CBS real poll: undecided voters preferred Kerry tonight

CBS News:

"A CBS News poll of uncommitted voters who watched the debate named Kerry the winner by 39-25 percent over Mr. Bush, with 36 percent calling it a tie. Sixty percent said Kerry has clear positions on the issues. Before the third debate, only 29 percent of the same voters said Kerry had clear positions."

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UPDATE: Bush lied about Osama during debate

UPDATED: Bush lied during the debate, outright about this. Kerry read Bush's actual quote and Bush outright denied it. Check out the transcript of the debate tonight and then the transcript of what Bush actually said at the White House:

KERRY: Yes. When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped.

Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" He said, "I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned."

We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

Then see what Bush actually said:

Reporter: But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

BUSH: (On Osama bin Laden) Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."

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CNN InstaPoll - Kerry wins debate 52%-39%

Wow. This is the real poll CNN just conducted. Excellent. I think I heard the word "blow out" on CNN. Read More......

Hit the online polls, NOW

Kos has 'em all. Read More......

OPEN THREAD - So who won?

I'm watching ABC, anybody watching other stations? What are the saying? Read More......

AMERICAblog online chat

http://www.slashnet.org/java.php

Java chat client.
After it connects, type
/nick typeyournicknamehere
then type
/join #americablog

-----------------------------------------------

And if you have an IRC client installed, type-
/server irc.slashnet.org
/join #americablog

Feel free to use this thread to start chatting away as well. Read More......

Shorter debate update

Pay go? You mean Pay go Pay go? Isn't that part of the Coalition of the Willing?

Ex-ag-er-a-tion.

I think Kerry is spot on tonight. Doing very well. Bush is making a few faces. Sounds Kerry has him a bit rattled already, but too soon to tell.

Tony Soprano? Yes!

Bush: Government shouldn't tell citizens how to run their lives (unless they're gay).

Kerry: Mary Cheney is a lesbian!

Bush's talking point of the day: My opponent is out of the mainstream.

SYS-temic

Yikes! Bush just took a swipe at CBS over their credibility, when the moderate is Bob Scheifer FROM CBS! Are you just stupid?

Kerry: Bush social security plan, INVITATION TO DISASTER

I think Bush had a stroke. His left-side of his mouth is drooping badly, and he's drooling a bit (not kidding).

Bush never wants to impose his religion on anyone else (unless you're gay).

He supports adoption (unless you're gay).

Nice turnaround by Kerry on the God question.

Kerry praises Bush for his handling of 9/11, then slices his guts out - yes!

Oh Jesus, why do you love your wife? Ask 'em a hard question now Bob. Read More......

DID BUSH HAVE A STROKE?

His left side of his mouth is drooping down, it's as if he had a stroke or something. You'll recall that in the past few weeks the White House announced something about Bush not getting his annual physical until after the election (something like that). I think there's something wrong with him.

Note this Reuters story from one week ago:

The White House cited Bush's heavy travel schedule for his decision to delay his annual physical exam, which usually takes place in August, until after the election.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush's doctors "felt it was perfectly fine to do it later this year... The president is a very active person. He's in great health."

BS. Numerous observers here with me, and in the chat, said they saw drool at the beginning of the debate (again, I'm serious). There's something wrong with his face tonight and he's not admitting it. Read More......

Arab Americans hating Bush

Not surprising, since he wants to give them all a one-way visit to Gitmo. From Reuters:

Angry with the Iraq war, more of the estimated 1.1 million Arab Americans in the four battleground states of Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania back Kerry over Bush, according to the polling firm Zogby International.

In a poll of Arab Americans in those states conducted in September after the Republican convention, 47 percent of voters favored Kerry to 31.5 percent for Bush. Nine percent favored Ralph Nader, the independent candidate who is of Lebanese descent, while 12 percent were undecided.

Four years ago, Bush won the support of 45.5 percent of Arab Americans, compared to 38 percent for Vice President Al Gore and 13.5 percent for Nader, according to Zogby data.

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BREAKING NEWS: RNC threatens Rock the Vote over MILITARY DRAFT

This is outrageous, but also quite indicative of scared the Bushies really are. They're threatening Rock the Vote for doing an ad campaign around the issue of the draft! Why? Because the RNC claims - GET THIS - that President Bush has said there will be no draft, so clearly it should be illegal for any organization to even publicly discuss whether there will be! Wonder if that same theory applies to anyone who questioned whether there would be WMD in Iraq, Comrade Gillespie?

I've got a copy of the Republican National Committee's bizarre threatening letter to Rock the Vote here. In retaliation I suggest you all tell everyone you know about the impending Bush draft. Get out the youth vote, now. Read More......

Pre-Debate Thread

So, what should we expect? Read More......

$100 reward for photo of Bush's wire tonight

This from my bud Bob at Democrats.com:

Democrats.com is offering a $100 reward for a photo of tonight's third debate showing an unmistakable bulge or wire in Bush's jacket. Send your submissions to bulge@democrats.com

I'm assuming Bob means $100 for the FIRST photo he receives (or perhaps each unique photo he receives, i.e., the first to send it) from tonight's debate with an unmistakable bump or wire - he's not paying out 100 bucks for the same photo 1000 times :-) Read More......

Free Speech Insanity!

In case you didn't know, today is Freeway Free Speech Day. Our buddy the Freeway Blogger has been coordinating nationwide freeway blogging ALL DAY TODAY. As you may recall, freeway blogging is the art of placing punchy cardboard signs on freeway overpasses so tens of thousands of people see them on the way to work.

Freeway organized for today over 10,000 signs in 220 cities and 48 states. Absolutely amazing. He's posted a lot of pictures of the signs from today online already. Check out the photos. They're way cool.

Here are a few of the signs done today:



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Barry Manilow has a problem with gays?

Uh, did someone forget to tell him?

BARRY MANILOW APOLOGIZES TO GAYS
by Rex Wockner

Singer Barry Manilow said Oct. 12 he's sorry he offended some gay people and others in the audience during his Oct. 7 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

As he was introducing a love-song duet he was about to sing with a male star of his upcoming Broadway musical about a 1930s German boy band, Manilow said, "Of course, we're not going to sing it to each other -- that would be creepy."

Several concertgoers contacted this reporter to complain about the remark.

Asked to respond Oct. 12, Manilow said: "I'm terribly sorry if I offended anyone. I meant it only as a joke about Brian [d'Arcy James] and me, and not as a reflection on anyone else. I strongly believe in and support equal rights and acceptance for everyone, and apologize if my joke came off to the contrary."

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Why does the GOP hate George Bush?

UPDATE: Well, the GOP must be reading our blog, because at least one of the images was just changed to a picture of Furious George. It's now a balanced 4 Furious Georges, 3 President Kerrys. Over on democrats.org? Two President Kerrys, zero Furious Georges.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been going to the RNC's site to keep track of what they are up to. Funny thing I noticed. Each and every time, there are more pictures of John Kerry on the RNC site than there are George Bush. Today, for example, there are four pictures of John Kerry on gop.com (six, if you count the rotating images.) Furious George? Three. Check it out for yourself. You nearly have to play Where's Waldo to find pictures of Dubya.

So my question to the GOP is this - this man is YOUR president. Is he so unpopular that you can't even have pictures of him on your own Web site? Read More......

Can't Run, Can't Hide

I can run.
I can hide.
- Osama

(Courtesy of reader Chuck.) Read More......

UPDATE: Voter fraud criminals in Vegas were working for RNC

UPDATE: Seems a lot of us missed the last sentence of the story. "The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee." I think we have a major scandal here. Who, by name, at the RNC paid this company, was the RNC staffer aware at all of what this company was doing, how high up in the RNC did this knowledge go, and what other vendors is the RNC working with who might be committing the same fraud? Time for an FBI investigation here.

From KLAS-TV in Las Vegas:

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash....

Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else....

Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters. It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there.

It's going to take a while to sort all of this out, but the immediate concern for voters is to make sure you really are registered.

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Bubbie made someone cry

Apparently, some folks are ticked off at the Bubbie movie that I posted on the site yesterday (not ticked at me, ticked about the movie). I think it's hysterical. And while not being Jewish, so I can't really comment on the nicesties of anti-Semitism, I can say that as a Christian I found the Christian references funny as hell. And as for Cheney being "decapitated," it's a fucking cartoon. If that's decapitation then the Road Runner should expect a million dollar FCC fine some day soon.

Watch it again and see what you think. Also, any Jewish folks out there wanna weigh in? I thought it was funny as hell, and since it was produced by a Jewish group, I found the Jewish references acceptable and funny, but curious what you think. Read More......

OMG

Oh my God. I had heard about US Rep. Tim Ryan's AMAZING speech on the draft for days, but never had the chance to watch it until tonight. Oh... my... God. I have rarely seen a politician who can give a speech like this. Watch it. And then send your friends to watch it. Read More......

Today's Zogby

From Zogby:

Election 2004 Reuters/Zogby Daily Tracking Poll: Bush and Kerry in Toss-Up Race at 45% Apiece; Two In Five Undecided Voters Say ‘It’s Time for Someone New’ (40%); Final Debate Could Be Critical, New Reuters/Zogby Poll Reveals

Pollster John Zogby: "The two candidates go into the third and final debate tied. TIED!!! There is no major sub-group movement to report, but the undecided voters give us the real key to what is happening behind the scenes. Today's three-day track reveals that only 11% of the undecided voters feel that President Bush deserves to be re-elected. That is the lowest figure yet. Two in five -- 40%-- feel it is time for someone new and 49% are undecided about his future.

"This alone leads to some important questions:

- Will the 40% of undecideds be persuaded to vote for Kerry?
- Will those 49% even bother to vote?
- Can President Bush create enough disincentives for that 49% to not even bother to vote?

"Look for the President to continue his negative war against Kerry, knowing that he himself cannot win this group. Look for Kerry to try a knockout blow in this final debate, something akin to Ronald Reagan’s famous—“Are you better off today now than you were four years ago?”

"The third debate is crucial.”

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New Sinclair Action - this is good

Media Matters is suggesting folks who own mutual funds that include Sinclair stocks contact those funds. I'd go one step further. Whether or not you own the stock, it's probably not a bad idea to contact the mutual funds to let them know how serious this boycott is. Wall Streets types always talk about how they need "perfect information" to make the right deals, and they have every right to be informed of how seroiusly the public is taking Sinclair's anti-Kerry actions. So check out Media Matters and give those folks a holler - be sure to report back. Read More......

You and what army?

Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi is now threatening military action against the town of Fallujah if residents there don't hand over terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A few problems here.

1. What right does Allawi have to threaten military action when its OUR TROOPS who will be doing the fighting? Bush didn't want to give the UN command over our troops in Iraq, but now we're giving it to this puppet?

2. Since when do US troops threaten to attack the "residents" of a town unless...? That sounds awfully like what Israel does, and it's the kind of thing that gets you into serious trouble, human-rights-wise, and "winning the hearts and minds"-wise to boot.

This is what we've come to. Read More......

Leave No Corporate Interest Behind

Also referred to "a perfect storm for pork" by one public interest group. If you can stomach it, read the article that lists only some of the details of the election year corporate boondoggle bill. They're saying it's going to take a while to sort out all of the details but everyone from corporate tech companies, to oil companies to tobacco businesses to dog track owners to who else knows is cashing in on this one. Keep in mind this is a Republican Congress, a Republican Senate and a Republican President. Financial responsibility does not seem to be very interesting in the GOP these days.
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The embarassment never ends in Alabama. Jim Crow laws still holding on.

I'm not sure what is more amazing here. The fact that the Jim Crow laws are still on the books in Alabama (and elsewhere in the South) or the fact that some politicians are fighting to keep them on the books. Former (Alabama) Chief Justice Roy Moore, the guy who refused to remove the 10 Commandments, is in the mix against the change. I'm still wondering if he was leading the campaign in Alabama to refuse federal emergency funding after the recent hurricane battered the state. After all, he is against taxes.
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The Election Will Not Be Televised

But the fight over it will be. Here's a very good article in the Washington Post about black leaders in Florida fighting to make sure the votes of their community will be counted. And anyone who tells you the election wasn't stolen can read just this one little tidbit:

"Four years ago, ballots cast from black neighborhoods throughout Florida were four times as likely to go uncounted as those from white neighborhoods. Nowhere was the disparity more apparent than in Duval County, where 42 percent of 27,000 ballots thrown out came from four heavily Democratic black precincts."

That's more than 10,000 votes tossed away and since black voters went for Gore at more than 90%, that's about 9,000 votes for Gore in a state that went for Bush by 537 votes.
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Sinclair Scandal Widens

John and others have detailed how to fight back against Sinclair and its marshalling of the airwaves to throw support behind Bush's reelection. A troubling story in USA Today makes clear it may not even be a case of partisan wrangling -- it's all about business.

Sinclair -- which is now synonymous with the dangers of media consolidation -- is throwing its support behind Bush because its business is hurting and it wants to consolidate even further and have the right to control TV stations and radio stations and newspapers in one broadcast area. At least you could respect them if it was just a viciously held political belief rather than a cold calculation.

The good news, so far?

"The decision [to air the anti-Kerry video just days before the election] annoyed investors. Sinclair's shares, which have lost about half their value in 2004, closed Monday at $7.38, down 12 cents. That's about as low as they've been since 1995."

"But many believe Sinclair's provocative decision shows how much the company has riding on the election.

"With its heavy concentration of Fox and WB affiliates, ranking in the middle of the pack in mostly midsize markets, Sinclair is barely profitable and laden with debt. It had a net profit of $14 million on revenue of $739 million in 2003.

"Sinclair hopes to change that by solidifying its hold on local markets by controlling, for example, two stations in more cities and sharing operating and news-gathering costs. But it needs the federal government to relax several media ownership restrictions.

"Sinclair wants officials to permit a company to own two or more stations in more communities than allowed now. It also wants the FCC to ease a restriction that bars a company from owning TV stations reaching more than 35% of all homes, and to lift the rule that keeps companies from owning newspapers and TV stations in most markets."

It isn't just the Supreme Court that will change if John Kerry loses. It'll be what you read, what you hear and what you watch on TV.
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Bush Trifles With National Security

Here are some of Bush's LATEST failures on national security.

1. Funds to defend our nation are still being treated as a money pot to win votes. The New York Times reports desperately needed money is still streaming out to rural states that have virtually no need for it. Alaska is so rich in funds and has so little need for it (is Al Quaeda going to send suicide bombers into the tundra?) that the governor suggested they use their money to buy a jet. Meanwhile, most containers coming into this country remain unchecked, our borders are porous, etc.

Doling out money wisely where security demands it? Not as important as greasing the palms of friendly governors and certainly not as important as Bush's reelection.

2. Bush's snide attitude has cost us respect with our allies and his hatred for the UN, the Geneva Convention and decency towards the vanquished (Abu Ghraib) has made the world see us as hyprocrites. The New York Times details Bush's failings at building relations with the rest of the free world. Mexico's former foreign minister says sadly that Bush became aloof, brusque and abrasive.

"It is a characterization of Mr. Bush's foreign policy style often heard around the world: bullying, unreceptive, brazen. The result, critics of this administration contend, has been a disastrous loss of international support, damage to American credibility, the sullying of America's image and a devastating war that has already taken more than 1,000 American lives."

Rice's defensive defense? We're buddies with Russia and Czar Putin, who has used terror to dominate minorities under his domain. We're buddies with China, which tortures and kills dissidents and nutty cult people who want to meditate a la Falun Gong because they see anything they can't control as a danger (that's when they're not wiping out the Tibetans). And we're buddies with Pakistan, which of course is the world's preeminent seller of nuclear-building material and know-how to terrorists and terrorist states.

Mending fences with long-term allies and getting them to invest (in every way) in the success of our mission in Iraq? Not as important as Bush's reelection.

3. Bush avoids dealing with Iran because it might look "soft." Yep, major progress could be made with Iran, but Bush would rather wait till after the election to make the deal that's out there (one laden with incentives a la the Clinton deal with North Korea). Major nuclear threat? Not as important as Bush's reelection.

This ties in with Bush's refusal to let the troops do their job and regain control of cities in Iraq controlled by insurgents. The military should have acted months ago to let things stabilize before the January elections. Besides, every day you let the insurgents stay in control of huge chunks of Iraq is another day where allies get disheartened. But Bush was afraid death tolls and bloody fighting would look bad before the election. A stable, free Iraq with valid elections in which much of the country is quiet and the Sunnis actually participate? Not as important as Bush's reelection.
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It's My Two Brothers' Fault I'm Gay

An interesting article in UK's Independent looks at a study that offers one explanation why a genetic predisposition to being gay doesn't simply die out since gay men are naturally quite a bit less likely to have children.

It found that there may also be an advantage to that gene since female relatives of gay men (related by their mother) were far more likely to have larger families. Therefore, if you're carrying that gene, the boys might be more likely to be gay but the girls will have a bigger brood.

But here was the kicker at the bottom I wasn't familiar with:

"Scientists have also demonstrated repeatedly that the chance of a man being a homosexual rises by about a third for each older brother he has. They found that a man with three older brothers was about twice as likely to be gay as a man with none. This suggests that there may be biological factors operating within the womb of a woman who has already given birth to a number of sons that increase the predisposition towards her next son being gay."

So apparently, it's the fault of my two older brothers that I'm gay. Who knew?


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