groups like the Election Protection Coalition to ensure that every eligible voter gets the chance to vote and that every vote is counted. It's easier if we live in a swing state, or can travel to one -- we simply sign up with ACT or the local Democratic Party and plug in wherever most useful. But even if we don't, we can still contribute money for critical field efforts, and once we've done that, and then join phone banks being run by MoveOnPAC and ACT, calling swing state voters to help convince them to turn out.

via The hundredth phone call

What else can we do? Ideas? Is it too late to become an election official? Pollwatcher?

If they are, She was telling them different things at the same time:

Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."

"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said [Bush] then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

The White House has made no reaction to Robertson's comments.

Robertson, the televangelist who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, said he wishes Bush would admit to mistakes made.

"I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy," Robertson said. "I warned him about casualties."
(via CNN)

Right. Bush is the "most self-assured man" ... Of course, you can be certain and wrong, eh?

On the Kerry $87 billion:

In September, 2003, as the $87 billion funding package was being debated, Senator Kerry said this on national TV: "It would be irresponsible to abandon our troops by voting against it." That is, against the $87 billion. And then, of course, just one month later, he did exactly the opposite.
(via St. Petersburg Partei rally)

We know it's a lie—but Bush proves it!

Bush ignores the question, as usual. And takes no responsibility, as usual.

Yesterday, on the way from St. Petersburg to New Port Richey, the presidential entourage stopped at the Paradise Restaurant in the little town of Safety Harbor, where the president and his brother posed for pictures and were served coffee and baklava. While in the restaurant, a member of the press pool shouted out a question to the president: "Are you accountable for the flu vaccine shortage?"

Bush ignored the question. And reporters were hustled out of the restaurant.
(via Froomkin)

After pointing out that Kerry now has Bush playing defense, Froomkin writes that Kerry is making "unsupported charges":

But in the past few days, after the Kerry camp started peppering Bush with essentially unsupported charges -- that Bush has a secret plan that would gut Social Security and may reinstate the draft -- Bush has felt obliged to respond directly and repeatedly.

And The Holy Gut™'s responses?

Interestingly enough, Bush's defense consisted purely of emphatic assertions, rather than full-bodied explanations.

• "We will keep the promise of Social Security for all our seniors," [Bush]said. But he offered no specifics about what he does in fact have in store for Social Security.

• "We will not have a draft; we'll keep the all-volunteer army," He said. But he offered no specifics about how he will deal with the severe stresses currently facing the military.

• "I want to assure them that our government is doing everything possible to help older Americans and children get their shots, despite the major manufacturing defect that caused this problem," He said. But he offered no specifics about what went wrong or what the government's role was or should be in the future.
(via WaPo)

Personally, I don't classify what Kerry's doing as making an "unsupported assertion at all. On Social Security, the draft, and the flu, Kerry is saying "2 + 2 ... Voters, that equals what?" And Bush reponds "2 + 2 will never equal 4!" So Bush, in his response, gives all the support to Kerry's "assertions" that they need.

Imagine what the MBF targets would be after aWol tanks on 11/2/04… the Left, on the other hand, should take a page from Gandhi and MLK… if anything looks weird on 11/3/04, there should be silent unsmiling mobs in the streets, standing and glaring…

Political Yard Sign Wars Rage as Election Nears
By Carey Gillam

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) …Lawn signs in swing states such as Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have come under attack, and emotions appear to be running high even in traditionally tame states like Kansas.

"I was outraged," said Lis Ross of Fairway, Kansas, whose "Kansans for Kerry" sign disappeared last week. "What made it worse was that they replaced it with a Bush-Cheney sign. I ran out there and ripped it into little pieces."

…Some people are working overtime to protect their signs. Mark Shemet of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, has had to replace two stolen Kerry signs in the last week alone. Pennsylvania Democrats have threatened to spread itching powder on signs to keep the opposition at bay, and an Illinois family last week covered their yard sign with petroleum jelly to repel thieves.
via Attacks on political yard signs escalate

Better yet, let’s keep overwhelming the polling places. My uncle sends me this:

"Turnout is going to be key," says Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is campaigning for Democrat John Kerry. "Turning our base out is going to be the most important element in this race and also making sure those registered to vote turn out - the newly registered voters." via Albuquerque Tribune Online

Amen. Plans are in the works here for a trip to town for early voters on Friday, complete with a stop afterward at a local restaurant. I got seven people who said they’ll go, and the driver says he’s got three, so it sounds like it could be fun. His ride is an old church van he bought, so he’s going to leave the church sign on it and put a coupla Kerry Edwards posters around it with tape. Nice visual. I’ve already voted, but what the heck—I’ll go along for the fun of it and to kick in on gas and food. And Oktoberfest is next week in a nearby town. That’ll be a good time to talk things up with some beer for social lubrication (as long as there aren’t any drunken MBF’s). So much to do, so little time. Just glad we all have some time right now.

OK, so Kerry may be slaughtering Bush in newspaper endorsements. But to autocrats, Bush is still #1. First Putin endorsed him. Now it's the Ayatollahs' turn:

The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of U.S. President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbours al-Qaeda terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.

“We haven't seen anything good from Democrats,” Mr. Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.

Iranian political analyst Mohsen Mofidi said ousting the Taliban and Saddam Hussein was the “biggest service any administration could have done for Iran.”

The article did not get Iranian double agent Ahmed Chalabi's opinion, but I think it's safe to say he concurs.

Meanwhile I hear Kim Jung-Il is scheduled to thank Il Douchbag for making it easier for him to acquire nuclear weapons, and to wish him a long and happy reign.

Ya know what? - It's really not all that new...

NOW:

Yankees are Blind to Blundering Bush, By Eric Margolis

How can Republicans remain so blinkered? Part of the fault lies with the sycophantic national media, which collaborated with the Bush administration in whipping up war fever. The media still are not telling people the truth about Iraq, Afghanistan, or the so-called war on terrorism.

The media utterly failed to remind Americans that Bush, who loves to play war leader, actually claimed Iraqi drone aircraft were poised to fly off ships in the North Atlantic and bombard America with germs. Bush should have been laughed out of office for believing and promoting this comic-book nonsense.

Many Republicans simply don't see what the rest of the world does. So what if Iraq was no threat? Don't bother these golf club Rambos with details. They're delighted to see the U.S. pounding Arabs in revenge for 9/11.

Bush's core Republican support lies in the suburbs and Bible-belt rural areas, where many people rely on TV sound bites for their world view, and have little understanding of history, geography or foreign affairs. This is the new "dumbed-down Republicans Party," fertile ground for nationalist hysteria, religious extremism, and anti-foreign xenophobia.

THEN:
Declaration as it appeared in the Washington (DC) Star, 1929.

God called Herbert Hoover to be President of the United States as though in response to America's need today for another Abraham Lincoln in the White House. ~ Clinton N. Howard chairman of the National United Committee for Law Enforcement.

And NOW again:

And I also want to say this is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House." ~ Gary Walby, Destin, FL

Wow, I remember my first feel too. But, apparently, Gary hasn't felt around enough or he would have discovered brother Clinton N. Howard. On the other hand I'd be willing to bet that Gary's general feelings and feltings and other such moltings didn't begin to flux and smelt and generally grope their way about the tangible world until well after His divine visitation by Master Hoover had sailed off to discuss Belgian mining operations, bobbed hairdos, and the Rum Fleet with the Great Wowser himself. Which is a real shame. Gary needs to more familiarize himself with previous White House apostles.

Lets face it. The average American religious fundamentalist specimen, still spooked by shadows and full moons and black kitty cats on fences, hasn't managed to scrabble one rung up the reality ladder in almost 100 years. Unless of course you consider operating a motor vehicle at high speeds as some kind of cosmic revelation.

Only in a land of the ignorant and superstitious and easily cowed could a delusional slackjawed sneer-n-fear back door preacher like George W. Bush be King.

*

I've been happy using "Inerrant Boy" as a term of abuse an accurate description for Bush, since, like the Pope, he's Inerrant; never makes a mistake. Plus, "Inerrant Boy" sounds like "Errand Boy," and Bush is an errand boy for the funders of the VWRC. And Bush is a boy. Men take responsibility for what they do, including their mistakes.

But after Suskind's takedown (back) I got to thinking a stronger meme might be needed, so I settled on The Holy Gut&trade'.

"Holy," because Bush's Base, and Bush himself, really do believe that Bush speaks with the voice of God.

"Gut" because when Bush says He makes decisions from His "gut," that's code for Bush saying that God spoke, and told him what to do.

And of course, The Holy Ghost is one thing that many actual Christians believe in; The Holy Gut™ is what SICs believe in. POTL, all of them.

So, I'm pleased to see that The Holy Gut&trade meme is starting to spread. Thanks to alert reader elvis56. Go thou and do likewise.

NOTE Wouldn't it be great if blogger didn't suck so bad? I mean, all I want is for it to publish when I hit the publish button. Is that too much to ask?

Here.

But guess what? The loons are wrong! The Rapture may be coming, well, like a thief in the night...

Of course, this may be a temporary thing, since it looks like the Europeans and the Asians have decided they don't want to finance our debt anymore:

ut a rash of new data, including Treasury Department figures released yesterday showing a net sell-off by foreigners of U.S. bonds in August, has stoked debate over whether overseas investors -- private individuals, institutions and government central banks -- are growing dangerously bearish on the U.S. economy.

In a speech this March, Lawrence H. Summers, a Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and now the president of Harvard University, warned of "a kind of global balance of financial terror," in which the economic well-being of the United States depends on the actions of foreign governments.

"There is surely something off about the world's greatest power being the world's greatest debtor," he said. "In order to finance prevailing levels of consumption and investment, must the United States be as dependent as it is on the discretionary acts of what are inevitably political entities in other countries?"

In a word, Yes. Because that is what Bush's reckless fiscal policies have brought us too. (Historical note: The Brits, when they had their empire, were lenders, not debtors.)

And a cheerful word from Paul Krugman here:

The twin U.S. budget and trade deficits would set alarm bells ringing if we were a third world country. For now, America gets the benefit of the doubt, but if financial markets decide that we have turned into a banana republic, the sky's the limit for interest rates.

I always wondered why Greenspan recommended that people go for variable rate mortgages...

Anyhow, Dean was so, so right. The Republicans can't handle money.

Here's the Wikipedia definition of "projection":

According to the theories of Sigmund Freud, psychological projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one "projects" one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, feelings, and so on onto someone else (usually another person, but psychological projection onto animals and inanimate objects also occurs). The principle of projection is well-established in psychology.

An illustration would be an individual who feels dislike for another person (let's say Bob), but whose unconscious mind will not allow them to become aware of this negative emotion. Instead of admitting to themselves that they feel dislike for Bob, they project their dislike onto him, so that the individual's conscious thought is not "I don't like Bob," but "Bob doesn't seem to like me."

Peter Gay describes it as "the operation of expelling feelings or wishes the individual finds wholly unacceptable - too shameful, too obscene, too dangerous - by attributing them to another." (A Life for Our Time, page 281)

The concept is anticipated in the Gospels: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
- Matthew 7:3 King James Version of the Bible

It was Dick Cheney's "chutzpah" (back) that got me thinking about this. I mean, could Cheney really be lying? Or was it possible—just possible—that he believed what he was saying, even though it bore no demonstrable relation to the truth?

Of course! WPS in action! Cheney—as does any rational person—is deeply concerned about fundamentalists getting hold of a loose nuke and taking out a city. But he can't admit to himself that he bears any responsibility for the situation: the cognitive dissonance involved in admitting that "mistakes were made" on his watch is simply too great for him. So what does he do? He projects the fear that he cannot admit to himself onto Kerry!

The examples are everywhere.

1. The Clenis™ Republican sexual looseness has been a byword ever since Henry Hyde's "youthful" indiscretions and Livingston's resignation, all the way through Jack Ryan's sex club escapades to O'Reilly's thing for loofah (not to mention Bob Dole and Viagra, and Lynne Cheney's steamy lesbian novel). So, can the Republicans admit to themselves that they're just as sex-obsessed as the average pr0n-consuming Jack(s) and/or Jill(s)? Hell no! They project the sexual feelings they cannot admit to themselves onto The Clenis™

2. Cowardice Bush didn't fulfill his obligations to his country in the National Guard; in fact, he his "PTI 961" means that the Air Force judged him "unfit to serve." Can the wingers admit that Bush is a coward? Of coursenot—they're chickenhawks themselves! Can Bush admit this to himself? Of course not! So they project the feelings of cowardice they cannot admit to themselves onto Kerry—and the SBVF[cough]T are the result.

3. Flip-flopping How many reasons did Bush give for the war? Was it 23? Campaigns against nation-building, then does it. First opposes the DHS, then supports it. Opposes the 9/11 Commission, then supports it. There are plenty such lists. But can Bush admit to himself that he changes his mind? Can the wingers? Of course not! So they project their own flip-flopping onto Kerry.

It's amazing. Not only have the wingers decided they aren't part of "the reality community," they project all the fears and feelings they can't admit to themselves onto... Who? The reality community!

No wonder my head feels like it's exploding sometimes, with all that projection directed at it.

These are just a few examples of WPS. Readers, can you give more?

Me and my shadow....

NOTE We'll have more about another Republican psychological fraily, Winger Persecution Complex (WPC) another time.

The Times is actually doing some reporting on how things went so sour for the troops in Iraq. One crucial variable is the ratio of troops to population. As we know now, Bush didn't have nearly enough troops. How did this decision come about?

If the United States and its allies wanted to maintain the same ratio of peacekeepers to population as it had in Kosovo, the briefing said, they would have to station 480,000 troops in Iraq. If Bosnia was used as benchmark, 364,000 troops would be needed. If Afghanistan served as the model, only 13,900 would be needed in Iraq. The higher numbers were consistent with projections later provided to Congress by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in Iraq. But Mr. Rumsfeld dismissed that estimate as off the mark.

He just didn't dismess the estimate—he dismissed Shinseki!

More forces generally are required to control countries with large urban populations. The briefing pointed out that three-quarters of Iraq's population lived in urban areas. In Bosnia and Kosovo, city dwellers made up half of the population. In Afghanistan, it was only 18 percent.

Neither the Defense Department nor the White House, however, saw the Balkans as a model to be emulated. ... The defense secretary said he thought that there was much to be learned from Afghanistan, where the United States did not install a nationwide security force but relied instead on a new Afghan Army and troops from other countries to help keep the peace.

James F. Dobbins, who was the administration's special envoy for Afghanistan and had also served as the ambassador at large for Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti, thought that the administration was focusing on the wrong model. The former Yugoslavia - with its ethnic divisions, hobbled economy and history of totalitarian rule - had more parallels with Iraq than administration officials appeared willing to accept, Mr. Dobbins believed. It was Afghanistan that was the anomaly.

OK. So, use rural, mountainous Afghanistan as a model for urban Iraq? Hey, why not?!

"They preferred to find a model for successful nation building that was not associated with the previous administration," Mr. Dobbins said in an interview. "And Afghanistan offered a much more congenial answer in terms of what would be required in terms of inputs, including troops."
(via Times)

Bush was scared of doing what The Clenis™did!

So he set the troop levels way too low to win the peace, and thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, are dead.

Now that's showing resolve!

I love it! That fraudulent old shark, Dick "Dick" Cheney, has finally gotten around to warning us that terrorists might nuke cities.

It's almost too rich!

First, if the terrorists do nuke a city, it's because Bush hasn't done anything to stop it—worse, he's made it more likely ("Reckless indifference to the nightmare scenario.

Second, because the Republicans treated Homeland Security funding as just another pork barrel project, and failed to fund equipment for first responders, they've crippled our ability to respond to such an attack if it comes.

Another example of WPS (Winger Projection Syndrome)....

The twins have a [cough] blog.

Anyone know who writes it?

Or perhaps this should be in the category of "Oh no! They Would Never Do That!":

(via NYT, doing its job for a change.)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps.

In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.

On the one hand, the report said, the Selective Service System should establish contacts in advance with medical societies, hospitals, schools of medicine and nursing, managed care organizations, rural health care providers and the editors of medical journals and trade publications.

On the other hand, it said, such contacts must be limited, low key and discreet because "overtures from Selective Service to the medical community will be seen as precursors to a draft," and that could alarm the public.

In this election year, the report said, "very few ideas or activities are viewed without some degree of cynicism."

Go read. Then print out (it's a couple of pages, maybe one with a small font.) Make several copies. Be sure to include the NYT masthead so nobody can claim "this is some paranoid ranting you got off one of those cockamamie "blog" things you're always reading."

You know a medical worker. Doesn't have to be a brain surgeon, can be a respiratory therapist, an LPN at a nursing home, a claims supervisor at an insurance company (what, you think knowledge of diagnostic codes and such isn't part of the military medical system? It's as much logistics as those truck-drivin' mutineers are.)

If your social circles include the people whose job it is to hire the sort of people mentioned above, make sure to get them into a conversation about how hard it is to get good people in those lines of work today. Then make sure they read it too.

(via Froom)

Here's how David E. Sanger of the New York Times and Tamara Lipper of Newsweek described it in their pool report: Bush "helicoptered back to Air Force One, and began walking up the steps he paused and turned around a couple of times to talk to Karl Rove and other aides who were standing at the bottom of the stairs. Their conversation, apparently jocular, could not be heard. Whereupon Mr. Rove, court jester, walked over to the big wheels under the wing of AF1, put down his briefcase, and lay down directly in front of the wheels. (He must have heard about the latest polls.)

"In the end, Karl decided that it wasn't worth it, and that his legacy for this campaign should not be a stain on the runway. So he got up, returned the President's customary wave to the pool, and boarded the plane."

Jesting. Jocularity. Yeah right.

I know you've heard this too many times already, but that's only because it's too true.

And I'm saying this on a day when there are some encouraging poll results for Kerry voters, like this one from New Hampshire, or this one from Ohio.

So go ahead and look at polls, we all do, we all will, and those who don't, will have them stuffed into their faces, anyway, by all purveyors of news, be they dead tree media like newspapers and magazines, their online equivalents, or the cable news networks.

Just don't pay attention to them. Don't be swayed by them. For one thing, the SCLM doesn't really think that Kerry can win. That informs their take on the polls. I'm not accusing them of wanting Bush to win; some do, some don't; how they will cast their personal vote has almost nothing to do with how they cover the election, except perhaps for those columnists who are always overcompensating for their paper-thin quasi-liberalism.

The polls can matter, of course, when the SCLM allows themselves to manipulated by the considerable forces of the Rove/Bush/Cheney machine into believing in a "move" to Bush, which is what has been happening over the weekend and into Monday, also based, of course, on the shame of John Kerry's Mary Cheney comment. (If someone would like to explain in comments why Kerry is winning that New Hampshire poll, but most voters think Bush will win anyway, please do.) It may have to do with that most basic of instincts common to the modern Republican party, brought to its nth degree in the roly poly figure of Karl Rove, to suppress voting on the other side, so look for Republicans to try and create around Kerry the aura of a loser, a guy who can't beat George Bush and therefore can't beat the terrorist threat. Where you have access to media, using email, writing letters to editors, adding to discussion threads attached to columns by the likes of Brooks et al, make fun of the spin. Rattle our confidence in their bloody faces.

Courtesy of alert reader, Fred, let me point to one of the best discussions I've read on the issue, which was posted yesterday by Ezra over at Pandagon, who had the brilliant idea of going back and looking at the polls during the final two weeks of the 2000 presidential election. I think you'll find it an entirely bracing experience.

So, it begins. Feel confused, a bit desperate, wonder how we're going to keep track of it all? Republican Dirty Tricks, I mean. Have any doubts that there will be such things, yes, more dirty tricks than on the Democratic side? Remember, it is the Republican position that a large Democratic turnout always means that someone who shoudn't be voting probably is.(see Lambert's vivisection of how one of the "good" conservatives views Mis-Election 2000).

Remember you are not alone. Of course, being at the barricades is only half the battle; getting organized to defend our democratic (note small "d") republic is the other half.

And ready to help you: The ever valuable, and to my mind, gallant folks, folk at Eriposte, after taking it upon his/her/themselves, (Hey, all I have are the initials "TR" which I assume do not connote Teddy Roosevelt, though I have no hesitation in saying that he would be with us on this one if he could) to become criticalwatch central on the miasma of lies being told by the SwiftBoat Vets Who Hate John Kerry, have/has now decided to become one of the keepers of the flame for a fair presidential election this time around: Behold: Vote Watch 2004 And here is what the site means to cover:

Vote/Election fraud, vote suppression, voting irregularities, voter intimidation in Election 2004

The goal of this site is to be Vote Watch Central in Election 2004 - so, do bookmark and visit this site over the next few weeks.

Do indeed. Visit often. And then help out. The site depends to a great extent on tips, and that doesn't only mean you have to have first-hand knowledge of some monkey-business in your neck of the woods. As important is keeping track of reporting in local media about brewing vote problems.

Because its ambitions are large, the site is a complicated one. So take a moment to familiarize yourself with out how it's organized. And for those of you who might have something to report, which could be any of us, check out this advice to potential tipsters.

I return to blogging today, my organizer's hat tucked securely away in the attic (of the mighty Corrente building, of course), but just a glance at this site gets that old itch going again. And the wonderful thing is that Eriposte's Vote2004 makes you your own organizer. For instance, there is already material up about both Florida and Ohio, increasingly the two most key states; Kerry probably must win at least one of them to win in the electoral college. Read, and if anything amiss is happening where you are, instantly get in touch with your local Democratic Party office to see if they are on it. And if they need help to get on it, consider volunteering. And if you're not needed for that, ask how else you can help. Poll watching is going to be vital. Not everybody is cut out for it; if you are and there is a need in your precinct, or any precinct, consider volunteering now; that'll be one less problem party workers will have to worry about.

Somewhat farther afield, we recently received an interesting heads-up about a group of independent Greens who, though not officeial representatives of the party, want stay loyal, and yet to make sure Kerry, not Bush, is elected. Greens For Impact insist defeating Bush and building their party are compatible goals. I agree and so should you. Their strategy: to get Greens and other independents to vote for Cobb in the Kerry states, vote for Kerry in the swing states, and not to vote for Nader in any state. Works for me. Check them out here to see if there is anything they can do for you, and anything you can do to help them. You can also find out about IRV, which is quite interesting. They strike me as the kind of good folks any Democrat should be happy to invite to the party (note he small "p"). In fact, if I believed the Greens on their own could get us to public financing of elections, I'd switch parties tomorrow. We're never going to fully heal our democracy until we get public financing and get rid of all that dirty money, which Republicans view as not a problem, and the Democratic Party knows is a problem, but can't do without it if they are going to be competitive. And we aren't going to get public financing unless the Greens and the Democrats and all other like-minded independents start working together. We need to repair the chasm Nader opened up between Democrats and Greens. We're on the same side, guys, and even if Kerry wins, we need to work together so that he can govern with a progressive agenda. And if, heaven forfend, that other guy worms his way into office again, we're really going to have to work together to defend the beloved republic. Start now; visit the website. There, I made it easy for you.

Okay, now get busy. November 2nd approaches post-haste.

Okay, this is from the cross-town/cross-river rival, but I don't think they just made this shit up. And the PP is a Newspaper Guild paper too! Imagine what would have happened to these reporters if they didn't have even that weak and feeble union:

(via Mpls Star-Tribune)

The St. Paul Pioneer Press suspended two reporters for attending the recent "Vote for Change" political fundraising concert and now faces a union grievance.

Several newspapers around the country had asked staff members not to attend the series of concerts held in Minnesota and other "battleground" states earlier this month. That's because ticket sales benefited an affiliate of the liberal group MoveOn, which would compromise the politically neutral stance expected of journalists.

However, the Pioneer Press appears to be the only newspaper to suspend reporters for going.

Gowler issued a memo Sept. 27 advising staff that "our ethics policy prevents you from engaging in activities that would be a conflict with your employment," including "concerts that are held as political fundraisers."

She said that a union steward approved the memo and that some staffers talked with her and received permission to attend the concerts.

The story describes the reporters in question as members of the 'investigative team' but doesn't say what they investigate. They were not there to cover the event for the paper in any case, they went on what used to be known as "their own time."

I blame beepers, which started this trend that there is no such thing as "your own time," your employer has a right to intrude on you at any hour of the day or night. The rule back in the day was "we don't care if you fuck elephants just as long as you're not on the circus beat."

A NOTE: Blogger is behaving poorly today, a trend I fear is likely to keep up through the election and very possibly beyond. I guess we really shouldn't bitch about it considering what it costs or mention that its programmers reek of elderberries but it reminds me of plumbing that has to be plungered every other time it's flushed. Multiple posts, if they appear, will be corrected as quickly as practicable.

First, the daily blather:

"I know there are some here who are worried about the flu season," Bush told a rally at a baseball park here [Florida]. "I want to assure them that our government is doing everything possible to help older Americans and children to get their shots," Bush said, adding that millions of vaccine doses were on hand for those who need them the most and more was being rushed in.

Umm, rushed in from where? Mars? The devil is in the details, aWol, you liar.

If free and open Iraqi elections lead to the seating of a fundamentalist Islamic government, "I will be disappointed. But democracy is democracy," Bush said. "If that's what the people choose, that's what the people choose."

So, we spent thousands of lives and billions of dollars to topple Saddam and replace him with an Ayatollah? And you’re okay with that, aWol boy, as long as that’s what the “people decide”? Okay, then, can we put Gore in office now, please? After all, the people decided.

And the people will decide again. Voter registration ends today in Connecticut and Friday in Alabama. Alexander Bolton, neo-F-word writer, notes with satisfaction that “The Bush-Cheney campaign has emphasized to its business allies the importance of urging employees to take advantage of new rules that allow them to vote weeks before Election Day.” The Bu’ushiites are getting out their vote, with help from fatcats and embedded pols.

Well, damn them, me hearties! We can do better! There are more of us, and we’re just as fired up as they are! Hell, we’re MORE fired up! Our ASSES are on the line, not just our MONEY! A lot of polling places are already open. 26 states have early voting. Big John Kerry is urging us to get out now. If we don’t have any “business allies” just go anyway! Since a General Strike is unlikely, the best idea might be to use your sick days—if you got ‘em—NOW and get to the polls with a few dozen friends. If you don’t have sick days, go on Saturday—a lot of states have polls open on Saturdays, too, or even keep them open until 7 in the evening. The guy I called last week who would drive folks is cool with the idea of taking people now if they want to go, and even making a run to the ice cream shop afterward and piling together to watch a ballgame or a movie, which is appealing to some of the folks around here who don’t get to town very often. It’s a holiday! So I’m gonna call up ten or fifteen folks—he’s got a 15 seat van—and we’re gonna make a holiday of it, dammit! I might even go see if the tire guy wants to go—he’d liven up the party for sure.

So, make your own holiday! Plaster your vehicle with Kerry Edwards signs, load up some of your friends and neighbors—make new friends, too—and take a holiday drive to the polls. Go out afterward with your buttons on and have a party! Hell, make every day until November 2nd a GOTV holiday! You’ll be able to look yourself in the mirror much more happily on Nov. 3rd if you do.

To the polls, me hearties! Make a party of it! Create a village and stomp a weasel! Arrgghhh. Only two weeks until we take back our country!

Just after I put up that "I (Heart) Leiberman" post last night I heard an odd sound out the office window. A siren. Going to stick my head out the door to try to determine direction I paused to observe the spectacular lightning show in progress.

Siren was coming from the right, which is east, which is town. The sound didn't appear to be going north or south, which would mean cops on the highway, but rather up or down. That's the tornado whistle. THIS isn't good, I said to the dog. She agreed but made no other comment, which I took as a good sign.

So I went back to brooding over the matter of early voting. Started here last Tuesday, which means this brood has been gestating for a week now. Should I vote early and give potential evildoers two weeks to root around in the box o'ballots at the county office? We still use punchcards here, which, like Richard Nixon, I don't find nearly as offensive as I used to. Easy enough to pull them out of their envelopes, check where the chad is missing, and oopsie some into the trash.

On the other hand much can happen in two weeks. Cursing my indecisive nature while padding back down the hall to the office to check weather.com, a flash of my childhood religious indoctrination came back and I mumbled "Oh Lord, send me a sign."

At that moment a flash of near-atomic brightness split the night and a clap of thunder shook the walls, and the heavens opened to pour rain upon my shingles. The TV lost the satellite signal and moments later the power as well.

Staring humbly at the ceiling, or at least where in the darkness I imagined the ceiling to be, I said "You didn't have to shout, you know" and went in search of the candles.

I'll be voting later today. Really.

Long ago, in a more innocent time, when I was still quite naive (that would be, oh, about July) I used to think it was petty and childish to try to manipulate online polls. So take a look at the following questions and considering the choices are Bush, Kerry and Whatsisname (Nehru? Nixon? I ferget, something with an "N") do what seems appropriate.

(via Richmond VA Times-Dispatch)

Who can you trust?

Who is the hardest worker?

Who is the most qualified?

Who would you rather meet?

It's on the right, scroll down just a scosh. It'll take maybe 15 seconds. Oh yeah, that "Bush" person is currently leading. Even in "hardest worker," can you imagine? Get thee hence.

How dare one question the der Leader! Via Spin Buster at the CJR's Campaign Desk.

Spin Buster
October 18, 2004
How Dare You??

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz today brings us this tidbit: Stunned by the efforts of fact-check teams and "truth squads" in the press who are belatedly holding the claims and counterclaims of the candidates up to scrutiny, the Bush campaign has struck back.

In an extraordinary response to these recent stories, Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt spoke thusly:

"The Bush campaign should be able to make an argument without having it reflexively dismissed as distorted or inaccurate by the biggest newspapers in the country."

Got that?

The Bush campaign evidently grew so accustomed to a campaign press that seldom fact-checked much of anything between March and September that it is downright indignant anyone would have the temerity to muse, "Gee, I wonder if that's right?" and then have the industry to actually ascertain the veracity of the claims and assertions contained in stump speeches and debate transcripts.

We wouldn't believe it if we hadn't seen it with our own eyes, but there it is in black-and-white.

Seeing is believing. (unless you're a member of the Cult of the 'W')

"I subordinate myself without further ado to Herr Adolph Hitler. Why? He has proved that he can lead; on the basis of his view and his will,.... He and the party are one, and offer the unity that is the unconditional premiss of success." ~ Ernst Graf zu Reventlow, 1927.

Sound familiar?

*

Good god no, not Jello Joe....I mean this Leiberman....

(via NYT, although actually a Baltimore Sun story except I hate their registration policy)

The Washington bureau chief for Sinclair Broadcast Group said he was fired Monday after he criticized the company's plans to produce a news program based on a documentary critical of John Kerry's Vietnam-era anti-war activities.

Jon Leiberman said he was fired by Joseph DeFeo, Sinclair's vice president for news, and ``escorted out of the building.''

``I was told I violated company policy by divulging information from a staff meeting to The (Baltimore) Sun in this morning's edition,'' Leiberman said late Monday.

Leiberman, 29, criticized his employer in an interview with The Sun published Monday. He said in that interview, ``I have nothing to gain here -- and really, I have a lot to lose.''

He added on Monday: ``I really feel like I can sleep at night and I can be OK with my decision'' to criticize Sinclair publicly. ... I know I stood up for the principles of objectivity. In journalism, all we have is credibility and objectivity.''

Of course, the question is how anybody with concern for credibility and objectivity ever wound up working for Sinclair in the first place, although the fact that he was a Washington (or any) bureau chief at age 29 provides a clue. At any rate I think he's not likely to be unemployed for long. He really ought to fire a resume over to the aforecited NYT just in case the despicable Okrent decides to "spend more time with his family" anytime soon. Yesterday would be nice.

How can anyone sleep?

Oh, and my theory on the Bush Bulge—Blogger ate the post, sigh—is that both theories are right. Two electronic devices are in play:

1. Bush does use an earpiece (the wire's in front, near the tie), and

2. Bush was wearing an atrial defibrillator (the square bulge in the back) and yes, that was because he had recently had a stroke.

Remember how people kept saying He couldn't be wearing an earpiece in the first debate, because he did a bad job? Well, Bush kept getting that deer in the headlights look because the two electronic devices interfered with each other... And He was probably getting static, instread of his lines, half the time.

Thoughts?

The story that will not die... If only because the Bush gang was so arrogant that they assumed nobody would actually examine the records they released (Are you listening, Dan Rather?)

However, AWOL Payroll Records Jedi Master Paul Lukasiak is still in the hunt, and these are his latest findings:

New information with regard to the meaning of a special code which appears on George W. Bush’s Air National Guard discharge papers indicates that he was being thrown out of the Air National Guard for failing “to possess the required military qualifications for his grade or specialty, or does not meet the mental, moral, professional or physical standards of the Air Force.” In other words, despite the fact that Bush had an unfulfilled six year Military Service Obligation, he was discharged from the Air National Guard not because he moved to Boston [the official White House line], but because he failed to meet his obligation to maintain his qualifications as an F102 pilot.

The special code is “PTI 961”, and is found in the “Reason and Authority for Discharge” section of Bush’s NGB-22, his “Report of Separation and Record of Service in the Air National Guard of Texas and as a Reserve of the Air Force.”

“PTI” stands for “Personnel Transaction Identifier”, a code which “identifies the controlled personnel management action being accomplished the personnel data system.” And although the particular meaning of “PTI 961” remains unknown, all “900” series PTIs mean that someone is no longer considered part of “Air Force strength.”

From AFM 30-3 (1977)

AFM 30-3 explains how “transactions” involving the “movement of a member within the Air Force strength which does not affect the total strength, that is, movement….to a different command” would have been “reported by PTI 201.” Bush’s discharge and reassignment appears to have been a “movement to a different command” (i.e. from the Air National Guard to the Air Force Reserves).

However, when an “action is reported by the 9xx PTIs” it represents a “loss to the Air Force strength.” In other words, despite the fact that Bush had almost eight months left on his six year Military Service Obligation at the time, Texas Air National Guard officers were signaling that Bush was essentially worthless to the Air Force, and should not even be retained in the “Ready Reserves” for call up in the event of a national emergency.

From Bush’s 1/30/74 Points Summary

This interpretation is fully consistent with the fact that Bush was placed in an “Inactive Status” retroactively, effective September 15, 1973. “Inactive Status” meant that Bush was no longer eligible to accrue time served toward “gratuitous” membership points.

AFM 35-3, Chapter 19, Para 2

In fact, under Air Force regulations, someone like Bush, who had an outstanding Military Service Obligation, could only be placed in an “Inactive Status” if he was being “completely severed from military status.”

This “complete severance” was an extraordinary event. Under ordinary circumstances, an obligor would be retained in an active status upon being discharged from the Air National Guard and reassigned to the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver Colorado. ARPC had two special “paper units” designed specifically for those with unfulfilled Military Service Obligations:

1) the Obligated Reserve Section, aka ARPC(ORS) which contained obligors who continued to be Ready Reservists and thus liable for mobilization upon order of the President, or

2) the Non-Affiliated Reserve Section which was dedicated to obligors, aka ARPC(NARS-B), which was an “active status” section of the Standby Reserves who members were not subject to mobilization on a Presidential order for various reasons (such as hardship, or holding critical civilian jobs.)

PTI 961 meant that Bush was unfit for service in the United States Armed Forces, and that there was no point in keeping him around in case of a national emergency.

This can be established through examining the relevant regulations. ANGR 36-05, which was the “authority” cited in Bush’s discharge papers, has a limited number of “separation criteria” that are consistent with a “900 series” Personnel Transaction Identifier, all of which could only be the result of Bush being thrown out because he wasn’t doing his job. The most likely of these criteria is that Bush was discharged for “standby screening”, and an examination of the rules under which discharges could be accomplished ... in this fashion lead to only one conclusion—that Bush was thrown out of the Air National Guard because he was “unfit to serve.”
(via The AWOL Project)

Wouldn't it be great if we had a free press in this country, and this story actually got covered? Maybe a reporter was actually paid to do this?

Oh well, we have The Amazin' Froomkin—please consider dropping him a politely worded note asking him to take a look at the latest.

After all, just because CBS blew the story is no reason for a real newsgathering organization like WaPo to do the same. Or do they want to wait until after the election, like the Times would?

Maybe He wasn't praying hard enough? Or could it be.... He's a miserable failure?

The reality:

The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low."

Sanchez, who was the senior commander on the ground in Iraq from the summer of 2003 until the summer of 2004, said in his letter that Army units in Iraq were "struggling just to maintain . . . relatively low readiness rates" on key combat systems, such as M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, anti-mortar radars and Black Hawk helicopters.

He also said units were waiting an average of 40 days for critical spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army's average. In some Army supply depots in Iraq, 40 percent of critical parts were at "zero balance," meaning they were absent from depot shelves, he said.

He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.

And the words. Of course, the words don't match the reality...

His letter of concern has surfaced after repeated statements by President Bush that he is determined to ensure that U.S. troops fighting in Iraq have all that they need to execute their missions. "I have pledged, as has the secretary of defense, to give our troops everything that is necessary to complete their mission with the utmost safety," he said in May. Earlier this month in Manchester, N.H., he said, "When America puts our troops in combat, I believe they deserve the best training, the best equipment, the full support of our government."

A copy of Sanchez's letter was given to The Washington Post by a person familiar with the situation who was dismayed that front-line troops had not been adequately supplied. That person also disagrees with the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, but said that was not part of the motivation in providing the document.
(via WaPo)

If there is a God, Bush will rot in hell for this. Imagine sending the troops to war, for a lie, not planning to win the peace, not giving the troops the protection they need, and then lying about that! Unbelievable? All too believable!

UPDATE Kerry's on it in the same news cycle. More like this please.

Here's a revealing little snippet from the Times about how the Bush administration determines how scientists are qualified to serve their country:

Earlier this year, after continuing complaints that the White House was asking litmus-test questions of nominees for scientific advisory panels, the first question asked of a candidate for a panel on Arctic issues, the candidate said, was: "Do you support the president?"
(via New York Times)

Right. After the complaints. Ever notice how when this administration gets caught doing something, he does it again, only harder and worse?

Reminds me of nothing so much as Comrades Stalin and Lysenko.

I've excerpted the essential points:

(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Laughter.)
(applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Yes!
AUDIENCE: No!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(applause)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Flip-flop! Flip-flop! Flip Flop!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Booo!
AUDIENCE: Booo!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(via Transript)

The torchlight parade after, I'm told, was fabulous.

Did the networks get conned into preempting anything for this trip?

I don't have time right now to detail the lies, and they're beside the point anyhow, but Josh Marshall points to a real whopper:

Is [Kerry] content to watch and wait, as anger and resentment grow for more decades in the Middle East...

Two words: Abu Ghraib. On Bush's watch. His responsibility. Bush really does live in a fantasy world, doens't he?

After that last bummer post of mine, I figured I'd better:

Democrats Signing Up More New Voters
By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer

The Democrats appear to be gaining the upper hand in the battle to sign up new voters in the all-important swing states, an Associated Press analysis suggests…

Now, the real test is whether the parties can get these newly registered voters to the polls. New voters are often less likely than others to actually cast a ballot.

"It's the end-all, be-all. Nothing matters unless they show up to vote," said Mindy Tucker Fletcher with the Florida GOP. With 2000 as a warning and the latest polls showing this election very close in eight critical states, the latest registration numbers could be pivotal.

(via AP)

I’d say it’s plain what needs to be done—in many states the polls are already open, even on Saturdays. If there’s a crowd, show up with goodies, raise hell about lines, drive a van, follow up with phone calls…

It may be the only way to beat the idiotocracy—um, I mean, the “rationally challenged.”

Tomorrow I guess I have to visit Dem HQ again, and see if there are more names and what else can be done.

In deference to RDF, who is actually out there in the trenches, I've removed the AP material I posted at the same time he posted above. As he says:

We have to get the new voters to the polls, defy the usual Republican trickeration on election day (via Atrios) and then win the battle in the courts when the Republicans try to steal the election in 2004 as they did in 2000.

It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

You taking election day off to help out? I've put in my request to the powers that be....

Just asking.

I mean, you'd expect that dropping bombs from airplanes on "safe houses" in urban areas would tend to create a lot of collateral damage, and ultimately make the war harder to win. Philadelphians already know this, of course.

Not that winning the war is important to Bush right now. Winning the election is important. So what's 18 days of collateral damage beside that? Besides, He can pray for the victims.

The below are from an unindicted RDF co-conspirator, who pulled them from her local fishwrapper last week. Part of some “idiot on the street” interviews following the last debate, and proof that Mencken, for all his faults, may have had a point when he said that “superficiality amounts to a national disease.” I wish I could say that it makes a difference where she lives, but it doesn’t, since I’ve heard the same kind of shit around here, too, and on the road. Maybe you have in your region, as well. I am rendered speechless by the sheer weight of their mindless idiocy. I can’t stand it; I weep; I grind my teeth; I resist the urge to a violent response with difficulty. Reading these this weekend led to finding the bottom of a whiskey bottle for myself and her, so I was hesitant to post them lest I encourage such behavior. But this is what we're up against folks, with 16 days to go. E’en now I am banging my head on the table. I’ve added my post-facto commentary, but I’m sure alert readers will be able to do better:

“Bush, because he don’t take s--t from nobody and he stands up for his beliefs and don’t back down.”

Try that approach when confronted with a large truck coming at you head-on, you brain-ischemic sack of fetid air.

“I was interested in hearing both sides and now after I heard them both, I’m voting for Bush.”

Because, y’know, I like his suit and goofy smirk.

“I’m undecided. The reason being is Bush is not for the middle-class income and Kerry want to pull out of Iraq and we started this stuff (war). Also, Kerry doesn’t state his point on issues clearly.”

‘Nuff said about clarity and undecided voters mulling issues.

“In all honestly, President Bush is a the one. We have to protect ourselves and he’s doing that.”

Yes, brainiac, he’s us protecting ourselves.

“The reason why I’m voting for Bush is because he’s doing the right thing in regards to fighting terrorism. But, we should be focusing on Osama bin Ladin. I have a feeling he’s doing the right thing by killing two birds with one stone. The other cool thing is there’s going to be some democracy in Iraq.”

It’s like, cool and stuff. Huh huh.

“They didn’t impact me. I had my mind made up who I was going to vote for, that just validated it. I just don’t trust Kerry. Too much flip-flopping back and forth. At least with Bush, whether you agree with him or not, you know what he stands for.”

This from the winner of the “What Bush Stands For” essay contest.

“It was OK. I thought Bush did a lot better. He had more statistics and knew more. You know, Kerry has an answer for everything. He was a lawyer.”

Please take that drill bit out of your ear canal.

“There are some things that you have to go off of what your personal beliefs, morals and values are. The debates don’t really sway you one way or the other, I think you already have your mind made up. There’s that 1 percent of people that need to listen and watch to see if the candidates identify with what their feelings are. I really like Bush, I think he needs to finish what he started and I think it’s going to be hard for someone else to step in and finish that.”

Yep, it’s pretty clear what your personal beliefs, morals and values are, all right.

“I think that Kerry says one thing and then says another later on. I don’t get into politics too much, but I am going to vote for Bush since Kerry is kind of flaky. It seems like Kerry will do anything to win, like talking about Cheney’s daughter. It was uncalled for.”

Oh, and my mother was a hamster and my father smelled of elderberries.

Now THIS is the one I need to talk to:

“It was the same. Both of them kept repeating themselves. I don’t think anything will change, whoever is elected.”

Oh, my poor cynical friend, what will change? Oy, where shall we start…?

No, we're not going to say a word about the Preznit's fondness for caprine literature. Many presidents and other world leaders freeze for seven minutes when informed their country is under attack, and it would be unkind of us to harp on that any more.

No, we're going to look at the similarities of thought (or more accurately "belief") and behavior of Preznit G and another world leader of recent memory. Rather, we're going to let via Juan Cole look at it for us because, like our Preznit, we prefer to let others do the hard, hard work for us:

Suskind on Bush: "I can Fly!"

Ron Suskind's profile of George W. Bush reminded me eerily of Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Suskind portrays Bush as filled with unwarranted certainty, sure that God is speaking and working through him, and convinced that decisive action shapes reality in ways that make it unnecessary to first study reality.

This approach to policy-making, it seems to me, should be called Right Maoism. The History Learning Site reminds us that in 1958 Mao initiated what he called the "Great Leap Forward" with the aim of boosting both Chinese industry and agriculture, through the reorganization of China into over 25,000 communes.

' Mao had introduced the Great Leap Forward with the phrase "it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever." By the end of 1958, it seemed as if his claim was true . . . However, in 1959, things started to go wrong.

In 1960 alone, as a result of Mao's faith-based initiative, 9 million persons starved to death. The total toll from famine, hunger, and illness in 1959-1962 was around 20 million dead.'

The above description of the way in which China fell apart under Mao sounds eerily like contemporary Iraq under Bush, since both situations were produced by the same mantra. Reality doesn't matter. Power creates reality. Suskind says that a senior Bush official told him, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." This official may as well have been quoting Mao's Little Red Book: ""it is possible to accomplish any task whatsoever."

Let's look at other areas on which Bush's "we're an empire now and we make the reality" doctrine has been a miserable failure.

There's more, read if you've got time. Only us hopeless squares in the "reality based community" care about things like history anyway you know. I just wanted to run the words "miserable failure" one more time.

Okay folks I understand why you're nervous that several polls are showing Chimpy opening up a lead on Kerry. And since the media often creates the reality, the fact they are playing this (according to Unka Karl's script) as evidence of Bush "pulling ahead" in the election is certainly something to be concerned about.

But not so fast folks. First of all, the two polls that are showing the biggest leads have been two of the least reliable in the last two elections. The poll that was the most reliable in the last couple of elections, the Reuters-Zogby poll, shows the race as a dead heat.

However, the big thing to keep in mind is that none of this horse race stuff means a damned thing. It's all about the Electoral College folks. Winning the popular vote in a presidential election doesn't do a thing for you -- it's the Electoral College that's important. And, if you've been following your state-level polls (go here), they have some fairly good news for Kerry. In fact, they show Kerry with a lead currently in the Electoral College.

So don't despair -- yet. However, I do agree with several of my friends who have suggested it's time to dump the stump speech on healthcare and the economy. Kerry needs to just hit Bush over the head with the immoral fool's errand of a war he took us into a year and a half ago.

That one issue is what is going to win it (or lose it) for Kerry. Only one issue counts: Iraq. That's all W is talking about.

It's all Kerry should be talking about as well.

Interesting!

The U.S. Supreme Court told a lower court to reconsider Texas's new federal voting districts, which may add as many as six Republicans to the state's congressional delegation in the Nov. 2 election.

The court, acting two weeks before the election, told a federal court to take a new look at the districts in light of the justices' April ruling in a Pennsylvania case. In that decision, the Supreme Court rejected claims that Republican-drawn districts were so partisan they violated the Constitution. Today's action leaves the districts in place for the Nov. 2 election.

In the Texas case, minority voters and Democratic lawmakers say Texas Republicans illegally reconfigured the state's 32 districts mid-decade for partisan purposes. Opponents also said the new districts reduce the voting clout of blacks and Hispanics.
(via Bloomberg News)

Billo'reillyville

Nursing a headache, watching the news break
All of the talkshows, muckraking turmoil
Selling falafel, beside a motel wall
Smell that asphalt its begining to boil

Wasting my day away in Bill O'Reillyville
Chugging down my last bottle of malt
Some bitches claim that theres a phone call to blame
But I know it's all Bill Clinton's fault.

Don't know the season, abandoned all reason
Got nothing to screw but some airhead named Dew
But shes got some body, a local news hotty,
Just ask Rush Limbaugh, he knows her too!

Wasting my day away in Bill O'Reillyville
Chugging down my last bottle of malt
Some bitches claim that theres a phone call to blame
But I know it's all Bill Clinton's fault.

So now I'm a beach slut
That can't keep his my mouth shut
Wild oats, right here I have sown
And theres always my shower, where I regain my power
With my loofa sponge friend and a bag of homegrown.

Wasting my day away in Bill O'Reillyville
Slugging back my last botle of scotch
Sometimes I claim that there's extortion to blame
But I know it's all in my crotch.

(farmtunes'04)

*

Back to the ol' grind.

But maybe.... there'll be a surprise? Since it's October, and all?

At the risk of repeating myself, a golden oldie. This is the moment when I understood that the Times had, at last and completely, broken faith with its readers:

I remember the exact story that made me understand how decrepit, how complicit, and how complacent the Times had become, the moment when things snapped: When I read the story the Times "broke" that showed how the "bourgeois rioters" [like F/Buckhead, back] who intimidated voting officials in Florida 2000 [were] really paid Republican staffers. [The Times] had the video that gave the evidence while the recount was still going on but only published the story well after the Supreme Court selected Bush. So, the answer to the question, Where was the Times when the news was breaking? has, for a long time, been... What? "Nowhere"? "In the tank"?

When will the Times become a news gathering organization again?
(via "Department of Closing the Barn Door After the Horse is Gone," back)

So, when will the Times become a news gathering organization again? The jury is still out. While the Times editorial page has covered Election Fraud 2004 reasonably well (though I can't lay my hand on the series right now) the rest of the paper has been the sloppy, lazy, faux balanced, and whorish publication we've come to know and love.

Witness this week's coverage of Election Fraud 2004.

First, we look at the outright whorishness. From, fantastically, the same magazine that managed to publish Suskind's work (here), we get this odious little piece of "he said/she said" hackery from American Standard's Christoper Caudwell:

But the rebarbative tone of the campaign so far -- from the Swift-boat ads to the ''60 Minutes'' forgeries -- owes less to Iraq or Sept. 11 than to what happened in 2000. Each side seems to believe that there was a brazen attempt to steal the election four years ago. Democrats think it succeeded; Republicans think it failed. One paramount ''issue'' is responsible for the vitriol of recent months: the issue of whether President Bush governs legitimately.

"Seems"? I know not seems.

[Some claim] that the 2000 Florida election was corruptly conducted -- whether through a Republican-engineered miscounting of votes, bureaucratic obstruction (misleading ballots, etc.) or partisanship on the Supreme Court. History will not be kind to this claim, which has a dog-ate-my-term-paper quality: the extravagant profusion of supporting theories argues against its probability, not for it. The equally heartfelt complaints of Nixon supporters in 1960, in the wake of results in Illinois and Texas, are little remembered today.
(via Times Magazine)

Apparently, Caudwell thinks he's the Second Coming of George Will. Since he can use a 75-cent word like "rebarbative," and all. But look at what passes for analysis, in this piece! Caudwell seems to think it's all about feelings—"tone," "brazen," "heartfelt complaints." And people "think" this happened, or that happened. What to do? Caudwell throws up his hands in despair at the extravagant profusion of theories. How lazy! Of course, it's almost impossible to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it....

But, as we know—and Bush would know if he had ever done the 12 Steps—feelings aren't facts. And the facts are that the Republicans did steal Florida, did, therefore, steal the 2004 election, and Bush does not, therefore, govern "legitimately." (Excellent veneer of objectivity; kudos to Caudwell for saying this out loud.) And notice the fact that Caudwell conveniently omits: he talks of miscounting ballots, the butterfly ballot, and the partisan Supreme Court, while never mentioning the one fact that really matters: Jeb Bush set the table for the whole fiasco by disenfranchising thousands of Democratic voters through a "purge" of the rolls—exactly the same gambit he tried again this year ("Jebbie ignored advice to scrap biased felon-purge system," back).

What a piece of work is man. At this point, we, and Caudwell, would do well to remember Okrent's Law: "The pursuit of balance can create imbalance, because sometimes something is true" (back)

And so to the porcelain bowl for self-interestedly lazy and deceptive millionaire pundit Christopher Caudwell. But the Times is also covering [cough] Election fraud 2004 as news. Here are some excerpts from the flaghip News of the Week in Review—truly a "revue" worthy of the Folies Bergere:

Could the country stand another Florida? How deep would the political and psychological damage be?
(via Week in Review)

Why, it's all about feelings again! About psychology! It's almost as if the American Standard commentator and the Times reporter were reading from the same playbook, isn't it?

But scars remain. Questions about the legitimacy of the Bush presidency and the fairness of the 2000 election have never died. Many Democratic voters have nursed feelings of anger and disenfranchisement for the past four years. Partly as a result, the 2004 campaign has been among the most bitter in decades.

Wow, there are those feelings again. How childish of disenfranchised voters to feel hurt! How immature of American voters, watching a slow-motion coup in progress, to be unable to "move on" and accept the result! Why can't they just lay back and enjoy it?

Some scholars and political combatants believe a second contested election could open lasting fissures in American society. They fear that the red-blue political geography of the country could become imprinted on the national psyche for years to come, squelching hopes for bipartisan cooperation in governing the country.

As if. Kinda like waiting for Lincoln Chafee show Tom "Frenchy" DéLay the error of his ways...

This time could be different, [David Herbert Donald, an emeritus professor of history at Harvard] warned. "There was a lot more residual ill feeling...

Those feelings again!

... more of a feeling that 'we were robbed,'...

Twice now! [Though it would be reassuring to know that some ignorant Times copy "editor" altered Joe Jacob's immortal lament "We wuz robbed!" into the anodyne "we were robbed."]

...in 2000 than in 1876," he said. "If we have another cliffhanger in which the court decides the outcome, there will be serious doubts about whether this is the best way to run a government."

If either candidate wins without leading the popular vote, as Mr. Bush did in 2000, there could be serious calls to abolish the Electoral College and make other fundamental changes in the machinery of American democracy.

Um, no. There will not be fucking "serious calls" for anything. What there will be is massive resistance to an illegitimate regime. (Knowing this in advance, will the Times cover the story anyhow? They sure didn't when the illegitimate regime took power the first time, as we have seen.)

There was a bitterness about the 2000 election that persists in a good many Democratic circles, Mr. Donald said, adding: ''That certainly will be revived if there's another dispute."

Oh, there are those feelings again.

Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state who oversaw Vice President Al Gore's legal challenges in 2000, said that the actions of the Supreme Court and some Florida officials that year had, at least temporarily, tarnished the American way of choosing leaders. A second tainted election, followed by more bare-knuckled partisan conflict, Mr. Christopher said, would be far more damaging. He urged both parties to cool their rhetoric and put the nation's interest ahead of partisan advantage.

"A repeat performance would do irreparable damage to the good will and forbearance so essential to a functioning democracy," he wrote in an e-mail message. "For the political parties, 2004 could be one time when winning isn't everything."

Really? Well, who exactly should do the deciding that "winning isn't everything"? The Democrats, "for the good of the country"? Another "gracious" concession speech, this time from John Kerry? I don't think do. Please, let's hope that the Kerry campaign doesn't let poor old doddering Warren Christopher anywhere near their efforts to ensure that the election is truly an election. And if we see the SCLM making Christopher into a pundit, or their "go to" guy (kinda like Susan Estrich, eh?).... We'll know the fix is in.

The Florida dispute, the 36 days of suspense and the United States Supreme Court's pre-emptive decision tested America's faith in its ability to conduct elections, a faith that had gone largely unquestioned since 1876. Richard Nixon chose not to challenge the results when he lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960, despite questions about Democratic vote fraud in Cook County, Ill.

Not true. In fact, Nixon mounted a massive challenge. A false meme propagated by Republicans and, in fact, by Caudwell. Wow, again, huh? It's almost like they're reading from the same playbook!

Grievances about the 2000 election are not confined to one party or one state, but appear to be felt particularly strongly by minorities and the poor, whose votes were disproportionately tossed out in Florida and elsewhere, said Christopher Edley Jr., dean of Boalt Hall, the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

Wow! Imagine that! The poor have "grievances" because their votes were tossed out!

"These huge precinct-to-precinct, county-to-county differences in spoiled ballot rates are intolerable, especially when the differences are so strongly correlated with class and color," Mr. Edley said, adding that if much of the electorate believes that an election result derived from unfair and inconsistent voting methods, "then defeat is both bitter and embittering."

Those feelings again. "Bitter"? No. Justifiably outraged? Yes.

Republicans appear more sanguine about the condition of American democracy and the prospects for the future.

I wonder why!

"If it happens one time, it's an anomaly; a second time, and it's clear there are real problems," said Elizabeth Garrett, director of the University of Southern California-Caltech Center on Law and Politics. "We cannot take this for every election, but if we do have another contested election, electoral reform efforts will have to be taken."

Woe! That's bold, isn't it? The Republicans steal an election a second time, and "electoral reform efforts will have to be taken." Unbelievable? All too believable.

Maybe one of these professors or pundits can tell me why, if a second Bush regime is not legitimate, I, or any citizen, should obey its dictates?

Some very weird, and disturbing, talk over at Daily Kos about absentee ballots. Apparently, and I'm sure by mere coincidence, people in at least two states are finding out that it costs more to mail them than a single first-class stamp will cover.

Now it's possible that there are even legitimate reasons such as extra sheets of paper for local races, initiatives, propositions, etc. One of the states is safely (sadly) red Nebraska, for pete's sake, where reports are it costs 83* cents to mail one.

The problem is in...drumroll....yer never gonna guess this one... Florida! Yes, yes, I know you're just as shocked as I am. But one correspondent reports that they want people to go to their post offices and get the item weighed to make sure postage is correct.

So screw 'em. If you've got a postage meter, USPS certified, use that. Otherwise just don't take any chances, it's an extra 37 cents for gossakes, put on an extra stamp even if the ballots are printed on tissue paper.

Come to think of it, use two extras. A buck a ballot to save your country?

Details at dKos.

*Update: Corrected per alert reader Jim Shirk, who reports in comments "Pleeze -- it's not $0.60. It's $0.83, at least that's what I heard today at Coordinated Democratic Campaign HQ here in Tampa. Check the postage at the PO, or put on a $1.00 stamp or 3 $0.37 cent first class stamps -- The American way of life is worth at least $0.97."

Couldn't agree with you more Jim, thanks for posting. And Albert Champion's advice to pony up for certified mail/return receipt requested is worth serious consideration as well. It ain't paranoia if they really are out to get ya.

Man, in a suit? That just makes it all... so... much.... worse....

Since its Bishops have abandoned neutrality, and are trying to get one candidate elected?

Modo (for once) has a nice takedown:

Some of the bishops - the shepherds of a church whose hierarchy bungled the molestation and rape of so many young boys by tolerating it, covering it up, enabling it, excusing it and paying hush money - are still debating whether John Kerry should be allowed to receive communion.
(via NY Times)

"Holier than thou! Holier than thou!"

We've been following the saga of the 343rd Quartermaster Company (here, here, and here.

I guess you could call it a "mutiny." Or you could call it a "sitdown strike." Whatever you call it, it worked. The Army is putting armor on the trucks.

As a result of the incident, the entire 343rd is in the midst of a two-week "stand down," bolting on new armor and upgrading maintenance on its vehicles. The 18 soldiers under investigation must complete additional training and win re-certification to regain permission to perform convoy missions, [a military spokesman] said.
(via AP)

If there'd been more strikes like this earlier, maybe armor would have gotten on the HumVees faster. Since Bush would prefer to pray rather than take a look at facts on the ground, I guess its up to the troops to give him a little reality therapy. Eh?

You know, the one that just happened to disenfranchise Democrats, but left Republicans with the right to vote? Due to a "technical error"? The one that Republican election commissioner Glenda "The Bad Witch"] Hood spent $100,000 in taxpayer dollars trying to keep secret? The one that was only exposed after a court order? That's the one!

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ignored advice to throw out a flawed felon voter list before it went out to county election offices despite warnings from state officials, according to a published report Saturday.

In a May 4 e-mail obtained by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida Department of Law Enforcement computer expert Jeff Long told his boss that a Department of State computer expert had told him "that yesterday they recommended to the Gov that they 'pull the plug'" on the voter database.

The e-mail said state election officials "weren't comfortable with the felon matching program they've got," but added, "The Gov rejected their suggestion to pull the plug, so they're 'going live' with it this weekend."

Long, who was responsible for giving elections officials his department's felon database, confirmed the contents of the e-mail Friday to the Herald-Tribune. He said he didn't remember the specifics, but that Paul Craft, the Department of State's top computer expert, had told him about the meeting with Bush.

A software program matched data on felons with voter registration rolls to create the list of 48,000 names. Secretary of State Glenda Hood junked the database in July after acknowledging that 2,500 ex-felons on the list had had their voting rights restored.

Most were Democrats, and many were black. Hispanics, who often vote Republican in Florida, were almost entirely absent from the list due to a technical error.
(via AP)

Oh, I just have to repeat—"technical error." Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! That's too rich! "Technical error"! Stop it, you're killing me! Oh, it hurts me to laugh, but I can't help it! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

But hey! None of this matters! According to Judge Posner, who is obviously angling for one of the seats on the Supreme Court that will be in Inerrant Boy's gift, there's no Constitutional right to vote, back. So, that's all settled. No worries.

UPDATE Here's a nasty little detail from the original Herald Tribune story that the mighty AP did not deign to include:

So far, the only review of the purge list project is being conducted by [Republican election commissioner Glenda "The Bad Witch"] Hood's inspector general.

That investigation has been going on for more than three months with no published findings. Under state public records law, records generated from such investigations become public after 60 days.

But Department of State officials have not turned over any documents from the investigation despite repeated requests from the Herald-Tribune.

"The Florida Department of State is processing the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's requests -- plural," Faraj said. "We'll get them to you as soon as we're at that point."

Faraj told the Herald-Tribune last week that Kirby Mole, Hood's inspector general, had not finished his review. She said she had no idea whether it would be completed before the November election.
(via Sarasota Herald Tribune)

Well, well. A Bush records secret in defiance of the law? Sound familiar?

Nice job, Dems.

Kerry talked about Social Security from the pulpit of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio, citing a report in The New York Times Magazine [back here] that quoted Bush as telling supporters that "privatizing Social Security" would be high on his second-term agenda.

He called it Bush's "January surprise," and said it may be good for "the wealthiest people and the well connected in America, but it's a disaster for America's middle class."

Citing estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, Kerry said Bush's plan would mean "benefit cuts for seniors of between 25 percent and 45 percent. That's up to $500 less for food, for clothing, for the occasional gift for a grandchild," he said, and vowed anew not to cut benefits or raise the retirement age if elected.

What's your point, John? Hey, throw Momma from the train! Bush speaks with the voice of God, and He says it's OK!

Bush has long advocated overhauling Social Security to allow younger workers the choice of putting a portion of their payroll taxes into private accounts.

Aides also have said that current Social Security beneficiaries and those approaching the age of eligibility would not be required to accept any changes in the current system.

But implicit in any such modification is the need either to replace or offset the money that will begin flowing to private accounts rather than traditional Social Security. Estimates run into the trillions of dollars over several years.

Finally! The 2-1=5 Bush arithmetic makes it into the mainstream. So why isn't this in the lede?

Purely in political terms, Republican survey data long ago discovered that voters recoil at the use of the word "privatize" in connection with either Social Security or Medicare.
(via AP)

Well, maybe people—especially people on Social Security or near it—can do the math a lot better than Bush can. After all, they have to worry about facts, where all Bush has to do is pray about it.

Oh, wait, I have the answer! The Holy Gut™ said it's OK. Wow, I felt my faith waver for a moment. Phew! Snark off....

More news from their local paper, the Jackson Clarion Ledger:

Five members of an Iraqi-based platoon who refused a convoy order earlier this week were told they would be punished with a general discharge, the father of one of the soldiers said Saturday.

Right. And I'm sure that paperwork won't be covered with rat turds.

"My son said they are getting ready to be discharged and would be home in three or four weeks," said Ricky Scott of Quinton, Ala., father of Spc. Scott Shealey. "It's just a boot ... some way to put some type of close to this while using them as scapegoats."

A general discharge can be given by a military administrative discharge board without a hearing, said military law expert Mark Stevens of Rocky Mount, N.C. "It is not necessarily a bad thing," Stevens said. "It's certainly better than being charged with a crime. It is sort of a wimp's way to get it done and get rid of this thing."

Scott said his son told him some members of the 343rd, a supply unit whose general mission is to deliver fuel and water, left their station at Tallil Air Force Base for Taji, Iraq, days before the ultimate refusal of orders. The fuel was denied in Taji because it was contaminated and could not be used for aviation purposes, he said. The soldiers, who were not being escorted by armed personnel, were fired upon during their return trip by about 50 insurgents but were able to make it back without casualties.

There have been 1,089 U.S. casualties in Iraq, according to CNN.com. Many of them took place during attacks on U.S. convoys.

The trip took five days, Scott said, and the soldiers were ordered to deliver the same fuel to another base about two days later with what Shealey termed "civilian vehicles" with speeds no higher than 40 mph, Scott said. "That is when they said they had enough," he said.

Nancy Wessin of Boston, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, said it takes courage for soldiers' relatives to speak out.

"People say you are disloyal or unsupportive when you speak out, but we feel the best way to support the troops is to really let people know what is going on by sharing your story," Wessin said.
(via Clarion Ledger)

Wow. Radical idea! You can support the troops by applying enlightenment concepts like "evidence" and "reasoning"! Way to go, Nancy! (See Military Families Speak Out)

Incidentally, this episode shows why the "support the troops, support the mission" concept is so lethally inane. The mission was to deliver contaminated fuel, fuel that was useless, in vehicles without armor, and no air support, down a highway where ambushes were constant.

So why support that mission?

Then again, why support the mission in Iraq? If the mission is crazy, the best way to support the troops is to show, using "evidence" and "reasoning," just how crazy the mission is. Sure, you get called a traitor by the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and the media whores, but that will happen no matter what, and for any pretext, so why worry?

Finally, that cat's out of the bag.

But first, go read Ron Suskind's latest in The Times Magazine. Do it now. In fact, reward good work by paying the Times tax this Sunday—I did. Read the whole thing. Then make sure all your undecided friends read it, and ask them if they want the country run on the basis of what The Holy Gut™decides for them, or as a democracy, where the people are sovreign?

Now, most of the blogosphere commentary on the Suskind piece has focussed on Bush's "faith", and what it means when a country has a Leader who doesn't believe that facts are important, and who won't take questions because they might undermine his confidence.

However, Suskind also quotes a meeting where Bush lays out his agenda if he is elected, which is what I want to focus on here. It's radical right, and it's going to fuck you, the country, the world, and everybody but Bush's friends, included His deluded followers. Surprise! Be afraid. Be very afraid:

"I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's throat,'' George W. Bush said last month at a confidential luncheon a block away from the White House...

This is before Bush lost the first debate, of course. And the second, and the third.

... with a hundred or so of his most ardent, longtime supporters, the so-called R.N.C. Regents.

The Bush these supporters heard was a triumphal Bush, actively beginning to plan his second term.

He said emphatically that he expects the Republicans will gain seats to expand their control of the House and the Senate. According to notes provided to me, and according to several guests at the lunch who agreed to speak about what they heard, he said that ''Osama bin Laden would like to overthrow the Saudis . . . then we're in trouble. Because they have a weapon. They have the oil.'' He said that there will be an opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice shortly after his inauguration, and perhaps three more high-court vacancies during his second term.

Bush said: ''I'm going to push nuclear energy, drilling in Alaska and clean coal. Some nuclear-fusion technologies are interesting.'' He mentions energy from ''processing corn.''

''I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform...

You know to put your hand on your wallet when you hear a Republican use the word "reform," right?

privatizing of Social Security.''

Ah. So (1) that legalizes the theft of a generation's worth of payroll taxes by Bush for the super-rich ("Heist of the century," back), and (2) guarantees the collapse of the program, all for the sake of the same Wall Street brokers who brought you the dot com implosion ("When they say it's not about the money, it's about the money," back). Nice!

The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.''

Ah. Happy memories. The ol' duck pit... So unfairly stigmatized as eliminationist rhetoric... Anyhow:

The president, listing priorities for his second term, placed near the top of his agenda the expansion of federal support for faith-based institutions. The president talked at length about giving the initiative the full measure of his devotion and said that questions about separation of church and state were not an issue.
(via Times Magazine)

Right. Translation: A big ol' spoils system and slush fund for every SIC in Rove's Election 2004 database. Paid for with your tax dollars!

Let's review! Here's Inerrant Boy's real platform:

1. One party control of the government, and the elimination of all checks and balances against the radical right.

2. War in defense of the Saudis. (Um, with what Army? The one He sets up with the draft, of course!)

3. Four Supreme justices (meaning overturning Roe v. Wade and God knows what else, if the Supreme Court becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Federalist Society, as it will.)

4. Total power by corporations over consumers and employees ("tort reform")

5. A national sales tax ("tax reform")

6. Privatizing Social Security.

7. An end to the separation of church and state.

So, don't vote for Nader, OK?

and see if they get arrested, thrown down on the ground and kicked, or beaten up and thrown out.

What do you think the odds are?

(Use the search bar to find "MBF Watch" if you don't believe all this is happening. You think I'm joking when I call these "Partei" rallies? Ha ha, only serious. Read The latest from Orcinus. OK, so it's long. Figuring out what's happening to your country is hard work. Go do it.)

Just asking.

Almost two-thirds of [the troops] surveyed by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, or 65 percent, said they believed President Bush "had underestimated the number of troops needed in Iraq," the poll said.
(via Reuters)

Nice to see Bush taking responsibility for this. Oh, wait... He did! That was the "catastrophic success" comment. Oooh, I felt my faith waver there for a moment. Phew!

Arf!

Tony Blair has secretly agreed to allow President Bush to site US missiles on British soil as part of the new US "son of Star Wars" programme, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Downing Street has given an agreement in principle to the Pentagon to station interceptor missiles at RAF Fylingdales, North Yorkshire.

The confidential deal goes far beyond the official position that Britain is providing enhanced radar provision for the US national missile defence programme.

News of the deepening collaboration over the missile defence programme comes as the Prime Minister considers an American request to send British troops to the US-controlled sector of Iraq.(via Reuters)

Sounds like a deal to me, and Blair got suckered. I mean, trading actual soldiers' lives for a missile defense system that only works when Pentagon flaks technicians tell it where the missiles are coming from? WTF?

Then there's this casual aside:

There was growing anger last night that UK soldiers stationed in Iraq might be put in even greater danger than they are already just to assist a pre-election offensive ordered by the Bush administration.

"Pre-election offensive" is a fine example of that dry, dry British understatement, don't you think? (Please refer all complaints to The Department of "No! They Would Never Do That!"

OK, I admit it. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me... WhatImeantosayish, I conshealed a bottle in a brown paper bag, and shmuggled it into The Mighty Corrente Building, and then, when my shift ended, I repaired to my tiny room under the stairs, and proceeded to empty it. (And, from their posts and comments, Xan and RDF are doing the same thing. Parallelism of great minds....)

And now, when it comes time to put out my tiny candle, man, it's really hard. There seem to be two of them. Or is it three....

Tinfoil hat time: It's all an evil plot by Acting President Rove to get his worst enemies totally plotzed. And indeed, he's throwing so much crap out right now that the only sane response is self-medication....

This is the weekend, eh? The news is supposed to be slow. What have we got?

1. The MBFs are going nuts. Run this search.

2. Bush totally fucked up the flu vaccine (here, here, and here).

3. Winger judge Posner issued an opinion that says there's no constitutional right to vote (here) Just in time for Ohio 2004! Or Pennsylvania 2004... Or wherever Bush chooses to steal the election this time.

4. Lynne Cheney cheneys her own daughter. She seems ashamed of the love that dares not speak its name.

5. Surprise! Bush had no plan to win the peace. A slogan? No. The facts (here)

But I think the most important story today is this one, about The Holy Gut™(here):

This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic ''base'' that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God.

Um, note to Times copy editors: that's not "leader." It's "Leader."

Are we going to stand for this nonsense?!

I remember a wonderful line from Kingsley Amis's great Lucky Jim. The hero, Dixon, has smuggled a bottle into the guest room where he is spending the night:

The cork burst with a festive pop. Some of the liquid coursed refreshingly down Dixon's chest.

Indeed. The only way to deal with the contradictions and the insanity is to get hammered. And I know I won't pay for it in the morning, this time!

Oh, and I canvassed for a MoveOn GOTV this morning. Nobody home, mostly, but at least I cleaned some bad addresses out of the database. Go thou and do likewise.

Pop!

Knight-Ridder, amazingly, is still doing, like, actual reporting. What a weird business model, when everyone knows that the "news" is just entertainment!

The KR piece has two themes: (1) Bush had no postwar plan, didn't think one was needed, and ignored the plans that existed. Bush's guys had a theory, but a theory is not a plan. (2) Bush ruthlessly suppresses all who disagree with him. Did it then, does it now. Any wonder he has issues dealing enlightenment concepts like "evidence" and "reasoning"?

In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.

The slide said: "To Be Provided."

Heh. Strange to think of a PowerPoint briefing revealing the truth about anything, eh? Who said there are no present-day miracles?!

Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that [the administration] invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.

"We didn't go in with a plan. We went in with a theory," said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.

The review found that the president and many of his advisers ignored repeated warnings that rebuilding Iraq would be harder than ousting Saddam and tossed out years of planning about how to rebuild Iraq, in part because they thought pro-American Iraqi exiles and Iraqi "patriots" would quickly pick up the pieces. The CIA predicted up until the war's opening days that the Iraqi army would turn against Saddam, which never happened.

This report is based on official documents and on interviews with more than three dozen current and former civilian and military officials who participated directly in planning for the war and its aftermath. Most still support the decision to go to war but say many of the subsequent problems could have been avoided.

Every effort was made to get those who were interviewed to speak for the record, but many officials requested anonymity because they didn't want to criticize the administration publicly or because they feared retaliation.

Meaning that, so far, the felony of outing Valerie Plame had netted out positive for Bush. If only these guys were as good at "politics by other means" as they are at politics!

One official who was deeply involved in the pre-war planning effort - and was critical of it - initially agreed but then declined to cooperate after expressing concern that the Justice Department might pursue a reporter's telephone records in an effort to hunt down critics of the administration's policies.

The weird thing about this that Bush always claims the reason for executive privilege is that he gets unvarnished advice. Then he fires the people who disagree with him in public (Shinseki) and emasculates the ones who disagree with him in private (Powell, I imagine). Go figure. I guess The Holy Gut™—farmer, you picturing that?—tells Bush all He, and we, need to know....

After more than a year of internal squabbling, U.S. military commanders, intelligence officers and diplomats in Baghdad are acting as a team.

Wow, that's really good news! Especially after 1000 of our troops have died....

But the hole created by the absence of an adequate plan to rebuild Iraq, the failure to provide enough troops to secure the country, the misplaced faith in Iraqi exiles and other mistakes made after Baghdad fell is a deep one.

"We've finally got our act together, but we're all afraid it may be too late," said one senior official who's engaged daily in Iraq policy.

Gee, sounds like some sort of, um, management problem...

The Bush administration's failure to plan to win the peace in Iraq was the product of many of the same problems that plagued the administration's case for war, including wishful thinking, bad information from Iraqi exiles who said Iraqis would welcome American troops as liberators and contempt for dissenting opinions.

I don't get the point of this. Since The Holy Gut™ made these decisions, how could they be wrong?

And now we get the list of ignored warnings that there was no plan to win the peace:

[1]"The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace in Iraq is real and serious," warned an Army War College report that was completed in February 2003, a month before the invasion. Without an "overwhelming" effort to prepare for the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the report warned: "The United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."

A half-dozen intelligence reports also warned that American troops could face significant postwar resistance. This [2]foot-high stack of material was distributed at White House meetings of Bush's top foreign policy advisers, but there's no evidence that anyone ever acted on it.

"It was disseminated. And ignored," said a former senior intelligence official.

The [3]Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency was particularly aggressive in its forecasts, officials said. One briefing occurred in January 2003. Another, in April 2003, weeks after the war began, discussed Saddam's plans for attacking U.S. forces after his troops had been defeated on the battlefield.

Similar warnings came from the [4]Pentagon's Joint Staff, the [5]State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the [6]CIA's National Intelligence Council. The council produced reports in January 2003 titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq."

That was the list of warnings The Holy Gut™ ignored. Now here's the list of problems The Holy Gut™ didn't handle:

In the first weeks of 2003, as war appeared inevitable, it began to dawn on many officials throughout the government that the United States was unprepared to stabilize and rebuild Iraq after Saddam was defeated.

At the CIA, the national intelligence officer for military issues, retired Maj. Gen. John Landry, became concerned that the military wasn't preparing adequately for postwar Iraq.

He and fellow officer Paul Pillar, acting on their own, convened a [1]brainstorming session of government and private experts at the CIA two months before the war.

It uncovered many problems, including some that couldn't be solved before the war began.

The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios, [2]couldn't get Pentagon approval to pre-position in Kuwait all the relief supplies he thought would be necessary. [3]The White House was slow to release funds for rebuilding Iraq.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay [3]arner wasn't named to lead Iraq's reconstruction until January 2003 and didn't oversee the first major interagency conference on postwar Iraq until Feb. 21, less than a month before the invasion.

Franks' Central Command did have an extensive plan to restore order and begin rebuilding the country, called Operation Desert Crossing, said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who drew up the plan and updated it continuously when he led Centcom until 2000. [6] [The stabilization plan] was never utilized.

And now the most revealing detail of all:

[6]On March 17, 2003, two days before the war began, ground force commanders asked the Army War College for a copy of the handbook that had governed the U.S. occupation of postwar Germany, which began in 1945.

Love that deadpan military humor. Unbelievable? All too believable.

And now, Rummy and The Holy Gut™ micromanage the war:

Rumsfeld and his aides made it clear what would happen to generals who bucked them. When, under persistent congressional questioning in February 2003, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said he thought several hundred thousand U.S. troops would be needed to secure Iraq, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz publicly called his estimate "wildly off the mark." Then Rumsfeld's office leaked word of Shinseki's replacement 15 months before Shinseki was due to retire, both embarrassing and neutralizing the Army's top officer. "Rumsfeld just beat up on the military," said the senior intelligence official. "And so they just shut up and did what they were told."

Four senior officers who were directly involved said Rumsfeld and Franks micromanaged the complex process of deciding when and how the troops and their equipment would be sent to Iraq, called the Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data, canceling some units, rescheduling others and even moving equipment from one ship to another.

As a result, two Army divisions that Centcom wanted to help secure the country weren't on hand when Baghdad fell and the country lapsed into anarchy, and a third, the 1st Cavalry from Fort Hood, Texas, fell so far behind schedule that on April 21 Franks and Rumsfeld dropped it from the plan.

And who did The Holy Gut™ rely on to secure Iraq, instead of US troops? Why, the neo-con man-slut, Ahmed Chalabi:

Instead of providing a plan and enough troops to take control of Iraq,
officials, advisers and consultants in and around the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office bet on Iraqi exiles such as Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, who assured them that Iraqis would welcome American troops as liberators.

Douglas Feith, the Defense Department's No. 3 official, and former Pentagon consultant Richard Perle both acknowledged that their vision for post-Saddam Iraq included putting pro-Western exiles in power.

"We had a theme in our minds, a strategic idea, of liberation rather than occupation, giving them (Iraqis) more authority even at the expense of having things done with greater efficiency" by coalition military forces, Feith told The Philadelphia Inquirer last month. Perle, in an interview, said he and others had for years advocated "helping the Iraqis liberate themselves - which was a completely different approach than we settled on."

"We'll never know how it would have come out if we did it the way we wanted to do it," he said.

Nice to see the "Perle of Great Price" taking responsibility....

The CIA, the DIA and the State Department all warned that Chalabi was a charlatan, and the uniformed military dragged its heels in training exiles to join the fight against Saddam.

The battle over Chalabi was one of numerous bitter interagency fights about Iraq that neither Bush nor his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, never resolved.

"I'm not going to put my thumb on the scale," Bush said at a White House meeting where Chalabi's bona fides were hotly debated, according to an official who was present.

"Thumb on the scale"? Or ass on the line? Seems like The Holy Gut™ has a hard time actually, um, making a decision.

That left Pentagon officials to plow ahead with their attempt to position Chalabi and his militia, the Free Iraqi Fighting Forces, to take power after Saddam's fall.

Iran's intelligence service, and that Chalabi or his security chief provided classified U.S. military information to Iran. Chalabi has denied the allegation.
(via Knight Ridder)

Well.

Everything we've been saying for the last year is true, isn't it? Surprise!

So I hit the link to the story about the Dangerous Wimmen with their Radical Breasts for Civil Liberties Lambert posted. Decided to look around Google news to see how other papers in the area covered the matter. The answer is, not very much. But they DID cover Preznit Psycho's standard stump speech just as though it was actual news....

Anyway, I'm looking at the Eugene paper's coverage and at the bottom is one of those "related stories" links. I hit that and, yup, it's a related story all right:

(via Eugene Register-Guard (how ironic a name!)

JACKSONVILLE - Police in riot gear fired paintballs filled with cayenne pepper Thursday night to disperse a crowd of protesters assembled in this historic gold mining town where President Bush was spending the night after a campaign appearance.

Witnesses said Bush supporters were on one side of California Street chanting ``Four more years,'' and supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry were on the other chanting "Three more weeks." Police began moving the crowd [Question: ALL the crowd or just a part of it? Doesn't say.] away from the Jacksonville Inn, where the president was to arrive for a dinner and to spend the night after his speech.

``Nobody was being violent, said Cerridewen Bunten, 24, a college student and retail clerk from Ashland. "We were out of the streets so cars could go by. We were being loud, but I never knew that was against the law.''

Bunten said she was pushed by police as she held her 6-year-old daughter.

Jacksonville City Administrator Paul Wyntergreen said the protest was peaceful until a few people started pushing police. Police reacted by firing pepperballs, which he described as projectiles like a paintball filled with cayenne pepper. Two people were arrested for failing to disperse. There were no reports of injuries.

Richard Swaney, 65, of Central Point, said he was walking with the crowd away from the inn when he was hit in the back with three separate bursts, one of which knocked him down. He felt a stinging sensation he thought was rubber bullets and smelled pepper.

``I don't think I moved fast enough,'' Swaney said. ``I can't believe this happens in the United States. It was very peaceful. I think this is the way tyranny begins."

So the Preznit was protected from six year old girls and 65 year old men. I think the shot-up and peppered Mr. Swaney is dead-on right, don't you?

Take Bill O'Reilly. Please!

[O'REILLY:] "If I have to go down, I'm willing to do it."
(via Guardian)

I'm sure the wife appreciates that, Bill!

UPDATE Nice takedown from Steve Gilliard.

Nothing must pop Inerrant Boy's bubble:

Three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and escorted from the [rally] after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Protect our civil liberties." All three said they applied for and received valid tickets from Republican headquarters in Medford.

The women said they did not intend to protest. "I wanted to see if I would be able to make a statement that I feel is important, but not offensive, in a rally for my president," said Janet Voorhies, 48, a teacher in training.

“We chose this phrase specifically because we didn't think it would be offensive or degrading or obscene," said Tania Tong, 34, a special education teacher.

Thursday’s actions in Oregon set a new standard even for Bush/Cheney – removing and threatening with arrest citizens who in no way disrupt an event and wear clothing that expresses non-disruptive party-neutral viewpoints such as “Protect Our Civil Liberties.”

When Vice President Dick Cheney visited Eugene, Oregon on Sept. 17, a 54-Year old woman named Perry Patterson was charged with criminal trespass for blurting the word "No" when Cheney said that George W. Bush has made the world safer.
(via The Bend (Oregon) Bugle)

"Un-American" is exactly the word for this.

You know, it would be really great if, when the so-in-the-tank SCLM prints all those "Triumph of the W"-photos—always shot upward at Bush, and emphasizing the hands stretched out to Him—the caption would say that only people who signed a loyalty oath to Bush were admitted to his rallies.

Well doesn't this just provide a perfect ending to a happy jolly day, filled with talk of vote theft, missing flu protection, and other uplifting topics?

(via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) -- A cable pay-per-view company has decided not to show a three-hour election eve special with filmmaker Michael Moore that included a showing of his documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is sharply critical of President Bush.

The company, iN DEMAND, said Friday that its decision is due to "legitimate business and legal concerns." A spokesman would not elaborate.

Moore has just released his movie on DVD and was seeking a TV outlet for the film.

Earlier this week, trade publications said Moore was close to a deal with iN DEMAND for "The Michael Moore Pre-Election Special," which also would include interviews with politically active celebrities and admonitions to vote. The Nov. 1 special was to be available for $9.95.

Moore said Friday he signed a contract with the company in early September and is considering legal action. He said he believes iN DEMAND decided not to air the film because of pressure from "top Republican people."

Gasp! Surely not! (Okay, I promise to quit calling you Surely.)

Not sure this is that big a deal on the face of it (and yes, I have evidence the grapes were sour anyway.) I can't really picture that many people paying ten bucks to see a movie--on the day before the election no less--that they can get for next to nothing at Blockbuster or own outright for $20.

It may be better off as a victim of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, just by pissing people off that they're being told they can't do something. Hey, it's a thread to grab hold of anyway.

Time to drink. Heavily. And prepare to re-gird the loins tomorrow.

We've compared Bush to Shakespeare's Macbeth before—as always, Enlightenment values are important—and alert reader Tony reminds us to do this again (Shakespeare text here).

The similarities are striking, aren't they? Not simply that Bush is, as Macbeth was, a usurper. Shakespeare's keen psychological insights are as relevant today as they were 500 years ago.

The setting: Macbeth, at a state dinner, has just seen the ghost of a man he murdered. Lady Macbeth covers for him and gets the guests out the door. Then, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth talk politics:

LADY MACBETH
I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
Question enrages Him. At once, good night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.

LENNOX
Good night; and better health
Attend his majesty!

LADY MACBETH
A kind good night to all!

Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH

MACBETH
It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?

LADY MACBETH
Almost at odds with morning, which is which.

MACBETH
How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?

LADY MACBETH
Did you send to him, sir?

MACBETH
I hear it by the way; but I will send:
There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.

LADY MACBETH
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

MACBETH
Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.

Translation: Fasten your seatbelts. Florida 2000 and getting us into Iraq were just starters. The main course is yet to come.

You remember Richard "Yet Another Dick" Posner—he's the guy who rushed a book into print that pronounced Clinton guilty of various felonies, before Clinton had been tried for anything, and while he was a sitting judge, thereby violating the canons of judicial ethics (takedowns here and here).

Hey, love the neutrality! I say, let's put Posner on the Supreme Court right away, so he can be the wind beneath Inerrant Boy's wings for Kerry v. Bush!

Anyhow, Posner's handed down a decision, Phyllis Griffin, et al., v. Elaine Roupas, et al. (PDF here) that has to do with the rights of working mothers to file absentee ballots. Lot of legal technicalities here (and Posner is right that Illinois has a "gamey" history of electoral shenanigans, particularly downstate) but there's one sentence in Posner's really rather snarky opinion—he seems to work out his "social tension" by putting the boot into working women—that jumped off the page for me:

The Constitution does not in so many words confer a right to vote, though it has been held to do so implicitly. ... Rather, it confers on the states broad authority to regulate the conduct of elections, including federal ones.

Hmmm.... So the right to vote is one of those "penumbra"-type rights, like privacy, that the wingers would like to do away with.

It's a little frightening to think what this decision could mean in the hands of one of those strictly Republican constructionists, isn't it? Yikes!

Here's a copy of the decision. And here are the briefs (type 03 in first bank, 3770 in second) and the oral argument.

There's no news here—we already know, for example, that the Republicans are trying everything they know to steal Florida again (Salon must-read)—but I have to quote Bush's campaign lawyer on this one becauuse it is so, so delicious:

President Bush's top campaign lawyer said yesterday that the winner of next month's presidential vote may not be known for "days or weeks" after Election Day if the contest is close.

Experts predict that a large number of absentee ballots will be cast, which could take time to count. For the first time nationwide, voters whose names do not appear on the rolls will be allowed to cast "provisional ballots," which will be counted only after a post-Election Day review determines their eligibility.

In addition, some battleground states will count overseas military ballots received after Election Day as long as they are postmarked before Nov. 3. In Florida, for instance, military ballots received through Nov. 12 will be counted.

Tom Josefiak, the Bush-Cheney campaign's general counsel, said he worries that the uncertainty caused by potential delays could undermine confidence in the outcome.
(via WaPo)

From the Department of No Shit, Sherlock.