12.30.2004

more outrage, every day

so, i'm back to the blog. there's just so much to be mad about, i can't keep quiet.

--on the measly $15/$35 million the US has pledged: we gave 3 BILLION to florida. granted, there was a lot of destruction there. but let's talk about being a good global citizen, for a second. do you know that the GOP is planning on spending $30 million on the inauguration? makes me sick, when i think about how little we are prepared to spend on the needy in other parts of the world. interesting: despite Colin Powell's statements, we are the ultimate scrooge.

"The United States contributes about a tenth of one percent of its income in aid to poor countries -- an abysmal rate that falls below that of all industrialized nations, and is dwarfed by the giving rate of Canada (0.26 percent), Germany (0.28 percent), the United Kingdom (0.34 percent), and France (0.42 percent)." (http://www.salon.com).

And from The New York Times Editorial today: "According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent."

so, please make a donation to one of the international aid groups directly. you can do it through the American Friends Service Committee, Doctors without Borders, American Red Cross, and many others.

Ok, and let's get serious about the mess we are in in Iraq. Salon.com tells us today the following dismal statistics:

-- The U.S. military suffered at least 348 deaths in Iraq over the final four months of the year, more than in any other similar period since the invasion in March 2003.

--The number of wounded surpassed 10,000, with more than a quarter injured in the last four months as direct combat, roadside bombs and suicide attacks escalated. When President Bush declared May 1, 2003, that major combat operations were over, the number wounded stood at just 542.

-- The number of attacks on U.S. and allied troops grew from an estimated 1,400 attacks in September to 1,600 in October and 1,950 in November. A year earlier, the attacks numbered 649 in September, 896 in October and 864 in November.

welcome to 2005.

12.02.2004

Former Bush campaign official indicted

they play dirty, yes they do.

so this guy was employed by bush's campaign until very recently, even though this allegation had broken and appeared very likely to be proven.

check it out: planned phone-jamming in 2002

so don't tell me they won 'fair and square' this time, ok?

12.01.2004

on fraud, "actionable" and otherwise

check out this post. it's worth a read, especially for all you legal eagles out there.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/30/185532/75

11.30.2004

ohio-ukraine connection, redux

so apparently african americans really, really like fringe third-party candidates. read here.

seems that a number of cleveland precincts voted much more heavily for the libertarian and constitution party whackos than ever before--when nader received a total of 8 votes in two counties, this year Peroutka and Badnarik together got 378 votes! Wow!

"The same pattern showed up in 10 Cleveland precincts in which Badnarik and Peroutka received nearly 700 votes between them. In virtually all those precincts, Kerry's vote was lower than Al Gore's in 2000, even though there was a record turnout in the black community this time, and even though blacks voted overwhelmingly for Kerry."

uh, what about ohio?

so you may have noticed--or not--that we still don't know about the total vote count in ohio. interesting, huh? three weeks later? what's up with that?

nytimes has an article on that here

more to the point, James Galbraith points out that the same electoral irregularities that are causing such an uproar in Ukraine have been largely ignored here in the US press. here's his column in salon.

we know that the distribution of voting machine was manipulated on a partisan basis.

why is no one angry?

11.12.2004

taking a stand

hello all

i have been pretty quiet this week (getting some work done), but also mulling over the arguments being made, quite vociferously, by different camps of progressives about the election 'glitches.' some think that there are too many "anomalies" to be truly anomalous, and that we need to have a recount in ohio, at least, to find out the integrity of the election. others are saying "whoa! you are just in denial! we need to fix the party! there was no fraud." examples of both of these can be found at:
www.gregpalast.com and www.thomhartmann.com on the 'check the vote' side; david corn on www.thenation.com and farhad manjoo on www.salon.com on the 'get over it' side.

but, i guess i'm going to throw my hat in the ring after reading YET ANOTHER 'anomaly' story today. in this tale, the optical scan machines read the democratic column as liberatarian votes. that's right, and you know how we know? there is a paper trail with optical scans, so when they did the handcount, the local race changed from being won by a republican to being won by a democrat. that's right. and note, the machine was manufactured by... (drum roll)...diebold.

now, it's a local race. but we know that this happened here, and that mysteriously, thousands of votes got added for bush in a county in ohio, and that, mysteriously, the machines started counting backwards in florida, and that many, many people reported (in texas, ohio, florida and more) that when they pressed the touch-screen for kerry, their vote was recorded for bush.

i say, let's have a recount. and while we're doing that, could someone please, please, please fix the damn system! let's have a uniform ballot, non partisan election officials, and verifiable paper trails. let's pour just one-one hundredth of the money we are squandering in Iraq into our own democracy. let's have full public funding of election campaigns, with spending caps, and free airtime equally allocated to all candidates. let's get it right, for once.

11.09.2004

possible fraud claims expanding

ok, so we should keep an eye on this stuff. i haven't wanted to jump on it too soon, given my propensity for conspiracy theories. the exit polls just don't add up to the results, and there are just too many anomalies. read and see for yourself. many think that we just lost on gay marriage, that rove is a superhuman genius, that the moral values thing worked. other analyses dispute that idea.

anyway, for me, the theories out there for why florida swung from "537" votes for bush to over 350,000 just aren't cutting it, especially not with exit polls predicting a big win for kerry.

anyway, see for yourself.

in nebraska: 10,000 'extra' votes in one county

olbermann of msnbc reports "remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County’s website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters. I’ll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters." also, reportedly, Warren County in Ohio was contacted by Homeland Security, told it was on high alert, and their election official 'locked down' the vote count, which meant that there were no observers of the count, at all. warren county is a fast growing conservative base.

press "John Kerry", but vote "George Bush" in Ohio: "Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY." and in florida too.

votes in florida disappearing: "Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward."

hacking would explain the exit polls in florida: "Franklin County, with 77.3 percent registered Democrats, went 58.5 percent for Bush. Holmes County, with 72.7 percent registered Democrats, went 77.25 percent for Bush. "Yet in the larger counties," Hartmann noted, "where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry…. And, although elections officials didn't notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the 'anomalous' numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big."

election protection log of problems

former employee of ES&S reportedly on the computer mainframe in Ohio, against all protocol

MIT number cruncher finds a statistical probability of 50000:1 that Bush would carry all remaining states by more than 4% after the 4 p.m. exit polls. Cites 4 possible ways this could happen: (1) Significantly greater lying or refusal to speak to pollsters in Bush voters versus Kerry voters; (2) Consistent/systematic errors in weighting demographic groups; (3) A surge of Bush voters after 4 p.m., in all states; (4) Systematic tampering/hacking of reported vote totals, in Bush’s favor.

demand an investigation here

11.06.2004

hacking the vote?

so many of you have probably now heard about the additional 4000-something votes that popped up for Bush in one Ohio town (with only 680 actual voters), and the 4200 votes that disappeared in North Carolina. Now, some are speculating that the exit polls were perhaps not so wrong, after all, and that the vote was hacked.

check out the story here.


bush is on a Man Date?

hee hee. got that from one of the blogs. anyway, here's some info about how slim this margin of victory was--and why this election was NOT a mandate. it reflects a still largely divided populace, and does not give bush the authority to claim his actions are 'the people's will.' not that that will stop him anyway...

from american progress report:

ELECTION – NOT SUCH A MANDATE: Following President Bush's victory over Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday, conservative media followed Vice President Cheney's lead in declaring the election "a decisive mandate for Bush's agenda, and mainstream media outlets have followed their lead." In fact, the president's popular vote margin was the smallest since 1976 (with the exception of 2000) and, according to the Wall Street Journal's Albert Hunt, the president's victory represented "the narrowest win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916." Percentage-wise, Bush's victory was the narrowest for any wartime president in American history. And while President Bush did win more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history, "Kerry's vote total – 55.7 million – was still greater than any U.S. presidential candidate in history prior to 2004. That means more Americans cast their vote against Bush than against any other presidential candidate in U.S. history."

on red, blue and purple

it freaks me out to look at the US map when it's just red states and blue states. makes me feel outnumbered, small, and scared. so i really liked seeing this purple map--showing the relative leanings of a state, putting into perspective just how red or how blue any particular state is. and it confirms what we know: that most of america is really pretty much in the middle.

and, it warmed my heart to read this posting on dailykos.com, about shifting partisanship in various states. take a look:

We may have lost the election, but the country is getting bluer.
Chris Bowers developed the Partisan Index to gauge the relative partisan standing of any given state. So courtesy of Bowers, here are the states moving from pro-RNC Partisan Index to pro-DNC Partisan Index:
2004 2000

IA DNC +2.1 RNC +0.2
NV DNC +0.4 RNC +4.1
NH DNC +4.2 RNC +1.8
NM DNC +1.3 RNC +0.5
OH DNC +0.5 RNC +4.0
OR DNC +8.0 RNC +0.3
WI DNC +3.4 RNC +0.3

Here are other states in which we made significant gains:
2004 2000

CO RNC +3.2 RNC +8.9
ME DNC +11.0 DNC +4.6
MI DNC +6.4 DNC +4.6
MN DNC +6.4 DNC +1.9
PA DNC +5.2 DNC +3.7
VA RNC +5.6 RNC +8.5
VT DNC +23.6 DNC +9.4
WA DNC +10.4 DNC +5.1

bah! to the red and the blue Posted by Hello

on the youth turnout

so, don't believe all the bellyaching about the youth vote being lame this year. apparently the young'uns did turn out, and did have a significant impact. check this out : at least 20.9 million Americans under 30 voted on Tuesday. That is an increase of 4.6 million voters from 2000. Four years ago, just 42.3 percent of young people voted. This year more than 51.6 percent did. Young people were especially active in battleground states, with turnout at 64.4 percent of eligible voters.

got that? in battlegrounds, turnout rates of almost 65%.

11.04.2004

why we need electoral reform

Kerry Won
Greg Palast
November 04, 2004

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Palast’s investigation suggests that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer
reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots.
Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,
has been released this month on DVD .
Kerry won. Here's the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com,
"An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more,
click here.)
We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click
here .)
And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.
So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).
Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell,
wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”
But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.
Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.
The Impact Of Challenges
First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.
In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.
Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote
Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."
How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.
CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.
New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.
Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'
Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.
I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.
Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.
"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?
Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.
Your Kerry Victory Party
So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.
But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.
What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.
I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

don't mourn, organize

there's a lot of crying, and thinking, and strategizing that needs to be done. here's some perspective-giving writing of late.

remember, also: we are not alone. half of the country, at least, is against the bush agenda. we need electoral reform to make sure those votes get counted; we need a reorganization of the party and a new articulation of its principles to get more people out there.

copied from: dailykos.com
'Don't Mourn, Organize'
by Meteor Blades
Wed Nov 3rd, 2004

OK. I read thousands of comments and dozens of Diaries last night and this morning. And you know something? I'm going to forget I read most of them. Just erase them from memory along with the names of those who posted them. Chalk them up to adrenaline crashes, too much rage and reefer and booze.

Because what I found in my reading was a plethora of bashing Christians, bashing Kerry, bashing gays, bashing Edwards, bashing Kos, bashing America and bashing each other. As well as a lot of people saying they're abandoning the Democrats, abandoning politics, abandoning the country. This descent into despair and irrationality and surrender puts icing on the Republican victory cake.

Why were we in this fight in the first place? Because terrible leaders are doing terrible things to our country and calling this wonderful. Because radical reactionaries are trying to impose their imperialist schemes on whoever they wish and calling this just. Because amoral oligarchs are determined to enhance their slice of the economic pie and calling this the natural order. Because flag-wrapped ideologues want to chop up civil liberties and call this security. Because myopians are in charge of America's future.

We lost on 11/2. Came in second place in a crucial battle whose damage may still be felt decades from now. The despicable record of our foes makes our defeat good reason for disappointment and fear. Even without a mandate over the past four years, they have behaved ruthlessly at home and abroad, failing to listen to objections even from members of their own party. With the mandate of a 3.6-million vote margin, one can only imagine how far their arrogance will take them in their efforts to dismantle 70 years of social legislation and 50+ years of diplomacy.

Still, Tuesday was only one round in the struggle. It's only the end if we let it be. I am not speaking solely of challenging the votes in Ohio or elsewhere -- indeed, I think even successful challenges are unlikely to change the ultimate outcome, which is not to say I don't think the Democrats should make the attempt. And I'm not just talking about evaluating in depth what went wrong, then building on what was started in the Dean campaign to reinvigorate the grassroots of the Democratic Party, although I also think we must do that. I'm talking about the broader political realm, the realm outside of electoral politics that has always pushed America to live up to its best ideals and overcome its most grotesque contradictions.

Not a few people have spoken in the past few hours about an Americanist authoritarianism emerging out of the country's current leadership. I think that's not far-fetched. Fighting this requires that we stick together, not bashing each other, not fleeing or hiding or yielding to the temptation of behaving as if "what's the use?"

It's tough on the psyche to be beaten.Throughout our country's history, abolitionists, suffragists, union organizers, anti-racists, antiwarriors, civil libertarians, feminists and gay rights activists have challenged the majority of Americans to take off their blinders. Each succeeded one way or another, but not overnight, and certainly not without serious setbacks.

After a decent interval of licking our wounds and pondering what might have been and where we went wrong, we need to spit out our despair and return - united - to battling those who have for the moment outmaneuvered us. Otherwise, we might just as well lie down in the street and let them flatten us with their schemes.
________________________________
from Howard Dean:
"Montana, one of the reddest states, has a new Democratic governor. First-time candidates for state legislatures from Hawaii to Connecticut beat incumbent Republicans. And a record number of us voted to change course -- more Americans voted against George Bush than any sitting president in history.

Today is not an ending.

Regardless of the outcome yesterday, we have begun to revive our democracy. While we did not get the result we wanted in the presidential race, we laid the groundwork for a new generation of Democratic leaders. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, 'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter' ...

We will not be silent. Thank you for everything you did for our cause in this election. But we are not stopping here."
_______________________________
from Katrina van den Heuvel, editor of The Nation:

Progressives, who were on the defensive two years ago, added millions of new voters as well, and tapped a new energy and activism that will last far beyond November 2nd. The extremism and incompetence of this rightwing cabal has sharpened our focus to a razor's edge. But for me, one of the fundamental questions about this campaign has been whether you could defeat a terrible but clear incumbent without a substantive policy alternative, and this time at least we couldn't. Kerry offered intelligence, a return to fiscal discipline, a bulwark against a rightwing court, and a health plan that few understood. He failed to use the moral message of "Two Americas" to erode Bush's edge. He mounted a late challenge to Bush's disastrous war in Iraq--
but he also talked about "staying the course." That wasn't enough of a coherent positive, populist or moral message to complement the impressive mechanics. We've got to build a politics of conviction, of passion and substance. It's there but it needs to be built and fought for. And the lesser lessons, if that's the big one, are:

1) People really are confused and manipulated (we have a mainstream media that continues to focus on irrelevant stories--Swift Boat, Rathergate and all the rest--abrogating its responsibility to focus on what's important and significant; and too much of it keeps giving head instead of keeping its head.) This makes an expansion of the progressive media echo chamber all the more important; And,
2) Neoliberalism is broken beyond repair and people need to be offered a real alternative not just despair at this point. This is truly a non-violent Civil War between those who think government is basically screwed up and that they're on their own, and those who believe....what exactly? We've got to be much clearer on the latter. But this morning, we woke to a country at war with itself--as well as Al Qaeda. As America fights Islamic fundamentalism abroad, progressives are re-fighting the Enlightenment here at home. (The two new Senators from Oklahoma and South Carolina are leaders of our homegrown Taliban.)

This is war at a very deep level about how this country will proceed and this war isn't over, it's just renewed.

The American Right understands we are two nations, and cares less about healing than about holding power. A Bush wins forces us to understand, in a very deep way, what that means for us and for the values and institutions we care about. Not that they are wrong, or rejected or weighed down by "identity politics" or some other rationale for surrender. But that they are in desperate danger and we need to start thinking along the lines of how to resist, delay, deflect, oppose and ultimately defeat the assault on our freedoms. As progressives, we will need to marshal at least as much dedication, purpose, strategic focus and tactical ruthlessness

And we should be thinking about the indispensable work of resistance. We need to identify legislative and administrative choke points where Bush's initiatives can be blocked, and make clear to both legislators and their constituents that the days of go-along in the interest of non-partisan comity have to stop.

In the end, this election is about what kind of people we are, what kind of country we'll be. Half of the electorate dissents from Bushism. The election still represents an expression of the strength of opposition to the radical and reckless course Bush has followed, despite the ugly campaign.

Unlike 1972, when Democrats were wiped out everywhere--in 2004 there is an emerging progressive infrastructure capable of standing and fighting. Progressives should build on those structures put in place in this last cycle and redouble their commitment to economic justice, peace and environmental movements that can make real change.

_______________________
from true majority

Before this year, political campaigns were like watching a bad movie on TV without a remote to turn it off. Our job as citizens was to watch the ads and vote. That was it. What a difference four years makes. For the first time in decades, the number of people voting went way up. The number of folks who actually got involved in the election went through the roof. But the change was far deeper than that. Big money was still monumental, but little money collected online from lots of people added up to big money. More important, the things that really mattered in the end were accomplished by an army of regular folks. Millions of doors were knocked on, and even more calls to new voters were made. Regular people who were never political activists held house parties to share their enthusiasm with friends. Quite simply, politics went from something we watched on TV to something we all did.

What made all this possible? There were many factors, but an important one was the rise of a bunch of online groups like True Majority that make instantaneous nationwide conversations possible with the click of a mouse. This emerging online communitywas able to offer you ways to get involved, such as volunteering to contact voters, raise money, distribute information and create your own projects -- all with a tiny staff and an efficient budget. Regular folks with an e-mail address have proven that they can pitch in what time and money they can to create a powerful wave of change.

It really worked. Just look at the unprecedented get-out-the-vote efforts that produced record turnout. We'll need all of these new skills and tactics as we take on an ever-more-hostile environment in Washington. It'll take a bit of time to rest and regroup, and then we'll continue the struggle for social justice. For the first time in a long time,we've helped fashion a path that can lead to a real change in America. And that's a reason for hope. The next phase may well involve helping people build local initiatives and organizations around leaders who have the strength and commitment to champion compassion, justice, sustainability and international cooperation. Conservatives rebuilt their activist groups through devotion to a set of values they believed in and could communicatewith passion to voters.

It's time for us to do that too. So our pledge to you today is that this is just the beginning. We at True Majority will keep an eye on what's going on in Washington and elsewhere for our 550,000 members, and we'll keep offering you different ways that you can make a difference. You've shown that this can really work. We're very proud to have taken this great journey with you.

10.29.2004

david kay speaks

from Josh Marshall's blog, which goes on in further detail, noting how this clear statement was twisted on CNN this morning. Check out his reporting here.

David Kay (remember that guy?) was on Newsnight last night, talking about the videotapes shot by embedded reporters with the 101st Airborne, which clearly show large quantities of the explosives in question at al Qaqaa as late as April 18th, 2003. They even have footage of the IAEA seal being clipped off the warehouses as they're going in. The host of the show, Aaron Brown, asked if the debate about when the explosives went missing was over. Here is what Kay said :

"Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed. With this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called pottery barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security. "

the bulge: story still won't die!

salon.com story today:
By Kevin Berger

NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate
Physicist says imaging techniques prove the president's bulge was not caused by wrinkled clothing.

George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."

Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.

For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."

IRS attacking NAACP

the times reports this morning:

"The Internal Revenue Service has begun reviewing the tax-exempt status of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, citing concerns over a speech given by its chairman, Julian Bond, at its annual convention last July in Philadelphia.

In a letter dated Oct. 8 and released Thursday, the I.R.S. told the association it had received information that Mr. Bond conveyed "statements in opposition of
George W. Bush for the office of presidency" and specifically that he had "condemned the administration policies of George W. Bush in education, the economy and the war in Iraq."

The letter reminded the association that tax-exempt organizations are legally barred from supporting or opposing any candidate for elective office.
...
"This is an attempt to silence the N.A.A.C.P. on the very eve of a presidential election," he said. "We are best known for registering and turning out large numbers of African-American voters. Clearly, someone in the I.R.S. doesn't want that to happen."

10.28.2004

the ties that bind...

salon.com points us to this interesting development:

the lobbyist for Kaddafi, also previously a Bush admin. energy official, has coordinated Bush's latest 'endorsement' by Arab Americans. newsweek reports, in the story "Lobbying for Libya, And Bush."

"Oct. 28 - A last-minute endorsement of President George W. Bush by a hastily formed coalition of Arab-Americans was coordinated in part by a registered lobbyist for the Libyan regime of Col. Muammar Kaddafi -- a government formally branded by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.
"Randa Fahmy Hudome, who just this month signed a $1.4 million contract to represent the Libyan government, served as a behind-the-scenes 'media consultant' helping to prepare this week's press release praising Bush’s record in promoting 'human rights, democracy and self-determination' in the Middle East, a chief organizer of the group told NEWSWEEK. ...
"Until last year, Hudome was a top Bush administration energy official, serving as chief aide on international issues to Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. Her new role as Washington representative for the Kaddafi regime has raised eyebrows in Washington’s lobbying community -- both because of the lucrative size of her contract and her continued connections with the Bush campaign. Until President Bush lifted most economic sanctions against Libya this summer, citing its cooperation in giving up its nuclear program, it was illegal for Americans to have financial dealings with Libya -- or represent its government in Washington. ...

halliburton under fire, again (don't they ever learn?)

so, a whistle-blower has come forward! yay!

from the ap story:

FBI agents this week sought permission to interview Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer who went public last weekend with allegations that her agency unfairly awarded KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars for work in Iraq, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

courtesy of dailykos.com Posted by Hello

photoshopped bush ad

you may have heard about this...the story seems to have legs. so, in one of the final bush commercials, there is a crowd shot of soldiers. the shot was doctored, and some of the individuals appear two and three times. apparently it was doctored to cover over bush standing at a podium. whatever. the funny thing is that the ad is called 'whatever it takes.' apparently that philosophy is quite appropriate.

kerry and the boss Posted by Hello

wow

kerry in madison. 100,000. bruce springsteen rocking the whole capitol area. people perched on houses to get a peek. pretty cool.

editorial endorsements

36 Papers Abandon Bush for Kerry
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 27, 2004; Page A13

The Orlando Sentinel has backed every Republican seeking the White House since Richard M. Nixon in 1968. Not this time.

"This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations," the Florida paper said in supporting John F. Kerry, prompting some angry calls and a few dozen cancellations.

"A lot of people thought they could trust that the Sentinel would always go Republican, and when that didn't happen, they felt betrayed," said Jane Healy, the paper's editorial page editor.
The Sentinel is among 36 newspapers that endorsed President Bush four years ago and have flip-flopped, to coin a phrase, into Kerry's corner. These include the Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Daily News and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, according to industry magazine Editor & Publisher. Bush has won over only six papers that backed Al Gore, including the Denver Post, which received 700 letters -- all of them protesting the move.

rudy giuliani dissing the troops...

here's our not-so-beloved ex-mayor dissing US troops, so that he can exonerate the pres from all responsibility on al qaqaa

"The president was cautious, the president was prudent, the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?"


on polls

Analysis of Major National Polls
By Alan Abramowitz

Here's where the presidential race stands right now based on an analysis of the most recent national polls conducted by 10 leading polling organizations. For this analysis I have excluded all partisan polls, internet polls, and robo-dial polls. That leaves out Democracy Corps, Harris, Economist/YouGov, and Rasmussen. Some of these polls, especially Democracy Corps [which shows Kerry ahead], are in my opinion very reputable, but for the sake of fairness I'm excluding them. Included in the analysis are the following polls: Gallup, CBS/New York Times, NBC/Wall Street Journal, ABC/Washington Post, Zogby, Time, Newsweek, Pew, AP/Ipsos, and LA Times. All of these polls except Zogby report results for registered as well as likely voters.

Among likely voters, Bush was leading in 5 polls, Kerry in 2, and 3 were tied. The average level of support for the candidates was Bush 48.2, Kerry 47.0, Nader 1.3.

Among registered voters, Bush was leading in 3 polls, Kerry in 2, and 4 were tied. The average level of support for the candidates was Bush 47.0, Kerry 46.0, Nader 1.9.

It is clear from these results that heading into the final weekend of the campaign, the presidential race right now is extremely close. George Bush appears to hold a very slight lead nationally, but his support remains below the 50 percent level that is generally considered necessary for an incumbent since undecided voters generally break toward the challenger by a wide margin.

on the pot calling the kettle...

so, gwb had this tidbit yesterday:

"For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief."

has the man NO sense of irony?

um, about those weapons we 'knew' hussein had? about those connections to al-qaeda? about our ability to 'win the peace' with a 'transformed' military? (thanks, rummy, for that one...)

minnesota news may have proof about al qaqaa

check out this story. looks like a local news station that was embedded with some troops might be able to verify that the explosives were in place after we invaded.

"Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.
During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords."


you're telling me that we unlocked the bunkers and then left them there, open?

10.27.2004

bush supports civil unions--what??

ap story:
Bush Stance on Civil Unions Upsets Groups
SCOTT LINDLAW
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Some conservative groups expressed dismay Tuesday over President Bush's tolerance of state-sanctioned civil unions between gay people - laws that would grant same-sex partners most or all the rights available to married couples.
"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," Bush said in an interview aired Tuesday on ABC. Bush acknowledged that his position put him at odds with the Republican platform, which opposes civil unions.

eminem video--watch it!

i posted this under "various ways of making a splash" but then i thought it was so important that i wanted to give it it's own post.

check it out!
eminem joins the fray in this kick-ass video: mosh

on momentum

the state tracking polls are swinging toward kerry. he's leading in likely and registered voter polls in most battleground states. kerry's ahead in florida, ohio and pennsylvania in the latest ARG poll. overall, polls show that he leads by about 5 in battleground states (some polls showing leading by 2, some showing leading by 9).

he's tied in half the national polls, some of which have overrepresentation of republicans in them (38% repubs, 30% dems. national percentage last election was 32% dems 30% repubs). in the last three days, he's been ahead by 1 or 2 points in the LA Times, Rasmussen, Harris, WashPost, Greenland polls. Behind in the Gallup, Newsweek. With registered voters only, he's tied in CBS and Newsweek polls.

subgroup analysis shows several patterns very favorable to the Kerry campaign (in gallup poll):
1. Kerry leads among independents by 5, 49-44.
2. Kerry leads among moderates by 18, 57-35.
3. Kerry leads in the battleground states by 2, 49-47, and Bush's approval rating in these same states has sunk to 46 percent.

african-american vote for kerry is at 90%. check out the analysis on this, that refutes the current story that bush is getting 18% here.

early voters are out in force. new voters are rocking the world. two million new voters in florida alone. new voters favor kerry about 60-40.

37% of dems believe this is the most important election of their lifetime; 27% repubs

kerry outpaces bush in final month spending. 527s are kicking ass in organizing at the street level.

we've become competitive in states we had written off: nevada, arkansas, colorado, west virginia, virginia.

and we are in the last stretch. and bush is on the defensive about the missing weapons, the leaked proposal to request another $75 billion for Iraq, and the massacre of Iraqi national guardsman. number of words he said yesterday about the missing weapons? Zero.

on the good news that mary cheney can be cured

so...where's the outrage from all the pro-gay repubs?

open letter to the Cheneys

Excerpts:
I am saddened by the outrageous behavior of Sens. Kerry and Edwards, who inexplicably and insensitively injected your daughter Mary's sexuality into the presidential debates.
I am the parent of a homosexual child and the executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), a national organization that offers support and education to families and friends of homosexuals, and advocates for the rights of ex-gays.
Mary is, I'm sure, a fine young woman with many wonderful qualities, and that is how she should be recognized. To label anyone solely by their sexuality is demeaning and inappropriate. As parents, we can and do love our children unconditionally no matter who they are attracted to. Loving unconditionally allows us the freedom to maintain our values and viewpoints while keeping a bridge open to our children.
Sen. Kerry deliberately misled the American public as well as people who have unwanted same-sex attractions when he stated that people are “born gay.” He should know better. ...

Homosexual activists like those working on the Kerry-Edwards team want "gay marriage" and civil unions in order to gain public affirmation. They think this will make them happy. Happiness requires hope, and real hope is the knowledge that many men and women overcome unwanted same-sex attractions every year, even those who believed at one time that they were born that way and had no choice.


bush's bulge--the story that won't die

from salon.com check out the photo.

Why is Bush outsourcing his bulge?
Forget the firestorm over stolen Iraqi explosives. The Bush Bulge continues to be the real talk of Washington. Today the president tried to lay it to rest once and for all on ABC's "Good Morning America," by confessing, "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt." This was a new version of an earlier blame-the-tailor line of defense offered by the Bush-Cheney campaign, which pointed the finger at a suit coat malfunction. The problem with this explanation, of course, is that the presidential tailor in question turned out to be French -- a man with the classically Gallic moniker, Georges de Paris. And that instantly raised a troubling question in red-state America: What the hell is red-blooded George W. Bush doing outsourcing his tailoring needs to some Frenchy named de Paris? Especially since de Paris' tony salon is obviously less skilled at producing a smooth-fitting jacket -- or shirt -- than any off-the-rack designer at Bloomingdale's?

The headache for the White House only got bigger when the Hill ran a photo of de Paris, who was revealed to be an eccentric-looking gnome of a fellow, with a shocking white cascade of curls that put one immediately in mind of, well, a French poodle. A miniature one. Unless the president enjoys being made to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame (written by another Frenchman) by incompetent -- or perhaps malicious -- poodle-maned tailors, it's time for Bush to start shopping at no frills, all-American Men's Wearhouse.
-- David Talbot

on rehnquist--how serious is it?

the current conspiracy/question circulating: when did Bush learn about Rehnquist's cancer? he slipped when he spoke at a private luncheon a few weeks ago, saying that he was looking forward to being really active right after he's re-elected, installing a new judge 'in january, in the next year'.

from Salon.com

Medical experts: Rehnquist's condition could be severe
The Supreme Court's brief public announcement on Monday that Chief Justice William Rehnquist has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, underwent a tracheotomy, and is expected to return to the bench on Nov. 1, likely masks the severity of his condition.

Numerous medical studies only mention tracheotomy -- in which surgeons cut a hole into a patient's windpipe to aid breathing -- as a treatment for a rare form of thyroid cancer called anaplastic carcinoma. According to the University of Virginia Health Center, "anaplastic carcinoma is an extremely serious and aggressive thyroid cancer which often results in the death of the patient … within several months of diagnosis."

Obviously, the news comes at the tense height of the presidential campaign, transforming the chief justice's health into a volatile political issue, one that presents a host of scenarios.
Located at the base of the neck and in front of the trachea, the thyroid gland produces hormones that control metabolism. Less severe forms of thyroid cancer are often arrested through radiation or surgically removing the entire gland. Performing a tracheotomy for thyroid cancer is so uncommon that Kenneth B. Ain, M.D., director of the Thyroid Oncology Program at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, speculates that when it comes to Chief Justice Rehnquist, "either the nature of the surgical procedure done was inaccurately reported or there are many things that have been left unsaid."

In fact, he adds, "It is extraordinarily rare that someone treated for thyroid cancer of any type would receive a tracheotomy at all, and even less common that it would constitute the only surgical procedure performed."

Other thyroid cancer specialists explain that in those rare times when a tracheotomy is performed, it's usually because the cancer has spread and poses an immediate threat to the patient's life. In some cases, the cancer nodules may be squeezing the windpipe, causing the patient to choke. The procedure may also be required after a thyroidectomy (the removal of the gland) and radiation treatments. A former endocrinologist at the University of California at San Francisco says that surgery or radiation can damage the laryngeal nerves that control the vocal cords, potentially causing the vocal cords to shut down and lead to respiratory arrest.

Regardless, the endocrinologist explains, performing a tracheotomy "suggests a very high-grade tumor or that cancer's been extensive and is not a single nodule but is throughout the gland."
Medical details that may shed light on Chief Justice Rehnquist's condition have not been forthcoming. The Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, where the chief justice received treatment, referred War Room to the Supreme Court, whose public information office did not return calls.
-- Kevin Berger

on crappy news

so, Al-Qaqaa. yep, it is what it sounds like. caca. as in cacapoopy.

the bush administration began yesterday trying to spin it that maybe the weapons were hidden before the us invaded, and that they were already gone when troops arrived. today's times shows that the us troops who were first at the storage facility did not look for the weapons. the commander of the unit didn't even know it was a sensitive site. does this not show us, people, that the UN and the IAEA inspectors knew what they were doing? i think bushco owes them a friggin apology. this site was highlighted as the most important site to guard in the us invasion. no one visited it to check for weapons for more than 7 weeks after the invasion. and bloggers are saying that removing 380 tons, which is about 3/4 of a million pounds, is more than "looting." it's not like guys were running out with a tv from circuit city. it probably took a lot of effort to move that much stuff. so why weren't we on top of it?

vote suppression. surprise! 60,000 absentee ballots missing in broward county.

on various ways of making a splash

eminem joins the fray in this kick-ass video: mosh

gotta laugh (and cringe) when you read 'get your war on'. latest strip is on the missing high explosives at Al Qaqaa.

doonesbury is always good for commentary

if you haven't seen it yet: jon stewart on crossfire


10.25.2004


kerry in minneapolis Posted by Hello

clinton in philadelphia 10/25 Posted by Hello

on spinning

so, andrea mitchell on msnbc said that 'hundreds' turned out to see clinton talk this afternoon in philadelphia. does this picture look like 'hundreds' to you?

the spin on clinton's appearance is that 'kerry doesn't inspire enthusiasm.'

tell that to the 30,000 who turned up in minneapolis.
oh yeah, and the boston red sox are up 2-0 in the world series.

a news roundup

quick recap:

massacre of iraqi national guard soldiers in Iraq. might have been 'inside job'

350 metric tons of highly explosive material is reported to have disappeared in Iraq. condi knew about it a month ago.

clinton stumps for kerry. GOP chairman Ed Gillespie says that Clinton's appearance is a sign of Kerry's weakness. Doesn't mention how Schwartzenegger is stumping for Bush in Ohio.

chief justice rehnquist has thyroid cancer. will keep working.

election polls: K/E up by 2 in latest Rasmussen poll. B/C up three in latest Zogby. Both likely voters.
newsweek says 46-46 (registered voters)
time says B/C up 51-46 (likely voters)
electoral-vote.com swings from blue to red each day, practically. CW among politics-obsessed Dems is that we will win, by a lot. they take into account that polls generally do not account for the massive voter registration drives, a large advantage among young voters and independents, the trend that undecideds usually break 2/3 for the challenger, and the trend that incumbents need to get over 50% job approval rating in order to win (bush's varies from 44% to 48% lately). i don't know. it's unpredictable, ultimately. kids in the 'weekly reader' poll have bush winning by a landslide 60-something to 30-something. and they've chosen the winner correctly since 1956. maybe those kids and the nickelodeon kids should duke it out.

endorsements: K/E get 25 endorsements by papers that endorsed Bush in 2000. Bush gets 2 that endorsed Gore.

GOP registers 3600 'vote challengers' in Ohio.

provisional ballots do not need to be counted in Ohio if they are submitted at the wrong precinct. ruling may also be reversed in Michigan.






on predictions

tired of consulting the contradictory polls? tired of listening to the talking heads?

now you can go to a better source, the magic 8 ball.

http://8ball.tridelphia.net/

10.22.2004

on chicanery

Some Voters Say Machines Failed, Incorrect Choices Appear on Screens from Daily Kos
Albuquerque Journal
By Jim LudwickJournal Staff Writer

Kim Griffith voted on Thursday— over and over and over. She's among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.
It's a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves— people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot. For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.
She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.

From Atrios
Election Fraud
In Ohio people are being called and told to vote at the wrong precinct, which explains their Secretary of State Blackwell's obsession with preventing people from using provisional ballots in the incorrect precinct.

People for the American Way tells us this incident (there's lots more, just click the link):
Most recently, controversy has erupted over the use in the Orlando area of armed, plainclothes officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to question elderly black voters in their homes. The incidents were part of a state investigation of voting irregularities in the city's March 2003 mayoral election. Critics have charged that the tactics used by the FDLE have intimidated black voters, which could suppress their turnout in this year’s elections. Six members of Congress recently called on Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate potential civil rights violations in the matter.

other things: i've heard about other dubious actions that seem to be getting squelched here and there. in Pennsylvania, there was a last minute effort to move 60-some poll locations that was organized by republicans. It was challenged, and the poll places will not be changed. And in Florida, one heavily African American county was allotted only one early-voting booth. There was an uproar, and now there will be four or six locations. If you hear of other stories, please let me know or report it to: People for the American Way, Telephone: 202-467-4999 or 800-326-7329 • pfaw@pfaw.org


10.21.2004

on reading critically...

daily kos hits the nail on the head

AP
AP Poll: Bush, Kerry in Dead Heat
[...] In the AP-Ipsos Public Affairs poll, the Democratic ticket of Kerry and Sen. John Edwards got support from 49 percent of those who said they were likely to vote, and the Republican team of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney got 46 percent, within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Reuters
Reuters Poll: Bush Grabs One-Point Lead on Kerry
President Bush opened a slight one-point lead on Democratic rival John Kerry in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

So to recap, a three-point Kerry lead is a "dead-heat", but a one-point Bush lead is a "slight lead".

a little joke

What's the difference between Vietnam and Iraq?
Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.

on the overseas vote

estimates say that there are about 500,000 overseas military votes, the majority of which will go to bush. then, there are another 1,000,000 overseas civilian votes. ready to play the 'how will they disenfranchise us now game?'

from salon.com
Oct. 21, 2004 BERLIN --
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat is pumped. Two weeks ago, sitting in an Internet cafe on Munich's Odeonplatz, the software marketer who crafted a hugely successful voter registration Web site, pulls up numbers that show a remarkable spike in Americans overseas mobilizing to defeat George W. Bush. Between her site and another out of Hong Kong, Democrats have registered 140,000 new voters, 40 percent of them from swing states -- and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Americans abroad, roused to a boiling fury by a Bush doctrine that has smeared America's good name across the globe, are looking like the "silent swing vote" in several key battleground states. Overseas registration for both parties is up by 400 percent over 2000; estimates put the tally of possible civilian votes as high as 2 million.

Then the panicked e-mails start flooding in. Today, less than two weeks before the tightest presidential race in memory, untold thousands of overseas voters still have not received their ballots -- and clearly won't be able to get them back in time. Late primaries and legal challenges to Ralph Nader's appearance on the ballot delayed mailings from half the battleground states. In swing states, including Florida, Ohio and New Mexico, different versions of the ballot have gone out, sowing wild confusion. In Pennsylvania alone, at least three versions were mailed overseas, in successive, chaotic waves -- with Nader and without him, plus a blank one-size-fits-all ballot with no names at all.

Activists now fear that huge numbers of Americans overseas -- both military and civilian -- may be as disenfranchised as they were in 2000, when anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of overseas ballots, depending on the county, just plain never showed up. But, far from helping civilians, the Federal Voting Assistance Program, has dragged its feet. A small liaison office based in the Pentagon, the FVAP provides voting materials to the departments of Defense and State for soldiers and civilians abroad and preaches overseas election law to thousands of local election officials back home.

on smacking down ohio's 'katherine harris'

Ok, so provisional balloting is one of the fronts where the legal war over the election will be fought. As part of the 2002 HAVA legislation (Help America Vote Act), all states were required to provide 'provisional ballots' to people trying to vote, whose names were not listed on the voting rolls. These provisional ballots are then checked by the county election authorities, and if the person is deemed eligible to vote, then the provisional ballot is counted. The intent of this act was to make sure that people are not disenfranchised in case of voter roll error, like what happened in Florida.

So, some states are balking at this, and interpreting the law very narrowly in order to restrict the number of provisional ballots that will be counted. They claim that provisional ballots should only be counted if the person shows up in the correct precinct--if a person is in the wrong precinct, but right municipality, the ballot should not be counted. A cynic would note here, with a fierce tone of voice, that 'we all know that when more people vote, democrats win.' And given the number of new voters, it is expected that many people will show up in the wrong precinct. Interestingly, the Dept of Justice filed a friend of the court brief in Michigan, arguing that Michigan should be free to use the strict interpretation. Go Ashcroft! Protecting our Civil Rights!

Now, this narrow interpretation of HAVA is being challenged in the courts. Here's where it stands in the most contested swing states: Florida, the State Supreme Court ruled that voters must be in the correct precinct. Michigan: provisional ballots cast in nearby precincts, as long as they are in the same municipality/county, must be counted--but only if voters are not directed to the correct precinct. And now Ohio, the judge has ruled that the votes must be counted.


(thanks to chicagoprogressive by way of the DailyKos for the following)

Secretary of state faulted in provisional-ballot case, accused of failing Ohio
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Mark Niquette
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

U.S. District Judge James G. Carr in Toledo also suggested that Blackwell risked denying large numbers of Ohioans the right to vote on Nov. 2 and "apparently seeks to accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000."
While an appeals court decides the legal dispute over provisional ballots in Ohio, Carr wants Blackwell to give county election officials alternative instructions for the possible outcomes in the case so no time is lost once there's a ruling.
The judge even offered his own language for those guidelines, saying Blackwell can't be trusted to do so. "I cannot be confident . . . that Blackwell will, indeed, fulfill his obligation to this court, Ohio's election officials, and Ohio's voters," the judge wrote.

10.20.2004

on the intelligence of little people

now, you may know that incumbents usually receive about the same share of the vote as their last-polled approval ratings. yesterday, bush was at a dangerous low 44% (nytimes).

and the kids back this up.

from ap story:

Kid power! Democrat John Kerry is the winner, and the rest of the country should pay attention because the vote on Nickelodeon's Web site has correctly chosen the president of the United States in the past four elections.

Nearly 400,000 children and teens voted, and the results were released Wednesday. Kerry received 57 percent of the vote; President Bush
got 43 percent.

bizarre endorsements for bush

ap story:

Bush wins election endorsement — from Iran
FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN, Iran — The head of Iran's security council said today the re-election of President George W. Bush would be in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations 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," 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.
Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.
(emphasis mine)


from salon.com
"Please, don't vote for our cousin!"
We thought we had already seen the most bizarre endorsement of the race -- but this one is right up there. Second cousins of George W. Bush, clearly selfless in their willingness to relinquish any chance of ever being invited to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom or ride on Air Force One, as long as their cuz is president, have endorsed John Kerry and established a Web site: www.bushrelativesforkerry.com.

on casualties

bush is more deluded than we thought. Pat Robertson expressed concern about the war prior to the invasion of Iraq. He related the story to Paula Zahn:

"'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 the president then told him, 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.'"

salon.com

10.19.2004

on the power of boycotts

from salon.com

Sinclair stock in free-fall
Stock in the Sinclair Broadcasting Group continues to drop like a rock. Since the company announced its unprecedented move to air a one-sided hit piece on its 62 stations nationwide the eve of a presidential election (i.e. "Stolen Honor," the anti-Kerry documentary), Sinclair shares have plummeted from nearly $8 to $6.50, losing more than 20 percent of their value in just six trading days. The current value not only marks a 52-week low for the company's stock, but it's the lowest level since Feb, 2001, and comes dangerously close to surpassing the stock's five-year low. Sinclair's Republican stunt proves once again that mass communications and partisan politics don't always mix, especially with irate Democrats voicing their outrage over Sinclair's move and urging advertiser boycotts. As one Sinclair employee told Salon last week, "They have no idea what they've unleashed."

The picture for Sinclair shareholders is even more grim if they step back and look at what the stock was valued at just six months ago; $13. That was the last time Sinclair decided to use the public airwaves for blatantly political purposes, refusing its ABC affiliates from airing special "Nightline" during which the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq were read off. Since then, the stock has lost nearly half its value. Of course if longtime Sinclair shareholders really want to gnash their teeth over the company's inept management, they can just think back to the glory days of 1995 when their $6.50 Sinclair stock was worth…$45.
-- Eric Boehlert

on civil liberties

from salon.com

"We didn't think it would be offensive"Our question is, why does the Bush-Cheney campaign assume people wearing shirts that say "Protect Our Civil Liberties" are opposed to the president's re-election? Would the campaign welcome guests as obvious Bush supporters if they're wearing shirts that say "Civil Liberties, Civil Schmiberties"?

Three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and escorted from the event 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 event in Oregon sets a new bar for a Bush/Cheney campaign that has taken extraordinary measures to screen the opinions of those who attend Bush and Cheney speeches. For months, the Bush/Cheney campaign has limited event access to those willing to volunteer in Bush/Cheney campaign offices. In recent weeks, the Bush/Cheney campaign has gone so far as to have those who voice dissenting viewpoints at their events arrested and charged as criminals."
-- Geraldine Sealey

10.18.2004

on speaking truthfully

wow. tim ryan (d) ohio is pretty cool. who knew? watch the little clip from his house speech about the draft.

http://www.mydd.com/files/admin/TimRyan_Medium.mov

on silence

i just saw that William Gibson, one of my favorite author/thinkers, is blogging. And here's his explanation of why he began his blog.

Why?
Because the United States currently has, as Jack Womack so succintly puts it, a president who makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln.

And because, as the Spanish philospher Unamuno said, "At times, to be silent is to lie."

on vaccinations and responsibility

from americanprogress.com--today's progress report.

"We relied upon a company out of England."
- President Bush, explaining responsibility for the flu vaccine shortage, 10/14/04
VERSUS
"Chiron is a California-based company."
- Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/14/04

(i'd just like to add that if the administration had fessed up earlier that there was going to be a shortage, clinics and so forth could have organized their efforts better--instead of letting elderly folks wait outside in the sun and the cold, which has resulted in a heatstroke, hypothermia, and even a death from someone who fainted and hit their head. is this really an 'advanced' nation???)

FLU VACCINE
Bush's Blame Game
The vaccine shortage this winter means tens of millions of Americans will have to forgo a flu shot, including millions of those who need it most – the elderly, small children and pregnant women. In Michigan, for example, there are 3.4 million people considered a priority for a flu shot, but only 2 million total doses available. It didn't have to be this way. The Bush administration received warnings about the vaccination supply problem and could have taken steps to avert or diminish the problem. It didn't. Instead of taking responsibility for the crisis that resulted, the Bush administration has tried to deflect blame with a series of false, misleading and hypocritical statements. (And, for good measure, it has blamed John Kerry).

BUSH WARNED ABOUT VACCINE SUPPLY PROBLEM IN 2001: In May 2001, the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report concluding "a production delay or shortfall experienced by even one of the three remaining manufacturers can significantly impact overall vaccine availability." Specifically, the GAO expressed concern that, in the event of a shortage, "there is no mechanism currently in place to distribute flu vaccine to high-risk individuals before others." The report recommended robust cooperation between the federal government and the private sector to avoid future problems.

BUSH IGNORES THE PROBLEM 3+ YEARS: The GAO produced a follow-up report in September 2004, more than three years later. That report found "the number of producers remains limited, and the potential for manufacturing problems...is still present." Again, the GAO noted "there is no system in place to ensure that seniors and others at high risk for complications receive flu vaccinations first when vaccine is in short supply."

BUSH BLEW OPPORTUNITY TO SECURE ALTERNATIVE SUPPLIES: On Sept. 13, Chiron Corp. informed officials from the United States and England that there were unresolved contamination problems at its Liverpool, England, plant. The British government responded by contacting other manufacturers and securing alternative supplies. The Bush administration failed to act before all doses of the flu vaccine had been purchased.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION EXCUSE RINGS HOLLOW: FDA Acting Commissioner Lester M. Crawford suggests the United States could not find new supplies of the flu vaccine because they didn't know the Chiron plant would be closed until Oct. 5, by which time there was no more vaccine available. Crawford does not specifically deny, however, that the FDA knew there were unresolved contamination issues at the plant starting on Sept. 13.

BUSH WILL SAY ANYTHING TO AVOID RESPONSIBILITY: In an effort to avoid any responsibility for the problem, Bush said in the debate last Wednesday the United States had a flu vaccine shortage because "we relied upon a company out of England." But Chiron Corp. is a California company, subject to regulation by the U.S. government, which operates a factory in England. Bush also took credit for identifying the problem, saying "we took the right action and didn't allow contaminated medicine into our country." But it was the British government, not the Bush administration, that closed the factory and prevented the contaminated vaccines from entering the United States. The FDA inspected the plant in June 2003 and found contamination problems – but later announced that the problems had been fixed to its satisfaction.

HYPOCRITICAL RESPONSE – IMPORT VACCINES FROM CANADA: Asked about the vaccine shortage during the debate, Bush said "we're working with Canada to – hopefully they'll produce a – help us realize the vaccine necessary to make sure our citizens have got flu vaccinations." Apparently, Bush forgot that his administration has been working doggedly to prevent the reimportation of cheaper Canadian drugs at the behest of the pharmaceutical company, claiming they are unsafe. The next day, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson got back on message, saying "getting more vaccine from Canada is unlikely."

DESPERATE RESPONSE – BLAME KERRY: According to Bush campaign Chairman Ken Mehlman, the administration bears no responsibility for the flu vaccine shortage – it's all John Kerry's fault. According to Mehlman, John Kerry is responsible because he opposed a 2003 bill that would limit legal liability for drug manufacturers whose products injure patients. The bill never even came up for a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

on trying to vote for kerry

check it out. see if you can do it!

http://wearabledissent.com/101/floridaballot.html

thanks rue!

on bush's support for our troops, redux

General Reported Shortages In Iraq
Mon Oct 18, 7:40 AM ET

By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer
The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.

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."

on senate races

some of you have asked me recently what the scoop is in terms of senate/house races. i have to admit, there's so much other news lately, that i haven't been following. but, thankfully, the blogger Kos seems to have more time than me, and he's helpfully posted the following information on senate races:

The Big Senate Pictureby kos
Mon Oct 18th, 2004 at 16:48:30 GMT
Here's an overview for those who don't follow the ups and downs of the various Senate contests obsessively.

We start with a Republican advantage of 51-48-1 (with the independent caucusing with Democrats). We need a net gain of two seats to take back the Senate. We can hold it 50-50 if Kerry wins, but it would necessitate the same sort of power-sharing agreement Daschle wrestled out of the GOP in 2000. And such an agreement would close down the Senate. It would be better to either hold the Senate outright, or not have it so Kerry can run against Senate Republican "obstructionists" in 2006 and 2008.

Here are the battleground Senate seats, ranked by chance of switch. Oh, and I don't do "toss-up", as I find it a sort of cop-out, like "50% chance of rain".

1. Illinois (R open seat): The big question here is whether Democrat Barack Obama will get more than 75 percent of the vote. This one is so in the bag, as Republican carpetbagger Alan Keyes makes an ass out of himself, that Obama has spent more time campaigning for other candidates than himself.
Definite Dem pickup
2. Georgia (D open seat): While Denise Majette has showed some life as of late, this race will mark a switch from Republican-pretending-to-be-Democrat Zell Miller to a bona fide Republican.
Likely Rep pickup
3. Colorado (R open seat): Proven Colorado vote getter -- Democratic Attorney General Ken Salazar -- has held solid leads in polls against bad-beer maker Peter Coors. Coors has lots of money, and the NRSC is dumping a lot of cash into the state, so we can't put this one in our column just yet.
Leans Dem pickup
4. South Carolina (D open seat):Republican Jim DeMint looked to be running away with the race against Democrat Inez Tenenbaum. Then the DSCC ran some of the most effective ads of any race this cycle -- hammering DeMint for his proposed national sales tax. Throw in outsourcing as an issue in this textile state, and suddenly Inez is nipping at DeMint's heels. If the election were held today, the state's strong Red bent would give DeMint the victory. But the election is not today, and Inez has the momentum.
Leans Rep pickup
5. Oklahoma (R open seat):We shouldn't be competitive in Oklahoma, but we have a hell of a candidate in Brad Carson, and they have a candidate from hell in Tom Coburn. Carson weathered Coburn's post-primary bump, and has held consistent, if erratic, leads in subsequent polling.
Leans Dem pickup
6. Alaska (R incumbent): Another state where Dems shouldn't be competitive. But we have a super candidate in former governor Tony Knowles. The incumbent is Republican Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed to the seat by her daddy when he moved in to the governor's mansion. Her father's short tenure as governor hasn't been smooth sailing, while the nepotism issue has haunted Lisa from day one. Meanwhile, Knowles has run the perfect, error-free campaign.
Leans Dem pickup
7. North Carolina (D open seat): Democrat Erskine Bowles held strong leads through most of the summer, but after enduring a barrage of negative ads from Richard Burr and the NRSC, that lead has evaporated into a dead heat. If the election where held today, Bowles would eeke out a narrow victory. But the election is not today, and Burr has the momentum.
Leans Dem retention
8. Kentucky (R incumbent): This race shouldn't be on the radar screen, but Republican incumbent Jum Bunning is literally falling apart. His erratic and bizarre behavior has raised alarm bells in the state's media, and the beneficiary has been Democratic long-shot Dan Mongiardo. Bunning still has the advantages of incumbency in a Red state, but those are eroding by the day, alongside Bunning's mental faculties.
Leans Rep retention
9. South Dakota (D incumbent):Depending on the poll, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle is either up comfortable, or up narrowly. One or two outliers (Rasmussent) have shown his republican opponent, John Thune, with a narrow lead. Dascle is the only Democratic incumbent in any danger this cycle, but Daschle has weathered many a close race as a Democrat in this solidly Red state. And SD Democrats have proven they can win, given their hold on the state's two Senate seats and at-large House seat. Those victories are never easy, however.
Leans Dem retention.
10. Louisiana (D open seat):Since reconstruction, Lousiana has not sent a Republican to the Senate, and this year should be no different. The wild-card in this race is the runoff. This seat will be decided in a December runoff election between Republican Daivd Vitter and either Chris John or John Kennedy for the Dems. If Kerry wins the White House, and control of the Senate comes down to this race, the GOP will be able to make a compelling case for divided government.
Leans Dem retention
11. Florida (D open seat):This year's hurricane season has made this Senate race something of a bust (no one thinks politics while they're trying to rebuild their lives). Castor has had the early advantage, though Martinez has been pounding her for alleged ties to accused terrorist sympathizer Al-Arian. Castor just turned the tables on Martinez, running a hard-hitting ad featuring a picture of Al-Arian with George Bush. This race is down in the gutter, but I'm giving Castor the edge given the strong GOTV operation in the state on behalf of Democrats.
Leans Dem retention