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For The Trees
Who is our economy FOR, anyway? About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 10/31/2004 Robert F. Kennedy on Vietnam I've been flipping through "The Vietnam Reader: Articles and Documents on American Foreign Policy and the Viet-nam Crisis" (revised edition, 1967). Most of the articles were written early on in the conflict (at least those that I've scanned so far). The parallels between Viet-Nam and Iraq at this point, in terms of the justifications for continued involvement, and the difficulties inherent in achieving a successful resolution along the lines originally envisioned are all too clear. Strikingly so, in fact--for some of the passages, all that is needed to make them relevant to today's conflict is to substitute "Iraq" for "Viet-Nam". I'll probably write about other portions of the book at a later point, but I was most struck by the following passages from RFK's speech to the United States Senate on February 19th, 1966: "There are hazards in debating American policy in the face of a stern and dangerous enemy. But that hazard is the essence of our democracy." "To attack the motives of those who express concern about our present course--to challenge their very right to speak freely--is to strike at the foundations of the democratic process which our fellow citizens, even today, are dying to protect."Take that, Dick. Now, for some truly prophetic words (these are what struck me most strongly as I read through his speech, even more so than the above ringing phrases): "There are three routes before us: military victory, a peaceful settlement, or withdrawal. The last is impossible for this country. (my emphasis) For the United States to withdraw now, as I said last May, would be a repudiation of commitments undertaken and confirmed by three administrations. It would flatly betray those in Viet-nam whom we have encouraged by our support to resist the forces of Hanoi and and the Viet-Cong. Unilateral withdrawal would injure, perhaps irreparably, the principle of collective security, and undermine the independence of small nations everywhere in the world. [...]"But it wasn't "impossible", was it? I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to come up with a similar list of reasons why it is "impossible" to withdraw from Iraq. RFK also discusses the requirements for a military victory, including among others, that "we continue to occupy South Viet-Nam as long as our presence is required to insure that hostilities, including insurgency, will not be resumed. And this will be a long time indeed." (sound familiar?) His many cautions and admitted acknowledgement of the vast resources required for a military victory are accompanied by the assertion that there may be "no alternative" and that "[t]he American people possess the bravery and the will to follow such a course if others force it upon us." Of course, there was an "alternative": unilateral withdrawal, because the American people did NOT (very rationally) have the will to continue investing the blood and treasure of the American people in an apparently endless war against a foe who did not measure victory and defeat in terms of battles and lives won and lost, but simply in terms of sustaining resistance. RFK had the wisdom to re-evaluate and modify his positions as the course of the war in Viet-Nam progressed... will President (we hope) John Kerry? Will the rest of the Democratic Party? Republicans? (fat chance, that) Or will Iraq be "Kerry's war" four years from now... Kerry's $1 trillion dollar investment in futility... Kerry's albatross around his neck, dragging down every other initiative? Will we ultimately wind up creating a "Wall of Memory" for Iraq war veterans, visits to which will be as painful and cathartic as the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. is for veterans of that war? On that note, where will the "Wall of Memory" be for the untold millions whose lives will suffer when the health, education, housing and welfare programs that would otherwise have been funded are sacrificed on the altar of "Operation Iraqi Freedom"? (much as the "War on Poverty" was strangled by Viet-Nam) The "insurgency" in Iraq is not "military", in any sense of the word... most of the fatalities have not been due to "armed battles", but carbombs, remotely detonated roadside bombs, and hit and run mortar attacks. Every time we have fought a "conventional" battle, we have inflicted massive and overwhelming casualties on the "enemy" (witness the hundred to one ratio of casualties sustained by the Mahdi Army vs. the American Army in Najaf) yet that has done little or nothing to demoralize or discourage even those foes suffering the conflicts, let alone "Al-Quaida in Iraq". Would/will more or different troops truly change that calculus? Did 500,000 troops on the ground in Vietnam have much more impact than 50,000? Did we learn nothing from that experience? I hope not. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 10/31/2004 10:27:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
NOOOOO! Today I went into Manhattan with Erick Erickson of redstate.org. In town we met up with Tom Burka, from Opinions You Should Have. (Yes, it's true. All bloggers know each other and hang out together.) We were waiting for someone who was going to give us a tour of the sets MSNBC has at "Democracy Plaza" and were killing some time in a downstairs cafeteria. So we're at a table and one table over is Pat Buchanan, busy working, preparing for his broadcasts. I was thinking of saying "Hi" and handing him my Seeing the Forest card but left him alone because he was busy. (He seems like a nice guy.) This card is made in Word, and printed on my printer. (Real bloggers have self-printed cards.) It has a graphic at the top -- the graphic you will see when I finally move the weblog from Blogspot, and reads: --- Posted at 10/31/2004 07:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Matt Hubbard's Final Electoral College Status update Matt Hubbard's final Weekly Electoral College Status update is now up. Explanation here. --- Posted at 10/31/2004 05:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I predict a Kerry victory OK, it's time to stick my neck out. I think that Kerry will do better than expected, taking all the states he plans to and two or three unexpected states. I'm not going to guess at numbers but I think that it's 50/50 that Kerry's win will be decisive enough to cancel out the Republican dirty tricks and late smears, and also to make the Bush legal challenges irrelevant. So here's my call: 60% -- Kerry is sworn in Jan. 20. 25% -- Bush is sworn in, probably in the face of protests at massive Diebold fraud and voter intimidation 15% -- the election is not resolved by Jan. 20, and that the country is approaching civil war. It's in the realm of possibility that the Democrats will retake the Senate or even the House, but I'd put that at less than 50/50 -- let's say 25% for the Senate. Too many things would have to go right, so I think that this will happen only in the best case of a Kerry landslide. I don't really see the possibility of a legitimate Bush win. But as I've said before -- if Kerry isn't elected, I will obviously have worse problems than a bad election-prediction track record. It will mean that I am totally out of tune with this country and don't understand its people. --- Posted at 10/31/2004 03:28:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
If Bush Wins I think that if Bush wins, we're all going to have to make individual decisions whether to forget about politics, to struggle on as lonely dissidents in the face of increasing intimidation, or to emigrate as our ancestors did when they came here. I've already received a solicitation from an EU recruiter looking for talented and skilled Americans, and it's a darn shame that I'm not talented or skilled. (Every nation has its own supply of disgruntled political polemicists). I think that Bush's election would trigger an exodus somewhat comparable to the Jews' exodus from Spain and Germany or the Huguenots' exodus from France. I hope that there's someone out there preparing to welcome us. Once reelected, I expect Bush to get worse rather than better. He will have won by dint of a moron fluff campaign, without having having made any significant concessions to moderate Republicans or rational conservatives, and he will thus have a four-year blank check. I would expect a draft, an expanded Middle East war, the demolition of the New Deal (sooner rather than later), and increasing police-state measures against American citizens. (Many of the provisions of the Patriot Act have never been used yet). I have been mostly arguing against defeatism up until now, but if we can't beat Bush this year I don't see how we will ever be able to do so. The second victory will ratify Bush's policies, just as Reagan's second victory did, and upon reelection he and his team (with the help of movement-conservative thugs) will work effectively to turn the U.S. into a one-party state. No, Bush isn't Hitler. History doesn't repeat itself, and I don't really expect Bush to try to murder millions of Americans. I do think that he'll turn out to be some kind of lesser fascist, like Admiral Horthy or Francisco Franco. --- Posted at 10/31/2004 02:49:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Ground Operation Wins It? Don't Know. The Democrats are counting on the strong ground operations that have been put together to help win in the swing states. But I just don't know. I used to think that precinct operations are the key to winning. But I remember being confident that the huge volunteer army that Dean brought to Iowa would clinch it for him, and look what happened. It did not bring him victory and seemed almost irrelevant. So, like everything else in this election, I just don't know. But there were several other factors in Iowa that contributed to Dean's defeat. Joe Trippi writes about Iowa in his book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. (I highly highly recommend this book!) I don't have the book in front of me in my hotel room in Secaucus, NJ, home of MSNBC, so this is from memory - but Joe wrote that Gephardt's attacks on Dean drove voters to Kerry and Edwards, and that the ground operation was not well-organized and needed more seasoned professionals. And I have my own pet opinion about what happened to Dean in Iowa: message. However much the Dean campaign was tuned in to the Voice of the Grassroots, in the last weeks before Iowa they were not. Every person I was talking to in California, and every voice I was hearing on the web -- and from what I am told every voter in Iowa -- was concerned with "How do we beat Bush?" But Dean was not answering that question. I think the Dean campaign failed to understand that. They should have had a good, short, one-sentence answer to that question and he should have been repeating it over and over, no matter what question he was asked. He should have been repeating that answer until people were running away from him with their hands over their ears, and only then moved on to any other subject. Kerry sure was, and that is why Kerry won in Iowa. Kerry was a war hero, and Bush was not, and that was how he was going to win. But what do I know? I was so happy that Dean had a strong ground operating in Iowa. But it didn't win it for Dean, and some say it may have even hurt because the door-to-door operation annoyed the locals. The current swing-state ground operations ARE managed by seasoned pros and ARE well-organized. Does TV and spin nullify hard work and direct contact? I just don't know. --- Posted at 10/31/2004 07:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Stolen Honor MaxNews.com will be running Stolen Honor, the notorious movie about John Kerry, almost constantly from now until the election on various stations as a paid program. I haven't gotten this morning's paper yet, so I don't know if it's listed by name. Last night's showing, on PAX, was listed only as "Paid Program." I stumbled across it by accident. If Kerry wins, I'm sure we'll be seeing variations of this theme constantly over the next four years. The bitterness still with us because of the Vietnam war is not going to go away. Old ghosts never die. There's a lot of painful truth, but even more half-truths, in the message being brought to us, and we would do well to try to understand it. The most immediate lesson we can learn is that we must not treat the veterans of the Iraq war the way the Vietnam veterans were treated. The soldiers who fought in that war were not to blame for the war and the country turned against them and dishonored them as though they were. The Iraq war is every bit as misguided as the Vietnam war. In both wars, not only the public but even the highest levels of government were tricked and deceived. There are wars which cannot be won except by killing everybody. If the population of a country is determined not to be defeated, it is impossible to defeat them, even by bombing them back into the Stone Age. Shock and Awe just can't cut it. Military might and power have their limits, hard as this is to believe. There are other examples that this is true, one of the best being that feeble, rag-tag army that defeated the British and founded the United States. There was Ghandi's brilliant passive resistance, which defeated the British in India. Russia pulled out of Afghanistan once it was clear that even bombing them into the Stone Age wasn't enough. The Nazis made it clear that they would, in fact, be perfectly happy to kill everybody, and they scored a brutal but temporary victory in Europe. During the Vietnam war, we could see for ourselves what was going on. It was served to us every evening as we ate dinner watching the news on TV. My most vivid memories are of the napalmed children; hardly enemies of anybody. There were indeed savage atrocities, our soldiers were not a bunch of blessed saints, and much of what is now being dumped on Kerry is denial of their own guilt. There was no way for them to be certain who was an enemy, who harbored enemies, they were trapped in a war for which there was no obvious justification they could not win without killing everybody. This was not the fault of the soldiers, but of those who lied and deceived the country, including most of the government, into continuing the war. Blaming Kerry for having the courage to speak out against this is a fine example of attempting to Kill the Messenger. Somebody had to finally speak out, make it clear that the citizens of this country would no longer tolerate and support the war. Kerry did what he does best, have the courage to tell the truth to the country. Thank God he had the guts to do this. There are those who will never forgive him, but lets put the blame where it belongs. --- Posted at 10/31/2004 06:06:00 AM by Meryl Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/30/2004 Right-wing delusions. On October 29th, the Chron ran a feature that briefly quoted the thoughts of nine separate historians on the long term consequences of the war in Iraq. Historians dissect war in Iraq Eminent academics scrutinize the single most important issue in the presidential campaign and find two central truths: quick success, long-term problemsThere was one exception to that overall consensus: Victor Davis Hanson, of Stanford's Hoover Institution, who was bold enough to predict that "in five years, if we persevere, there will be a stable consensual government, and then both Iraq and Afghanistan will properly be seen as the anchors of a new Middle East". Which is, of course, exactly what I thought to myself as I opened up the article: that if any voice dissented from the overall consensus ("reality"), it would be one associated with an identifiably "conservative" institution like the Hoover Institute (who give my great uncle a bad name). ... because, of course, these organizations don't pay their "fellows" to do anything but toe the party line. Side note: I've been making a habit of reading through the paper each day... I find that you get more out of a paper that way, as you see stories develop over time, and you begin to follow larger threads in the news that transcend individual stories. Admittedly, the San Francisco Chronicle, in comparison to the Los Angeles Times (the paper I grew up reading) is mediocure at best, but it is still better than nothing. I find reading a paper exposes me to a wider variety (in terms of topics and points of view) than merely getting my news on-line. This is a change from my previous position that "I get all my news on-line and don't need a paper." Side, side note: Debra Saunders really is a Republican talking point parrot. We need more people writing the Chronicle and other papers complaining about this phenomenon, wherein allegedly "independent" pundits spew Republican talking point propaganda in barely edited form. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 10/30/2004 07:33:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Citizen Journalist Another thing MSNBC is doing for the election is a "Citizen Journalist" experiment. Joe Trippi writes, "I am hoping you will be a citizen journalist and file your story or stories with us from now through Tuesday." Report your stories to MSNBC.com. And see them here. --- Posted at 10/30/2004 05:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
First Post at MSNBC's Hardblogger Part of what I'll be doing for MSNBC is helping put together a sort-of "pulse of the blogosphere" for Hardblogger. My first post is up, at The buzz from Bloggers' Cafe. (Scroll to "The Little Gift.") This is sort-of a dress rehearsal post. In fact, they're doing a real dress rehearsal for Tuesday night's election broadcast in the big studio around the corner (and lots of remote locations) and it's on the monitors. "Pennsylvania is still too close to call." --- Posted at 10/30/2004 05:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Osama isn't running and he isn't hiding. He's laughing. Osama doesn't have to run, and he doesn't have to hide. He's kicking back , and he's laughing. "I truly am not that concerned about him", says George. Osama is looking forward to laughing at Bush for four more years. --- Posted at 10/30/2004 01:16:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Election Day at Seeing the Forest For your Election Day pleasure Seeing the Forest will have a blogger writing from the Kerry Headquarters in Boston. Sam Perry will introduce himself in a post Tuesday or maybe sooner. I'm writing this from a Starbucks in Manhattan. I took an overnight flight, and will be working from MSNBC through Tuesday night. I'll post details later. And the other regulars will also be keeping you informed. So bookmark Seeing the Forest and check in regularly. --- Posted at 10/30/2004 09:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
October Surprise Right on schedule we've had our two terrorist warnings now. Will they help Bush? Were they intended to help him? I have no idea. I can't read Osama's mind, and I can't read the mind of the American people either. We've been waiting for months for something fishy to show up, and now we have it. Pray for the Kerry spin doctors -- let's hope they're up to the job. So far the Bush spin hasn't been too powerful, but it usually takes them a few days to saturate the media. The Osama tape came at almost exactly the right time for Bush, if his guys succeed in winning the spin war. He sure needs the help. I have no evidence, but I can't help suspecting that both warnings were fake -- Rove's magnum opus. (Did they unload a couple of the loose billions floating around Iraq on Osama?). But probably that's just me. --- Posted at 10/30/2004 07:28:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/29/2004 Stop Bush / Vote Kerry Powerful images from the current cover feature of LA Weekly (via pandagon.net). 
--- Posted at 10/29/2004 05:00:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Vote or Die From an e-mail I received: 1. A simple Banner for Florida beaches: // airplane ~~~ rope ~~~ banner:"READY TO DIE IN IRAQ? DON’T VOTE TODAY" \They have an airplane pulling a banner along Florida beaches, so young people will see them. The idea is to suggest they might want to go vote... --- Posted at 10/29/2004 03:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/28/2004 When You Vote I recomment a post titled, Pacific Views: Emergency aid for U.S. voters. It outlines things to do before and when you vote, and includes a downloadable voter rights card from MoveOn. --- Posted at 10/28/2004 09:02:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hersh, Quoted at American Street The American Street -- Seymour Hersh Speaks: "I hope it comes out the right way in the election. If it doesn't then we're all in trouble. The Europeans so far give us a pass on the grounds that, well, you've got these crazy leaders and they do crazy things. But if we re-elect them, then it's not just the president they're mad at. They're going to be mad at all of us." --- Posted at 10/28/2004 08:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/27/2004 Curse Eclipsed The Curse of the Bambino comes to an end in Busch Stadium during an eclipse of the moon, and two Boston teams are now world champions. That should swing the remaining undecideds for us! --- Posted at 10/27/2004 08:43:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
911Truth.org 911Truth.org - Only the Truth will Set Us Free.: "An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and many family members of those killed on 9/11 today announced the release of the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. The Statement supports an August 31st Zogby poll that found nearly 50% of New Yorkers believe the government had foreknowledge and "consciously failed to act," with 66% wanting a new 9/11 investigation. Focusing on twelve questions, the Statement highlights areas of incriminating evidence that were either inadequately explored or ignored by the Kean Commission, ranging from insider trading and hijacker funding to foreign government forewarnings and inactive defenses around the Pentagon. The Statement asks for four actions: an immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Congressional hearings, media analysis, and the formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry. "And they have a blog. --- Posted at 10/27/2004 04:14:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Republican Switchers Republican Switchers: "WHY REPUBLICANS ARE SWITCHING FROM BUSH TO KERRY and why you, and the conservatives you love, should vote for Kerry, too!" --- Posted at 10/27/2004 04:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DRAFT Dodging FAQ At Enjoy The Draft: But I'm a girl And won't you be a popular one when they draft your ass to Iraq.Read them all! --- Posted at 10/27/2004 02:39:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Iraq vs Vietnam From an e-mail I received: Q) What's the difference between Iraq and Vietnam? A) Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam. --- Posted at 10/27/2004 01:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DRAFT - Freeway Blogging At Gropinator. --- Posted at 10/27/2004 12:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Math Pun Ouch --- Posted at 10/27/2004 10:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines There is a washingtonpost.com - Live Online question/answer thing coming up. I submitted this question: I have to say it matters little to me what anyone TELLS me about an electronic voting machine. If I can not see for myself that a machine recorded my vote and other votes correctly, then the election is not legitimate in my eyes, period. Why should I have to accept ANY other person's word that the machines are secure, working, etc.? Why can't it just print a ballot that I SEE FOR MYSELF, and that I place into a ballot box, and that can be looked at to verify that the machines reported accurate tabulations? And who in their right mind ever accepted these machines that do not do that?There is no reason to accept the results from any election conducted with these machines. --- Posted at 10/27/2004 09:43:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Story Was Reported Here October 14 Iraqi nuke sites "carefully stripped", post-invasion which included the line, "Jesus honking Christ!" --- Posted at 10/27/2004 08:58:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kristof Is A Nitwit I don't know why I bothered to read it ... well, I do know why, it was the title of the piece, Pants on Fire? Otherwise I just skip most of the "mainstream" pundits. Anyway, in the piece I came across this: "One example is Mr. Bush's determination since 9/11 to add to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, even though this pushes up gasoline prices. Mr. Bush's approach is foolish economically, and it is crazy politically. Yet his grim willingness to raise gas prices during his re-election campaign underscores a solidity of character and convictions."This guy is writing in the NY Times, and he doesn't even follow the news. No, it isn't a grim willingness, a sign of solidity of character. Jeeze. It's BECAUSE THE CRONY THAT BUSH GAVE THE CONTRACT TO FUNDS THE RIGHT! Even though oil is at the highest price EVER, we are BUYING it from Koch Oil, sending them BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of tax dollars, instead of releasing oil from the reserve to lessen the burden on American consumers. And the money is used to fund the Right's massive propaganda machine (and enrich Bush's cronies.) DOH! Does anyone know how to reach Kristof with this info? --- Posted at 10/27/2004 08:45:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/26/2004 The Bush Defense -- Just Lie I'm listening to Rush Limbaugh. He's saying that the story about the 380 tons of explosives is ... a lie. He's saying this is an attempt by "the liberal media" to affect the election, and that the explosives were gone before the war. He's just making shit up. This is how Bush defends himself -- just lie. Just lie. Spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lies, and the right's infrastructure spends hundreds of millions ore just lying. And when anyone tries to alert the public they launch a loud smear campaign to destroy the messenger, like terrorism advisor Richard Clarke or Ambassador Joe Wilson or Treasury Secretary O'Neill... Then they tell the public not to believe the mainstream press, as Bush did during the final debate. Democracy is gone -- history. The Congress has not done their job of oversight and has not investigated a single thing the Administration has done; the Justice Department has stopped investigations of crimes committed by Republicans; the Federalist Society court appointments have dismissed lawsuits and stopped investigations; the ideologues in the Defense Department have purged any opposition to their war plans; the Right's media has misled the public about crucial facts. And now the Democrats in the Senate have gone along and allowed a partisan to take control of the CIA and he is purging non-ideologues. They just lie, and smear anyone who gets in their way. --- Posted at 10/26/2004 10:43:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
On His Watch! The AFL-CIO has a Flash presenation, titled Can America Afford Four More Years? --- Posted at 10/26/2004 07:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/25/2004 Pakistani schoolgirls for Kerry Respected in the world. 
--- Posted at 10/25/2004 05:24:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Electronic Voting Machines Electronic Voting Raises New Issues, Voters using screens similar to ATMs are guided step-by-step through a ballot. They cannot pick too many candidates or leave marks that would have to be scrutinized to guess their intent. Counts will be generated automatically and almost instantaneously. There will be no paper ballots to transport, store or pore over. Advocates said recounts will be a thing of the past.No possibility of recounts is GOOD? Let me raise an issue. You can't tell me to vote on a machine that can not PROVE to me that it recorded my vote correctly. If there is no way for ME to verify that MY vote is recorded the way I voted, then forget it. Never mind enhanced security, open source software, independent verification that the machines are working correctly, or ANYthing that OTHER people assure me makes everything OK. Doesn't matter. Not relevant. Some crank - namely me - is going to show up at every single precinct where these machines are used and say, "PROVE IT." Well, the problem is that they CAN'T prove it. THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE THAT THE MACHINE CORRECTLY RECORDED WHAT THE VOTERS WANTED. And without that, there is no legitimacy to the election. --- Posted at 10/25/2004 03:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
380 Tons of Fun, Coming Your Way Thanks to Bush 380 tons of high explosives are missing in Iraq because the Bush administration did not bother to post guards. This is a Seeing the Forest moment. This is one of those times when the fog of propaganda is so thick that it's best to put your hands over your ears, and do nothing but look at what you can actually see for yourself as certain, and reject everything else. They use words to misdirect you so you do not see what they are really doing. Sometimes their words-of-confusion are just so thick that you can't even figure out if your name is really your name. That's when it is important to step back and look at what they DO rather than what they SAY. Ignore everything you have been led to think, everything you hear, everything coming from their mouths ad their media channels. Just believe what your own eyes can see for themselves. They did not guard a cache of 380 tons of extremely dangerous high explosives. They did guard the oil pipelines, the oil ministry... This HAS TO have an effect on Bush supporters. Circulate this story! I have gathered a few sources - starting with FOX News - for you to send to Bush supporters, and ask them to please explain why they are endangering all of our lives by voting for Bush! Don't attach any of my highly-sophisticated, ultra-nuanced, subtle but insightful, intellectual, deep analysis -- that's just between you and me (our little secret.) Just send the stories, and ask them to please explain to you how this kind of thing squares with the idea that Bush is making us safer. 380 Tons of Explosives Missing in Iraq U.N.: Explosives Missing from Former Iraq Atomic Site Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq --- Posted at 10/25/2004 09:07:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry Facts John Kerry for Dummies at Compassiongate. --- Posted at 10/25/2004 08:20:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Astroturf on the editorial page I sent the letter below, which I have edited slightly, to Michael Arrieta-Walden, the the Oregonian public editor: Dear Michael: Your piece on astroturf was good. The internet can be a valuable tool in spotting that kind of thing. You might also take a look at some of your columnists, for example Debra Saunders. Of the 784 words in this piece, all but 88 (see below) could have been written by a Bush campaign spokesman. The arguments and talking points are identical. The Bush people have a powerful outreach program, which makes it easy for columnists to write a column with minimal research. Furthermore, if you look at the 88 words in context, yoiu will see that they're concessive -- she's setting up other, pro-Bush points. A Bush spokesman could not allow himself make these concessions, because the Bush campaign is mostly directed at true believers who are unwilling to admit anything at all. But it is very helpful if a surrogate like Saunders makes these concessions in order to immediately dismiss them, as she did. Your own Rick Reinhardt often writes similiarly. I am not asking for ideological uniformity, but when columnists coordinate their efforts with the RNC (as many do -- the meaningless, endlessly repeated "flip-flop" charge being an example) rather than doing their own research and writing independently, it makes the Oregonian into an unpaid RNC organ. When the media came under pressure to represent the conservative point of view better, it did not have to mean that there would be Republican plants in the newspapers, but that's what happened. If someone is hired as the result of outside pressure of that type, he or she is more or less invulnerable, and furthermore, the ideological content of their thinking is effectively written into their job description. I know of very few columnists anywhere who parrot the Democratic line the way that Saunders, Reinhardt, and others do the Republican line. Of the Democratic columnists I know of -- Paul Krugman, Molly Ivins, Joe Conason, Anthony Lewis, E. J. Dionne, Frank Rich, and a handful of others -- all work independently, and they are all more likely to be ahead of the Democratic Party than they are to be following it. Yours, John Emerson "The world now knows that Bush, the CIA and other countries' intelligence agencies -- and even Hussein's Iraqi lieutenants until December 2002 -- were wrong about Iraq possessing WMD.... " "Did the Bush administration make mistakes? Of course. There is strong reason to believe this administration sent too few troops to Iraq. And it doesn't help that the top Bushies have a way of freezing out those likely to tell them news they don't want to hear. Also, Bush so overvalues loyalty that it leads him to overlook incompetence." PS. Blogger REALLY can be annoying at times. --- Posted at 10/25/2004 06:33:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/24/2004 Things You Can Do Visit America Coming Together | ACT for Victory for things you can do between now and election day. Click on the Campaign for a New Majority button on the left, of just click here, and make a contribution. The DCCC will apply the money as necessary in a close House race, helping bring a Democratic Majority to the House of Representatives. Even $5 helps, because there are a lot of us. --- Posted at 10/24/2004 06:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Things You Can Do Visit America Coming Together | ACT for Victory for things you can do between now and election day. Click on the Campaign for a New Majority button on the left, of just click here, and make a contribution. The DCCC will apply the money as necessary in a close House race, helping bring a Democratic Majority to the House of Representatives. Even $5 helps, because there are a lot of us. --- Posted at 10/24/2004 06:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Weekly Electoral College Status Update Matt Hubbard has a new Weekly Electoral College Status update.
--- Posted at 10/24/2004 04:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/23/2004 Reasons for Optimism III I don't know if Oregon here is still listed as a swing state. Probably not, but I don't think that it ever should have been in the first place. Oregon was close in 2000, but the Democratic voter registration and GOTV effort this year is the most intense by far that I've ever seen. (Canvassers end up canvassing each other.) Nader isn't a factor this year, and a significant number of moderate Republicans, including former statewide officeholders, have come out in support of Kerry. (The wingers Bush plays to have crippled the Oregon Republican party statewide, and winger control of the legislature has led to crisis after crisis.) Furthermore, I've seen reports that in Southern Oregon, which is usually reliably right-wing, Kerry and Edwards are doing far better than expected. Everything I know tells me that the media are lowballing Kerry's chances to prevent the bandwagon effect. Some of it is political bias, some of it is pure airheadedness, and some of it might just be the desire to see a close election. But I don't think that there's any countervailing anti-Bush media tendency at work, and there's also not much voter movement in Bush's direction from Democratic ranks. Kerry is in the driver's seat -- if the voters get to vote, and if the votes are counted. The only other thing to worry about the October Surprise, and people have been talking about that for so long that its effect should be pretty diluted by now. (Or I could be wrong. But if I am, I'll have far more serious things to worry about than simply having miscalled this election. ) --- Posted at 10/23/2004 05:50:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Send To Relatives and Friends! Go see Needlenose: Visualize Winning and send it to relatives and friends. --- Posted at 10/23/2004 02:54:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/22/2004 Prediction I have a prediction for election day. Republicans will be challenging lots of voters at lots of Democratic-majority precincts. The intent will be to tie up the polls, creating extremely long lines, and causing people to turn away and not vote. I usually work at a polling place on election day, and I know how quickly one roblem can back up a line. I can imagine that a few people, frequently challenging voters, could cause as very large percentage of voters to leave without voting. Anyone want to bet this happens all over the country, in the Democrat areas of swing states, as well as in minority districts in the South? Update - Right after posting that I came across this story. In Ohio the Republicans are hiring thousands of people to do exactly that - to challenge voters in minority precincts, in an attempt to cause long lines. Ohio is a swing state with a very close race. Causing a few thousand voters to leave without voting could very well change the results! --- Posted at 10/22/2004 10:15:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Another Defector Paul Craig Roberts defects. Writing at VDARE, in a piece titled Three Books On The Brownshirting Of America, he says: "Bush’s conservative supporters want no debate. They want no facts, no analysis. They want to denounce and to demonize the enemies that the Hannitys, Limbaughs, and Savages of talk radio assure them are everywhere at work destroying their great and noble country. I remember when conservatives favored restraint in foreign policy and wished to limit government power in order to protect civil liberties. Today’s young conservatives are Jacobins determined to use government power to impose their will at home and abroad. [. . .] Today, there is no one to correct a lie once it is told. The media, thanks to Republicans, has been concentrated in few hands, and they are not the hands of newsmen. Corporate values rule. If lies sell, sell them. If listeners, viewers, and readers want confirmation of their resentments and beliefs, give it to them."Here is a brief bio for Roberts, from the end of the piece: Dr. Roberts served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. During the Cold War era, he was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. He is a former Associate Editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal editorial page and a former contributing editor of National Review. --- Posted at 10/22/2004 02:48:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reality-Based Election The phrase "reality-based" entered the lexicon last weekend, in a New York Times Magazine story by Ron Suskind, titled Without a Doubt. The story contained the following remarkable passage: In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''Salon has an interview interview with Suskind, titled Reality-based Reporting. Along these lines, a public attitudes poll released yesterday by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes shows how voters' understanding of reality itself is affecting the election. From the survey: 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points. Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions. This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information extends to other realms as well. Despite an abundance of evidence--including polls conducted by Gallup International in 38 countries, and more recently by a consortium of leading newspapers in 10 major countries--only 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the US having gone to war with Iraq. Forty-two percent assume that views are evenly divided, and 26% assume that the majority approves. Among Kerry supporters, 74% assume that the majority of the world is opposed. Similarly, 57% of Bush supporters assume that the majority of people in the world would favor Bush's reelection; 33% assumed that views are evenly divided and only 9% assumed that Kerry would be preferred. A recent poll by GlobeScan and PIPA of 35 of the major countries around the world found that in 30, a majority or plurality favored Kerry, while in just 3 Bush was favored. On average, Kerry was preferred more than two to one. Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush's international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues--the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)--and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.I think this points to a major failing on the part of those opposed to Bush. The Republican "machine" - their network of "think tanks", and advocacy/communications ideology marketing organizations - has for decades studied how people receive and retain information about the world and is using that information to get their information into people's minds. And they certainly have been using their understanding of the ways people receive and retain information to full advantage in this election. We should not underestimate how important the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Paul Harvey and Fox News are to the election process! I suspect that many of you sophisticated, well-informed blog readers don't know that Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc. reported -- over and over -- that the recent Iraq Duelfer WMD report supported President Bush's position that Iraq had WMD, and that the 9/11 Commission found that Iraq did support al Queda! You probably assumed that these reports would help Kerry in the election because they flatly contradicted Bush's positions. But Limbaugh and the rest have a lot of listeners and viewers, and they repeated over and over that the reports backed up President Bush, as this poll shows. How many of us make assumptions based on what we know about the facts? But what if others are using different facts? What if others believe that 2+2=5, and are using that as the basis for their decision making? You can not effectively communicate with them if your arguments start with an assumption that you share agreement that 2+2=4, when actually you do not. Instead, to be effective, you need to start your discussion by proving that 2+2=4! Where MoveOn and The Media Fund have been running election ads based on an assumption that basic facts are understood, it might have been better to run ads that served the function of news organizations and simply reported over and over nothing more than basic facts, like that the Duelfer Iraqi WMD and the 9/11 Commission reports did NOT back up Bush. That is the starting point -- proving that 2+2=4 before you can move on to broader arguments. Another example of the basic facts problem -- as we saw above, the survey found that among Bush supporters, "An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements." Sheesh. When President Bush said during the most recent debate that we should not accept mainstream news organizations as credible sources of factual information, he was revealing his understanding of the core deciding factor of this election, in my opinion. That core fact is that people are being propagandized by a right-wing machine that simply tells lies. They are intentionally misinforming people, tricking them into voting for people who will, once in office, do things like hand their retirement savings over to big corporations, start wars, ignore public health concerns -- and tell them not to believe what they hear on the "mainstream" news. The entire report of findings is available as a PDF document here. --- Posted at 10/22/2004 11:49:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines in Florida See a short video about electronic voting machines in Florida. --- Posted at 10/22/2004 11:36:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/21/2004 "Win Back Respect" Via Josh Micah Marshall, here's a link to "Win Back Respect", a group which produced an ad juxtaposing Bush's clown show in front of a media group last March (the one where he joked about the missing WMD) with statements by the sister of a GI killed at shortly after then. I haven't been able to view the ad because of my software-hardware problems, but it's guaranteed to be very powerful. At the WBR site it is possible to donate money so the ad can be shown more widely. --- Posted at 10/21/2004 10:23:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Social Security Here is my Social Seucrity post from Wednesday's American Street. I'm hoping we can get a discussion going here. There's a lot of talk about Social Security today, so I thought I would weigh in. You and I pay a big Social Security tax, something like 15%. (If you work for someone the employer pays half of that.) But you don't pay when you make more than about $88,000. You don't pay it at all on capital gains, which are also taxed much lower than income, or dividends, which are not taxed at all. For many people this is the largest tax they pay. Once again, just to make sure you hear it, you only pay this tax on the first $88,000 of your income, even if you make vastly more than that. And rich people don't pay it at all if their income is from capital gains or dividends. So where does this money go -- this money collected from a tax that ONLY lower and middle incomes pay, and only on income from actually working for a living? Social Security runs a HUGE SURPLUS. It contributes over $200 billion a year to the government, which allows the government to keep taxes lower for the rich and corporations. Lower income people pay this tax to subsidize tax cuts for upper-income people and corporations. One day, currently estimated to be about 2018, enough "baby boomers" will have retired that the surpluses from that tax stop and the government has to find another source of extra revenue, and start paying back some of what it has borrowed. But this day keeps moving out into the future, because they estimate the date using very conservative assumptions. If the minimum wage is raised, for example, this date will move out because a higher minimum wage means more money paid in taxes. Other policies that bring a greater share of income to middle and lower income people also help move this date out. The problem is, because the government currently depends on borrowing from Social Security, people worry about where the government will get the extra money to both cover what it has been borrowing from our retirement savings AND start paying it back. THAT is the controversy: that the huge EXTRA tax that most of us pay but the rich do not -- used to subsidize tax breaks for the rich -- won't be ENOUGH anymore. So... where WILL the government get the money to pay back the trillion(s) that you and I have paid in extra taxes to subsidize tax cuts for the rich? Where do they get the money to start paying us BACK our retirement savings? Do they start taxing the rich and corporations a little more so we can retire and live on the money that WE paid into the system, that they instead used to cut taxes for the rich and corporations? THAT is the controversy! Of course, they're talking about cutting our retirement benefits, or making us retire later, in order to push out the date where they have to actually start paying us back the money that we paid in EXTRA taxes, that they instead used to cut taxes for the rich and corporations. It's like a con man who is trying to keep you from realizing that your money is gone, or make you think you don'[t want it back. They claim this is a crisis because the taxes needed will "come out of the economy." But it is THE SAME MONEY in THE SAME ECONOMY. Instead of going into the pockets of a few rich people, it will go to pay Social Security benefits to elderly people who need it. (Most economists will tell you this is actually a better use of the money, so this tax would boost, not hurt the economy.) It's really about stopping the borrowing from the retirement savings of the lowing and middle incomes and using the money to finance tax cuts for the rich, and the Republicans just can't stand that. There's a second problem. Some twenty or thirty years after the surplus ends the government will have supposedly paid back the trillions that it owes, and then Social Security has a small shortfall. More will be paid out as benefits each year than is coming in, and the trust fund will have been exhausted. ONLY THEN - FORTY OR MORE YEARS FROM NOW does Social Security actually face a shortfall! And no one can pin down exactly when, or how much will be needed -- except that we know the amount is far less than Bush's tax cuts. The date keeps moving out, because, again, conservative worst-case assumptions are used. People like me propose borrowing from the government during that period to pay full benefits, in exchange for the government having borrowed from Social Security all these years to finance tax cuts for the rich and corporations. OR, make up the shortfall by increasing the "cap" - the income above which one does not pay into Social Security - because the money WENT to tax cuts. OR add a Social Security tax to "unearned income" like capital gains and dividends, which is where the very rich get most of their income -- currently shielded from most taxes including Social Security. That would also fix the entire problem. In fact, almost ANY solution that involves taxing the wealthy just a bit more fixes this long-term problem. Salon had a good piece the other day, Schieffer was wrong, Kerry was right. --- Posted at 10/21/2004 09:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How Kerry can blow this race wide open There's been a lot of chatter about Kerry's goose-hunting expedition. Supposedly it makes him seem like a down-to-earth, regular guy with a macho streak. Maybe, but any yuppy can hunt goose. In England, that kind of hunting is the preserve of the pansy aristocracy. What Kerry really wants to do is go to the town dump somewhere and shoot rats. Shooting rats is so down-to-earth it makes you sick. He'll put himself right square in the middle of NRA / militia territory, and Dubya won't know what hit him. --- Posted at 10/21/2004 03:14:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Famous asshole Karl Malone endorses Bush The Bush campaign has scraped together 24 -- count 'em -- Olympic and professional athletes from five decades to endorse George W. Bush. Included on the list are Todd Walker, Janet Lynn Salomon, Dot Richardson, Natalie Golda, Adam Dunn, Chris Spielman, Josh Davis, and Daniel Beery, plus 16 other people who you've actually heard of. Altogether there are eight football players, seven Olympians, seven baseball players, a basketball player, and a golfer. Here's what Rove is having them say, and tell me if you think it makes any sense at all: That's not George W. Bush. Maybe they forgot what year it is or something. I was saddened to see Ernie Banks and Bob Feller on the list, but a lot of the rest of them could have been predicted: Steve Largent, Roger Staubach, and Jack Nicklaus, for example, or the notorious asshole Karl Malone. Rove might have asked himself whether some of these guys actually are going to gain the Republicans more votes than they lose. If that's the best they can do, I think that we should just award the election to Kerry right now. P.S. "Beneath our belts" sounds odd -- shouldn't it be "under our belts"? Perhaps the phrase "under our belts" sounds a little too close to the groin for these nice Republican folk. --- Posted at 10/21/2004 01:05:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines - MOVIE! There's a new movie about the problems with electronic voting machines! Go see Votergate. (If you move your mouse over the brown "Card" at the top of the page you'll see a button that says "Enter." Click that to enter the site.) (full disclosure.) --- Posted at 10/21/2004 09:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/20/2004 Well done, young man The Grey Lady nods approvingly in the direction of Jon Stewart. One wonders what might be said were Stewart to tell the world what he thinks of Judy Miller. --- Posted at 10/20/2004 06:42:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How to Jeanne at Body and Soul regularly amazes me. She has a special talent for putting a simple story, something that lots of blogs cover, into a genuinely personal context. It's enlightening, not some stupid kool kids me-me-me framing. Jeanne runs a how-to for blogging. --- Posted at 10/20/2004 05:49:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
If They Win With Lies II Rick Perlstein, in 'Sucking democracy dry': "These are the people whose candidate just might win this election. If he does, he will have proven but one thing: Those who are willing to do anything to win can win."Go read. In If They Win With Lies?, I wrote, What does it mean for the future of the country, and the world, if they are able to hold power using methods like these? In history, what kind of governments emerge from such tactics and lies, and what are the consequences to the citizens and the rest of the world?What is in store for us if they do win? What do you think they will do? Will they be putting bloggers in jail? Maybe that's not as important to you as to me ;-) --- Posted at 10/20/2004 05:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DRAFT  Enjoy the DRAFT!  --- Posted at 10/20/2004 05:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Another "chain letter" from our side. [Nancy Macy is a prominent Santa Cruz area environmental activist. I thought this was a detailed and well written letter, so I'm passing it along, and encourage you to do likewise. -Thomas] Here is a letter my sister and I composed and are sending to family and friends throughout the US. I hope you will do something similar. Feel free to use any of this if it helps. Thanks Nancy Macy [deleted] October 20, 2004 Dearest Family and Friends, We decided we had to write to you to express our concerns about the importance of this election, because of an issue that is being ignored, in spite of its overwhelming importance to us, to our children, and to our planet. This issue is global warming. The consequences of global warming can no longer be ignored. It¹s not just that polar bears are losing their habitat as the ice floes melt in the arctic, not just that coral reefs are bleaching and dying as their waters heat up, not just that whole island nations are being submerged as the seas rise. Global warming will affect us all. In California wewill have water shortages as winter snow is replaced by rain. This will cause either huge floods, or the rainwater will have to be stored in expensive new reservoirs. Tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever will migrate north into California as the temperatures rise and rainfall increases. The eastern U.S. coastline will change radically as lowlands are flooded much of the Gulf Coast within the next 70-80 years, and Manhattan Island lose land mass. Weather extremes such as tornadoes and hurricanes will increase, with enormous social and financial impact. Increased water shortages and eternal droughts will affect the Prairie states, and worsen tensions between Western states. Water will become more precious than oil, and disputes over water will increase armed conflict around the world. As land becomes uninhabitable, whole populations will migrate to cooler climates, causing massive social disruption. Florida had four hurricanes in a few short weeks this year country and around the world as global warming progresses. We are having small tornadoes here in Richmond, California, already. The climate models all agree on the major effects: the weather is only going to get worse and worse. We must take action now since our government is ignoring this problem. Our President has sided with his friends in the oil, coal and power industries, and has caused a desperate situation to worsen. President Bush still refuses to acknowledge the fact of global warming, and the importance of taking strong, effective steps to reduce the emissions that cause global warming. He refuses to work within the Kyoto Treaty, which is taking effect in December 2004. We have lost credibility in the world for our failure to take responsibility for our own pollution. Mr. Bush¹s claims that reducing emissions will damage the economy are NOT correct. The Global Warming articles in Business Week of August 16, 2004 confirm this. (www.businessweek.com) Economists all agree: there will be some job loss in specific industries such as coal mining, but our economy will actually benefit by implementation of limits on carbon dioxide emissions. New industries will spring up to provide the needed products for reducing emissions, creating thousands of jobs. Huge companies such as BP (formerly British Petroleum, now Beyond Petroleum), IBM, Royal Dutch Shell, Boeing, and many others have already reduced the carbon dioxide emissions of their operations. They have found that investments in energy conservation and changing their business processes are SAVING them HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.(www.pewclimate.org) Again and again it has been proven that environmentally responsible business practices, especially conservation, are money savers and moneymakers for business. In addition, Mr. Bush is responsible for widespread and unprecedented manipulation, distortion, and suppression of government science on a wide range of issues relating to public health and the environment. It is now unstated policy to ignore scientific information and research when they disagree with it, and they try to hide it. This has been documented over and over by the Union of Concerned Scientists, among others, who have documented hundreds of examples of this. More than 4000 scientists have publicly signed a statement of concern, urging us to speak out against this effort to mislead the country. This report and their reports on the effect of global warming in California, the Gulf Coast, and the Upper Midwest are found at the UCS website, www.ucsusa.org. (We apologize to those of you who do not use the internet. Your local library will be able to help you find information on this issue, and the other issues covered in our letter.) Mr. Bush has undermined every important environmental Law of the past thirty years -- all which had passed with bipartisan support. The Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act have been responsible for the improvement to the air in Los Angeles, the improvement in the Hudson River, and all the environmental improvements we¹ve seen since their passage. We have been enjoying the benefits for decades. Protections of our air, water, rivers, wetlands, oceans and deserts, their many forms of life, and our health! have all been drastically worsened by hundreds of changes in regulations; by removing funding for enforcement of the law; and by initiating moratoriums on regulations and relaxing rules. Mr. Bush is implementing policies that are bringing commercial development and resource extraction into areas preserved for generations as wilderness. These policies will continue and be exacerbated by four more years of the President¹s actions. The country cannot stand four more years of Mr. Bush. Our environment will be devastated if he remains in power. Please vote for Senator Kerry for President. He understands global warming and the importance of a healthy environment to a healthy economy and healthy communities. His environmental record is at 100% FOR the environment, according to Environmental Defense and other institutions which track such records. He will engage the international community again on this most important issue of global warming. He will restore the hard-won protections of our environment put in place under President Nixon. He will work with the developing countries that have no carbon dioxide emission limits in the Kyoto Treaty to help them implement energy policies that reduce the total load of carbon dioxide emissions. China, India, Brazil, and other booming economies in the third world are facing huge environmental problems, and are already coming to recognize that they will also need to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases. We have to face this problem NOW in order to prevent major disaster for our children and grandchildren. It is our responsibility! Please vote FOR Senator Kerry. Global warming is THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM facing us. The war on terror is big, but global warming is MUCH more important in the long term. We must act NOW. If you have questions on global warming, what it is, more specifically what will happen soon, please contact Martha. I have been studying this for over 5 years, and am familiar with the issues. Sincerely, with love, Martha Booz and Nancy Macy [contact info for both available on request] --- Posted at 10/20/2004 04:39:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Social Security Street I have a piece on Social Security, over at The American Street. --- Posted at 10/20/2004 01:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Left Out" Tour - Interview with Pat LaMarche [One more short one. Then I'll return you to your regularly scheduled Anybody But Bush Again programming. The Green Party's nominated candidates are laying it on the line for the values and principles that they advocate. John Edwards talks about "Two Americas" - Pat LaMarche lives it. Actually, I think John Edward's "Two Americas" speech leaves out the "Third America" - people like the ones Pat encounters in this article, who aren't just struggling, but are completely wiped out. I'm proud to have my party's banner carried forward in 2004 by people like David Cobb and Pat LaMarche. Oh yeah... Pat on the Bush Administration: "The bums need to go. Period. End of sentence. They’ve got to get fired. It’s the worst administration in the history of the United States of America. And it’s run by cowards." Pat on the Democrats: "Well, you know, I think your toaster oven would be better. And you’d get toast. An occasional Pop Tart. So, they can’t help but be better. Will they be better enough? No. If they would be better enough, I’d be a Democrat." -Thomas] Pat LaMarche feels left out And not just because Dick Cheney and John Edwards wouldn't let her debate with them David Cobb, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, resorted last Friday to civil disobedience, getting himself arrested in St. Louis while ambushing the second presidential debate of the campaign. That’s the kind of tactic you need to get attention in the presidential campaign if you’re a third-party candidate. It’s clear that getting ballot status in 28 states and representing a party that collected 2,882,995 votes in the last presidential election isn’t enough. Cobb’s running mate, Maine’s Pat LaMarche, took a slightly different tack. She decided to embark, on September 21, on her "Left Out" tour, during which she would sleep either on the streets or in homeless shelters in 14 cities across the US, "to raise awareness about America’s least-privileged citizens" because "no vice-presidential candidate has ever been bold enough to walk in their shoes." Sure, it was a bit of a public-relations gambit, but LaMarche hardly took the easy way out. She traveled by herself, with fellow Greens picking her up at airports and helping her with transportation but then dropping her off to fend for herself in what were possibly dangerous situations. As LaMarche herself notes in the following interview, women are raped after only an average of 11 days on the streets. LaMarche spent a total of 14, winding up in Cleveland on the day when John Edwards and Dick Cheney debated there, while the rest of the vice-presidential candidates had their own debate across town. [...] full story on the Portland (Maine) Phoenix web site --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 10/20/2004 04:42:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Top 12 Issues Censored From the Bush-Kerry Debates. [Excerpts from a Green Party press release. Greens have a fundamentally different agenda from that of the two major parties in the United States--who are happy to remain silent about the unweaving of the global web of life and the fact that our economic and trade policies under the last two presidents, Clinton and Bush alike, have fostered a global "race to the bottom". Opinion surveys I've read recently show that a majority of Americans favor a single payer system (which is what senior citizens have with Medicare), and yet it isn't even on the radar screen of the national Democratic Party. -Thomas] Thursday, October 14, 2004 GREENS LIST THE TOP 12 ISSUES CENSORED FROM THE BUSH-KERRY DEBATES WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders and candidates charged that the presidential debates, limited to the candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry, have effectively censored numerous issues important to Americans. [deleted] Greens listed the top twelve issues censored from the Bush-Kerry debates: (1) When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it violated international laws against "preemptive" and "preventive" war (enacted after Hitler used these excuses to justify invading Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France); and violated the U.S. Constitution's limit on the deployment of armed forces to immediate protection of U.S. borders (Article I, Section 8), and requirement that the U.S. adhere to international treaties (Article VI). [four other Iraq-specific issues deleted -Thomas ] (6) The USA Patriot Act violates numerous rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution, especially freedom of speech, freedom from search and seizure without a warrant, and guarantee of due process. Whether Mr. Kerry or Mr. Bush is elected, if another terrorist attack occurs there are already plans to extend the USA Patriot Act even further, effectively nullifying the Constitution. (7) If we intend to avert catastrophic global climate change, the U.S. must rejoin the Kyoto agreement, strengthen and adhere to its provisions, and make conversion to non-fossil and non-nuclear energy the great project of the 21st century. (Mr. Bush withdrew the U.S. from Kyoto, Mr. Kerry is silent about rejoining the accord.) (8) Republicans and Democrats have abandoned working people, while coddling CEOs and major shareholders with a $137 billion tax break package for corporations. Neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Kerry mentioned a national guarantee of livable wages, repeal of Taft-Hartley limits on workplace organizing, or the Million Worker March, planned for October 17 in Washington, D.C. --- Posted at 10/20/2004 04:28:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Renegade Green for Cobb [Take that Dave. :) From the Boston Globe. The question is not: is there a real difference between Kerry and Bush... but rather, is there more of a difference between David Cobb/the Green Party, than there is between John Kerry/the Democrats and George Bush/the Republicans? David Cobb makes a strong case that there is. -Thomas] WELCOME TO THE MAINSTREAM BY DAVID COBB IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT OBJECTIVELY AND IGNORE EMOTIONS AND UNSUPPORTED PERCEPTIONS, JOHN KERRY AND GEORGE BUSH ARE IN AGREEMENT ON A WIDE RANGE OF ISSUES WHICH DEFINE OUR DOMESTIC AGENDA, OUR FOREIGN POLICY, AND WHO WE ARE AS A PEOPLE. WHAT MAKES THIS ALL THE MORE INTERESTING IS THAT THIS PLACES BUSH AND KERRY AT ODDS WITH MANY MAINSTREAM AMERICAN BELIEFS. IN FACT, THESE MAJORITARIAN AMERICAN VALUES ARE ACTUALLY BEST REFLECTED IN THE PLATFORM AND POSITIONS OF THE GREEN PARTY. Most Americans, I'm sure, believe that people working full-time should be able to support their families without using public assistance, but many full-time wage earners making minimum wage have to do just that. I support increasing the minimum wage to a living wage; Bush and Kerry do not. Most Americans are burdened and scandalized by the skyrocketing costs of health insurance and prescription drugs. I support single-payer health insurance that will provide lifetime coverage to every single citizen and cost less than our current system; Bush and Kerry do not. Most Americans value their privacy, cherish the Constitution, and believe in due process. I support a repeal of the invasive and unconstitutional USA Patriot Act in its entirety; Bush and Kerry do not. Most Americans are tired of spending cuts in education, social services, and environmental protection. I support shifting 50 percent of the military budget over 10 years to fund these programs; Bush and Kerry do not. more on unrepentandnadervoter.com... --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 10/20/2004 04:16:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Republican National Convention in a nutshell. This hilarious video montage (courtesy of BuzzFlash) of Repblican National Convention quotes demonstrates quite concisely the Republican Party's strategy in this election cycle. Terrorize the American public into re-electing Dubya. Pure and simple. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 10/20/2004 02:12:00 AM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/19/2004 Don't let up A diarist at dKos has the right take on Sinclair: See, almost everyone is missing the point here. Sinclair has not changed its position one bit. They are spinning, hoping to relieve the pressure of the boycott by giving a false impression of what they are doing. But what they are doing is even worse than if they were airing Stolen Honor in full. In fact, the whole thing is a winger's dream, a Free Republic version of the perfect media event.Read what he says, and don't let up on Sinclair. These are really nasty bastards and they will say anything to get you off their backs. But they won't stop the smear! --- Posted at 10/19/2004 06:02:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Calming the Public -- THIS Time The Bush Administration is doing everything it can to calm fears caused by the shortage of flu vaccine. "We've successfully worked through vaccine supply problems in the past and we're doing so this time as well," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. "We need all of us to take a deep breath."This is because the flu vaccine shortage makes the Bush administration look bad, and they are afraid people might vote against them as a result. Compare this to the Bush Administration's stoking of terrorism fear! IMAGINE Bush telling people to take a breath,calm down, and not be afraid! Ain't gonna happen. --- Posted at 10/19/2004 02:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Love of power for its own sake is the original sin of this presidency." Al Gore yesterday: "Most of the problems he has caused for this country stem not from his belief in God, but from his belief in the infallibility of the right-wing Republican ideology that exalts the interests of the wealthy and of large corporations over the interests of the American people. Love of power for its own sake is the original sin of this presidency. [. . .] The essential cruelty of Bush’s game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals then cloaks it with a phony moral authority, thus misleading many Americans who have a deep and genuine desire to do good in the world. And in the process he convinces them to lend unquestioning support for proposals that actually hurt their families and their communities. Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the citizenry of America and give as much as possible to the already wealthy and privileged, who look at his agenda and say, as Dick Cheney said to Paul O’Neill, “this is our due.” --- Posted at 10/19/2004 08:50:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DRAFT - Krugman Krugman: Feeling the Draft: "Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit - but those who looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts suggest that he will. [. . .] Mr. Bush's claim that we don't need any expansion in our military is patently unrealistic; it ignores the severe stress our Army is already under. And the experience in Iraq shows that pursuing his broader foreign policy doctrine - the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war - would require much larger military forces than we now have. This leads to the justified suspicion that after the election, Mr. Bush will seek a large expansion in our military, quite possibly through a return of the draft." --- Posted at 10/19/2004 07:07:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Vote Watch Vote Watch 2004 Vote/Election fraud, vote suppression, voting irregularities, voter intimidation in Election 2004 --- Posted at 10/19/2004 07:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/18/2004 No one wants us to vote The Republicans don't want us to vote. Neither do the terrorists. Voter suppression, terror alerts, terrorist attacks -- be sure to vote, no matter what. Kos on voter suppression Recent history of voter suppression Education department declares all schools (many of them polling places) to be terrorist targets Terror warnings spread fear Election day terrorism warnings have chilling effect --- Posted at 10/18/2004 06:20:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Mission Accomplished" again He's going to fly to Iraq again for another flightsuit photo-op? Mmmm... someone tell Peggy Noonan. He's one sexy guy who can really dish out the turkey. He just has to move that bulge down where it belongs. But this is Halloween, not Thanksgiving -- maybe an Alfred E. Newman mask might help the troops lighten up a little. Some of them are reportedly taking all this more seriously than they really should. Or he could give them all little Snickers bars. The same old "Mission Accomplished" banner should be fine. He'll be able to use it every year from here on out, if he gets reelected. The war against terrorism is an endless one, so you can declare victory any time you want to. Or maybe make it an annual event -- every Halloween, maybe, or every April first. Peggy's a sentimental, old-school babe, and she never gets tired of that kind of shit. --- Posted at 10/18/2004 04:23:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
October Surprise? There's a rumour going around. October Surprise: Would Bush Make Another Visit to Baghdad? Would this be an effective gimmick by Bush, or just transparent? And what do YOU think the October Surprise will be? --- Posted at 10/18/2004 03:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reasons for Optimism, II Reading the polls can be depressing, so here are a few things to remember: 1. Very few of the polls take new voters into consideration, and this year the Democrats are putting on the biggest voter-registration drive in my memory. 2. Traditionally, undecideds break for the challenger. 3. Some of the polls have a Republican bias, especially Gallup. (And incidentally, did anyone take the recent GI poll seriously? The military has its own special way of handling that sort of thing, and I wasn't too surprised at the 70-30 Bush advantage. Let's just hope that the troops get to fill out their ballots personally.) 4. In 2000, the polls wildly underestimated Gore's vote in the Presidential race. The main things we have to worry about are election fraud, voter suppression, and the October Surprise. I think that given the present polling numbers, Kerry should be the favorite. Salon on the polls Soto on Gallup (October) Soto on Gallup (September) --- Posted at 10/18/2004 11:04:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reality-based community A lot of people are commenting on the following passage in Susskind's NYT article. According to a Bush aide, Bush's critics are from "the reality-based community....[people] who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.....That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''You can get a great anti-Bush zinger out of this, and I heartily endorse doing so. However, people are, to a significant degree, missing the point. The Bush aide's statement actually highlights one of the Republican party's strengths and one of the Democrats' weaknesses, especially in political campaigning. Democrats are too tied to public administration and to the normalizing social sciences, where you try to keep things under control and running smoothly, or try to figure out the most likely thing to happen based on observed regularities. Republicans are more likely to come from wildcat entrepreneurial backgrounds, often of a semi-criminal type, where the goal is to seize a momentary advantage, find an exception or a weak spot, or find a new angle. As a result Republicans are better at spotting and exploiting the unrevealed potentials of an unstable or evolving situation. If you don't believe me, name a national political campaign since 1976 when the Democrats outcampaigned the Republicans. There's only Bill Clinton, and he strikes me as a pretty good guy at finding an angle. Republicans hated Clinton's sleaziness, not because they hate sleaziness, but because they want a monopoly on it. Clinton beat them at their own game. On Matt Yglesias's comments, "Cranky" pointed out that the Republican aide's assertion is pretty much what they teach in business schools these days – you don't manage based on your past experience, but upon what is going to happen in the future – and the future is something that you can do something about. Another commenter, JS, cited Marx: "Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." Ariel Sharon's "facts on the ground" is another example of what I mean. By taking bold actions, the executive can make his opponent's objections and proposals irrelevant, and this method works even if the bold action makes things worse. "So what are you gonna do now, buddy?" However, most entrepreneurs fail, and most adventurists are defeated. Bush's great adventure is in collapse phase. In Iraq, things didn't go the way the Bush team had planned. (This is true even if you grant that their actual plans were different than their publicly-expressed plans). They gave it their best shot, but that wasn't good enough. Adventurists cannot afford to admit defeat, because they've staked too much on success; once the jig is up, they're through for good. Bush can only try to save himself by upping the ante. If he wins in November, we can expect him to invade Iran, institute a draft, and attack the traitors and naysayers in our midst even more viciously than before. Adventurists are only forgiven if they succeed, and Bush didn't. He gambled and lost, and now is in the running to be named the worst President in American history. It's time to escort him off the stage. --- Posted at 10/18/2004 10:08:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
T-Shirts  
These two designs happen to be by my wife Sudeep.
--- Posted at 10/18/2004 10:05:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Tricked Kevin at The Washington Monthly adds his voice to corporate efforts to block consumers from being able to sue corporations that harm them -- except he doesn't really realize that he has done so. He cites a right-wing article, written by a right-wing think tank fellow, saying "huge awards in liability lawsuits" is part of why much of the American public can't get flu vaccines this year. This triggers readers to leave comments like, "Thank the trial lawyers, and those in power who get furious if a medical company makes a profit." This is how it works. Watch your backs. --- Posted at 10/18/2004 09:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Renegade Greens for Kerry Go here. --- Posted at 10/18/2004 08:33:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Christians will be judged too Everything that the Bush team has done in the last several months has been calculated to stave off disaster in Iraq until after the election. At this point, even the Green Zone is no longer secure, so disaster looks pretty close. If Bush wins, he'll have a free hand and a four-year blank check. If he loses, Kerry will have to clean up the mess (sort of like Clinton inheriting Somalia from Bush the first, except a hundred times worse). There are literally thousands of media people and Republicans who pretty well know what's going on, but who aren't saying anything because of their career agendas, ideological obsessions, and utter cynicism and shallowness. If Kerry wins, there really have to be recriminations and score-settling (as I think Krugman has said). One peculiarity of the moral-clarity people and the religious right is that they frame their political fight as a moral fight against cynicism and relativism, but seem completely unaware that they too will be judged. The most dangerously cynical people in the U.S. today are conservative Republicans. Anyone who's knocked around a bit has met cheesy, semi-criminal revival Christians who think that their piety gives them a special connection to Jesus, who they're counting on to save them if they ever get caught. That describes the Bush administration to a T. (Apropos of Susskind's NYT article and this thread on Brad DeLong. Krugman called for recriminations here). --- Posted at 10/18/2004 06:37:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/17/2004 Times Change(s) In 1971, in what is known as the Pentagon Papers case, the NY Times went to the mat to defend the right of the press to reveal that the government was lying to us about a war. A courageous individual risked everything to bring the "Pentagon Papers" and the information they contained to the public, and the Nixon Administration was trying to stop their publication. Revealing government lies and corruption used to be an important role of the press. Times sure have changed. The Times sure has changed. And, as we all know so well, the press and the role they see for themselves sure has changed. Now The Times and others are going to the mat to protect government officials who conspired to make war, and who hurt efforts to stop weapons of mass destruction from reaching terrorists. A courageous individual named Joe Wilson risked all to reveal to us that the Bush administration was lying about their reasons for starting a war. To punish him, White House officials illegally revealed to reporters the identity of his wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative. (This also intimidated others in government who might talk to the press.) To make matters even worse, Valerie Plame's job was hunting down people trafficking in weapons of mass destruction. They not only stopped her from this effort, by revealing her identity they alerted countries and organizations worldwide to look at who she has been meeting with over the years, in case they were informing on them. See some editorials against revealing who in the White House did this: here, here, here, here, here, here ... many more... --- Posted at 10/17/2004 01:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Electoral College Update Matt Hubbard has a new Weekly Electoral College Status update. Explanation here. --- Posted at 10/17/2004 01:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/16/2004 A "chain letter" from our side of the fence. [Just got this from my mother. Did a Google search, and confirmed that yes, there is a State Senator named Howard Carroll who serves in the Illinois State Senate as a representative from the Chicago area. I was only able to find one copy of this list (posted on the 15th of October), so I think this is new stuff. Pass it on! -Thomas] Date Sent: 12 Oct 2004 09:54 AM Absolutely Infuriating! Please pass this along. FW: Military experience Hi all - As Sen. Carroll requests (see below,) please keep this info moving... Pattern here? What does this say? Democrats: * Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71. * David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72. * Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72. * Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade. * Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam. * Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII. * John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts. * Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea. * Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star, Vietnam. * Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53. * Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74. * Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91. * Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons. * Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars, and Soldier's Medal. * Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit. * Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart. * Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V. * Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star. * Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57 * Chuck Robb: Vietnam * Howell Heflin: Silver Star * George McGovern: Silver Star & DFC during WWII. * Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received #311. * Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy. * Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953 * John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and Air Medal with 18 Clusters. * Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg. Republicans -- and these are the guys sending people to war: * Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage. * Dennis Hastert: did not serve. * Tom Delay: did not serve. * Roy Blunt: did not serve. * Bill Frist: did not serve. * Mitch McConnell: did not serve. * Rick Santorum: did not serve. * Trent Lott: did not serve. * John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business. * Jeb Bush: did not serve. * Karl Rove: did not serve. * Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism. * Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve. * Vin Weber: did not serve. * Richard Perle: did not serve. * Douglas Feith: did not serve. * Eliot Abrams: did not serve. * Richard Shelby: did not serve. * Jon! Kyl: did not serve. * Tim Hutchison: did not serve. * Christopher Cox: did not serve. * Newt Gingrich: did not serve. * Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor. * George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty. * Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies. * B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea. * Phil Gramm: did not serve. * John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. * Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve. * John M. McHugh: did not serve. * JC Watts: did not serve. * Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem," although continued in NFL for 8 years. * Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard. * Rudy Giuliani: did not serve. * George Pataki: did not serve. * Spencer Abraham: did not serve. * John Engler: did not serve. * Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer. * Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base. Pundits & Preachers * Sean Hannity: did not serve. * Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.') * Bill O'Reilly: did not serve. * Michael Savage: did not serve. * George Will: did not serve. * Chris Matthews: did not serve. * Paul Gigot: did not serve. * Bill Bennett: did not serve. * Pat Buchanan: did not serve. * John Wayne: did not serve. * Bill Kristol: did not serve. * Kenneth Starr: did not serve. * Antonin Scalia: did not serve. * Clarence Thomas: did not serve. * Ralph Reed: did not serve. * Michael Medved: did not serve. * Charlie Daniels: did not serve. * Ted Nugent: did not serve. (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.) Please keep this information circulating Sen. Howard W. Carroll senhwc@Hotmail.com --- Posted at 10/16/2004 09:41:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Rationing A comment I made in a flu vaccine thread at Digby's: Pretty funny. Our prevailing system of rationing health care (especially preventive health care) by wealth is temporarily replaced by a much more humane system of rationing by need. And what happens? People get pissed off about it! Fucked up. --- Posted at 10/16/2004 08:20:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Let's wait for the adult Republicans, Santa Claus and the unicorns to save us From the New York Times (cited here, there, and everywhere): "Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion."What a load of crap. Supposedly, these guys are going to wait until after Bush is elected, and then, when they have no bargaining chips left, are going to talk to Bush about a few things. And Bush, sitting there with the four-year blank check in his pocket, is going to listen to them. I can tell you what this civil war is really going to look like: A dozen of the most highly esteemed centrist Republicans will gather together and file into Bush's office -- big-time Senators and high officials from several different Republican administrations. The most eminent among them will begin his statement and put forth his grave concerns. After about two minutes George W. Bush will say something like "I don't need to listen to this crap" and ask the Secret Service to escort the group out of the building. The eminent Republicans will jam the exit as they shuffle away. And Bush will call in a janitor to mop up twelve puddles of piss, and the civil war will be over. The real adult Republicans, if there are any, will vote for Kerry. If Bush wins, he won't have to listen to anybody, and he won't. Bush's second administration will be revolutionary, transformational, and brutal, and instead of saying that the world changed on 9/11, we'll be saying that the world changed on January 20, 2005. I suppose it's really my fault. The reason so many Democrats have this pathetic need to find adult Republicans somewhere is that they would do anything rather than buddy up to the likes of me and my friends. Damn! we must be badasses! Probably I should be making it easier for those guys to finally turn into partisan Democrats and ditch their imaginary Republican friends, but it's not like they're paying attention or anything. I imagine that the whole bunch of them will figure out what actually happened about two years too late -- the way they did with the Iraq War. --- Posted at 10/16/2004 06:50:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Planting the seeds for the theft of the election by lowering expectations? Bush Lawyer Anticipates Delay in Tally sub required By Jo Becker - Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 16, 2004; Page A07 President Bush's top campaign lawyer said yesterday that the winner of next month's presidential vote may not be known for "days or weeks" after Election Day if the contest is close. Experts predict that a large number of absentee ballots will be cast, which could take time to count. For the first time nationwide, voters whose names do not appear on the rolls will be allowed to cast "provisional ballots," which will be counted only after a post-Election Day review determines their eligibility. In addition, some battleground states will count overseas military ballots received after Election Day as long as they are postmarked before Nov. 3. In Florida, for instance, military ballots received through Nov. 12 will be counted. Tom Josefiak, the Bush-Cheney campaign's general counsel, said he worries that the uncertainty caused by potential delays could undermine confidence in the outcome. "If it's a close election in any one state, it may be days or weeks before we know who actually is the winner," he said. "I hope that doesn't happen. Josefiak's comments came as most national polls show Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry in a dead heat. Four years ago, a similarly close race between Bush and Vice President Al Gore deadlocked in Florida and produced a 36-day whirlwind of lawsuits as Democrats sought to recount votes and Republicans pushed to stop while Bush was ahead. Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus denounced Josefiak's comment. "It seems like the Republicans want people to somehow think that the results they see on election night aren't accurate, which is a far cry from where they were in 2000," she said. "Maybe they think they're going to be behind." --- Posted at 10/16/2004 02:50:00 PM by BadGimp Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
No Government, Just Party This is how Bush uses the people's government. This President's weekly radio address to the nation is now just one more campaign piece. Bush Uses Radio Address to Pan Kerry: Bush repeated his claim that during the past 20 years, Kerry has voted to raise taxes 98 times, which he has said repeatedly to reinforce his characterization of Kerry as a free-spending liberal. --- Posted at 10/16/2004 09:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/15/2004 Prove It! Worries Persist Over U.S. Electronic Voting: "'A lot of people, I think, saw it as a solution to the problems we had in 2000 but have now found that it has its own set of problems,' said Sean Greene, research director for Electionline.org, a nonpartisan research group. "Yeah, here's a set of problems for you: After the election, if they say "Bush won" or "Kerry won," if anyone says "Prove it!" THEY CAN'T! There is absolutely no way to know if the machines recorded the votes correctly. That's a problem, all right. --- Posted at 10/15/2004 10:57:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What Terrorist killed 18,000 Americans last year? It’s happening again with the Mary Cheney meme: Republican slime is being flung at Kerry with such persistence that I am afraid some of it will stick. The Republicans understand how to play the media as their own echo chamber. Of course, owning huge chunks of it doesn’t hurt. Andrea Mackris’ sexual harassment suit against Bill O’Reilly really shows how, for these guys, it’s all about one thing: power. Here’s Bill O’Reilly, showing off: "If you cross Fox News Channel, it's not just me, it's Roger Ailes who will go after you. I'm the street guy out front making loud noises about the issues, but Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever." (The Smoking Gun) But despite the zealots and the deep pocket financing on the other side, the Democrats could do vastly better in the rhetoric game. It amazes me how the Democrats don’t aggressively set the values agenda. This is the poetry of politics. It requires lyricism and an instinct for the jugular. This should be our hunting season! Under the ‘family friendly’ façade, Republicans are the party of ‘Americans Treat Americans Like Sh*t’. An aggressive values agenda would point this out, over and over and over and over, until even people who don’t like the Democrats would begin to doubt the Republicans. Case in point: 18,000 people die every year because they lack health insurance. Let’s put that into context of the casualties in Iraq, and the deaths at the WTC. Remember, we’re the richest nation in the world and we’re doing this to ourselves. Moreover, it is the Republicans who are primarily responsible for this situation, because they are the ones that oppose any and all reasonable fixes. You think my number is exaggerated? Not at all! This is a National Academy of Sciences study that came out this year. It should be one of the campaign’s memes: “18,000 people die every year because they lack health insurance… and I, John Kerry, will fix this situation, with my plan.” Bush doesn’t even believe in health insurance! This is what he said in the 3rd debate: “Health care costs are on the rise because the consumers are not involved in the decision-making process. Most health costs are covered by third parties. And therefore, the actual user of health care is not the purchaser of health care. And there's no market forces involved with health care.” So now you know: we solve the crisis of 18,000 dead every year for lack of health insurance – by getting rid of health insurance. We’ll be dumping a portion of our shrinking pay into ‘health savings accounts’ instead. The stakes of these issues need to be brought home forcefully. What is more important to you, American voter: the propriety of mentioning the lesbianism of Mary Cheney? Or the possible death of a family member from lack of health insurance? This is not academic for me. A man I worked for a year ago committed suicide this year. He was a million dollars in debt from health care bills incurred when he was struck by a serious illness while uninsured. I believe the overwhelming debt was a large part of what drove him to kill himself. --- Posted at 10/15/2004 07:57:00 PM by Camille Roy Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What Hit the Pentagon? Interesting. I report -- you decide. Nut stuff? Leave comments. --- Posted at 10/15/2004 04:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush's Earpiece See it here. Thanks to Salon. --- Posted at 10/15/2004 01:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Now It's Official The lie about Democrats "making up" charges of voter fraud is now the official position of the Repubican Party. The headline at the front page of the Republican Party website reads, Chairman Gillespie Statement on DNC/Kerry Campaign Document Instructing Democrats to Make Up Charges of Voter Intimidation, This document proves the Kerry Campaign and the DNC are more interested in scaring minority voters than in working to reach out to them on Election Day, even if it means completely making things up. “The Kerry Campaign and the DNC are instructing Democrats around the country to make charges they know to be false, and to manipulate the media into printing and repeating the false charges in newspapers around the country.Of course, the Democrats have done nothing of the kind. What the Republicans have done is isolate ONE SENTENCE in a document, removing the context, and claiming it says something entirely different from what it really says. This is what they have done through the entire Presidential campaign. --- Posted at 10/15/2004 10:59:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Republicans Votebusters! 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No fraud is too big, no fee is too big! --- Posted at 10/15/2004 10:38:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sinclair Brodacasting -- Advancing the Right's Takeover Jay Rosen has a piece at The Blogging of the President titled Like Agnew with TV Stations: Sinclair Broadcast Group Takes On Kerry and The Liberal Media. This is an important read. Just what is Sinclair Broadcasting up to, consolidating media power to advance a right-wing agenda? I don't think pressure on advertisers is going to stop this. The Moonies have no problem spending hundreds of millions on "news" media that always loses money. And public corporations justify to shareholders their political contributions quite frankly - as "investments" (bribes) designed to secure favorable legislation like tax cuts, deregulation, subsidies, insider contracts, etc. It works. Let's suppose for a minute that Bush and his crowd have the best of intentions, and are streamlining the government - systematically eliminating oversight and accountability, etc. - so they can better serve and protect the public. The problem with this is that there are always OTHER people with less noble intentions waiting in the wings for just such an opportunity. You remove the checks and balances, and someone ELSE can step in - someone corrupt or dangerous. Whether Bush and his cronies want it or not, groups like Sinclair, Pat Robertson, "Christian Nation" activists, etc. will show up to feast on the harvest. Suppose Bush tries to object to their raw use of power -- with Democracy's protections removed they can just push him aside and take the chair themselves. THAT is where we are today, with the doors wide open and unprotected. Watch your backs! --- Posted at 10/15/2004 09:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
They're At It Again! Remember our STF rule! When Republicans are accusing others of something it usually means it's something they are doing themselves. And now, just as the Republican Party has been caught in a national voter-registration fraud operation -- setting up voter registration drives and then throwing out all the Democrat registrations -- they start making accusations. From the Moonie's Washington Times, Anti-Bush registration drive stirs fraud concerns: A coalition of liberal groups committed to defeating President Bush has spent more than $100 million orchestrating the largest voter-registration drive in U.S. history, raising concerns of widespread voter fraud in 14 battleground states. At the same time, Democratic Party officials are gearing up to challenge unfavorable Election Day results in a number of states through "pre-emptive strikes," charging that Republicans prevented minorities from voting even before any such incidents are confirmed.Why does a massive voter registration drive "raise concerns" of widespread voter fraud? In the past several months, coalition members have flooded minority neighborhoods in an extensive door-to-door voter-registration drive, using bar-coded sheets to identify undecided and potential Democratic voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens this week accused the groups of trying to undermine the election process and demanded an investigation by his state attorney of hundreds of questionable voter-registration applications. "I am very concerned that such groups have registered people who are not qualified to vote," said Mr. Owens, a Republican.Oh, I see. It's because MINORITIES are involved! BLACK PEOPLE! YIKES! And the other accusation? That Democrats are going to make up "pre-emptive strikes?" Turns out that's not what the documents cited say at all. They say to describe typical Republican intimidation tactics -- to warn people about what Republicans do -- as a way of helping PREVENT them from happening. The Republican claim that Democrats are being told to make stuff up is ... wait for it ... making stuff up. The rule holds. --- Posted at 10/15/2004 08:16:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/14/2004 DAILY STUNNER: Iraqi nuke sites "carefully stripped", post-invasion. Saw this report from Rueters on CNN just now: "Iraqi N-sites 'stripped carefully'" "We're talking about dozens of sites being dismantled," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "Large numbers of buildings taken down, warehouses were emptied and removed. This would require heavy machinery, demolition equipment. This is not something that you'd do overnight."... how completely irresponsible and oblivious do you have to be in administering the security for a site containing equipment useful for nuclear weapons research and manufacturing (dual-use materials carefully tagged as such by the U.N.), to have the whole friggin' shebang disappear right out from under your nose without you noticing? The International Atomic Energy Agency noticed this from satellite photographs... One diplomat said there were "dozens of others" that gradually disappeared from satellite photos analyzed by IAEA experts at its headquarters in Vienna.Jesus honking Christ! This is Keystone Cops material... someone ought to make one of those little Macromedia Flash movies... I can see it now. Dubya swaggering up and down the street, all macho and tough, while hordes of thieves with bulldozers and cranes and other such stuff swarm through the background, busily dismantling the town right behind him... there goes the bank... there goes the jail... there goes the courthouse... end it with a French guy going up to him and alerting him to the situation. Unbelieveable. I wish this had come out yesterday, before the debate... What reply could Bush make to a statement like this from John Kerry: "Citzens of America: under George Bush's watch, Iraq has been systematically stripped of equipment and facilities potentially useful in the manufacture of nuclear weapons - these materials were taken from locations that were well known, that U.N. security inspectors had marked and monitored for years, that should have been at the top of the administration's priority list for protection. Warehouses have been emptied. Entire buildings have vanished without anyone noticing. It took experts at the U.N.--people not even in Iraq--looking at satellite photos, to figure out that this was happening. The report I read said that 'dozens' of sites were stripped this way. Citizens of America: I submit to you that the world is a much less safer place as a result of these events, the responsibility for which is entirely and exclusively that of my opponent. Ladies and gentleman - when the building is robbed... not just robbed, but systematically stripped of anything and everything valueable, you fire the people responsible for security and hire someone new. My opponent and his administration have proven incapable of securing Iraq and the world against the terrorists. It is time they are replaced." UPDATE: Quote from Dick Cheney Speech of Oct. 12th, 2004 The biggest danger we face today is having nuclear weapons technology fall into the hands of terrorists. The President is working with many countries in a global effort to end the trade and transfer of these deadly technologies. The most important result thus far -? and a very important one -? is that the black-market network that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, to North Korea, and to Iran has been shut down. (Applause.) The world's worst source of nuclear proliferation is out of business, and we are safer as a result. (Applause.)Hmm... spoke too soon, Mr. Cheney? Or did you know about the IAEA's pending report, and choose to ignore it (like so many others your administration has found inconvenient)? It would appear that you're correct, Iraq WAS the world's worst source of nuclear proliferation... but mostly AFTER the invasion, and the only reason it is "out of business" is because everything but the kitchen sink has been hauled off and sold to the highest bidder on the black-market, right under your nose. Entire buildings! Entirely unnoticed! (except by those U.N. bunglers your administration so loves to bash) What's next? The Washington Monument? The Smithsonian? The entire speech is available via the White House web site. It was brought to my attention by Declan McCullagh via his Politech list, who found it "unintentionally hilarious" (I couldn't agree more) and was "compelled" to pass it along. --Thomas Leavitt --- Posted at 10/14/2004 09:51:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Favorite freewayblogger day sign  --- Posted at 10/14/2004 04:38:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Latest Republican Smear The latest Republican smear claims that a Democratic Party manual tells local party officials to "make up" stories about Republican voter intimidation "even if none exists." Click here to see the ACTUAL WORDING AND CONTEXT of the Democratic Party manual. II. HOW TO ORGANIZE TO PREVENT AND COMBAT VOTER INTIMIDATION The best way to combat minority voter intimidation tactics is to prevent them from occurring in the first place and prepare in advance to deal with them should they take place on election day. 1. If there are any signs of present or expected intimidation activity, in advance of election day, launch a press program that might include the following elements: [. . .] 2. If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a "pre-emptive strike" (particularly well-suited to states in which there techniques have been tried in the past). • Issue a press release i. Reviewing Republican tactic used in the past in your area or state ii. Quoting party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting • Prime minority leadership to discuss the issue in the media; provide talking points • Place stories in which minority leadership expresses concern about the threat of intimidation tactics • Warn local newspapers not to accept advertising that is not properly disclaimed or that contains false warnings about voting requirements and/or about what will happen at the pollsNice try, Republicans. But the part you left out is where it says TO PREVENT. The document says to launch a pre-emptive strike to warn about and TO HELP PREVENT Republican intimidation tactics, not to invent them! Inventing things is what Republicans do, so I guess I can see why they might have thought it meant that. Clearly what they are trying to do is seed the impression that stories of voter intimidation are just made-up. Now why would they be doing that? (Credit to Drudge for linking to the Democratic Party response.) --- Posted at 10/14/2004 04:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voter suppression in Oregon Election fraud and voter suppression efforts are going to be major parts of the 2004 election story. The Republicans are attempting to match Democratic GOTV efforts with their own voter-suppression activities, which are often illegal. Here's an AP story about what's happening in Oregon generally. This story describes a bizarre variant. Apparently the contract group, realizing that they'd only be paid for Republican registrations, used deceptive methods to try to get people to sign voter-registration forms with blank party-designation slots, which they would later fill out and file as Republican registrants. It doesn't seem to me that the Republicans gain much by conning people into registering as Republicans -- seemingly here the contractors are just playing their own little game. Presumably people are keeping record of this, and let's hope that the Democrats are prepared for a nasty fight. (The Republicans, as per usual, have already started accusing us of doing the same things that they're doing). It strikes me as unlikely that this election will be decided by November 3. --- Posted at 10/14/2004 01:42:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Cheney suppression in Oregon: smart move!
--- Posted at 10/14/2004 11:46:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Nationwide FreewayBlogging! FREEWAYBLOGGER.com - Free Speech: Use It or Lose It --- Posted at 10/14/2004 08:50:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/13/2004 Demon litigation Bush, after more-or-less addressing the debate question about flu vaccine, wanders into prepared text territory with: We have a problem with litigation in the United States of America. Vaccine manufacturers are worried about getting sued, and therefore they have backed off from providing this kind of vaccine.This kind of vaccine? Tainted vaccine? Damn lawyers! --- Posted at 10/13/2004 10:06:00 PM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Self-Destructive Institution Bush made a "joke" about the press -- saying no one should trust the mainstream media. Is "the press" going to self-destructively tolerate that? My local mainstream newspaper runs the Mallard Fillmore comic strip - a strip that tells its readers not to trust or even read mainstream newspapers! This sounds more than a little self-destructive. They put the strip in "for balance." Balancing the by giving people who think they should be dead a voice in their paper. Smart, huh? This is what I call the "afraid Rush Limbaugh will say bad things about them" syndrome. Like when Democrats in the Congress vote for Republican tax cuts - and CIA Directors - thinking it buys them something with voters who are propagandized by the conservative machine... All they're really accomplishing is hastening the Right's takeover. I think Max Cleland knows what I'm talking about -- a little too late to do him any good, though. The press currently sucking up to the Right is going to learn a very hard lesson if they are in office next year. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 08:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DRAFT - somewhere else I forgot to mention that I have a post on the draft today, over at American Street. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 08:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Who Won? I think Kerry lapsed into long-winded Senatorial answers, phrasing things in ways that regular people would not understand. I think Bush lied with a smile. So I think it was a draw. We all have to go out and work as hard as we can to get people to the voting booth! I believe we are literally trying to save democracy. If Bush and his cronies are in control next year we will lapse into a permanent one-party corporate-controlled state. Bush sure did try to change the subject of several questions. Update - I am changing my opinion. The result of the post-debate fact-checking is the TV showing Bush's press conference saying he is not concerned about bin Laden. Over and over. BIG win for Kerry. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 07:27:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What Bush Said About bin Laden Here is what Bush said that he never said. Transcript, Bush press conference, March 13, 2002: QUESTION: Mr. President, in your speeches now, you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? ... BUSH: ... So I don't know where he is. Nor -- you know, I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 07:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Lies, Said Nicely Bush's tem perment is much better. He is lying and lying and lying. And smiling. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 07:21:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Ouch "In those days after 9/11 I think the President did a terrific job." - John Kerry, announcing that he plans to lose the election. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 07:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Senatorial It's 7:48, and Kerry is being so "Senatorial" that I can't understand what he's saying./ He's going on and on... Fact is, Social Security is NOT "going broke" and the moderator is just repeating right-wing slogans. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 06:48:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry whips Bush's ass a third time; Kerry and Edwards sweep, 4-0 Even though President Bush's Wednesday debate performance was marginally superior to his hapless earlier appearances, it's no surprise that he lost again to the challenger, Senator John Kerry. When you're expected to strip the "Worst President Ever" crown from Franklin Pierce, who has held it for over a century and a half, re-election is unlikely indeed. And the most eloquent orator in the history of bullshit would be hard-pressed to defend the worst job-creation record since Herbert Hoover, the bait-and-switch Iraq War disaster, or several of our President's other dishonest policy initiatives. After the debate Karl Rove said that debates are not really very important, and that he expects that negative campaigning, voter suppression, control of the voting machines, and promises of pork will be enough to bring the win to the Republican team. "But I suppose that we're losing the wonk vote on this", he said, laughing uproariously. --- Posted at 10/13/2004 02:28:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Another Outrage! Opinions You Should Have - Cartoon Network To Broadcast 'George W. Bush: Big Ass Junkie' Documentary --- Posted at 10/13/2004 10:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush Senior may not be supporting Bush Junior The letter from George H. W. Bush below has been floating around the internet. Some believe that it might be a hoax, but who knows, really? True, the fact that it all makes pretty good sense does cast doubt on the idea that it might be from a Republican. (Recently the below was forwarded to me from someone who had played a small part in settling the affairs of an old friend of George H.W. Bush who had died unexpectedly. He does not want his identity to become public and has also suppressed the identity of the late friend, who was relatively unknown, but who had known Bush since childhood.) Dear ****, Just a note on your birthday. Bar and I often think of those wonderful times on the water back when the kids were young. At the end of a long life, your old friends become more important to you.It's been a good life, but this election has been a trial. Loyalty requires public support for our son, which of course he gets, but you wonder whether reelection would really be the best thing. Maybe the family future lies in the younger brother, who has performed so splendidly in Florida. The outlook in Iraq is appalling and maybe we should leave it for the other team to handle. Some of the choices made going in were terribly ill-advised, and I'm afraid that the team now in place is just not up to the job. Dick Cheney is not the man I remember. His face is twisted and you wonder whether ill health and his medication have affected his judgment. And Wolfowitz's kind should never be allowed in a serious policy position. And you know that I think that a degree of religious belief is necessary, but some of the people my son relies on have gone far over the line on that. I've stayed in the background. No other choice. But now I can't really talk to the boy any more, and Colin tells me he can't reach him either. I've lost good, old friends over this, and with several others it can get uncomfortable. The stress of the job is greater now than it was during my day and we wonder whether his weaknesses haven't returned. His wife, God bless her, has been a real trooper. She keeps us posted and tries to keep a lid on things.We're hoping for the best. Hope this hasn't been an imposition – if you can't talk to your oldest friends, who can you talk to? God willing, we should be able to see each other sometime in the next few months. Yours, G --- Posted at 10/13/2004 09:16:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Media complicity Ok, this is the biggest story of the election to date. And I can't find it in the corporate media (except local news outlets in Nevada). --- Posted at 10/13/2004 06:03:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/12/2004 DRAFT - Ad Bush and The Draft. --- Posted at 10/12/2004 04:16:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Stopping Sinclair Broadcasting By now you know that Sinclair Broadcasting is ordering all of their stations to broadcast during prime-time - just before the election - a smear "documentary" made by the Swift Boat Veterans. The Democratic National Committee has a web page devoted to action on this: DNC Action Alert: Stop Sinclair's Anti-Kerry Smear. Also, Steve at Left Coaster and Kevin at The American Street have taken the lead in blogging and suggesting ways to act on this. But this is what AM radio is and has been for twenty years -- a full-time 24/7 commercial for the organized Right's takeover of the Republican Party and the country. I think this is the kind of thing to expect as long as the Right's powerful, well-funded network of ideological advocacy/communications organizations is not countered by similarly-funded and chartered Progressive organizations. I think it can only get worse until people who support OUR side and have money come to understand that they need to step up to the plate and get this underway. The organized "conservative movement" has somewhere betwen 350 and 500 organizations in place, employing literally thousands of professional propogandists. Meanwhile, "our side" has a bunch of broke bloggers battling for BlogAds bucks to boost bandwidth - and buy beer. (Please visit our sponsors.) As The Party consolidates their control over all aspects of our society, more and more of our institutions will become little more than Party propaganda organs. First we saw the Republican Party itself fall, then churches, the military, sports and sporting events, even the Boy Scouts... Each of these have been infiltrated, overtaken ... As history warns us, next comes the purges. --- Posted at 10/12/2004 01:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Al-Qaeda Supports Bush I can actually support this statement. That cannot be said for all the froth issued by the Bush campaign and conservative columnists alleging that a vote for Kerry is a vote for terror. The money quote appeared in an Al-Qaeda letter issued after the Madrid bombings. It stated that Al-Qaeda hoped Bush would win re-election .... "because he acts with force rather than wisdom or shrewdness, and it is his religious fanaticism that will rouse our (Islamic) nations, as has been shown. Being targeted by an enemy is what will wake us from our slumber." (NYRB, 4-29-04, footnote, also quoted on the Islamic news website, www.elaph.com, 3-17-04) Understanding why this makes sense requires the slightest pause to consider what Al Qaeda aims actually are. Pause, people! It's in your political best interest. The primary Al Qaeda goal is not to kill Westerners, it is to unite the Islamic world. This is why George Bush is such a gift to the fanatics. He rouses opposition from all levels of society in all Islamic countries, so that America is alone on a crowded planet. I am rather tired of reading apologias from Democratic (and even Republican) hawks. I was never such, and I will quote myself, in case there are any readers who are skeptical of my political wisdom in this area: that Al-Qaeda supports Bush. This is what I wrote in my blog 'Ich Bin Ein Iraqi' on 10/8/2002: "...Last night the president gave a speech, trying to persuade Americans of the need for this war. What a nightmare. This president epitomizes the stereotype of the know-nothing American and he wants to invade Iraq; to disrupt the fragile stability of the whole Middle-east, to “fight terror” by making enemies for the United States among Muslims everywhere. He can’t even control the warring parties within his own Administration. He can’t even keep the Israelis from slaughtering Palestinians at moments which are politically inopportune for his own cause. This Administration will win the war but they will never win the peace.... Americans have no appetite for the complexities of this region. The current Administration says they’ll replace Saddam with a democracy. Well, wishing doesn’t make it so. It may be impossible to impose civil society on Iraq. Certainly this Administration, which lacks diplomacy, tact, judgement, respect, and patience, is incapable. Our military is highly skilled and America will win eventually, perhaps quickly (perhaps not, given that so many Iraqis blame the United States for sanctions). But what comes after? ... If we invade Iraq, there will be more terror, not less." I am posting this because I just read the survey of novelists in Slate. Every Bush supporter said he (and the supporters were all men) was a supporter because of the "war on terror". What insanity! In my view, a vote for Bush is pouring oil on the flames of international terrorism. --- Posted at 10/12/2004 09:30:00 AM by Camille Roy Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sinclair Poll One Sinclair station is running a poll, asking if they should run the anti-Kerry documentary. NewsCentral.tv. Scroll to the bottom of the page. (Thanks to skippy for finding this.) --- Posted at 10/12/2004 09:12:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/11/2004 If They Win With Lies? Following is an e-mail that is circulating. Try not to get sidetracked correcting or otherwise reacting to the lies -- see the bigger picture: IT IS ALL LIES! This is how the Republicans are trying to "win" this election -- entirely with lies and tricks. What does it mean for the future of the country, and the world, if they are able to hold power using methods like these? In history, what kind of governments emerge from such tactics and lies, and what are the consequences to the citizens and the rest of the world? Here's the e-mail: What to believe? I'm trying to get all this political stuff straightened out in my head so I'll know how to vote come November. Right now, we have one guy saying one thing. Then the other guy says something else. Who to believe? Lemme see; have I got this straight? Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia - good... Bush awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq - bad... Clinton spends 77 billion on war in Serbia - good... Bush spends 87 billion in Iraq - bad... Clinton imposes regime change in Serbia - good... Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad... Clinton bombs Christian Serbs on behalf of Muslim Albanian terrorists-good... Bush liberates 25 million from a genocidal dictator - bad... Clinton bombs Chinese embassy - good... Bush bombs terrorist camps - bad... Clinton commits felonies while in office - good... Bush lands on aircraft carrier in jumpsuit - bad... No mass graves found in Serbia - good... No WMD found Iraq - bad... Stock market crashes in 2000 under Clinton - good... Economy on upswing under Bush - bad... Clinton refuses to take custody of Bin Laden - good... World Trade Centers fall under Bush - bad... Clinton says Saddam has nukes - good... Bush says Saddam has nukes - bad... Clinton calls for regime change in Iraq - good... Bush imposes regime change in Iraq - bad... Terrorist training in Afghanistan under Clinton - good... Bush destroys training camps in Afghanistan - bad... Milosevic not yet convicted - good... Saddam turned over for trial - bad... Ahh, it's so confusing! Every year an independent tax watchdog group analyzes the average tax burden on Americans, and then calculates the "Tax Freedom Day". This is the day after which the money you earn goes to you, not the government. This year, tax freedom day was April 11th. That's the earliest it has been since 1991. It's latest day ever was May 2nd, which occurred in 2000. Notice anything special about those dates? Recently, John Kerry gave a speech in which he claimed Americans are actually paying more taxes under Bush, despite the tax cuts. He gave no explanation and provided no data for this claim. Another interesting fact: Both George Bush and John Kerry are wealthy men. Bush owns only one home, his ranch in Texas. Kerry owns 4 mansions, all worth several million dollars. (His ski resort home in Idaho is an old barn brought over from Europe in pieces. Not your average A-frame). Bush paid $250,000 in taxes this year; Kerry paid $90,000. Does that sound right? The man who wants to raise your taxes obviously has figured out a way to avoid paying his own. Pass this on. Not many days left until the election.It is essential to the country - and to the world - that the kind of people who would employ such tactics not succeed. History has taught us a hard lesson about this. Have you done everything you can? Update - It's also posted on about 800 websites. --- Posted at 10/11/2004 09:18:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Employment(and lack of) Politicians can make things sound good or bad depending on many factors. Take a look at these charts and see for yourself how good or bad the unemployment situation is. The Index of Help Wanted Advertising in Newspapers. This chart shows how many employment ads there are in local newspapers. (Hint for those who have trouble reading charts -- worst in ten years.) Here's the Median Duration of Unemployment. (Hint for those who have trouble reading charts -- slightly better than the worst in ten years.) Civilian Employment-Population Ratio. (Slightly better than the worst in ten years.) Civilian Participation Rate. (Worst in ten years.) --- Posted at 10/11/2004 10:58:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Eli asks ... an interesting question. --- Posted at 10/11/2004 03:50:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/10/2004 The Third Debate Diana Moon (9.10.04) has big plans for the third debate. My feeling is that if John Kerry plays Bush right, perhaps by mouthing silent obscenities, Bush will eventually lose it and come after him. Kerry should then easily be able to use his reach advantage to hold Bush off until he's able to put him down with one pop. It seems to me that that should count as winning the election, too. --- Posted at 10/10/2004 08:27:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dealing With The Right Steve Soto, over at The Left Coaster: How To Deal With The Moral Bankruptcy Of The GOP, It's Power, And Their "Stepford" Supporters. Your thoughts? What should be done after the election to deal with this takeover and attempted destruction of our democracy by the Right? --- Posted at 10/10/2004 04:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Weekly Electoral College Status Introducing Matt Hubbard's Weekly Electoral College Status. From Matt: The idea for this website came from two sources. The first was Ryan Lizza’s webpage during the 2000 election where he analyzed state polling data and came up with the remarkable prediction that it all hinged on Florida. The second idea came to me last year when I was teaching statistics for the first time. The thing that struck me is how few people – including myself, my students and several good mathematicians I know – knew about the margin of error being tied to a confidence level, and that the standard confidence level is 95%. This means that if a candidate has 47% in a poll with a +/-3% margin of error, then 95% of the time, the true polling numbers should be between 44% and 50%; the other 5% of the time, the polling numbers may go above 50% or below 44%, and it is assumed both the high and the low have the same probability, 2.5% each. You can change the margin of error with poll data, but it will also change the confidence level. My idea is to make the margin of error half the lead; this way the candidate with the lead in a particular state should win if his total stays inside the new margin of error or goes higher than the new margin of error, and he will only lose that state if his totals go below the new margin of error. (This assumes that percentage gains for one candidate are reflected in percentage losses for the other; while there are more than two candidates, they are getting only marginal numbers; if we had an election like 1992 where Perot was getting double digit numbers in many states, I would have to change my assumptions considerably. The math wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be much harder.) Here’s an example of the method: Let's say Candidate A leads Candidate B 47%-45% in a poll with a 3% margin of error. The margin of error should always be the 95% confidence level, or +/-1.96 standard deviations (SD) around the statistic; I then use that to get the confidence level for a margin that is half the lead, which in this case is 1 point; 1/3 ? 1.96 = .65; taking the integral of the normal distribution from -/+.65 SD, we get that about 48.4% of the time Candidate A will stay inside the 48%-46% range and Candidate B will stay inside the 46%-44% range and Candidate A will win; it is also possible Candidate A will do better than expected about 25.8% of the time, and also do worse than expected 25.8% of the time. This adds up to a 74.2% chance for victory for Candidate A and a 25.8% chance of victory for Candidate B in this state. I collect data from state polls and put the information into a computer program written in C; if the leader's chance to win a particular state is better than 99.5%, which is to say if half the lead is greater than 2.6 SD, then I consider that state a lock and add the electoral votes to the party's total. For all the n states that are not locks, I then put them into a calculation pool of 2n¬ possibilities and figure out the probability for each of the possibilities and add that probability into its proper category, either GOP victory, DEM victory or tie.For this week's stats, Matt writes, For the first time since the Republican National Convention, my data shows Kerry in the lead. It's still very close and hinges largely on the outcome of Ohio, but it looks like those undecided voters (who are these people?) are starting to see Our Resolute Leader as petulant and impatient instead of forceful and resolved.Write to Matt at mhubbard@bay.csuhayward.edu --- Posted at 10/10/2004 03:52:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Swiftboat Liars Part II I just got a heads-up (via Brad DeLong's comments) on the next trick Rove has promised us he has up his sleeve: an attack on Kerry's membership in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Soon he will be asked to take the blame for everything that anyone in that group ever did or said. So we'll be refighting the Vietnam War one more time. This can't be a surprise, and I presume that the Kerry campaign has a sharp response and counterattack sitting on the shelf ready to throw out there -- it might even make sense for them to take the initiative, or to reopen an attack on Bush's pitiful Guard record. By contrast to the rest of the swiftboaters' BS, this is really a legit political issue, and one that Kerry should be able to make work for him. Most of the people who are going to be angry about Kerry's V.V.A.W. activities made up their minds about him decades ago. Those for whom it is a new issue might see Kerry's activities in a positive light. Here's the warning. Supposedly the ad will be out in the next few days: P.S. Here's Yuval Rubenstein's take on the situation. He believes that further recourse to the discredited SBV's is a sign of desperation, as was the early release of their first "bombshell" -- which gave us time to discredit them. Let's hope he's right. --- Posted at 10/10/2004 02:45:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Johns 
(thanks, jeanne)
--- Posted at 10/10/2004 10:15:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Who won? Blitz Wolf! --- Posted at 10/10/2004 08:22:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Our hotheaded, whiny President is 0-3 in the debates George's W. Bush's real face is starting to peek out from behind the mask. He's got a mean streak, like a lot of good ol' boys, and doesn't like it when people disagree with him. Kerry makes him mad, questions from the audience make him mad, and even the moderator Charlie Gibson makes him mad. He's been asked the same question several times by now, and is still unaware of having made a single mistake during the last four years. This isn't really the guy whose finger you want on the nuclear trigger. "What's this -- the swimsuit competition part?" asked my son when he saw Bush strutting around in front of the cameras. Bush's confrontational body language is familiar to anyone who's ever encountered an ex-con who rehabbed with Jesus and picked up the street-preacher game. Intimidating "damned sinners" is a big part of their new operation, and they are not required to suppress their meanness in the slightest. Contentwise, Bush's performance was mostly misrepresentations and demagoguery. There were some questions about Kerry's plans which might have been reasonable, if they hadn't come from the worst American President since the Civil War. (Bush is not really in a position to lecture about fiscal conservativism, for example.) Bush still has to perform one more time, and he doesn't have a lot of options left. My guess is that in the next debate he will up the ante, go even more negative, and look even less Presidential. (The pre-spin should give us some warning). Increasingly it's starting to look as if the Bush strategists plan to rely entirely on Bush's demented core constituency, voter suppression, and Diebold. I hope that we're better prepared for the post-election fight this time than we were last time. P.S. The Bush flacks choreographed an elaborate post-debate victory dance: "They high-fived, slapped backs and flashed grins at a roomful of reporters, who were still busy decoding a flurry of arguments over tax cuts, health care and the environment."The Bush team believes that reporters are weak-minded people who might be influenced by that kind of thing. They're probably right about some of them, though the reviews of Bush's Missouri performance haven't been all that great. Republicans have been reduced to claiming that Bush won because he wasn't as bad as he was last time, or that Bush won because the Missouri debate was "a draw" (which it wasn't). The six (!) Newsweek writers who produced this 1100-word piece play on both sides in a nice, postmodern way. They let you know that the Republicans were shovelling out cheesy BS, and they warn you that there's more to come, but their headline (perhaps written by a seventh person, possibly Karl Rove) just relays the Republican line: "Bush limped into St. Louis, but bounded back out—confident that his debate performance left the race dead even."Bush lost the debate and looked sort of scary, but that's not the script these guys were working on. --- Posted at 10/10/2004 07:27:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Flu Vaccine Shortage There will be around 36,000 deaths caused by the flu this year. More, many thousands more, if the flu hits especially hard. The terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon killed around 3,000 people. That doesn't begin to compare to the deaths expected from the flu, which can be prevented by one safe flu shot. So why are we facing a second year of extreme shortages of the flu vaccine? Because the government doesn't give a damn, that's why. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't want to bother with making an inexpensive vaccine when it can rip us off by selling overpriced drugs. This news about the flu shot shortage comes right after the news about Vioxx, prescribed for millions even though it has caused at least 26,000 deaths from strokes or heart attacks. And it was Merck, the manufacturer, that pulled it off the market, not the FDA, the agency supposed to protect us. I was prescribed Vioxx not long ago, but it was so expensive I decided not to buy it and took Advil instead, thank God. Advil worked just fine. Plus we then heard the news about Remicaid, which seems to cause lymphomas. Very expensive, dubious and dangerous drugs = Good for Business. Cheap, effective vaccines = bad for business. Gotta have that free, unregulated market! Ideology triumphs again; the ideology of greed. The federal government has stockpiled enough smallpox vaccine to vaccinate the entire country, and there isn't the slightest chance of an outbreak of smallpox. Remember that fiasco intended to convince us that we were being "protected" against the chance of a bioterrorism attack? The anthrax vaccine is forced on American military, in spite of the fact that the vaccine is known to be especially dangerous, although most are in regions where they don't have the slightest chance of being exposed to anthrax. I have a friend who suffered permanent neurological damage from the anthrax vaccine. Anthrax can be cured using a couple of doses of antibiotics. We get vaccines when there's a political statement to be made. Otherwise, we're told to wash our hands a lot. --- Posted at 10/10/2004 06:13:00 AM by Meryl Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
No Accountability I just had to make this my first post to SeeingTheForest because I have been saying to anyone who will listen that the most obvious chariacteristic of the Bush administation is also one of their greatest potential weaknesses. And that is their lack of Accountability. They are accountable to one for anything. It's a simple concept folks, and I believe a huge vulnerability that the voters can and will understand. Take a look at what David Broder over at the Wapo has to say on the subject (sorry I have yet to master the fancy HTML stuff): .............................. "the accountability questions for Kerry and Edwards are outweighed, in my view, by the startling refusal of Bush and Vice President Cheney to acknowledge the errors and failures of their audacious policy in Iraq. When has the United States launched a preemptive attack on a foreign nation with as little provocation -- and as spurious a rationale -- as this war on Iraq? The great selling point was Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Last week, that contention was definitively demolished in a 1,000-page report from the head of the U.S. inspection team in Iraq. Charles A. Duelfer concluded that Hussein did not possess and had no real plans or programs to develop biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. .............................. I think the Kerry and Edwards campaign should hit them hard and often on this point. This is in my view the administration of Zero Accountability. --- Posted at 10/10/2004 01:01:00 AM by BadGimp Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/09/2004 The Bush Song In honor of a comment to an earlier post... I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay I sleep all night and I work all day He's a lumberjack and he's okay He sleeps all night and he works all day / G - CE7 Am7 / D D7 GC G / : I cut down trees, I eat my lunch I go to the lavat'ry On Wednesdays I go shopping And have buttered scones for tea He cuts down trees... He's a lumberjack... / G - C Am7 / D D7 G - / G - C A7 / D7 - GC G / I cut down trees, I skip and jump I love to press wild flow'rs I put on women's clothing And hang around in bars He cuts down trees... He's a lumberjack... I cut down trees, I wear high heels Suspendies and a bra I wish I'd been a girlie Just like my dear papa He cuts down trees... He's a lumberjack... --- Posted at 10/09/2004 01:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Draft Story Everyone Should Read and Pass Along! Instead of describing and excerpting, I'm asking you all to just go read this. Daily Kos :: KOS MEMBER GETS SECRET FOI DOC ON DRAFT! POSTED ON ROCK THE VOTE BLOG!! --- Posted at 10/09/2004 01:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/08/2004 Two Days With No Limbaugh I have had an interesting thought. The debate being on a Friday night means that the public is going to have two straight days to digest what they saw without the benefit of three hours a day of Rush Limbaugh telling them what they saw. I'm not making a joke. You should not underestimate the effect of Limbaugh and the rest of right-wing radio on large segments of the country, with a resulting bleed-over to the rest of the country. Earlier tonite I thought we might see a one or two point shift toward Kerry from this debate. Now I think we will see a larger shift over to Kerry than we might have seen had this debate been on another day of the week. --- Posted at 10/08/2004 11:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Local Report Chuck Currie has a Report From St. Louis On The Debate & Kerry Rally. --- Posted at 10/08/2004 11:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Democratic Congress Give President Kerry a Democratic Congress! Click the Campaign for a Democratic Majority icon on the left, or here, and send some bucks to help elect Democrats to the Congress!  --- Posted at 10/08/2004 07:47:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Whiney Bush sure whines a lot, doesn't he? And at the end, he was shaking hands, and he refused to shake the hand of a woman who had asked Kerry a favorable question. --- Posted at 10/08/2004 07:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush Blew It - 15,000 French Troops Based on a mention at American Street, I tracked down this. Book: Dispute kept France out of Iraq: "French President Jacques Chirac considered committing up to 15,000 troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq until a dispute over U.N. support scuttled prospects for cooperation, according to a new book. [. . .] The book maintains that Chirac ruled out sending troops because of a seemingly clear intent in the U.S. administration to attack Saddam Hussein's regime without support from the U.N. Security Council. At the time, France pressed for renewed efforts by U.N. weapons inspectors to disarm Iraq. Chirac became a leading advocate for a peaceful resolution to the threat posed by Saddam. [. . .] In one of its most significant allegations, the book says French Gen. Jean-Patrick Gaviard was sent to Washington on Dec. 16, 2002, to offer 10,000 to 15,000 troops, plus military planes and other equipment for an Iraq invasion, on the condition that U.N. inspectors were allowed to continue their work."Imagine the different world today, if only Bush had only cooperated with the world... --- Posted at 10/08/2004 05:39:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How The Election Will Work Go try out the Florida Election Ballot. --- Posted at 10/08/2004 02:15:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What's Up With Bush's Health? Through t a c i t u s, this story: Bush postpones election-year doctor's visit, After undergoing his annual medical check-up in August 2001, 2002 and 2003, US President George W. Bush has put the procedure off this year until after the November 2 election, his spokesman said.Now, I'm not going to put too much on this, but remember when the Republicans were making a huge thing out of Clinton's medical records? They made it into a big national scandal! So what's up with Bush lately? He is acting pretty strange, making wild and sometimes incoherent statements. He has been falling down and injuring himself a lot. And now he is skipping his physical until after the election. Should we be concerned? Remember the suspicious circumstances surrounding the last time he skipped physical? And, by the way, aren't ALL employees at the White House required to take drug tests? Is it LEGAL for him to just skip this physical? On the subject of health at the top, what's up with the silent treatment on Bush's selection of a guy with a very bad heart to be his VP candidate? Shouldn't this be a big election issue? --- Posted at 10/08/2004 01:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Ties Randi Rhodes just said that Bush has more ties to bin Laden than Saddam Husein ever had. --- Posted at 10/08/2004 01:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I Like It I like the new ad, over in the right column, "Tell Ralph Nader to Send Back the Dirty Swift Boat Money!" --- Posted at 10/08/2004 01:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Draft Poll Poll: Youth Tie Bush, Draft Reinstatement: "The National Annenberg Election Survey found that 51 percent of adults age 18 to 29 believe Bush wants to reinstate the draft. Eight percent said Kerry supports bring back the draft, and 7 percent said both want to. A fourth of those polled said neither candidate favors the idea."It's not about who WANTS a draft. It's about WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TROOPS and will HAVE TO reinstate the draft. The real question for young men and women is, do you want Bush and perpetual war with a side-order of government-by-fear, or do you want Kerry and international cooperation, diplomacy, and mediation of the Israeli-Palestinean conflict, etc? --- Posted at 10/08/2004 12:47:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Changing His Behavior Tonite Four years ago Al Gore was criticized for "sighing" during the first debate with George W. Bush. During the second debate Gore was much more restrained, so he was widely criticized as being someone who changes his behavior in order to get votes. So, for Bush tonite, which will it be, and if he does not act like a spoiled teenager will the press widely criticize him for changing his behavior in order to get votes? --- Posted at 10/08/2004 11:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry will win the debate The Bush team is 0-2, and there's going to be pressure to give them a win just to make the series more interesting. But let's not do that, OK? People were calling the VP debate a draw for that very reason, and the Republican spinners might have pulled it off if a lot of us hadn't pointed out that Cheney lied over and over again. Don't be detached and fair-minded. This is about you and your future. Bush cannot win the debate because he has nothing to argue from. Bush has had a flood of bad news in the last week. Jobs, fiscal policy, Iraq -- the facts are all against him Don't try to figure out what the American people think about the debate. You are part of "the American people" -- make up your own mind, and then tell people what you think. The American people, or some of them, might be counting on you to help them decide. Give them what they need -- don't try to read their minds and repeat their opinion back to them. If this were an eleventh-grade debate about the death penalty, it would make sense to score it as a performance. But it isn't -- this is about our lives. The Republican spinners are desperate and they're going to fight savagely. Show them no mercy. I believe that in this debate, the next one, or afterward the Republicans are going to go Ann Coulter on us and accuse Kerry of treason or some equivalent. At that point, rather than standing there stunned or thinking things over in a philosophical way, we will have to turn our volume knobs up to eleven and cry foul as loud as we can. We're going to see every dirty trick in the book, and we have to be prepared for all of them. --- Posted at 10/08/2004 09:49:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DRAFT - Watch this now Mr Ryan of Ohio. (via MyDD, via Ohio Countdown) --- Posted at 10/08/2004 09:45:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/07/2004 Giggle Search Try a search on Support Ralph Nader for President --- Posted at 10/07/2004 04:14:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Timing is Everything Paperwight's Fair Shot: Timelines, Fear-Mongering, and Bush --- Posted at 10/07/2004 02:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why A Few Taxpayers Pay So Much Of The Taxes Stolen from the Bear Left site Fact of the Week In 2000, the 400 taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross incomes reported over 1 percent of all income reported to the IRS that year. Their average tax rate was 22.3 percent. If the Bush tax cuts of 2002 and 2003 had been in effect, their tax rate would have declined to 17.5 percent, with an average savings of $8.3 million. These taxpayers are the biggest beneficiaries of these tax cuts. To make the top 400 in 2000, a taxpayer needed taxable income of $86.8 million. Sources: New York Times, 26 June 2003; IRS report, June 2003.Update - OK, OK... The reason a few taxpayers pay a lot of the income tax is because they get a lot of the income. When the Republicans say that the top X percent pay most of the taxes IT IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE MOST OF THE INCOME. The fact is that people at the top pay a lower tax rate than people in the middle AND DON'T PAY SOCIAL SECURITY - the largest item in most people's taxes - AT ALL on almost all of their income!!!! --- Posted at 10/07/2004 10:08:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Members of the Press Members of the Press, It's time to think about what happens to YOU if Bush is still in office next year. One-party, right-wing governments have a very bad track record for how they deal with members of the press. If you have any doubts about this, look up what happened to Bill Stewart in Nicaragua. There are so many other examples, but I always refer back to this one because I remember seeing him shot on-camera. (I can't find the actual footage online -- let me know if you locate a source.) THIS right-wing crowd has a very, very bad track record in their dealings with the press. Sure, they have made more than a few of you very rich, but that opportunity lasts only so long as you play entirely by their rules and at their command. For all the rest it is threats and intimidation, mockery, lies, hate campaigns -- you get the e-mails and letters, you know what I'm talking about -- and mass propaganda directed against you. Listen to Rush Limbaugh for a few days and then tell me how safe and secure you feel in your jobs. They are telling their followers not to trust you or even listen to you or read what you write. What do you think they have in store for you when they have absolute control? Or do you think they do not intend to have absolute control? Read Grover Norquist on the subject of the future of multi-party democracy. (Yes, in fact, he DOES speak for all of the Right.) Read George Will just today. Honestly, you all remind me of my local newspaper, which carries the Mallard Fillmore comic strip -- a right-wing propaganda outlet that tells its readers not to trust, or even read, the very newspapers that carry it. Why you gotta be like that? There might still be time to get out there and REPORT what is happening. To INFORM your readers/listeners/viewers. To EXPOSE corruption in high places. You might be thinking that this is a choice between doing your job in the short term and the best interests of your own career in the long term. Cozying up to power and all that... But face it - and ten minutes of Limbaugh will confirm it - if the Right continues in power your careers are toast anyway. --- Posted at 10/07/2004 09:20:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bloggered Again Again The site is blooggered again. The archives are gone, the right column is gone... I apologize to the advertisers. I am actively looking for new software/hosting. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. P.S. Sell Google stock, this is intolerable. --- Posted at 10/07/2004 08:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/06/2004 Denver Post - Front Page DenverPost.com - FRONT PAGE. Heh. Not complaining TOO much, and I didn't ask anyone to, but if when you forward stuff you include the web address where you got it from, people can come back and get more... Update - Newsweek, too! Actually, Googling finds over 500 reposts. Cool. --- Posted at 10/06/2004 06:16:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Earpiece IV Is Bush Wired? --- Posted at 10/06/2004 04:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
E-Mail This To Your Aunt In Oklahoma Go see the new video, Cheney vs Reality, at Democratic National Committee. Then send an e-mail to your aunt in Oklahoma and your cousin in Nebraska, urging them to see it, too! --- Posted at 10/06/2004 02:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Big Cheney Whopper During the debate Cheney said that he presides over the Senate on Tuesdays and had never met Edwards until the debate. Aside from this picture of Cheney sitting next Edwards at a National Prayer Breakfast event, there is the matter of Cheney's ACTUAL Senate attendance. They just lie. Get that into your head. --- Posted at 10/06/2004 10:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Your Tax Dollars at Work! I have a new post, Your Tax Dollars at Work!, over at The American Street. --- Posted at 10/06/2004 10:32:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Partisanship again need for partisans democracy partisanship and advocacy hack and liar kevin is not a deep thinker, just a compulsive moderate "credibility" Rather liberals a representative mix in media not a time for bipartisanship Kant, Camus, Gandhi, Orwell too weighty and cheesy for a debate game too cheesy for a grave Bzrezinski--Kissinger debate primarily move in partisan game opportunism of special deals after 1980 WaMonthly wonk competence; TNR, Beck, Greenfield, DLC (Lieberman in Bush's speech today) administrative/academic non-political Germans: Mann, Weber (journalists) My sensible discussion --- Posted at 10/06/2004 08:49:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/05/2004 Edwards Won! Edwards took the battle to Cheney, and Cheney left many of his points unrebutted and had to lie in order to rebut others. Edwards also brought forward a lot of facts that are old hat to people here, but which most Americans have been previously unaware of. I don't know what the rules are for scoring formal debates, but if they allow people to win debates by lying, we should ignore them. You can say, "You know and I know that Edwards won, but in the battle of public opinion, it was a draw". Well, the battle for public opinion isn't finished. It's continuing, and we're now in the post-debate spin period. It's not hard to make a strong case that Edwards won, and we should make it. I just got myself steamed up over at Kevin Drum, where Kevin thought the debate was mediocre and unimpressive and pretty much a draw. Too goddamn many Democrats are too fine to descend to actually playing the game. They have to speak from this elevated place above the battle. But there really isn't a high elevated truth about one of these political debates -- it's all politics, and if you bother with it at all, you should play. If you're too good for this stuff, you should translate Chinese poetry or something like that. (Which, as it happens, I sometimes do). As long as Kevin is in the public sphere, he will be taken as a representative of the Democrats, and as a matter of principle, he will always refuse to act as a Democratic advocate. Which means that he will be whipped by the Republican advocate from time to time, like all the various various weak "Democrats" you see on TV. All of whom, of course, are very well paid. Poor Kevin. Update: Josh Micah Marshall, as moderate as Kevin, comes to quite a different conclusion. A foreigner points out that you don't really win a debate if your facts are all wrong. --- Posted at 10/05/2004 08:30:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
THIS is Where This Debate Will Matter Poll Shows More than 4 in 10 Still Link Saddam to 9/11: The same poll in June showed that 56% of all Republicans said they thought Saddam was involved with the 9/11 attacks. In the latest poll that number actually climbs, to 62%.What it comes down to is, if you believe that Iraq was behind 9/11 then you want to vote for Bush, and if you do not, you do not want to vote for Bush. That's what it comes down to. I think THIS is where Edwards hit hard at the start of the debate, and it is very, very important. And he repeated it. I don't see how ANYONE can come away from that without questioning their belief that Iraq was behind 9/11. --- Posted at 10/05/2004 07:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Debate Post -- Cheney Just Lies! Cheny just lies! What else is there to say? It is stunning. One lie after another. Has there ever been anything like this in the country's history? Since McCarthy's fictitious "list" anyway? --- Posted at 10/05/2004 06:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Draft Coming Steve Gilliard's News Blog : Here it comes, the Iraq War draft...... --- Posted at 10/05/2004 05:51:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Repeat - You're Gonna Get Drafted Please take the You're Gonna Get Drafted post, copy it into an e-mail, and send it to people. Or write your own version and send it to people. Send it to people of draft age AND to parents of people approaching draft age. It starts, "The Draft - A Reason to Vote if You're Under 30 You already blew it: You didn't vote last time, or voted for Nader or Bush, and now you're gonna get drafted. There's no way around it now, the draft is almost a certainty. You're hearing about Reserve and National Guard units being called up, and about people not allowed to leave the military even though their term is up. Have you thought about what this means to you? You KNOW this means they're having trouble finding enough soldiers to go to Iraq, right? Of course Bush doesn't want to start the draft BEFORE the election. Duh! But what do you think happens the day AFTER the election? I repeat, they are having trouble finding enough soldiers to go to Iraq. Think about it. Right, you're gonna get drafted."Because they're gonna get drafted and they had better be voting! --- Posted at 10/05/2004 05:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Refighting the Civil War They're refighting the Civil War right now over at Yglesias. Two of the resident trolls, Brett Bellmore and J. Scott Barnard, are cranking out their loony version of the party line (not exact quotes): Affirmative action is like lynching. The main racists are the Democrats, especially the black Democrats. Saying that racism is a factor in the South is just as bad as McCarthyism. There was no Southern Strategy, and if there was, it didn't have anything to do with race. When the Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party, it was to get away from the racism of the Democrats. Blacks are Democrats because they are racists and want handouts; it has nothing to do with finally getting the right to vote, or anti-lynching laws.There happens to be a very exact index of racism: the belief that interracial marriage should be illegal. This is not a proxy issue – there are no non-racist reasons for supporting these laws. In the year 2000, Republican Alabama voted on an constitutional amendment repealing the state constitution's ban on iterracial marriage. About 40% of the voters, and 50% of the white voters, voted to keep the prohibition. I happen to be a Yankee the way a lot of "southrons" are Rebs, and I'm not too happy with the way they've taken over our government. Someone's got to lose, and right now it's me. Hopefully in the future it will be the CCC (KKK without the bedsheets) which is on the outside looking in, and not the NAACP (and me). http://www.jbhe.com/features/37_white_racism.html http://www.hmdc.harvard.edu/micah_altman/papers/old_racism.pdf Conclusion from the second link above, a very careful study: "This gap [between publicly professed racism and the actual vote in favor of a racist law] suggests two possibilities. First, survey measures of white racial attitudes might seriously underestimate the level of white racism: Pressure to give socially acceptable answers seems to lead whites to give response in surveys that they do not reflect the choices that they make in the anonymity of voting booth. Second, these results raise the possibility that the ‘old,’ biological racism that defined white attitudes prior to the civil rights era is not as dead as some have suggested.25 As mentioned previously, laws against interracial marriage grew out of traditional notions of blacks’ biological inferiority. That such views might still persist today suggest that white racism is perhaps both more prevalent and more pernicious than many have previously thought." --- Posted at 10/05/2004 11:11:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
If Democrats Were Republicans If Democrats were Republicans, this e-mail message would have been only the first of many, and would have started circulating a year ago: How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to replace a lightbulb? The Answer is TEN: 1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed 2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed 3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb 4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either: "For changing the light bulb or for darkness" 5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Haliburton for the new light bulb 6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a stepladder under the banner "Light! Bulb Change Accomplished" 7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally "in the dark" 8. One to viciously smear #7 9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light bulb-changing policy all along 10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.One more difference, this e-mail is based entirely on truth. --- Posted at 10/05/2004 08:24:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dear Mike Iraq sucks. --- Posted at 10/05/2004 07:02:00 AM by richard Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/04/2004 Thank you Awhile back I posted a fundraising plea here. I have finally spent the money, getting a nice new state-of-the-art (ca. 2002) computer that's being closed out. It should last me for awhile. I didn't say anything about thanking individuals publicly, so I won't (for fear of ruining their lives, for one thing), but "d2" and "d a rvis" gave the heftiest contributions. (I have been able to thank everyone individually by email). If anyone wants to unload some more cash in this direction, go here. The big-eyed furry little creature (a tarsier) is the button to click. (Not the Tasmanian devil on the top). --- Posted at 10/04/2004 05:14:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry Doesn't Want To Keep Us Safe Just glancing at CNN, a guy in Ohio, business is way down... but voting for Bush because, "Bush wants to keep us safe. Kerry doesn't want to keep us safe." Right. --- Posted at 10/04/2004 04:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Eruption VolcanoCam Mount Saint Helens VolcanoCam, updated every five minutes. 
I just heard on the news that hot magma is working its way up the shaft and an eruption is imminent. That is almost word-for-word, and no one snickered.
Now there is a large bulge forming.
Update - at night you will see just static.--- Posted at 10/04/2004 02:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
PAINFUL Bush Video BAGnewsNotes: More Bush Minus the Cue Cards. Others are funny, but it's just painful to watch this one. Moolaahs. Uh, uh, uh, blink blink blink. --- Posted at 10/04/2004 11:55:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Draft Alert! The Century Foundation - Legions Stretched Thin: The U.S. Army's Manpower Crisis . From the report: The U.S. military is facing demands that are more wide-ranging and intensive than at any time since the end of the Vietnam War. But evidence is mounting that the armed forces lack the manpower to meet those challenges. The occupation of Iraq, a major ongoing operation in Afghanistan, homeland security missions in the continental United States, and peacekeeping efforts around the globe are straining the military’s capacity to fulfill the Bush administration’s stated geostrategic goals.How do you THINK Bush will get enough troops to accomplish his goals if he is still in office next year? --- Posted at 10/04/2004 11:11:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Look Over There While I'm trying to get posting to work here, go read everything at The American Street. --- Posted at 10/04/2004 11:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bloggers Bloggered Bloggers, are you also experiencing continuing problems with Blogger? For some time it has been hard to reach the posting interface, and scary to click the button to post because there is always the danger that you'll just lose everything. (Usually I remember to copy the post and paste it into a text editor before I click - just in case...) Is it just me? Is Google ever going to fix this? Or do they have better uses for their billions and billions of dollars? Better question, when am I going to switch? My first reason is that I don't know how to migrate my archives. I', "tied in" to Blogger. Second is the time to set up something new. Third is the financial commitment of signing up for a new hosting service... Thoughts? (Now, let's see what happens when I click the "Publish" button. -- First try crashed... Second try crashed... Third try crashed... Fourth try crashed... Fifth try crashed... mOK, I'll stop counting. Eventually you will see this post.) Update - I see that over at Eschaton, Atrios posted this: I tried to post about this late last night but Blogger ate the post.I can now see this post listed in the posting interface, but not at the weblog... When I click to post a message I get the crash with "Server not found." But then I see that it made it as far as Google's Blogger server... but not onto the blog itself so you can read it. HOW high is their stock today?. --- Posted at 10/04/2004 10:51:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/03/2004 Look Who's Telling Catholics What To Believe Take a look at the Kerry Wrong For Catholics website. Then look at the very bottom of the page, where it says who put the site up. --- Posted at 10/03/2004 03:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
FOX fails to fact check "Communists for Kerry" Will FOX News suffer any loss of credibility as a result of relying the assurance of the individual quoted below that his group was "not a parody group"? Is FOX News in the habit of taking people at their word and not doing any background checks about the credibility or validity of the organization they claim to represent before airing a statement? Should I call FOX News up, claiming to represent "Communists for Bush", and see if they'll put me on the air? :) I look forward to seeing an on air apologia from Ms. Roh, and from FOX News, and a through raking of FOX News over the coals by the punditocracy. Or maybe not... Regards, Thomas Leavitt P.S. It appears that they've attached a disclaimer: Editor's Note: In an version of this article that was published earlier, the Communists for Kerry were portrayed as a group that was supporting John Kerry for president. FOXNews.com's reporter asked the group's representative several times whether the group was legitimate and supporting the Democratic candidate, and the spokesman insisted that it was.... apparently, this is what passes for "good journalistic practice" at FOX News. I suggest our readers take advantage of this the next time they run into a FOX News reporter. :) Begin forwarded message: From: Tim Finin finin@[deleted] Date: October 2, 2004 7:58:51 PM EDT To: Dave Farber dave@[deleted] Subject: Communists for Kerry Attached is a note I sent to FOXNews. I'm guessing they assumed that people would see parts of their story on reactions to the presidential debate as humor. Is it any wonder, tho, that a study showed that people who get their news from Fox News are less well informed than people who get their news from other outlets, even the Jon Stewart's Daily News comedy show? -- Today you published a story written by Jane Roh titled "Some Voters Still Flip-Flop After Debate Saturday" [1]. The story quoted a number of people on their reactions to the first presidential debate. The story says: "Of course, there were some Kerry supporters in attendance who had no doubts whatever about their candidate. "We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office," said 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry. "Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush," Rob said, before assuring FOXNews.com that his organization was not a parody group. When asked his thoughts on Washington's policy toward Communist holdout North Korea, Rob said: "The North Koreans are my comrades to a point, and I'm sure they support Comrade Kerry, too." It is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement." I am disappointed that your reporter reports this at face value. Putting "Communists for Kerry" into Google turns up their web site [2] as the first result. It's obviously a satirical web site. Moreover, clicking on the "About Us" navigation link produces a page which explains: "Communists for Kerry" is a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy "527" organization that exists for the purpose of; "Informing voters with satire and irony, how political candidates make decisions based on the failed social economic principles of socialism that punish the individual by preventing them from becoming their dream through proven ideas of entrepreneurship and freedom." Our members help elect candidates who support economic growth through Entrepreneurship, limited government and lower taxes. Communists For Kerry is separate and distinct from the Communist party of America and any of its organization. None of it's members are members of any communist organizations. I'm afraid that this is just horrifically bad journalism. Were Ms Roh and her editors so gullible that they thought it was a serious organization? Or are they in the habit of not doing minimal fact checking for a surprising part of her story? Or are they in on the joke but wants to fool her readers? Or do they think that all of your readers will recognize that it's obviously political theater and not be fooled? Or is this intended to spread misinformation? Or some combination of the above? In any case, it deserves a clarification and rethinking your policies. It is just not good journalism. Tim Finin 743 Oella Ave Oella MD 21043 [1] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134268,00.html [2] http://communistsforkerry.com/ [3] http://www.hellgate.org/disclaimer/ --- Posted at 10/03/2004 03:03:00 PM by Thomas Leavitt Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Earpiece III TalkLeft has a lot more about Bush maybe wearing an earpiece. Also - Drudge and RW sites are launching an all-out "Kerry was cheating" thing, which tells me they are worried about the stories about Bush being caught cheating with an earpiece. Update - Thanks to a comment here, directing to a post at Digby, the "evidence" that Kerry is cheating -- the accusation is that Kerry takes notes out of his coat pocket -- is a video you can watch, but when you watch it, you can see Bush TAKING NOTES OUT OF HIS COAT POCKET, unfolding them, and placing them on the podium. NO WONDER they have to quickly accuse Kerry of cheating! AND, even beter, the right-wing site with the video says they had to take the comments down. Guess why? People were probably saying that the video shows BUSH taking out notes!!! Solution? Remove the comments. --- Posted at 10/03/2004 02:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
If the truth is partisan, print the truth Brad Delong and Kevin Drum have both commented on this passage by Michael Kinsley (the new editorial and opinion editor of the LA Times): "The biggest problem is -- and I don't know what the solution is, so it's not a criticism, as much as it is a puzzle -- is that the conventions of objectivity make it very difficult to say that something is a lie. And they require balance, which is often just not justified by reality. The classic thing is the Swift Boats. If you follow what all the papers say, they inch close to saying what they really think by saying, "it's controversial," or "many have challenged it," euphemisms like that. And then they always need to pair it with something else. "Candidate X murdered three people at a rally yesterday, and candidate Y sneezed without using a Kleenex. This is why many people are saying this is the roughest campaign ever."Why won't reporters call a lie a lie? Or at least (without using the l-word), why won't reporters say so whenever anyone says something that is known to be false? I don't think that anyone is getting this right. The explanations I've seen over the years include: generalists writing about specialized topics; lack of intelligence and training; both professionalism and lack of professionalism; the herd mentality of the gaggle; and the commercialization of infotainment. These all play some role, but the role of management and ownership is being allowed to slip by. The reason we have bad reporting is either because management doesn't care, or because management wants bad reporting. (Before you call this a conspiracy theory, by the way, you have to explain to me what's wrong with the idea that managers control the businesses that they're managing). A pathology of professionalism is clearly at work here. Political reporters are expected to report the facts in a neutral, non-partisan way. So what does a reporter do if the facts are partisan – i.e., if one side is lying? The current rule is to continue to be non-partisan – just report the fact that one side says, for example, that the economy is growing, whereas the other side denies it. This satisfies both sides of the professional rule -- factuality and non-partisanship -- but unfortunately it fails to deal with the question of whether the economy is growing or not. Reporters systematically refuse to say that their sources are saying things that are not true, and they call their failure "professionalism". It seems that there's really a simple answer to this: just invert the heierarchy of professional rules. "If the truth is partisan, report the truth".* So I've solved the problem, right? No. For decades reporters have been learning that reporting the truth can be a career-ending move. Seymour Hersh and Robert Parry are probably the two most illustrious examples, but there are dozens of them. (The 2002 book Into the Buzzsaw is a mixed bag of first-person stories). By contrast, media liars like Judith "I Was Fucking Right" Miller, William Safire, etc., etc., have moved always upward and onward. By watching the patterns of hirings, firings, and promotions, new reporters quickly learn what's expected of them. Since most of them have already picked up a big dose of cynicism by the time they show up for work, professionalism comes to be defined entirely in careerist terms. The professional's goal is to be as rich and famous as possible, and Hersh and Parry and their kind are pitiful losers who failed to understand which side their bread was buttered on. Successful major-media reporters are paid pretty well, so they can easily manage that special arrogance that comes from driving a really nice car. Furthermore, while journalistic standards have been gutted, reporters still can claim to be professionals, and every profession believes that outsiders aren't qualified to judge their work. So reporters can always say to themselves that their neutrality is really a noble thing, even though ignorant people outside the business fail to understand what it is that they're doing. In the media the highest management level thinks entirely in bottom-line terms, rather than ideologically. This might mean dumbing things down to get a greater audience. It might mean suppressing negative stories about the ownership's various other enterprises. It might mean trading political support for lower taxes, more favorable regulations, or new intellectual property laws. Except at Fox, direct orders to lie or to slant the news are rare, but somehow or another big embarrassing stories end up on page sixteen with headlines that contradict the sense of the piece. The stubborn reporters eventually get fired, and the smart reporters learn to read management's lips. So Kinsley is baffled. The simple solution to his dilemma is what I said: "If the truth is partisan, print the truth" -- but Kinsley can't do that. He thinks that this is because of professional standards, but it's not. It's because Kinsley is hired help. In practice, Kinsley (like most of Peretz's former lackeys) is exquisitely aware of what's allowed and what's not allowed. But "what's allowed" is not something that he's allowed to write about. * I've also proposed a supplementary rule, "Try not to be dumber than a bag of rocks", but I think that that is too avant-garde for the world of today. Into the Buzzsaw --- Posted at 10/03/2004 01:51:00 PM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Global Test Someone has to tell the peanut gallery that foreign policy has to work outside the U.S. That's why we call it "foreign policy". A foreign policy customized to appeal to the prejudices of 51% of American voters will be a horrible failure if it doesn't work in the rest of the world. That's "the global test". Foreign policy is about foreigners. I don't know how to say it more simply than that. But as O'Neill, Diulio, Clarke, General Shinseki, Genral McPeak, and General Clark and a dozen others have told us, for the Bush administration votes are everything, and reality is nothing. --- Posted at 10/03/2004 10:41:00 AM by John Emerson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/02/2004 Through the Looking Glass Through Charles Dodgson's blog I discovered that David Neiwert has a new series on the conservative movement. --- Posted at 10/02/2004 10:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
David Brooks Is a Vegetable At The Mahablog: "David Brooks Is a Vegetable." --- Posted at 10/02/2004 10:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Another Video Go see the Bush Focus Group. --- Posted at 10/02/2004 10:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Repetition Thanks to Get Donkey I saw this movie over at Oliver Willis' blog. While you're there, Get Donkey will show you what Kerry REALLY said about a "global test." (Why do the Repubican just lie about everything?) What Kerry SAID was: "But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." --- Posted at 10/02/2004 10:21:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The "Flip-Flopper" Label -- How It's Done Salon has an article by Matthew Craft today, Winning the war of words, that talks about how the Republicans are so well able to get the public to believe their misleading and distorting slogans. From the article: "After months of tireless repetition, the Bush-Cheney campaign's 'flip-flop' charge against John Kerry has become a national cliche.I'm sure you noticed that during the debate Bush kept repeating the "mixed messages" line. Over and over. Whatever the question, Bush returned to this theme, even when it did not seem to be an appropriate answer to the question. This line ties into the "flip-flopper" campaign theme, because what a "flip-flopper" does is send "mixed messages." You and I are informed and know that Kerry IS NOT a flip-flopper, of course, but what about the general public? The Republicans have spent something like 200 million dollars repeating this message over and over and over and over and over. And not just in TV ads. They are using every channel through which people receive "messages." For example, I've written about receiving e-mail chain-letters -- those things your sister-in-law from Kansas is always forwarding to you, that have about 300 other people's e-mail addresses at the top and have already been forwarded eight times -- that have as the actual message a joke, another joke, a joke about Kerry being a flip-flopper, a joke, and a sign-off about God smiling on little children or something. Well, where do you think those originate? This is just one example of manipulating a channel through which people receive messages. The result of this comprehensive message communication effort is that people who don't spend a lot of time informing themselves about what is going on in the world have heard this single message repeated on the radio, through the internet, on TV, in articles, and, most importantly, from friends. And so it has become "conventional wisdom," or what you might call "a truth" that you can not trust Kerry because he is a flip-flopper. The Republicans laid out this plan of attack a long time ago and have consistently stuck to this one theme, repeating it over and over, right through the debate and continuing with the ads they are running today. This is how it is done. From the article, 'That's exactly what research shows,' said George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. 'Repeat something over and over and it gets in people's brains.' Republicans, Lakoff argues, have found success through 'framing' issues along lines that fit their worldview and sticking to them. The Democrats aren't nearly as effective."Most people do not have time to study issues, and, instead, rely on other cues to decide who to vote for. The Republicans have studied this process and manipulate people using these cues, while Democrats continue to believe that just taking positions on issues is enough. This is why Kerry always talks "positions" and Bush always talks "values." The way to reach people is at a deeper level than "issue arguments." From the Salon article, His [George Lakoff's] book "Don't Think of an Elephant," with a foreword by Howard Dean, came out on Sept. 15 and quickly made a cameo among Amazon's bestselling books. What's surprising about Lakoff's analysis is how it can be used to make sense of otherwise conflicting ideas. His theory of political preferences, taken on its merits, offers insights into the Zell Miller enigma and might explain the mystery of why people don't vote in their self-interest. In the reality show called American politics, you don't need to master the issues to take the White House. In fact, Lakoff and many others now argue, a stance on an issue matters less than the candidate's "values," a recognizable moral system. Many Democrats don't vote for their self-interests, and, as Thomas Franks pointed out in his recent book "What's the Matter with Kansas," most poor Kansans don't either. "People always vote their values," Lakoff said. Democrats and liberals always assume people vote their self-interests, he said, like shoppers with a grocery list. "Polls and focus groups a | ||||
