GET OUT THE VOTE

Want to help get out the vote in Ohio? Have a cell phone, or free long distance at home? Click here.

Your help is needed. Look at what's going on there:

PAINESVILLE -- It is an outright case of election fraud in Lake County.

The phony letter says newly registered voters signed up by the Kerry or Capri Cafaro campaigns or the NAACP, their registrations are illegal and they will not be able to vote.

“That was not authorized by the Board of Elections, said Elections Director Jan Clair. “It was not mailed by the Lake County Board of Elections.”

A real board mailing would have Clair’s signature.

The letter was brought to election officials by Ron Colvin, a longtime registered voter and head of the Lake County NAACP.

Sheriff Dan Dunlap is investigating. “It will be a federal offense because you have
interfered with the constitutionally protected right to vote,” he said.

You can also volunteer for Election Protection, or you can give money.

UPDATE: It's more important than ever, thanks to tricks like cutting the phone lines at a major GOTV call center in Toledo:

I worked all day yesterday at the largest Toledo area Kerry GOTV phone bank at Gallon and Takacs law offices, 3516 Granite, Sylvania. Out of the 8 phone banks that we had here in the Toledo area yesterday, ours produced one third of all of the contacts made.

Both the local phone company and our phone systems provider have confirmed to us that phone relay point into the building was purposely severed. Many volunteers were rerouted to other locations and several also had to rely on cell phones when we found our lines down this morning. We thought it was a coincidence until the phone company verified to us that the lines were intentionally cut.

|

TAKING AMERICA BACK

Poignant letter someone sent Josh Marshall:

Still in Florida.

This was one of the most moving, meaningful days of my life.

My job is to get people to the polls and, more importantly, to keep them there. Because they’re crazily jammed. Crazily. No one expected this turnout. For me, it’s been a deeply humbling, deeply gratifying experience. At today’s early vote in the College Hill district of East Tampa -- a heavily democratic, 90% African American community — we had 879 voters wait an average of five hours to cast their vote. People were there until four hours after they closed (as long as they’re in line by 5, they can vote).

Here’s what was so moving:

We hardly lost anyone. People stood outside for an hour, in the blazing sun, then inside for another four hours as the line snaked around the library, slowly inching forward. It made Disneyland look like speed-walking. Some waited 6 hours. To cast one vote. And EVERYBODY felt that it was crucial, that their vote was important, and that they were important.

And there were tons of first time voters. Tons.

Aside from some hassles from the Republican election commissioner [ed.note: Here the letter writer describes various shenanigans intended to exacerbate the difficulties of waiting hours in line to vote. I’ve censored this detail to preserve the anonymity of the writer.], I actually had an amazing experience. No, actually, in a way because of that I had an amazing experience. Because these people know that the system that’s in place doesn’t want them voting. And yet they are determined to vote.

The best of all was an 80 year old African American man who said to me: “When I first started I wasn’t even allowed to vote. Then, when I did, they was trying to intimidate me. But now I see all these folks here to make sure that my vote counts. This is the first time in my life that I feel like when I cast my vote it’s actually gonna be heard.”

To see people coming out — elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc — and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours... Well, it’s humbling. And it’s awesome. And it’s kind of beautiful.

Sometimes you forget what America is.

I think there’s hope.

We are going to send these bastards back to the hellhole that spawned them - one vote at a time.

We're taking our country back.
|

PURGE

Oh yeah, a real professional we got there:

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials have said that new CIA Director Porter Goss appears set to conduct a purge of the agency's Directorate of Operations after the Nov. 2 election, Knight Ridder news service reported Thursday.

Goss has placed at least four former Republican congressional staff members in top CIA positions and has given them powers over personnel and restructuring, the officials said.

One of Goss' aides has been "going around telling people they are to fire 80 to 90 people" in the Directorate of Operations, which manages clandestine intelligence activities, a former intelligence official said.

|

CLOWNS

Just to show just how bad the Republican internal numbers must be... Duncan got a tip that tomorrow Tommy Thompson will announce that importing drugs from Canada will be legalized.

Now, that's real leadership: Watching the parade go by and running out in front ahead of it.


|

SURGING

Zogby has Kerry up in six of the 10 battleground states:

Kerry leads in Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Bush leads in Colorado, Nevada and Ohio, according to the Reuters/Zogby state polls.

The state of New Mexico is deadlocked at 49 percent each, one day after Bush held a nine-point advantage.

Most of the leads in the 10 state polls were within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. The biggest leads in any state were Kerry's seven-point advantages in Michigan and Wisconsin.

|

GAINING

Kerry pulling out in front, even in the ARG poll. Read here.
|

SMACKDOWN

Looks like the Republicans may have to back off their intimidation tactics:

CINCINNATI — A state court judge issued a sweeping order Saturday limiting the number of party representatives that could be deployed to challenge voters at Ohio polling places on election day.

In Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell issued a permanent injunction barring multiple challengers from being stationed at polling places. The ruling, if upheld, would force the Republicans to cut back the thousands of poll watchers they plan to send to voting locations Tuesday.

|

SIGNS

Packers beat the Redskins. Buh-bye, George.
|

FOOL ME ONCE, WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN

Josh points out that Rove's strategy is to create an aura of inevitability around Bush's election, just as he did in 2000:

Back then I noted how in 2000 the Bush campaign spent the last week or so confidently predicting a popular vote margin of 6% or 7%. And to drive home the point they spent the last couple days making stops in California and New Jersey.

There was never any chance that Bush would win those states. And there were very good chances he'd lose or come close to losing several states essential to victory, as the final results showed. The entire point of making those trips was to scam the press and create an aura of inevitability that would shape press coverage and depress morale among Democrats. The perception would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They clearly saw that as the best use of their resources in the final days.
It's so much a part of their election and governing mentality that I wrote a whole article on it.

That's exactly what they're going to try to do this time.

Don't fall for it.

|

YOUNG MOBILE PHONE USERS FOR KERRY BY 55%

In a groundbreaking cell-phone text-message poll by John Zogby in collaboration with Rock the Vote, the numbers look great for Kerry:

Polling firm Zogby International and partner Rock the Vote found Massachusetts Senator John Kerry leading President Bush 55% to 40% among 18-29 year-old likely voters in their first joint Rock the Vote Mobile political poll, conducted exclusively on mobile phones October 27 through 30, 2004. Independent Ralph Nader received 1.6%, while 4% remain undecided in the survey of 6,039 likely voters.

The poll is centered on subscribers to the Rock the Vote Mobile (RTVMO) platform, a joint initiative of Rock the Vote and Motorola Inc. (for more information: http://www.rtvmo.com). The poll has margin of error of +/-1.2 percentage points.

The poll also found that only 2.3% of 18-29 year-old respondents said they did not plan to vote, and another .5% who were not sure if they would. The results of the survey are weighted for region, gender, and political party.

|

OUTSOURCING ALWAYS LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER, BUT...

Knight Ridder verifies what Kerry's been saying - top terrorists escaped at Tora Bora:

"Military and intelligence officials had warned Franks and others that the two main Afghan commanders, Hazrat Ali and Haji Zaman, couldn't be trusted, and they proved to be correct. They were slow to move their troops into place and didn't attack until four days after American planes began bombing -- leaving time for al-Qaida leaders to escape and leaving behind a rear guard of Arab, Chechen and Uzbek fighters.

"Ali and Zaman both assured our people that they had forces in blocking positions on the Spin Ghar (mountains) when there were, in fact, no people there," said a U.S. military official who played a key role in the campaign. "So besides taking Afghans at their word, we had no plans to bring up sufficient forces to make up for perfidy."

"U.S. intelligence analysts estimated that 1,000 to 1,100 al-Qaida fighters, along with some of the group's top leaders, escaped the American dragnet at Tora Bora.

"A Pakistani official later told Knight Ridder that intelligence reports suggested that some 4,000 al-Qaida members escaped and that 50 to 80 top leaders paid Zaman or Ali as much as $40,000 apiece for safe passage out of Tora Bora."

Excellent piece. Read it all.
|

GAG ME

I accidentally watched Press the Meat this morning and had the unfortunate experience of watching amoral sleazebag Rudy Guliani attack Kerry and slobber lovingly over Bush.

He reminds me of nothing so much as a steaming mound of fresh dog shit.

|

DO-OVERS

MoDo:

The Bushies' campaign pitch follows their usual backward logic: Because we have failed to make you safe, you should re-elect us to make you safer. Because we haven't caught Osama in three years, you need us to catch Osama in the next four years. Because we didn't bother to secure explosives in Iraq, you can count on us to make sure those explosives aren't used against you.

|

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Like me, you probably wondered about the rest of that OBL videotape, and exactly how accurate was the translation. Now you can compare translations from Al Jazeera, CNN and Drudge:

ALJ - "In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors and did not forget to import expertise in election fraud from the regions presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty."

CNN - "And Bush, the father, found it good to install his children as governors and leaders."

DRU - "He was bright in putting his sons as governors in states and he didn't forget to transfer his experience from the rulers of our region to Florida to falsify elections to benefit from it in critical times."

|

PROTECT YOUR VOTE

The phones are ringing off the hook at Election Protection headquarters:

WASHINGTON — In a bustling downtown conference room, the phones are ringing faster than the volunteers can grab them, as hundreds of people from Florida to New Mexico call daily to ask for help with voting troubles.

With polls open already in a handful of states, the non-partisan Election Protection Program's call center is awash in complaints about polls that open late, voting machines that appear to erase votes, absentee ballots that never arrived and names that aren't on registration lists.

The more than 2,000 calls so far are only a hint of what's to come when the polls open nationwide next week.

***
By Nov. 2, the Election Protection help center will be expanded to more than a dozen sites around the nation. The project and its hotline number (1-866-OURVOTE), which are a response to the 2000 vote count breakdown in Florida, were set up by a coalition that includes the Lawyers' Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, People for the American Way and the NAACP.

|

HIS MASTER'S VOICE

Remember when I wrote about how Ashcroft shifted the Justice Department emphasis from protecting against voter suppression to attacking voter fraud? Here's some more:

WASHINGTON — Bush administration lawyers argued in three closely contested states last week that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election.

Veteran voting-rights lawyers expressed surprise at the government's action, saying that closing the courthouse door to aspiring voters would reverse decades of precedent.

Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote, often with the support of groups such as the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters or the state parties. And until now, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court had taken the view that individual voters could sue to enforce federal election law.

But in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions. These include a requirement that states provide "uniform and nondiscriminatory" voting systems, and give provisional ballots to those who say they have registered but whose names do not appear on the rolls.

"Congress clearly did not intend to create a right enforceable" in court by individual voters, the Justice Department briefs said.

***
"Before this administration, I would say that almost uniformly, the Department of Justice would argue in favor of private rights of action … to enforce statutes that regulate state and local government," said Pamela Karlan, a professor at Stanford University's Law School.

|

REALITY BREAK - OR IS THAT 'BRAKE'?

I was downtown tonight for dinner and a movie. As I drove past the Liberty Bell pavilion on my way to the restaurant, there was a college-aged girl talking on a cell phone while she held up a Kerry poster. I beeped and gave her a thumbs up. (I saw dozens of Kerry bumper stickers in a three-block radius.)

After dinner, as we stood in line for the movies, we noticed just about everyone there was either wearing a Kerry button, or talking about him winning the election. Well, you'd expect that - we went to see "What The Bleep Do We Know?", the provocative new film about quantum physics and the nature of perceived reality.

Loved it, by the way. Fucking loved it. And I love this quote from the website:

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

- Albert Einstein

P.S. Ponder this: What if you turned your clock back tonight and really screwed up time?

|

ROAD REPORT

While I was running around my very Republican suburban town today, a half-dozen people stopped me, pointed to my Kerry-Edwards button and said pointedly, "I like your button."

One older woman, wearing a witch's Halloween costume while she rang up my order at the card shop, said, "I wish I had one."

"That's okay, just vote," I said. "Bring a folding chair, it's gonna be a long wait."

"Do you really think he's going to win?"

"Absolutely. That's why you have to get out and vote - so we take Congress, too."

The checker at the supermarket said, "I don't turn 18 for another month. I wish I could vote for Kerry."

"Yeah, but you can still nag your friends," I said.

"Oh, don't worry. I do," she said.

And the Kerry lawn signs are everywhere, like dandelions after rain. Even the houses displaying the Republican lawns signs are only pushing the congressional and state rep candidates.

They say it's a dead heat here. I say it's not even close.
|

WHAT I'M LISTENING TO: "Leaving New York," "Around the Sun" by R.E.M.:

Comes calling back
A brilliant night
I'm still awake
I looked ahead
I'm sure I saw you there
You don't need me
To tell you now
That nothing can compare

You might have laughed if I told you
You might have hidden a frown
You might have succeeded in changing me
I might have been turned around

It's easier to leave than to be left behind
Leaving was never my proud
Leaving New York, never easy
I saw the light fading out

Now life is sweet
And what it brings
I tried to take
But loneliness
It wears me out
It lies in wait

And all not lost
Still in my eyes
The shadow of necklace
Across your thigh
I might've lived my life in a dream, but I swear
This is real
Memory fuses and shatters like glass
Mercurial future, forget the past
It's you, it's what I feel.

|

PROTEST SONG

James McMurtry has a new song. You can download it here:

Wow I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war
And we can't make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore

|

DITTO

Duncan has a particularly illuminating compare-and-contrast today. Go read.
|

BRING YOUR FOLDING CHAIRS

Voters wait in line in Travis County, Texas.
|

FREEBIE

If there's anyone you know who hasn't seen Farenheit 9/11 yet, send them this link to watch it online.
|

MORE CRIMINAL INCOMPETENCE

From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- United Nations weapons inspectors pressed for permission to return to Iraq to help monitor weapons sites on the heels of the US-led invasion but were denied entry by the US-led coalition, according to a former inspector, UN officials, and a letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency obtained by the Globe.

The sites included Al Qaqaa, a sprawling facility about 30 miles south of Baghdad. At least 377 tons of powerful explosives, including the particularly dangerous substance known as HMX, have vanished from that location.

"They wanted to go. They were begging to go," said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security and who lobbied in vain for the UN agency in April 2003 to be allowed to resume work in Iraq. "They would have gone to Al Qaqaa and said, 'Here's the HMX. Burn it.' They would have been a driver of efforts to find these things. . . . They would have provided a tremendous service."

|

THE LEADER

Billmon wrote the column I was too lazy to produce on the Bush loyalty oath:

And now we have local GOP Gauleiters in Florida soliciting oaths of allegiance not to the flag, not to the country, not to the constitution, but to the person of the leader -- albeit still an elected one, at least for now.

One people, one country, one leader ...

One step following another.

The truly sinister thing -- and the reason why that Slate story made the hair stand up on the back of my neck -- is that even as these people move, like sleepwalkers, towards a distinctly American version of the cult of the leader, most of them honestly appear to have no idea what they're doing, or creating. I'm not even sure the Rovians themselves entirely understand the atavistic instincts they've awakened in Bush's most loyal followers. But the current is running now, fast and strong. And we're all heading for the rapids.

He also includes this killer quote:

"Sure, only here they'll call it anti-fascism."
- Huey Long
When asked if fascism could ever come to America

|

EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS

Kos makes a good point: No matter what state you're in, Kerry needs every vote:

Now I know Bush didn't win the popular vote in 2000. We all know that. And we all know he governed as though he had a 400-EV-mandate. But fact is, a president-elect Kerry who loses the popular vote will not get the same benefit of the doubt as Bush did. The media environment is still too hostile, and the hypocrites on the Right will wield it as a tool.

If there's one thing Kerry has done, it's deny the Right much ammunition to use against him. We need to deny the Right the chance to delegitimize a Kerry presidency because of the popular vote. Let's make this a clean victory all around.

That means voting for Kerry if you're either in the Bluest of states, or the Reddest of states. Every vote will count. None of this "swapping with Nader voters" stuff. So while my vote in California won't help elect Kerry, it can help legitimize his presidency.

|

STILL COVERING UP

What they don't want you to see before the election:

One last chapter of the investigation by the Sept. 11 commission, a supplement completed more than two months ago, has not yet been made public by the Justice Department, and officials say it is unlikely to be released before the presidential election, even though that had been a major goal of deadlines set for the panel.

Drawing from this unpublished part of the inquiry, the commission quietly asked the inspectors general at the Departments of Defense and Transportation to review what it had determined were broadly inaccurate accounts provided by several civil and military officials about efforts to track and chase the hijacked aircraft on Sept. 11.

|

THRIFTY

That Rick Santorum - always looking out for the taxpayers:

Penn Hills School District records show bills paid with local taxpayers' money for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's children to attend a cyber charter school total more than $100,000.
Since the 2001-2002 school year, at least three Santorum children have been attending a cyber charter school.

This year, the school district has to pay $38,000 for Elizabeth, 13, Richard, 11, Daniel, 9, Sarah, 6, and Peter Santorum, 5, to attend Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, which is based in Beaver County.

State law requires local school districts to pay the tuition of charter school students who live in the school district.

Santorum owns a home on Stephens Lane in Penn Hills, but he, his wife and six children live in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Herndon, Va.

|

OUTED

Okay, here's the Republican gay Congressional candidate who's running in North Carolina: It's Jesse Helms' granddaughter, Jennifer Helms Knox.
|

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Anyone who changes their vote based on what Osama bin Laden did or didn't say deserves a big slap." - Ron Reagan Jr.
|

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE

Billmon's back, and he says OBL is obviously a Bush booster:

John Kerry could, and probably will, use the Osama tape to remind the country that, three years and two wars later, the king of the evildoers, the man Sheriff Bush vowed to smoke out of his hole, is still roaming around free somewhere. Maybe the Democrats can recycle that ad they made after the third debate (the one the media ignored because they were still so deeply offended by Kerry's Mary-Cheney-is-a-lesbian gaffe) in which President denied having denied that he was worried about bin Laden's next move.

It's worth a try, anyway. But I don't think rational arguments are going to be of much use here. Osama's no slouch at information warfare. I'm sure he understands that the impact of a tape like this one on the mass mind is mainly subliminal, if not hormonal. By plastering his face over every TV in America for the next couple of days, he's given Bush a priceless gift -- a boogeyman with which to frighten that last sliver of undecided voters into rejecting change. Al Qaeda, it seems, has evolved into one hell of an effective 527 organization.

|

HE CAN RUN BUT HE CAN'T HIDE

|

George W. Bush, Will you Please Go Now!
The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
GO!

I don't care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
George W. Bush, will you please go now!

You can go on skates.
You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat.
But please go.
Please!

I don't care.
You can go by bike.
You can go on a Zike-Bike if you like.
If you like you can go in an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO!
Please do, do, DO!

George W. Bush, I don't care how.
George W. Bush, will you please
GO NOW!

You can go on stilts.
You can go by fish.
You can go in a Crunk-Car if you wish.
If you wish you may go by lion's tail.
Or stamp yourself and go by mail.
George W. Bush!
Don't you know the time has come
to go, Go, GO!

|

I HEART RUDE PUNDIT

The Rude Pundit whole-heartedly endorses John Kerry:

Yeah, yeah, this is gonna be a down-on-the-knees-Kerry-supportin-hummer of an entry, but the Rude Pundit keeps talking to people who sigh and say, "I guess I'm gonna vote for Bush" because they can't bring themselves to vote for Kerry. They see him as weak. They see him as a flip-flopper. In other words, they see him as the projection of self that Bush has imposed on Kerry. In other words, these voters are too blinded by the glow that emits from the crown on Bush's head to believe that they own the democracy.

Kerry vs. Nixon: When Kerry helped organize the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he was directly confronting a hegemonic ideology in the country that said the people must blindly follow their leaders. Kerry, villified at the time with incredible viciousness, did not back down from charges of treason and heresy. Check out the end of the book The New Soldier, which Kerry co-wrote and edited in order to talk about what the young men returning from Vietnam had confronted in the name of "freedom" from Communism. The book is, ironically enough, mostly reprinted on an anti-Kerry site. Kerry writes, "We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years." Change "ten" to "four," and you get the idea. The rest of the essay is stunningly humble, and it is simply a call to be citizens with eyes and ears open, to allow that maybe the powerful are more concerned with keeping power than with admitting error. And it is horribly, frighteningly prescient. What people forget about Kerry's protest days is that he was defending the lives of soldiers and that he was right.

Kerry vs. Reagan: When Kerry faced down the Reagan administration in his dogged pursuit of the Contra-drug connection, he was a freshman Senator taking on one of the most popular Presidents in American history, Ronald Reagan. Instead of backing down from repeated threats to his political career, Kerry had his staff stay on the case like a viper injecting venom into your leg. They would have had to cut off his head in order to get him to stop, and he stayed on it until he revealed that the Reagan administration allowed the Contras to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. in order to fund their CIA-led "war" against the legally-elected Sandanistas in Nicaragua. (And thus helping to cause the crack epidemic.) Kerry was called a conspiracy theorist, said to be interfering with other drug cases, and impugned throughout the media. But the part that rarely got told is that he was right.

Kerry vs. Bush I: When Kerry went after the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which was involved in laundering the Contra drug money, funneling money from the U.S. to Saddam Hussein (when he was our beloved dictator), and supporting illegal arms trade with terrorists and drug lords (including Afghanistan), it was his first chance to take on the Bush dynasty. When Bush I was in power, the administration and the CIA overlooked the crimes of BCCI, possibly because the bank was intimately involved in the financial dealings of the Bush family. Kerry had already kicked ass on the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, so why not fuck with George H.W. Bush if 41 was fucking over the good of the country and the world? He brought down BCCI, and he cut off a vital funding source for terrorists. Again, Kerry was bucking the will of Democrats in Congress, as well as a Republican administration, in order to do what he knew was right.

Listen closely and tell anyone you know who is still thinking about voting for Bush: has Bush ever, personally, faced down anyone other than with a chant of "Drink, drink, drink"? Has he ever gone against someone who was really, truly powerful in order to place the good of the people above his own good? No. Heroes do that - they don't care what's in their way - they will face down evil, no matter how powerful. And they don't bother with those who are too weak to fight. It's why the latest news from Iraq fanned the fire: those in charge have screwed us over again, and Kerry's ready to bring the superhero costume out. Call him "the Winter Soldier." Kerry's done a fuck of a lot more than pull a guy out of a river. And the fact that America doesn't know that says a great deal about how we negotiate our desolate political landscape.

What he said. Yeah.
|

YET ANOTHER SIGN

I ordered dinner from the local pizza place, and the young guy who delivered it was wearing a "Teamsters for Kerry" button.

"Oh, nice button," I said.

"Thanks," he said, grinning.

"Just make sure you get the vote out," I said.

"I always do."

So I gave him a $2 tip. What the hell.
|

SEEN THE LIGHT

This happened down the road from my house in Lower Makefield, a town that has a lot of high-income New York commuters. (In fact, several of the airline pilots who died on 9/11 lived there.) This should change a few minds:

A Lower Makefield woman said she received a rude awakening Wednesday when she tried to get tickets to see President Bush today in Lower Makefield.

Simi Nischal got a ride with a co-worker to pick up tickets for herself, her husband, Narinder, and their two children. But just as the tickets were about to be placed in her hands, she was escorted from the Yardley gristmill and told to leave, she said.

" 'I deny you the right to attend this rally,' " Nischal said a Bush-Cheney campaign worker told her.

Apparently, Nischal's ride was a Kerry-Edwards supporter. Her car sported a bumper sticker for the Democratic candidates.

***
Multiple calls to Bucks County Republican Party headquarters, several party members and the Broadmeadows Farm were not answered. However, rally organizer Hank Miller said he could not comment on the incident because he was not there and had not heard of it.

Nischal said her daughter has been learning about the political process at school and has been a Bush supporter. She even picked up papers for her daughter to volunteer for the Bush campaign right before she was kicked out of the gristmill, she said.

Nischal said she and her husband had not voted in previous elections, but the couple wanted to set a good example for their daughter by voting this year.

"I was undecided, but we have changed our opinion," Nischal said. "You don't treat people that way."

|

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?

Michael Moore at a protest rally in Ft. Lauderdale today:

And he assured Republicans they would benefit equally from a Kerry administration.

"When the Democrats receive health-care benefits, we'll let the Republicans receive it too," Moore said. "When the children of Democrats come home from Iraq, we'll let the children of Republicans come home too, and after Jan. 20 when Kerry is in office, even though we see that their behavior is a little strange and weird, we'll allow Republicans to continue marrying each other."

|

LIVE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

Hmmm. Apparently bin Laden says the attacks on the U.S. were much worse than originally planned (they were supposed to be completed within 20 minutes, he said) because Bush was listening to a child reading a book about a goat instead of responding.

Funny. We were thinking the same thing.

I'm waiting to see the full transcript - that is, if we're allowed to see it.
|

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Stuck on the NJ Turnpike all day, where Kerry bumperstickers outnumbered Bush bumperstickers aboout 40 to 1.

And remember, a lot of people have no idea how to get campaign bumperstickers. So I imagine many people would gladly slap one on the car if they had one.
|

WE WON'T NEED THIS, BUT...

Interesting. A website dedicated to what we do if we wake up Nov. 3rd and the election has been stolen - again.
|

HE'S NOT STUPID, HE'S EVIL

From a Texas reader, this fascinating article:

Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

***
According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

Well, the rotten apple didn't fall far from the tree. I remember writing a column shortly after the first invasion of Iraq in 1991, accusing Bush the Elder of using "drive-through wars" to pump up his approval ratings.

Imagine: using the dead and maimed to cover up your corporate-friendly agenda.
|

BREAKING NEWS

I saw the "terrorist" tape this morning, and I know who it is.
|

CLEVELAND ROCKS

Kerry and Bruce together in Cleveland on Election Day eve.
|

DOH

This is why I have a brain like a sieve:

Stressful situations in which the individual has no control were found to activate an enzyme in the brain called protein kinase C, which impairs the short-term memory and other functions in the prefrontal cortex, the executive-decision part of the brain, says Dr. Amy F. T. Arnsten of Yale Medical School.

|

SIDE TRIP

If you still care, yet more proof that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate - a NASA physicist analyzes the photos.
|

MORE CLUES

Posted from a vets list by a Baltimore vet on Democratic Underground:

To all the fellow vets out supporting Kerry I want to report from a unique vantage point, I am a pilot with the Air Guard and have been out on the campaign trail for the past 10 days flying one of President Bush's secret service teams around, hit New Mexico Sunday, Omaha NB, Monday, Ohio Tuesday and Wednesday, New Hampshire today and on to Green Bay tomorrow, Florida for the weekend.

From talking with the our security detail, it appears the President is very scared of losing in Ohio and PA. Even the Secret Service is now placing a "full presidential communications contingent" in Boston tomorrow and assigning more agent to Kerry as of yesterday! As one guy said to me yesterday, from what he has heard, Bush and Rove are facing the real possibility of being "Al Gore'd." Winning the popular vote and losing the electoral college.

I really think we can win this thing and I urge everyone to call anyone they know in Ohio, PA and Wisconsin to get out our support there.

Read my lips: Not... even... close. Five percent or more.
|

VOTE SUPPRESSION CENTRAL

Here's a link to a story about cops in Miami pullng up with sirens blazing every single morning to ticket all the cars parked in front of the local Kerry headquarters.

This one's a flyer being distributed in Milwaukee to black voters.

This story's about the Summit County, Ohio election board threatening indictments against the Republicans for spurious voter challenges. (Good on them!)

Looks like the Post Office in Florida screwed up on those missing absentee ballots - at least some of them.
|

WHY WE'RE FIGHTING

Bob Herbert:

Not long ago I interviewed a soldier who was paralyzed from injuries he had suffered in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Like so many other wounded soldiers I've talked to, he expressed no anger and no bitterness about the difficult hand he's been dealt as a result of the war.

But when I asked this soldier, Eugene Simpson Jr., a 27-year-old staff sergeant from Dale City, Va., whom he had been fighting in Iraq - who, exactly, the enemy was - he looked up from his wheelchair and stared at me for a long moment. Then, in a voice much softer than he had been using for most of the interview, and with what seemed like a mixture of sorrow, regret and frustration, he said: "I don't know. That would be my answer. I don't know."

|

NOT HIS FAULT, EVER

Krugman:

The story of Al Qaqaa has brought out the worst in a campaign dedicated to the proposition that the president is infallible - and that it's always someone else's fault when things go wrong. Here's what Rudy Giuliani said yesterday: "No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough?" Support the troops!

But worst of all from the right's point of view, Al Qaqaa has disrupted the campaign's media strategy. Karl Rove clearly planned to turn the final days of the campaign into a series of "global test" moments - taking something Mr. Kerry said and distorting its meaning, then generating pseudo-controversies that dominate the airwaves. Instead, the news media have spent the last few days discussing substance. And that's very bad news for Mr. Bush.

|

LESS THAN WARM BUT HEY, WE'LL TAKE IT

The Economist endorses Kerry. Via One Caveat:

After three necessarily tumultuous and transformative years, this is a time for consolidation, for discipline and for repairing America's moral and practical authority. Furthermore, as Mr. Bush has often
said, there is a need in life for accountability. He has refused to impose it himself, and so voters should, in our view, impose it on him, given a viable alternative. John Kerry, for all the doubts about him, would be in a better position to carry on with America's great tasks.

|

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

This is the song from "Hair" that keeps running through my head:

Ripped open by metal explosion
Caught in barbed wire; fireball, bullet shock
Bayonet, electricity, shrapnel, throbbing meat
Electronic data processing
Black uniforms, bare feet, carbines
Mail order rifles shoot the muscles
256 Viet Cong captured
256 Viet Cong captured

Prisoners in Niggertown
It's a dirty little war
Three-five-zero-zero
Take weapons up and begin to kill
Watch the long long armies drifting home

|

ASHES, ASHES, ALL FALL DOWN

This reminds me: Once again, I have my dead ex-husband's ashes in the trunk of my car.

Although he's not actually in my new apartment, he's making his presence known. A few days ago, I was sitting here at the computer when the drawer of my CD player just... opened. All by itself.

"Okay, you're here. I get it," I told my dead ex. Or the air.


|

YEP

Kos says John Zogby's on tonight's Daily Show, telling anyone who will listen that Kerry will win.

You might want to tune in, just to hear him say it. Ahhhh...
|

TIGHT

Arkansas is in play. Yes!
|

THE BEAT ON THE STREET

I met a friend for dinner downtown and, on the way home, I decided to bite the bullet and go to the auto tag store. (I needed to get a new registration sticker by Saturday and I also had to change the address on my driver's license.)

Well, you know me - the guy behind the counter mentioned the nice weather, and I steered the discussion to the election. "Hope it's a nice day Tuesday, so we get a great turnout," I said. "Time to kick this bastard out of the White House."

"This Bush, he really scares me," the guy said. "The other one scares me, too, but Bush scares me more."

"What are you scared of Kerry for?" I asked, annoyed.

"That thing with throwing his medals away," he said. "I dunno..."

"You want to know my opinion?" I said, knowing full well he probably didn't. "I say, anyone who had the balls to go over and serve in that war, he can do whatever the hell he wants with his medals."

We segued into medical malpractice, and the guy talked about "all the doctors leaving Pennsylvania."

"That's just scare tactics," I told him. "We have plenty of doctors left. All you need to remember is, 95% of malpractice payouts go to the same five percent of doctors. They don't police their own, is the problem."

"Funny you should bring that up," a woman chimed in. "My father is 45 years old and paralyzed from surgery he had. He didn't get a dime, either."

"Well, just be sure to vote for the guys who want to save us from the lawyers," I said. "Look how well they've been taking care of us for four years."

A man who was waiting in line smiled and said, "Damn straight."

You get the feeling people are angry?
|

BRUCE

Go watch this clip of Bruce Springsteen introducing John Kerry at today's huge rally in Madison, Wisconsin. A great moment...


|

THE BLOOD OF 100,000 IRAQIS ON OUR HANDS

I don't know about you, but this is what got me into this fight:

The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and air strikes 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..

|

OR YOU COULD JUST GO SHOPPING

You mean they want us to be scared?

It has all the makings of an incendiary story: a chilling pre-election videotape featuring a supposed member of al Qaeda, declaring in English that "blood will run red in the streets of America."

The problem, say ABC News executives, is that they can't determine whether the tape, obtained by a producer, involves a real threat -- or even the identity of the figure on it, a man wearing an ammunition belt and a headdress that obscures his face. The network enlisted the aid of the FBI and CIA but still can't authenticate the 75-minute videotape. ...

Ross and other ABC staffers say they believe that a Bush administration official leaked the story to Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a way of pressuring the network into airing the tape, which would heighten concerns about terrorism in the final week of the president's reelection campaign. They note that whoever gave the information to Drudge had a transcript of the tape.

|

HANDS OFF THE ALARM BUTTON

Digby explains why y'all need to stop panicking over the polls.
|

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

Stupid or just careless? You decide:

VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday it warned the United States about the vulnerability of explosives stored at Iraq (news - web sites)'s Al-Qaqaa military installation after another facility — Iraq's main nuclear complex — was looted in April 2003.

Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Associated Press that U.S. officials were cautioned directly about what was stored at Al-Qaqaa, the main high explosives facility in Iraq.

Some 377 tons of high explosives are now missing from the facility, said by Iraqi officials to have been taken by looters. Questions have arisen about what the United States knew about Al-Qaqaa and what it did to secure the site.

Fleming did not say which officials were notified or exactly when, but she said the IAEA — which had put storage bunkers at the site under seal just before the war — alerted the United States after the Tuwaitha nuclear complex was looted.

|

"ARGHHHHH...." OR, THE INARTICULATE MOAN OF THE POLITICALLY CONSCIOUS IN PAIN

Salon advice columnist Cary Tennis devotes today to a timely topic: "Politics is freaking me out!":

Dear Cary,

As the election draws near, I am finding myself growing more and more anxious. I believe our democracy is in serious trouble, that we are headed toward an even more totalitarian government, and that the current administration will stop at nothing to maintain power. Having studied rhetoric in college, I can't help but note that Condoleezza Rice is using identical language to describe Iran as was used to describe Iraq before the administration started its "hard sell" on war there. Having gone to school with many Iranians I find the idea of invading their country even more horrifying than I found the invasion of Iraq.

My problem is, I am beginning to feel hopeless. "Cowed" might be a better word. As the resistance grows, so does the repression, exemplified by the latest FBI preemptive interviews. (Why isn't anyone saying: Preempting what?)

I have many obligations and emotional ties to this country, but I am seriously considering emigrating. How does one know when it is time to leave a country? How did our ancestors know when it was time to leave "the old country"?

Wondering When to Pack Up and Leave

Dear Wondering,
I carried this question around with me for several weeks before suddenly, with great passion, I realized what I believe: No, of course you should not leave. This is your country. This is our country. Why should we have to leave because things are not to our liking?

If this country has been hijacked by right-wing zealots, we can vote them out.

To leave now, it seems to me, would be premature. It might relieve you of a certain chronic angst. It might make it easier in certain ways. But it would be wrenching personally; the costs would be high. And there is much work to be done here. What more can one do from France or England to organize Americans to resist their own government? To leave would not impede this country's imperial quest or enlighten its leadership. It would not strengthen the resistance at home.

If we feel this country has been lost, let's find it again. If we feel threatened, let's vanquish the threat. In whatever sense we feel that this country is no longer recognizable, let's refashion it. Let's re-create what we have lost. If the media have become enslaved, let's create new, free media, and support the few independent media that survive. If the country has taken reckless foreign adventures, let's rein it in.

When people start disappearing, that's when you pack your suitcase and bury the silver. The paradox, of course, is that only when you are prevented from leaving does it finally seem like it's time to leave. Oh, well.

As to the sense many have that we have awakened a latent fascism, I think elements of fascism have become visible in our national character and in our leaders, but I do not think we are on the road to a fascist or totalitarian form of government. What we have seen in the last three years is a clumsy and incompetent reaction to an unprecedented threat. Our stupid little men in Washington are not up to the job. We have got the wrong government for our times. We need a new one. We can get one.

Now, some would say that the battle is lost already, that the manufacturing of consent is so finely tuned that we are all slaves without a shot being fired. So why stick around? Why stick around? Because we own this thing. It is ours.

Until they start taking people away in the night, I say fight the bastards. After they start taking people away in the night, I say fight the bastards. Why? Because it's our friggin' spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

|

SAFER

Via Laura Rozen, this from Peter Galbraith in the Boston Globe:

IN 2003 I went to tell Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz what I had seen in Baghdad in the days following Saddam Hussein's overthrow. For nearly an hour, I described the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion -- the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad . . .

I also described two particularly disturbing incidents . . . On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn't know the building was important. . .

As I pointed out to Wolfowitz, as long as these sites remained unprotected, their deadly materials could end up not with ill-educated slum dwellers but with those who knew exactly what they were doing.

This is apparently what happened. According to an International Atomic Energy Agency report issued earlier this month, there was "widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq's nuclear program." This includes nearly 380 tons of high explosives suitable for detonating nuclear weapons or killing American troops. Some of the looting continued for many months -- possibly into 2004. Using heavy machinery, organized gangs took apart, according to the IAEA, "entire buildings that housed high-precision equipment."

This equipment could be anywhere. But one good bet is Iran, which has had allies and agents in Iraq since shortly after the US-led forces arrived.

This was a preventable disaster . . .

I supported President Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. At Wolfowitz's request, I helped advance the case for war . . . But without having planned or provided enough troops, we would be a lot safer if we hadn't gone to war.

|

LOOKS LIKE THE VACATION REALLY HELPED HIS WRITING

Ezra takes the perfect shot at Tom Friedman:

You can also discuss exactly when Tom Friedman stopped writing important books and began writing columns that read like an emotional high schooler's Livejournal.

Ooooo. Good one. Friedman today:

When you read polls showing a significant number of Americans feel our country is on the wrong track, what do you think is bothering people? I think it's a deep worry that there is a hole in the heart of the world - the moderate center seems to be getting torn asunder. That has many people worried. And they are right to be worried.

And plus, I didn't do anywhere near as well on my SATs as I thought I would, and I'm, like, majorly bummed.

|

FAITH FOLLIES

Margaret Carlson really slams it to the Catholic Church:

Following a decade during which the bishops squandered much of their authority mishandling their own moral crisis, this would seem the wrong moment for them to go into politics. Their lawyers must have figured out that you can lose your tax-exempt status for endorsing a candidate, but not for excommunicating one. In the process, they've become the worst kind of cafeteria Catholics, choosing abortion while ignoring church doctrine on social justice, the death penalty (as governor of Texas, Bush led the Western world in executions) and war (on which God has sent a distinctly different signal to the pope). By singularly obsessing over abortion, the church runs the risk of becoming just one more special interest group, the NRA of the soul.

To fight the fatwah, the reticent Kerry has tried a little emoting. Last Sunday, Kerry quoted Scripture, sang "Amazing Grace" and swayed at a church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. For once, he pushed back against those who say he's sinning: "I love my church. I respect the bishops, but I respectfully disagree."

But Kerry can't go prayer-to-prayer with Bush. Catholics follow the warning of Jesus, as reported by Matthew: "When thou prayest, enter into thy closet." Not to mention the instruction to render unto Caesar and God, separately. If politicians were exempt from these strictures, no one wrote it down.

|

DOWNWARD SPIRAL

Another "success story" from Iraq:

RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 21 - The American military and the interim Iraqi government are quickly losing control of this provincial capital, which is larger and strategically more important than its sister city of Falluja, say local officials, clerics, tribal sheiks and officers with the United States Marines.

"The city is chaotic," said Sheik Ali al-Dulaimi, a leader of the region's largest tribe. "There's no presence of the Allawi government," he added, speaking of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

While Ramadi is not exactly a "no go" zone for the marines, like the insurgent stronghold of Falluja 30 miles to the east, officers say it is fast slipping in that direction. In the last six weeks, guerrillas have stepped up the pace of assassinations of Iraqis working with the Americans, and marine officials say they suspect Iraqi security officers have been helping insurgents to attack their troops. Reconstruction efforts have ground to a halt because no local contractors are willing to work.

|

TWO THUMBS DOWN

Frank Rich critiques the Bush era as a bad movie:

If the cliché of 2000 remains true, that entertainment-addicted Americans will never let a tedious president into their living rooms for four long years, then Mr. Kerry, like Al Gore, is toast. But now that Mr. Kerry enters the final stretch of 2004 with a serious chance of unseating an incumbent in wartime, a competing theory also rises: it's possible for America to overdose on entertainment. No president has worked harder than George W. Bush to tell his story as a spectacle, much of it fictional, to rivet his constituents while casting himself in an unfailingly heroic light. Yet this particular movie may have gone on too long and have too many plot holes. It may have been too clever by half. It may have given Mr. Kerry just the opening he needs to win.

|

WORLD CHAMPIONS

The Red Sox did sweep
The Cardinals did weep
So much for the curse
Now let's all get some sleep.

|

BASTARDS

They're so concerned about the integrity of our process:

Republicans said they have not found a way to legally file pre-election day challenges in Florida. That's why they are considering the provision allowing Election Day challenges, a statute that appears more suited to isolated issues than coordinated sweeps of the voter rolls.

***
Tucker Fletcher said the party conducted widespread mailings to newly registered voters of all parties and created a database of the name and address on mailings that were returned by the post office. She would not say whether that list would be used in any potential challenges at the polls of voting rights.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported Tuesday that it had obtained a portion of that database, which lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville.

Tucker Fletcher said the partial list obtained by the BBC ``is not going to be used in any way to challenge voters.''

Under the state's challenging provision, observers must file an affidavit detailing their cause for suspicion. The voter then is notified and asked to fill out an affidavit of his own.

Browning said, "At this point, that voter is going to be incredibly, incredibly ticked off."

Voting in the entire polling place is then suspended as all poll workers present are required to convene to take a vote on whether the voter should be allowed to cast a ballot. Majority rules.

If a majority of poll workers - who have received no more than 20 minutes of training on the procedure - decide the voter should not vote, a provisional ballot is provided to the voter that will be sealed in a secrecy envelope and considered by the county's canvassing board in the days after the election.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said he had never encountered a challenge in 16 years. Browning said he had encountered a challenge only once in his 24- year career.

|

COVERING UP

Will Bunch has some news we haven't heard anywhere else:

Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center claim they helped federal agents find three of the four “black boxes” from the jetliners that struck the towers on 9/11 - contradicting the official account.

Both the independent 9/11 Commission and federal authorities continue to insist that none of the four devices - a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) from the two planes - were ever found in the wreckage.

But New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in a recent book -- self-published by several Ground Zero workers -- that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate three of the four.

His account is supported by a volunteer, Mike Bellone, whose efforts at Ground Zero have been chronicled in the New York Times and elsewhere. Bellone said assisted DeMasi and the agents and that saw a device that resembling a “black box” in the back of the firefighter’s ATV.
Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero. Federal aviation officials - blaming the massive devastation - have said the World Trade Center attacks seem to be the only major jetliner crashes in which the critical devices were never located.

|

CLEANSING THE BEACHES

The clouds have parted just enough that I can see the moon melting from my window. The eclipse is starting, and it will be total soon.

Eclipses are a big deal to astrologers:

The eclipse of the Moon has traditionally been viewed as a bad omen, for it can awaken irrational responses. Since the Moon governs domestic matters, the public and the emotional personality, rather than leadership, it tends to have a more personal effect than the solar eclipse, which plays a more outward, even political, role. As a rule, women and family are generally more affected by the lunar cycle, whereas men and politics are signified by the solar.

The total lunar eclipse on October 28, 2004 occurs in Taurus, the sensual sign of the Bull, on the same day as a rare Grand Quintile aspect, making it a very unusual eclipse indeed. It will particularly affect people with fixed signs strong in their charts (the fixed signs are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius).

Astrologer Eric Francis says eclipses are when things suddenly speed up and come to fruition:

In personal terms, modern astrologers have begun to see the light on eclipses, if you ask me. In newspaper horoscope columns, they are generally described as moments of opportunity, times of peak intensity and critical juncture points. All this is true, though one could argue it's a matter of perception. Do you congratulate someone when they lose their job, because they get to discover who they are, collecting unemployment for a year? What do you say when a horrid relationship 'suddenly' falls apart? What do you say to a tidal wave?

***
With eclipses, the inner always does well to precede the outer. There is you, then there is your expression in the world. You move in your heart or soul, and you move on the physical plane. When eclipses work in reverse, when they make us catch up, when they remind us we've abandoned our evolution, it's not so pretty at all.

Yet even as what you might call a natural destructive force, eclipses tend to cleanse the beaches, scrub the riverbeds and replenish the fresh water supply. As when a hurricane passes, not everyone survives or survives the current round of the game, but those of us who do are stronger and wiser -- as are those who don't.

|

Finger Lakes, August 2002. 

|

LYING, OF COURSE

You knew it sounded familiar:

Friday, April 04, 2003- As the military advances closer to Baghdad, signs of Iraqi chemical preparedness are multiplying, although there is still no conclusive evidence Saddam Hussein's regime possesses weapons of mass destruction.

***
Closer to Baghdad, troops at Iraq's largest military industrial complex found nerve agent antidotes, documents describing chemical warfare and a white powder that appeared to be used for explosives.

U.N. weapons inspectors went repeatedly to the vast al Qa Qaa complex -- most recently on March 8 -- but found nothing during spot visits to some of the 1,100 buildings at the site 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Col. John Peabody, engineer brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said troops found thousands of 2-by-5-inch boxes, each containing three vials of white powder, together with documents written in Arabic that dealt with how to engage in chemical warfare.

Initial reports suggest the powder is an explosive, but tests are still being done, a senior U.S. official said. If confirmed, it would be consistent with what the Iraqis say is the plant's purpose, producing explosives and propellants.

So they actually checked it last March. So much for the "they snuck it all out under the cover of night before we even invaded, the sneaky little raghead bastards."

|

MY NEW HAIR

Due to popular demand, an approximation of my new haircut. It looks kind of like Kim Novak in "Bell Book and Candle." And I'm actually starting to like the butterscotch.
|

SAVE THESE

A couple of useful links:
My Polling Place, which tells you where you go to vote;

Pocket-sized list of voter rights from Moveon.org.


|

SIGNS

When even Paula Zahn is getting snippy with them, you know they're going down:

You've heard Kerry blasting the president all day long, accusing him of trying to hide this story about these missing explosives. The president asked repeatedly on the campaign trail about this, refusing to answer questions. Isn't the American public entitled to hear from the president on this dangerous story?

|

WOOF! WOOF!

More on the CBS Florida poll from Jerome at MyDD. Apparently they're suppressing the results because the results look too good for Kerry:

Here's a email note I got from an insider pollster:

The word I hear is that NYT/CBS are not going to release their latest FL survey, because it shows Kerry up by 4 points. Apparently, they [CBS & NYT's] think that is an implausible result, so they are suppressing it. Of course, it's not implausible at all. And imagine the reverse: would they have suppressed a poll showing Bush up 4?

Looks like they've really got the media trained. Good dog!

The numbers are up because Kerry's on an upward trend all over the country, you morons.

All they do is write their scripts and ignore anything that contradicts it.

From the New Republic:

if Rove's whole strategy was to artificially inflate Bush's lead nationally and then use the momentum from national polls to fuel a Bush sweep of the battleground states, then the fact that Bush is essentially tied in those inflated polls is horrible news for him. Among other things, this would explain why Kerry does so much better in polls that focus only on battleground states than he does in national polls: In some sense, Kerry's doing that well everywhere; it's just that Bush has obscured it in non-battleground states by running up a lot of garbage points. This also suggests the national polls could be masking a Kerry electoral-vote landslide.

|

ASIDE

Kind of funny, to hear so many people expressing such confidence in the old-style voting machines. There's a long history of voting machine fraud, too. The only difference is, they had to be rigged one machine at a time (which is why only the most trusted hacks got patronage jobs "guarding" the machines at the central warehouse). And you couldn't do a recount.
|

|

NATIONAL VOTER ALERT HOTLINE 1-866-698-6831 (1-866-MYVOTE1)

This number is up and running, so if you're in an early-voting state, keep it handy. You can call about any voting irregularities.
|

EEK

The big story right now is Hawaii. Always solidly Democratic, a poll done by the Honolulu Advertiser shows a dead heat.
|

MOVIN' ON UP

Congressional Hotline on C-SPAN just pronounced Kerry ahead in the electoral vote, seven states moved from red into the undecided category.

Yep.
|

STILL GIVING THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT?

You can stop now:

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.

***
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."

|

A FLY ON THE WHITE HOUSE WALL

Via Kevin Drum:

Justin Logan excerpts an interesting piece today by Philip Giraldi in the print edition of The American Conservative. Giraldi claims that when the CIA's Counter Terrorism Center provided Dick Cheney with a special briefing on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's prewar ties with Saddam Hussein last month, Cheney was a wee bit unhappy with their conclusions:

The CTC concluded that Saddam Hussein had not materially supported Zarqawi before the U.S.-led invasion and that Zarqawi's infrastructure in Iraq before the war was confined to the northern no-fly zones of Kurdistan, beyond Baghdad's reach. Cheney reacted with fury, screaming at the briefer that CIA was trying to get John Kerry elected by contradicting the president's stance that Saddam had supported terrorism and therefore needed to be overthrown. The hapless briefer was shaken by the vice president's outburst, and the incident was reported back to [newly appointed CIA director Porter] Goss, who indicated that he was reluctant to confront the vice president's staff regarding it.

I don't know who Giraldi's source for this was, but it's a sadly familiar MO for this administration: shoot the messenger, refuse to believe anything you don't want to believe, and treat everything first and foremost as an excuse for partisan bludgeoning, not as a serious problem that requires serious analysis and a serious solution.

You can't excise a cancer if you spend your time screaming at the lab because the biopsy report isn't what you expected. Why would anyone think that Bush and Cheney can successfully fight terrorism if they willfully refuse to understand the true nature of the threat?

|

EYE ON THE PRIZE

More polls, more good news:

"Today was a big day for Kerry," pollster John Zogby said.
Kerry has consolidated his base support just as Bush did early in the race, taking a 2-to-1 lead among Hispanics, 90 percent of blacks, 84 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of union voters and 65 percent of singles.

Only 4 percent of likely voters remain undecided.

The thing is, we're not playing for the White House at this point - Congress is the prize. This is what you have to emphasize to people: It's just as important to vote straight Democratic as it is to get Kerry in.

Because he can't fix this mess unless we have control of at least one house.
|

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Hmm. Mike Rogers at BlogACTIVE (the guy who's been outing gay Republicans) apparently has a big fish on the line:

Over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, blogACTIVE will be releasing two cases on the site. One of them promises to be one of the biggest GLBT news stories of the decade.

***
This candidate is running on a party platform that is among the most homophobic in the nation. I promise you this…the news of this candidate’s homosexuality is certain to shake things up a bit for years to come.

UPDATE: The story is about a congressional candidate in North Carolina. I don't know how earthshattering that will be, but we'll see.
|

TRENDING

Chris Bowers over at MyDD has the latest polls (still waiting for the CBS Florida poll but rumor has it Florida's in the bag):

Survey USA has new polls from the big three that make ARG look pessimistic:
Kerry Bush
FL 50 48
OH 50 47
PA 53 45
Yeah baby. Kerry at 50 in all three.

Zogby is slightly better than yesterday:
Kerry Bush
Colorado 49 47
Florida 45 49
Iowa 45 45
Michigan 49 44
Minnesota 46 44
New Mexico 43 48
Nevada 46 49
Ohio 44 46
Pennsylvania 49 45
Wisconsin 48 46

|

PICKING NITS

I'm happy for the Sox, but I wish it were a better Series.

On the other hand, maybe it's an omen. Boston and all that...
|

RIPPLE EFFECT

This investigation will be interesting as it unwinds, because insurance may be the single most corrupt (and corrupting) industry, with huge financial ramifications for everyone.

Herbert Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Iowa, said: "Bias in brokerage where people are purportedly acting as neutrals but steering customers toward suppliers with whom they have an ownership interest, those things are all regulatory problems. Depending upon mainly state insurance law, they are probably something that insurance regulators want to look into."

That's counting on the fox to guard the henhouse. With rare exceptions, state insurance commissioners are industry insiders, people who can be counted on the protect their interests. Steering is a common practice, and we all pay more as a result.

I did an investigative series on municipal insurance practices back in the day, and boy, I could literally spend a lifetime on the subject. One of the things I learned: You know how people get all worked up about teacher salaries raising their taxes? They have it wrong - the real rip-offs are usually in the teachers' health insurance policies. The premiums are heavily padded because "professional services" are where politicians hide the kickbacks. And to add injury to insult, the same broker who's supposed to service the account is often paid an additional consulting fee - to do the same work for which he's already collecting a commission.

Think about that. Say a politically-connected broker charges 30% more, because he's kicking back to the politicians. If that's a school district paying $3M a year for health insurance, that's a lot of millage on your tax bill.
|

COVERING UP

More on the CIA report they're trying to block:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - The Central Intelligence Agency has blocked, at least temporarily, the distribution of a draft internal report that identifies individual officers by name in discussing whether anyone should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of Congress from both parties said.

The delays began in July, at the direction of John E. McLaughlin, then the acting director of central intelligence, and have continued since Porter J. Goss took over as the intelligence chief last month, members of Congress said. The delays have postponed the next step in the process, which calls for the draft report to be reviewed by affected individuals.

It is not known who is named in the report, conducted by the C.I.A.'s inspector general, an independent internal investigator. The review was sought in December 2002 by the joint Congressional committee that investigated intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. The purpose, that panel said, should be to determine "whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable" for any mistakes that contributed to the failure to disrupt the attacks.

|

LOOT AND RUN

Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to straighten out this mess?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - With no sign of a letup in the war in Iraq, the Bush administration is preparing another emergency request for tens of billions of dollars to cover military and civilian costs there through the fiscal year 2005.

Remember the war that was going to "pay for itself" with oil revenues? Gee, what a bunch of cockeyed optimists this gang turned out to be.
|

MORE ON WAR

"Rush to War: Between Iraq and a Hard Place" is a new documentary which examines U.S. foreign policy. The trailer looks pretty good, and the interviews are with a bunch of good, smart people, including Howard Zinn, Molly Ivins, Daniel Berrigan, Chris Hedges, Scott Ritter, Robert Scheer (hey Bob, what's with that 1975 hairdo?) and Mark Danner.

You can see the trailer here.
|

WHAT UTOPIA LOOKS LIKE

A candid interview with Sy Hersh:

You've said in other interviews that it would be better to have a realist like Henry Kissinger in the White House than utopians like the neoconservatives. So is there a lesson in Iraq then for the so-called humanitarian hawks – the liberal hawks who believe in going to war for moral reasons?

I'm one of those people who believes that Bush really did go to war to free the Middle East and turn these nations into democracies. I don't think he went to war for oil primarily or Israel. He went because he has this idee fixe that it was his mission, his crusade to change the Middle East – to turn it into a democratic stronghold of good, well-meaning people who would buy American and support Israel against the Palestinians and keep the oil flowing.

It's idealistic. It's utopian. Is there anything more dangerous than an ideologue who doesn't know he's wrong?

Now, one of the things I've heard from people who found themselves supporting the war is that whether the UN went in or not, the fact is that there was a moral imperative. That Saddam was doing terrible things to his people and suppressing the Shi'ites, violating human rights and so on.

The only problem with that thinking is that it's been more than a year and a half since we went in. And right now, the abuses in the prisons, the bombings, and the attacks, the violence in the country are now being caused by us. Is that a moral position we want to be in? Of course, it is an unintended consequence, but it is still very much a consequence.

If Bush wins re-election, he will bomb and bomb and bomb. He's been doing that steadily every since the Allawi government was put in place by us. Since June 28, the bombing has gone up exponentially. Bombing, bombing, bombing. Civilian targets, civilian neighborhoods.

But I don't see anyone in the press worrying about it. I don't see them demanding to know how many sorties we're flying – have they grown? Are more bombs being dropped? What's the tonnage? We don't know any of that, do we?

|

SHEDDING LIGHT

Seems they've been less than honest with us:

When the troops from the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade arrived at the Al-Qaqaa base a day or so after Baghdad's fall on April 9, 2003, there were already looters throughout the facility, Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, deputy public affairs officer for the unit, told The Associated Press.

The soldiers "secured the area they were in and looked in a limited amount of bunkers to ensure chemical weapons were not present in their area," Wellman wrote in an e-mail message. "Bombs were found but not chemical weapons in that immediate area.

"Orders were not given from higher to search or to secure the facility or to search for HE type munitions, as they (high-explosive weapons) were everywhere in Iraq," he wrote.

|

HEDGING HIS BETS

Well!

AFTER months of embarrassed silence over links with US Democrats, Downing Street finally admitted yesterday that Tony Blair had twice met John Kerry, who is challenging the Prime Minister’s war ally President Bush for the Oval Office.

The disclosure suggests that Mr Blair may be hedging his bets on the outcome of the US elections.

Previously the Government has raised no objection to claims, repeated on both sides of the Atlantic, that Mr Blair had “never met” the Democratic presidential candidate.

|

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I don't want the Supreme Court to pick the next president," Mr. Gore said, "and I don't want this president to pick the next Supreme Court."
|

NOTHING IS TOO UNTHINKABLE FOR THIS BUNCH

Digby cites a post by Amy Sullivan which points out the possibility of Bush making an interim appointment to the Supreme Court.

If it does happen, people will take to the streets.
|

WHEN NASCAR MOMS ATTACK

Via Wonkette, who notes, "David Brooks must be shitting himself."
|

PERHAPS WE SHOULD TRY THAT DEMOCRACY THING HERE FIRST

From Kos:

An email from Wisconsin.

A friend with a child in the Richland County,WI high school where George Bush appears today reports the following. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner, at the risk of expulsion. After a parent inquired, an alternative activity will be provided, probably a movie being shown in an auditorium. (The school secretary reportedly said that students had the choice of just staying home if they didn't want to attend the Bush rally, but the principal subsequently offered an alternative.)

If Bush comes to a high school, how dare his campaign dictate what students can wear?

This is out of control.

Update: Rachel Schultz is the superintendent of Richland Center School District in Wisconsin (where students were told not to wear any Kerry regalia during Bush's visit). Turns out Rachel is married to Dale Schultz, Republican candidate for Congress in the 3rd Congressional District in Wisconsin.

|

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Years ago (1988 or so, I think it was), I answered an ad on the back page of the Village Voice seeking people who worked for the movie theaters showing "The Exorcist."

It turned out to be for a Clive Barker BBC series called "The A to Z of Horror." The episode I'm in is "B is for Beezlebub."

I ended up playing a bit part in the thing (I sell a movie ticket to Mercedes McCambridge, the voice of the demon) and got some writing work out of it (did the radio announcer voiceover in the opening scene), but I never saw it. They were supposed to sell it to A&E, but it never happened. I know it appeared in England but they never released it on home video.

Mercedes was an interesting old broad with lots of stories, and one of the film crew was the son of the lead actor from "Vanya on 54nd Street" (not the Wallace Shawn part - the other).

I finally tracked down the producer and she sent me a copy, which arrived today. So weird, to finally see the thing. My voiceover sounds great - maybe I should use it for an audition tape, huh?

Your mother's in here, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it...
|

TRANSITIONAL HAIR

I had to do something about the butterscotch hair (plus, I was in the mood for yet another drastic change) so I went and had it all cut off today. It's the first time in seven years I've had short hair.

It must look okay, because every single stylist in the place stopped me to tell me how great it looked.
|

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Excellent Buzzflash interview with investigative reporter Robert Parry, the man who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for the AP and Newsweek:

Even though Bush got in as CIA Director and was confirmed by the Senate, he did operate in a very political way. One of his most significant acts was to allow a group called Team B into the analytical division. And Team B was made up of conservative activists, including Paul Wolfowitz, who resurfaces later.

These folks wanted to make it appear that the Soviet Union was on the rise, that it was the emerging super power, and it was eclipsing the United States. Therefore there had to be a major response to that by the United States with a military buildup, more aggressive policies in Third World conflicts, et cetera. However, that was not the CIA's position.

The CIA analysts had done a pretty good job historically in terms of telling the truth, even if it was information that presidents didn't want to hear. They were saying that the Soviet Union was struggling -- that it was not this grand emerging power that the conservatives wanted to make it. It set up a key battle line between the analysts at the CIA and these ideological figures who wanted to use the CIA's analytical division for political purposes. Bush allowed that to happen.

Parry points out all the nasty stuff Bush Sr. was in the middle of as president:

But after Clinton won in 1992, he and other winning Democrats basically decided to not help or shelve those investigations. At that point, we forget that Lawrence Walsh, the Independent Counsel who was a Republican, wanted to pursue George H.W. Bush because he had found out that George H.W. Bush had been withholding documents that had been long requested for the investigation. Bush also refused to submit to a second interview, which Walsh had postponed until after the '92 election, so Bush would not be distracted. But then after Bush got voted out, he issued pardons for six of the Iran-Contra defendants, which effectively crippled Walsh’s investigation.

Bush was allowed essentially to walk off into the sunset with his reputation intact-- when there was a potential from all four of these investigations to have implicated the Senior Bush in misconduct -- his alleged involvement in the October surprise, his involvement in Iran-Contra, his involvement in Iraqgate, and his involvement in the Passportgate affair. But Clinton and other Democrats felt that it was important to try not to stir things up, to see if they could work with the Republicans cooperatively and with the new Administration coming in. It turned out to be a gross misunderstanding of the situation.

Lots of fascinating stuff. Read it all.
|

HMMM

While checking my stats a few months ago, I noticed a regular reader in Chappaqua - an AOL user who checks in a couple of times a day.

Bill Clinton's on the road and my reader has disappeared.

Coincidence? I think not.
|

LEARNING FROM HISTORY

I remember a post-election Nightline special that appeared after Clinton was first elected. And Ted Koppel said then that, from their own polling, reporters knew a week before the election that Bush was going down.

He explained how, of course, they couldn't actually say that because they couldn't be seen as influencing the results. But they knew.

Keep that in mind this week. The signs are everywhere.
|

TRUE BELIEVERS

E.J. Dionne:

As a political matter, this intensity gap suggests that even if Bush has been successful in mobilizing the Republican Party's political base, he has been even more successful in mobilizing Democrats.

The Bush camp followers are not happy with this state of affairs. They tried to dismiss the strong feelings against Bush as irrational. The phrase "Bush hatred" is invoked to imply a legion of citizens gone mad.

It's an odd argument when it comes from right-wing talk radio and cable television ranters who insisted in the 1990s that hatred of Bill Clinton was the highest form of patriotism. But their reaction is at least predictable. Anyone else who buys into the notion that the passions Bush has unleashed are primarily the product of unreasoning prejudices misses the central dynamic of this year's election.

***
For those who favor moderation in governing, two questions predominate. The first is the president's conscious choice to divide a country that had been so united after the attacks of Sept. 11. He signaled the course for the rest of his term when, in a September 2002 speech aimed at electing Republicans to Congress, he said that the U.S. Senate -- meaning its then-Democratic majority -- was "not interested in the security of the American people." If you say your opponents don't care about the nation's security, aren't you accusing them of being traitors?

And this administration is desperately trying to have this campaign be about anything but the central purpose of democratic elections: to hold those in power accountable for what they have done. Bush does not want the election to be about his miscalculations in Iraq, his misleading statements before the war, his false predictions about the fiscal effect of his tax cuts. He wants to scare the country about terrorism and John Kerry. It is not an honorable approach to reelection. That is why moderate and independent voters are finding it so hard to support the president and why so many of Kerry sympathizers are so fervent in their commitment.

|