Sunday, October 31, 2004

Looking Very, Very good in One Battle Ground State

Attaturk of course lives in a land of mystery, but he knows people in Iowa and they have informed him that in the battleground state of Iowa the relatively popular senator Bullwinkle J. Grassley has a good sized-lead over his challenger, nonetheless he has been running ad after ad all for the purpose of getting out the Republican Vote.

For this reason, I have been predicting Iowa to be really, really close.

But the Des Moines Register tells us this morning that things are looking good for the Kerry folks.

The poll, taken Monday through Friday night, shows the Massachusetts senator has gotten a jump on the president among those Iowans who have cast absentee or early ballots - a major get-out-the-vote strategy of both parties.

Twenty-seven percent of Iowa adults surveyed said they had already voted. Kerry leads Bush, 52 percent to 41 percent, among that group of early-bird voters. Among the 73 percent who said they definitely would vote on Tuesday, Kerry and Bush are tied.


The article goes on to state that Bush is quite unpopular and well over half those surveyed believe things are going badly in the country.

If this is a sign of things to come, Kerry may win going away.

Oh, let us hope that is true.

Prediction Time, Worth Absolutely NOTHING

Well, okay, but still worth more than Howard Fineman's predictions.

Attaturk's belief in the election's results are a combination of both rationality and optimism. Here is Attaturk's prediction for the election.

Kerry wins every Gore State except New Mexico, but Iowa and Wisconsin will be close, very close.

Bush holds all of his States except, the following: New Hampshire, Florida and Ohio.

The electoral vote count is Kerry 306, Bush 232.

Kerry wins the popular vote getting just over 52, Bush getting just over 47. Democrats will pick up the Senate by picking up 3 seats, making the Senate 51 plus 1, to 48. The Kerry surge will surprisingly cause a dozen seats to switch in the House and with the addition of Bernie Sanders caucusing with them gives them a razor thin majority in the House.

Other predictions:

Republicans proceed to whine, complain, and bitch on talk radio for the next four years than three months. Of course, first, they litigate for three months.

John O'Neill crawls back into his hidey-hole and assumes a fetal position until Groundhog Day 2008 when he reemerges to claim that John Kerry ate the throat out of every Vietnamese child in the Mekong Delta.

Rush Limbaugh emerges from Jail in the Fall of 2007 to engage in a short-wave radio broadcast from a bunker somewhere in Idaho.

The Bush family gets ready to try the one-term triple play with Jeb in 2008.

Dick Cheney keeps his plane flying west from Hawaii toward Burma. He then sets up a small commune of jungle dwellers in a remote location. A book is written about it, "Electronic Heart of Darkness". The Horror, the Horror.

Karen Hughes, takes out her frustrations by going down to a Fort Worth animal shelter and breaking the necks of numerous cats and dogs with her bare manhands.

Ann Coulter, publishes a book on January 19, 2005 claiming Kerry should be impeached. Coulter goes on hunger strike until Kerry can be defeated. However, nothing happens and people discover that Coulter is in reality an air fern, like Don Imus.

Sean Hannity stars in a series of Bukkake films.

Alan Colmes developes a vestigal spine for the days of November 3, 4, and 5 before Roger Aisles has Karen Hughes rip it out of him with her powerful grip.

Ed Gillespie goes to Canada to receive a gift from a Chin Donor.

Glenn Reynolds wakes up in a pool of his own sweat, mumbling "indeed, indeed, indeed".

Robert Novak, disposable douche, spends time in the pokey.

Katherine Lopez, discovers no change in her social life.

Tom DeLay is indicted in Texas, he flees into his compound, police are finally able to get him out, but setting off a series of bug-bombs.

John McCain calls up Beelzebub, ask if he can buy his soul back. Finds out that Colin Powell is doing the same thing.

Rudi Giulianni obtains a new hair weave, donated to him by Judith Nathan.

Zell Miller is pelted with spitballs.

Finally,

My hope is that out of this election, people will realize that pollsters cannot get accurate sampling anymore and either their methodologies have to change or there is not as much utility in them anymore. This causes the SCLM to spend a LOT less time on the horserace which is way too fucking predominant, instead they will focus on the issues.

Probably way too big a cockeyed optimist on that last one.

Billmon's Back

And breaking Godwin's Law in so many ways, it may set off internet anarchy.

And I like it.

Iraq: Sure Changed the Dynamic of the Middle East Huh?

As each and every foreign policy reason for going into Iraq comes down to the conclusion of what didn't we fuck up, another stupidity of strategic thinking is shown in all its glory.

All those American troops in Iraq, sure have managed not to intiminate Iran.

Iran's parliament unanimously approved the outline of a bill Sunday that would require the government to resume uranium enrichment, legislation likely to deepen an international dispute over Iran's nuclear activities.

Separately, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said there was a 50 percent chance of a nuclear compromise with European nations, though he ruled out an indefinite suspension of key enrichment activities.

Shouts of "Death to America!" rang out in the conservative-dominated parliament after lawmakers voted to advance the nation's nuclear program, an issue of national pride that provides a rare point of agreement between conservatives and reformers.

Washington has pushed hard for Iran to drop its nuclear program, which Tehran maintains is for peaceful energy purposes. The U.N. nuclear watchdog is also pushing for Iran to halt its activities.

The United States, which has secured some support from European nations, accuses Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons.

Parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel called Sunday's vote a message to the world.

"The message of the absolute vote for the Iranian nation is that the parliament supports national interests," he said. "And the message for the outside world is that the parliament won't give in to coercion."

Saturday, October 30, 2004

This Doesn't Even Require a Tinfoil Hat

Earlier in October Karl Rove bragged that they had a few surprises up their sleeves to media mental vacuum Sean Hannity.

The Osama tape gets run. And now what is reportedly the spirit of these so-called terror warriors?

Today's NY Daily News:

"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."

A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."

He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.


They are THAT CRAVEN.

Pass it on, its a meme.

By the way, it isn't helping them.

[I]ncumbent George W. Bush leads Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry by 47 percent to 45 percent among likely voters, according to a FOX News poll released Saturday. The president's lead is well within the poll's margin of error.
These new poll results show a slight dip in polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday night when Bush topped Kerry by 50 percent to 45 percent.

Polling was conducted Thursday and Friday evenings, so about half of those interviewed would have had the opportunity to hear reports of a new tape from Usama bin Laden.


Thanks to Kossack diarist Virginia Dem, who was thinking the same thing I was and from whom the bottom half of this post was stolen from shamelessly.

In Honor of Today's Monstrosity involving Bobo

It seems only fitting that I re-run this from last month again. Compare its similarity in structure to today's column and you'll know why.

Austria Ready for Unification's Message

Vienna Times, March 10, 1938

Yesterday, Chancellor Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite on whether Austria will remain independent, or follow the natural dictates of its ethnic composition and join with growing Germany, now seemingly reborn under the steady and determined leadership of its Fuhrer, Austrian native, Adolf Hitler.

To some this seems to be an example of Schnuschnigg caving in to the pressures of the more dynamic and strong-willed German leader, but those with this view are clearly a minority.

It is true that the intellectuals of Vienna bemoan the apparent loss of an Austria identity through an alliance with the German Reich. However, as one who has traveled throughout the Tirol on many a skiing vacation, rather than just confining myself to effete coffee-houses, like Herr Krugmann, I can tell you that the feelings of those in the city favoring non-confederation, let's call them "pessimists", are not shared by the common Austrians that make up the back bone of this land. I like to call them, "anschlussmists"

These common people, the people of the beer halls, sausage factories, clock makers, puppeteers, and all those wearing the brown-shirt and leiderhosen of pride agree that it is better for Austria's future to join in league with its powerful and upward-moving neighbor to the north than to remain in a state of meaningless independence.

It is true the pessimists, comprised as they are of intellectuals, artists, and financiers, all have financial or religious reasons for opposing the plan so advocated by Herr Hitler and now the strong-willed Schuschnigg. However, their claims and concerns seem both overwrought and unduly dour, especially to the average hard-working Austrian of the Alps who unarguably have made this country what it is. What the family in Innsbrook wants may not seem right and proper to the academic in Vienna, but that does not mean that the bulk of the former will not have their voices heard.

It is true that Herr Hitler has, while rising to power in Berlin, made statements regarding Jews that are strident and even accurately called impolite. However, now that he has taken political power in Germany, other than minor changes in the law, he has yet to put this rhetoric into practice. There is little evidence at this point that even if that language was something he was serious about, which it is likely he was not, it is language of the past and not of policy. Appealing to one's base through hyperbole is part and parcel of any political process and there is little evidence of any pending actions against jews*. It seems unlikely that Austrians have anything to worry about on this score and indeed such assertions now seem to be simply "fear mongering".

In the coming hours, Austrians will have to make the faithful decision, we must make sure that we respect the will of the majority and not let fear and use demogougery to cloud what should be evident to all.

Obviously its time for the Shephard's Crook

Vice-President Mumbly Crashcart on the stump:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday the invasion of Iraq will go down in history, along with the war in Afghanistan, for its "brilliance."

The vice president's comment came as he portrayed the controversy over hundreds of tons of missing explosives in Iraq as a battle pitting Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) against U.S. troops, with Cheney siding with the military.

At an airport rally at a hangar in Montoursville, Pa., Cheney said the U.S. invasions of "Afghanistan and Iraq will be studied for years for their brilliance."


Brilliant?

I'd laugh, except he is not pushing Guiness, he's Orwelling it up about war. How brilliant is it that Osama's still making videos, something we've managed to curtail Cat Stevens from doing?

How brilliant is it that 18 months after "Mission Accomplished" we are getting ready to storm a city of 300,000 in that nation we so brilliantly handled?

You can literally imagine the Guiness Commercial like qualities.

Abu Ghraib? BRILLIANT!
Al QaQaa? BRILLIANT!
Paul Bremer? BRILLIANT!
Chalabi? BRILLIANT!
War will pay for itself? BRILLIANT!
Blaming, Old Europe? BRILLIANT!
There will be no casualties? BRILLIANT!
100,000 Dead Civilians? BRILLIANT!
WMD's game,set,match? BRILLIANT!
Just a bunch of deadenders? BRILLIANT!
Bring it On!? BRILLIANT!
French Fries? BRILLIANT!
Outing Plame? BRILLIANT!
Yellow Cake? BRILLIANT!
Wanted Dead or Alive? BRILLIANT!
Then, I don't think about him much? BRILLIANT!
Waterboarding? BRILLIANT!
Let Freedom Reign? BRILLIANT!
Freedom is on the March? BRILLIANT!
Mobile Weapons Labs? BRILLIANT!
Iraq connected to Al Qaeda? BRILLIANT!
You forgot Poland? BRILLIANT!
Lovin' the widows as best I can? BRILLIANT!

Why is he still alive?

Democrats, stop fucking acting like somehow the Chimp will swipe victory from the jaws of defeat because a fucking maniac makes a videotape.

Josh Marshall is absolutely right when he states:

If you're a Democrat and you notice your fellow Democrats dipping into these spasms of fecklessness and weak-kneedism, as I've described above, I strongly encourage you to slap them around a few times and tell them to get a hold of themselves. If you're experiencing such spasms, by all means, slap yourself a few times and tell yourself the same thing.


If one wacky religious nutjob, allows us to lose track to allow another tool a a chunk of religious nutjobs seize our country, God help us. If so, then Osama can do one of these:



But fuck him. Get the SOB, and the best way is to elect Kerry.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Coming Momentarily


Hi, you may not remember me, I know that the infidel Bush doesn't. But I do try so hard to get your attention from time to time.

I have a few things to get off my chest.

First, just to get the formalities out of the way, let me say, "Death to America"

Second, I'd like to state that I will try to kill each and every one of you infidels no matter who your President is. But I would prefer the one that doesn't think much about me, and manages to help my recruiting efforts, its been a bumper two years.

Finally, I'd like to dedicate this number to the infidel Bush.

"We made a promise we swore
we'd always remember
no retreat, baby, no surrender"


Well, Later, see in you January!

What a pathetic spectacle

Attaturk just saw some poor military officer, Major somebody (sorry just saw it) and though the soldier did OK, the press figured out pretty quickly that he was not addressing the April 18, 2003 tape which is a smoking gun.

It did not go well for the Bushies.


O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D

Augur of the Coming End of the Neocons

For the First Time since I was 12...

I recommend the purchase of Mad Magazine.

Putz

Rummy the Terrible:

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier in a radio interview that it was "very likely" that the explosives were removed before the war by Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, but offered no concrete evidence.

"I guess the first thing to say about it is that first reports are almost always wrong," he said in an interview with a Philadelphia radio station.

"And people who use hair-trigger judgement to come to conclusions about things that are fast moving frequently make mistakes that are awkward and embarrassing," he said.


Meanwhile, in reality:

"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al Qaqaa," said David A. Kay, a former American official who led the recent hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the vast site. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an I.A.E.A. seal."

One weapons expert said the videotape and some of the agency's photographs of the HMX stockpiles "were such good matches it looked like they were taken by the same camera on the same day."

Independent experts said several other factors - the geography; the number of bunkers; the seals on some of the bunker doors; the boxes, crates and barrels similar to those seen by weapon inspectors - confirm that the videotape was taken at Al Qaqaa.

"There's not another place that you would mistake it for," said Dean Staley, the KSTP reporter, who now works in Seattle.


The accidental news encounter began last year after the invasion, Mr. Staley recalled in an interview. Their Army unit arrived in the region on Friday, April 11, and made camp. The Fifth Battalion of the 101st Airborne's 159th Aviation Brigade flew helicopter missions from the camp in the Iraqi desert, moving troops and supplies to the front.

A week later, on Friday, April 18, two journalists recalled, they joined two soldiers who were driving in a Humvee to investigate the nearby bunkers. Among other things, wandering inside the cavernous buildings offered the prospect of relief from the desert sun.

"It was just by chance that we were able to go," said Joe Caffrey, the team's photographer. "They wanted to go out and we asked to tag along."

Mr. Caffrey provided The New York Times with the latitude and longitude of the camp, which places it between 1.5 and 3 miles southeast of Al Qaqaa bunkers. A commercial satellite photograph of the region shows that the camp was close to the storage site. Mr. Caffrey said the soldiers used bolt cutters to cut through chains with locks on them, as well as seals. He said the seals appeared to be lead disks attached to very thin wires that were wrapped around the doors of the bunker entrances, forming a barrier easily cut in two.

They visited a half dozen bunkers, he said. The gloomy interiors revealed long rows of boxes, crates and barrels, what independent experts said were three kinds of HMX containers shipped to Iraq from France, China and Yugoslavia.

The team opened storage containers, some of which contained white powder that independent experts said was consistent with HMX.

"The soldiers were pretty much in awe of what they were seeing," Mr. Caffrey recalled. "They were saying their E.O.D. - Explosive Ordinance Division, people who blow this kind of stuff up - would have a field day."

The journalists filmed roughly 25 minutes of video. Mr. Caffrey added that the team left the bunker doors open. "It would have been easy for anybody to get in," he said.

Mr. Staley recalled that during the drive back to camp, they saw a red Toyota pickup truck with some Iraqis in it. "Our impression was they were looters," he said. "This was a no man's land. It was a huge facility, and we worried that they were bad guys who might come up on us."


Celebrities!

Kerry couldn't be doing better with the celebrity endorsements. You cannot do better than the Boss openly, and Enimem impliedly.

Which couldn't be better, because frankly you'd rather have the misogynist attack the other guy than support you. Bush has the open endorsement of a misogynist already doesn't he Ah-nold?

But let's look at the Bush line up.

...the Gropinator.
...Ron Silver (ooh lah lah)
...Lee Greenwood (although that could be related to "royalties")

And the intellectuals

...Jessica Simpson
...Britney Spears

Seems about right.

To be fair Kerry is supported by Ashton Kutcher, but still fittingly Bush wins the endorsement of 2/3rds of morons.

Friday Miscellaneous Lifeform Blogging

This is the last FMLB before the election (see how I tried to be tres chic and give it an acronym?).

There are so many possibilities, but I have narrowed it down to two.

First, as Dear Leader was surprised at the Second Debate to be a lumber magnate, I say "WANT SOME WOOD?"

The Larch...the larch...the larch...

And, as this is hopefully the last Friday that Chimpophiles can hope for another four years, I think its only fitting that for his whole crew we dedicate this lifeform to them.


The Least Weasel*


*Yes, remarkably ferret-like.

Absurdities

The Bush Administration and its desperate followers on the right need some sort of reason to carry on, some explanation they can grasp to try to mitigate the video proof that weapons were still there on April 18, 2003.

So they are simply ignoring the KSTP-TV video and throwing out this...


A picture of trucks outside a bunker at Al Qaa Qaa on March 17, 2003. They claim that this is "proof" that explosives were being unloaded from one of the bunkers.

By that logic...


On March 17, 2003, a truck is parked outside the home of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Thompson, of LaCrosse, WI, this is "proof" that explosives were being unloaded from their 3-bedroom ranch home.

Oh, and there is this problem too.

The bunker photographs they are showing are pointless.

According to the IAEA Action Report on the facility, the HMX was being stored in only nine bunkers at the site. All of the HMX bunkers were sealed by the IAEA after verification, using metal seals on the front entrance doors.

DoD released on Oct. 28, 2004, imagery showing two trucks parked outside one of the 56 bunkers of the Al Qa Qaa Explosive Storage Complex approximately 20 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, on March 17, 2003. According to the release: "It is not believed that all 56 bunkers contained High Melting Explosive also known as HMX. A large, tractor-trailer (yellow arrow) is loaded with white containers with a smaller truck parked behind it. The International Atomic Energy Association inspectors identified bunkers in this complex as containing High Melting Explosive."

However, a comparison of features in the DoD-released imagery with available commercial satellite imagery, combined with the use of an IAEA map showing the location of bunkers used to store the HMX explosives, reveals that the trucks pictured on the DoD image are not at any of the nine bunkers indentified by the IAEA as containing the missing explosive stockpiles.


Seriously go to the link above for a thorough ass-kicking of this bogus talking point.

Tragedy

This is what 100,000 people looks like.


They are, of course, at a Kerry Rally in Madison, Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, imagine all of these people killed and you'd have the number of civilians killed in Iraq since March 19, 2003.

LONDON (AP) — A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months since the U.S.-led invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war.

There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Wednesday, 1,081 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

The scientists who wrote the report concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision," because the quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study. The interviewers were Iraqi, most of them doctors.

Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study is being published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal.

The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and airstrikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote in the British-based journal.

"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," they said.


Who is responsible for this?


Thursday, October 28, 2004

Ok, which one of you SOB's is it?

Asshole the American, who has threatened to destroy America if it doesn't start using its Discover Cards more, could be any number of people, but I'm guessing it is one of two guys.



Is it?


Karl Rove?

OR, since he's not doin' much...


Ari Fleisher?


Any thoughts Hegemonians?

We'll Always have Paragraph 81

O'Reilly and Macris settle, so I guess the audio tapes will not be played.

Too bad.

Oh, well, I guess I'll just have to settle for this:

"81. During the course of Defendant BILL O'REILLY'S sexual rant, it became clear that he was using a vibrator upon himself, and that he ejaculated. Plaintiff was repulsed."

This makes Attaturk very Happy

To pay homage to our friends at First Draft, THESE are Happy Kerry Pictures.



My Goodness, That October Surprise is really a Surprise

From the AP:

The FBI has begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid contracts to Halliburton Co., seeking an interview with a top Army contracting officer and collecting documents from several government offices.

The line of inquiry expands an earlier FBI investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq, and it elevates to a criminal matter the election-year question of whether the Bush administration showed favoritism to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company.

FBI agents this week sought permission to interview Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer who went public last weekend with allegations that her agency unfairly awarded a Halliburton subsidiary no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars in Iraq, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

HOLY SHITE!! Film from Al QaaQaa

Atrios Commentor, Jeff pointed this out from KSTP-TV in Minneapolis.

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared.

The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area.

Using GPS technology and talking with members of the 101st Airborne 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS determined our crew embedded with them may have been on the southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where that ammunition disappeared. Our crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa. On April 18, 2003 they drove two or three miles north into what is believed to be that area.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew bunker after bunker of material labelled explosives. Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get in and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive."

In one bunker, there were boxes marked with the name "Al Qaqaa", the munitions plant where tons of explosives allegedly went missing.

Once the doors to the bunkers were opened, they weren't secured. They were left open when the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew and the military went back to their base.

"We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely.

"At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us."


5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed pictures of the material we found to experts in Washington Wednesday to see if it is the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. They could not make that determination.

The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.


They have video at their site, but here are some pictures. WOW, could be huge.







WHAT THE FUCK?!!!

Earlier on my little captioning moment of the day, I put up a picture of Bush with some African Americans. One of whom was Don King, and when that's the case the jokes just write themselves.

But, a diligent poster at DU, with the gravitas evoking name of "Underpants" posted a series of pictures that I missed and frankly, they are disturbing. Look at these pictures as Bush arrives...


Bush walks into a curtained off area to meet with African American leaders, before a rally in the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan October 27, 2004. (African American leaders?)


Where's Don King? Not exactly as difficult as Where's Waldo?



Maybe this is normal, but c'mon why the fuck are they all cramped into a 20x10 box? Is a curtain not enough of a backdrop.

Jeebus does this look bad.

Oliver Willis is right

He tells Sully to stick his Kerry endorsement where the sun don't...never mind it just leads to easy jokes.

And he is absolutely correct.

Sully was cheerleading for this war, calling the left all sorts of names and gloating out of his piehole paens to the Chimp with all of his usual fecund wit.

Let us just look at the three days following the orgasmic Sully moment of the Statue of Saddam coming down.

For example:

April 11, 2003:

THE COMING SPIN: You can see it now. Chaos. Looting. Disorder. Losing the peace. It's not that there won't be some truth to these stories; and real cause for concern. The pent-up fury, frustration and sheer anger of three decades is a powerful thing, probably impossible to stop immediately without too much force. And the last thing we want is fire-power directed toward the celebrating masses. The trouble is that they could become the narrative of the story, especially among the usual media suspects, and erode the impact and power of April 9. By Sunday, or sooner, you-know-who will probably have a front-page "news analysis" that will describe the joy of liberation being transformed into the nightmare of a Hobbesian quicksand of ever-looming cliches.


A-hem.

April 10, 2003: All for the purpose of mockery by Sully.

VON HOFFMAN AWARD I: Conventional Wisdom Watch, by Newsweek. A down-arrow for Dick Cheney: "Tells 'Meet the Press' just before war, 'We will be greeted as liberators.' An arrogant blunder for the ages." Nope, Newsweek. Yours was the "arrogant blunder for the ages." And on April 7!


VON HOFFMAN AWARD III: "[Al-Jazeera has shown] the resistance and anger of the Iraqi population, dismissed by Western propaganda as a sullen bunch waiting to throw flowers at Clint Eastwood lookalikes ... The idea that Iraq's population would have welcomed American forces entering the country after a terrifying aerial bombardment was always utterly implausible ... One can only wince at the way weak-minded policy hacks in the Pentagon and White House have spun out the 'ideas' of Lewis and Ajami into the scenario for a quick romp in a friendly Iraq ... pity the Iraqi civilians who must still suffer a great deal more before they are finally 'liberated'." - Edward Said, London Review of Books, April 17.


VON HOFFMAN AWARD VII: "Is Wolfowitz really so ignorant of history as to believe the Iraqis would welcome us as 'their hoped-for liberators'?" - Eric Alterman, The Nation.


V-H AWARD III: "The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we cannot win. "We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable. "Every time we confront Iraqi troops we may win some tactical battles, as we did for ten years in Vietnam, but we will not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost." - Scott Ritter, South African TV.


V-H AWARD VIII: "Have you ever seen such amazing arrogance wedded to such awesome incompetence?" - Molly Ivins, March 16, 2003. No, Molly, I haven't. The liberal media have had a terrible, terrible war.


April 9, 2003:

This is an amazing victory, a victory over a monster who gassed civilians, jailed children, sent millions into fruitless wars, harbored poisonous weapons to threaten free peoples, tortured thousands, and made alliances with every two-bit opportunist on the planet. It's a victory over those who marched in the millions to stop this liberation, over the endless media cynics, over the hate-America crowd, and the armchair generals. It's a victory for the two countries in the world that have always made freedom possible and who have now brought it to another corner of the world made dark by terror. It's a victory for the extraordinary servicemen and women who performed this task with such skill, cool, courage and restraint. It's a victory for optimism over pessimism, the righting of past wrongs, the assertion of universal truths against postmodern excuses, and of political leadership over appeasement. Celebrate it. Don't let the whiners take this away from you or from the people of Iraq.


There is so so much more, such as this example of his wisdom on April 22, 2003:

I remain an optimist about the Iraqi future - and America's critical role in it. Yes, there have been some obvious screw-ups - the failure to protect Baghdad's museums strikes me as damn-near indefensible. But the direction is clear. And if the U.N. is successfully kept at the margins, we can work this out.


Aint' archives a bitch!

Scary Thursday BUSH Blogging

Halloween Approaches, from Here:


Nice, either showing how he inhaled coke when he was in the Guard, or he is blowing his nose on stage. Your Preznit ladies and gentlemen.

5 More Days

And Swift Boat Veterans for Truth goes into hibernation until early 2008.


Though clearly a great strain, Bush indicates he is still winning that battle against responsibility and conscience.


A cheering crowd at a Kerry rally, Freepers claiming the two in front are Arab terrorists, in 3...2...1...engage.


Bush supporters demonstrating the NEW SIGN O' THE BEAST


Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide to Republicans, found primarily in the South and mountainous areas of the West. You can tell them by their poor fashion sense and their fetid scat.


Bush, surrounded by the nearly the entirety of his support within the African American community, reacts in open-mouthed shock as he feels Don King lift his wallet. King later stated, "I did it most unobtrusitively with great dextriousity and dispatchedness". King later said he supports Bush because they speak the same language, "Only in America!".


Larry, McCain, & Curly emerge from the bus. Jeb answers the question of who on the bus was made to "squeal like a piggy?"


"Torn between two lovers, feelin' like a fool, Loving both of you is breaking all the rules"


"Yes, I have the face that stops traffic...one way or another."


"I'm telling you Quakers in Pennsylvania that if you don't get out and support this War, I'm gonna come there and kill your children." Zell Miller, you provide the paper, he'll provide the spit.


Please don't hurt me crazy man.

So ends the Legal Discrimination Effort, now come the thugs

In Ohio the legal challenge to 35,000 new registrations -- as a step to challenge even more, came to an end.

A U.S. District Court judge yesterday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year's presidential race.

Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati issued an order preventing local election boards from going forward with plans to notify challenged voters and hold hearings until she hears legal arguments tomorrow. But because her ruling means that those election board hearings cannot take place within the time frame state law requires before the election, Dlott's ruling killed the GOP effort that had targeted 35,000 voters, Democratic and Republican party officials said.


The GOP in Ohio will try its best to make it a pyrhhic victory via intimidation:

Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, said yesterday's ruling does not prevent the party from going forward with plans to place 3,400 monitors in polling places, particularly in heavily Democratic urban areas. The challenges will take place Tuesday instead of being decided beforehand, he said.
States allow political parties to monitor polls and challenge voters' eligibility. In Ohio, the challenge is considered by a bipartisan election board.

"The ironic twist here is that now there will be longer lines [at the polls] because questions about voter eligibility will have to be decided on Election Day, rather than ahead of time," Weaver said.


I'm sure they'll be nice about it right?

Tom Josefiak, the Bush campaign's general counsel, said in a recent interview that challenges would be conducted in a non-intimidating manner that would not disrupt voting.


Y'know like the Germans went into Austria.*

Hey, who are the Republicans going to target?


Democrats, however, argue that the real aim of the challenge program is to keep voters likely to support Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), particularly minorities, from casting ballots.

...

In Florida, Republican poll watchers will be disproportionately concentrated in minority precincts, according to a Democratic Party analysis of census data and GOP plans filed in five counties. In Miami-Dade, 59 percent of predominately black precincts will have at least one GOP poll watcher, compared with 37 percent of white precincts.

Although Fletcher did not dispute those numbers, she said that the party will not single out black neighborhoods, but rather heavily Democratic ones. "Those are the places most likely for the Democrats . . . to try to steal the election," she said.


Why be so obtuse GOP, why not just cut to the chase with your tactics and do this outside minority-heavy voting locations? You know you want to.




BTW, since Attaturk doesn't get NY Times recognition for his lovely kitty cats, can he at least get some sort of kudo like the "2004 Godwin Award" for managing to allude to both the Nazis and the Klan in one post?

*No, I did not forget Poland.

More Solid than Drudge or the Moonie Times

In its sourcing, in that it has one, rather than "Let's make shit up" which is the Washington Times, Drudge method of news gathering (but then I'm implying they do this independently of one another).

This article from USA Today, via the AP will not help the enablers on the Fox Morning Bush Bukkake:

An armed group claimed in a video Thursday to have obtained a large amount of explosives missing from a munitions depot facility in Iraq and threatened to use them against foreign troops.
A group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, said it had coordinated with officers and soldiers of "the American intelligence" to obtain a "huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility."

The claim couldn't be independently verified. The speaker was surrounded by masked, armed men standing in front of a black banner with the group's name on it in the tape obtained by Associated Press Television News.

"We promise God and the Iraqi people that we will use it against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them in the event of these forces threatening any Iraqi city," the man added.

Nearly 400 tons of conventional explosives have disappeared from the al-Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.N. agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei,reported the disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on Monday, two weeks after Iraqi officials told the nuclear agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security."

The disappearance of the explosives has become a huge campaign issue in the U.S. presidential election

About Sums it Up

Because "Preznit MeMakeNoMistakes" lives up to his nickname, any criticism by Kerry of him, is ipsofacto, actually blaming others, him being perfect and all. Therefore, criticizing things like the prosecution of the war is actually blaming others -- you know, the actual fuckups in Bush's opinion. The troops.

As retired General, and disgusted former Bush, now enthusiastic Kerry supporter Tony McPeak says, thanks to the original catblogger Kevin Drum:

The President seems to think Senator Kerry could not possibly be criticizing him since the President thinks he has never made a mistake. Let’s be perfectly clear: it is the President who dropped the ball. Senator Kerry is being critical of George Bush, not the troops. By embarking on the line of attack, George Bush is deflecting blame from him over to the military. This is beneath contempt.


There must be a trite word that I could use here, that some idiotic rightwinger uses all the time...oh yes...

INDEED.


Stooges

The White House, as Josh Marshall demonstrates, has now spun nine or ten different explanations as to what happened at the appropriately sounding Al Qaaqa.

Their main shifting explanations man, is Larry DeRita, Rummy's press flack.

How does one get a Larry DeRita?




plus


equals

Oh, Wise Guy

The newest and most commonly made claim is...Saddam moved everything before our troops ever got there.

Um, apparently not.

Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday.

The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters. But some looting was clearly indiscriminate, with people grabbing anything they could find and later heaving unwanted items off the trucks.

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.

"The looting started after the collapse of the regime," said Wathiq al-Dulaimi, a regional security chief, who was based nearby in Latifiya. But once it had begun, he said, the booty streamed toward Baghdad.

Earlier this month, on Oct. 10, the directorate of national monitoring at the Ministry of Science and Technology notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives, which are used in demolition and missiles and are the raw material for plastic explosives, were missing. The agency has monitored the explosives because they can also be used as the initiator of an atomic bomb.

Agency officials examined the explosives in January 2003 and noted in early March that their seals were still in place. On April 3, the Third Infantry Division arrived with the first American troops.


On to plan "O" or something Larry.

Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk.


Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Gold Medal: Unintentionally Funny Olympiad

Held this year, naturally, in POLAND!

Andrew Sullivan is a pretty good writer, but he just ran into a sensational one.

Punchline,

The sensational writer is Lileks.

America, George W. Bush is here to tell you what he thinks of you


Circa 1999-2000

Go HERE for more, including the video.

Who would Jesus flip off?

WWJFO?

SURPRISE

Super Stooge, Drudge, rolls out the WEZ ALL GONNA DIE card.

Will I link to the fucker?

No goddamned way.

It comes from here at Kos:

Drudge is suggesting that ABC news is sitting on a new video warning of a terror threat:

In the last week before the election, ABCNEWS is holding on a videotaped message from a purported al Qaeda terrorist warning of a new attack on America, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned... MORE...


How the Press Spins Bush

This is a hypothetical that I put up somewhere else, but if one cannot copy one's self in the interest of one's self than what is the point really? Of course, Bill O'Reilly lives by this rule, though it's a different paraphrase and it involves self-love, c-cells, and arabic cuisine...

Anyhoo...

In a non-reality based belief system, as Bush has, and which he has shoved down the throats of Republicans who must accept it in order to defend him, one is not required to be burdened with objective truth. It only requires the ability to accept the quickest possible distillation of events in such a manner as to provide an excuse or a justification.

TYPICAL NEWS CYCLE

For example, Bush is speaking, suddenly he stops, drops his pants and eats a baby.

Initial impression --- Bad, film of Bush holding baby by neck, his bloody face buried in the infant's midsection. His face withdraws from the now quivering torso covered with blood and entrails, a crazed look in his eye.

First GOP response: I heard it from another guy, who knows this guy that was Osama's baby and it was loaded with explosives.

Instantaneously Drudge Reports: Bush saves crowd from Osama's Bomb

NY Post reports: Bush saves world from Demon Baby

Wash. Times reports: Bush saves world from Demon Baby just like Reverend Moon fortold.

Typical Freeper: Bush saves crowd from Osama's Bomb, linky linky

Newscycle ends.

Next morning newscycle:


NY Times: Baby was not Osama's, not loaded with explosives.

NBC: Our report last night saying that the Baby might have contained explosives was not correct.

John Kerry: When John Kerry is president he will not eat an innocent child. The President needs to apologize.

Ed Gillespie: I think it is terrible that John Kerry now criticizes President Bush for acting quickly to protect people given the information he had at the time.

Associated Press: Security experts say there was no information that it was necessary to eat a baby, especially while not wearing pants.

The Corner: We know it looks bad that Bush ate a baby, but Cliff May says he knows the mother of the baby, and its well known she is a terrorist.

Typical Freeper returns: Roh, Roh, Baby may have been terrorist after all.

Wash Post: Baby's mother is named Shirley Gustafson, is from Wisconsin, a baptist, and works as a Greeter at Wal-Mart.

Wall Street Journal Editorialist: You cannot tell me that Kerry didn't kill and eat all sorts of babies in Vietnam! In fact, I spoke to John O'Neil who says that Kerry once ate an entire Vietnamese Orphanage.

On to next insanity.

Bush Quoting John Kennedy, well trying to...

Steve Gilliard points out how ludicrous this is:

George Bush quoted John Kennedy today.

He said John Kerry didn't understand what pay any price, bear any burden meant.

So, when do his daughters ship out for Iraq? When do they patrol Sadr City?


Price & Burdens?

Not only do those not include putting his daughters in harms way, they include invading a nation without either the resources, or attempting to obtain the resources. In fact, the failure to ask for any sacrifice is the ultimate actual burden.

He cut the taxes of rich people and put the burden on the poor and middle class that predominantly fights his wars.

And for those kids who don't fight, and for those who may someday come home, a debt that they will pay off for years, from their crummy Wal-Mart job.

That is the price & burden those kids pay, for the sacrifice George Bush will not ask of us, their parents.

How to call somebody liars, without calling them liars...

From the NY Times, the basis for the title in bold:

Republican officials have sought to discredit the initial reports and seized on an NBC News account, broadcast Monday night, that said when troops from the 101st Airborne arrived at the vast site on April 10, 2003, they found conventional weapons but none of the extremely powerful high explosives, HMX and RDX, which can be used to set off a nuclear weapon. In an e-mail message sent to reporters on Monday evening, Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said, "The weapons were not there when the military arrived, making John Kerry's latest ripped-from-the-headlines attack baseless and false."

But Tuesday evening, NBC again reported on the issue. This time it reported that it had not said that the explosives were gone before American troops arrived at Al Qaqaa. Instead, it reported that troops from the Third Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne searched bunkers at the site and had not found the powerful explosives. NBC reported that it was not clear whether American troops searched all of the bunkers.

"Last night on this broadcast we reported that the 101st Airborne never found the nearly 380 tons of HMX and RDX explosives,'' Tom Brokaw, the NBC anchor, said. "We did not conclude the explosives were missing or had vanished, nor did we say they missed the explosives. We simply reported that the 101st did not find them.''

"For its part, the Bush campaign immediately pointed to our report as conclusive proof that the weapons had been removed before the Americans arrived,'' Mr. Brokaw added. "That is possible, but that is not what we reported.''


For the second day Mr. Bush did not speak about the issue, twice ignoring questions from reporters.


Thud.

No Surprise to Us, but More Evidence War with Iraq was Pre-Ordained

Forget the half-hearted appeals to the UN, Bush wanted war with Iraq, period.

From the UK Independent:

Secret plans for the war in Iraq were passed to British Army chiefs by US defence planners five months before the invasion was launched, a court martial heard yesterday.

The revelation strengthened suspicions that Tony Blair gave his agreement to President George Bush to go to war while the diplomatic efforts to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions were continuing.

Alan Simpson, the leader of Labour Against the War, said the documents were "dynamite", if genuine, and showed that Clare Short was right to assert in her book, serialised in The Independent, that Mr Blair had "knowingly misled" Parliament.

The plans were revealed during the court martial of L/Cpl Ian Blaymire, 23, from Leeds, who is charged with the manslaughter of a comrade while serving in Iraq. Sgt John Nightingale, 32, a reservist from Guiseley, West Yorkshire, died after being shot in the chest on 23 September last year.

The court, at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, heard that contingency plans were drawn up by Lt Col Christopher Warren, staff officer at Land Command, Salisbury, Wiltshire, who was responsible for operational training.

Lt Col Warren said US planners had passed on dates for which the invasion was planned. The hearing was told Army chiefs wanted the training for the Army to start at the beginning of December 2002. However, due to "sensitivities" the training was delayed.

The court heard the training for the TA began two months late and for the regular Army one month late. Lt Col Warren was asked what the sensitivities were. He replied: "Because in December there was a world interest. If the UK had mobilised while all this was going on that would have shown an intent before the political process had been allowed to run its course."

The hearing was adjourned.


Kristof, I guess he tries

You know Nick, if you want to come up with a lie that Bush has told, could you at least try to come up with one that isn't so damn trivial.

Atrios, for example, has repeatedly discussed Bush's lie about claiming to continue to fly Airplanes with his National Guard outfit well after the fact of his departure in the same biography you are discussing.

That would not only be a lie, it would be still a petty lie and have the advantage of being more mendacious. And it's one that not all that many have heard about too.

And, of course, there are the lies that led directly to deaths, thousands of 'em.

But no, let's talk about stuffed animals instead.

Why don't you and Richard Cohen get a time-share together and let real progressives write editorials?

This about sums it up

Frankly, I'm tired of many in the media and their discussions of the African-American vote percentage going for Democrats. How do we see them so often discuss it?

"Democrats have a strangle-hold on blacks"
"Democrat's would not win but for the black vote"

Ad infinitum. It's patronizing. There is a basic reason that the African-American community votes overwhelmingly for the Democrats. It's not because of "force" or "pandering" which is both untrue and racist in its description. Here's a newsflash white people of the media, an African-American voter is just as capable of exercising rationality as you are. The thing is, in practice, your average person, including your average black person applies that rationality a lot better than a Robert Novak does.

African Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic not only because the party has more progressive policies both economically and socially, but also because the Republican Party consistently shows that not only has it welcomed the old dixiecrats into the party, it has gone out of its way to give them the power to run the damn Party. Why on earth would an African-American vote for the party that praises Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms?

It's laughable to see some pasty, coiffed, bobblehead on CNN talk about Bush getting 18% of the African-American vote in some poll like its fucking impressive and shows a trend. First, the margin of error on that subset of a poll is probably plus or minus 7 percentage points because it is so small. Second, even under the best case scenario, that is still fucking wretched. Third, Hell will freeze over before George Bush gets 18% of the African-American vote. Nobody ever points out that George Bush is only getting 52% of the WHITE vote and John Kerry is getting 44%. Because that would seem silly and bigoted, but we can talk about African Americans like they are some lesser form of voting subgroup. The implied racism of it all makes me want to barf.

Learn some damn history, Bush will be lucky to crack double-digits among African-American voters and even the GOP knows it. You want to know why Bush managed to have himself lurched to the Urban League Convention? Because he knew their members would not laugh at him or be unduly hostile, like the NAACP would (with good reason) and because it would appeal to moderate whites. He didn't go there to get African-American votes, he went there to try to convince white moderates that he is not a bigot. THAT is the pandering the GOP does, not that "we like black people", simply that "vote for us because we are not out buring a cross".

That is it, plain and simple.

The last Republican to try to win over the African American vote was Jack Kemp -- he did well in 1988 with the base didn't he? But whenever Bush I needed to look like he was not desirous of surpressing blacks, he trotted out Kemp or pointed to a picture of Colin Powell. His son, as most Republicans, does the same thing.

...UNLESS...

With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.

Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Republican consultant Ed Rollins was all but drummed out of the profession after his efforts to pay black ministers to keep their congregants from voting in a 1993 New Jersey election came to light.

For George W. Bush, Karl Rove and their legion of genteel thugs, however, universal suffrage is just one more musty liberal ideal that threatens conservative rule. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.

In Ohio, Republicans have recruited 3,600 poll monitors and assigned them disproportionately to such heavily black areas as inner-city Cleveland, where Democratic "527" groups have registered many tens of thousands of new voters. "The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters -- I call them ringers -- have created these problems" of potential massive vote fraud, Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman James P. Trakas recently told the New York Times.

Let's pass over the implication that a registration drive waged by a liberal group is inherently fraud-ridden, and look instead at that word "ringers."

Registration in Ohio is nonpartisan, but independent analysts estimate that roughly 400,000 new Democrats have been added to the rolls this year. Who does Trakas think they are? Have tens of thousands of African Americans been sneaking over the state lines from Pittsburgh and Detroit to vote in Cleveland -- thus putting their own battleground states more at risk of a Republican victory? Is Shaker Heights suddenly filled with Parisians affecting American argot? Or are the Republicans simply terrified that a record number of minority voters will go to the polls next Tuesday? Have they decided to do anything to stop them -- up to and including threatening to criminalize Voting While Black in a Battleground State?

This is civic life in the age of George W. Bush, in which politics has become a continuation of civil war by other means. In Bush's America, there's a war on -- against a foreign enemy so evil that we can ignore the Geneva Conventions, against domestic liberals so insidious that we can ignore democratic norms. Only bleeding hearts with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set still believe in voting rights.




Freedom is on the March, Elsewhere

As the election winds down, my acid reflux comes up. So from now on I will be posting using a backing track:


Dear Leader tries to heal the healthy. I guess that's close enough to the Jeebus.


Mr. Obama, could you please assist us in pointing out which of you is insane?


"And I think it was really wrong for Senator Kerry to mention that Mary Cheney was a lesbian, without pointing out that she is a selfish hedonist. Or as I said in my voiceover work for George Lucas, 'going to hell, a dyke, she is.'"


"Boy, I can hardly wait until the elections over so I can go back to doing nothing again, one way or another."

AND NOW FOR SOME DISTURBING REALITY


"Mr. President, who's responsible for the weapons missing in Iraq?"


Same Question.

No turkee for that Reporter, he asked hard "qweschin".


"Flibbity, flamity, floppity, floo, freedom on the march. vote for me."


"I am so kicking that guy's ass."


"Oh higher father, please save my ass."

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

I was thinking of waiting until 11/2 to post this

But maybe it should be distributed more (of course maybe it's a piece o' crap), but if not, feel free to steal it liberally.

Apologies to William Shakespeare's Henry V and the St. Cripin's Day Speech (if it helps imagine Kenneth Branagh is saying it)

This day is called 2004 Election Day
They that go to vote this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And be roused at the name of Kerry/Edwards.
They that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will on the eve thereof feast with his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is when we threw Bush out:'
Then will they open their wallet and show their cards.
And say 'This I used to vote upon Election day.'
Old folks forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But they'll remember with advantages
What feats they did that day: then shall their names.
Familiar in their mouths as household words
Kerry the king, Edwards and Howard Dean,
Clark, Graham and Gephardt, Sharpton, Mosely-Braun,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good person teach a child;
And Election Day shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We many, we very very many, we band of voters;
For they today that cast their vote with me
Shall be a voter; be they ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle their condition:
And mouthbreathing freepers now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they did not win,
And hold their citizenship cheap whiles any speaks
That vote with us upon this election day.

HERE COMES THE CHEATING

From the BBC and Greg Palast, who knows a thing or two about cheating in Florida.

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.
The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.
The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.


I think it is important enough to inform the media of the nation this actually takes place in. Here are a few places to contact:

Look at this page

Preserve your democracy to the extent it can be saved.



Constitution under God?

The neo-cons are pushing a law through Congress that would "acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty [and] government" in the United States.

What's more, it would forbid all legal challenges to government officials who use the power of the state to enforce their own view of "God's sovereign authority." Any judge who dared even hear such a challenge could be removed from office. You don't believe it? It's called Constitution Restoration Act of 2004.

Now tell yourself it doesn't matter who wins the presidency in but a few days... go ahead... try.

NYT's Tierney quoted "IQ expert" funded by racists

This good piece appeared today on Media Matters site run by everyone's favorite reformed right-winger David Brock. We here at the 'Hegemon had spotted the obnoxious NYT article and were considering another letter to the NYT or better yet a full on raging rant here, when Brock scooped us. The NYT Tierney piece was quite incredible for its absolute unashamed Ahslee Simpson level know-nothingness. Talk about infiltrating the mainstream or something...

In an October 24 New York Times "Political Points" column titled "Secret Weapon for Bush?" John Tierney reported that right-wing columnist Steve Sailer concluded that President George W. Bush has a higher IQ than Senator John Kerry, purportedly based on their scores on military tests.

But then, rather than seeking a different view on the suppositions of Sailer -- whom Tierney identifies as a conservative -- Tierney obtained validation of Sailer's findings from University of Delaware "I.Q. expert" Linda Gottfredson. Tierney didn't report that Gottfredson is herself a controversial figure whose research has been funded by the Pioneer Fund, an organization designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for its support over the years of the work of white supremacists, eugenicists, and others dedicated to proving the existence of genetic differences between races.

Gottfredson pronounced Sailer's analysis "creditable," Tierney stated in his article, adding that she "said she was not surprised at the results or that so many people had assumed that Mr. Kerry was smarter. 'People will often be misled into thinking someone is brighter if he says something complicated they can't understand,' Professor Gottfredson said."

To obtain "expert" commentary on Sailer's findings, Tierney did not have to look far. Sailer, who describes himself as "a reporter, movie critic for The American Conservative magazine, a columnist for VDARE.com, and founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute," has written frequently in defense of both the Pioneer Fund and Gottfredson (see, for example, here). He has cited her
work in both his columns for VDARE.com, an anti-immigration website, and in an January 14 article he wrote for United Press International titled "How Smart Is Bush?"

Controversy arose around Gottfredson after her university first rejected a $174,000 grant she received from the Pioneer Fund, and then later accepted it following legal pressure, according to the book The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund by William H. Tucker. The SPLC noted that the Pioneer Fund's original charter called for the pursuit of "race betterment" for descendants of "white persons" who "settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution."

The SPLC also reported: "Many involved in the early years of the fund, including its first president Harry H. Laughlin, maintained 'contacts with many of the Nazi scientists whose work provided the conceptual template for Hitler' aspiration toward "racial hygiene" in Germany,' according to an Albany Law Review article by Paul Lombardo."

The Pioneer Fund has funded work by Jared Taylor, founder of American Renaissance magazine whom the SPLC describes as "a courtly presenter of ideas that most would describe as crudely white supremacist," and Richard Lynn, a current member of the American Renaissance board of directors and emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster. In an article in the July 2002 edition of American Renaissance, Lynn wrote that "blacks are more psychopathic than whites."


"No skull to skull action if you don't shut your Teutonic Trap"

Apparently, the ambitious plans of the Gropinator to utter tired catch-phrases for Chimpy McBackHump have been sharply curtailed. I'm guessing Ah-nald misses the Kennedy action.

[Schwartzenegger] is considering a single trip to Ohio — there and back the same day, probably Friday.

"Now I can squeeze in a quick trip because I have my own plane," he said. "So there is a way of doing it. But I'm not going to hop around from state to state because the people did not elect me to do that."

Schwarzenegger sponsors an annual fitness weekend in Columbus, Ohio, and has made clear that Ohio is the only state besides California where he would campaign for Bush.



"Ah, Mah-rey-ah, mah tiny, stare-oid shrivelled bahls ar in ze need ahf revease! Plez bring vor giant skull close to mine. I have been ze good huzband now and done vour bidding. Ja?"

I'm sorry for those pictures.