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August 31, 2004

MSNBC SUCKS

Yeah, it looks like MSNBC got the message that some on the left think it may be something more than a mouthpiece for the RNC. Look at today's poll about Giuliani's speech. Tomorrow - Have President Bush's tax cuts made your life awesome or just way better?

In case the front page has changed, the poll today said: Did Rudy Giuliani's speech reassure you or move you to support the Bush-Cheney ticket?

Cross posted at my blog

Posted by eRobin at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

Just So We're Clear About What Our Soldiers are Dying For

Naomi Klein has a very detailed, very well researched article in the September Harper's called, "Baghdad Year Zero, Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia." It lays out the only plan that BushCo seemed to have going into this nightmare, which was 'Hey, kids! Let's destroy a country so we can perform the ultimate economic experiment."

Klein contends that while BushCo critics claim that the problem with Iraq is that Dear Leader didn't have a post-war plan, the truth is that he did and we are seeing the results of it every violent, bloody day:

The Bush Administration did have a plan for what it would do after the war; put simply, it was to lay out as much honey as possible, then sit back and wait for the flies.

The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war's ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good just for them and their friends, but good for humanity, and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need or want. ... The problem is that governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove their sacred theory right; despite their enormous ideological advances, even George Bush's Republicans are, in their own minds, perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and alarmist environmentalists.

snip

The fact that the boom never came and Iraq continues to tremble under explosions of a very different sort should never be blamed on the absence of a plan. Rather, the blame rests with the plan itself, and the extraordinarily violent ideology upon which it is based.

One more excerpt:

Torturers believe that when electrical shocks are applied to various parts of the body simultaneously subjects are rendered so confused about where the pain is coming from that they become incapable of resistance.

snip

That, in essence, was the working thesis in Iraq, and in keeping with the belief that private compaines are more suited than governments for virtually every task, the White House decided to privatize the task of privatizing Iraq's state-dominated economy.

Buy the magazine to read how - it's grimly fascinating. Just keep in mind how many innocent people died for this experiment to happen - so that the Iraqis would be in so much pain that they wouldn't be able to resist what was happening to them. This never was about freedom and democracy in the Middle East. It was about allowing the multinational corporations that already own the USA an opportunity to broaden their markets. It's about building a new world order with corporations acting as states and with the economy of existiing states in such disarray (witness the path of the US today) that they have no choice but to comply with what the multinationals, via agencies like the WTO, demand. It is the ultimate treason to sign on to this plan and the current administration hasn't only signed on, they are some of its architects.

There's a related, shorter story of how the Iraq Experiment is working in the Aug 30 Nation. It's linked here.

Cross posted at my blog.

Posted by eRobin at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

Another War that Can't Be Won

Since BushCo is now conceding defeat in his War on Terra, maybe he should read John Burns' and Erik Eckholm's front page NYT story about Iraq and start to figure out how he's going to deal with that unwinnable war as well. It's a very long article so you have to read it all, but here are some excerpts. Any emphasis mine and I'm sorry that I don't know how to do that cool box thing that Sean does.

While American troops have been battling Islamic militants to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq.
Advertisement

Both of the cities, Falluja and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias, with American troops confined mainly to heavily protected forts on the desert's edge. What little influence the Americans have is asserted through wary forays in armored vehicles, and by laser-guided bombs that obliterate enemy safe houses identified by scouts who penetrate militant ranks. Even bombing raids appear to strengthen the fundamentalists, who blame the Americans for scores of civilian deaths.

American efforts to build a government structure around former Baath Party stalwarts - officials of Saddam Hussein's army, police force and bureaucracy who were willing to work with the United States - have collapsed. Instead, the former Hussein loyalists, under threat of beheadings, kidnappings and humiliation, have mostly resigned or defected to the fundamentalists, or been killed. Enforcers for the old government, including former Republican Guard officers, have put themselves in the service of fundamentalist clerics they once tortured at Abu Ghraib.

Those are the first three paragraphs and basically the whole story. But there are other, disturbing word choices like:

The situation across Anbar represents the latest reversal for the First Marine Expeditionary Force, which sought to assert control with a spring offensive in Falluja and Ramadi that incurred some of the heaviest American casualties of the war, and a far heavier toll, in the hundreds, among Falluja's resistance fighters and civilians. The offensive ended, mortifyingly for the marines, in a decision to pull back from both cities and entrust American hopes to the former Baathists.

and

The militants' principal power center is a mosque in Falluja led by an Iraqi cleric, Abdullah al-Janabi, who has instituted a Taliban-like rule in the city, rounding up people suspected of theft and rape and sentencing them to publicly administered lashes, and, in some cases, beheading.

and

Still, Marine commanders at Camp Falluja, a sprawling base less than five miles east of the city, have been telling reporters for weeks that the city has become little more than a terrorist camp, providing a haven for Iraqi militants and for scores of non-Iraqi Arabs, many of them with ties to Al Qaeda, who have homed in on Falluja as the ideal base to conduct a holy war against the United States.

and

But leaving the militants in control could pose a disabling threat to American political plans, which may already have been shaken more than American officials will admit by events in Najaf. Top American officials say that events there, with Moktada al-Sadr's militiamen finally driven from the Imam Ali Shrine, have set the stage for a turn in American fortunes across the Shiite heartland of Iraq. But even there the prospects seem deeply clouded by the failure to effectively disarm Mr. Sadr's surviving fighters as they left the shrine with shouldered rifles and donkey carts loaded with rockets.

What the hell are we doing in Iraq? And what have we done to these people? And to our own soldiers, who trusted this government to take their lives and service seriously.

Burns also talks about spy chips that allow for those pinpoint bombings of resistance safe houses. He describes the grisly execution of a man suspected of planting a chip. And the tone of the piece is either hopeless or realistic or both. Read it all, but have a plan to do something uplifting afterwards or you may ruin your whole day.

cross posted at my blog.

Posted by eRobin at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

August 30, 2004

Bush: 'War on terror cannot be won'

The Guardian Reports:

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

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

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

(Emphasis Mine)

Now, let's compare this to some of his previous statements:

--- "The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail."

--- "The evil ones have roused a mighty nation, a mighty land. And for however long it takes, I am determined that we will prevail. And prevail we must, because we fight for one thing, and that is the freedom of our people, and the freedom of people everywhere."

--- "It is clear that the future of freedom and peace depend on the actions of America. This nation is freedom's home, and freedom's defender. We welcome this charge of history, and we are keeping it. (Applause.) The war on terror continues. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. This country will not rest, we will not stop, we will not tire, until this danger to civilization is removed."

--- "What our enemies have begun, we will finish."

--- "This will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory."

Please tell your republican friends, they really deserve to know.

Posted by Chepooka at 6:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

Drudge is a douche, Part a Million

****** NOSEY ONLINE WORLD EXCLUSIVE ****** I won't link to his sorry ass, but he's saying the Kerry daughters were jeered at the MTV video awards. But, well, CNN sez:

It was unclear exactly whom the cheers and the boos were meant for or why. They began immediately after radio and MTV personality Carson Daly introduced "from New York, Barbara and Jenna Bush and here in Miami, Vanessa and Alexandra Kerry."

DEVELOPING ...

[hehe -- a cross-posted world exclusive.

Posted by Justin at 11:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) |

Conventional Depression

So, has anyone got some tips on how to get through Convention Week? Thank goodness I don't get CNN or FOX but the fawning coverage on MSNBC last night was nauseating. Matt Lauer's infomercial with Dear Leader is beneath contempt. There's expanded coverage on all the networks. The NYT is competely in the tank - and not the good one over on 42nd St. If it weren't for Air America Radio, I wouldn't be able to listen to the radio at all.

Anybody have any advice on how to survive the week?

Posted by eRobin at 10:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) |

August 28, 2004

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

In my case, it looks like a very tired woman in a bright pink shirt.

The March for Women's Lives today was a big success - double the expected crowd. The organizers expected 10K and Reuters is reporting 20K so you know there must have been at least that many. There were no problems, no arrests that I have heard of, lots of cops looking either bored or angry along the route and two small crowds of anti-choice groups that were chanted down by 20,000 of us as we passed.

The march across the bridge ended on a street next to City Hall Park - which looked extra beautiful and shady to all the people stuck on the pavement in the sun. A lot of people left once they got over the bridge, including me, because it was too much to stand there in the heat.

The crowd was, of course, mostly women, but there were plenty of men too. It was funny - at the step off point, which was Cadwell Park in Brooklyn, the focus of the crowd was very political and all-business. Kids were passing out MoveOn flyers to get people to work in swing states. Other interest groups, like people working to repeal the Hyde Amendment, were passing out flyers. The NYCLU was handing out pamphlets that told you how to handle the police. People sold for donations/gave away homemade patches and buttons. It was great.

But at the endpoint, there were the groups that were harder to take seriously, although I'm sure the cross-dressed singing group had a good point to make and the giant, pink, naked female torso make an equally good pro-choice argument. The same goes for the human Statue of Liberty holding the sign "No Bush in My Puss", which is an idea that everyone, with the possible exception of Peggy Noonan, can get behind. In fact, there was a lot of shirts and signs at both ends taking advantage of BushCo's unfortunate last name. It seemed like shooting fish in a barrel to me, but to each her own.

The actual march was huge - it took the group I marched with almost two hours to get over the bridge. The cops along the route were, as I said, looking either bored or angry. At one point, just as we were coming up on the bigger of the two anti-choice groups, I tried to get sections of the marchers to chant - I'm big on chanting during a march because I'm a union gal and that's what good marchers do AND there was no way I was going to let us walk silently by the shouting screwballs with posters of dead fetuses. I'm pretty sure a line of cops walked slowly between me and the marchers to break up any momentum I was building. I've been in other marches during which chanting was stymied by the specifics of the permit (the people in power are such cowards), so I'm not surprised that the cops were doing something like that today. But other than that, they weren't a problem.

The attitude of the marchers was unfailingly upbeat and helpful, if not exactly friendly. I think a lot of people were nervous given the increased police presence and the media hype about all the danger inherent in exercising our rights to peaceful protest. Also, there was a deep feeling of exactly what is at stake in November for us and women around the world and that sort of weighted the mood of the day. The organizers were quick to make the point that we are the side that is pro-life. Restricting birth control, real sex-ed and access to safe abortions around the world and at home all lead to more dead fetuses and dead women. It's sobering to consider.

I'm eager to hear how tomorrow goes. There will be more marchers and the press has been even more hysterical so the anxiety level will be that much higher. My bet is that once the protesters all get together, they'll get into the spirit of the day, draw a lot of strength from each other (which is the point) and be able to relax and enjoy themselves at least a little bit.

If you're going in during the week - and I hope you do - here's a tip I didn't read anywhere else: bring some toilet paper or Kleenex. A lot of bathrooms are out of paper. At the park, a few of us used what we thought was the empty men's room, when the line for the ladies' room was too long. When I had to ask the person next to me for toilet paper, I heard a baritone "Umm." Poor guy. He had to pass paper from the lady in the stall on his other side to me. So lesson learned.

Pictures from the rest of my day are here. I had time to check out the Tank, where the left will be blogging the convention. It's the perfect space for lefty blogs. It's a very small theater-type storefront with two floors and a bar with water and snacks for sale/donation. The people are very nice and helpful and the atmosphere is just what you would expect from a lefty blogger space. Check it out.

cross posted at my blog

Posted by eRobin at 11:44 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) |

Aw hell no!

Link:

When Erin Siegal heard one of the many soirees linked to the Republican National Convention included a celebration of Johnny Cash, the Man in Black fan said she just had to do something.

"A lot of his political songs really represented issues the Republicans don't really seem to care about very much," Siegal said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I find this really offensive, for his name or his memory to be used like this."

...

Cash's daughter, Rosanne Cash, who has been linked to Democratic causes, released a statement saying the Cash estate did not object to the Sotheby's party.

She said the party was approved based on the "personal relationship between our family and (Sen. Alexander), NOT as a show of support for the Republican agenda."

But she said the estate had some objections to the party invitations, which "seemed to play rather fast and loose with the image of my Dad ... As soon as we found out about this, it was stopped. With a resounding thud."

Some sample lyrics:

Now this should be a lesson if you plan to start a folk group
Don't go mixin' politics with the folk songs of our land
Just work on harmony and diction
Play your banjo well
And if you have political convictions keep them to yourself

Now, the one on the left works in a bank
And the one in the middle drives a truck
The one on the right's an all-night deejay
And the guy in the rear got drafted

And, uh, this should make it pretty clear to the GOP that Johnny Cash was not one of them:

He’d been playing in prisons for more than 10 years when he recorded his legendary live prison records in San Quentin and Folsom in the late 1960s. "I really was interested in some kind of prison reform," he said in a 1994 interview, "but I don’t think that’s the answer. The answer is out on the street. Jobs. Opportunities. Racial prejudice is another thing that’s wrong, and a reason for the crime and the drugs, too."

Cash was inspired by the movements of the 1960s and spent months reading about the plight of Native Americans. The result was his record Bitter Tears and the song "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," the true story of a Pima Indian who helped raise the flag at Iwo Jima in World War Two, but faced bigotry and rejection when he came home. In the end, "He died drunk one mornin’/Alone in the land he fought to save/Two inches of water in a lonely ditch/Was a grave for Ira Hayes."

...

He performed "Man in Black" on the show. "I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down/Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town/I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime/But is there because he’s a victim of the times."

...

A story told by Kris Kristofferson probably best sums up Johnny Cash. "I opened for John in Philadelphia a few years ago, and I dedicated a song to Mumia Abu-Jamal," Kristofferson told Rolling Stone magazine in 2000. "The police at the show went ballistic. After I came off, they said that I had to go out and make an apology. I felt pretty bad, because it was John’s show. But John heard about it and said to me, ‘Listen, you don’t need to apologize for nothin’. I want you to come out at the end of the show and do "Why Me" with me.’ So I went out and sang with him. John just refuses to compromise."

[Cross-posted to AP]

Posted by Justin at 2:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

I Have Arrived

I'm sitting in the cyber cafe of my new apartment community. Christine and I are about to get the keys to the place. Just wanted everyone to know we got here fine. Be back later with some more info. Good luck eRobin!

Posted by sean at 12:06 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) |

March for Women's Lives

Okay, so I'm on my way to the march across the Brooklyn Bridge, which should be cool because I've never seen that bridge and I've heard that it's for sale.

I spent the whole night not sleeping, worried about the cost of exercising my civil rights. But one thing occured to me and that's this. I will never again take for granted the enormous sacrifice made by people who protested against popular causes - the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, abolitionists, suffragettes, labor organizers, civil rights workers in the 60s, women's rights, anti-war protesters in every war. There's nothing fun about standing up for rights or causes that the rest of the country doesn't believe in.

I'm not helping slaves escape or breaking an unjust law so that others have better lives. I'm only going to one, well-organized, permitted march where there won't be dogs, firehoses and guns aimed at me. I won't have to go into hiding or lie to my friends and family afterwards. And I'm still nervous.

Gotta go.

cross posted at my blog

Posted by eRobin at 7:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

August 27, 2004

Ben Barnes Apologizes for Helping George W. Bush Jump Ahead of Others and Into the TANG

Dr. Josh has a link to a video of Ben Barnes apologizing for his part in helping rich people get out of serving their country during wartime. He has the clip's bona fides and the link here . Tell your friends to watch it, because it's a cinch that the corporate press won't touch it.

Josh also has a related post on an answer BushCo gave during a debate with Ann Richards about how he got into the guard. Needless to say, he's "sure" that nobody helped on his behalf.

Cross posted at my blog.

Posted by eRobin at 8:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

'Political terrorists'

Link (thanks Cory):

The Kerry campaign thinks it has succeeded in discrediting the scurrilous attack on Kerry’s military service, but Rove got what he wanted. Instead of talking about a failed war in Iraq and a new report that shows 1.3 million more Americans living in poverty, we’re debating what happened in the Mekong Delta in 1968. The strategy “came straight from the West Wing,” says the GOP staffer. “Nobody should be confused.” Asked to explain, this Republican says Rove is smart enough to keep technical distance. But all it takes is a well-placed wink to activate a web of Bush family hit men, confidantes and deep-pocket donors. “They know what to do—it’s like sleeper cells that get activated,” he says, likening the players to “political terrorists.”

...

My Republican mole on Capitol Hill says the green light has gone out to Republicans to do whatever it takes to get Bush elected. “This is the way we hold onto power,” he says with disgust. Pollster John Zogby’s survey of battleground states taken last week as the Swift Boat controversy raged shows no fundamental change in the race. “It’s running its course, and it may boomerang,” he says of the attack on Kerry’s heroism. The fact that the sleeper network has gone nuclear is evidence of Bush’s weakness, not his strength, says Zogby. “If [the Bush team] weren’t seeing serious damage, they wouldn’t be hitting so hard so early. The president is on the ropes; there’s no other way of looking at it.”

...

The irony is that Kerry does have courage—the very quality this smarmy campaign seeks to denigrate. The rap on him is that he is slow to battle, that it takes a near-death experience to get him fully engaged. By assailing his heroism, the GOP may have done Kerry a favor. Maybe they’ve awakened a sleeping giant.

Let's hope.
[Cross-posted to AP]

Posted by Justin at 6:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

Some NYC Protest Info

Sean said he wouldn't mind some protest news, so here's something I cross posted at my blog:

The People for the American Way have some great events lined up for Convention Week:

Join us in celebrating the American Way and our First Amendment right to free speech and peaceful assembly during:

* A reading of the Constitution by stars, leaders and first responders hosted by PFAW Foundation,
September 1

* An ‘unemployment line’ made up of 5,000 pink-slip waving participants, September 1

* A discussion of George W. Bush's record by six authors of best-selling books on the Bush-Cheney
administration, August 30

The book event will have Krugman, Ivins, Joe Wilson, Craig Unger, Conason and Mark Green as the panel. It's sounds great.

The Unemployment Line is also a good idea.

The predictably scary headliines about the protests have been showing up for over a week now. And the protests have started too. This story from today's NYT lets unpermitted protesters get the idea of what they'll be up against: (emph mine)

In the third event, members of a group called Operation Sibyl rappelled down the front of the Plaza Hotel to drape its facade with a giant anti-Bush banner. A police officer responding to the scene was injured on the roof of the hotel, and four of the people arrested were charged with felony assault, an indication that the police plan to deal harshly with certain protesters. According to the police, the officer received 38 stitches for injuries to his leg.

A lawyer for the group said that the assault charge was inappropriate because the officer was injured falling through a skylight that one of the protesters had warned him was cracked.

"It is really a bogus charge, probably to try to scare off future demonstrators," said Gerald B. Lefcourt, adding that he had been defending protesters since the Vietnam era and had never seen an assault charge applied in a similar situation. "Assault requires an intent to cause injury and taking steps to cause that injury," he said.

The NYT, always helpful to the empowered elite, ends the story with a negative quote from a spectator:

The protest elicited stares and gasps from people who gathered around them. "Think of the children," two people cried out. (you just have to laugh at that if you're a Simpsons fan - ed.)

"I really think this is very disrespectful to New Yorkers because this is our town," said Gerard Schneyer, who works in the area. "If they want to do something like that they should go someplace else where they don't disrupt the traffic. Besides no one is really paying attention right now, at least not until Sunday."

I guess the reporter could only find people at the scene who didn't support the protests, which is fine if it's true. But it would have been just neat if the paper found more room to look at the fact that according to a Quinnipiac University poll, 81% of the city's registered voters approve of lawful protests during the convention and that 11% want to participate in one. We'll see what the coverage looks like in the week ahead.

Posted by eRobin at 12:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) |

Good News from the Ginny Schrader Campaign - She's Made the Latest Dean Dozen List

I posted this at Fact-esque but I'm going to post it here too for the exposure. Winning back the House is a national issue after all.

Ginny Schrader has been named to the latest Dean Dozen list, which is very exciting for the campaign. The announcement comes at a good time for Ginny since the campaign is gearing up for the big fall push. Her inclusion on the Dean Dozen candidate list should bring another level of national exposure to the campaign, which can only help with fundraising.

She's really the perfect Dean Dozen candidate and should have been on the first list, but as long as Saint Greenwood was running, I guess nobody wanted to bother. Now Greenwood is out and we are very lucky that Ginny is there to capitalize on that. That is why Dean is always saying to leave no seat unchallenged. Can you imagine if we had left the seat unchallenged this time? Ginny couldn't. She thought about the importance of this election. She looked at the 38% of the vote that the massively underfunded write-in challenger to Greenwood's throne received during the last election and she saw an opening.

Ginny retired from her vice-presidency at a major firm and stepped up with her own money to start a campaign. She went to house parties and meet-ups and a hundred other small events to get her message out. She consistently pointed out how the "moderate" Jim Greenwood had crummy approval ratings from nearly every group that moderates traditionally care about, including the Sierra Club and labor organizations. The only socially progressive group that liked him (beyond reason if you ask me) was Planned Parenthood. They didn't get the idea that a friendly lone senior congressman in a hostile congress doesn't get you nearly as much as a friendly congress - even if getting that means losing one of your only voices for choice on the GOP side of the aisle.

So Ginny was faced with the challenge of convincing the voters that their hero was a wolf in sheep's clothing as well as working from a pro-choice perspective with a Planned Parenthood that would have supported, if not endorsed, the incumbent Greenwood since he was the incumbent. She faced a local press that considered Greenwood representative-for-life. And she took all that on without the encouragement of a single heavy hitter in the national party. That's the kind of fearless, principled women Ginny is. Now she's in a position to take the seat out of GOP control as well as to give this district their first female representative ever.

There could not be a clearer choice in this race given the contentious climate in the House. Any Republican that makes it out of the district will be beholden to the wingnuts of the party and the destructive machinations of Tom DeLay and his ilk. That scenario affects not only the PA-8th but the entire country. We don't need another footsoldier for DeLay and his cronies. Democracy for America knows that and they know that this seat is a winnable one for the Dems. But Ginny needs all kinds of support. The GOP is flooding this race with time and money. They know what is at stake. So, if you live in the district, please contact the campaign to volunteer. If you live out of the district, but you don't want to see it fall into the hands of the radical right, then give what you can to Ginny's campaign at ActBlue.org. There hasn't been a lot of activity in her account lately, so help turn that around today! (resident donations welcome there as well)

Posted by eRobin at 9:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

August 26, 2004

Democracy for sale?

Voting machine companies -- with heavy GOP ties -- may be trying to buy off local government officials.

Read David Corn's latest, and tell me your fears aren't growing.

At a time when there is much controversy over electronic voting and some election experts are raising concerns about the integrity of such voting, should the leading manufacturers of electronic voting machines be wining and dining state and local officials responsible for conducting elections? Well, they are.

...

As gatekeepers, they should not be accepting libations, nourishment, and entertainment from the companies they must negotiate with, evaluate, and oversee. The Election Center's board of directors includes the executive secretary-director of North Carolina's board of elections, the secretary of state of Colorado, and the Pennington County (South Dakota) auditor, and the outfit notes, "It is our sacred honor to protect and promote a public trust and confidence by our conduct of accurate and fair elections. As the public's guardians of freedom within a democratic society, we are responsible for the integrity of the process." To maintain that integrity and to promote public confidence, they should not accept gifts from the controversial manufacturers of controversial voting machines. That seems a no-brainer.

I called the Election Center to speak with a representative but did not hear back from the group. (The conference is under way.) But by accepting support from Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S;, these elections officials do little to encourage confidence in their judgment and impartiality. A cynic would not be unjustified to ask, if they cannot be trusted to make this call, how can they be trusted to count the votes?

Part of me says this is only a little shady -- it's simple lobbying to get more governments to buy your product. But I can't help but feeling there's something a bit more sinister going on.

Posted by Justin at 6:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) |

Kerry Wins Backing from Nobel Economics Laureates

I thought I'd turn our attention away from the Swift Vet Liars and Incompetent Journalists for just a moment and share a bit of sunshine:

John Kerry won the endorsement of 10 Nobel Prize-winning economists on Wednesday as he attacked President Bush for policies that he said have led to the creation of only low-paying jobs.

The Democratic presidential nominee released a letter from the economists saying the Bush administration had "embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation."

They cited "poorly designed" tax cuts that instead of creating jobs have turned budget surpluses into enormous budget deficits, a "fiscal irresponsibility threatens the long-term economic security and prosperity of our nation."

Read Reuter's Article

We've all heard it before, "If you vote for John Kerry, get ready to lose all your money." Republicans have a reputation for being more fiscally responsible than democrats, which leads people to the false conclusion that our economy is better under republican leadership.

As we inch closer to the election, when you have an opportunity to talk to someone from the other side (or if you hit the jackpot and find yourself face to face with an undecided), be sure to point them to a few little known facts:

Stock Market.

Over the years, several studies have shown that the stock market has fared markedly better under Democrats than Republicans.

This factoid compliments of Forbes Magazine.

Economic growth. Gross Domestic Product grew at an average 4.1% annual rate under Democratic Administrations, well above the 2.9% rate for Republican presidencies.

Jobs. The unemployment rate under Democratic Presidents averaged 5.3%, compared to 6.6% under Republicans.

Inflation. The inflation rate averaged 3.8% under Democrats, but 5.3% under Republicans.

Interest rates. The key federal funds interest rate averaged 5.4% under Democrats, but 7.9% under Republicans.

Productivity growth. Labor productivity grew at an average annual rate of 2.2% under Democrats, compared to 1.9% under Republicans.

Average income. Median family income grew at an average rate of 2.2% under Democrats, but only 0.6% under Republicans.

Private investment. Fixed private investment grew at 7.1% under Democrats, triple its 2.7% rate under Republican Presidents.

Federal deficit. Federal deficits totaled $506 billion under Democrats, but $2.5 trillion under Republicans, with the only balanced budgets coming under Democratic Presidents.

Trade deficit. The current account deficit averaged 0.8% of our economy under Democrats, but 2.4% under Republicans.

More on the differences between Democrats & Republicans

One more thing, the deficit matters, despite anything that Dick Cheney may say to the contrary.

Posted by Chepooka at 2:11 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) |

Restoring integrity

The Globe and Mail had an interesting take on Kerry's Daily Show gig:

Kerry needed to appear on The Daily Show because the American media itself has become ridiculous and he needs the endorsement of the jokers, not political pundits. The cable news shows that Jon Stewart mocks have become absurdly partisan. The print press is going through a period of self-flagellation as newspaper after newspaper apologizes and backtracks on its initial coverage of the need to go to war with Iraq.

There is no longer a mainstream media in the United States. Every outlet postures and preens. Comedy is now as important as political commentary. Only the jokers have integrity.

The last thing Kerry said, as he left The Daily Show, was a remark to Stewart. He said, "You do a great job." In that, Kerry was correct. It's sad, but true.

[Cross-posted at my home blog.]

Posted by Justin at 12:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) |

Who Drank My Beer?

You know, I thought I'd check in for a minute, only to find out that someone drank my stash of Red, White, and Blue. I bet it was Jason.

Heh.

Anyway, I just saw this over at Drudge and it makes me laugh.

That's part of his schtick you morons. He stutters like that all the time. Christ, gotta love the Murdoch-owned paper ripping on Jon Stewart for having Kerry on his show. Don't worry people, I'm sure Matt Lauer will be tossing softballs to your guy on Monday.

Posted by sean at 12:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) |

Happy Women's Equality Day!

There's a rally at our county courthouse today in support of Women's Equality Day, which celebrates the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It's sponsored by Women for Kerry*Edwards and I think Ginny Schrader (running for Congress PA-8th, open seat) will be involved as well. I only found out about it yesterday, but the issue of women getting the vote is a huge one for me.

School doesn't tell kids exactly what literal tortures the suffragettes endured so that I can vote. I remember the protestors being portrayed largely as spunky rich women who wore sashes and marched around with signs. I'm sure arrests were mentioned as well. But this was not:

REMEMBER HOW WOMEN GOT THE VOTE

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 helpless women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

Women endured beatings, being placed in stress positions, forced feedings, unlawful imprisonment and, I'm sure, untold tortures (sound familiar?) so that I can vote. Less famous suffragettes endured public and personal humiliation because they supported an unpopular cause, which was my right to have a say in how this country should be run. They are heroes, no less so than any service person from any war, or any politician immortalized in marble.

eVoting threatens my rights. Apathy, which empowers vote-busting scams, like those in Florida and all over the country, erodes my rights. The corporate media, with their issue-less news format encourages cynicism that breeds that apathy. That's why I vote without fail. That's why I blog. That's why I go to rallies. That's why I'll be in NYC on Saturday for the March for Women's Lives even though some very reasonable people are saying that protesters should stay home and not give the RNC the ammunition they need to hammer the Dems.

But if Lucy Burn, Alice Cosu, Doris Lewis and thousands of unknown women stayed home because it was the easy thing to do and protesting, after all, only gave their oppressors ammunition to shame them, then I'd also be staying home on Election Day, barred from the polls. And who knows? Maybe you would be too.

cross posted at Fact-esque.

Posted by eRobin at 8:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

This Just In...

Newsmax prints lies. Pleasing the sadist in me, I sometimes peruse the Republican rags around the net, and sometimes I find stuff worth puking on.

Swiftboat Veterans for Truth chief spokesman John O'Neill is supposed to be a tool of the Bush Cheney reelection campaign - at least according to John Kerry's media damage controllers.

But in fact, O'Neill voted against George Bush in 2000 and against his father in 1992, O'Neill friend Gerry Birnberg tells the Boston Globe, backing Al Gore and Ross Perot respectively.

O'Neill also supported Perot against Bob Dole in 1996.

As far as the claim that O'Neill is doing Bush's bidding with his Swiftboat campaign, Birnberg told the Globe, "He has told me on a couple of occasions that he believes George Bush is an empty suit who is not competent to be elected president."

(Well that settles it, I guess... some guy said he said that, so that's that.)

Before John Kerry got the nomination, O'Neill said he had intended to vote for John Edwards.

See, the problem with that, though, is that it really doesn't make much sense, if you do a little investigating. In this case, I first tried looking up Mr. Shitbag at the infinitely useful OpenSecrets.Org, but had no idea which John O'Neill I was looking for, and had little energy to look further into it. Then, a quick Google search, and Viola!, it seems Capitol Hill Blue had already done my homework for me.

John E. O'Neill, leader of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and co-author of the book, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, lied once again on national television about his partisan political activity on behalf of the Republican party.

[...]

Asked by Fox News correspondent Brit Hume to explain nearly $15,000 in donations to Republicans, O'Neill said, "about half of them were mine. Those are actually funds, as nearly as I can tell, that were given my -- by some -- my law partner who has almost the same name, Edward J. O'Neill. I simply didn't give them. I would have been happy to give them. I just didn't."

But Federal Election Commission Records clearly identify "John E. O'Neill" as the individual contributor of $14.650 to candidates -- all Republicans -- since 1990.

No wonder half the people in this country are completely fucking nuts--they get their 'facts' from places like Newsmax... only a shade more credible than the veteran journalists at Fox. Oy.

R-rated version cross-posted @ TGAHWPI

Posted by JasonC at 7:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) |

August 25, 2004

Who's counting the votes?

I wanted to post a follow-up to eRobin's post on black-box voting. I want to be able to trust the vote come election day, but the evidence feels like it's piling up that we have every reason to be worried. Not just from Bush administration antics -- I'll put my tinfoil hat down if you do -- but from plain old-fashioned screw-ups.

Check out Bev Harris' piece at In These Times for the deal.

When I began researching this story in October 2002, the media was reporting that electronic voting machines are fun and speedy, but I looked in vain for articles reporting that they are accurate. I discovered four magic words, “voting machines and glitch,” which, when entered into a search engine, yielded a shocking result: A staggering pile of miscounts was accumulating. These were reported locally but had never been compiled in a single place, so reporters were missing a disturbing pattern.

I published a compendium of 56 documented cases in which voting machines got it wrong.

How do voting-machine makers respond to these reports? With shrugs. They indicate that their miscounts are nothing to be concerned about. One of their favorite phrases is: “It didn’t change the result.”

Except, of course, when it did

Check the article for a list of scary instances, plus some solutions.

Posted by Justin at 7:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

The Daily Show

So, John Kerry went on "The Daily Show," and the media were paying attention. It was a good performance, and I imagine it can only help. And, now what does Bush do? If he goes on, I think that could be more like Stephen Hayes' appearance than Kerry's. Jon Stewart batted around Hayes, who is a top-notch schmuck, like a rag doll. Hayes was hawking a book trying to show Iraq had a big-deal WMD and nuke-yoo-lar program. And Stewart called him out like the little bitch that he is.

Kerry clowns around on 'Daily Show'

Turning serious, Kerry said the charges that he exaggerated his military record in Vietnam and turned on fellow veterans with Senate testimony about war atrocities at the hands of U.S. soldiers did not really surprise him. Kerry made a veiled reference to links between the backers of the anti-Kerry group, known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Bush family and Texas Republicans, which he called "the Web and the network."

"I think Americans will discover it as we go forward in the next four or five weeks: George Bush doesn't want to talk about the real issues," Kerry said. "I mean, what's he going to do? Come out and say we lost 1.8 million jobs?"

Kerry took the jokes well, rolled with Stewart, but he really stuck to his message. I think this guy is determined to get the issues back out there, no matter what. I hope he succeeds.

One more story:

It will take a day or two for any effect of Kerry's Daily Show appearance to be fully felt. But White suspects Kerry accomplished much of what he set out to do. "If you share a laugh with someone, you're seeing things from their perspective, and I have to think you're more likely to vote for them," White said.

Jason at The Game had a transcript already.

Posted by Justin at 12:26 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0) |

Good News for Sean's New Neighbors

Sean often posts about electronic voting issues and it's one of my big deals too so I figured he'd want this up here. It looks like people in San Diego won't be using touch-screen voting machines in November:

San Joaquin County remains one of four California counties still unable to use electronic voting for the November election.

Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced Tuesday that 11 counties could use electronic voting after they met recertification standards.

But because San Joaquin, Kern, San Diego and Solano counties have the Diebold TXs machines -- which were not federally certified before the March primary -- they can't use touch-screen voting in November, Shelley said.

I don't know what's going on in California. I'm just glad to hear that there is some attempt at holding these machines to standards that aren't set by the company that owns them. It's typical but still infuriating that elections reform is such a mess. Until it's figured out, all touchscreen voting machines be stored away and voters in those districts allowed to vote on paper or with an optical scanning machine - which, according to Bev Harris on AirAmericaRadio yesterday, is technology available to all districts using touchscreen machines.

Bev's site, BlackBoxVoting.ORG is down right now, but as soon as it's up again, be sure to check back often so you can keep up with the latest developments. VerifiedVoting.org is also good for that. BlackBoxVoting.COM seems to be affiliated with the .ORG site, but I heard otherwise from Bev during the AirAmericaRadio interview. It's still a good site to read.

Posted by eRobin at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

August 24, 2004

Where do we go now?

Hey, Justin here from the blog AP. Glad to be with such fine folks while Sean moves west, young man. I'll try not to muck up the place too much. Today, I'll cross-post. But I expect to have a couple of Nosey Online exclusives (developing ...) for ya'll.

Enough with the formalities.

Pandagon's Ezra Klein has a tremendous essay on the damage these Swifties have done to our nation and to our political discourse -- which has already been crippled by Republicans' faux patriotism since 9/11:

Whoever wins this election, the American people will have lost it. That's because they're sorry enough to have participated in and encouraged a realm where the venerable parties controlling the nation will dwell on the attack that works rather than the criticism that matters, where deceivers prosper and misdirection is appreciated, where a square jaw and a steady voice means more for honesty than the words spoken, where partisan lies mean more than navy medals, where minor discrepancies scream liar and not human, where the press finds their ratings in war and not information, where the only thing able to knock an election's hatred off the front page would be the folly of a celebrity, and where a low-life aristocrat who spent his life dodging responsibility, failing at ventures, and trading on his name avoided the war only to become president after sliming a POW and ignoring the will of America. And where this man, as president, squandered our surpluses, destroyed our standing, overextended our armies, let our jobs flee and left our people lacking health care. And where a media who knows better and a people who deserve better might let the incompetent brat win again because he looks better in plaid, seems more likely a fisher and has a more effective and merciless attack machine

The truth that our media won't admit and our people don't want to hear is that this election should revolve around one refrain, repeated every time this ad airs, every time the job numbers drop and every time a soldier dies. And it goes: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Have we irreperably harmed the body politic? Was it too far gone already?

Since we're talking about the Swifties, I had this story open since this morning, but the state fair's promise of fried foods and pig races pre-empted bloggin'. The New York Times had a piece on how pathetic cable news is, and how they're largely to blame for the Swiftshits. But the Times, and print media generally -- tho they did do a better job on this one -- aren't blameless. They stood idly by, too, while the news cycles were dominated by these liar-idiots and warmongers.

Even Howie the whore had a story today on how the media was to blame.

It's fun for these papers, isn't it, to seem like they're better than everyone else. But they've only been mildly better. They gave these swifties the time of day, when they deserved absolutely none. They deserved to be chastised from the get-go, ridiculed and ignored. But they weren't. And just because the NYT and the Post had some fair-seeming stories does not make them leaders on this issued. They still played he-said, she-said, when there shouldn't have been a she-said.

Posted by Justin at 10:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) |

Just A Comment

Before I pack up the Dell. I think that Kerry's decision to go on The Daily Show is a smart one. It's like Clinton on MTV or Arsenio, both of which attributed directly to young voters hitting the ballot box for Clinton.

Posted by sean at 9:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) |