Zogby: The election is Kerry's to lose

Zogby is a BIG Republican pollster. His analysis carries a lot of weight:

I have made a career of taking bungee jumps in my election calls. Sometimes I haven't had a helmet and I have gotten a little scratched. But here is my jump for 2004: John Kerry will win the election.

Have you recovered from the shock? Is this guy nuts? Kerry's performance of late has hardly been inspiring and polls show that most Americans have no sense of where he really stands on the key issues that matter most to them. Regardless, I still think that he will win. And if he doesn't, it will be because he blew it. There are four major reasons for my assertion:

First, my most recent poll (April 12-15) shows bad re-election numbers for an incumbent President. Senator Kerry is leading 47% to 44% in a two-way race, and the candidates are tied at 45% in the three-way race with Ralph Nader. Significantly, only 44% feel that the country is headed in the right direction and only 43% believe that President Bush deserves to be re-elected - compared with 51% who say it is time for someone new.

In that same poll, Kerry leads by 17 points in the Blue States that voted for Al Gore in 2000, while Bush leads by only 10 points in the Red States that he won four years ago.

Second, there are very few undecided voters for this early in a campaign. Historically, the majority of undecideds break to the challenger against an incumbent. The reasons are not hard to understand: voters have probably made a judgment about the better-known incumbent and are looking for an alternative....

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Software upgrade in progress, working on "comments"

Blogger has upgraded their service and one of the things they now offer are new-and-improved "comments" functions. I'm trying to make it work, but have a sneaking suspicion that the old posts that were here before the upgrade might not allow comments (and it wiped out all the old comments, sorry). Sorry for the inconvenience.

...Ok, that really didn't work. Think blogger still has a few bugs in its comments software. We'll switch over later :-)

JOHN Read More......

Senator: 'Many, Many' Iraq Abuse Probes Under Way

Wrongdoing of a few, eh Mr. Bush? Note that Senator Hagel is a Republican, yet still criticizing the administration.

"There are 'many, many' criminal investigations going on of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, well beyond Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a leading Republican senator said on Sunday

'This is deeper and wider than I think most in this administration understand,' U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska told CBS's 'Face the Nation.' " - Reuters

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Fareed obliterates Bush

Exellent, nasty, biting, stinging, bruising piece by Fareed Zakaria in the current Newseek.

On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.

Whether he wins or loses in November, George W. Bush's legacy is now clear: the creation of a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Americanism around the globe. I'm sure he takes full responsibility.

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Developing story... 9/11 hijacker arrested 2 years ago?

Keep an eye on this story. My friend Michael, visiting London, called me today to let me know the London Times has a story about a 9/11 hijacker who had second thoughts and gave up to police BEFORE THE ATTACKS. According to the Times story, as reported by PTI, the hijacker knew it was a suicide mission in America and knew that it involved his piloting a Boeing jet. Sounds kind of interesting since the Bush Administration had "no idea" anyone would consider using a jet as a weapon. I still can't get access to the London Times story, but was able to find this:

A British Muslim, trained in a 'terrorist training school' in Pakistan as a hijacker in preparation for the September 11 attacks, backed out at the last minute after gambling away thousands of pounds given to him by Al-Qaeda, a report said here.

The potential hijacker, a former waiter in a Manchester curry house was enlisted at a mosque in Oldham and 'attended terrorist training school in Pakistan. But he had second thoughts about his suicide mission as he flew to America and surrendered to the police after gambling away thousands of pounds given to him by Al-Qaeda,' The Sunday Times, claimed....

He travelled to Lahore, where he was taught how to carry out a hijacking and familiarized with the inside of a Boeing cockpit. "I knew they wanted me to do some kind of operation in which I would die but my life was such a mess that in my mind I was already dead," he said. - The Hindu News Update Service

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Jesus Christ

More images from the New Yorker. Now we have attack dogs too. Could we make the Nazi parallel any more clearly?

Seymour Hersh, of the New Yorker, just said on ABC's This Week that they also have photos showing the same man lying on the ground in a pool of blood with a gaping wound - very clearly, Hersh says, a photo of the man right after he was attacked by the dogs in the picture.

Hersh also says that the unit in this picture is a totally different unit than the one in the photos from last week. Only a few soldiers, Mr. Bush?



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The elephant in the room - THE DRAFT

Senator Graham (R-SC) also just said the following on Meet the Press:

GRAHAM: I think we need to look at the Guard and reserve forces. I think they're overstressed. I think we need to look and see if we have enough people in uniform to meet ALL of our obligations, just not Iraq. And that's long overdue.

RUSSERT: Expand the size of the military?

GRAHAM: I think we need more troops because the obligations of the United States are not just in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These guys are talking about a draft. They won't admit it, not yet at least, but that's what they're talking about. This first came up a few weeks ago with Senator Hagel (R-NE) (and at the time, Senator Biden (D-DE) didn't rule a draft out), and now it's come up again (albeit stealthily) with another Republican, Graham, today.

Now, if we were really in an all out war FOR A GOOD REASON then perhaps we would need another draft, SOME DAY. I certainly support the draft for things like WWII, duh. But this conversation brings home the point of why it matters whether we were sold a lie for going into Iraq in the first place (and why it matters if Bush has any kind of strategy or end-game for the current hostilities). This isn't just about how nice it is that Saddam is gone. It may, some day soon, be about whether our kids, our nieces and nephews, our friends, and some of you reading this right now, are going to be REQUIRED to drop everything you're doing and for the next few years go to Iraq and die, or lose a leg or an arm, fighting George Bush's bogus war.

And on a more practical level, having the draft at this point in time is a bit like giving the government an unlimited budget (or giving Microsoft's software developers an unlimited hard-drive). The more you give them, the more wasteful they become since there are no constraints on their actions. Read More......

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) admonishes Cheney

In response to Cheney's comments yesterday about Rumsfeld that "People ought to get off his case and let him do his job," Sen. Graham just said the following on Meet the Press:

And to the White House, please don't say things like "you should get off his back." Nobody is on his back. We have an independent duty to look at this. - Meet the Press

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Cheney Defends Rumsfeld, Says 'Get Off His Case'

Yeah, what's a little torture between friends? Read More......

NYT editorial: The President and Women

The arrival of an over-the-counter morning-after pill in American drugstores has been delayed by a disappointing, politically motivated decision by the Food and Drug Administration. Wider availability of the pill would make it easier to avert unwanted pregnancies and reduce the rate of abortions. But once again, the Bush administration seems determined to make things difficult for women in America.... We appreciate Mr. Bush's willingness to create an administration with strong women. We just wish that translated into an administration that was strong on women's issues. - NYT

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Wow, Kerry launches petition calling on Rumsfeld to resign

Ok, I'm not generally a fan of petitions, but this is good. John Kerry has launched a petition calling on Rumsfeld to resign. And he reportedly has over 200,000 signatures. This is gutsy, and a rather smart way to use the Web and recent issues to build up a larger database of supporters. Good for him.

I have to admit, as late as a few days ago I wasn't ready yet for Rumsfeld to resign, but I've changed my mind now. The international fallout from this scandal is too great. The only way we can make amends, or begin to make amends, with the entire world is to show that we're serious about not tolerating this kind of abuse. And the way you show you're serious is by getting rid of the guy who helped establish a culture where this kind of activity was tolerated and encouraged.

If it's a choice between sullying our name with the rest of the world for the next ten years, plus, or losing Donald Rumsfeld. I say get rid of Rumsfeld. Sign the petition. Read More......

Sam Nunn as a possible VP candidate?

Let's hope and pray that John Kerry isn't crazy enough to seriously be considering Sam Nunn, the creator of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", as his running mate. There'd been some speculation over the past few weeks that Nunn might make a good candidate - strong on defense, conservative Democrat, southerner. The other adjective that describes Nunn, that Kerry may have forgotten about, is "f*cking bigot." Just a few short weeks ago, the San Jose Mercury News reports that Nunn was definitely being considered as at least a possibility. Though, fortunately, only a few days ago Nunn said he likely wasn't interested in the VP position (of course, he might change his mind if asked).

Sam Nunn, you'll recall, is the jerk who created the entire Don't Ask, Don't Tell fiasco. He's the homophobe who dragged Senators to submarines to show them how gay men would molest their fellow bunk mates and shower mates because they'd be iving in such close quarters, and apparently, gay men are just that way. The man is a homophobe among homophobes. He is responsible for demonizing gays and lesbians for months before a nationwide audience and perpetuating, and codifying, discrimination against our servicemembers, people who we all supposedly now love. In a nutshell: We hate her.

Hopefully Kerry is smart enough to realize that picking someone as polarizing as Nunn is not the way to unify the country against the Bushies. Read More......

Bush Calls Iraq Prisoner Abuse Wrongdoing of a Few

How the hell does he know that?

This scandal only just surfaced, a few days ago Rumsfeld and Myers hadn't even read the damn report detailing how bad the situation was a few months ago, no one even knows what the current situation is, and Bush is out there now saying that we're certain the problem isn't more wide spread? If we're certain it was only the acts of a few, then why are there, we hear, so many other photos, and even video, out there? If this only represented the actions of a very few, then why did those "few" feel comfortable having their pictures taken SHOWING THEIR FACES IN THE PHOTOS? They clearly felt that there was on problem doing what they were doing, or they sure as hell wouldn't pose with their faces showing. Why is it, we read, that lots of photos like these have been passing around the various soldiers stationed in Iraq, and at least one story said that was why the soldiers were taking these kind of photos, to share them with others (and I'd read that this is how the original set of photos got out, it was passed to a soldier who informed his superiors). That suggests that there's a culture among other soldiers, BEYOND the picture-takers, of tolerating and even lauding this kind of behavior.

At the very least, Rumsfeld made very clear at the hearing this week that the investigation is still ongoing (and really only kicked in to high gear when the shit hit the fan in the past week). So, how the hell can Bush know - AND TELL THE WORLD - that this is only the actions of a few?

He can't know. He's simply downplaying the scandal the same way he downplayed the outing of CIA agent Victoria Plame. Remember after that happened the White House wouldn't even comment on it, then finally when they did comment, Bush said that "we may never find who did it," or something like that - telegraphing to the investigators that failure was an acceptable outcome. And now Bush is telegraping to the Pentagon that if they make examples of just a few soldiers, that will be enough - no need to do a real investigation across the board, in all of Iraq and in Afghanistan and beyond, because Bush has now told us that there is no widespread problem, so why waste money and time looking for one.

Absolutely outrageous. Read More......