Wednesday Tropical Sunset (and early Friday Cat) Blogging

Off to the tropics for a few days of west and wewaxation, leaving the cat-girls in the hands of a very good housesitter.[/Fudd]



So here's to a new tradition: Wednesday Tropical Sunset Blogging! This is Negril, Jamaica circa 1989








...and a little in advance, here's your Friday cat blogging, keeping the same theme (note the cloud formation):

The Undecided Voter

Tom Tomorrow nails it.



That sound you hear is me banging my head against the wall in a fugue of frustration and despair.

From the Tinfoil Hat Archives

Pretty compelling case for something smelling rotten about the official story of the so-called attack on the Pentagon on 9/11/01.

Why They Hate Us

...because this is the kind of stuff Capitalism comes up with.



=shudder=

It's Your Money -- paying for anti-Kerry smears

Dana Milbank, one of the few mostly-reliable voices in the press for something approaching the truth (which is truly praisation by faint damns), notes:

Four days ago, retired naval Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. seconded accusations made by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth seeking to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry's record in Vietnam. But since then, Democrats have discovered that Schachte is also a long-standing supporter of President Bush and a lobbyist whose client FastShip Inc. recently won a $40 million grant from the federal government.



On Aug. 27, Schachte issued a statement saying that after he "avoided talking to media" for months, he was reluctantly stepping forward to challenge Kerry's award of one of his Purple Hearts on Dec. 2, 1968. "Kerry had himself in charge of the operation, and I was not mentioned at all," he said. "He also claimed that he was wounded by hostile fire. None of this is accurate. I know, because I was not only in the boat, but I was in command of the mission."



Kerry has said Schachte was not on the boat that night, adding another mystery to the disputed events of 36 years ago. But other events are not in dispute. According to a March 18 legal filing by Schachte's firm, Blank Rome, Schachte was one of the lobbyists working for FastShip on issues such as the effort to win funding for a new marine cargo terminal. On Feb. 2, Philadelphia-based FastShip announced that it would receive $40 million in federal funding for the project.

Shorter Dana Milbank: The Administration bribed Schachte with a $40 million government contract -- using YOUR money -- for lies about John Kerry.



Is this how you want your money spent?



Side note: One thing that bothered me a great deal about Kerry's appearance on The Daily Show last week was his expression of surprise at the Swift Boat Bullshitters' tactics. When on earth are the Democrats going to learn who they're dealing with?

From the "Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife?" file

Maybe the so-called scientific polls are also asking their questions this way.



UPDATE: Someone at MSNBC woke up. The question "Did Rudy Giuliani's speech move or reassure you to support the Bush-Cheney ticket?" used to have two options: move or reassure. Now it's Yes/No. (Note to self: Look for the former wording in the Google cache tonight...)

Stealing the election without even covering your tracks

Amazing. The Bush Administration is so arrogant they're not even TRYING to hide their intent to steal this election in swing states. First Florida, now Missouri.



NY Times Editorial, today:

Barely two months before the presidential vote, Missouri's secretary of state has suddenly announced that he will allow military voters from his state - one of the most pivotal in the election - to e-mail ballots from combat zones to the Defense Department. E-mail is far too insecure to be used for voting. Missouri and North Dakota, which announced a similar rule yesterday, should rescind these orders right away. Missouri's action also sheds light on the Defense Department's role in administering federal elections, a troubling situation that needs far more scrutiny.



The Missouri secretary of state, Matt Blunt, decided last week that military voters in combat zones will be able to e-mail their ballots to the Pentagon, which will then send them to local Missouri elections offices to be counted. This system, which has not been used before, is rife with security problems, including the possibility of hacking the e-mailed ballots, which will not be encrypted. Earlier this year the Defense Department scrapped a pilot program to allow the military to vote over the Internet, after concluding that it could not "assure the legitimacy of votes" cast online.



There is more cause for concern after the ballots arrive at the Pentagon. E-mail voters will be required to sign a release acknowledging that their votes may not be kept secret. When the people handling ballots know who they are cast for, it is not hard to imagine that ballots for disfavored candidates could accidentally be "lost." And because the e-mailed ballots arrive as computer documents, it is possible to cut off the voter's digitized signature, attach it to a ballot supporting another candidate, and send that ballot on to the state to be counted.

I'm hoping to get my good friend, Stephen Himes, who hails from Matt Blunt Country, to guest-blog on this, but until I can nag him into submission, go read the rest of this.



UPDATE: Well, that was easy. Mr. Himes, special correspondent to B@B and ModFab from the great state of Missouri, writes:

I am not above saying that I think the Republicans are trying to rig this election. All pretense is off. You've got the president of Diebold saying, publically, mind you, that they're going to "come through" in Ohio. Few of the Florida problems have been remedied. I think the Republicans rigged the elections in Georgia and Minnesota last time with voting machines. Look at the swing in the actual vote count and polling done days before the election. Notice that exit polling data system....just happened to not work during the 2002 election. What, you're going to tell me they *wouldn't* do that? The science of electronic voting is in dispute to the point that many scientists in the field are outraged that electronic voting is going to be such a wide part of this election. Republican-donor companies DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE THE VOTING MACHINES. And it goes on

and on.



The son of the House's fourth ranking Republican just happens to count the votes in Missouri, one of the most key swing states, and he just so happens to be running for governor. Do you realize what sort of shit-fit the Republican machine would stir in the public consciousness if the scenario were reversed? Are we a damn banana republic or are we the Show-Me State? SHOW ME THE CERTIFIED PAPER BALLOTS, MATT!



I'm sick of trying to be impartial. I'm sick of trying to be "fair." These people are corrupt to the core. They will do anything for power, anything to win, and that's why they do. I feel like the Manchurian Candidate. But you know what? McCarthy *was* a corrupt messiah, and I think these people are devoted to one. And they can get away with it because there's no public outrage. And whatever "outrage" there is, is simply passed off as "liberal elitist anger" or whatever. I've tried to hold it in check because I think that too often Moveon.org's manipulation of facts and quotes are part of the problem, not the solution. It's still not, and I don't like listening

to whining either. But I've had enough of this. It was wrong when Democratic

machines rigged elections in Chicago and Kansas City, and it's wrong now that the Republicans are doing it.



I am outraged. I'm outraged to the point I'm about ready to type right through my keyboard. I'm convinced that this election is about far more than whether John Kerry or George W. Bush is more qualified to lead a war on terror. Allowing the Republicans to win this time will threaten the Democracy. Don't tell me that's too melodramatic. Will you just look at what has happened in just the four years since these guys took control?



I can't even start or I won't stop. Democracy is not about winning; it's about seeking justice and truth. They don't want to be fair and let the best man win. They want to gerrymander all but the most Kucinichian Democrats out of office and create a Republican caliphate. Yes, I know, Democrats are guilty too. But weigh Democratic crimes in this regard in the last decade, and then compare that to Tom DeLay carving five honestly elected Democrats out of office in Texas. My fear is that Missouri may become the next Texas.



These guys are classic literary figures, drunk on their own power, messianic in their conviction beyond all reason. At this point, it's beyond the mechanics of health care policy, education policy, foreign policy, and any other kind of policy you can think of. It's hard for me to think of living in a world dominated by George W. Bush for another four years. They have to lose this time. Just one time, they have to lose, for the good of the country. He hangs in my mind like a fog, like the victory gin clouding over Winston Smith. You read that that it's obvious they're trying to rig the election, and yet, you look out the window at the American people and the sun is still shining. To borrow from Pope, as seems the custom these

days, it's the eternal sunshine of spotless minds.

Rise, Darlinghurst

Rise seems to be the talk of the town at the moment, particularly with recent closure rumours. We elected to take part in the Rise experience whilst it remained open, and whilst the 50% discount offer remained extended.Nestled within suburbia on Craigend Street in Sydney's Darlinghurst, the entrance to Rise is virtually unmarked but for a small gold plaque with the Rise logo. We were here to

Killing for Christ Hallelujah Say Amen

The kook right, otherwise known as "The Republican Base"(*) shows its reverence for human life once again:

An explosion that blew out a number of windows at a Boston-area laboratory specializing in stem-cell research was caused by a pipe bomb, local police said on Friday.



No one was wounded in Thursday's early morning blast at Watertown, Massachusetts-based Amaranth Bio, which says on its Web site its technology is focused on organ regeneration and that it is working on cures for diabetes and liver disorders.



In a statement, Watertown police confirmed the explosion was the result of a pipe bomb and said they believe someone broke into the facility. No arrests have been made, police said.

(*) If Republicans can point out protesters carrying signs expressing solidarity with the Iraqi resistance as "Kerry's Base", well, sauce for the goose, I say...

Disgusting!

If you needed further proof that the current crop of Republican leaders is beneath contempt, look no further:

Delegates to the Republican National Convention found a new way to take a jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service record: by sporting adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them.



Morton Blackwell, a prominent Virginia delegate, has been handing out the heart-covered bandages to delegates, who've worn them on their chins, cheeks, the backs of their hands and other places.

Every veteran who has ever earned the Purple Heart for being wounded in action is being slapped in the face by this party, just so they can make a few cheap political points among the already-converted.



If you have a father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, friend, or casual acquaintance who has ever served in the United States Military, please be sure they see this article, so that they know what the Republican Party thinks of their sacrifice. Keep in mind as you send this article out that most of the people doing this are those who never served.



(via Pandagon)

The Mother of all Flip-Flops

Who's a flip-flopper now, George?



Kos provides the incontrovertible proof of Bush's 180-degree turnaround.

One voter at a time

I hope you'll all join me and giv some turkee to the good people at Truthout.org, whose terrific Web coverage of Republicon, combined with that of Air America, on the heels of a half million protesters on Sunday, constitute a giant one-finger salute to the media whores doing the bidding of their corporate masters.



And check out William Rivers Pitt's interview of a young kool-aid drinker as he slowly draws out the truth -- she has doubts about George W. Bush.



Truthout: converting one voter at a time.

Morning in Amerika: Part I

Looks like the suppression of dissent has begun in earnest. New York City Indymedia is the subject of a federal criminal investigation. Its crime? Dissent. It's STATED alleged crime?



Are you ready? You'd better sit down.



VOTER INTIMIDATION!!!!



BWAA HAA HAA HAA!!



Are they fucking serious?



This is a longer stretch even than you find at the end of the "FIRM Super Body Sculpt" video.

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation and is demanding records regarding Internet postings by critics of the Bush administration that list the names of Republican delegates and urge protesters to give them an unwelcome reception in New York City.



Federal prosecutors said in a grand jury subpoena that the information was needed as part of an investigation into possible voter intimidation. Protesters and civil rights advocates argued that the Web postings were legitimate political dissent, not threats or intimidation.

Since when are Federal prosecutors so concerned with voter intimidation? And if they are, why aren't they in fucking FLORIDA, instead of harassing dissidents in New York City? Gee whiz....liberals in Manhattan. Who'd a thunk it?



Listen, George, if you didn't want protests, you should have held your party in Dallas.



(via ModFab)

NOW he tells us

I'm sure that the parents of the 972 soldiers who have died in Bush's Iraq will take great comfort from this:

President George Bush acknowledged today that he does not think the war on terror can be won, but said it would make it less acceptable for groups to use terrorism as a tool.



In a US TV interview, Bush, who has said he expects the war on terror to be a long, drawn-out battle, was asked: “Can we win it?”



The president replied: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the – those who use terror as a tool are – less acceptable in parts of the world.”

"Less acceptable"? Oh, so he's talking about shunning, right? Maybe that's what he was discussing with the Amish -- how to successfully implement shunning as a tool of foreign policy.



Now, I happen to think that shunning might not be a bad idea, but don't you think that 872 lives and a year and a half of dick-waving later, it's maybe a tad late in the game to decide this?



Bush's "war on terror" is supposed to be the centerpiece of his campaign, in a party where winning is the ONLY thing that matters. And now he's saying the so-called "war on terror" can't be won?



Of course it can't, but Bush has played on the trust of millions of America over the last three years to further his neocons' policy agendas, only to tell them now it was all for nothing.



I can't believe this guy is polling anything north of the 30% of cretins who form his base.

Damn, he's good

He's been pretty much invisible during the whole Swift Boat Bullshit, but John Edwards hasn't lost a step. You've gotta love his statement on Sunday about Bush's interestingly-phrased description of the Iraq war as "a catastrophic success":

"I, like most Americans, have no idea what that means, but it is long past time for this president to accept personal responsibility for his failures and for his performance."

For one thing, it's uncharacteristically snarky for Edwards. For another thing, it throws the "personal responsibility" meme of the Republicans right back in their faces.



I hope the Kerry campaign is able to put Edwards front and center for a while....maybe get HIM on the Daily Show.

Karl Rove in the Time of Jesus

What if Karl Rove had lived in the time of Jesus? Find out here.



Oh yeah, and go see how I make totally unfounded strong allusion to Karl Rove being a glorified stalker of George W. Bush.

Blue Fish, Darling Harbour

It was a Melbourne-like on/off rainy Sunday when we visited Blue Fish. Situated on prime tourist-trap territory overlooking Darling Harbour, we called in here mainly because they have a voucher in the Entertainment Book.According to its website, Blue Fish claims to receive "two daily supplies of fresh seafood direct from the Fish Market". To their credit, Blue Fish does seem to live up to this

This may be why the polls are so close

A Harris poll "about current issues, activities, and experiences" asks:



If the election for president were to be held today, how likely would you be to vote for the current president, George W. Bush?



- Absolutely certain I would vote for George W. Bush

- Very likely I would vote for George W. Bush

- Likely I would vote for George W. Bush

- Somewhat likely I would vote for George W. Bush

- Not at all likely I would vote for George W. Bush



Doesn't "not at all likely" mean there's a possibility? In reality, I would rather have root canal without anesthesia than vote for George W. Bush.



I wonder if this is how all polls are asking their questions?

The Last Investigative Journalist in America

...is Bev Harris, who isn't even a journalist. No one has done more to bring the problems of electronic voting into the public's consciousness. In a don't miss piece in In These Times, she cites some examples where so-called "voting machine glitches" changed the outcome of the race:

In the 2002 general election, a computer miscount overturned the House District 11 result in Wayne County, North Carolina. Incorrect programming caused machines to skip several thousand party-line votes, both Republican and Democratic. Fixing the error turned up 5,500 more votes and reversed the election for state representative.



This crushing defeat never happened: Voting machines failed to tally “yes” votes on the 2002 school bond issue in Gretna, Nebraska. This error gave the false impression that the measure had failed miserably, but it actually passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Responsibility for the errors was attributed to ES&S, the Omaha company that had provided the ballots and the machines.



According to the Chicago Tribune, “It was like being queen for a day—but only for 12 hours,” said Richard Miholic, a losing Republican candidate for alderman in 2003 who was told that he had won a Lake County, Illinois, primary election. He was among 15 people in four races affected by an ES&S vote-counting foul-up.



An Orange County, California, election computer made a 100 percent error during the April 1998 school bond referendum. The Registrar of Voters Office initially announced that the bond issue had lost by a wide margin; in fact, it was supported by a majority of the ballots cast. The error was attributed to a programmer’s reversing the “yes” and “no” answers in the software used to count the votes.



A computer program that was specially enhanced to speed the November 1993 Kane County, Illinois, election results to a waiting public did just that—unfortunately, it sped the wrong data. Voting totals for a dozen Illinois races were incomplete, and in one case they suggested that a local referendum proposal had lost when it actually had been approved. For some reason, software that had worked earlier without a hitch had waited until election night to omit eight precincts in the tally.



A squeaker—no, a landslide—oops, we reversed the totals—and about those absentee votes, make that 72-19, not 44-47. Software programming errors, sorry. Oh, and reverse that election, we announced the wrong winner. In the 2002 Clay County, Kansas, commissioner primary, voting machines said Jerry Mayo ran a close race but lost, garnering 48 percent of the vote, but a hand recount revealed Mayo had won by a landslide, receiving 76 percent of the vote.

Don't miss it. (via Corrente)

Gee I Think You're Swell-a-nor

Eleanor Clift, that glutton for punishment who shows up weekly on McLaughlin, uses some pretty strong language (including a GOP staffer using the "T" word) to describe the Bush Family Hitmen who show up every time a member of da Fambly is in trouble:

"...all it takes is a well-placed wink to activate a web of Bush family hit men, confidantes and deep-pocket donors. “They know what to do—it’s like sleeper cells that get activated,” he says, likening the players to “political terrorists.”



[snip]



My Republican mole on Capitol Hill says the green light has gone out to Republicans to do whatever it takes to get Bush elected. “This is the way we hold onto power,” he says with disgust.

Think about it. "...do whatever it takes..." What do you think that means?



- an administration-created terrorist attack?



- cancellation of the election?



- rigged voting machines?



- mass voter intimidation?



Do YOU want a president who would do "whatever it takes" to get elected -- no matter how heinous?

The Fact-esque Factor for August 28, 2004

"Me no like John Kerry!":

Another Iowan, Bill Lannom, 59, of Grinnell, one of the founding members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he spent one year on a boat similar to the one Kerry was on, patrolling the Mekong Delta, and that he saw no such atrocities being committed.



"I know from my personal experience that what he said was not true. Totally. He lied," Lannom said. He said he met Kerry after the war and did not serve on any missions with him in Vietnam.

So let me see if I get this: This guy didn't serve with John Kerry, but because HE didn't SEE any atrocities being committed while on HIS swift boat, it means none were ever committed and Kerry is by definition a liar.



WTF kind of logic is that?



The histrionics continue...

A shandeh far di goyim

Swell. Just what we need...evidence that the rumblings in the Bush Administration about "Iran is next" may further show that our foreign policy in the Middle East is at the beck and call of the Israel's Likud right-wing:

CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology -- "roll up" someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.



[snip]



At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.



CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy."



This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."



[snip]



The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?



With ties to top Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy.

The unholy group marriage in this Administration among the PNAC Likudniks in the Defense Department, the energy industry, and right-wing evangelical Christians looking for George W. Bush to deliver them to the Rapture and rid them of these pesky Jews once and for all is bearing some pretty nasty fruit.



Look, folks, I'm not anti-Israel. I'm a JEW, for God's sake, albeit a pretty lapsed one. But I'm still troubled by the notion of representatives of ANY country sitting with our government decision-makers making policy based on THEIR OWN country's interest. Obviously, as someone in opposition to the Iraq war, I believe we need to work in conjunction with the rest of the world, but that doesn't extend to deciding against whom we go to war.



Almost 1000 American young people, many of them from Bible Belt states, are dead in this war. The last thing we need is even a perception that it was Israeli officials, even by proxy, who sent them there.



SIDE NOTE: Isn't it interesting how often the name Manucher Ghorbanifar shows up whenever the Bush family is in power? WaPo reports:

Franklin's name surfaced in news reports last year that disclosed he and another Pentagon specialist on the Persian Gulf region had met secretly with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a discredited expatriate Iranian arms merchant who figured prominently in the Iran-contra scandal of the mid-1980s.



That meeting, according to Pentagon officials, took place in late 2001. It had been formally sanctioned by the U.S. government in response to an Iranian government offer to provide information relevant to the war on terrorism. Franklin and the other Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, met with the Iranians over three days in Italy. Ghorbanifar attended these meetings. Rumsfeld has said that the information received at the meetings led nowhere.

Why do the Bushistas continue to do business with these people? Ghorbanifar is as sleazy an operative as their other short-duration personal savior, Ahmad Chalabi -- also a crony of Douglas Feith. Why are such people involved in the decision-making process that already has sent nearly 1000 American kids to their deaths, and may send thousands more? Why aren't we furious about this?

New MoveOn PAC ad

That's Moveon PAC, as in political action committee, not "shadowy interest group". That PAC, just like the NRA and the Christian Coalition.



OK?



Anyway, go watch their new ad. What worries me is that probably a majority of Americans think the looneys depicted therein make sense.

"John Kerry took my shoe!"

If you haven't yet heard the coffee-spittingly hilarious Morning Sedition parody of the Swift Boat Ad, Liberal Oasis has it for your edification and mirthification. Don't miss it!

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again...

"...and expecting a different result." - Albert Einstein



So here we go again.



Every four years, since 1988, the Bush Machine has had the same modus operandi: Have others float a pack o'lies about the opposition and keep yer own hands clean.



And every four years, with only two exceptions, the Democrats put up a candidate who still believes that the American people are too smart to believe this stuff (they aren't), and that such remarks don't even deserve to be dignified by a reply (they must be). And every four years, the Democratic nominee gets his ass kicked -- his candidacy killed by a series of paper cuts.



Only Bill Clinton saw what they were doing, and only Bill Clinton had the balls to fight back. That he then took their bait in the form of the girl in the blue dress makes him even more frustrating, because he knew better.



This leaves me with only two possible conclusions:



1) The Democratic Party is so inept that it has no sense of history, and despite the fact that the American people have proven over and over again that yes, they really are that stupid, and lies work, they still insist on taking the high road.



2) The Democratic Party wants to lose. Why it wants to lose is anyone's guess, but perhaps they really are just part of the same club; just an illusion to make us think we really have a choice.



Do we have to sink to the level of Rove and Company? Let me ask you this: Do we want to hand George W. Bush another four years, to be followed by eight years of Jebbie, and then of girlfriend-stalker George P., whom they're trotting out to speak at the RNC as if it were his debutante ball?



Hey, John Kerry! If you don't fight back, that's what we get.



Any questions?

Dictatorships and Double Standards

No apologies whatsoever to either Jeane Kirkpatrick OR to Simon & Schuster for appropriating the title of her wonderful 1983 book which outlined why we have to support guys like Saddam Hussein and Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran. (Hint: It's because they aren't Communists.)



No, I'm talking about the henchmen of the Bush dictatorship, and their cronies in the media, who continue to apply differing standards to C-Plus Augustus and his challenger.



Media Matters reports in detail on the quantity of the mainstream news media's reporting of allegations against John Kerry which have already been proven false vs. the coverage of Captain Codpiece's peculiar absence from his own National Guard service during the Vietnam years.



Meanwhile, Bob Herbert has had just about enough of this:

In what is surely the most important election of the last half-century, we seem trapped in the politics of the madhouse. What is incredible is that these attacks on men who served not just honorably, but heroically, are coming from a hawkish party that is controlled by an astonishing number of men who sprinted as far from the front lines as they could when they were of fighting age and their country was at war.

"We ought to do more thanking, less thinking. No one ever says 'think you'."

Joyce McGreevy (no relation to the guv) at Salon shares an advance peek at Bush's acceptance speech. Quotable quotes:

"You know, we all have a obligation to vote. But that doesn't mean you have to."



"...if John Kerry doesn't want his record of admirable service in Vietnam to be attacked, he shouldn't have had a record in the first place. He kind of set himself up for that one by serving admirably and then testifying to the Senate about the lessons of Vietnam. You didn't see me doing that."



"So let's turn a corner, any corner, and spread the good word that America is now so much safer that terrorists could attack us at any minute, and you might be one of them."



"I want to thank the workers of America who helped us overcome the Clinton recession that had 22 million jobs threatening the security of this country."



"This is America. You can't just take somebody's tax cut. You have to inherit your own tax cut. That's the American dream."

Friday Cat Blogging

Maggie practices posing for her nude spread at Pussy Magazine.

Zogby

Wow. Zogby, one of the most reliable and respected pollsters, reprints a fascinating analysis of the presidential race as of August 20 by Alan Waldman of Orlando Weekly, that includes the following:

Should Kerry supporters feel encouraged by the data above? Yes and no. The trend in most states is toward Kerry, but two pitfalls lie ahead.



First there's the "October surprise." After Bush's theft of the 2000 election and his clear swoon in the electoral vote tabulations, he is widely believed to have a dirty trick up his sleeve. Pakistan may have trapped Osama bin Laden in an Afghan cave and be planning to help Bush produce him – three years late – just before Nov. 2. A few months ago, there were press rumors that trucks hired by the United States were shipping weapons of mass destruction into Iraq, for timely discovery. And the way has been prepared to postpone the election if we suffer another major terror attack.



Second – and even scarier – 98 million U.S. ballots will go into computers which could be used to falsify the results, leaving no paper record available for recounts. It is widely believed that Republican operatives hacked electronic voting machines in Georgia and Minnesota in 2002, giving their party control of the Senate. A week before the Georgia vote, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showed popular Democratic Sen. Max Cleland ahead by five points, but he mysteriously lost to his GOP foe, Saxby Chambliss, by seven points. Georgia was the first state to use electronic voting devices almost exclusively.



In Minnesota, Sen. Paul Wellstone was a shoo-in for re-election when he died in a plane crash. Democratic former Vice President Walter Mondale, who led significantly days before the election, replaced him. Shockingly, Republican Norm Coleman was the recipient of an unexpected 11-point vote shift on Election Day – but no one checked the vulnerable chips that tabulated the votes.

So here's Zogby, reprinting an article that not only discusses George W. Bush's THEFT of the 2000 election, but alludes strongly to rigged voting already having happened in 2002, in the Mondale/Coleman and Cleland/Chambliss Senate races. (I'd add the Dole/Bowles Senate race in North Carolina and the Purdue/Barnes Georgia gubernatorial race to that, but why be nitpicky?)

Swift Boat Liars = Abu Ghraib Guards

Former Congressional legislative counsel Mark Levine (not Mark Levin, the scroungy dog who hangs around WABC screeching hatred of liberals for money) gets to the meat of the Swift Boat Liars' rage at John Kerry:

Thirty-three years ago, Kerry told the world about the American policy of establishing "free-fire zones," where a solider was ordered to shoot anything that moved, combatant and non-combatant alike. Kerry discovered upon his return to the United States that such zones and other inhumane tactics routinely practiced in Vietnam violated the Geneva Conventions regulating the laws of war.



While free-fire zones are not "war crimes" in the classic sense of Nazi death camps, they do raise an important question as to America’s understanding of its moral character. Are there limits to conduct in war? If so, should violations of these limits be reported or covered up? The fury directed at Kerry, both in 1971 and today, is largely fueled by the knowledge of many of these vets that they –- like the Abu Gharib prison guards –- were ordered to act outside international norms of humanity.

Of course the Swift Boat Liars are so consumed with their rage that they don't understand that John Kerry's testimony was aimed at pointing the finger at the higher-ups rather than those just following orders. And he had a point then, just as he does now.



Is anyone really going to sleep better tonight because despite the report issued yesterday about what happened at Abu Ghraib, the reality is that Rumsfeld and his mindless, grinning bulldogs [/Anthony Burgess] are going to get off scot-free, while Lynndie English becomes the poster child for the Brutality of War? I know I'm not. THIS is the kind of travesty that John Kerry's testimony was designed to avoid.



Maybe the Swift Boat liars really enjoyed their work. Maybe they enjoyed killing. I don't know, I wasn't there. But if that's the case, if that's their gripe; that in times of war there's no such things as atrocities, and that the Geneva Conventions shouldn't apply, then let them speak to that belief, rather that telling lies about John Kerry's service because he spoke truth to power.



Go read it. Interesting stuff.

Tbogg's Dad

Go read Tbogg's beautiful farewell to his father. We should all have someone to write stuff like this when our time comes.



B@B is thinking of you today, Tbogg...

NY Firefighters Replace Black Children as Bush Props

As George W. Bush gets ready to hold his coronation party in the city he stiffed financially after the events of 9/11/2001 gave him carte blanche to begin his dictatorship, he's decided to give up on using African-American children as props for his attempts at appearing compassionate.



His new favorite teddybear is the New York City firefighter:

President Bush wants to watch the Republican convention from a New York City firehouse and "bond" with the city's Bravest, officials said yesterday.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also scouting out firehouses so he can watch it with the heroes of 9/11.



"Both Bush and Schwarzenegger want to bond with city firefighters," said one city official who asked not to be named.

I wonder if Commander Dickless and the Steroid Automaton are going to put on firefighter suits and bring a sign that says "Mission Accomplished"? I also wonder what "bond with" them means. Doesn't that expression seem a tad, to use one of Arnold's favorite expressions, well, girly-man? Don't REAL Republican men clap each other on the back, or whack each other on the ass in fraternity rituals, or go out and beat up on gays, or things like that? Doesn't this sound kind of Iron John? Something LIBERALS would do?



Meanwhile, I wonder what those firefighters whose heads Bush wants to rub will think of all this, especially since:



1) New York ranks 49th among the states in homeland receipts from Washington on a per-capita basis



2) Under Bush, Homeland Security officials dropped a federal program to integrate fire and police communications systems, which will cost New York $6 million.



3) Homeland Security secretary, Tom Ridge, announced a $200 million cut in a similar program for 2005 and a cut of 33% in the Assistance to Firefighters program.



4) The FDNY requested $250 million from the Bush administration for the next three years for anti-terrorist equipment and technology. That funding has not been allocated or delivered.



5) Bush cut FIRE Act grants for equipment and personnel to local fire departments by $246 million in his 2005 budget



(Source: New York Sun, 5/4/04, via Democrats.org)

Why the Google Cache Rocks

Obviously this article is no longer available at Texas Monthly's site, but through the miracle of the Google Cache, it lives on.



Are you sitting down?



Here goes:

"Well, am I running?" George W. Bush demanded to know.





I happened to be sitting in my Suburban near the south door of the state capitol, discharging a passenger, just as the governor's silver-gray Lincoln Continental was doing the same. It was early February, well before he would announce the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, and a smidgen of suspense still lingered. I had waved at Bush as he went past, and he had swerved over to deliver the opening gambit in one of his favorite games: conversational one-upmanship. Having played it before, I knew I didn't have a chance.



"Sure," I said. "You'd be the wuss of all time if you didn't."



"But what about the rumors?" he shot back. Then, to my utter stupefaction, he proceeded to tick off everything the national press was investigating about his past: five or six of the most salacious things that could be said about anyone—including, in his own words, "I bought cocaine at my dad's inauguration"—plus intimate gossip about his family.



As he well knew, I had already heard all of it through the media grapevine. "You missed one," I said. "You crashed a jet while you were in the National Guard because you were drunk."



He spread his hands. "That's easy," he said. "Where's the plane?" Game over. He spun around and headed off.

And the hits just keep on coming...



Alas, you have to be a Texas Monthly subscriber to read it all, but there's enough here to chew on. And this is supposed to be an ADULATORY piece.



=Shudder=



(via Corrente)

The Long Arm of Rupert Murdoch

Yesterday, Justice Jacqueline Silbermann denied the permit for the 8/29 Central Park rally in Central Park. According to news reports: Silberman said that United for Peace and Justice "is guilty of inexcusable and inequitable delay."



Here's what Judge Silbermann was doing in June 1999:

June 28, 1999

"NEWS Corporation chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch has married Wendi Deng on a yacht in New York harbour some two weeks after his divorce was finalised. The Friday evening private ceremony was conducted by New York State Supreme Court Judge Jacqueline Silberman and attended by 80 guests, including Mr Murdoch's four children."

(via Jeff Fox)

Arianna on Undecided Voters

Arianna Huffington, like many of us, is scratching her head about how anyone can still be "undecided" after almost four years of this thieving, venal, mean-spirited, greedy Bush Administration. If you keep up with Electoral-Vote.com, you can see daily shifts from state to state as the polls come in, including an animated version where you can watch the shifts take place before your eyes.



Take a state like Ohio, which has shifted back and forth between Bush and Kerry for the last two months. How can this happen? Ohio is the prototypical Midwestern industrial state, which has seen its job base decimated over the last three years. And yet right now, it's back in Bush's column. How can this be?



I know how it can be, because I have some friends who aren't politically aware, and they only hear the noise that filters into their heads as they prepare dinner or pack the kids' lunches or clean up the kitchen -- and that noise, otherwise known as network television news, is all Swift Boat Liars, all the time. No wonder 46% of undecided voters find the ads believable.



These friends, who are sandwiched between growing kids on the one hand and aging, increasingly needy parents on the other hand, don't know about Bush's plans to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare that will affect their parents -- and later on, themselves. They don't know about the draft that is inevitable, the one for which the SSA is gearing up by next June, the one that will affect their sons. They worry about their jobs, but they don't know that the Bush Administration encourages companies to move jobs overseas, to stop providing health care, and to pay people less and less, with fewer worker protections.



But they sure know that the Swift Boat Liars have said something about Kerry not being honest. They know this because it's what the news media have decided to cover, and that's what their ears hear as they turn over the chicken in the oven and shell the peas. The Swift Boat Liars have almost to a man been exposed as lying or contradicting earlier statements. But my friends haven't heard that. All they've heard is that John Kerry is shifty -- because the networks decided that they had to give these lies equal time. This is like saying that Osama Bin Laden should be given equal time on Dan Rather's news because he represents "the other side, so it provides balance." Lies are not "the other side", they are lies.



Most of these people, and yes, they are all women I'm talking about, the ones I know, believe in equal rights for gays, and world peace, but they also want security. They want a safe world for their children, and they'll vote for whoever reassures them that they can be safe -- even if it's a lie.



These aren't bad people, they aren't stupid people, they aren't even willfully ignorant people. What they are is busy -- too busy to filter out the wheat from the chaff. They rely on Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings to filter it for them -- and those guys (and their counterparts in network news) aren't doing their job.



I'm with Arianna Huffington in that not sure how much effort John Kerry can or should put into these voters. Kerry can outline his plan to provide health care for all Americans that will be covered only on C-SPAN, but tomorrow Larry Thurlow will be given 10 minutes with Matt Lauer to spill yet more bile and more lies. And that's what these people will hear.



We need to get solid Democratic voters to the voting booth on November 2....progressive men and women; African-American voters...the elderly...THE BASE. The polls show Kerry as far stronger among registered voters than among likely voters. Likely voters are those who regularly show up at the polls. We have to get the others out there.



The undecided voters? They may very well have to go to their kids' soccer dinner on November 2 or take their mothers to the movies and won't have time to vote anyway.

So whose kids do they think should fight Bush's wars?

Isn't it funny how so many people support war until it comes time for their kids, or even themselves, to go?



It's no secret that the PNAC bunch who advises George W. Bush has got a severe hard-on for invasions of Iran and Syria, just as soon as they can get the Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia voting machines set up in enough places to assure that Captain Dickwave stays in the White House for at least another four years, and possibly in perpetuity if they can convince the American people that since elections are bogus,why have any more?



So where are these soldiers going to come from? Obviously a draft is going to be necessary. The SSA is already set up to implement a draft by June 2005. But there's this strange disconnect between support for war and willingness to actually fight it.



This ain't Doom 3, people. There's a fundamental inconsistency here, and it says something pretty damn ugly about the people who support Bush's wars:

In a sharp reversal from historical support for military service, the first comprehensive national survey on the draft from the Alliance for Security reveals that our country could face a crisis in military capacity with an unprecedented number of draft eligible adults stating they will actively seek deferment or refuse to serve if a draft is reinstated. Moreover, a growing number of parents say that they would not want their child to serve if called to duty today.



Uneasiness over the war in Iraq and growing concern about an overextended military has led to escalating concern about the draft. Furthermore, a majority of Americans now believe that the United States is one major world event away from reinstating the draft.



Meanwhile, there remains strong support for the Bush administration's foreign policy, with 60 percent believing that the U.S. is more secure as a result of the policy of pre-emption.



According to the survey:



-- 52 percent of draft age Americans would actively seek deferment or refuse to serve (32 percent said they would not serve; 20 percent would seek deferment). Fewer than half, only 43 percent of draft age Americans, say they would serve.



-- 40 percent of parents would not want their child to serve or would want their child to seek deferment if called today (32 percent said not serve; 8 percent would encourage child to seek deferment) In making an historical comparison to past surveys, parents are much less likely to want their child to serve than 34 years ago. In 1970, during the height of the Vietnam War, more than 75 percent of parents would have told their child to serve.



-- 71 percent of Americans are concerned about the capacity of the military to meet overseas' commitments and defend the United States from attack.



-- 58 percent are concerned about the possibility that the United States could be headed for a military draft in the near future. 71 percent of draft age women are concerned.



-- 51 percent of Americans believe that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost.



-- 63 percent say that the draft is likely to be reinstated if there was another terrorist attack on U.S. soil; 65 percent say likely if terrorist cells spread and troops are needed to prevent future attacks; 76 percent say likely if two or more of these events occur at the same time.

I'd Pay to See This

Poster board and markers for sign for Sunday march....$6.00



Recharge MetroCard for Sunday....$20.00



Watching Max Cleland and Jim Rassman bitchslap Captain Codpiece in person....priceless.



UPDATE:

Max Cleland, who lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam is turned away attempting to deliver a letter to the Chickenshit Weasel from Crawford from veterans supporting John Kerry

Oh, and it gets better (via Josh Marshall):

A Texas state official and Vietnam veteran, Jerry Patterson, said someone from the Bush campaign contacted him this morning and asked him if he would travel to the ranch, welcome Cleland to Texas and accept the former senator's letter to Bush.



"I tried to accept that letter and he would not give it to me," said Patterson. "He would not face me. He kept rolling away from me. He's quite mobile."

Mobile. A triple amputee is "quite mobile." THAT's the kind of fucking "compassionate conservatives" we're dealing with, people. These people are just vile. There just aren't words....



ANOTHER UPDATE: Fact-esque has the text of the letter. Go read it. It's a beautiful thing.

Six Things Big Media is ignoring

ModFab has 'em.

Offensive, perhaps. But true.

The Swift Boat Lying Liar Scumbags (I've just about run out of euphemisms for them) latest ad campaign claims that John Kerry's allegations of war crimes in his 1971 speech are "offensive." That may very well be, but as Todd Gitlin reports in Salon, they are also true. Go read this transcript of the Detroit hearings referenced in Kerry's speech. Yes, the testimony is horrifying. This is what the Johnson and Nixon Administrations did in our name. But what's even more horrifying is that we are doing it all over again in Iraq. And no amount of flag-waving or Kerry-smearing is going to change that.



We are Americans. This Administration is acting as our representative to the world. Support this Administration , and you are telling the world you support the mass slaughter of civilians in the name of liberating them, you support the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and you support having a leader who's both incurious AND evil.

While Everyone Was Obsessing About John Kerry in Vietnam....

...two Russian airliners crashed simultaneously yesterday.



Somehow I don't think "Synchronized Plane Crashing" is an Olympic event taking place off-site. As someone who's getting on a plane soon for a few days in the Land of Wood and Water, this is certainly troubling. It's possible, and I certainly hope, that this was just an awful coincidence, instead of, say, shoulder-fired missiles.

Investigators picked through the scattered wreckage today of two Russian passenger jets that crashed nearly simultaneously Tuesday night after leaving Moscow, and reported that they had found flight data recorders for both flights, officials said.



At least 89 people died in the crashes, according to the latest tally provided by Domodedovo International Airport, from where both planes took off late Tuesday.



As airport security was tightened throughout Russia, it remained unclear whether the crashes were an awful coincidence — a case of two jetliners leaving the same airfield and suffering catastrophic mishaps only minutes apart — or a carefully coordinated terrorist act that originated in Moscow's most modern airport. Russian officials emphasized that the causes for the crashes had not been found, and urged patience and calm.



"The experts are working," Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, said in a telephone interview. "They are in the field. But it is a little bit early to be clear of the cause of this great tragedy."



Earlier in the day the Russian news service Interfax, citing an anonymous official, reported that minutes after the first plane went down, the second jet issued a distress signal indicating it had been hijacked. Then it, too, disappeared from radar.



Mr. Peskov said he was aware of the report, and that it was being investigated. "It is part of the job of the experts," he said, but neither dismissed nor endorsed the account. "There is no necessity now for speculation," he said.

I wonder if we'll be allowed to find out what really happened?

Wish I'd Thought of That

The Farmer at Corrente has such a good idea, I wish I'd thought of it:

To be honest, if I had my way, if I were even remotely influential in such matters, I'd call for a silent protest in New York. Absolute silence. Let the GOP come to New York and wander around in a stone dead silence. Blacken your windows New Yorkers. If you do go out on the streets wear black arm bands. Don't go out at night to bars or shows or restaurants. Boycott. It's your city and it's your money. Close your galleries and your shops or hang a black flag in the window as a symbolic gesture. Declare a day of mourning. Just stay home. It won't kill you. Let the confetti pumped from the RNC shredder machine blow through the streets like so many leaves tumbling along the mainstreet of a plague bit ghostown. If drunken herds of fly-by-night goobers in cowboy hats and Free-Republic tee shirts want to stumble up and down Broadway or the lower east side at two am so be it. Let em do it all by themselves. Chill them with the sounds of silence. That would be the spookiest most powerful message I think New Yorkers and political activists could deliver. If the noisiest city in the world went stone cold quiet - well, you get my drift. Unfortunately I know thats way too much to hope for (especially at this point) and especially after reading what RP [Rick Perlstein in the Village Voice]has to say.



And unfortunately the minute one single storefront window is broken or one single limousine leaving Rockefeller Plaza is delayed in traffic by a die-in the bow-wow-wowsers and clangor horns and high steppers of television "news" theater cabaret will go into gran-mal seizures of seismic propotions. A bellowing whooping deafening squall. Red Meat! And you know that's exactly what they want. And you all know whose butchered rosy flanks will be served up at their cheery little corporate TV media buffet.

The Revolution Starts Now

So Steve Earle, who is Air America Radio's latest hot property (unfortunately overshadowing the masterful Mike Malloy) is on Morning Sedition today plugging his new CD, The Revolution Starts Now, and I'm sitting here counting the people of whom he's derivative.



So far I hear elements of Springsteen, Mellencamp, and Tom Petty. And the song "The Revolution Starts Now" is essentially a hybrid of "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Street Fighting Man."



I mean, it's good music, but it's essentially the same stuff we've been listening to for the last 25 years. And Air America is promoting it so hard that not only can't I get that one riff from the title song out of my head, but I'd rather have root canal without anesthesia now than buy this CD.

Kerry on THE DAILY SHOW tonight???

Modern Fabulousity is, like many other denizens of Blogistan, reporting that John Kerry will be the guest on The Daily Show tonight. The show's web site is reporting the guest to be Minnesota Senator and Spitter-On-Paul-Wellstone's-Grave Norm Coleman.



While I would love to see Jon Stewart systematically eviscerate Coleman on national television, I hope the Kerry rumor is true.

Theresa LaPore Does It Again

Is there a school where people learn to design ballots like this? If this is the future of user interfaces, I give up.



Nitpicker has a picture of Theresa LaPore's latest creation -- the Palm Beach County (Florida, where else) absentee ballot -- thus saving me the work of trying to track one down.



After she did such a wonderful job on the infamous "butterfly ballot" in 2000, you'd think she'd have gotten shitcanned. But no, like everyone else in Bushland who fucks up, she probably got a raise in addition to keeping her job.



Anyway, go check out LaPore's latest creation. Then go stick your head in the oven. That's what I'm going to do.



Damn. My oven's electric.



Stupid oven.

Save America's Youth...vote Kerry

I don't mean to harp on the Pandagon boys, I really don't, even if they are a constant reminder that an old crone like Your Humble Blogger is playing in the kids' sandbox.



But it just chaps my ass when I see a 20-something kid who already feels like this:

Enough. Fucking enough. I am so goddamn tired of talking about the Swiftvets. This last week has been the Dean scream or Dole fall for our body politic -- it has shone light on everything corrosive, everything vile, everything that turns off Americans not just from voting but from civic participation. It has ripped our veneer of idealism and high-mindedness and exposed many of us as bottom-feeding predators whose primary political instinct is to dash towards the blood, skirting and evading the actual hurdles and obstacles holding back our society.



Our media has led the way with its rendition of A Beautiful Mind, schizophrenically fighting its better instincts and leaving the editorialists and truth-finders to snipe and attack the stenographers for mindlessly pounding their keys in the newsroom. We've seen Chris Matthews turn to virtue and O'Reilly come to the rescue. We've watched the Dionnes and the Krugmans of the world lower their anti-media cannons while the Malkens and Barones have desperately clung to the inaccuracies, begging Americans to believe the discrepancy equates with deviancy. In short, we've watched the election dig up an old war, some partisans spin it, and significant portions of the media realize that business-as-usual reporting will render a disservice to the republic. And so they, like everyone else, have gone to war against their misguided colleagues and brethren, lining up on the side of common sense just as many in politics have lined up on the side of elevated discourse. But such company also highlights the size of the forces arrayed on the sides of ignorant stenography and political mud, those who continue to do wrong because they're not sure what'll happen to them if the game changes.

It's one thing for ME to feel like this, to feel that there's no use, the game is rigged, and we are on an inevitable downslide into a permanent Bush family dictatorship. After all, I lived through both Kennedy assassinations, Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, the Vietnam war, the protests thereof, Chicago 1968, the Nixon Administration, disco music, and Qiana shirts on men. I've seen the worst America has to offer. I'm torn between going to the march in New York City this Sunday and saying, "I did it last time. It's your turn."



But then I read this and I think maybe we can't give up. Because if we give up, then these guys, and this guy, and this one and this one give up, and this guy is just another lawyer and then where are we?



This situation requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part. Like marching up Seventh Avenue on Sunday. And we're just the ones to do it.



Who's with me?

More Florida Vote Purge Shenanigans

Isn't this CONVEEEENIENT.

As Al Gore and George W. Bush campaigned for president, James Bors received what he called a “really nasty letter” telling him he could not vote in the 2000 election.



Four years later, the design engineer believes it is still true.



“I didn’t realize I could vote,” Bors, 40, said from his home in Pasco County.



Public records show state officials in Tallahassee knew for almost a year that Bors and nearly 1,000 other voters were wrongly put on the Secretary of State’s 1999 and 2000 purge lists.



It was not until Aug. 12 that Secretary of State Glenda Hood sent county election supervisors those names, following a month of mediation with civil rights groups.



Local election officials say they are running out of time to return those people to the rolls before next week’s primary, raising the concern they’ll be blocked from another election.

Krugman today

Just go read it.

Let's hope that this latest campaign of garbage and lies - initially financed by a Texas Republican close to Karl Rove, and running an ad featuring an "independent" veteran who turns out to have served on a Bush campaign committee - leads to a backlash against Mr. Bush. If it doesn't, here's the message we'll be sending to Americans who serve their country: If you tell the truth, your courage and sacrifice count for nothing.

Support our troops. Vote Bush out of office on November 2. But don't just vote him out. Give him the kind of resounding landslide defeat that will assure we don't ever have to look at his smug, narcissistic, dick-waving mug ever again in public life.

E.J. Dionne today

It all comes down to this:

Bush claims that his highest priority is uniting the country in the war against terrorism. A president who would be a uniter and not a divider knows that cheap-shot politics can only further rend our nation and weaken his own ability to lead.

But Bush is NOT a uniter. He's a representative of today's Republican party, which is not about leading, nor is it about governing. It's not even about winning. It's about winning while crushing, humiliating, and then eliminating all opposition and then all dissent.



It is profoundly UN-AMERICAN, and if you vote for four more years of this bunch, YOU are also profoundly UN-AMERICAN.

Another newspaper wakes up

OK, it's not the Washington Times, which would REALLY be a step forward, but we'll take the L.A. Times in a pinch:

THESE CHARGES ARE FALSE



The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple: Dukakis "vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance"; Bill Clinton "raised taxes 128 times"; "there are [pick a number] Communists in the State Department." But make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation.



Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over Dukakis' patriotism or Kerry's service in Vietnam. And they have been distracted from thinking about real issues (like the war going on now) by these laboratory concoctions.



[snip]



No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word.



Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.

Of course, George Bush is NOT a man of principle. He's a man of greed, narcissism, and religious fanaticism, with daddy issues up the wazoo.



And unfortunately, lying about your opponent works, if the media is willing to go along with you.



We have only ourselves to blame.

Joe Citizen: Boy Soothsayer

This article is from last February (emphasis mine):

What voters in the upcoming Democratic primaries must fully understand is that no matter who is the eventual Democratic nominee, he will be just as susceptible to the attacks by the media during the general election as Howard Dean was during the primaries. While the media spin against Howard Dean which originated in the spring of 2003 on talk radio took its time to work its way through the mainstream media until it started to have a negative effect in January 2003; rest assured there is still plenty of time before the general election for these same methods of attack to work against any of the remaining candidates. In other words — because of how this election will be presented by the media — in the end Kerry will be no more electable than Dean.

In a nutshell...

Alterman:

...if you really do care about this kind of thing—and I can’t stop you—then all you really need to know is that Kerry volunteered to fight in Vietnam and then returned home to fight for his country to do the right thing by its veterans and stop asking them to die for an impossible cause. Bush, on the other hand, supported the war, but used his daddy’s influence to stay out of the war, specifically requested not to be sent to Vietnam, and then wasted the government’s million dollar investment in his training by failing to show up for training and forfeiting his right to fly the planes in the unlikely event he would ever be asked to.

Meanwhile, 964 young Americans are dead in George W. Bush's insane war.



Eight of them died just this past weekend. Their names have not yet been released. Eight more families are going to get a visit from the military saying [Python]"Sorry!"[/Python]



How many have to die before WE say "Enough!"?

Ali G: A Clear and Present danger?

Don't these morons have anything better to do? Is the need to avoid even an appearance of a shandeh far di goyim so important that they have to resort to this:



Via Salon:

According to the New York Post, the British government and the U.K.'s Jewish Board of Deputies are "investigating" comic Sacha Baron Cohen for a recent performance on another HBO Sunday show, "Da Ali G Show." In this particular episode, Cohen portrays one of his three main characters, Borat, a TV reporter from Kazakhstan, who pretends to be trying to become a Country-Western singer. In the process, he manages to dupe an audience at a rural bar in Arizona into singing along with him -- enthusiastically -- to a phony song called "Throw the Jew Down the Well." (Sample lyrics: "Throw the Jew down the well/ So my country can be free/You must grab him by his horns/ Then we have a big party.") What could happen after all this "investigating" of Cohen (who, by the way, is Jewish) is unclear -- but the Anti-Defamation League is also bothered by the show. "While we understand this scene was an attempt to show how easily a group of ordinary people can be encouraged to join in an anti-Semitic chorus, we are concerned that the irony may have been lost on some of the audience, or worse still that they simply accepted Borat's statements about Jews at face value," the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman is quoted telling the Post.

Gawd. Whatever happened to the "It's OK To Knock Your Own Team" rule? For that matter, what happened to satire?



Granted, Cohen's gonzo ambushes of the unsuspecting are somewhat of an acquired taste, one which I'm still not sure if I've acquired or not, but come ON. Is it a secret that people in rural parts of the country still retain some archaic beliefs about Jews? Hell, when I first went to college in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, I was asked where MY horns were. As recently as 1993, a Roman Catholic co-worker of Cuban descent asked me, "We have the 10 Commandments. What do Jews have?"



What can you answer to a question like this, other than "We ritually sacrifice and devour Christian babies on Shabbos, what do you think?"



This is what Sascha Baron Cohen is trying to point out. Sometimes the bit works, sometimes it doesn't. My own personal preference is for the "Borat" character cited here over the Ali G persona, whom I find just a tad TOO raw. Borat is a good-natured bumpkin supposedly from Kazakhstan, though he probably should have appropriated Steven Spielberg's "Krakhozhia" from the recent film The Terminal; God knows enough jokes could have been made from that name alone. But Borat is, in fact, Tom Hanks' Viktor Navorski -- if Trey Parker and Matt Stone had created him.



Doesn't anyone realize that depicting people enjoying such lyrics says more about the people who are depicted as enjoying them than it does about their subject?



Sheesh.

Bush: God Will Decide The Election

Sounds like C-Plus Augustus has been getting a bit of a smackdown lately from the God who talks to him:

At the end of the meeting, Bush turned to his reelection prospects. Although he expressed his belief that he would win on Nov. 2, Bush said he would be at peace with himself "if people elect to send me home."



"He said he wanted to be remembered as being effective and he was not worried about trying to be popular," said Chancelor Wyatt, a marketing manager at Timken.



John Grogg, a furnace operator who put on the dress blues of his Pennsylvania Air National Guard unit for the occasion, quoted the president as saying: "You know, if I should lose this reelection for president of the United States, I know that I've done as good a job as I can do. And God would say, 'Good servant, take a break.' "

I just wish wish God weren't so damned tactful. Who does He think He is, John Kerry? What he should say, is "You fucked up, you sickening sycophant. Now get the hell out of here, go home to Crawford, and stay the hell out of trouble. Or you'll REALLY feel my wrath."



A higher father indeed.

Bush to USOC: "Go Cheney Yourself"

Link:

President Bush's re-election campaign will continue to run a television ad that mentions the Olympics by name, despite objections from the U.S. Olympic Committee, a spokesman said Friday.



"We are on firm legal ground to mention the Olympics and make a factual point in a political advertisement," said Scott Stanzel.



USOC officials had protested that federal law gives them the exclusive rights to the name.



The ad shows a swimmer and the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan.



"In 1972, there were 40 democracies in the world. Today, 120," an announcer says. "Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise. And this Olympics there will be two more free nations. And two fewer terrorist regimes."



Bush campaign aides contend that the law in question gives the committee exclusive rights only to use the Olympics name to sell goods or services or to promote athletic competition. The campaign avoided using the symbol of five rings in the ad, the aides said.



Stanzel said the ad will continue to run for the last two weeks of August.



Meanwhile, Bush is watching the competition on television.



"The president has been following the Olympics and pulling for all of our American athletes," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Friday in Texas, where Bush is staying at his ranch.



"He is keeping a close eye on team USA and watching it when he can," the spokesman said.



As for the TV ad, Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said the organization had contacted the Bush campaign.



"We haven't actually seen the ad as we're here in Greece. We're aware of it," he said "We contacted the re-election campaign and we are awaiting a reply."



Some of the players on the Iraqi Olympic soccer team have complained about the ads.



The brand and concept of the Olympics belong to the International Olympic Committee in general and to the USOC in the United States.



An act of Congress, last revised in 1999, grants the USOC exclusive rights to such terms as "Olympic," derivatives such as "Olympiad" and the five interlocking rings. It also specifically says the organization "shall be nonpolitical and may not promote the candidacy of an individual seeking public office."

But widdle Georgie always gets what he wants, and if he wants to use the Olympics to shill for his campaign, Cheney anyone who disagrees. Because he's King of the World! And the Messiah! All at once!



The Iraqi soccer team, however, disagrees:

"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," [Iraqi midfielder Salih] Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. "He can find another way to advertise himself."

Bush to Iraqi soccer team: "Go Cheney Yourself."

A Glimmer of Sanity

...in what one would expect to be a staunchly pro-Bush publication.



Thane Peterson in Business Week Online makes a very good point:

The next time the nation gets into a war, why would any American with an interest in national service show up to fight? When did the U.S. come to blithely accept the tarring for political gain of honorably discharged combat veterans? Obviously, I'm talking about the attacks on John Kerry by a bunch of angry, Bush-backing Vietnam-war vets who claim the Democratic candidate doesn't deserve all of the medals, which include Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts, that he won in combat in Vietnam.



But I'm also talking about the attacks on Republican Senator and former prisoner of war John McCain -- a genuine hero by anyone's definition -- during his South Carolina primary battle against George W. Bush for the 2000 Presidential nomination. And the relentless assaults on the patriotism of Democrat Max Cleland by Republican Saxby Chambliss, who defeated Cleland for one of Georgia's Senate seats in 2002. If you want proof of Cleland's patriotism, all you need to know is that he lost three limbs in Vietnam.



It's time for Bush in particular -- and Americans in general -- to get on the right side of this issue once and for all. No moral equivalency exists between Kerry and Bush on the issue of service in Vietnam. Kerry served in combat. He was shot at. Not Bush. If you don't think it's important for a President to have served in combat, fine, make your choice on other grounds. But if you do, Kerry is your man, at least on this one issue.

Peterson is dead-on right on this one. If you feel that Bush's dubious National Guard history does not warrant scrutiny and it should not bear on his ability to lead the largest army in the world, that's your privilege. Just about anyone who could get out of serving in Vietnam did -- however they could. Obviously the sons of the well-connected and those with college deferments had an easier time than those without those advantages. But to denigrate John Kerry's service with the notion that Larry Thurlow has put forward, that Kerry had some kind of plan for a run for the presidency later on, and that he signed up with this plan in mind, served with this plan in mind, inflicted his own injuries with such a plan in mind, and then came home and tried to talk sense into the government with this plan in mind is just plain and simply rubbish. And if you believe this crap you should be as ashamed of yourself as they should be.



There is this Republican meme that Democrats are "weak on national security," at the same time as they talk about "Democrat wars." Bush is running as a war president, for all that he talks about wanting to be a peace president. Essentially what the Republicans mean is that Democrats are pussies. A man who jumps off a boat in a war zone to save another man's life is not a pussy. A man who volunteers for active duty in a war zone is not a pussy. A man who uses his father's connections to get into a cushy National Guard unit may or may not be a pussy; he may just have been like hundreds of thousands of other young American men who wanted no part of the Vietnam conflict. The difference is that he was perfectly willing for OTHER young American men to put their lives on the line -- and he still is; whereas John Kerry came home and gave an impassioned speech in front of Congress, recounting WHAT OTHER SOLDIERS TOLD HIM ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE ASKED TO DO, because he wanted to prevent any more senseless waste of American lives. "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" he asked them in 1971; a question just as relevant today.



The difference between John Kerry and George W. Bush is that the latter would reply, "First of all, I don't make mistakes because God talks through me, and second of all, because I said so."

So which time were they lying?

Kevin Drum lists contradictory statements (with sources!) from six of the Swift Boat Scumbags. So were they lying before when they praised John Kerry, or are they lying now?



And what were they promised for doing this?



Lies and the lying liars who tell them indeed.

Why don't they talk about the issues?!

We're fighting for our LIVES here!! [/Maron]

Bob Dole sells his soul

I wonder what reward he thinks he's going to get for this:

Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole suggested Sunday that John Kerry (news - web sites) apologize for past testimony before Congress about alleged atrocities during the Vietnam War and joined critics of the Democratic presidential candidate who say he received an early exit from combat for "superficial wounds."



Dole also called on Kerry to release all the records of his service in Vietnam.



[snip]



Dole added: "And here's, you know, a good guy, a good friend. I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out."

If Dole is questioning Kerry's war record, he'd better start with his own and get off his own high horse. As Josh Marshall reminds us:

In a 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, here's how Dole described the incident that earned him his first Purple Heart: "As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart."

Meanwhile, the mainstream network news shows were all still treating the Swift Boat Scumbags this evening as if this story were simply "he said/he said", instead of the steaming heap o'horseshit it is, as documented in the New York Times earlier this week.



On the one hand, if the system is this rigged, how can anyone beat these guys? On the other hand, how many times does the right have to do this before the Democrats wake up and realize who they're dealing with? Unless, of course, they really ARE on the same team, the Democratic party really only does exist to make us THINK we have an alternative. I'm starting to think more and more that the latter is the case.

Miserable Failure

Meteor Blades at Daily Kos outlines the many failures of the Bush Administration for your edification, while the mainstream press continues to obsess about how best to give the Swift Boat Psychotics credibility and therefore assure four more years of BushCo to best serve their corporate masters.

This one's for you, Dad

PatriotBoy has a screen shot of the Collier County, Florida Republican Executive Committee home page as it appeared yesterday, with a solicitation to contribute to the Swift Boat Blithering Fucking Idiot Liars.



They've since taken it down. I guess they discovered that this Intarweb thingie [/Mary Ann Johanson] gets information out fast, and folks they didn't want to see this saw it anyway.



Nope. These guys are just acting on their own, with NO connection to the Bush campaign. Nope. Move on, move along, nothing to see here.



But take a look at the site anyway. THIS is the kind of good old Republican optimism about the glowing future of America we can expect with four more years of C-Plus Augustus, followed by the ascension of the Prince of Wales, currently residing in the governor's mansion in Tallahassee.

Heave-ho!

Link:

A Vietnam veteran who worked with President Bush's campaign has left over his appearance in a commercial by a group challenging Democratic candidate John Kerry's war record, a campaign spokesman said on Saturday.



Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Ken Cordier was a Bush supporter during the 2000 election and served as a member of his a steering committee to help reach out to veterans during this election.



"Col. Cordier did not inform the campaign of his involvement in the advertisement being run by (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth)," Schmidt said. "Because of his involvement with this 527 (group), Col. Cordier will no longer participate" in the steering committee.

Oh, come on. The Swift Boat ads have been running nonstop on the cable news networks for the last two weeks. Just about everyone has seen it in one form or another. And the Bush Administration JUST FOUND OUT that this guy appeared in it? Bullshit. Laughable bullshit.



The noose of evidence that Swift Boat Scumbag Liars is, in fact, a front group for the BushCo campaign is tightening around the neck of the Bush/Rove axis, and they're jettisoning fuel in the hope of keeping that bird aloft. But this is typical for the Bush family. Once you're outlived your usefulness to The Family, you're conveniently disposed of.



I wish I could think that Col Cordier would wake up and realize the kind of people to whom he's sold his soul, but I'm not optimistic.



I've been thinking about the Vietnam War Memorial the last couple of days, and of the 58,000 names inscribed on it. Is THIS why 58,000 men died? So assholes like these guys can besmirch one of their own because they think the Bush Family is going to toss them some crumbs? Or because a man named John Kerry had the courage to come home and tell the truth about how young Americans were being dehumanized at the direction of their own government? Then I think about that soldier from New Hampshire I posted about yesterday who shot himself a day after coming home. Somehow I don't think he was depressed because he wasn't going to be able to kill any more civilians; I think he was depressed because for whatever reason, he couldn't live with himself.



I don't know about you, but I don't want to see the government do this to our soldiers. Certainly not so Dick Cheney can continue to try to fill the giant black hole in his soul with more and more oil money; or so George W. Bush can believe that if he brings on Armageddon, he gets to sit at the right hand of God as His Chosen Instrument.



I'm going to go now and giv some turkee to the DNC and dig out some stuff to sell at the MoveOn.org virtual yard sale.

Vietnam Veterans for Honor

Hoffmania reprints a must-read letter from a reader who's a Vietnam veteran. Someone ought to put together a letter campaign in which thousands of Vietnam vets who are disgusted with the Swift Boat Scumbags' tactics rebut them. Of course, Michelle Malkin will insist they're all liars...

From your mouth to God's ear, Tom

Link:

Discerning voters will notice that the more reputable organs of the national press have not cast doubt on Kerry's Vietnam service. That is because political attacks on it don't pass the smell test. We are influenced by eyewitnesses, not by people whose stories keep changing or are contradicted by official records. We are used to arguments over things like war records, but the burden of proof is with the accuser and Kerry's accusers cannot shoulder it with the credible evidence required of credible stories.



But there's another way in now. Raise some Bush buddy Texas money, create a TV ad, hire a right-wing loony to put together a smear book, and cable TV producers desperate for shouting matches are happy to oblige. The result then gets recycled into the serious press because "questions" have been raised about Kerry's record that couldn't survive a minute under traditional standards.



Kerry may have been nicked some at the margins by all this while he was responding via surrogates the last few weeks. Raising the profile of the smear, as well as confronting it directly and putting it at Bush's door, is overdue in the view of some Democratic Party operatives, a risk in the view of others. My own guess is that the higher the profile of this mess the more it looks like the smear it is, and the more it risks boomeranging on the president.

This wonderful history lesson by Tom Oliphant also reminds us that Bush/Rove axis learned its trade at the feet of Richard Nixon, arguably the greatest paranoid sleazemeister in history up until that time.



How 46% of the American people can even CONSIDER voting for this bunch of lying, greedy, venal, soulless thugs is just a mystery to me.

The Fact-esque Factor for 8/21/04

Hoffmania has it.

A Clackamas County prosecutor and decorated Vietnam veteran who appears in an ad attacking Democratic presidential contender John F. Kerry's war record said he did not witness the events in question and is relying on the accounts of his friends who served with the senator.

"It's been widely reported, Jon...that makes it 'fact-esque'." -- Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show.

How many deaths will it take...

...before we wake up and demand accountability?



Link:

MERRIMACK, N.H. -- A decorated member of the New Hampshire Air National Guard killed himself at his home Wednesday, just a day after returning from a six-month tour of duty in Iraq.



Tech. Sgt. Dave Guindon, 48, of Merrimack, was a member of the 157th Air Refueling Wing based in Newington. In Iraq, he and four other members of the unit provided security to Army convoys. They returned Tuesday.



The state medical examiner's office told The Telegraph of Nashua that Guindon died Wednesday afternoon after shooting himself in the head. Air Force officials were investigating the death.



Guard officials praised Guindon's service, saying his mission marked the first time Air National Guard members from New Hampshire participated in Army combat missions.



Last month Guindon and his team were awarded Army combat honors after carrying out more than 100 missions.



"Dave was an outstanding airman and a good friend to many in our wing family," said Col. Richard Martell, the unit's commander. "He continually demonstrated a willingness to embrace new challenges and always performed to the best of his abilities. We are all deeply saddened by his sudden death. Our hearts and prayers are with his wife and daughter during this very difficult time. We have lost a good man and a true patriot."



Guindon joined the unit's logistics readiness squadron in 1997 after having served 23 years in the Navy, Naval Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Air Force Reserve and New Hampshire Army National Guard.



"Trained by the Air Force as a vehicle operator, he was called upon to perform an Army combat mission in Iraq," said Maj. Chris Hurley, the squadron's commander. "In the face of these extraordinary circumstances, Dave displayed the courage and dedication of a true professional. His actions are a testament to his character and his love for his country."

What on earth is happening to these people over there?



UPDATE: Richard Cranium at the All Spin Zone has more.