From John Kerry

I suggest reading this message from John Kerry. Then go to the website to join and co-sponsor the bill to provide health care to every child. And note the line that I bring out with bold type.

I want to thank you personally for what you did in the election -- you rewrote the book on grassroots politics, taking control of campaigns away from big donors. No campaign will ever be the same.

You moved voters, helped hold George Bush accountable, and countered the attacks from big news organizations such as Fox, Sinclair Broadcasting, and conservative talk radio.

And your efforts count now more than ever. Despite the words of cooperation and moderate sounding promises, this administration is planning a right wing assault on values and ideals we hold most deeply. Healthy debate and diverse opinion are being eliminated from the State Department and CIA, and the cabinet is being remade to rubber stamp policies that will undermine Social Security, balloon the deficit, avoid real reforms in health care and education, weaken homeland security, and walk away from critical allies around the world.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted -- and they will be counted -- we will continue to challenge this administration. This is not a time for Democrats to retreat and accommodate extremists on critical principles -- it is a time to stand firm.

I will fight for a national standard for federal elections that has both transparency and accountability in our voting system. It's unacceptable in the United States that people still don't have full confidence in the integrity of the voting process.

I ask you to join me in this cause.

And we must fight not only against George Bush's extreme policies -- we must also uphold our own values. This is why on the first day Congress is in session next year, I will introduce a bill to provide every child in America with health insurance. And, with your help, that legislation will be accompanied by the support of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

There are more than eight million uninsured children in our nation.

That's eight million reasons for us to stay together and fight for a new direction. It is a disgrace that in the wealthiest nation on earth, eight million children go without health insurance.

Normally, a member of the Senate will first approach other senators and ask them to co-sponsor a bill before it is introduced -- instead, I am turning to you. Imagine the power of a bill co-sponsored by hundreds of thousands of Americans being presented on the floor of the United States Senate. You can make it happen. Sign our "Every Child Protected" pledge today and forward it to your family, friends, and neighbors:

http://johnkerry.com/EveryChild

This is the beginning of a second term effort to hold the Bush administration accountable and to stand up and fight for our principles and our values. They want you to disappear; they are counting on that. I'm confident you will prove them wrong, and you will rewrite history again.

Here is what I want you to know. I understand the strength, commitment, and passion that are at the core of what we built together -- and I am determined to make our collective energy and organization a force to be reckoned with in the weeks and months ahead.

Let's roll up our sleeves and get back to work for our country.

Thank you,

John Kerry

Go join.

Regardless of the outcome once the votes are counted. Wow. Think about what he's saying.

Ashcroft Supreme Being

Lifting the Fog:

"Outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft will change his name to Thurgood Marshall as part of the administration's effort to unify the country when making future Supreme Court appointments."

Vote Count Story

UC Berkeley Study Questions Florida E-Vote Count.

Don't Forget Poland!

Lie Girls... NOT work safe!


(Be sure to visit "Photo Ops")

From Baghdad

From Iraq, Baghdad Burning: American Heroes - and follow the link at the bottom over to Mykeru.com.

Update - Thanks to master-blogger skippy, more Iraq bloggers to check out: Raed in the Middle and tell me a secret.

Flat Tax

Cute idea, sold like this: No deductions, everyone pays the same rate. Really simple – you write down your income, you calculate 15% (or whatever), you send it in. Easy as pie.

Suppose you own a corner grocery store. Suppose you buy $80,000 worth of stuff to sell, and sell it for $130,000. Do you pay taxes on $130,000? Or do you "deduct" the $80,000 you paid for the goods you sold, and only pay taxes on the remaining $50,000? If you are allowed to deduct the $80,000 we are right back where we started, with "deductions," and we are back to arguing about what things we can or can not deduct. Tricky.

And another thing. I'm sure you have heard that a small percentage of taxpayers pay most of the taxes. (Never mind that they also get most of the income…) They pay a higher tax rate – at least on the amounts over $250,000 or so. (The pay NO taxes on most of their income, by the way, because it comes from dividends an capital gains… and NO Social Security taxes after about $87,000…) SO, if they pay most of the taxes now, but after this "reform" you pay the same tax rate as them, what does that say about what is going to happen to YOUR taxes?

(Also here.)

Does the Democratic Party Exist?

A lot of us took some serious flak for not supporting Gore in 2000, and in retrospect we probably deserved it. But I think that the traitors and mercenaries on the other side of the party are actually much more dangerous. I've often wondered whether the pros in the Democratic Party actually lose anything when the Democrats lose, and the first story is evidence that they don't. (Note the words "during campaign").

The second story leads us to ask, for the thousandth time, why Gore chose Lieberman as his running mate. Is Lieberman even capable of loyalty? His unwillingness to confront the Republicans certainly contributed to the 2000 defeat.

Throw in the fact that the Democrats are dependent on a lot of single-issue voters who are lukewarm at best on most of the Democratic positions, and you have a very weak party.

The accomodationist "New Dem" strategy is usually portrayed as a "realist" non-ideological approach intended to win elections, but I believe that the Democratic apparatchiks are realists mostly in the way they feather their own nests and push their own ideological agendas. A couple of years ago I wrote this piece arguing that the New Democrats have actually weakened the party, and I think that events have confirmed my view.

Kerry adviser worked both sides of the street:
RNC paid $93,000 to McCurry’s firm during campaign

Records show that since the end of April, Grassroots Enterprise has received $93,000 in payments from the RNC for Internet hosting, but Heather Layman, an RNC spokesman, said the Republican Party hired McCurry's firm to help deliver content to potential voters, not for Web-hosting services.

McCurry joined the Kerry campaign full time in mid-September and before that served the campaign as a member of a task force on religious outreach. McCurry took a leave of absence as chairman of the board of Grassroots when he joined the campaign. He expects to be reinstated as chairman soon.

"For at least the second time in three days, Joe Lieberman is graciously saying that if the president offers him a cabinet position, he'll take it."

"The most powerful Democratic elected leader in the country opposes abortion. He may be the best hope for the moderation Lieberman says he champions. Was Lieberman consciously snubbing him? Or is he just characterologically incapable of defending the Democratic Party? Either way, unless his goal is to become persona non grata his comments are just pitiful."

(Yes, I'm back, though still on light duty. I've made some progress in my personal affairs in the last two days, and in a couple of weeks I hope to be back to normal.)

In Our Name

Liberation:

"I decided to swim … but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross."

Unbelievable...

... but believable. Go read this one for yourself. The Stakeholder :: Rally 'Round the Family Update

New Site

Go check THE DAOU REPORT.

I'll post more later. Currently parked in an alley behind a Starbucks, drinking a Peet's, snarfing the Starbucks wireless... Went into a Starbucks yesterday to buy a (soy) latte and work but they were playing CHRISTMAS MUSIC on the speakers!!! YUCK! So I fled, tried parking by a Borders... then a library, couldn't connect... can't seem to work from home some days... nomadically wandering the broadband desert, seeking 802.11.g. Even b is OK.

Just stopping by

(All: I'm dealing with a bunch of personal business and thinking things over, but I haven't disappeared entirely. Here are my most recent thoughts, excerpted and revised from an email to Dave.)

The question I'm dealing with now is, to what extent will normal politics even be possible from here on? I expect a very aggressive Norquist-Rove push at the very edge of legality, or past it. Purging the CIA was a start. At some point your options dwindle down to being a lonely dissident witness, perhaps at great personal cost, and exile. (Given present public opinion, I do not see the possibility of much serious resistance).

So while I am participating so far in the dialogue about electoral strategy, etc., there's that second, more pessimistic possibility too. I think that it would be wrong to give up on normal politics too soon, but you have to keep your eyes open.

Recent news gives some unpleasant hints. Apparently we have now chosen a scorched-earth policy -- punishing all of the Iraqis, as if there are no civilians in Fallujah. Blocking the Red Cross, not letting drinking water in, etc. To the trolls, warbloggers, and WW IV advocates, "civilian casualties" is the punchline of a hilarious joke. (Oddly, they're the same people who are so confident of democratization, and so insulting to anyone who thinks the democratization is a fake.). It may end up happening that Bush's military actions will go beyond what can be tolerated at all. I maintain contact with Canadian and European friends and family and we're very close to that line already.

A recent government confiscation of an Indymedia server is another warning. The "accidental" appearance of a tank near a peace demonstration in Los Angeles (I think) might be another.

I hopefully played along with Kerry-Edwards even though they didn't peep a dovish peep during the whole election. But there's no need for that kind of loyalty any more.

Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias have been proclaiming that the Democrats have to gain "credibility on defense", which I assume means making loud warlike noises. That may be true electorally, but it rejects the very possibility of anti-war stance and is harmful in the world of reality. The claim of Democratic lack of credibility is really a hawkish smear. America's military policy hasn't been defensive since 1812, and the Democrats have been pretty hawkish most of the time since 1984 or earlier.

Rove, Norquist, and Bush plan to remake the United States and the world, and military activism overseas is a big part of their plan. If the Democrats fail to resist or are unable to do so effectively, I fear that we will all be faced with some grim choices in the relatively near future.

In Our Name

Fallujah pictures.

Republicans Using Christians, Encouraging Cultism

There's a great post on how things work inside of the cults, and how The Party is using them.

Yes, I used the word "cults." Question: Is the Republican Party encouraging cult-like characteristics among their followers -- especially the Christians who support The Party? From Cult Formation by Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., 1981:

"Certain psychological themes which recur in these various historical contexts also arise in the study of cults. Cults can be identified by three characteristics:

a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;

a process I call coercive persuasion or thought reform;

economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie. "

Some questions to discuss:

Do the Republicans encourage an authoritarian heirarchy?

Are they accepting and encouraging encouraging deception among members as a tool toward achieving their goals?

Are they demanding purity, with loyalty tests?

Are they encouraging isolation from outside sources of information?

Do they operate with secrecy?

Do they encourage the feeling among their followers that the world is against them?

What about the feeling that there is a near-supernatural "enemy" as an explanation for failures of the cult leadership?

There is a good checklist of characteristics of cults here. More good stuff here.

To be clear, I am asking these questions about the current, far-right-wing controlled Party, the one that is purging itself of moderates like PA Senator Arlen Spector because he does not exhibit sufficient ideological purity and loyalty.

In Our Name

Civilian casualties.

Dear World ...

Sorry Everybody.

Go to their "Gallery."

What Did They Expect?

Deputy Chief Resigns From CIA

Concession Democrat Senators voted to confirm Bush's far-right partisan ideologue to head the CIA. And what a surprise, the Right is now purging the CIA of anyone who won't be loyal to their takeover of the country. WHAT DID THEY EXPECT?

But don't worry, the CIA doesn't have anything else to do anyway these days:

"The disruption comes as the CIA is trying to stay abreast of a worldwide terrorist threat from al Qaeda, a growing insurgency in Iraq, the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan and congressional proposals to reorganize the intelligence agencies. "

Both of California's so-called "Democratic" Senators voted for this.

Concession Democrats will tell you they voted for this because the CIA needed leadership during perilous times. The agency is supposed to be keeping an eye out for threats. But this is certainly not what the agency is doing now! The agency is being torn apart and molded into an arm of The Party! These Concession Democrats just did not understand what they were voting for. This is why they keep caving in and caving in, allowing the Right to infiltrate and seize control by placing their ideologues in the CIA, the courts, and the other formerly-independent agencies and institutions that protect us. Even the churches!

If you live in a state with any Concession Democrat Senators, give them a call and ask them if they understand that the Right has an agenda that might not be in the best interests of the rest of us. Ask them why they did not understand that voting for a right-wing partisan to head the CIA was not in the country's interest.

Back to business

So they won the election on fear and phony piety. But it doesn't take them long to get back to the real agenda -- in this case the never-ending pursuit of cheap labor, regardless of consequences.

And if you think it's just the repugs, don't be naive. All too many dems have their hands out to the cheap labor lobby, too. So, today, use the "Take Action Now" gizmo at the FAIRUS link above and let your representatives know that you will do your best to destroy their careers if they continue to destroy yours.

I just used the FAIRUS web site to send a fax to Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein. It took about 90 seconds. Maybe I saved your job. Pass it on.

I'll Try Logic

AARP Opposes Bush Plan to Replace Social Security With Private Accounts.

Don't let Republican words fool you. See the Forest. We already HAVE private accounts. We have IRAs, 401Ks, and bank accounts. Replacing Social Security with private accounts when you already have private accounts is not replacing or reforming Social Security, it is removing it.

Here's the logic. When you have objects type A and objects type B, and you "replace" your objects type B with object types A, what you are left with is objects type A. Start with Objects type A and B, end up with only type A, what you have done is remove objects type B. Start with retirement accounts AND Social Security, end up with only retirement accounts, Social Security gone.

There is no "Social Security crisis." That is a lie. Repeat this over and over until the idea that there is a "Social Security crisis" starts to work its way out of your brain. It got in your brain through repetition of a lie so get it back out with repetition of the truth.

In the year 2018 Social Security stops running a surplus. That is the "crisis." In fact, they say it happens in 2018 based on calculations that assume very slow growth. If growth is normal that date moves WAY out. And if other things happen, like raising the minimum wage, that date moves out because that would mean more people paying more into the system.

The so-called crisis is not that Social Security runs out of money. The "crisis" is that the government has to stop borrowing from your retirement savings. It has been borrowing from your retirement savings in order to provide huge tax cuts for the corporations and the rich. YOU pay a tax that corporations and the rich do not pay and THAT is what they have been living on! They are supposed to start paying you back and they are telling you that is a "crisis" that will require cutting your retirement checks.

Do. Not. Let. Them. Get. Away. With. It!

skippy the bush kangaroo

Just to give you all some comfort, skippy the bush kangaroo reports: "the cleveland plain dealer reports that lawyers from john kerry's campaign are overseeing the counting of votes in ohio."

Alternative View

The other day I wrote about "Concession Democrats." MyDD has an alternative view in What You Don't Get About Kerry's Actions 11/3.

To be clear, I was saying that by holding out for a few days he would be making the point to the public that this was a very close election instead of setting the stage for Bush to say he had a Man Date.

What The Words Really Mean

Privatizing Social Security now in Bush's cross hairs:

"Bush envisions a framework that would partially privatize Social Security with personal investment accounts similar to 401(k) plans."

But we already HAVE 401K plans, and IRAs and even banks. So when you already HAVE these savings plans, and he says he will change Social Security into one of these, it MEANS that he is saying he is getting rid of Social Security.

Make no mistake about it, there is no "Social Security crisis." That is a lie, repeated so often that people believe it is true.

In 2018 Social Security stops running a surplus. That means that the government has to start paying back money it has borrowed from our retirement fund. THAT is the "crisis." Not that Social Security runs out of money, but that the money is gone out to tax cuts for the rich!

When your car payment is due, and you have spent the money on ice cream, does the bank allow you to say that the car payment needs to be restructured? Or do they say you need to find the money? Bush needs to find the money, from where it went.

Hello, Portland, Oregon

I'm still on hiatus, but if there's anyone out there in the Portland, Oregon area who's sharp on computer-type stuff, please email emersonj at easystreet dot com. I'm having trouble setting up my new computer.

Problem solved. Thanks to two STF readers who pitched in.

Never Mind

That whole terrorism/fear thing? Never mind. Election's over - no need for it now.

Financial sector threat level lowered

Officials reopen sidewalk in front of White House

In his resignation letter, Ashcroft wrote, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."

Etc...

Already Been Back

Well this is certainly going to get things stirred up in JesusLand.

You Wanna Piece Of Me?

Blah3.com - Gotta love Craig's List...

"I would like to fight a Bush supporter to vent my anger. "

Voting

Here's what I think about the issue of election fraud: We failed. 40% of eligible voters did not vote. That means that MOST Americans did not show up to vote against Bus and abu Grahib and the other things Bush has been doing.

If they sole four million votes, the election should not have been within four million votes.

Now, if later it turns out that they can absolutely prove that the election should have gone another way, that is another story, and Kerry will become President. And it will be looked into. Don't worry about that, we will know if that is the case.

Until then, fageddaboutit. There's nothing you can do and it isn't doing you any good to spend time on it. We have other work to do.

And remember, I'm the guy who told you about the voting machines in the first place.

Interesting...

From The Independent Institute, Fear for the Future of the Republic:

"The Bush administration has been able to get away with badly distorting reality because the public doesn't have as much personal experience with foreign policy and security issues as they do with issues such as education, health care, the economy, etc. In addition, many people were unnerved by the 9/11 attacks and their residual fear prevented them from taking a chance on an unknown quantity such as John Kerry. Unbelievably, despite gross incompetence by the administration in fighting the "war on terror" and the conflict in Iraq, the public, by wide margins, rated Bush as better able to fight both of them than Kerry."

This is by Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, California.

I'm pointing to this because this institute has been sending me great stuff lately, and I think they deserve a bit of attention.

PIPA (Program on International Policy Attitudes) Poll: Bush supporters out of touch with reality.

I reference this in a posting below, but I believe the PIPA poll deserves to be highlighted on its own. This poll reveals the defining characteristic of this election, and of the divide in the country: it is between people in contact with reality, vs. those with a stunning indifference to it.

Here are the first two paragraphs of their release:

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 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.

... why do these people continue to maintain these mistaken beliefs, in spite of all evidence to the contrary?

"To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq." --Steven Kull, director of PIPA

It isn't just Iraq, though... they hold mistaken views about whether or not the world supports the war in Iraq, whether or not the world supported Bush's re-election... they have no grasp of what Bush's positions on the issues are, in stark contrast to Kerry supporters, who are "much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions".

"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Steven Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."

To me, this says it all. Until the other half of the country wakes up and regains contact with reality, there isn't a damn thing we can do to change things. All the "facts", all the "information", all the daily stunners we come up with, the evidence of corruption, of lies and mis-information being spread... none of it matters, because it simply won't be processed. :(

--Thomas Leavitt

DAILY STUNNER: Fines for "trading with the enemy" DROP after 9/11

[I guess this is now a series... although I don't promise to actually post daily.

Nowadays, it seems like every time I open up the San Francisco Chronicle, I read something that just blows my mind.

Here's the latest - according to an AP analysis, "average penalties for violating the embargoes fell for every terrorism-sponsoring country after the attacks". This appears to have been picked up by quite a few newspapers (probably because it is an AP Wire store)... the Houston Chronicle even created a nice little graph representing the changes and labeled it "Precipitous Drop".

How this translates to being "tough on terror", rather than "soft on corporate crime" or "easy on corporate traitors", is beyond me... but I guess the Bush's have a history of trading with the enemy (Cheney's Haliburton too), don't they, so it makes sense that they're "understanding" and "sensitive" to the issues involved. -Thomas]

AP Enterprise: Average fine for dealing with terrorist nations plunged after Sept. 11
- MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, November 7, 2004

(11-07) 09:12 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

Despite the Bush administration's pledge to battle terrorist financing, the government's average penalty against companies doing business with countries listed as terrorist-sponsoring states fell sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, an Associated Press analysis of federal records shows.

The average penalty for a company doing business with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Libya dropped nearly threefold, from more than $50,000 in the five years before the 2001 attacks to about $18,700 afterward, according to a computer-assisted analysis of federal records.

[...]

Penalties for prohibited business involving Iran were nearly twice as high before the attacks. The pre-attack average penalty for an Iran transaction was more than $33,500; the post-attack average fine was about $17,300.

Fines for trading with Iraq while Saddam was in power averaged more than $101,000 before the September 11 attacks, then fell by more than a third to about $74,800 afterward.

Companies accused of dealing with Libya paid fines averaging more than $41,000 before the attacks, a figure more than three times higher than the postattack average of about $12,800.

[... complete article at URL above ...]

--Thomas Leavitt

Old news... creationism dominant belief of Americans.

The Chronicle ran an article today on a lawsuit filed by the parents and teachers (with the support of the ACLU) over warning labels put on biology textbooks in Cobb County, Georgia.

The labels read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material shouuld be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

The warning label was put on the books after parents complained they contained nothing about rival "theories" about the origin of life, i.e. creationism, sometimes termed "intelligent design".

That's not what caught my attention, however... it was the handy dandy little graphic illustration that accompanied it, showing that 48% of Americans believe in creationism and 9% "lean" towards it, as opposed to 28% who believe in evolution, and 5% who "lean" towards it. The source, a 2001 Gallup poll (the link is hard to read, but the source material isn't available otherwise).

Even harder to take was the fact that, for some godforsaken reason, the illustrator choose to represent the two sets of opinions in color: red and blue. Guess which side was which? You got it. A subtle editorial comment? Unconscious hangover from the election? Who knows? ...but it was really the last thing I needed to start the day out with--concrete evidence that over half of my fellow citizens simply don't share the same bedrock assumptions about reality that I do.

I don't know what that struck me so hard, given what the recent PIPA (Program on International Policy Attitudes) poll revealed -- that Bush supporters have a "tendency to ignore dissonant information" if it would tend to indicate that an opinion they hold is in error -- in light of this, their support for Bush--who appears to operate on the same basis--makes sense.

That poll, more than anything else, sums up this election for me, and the divide in the country... reality vs. illusion... illusion that refuses to be shaken by any fact, no matter how direct or tangible or indesputable (such as whether world opinino supports the war in Iraq or Bush's re-election).

We not only don't live on the same planet, we don't live in the same universe.

--Thomas Leavitt

Compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness

Howard Zinn:

We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Liberal Oasis on Concession Democrats

In his Sunday Talkshow Breakdown Bill at Liberal Oasis compares the Republican reaction to Clinton's 1992 victory with the Concession Democrats' reaction to Bush's.

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

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

He finished his remarks with:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concession Democrats wonder why the public perceives Republicans as "leaders" who are "strong." I don't wonder. Bill doesn't wonder. It's because they don't roll over on their backs and whimper, "Please like me." Instead they fight for their constituents.

That was MY vote that Kerry conceded, setting the stage for Bush to come out and claim a mandate to get rid of Social Security, etc.

Here We Go! China Selling Dollars!

China Says It Will Pursue a `More Flexible' Currency. And this, Dollar expected to fall amid China's rumoured selling


If true, this almost certainly means the long-expected "realignment" of the dollar is beginning. And this means the United States, and everyone in it, is going to have to reduce their borrowing.

We have been running a huge trade deficit, which accumulates. We buy more stuff than we sell, so the rest of the world keeps receiving more and more dollars. They are not sending the dollars back to us by buying things we make. When you have a whole lot of something the way you get rid of it is to lower its price. Because we have been borrowing to buy things from the rest of the world, the rest of the world has a whole, whole lot of dollars. And when you hear about the dollar "dropping" it means that others are lowering its price. Where they were selling dollar for a Euro a couple of years ago, now they're selling them for .77 Euros each. And still no one has been buying, so in a few weeks they'll be trying maybe half a Euro each.

What does this mean? It means everything that we import is going to cost a lot more. Things that cost a Euro before will cost two. Take a look at everything in your house that is made in China or somewhere like that, and think about that. But it also means everything we make will be in demand, which means more jobs - after a while.

But there's something else it means. Trade is not the only place we have a deficit. We also borrow hundreds of billions of dollars every year to run our government. THAT is where those extra dollars have been going -- they have been loaning them back to us. And now they are not going to be so inclined to do that. And that means that the government has two choices. One is to stop borrowing so much money. The other is to offer enough incentive that people will continue to loan them money. Incentive in this case means interest rates, and that means the end of the housing bubble and of easy credit and a lot of other things.

Cutting the deficit means raising taxes and/or cutting spending. There is a lot of room to raise taxes at the top - Clinton did this and it led to years of prosperity - but very little room to raise them on anyone else. And there is a fat chance less than zero of THIS government raising taxes on the rich! So that means cutting spending. There is even less of a fat chance that they will cut military spending, so it means cutting health care, education, criminal justice -- there just isn't much money outside of military spending so it's all going to be cut deeply...

If China and others really are finally ready to let the price of the dollar drop, it means big changes in store of all of us. The public does not realize the extent to which our standard of living has depended on our borrowing. And our borrowing might just be about to hit a wall.

Taking a break

I've said I was going to do this before, but I really need to take a break now and get my own life together. During my 2 1/2 years as a political blogger, I've let a lot of things slide, and I hope to get back to them. (One of these will be a new, less-political blog where I can develop my many other interests.)

I am not doing this out of hopelessness, though the election was a serious blow. I had hoped that with Kerry in office, the pressure would be relieved by now. That was not to be, so we're in for the long haul. But there's less urgency now than there was before the election, and this is probably the time for a vacation. I plan to be back, perhaps posting less, at some point not too far in the future.

Contrary to many, I think that there should be a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. I've mostly quit asking the Democrats to be more liberal, but I think that they absolutely have to be more effectual. One example of ineffectuality especially galls me. The fraudulent Swift Boat attacks really did hurt Kerry, and the Democratic response was initially very weak. I saw this kind of thing coming, and in February and March I spent most of a month starting a webpage to catalogue and respond to internet smears. My page attracted very little interest, from the blogosphere or anyone else, and I stopped updating it in April. I assumed then that it was just me, and that the Kerry people had someone else on the job, but I don't really think that that was true. (The one blogger who was definitely interested, Hesiod of Theogeny, apparently was rebuffed in his own attempts to work with the Democrats, and he has closed down his site. I have been told that one high official in the Kerry campaign actually told the staff to stay away from blogs entirely.)

I think that the Democratic Party is dominated by a group which is more successful at winning intraparty fights than they are at winning elections. I also suspect that they really don't suffer much when the Democrats are defeated, and are thus lacking any incentive. I even suspect that some of them, a la Martin Peretz, are so hostile to the left wing of the party that they'd rather lose with a centrist than win with a liberal [/paranoia]. Gore actually did better when he was taking a more populist approach, but his pros put the kibosh on that. I have read that Shrum explained, even before the results were in, that the message of this election is that the Democrats have to be more militaristic.

What I think that the Democrats have to do is put together a coherent message, present it effectively, and keep hitting at Bush. They do not need to move further to the right.

My recent posts have been of two types: the normal "What should the Democrats do now?" type, and the more alarmist "Watch for fascism" type. I would be glad to find out that the latter type of post is mistaken, but let's just keep our eyes open. We know that Bush and his crew are going to do everything legal or semi-legal they can to marginalize the Democrats entirely, and we should also keep a lookout for illegal and police-state actions. As the Middle East War heats up, we should expect the first people to be attacked to be the anti-war activists.

As I understand it, Bush is sure to have some combination of military and fiscal crisis during his term, and how he deals with the resistance when that happens will tell us a lot. People are talking as if he'll go quietly once the shit hits the fan, but that's what we really don't know.

Gay Marriage

There's been a lot of discussion about the sixth of the electorate which voted for Bush on the basis of "moral values". While various issues can be lumped under "moral values", I think that it is correct to assume that this phrase is a code for opposition to abortion and gay marriage. There are also questions as to whether this year was any different than 2000 or earlier years – i.e., whether the new issue of gay marriage specifically had any important effect.

One thing to remember is that the Republican noise machine will always be able to find something. In the most egregious case, in 2002 they succeeded in convincing a certain number of voters that the Wellstone funeral was virtually a Nuremburg rally. Likewise, when they needed to, the party of homophobia was able to whip up a bunch of phony concern over's Kerry's mention of Cheney's lesbian daughter. In both cases, the specific issue wasn't important. Before the 2002 election, and right after the third debate, the slime machine needed something to work with, and they didn't really care what it was.

After a first flurry of reports, many spokespeople on both sides are now denying that gay marriage was a decisive issue. However, I'm not convinced. Republicans have two reasons for denying that it gay marriage was important. First, many hip Republicans want to deny the degree to which homophobia was an key part of the Republican campaign. Second, cynical Republicans do not want the Democrats to distance themselves from gay marriage. Among Democrats, many seem to be denying that gay marriage was an important issue this year because they also do not want Democrats to distance themselves from gay issues.

Now, in my travels around the blogosphere, I find many Democrats for whom the social issues (abortion and gay rights) are the most important and almost absolute. This bothers me, because my main issues are war and peace on the one hand, and economic democracy on the other, and I sometimes find that social-issues Democrats are far too willing to cut deals with the Republicans on my issues. (As far as war and peace goes, Kerry himself was careful not to sound dovish either on Iraq or Israel. He just said that he would run the Iraq war more effectively).

Politics consists of making deals, and I'm willing to deal. However, if I suggest, as I'm now doing, that gay issues be soft-pedaled a little, and that my own issues be stressed a little more, I run the risk of being declared a homophobe. In other words, other people's issues are absolute, and mine are not.

Andy Sullivan is a beautiful case in point. For about ten years now, he's hurt the Democrats as much as he's been able to. He absolutely disagrees with me about almost everything. But about two weeks before the election, having finally figured out that the Republican Party just plain hates him, he finally came over to the Kerry camp.

That would have been worth one vote, if Sullivan were a citizen. But this was an indication that -- yes indeed -- the Democratic Party is the party of gay marriage. And so what Sullivan gave us was just a nice albatross around our neck. Thanks, Andy!

As it turned out, despite everything 23% of the GLB vote -- which is 4% of the total -- went to Bush. In other words, we traded 17% of the vote for 3%. There's a lot more involved here than just numbers, of course, but from a cold-blooded that really doesn't look like a good deal at all.

Clinton suggested that Kerry should support one of the anti-gay-marriage initiatives. Nobody likes Clinton's opportunism, but he is a guy who has a track record of winning. What would have happened if Kerry had taken Clinton's advice?

To begin with, all of the initiatives passed anyway, so nothing would have changed in that respect. As for the Presidential race, we can't be sure that Kerry would have won if he had supported the initiatives, but by clearly dissociating himself from gay marriage he would have neutralized that issue.

Ans based on my own small-town experience, I can assure you that there are lot of people who are otherwise Democrats but homophobic. One high school friend has a gay sister, but please don't tell him that. My mom has a gay cousin whom she dearly loves, but she doesn't want to hear about that either. My mom remains a strong Democrat, but I can't be sure about the highschool friend.

So is everyone opposed to gay marriage a homophobe and a bigot? There are many who accept domestic partnerships, but not gay marriage. How much is the difference between domestic partnership and gay marriage worth? (Even for most GLB's, gay marriage and related issues are seldom the most important political issues; war and peace, prosperity and stagnation, and social security "reform" affect everyone). There's been enormous progress on gay issues over the last 30 or 40 years. Do we really need to push it this one step farther?

Marriage is an ancient religious institution, and historically gay marriage is very rare indeed. To my mind there's a lot of weirdness involved in traditional marriage, but on the other hand it's central to a lot of people's lives. (Some families spend a whole year planning for weddings, virtually bankrupting themselves.) Maybe it's not a good idea to poke them in the ribs and tell them that marriage is something different than they thought it was. Let marriage be their thing.

As it is, we've lost everything, including gay marriage. For four years Bush is going to be able to do whatever he wants. Speaking for myself, I wish that this issue had never come up at all.

Poll results (thanks to Sisyphus Shrugged)

Blogging as News/Analysis Marketplace

This is reposted because Blogger seems to have eaten the previous posting!

Last week I worked at MSNBC as a "Hardblogger" and assisting with election coverage. This summer I was one of the bloggers invited to the Democratic Convention in Boston. Working with "the media" was an eye-opening experience. Usually my blogging day involves reading news sources and blogs online, and watching news and whatever-that's-called on cable TV. But at the convention I found myself "inside the bubble" that professional media people live in. From the time I got up I was working, talking to important people, blogging what I was seeing, etc. After a couple of days of this I realized I knew nothing about what had been going on out in the world, and was depending on second-hand sources for quick "bullet-point" summaries of major events. In other words I learned that news people are BUSY. And when you are that BUSY you are not able to read the news, cruise the blogs, make connections, etc.

We live in a world where information overload results in people having less information, not more.

In one of my brilliant post-convention posts, A Role for Bloggers After All - Part II, I wrote about this information isolation, and how bloggers are part of a solution:

"This is not like my usual blogging environment, with time to read the morning news and several other blogs. I grab some news off of the internet. I get information from talking to other bloggers. This is significant.

A LOT of what I usually write about comes from detailed following what's in the media ... There was almost no opportunity for any of that at the convention, and I can see how in the Washington or New York top-level journalist life there is little opportunity either.

So - special role of Blogging #2: we bring important stories to the attention of the readers, and our readers include media and political circles.

Here's why I think blogging plays a role as a reasonable, although partial, solution to the news process. Blogs function as an almost perfect marketplace for information and ideas.

Let me explain. Someone told me that now there are something like four million bloggers. Almost of all of them have a least a few readers, many of whom are also bloggers. When a blogger sees something interesting, the blogger links to it -- that's a big part of what blogging is. As soon as that link appears on the next blog, then you have the bloggers who read that blog exposed to the story/idea. And if they like it THEY link to it, and the bloggers who read THEM link to it. One post can rapidly move to two to four to eight to sixteen to two hundred fifty six blogs, and so on. Think of it as a chain reaction. One post can quickly become a subject for the entire blogosphere.

Some of these blogs have lots of non-blogging readers. So important stories, insightful comments and good ideas can very quickly come to the attention of a very large number of people. This is an information marketplace, and it is filtered in a near-perfect way. Blogging is a process where, over time, information that is interesting or important to numbers of people forces its way to widespread attention.

This blogging market process is also what economists would call a "rapid-clearing" market. This means that it takes very little time for the market forces to act and bring the market to its equilibrium. In other words, at the end of a day or two every blogger that is going to notice the posts and decide whether to add their "vote" and link to them will have had the chance to act or not.

It is not a completely perfect market, because blog readership is not perfectly distributed. There are a few weblogs that have the huge lion's share of readers. (Sort of like the distribution of Bush's tax cuts.) So important stories/ideas have to break through individual gatekeepers. One way around this is to make a habit of reading more than just a few weblogs. Another way is for those weblogs with lots of readers to make a point of bringing less-known weblogs to the attention of readers. Like guitar cases stickers that say, "Real musicians have day jobs," you can recognize which weblogs are still "real bloggers" by the number of other weblogs on their blogroll.

So I think this is an important role for bloggers, and it exists independently of individual bloggers. It doesn't matter who initially posts, and it doesn't matter on an individual level who decides to link or not, because of all the other bloggers. No individual or group can block a story from spreading. (Influential bloggers can certainly cause a story to spread more rapidly.) It is a "natural process." It serves to bring important or interesting news/stories/ideas/analysis to broad public attention in a hurry. This can serve as a filter for "big media," tipping them off to things they should bring out of the blogosphere to their own, wider audience.

Bloggered Again Again

I posted a piece about blogging as a marketplace for info. it was up for a few hours today, and pepole left comments, and now it is gone. It has simply disappeared. (Maybe it will mysteriously return?)

Bloggered again. I'll move away from Blogger as soon as I can. Sorry.

Dave

Vote!

What difference does it make?

Escalate the Ridicule

One of the silliest explanations of the Bush victory is Dave Brooks' idea that Red State people voted for Bush because their feelings had been hurt by the elitist ridicule being sent their way by liberals. Brooks is a virtuoso of silly pop-psychology explanations, and this is one of his best. I'm sure that stupid people don't like being called stupid, but they vote the way they do because they believe what they've been told, not because their feelings have been hurt.

For example, one thing we do know is that Bush voters were about three times more likely than Kerry voters to believe the erroneous Bush cover story about the Second Iraq War, and we also know that the reason that they do so is that they've been ill-served by the media. And lo! -- who is it that's been asking us to have more respect for misinformed people? It's the media people who have been keeping the Red States misinformed!

Similiarly, George Will, whose worship of the dollar is well-attested both in his personal life and in his political positions, is very proud of the noble people in Kansas and elsewhere who do not vote their economic interest. George loves those guys, because he's got them voting his economic interest instead of their own. Quite a triumph for George!

One of the messages we're being sent here is "Don't mess with our dumb followers". A guy I know has an athletic, semi-retarded 250-lb. friend who's surprisingly quick with his fists. This guy gets a lot of respect, and it's no mystery why. The Republicans are telling us that their dupes may be dumb, but there are a lot of them, and they're tougher than we are. Will, Brooks, and the rest actually have no more respect for the Moral Majority than Woody Allen does, but they know better than to let that out.

There's a second reason why they want us to avoid ridicule. Brooks and a hundred other national and local columnists got their jobs as affirmative-action, hire-the-handicapped conservatives. Repeating conservative talking points is basically part of their job description. As it happens, a lot of these talking points are stupid and are directed primarily at stupid people. So when we ridicule the talking points, it's as if we're saying that Brooks himself is stupid.

So fine, David. You're not stupid. Neither is George Will. Neither is George Bush. You're a bunch of pimps, making your livings keeping the Silent Majority misinformed. Happy now?

So I say, escalate the ridicule. That won't help us win the election, but we can't be on duty all the time, and it's sort of fun to see if the oily Mr. Brooks has any threshold of embarassment at all.

P.S. I have never understood what was wrong with cursing the darkness, either. I mean, Eleanor Roosevelt was a wonderful person, but really -- fuck the darkness.

(Un) Civil War

After the devastation of November 2nd… what? I think both solace and challenge are necessary. Lately I have found the most solace in the reflection that destruction is in the nature of things, and always gives rise to the unexpected and to renewal in some form. Let’s say Rove is successful in his nefarious scheme to deprive the Democrats of a base, by crushing all the prosperous groups that make up that base – trial lawyers, for example. Let’s say we as Democrats are crushed all the way down to the level of the common people – by that I mean that no major industry could advance its interests by backing our candidates, or giving us money. Such a disaster would give the party tremendous clarity about where its political interests and heart really lie. From that disaster a new pro-labor, pro-social welfare, stripped down, lean and mean fighting machine party would arise.

Now to the challenge.

The day after the defeat I read on Andrew Sullivan: “…the most fundamental fact of this campaign – and one of the reasons that it has been so bitter – is that we are at war. Our opponents at home are not our enemies.”

Ah… not our enemies? By one definition, my enemy is one who tries to deprive me of life, liberty, or my pursuit of happiness. To enlarge the circle, my enemy is one who tries to wreck my future and the future of my family and community.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the Natl. Science Foundation study that found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they lack health insurance. Most of us are one or two layoffs away from such a loss. By whose ‘moral values’ is the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans over a decade unimportant? In addition we are facing the bankrupting of the Federal Government at the hands of the Rethuglicans, whose congress is nothing more than a looting machine for the special interests. (So much for conservatism, southern style!) What impact on the blue states will such policies have? How many citizens who are not represented in this government will die? How many will have their futures devastated?

I was talking to a friend about the possible bankrupting of social security and she said, “Don’t think it can’t happen. I was in Argentina when the streets filled with eighty year olds banging on pots because they didn’t have anything to eat.” In the Rethuglican Congress, social security is on the block because the same crew that brought us free market health care and the California debacle of energy deregulation wants to play with the retirement funds of millions of working Americans. This is an attack on we-the-people. It must be fought.

There has been much talk about how Democrats should work up an appeal to red states that caters to red state concern for moral values. I think there is much to be said for clarifying, strengthening, and developing a rhetoric for our values. We need to bring poetry and passion into our politics. But we should not be pandering to those who have chosen to sell out their future and the future of their children by kissing the ass of the ruling class. If this is ‘values’ let them have it.

Our situation demands honesty as a first principle, not pandering. The red states are by and large centers of poverty, not entrepreneurial culture, higher education, science and the arts. Our blue state tax dollars support their failures. Now they are going to try to drive the country down to the economic and cultural level of Alabama and East Texas, and they can do this because rural areas are over-represented at the Federal level.

I think the Rethuglican voters – neighbors, friends, relatives – need to know how we feel. We need to begin Democratic soul-searching with a fearless embrace of our interests. We must put our families and communities first. Liberal politics has been saturated with guilt and a lack of confidence that comes from striving to be good yet having doubt about what that means. This era, I suspect, will fade, because it is not our ‘goodness’ that is at stake, but indeed our survival.

Another way of looking at the results...

If you take away the 2 extra votes each state gets for their Senate delegation, and go purely on a representation by population basis, Bush's margin becomes even slimmer:

Bush: 224 :: 286 - 62 (31 states x 2 "extra" votes apiece)
Kerry: 212 :: 252 - 40 (19 states and "DC" x 2 "extra" votes apiece)

The real margin of victory is 6 electoral votes, or Iowa (5) and New Mexico (3) (for example). A mandate? I don't think so.

--Thomas Leavitt

Two variations on the theme of secession...

Canada (with new provinces) vs. United States of Evangelicals.

and

United States of Canada vs. Jesusland. Here's a Jesusland decal/t-shirt: "Exiting Reality & Now Entering..."

Of course, we'd want to take along parts of Ohio and Iowa, I think. :) I guess we can have our version of Guantanamo in Southern Florida, too.

--Thomas Leavitt

DAILY STUNNER: More missing weapons in Iraq: Surface to Air Missiles

[Got this out of the SF Chronicle. Checked in Google News. Less than 10 other references, 9 of which were wire repeats of the original article (from the NYT). The Washington Post printed a story that essentially rehashed the same material without much additional reporting. I'm surprised that this doesn't have more currency in bloggerdom or the media, considering that these are the ideal terrorist weapon for taking out civilian (and certain military) aircraft with minimal personal risk. -Thomas]


Missing Iraq arms triple unaccounted-for SAMs
- Douglas Jehl, David E. Sanger, New York Times
Saturday, November 6, 2004

Washington -- American intelligence agencies have tripled their formal estimate of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems believed to be at large worldwide, after determining that at least 4,000 of the weapons from Iraq's pre-war arsenals cannot be accounted for, government officials said Friday.

A new government estimate says a total of 6,000 of the weapons, known as man-portable air-defense systems, or Manpads, may be outside the control of any government, up from a previous estimate of 2,000, officials said.

The officials said they did not know whether missiles from Iraq remain there or have been smuggled into other countries, though a senior administration official said Friday that "there is no evidence that they have left the country."

It was unclear whether Iraqi military or intelligence personnel removed the missile systems during the initial invasion of Iraq or whether they disappeared from Iraqi warehouses after major combat ended.

[... continued at link above ...]

--Thomas Leavitt

David Cobb on Slashdot

I just stumbled across this exchange between Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and various Slashdot members. Interesting stuff... rarely do you see a level of question/response this detailed.

--Thomas Leavitt

On the verge of runaway global warming?

[On my personal weblog, I have a category called "Death of The Planet?" ... the item below is a classic example. Stuff like this should be headline news, instead, it is buried on the back pages and not thought about in the corridors of power. Ratification of the Kyoto protocol and the state of the global environment should have been a major topic of discussion in the recent presidential election... wonder why they weren't? See this Green Party press release: Kerry, Bush Defer to Lobbies on Global Warming, Fossil Fuels.

I think that the cause of this can be traced to increased economic activity in India and China - more coal being burned for power, more gasoline being consumed in automobiles. ... and it is only going to get worse: GDP's don't expand at near double digit rates (or better) without increased energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

Twenty years from now, we're going to look back on this era, and wonder how we missed the many obvious signals of distress and impending disaster being given off by the planet's ecosystem. Our descendants will curse our ignorance and blindness. -Thomas]

Climate fear as carbon levels soar
Scientists bewildered by sharp rise of CO2 in atmosphere for second year running

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Monday October 11, 2004

The Guardian

An unexplained and unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere two years running has raised fears that the world may be on the brink of runaway global warming.
Scientists are baffled why the quantity of the main greenhouse gas has leapt in a two-year period and are concerned that the Earth's natural systems are no longer able to absorb as much as in the past.

The findings will be discussed tomorrow by the government's chief scientist, Dr David King, at the annual Greenpeace business lecture.

Measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere have been continuous for almost 50 years at Mauna Loa Observatory, 12,000ft up a mountain in Hawaii, regarded as far enough away from any carbon dioxide source to be a reliable measuring point.

In recent decades CO2 increased on average by 1.5 parts per million (ppm) a year because of the amount of oil, coal and gas burnt, but has now jumped to more than 2 ppm in 2002 and 2003.

[... continued at link above ...]

Blue State Independence Movement

Claudia Long over at The Smirking Chimp agrees with me. California and the Blue States should secede.

--Thomas Leavitt

3,893 bogus electronic votes for Bush in Ohio... and counting.

[A real confidence builder, eh?

Apparently, the process for identifying these errors doesn't occur until the official count takes place later this month. Which means there could be a bunch more errors out there that haven't yet been noticed (though probably not)... the fat lady doesn't officially sing until all the votes are officially tallied and certified. I'd love to see the look on Bush's face if by some bizarre chain of events, the results are over-turned. -Thomas]



Glitch gave Bush extra votes in Ohio



COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

[... continued at link above ...]

--Thomas Leavitt

More On This, Please

Mary says that reported election results vs exit polls are different for areas with and without touch-screen machines that do not have a paper trail, and that those differences always favor Republicans.

What do you think? I don't know. I'd like to see a definitive study. And there probably will be one. But it's not like we can do anything about it.

Have you noticed less spam recently?

Over the last couple of days I've been getting 5 or 10 spams a day instead of 100+. At first
I thought that maybe my host had put on a better spam blocker, or maybe that Ashcroft was
intercepting my mail, but this story probably tells me why:

"Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., one of the Internet's top 10 spammers,
according to watchdogs, was convicted in the first felony spam case...... He and
his sister, Jessica DeGroot, were both found guilty by a jury that then
recommended a jail term of nine years for Jaynes and a fine of $7,500 for
DeGroot."

Nine years seems like a lot, but probably half the jury were spam victims. I'm not sure that this
guy could have gotten a fair trial anywhere.

To Understand Republican Election Strategy

See the slave map.

Update - From Talking Points Memo:

It all reminds me of a line from a famous, or rather infamous, memo Pat Buchanan, then a White House staffer, wrote for Richard Nixon in, I believe, 1972 when their idea of the moment was what they called 'positive polarization'.
At the end of this confidential strategy memo laying out various ideas about how to create social unrest over racial issues and confrontations with the judiciary, Buchanan wrote (and you can find this passage on p. 185 of Jonathan Schell's wonderful Time of Illusion): "In conclusion, this is a potential throw of the dice that could bring the media on our heads, and cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."

And there you have it. Tear the country apart. And once it's broken, our chunk will be bigger.

This is how they did it. Setting us againt each other. North against South. Evangelical Christian against other Christians, Jews, Muslims, Gays, etc. "Liberal Elite" (as if there were any such thing) against working people. And so on, and so on...

Via a british friend

How They Will Do It

Some years back, in California the Republicans managed to get passed a law requiring that taxes can't be raised unless something like 65% of the votes to approve. Now, it's impossible to get 65% of the public to vote for almost anything, so in essence they passed a law saying that from now on you can't do this. They took a simple majority and used it to pass laws saying their agenda can't be changed should the other side regain a majority.

THAT is what the Republicans are going to do to the country. That's the strategy they will follow. Not only will they deny our 49% minority ANY voice or ANY rights in this government, they will pass laws that say anything they change now, with their 51% majority, can't be changed if WE get a 51% majority.

How Do I Get Out of the Dollar?

Question for any readers who might know: How does an average person like me "get out of the dollar.? I can't just buy Euros somewhere, can I? Should I buy gold? Thanks in advance. Either e-mail me or leave a comment. Actually, better to leave a comment to share the knowledge.

Concession Democrats

I would like to coin a term for the Washington "centrist," "DLC" Democrats that we have all become so sick of: "Concession Democrats." These are the Democrats who refuse to recognize the right-wing takeover of the country and its consequences. They have conceded at every turn, allowing the Right to advance, step by step, and finally take over.

Kerry conceded. He rolled over. He conceded in my name. HE conceded MY vote. I didn't want him to do that, but he did. And by conceding Kerry paved the way for Bush to claim a "mandate." Had he held out, even for a few more days, Bush and the Right would not have been able to come out and seize the initiative and frame the message, "The people have spoken" and begin the process of getting rid of Social Security, getting rid of progressive taxation, getting rid of separation of church and state, getting rid of public education, getting rid of unions, getting rid of consumer protections, getting rid of what remains of a free America, and continuing to make war on the world. Kerry allowed Bush to say, "I will reach out to those who share my goals." But Kerry either did not understand that was what would happen, or did not care.

Two years ago I met Kerry at a small gathering in Woodside, California. Until then I had been a huge Kerry fan and supporter. But that night Kerry talked about being for capital gains tax cuts (it was a group of tech executives), and against expensive stock options. He also said that he would not oppose Bush's judicial appointments on ideological grounds. The very next morning I was contacting the Dean campaign, because Dean was not a concession Democrat.

It isn't just Kerry. Not by a long shot. Just a few weeks ago the Democrats conceded and confirmed a right-wing partisan to head the CIA. Now the CIA is being purged of non-ideologues.

It might already be too late. But there are still 45 Democrats in the Senate. Under Clinton the Senate Republicans filibustered everything. And the result was they took control of the entire government. But the Democrats are too afraid to do anything that might cause Rush Limbaugh to say something bad about them.

Let me repeat what Atrios wrote yesterday:

"For Democrats in the Senate:

Any 'compromise' you try to achieve on various bills inevitably gets stripped out by DeLay's goons in the conference committee. Amendments should be written as land mines (metaphorical, of course) for the Republicans to trip on, not because any of them will end up being law.

For Democrats in the House and Senate: If you vote for the Republican agenda, you cannot later credibly criticize it. That's just the way it is..."

For the good of the country, put your foot down, take a stand, and block what these people are trying to do to us!

Update - To be clear, I am not saying that there was or was not election fraud. That is not my point. My point is that Kerry should have held off conceding to make the point that this is a very close election, and to blunt the Right's ability to claim a clear win.

What Atrios Said

Atrios says it and I want to repeat it word-for-word. Every one of us should send this to our Democratic Senators. (Any Democratic Senators reading this should send it to the other Democratic Senators.):

"For Democrats in the Senate:

Any 'compromise' you try to achieve on various bills inevitably gets stripped out by DeLay's goons in the conference committee. Amendments should be written as land mines (metaphorical, of course) for the Republicans to trip on, not because any of them will end up being law.

For Democrats in the House and Senate: If you vote for the Republican agenda, you cannot later credibly criticize it. That's just the way it is..."

Thom Hartmann

It's never been about the technology. It's this:

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so sacred to democracy that in many states even international election monitors and reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? Particularly a private corporation founded, in one case, by a family that believes the Bible should replace the Constitution; in another case run by one of Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly owned by Saudi investors?

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We The People and against democracy in our great and historic republic - this is the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to private corporations.

Damned

Digby has the kernel of it all:

My question is this. Is there any combination of issues upon which we Democrats could accomodate these people that doesn't include backing anti-gay measures like that? In other words, as long as the Democratic party believes in equal rights for gay people is there a snowball's chance in hell that we will be able to tear the religious vote away from the party that doesn't with outreach to "heartland values?"

I doubt it. In fact, I think that we are talking about a wedge issue that is insurmountable. Civil rights are a fundamental matter of principle, not a position on specific programs or tax cut legislation. And I don't see any possibility that we will be able to make inroads with people who believe that homosexuality is a sin as a matter of bedrock religious belief. We can field a candidate who runs a campaign like a tent revival, but this is one of those issues that can't be finessed. As long as we believe in the separation of church and state and back civil rights for gays we are not going to get the conservative Christian vote. We just aren't.

Welcome to the neo-sixties. They've found a replacement for race as a wedge. White bigotry has been less effective as a sure-fire winner for them (though still much more significant than is believed by a lot of people who should know better). Gay hatred will give them a good ride, probably not as durable a ride as white racism, but certainly as intense. And as a cute side-benefit it even attracts some of the people they supposedly just got over hating (blacks, hispanics) to their path.

There has never been any choice for us. We could not abandon civil rights, even as the original Southern Strategy proved LBJ's prediction of a generation of Democratic losses. And we can't abandon civil rights now. Before we're tempted by the prospect of repugnant and utterly useless sexual Sister Souljah moments, ask yourself how proud you are today of that kind of shameful pandering a decade ago. There's only one message to bigots: Fuck you. If you ever become a decent human being, give me a call.

If that means we lose for another decade or more, so be it. If they take us all the way to the corporate manorialism they clearly want, so be it. Maybe that's what a country this stupid, this bloody-minded, this religiously insane, and this hate-obsessed deserves. Too damned bad.

Post Election II: White Males

During my internet career, I've spent a lot of time arguing against two ideas. One is the idea that we should try to appeal to the South (which in the context of this argument includes the Great Plains and Northern Rockies). I think that the strip running from North Carolina to Texas, up to North Dakota, across to Idaho, and down to Utah and Wyoming is completely hopeless -- and throw in Alaska and Indiana. These states total about 25% of the vote, and we should let the Republicans have them.

I looked at the closest Bush states this year. In order of closeness percentagewise, they were Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado. With these states Kerry would have won 325-213. In order to get there, about 400,000 voters would have had to switch from Bush to Kerry. There's not a single Southern state on that list (Florida doesn't count).

It doesn't seem right to have the nation as geographically polarized as it is, but it's a fact of life and we should learn to live with it. Sure, it looks bad on election eve when the map turns red, but the actual numbers aren't as bad as the picture.

The second idea I often have to fight against is that the Democrats should just be a hip bicoastal party. Without the inland states from Pennsylvania to Iowa, the Democrats are no longer a national party. Some of the things Democrats would have to do to appeal to these states (as well as the states I listed above) are probably the same as what we'd have to do to appeal to carry Mississippi or Utah, but we won't need as much of it and it would be stupid to use Mississippi or Utah as our standard.

It's true that the least likely person to vote Democratic is a poor, white, married, rural, churchgoing male from the South. So let's write those guys off. But some hip Democrats seem to be willing to write off every white male who is either poor, or uneducated, or rural, or married (= heterosexual), or churchgoing. That's suicidal.

Democrats have to learn to appeal to non-elite white males. That's not really impossible to do, but we have to work on it.

DRAFT - See For Yourself

Kos pointed to this. Go read.

Dated Nov. 4

Traveling

I am traveling today. I'll try to post from airports if I have time.

Robert Parry on the media: a must-read.

Here's something from the independent journalist Robert Parry that confirms a lot of what Dave has been saying. I clearly remember that at the beginning, Air America got an enormous amount of flak from prissy liberals, and they were ultimately less effective than they would have been if they have been able to operate in more markets -- for example, in swing states like Ohio. (This link comes from Cursor's Derelection 2004, which has a lot of other good stuff too).

Plus, the evidence is that wealthy progressives still don't
"get it." Even with Election 2004 looming, Air America, a promising AM radio
network to challenge Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing talk radio monopoly, was
hobbled by the refusal of rich liberals to invest in the venture. In a new book,
Road to Air America, Sheldon Drobny, one of the network’s founders, describes
his frustrating appeals to East and West Coast “limousine liberals” who didn’t
want to engage in the project.

I have encountered similar rebuffs dating back to the early 1990s, after
my experiences as a mainstream investigative journalist for the Associated Press
and Newsweek convinced me that the biggest threat to American democracy was the
growing imbalance in the national news media. Mainstream journalists were
increasingly frightened that their careers would be destroyed if they came under
attack from the Reagan-Bush administrations and their right-wing allies.

Yet, even as conservative foundations were pouring tens of millions of
dollars into building hard-edged conservative media outlets, liberal foundations
kept repeating the refrain: “We don’t do media.” One key liberal foundation
explicitly forbade even submitting funding requests that related to media
projects.

There's more....

Clear-eyed

A diarist at Daily Kos has the clearest view of anything I've read. In case you don't get it, these people are imune to persuasion. Optimism in the face of this is not easy for me. Not at all.

This is not about Republicans or Democrats.
This is not about the war.
This is not about the economy.
This is not even about counting the votes.

This is the final step in the 20-year creeping coup by the theocrats, the Dominionists.

Read the rest.

Election not passing the smell test.

The more I think about it, the more unlikely it would seem that over 8 million Bush voters would appear out of the woodwork, in contrast to only 1.5 million additional Kerry voters (as compared to the 2000 results), given the monumental effort Democrats and their allies put on to register and turn out new and existing voters.

I want to know:

a) where these new Bush voters showed up
b) whether they were in states with electronic voting machines with no paper trail
c) whether the results in precincts and areas with such machines differ in a statistically significant fashion from:

     i. similar precincts using other voting technologies
     ii. exit poll results in the precincts where the machines were used
     iii. historical patterns of turnout and voting

In fact, I'd be very interested to see if the numbers are funny in other areas, not just in the e-voting districts, but any district where the ballots are computer/machine counted (there are all sorts of places that games can be played with the vote tallying process, not just in the voting booth).

As I recall, someone did a statistical analysis of this sort after Chuck Hegel got elected to the Senate in Nebraska using these machines, and I think a similar analysis was done in Georgia after Max Cleland lost his election (the page linked to cites an article in the U.K's "Independent" - see also Thom Hartman's evoting article on Common Dreams). Can someone please track these mathematical whizes down and get them cracking on the numbers?!?

If more than one of these factors looks funny in a significant number of locations, I'd say further investigation is merited. We may be accepting a completely unexpected result far too calmly.

--Thomas Leavitt

Election Post-mortem

(I have a 2,000 word pontification written, which I'll eventually publish part-by-part. For the moment, this is what I've got to say).

My career predicting elections has gone up in smoke. I feel sorry for Zogby, though, since he actually makes his living that way. Polling is a mess, though it should be possible to separate the wheat from the chaff after the fact.

The piece I had prepared explaining what I though President Kerry should do will probably never be published.

The Libertarian Party should dissolve. If they can't get votes this year, they'll never be able to. The national Greens should dissolve too, for slightly different reasons.

The gist of the comment I've seen around and about is, "Don't mourn, organize". Along with this is a realization that there really are a lot of right-wingers out there.

I completely endorse the various proposals to build a liberal infrastructure. Soros should start writing big checks.

However, as I've said, I really fear that Bush will use his executive control of the political agenda to keep Democrats permanently off-balance, as they try to respond to one adventurist initiative after another. I really believe that these are not normal times, and that people who pretend that they are ("Just one election, and a close one at that") are missing the point. The Movement Conservatives sense blood in the water. Time will tell how rough it will get, but Grover Norquist plans to turn the US into a one-party state.

The ridicule directed at the Bush people after the Suskind article was wrong-headed. The Republican program is not business as usual, but venturesome, inventive, and transformational. That's what the guy was trying to say.

Smooth transition

I have transitioned seamlessly from PEAD (pre-election anxiety disorder) to PEAD (post-election anxiety disorder).

My only solace is living in maybe the sanest county in the country:

SUMMARY REPORT             SAN FRANCISCO               UNOFFICIAL RESULTS #3

                         GENERAL ELECTION

                         NOVEMBER 2, 2004

RUN DATE:11/02/04 10:51 PM



                                                     VOTES PERCENT



         PRECINCTS COUNTED (OF 578).  .  .  .  .       578  100.00

         REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL .  .  .  .  .   486,937

         BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL.  .  .  .  .  .  .   271,058

         VOTER TURNOUT - TOTAL  .  .  .  .  .  .             55.67



        PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT

        Vote for  1

         KERRY/EDWARDS (DEM) .  .  .  .  .  .  .   222,013   82.75

         BUSH/CHENEY (REP).  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    41,157   15.34

Another solution: Annex Canada

More than enough Provinces (read "states") and votes up there to counter-balance Red State America. :)

4 in 10 Americans already support the idea.

Alternatively, we could have Canada annex the West Coast... which would really be the West Coast Republic annexing Canada. Why not, when they have a functioning single-payer health care system (which California is only beginning to explore with AB921), a functioning and publicly financed multi-party system that is even beginning to explore proportional representation and no expensive and deadly pretensions to empire (a value we here on the West Coast share -- we're all about economic and cultural imperialism, not military imperialism).

--Thomas Leavitt

Up the level of resistance!

Call your Senator today (if they're a D) and make it absolutely clear that you expect them to fight tooth and nail against the Bush agenda, and especially against any attempts by Bush to pack the Supreme Court with extreme right-wing nutballs. Filibuster is the word of the day. Tell them that you expect them to hold their colleagues feet to the fire and not give any passes. Call your House member today, and say the same thing. Tell all your friends to do the same. We need to do everything possible to put some spine into our representatives (given that almost no incumbent House members were dumped this time around, the excuse of needing to get re-elected wears a bit thin).

--Thomas Leavitt

Nick Kristof is Not a Nitwit

Living Poor, Voting Rich

One of the Republican Party's major successes over the last few decades has been to persuade many of the working poor to vote for tax breaks for billionaires. Democrats are still effective on bread-and-butter issues like health care, but they come across in much of America as arrogant and out of touch the moment the discussion shifts to values.

"On values, they are really noncompetitive in the heartland," noted Mike Johanns, a Republican who is governor of Nebraska. "This kind of elitist, Eastern approach to the party is just devastating in the Midwest and Western states. It's very difficult for senatorial, Congressional and even local candidates to survive.

[. . .] Democrats peddle issues, and Republicans sell values."

Let me inject this into the coming conversation: I think we should move the Democratic Party out of Washington.

I think Howard Dean should be drafted by the blogosphere to run the Democratic National Committee.

I think the Democratic Leadership Council's (so-called "centrist" arm of the Democratic Party) point about reaching out to the vast middle is valid but I don't agree at all with them that becoming what the Right has been able to define as "centrist" is the way to do it. Corporatism, greed, deregulation and economic inequality are wrong, immoral and bad politics. Just because the Right has been able to create a "conventional wisdom" doesn't mean we have to accept it. Their argument is that this is what the middle wants so the Democratic Party should accept reality and change to match the "facts on the ground." My argument is that we need to get back into that national conversation and show them why they don't really benefit from the Right's agenda. We can change minds.