September 24, 2004
I'll show you what we thinka yer lousy Peace Train -- Agents of the United States of Harassers turned a plane back from Washington because Cat Stevens was on it. Steven Demeter Georgiou aka Cat Stevens aka Islam Yusuf is well known, and not exactly a rabble rouser, but the hysterical lengths officials went to to keep his Muslim feet from touching the lily white soil of America probably gives us as good a glimpse as anything into what lunatics we are dealing with in our current government. While the security gofers were getting Cat Stevens autograph, Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle is deadly serious and not backing off a bit. "Why is he on the watch lists?," Doyle asked himself, in that Rumsfeldian manner that may be for rhetorical effect or may be to buy time to dream up an answer. "Because of his activities that could be potentially linked to terrorism. The intelligence community has come into possession of additional information that further raises our concern." Ooooh. More of that secret intelligence... like the kind they used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Got it.
They say he gave money to Hamas. Yusuf said he's only given money to charitable causes. Terrorism is not consistent with Islam, he says. "The Koran equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity."
According to the New York Times, "British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw raised the issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell in person at the United Nations." And here's Powell, once again the automaton toy general of the administration having to stand up for something that is embarrassingly baseless. Powell could have been someone, but he sold his integrity cheap. "Our Homeland Security Department and intelligence agencies found some information concerning his activities that they felt under our law required him to be placed on a watch list and therefore denied him entry." Great answer, Colin. Real classy.
These guys don't even have the finesse to pretend it was "just a mistake" and smooth it over, maintain at least a shred of dignity for show. They never break character. Though Cat Stevens is high profile, many of the others who have been detained as enemy combatants are no more worthy of the treatment than him, IT guys looking for a job, immigrants trying to participate in the American dream. This is not really the world the Rumsfelds and Cheneys of the world imagine, though they are transforming into something that more closely matches their sinister vision.
We know Nixon had FBI goons tailing John Lennon 24-7 when he was trying to get him deported. And the Bush administration is clearly the Nixon administration reborn. So it shouldn't be surprising. Nothing should be surprising with these guys, but somehow, they continue to surprise with their outlandishness.
But now, interestingly, they got the son of a Cypriot's blood up, and the Cat is considering legal action. Go Cat! He's lucky they didn't stick an electrode on his testicles. See the Telegraph And a splattering of other news events:
The Unfeeling President by E.L. Doctorow: "On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear. But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country." Young Americans! Demand a Plan to End the War! Sign the letter. See MoveOn.org Bush’s war needs troops -- Kerry says Bush is in a make-believe world -- Kerry Suggests Draft Could Return With Bush Reelection -- Also "Osama bin forgotten", Bush lives in Disneyland.
NEWS PERUSE
September 26, 2004
Paranoid Shift -- "Just before his death, James Jesus Angleton, the legendary chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, was a bitter man. He felt betrayed by the people he had worked for all his life. In the end, he had come to realize that they were never really interested in American ideals of 'freedom' and 'democracy.' They really only wanted 'absolute power.'" Online Journal Bush Nazi Ties in Guardian Story -- The Guardian is breaking the story about Prescott Bush (father of George H.W. Bush) and his work in building the Nazi war machine. Obviously Prescott Bush and his father in law George Herbert Walker were not the only American Nazi sympathizers (and investors), but that part of the Bush history is simply beyond decorum as seen by the media of America. G.W. Party Animal -- According to Rolling Stone when little George W. was supposedly in the Alabama National Guard, he was really partying heavily with the politicos. "Even with his free pass keeping him out of harm's way, George W. Bush did not fulfill his obligation to attend Guard drills on a regular basis while in Alabama. Exactly what was he doing? For one thing, he was drinking heavily. 'You had a bunch of guys and girls in their twenties just out of college - what do you think happened?' says Devere McLennan. 'We probably kept the state liquor store in business.'" Fuhgedaboudit -- When the Swift Boat Anti-Antiwar group tried to get the Navy to do an investigation into Kerry's medals, the Navy said no dice. "Our examination found that existing documentation regarding the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart medals indicates the awards approval process was properly followed," Naval inspector general, Vice Admiral Ronald Route, said in a memo to Navy Secretary Gordon England. "In particular, the senior officers who awarded the medals were properly delegated authority to do so. In addition we found that they correctly followed the procedures in place at the time for approving these awards." Sign On Sand Diego CBS is On The Ropes -- Left for Dead. The network's pulling its program on the rationale for invading Iraq is a tragedy for American journalism and democracy. Why isn't the question being put to George W. Bush: Is the story true or not? What happened in the missing time in your military career? Where are your records? The Star
September 27, 2004
No Shit, Sherlock! Now that the government has had its little party with back-patting and obfuscation, the real investigation into 9/11 can begin, the people's investigation. See "The Attack on The Pentagon" by Leonard Spencer. "Of all the terrorist incidents that took place on September 11, the one that underlines most starkly the poverty of the official account is undoubtedly the attack on the Pentagon. While the strikes on the Twin Towers in New York require a little investigative digging before their true and disturbing nature is uncovered, in the case of the Pentagon it isn't necessary to look at a single scrap of evidence from the scene of the crime. Even the most cursory review of the events leading up to the attack soon makes it abundantly clear that an unanticipated attack of this kind could not, in reality, happen at all. The Pentagon, in common with the nearby White House, is one of the best-protected public buildings in the USA. It is equipped with its own battery of surface-to-air missiles and the airspace above it is the subject of a permanent overfly ban in respect of commercial aircraft." They Don't Have to Control The Media, They Own Them -- The chairman of Viacom, which owns CBS, is a George Bush supporter. David Podvin at makethemaccountable.comwrites, "In the wake of the Federal Communications Commission fining Viacom more than five hundred thousand dollars for broadcasting a glimpse of Janet Jackson’s socially corrosive right nipple, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone has endorsed George W. Bush for president. 'From a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal,' said Redstone. 'Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people… but from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company.' ... The Redstone announcement follows by several months the proclamation by Disney/ABC honcho Michael Eisner that his company would not distribute Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 out of concern that doing so would alienate Disney’s benefactors in the Bush family. Earlier this year, Chairman Rupert Murdoch of News Corp/Fox publicly endorsed Bush as the man who is best for America and Murdoch’s bank account, not necessarily in that order. Jeffrey Immelt, who runs General Electric/NBC, is also a Bush supporter. The 'liberal television media' is strictly red state territory: at all four major networks, the guys who sign the paychecks support Bush, and their journalistic employees are keenly aware of this fact." Ron Reagan to Bush: Stop Hijacking My Father -- Reagan: "“The reality of this administration is so ugly that most Americans, even those who are more or less opposed to the administration, really don’t want to come to grips with that. This is an administration that has cheated to get into the White House. It’s not something Americans ever want to think about their government. My sense of these people is that they don’t have any respect for the public at large. They have a revolutionary mindset. I think they feel that anything they can do to prevail – lie, cheat, whatever – is justified by their revolutionary aims." sundayherald.com
September 28, 2004
How to Rig an Election -- Let me count the ways. Barbara Ehrenreich. The Progressive Florida Vote Rigging, the Reprise -- Jimmy Carter, who has monitored elections all over the world, can't vouch for a fair election in Florida. "The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair." Bush versus the CIA -- By Robert Novak in the Sun Times Foxes in the Hen House -- The investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's role as a CIA agent has gone awry, according to the New York Times
September 29
Fight Back! In an extension of an all-out war against voting rights, the Ohio secretary of state has attempted to disqualify recent voter registrations on the basis of an arcane rule that requires voter registration to be filled out on 80-pound paper. (see Truthout or Dayton Daily News.) Sign a petition against this outrage at ACT 04 Congresswoman Wants Probe Of Re-Enlistment Tactics -- "A Colorado congresswoman is asking for an investigation into claims that Iraq war veterans nearing the end of their service are being strong-armed into re-enlisting. Democratic Congresswoman Diana Degette says she's heard from several soldiers who said they were asked if they want to re-enlist or go back to Iraq. She also cited reports of those complaints published in two Colorado newspapers." theksbwchannel.com No Justice No Peace -- "On 9/11, 3000 people were murdered, and three years later, even with unlimited police state budgets, using torture and the Gulag, there is not one conviction! ... The governments of Canada, Australia, the US and the UK have gone to extraordinary lengths to convince their respective publics that they need to roll back many the key judicial protections of the Common Law dating back to Magna Carta in their fight against a perfect enemy, but the tall tales that they spun in major terrorism cases dissolved into nothingness the moment any light was shed on it." Common Sense Edwards: 'Bush Campaign will Lie About Anything' ABC The Myth of Corporate Accountability by Howard Dean. Yubanet Bush V. Gore Round Two New Republic
September 30, 2004
Reasons to be Cheerful -- Here's a twist! A dose of optimism. A drink from the half-full glass. "Reply to John Kaminski" by Leonard Spencer at Serendipity. Which is also the site on which John Kaminski's "The Lies of our Leaders: Americans believe it's no longer important to tell the truth". Fear of Flying -- According to Russ Baker in The Nation, "A new source has emerged with what she says is personal knowledge about why George W. Bush prematurely left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972--because nerves, fear and a possible drinking problem were affecting his ability to pilot his F-102A plane." NOTES FROM THE ROAD
September 30, 2004
It Can Happen Here -- It Is Happening -- Driving through New Hampshire I found a copy of Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here at a used book store along the highway for 50 cents. It's a great novelistic portrayal of a fascist takeover of the U.S. written in 1936 when Hitler and Mussolini were using Spain as a practice ground for the fascist takeover of the world. The book is more timely than ever as the fascist threat has become ever more formidable in the U.S. and elsewhere. Unfortunately It Can't Happen Here is out of print. (See Amazon) However, a new edition is supposed to be out next March, long after the election. (See here.)
Toxic Fox -- At a small general store in Vermont on Sunday morning, Fox News was playing, spewing its poisonous mental garbage into the atmosphere. It was a ghastly intrusion into an otherwise sweet space. The older woman behind the counter told a customer. "When the others come in they put on music. But when it's my time I put on what I like." Fox seems to get ever more screeching in its flagrant propaganda pounding. It's a nonstop commercial for the Bush mob and its corrupt constituency. There was a graying Oliver North, the convicted conspirator, now a Fox Newsman, in Baghdad at a ceremony swearing in non-Americans to serve in the U.S. military in Iraq. It was a report that gushed like a fire hydrant run over by a garbage truck. Everyone on Fox is breathlessly upbeat about this war in Iraq. Then before you could wipe the North mucus off your face there was a soundbite shot of Rumsfeld squinting and snarling as usual, and the big pronouncement trumpeted by Fox was "There will be no draft..." Of course we know these guys will promise anything, and they do and they have since Bush started his compassionate, moderate campaign for 2000, and though they break millions of promises, the propaganda machine counts on wiping any memory of any of it away with screaming confusion. They have no qualms about promising anything -- anything.
Just a casual look at the numbers and trends and policies and you know the military needs men, is not getting volunteers, is tricking people to stay in by not honoring their contracts, is desperate. If there is in fact no draft, it will mean something is going to have to give. It could mean that they are planning an economic calamity so great that people will be lining up for the military just for the hope of a meal. Or it could mean that if the electorate continues to show its independent streak and not support Der Fuhrer, they will allow another terrorist attack to succeed, maybe two for good measure, and once again they will scare the populous into eating out of their collective master hand.
Below some interesting references to events:
Missing the point -- "Media obsesses over CBS documents, ignores uncontested evidence that Bush didn't meet his Guard obligations" Media Matters F911 made almost as much money overseas as in the US now. Total over $200 million. BoxOffice Mojo Debate wiped out the Bush lead in the polls, as well it should have. Drudge Report New World Orders --"In Arizona, influential Republican women are increasingly coming out for John Kerry." Salon Rock 'em! -- Springsteen, REM kick off Vote for Change tour in Philadelphia. Salon: "Hunched over a 12-string acoustic guitar, standing in the lone spotlight of an otherwise darkened Wachovia Center in Philadelphia Friday night, Bruce Springsteen began his tour sprint to help unseat President Bush with a bluesy, instrumental version of the 'Star Spangled Banner.' 'America is not always right -- that’s a fairy tale you tell your children,' Springsteen later commented from the stage. 'But America is always true. And it’s in seeking this truth that we find a deeper patriotism. Remember, the country we carry in our hearts is waiting.'" The tour includes six separate traveling shows including Pearl Jam, the Dixie Chicks, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, John Mellencamp and others. They will play 37 shows in 30 cities in swing states such as Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Washington and Arizona. Proceeds go to ACT (America Coming Together), a group raising money for Democratic candidates. The tour concludes in Washington on Oct. 11 with 13 of the headliners and will be televised on the Sundance cable channel. Bush Wearing a Wire? A lot of people are speculating over whether Bush was wearing a prompting device during the debate. Not unlikely given the need for such a thing given Bush's lack of ability to really match wits with Kerry, and the Bush family's CIA mentality and love for all things covert and ways to get around the rules. The sad thing for the Bush team is that it couldn't help very much, and likely would -- or did -- only add to his confusion under the pressure of having to perform live when he's rarely ever had to think on his feet. One woman reported that, when the broadcast cameras switched to a rear-angle shot she noticed a small bulge near President Bush's waist area as well as what appeared to be the outline of a wire going up Bush's back beneath his coat. Bush Lies, 20 selected from the debate. via Jano Cabrera and Liz Rich. Here's one: BUSH: "Of course, we're after Saddam Hussein -- I mean, bin Laden. He's isolated. Seventy-five percent of his people have been brought to justice." FACT: 19 of The Top 22 al Qaeda Operatives Remain at Large. "Efforts to ensnare the original list of Al Qaeda's most-wanted men are also going slowly. Of 22 top terrorists listed by America in October 2001, only three have been captured or killed..." [Economist, 8/14/04] Layers of Fraud --The Times traces the path of the "faulty intelligence" used to justify war and finds it was debunked in 2002. NYTimes Telling the Truth -- After a harrowing experience that proved in the end that Love is all you need, sometimes, one of the Italian women who were held hostage is not cowering but is speaking her mind. According to the Times, "One of the two Italian aid workers freed after three weeks in captivity in Iraq said the fight against American troops and their allies there was not terrorism but legitimate resistance to occupation." She said, "I distinguish between terrorism and resistance... The guerrilla war is justified, but I am against the kidnapping of civilians." NY Times This column should not be necessary. A more decent president would not accuse his opponent of assisting terrorists and harming American troops merely because he criticizes U.S. policy. A more decent conservative movement would call such accusations anti-democratic, rather than mindlessly parroting them, as National Review Online's Jed Babbin did this week. But the president is who he is. And so are his supporters. And so, in response to John Kerry's increased criticism of U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush and his surrogates have essentially accused Democrats of helping insurgents kill American troops. New Republic or Truthout Bush's Disaster -- Sydney Blumenthall: "After months of flawless execution in a well-orchestrated campaign, President Bush had to stand alone in an unpredictable debate. He had travelled the country, appearing before adoring pre-selected crowds, delivered a carefully crafted acceptance speech before his convention, and approved tens of millions of dollars in TV commercials to belittle his opponent. In the lead, Bush believed he had only to assert his superiority to end the contest once and for all. But onstage the president ran out of talking points." The Guardian Action to Stop Manipulation of 'Central Tabulators' in Ohio and Florida -- Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org writes, "Shall we torture Florida and Ohio? If that's what it takes to get better security in place... yes! Black Box Voting Cleanup Crew instructions for Friday, Oct. 1 2004 -- 1. We need your help sending a specific public records request to every county in Florida and Ohio... WHAT WE KNOW: - The 'central tabulator' controls up to 2 million votes per county in a single machine. This software is a tempting target for manipulation. Most counties do not even keep a written list of who accesses the central tabulator. The central tabulator has attack points before, during, and in the 10 days after elections (prior to certification). Most counties do not keep a written log of who enters the central tabulator room. THE BEHAVIORS WE WANT CHANGED: Slipshod control of central tabulator access. We want to know the names, dates, and times of all people who access the central tabulator and the room it resides in (and who they work for)." John F. Kennedy: "The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans' freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight." - (John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Columbia University, 10 days before his assassination, Nov. 12, 1963) Sirbacon
October 1, 2004
Bush was driven to distraction during the debate. (see this transcript.) His eyes were zapping around like bats. His smirk was twisted into a look of consternation and fury, as if he was going to chew himself up. He's not used to being confronted with any disagreement. He's been so sheltered for so long from any dissent, that he was ready to run over and strangle Kerry for actually confronting him. It's such a rare occasion. They make everyone at their "town meetings" sign a loyalty oath. They rule the White House press corps with an iron hand. If you want a seat, you play by the rules. When Bush "faced" the 9/11 commission he insisted it be behind closed doors, not recorded, not under oath, and Dick Cheney had to be by his side. But somehow the tradition of "debating" has become so entrenched in the American system, Bush was not able to duck this debate. Kerry is a very skilled debater. He knows about these things. He took notes. He scoped out the essential points of Bush's arguments, and organized effective, concise answers. When Kerry was talking, Bush wasn't doing that. He did pick up a pen later in the debate, but most of the time he was staring at Kerry, working his mouth, batting his eyes, turning his head, expressing rage. And like a mad bull he became progressively less able to organize his thoughts. He was just barely hanging on to coherence. He was reliving his lifelong struggles as a learning disabled kid who had trouble reading, trouble following through an extended thought process, and felt rage when someone subjected him to pressure to do it. He becomes defensive, as if the issue is what he knows. It's always someone playing "gotcha" to Bush. "Of course I know it was Osama bin Laden who attack us," he said. "I know that!" As if it was extremely significant that he knew that fact. Bush had said, "I didn't want to go to war. But the enemy attacked us..." Kerry pointed out that it wasn't Iraq that attacked America, but Osama bin Laden. And that was Bush's answer.
Bush was playing an entirely different game. He's no analytic thinker. He has only the most rudimentary knowledge of the wide range of issues that a president must be concerned with. He has succeeded in making his whole presidency about Iraq, so he only has to be fluent in one subject. But as it has become increasingly clear that the situation in Iraq is a disaster out of control, the issue of Iraq has led back to the issue of his competence to be president.
It would have been pointless for Bush to try to match Kerry point for point on the issues. He had to fall back on his familiar practice of repeating his simplistic slogans. "Because Saddam Hussein is out of power, the world is a safer place." He tried to make the most of the fact that he is the president. "I wake up every morning thinking about how to protect America. That's my job! I work with Director Mueller of the FBI; comes in my office when I'm in Washington every morning, talking about how to protect us. There's a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It's hard work."
"I know how these people [world leaders] think. I talk to them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently."
"I know how hard it is to make the decision to send people into harm's way. That's the hardest decision a president makes."
Bush dropped a lot of zingers. He was on the defensive, of course. He's so vulnerable on every issue. Now he has a record. In 2000 a performance based on nice sounding promises was okay. Bush was just a face and a name, guy who had served one full term as governor of Texas, an office with little power even in the Texas state government. But now he has a record he must defend. And there's not much to be proud of.
One of the strangest things he said was, referring to a woman he said he encountered who had lost her husband in Iraq. "It was hard work loving her, as best as I could, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm's way." Odd that he would talk about how hard it was for him to "love her," rather than the excruciating pain she must have been feeling over the loss of her son. He's a man of no empathy. "I don't understand how poor people think," he said once.
He repeated the phrase "hard work" 11 times.
A great moment was when Bush tried to counter Kerry's charge that Bush hadn't taken time to build a coalition before attacking Iraq. "He said we don't have any allies in this war," he said. "What does he say to Tony Blair? What does he say to ... Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland." Well, at least he had one credible ally. But as Kerry pointed out, the U.S. is taking 90% of the casualties and footing 90% of the $200 billion the war has cost so far.
One of Bush's strangest moments was when moderator Jim Lehrer brought up a Bush statement that there had been miscalculations in the war in Iraq.
LEHRER: New question, Mr. President, two minutes. You have said there was a, quote, miscalculation, of what the conditions would be in post-war Iraq. What was the miscalculation, and how did it happen?
BUSH: No, what I said was that, because we achieved such a rapid victory, more of the Saddam loyalists were around. I mean, we thought we'd whip more of them going in. But because Tommy Franks did such a great job in planning the operation, we moved rapidly, and a lot of the Baathists and Saddam loyalists laid down their arms and disappeared. I thought they would stay and fight, but they didn't. And now we're fighting them now. And it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work." Any clues what that was about?
A great glimpse of the Bush megalomania was when Bush said: "My opponent just said something amazing. He said Osama bin Laden uses the invasion of Iraq as an excuse to spread hatred for America. Osama bin Laden isn't going to determine how we defend ourselves. Osama bin Laden doesn't get to decide. The American people decide. I decided the right action was in Iraq."
I get to decide. Not Osama bin Laden. I decide. The nice thing about being president is you don't have to ask anyone, he once said. That's a big issue with him. It'd be easier if it was a dictatorship, he once said.
Blair's Heart Fails -- The greatest personal tragedy of Tony Blair is that he is a man with some conscience, some heart and he put his faith in George W. Bush and it destroyed his career. It shattered his base of support. It sealed his fate as a failed prime minister irrevocably. It was a blunder that destroyed his standing as a leader, undermined his credibility and put him into a situation of decline in which it was only a matter of a short time before his power unraveled entirely. And it broke his heart. Unlike Bush, he is not impervious to the personal tragedy of what he has done. The recent incident with the hostage who is pleading for his life has deeply cut into Blair's soul. The weight of what he has done is bearing down upon him. His heart problems are not a surprise. He is a broken man. His heart is broken. His career is over. His place in history is fixed. He is the anti-Churchill in British history. He took Britain to its most shameful hour. Apart from the disaster that has been wreaked upon the people of Iraq and of Britain as a consequence of his abetting the Bush fraudulent war, there is the great personal tragedy. He was a man of great promise. But no more. Scotsman Paul Krugman: "Most Americans aren't aware of all this. The sheer scale of Mr. Bush's foreign policy failures insulates him from its political consequences: voters aren't ready to believe how badly the war in Iraq is going, let alone how badly America's moral position in the world has deteriorated. But the rest of the world has already lost faith in us. In fact, let me make a prediction: if Mr. Bush gets a second term, we will soon have no democracies left among our allies - no, not even Tony Blair's Britain. Mr. Bush will be left with the support of regimes that don't worry about the legalities - regimes like Vladimir Putin's Russia." Zogby: The Race Is Still Kerry’s To Lose.
October 3, 2004
The Right Place at the Right Time -- I found a New York Post on the floor of a bathroom stall a couple of days ago. It was certainly the most appropriate place to find such a foul thing. I wondered for a moment if maybe I was supposed to use it instead of the toilet, but not being adequately paper trained I opted for the latter and sat leafing through the Post on the floor, not wanting to actually pick it up. What a nasty thing it is! Is there any publication that screams as loud as the Post? It's concentrated, hateful propaganda 100%, with no news function at all beyond propaganda. How can anyone buy it?It showed Martha Stewart on the front page, and the most striking thing about it was how mean it is. It's one thing to not like her or to feel she got her just deserts (not desserts), but they go so far over the top with their screaming hatred. Most of the rest of it focused overflowing hatred at John Kerry.
Favorite Summary of the Debate: William Rivers Pitt -- "It Was a Rout" Bush scowls, Democrats smile Kerry outclasses unpresidential Bush in round one Three Polls Show Kerry Won Debate Over Bush Powell regrets lying -- or more accurately, he regrets getting caught. Lame excuses. Lies. Distortions Faces of Bush democrats.org Marine's family very angry at Bush Star Tribune Soldier's dad: Bush blunder cost son his life Madison.com AWOL, Coke-snorting, drunk drivin' fool -- Morford: "But aren't you noticing something? Something missing? Something huge and obvious and slimy and elephant size and yet somehow utterly ignored during the entire Dan Rather fiasco? Of course you don't -- after all, you're not supposed to. This was the whole point. It's this: Paperwork or no paperwork, the allegations against Dubya are entirely true. It is common knowledge. Dubya was a family embarrassment. A none-too-bright problem child. A mediocre student and AWOL National Guardsman whose whereabouts can't be accounted for during large chunks of his "service," unless you happened to look in the bars down in Tijuana. " SF Gate Judge Rules Against Patriot Act Provision Yahoo New York Times on Body Language in the Debate Stray Diebold machine found -- Nothing strange about that. USA Today
October 5, 2004
Flummoxed -- Listen to this ear-opening edit of Bush talking during the debate: oddbits.com The Revolution Televised -- Amazing coverage of a war rally on Saturday, October 2, in Washington is going on right now on CSPAN. (Monday Night) AMAZING! Lila Lipscomb of Flint, Michigan, who lost her son in Iraq, is giving a very moving speech to the crowd now. "When something is based on a lie, it cannot stand." Very powerful. "We will take America back because it DOES belong to us!" The grandson of Ghandi also spoke. The father of Nick Berg. With the White House in the background. Long, drawn out with many speakers, good listening, good for the soul to hear the voices of antiwar. They are getting more focused, more forceful, more authoritative, more numerous. Reverend Grayland Hagler: "War is always wrong, always disruptive to the human process... there are other ways." Now Edwards will debate the old man -- Get ready for the corporate media to construe a "victory" for Cheney because the Republicans need it so badly, and the networks support the Republicans. But consider the match-up in non-media reality. In the first and last place, Cheney stands for the worst policies this country has ever had. He is responsible to a large degree for those policies and they are indefensible, except by fabricating things, like connections between the 9/11 attacks and Saddam Hussein. But even if there had been a connection between Saddam and Osama, it would not justify what is going on in Iraq, all the innocent people who have been and continue to be slaughtered. That is the starting point for the debate. Then there is Halliburton, the company Cheney still makes money on that has been awarded no-bid contracts and has ripped off the American people for incalculable billions. Cheney's crimes could fill volumes. But then look at all the superficial things the pundidiots usually focus on. Will they say Cheney is "more presidential"? Why? Because he's old and white-haired? Edwards is young and handsome, articulate, has the debating skills of one of the most successful trial lawyers ever, and above all: his cause is just, the removal of the criminals from power. Still, the media will find a way to say Cheney "won". Truthout, Washington Post. We hear that the Republican Secretary of State who was trying to disqualify all the recent voter registrations based on an archaic law that required them to be filled out on eight-pound paper has now backed off. Big victory for democracy. That scum. He tried. Well, Maybe Not -- Rumsfeld backs off statement of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. CNN Bruce Against Bush -- AFP