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Saturday, September 25, 2004
If these terrorists could vote they'd vote for Bu$h
Right in step with the values of Ralph Reed, Saxby Chambliss and Tom DeLie. No need for an Accenture consulting contract to help disenfranchise them... they got caught. They're the wrong color anyhow. 
posted by Groom
5:54 PM
Kerry pulls the plug in 4 states
Scratch 36 more electoral votes from the “undecided” column. Concluding they are unwinnable, the Kerry campaign is canceling TV ad buys in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and “battleground state” Missouri. The $5 million cost is lunch money compared with what Democratic bigs shelled out for their Boston tea party. What happened to the deep pockets? If you look at the LA Times polltracker, Kerry has actually gained on Bu$h in Arizona. But, hey, it’s a democracy and the popular vote does not decide who wins the election. I don’t have a good feeling about this.
posted by Groom
11:23 AM
One Iraqi, one vote... not Rummy's kind of democracy
Lord Rummy and Deputy Secretary of State Richard "Supersize" Armitage are having a bit of a food fight over who gets to vote in Iraq, and when. Rummy is comfortable doing a "partial" election in "secure enclaves" of Iraq. "Supersize" favors having all Iraqis vote. Allawi currently has no credible opposition. If Saddam's body double emerges from the woodwork to challenge against Allawi he'd probably win the election on looks alone. Take a look at him now before Allawi's thugs "round up the usual suspects." 
posted by Groom
5:34 AM
Does Bush Really See The World Through Rose-Colored Glasses
 or is the tint deliberate, and accurate -- when everything and everyone around him is drenched in blood and red ink?
posted by Michael
1:33 AM
Guess Who's Engaged?

posted by Jerry Bowles
12:11 AM
Friday, September 24, 2004
We see your Allawi...and raise you one Musharraf
Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi says that Iraq is grateful to America and that things are getting better there--point to the Bush campaign, assuming it is that it's true, that is. The Kerry campaign should, however, be leaping on the words of another American ally, Prime Minister of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf in his interview with Paula Zahn on CNN this morning.
Musharraf was less enthusiastic in his support for the U.S. war in Iraq, saying the world is less safe in the wake of the invasion.... "I would say that it has ended up bringing more trouble to the world."
The CNN commentary tries to soften what he said by saying that he didn't call the invasion a mistake; but anyone who sees the whole interview will hardly come away with the impression that he thinks it was a good idea.
posted by John
10:19 PM
What Security Moms?
Look, I live next to a target zone and many of my friends watched while our neighbors fried in the Twin Towers. The New Jersey suburbs have a legitimate claim to security concerns, and some yokel a thousand miles from nowhere is only suffering 9.11 envy when she tells a broadcast news producer that she is voting for Bush ‘cause he’ll protect her and the kids.
But around here it is definitely NOT Bush Country. A few hardy Republicans show their faces, but for every Republican there are twelve gals who are sporting bumper stickers, holding Kerry Fundraisers, and ranting at their aged parents in Boca. There have been so many fundraisers around here that I bet the shoe department at Neimans in Short Hills is off by quite a few bucks this quarter.
Forgive me, but it would seem to me that those of us on the front lines of homeland defense, who leave our children to go work in the city or watch our husbands head for Penn Station, should have a more acute idea of who might better protect us. The five widows who led the quest for a commission to investigate September 11 have publicly endorsed Kerry as well. Who are they? Gluttons for terrorism?
posted by Evelyn
4:30 PM
Make the "back door draft" a front door issue
Abba-dabba and Rummy are running the "good cop-bad cop" again on Capitol Hill. More troops needed in Iraq to "pacify" before elections. How many times can you turn over the ball without changing coaches? Shinseki called for half a million troops and was shitcanned. Abba-dabba was ready to "pacify" with less troops than it would take to fill the "big house" in Ann Arbor. You wonder if he would have been tapped for the job if his name was John Albertson and not John Abizaid... Time to learn the difference between Chalabi and Wahhabi in Iraq. Will Kerry get out front on this issue and level with the American people? Or will it be another lost opportunity?
posted by Groom
2:47 PM
What the?
Kerry makes a speech today, attacking - thank goodness - 43 for ignoring OBL because of his chubby for Saddam.
Here are two bits from the article linked above: The administration was quick to respond, with campaign manager Ken Mehlman saying that Kerry was merely "repackaging" Bush's ideas. "The Kerry plan is what the Bush plan is doing," he said. and in the next paragraph: Vice President Cheney, speaking in LaFayettte, La., repeated his charge that Kerry would be a weak opponent for terrorists or other enemies. The Democratic presidential nominee "has given every indication of a lack of resolve and conviction to prevail" in Iraq, Cheney said. So, Kerry is criticized for a plan which Bushco claims as its own at the same time Bushco says that Kerry's plan would make him a "weak opponent for terrorists."
Is Bushco saying that its plan, the one Kerry's copying, therefore makes 43 a "weak opponent for terrorists?"
posted by Blackdogred
1:12 PM
Missed Opportunities
Our guy can windsurf, ride a bike (without falling off), ski, play hockey, strum a guitar and speak French, but politically he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. He has shown no capacity or ability to tackle more than one issue at a time. By focusing on a single topic, say the deception of the war in Iraq, he fails to remind us of the larger truth--that deception is the official policy of the Bush administration. Why can’t he connect two dots (three would be asking too much)and point to the same pattern of deception on Medicare, No Child Let Behind, the increase of terrorism worldwide, prescription drugs, taxes, the environment, etc.
His biggest missed opportunity is his failure to mention the appointments Bush will make in the next four years, possibly four vacancies on the Supreme Court, including a new Chief Justice. It has been said that the only real lasting impact a president has on ordinary people’s lives are appointments to the Supreme Court. Kerry should paint the picture: Bush, with no re-election to worry about, will move us from a fairly moderate court under Rehnquist to an extreme court under Chief Justice Scalia, Cheney’s duck-hunting buddy. The law of the land will then come from god’s lips to Cheney’s ear to Scalia’s gavel. It doesn’t get any scarier than that.
posted by Josh
1:00 PM
So How Come the Rightwingers Get the Big Hits?

posted by Jerry Bowles
9:34 AM
Today's Open Thread
John Kerry's performance as a candidate suggests that he would be a) a great president; b) an average president; c) a disaster, or d) it doesn't matter; he's not Shrub.
posted by Jerry Bowles
9:22 AM
Blame it on the Yankee Jesus...
The hatemongering of the dumb Goy right goes beyond the talk shows Michael posted about... the GOP got caught down in the baptismal font at Elder Jerry's place, doing unspeakable acts to them fuggin' commo liberal Democrats, and there wasn't no water in there neither. Ed Gillespie's crew had to fess up on this one.
posted by Groom
5:05 AM
Holy Cripes! There Are Some Wingnuts Out There!
And sometimes they call into CSPAN:
PETER SLEN, HOST: Kenner, Louisiana, good morning.
CALLER (in a very airy voice): Good morning. I’m going to vote for President Bush because, after all, you know, God made us there, you know, in His image, free from any black color and all [Host looks up, surprised]. The only church that Kerry can go to is where they say the Black Mass, and that is in the Merriam-Webster Pocket Book dictionary, where it says that that is the devil worshippers. [Host looks uncomfortably off-camera, at producer?] I would never vote for, you know, Senator Kerry . . .
I'm more determined than ever to vote -- if for no other reason than to cancel out this propellerhead's vote.
posted by Michael
2:39 AM
Once Again, Kerry Turns His Swift Boat Into The Gunfire
If you can get past the Republican self-congratulatory onanism in this Wall Street Journal story (and since when has their editorial-page mouthfrothing bled into their journalism? But I digress), you'll see that Kerry has made the crucial choice for his campaign between now and Judgment Day -- making the Iraq War the central focus of his argument Why We Need To Get Rid Of Bush.
Considerably more wetted-fingers-to-the-wind to get to this point than I would have liked, but hey, we're finally here.
Jimmy Carter got elected in 1976 by telling Americans he'd never lie to us. We've just been through, like, five Watergates, only without a single indictment, let alone a conviction or a resignation. Hell, even a firing.
It's Bobby and LBJ all over again, folks. (Only minus the Sirhan2, this time.) Kerry pounds Bush on this nonstop between now and November 2nd, and the distinct odor of lightly burned bread will commence to be smelled around the old Crawford soundstage (er, "ranch").
posted by Michael
1:33 AM
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Who's Afraid of e-Voting?
The head of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), the trade association of the IT industry, blasted yesterday's "so-called technical" demo of electronic voting produced by a group of e-voting activists. calling it "an out of context, out of control media event that put the sponsors' need for public attention far ahead of voter confidence in the democratic process." "The hubris of this group is breath-taking," ITAA president Harris N. Miller said, with all the confidence of a man who has at least two last names. "To stage this kind of irresponsible event six weeks before the national election goes beyond anything I have seen in 30 years of public policy advocacy. None of the scenarios presented today has the slightest resemblance to how elections are actually conducted, results tabulated or electronic voting machines used."
Miller went on to say that "Electronic voting machines have been used in the U.S. for 20 years, and there has not been one verified case of election system tampering. E-voting technology eliminates over votes and dramatically reduces under votes. And it enfranchises hundreds of thousands of voters, including the physically disabled and those with limited English language skills."
Kind of reminds me of that old joke about the computer-driven, pilotless airplane that reaches cruising altitude and the P.A. comes on says "Ladies and Gentlemen, sit back and enjoy your flight. This flight is completely automatic. Nothing can go wrong...Nothing can go wrong...Nothing can go wrong...
posted by Jerry Bowles
3:44 PM
Herr Karl
If you want to get your blood pressure in a boil, hop over to the Moonie Times and read Bill Sammon's interview with uber-slimy swamp creature Karl Rove, whose flatulent gloating about GOP chances in November wafts off the screen like a wet popcorn fart. This man clearly has a one-inch dick.
posted by Jerry Bowles
1:50 PM
Flash: He has a Pulse
Kerry just gave a great stand-up at a gathering in Columbus, OH, expertly timed immediately following the "thank you" speech that PM of Part of Iraq Allawi gave to the U.S. Congress.
Rather than pussy-foot, he used Allawi's own assessment of the situation, voiced last week, against him. And he consistently used Bush's own words, specifically doubting the CIA analysis, against him as well.
No doubt "the box" will lead tonight with the "thank you" note, but Kerry was tough, clear and impassioned. The truth is on his side, at last.
posted by Evelyn
1:48 PM
Moral Cause
Read this article about GOP trying to deny tax benefits to the very poorest in the country. Relatedly, read this about corporate taxes and profits. Here's the first sentence: America's largest and most profitable companies paid less in corporate income taxes in the last three years, even as they increased profits, according to a study released yesterday. How about this which describes how EPA policy mirrors word for word memos written by polluters' lawyers? Outraged? Don't forget about Iraq and the thousands of civilians deaths and tens of thousands of civilian wounded and the generations of future terrorists being spawned. Meanwhile, the GOP congress is busily legislating away civil liberties. The truly horrifying thought is that I could easily go on...
Outrage? Oh, we're outraged, singing among ourselves, typing away (just like this) on our blogs, outscreaming each other around our conference tables and bar tables and pool tables and dinner tables: I'm more outraged at conservative tactics and strategies, means and ends than you! George W Bush? My contempt is deeper, broader , yet more subtly astringent with loathing than yours (though I admire your insights into W's utter imbecility of course). My repugnance at the preternaturally reptilian cunning of Oompa Loompa Rove as he uncannily manipulates squadrons of media whores into reporting as fact all the fictions Rove's spun? Continent-wide, ocean-deep.
It's so easy to embrace our anger that it becomes almost narcotic. I've wondered if it's a deliberate strategy of conservative intellectuals or a side product, but the stanky silage of right-wing morality as expressed, expoused, and employed by Bushco is so repulsive it gives all morality a taint by association. Conservatives would have it that we obsess so much over their morality because we have no plain, commonsensical, faith-based reality ourselves, the implication being that an acknowledgment of life's complexities not only precludes a moral compass but is itself a sign of moral drift (not a sign of common sense, natch) and that any deviation from a fundamentalist belief in a bible-thumper's god is akin to atheism. The fact that conservatives have a morality in which they can justify tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor while publicly debating just how immoral liberals really are (we're traitors, remember, and America has to be saved from us as much as from Al-Qaeda) that between our umbrage at and disdain for conservative morality we've become afraid to express our positions as themselves based on a moral code, one far superior to the right's. This is one final reason to fight the conservatives: they've made morality in politics embarassing.
When Kerry and other Democrats talk about poverty, war, the environment, civil rights, use terms of moral right and wrong. It is immoral for children to go to sleep hungry in this country while the top 1% of Americans get tax breaks. It is immoral to stick our children and our grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt to give tax breaks to the people who need them least. It is immoral to relax regulations on polluters so that their profits increase as the public health decreases, and it is immoral that the people whose health is in the most danger are the poor who live near the polluting factories and power plants, not the wealthy who live uphill and upwind.
The most devious aspect of conservative political strategy is to claim a corner of the market on morality. Our moral anger has been spent more on bitching about them than on advocating for our own. What can Kerry do to win this election? Claim the moral highground using the language of morality.
posted by Blackdogred
1:42 PM
If the election in Iraq was held today...
The Wahhabis and commies would win hands down. Based on the latest "straw poll" of the "governing council." Excellent analysis by Frank Smyth in Foreign Policy in Focus outing Alawi for what he really is, a butcher-boy who is reported to have killed six men in a jailhouse the night before he took over as "leader" of his nation.
posted by Groom
12:45 PM
What Does Kerry Have to Do to Win?
Open Thread
posted by Jerry Bowles
10:10 AM
Germ Warfare...
The brother of British hostage Ken Bigley has accused the Bu$h administration of "sabotaging" the release of his brother by refusing to hand over biological weapons scientist Rihab Rashid Taha a/k/a "Dr. Germ." Strange attitudes take hold in the Bu$h White House when West Texas crude hits $48 a barrel. Hearing the mantra "we won't give in to kidnappers" is reminiscent of the tough talk the former Texas governor fed the media when the victims of rigged or racist juries and jacked evidence rode the Huntsville bull. Anybody want to guess how many more heads will roll before Election Day (if not postponed by Homeland Security or weather).
posted by Groom
5:51 AM
I love it when Google does this stuff:
It's Ray Charles's birthday:

posted by Michael
1:42 AM
The Incomparable Mark Morford, On Our "Squanderful" SUV Culture

You just gotta love the fact that some semitruck company somewhere called International Truck and Engine Corp. is now coming out with what they claim is the world's largest production pickup, called the CXT, all 9 feet high and 8 feet wide, a whopping 21 feet long and 14,500 pounds and 18 million excruciating earthly groans of it.
And in most states that don't give a crap for their roads or the environment or any human life that might be existing in the various passenger cars surrounding it, you don't need a commercial truck license to own or drive the CXT, a vehicle that makes the Hummer H2 look like a Honda Civic and that makes all the manly thick-necked boys go, ooohhhyeessss, and that the company itself claims, oh so tellingly, will absolutely guarantee your title of "king of the dirt pile."
See, there is this point. There is this point where it all becomes just beyond silly and absurd and surreal. There is this threshold you reach where you finally just have to toss in the moral and spiritual and intellectual and commonsensical towel and just laugh out loud and shake your head and sigh and then run off to the woods with a bottle of fine sake and the collected Coltrane. This is what you have to do. Especially when faced with such wicked absurdities as, say, Kraft Lunchables. Or John Ashcroft. Or Dr. Phil. Or the CXT.
posted by Michael
1:02 AM
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Free John Walker Lindh
Remember Yasar Hamdi, the accidental American who was captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan, labeled an "enemy combatant," and held in a Navy brig for two years without access to an attorney because John Ashcroft thought he was just too damned dangerous? Remember how the Supreme Court said that wasn't nice and he could have a lawyer? Well, he's going home to Saudi Arabia as soon as a flight can be arranged. The Justice Department has apparently decided that it doesn't really have a case and in exchange for renouncing his American citizenship (he was born in Louisiana but never lived in the U.S.) and promising to be a good boy in the future, Hamdi is being cut loose.
Meanwhile, John Walker Lindh, the Marin County airhead who was captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and copped a plea when it became clear that he couldn't get a fair trial in the climate of hysteria that existed at the time, is doing 20 years without possibility of parole. Does that seem like justice to you?
posted by Jerry Bowles
9:41 PM
The double-Goss system
With the vote on Porter Goss seemingly in the (black) bag it might be a good time to dispel a few myths about his "non-partisanship." His much ballyhooed service as an Army intelligence officer and CIA operator in Latin America during the 1960s needs to be examined in the framework of its times, namely US support of military dictatorships, US training of torturers and death squad leaders at The School of the Americas in the (then) Canal Zone, and the Latin American clandestine services close historic ties with Republican interests. Just the kind of butcher boy with a human face pedigree you want as intelligence Czar for the X-box and TiVo generation.
The appointment of Goss is something of a victory for Bush family retainer and FBI top banana "Dial M" for Mueller. For over two decades now the FBI has been pumping out propaaganda that the CIA is an "in-bred" culture that doesn't want to play ball with the other kids. But the FBI has been the outfit that has been moving in on the CIA, not the other way round. The real question to ask here is when was the last time the CIA had one of its own at the helm. Tenet came from the Congressional side-he ran the intelligence committee and was a self proclaimed "arms control expert." John Douche came from the Pentagon and while having some agency experience, wasn't a product of their culture, was hamhanded and a bully to boot. Ahmad Chalabi friend James Woolsey was the weakest link from the outside, pimping a return to the royalist Iraqi constituion as the basis for the transition to a "new" democracy. Now Goss, hyped as an outsider with deep insider credentials. He wants 5,000 more "field agents." Maybe he should take the campus tour and try to find 5,000 American kids who speak the languages we need who do not have "dual loyalties" to another nation or another culture or religion. Might it not be better just keep the current acting DCI, pay the Mossad $10 million to install 100 of the NSAs best bugs at "undisclosed locations" and get off cheap. Job creation isn't part of the fabled "intelligence cycle." It's a simple equation... know when to buy, know when to lie. If John Kerry is elected president he should ask GOP front man Boss Goss to step down day one of his presidency.
posted by Groom
4:34 PM
So There, You Silly Bitches
From PR Newswire: The Abe Lincoln Black Republican Caucus (ALBRC), a group of young urban Black gay Republicans, voted today in a special call meeting in Dallas, Texas, to endorse President Bush for re- election.
The ALBRC was co-founded by Don Sneed, a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, to address the political issues and needs of young Black gay Republicans, who he says: "Our voices are never heard, yet we exist and are growing in numbers." The endorsement was fueled by the Log Cabin Republicans' refusal to endorse President Bush. "We think that the 'Republican Tent' is inclusive and there is room for differences, but one does not pick up their marbles and go home if there are a few points of disagreement," stated Anthony Falls, Republican Precinct Chairman -- Dallas and the ALBRC National Spokesperson. Karl and Jerry Falwell and that cute Ralph Reed will be so pleased.
posted by Jerry Bowles
9:37 AM
All the Polling Data You Need
You can discount most polling data for the obvious reasons, not the least of which is that everyone polled may or may not vote or, more importantly, who cares what a Democrat in Texas or a Republican in Maryland thinks. The most accurate gauge of where the candidates stand is in the actions of the Bushco campaign.
Hence, the Swifties are back, which means that Kerry is getting traction with his attacks on 43's ineptitude and stubborn Rooster Cockburn bigdickedness. Let's see if the Kerry campaign learned anything the last time around.
Here's a line: They falsely attack my past because they will not truthfully address the future.
posted by Blackdogred
8:42 AM
Everybody Must Go AWOL!
In the ongoing yet neglected narrative of how Emperor Tipsy Dixit has brought our military to its knees, here are a couple of interesting tidbits:
Fort Drum has seen 645 warrants for desertion issued since Sept. 11, 2001.
40 percent of Army reservists fail to report to Fort Jackson
At this rate, I figure, there'll be a major return to battlefield fragging in no time.
posted by Michael
1:25 AM
Morning Has Broken
Music lovers at our ever vigilent Transportation Security Agency diverted a Washington-bound flight from London to Bangor, Maine yesterday when it discovered the plane was carrying a possibly dangerous folksinger named Yusef Islam, better known to us old hippies as Cat Stevens, auteur of such subversive 1970s chick hits as "Moonshadow" and "Wild World" and, shudder, "Peace Train," all of which sound best if consumed while baked. You, not the songs.
Islam/Stevens, a longtime peace activist and by all accounts one of the two or three gentlest people on the planet, was apparently on a watch list and barred from entering the U.S. Federal agents interviwed him in Bangor and--unable to extract a promise from him to never record again--sent him packing back to London thus saving us all from another round of that love-peace-groovy, sensitive-male folky crap.
Agents wouldn't explain why Islam/Stevens was on the list but it was probably for posting crazy shit like this on his web site:
On the killing of children in Beslan, Russia: "Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him." Or maybe it was this dangerous thought on the 9/11 attacks: "No right thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such an action: The Quran equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity." I don't know about you folks but I sure feel a lot safer when our government goes out of its way to piss on one of the world's leading advocates of peaceful, moderate Islam.
posted by Jerry Bowles
12:12 AM
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
The Invisible Michael Moore
What do we make of this guy Mike Moore? Big, fat slob, ruthless self-promoter, more than willing to twist evidence to make a an over-the-top political point...yada, yada, yada....
But then my ever-so-sage and wonderful wife actually met the guy. We were in Boston for the Democratic National Convention, and Ruth had gotten herself hooked up with a group called Military Families Speak Out (with our daughter in the Navy, we are a military family, too). Out of the blue, she gets a call, "Would you like to meet Michael Moore?" She said, yes. I, unfortunately, had another commitment, so I couldn't go.
I've heard her describe what happened several times, and here's her story. A meeting between Moore and the military families group was set up for an out-of-the-way corner of Boston. Even so, when Moore showed up, he was still being tailed by a pack of journalists. With them, he was everything you expect from the Moore public persona--loud, obnoxious, in-your-face. Then he turned to the families group, which included not only family members but also several veterans of Iraq. Here, says Ruth, he was gentle, empathetic, listening very carefully and responding respectfully as people told their stories and talked about their concerns. He was, she says, a marvelous listener; high praise, indeed, for a woman who has been involved with non-directive telephone counseling for nearly two decades.
It's not hard to find reasons to be dismissive about Michael Moore. But after Ruth's encounter with him, I'm ready to listen when he talks about what he has heard as he travels the country. He could be lying, he could be spinning, he could be wrong. But he could be right. That man can listen.
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