By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor

Two New York newspapers received calls from the Bush-Cheney campaign during the Republican National Convention urging them not to run a story suggesting that the campaign manager and public face of the campaign was gay, RAW STORY has learned.

Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman, who is now in the running to be chairman of the Republican Party, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about his sexuality in both public and private settings.

Steve Schmidt, deputy communications director for the Bush-Cheney campaign, also refused to deny that Mehlman was gay on the record in a telephone call with the activist weblog, blogACTIVE, which has been outing homophobic public officials, including California Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) and former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-Va.). Schmidt did not return to a call seeking comment today.

RAW STORY was party to an investigation of claims Mehlman was gay in the run-up to the election but no one was willing to go on the record.

Two of the sources told blogACTIVE, that they had been pressured by the Republican Party to remain silent. The site adds that two New York City newspapers “were called by press folks at the Bush campaign attempting to kill the Mehlman story.” So as to protect the reporters involved, this site cannot post the papers’ names online.

Mehlman, 37, who is single, spearheaded the Bush re-election campaign. The campaign used aggressively anti-gay tactics, including the mailing of a flyer in some states which suggested liberals would allow gay marriage and ban bibles. Many analysts believe Bush’s support for anti-gay marriage measures carried him to victory.

The Washington Blade asked Mehlman about openly gay staff in an interview in May.

“I’m not going to comment or provide information on the private activities of campaign staff,” he said, when asked if there were out gays among the president’s campaign advisers. “The president is leading based on principle. His principles are reflective of his values and his values are compassionate and conservative.”

RAW STORY revealed last month that both the Chief Financial Officer and the number two political adviser to the Republican National Committee are openly gay.

Neither would answer questions relating to the party’s policies, which many see as homophobic.

Asked about his sexuality Wednesday, Mehlman hung up the phone.

The 2004 Republican Party platform, approved in August, denounces prejudice and trumpets equality.

It begins, “Ronald Reagan believed that people were basically good, and had the right to be free. He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst thing a person could be guilty of.”

The platform includes a bolded section titled, “Ensuring Equal Opportunities.” The section leads with the sentence, “Our nation is a land of opportunity for all, and our communities must represent the idea of equality for every citizen.”

Such equality and freedom from prejudice, apparently, doesn’t apply to gay Americans.

“We believe that neither federal nor state judges nor bureaucrats should force states to recognize other living arrangements as equivalent to marriage.”

“After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millenia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization, the union of a man and a woman in marriage.”

*****

From http://arachnae.blogspot.com/ the website that goes by the name Prairie Angel.

Brad DeLong points to a pattern:

In 1972, we reelected an incumbent. In 1976, we elected an unknown southern governor who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1980, we elected an unknown governor--a southerner, if Orange County is "southern"--who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1984 we reelected an incumbent president. In 1988 we elected an incumbent vice president. In 1992 we elected an unknown southern governor who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1996 we reelected an incumbent. In 2000 we elected an unknown southern governor had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record.

The pattern is clear: when there isn't an unknown southern governor running, an incumbent president can win reelection or an incumbent vice president can win election; but the unknown southern governor without a national political record wins the presidency--always.

*****

We think this letter is for real since it came from the website for Bob Jones University. We have added the italics to underscore how God is watching and approves.

http://www.bju.edu/letter

Congratulatory letter to President George W. Bush from Dr. Bob Jones III

November 3, 2004

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The media tells us that you have received the largest number of popular votes of any president in America's history. Congratulations!

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years—a brief time only—to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God.

Christ said, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour” (John 12:26).

The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you—that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn't care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right.

Best wishes.

Sincerely your friend,

Bob Jones III
President

BJIII:lw

PS: A few moments ago I read this letter to the students in Chapel. They applauded loudly their approval.

When I told them that Tom Daschle was no longer the minority leader of the Senate, they cheered again.

On occasion, Christians have not agreed with things you said during your first term. Nonetheless, we could not be more thankful that God has given you four more years to serve Him in the White House, never taking off your Christian faith and laying it aside as a man takes off a jacket, but living, speaking, and making decisions as one who knows the Bible to be eternally true.

Far Out, as we used to say.

*****

More on Alberto Gonzales:

Here is Alberto Gonzales' much critized memo to President Bush (pdf)

Here is Colin Powell's response to the memo. (pdf)

*****

Josh Marshall has an interesting comment on the incestuous relationship between folks who have been big deals in the American Iraq ruling junta and then have quit taking jobs with a Washington lobbying firm whose main business is to help (?)American companies develop business ties to Iraq at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ .

*****

The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

BuzzFlash was forwarded a copy of a new research paper (271k PDF) on the exit polls from the 2004 election.

In "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Dr. Steven F. Freeman says:

"As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states [Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania] of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error."

The odds of those exit poll statistical anomalies occurring by chance are, according to Freeman, "250,000,000 to one." That's 250 MILLION to ONE.

He concludes the paper with this:

"Systematic fraud or mistabulation is a premature conclusion, but the election's unexplained exit poll discrepancies make it an unavoidable hypothesis, one that is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies, and the public to investigate."

*****

More on Gonzales from www.atrios.blogspot.com

I've been thinking a lot today about what the Democrats can do about the Gonzales nomination. I do think it would be a mistake to filibuster, or at least signal intent to filibuster, this nomination. He's a bad guy for all the reasons we know, and his nomination proves that George Bush doesn't actually give a shit about the lives of our soldiers in Iraq. But, there is no shortage of bad guys Bush can put in charge of the JD and so filibustering him will have little actual positive impact. Winning a battle is always nice, but in this case winning achieves little.

The thing is, if the Dems start talking filibuster it will instantly become a process story to the media. They love those, because they're easy, and it will allow them to ignore the substance.

The nomination presents the Dems with a great opportunity. They can use the hearings to shine as much light as they can on what has been transpiring. But, also, they can use them to make the moral case against Gonzales and the man who appointed them. This will take great skill, but it may be possible to demonstrate how inept, morally bankrupt, and corrupt these people really are.

There's little value in filibustering Gonzales, but there is great value in demonstrating just how inappropriate this nomination is.

-Atrios 9:58 PM

*****

We still have seen no mention in the mainstream press or on TV of the Battle of Los Angeles. The General has pictures of the tanks approaching the protestors and a comment. Follow the General he leads to truth. http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/

 

What Pogo said:

We must not forget the second front in our Great War to Bring Freedom to Everyone. While the media has taken a few seconds here and there to interrupt it's important Peterson Trial coverage with breathless stories about our imminent victory against the brown people of Fallujah, they've ignored Tuesday's Battle for Los Angeles.

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 2:05 AM   
*****

The General is always on duty, the following information was posted at 1:56am. We have also added at the bottom of the General’s message the information about marquette which may lead the University to change its name.

 

Advice for the Democrats  

It seems like everywhere I turn, people are offering advice to the Democrats. The General thinks some of it is very good, like the barely-French Matt's suggestion that they support efforts to deny women in red states sovereignty over their own bodies. I think I'll chip in with my own advice as well.

Philip Klinkner tells us that it wasn't Christian conservatives who put Our Leader over the top; it was the wealthy . Using a metric called "performance" which multiplies a demographic group's share of the electorate by it's support for a candidate, Klinkner calculates that Our Leader's performance with those making over 100K a year grew by 2 points since the last election while His performance with Christian conservatives stayed the same.

Obviously, Democrats need to do more to appeal to the wealthy. That's going to be very difficult for them to do because they can't beat us Republicans when it comes to coddling corporate criminals, looting the treasury to line the pockets of the power elite, or cutting taxes for the rich.

However, if they act quickly, they can enact a law to bring back a traditional value that even the most secular mogul would embrace. I'm talking about the feudal custom of marquette, the right of a feudal lord to "give his love" to a serf's wife on her wedding night.

Like I said, they'll have to act fast. With Godly men like Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint joining their philosophical soulmates, Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum, in the Senate, laws are certain to be passed which will once again give ladies the right to be treated as chattel. Marquette cannot be far behind.

Of course we don't have feudal lords and serfs anymore, but we do have employers and employees. Thankfully, our successes in glorious war against unions and so-called workers rights has resulted in a social structure in which the differences between serfs and employees are shrinking.

I think a law allowing employers to bed their employees' wives on their wedding night would play very well in the employing classes. They'd obviously love it. The party that first embraces this idea will expand it's support in that group dramatically.

There would also be a great secondary benefit to bringing back marquette. Think of all the businesses that would be created as people scramble to become employers. It would also bring down Our Leader's unemployment numbers as more people decide to stop looking for employment.

The more I think about this, the more I hope the Democrats will reject my advice. It's a no-brainer for Republicans--it fits well into our current philosophies in regard to class and status. We should adopt it immediately.

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 1:55 AM   

*****

marquette: And this is only a small sample: go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/wcs/wcs06.htm for a whole book of stuff.

CHAPTER IV.

MARQUETTE.

    The minds of people having been corrupted through centuries by the doctrines of the Church in regard to woman, it became an easy step for the State to aid in her degradation. The system of feudalism arising from the theory that warfare was the normal condition of man, still oppressed woman by bringing into power a class of men accustomed to deeds of violence, who found their chief pleasure in the sufferings of others. To be a woman appealed to no instinct of tenderness in this class. To be a woman was not to be protected unless such woman held power in her own right, or acted in place of some feudal lord. The whole body of villeins, and serfs were under absolute dominion of the feudal lords. They were regarded as possessing no rights of their own; the priests had control of their souls, the lord, of their bodies. But it was not upon the male serfs that the greatest oppression fell. Although the tillage of the soil, the care of swine and cattle was theirs, the masters claiming half or more of everything, even to one-half of the wool shorn from the flock,1 and all exactions upon them were great while their sense of security was slight, it was upon their wives and daughters that the p. 153 greatest outrages were inflicted. It was a pastime of the castle retainers to fall upon peaceful villages, to the consternation of the women, who were struck, tortured, and made the sport of ribald soldiers.2 "Serfs of the body," they had no protection. The vilest outrages were perpetrated by the feudal lords under the name of "rights." Women were taught by church and state alike that the feudal lord or seigneur had a right to them not only as against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. The custom known by a variety of names, but more modernly as "marchetta," or "marquette," compelled newly married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the feudal lord for from one to three days after their marriage,3 and from this custom, the oldest son of the serf was held as the son of the lord, "as perchance it was he who begot him."

    From this nefarious degradation of woman the custom of Borough-English arose, the youngest son becoming the heir4: The original signification of the word borough, being to make secure, the peasant through Borough-English made secure the right of his own son to what inheritance he might leave, thus cuttingp. 154 off his property from the possible son of his hated lord. France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, and all christian countries in which feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of marquette, The lord deemed this right his, as fully as be did his claim to half the crops of the land, or half the wool shorn from the sheep. More than one reign of terror arose in France from the enforcement of this law, and the uprisings of the peasants over Europe during the twelfth century and the fierce Jacquerie, or Peasants War, of the fourteenth century in France, owed their origin among other causes to the enforcement of these claims by the lords upon the newly married wife. The Edicts of Marley securing the seigneural tenure in Lower Canada transplanted that claim to America when Canada was under the control of France.5

    During the feudal period when chivalry held highest rank in the duties of the knight, women of the lower classes were absolutely unprotected. Both Church and State were their most bitter enemies; the lords even if in holy orders did not lessen their claims upon the bride. Most of the bishops and chanonies were also temporal lords. The Bishop of Amiens possessed this right against the women of his vassals and the peasants of his fiefs, of which he was dispossessed at the commencement of the fifteenth century, by an arreet, rendered at the solicitation of husbands.6 Although the clergy, largely drawn from the nobility,23 whose portionless younger sons were thus easily provided for, sustained the corruptions of the lords temporalp. 155 yet having connected themselves with the church, they did not fall to preserve their own power even over the nobility.

    The canons of the Cathedral of Lyons, bore title of Counts of Lyons; sixteen quarters of nobility, eight on side of the father; eight on side of the mother. The marchetta or cuissage was still practiced by them in the fourteenth century at the time Lyons was reunited to the crown of France. It was but slowly, after a great number of complaints and arrests of judgment that the canons of Lyons consented to forego this custom. In several cantons of Piccardy, the cures imitated the bishops and anciently took the right of cuissage, but ultimately the peasants of this region refused to marry, and the priests gave up this practice which they had usurped when the bishop had become too old to take his right.7 The resolution not to marry, surprised and confounded the lord "suzerains," who perceived it would cause the depopulation of their feifs. During the feudal period, bearing children was the duty pre-eminently taught women. Serf children increased the power and possessions of the lord, they also added to the power of the church, and the strangest sermons in regard to woman's duty in this respect fell from the lips if celibate monks and priests. She was taught that sensual submission to man, and the bearing of children, were the two reasons for her having been created, and that the woman who failed in either had no excuse for longer encumbering the earth. The language used from the Pulpit for the enforcement of these duties, will not bear reproduction.8 The villeins were not entirelyp. 156 submissive under such great wrongs, frequently protesting against this right of their suzerains. At one time a number of Piedmont villages rose in united revolt, compelling the lords to relinquish some of their powers. Although9 the concessions gained were but small, not putting an end to the lord's claim to the bride but merely lessening the time of his spoliation, the results were great in establishing the principle of serf rights.

    Marquette began to be abolished in France towards the end of the sixteenth century.10 But an authority upon this question says that without doubt the usage still continued in certain countries, farther asserting that even in this century it existed in the county of Auvergene, and several vassals plead to their lords against the continuance of this custom because of the great unhappiness it caused them. The lower orders of the clergy were very unwilling to relinquish this usage, vigorously protesting to their archbishops against the deprivation of the right, declaring they could not be dispossessed.11 Bœms states that he was present at a spiritual council of the metropolitane of Bourges, and heard a priest claim the right upon ground of immemorial usage.12

    Although feudalism is generally considered the parent of this most infamous custom, some writers attribute its origin to an evangelical council, or to precepts directly inculcated by the church," whosep. 157 very highest dignitaries did not hesitate to avail themselves of the usage. In 1471, quite the latter part of the fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV14 sought admission to the very illustrious Piedmont family, Della Rovere, which possessed the right of cuissage, allowing the lord absolute control of his vassals newly wedded bride for three days and nights; a cardinal of the family having secured the patent by which this outrageous and abominable right was granted them. The rights of the Lords spiritual in the jus prima noctis , at first, perchance, confined to those temporal lords who holding this right entered the church, at last extended to the common priesthood, and the confessional became the great fount of debauchery. Woman herself was powerless; the church, the state, the family, all possessed authority over her as against herself. Although eventually redemption through the payment of money, or property, was possible, yet a husband too poor or penurious to save her, aided in this debasement of his wife.15 This inexpressible abuse and degradation of woman went under the name of pastime, nor were the courts to be depended upon for defense.16 Their sympathies and decisions were with the lord. Few except manorial courts existed. Even when freedom had been purchased for the bride, all feudal customs rendered it imperative upon her to bear the "wedding dish" to the castle. Accompanied by her husband, this ceremony everp. 158 drew upon the newly married couple a profusion of jeers and ribald jests from which they were powerless to protect themselves. While in ancient Babylon woman secured immunity by one service and payment to the temple, the claim of the lord to the peasant wife was not always confined to the marriage day, and refusal of the loan of his wife at later date brought most severe punishment upon the husband.17

    Blessing the nuptial bed by the priest, often late at night, was also common, and accompanied by many abuses, until advancing civilization overpowered the darkness of the church and brought it to an end. When too poor to purchase the freedom of his bride, the husband was in one breath assailed by the most opprobrious names,18 and in the next he was congratulated upon the honor to be done him in that perchance his oldest child would be the son of a baron.19 So great finally became the reproach and infamy connected with the droit de cuissage, as this right was generally called in France20 and so recalcitrant became the peasants over its nefarious exactions, that ultimately both lords spiritual and lords temporal fearing for their own safety, commenced to lessen their demands.21 This custom had its origin at the time thep. 159 great body of the people were slaves bound either to the person or land of some lord. At this period personal rights no more existed for the lower classes than for the blacks of our own country during the time of slavery. Under feudalism, the property, family ties, and even the lives of the serfs were under control of the suzerain, It was a system of slavery without the name; the right of the lord to all first fruits was universally admitted;22 the best in possession of the serf, by feudal custom belonged to the lord. The feudal period was especially notable for the wrongs of women. War, the pastime of nobles and kings, brought an immense number of men into enforced idleness. Its rapine and carnage were regarded as occupations superior to the tillage of the soil or the arts of peace. Large numbers of men, retainers of every kind, hung about the castle dependent upon its lord, obedient to his commands.23 At an age when books were few and reading an accomplishment of still greater rarity, these men, apart from their families, or totally unbound by marriage, were in readiness for the grossestp. 160 amusement. At an age when human life was value, less, and suffering of every kind was disregarded, We call readily surmise the fate likely to overtake unprotected peasant women. They were constantly ridiculed and insulted; deeds of violence were common and passed unreproved. For a woman of this class to be self-respecting was to become a target for the vilest abuse. Morality was scoffed at; to drag the wives and daughters of villeins and serfs into the mire of lechery was deemed a proper retribution for their attempted pure lives; they possessed no rights of person or morality against the feudal lord and his wild retainers. All christian Europe was plunged into the grossest immorality.24 A mistress was looked upon as a necessary part of a monarch's state.25 Popes, cardinals, and priests of lesser degrees, down to the present century, still continued the unsavory reputation of their predecessors;"26 "nephews," "nieces," and "sacrilegious" children are yet supported by the revenues of the Church, or left to poverty, starvation and crime. It was long the custom of christian municipalities to welcome visiting kings by deputations of naked women,27 and as late as the eighteenth century, a mistress whosep. 161 support was drawn from the revenues of the kingdom, was recognized as part of the pageantry of the kingdom.

    The heads of the Greek and Protestant Churches, no less than of the Catholic, appear before the world as men of scandalous lives. The history of the popes is familiar to all students. No less is that of the English Eighth Henry, the real father of the Reformation, in England, and founder of the Anglican Church, whose adulteries and murders make him a historic Blue Beard. The heads of the Greek Church figure in a double sense as fathers of their people. The renowned Peter the Great amused himself by numberless liaisons, filling Russia with descendants whose inherited tendencies are those of discontent and turmoil. When he visited the Court of Prussia, 1717, he was accompanied by his czarina, son, daughter, and four hundred ladies in waiting, women of low condition, each of whom carried an elegantly dressed infant upon her arms. If asked in regard to the paternity of the child they invariably replied "my lord has done me the honor to make me its mother."28

    In no country has a temporal monarch under guise of a spiritual ruler been more revered than in Russia. Even amidst nihilism a belief that the czar can do no wrong is the prevailing conviction among the Slavic peoples. This is both a great cause of, and a result of Russian degradation, If we except the proportionately few liberal thinkers, that conviction is as strong as it was in the time of Ivan the Terrible. In no civilized or half-civilized nation is ignorance as dense as among the peasantry of that vast empire embracing one-sixth of the habitable globe. Nor to thep. 162 czar alone was such disregard of woman's right of person confined. The system of serfdom which existed until within the last half of the present century, was a system of feudalism in its oppression of women, although if possible even more gross. The sale of young peasant girls regularly took place, and the blood of the nobility of that country runs in the veins of its most degraded and ignorant population.29 Although Italy the seat of the papal power is noted for the ignorance, squalor, and superstition of its people, we no less find such a condition of affairs existing in Russia. Amid the starvation of its people, accompanied by "hunger-typhus" that form of disease which in the Irish famine of 1848 was known as "ship-fever," the peasants will not accept aid from Count Tolstoi, whom they have been taught to regard as Anti-Christ, fearing that by so doing they will condemn themselves to eternal torment.30 While the peasantry are thus suffering wrongs of every nature, the priesthood and churches are as thriving as before.

    Having shown the results of power in the hands of a controlling class, upon women of low degree in both the Catholic and Greek divisions of christendom, we have but to look at our own country to find like conditionp. 163 under Protestantism. The state of the slave women of the South was that of serfs of the body under feudalism, or of the serf peasant women of Russia. Nor is other proof of this statement required than the hue of this race, no longer spoken of as the blacks, but as colored people. Let the condition of woman as to her rights of person, under the three great divisions of Christianity, be answer to all who without examination of history, or the customs of ancient and modern times, and with eyes closed to these most patent facts, so falsely assert that woman has been elevated by christianity, and is now holding a position never before in the world accorded her. But what has already been shown of her degradation under christian teachings and laws is but a small portion of the wrongs woman has suffered during the christian centuries.

    Under theory of the divine rights of man, society has everywhere been permeated with disregard for woman's rights of person. Monarchs not posing as spiritual heads of their people have yet equally made use of their place and power for woman's degradation, and an indefinite fatherhood outside of marriage. Augustus of Saxony, King of Poland, is chiefly renowned in history as the father of three hundred illegitimate children.31 Of Charles II. not alone King of England, but also head of the Anglican Church, one of his subjects declared him to be the father of many of his people in the literal as well as in the spiritual sense. Four English dukes of the present day trace their lineage to this monarch., who left no legitimate descendants.32p. 164     H. R. H. the present heir-apparent to the English throne bears an equally unsavory record.33 To him and his aristocratic companions in guilt is due the support and protection of England's notorious and infamous purchase and sale, outrage, and exploitation of helpless young girls. An English clergyman writing the "New York Sun," at the time of the disclosures made by the "Pall Mall Gazette," declared he had in his possession a list of the names of the royal princes, dukes, nobles, and leading men who had been the principal patrons and supporters of the "gilded hells" devoted to the ruin of the merest children, girls from the ages of nine to thirteen.34 The reputation of the male members of the Hanoverian dynasty has ever been bad. Trace as you will the path of either ecclesiastical or temporal rulers claiming authority by "divine right," and you will find the way marked with the remains of women and children whose life has been wrecked by man under plea of created superiority. While Italy within the last forty years has escaped from the temporal control of the pope, its kings have no less copied the immorality of the "Vicar of God"; the predecessor of the late king of Italy having left thirty-three illegitimate children. An instance of the survival of the feudal idea as to the right of the lord to the person of his vassal women occurred in Ireland within the past few years, graphically described in a letter upon landlords, from Mr. D. R. Locke (Nasby), December, 1891, in which he says;

    One was shot a few years ago and a great ado was made about it. In this case as in most of the others it was not a question of rent. My Lord had visitedp. 165 his estates to see how much more money could be taken out of his tenants and his lecherous eye happened to rest upon a very beautiful girl, the eldest daughter of a widow with seven children. Now this beautiful girl was betrothed to a nice sort of a boy, who, having been in America, knew a thing or two. My Lord, through his agent, who is always a pimp as well as a brigand, ordered Kitty to come to the castle. Kitty knowing very well what that meant, refused.

    "Very well," says the agent, "yer mother is in arrears for rent, and you had better see My Lord, or I shall be compelled to evict her."

    Kitty knew what that meant also. It meant that her gray haired mother, her six helpless brothers and sisters would be pitched out by the roadside to die of starvation and exposure, and so Kitty without saying a word to her mother or any one else, went to the castle and was kept there three days, till My Lord was tired of her, when she was permitted to go.

    She went to her lover, like an honest girl as she was, and told him she would not marry him, but refused to give any reason.

    Finally the truth was wrenched out of her, and Mike went and found a shot gun that had escaped the eye of the royal constabulary, and he got powder and shot and old nails, and he lay behind a hedge under a tree for several days. Finally one day My Lord came riding by all so gay and that gun went off, and 'subsequent proceedings interested him no more.' There was a hole, a blessed hole, clear through him, and he never was so good a man as before because there was less of him.

    Then Mike went and told Kitty to be of good cheer and not be cast down, that the little difference between him and My Lord had been happily settled, and that they would be married as soon as possible. And they were married, and I had the pleasure of taking in my hand the very hand that fired the blessed shot and of seeing the wife, to avenge whose cruel wrongs the shot was fired.

    Nor is this the only instance in modern Ireland. Ap. 166 certain lord Leitram was noted a few years since for his attempts to dishonor the wives and daughters of the peasantry upon his vast estate comprising 90,000 acres. His character was that of the worst feudal barons, and like those he used his power as magistrate and noble, in addition to that of landlord, to accomplish his purpose. After an assault upon a beautiful and intelligent girl, by a brutal retainer of his lordship, her character assailed, his tenantry finally declared it necessary to resort to the last means in their power to preserve the honor of their wives and daughters. Six men were chosen as the instruments of their rude justice, and among them the brother of this girl, upon whom the leadership fell. They took oath to be true to the end, in life or death, raised a sum of money, purchased arms, and seeking a convenient opportunity shot him to death. Nor were the perpetrators ever discovered; yet it is now known that two of them died in Australia, two in the Boer war in South Africa, and the leader who came to the United States, changing his name, passed away in the summer of 1892 in the State of Pennsylvania.

    Under head of "A Story of to-day," another tale is related of woman's oppression in Ireland aided by the Petty Sessions Bench in 1880.

    Recently, a young girl named Catherine Cafferby, of Belmullet, in County Mayo--the pink of her father's family--fled from the "domestic service" of a landlord as absolute as Lord Leitrim, the moment the poor creature discovered what that "service" customarily involved. The great man had the audacity to invoke the law to compel her to return, as she had not given statutable notice of her flight. She clung to the door-post of her father's cabin; shep. 167 told aloud the story of her terror, and called on God and man to save her. Her tears, her shrieks, her piteous pleadings were all in vain. The Petty Sessions Bench ordered her back to the landlord's "service," or else to pay five pounds, or two weeks in jail. This is not a story of Bulgaria under Murad IV. but of Ireland in the reign of the present sovereign. That peasant girl went to jail to save her chastity. If she did not spend a fortnight in the cells, it was only because friends of outraged virtue, justice, and humanity paid the fine when the story reached the outer world.

    These iniquities have taken place in Christian lands35 and these nefarious outrages upon women have been enforced by the Christian laws of both church and state. The degradation and unhappiness of the husband at the infringement of the lord's spiritual and temporal upon his marital rights, has been depicted by many writers but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame of the wife.36 No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church which should have been the great conserver of morals dragged her to the lowest depths through the vileness of its teachings and its priestly customs. The State which should have defended her civil rights followed the example of the church in crushing her to the earth. Christian laws were detrimental to woman in every relation of life.p. 168     The brilliant French author, Legouvé, gives from among the popular songs of Brittany during the fourteenth century, a pathetic ballad, "The baron of Jauioz," which vividly depicts the condition of the peasant women of France at that date. In the power of the male members of her family over her, we also find an exact parallel in the condition of English women of the same era. The moral disease thus represented being due to the same religious teaching, the change of country and language but more fully serves to depict the condition of woman every where in christendom at this period.

*****

 

12 November 2004

They deployed two TANKS to counter an anti-war protest in LA
by John in DC - 11/10/2004 10:49:42 PM
 

http://americablog.blogspot.com/ 
FURTHER UPDATE: This is for real. I just called the protesters out in LA and confirmed it by phone. And I also just read a NEW excuse the military is now offering. The tanks "got stuck at a traffic light," and that's why they just happened to stop in front of an anti-war protest in the middle of a major US city. Uh huh.

UPDATE: I've just read in the comments to the IndyMedia site that someone spoke to some military folks who claim the tanks were "lost" and simply stopping in front of the anti-war protesters to "ask directions." Yeah, right. They were intentionally using deadly force to intimidate peaceful protesters in violation of their First Amendment rights. This is a big story.

Thanks to MyDD for finding this. This is beyond outrageous. A tank (two in fact). Sent to disrupt an anti-war protest in LA, which by all accounts was acting quite peaceably. You can watch the video , a handful of people chanting, big deal. But then what happens next? Two big fat tank - TANKS people - confront the protesters. They're sending God damn tanks into the streets of Los Angeles. Anyone has a problem with that? What is this, fucking Tiananmen Square?

I am absolutely speechless. We look like China. We look like the Soviet Union. They just sent two tanks to counter a peaceful protest in the second largest city of America. Good God. And where is the media coverage? They just sent TANKS to counter peaceful protesters. That kind of an outrageous challenge to the protesters could have easily sparked violence.

People, please, contact your local media, call any reporters you know, tell them about this. This is a huge story. This is absolutely scary shit. Sending tanks to confront peaceful protesters in an American city in 2004. Who are we anymore?

|  Permanent Link |  

*****

Mission accomplished. Tell those wolves to scat, and let that eagle soar, baby. Maureen Dowd refers to John Asscroft’s song in a Thursday column that review the reality that we remarked on yesterday that all of a sudden we in the U.S. are safe. Terror levels have been lowered, barricades are coming down and Americas is coming home. And it is all because Georgie Boy won (?) the election. This new found safety reminds of the disappearing WMD and Nuclear programs in Iraq.

She goes on to say: The president is putting his own counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who wrote the famous memo defending torture, in charge of our civil liberties. Torture Guy, who blithely threw off 75 years of international law and set the stage for the grotesque abuses at Abu Ghraib and dubious detentions at Guantánamo, seems to have a good grasp of what's just. No doubt we'll soon learn what other protections, besides the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution, Mr. Gonzales finds "quaint'' and "obsolete.''

With the F.B.I. investigating Halliburton and the second-term scandal curse looming, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney want a dependable ally - and former Enron attorney - at Justice. But since the country is controlled by one party and the press has tended toward the pusillanimous, cowed by the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as he tries to throw reporters in jail, the White House may be able to suppress any second-term problems.

*****

From http://www.bobharris.com/index.php

Bush announces his choice for Attorney General

Wednesday, 10 November 2004 Ladies and gentlemen... Alberto Gonzales:

The President has known for more than two years that his Administration has been pursuing policies that could qualify as war crimes under federal and international law.

In a January 25, 2002, memo, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality--declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions--which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales went further, telling the President that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners"; he pooh-poohed concerns that abandoning the Geneva standards might endanger US troops.

Let's be clear about what this means: Gonzales was urging--and the President adopted as policy--an end run around federal laws. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress in 1996, allows criminal prosecution of Americans for actions that violate the rights granted prisoners and civilians by the Geneva Conventions and for "outrages upon personal dignity." It is backed by the full range of federal penalties, up to and including the death penalty. And all treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention, are likewise the binding law of the land.

From the Gonzales memo, it is clear that the Administration always envisioned taking coercive interrogation beyond Afghanistan. Gonzales repeatedly refers to the broader "war on terrorism"--the phrase Bush uses to cover the war on Iraq. Gonzales specifically advises the President to hold open "options for future conflicts." Thus the scandal is not what George W. Bush referred to as the "failures of character" of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The scandal is that the White House wanted to torture prisoners and get away with it.

*****

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/arts/14rich.html?oref=login&oref=login&th

 

FRANK RICH

On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide

Published: November 14, 2004

FAREWELL to Swift boats and "Shove it!," to Osama's tape and Saddam's missing weapons, to "security moms" and outsourced dads. They've all been sent to history's dustbin faster than Ralph Nader memorabilia was dumped on eBay. In their stead stands a single ambiguous phrase coined by an anonymous exit pollster: "Moral values." By near universal agreement the morning after, these two words tell the entire story of the election: it's the culture, stupid.

"It really is Michael Moore versus Mel Gibson," said Newt Gingrich. To Jon Stewart, Nov. 2 was the red states' revenge on "Will & Grace." William Safire, speaking on "Meet the Press," called the Janet Jackson fracas "the social-political event of the past year." Karl Rove was of the same mind: "I think it's people who are concerned about the coarseness of our culture, about what they see on the television sets, what they see in the movies ..."

And let's not even get started on the two most dreaded words in American comedy, regardless of your party affiliation: Whoopi Goldberg.

There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be the undisputed king of the red cultural elite, Rupert Murdoch. Fox News is a rising profit center within his News Corporation, and each red-state dollar that it makes can be plowed back into the rest of Fox's very blue entertainment portfolio. The Murdoch cultural stable includes recent books like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," which have both been synergistically, even joyously, promoted on Fox News by willing hosts like Rita Cosby and, needless to say, Mr. O'Reilly. There are "real fun parts and exciting parts," said Ms. Cosby to Ms. Jameson on Fox News's "Big Story Weekend," an encounter broadcast on Saturday at 9 p.m., assuring its maximum exposure to unsupervised kids.

Almost unnoticed in the final weeks of the campaign was the record government indecency fine levied against another prime-time Fox television product, "Married by America." The $1.2 million bill, a mere bagatelle to Murdoch stockholders, was more than twice the punishment inflicted on Viacom for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction." According to the F.C.C. complaint, one episode in this heterosexual marriage-promoting reality show included scenes in which "partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers' bodies," and two female strippers "playfully spank" a man on all fours in his underwear. "Married by America" is gone now, but Fox remains the go-to network for Paris Hilton ("The Simple Life") and wife-swapping ("Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy").

None of this has prompted an uprising from the red-state Fox News loyalists supposedly so preoccupied with "moral values." They all gladly contribute fungible dollars to Fox culture by boosting their fair-and-balanced channel's rise in the ratings. Some of these red staters may want to make love like porn stars besides. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) An ABC News poll two weeks before the election found that more Republicans than Democrats enjoy sex "a great deal." The Democrats' new hero, Illinois Senator-elect Barack Obama, was assured victory once his original, ostentatiously pious Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race rather than defend his taste for "avant-garde" sex clubs.

The 22 percent of voters who told pollsters that "moral values" were their top election issue - 79 percent of whom voted for Bush-Cheney - corresponds almost exactly to the number of voters (23 percent) who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. They are entitled to their culture, too, and their own entertainment industry. And their own show-biz scandals. The Los Angeles Times reported this summer that Paul Crouch, the evangelist who founded the largest Christian network, Trinity Broadcasting Network, vehemently denied a former employee's accusation that the two had had a homosexual encounter - though not before paying the employee a $425,000 settlement. Not so incidentally, Trinity joined Gary Bauer and Fox News as prime movers in "Redeem the Vote," the Christian-rock alternative to MTV's "Rock the Vote."

But the distance between this hard-core red culture and the majority blue culture is perhaps best captured by Tom Coburn, the newly elected Republican senator from Oklahoma, lately famous for discovering "rampant" lesbianism in that state's schools. As a congressman in 1997, Mr. Coburn attacked NBC for encouraging "irresponsible sexual behavior" and taking "network TV to an all-time low with full frontal nudity, violence and profanity being shown in our homes." The broadcast that prompted his outrage on behalf of "parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere" was the network's prime-time showing of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List."

It's in the G.O.P.'s interest to pander to this far-right constituency - votes are votes - but you can be certain that a party joined at the hip to much of corporate America, Mr. Murdoch included, will take no action to curtail the blue culture these voters deplore. As Marshall Wittman, an independent-minded former associate of both Ralph Reed and John McCain, wrote before the election, "The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment." That amendment has never had a prayer of rounding up the two-thirds majority needed for passage and still doesn't.

Mr. Wittman echoes Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?," by common consent the year's most prescient political book. "Values," Mr. Frank writes, "always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won." Under this perennial "trick," as he calls it, Republican politicians promise to stop abortion and force the culture industry "to clean up its act" - until the votes are counted. Then they return to their higher priorities, like cutting capital gains and estate taxes. Mr. Murdoch and his fellow cultural barons - from Sumner Redstone, the Bush-endorsing C.E.O. of Viacom, to Richard Parsons, the Republican C.E.O. of Time Warner, to Jeffrey Immelt, the Bush-contributing C.E.O. of G.E. (NBC Universal) - are about to be rewarded not just with more tax breaks but also with deregulatory goodies increasing their power to market salacious entertainment. It's they, not Susan Sarandon and Bruce Springsteen, who actually set the cultural agenda Gary Bauer and company say they despise.

But it's not only the G.O.P.'s fealty to its financial backers that is predictive of how little cultural bang the "values" voters will get for their Bush-Cheney votes. At 78 percent, the nonvalues voters have far more votes than they do, and both parties will cater to that overwhelming majority's blue tastes first and last. Their mandate is clear: The same poll that clocked "moral values" partisans at 22 percent of the electorate found that nearly three times as many Americans approve of some form of legal status for gay couples, whether civil unions (35 percent) or marriage (27 percent). Do the math and you'll find that the poll also shows that for all the G.O.P.'s efforts to court Jews, the total number of Jewish Republican voters in 2004, while up from 2000, was still some 200,000 less than the number of gay Republican voters.

When Robert Novak writes after the election that "the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, socially conservative agenda is ascendant, and the G.O.P. will not abandon it anytime soon," you have to wonder what drug he is on. The abandonment began at the convention. Sam Brownback, the Kansas senator who champions the religious right, was locked away in an off-camera rally across town from Madison Square Garden. Prime time was bestowed upon the three biggest stars in post-Bush Republican politics: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger. All are supporters of gay rights and opponents of the same-sex marriage constitutional amendment. Only Mr. McCain calls himself pro-life, and he's never made abortion a cause. None of the three support the Bush administration position on stem-cell research. When the No. 1 "moral values" movie star, Mel Gibson, condemned the Schwarzenegger-endorsed California ballot initiative expanding and financing stem-cell research, the governor and voters crushed him like a girlie-man. The measure carried by 59 percent, which is consistent with national polling on the issue.

If the Republican party's next round of leaders are all cool with blue culture, why should Democrats run after the red? Received Washington wisdom has it that the only Democrat who will ever be able to win a national election must be a cross between Gomer Pyle and Billy Sunday - a Scripture-quoting Sun Belt exurbanite whose loyalty to Nascar does not extend to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was fined last month for saying a four-letter word on television.

According to this argument, the values voters the Democrats must pander to are people like Cary and Tara Leslie, archetypal Ohio evangelical "Bush votes come to life" apotheosized by The Washington Post right after Election Day. The Leslies swear by "moral absolutes," support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and mostly watch Fox News. Mr. Leslie has also watched his income drop from $55,000 to $35,000 since 2001, forcing himself, his wife and his three young children into the ranks of what he calls the "working poor." Maybe by 2008 some Democrat will figure out how to persuade him that it might be a higher moral value to worry about the future of his own family than some gay family he hasn't even met.

*****

 

There were 11 million new voters, Kerry got 2 mil, Bush got 9 mil.  Is this believable?

In a story that will be slow to die although it will because the powers want it to. Here are two websites that discuss the screwy voting statistics better than we can.

From http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html

George W. Bush’s vote tallies, especially in the key state of Florida, are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable.

While it’s extraordinary for a candidate to get a vote total that exceeds his party’s registration in any voting jurisdiction – because of non-voters – Bush racked up more votes than registered Republicans in 47 out of 67 counties in Florida. In 15 of those counties, his vote total more than doubled the number of registered Republicans and in four counties, Bush more than tripled the number.

Statewide, Bush earned about 20,000 more votes than registered Republicans.

By comparison, in 2000, Bush’s Florida total represented about 85 percent of the total number of registered Republicans, about 2.9 million votes compared with 3.4 million registered Republicans.

Bush achieved these totals although exit polls showed him winning only about 14 percent of the Democratic vote statewide – statistically the same as in 2000 when he won 13 percent of the Democratic vote – and losing Florida’s independent voters to Kerry by a 57 percent to 41 percent margin. In 2000, Gore won the independent vote by a much narrower margin of 47 to 46 percent.

[For details on the Florida turnout in 2000, see http://www.msnbc.com/m/d2k/g/polls.asp?office=P&state=FL. For details on the 2004 Florida turnout, see http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/FL/P/00/index.html]

Exit Poll Discrepancies

Similar surprising jumps in Bush’s vote tallies across the country – especially when matched against national exits polls showing Kerry winning by 51 percent to 48 percent – have fed suspicion among rank-and-file Democrats that the Bush campaign rigged the vote, possibly through systematic computer hacking.

Republican pollster Dick Morris said the Election Night pattern of mistaken exit polls favoring Kerry in six battleground states – Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa – was virtually inconceivable.

“Exit polls are almost never wrong,” Morris wrote. “So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave the polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries. … To screw up one exit poll is unheard of. To miss six of them is incredible. It boggles the imagination how pollsters could be that incompetent and invites speculation that more than honest error was at play here.”

But instead of following his logic that the discrepancy suggested vote tampering – as it would in Latin America, Africa or Eastern Europe – Morris postulated a bizarre conspiracy theory that the exit polls were part of a scheme to have the networks call the election for Kerry and thus discourage Bush voters on the West Coast. Of course, none of the networks did call any of the six states for Kerry, making Morris’s conspiracy theory nonsensical. Nevertheless, some Democrats have agreed with Morris's bottom-line recommendation that the whole matter deserves “more scrutiny and investigation.” [The Hill, Nov. 8, 2004]

Erroneous Votes

Democratic doubts about the Nov. 2 election have deepened with anecdotal evidence of voters reporting that they tried to cast votes for Kerry but touch-screen voting machines came up registering their votes for Bush.

In Ohio, election officials said an error with an electronic voting system in Franklin County gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, more than 1,000 percent more than he actually got.

Yet, without a nationwide investigation, it’s impossible to know whether those cases were isolated glitches or part of a more troubling pattern.

If Bush’s totals weren’t artificially enhanced, they would represent one of the most remarkable electoral achievements in U.S. history.

In the two presidential elections since Sen. Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton in 1996, Bush would have increased Republican voter turnout nationwide by a whopping 52 percent from just fewer than 40 million votes for Dole to just fewer than 60 million votes for the GOP ticket in 2004.

Such an increase in voter turnout over two consecutive election cycles is not unprecedented, but has historically flowed from landslide victories that see shifting voting patterns, with millions of crossover voters straying from one party to the other.

For example, in 1972, Richard Nixon increased Republican turnout by 73.5 percent over Barry Goldwater’s performance two elections earlier. But this turnout was amplified by the fact that Goldwater lost in 1964 to Lyndon Johnson by about 23 percentage points and Nixon trounced George McGovern by 23 percentage points.

What’s remarkable about Bush’s increase over the last two elections is that Democrats have done an impressive job boosting their own voter turnout from 1996 to 2004. Over this period, candidates Al Gore and John Kerry increased Democratic turnout by about 18 percent, from roughly 47.5 million votes in 1996 to nearly 56 million in 2004.

What this suggests is that Bush is not so much winning his new votes from Democrats crossing over, but rather by going deeper than many observers thought possible into new pockets of dormant Republican voters.

Bush’s Gains

But where did these new voters come from, and how did Bush manage to accelerate his turnout gains at a time when the Democratic ticket was also substantially increasing its turnout?

While the statistical analysis of these new voters is only just beginning, Bush’s ability to find nearly 9 million new voters in an election year when his Democratic opponent also saw gains of about 5 million new voters is the story of the 2004 election.

Exit polls also suggest that voters identifying themselves as Republicans voted as a greater proportion of the electorate than in 2000 and that Bush won a slightly greater percent of the Republican vote.

The party breakdown in 2000 was 39 percent Democrats, 35 percent Republicans, and 27 percent independents. In 2000, Bush won the Republican vote by 91 percent to 8 percent; narrowly won the independent vote by 47 percent to 45 percent and picked up 11 percent of the Democratic vote compared with Gore’s Democratic turnout of 86 percent. [See http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.html for details.]

According to exit polls this year, the turnout broke evenly among Democrats and Republicans, with about 37 percent each. Independents represented about 26 percent of the electorate. Kerry actually did better among independents, winning that group of voters by a narrow 49 percent to 48 percent margin.

However, Bush did slightly better among the larger number of Republican voters, winning 93 percent of their vote, while matching his 2000 performance by taking about 11 percent of the Democratic vote.

Registration Up

While this turnout might strike many observers as unusual in an election year that witnessed huge voter registration and mobilization efforts by Democrats and groups aligned with Democrats, the increased GOP turnout does seem to fit with the campaign strategy deployed by the Bush team to run to the base.

From the start of the 2004 campaign, political strategist Karl Rove and the Bush team made its goals clear – maximize Bush’s support among social and economic conservatives – including Evangelicals and Club for Growth/anti-government conservatives – and turn them out by driving up Kerry’s negatives with harsh attacks questioning Kerry’s leadership credentials.

This strategy emerged from Rove’s estimate after the 2000 election that 4 million Evangelical voters stayed home that year. The Bush/Rove strategy in 2004 rested primarily on turning out that base of support.

But, even if one were to estimate that 100 percent of these Evangelical voters turned out for Bush in 2004 and that 100 percent of Bush’s 2000 supporters turned out again for him, this still leaves about 5 million new Bush voters unaccounted for.

Altogether, Bush’s new 9 million votes came mainly from the largest states in the country. But nowhere was Bush’s performance more incredible than in Florida, where Bush found roughly 1 million new voters, about 11 percent all new Bush voters nationwide and more than twice the number of new voters than in any other state other than Texas.

Bush increased his turnout in all 67 Florida counties, marking the second consecutive election in which Bush increased Republican vote totals in all Florida counties, and overall achieved a 34 percent increase in Florida votes over his 2000 total.

Since Bob Dole’s 1996 turnout of 2.24 million Florida votes, Bush has increased the GOP’s performance in the state by an astonishing 74 percent. Making Bush’s gains even more impressive, Kerry also saw gains in all but five Florida counties and in 22 counties earned at least 10,000 more votes than Gore earned in 2000.

Exceeding Kerry

But Bush’s vote gains exceeded Kerry’s in all the large counties in the state except in heavily Democratic Miami-Dade, where Kerry increased his turnout by 56,000 new votes compared with Bush’s 40,000 new votes. This Democratic improvement in Miami-Dade seems to have come in large part from Democratic success in registering new voters in the county by almost a 2-to-1 margin over Republicans.

In spite of this new-voter registration advantage, Kerry only earned a 7-to-5 increase of new voter turnout over Bush in Miami-Dade, a statistical oddity given the fact that Kerry did a better job than Gore in turning out his Democratic base, earning a vote total equaling 85 percent of all registered Democrats in the county compared with Gore’s total in 2000 equaling 83 percent of all registered Democrats.

In other Democratic strongholds of Broward and Palm Beach counties, Kerry gained 114,000 new voters, earning nearly 770,000 votes, and bested Bush by more than 320,000 votes. But, this was actually a modest improvement for Bush over 2000, thanks to Bush’s increase of 119,000 new voters in these counties, from 330,000 votes in 2000 to 449,000 votes in 2004.

Bush’s performance in these two counties is worth studying in greater detail. In both counties, Democrats saw a significant increase in new voter registration since 2000, more than 77,000 newly registered Democrats in Broward and 34,000 newly registered Democrats in Palm Beach.

Republicans on the other hand only registered 17,000 new voters in Broward and a bit more than 2,000 new voters in Palm Beach. While both counties saw substantial numbers of new unaffiliated or third party registered voters, the Democratic advantage in both counties combined of more than 111,000 newly registered Dems against fewer than 20,000 newly registered GOP voters, as well as the voter intensity that these new registration rates usually represent, suggested that Kerry should have done better than Bush relative to the 2000 election.

Instead, Bush actually increased his vote total in the two counties by earning about 5,000 more new voters than Kerry.

New Level

Beyond southern Florida, Bush took turnout throughout the state to a new level, testing the bounds of statistical probability by winning votes seemingly from every corner of the state, from the panhandle to the Gulf Coast, from the I-4 corridor to the Atlantic Coast from Jacksonville to Miami.

Another county worth examining in some detail is Orange County, a swing county home to Orlando in the center of the state. As in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward counties, Democrats successfully registered substantially more new voters than Republicans, about 49,000 new Democrats against about 25,000 new Republicans.

These gains broke what was once a statistical tie in registered voters between the parties, giving Democrats a 214,000 to 187,000 advantage across the county. But Kerry only managed a narrow countywide victory with 192,030 votes against 191,389 votes for Bush. In 2000, Gore carried the county with 140,115 votes against 134,476 votes for Bush.

While it's conceivable Bush might have achieved these and other gains through his hardball campaign strategies and strong get-out-the-vote effort, many Americans, looking at these and other statistically incredible Bush vote counts, are likely to continue to suspect that the Republicans put a thumb on the electoral scales, somehow exaggerating Bush's tallies through manipulation of computer tabulations.

Only an open-minded investigation with public scrutiny would have much hope of quelling these rising suspicions.

From http://www-personal.engin.umd.umich.edu/~asatanov/fraud/

Some observations of the 2004 election.
Alex Satanovsky

The 2000 election left many Democrats disillusioned over myriad issues. Not the least of which was the candidacy of Ralph Nader that was able to receive 2.88 million votes of popular support. In the two critical states of Florida and New Hampshire, Bush’s margin of victory was slimmer than the total number of votes Nader received. I am no fan of the two-party system, and I did support Nader’s right to run in 2004; however when it all came down to the day of the election, most of his supporters including myself abandoned him. Howard Dean’s exciting campaign in the fall of 2003 brought in many new voters who were unhappy about the Iraq war; it also captured many old Nader supporters. The concern of the 2004 election was grave and thus Nader’s candidacy flopped this time around. In 2004, Ralph was only able to muster up 397,464 votes, about 2.5 million less than his support in 2000.

Examining the results of this election reveals some striking details that should make everyone who opposed Bush very concerned. In 2000 Al Gore received 51.00 million votes, in 2004 Kerry only received 55.7 million. The 2.5 million Nader voters who left him did not simply evaporate. Nader supporters are intelligent progressives who oppose corporate rule and the two-party system, but knowing the stakes this time around, it was very predictable they would abandon him. This 2.5 million went to John Kerry. Exit polls show that Kerry also picked up a small 1 in 10 fraction of 2000 Bush voters, meanwhile Bush picked up the same amount of the 2000 Gore supporters this time around, making this issue a wash. With these facts, namely the 2.5 million Nader supporters going to the side of the Democrats, Kerry already had 53.5 million votes solidified. The assertion that 2.5 million voters who voted for a third party in 2000 went to Kerry in 2004 is probably actually an understatement. A CNN exit poll showed that out of the minority of 3.87 million people who voted for any third party in 2000, 71% voted for Kerry this time around. That equals to about 2.75 million voters. So again, adding this figure to Gore’s total of 51.00 million in 2000 shows that Kerry would have had 53.5 – 53.75 million votes in this election regardless of any new voter support. Therefore, according to the official results, the Kerry campaign was only able to capture no more than 2 million new voters to get him to his total of 55.7 million this past election.

On the other hand, President Bush received only 50.45 million votes in 2000, but now the official results show him having 59.3 million votes. That’s nearly 9 million new voters that turned out for him. Very impressive isn’t it? Remember listening to all the pundits talking about how both sides are planning to register new voters? Remember the hundreds of thousands of new registrations in urban areas in swing states that were overwhelmingly concentrated in Democratic strongholds. This was a well-documented issue and a cause for concern for the Republicans who consequently insisted on challenging voters in urban minority districts. The exit polls didn’t exactly show a Kerry landslide among new voters, but they did show him with a comfortable 54-45 majority among those who did not vote in 2000.

Wait a minute, how can all of this add up? Pre-election news stories about voter registrations seem to favor Kerry by extreme margins, exit polls of new voters show Kerry winning with a moderate but solid majority, the cultural movement of “Anyone-But-Bush” that included the rise of MoveOn.org and fan base around Michael Moore made it pretty predictable that there would be a lot of new voters out there casting their ballots to get rid of Bush. Heck, the very fact that an election for an incumbent president was predicted to have strong turnout inherently favors the challenger. People do not wait in long lines and break their typical pattern of apathy only to vote to reaffirm what they have, they only vote when they feel a desperate need for change. This is a basic truism that applies to every situation and society involving electoral politics.

The fact of the matter is that despite these fundamental and reasonable expectations, the official returns showed that Bush got somewhere in the range of 9 million new voters turning out for him, meanwhile Kerry only got no more than 2 million. Aside from the analysis I’ve made, this is also a shock for another reason. The Republicans have always turned out their base in great numbers; this problem has only and always been with the Democrats. The official results are an utter shock and a slap in the face of this basic analysis. Without any additional information, it is up to each individual to draw conclusions. The two likely possibilities are either electoral fraud in electronic voting machines, or an unprecedently successful effort by Karl Rove to skim the Bible-belt for 9 million new non-voters to back George Bush along with a massive conspiracy by all exit pollsters to show a consensus of Kerry winning a small but considerable majority of previous non-voters.

 

11 November 2004

Ashcroft resigns, his job is finished: Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." What a guy!

*****

This is from: http://www.bobharris.com/index.php

Tuesday, 09 November 2004 the clock radio goes off a few minutes ago, and this is the very first sentence I hear, verbatim:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has won the George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service.

And that's when it hits me:

I am in HELL.

*****

U.S. forces push into central Fallujah: 16 Americans killed in

fighting over 2 days in city, elsewhere

*****

In reading some material about a constitutional amendment to dissolve the Electoral College it occurred to us that one great benefit would be to lessen the push to corrupt the electoral process. Right now with the two or three swing states there is a great temptation to fool with the voting machines. If the poplar vote from the entire country were the measure of election then there would be less chance – not zero chance – that folks would mess with the voting machines. The Repubs still might seek to suppress the vote but voter suppression is a more overcomable obstacle.

*****

This schedule of election results http://www.ecotalk.org/Florida2004.htm  in Florida is pretty interesting. If you look at the yellow marked voting percentage for computer tabulated voting you see that Kerry and Bush both received increased percentages in some cases over 100% of their party’s registered voters.

But when you look at the ballot scanned counties you see that Bush got 200% or more of the registered Republicans while Kerry received 20% to 30 % of registered Democrats.

As the fellow who put this data together comments the tabulating and programs used were created by Republican supporters.

*****

 

10 November 2004

From: http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/

*****

From http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/ 

JIHAD!

From Common Dreams:

Men with buzz cuts and clad in their camouflage waved their hands in the air, M-16 assault rifles beside them and chanted heavy metal-flavored lyrics in praise of Christ late on Friday in a yellow-brick chapel.

They counted among thousands of troops surrounding the city of Fallujah, seeking solace as they awaited Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's decision on whether or not to invade Fallujah.

"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

[...]

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.

The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.

"Victory belongs to the Lord," another young marine read.

[...]

The marines then lined up and their chaplain blessed them with holy oil to protect them.

"God's people would be anointed with oil," the chaplain said, as he lightly dabbed oil on the marines' foreheads.

Let us sing a song of praise for the glorious bloodbath which is to come:

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!

Thank God Our Leader is resolute in the prosecution of this holy crusade against the heathens and is ignoring the pleas of those who worship the girly-Jesus.

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 2:09 AM   
| Trackback (1)

Allawi's no Frenchman  

Rep. Spencer Bachus
US House of Representatives

Dear Rep. Bachus,

There are many who would call you a hypocrite for remaining silent while our troops are taking orders from Ayad Allawi, the Prime Minister of Iraq. They'd point to the comments you made five years ago when you opposed putting our troops in Kosovo under foreign command.

At that time you said:

I am opposed to sending U.S. troops to Kosovo. There is no vital American interest at stake and we've already stretched our troops thin around the world. We should completely avoid committing our troops to yet another open-ended deployment in the Balkans...But, if our troops go they should at least be under American command.

What these potential detractors do not understand is that the Kosovo deployment was a completely different situation than the one we now face in Iraq. That intervention was a NATO operation. That means that our troops could have been placed under the command of Europeans--perhaps even the Germans or, God forbid, the French.

That's not a concern in Iraq. Our troops are under the command of Allawi, the cousin of Our Leaders very close friend, Ahmad Chalabi. Certainly, we can trust him as much we trusted his cousin.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

*****

From www.wonkette.com

It Takes a Big Man to Lose Gracefully

Look, you won -- let the penis issue go, Karl, let it go.. .

*****

American spoke folks say that resistance in Falluja is less than expected. Aren’t we surprised? Why wouldn’t the insurgents/terrorists/patriots/satanic devils hang around and get decimated by a superior force. That’s the trouble with guerrillas, they don’t fight fair.

*****

Voter Suppression Occurred. Vote Stealing Occurred. We are placing this last comment on the website to preserve the record and to let folks who want to know what happened read the story.

The exit polls were correct this time as they were the last time. The Republicans stole the election and presumed on the good will of the American people that only kooks and Liberals would suggest that any hanky panky occurred. Well it did and it was and is a travesty. Someday our time will come and we will be able to at least have honest voting machines. Some day.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: REPORT ON THE US VOTING SYSTEM
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 23:52:34 -0500
From: Robin Pickering

Hi all

First, I want to thank everyone for everything that you did to try to secure a victory for John Kerry and for democracy in this election. I know that all of you gave whatever time, money, and effort you were able to, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for participating in the greatest grassroots effort in history. We registered voters, delivered literature, talked face-to-face to voters, and talked to them on the phone. We walked and talked our hearts out and demonstrated our belief in our country and the principles upon which it was founded.

Unfortunately, the main thing that is clear to me after working in Ohio for the four days preceding the election is that we must now fight with the same commitment and passion to fix the complete shambles that is our voting system. It is a voting system that is so broken, in so many ways, as to be ineffectual, inaccurate, and subject to extreme doubt and skepticism. Please pass this information on to all of your contacts. The citizens of our country deserve to know what really happened.

In Ohio, it was clear that vote changing, voter suppression, voter intimidation, and inadequate numbers of voting machines in poor, minority, and student population voting precincts had a lot more to do with the results of this election than anything legitimate. Voting machine "malfunctions" including switched votes, unrecorded presidential votes, and crashed machines were numerous in these same voting precincts.

Here is what I can personally attest to:

RNC "workers" were in our hotel. They were not there to do literature drops, canvas, or to make sure that people knew where their polling places were, as we were. One of them tried to infiltrate one of our hotel rooms (I removed him) to gather information on our activities. He and another RNC lawyer followed some of the canvassers the next day to try to intimidate them, telling them that they were "putting them on notice, that what they were doing was breaking federal law" (among other more vile things). What the canvassers were doing was distributing ACT literature. These "people" were there to go inside the polls to challenge Democratic voters to intimidate them and suppress the Democratic vote.

After the polls closed, I talked to an Election Protection project worker who told me of the polling place in Youngstown where he worked that day. It had only three electronic touch screen voting machines. The lines were extremely (at the very least 3 to 4 hours) long. People were leaving and coming back multiple times trying to vote. Some were complaining that they had to work and could not miss the time from work or they would lose money that they could not afford to lose, or worse, lose their jobs. Youngstown is a very depressed, high-unemployment city.

He told me that the machines were flickering and bouncing around on the right hand side of the machine for at least half the day. He had multiple reports of people trying to vote for Kerry and it being recorded as Bush. The EP workers tried to get to everyone as they were going into the polling place to tell them that if they changed their vote three times, the ballot would be spoiled. They told them to get an election judge. Many did not get the message and/or they just could not wait around any longer. After all, there were only two other machines to go to if their machine would not record the vote properly. Finally, at around midday the voting machine company technicians came and "recalibrated" the machines. The flickering stopped. The vote changing did not.

Below are the findings from another Election Protection project lawyer who came on our bus. We were in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. These are heavily Democratic counties, which we did win by large margins, but it looks like we should have won them by far more from all of these reports.

1.      Too few polling machines, particularly for rush-hour voting, poorer areas/large numbers of people. (3 to 4 hours at the very least, some waited up to 8 and 9 hours)

2.      Numerous calls reported, "There are not enough machines. We need more people."

3.      Machines were breaking down. One polling location had only two machines for very large group. (9 calls)

4.      There were many reports throughout the day of non-functioning machines. Many people were getting frantic. Others were leaving. Many were demanding that paper ballots be sent. This Election Protection project lawyer and the others at her calling center tried to call ES&S to tell them that machines were malfunctioning. The Board of Elections said the machines had calibration problems and someone would come out. The Board of Elections was inundated with calls about the machines malfunctioning.

5.      There were numerous reports of voters trying to select Kerry and Bush was selected on the screen instead. The voters would try repeatedly to get Kerry to come up. Voters were only allowed three "pushes." They were told they could request a different machine, but of course by the time they were on the phone with the Election Protection project workers, it must have been too late.

6.      There were also reports of voters getting to the review screen and seeing "No Selection." For president. This was often at the same polling places where machines were breaking down. Voters could not get their vote for Kerry for president to register.

7.      Numerous reports of "Presidential choice not selected." Ballot would not register "Kerry".

8.      There were also reports of many Republican challengers at polling locations and no Democratic challengers. This Election Protection project lawyer had at least one voter who was told by a Republican challenger that she was not on the list at her polling place. When she called the Board of Elections office they told her that she was indeed a registered voter in the proper precinct. An Election Protection project person had to make calls to ensure that the voter could vote. How many other voters allowed themselves to be turned away by the GOP challengers?

9.      Another GOP challenger asked a voter for a Green Card in order to get a provisional ballot. The voter called in to find out what a Green Card is. Of course this was a trick. Voters must be citizens.

10.  Machines at some polls had to be re-set after every voter. This took so long that people started to leave. This Election Protection project lawyer and her colleagues sent food out to the voters. They sent food out to voters at different precincts at least three times during the day to encourage them to stay in line.

11.  Issue 1 "Defense of Marriage" was holding up line. Voters did not understand what the issue, Defense of Marriage, meant. (LOL, you gotta laugh at this one)

12.  One Election Protection project lawyer bought 6 lamps and extension cords after numerous reports came in of a polling place that was so dark both inside and out that voters could not see to vote. It was gray and dark and raining for much of the day in northern Ohio. People were waiting in line for multiple hours in the rain.

13.  Many people in one poor, black, polling location had their water turned off, if their bill was un-paid, coincidentally, on the morning of the election. The Water Department/utility told voters to stay home to wait until the matter was resolved, because the voters needed to let someone into their unit. The Zell Milleresque Democratic mayor of Youngstown endorsed George W. Bush. The Water Department/utility company did not come. This Election Protection project worker and colleagues went to the peoples' homes so some of the voters could vote.

14.  Voters cars were being ticketed. Voters felt their cars were properly parked. This was reported in both Mahoning County and Trumbull County.

15.  No provisional ballot was offered to a man who filled in/requested an absentee ballot, but did not receive the absentee ballot. When he arrived, he could not get a provisional ballot.

Note: Reports are now coming out that many people in Ohio who requested absentee ballots did not receive them. Some of these voters who did not receive their absentee ballot were given a provisional ballot when they went to the polling place, others were not, still others had to have Election Protection project people fight to get them their provisional ballots. How many walked away disenfranchised?

Next is a report from an attorney who went to Columbus, Ohio to monitor the election. What he describes shows how widespread and organized the Republicans' deception was:

I worked for 3 days, including Election Day, on the statewide voter protection hotline run by the Ohio Democratic Party in Columbus, Ohio.

I am writing this because the media is inexplicably whitewashing what happened in Ohio, and Kerry's concession was likewise inexplicable.

Hundreds of thousands of people were disenfranchised in Ohio. People waited on line for as long as 10 hours. It appears to have only happened in Democratic-leaning precincts, principally:

(a) precincts where many African Americans lived, and

(b) precincts near colleges.

I spoke to a young man who got on line at 11:30 AM and voted at 7 PM. When he left at 7 PM, the line was about 150 voters longer than when he'd arrived, which meant those people were going to wait even longer. In fact they waited for as much as 10 hours, and their voting was concluded at about 3 AM. The reason this occurred was that they had 1 voting station per 1000 voters, while the adjacent precinct had 1 voting station per 184. Both precincts were within the same county, and managed by the same county board of elections. The difference between them is that the privileged polling place was in a rural, solidly republican, area, while the one with long lines was in the college town of Gambier, OH.

Lines of 4 and 5 hours were the order of the day in many African-American neighborhoods.

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.

Countless other frauds occurred, such as postcards advising people of incorrect polling places, registered Democrats not receiving absentee ballots, duly registered young voters being forced to file provisional ballots even though their names and signatures appeared in the voting rolls, longtime active voting registered voters being told they weren't registered, bad faith challenges by Republican "challengers" in Democratic precincts, and on and on and on.

I was very proud of the way so many Ohioans fought so valiantly for their right to vote, and would not be turned away. Many, however, could not spend the entire day and were afraid of losing their jobs, due to the severe economic depression hitting Ohio.

I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to be counted.

Ray

NOTE FROM Jackson Thoreau who sent this out over the PStreet yahoo group:

There are many, many similar reports of fraud committed by Republicans throughout the country. The exit polls showing a Kerry victory were RIGHT! The election WAS stolen AGAIN! The question is: What are we going to do about it this time? For one, we have to keep seeking the truth on this election and exposing the Republicans' dirty deeds. We can't continue to let them get away with this. The only way this will stop is if we expose their dirty deeds to the light of day. --Jackson

Here are some Web sites for you to check out with more information:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/#breaking

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1106-30.htm

http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/281829446390855.php

At the very least, let's get this information into the mainstream press. If we scream loud enough maybe we can at least start to get our democracy back!

Robin

*****

 

9 November 2004

Sunday night we had the most incredible Northern Lights show up here in the land of milk and honey. We also saw a very bright falling star. It all must mean something or maybe nothing but at least it took our mind off the human mess and reminded that there are wonders that no one can take away.

U.S. troops are now razing Falluja to save it. On CNN last night the reporter commented that the Marines were saying this is their biggest operation since the taking of Hue in Vietnam in 1968. And they saw no irony in that statement. But then the military is not big on irony.

*****

Sludge is reporting that Dumbya may appoint Clarence Thomas to be Chief Justice. Better he than Scalia since Italians live to be 100. There is also talk of a recess appointment when Congress is home for Christmas as a wonderful present to the country.

We have surrendered our worry gene to history and now plan on becoming ironic observers.

*****

By the way why not Oprah for President. She is even more self made than Arnold and there wouldn’t be a need for a Constitutional amendment since women already have the vote.
*****

Oh yes and in Iraq the constitution has been suspended after being in force for 90 days so that the destruction of Falluja can proceed under the ultimate command of Prime Minister Allawi.

*****

An AP poll found that voters are happy the election was decisive and look forward to the next for years. The poll also found that the majority want Bush to cut the deficit. Say what? To whom were they listening.

*****

Just to get this out of the way in the prediction game we have stated earlier and now are certain that within the next four years the U.S. will invade Cuba and occupy it as a peacekeeping measure. In conjunction with this Jeb Bush will run for President in four years.

*****

We don’t think the insurgents are dumb enough to stay around in Falluja.

*****

Always fawning Elisabeth Bumiller of the NYT has another wonder piece on Bush Boy in the paper on November 8. in it she states: One thing is certain: Four years after the disputed election of 2000, Mr. Bush is reveling in winning the popular vote and feels that he can no longer be considered a one-term accident of history. No that is true. Dumbya is now a two term accident for history.

*****

One story of election chaos, and in a state we won. http://libertydems.blogspot.com/2004/11/observations-from-election-2004-on.html

*****

Paraphrasing the excellent post by The Liberal Oasis wouldn’t do it justice and so we present it below. The post is from: http://www.liberaloasis.com/

The LiberalOasis Blog
The daily view from the oasis

November 8, 2004 PERMALINK
On Nov. 4, 1992, the day after Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush by 5 percentage points and 202 electoral votes, this was the first thing out of Sen. Bob Dole's mouth:

57 percent of the Americans who voted in the presidential election voted against Bill Clinton, and I intend to represent that majority on the floor of the US Senate.

He finished his remarks with:

I think [Clinton] got some good news and some bad news last night...

...The good news is that he's getting a honeymoon in Washington. The bad news is that Bob Dole is going to be chaperone.

With that fighting attitude, the GOP stymied the centerpiece of Clinton's agenda, health care, and took over Congress in two years.

Compare that attitude with what was displayed by the lone Dem on the Sunday shows, Sen.-elect Barack Obama. From NBC's Meet The Press:

...one of the things I told the president was that we all have a stake in seeing him have a successful presidency.

I don't think that the Democrats succeed by rooting against the president in office.

But we have to be honest where we disagree with him and he's got to make his case where he's presenting issues that we're skeptical about.

It's not just Obama showing softness. This is the party line.

Here's House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, in the weekly radio address:

I hope that in this term President Bush will fulfill his promise to be a uniter, not a divider.

A new term is indeed a new opportunity to bring America together.

House Democrats stand ready to work with the President.

Despite our divisions, there are many places where we should be able to agree.

Granted, both Obama and Pelosi went ahead to explain some areas of potential disagreement.

But the overarching tone and message of conciliation is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Whereas the only remotely conciliatory remarks in Dole's post-election remarks was, "Obviously we'll cooperate with the new administration, if it advances the best interests of our nation," though that was quickly coupled with, "but we will stand up against bad policy."

Another Senate Dem, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, was quoted by NY Times' Nick Kristof saying, "The first thing we have to do is shake the image of us as the obstructionist party."

Kristof also chimed in that it is "lethal" to be seen as obstructionist.

Tell it to Bob Dole.

What is potentially lethal is to be obstructing because of craven politics and not noble principle.

And what is also potentially lethal is ceding fight after fight, because then you clearly don't stand for any principles at all (and that's what happened in 2002).

Obama and Pelosi had the opportunity this weekend to tell the nation what our noble principles are, and how those principles will be guiding the fights that lie ahead.

They didn't.

Unless leading Dems to do so, quickly, it will much harder to win those fights.

*****

These are reportedly from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, taken down and published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were actually taking place. If at least one doesn't make you laugh out loud, you are taking life way too seriously.

Q: Are you sexually active?
A: No, I just lie there.
_______________________________
Q: What is your date of birth
A: July 15
Q: What year?
A: Every year.
_____________________________________
Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years
_____________________________________
Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that
morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he
doesn't know about it until the next morning?
A: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?
______________________________________
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?

MORE...

12:38 PM |  Permalink |  Law Related | Comments (12) | Trackback (0)

*****

Our leader speaks:

"Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals."

"I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."

*****

No terror alerts warnings although martial law has been declared in Iraq, Falluja is under siege and marines have been issued gas masks, Arafat is dying and Israel won’t let him be buried in Jerusalem. Funny how an election can make us safer. And hopefully Big Dick has retreated to his underground bunker for the next four years.

By the by, there is no independent reporting going on in Iraq anymore. All the reporters are embedded with troops for their safety.

*****

 

8 November 2004

When she is on no one is pithier than Maureen Dowd. These two paragraphs say it all.

W.'s presidency rushes backward, stifling possibilities, stirring intolerance, confusing church with state, blowing off the world, replacing science with religion, and facts with faith. We're entering another dark age, more creationist than cutting edge, more premodern than postmodern. Instead of leading America to an exciting new reality, the Bushies cocoon in a scary, paranoid, regressive reality. Their new health care plan will probably be a return to leeches.

America has always had strains of isolationism, nativism, chauvinism, puritanism and religious fanaticism. But most of our leaders, even our devout presidents, have tried to keep these impulses under control. Not this crew. They don't call to our better angels; they summon our nasty devils.

*****

And now it begins:

            Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has declared a state of emergency for 60 days, his spokesman said on Sunday. The emergency declaration excludes Iraqi regions run by Kurdish peoples in northern Iraq, and comes as U.S. and Iraqi forces prepare for an assault on insurgents in Falluja.

And during the election Dumbya made a big deal of other folks ordering American troops around. So why is Allawi the one ordering American troops to begin the attack on Falluja?

*****

From http://www.bobharris.com/index.php

We are not alone

Thursday, 04 November 2004

(Emailed, credit unknown. 

*****

We promised not to continue the hanging chad argument but this next post is really interesting: it comes from http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

     FAIR USE NOTICE     This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
   *****

Rich Daley had a few words for Democrats. We always have thought that a debate between Bush and Daley would be an event folks would pay to listen to.

Mayor Richard Daley backed John Kerry for president, but Daley had some admiring observations about the Republican Party after last week's elections and some chastening words for his fellow Democrats.

"I think there is political change in this country," Daley said. "You talk about Roosevelt. You talk about Kennedy. And you have to talk about Bush. You have to give credit to his discipline, to the message he stayed on line. People made fun. They underestimated him all the time. He showed them all."

"Elitists" in the Democratic Party in Washington have underestimated the religious right, Daley said.

"They don't like people who have different beliefs than they do, who maybe read the Bible, read the Koran. ... They were shoved out, not to be respected."

And the mayor decried the "hatred" on both sides of the campaign, fingering at one point billionaire financier George Soros, a Kerry supporter who funded anti-George Bush ads.

"A lot of one-issue people," Daley said. "When I see a guy like George Soros spending $33 million--why doesn't he get a life and give money for scholarships? Why doesn't he get a life and give money to [poor] people in communities? Just because you hate one individual--I really worry about that."

We guess Daley doesn’t read papers either since if he di he would know that George Soros has given over $1 billion to eastern European nations and Russia to foster democracy. And Soros was spending $33 million so that his taxes would be raised. What a selfish person.

And Daley has it backwards, the religious right wants to tell us how to think and act not the other way around as Daley implies. Other than those few discrepancies Daley was as cogent as usual. Maybe it’s the father thing with him in his defense of Dumbya.

*****

From http://www.electoral-vote.com/ is a county map of the election. Please note that our little corner of Wisconsin voted blue. Also please note that the blue areas comprise more than half the population of the United States.

Here is a county-by-county map of the U.S. showing who won where. From looking at the map, you wouldn't know that almost half the population voted for Kerry. It shows very clearly how Kerry's base is in highly-populated urban areas and Bush's base is more in suburban and rural areas.

 

Here is a different way to look at the election--demographics instead of geography.

 

*****

The times they are a changing, and not for the better. But then maybe all the home schoolers will begin letting their kids go  to school which will lower our property tax burden. See, we can think like Republicans do.

GRANTSBURG, Wis. -- The city's school board has revised its science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.

School board members believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory," said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin. - Read more here

KANSAS: | Creation, evolution back on agenda

The state school board prepares to begin considering guidelines for teaching religion in Kansas public schools. - BY JOSH FUNK, The Wichita Eagle

*****

We weren’t going to print this but then we decided to give the fellow his due. We don’t condone his action but …

A 25-year-old man from Georgia who was apparently distraught over President Bush's re-election shot and killed himself at ground zero. Andrew Veal's body was found Saturday morning inside the off-limits site, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A shotgun was found nearby, but no suicide note was found, Coleman said.

*****

The Onion, always amusing and right on at http://www.theonion.com/index.php?pre=1

 

4-7 November 2004

We are traveling and thinking and having a tough time posting. and so we will not be posting till next Monday. We are regaining our sense of humor and ironic outlook. We look forward to resuming posts on Tuesday next.

 

3 November 2004

Ok we won’t get over it soon and we want Kerry to fight it to the end. But the writing is in the wall. It isn’t the first time we have lost and it won’t be the last. Thirty years ago Lamaze was some screwy liberal way to have babies. Women had to wear skirts to work. Blacks and whites couldn’t marry. Young couples couldn’t cohabit without scandal.

Kos mentions: It’s tough on the psyche to be beaten. Throughout our country’s history, abolitionists, suffragists, union organizers, anti-racists, anti-warriors, 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.

Remember if our beliefs about Bush are correct the events and tragedies we foresaw will unfortunately occur. Hopefully the next time around too much bad stuff won’t have happened but the reality of the misguided Bush Agenda will be more obvious.

Keep the faith. We will.

 

2 November 2004 Last Post before Election

Last Post before Election

This is it Kids

Vote early and keep the faith Hope is on the way today.

*****

Our Neighbor up here in the boonies, Gary Comer, who founded and ran Lands End before he sold it to Sears for a ridiculously large sum of money took a full page ad in the Wisconsin State Journal on Sunday to urge voters not to vote for Bush. Way to go Gary.

Gary Comer, founder of the Land's End clothing company, took out a full-page ad in the Wisconsin State Journal today, addressed to "Undecided Voters of Wisconsin." Land's End is a beloved business in Wisconsin, a reliable employer of thousands in the politically conservative southwestern portion of the state. In the ad, he doesn't come out and say "vote for Kerry," but the message is clear:

I have been a Republican and voted Republican most of my life. But in my opinion, this administration has high-jacked the Republican Party I knew and is taking Wisconsin and the United States in dangerous directions. If Bush is re-elected, you and your children and grandchildren and mine will pay dearly in their freedoms and opportunities long after his term of office expires. I believe that four more years of President Bush and the people who surround him is not in our Nation's best interest.

You could very well be the deciding factor in the electoral outcome of this election. Think carefully, vote your heart and head. I think of the debt that we will leave ourselves and everyone who follows, and I question the judgment that caused the deaths of 1100 U.S. friends and neighbors in a war that we didn't need to start.

Emphasis his.

*****

Our Daughter found this wonderful road sign while driving in Wisconsin. 

*****

The son of good friends is in Florida helping turn out the vote and assist folks to the polls. Following is a report:

Quick update from the Florida

In Dade/Broward Counties, the news to date is all good, and hope is in the air.  Folks are on the streets wearing their buttons and colors, and informal bumper sticker/yard sign tally has Kerry leading by a factor of at least 10 to 1.

We went by an early polling station on Saturday in north Miami (demographic: black and poor)--the line was maybe 2-3 hours, but P. Diddy had set up a truck blaring tunes, hotdog and soda stands doing a brisk business--it was almost a party atmosphere, and people were sticking out the wait.  Brought a tear to my eye.

Taking Lila (the lady in Michael Moore’s 9/11 film who talked about losing her son in Iraq) around is like taking a rock star.  People are drawn--many with their own stories of grief and loss that they want to share.  I don't know how she does it--it is a lot to carry.  On Saturday, we hit 3 rallies from Ft Lauderdale to Miami, and staged a reception for her in a retirement community where the management banned the showing of 9/11.  The Herald followed her as she did a little canvassing through the complex, bringing the movie to where it had been censored.  We got interviews on NBC and Fox, and a good article in the Broward edition of the Herald.

Sunday we did a church tour.  We started at the New Birth Baptist in Opa-Locka at 7 am.  Maybe a thousand people there, and Bishop Curry, one impressive firebrand himself, brought Lila up to deliver a talk.  Amens and Hallelujahs--very well received.  Then she called-in for a UM radio interview on the way to Ebenezer Methodist, where as I had my head under the hood trying to fix the air conditioner, Michael Moore pulled up in a Mercedes with 3 bull-necked security guards.  They both spoke, and Moore filmed it for a TV special that he is trying to get out before the election.  Not quite sure what that's all about.

Then on to Coral Gables congregational, right next to the Biltmore and as opposite of a demographic as you are going to get, where they hosted a post-sermon reception for her.

She was utterly wiped out, so we got her a massage and reservations for her and her husband at a nice restaurant last night.

Today, a DNC rally in south Dade, CBC TV interview, AM radio show in the afternoon, and then at 7, we rented out a theater at UM, where we'll show the film and have a Q and A session afterwards.  Invites went out on email list serves to all students and faculty, we bought an ad in the paper, and put posters up all over campus.  Young republicans already protested all the way up to Shalala, who apparently told them to shut up and show their own movie if they wanted.

So far, so good.  Hope remains high.

*****

Johns Hopkins University reports that up to 100,000 Iraqis have been killed as we liberate them from the terrors of Sadaam. We don’t think he killed that many in a year. In fact he did much of his really bad killing like the gassing of the Kurds when he was a U.S. ally and the U.S. was adding him in his war with Iran. That the media in this country has completely ignored U.S. complicity in his pogrom of the Kurds is a travesty.

It is estimates that up to 300 soldiers have been wounded enough to be evacuated to the States and over 1100 have been killed.

*****

FILM SCHOOL: This should be re-created all across the country in every swing state:"Filmmaker Michael Moore plans to have hundreds of cameras outside polling places in Ohio and Florida on the U.S. election day to watch for attempts to suppress voter turnout.

The director of the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 announced Saturday a total of 1,200 professional and non-professional cameramen, filmmakers and videographers will bring their cameras to polling places in the two presidential battleground states, especially in minority communities.

"I'm putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: Voter intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated," Moore said in a statement."

I'm sure the Publicans will whine about how Michael Moore is suppressing their voter suppression efforts.

"If our thugs are being filmed, they will be less likely to threaten, mislead of intimidate minority voters! That's unfair and un-American!"

*****

Good News from Ohio

A federal judge issued an order early Monday barring political party challengers from polling places throughout Ohio during Tuesday's election. U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott found that the application of Ohio's statute allowing she said the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process questioning voters about their eligibility would impede voting. Dlott ruled on a lawsuit by a black Cincinnati couple who said Republican plans to deploy challengers to largely black precincts in Hamilton County was meant to intimidate and block black voters.

*****

 

1 November 2004 Saturday evening before Monday Update

Osama is a "good" "gift," GOP & Bush campaign say
by John in DC - 10/30/2004 04:54:21 PM

The Bush campaign has called it a "good" thing that Osama bin Laden is still alive and kicking and threatening to make American blood fill the streets our country, according to a story in today's NY Daily News. And a senior GOP strategist has called Osama's reappearance and threats to kill thousands more Americans "a little gift."

This election is over, folks.

George Bush's campaign thinks Osama being alive and threatening to kill even more Americans is "good." A top GOP strategist thinks Osama planning to launch an even-bigger-September-11 is "a little gift." I'm glad the 3,000 who died on September 11 were able to give this good gift to the Bush campaign, after all, without their deaths Bush wouldn't have this good gift to enjoy only 3 days before the election.

How serious a matter is this? Imagine if John Kerry's people had called Osama plotting to kill thousands of Americans "good"? Imagine if a top Democratic strategist had called Osama bin Laden "a little gift"?

This needs to be the talk of the Internet. Make George Bush explain to the American people why Osama's threats to make blood run in American streets are "good" "gifts".

Back in 2000...

by kos
Sat Oct 30th, 2004 at 17:54:51 GMT

CNN
Monday, November 6, 2000
Via Lexis Nexis:

BLITZER: And now, let's take a look at the latest poll numbers. The new CNN/"USA Today" Gallup Tracking Poll results are being released at this hour. It shows George W. Bush with 48 percent, Al Gore 43 percent, Ralph Nader with 4 percent, Pat Buchanan with 1 percent.

And those numbers are similar to other tracking polls. Take a look: ABC's poll has Bush at 49 percent, Gore at 45 percent; The Washington Post, Bush at 48 percent, Gore at 46 percent; the NBC-Wall Street Journal tracking poll, Bush at 47 percent, Gore 44 percent. And both the CBS and MSNBC-Reuters-Zogby tracking polls have Bush at 46, Gore at 44 percent.

That was the day before Gore won the popular vote.

*****

Hi. I'm Osama. I did 9/11, Not Saddam.

by DemFromCT
Sat Oct 30th, 2004 at 01:36:22 GMT

I'm still here. You haven't caught me. And you went after the wrong guy. I just thought I'd remind you.

Now, why that helps Bush is beyond me. For months, we saw the offense-is-defense idea pushed by every pundit you can think of who had access to RNC talking points that any discussion of Iraq, no matter how bad, was good for Bush. Whatever bad things surfaced that pointed out how screwed up Iraq was, it was good for Bush. Everything he did wrong was great publicity for him. Like the explosives story all this week. Like Halliburton investigations. Right.

I saw OBL today and I thought, hmmm. Looks in good health. Had access to video equipment. Arms work. Looks clean. So where is he? Why hasn't Bush found him? Why isn't Bush talking about him?

Kerry did the right thing, and so did Bush today. Both made their statements, neither was partisan, and it was over. George Stephanopolous suggested on ABC World News (hardly friendly Kerry country) that as far as the election went, it was likely a wash. I agree. Could have been a disaster if either one was partisan about it. Neither guy was.

For those who have made up their minds, no change. For those who haven't, there are plenty of folks who want to know why he was free to make that video. While we're tied up in Iraq, he's out doing the propaganda thing. And that's not going to sit well by Tuesday.

General 2004 :: Link & Discuss (571 comments)

*****

IN DEFENSE OF PSEUDO-SOPHISTICATED IRONIC DETACHMENT....The gang at Slate has taken a lot of abuse from the liberal blogosphere for their insistence on telling us how little they think of John Kerry even as they're penning their endorsements of him. And hell, maybe they deserve it. I don't know.

But the flip side of this is the inexplicably cultlike devotion that George Bush receives from many of his supporters. I mean, sure, he's a conservative and he's a Republican, so conservatives and Republicans are going to support him, but let's face it: he's basically a pretty mediocre guy. So how does he end up getting described as "magnificent," being compared to Abraham Lincoln, and convincing a quarter of the country that he was chosen by God? It's kind of scary, really. Here is Slate's Chris Suellentrop to demonstrate for us:

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

I know the Bush-Cheney campaign occasionally requires the people who attend its events to sign loyalty oaths, but this was the first time I have ever seen an audience actually stand and utter one. Maybe they've replaced the written oath with a verbal one.

Like a lot of Democrats, Kerry wasn't my first choice during the primaries, but even so I think he deserves better treatment than he gets from most of the liberal punditocracy. On the other hand, if it's a choice between pseudo-sophisticated ironic detachment and glassy-eyed mobs of oath-taking true believers — well, ironic detachment is looking better all the time, isn't it?

—Kevin Drum 6:43 PM Permalink | TrackBack (4) | Comments (141)

*****

From http://www.wonkette.com/

I'm Osama bin Laden and I Approve of This Message

Ooops: He's alive. And he's condemning Bush. Which of course means that he wants Kerry to win. Unless he really wants Bush to win and is just by default endorsing Kerry in order to get people to vote for Bush out of spite. But then again, if we're smart enough to figure that out, then maybe Osama knows that, too and he really wants Kerry to win, and is endorsing Kerry so that people will at first learn toward voting for Bush but then think that's what Osama wants. . . So confusing. Clearly, we've fallen for one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"; but only slightly less well known is this: "Do not read about goats when death is on the line."

*****

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida -- The Big Three Leaning Towards...
by Michael in New York - 10/30/2004 03:04:32 PM

KERRY!! For the first time in the entire election, the LA Times Electoral College map shows Kerry leading Bush in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida . For months, we've been told that whichever candidate wins two out of three of them will be tough to beat. I check the map almost every day -- it's really addictive fun to play around with the possibilities, since you can give any state to either candidate and thus toy with all sorts of possibilities -- and while it's been trending towards Kerry for a while, this is the FIRST TIME the latest polls that the LA Times use all give Kerry the edge. In Ohio, it's a six point lead, in Pennsylvania it's a five point lead, and in Florida it's only a one point lead (well within the margin of error, of course), but still -- Kerry is leading in all three.

Comments (10)  |  Permanent Link |  

*****

Summary: Kerry Campaign Media Conference Call Saturday Afternoon

I just sat in on a conference call the Kerry campaign had with the national media this afternoon. Here are the highlights:

Early Voting: More than 5 million people have already voted across the country, and information that the campaign has acquired indicates that Kerry has a big advantage over Bush in Iowa and Florida amongst those who have voted early.

State of the Race: Stan Greenberg summarized the results of a Democracy Corps poll out today:

The Democracy Corps has a new poll, conducted Friday night and Saturday morning. While the full survey will be completed on Sunday, the half-sample of 500 interviews conducted after the release of the Bin Laden tape, show the race unchanged compared to a survey completed Thursday night. The partial survey shows Kerry at 48 percent and Bush at 47 percent. Like the survey conducted before, it shows the two parties with equal numbers of party identifiers.

The Saturday respondents (250 interviews) were asked the following question: “I'm going to read you a pair of statements about the release of Bin Laden's videotape. Please tell me which one comes closer to your view.

-It makes me think that George Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and diverted resources to Iraq.

-It underscores the importance of George Bush's approach to the war on terrorism.

By 10 points (46 to 36 percent), voters were more likely to think that Bush took his eye off the ball.

Greenberg also noted “if one looks at the polls released Saturday and including polling after the release of the Bin Laden tape, Bush’s vote stands at 48 percent in one (Newsweek), 47 percent in one (Fox), and 46 percent in two (Zogby/Reuters and TIPP). That is a weaker result than for the polls released earlier in the week and prior to last weekend.”

Tad Devine made the point that Kerry is in a much stronger position now than Gore was in the final weekend four years ago. Bush is mired in mid-40’s in most of the national polls, and will not move up from there. Gore was behind in all of the major polls at this time four years ago. And Gore won by 550,000 votes.

Resources: The other issue is the resource advantage that the GOP had four years ago is gone. The Kerry campaign has a 5000 media point ad buy advantage (more paid media buys underway) over Bush in Florida, and a significant advantage in Ohio and other battleground states as well. Kerry has a 2:1 media buy advantage in Wisconsin over Bush, and a 3:2 advantage over Bush in Iowa. The campaign made the point to the reporters that this was possible because the campaign "deliberately back loaded our media buys until the end."

The Ground Game: Lockhart and Devine revealed that the Democrats and their affiliated supporters have an unheard of 250,000 volunteers on the ground and ready to get the vote out on Tuesday, with 30,000 of those in Florida alone, including hordes of attorneys in every state. What the GOP tried to do this year was match what the Democrats did in 2000 on the ground, but what they didn’t take into account was the fact that the Democrats have gone far beyond that effort this year.

Battleground State Update: Kerry is poised to do well in all the battleground states. The campaign’s own research shows that Kerry is now “clearly dominant” in Washington, Oregon, and Maine. Kerry has pulled ahead in New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. They described the race as “very close” in Ohio, Nevada, and New Mexico. Arkansas and West Virginia are still in play. As for the GOP’s late dash towards Hawaii, Lockhart said that it reflected more of a dire need for the White House to grab four electoral votes to get to 270 than it does a desire to pile it on the Democrats.

Continue reading "Summary: Kerry Campaign Media Conference Call This Afternoon"

Steve Soto :: 3:44 PM :: Comments (15) :: TrackBack (1)

Other blogs commenting on this post

 

1 November 2004 Additional

Victory Tomorrow!!!

BORN TO RUN: Speaks for itself.



"The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.
Everybody's out on the run tonight, but there's no place left to hide...."

*****

John Kerry shouldn’t and hasn’t ceased criticizing Bush for not concentrating and completing the goal of capturing Osama. The tape released on Friday was confirmation of the fact that Bush is a failure.

 

Moreover, all the Dems we know were worried about an attack on American soil in the last days giving the election to Bush. The tape suggests that there will be no attack. That’s great both from the standpoint of no attack hurting people and also that the elections won’t be muddled.

 

The perfidy of the Bushies is that they take delight in the reappearance of Osama, the guy George said he wanted dead or alive 3 years ago. George failed, just like he has at everything in his life. He couldn’t win election to president. His daddy’s friends had to give him the post just like they did in the National Guard and various oil businesses and with the Texas Rangers.

*****

Which of these two statements sounds like it comes from the stronger leader?

John Kerry: In response to this tape from Osama bin Laden, let me make it clear, crystal clear. As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians. And I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes. Period.

George W. Bush: Earlier today I was informed of the tape that is now being analyzed by America's intelligence community. Let me make this very clear: Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this. I also want to say to the American people that we're at war with these terrorists and I am confident that we will prevail.

You decide ...

-- Josh Marshall

*****

Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) moved into a one-point lead over President Bush (news - web sites) three days before the presidential election, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Saturday.

****

From Salon

Holbrooke wins Round 1 in bin Laden spin battle

Round 1 in the bin Laden spin game goes to the Kerry camp. Immediately after CNN aired the new video, showing the remarkably composed, healthy-looking, and elegantly robed al-Qaida leader sticking it one more time in Bush's eye, Kerry foreign policy advisor Richard Holbrooke stuck it in the president's other eye. The video, Holbrooke told Wolf Blitzer, "raises the troubling question about why this grotesque mass murderer is still out there" thumbing his nose at America. As Blitzer tried to counter by pointing out that polls show most Americans think Bush will do a better job of protecting them against terrorism, Holbrooke quickly shot back, "If Bush is so much more effective, why is bin Laden still on the loose?"

"We should have closed the door on him in the Tora Bora mountains -- had we not subcontracted the job to Afghan warlords, we would've captured him. Now he's able to issue these pernicious threats."

For a response from the Bush camp, Blitzer turned to the AEI's Danielle Pletka, who seemed overwrought and unable to look directly at the camera. The Bush advisor took immediate exception to bin Laden's hurtful taunt that the president had spent a bit too long listening to the story of the pet goat on the morning of Sept. 11. "I'm glad to hear that Michael Moore is giving aid and comfort to the enemy," she snapped, her eyes darting everywhere but at the camera. Pletka, in keeping with the frenzied, final-days tone of the Bush campaign, then ripped into Holbrooke for trying to "exploit" the tape for political gain. "It's a lie we had bin Laden in our clutches and let him get away. And it's a lie that once we have him, the war on terror will be over." Whether this Osama-is-not-the-end-of-the-world line works with American voters is doubtful, however. Since the end of the world is precisely what bin Laden and the other berobed and bearded horsemen of the apolcalypse riding out of the Middle East keep threatening.

-- David Talbot

*****

Who was afraid of the Bin Ladin tape? The AP reports that

U.S. tried to keep tape off air

WASHINGTON -- The State Department on Friday asked the government of Qatar to discourage Al-Jazeera from broadcasting a videotaped speech by Osama bin Laden, a senior State Department official said.

The request to the Persian Gulf government, which is considered an ally in the U.S. campaign to counter terror, was passed through the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar's capital.

Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ali Ballout issued a statement saying his station ''has established itself as maintaining an independent editorial policy'' and based decisions on what to air on newsworthiness. ''I don't think anybody would disagree as to the high news value of the bin Laden tape,'' he said.

The network was launched in 1996 with a five-year, $150 million loan from Qatar's government.

Since then, Al-Jazeera has claimed full independence from the government and executives say the station now supports itself financially. It has gained a reputation as an independent voice in a region where many other news organizations are government-controlled.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and other Bush administration officials have appeared in Al-Jazeera interviews, although the State Department has occasionally denounced the network as biased against the United States. The reason for going on these programs is to convey the U.S. message to the Arab world, the official said.

*****

If you want to follow the polls for the last three days click here and bookmark:

http://www.nowchannel.com/tracking/

 

1 November 2004

Rabbit Rabbit for John Kerry

The Times of London says it well:

"The primary function of democracy is not to elect good leaders, since nobody can predict in advance how a politician will perform. It is to eject leaders who have manifestly failed. The ability to remove leaders who turn out to be corrupt, dangerous, outrageously dishonest or manifestly incompetent is the primary privilege and duty of any democracy. And if any leader in our lifetime deserved to be ejected by voters, regardless of their ideology or political persuasion, it is surely President Bush," writes the Times of London.

"To make matters worse, Mr. Bush has failed in all these tasks, while breaking every promise he made about his character and leadership style. Instead of running a bipartisan government of national unity, he has been the most ideological, divisive and extremist leader America has ever seen. Instead of showing humility in his international dealings, his punitive and aggressive foreign policies — not only against Iraq but also against North Korea, Venezuela, Iran and even Germany and France — have transformed America into the most hated country on earth. Instead of respecting the primacy of the US Constitution, he has imprisoned thousands of people without trial or charge — many no doubt dangerous terrorists, but some presumably just ordinary people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."

*****

Tommy Thompson is importing 5 million doses of flu vaccine from them ‘ferners’ that don’t know how to make safe drugs. The worm turns.

*****

NASA Scientist: Bush DID have a device on during the debate
by John in DC - 10/29/2004 01:19:41 AM

 

Comments (15)  |  Permanent Link |  

*****

More comment from Kos on the pictures above is you didn’t use the link.

Dr. Robert Nelson thinks he could get sent into early retirement for speaking out, but he probably hasn’t considered that he might find himself on the next one-way trip to check out Saturn’s moons if Dubyanocchio gets a second term. That’s because, in Friday’s Salon.com, Nelson declares himself on the notorious “bulge”:

"I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate. …This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."

A senior research physicist with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Nelson is an internationally recognized authority on image analysis. The last couple of days he’s been poring over the photographs that the Cassini spacecraft is sending back from frigid Titan. Before that, however, for the past week, he was working on this:

Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate. The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist. …

How can Nelson be certain there's some kind of mechanical device beneath Bush's jacket? It's all about light and shadows, he says. The angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush's jacket expose contours that fit no one's picture of human anatomy and wrinkled shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn't produce anything close to the Bush bulge.

In the enhanced photo of the first debate, Nelson says, look at the horizontal white line in middle of the president's back. You'll see a shadow. "That's telling me there's definitely a bulge," he says. "In fact, it's how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that's clearly a crater that's under the horizontal line -- it's clearly a rim of a bulge protruding upward, one due to forces pushing it up from beneath."

Pretty compelling. However, some of us have been convinced from the beginning that this was more than bad tailoring. And, no offense to Mr. Nelson’s labors, but we still don’t know what the hell the bulge is. Transceiver? Back brace? Cardio device? Some primitive form of Borg piping? One thing we know for sure it is not: a spine.

*****

ABC News confirms that the Explosives were there when the army arrived.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206847

*****

Moral leader Bill O’Reilly settled his sexual harassment suit without admitting any guilt. He joins a nice long list of moral folks who slipped. But they all have found God and are now forgiven. And the lady didn’t have to sleep with him to make a few million dollars. Women win one.

*****

 

Keep the faith: But in all fairness, the final 2000 polls weren't so hot either. Eleven of the 15 national polls just before the election predicted Bush would win the popular vote by a margin of 2% to 6%. Ultimately, Gore won it by 0.5%.

*****

When you read or hear in the media about the mail sent to newly registered voters by Republicans that is returned as undeliverable there is a salient fact that is missing. The Republicans send a registered mail letter from the Republican party that the recipient has to sign for. As Democrats we know we wouldn’t sing for anything sent registered to us from the Republican Party but that is the basis for the challenges in Ohio. Rove and his minions are the lowest of the low and a special place is reserved for them across the River Styx.

*****

From

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/28/192844/76#readmore

GOP Voter Suppression in Ohio

By Jerome Armstrong

The details about "Caging" and what the Republicans have planned to do are coming into view. The Republicans have been compiling lists (probably in the tens of thousands) of voters whom they have culled from lists of those newly registered, mailing registered mail to them, preparing lists of those who did not accept the Republican Party mailing, and then challenging their right to vote.

Here's one such incident that's been exposed in Ohio:

ELECTION BOARD THROWS OUT 976 CHALLENGES BY REPUBLICAN PARTY

GOP Challenger Barbara Miller Could be Indicted on Felony Charges

AKRON, Ohio - The Summit County Board of Elections abruptly threw out 976 challenges of voter eligibility by the Republican Party today after Barbara Miller, the challenger, revealed that she did not have any personal information about the eligibility of any of the challenged voters.

Instead, Miller said that her challenges were based on a list of "undeliverable mail" given to her by the Republican Party. The list was based on a GOP mailing sent to registered voters throughout the state of Ohio.

After Miller presented this as her evidence, Russell Pry, Summit County Election Board member, told her that she could be indicted for signing a sworn challenge without any personal knowledge about the eligibility of the voters. Miller's reaction was to plead the Fifth Amendment.

Catherine Herold, the first voter challenged at the hearing, told the board that she believes that she was on the undeliverable list because she "refused the letter when she saw that it came from the Republican Party." She and many others expressed anger that their eligibility had been challenged - which could force them to vote by provisional ballot on Nov. 2.

"This is an outrage," Herold said. "I feel as if I am being called a liar for claiming to live at my address."

The Summit County Board of Elections has indicated that they plan to call in the Department of Justice to conduct a criminal investigation of the challenges.

The details about "Caging" and what the Republicans have planned to do are coming into view. The Republicans have been compiling lists (probably in the tens of thousands) of voters whom they have culled from lists of those newly registered, mailing registered mail to them, preparing lists of those who did not accept the Republican Party mailing, and then challenging their right to vote.

Here's one such incident that's been exposed in Ohio:

ELECTION BOARD THROWS OUT 976 CHALLENGES BY REPUBLICAN PARTY

GOP Challenger Barbara Miller Could be indicted on Felony Charges

AKRON, Ohio - The Summit County Board of Elections abruptly threw out 976 challenges of voter eligibility by the Republican Party today after Barbara Miller, the challenger, revealed that she did not have any personal information about the eligibility of any of the challenged voters.

Instead, Miller said that her challenges were based on a list of "undeliverable mail" given to her by the Republican Party. The list was based on a GOP mailing sent to registered voters throughout the state of Ohio.

After Miller (the Republican protesting the registrations) presented this as her evidence, Russell Pry, Summit County Election Board member, told her that she could be indicted for signing a sworn challenge without any personal knowledge about the eligibility of the voters. Miller's reaction was to plead the Fifth Amendment.

Catherine Herold, the first voter challenged at the hearing, told the board that she believes that she was on the undeliverable list because she "refused the letter when she saw that it came from the Republican Party." She and many others expressed anger that their eligibility had been challenged - which could force them to vote by provisional ballot on Nov. 2.

"This is an outrage," Herold said. "I feel as if I am being called a liar for claiming to live at my address."

The Summit County Board of Elections has indicated that they plan to call in the Department of Justice to conduct a criminal investigation of the challenges.

*****

 

---

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

---