From the files of: "We're all Pretty Much the Same"

Which country was Christian Amanpour from CNN talking about tonight:

Well part of it is cultural, that in the capital they've always been more sophisticated, and more educated. So part of it is that, as well as in other big cities. And in the rural areas it's still a very very conservative traditional culture, so that democracy is barely even understood out there.

(Thought I'd start a little late night controversy :) )
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Oil, Gas Guzzlers and National Security

A fine New Yorker article by John Cassidy weaves together the difficulties of achieving energy independence, our current quagmire, the hidden gas tax we pay via our Defense Department budget, President Carter's foreign policy that everyone has followed since and much more.

One absurd fact:

"A quicker and less costly way to conserve fuel would be to tighten up the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards, which President Ford introduced. The fuel-efficiency requirements—27.5 miles per gallon for cars; 21 miles per gallon for light trucks—have hardly been raised since 1986. Moreover, many S.U.V.s are officially classed as light trucks, which means they are subject to less stringent requirements. If this loophole was closed, at least according to some estimates, demand for gasoline would drop by a million barrels a day—two-thirds of what we import from Saudi Arabia."

We've done nothing to demand more fuel efficient cars in almost 20 years and haven't closed the loophole involving SUVs, the most popular category today? That's insane.

President Kerry (God willing) should call in the big auto makers and tell them it's their duty to the nation to do everything they can. He shouldn't ask them, he should tell them they MUST improve fuel efficiency dramatically and make those cars widely available (they're not keeping up with demand for hybrids).

And Kerry should publicly tell them he'll inform the American people that WHATEVER company introduces an affordable, significantly more fuel efficient car will get his endorsement that it's ourPATRIOTIC DUTY to buy that car -- whether it's made by Ford or GM or Toyota or Hyundai or Honda. And if the losers don't like it they can make one just as competive themselves and he'll add it to the list. Just a thought. And don't tell me this won't solve the problem. Every drop of oil (and blood) counts.
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More Fun From Rome -- Anti-Semitism Is Saintly

As if trying to keep Spain a theocracy instead of a true democracy wasn't bad enough, the Pope beatified two highly controversial figures, moving them that much closer to sainthood.

The lucky winners? (They're not exactly in rarified company, since PJPII has cranked out saints during his papacy at an indecent pace.)

1. Emperor Charles I -- the last Austro-Hungarian emperor and a man whose troops under his command used weapons of mass destruction -- poison gas -- during WWI. His miracle? (You gotta have a miracle to get to sainthood.) The not-so-dignified act of healing a Brazilian nun's varicose veins! Why a nun would be praying to Emperor Charles I to cure her varicose veins remains a mystery.

2. The lovely 19th century German mystic Sister Anna Katharina Emmerick -- she's the lunatic (almost literally) whose madly anti-Semitic descriptions of the Passion of the Christ deeply inspired...you guessed it, Mel Gibson. Not to mention lots of other fanatics who have called for the destruction of the Jews and used her rantings to back that up as religiously inspired. Her miracle? Presumably Mel Gibson's bank account.

Slobodan Miloscevic -- there's hope yet.
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Merging of Church and State Disturbing? Ha, We've Got It Easy!

Think the conflation of church and state in the US is disturbing? (We are, after all, one of the most actively religious countries in the world -- ie, lots of us go to worship all the time.)

Well, we've got nothing on Spain where a new Socialist prime minister is tussling with the Catholic Church over restraining its influence in public life.

"Summarizing the country's mood," wrote the NYT, "José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the new Socialist prime minister, said the other day that Spaniards wanted more freedom, less dogma and a greater separation of church and state. "They want more sports, less religion,'' he said."

This has meant equal rights for gays in marriage and adoption, making religious education in public schools optional (!) and so on. Rome is furious. The most curious passage:

"But marriage rights for gay couples is far from the only issue troubling the Catholic Church," says NYT. "Further government plans include liberalizing abortion laws, allowing embryo research for therapeutic purposes, making divorce easier and cracking down on domestic violence."

The Catholic Church is disturbed by a crackdown on domestic violence? There's got to be some explanation -- however far-fetched -- for this statement. Anyone know what exactly this refers to?
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Lands End employees tricked into attending pro-Bush rally

This is good. Lands End tricks their employees into attending a rally where Rudy Giuliani is stumping for Bush, and then Giuliani's Republican handlers try to ban the press from speaking to him. Read the rest of this post...

Hold on to your hats - yes - Howard Kurtz screws up again!

From MediaMatters.org Read the rest of this post...

Another great anti-war video

It's amazing how many good videos are out there that folks are making. This one has a wonderful original score, and while it's a bit long, it's worth watching the whole thing - hell, just for the song.

From SimpleFears.com Read the rest of this post...

Another brilliant video

Man, this is getting out of control. Yet another really well done campaign video, this time from LoopTVandFILM.com Read the rest of this post...

Rummy tells the truth, second time in a week

I swear the man is either going senile, or waking up from a coma. Rummy admitted today that there is no hard link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Someone apparently forgot to drink the Kool-Aid.

"To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," Rumsfeld added.

"I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who's connected to al Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq. And it is the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship. It may have been something that was not representative of a hard linkage."

Of course, the article goes on to note that Rummy himsfeld made the linkage between Iraq and Al Qaeda numerous times. Perhaps Rummy is trying to take a pot shot at Cheney, since the VP has been one of the more outspoken Saddam-ites of the administration. Read the rest of this post...

Mystery solved - John Kerry had a pen at the debate

Yes, the great vast mystery of what did John Kerry pull uot of his pocket has now been solved. It was a pen. BFD. Read the rest of this post...

Everyone wave good-bye to Poland!

Apparently Bush was a teeny bit premature in his bragging about Poland during the debate last week. Seems they've had it.

Poland said that it aims to withdraw all of its 2,500 troops from Iraq during the course of next year, a major disappointment for Washington which sees Warsaw as one of its staunchest allies in Iraq.

What if you threw a war and nobody came? Read the rest of this post...

These firefighters feel safer with Kerry

And if these firefighters feel safer with Kerry, then so do I. They know the cost of terrorism better than most. They walk into the buildings after the terrorists attack. From Reuters (link removed, keeps changing):

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Does THIS make you feel safer?

Does this President make you feel safer? From Reuters (link removed, keeps changing):

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The most brilliant video I've seen yet

Watch this, NOW. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

I've posted links to several different sites carrying the same video - it's getting a lot of traffic.

- Link 1
- Link 2 (you have to to give this link a chance to download - if you're on dial-up, good luck).
- Link 3

UPDATE: This video was apparently done by Brennan Houlihan. You can read more about Brennan here, courtesy of OliverWillis.com, they're also one of those hosting the video. Read the rest of this post...

Your Share Of The National Debt? $473,456 per household! Thanks George!

USA Today has a substantive, straightforward article about the ballooning annual deficit and staggering US debt that's about to come home to roost.

"The long-term economic health of the United States is threatened by $53 trillion in government debts and liabilities that start to come due in four years when baby boomers begin to retire," says USA Today.

"The "Greatest Generation" and its baby-boom children have promised themselves benefits unprecedented in size and scope. Many leading economists say that even the world's most prosperous economy cannot fulfill these promises without a crushing increase in taxes — and perhaps not even then."

The Supreme Court, two failing military occupations, loss of integrity and respect around the world -- add overwhelming financial irresponsibility to the mix of reasons to vote for Kerry.
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'The president who turns his back on science'

Nice slam.

John Kerry said Monday that President Bush has sacrificed hopes for disease cures offered by stem cell research to "extreme right-wing ideology."

"The hard truth is that when it comes to stem cell research, this president is making the wrong choice to sacrifice science for extreme right-wing ideology," Kerry said.

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Moonie cult followers receiving Bush faith-based funds

God bless George Bush. Now even cult followers are being financed with your taxpayer dollars. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Administration Economic Policy: Fourth Time's a Charm?

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Well, this is now the fourth time that George Bush has been fooled by his advisors into thinking that YET ANOTHER round of tax cuts will do what the last three didn't, create jobs and grow the economy. (Never mind the massive budget deficit Mr. President, those rich people need more tax cuts, they aren't growing the economy enough!) What is the definition of someone who makes the same mistake FOUR TIMES? Unfit for office is my answer. What's yours? Read the rest of this post...

Zogby: Bush and Kerry within 1% point of each other

Zogby is the pollster lots of trust the most, and he shows Bush ahead of Kerry by only 1 point. He also notes that Nader is hurting Kerry.

Message to Nader voters, if you don't give a damn about the Supreme Court, about women's rights, about gay Americans, about abortion staying legal, about the environment, about an upcoming draft and more, then you just keep on deluding yourselves that by voting for Nader you're not helping re-elect George Bush. The truth hurts folks, but you're absolute idiots if you think you're not helping re-elect Bush - per se if you voted for Kerry you'd be upping his odds to get rid of Bush.

But again, if you think most of what the left in this country holds dear is absolutely irrelevant and expendable - hell, that everything Ralph Nader holds dear is expendable - then vote away for Nader. You know he going to lose - the only question is whether he again takes the rest of us down with him. Honestly, I have no more use for you people. If it takes an intervention to slap you out of your deluded sense that every vote DOESN'T count (which is exactly what you're arguing, that somehow by not voting for Kerry you're not influencing the election against him), then slap in the face it will be.

Snippets from the larger Zogby poll:

Pollster John Zogby: "The close race got even closer. There is some evidence that Kerry's debate performance and increased clarity on the war has helped him consolidate at least some of the support that he has lost. But undecideds are up to 8 percent and there is still a month to go. There is also no doubt that Ralph Nader is hurting Kerry. The post convention bounce for Bush is over and his biggest hurdle is among undecided voters who give him a 31 percent positive job performance rating and a 69 percent negative rating. Only 13 percent of undecided voters feel that the president deserves re-election (his lowest yet) while 37 percent feel it is time for someone new.

Undecideds at 8 percent are high because we don't push them until later. Five points of these are hard undecideds, two-points use to be with Kerry, and one point with Bush. How will they break in the end? Will they even vote?

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"A huge plume is rising from Mount St. Helens, but it's not immediately clear if the volcano is erupting."

Erupting, my ass. Every good neo-con knows this is the first sign of WMD. Let's invade.

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Wash Post's biased reporting, yet again

This time it's Howard Kurtz, the media critic who would find a reason to doubt Kerry if he said the sun existed. MediaMatters.org catch's Kurtz at his latest shennanigan - trying to say that the reason the media reported Kerry as winning the debate is because the media WANTED Kerry to win the debate... Read the rest of this post...

Excellent new attack-Bush video

From our good friends at the DCCC. It's worth the watch. Read the rest of this post...

More evidence of Bush's cheating at debate

Atrios via Hesiod reports on yet another photo showing a well-detailed cheat sheet on Bush's podium during the debate.





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More proof Bush cheated during the debate

Yes, this is a silly issue. But since the vast right-wing conspiracy keeps pushing the bs story that Kerry cheated during the first debate by bringing a piece of paper or a pen with him to the podium (the rules apparently say you can't bring ANYTHING with you), I thought it only fair to present more evidence that Bush did the exact same thing, since it appears he did. Bush unfolded a piece of paper as he got to the podium.

I have a few still images showing his hand with something white in it, below, and also a few videos. This videos show Bush unfolding and laying down a piece of paper on the podium:

1. First in real time

2. Then in slow-mo

Finall, the enlarged photos of Bush holding something white as he approaches the podium, in the video you'll see him unfolding it and laying it down on the podium.



(Thanks to a Good Citizen in the Chicago area for sending this screen captures and videos.) Read the rest of this post...

Bush Hates Brave Americans

Bush doesn't hate corruption or graft or cover-ups that waste our tax dollars and endanger national security. Nope, he hates the brave Americans -- aka "whistleblowers" -- who risk everything to expose these problems. The New York Times reports on Congress actually doing something good...and Bush trying to stop them. The first few graphs pretty much say it all:

"Over strenuous objections from the Bush administration, Congress is moving to increase protections for federal employees who expose fraud, waste and wrongdoing inside the government.

"Lawmakers of both parties say the measures are needed to prevent retaliation against such whistleblowers, who reveal threats to public health, safety and security.

"But the administration says the bill unconstitutionally interferes with the president's ability to control and manage the government."

Why does Bush hate brave Americans?
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Afghanistan's bumper crop

They're growing more opium in Afghanistan, apparently breaking all records (to the degree anyone's really keeping count of the poppies). We don't have the troops or resources in that country to keep opium growers in check. You know that heroin sales help fund terrorist activities. The fucking terrorists have a higher gross income than Halliburton this year!

THIS is what happens when you take your eye off the ball in the country that ACTUALLY supported Osama and blow over $200 billion, over 1000 US soldiers' lives, and countless thousands of innocents in A TOTALLY DIFFERENT FUCKING COUNTRY.

Feel any safer yet?
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Winning the hearts and minds

Not so much.

From the LA Times:

When the first explosion struck, Azawi and most of his family were at home. But the nieces had been sent to the store for yogurt. The girls, Raghad, 12, and Maisoon, 11, had just bought their school uniforms and were looking forward to the start of classes this week. Raghad wanted to become a doctor so she could treat her grandfather's high blood pressure. Maisoon, who was devoted to her older sister, said she wanted to be her secretary, family members said.

After the blasts, Azawi and the rest of the family were forced to remain inside their house by police and soldiers until the scene was secured. Once he was allowed to leave, Azawi headed straight to the hospital; finding no sign of his nieces, he went to the morgue.

There he found the broken bodies of both girls.

"One of them had lost her leg," he said. "I looked for it but couldn't find it. Then the man at the morgue gave me a sugar sack filled with legs, arms and other body parts. But I couldn't bring myself to look."

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You wanna see nasty ads?

And you thought this presidential campaign was getting nasty? Check out the ads that Lyndon Johnson ran in 1964. Read the rest of this post...

Alan Keyes, party crasher

Just when you think he couldn't go any lower, he hs to crash an Illinois Republican Party dinner --and he still isn't allowed to speak. Apparently the program was "too full" to include their nominee for US Senate. C'mon guys, he's only down 51 points...

Keyes and his wife left early because of "plans with the family." Sadly, I don't think it's a P-FLAG meeting. Anyone care to offer Keyes some ideas on family outings?

Sorry -- did I say outings? I meant vacations.
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Kerry attracting swing voters in Ohio

Kerry now appears to be making that personal-story connection that he needs to take it over the top. Bush may have flubbed up the story about Missy (wife of soldier killed in Iraq) with his bizarre comment about loving her but the general idea was good. No matter how amusing we may find it that Bush thinks he can relate to the regular person on the street, the Republicans had successfully labeled Kerry as out of touch with those voters. The Bush bubble was popped last week and Kerry now is making that connection or at least the media is now talking about it. (A fickle bunch in the media, aren't they?)

"He's not Clinton, but he's close," Ms. Curtis said. "I didn't see that till today." She had watched intently on Sunday afternoon as Senator John Kerry listened to a newly divorced steelworker, locked out of his factory job for 11 months, haltingly describe how his daughter had told him not to worry - that her mother and grandmother had "taken care of" her first homecoming dress.

"I went to pieces," said Ms. Curtis, a swing voter who said that she supported President Bush after the Republican convention but switched to Mr. Kerry after seeing him up close.

If Ms. Curtis and a few other previously undecided Ohioans who came to Mr. Kerry's town-hall meeting here and some new polls are any indication, swing voters are giving Mr. Kerry a second look after his strong showing in the first presidential debate. And they are liking what they see.

"I just think he's got the pulse of the middle class," Ms. Curtis said afterward. "He needs to do this in so many places in the next 30 days. He's got to get out there and let them know that he's supporting us."

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Separating the wheat from the chaff in Samarra

The US is announcing victory and the Iraqis are claiming civilian casualties. Perhaps the reality is in the middle because I do not subscribe to the theory of "surgical" or "precision" air strikes. It's a public relations term to sell to the US public but take a look at the leftovers of some of those precision strikes. Kill the bad guys, sure, but the air strikes are no doubt killing civilians. That is no way to win the peace and we are only creating more trouble in the long run with distant and heavy-handed attacks like that.

We have a problem right now in Iraq with information because the few journalists that are left in Iraq are limited to the Green Zone. For us at home, this means that much of the information that we receive is run through the Pentagon filter and considering how far off they have been in reporting the truth in Iraq, we have to be suspicious of what they tell us.

Again, perhaps it's true that we control the streets of Samarra for now but the cost (killing civilians) is no way to spread the democracy that I know and love. I wonder about the long term abiblity to hold the streets at such a cost.
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More Great News -- Record Numbers of First Time Voters Are Registering In Swing States!!

Terrifically encouraging NYT article about the payoff in all those drives to get new voters to register. Record numbers are eligible to vote in swing states and most of the success is coming from non-partisan and Democrat groups.

"Registration numbers are impossible to tally nationwide," says the NYT, "and how many of the newly registered will vote is a matter of some debate. But it is clear the pace is particularly high in urban areas of swing states, where independent Democratic groups and community organizations have been running a huge voter registration campaign for just over a year."
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Arabs in Florida Rejecting Bush

In Florida, Arab voters are increasingly supporting John Kerry, a significant switch for a rather conservative group. Add them to the blacks, the Cubans, the gays and the other Florida minorities that Bush has united...behind Kerry.
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Questions For Condi

I missed Wolf Blitzer's grilling but thought George S. on ABC did merely a so-so job of getting her off message and actually answering the many questions raised by the NYT article.

1. The ever-changing number of troops that are "trained" or "fully trained" or "kinda trained" is getting absurd. These people [Condi, Cheney, Bush]should be unable to walk out their doors without being hounded with questions about a definitive answer on this question and then immediately pounded with questions about why so many of them contradict each other and the Defense Department. To go from 200,000 to 130,000 to 100,000 when the DD is testifying to Congress that it's really about 50,000 and only 9,000 of those are fully trained (surely the only standard that matters if you're going to be asking them to wage a war) is ridiculous.

2. Condi was aware of the debate but not aware of its nature? Why the hell not?

3. More to the point: what debate? There was no debate. When every expert you speak to -- our top nuclear scientists, the State Department, commissions, all our overseas allies, etc. -- says the tubes are NOT useful for centrifuges and ONE LONE minor CIA guy says they are, that's not a debate. That's a CONSENSUS. There was NO debate. Everyone told them these tubes were for firing rockets. They ignored that, seized on the one person who would tell them what they wanted to hear and went to the American public and the world and stated flatly without caveat that this was our trump card -- tubes used only for nuclear bomb building. I remember Condi saying watch out for the mushroom cloud on national TV. And I took her seriously. And she lied.

4. If she didn't lie, she was misled. Who misled her, who has been fired and when will they be brought up on charges for endangering national security on lies?
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Kerry a Neocon?

William Safire tries to claim John Kerry has morphed into a neocon during the election.

"First, on war-fighting in Iraq" writes Safire. "Hard-liners criticized the Bush decision this spring not to send U.S. troops in to crush Sunni resistance in the Baathist stronghold in Falluja. Our forces wanted to fight to win but soft-liners in Washington worried about the effect of heavier civilian casualties on the hearts and minds of Iraqis, and of U.S. troop losses on Americans."

Kerry supports going in full-out and Safire claims this is somehow neocon. Actually, it's called letting the military do its job and not calling off assaults for political reasons. (Bush has overruled military actions the generals wanted to take in the field several times, presumably for fear of casualties.)

Gee, think that not tying the military's hands with political concerns might be something Kerry learned in Vietnam?

"Next, to grand strategy," writes Safire. "Kerry was asked by Jim Lehrer, "What is your position on the whole concept of pre-emptive war?" In the past, Kerry has given a safe never-say-never response, but last week he gave a Strangelovian answer: "The president always has the right and always has had the right for pre-emptive strike." He pledged never to cede "the right to pre-empt in any way necessary'' to protect the U.S.

"But in embracing his right to pre-empt - always derided in horror by the two-minutes-to-midnight crowd as impermissible "preventive war" - Kerry felt the need to interject: "That was a great doctrine throughout the cold war. And it was one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.""

Safire argues that only Strangelove considered MAD (mutually assured destruction) as including preemptive strikes. But that was one of the most intimidating things about MAD. It didn't work if you waited to build a coalition. So if the Soviets launched a missile -- just one missile -- we would consider that a full-out assault and launch everything we had against them. Only right-wingers would claim this wasn't preemptive just because you didn't launch first.

And of course, no President in US history that believed we were about to be attacked would have ever felt the need to get "approval" before responding militarily or attacking first. But every President before Bush knew that huge international struggles were easier to win if you reached out to allies rather than pushing them away.

"On stopping North Korea's nuclear buildup," writes Safire, "Kerry abandoned his global-testing multilateralism; our newest neocon derided Bush's six-nation talks and demands America go it gloriously alone."

Wrong. Kerry has said repeatedly that the US having face-to-face talks with North Korea doesn't mean all the regional partners (China, Japan, etc.) have to walk away. He WANTS them to stay involved.

And Safire ignores the larger truth that George Bush has made a radical break with 50 years of foreign policy. Bush mocks our allies, mocks the UN, mocks the Geneva Convention, mocks the World Court, mocks the World Trade Organization, walks away from the Kyoto Accords and never makes a serious new offer and on and on and on. Everyone on the right keeps saying Kerry's position on Iraq is the same as Bush because they both want to bring in more allies. The difference is that Kerry hasn't seriously damaged every international alliance we've built over the last 50 years and rejected offers of help by the UN and other nations at crucial stages in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"And in embracing Wilsonian idealism to intervene in Darfur's potential genocide," writes Safire, "Kerry's promise of troops outdid Pentagon liberators: "If it took American forces to some degree to coalesce the African Union, I'd be prepared to do it. ...''"

That's not some massive new stance. That's the same basic, humanitarian stance that every decent nation pledged after the genocide in Rwanda under Clinton's watch. Kerry was also very moderate and Presidential in his wording. The difference? Kerry will try and fulfill that pledge. Bush has us burdened with so many overseas misadventures and nation-destroying projects that intervening in Darfur would be extremely difficult if not impossible.

"[Democrats] shut their eyes to Kerry's hard-line, right-wing, unilateral, pre-election policy epiphany."

No, they see a moderate, reasonable, balanced approach to foreign policy that combines common sense with humanity and a respect for other sovereign nations and the grand alliances that have bolstered our national security since the end of World War II.
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