Fakes?

John posted this comment in response to my assertion that the documents are real, (which I've updated with information I came across that invalidates my previous arguments), something that even the left side of the blogosphere is starting to doubt.

They could have the same documents if Karl Rove and Co. had created the documents in the first place and "leaked" them to the media to put in place further discrediting of the whole "Bush blew off the National Guard" debate as spurious.

I replied, kind of poo-pooing his thoughts. But the more I think about it, there may be some ring of truth to them.

After this forgery scandal is through, do you think we'll hear anything about former Texas Lt. Governor Barnes admitting he got Bush placed in the National Guard so he could avoid Vietnam? That, as far as I'm concerned, is a much bigger story that the right can't dispute.

Karl Rove is an asshole, and a political genius. And if these (maybe) forged documents aren't traced back to him, then the shit sticks to 60 Minutes and all stories questioning Bush's National Guard "service" suddenly lose credibility.

I think CBS needs to check with their anonymous sources to see just where these documents came from, because a situation like this sounds like Rove's fatty little fingers are all over it.

eleven slash three

One is never sure about what to say or do on this anniversary. Back in 2002, I couldn't believe this day was coming. In 2003, the national mood was still somber, but there was also a small sense that people had started to get over 9/11. They will never forget that it happened, but the mourning had already eclipsed. Now it's 2004, and September 11 almost feels like a normal day. Maybe this is because it's a Saturday and the mood is naturally festive. Or maybe it's because Iraq and the upcoming election have done so much to divide this nation. Or maybe none of this matters because so much time has passed, and the majority of us have moved on with our lives.

Last week, my sister returned a book I loaned to her what seems like ages ago, but it was probably only a few months. The book, published by Disinformation and edited by The Memory Hole's Russ Kick, is titled "Everything You Know is Wrong," and it's chockful of articles featuring badly underreported information. Given my stance that the mainstream media doesn't print the knowledge we, as a society, need to know to make informed decisions, you've probably already guessed that this book is my cup of tea.

I've only had time to read two chapters of it. The first appendix, called "More Secrets and Lies," will be discussed on this blog at a later date. The second one is what I'll be focusing on for the third anniversary: "September 11, 2001: No Surprise," by Russ Kick. It's a long article which builds a case proving that the US government knew 9/11 was imminent. Kick briefly details 47 situations that, while not uncovering a smoking gun, proves that so much intelligence existed before 9/11 that they only way our government could have been taken by surprise is if they are completely, totally, and utterly incompetent. I have issues with a couple of the articles Kick cited, but his research and footnotes are rock solid.

I'm going to quote a few of the situations Kick detailed, the ones that struck me as being most important to his case of the US having prior knowledge that 9/11 was about to happen. Whenever possible, I will add links to the articles Kick has in his footnotes. Some of these articles have vanished from the web, but they are still in Lexis/Nexis, so I'll make text file links for them.

Read then and decide (or debunk) for yourself.

_COMMUNICATIONS OF BIN LADEN AND HIS TERRORISTS WERE BEING MONITORED BY US INTELLIGENCE FOR YEARS

What are we to make of the fact that the FBI intercepted bin Laden's men making a celebratory phone call just after the attacks? [*] Had the US been unable to monitor al Qaeda's calls before September 11, but miraculously managed to start intercepting calls on that very day? Of course not. Based on just this information, we can deduce that US intelligence has been monitoring the terrorists' communications before the crashes.
...
A Time magazine columnist has claimed that when documents presented at the embassy bombing trials made it clear that al Qaeda's messages were being intercepted, bin Laden's organization stopped using satellite phones, the result being, "We lost him." Then how can we explain the fact that US intelligence intercepted the terror organizations calls on September 10 [Referenced in a Wash. Times article, "Intercepts Foretold of 'Big Attack,' by Rowan Scarbourgh, that's not in Lexis/Nexis for some reason] and 11? Obviously , despite official claims to the contrary, the US was monitoring the conversations of al Qaeda and bin Laden around the world up to and including the day of the attacks...

_PEOPLE KNEW BEFOREHAND ABOUT ATTACKS

Reports have been swirling that ordinary people, mostly Arab-Americans in Ney York City, knew about the attacks before they happened. FBI agents have told the media that they're tracking down numerous people who spoke of the impending attacks in the New York area, thereby confirming that such warnings occured ... "The officer said the story 'had been out on the street' and the number of leads turning up was so 'overwhemling' that it was difficult to tell who has heard about the attacks from second-hand sources and who had heard it from someone who may have been a participant," according to the Journal News of Westchester, New York. [*]

...Three incidents of which we know details invovle schoolchildren (which makes sense since kids are notoriously poor judges of when to keep their lips buttoned). On September 10, 2001, a fifth-grader in a Dallas suburb made a startling declaration to his teacher: "Tomorrow, World War III will begin. It will begin in the United States, and the United States will lose." The boy was absent from school on September 11 and 12. [*]
...
In another incident, this one in Jersey City, a pupil at an unnamed school had warned people to stay away from lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11. Several hijackers lived in Jersey City. [*]

Even more to the point, one week before the attacks, a Brooklyn high-school freshman pointed out a classroom window at the WTC towers and said to his teacher, "Do you see those two buildings? They won't be standing there next week." They boy's family had recently immigrated from Pakistan. [*]

_FLORIDA NATIONAL GUARD ACTIVATED FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE ATTACKS

In what might be a case of ESP, Florida Governor Jeb Bush - who is, of cours,e the president's brother - called up his state's National Guard on September 7, 2001. Executive Order 01-261 repeatedly makes reference to the Guard aiding law enforcement and emergency-management personnel in the event of "civil disturbance." ... [*]

_RUSSIAN MEDIA WARNED OF A HUGE, DESTABILIZING ATTACK ON US

...On July 12, Pravda ran a page-one article headlined: "The Dollar and America Will Fall Down on August 19?" While speaking at a conference focusing on the financial collaspe of the US, Dr. Tatyanan Koryagina - who works for a division of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development - gave an interview to the newspaper. The interview asked her, "All the participants at the hearings stated that America is a huge financial pyramid, which will crash soon. Still, it is hard to uunderstand how this could happen in the first and richest country of the world - without a war, without a missile or bomb strikes?" She cryptically replied: "Besides bombs and missiles, there are other kinds of weaponry, much more destructive ones." [*]

_THE FINAL PIECE OF THE PUZZLE: CIA DIRECTOR GEORGE TENET KNEW WHAT WAS COMING

The most damning quote of all comes from an on-the-scene bulletin from National Public Radio on the morning of September 11. Congressional correspondent David Welna was reporting from the Capitol building as it was being evacuated: "I spoke with Congressman Ike Skelton - a Democrat from Missouri and a member of the Armed Services Committee - who said that just recently the Director of the CIA warned that there could be an attack - an imminnent attack - on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected." [*]

So there you have it: Proof that our government was monitoring al-Qa'ida's phone calls, some of the Arab population in New York City had prior knowledge of the attacks, it looks like somebody in Russia had prior knowledge (the article also gets into evidence that Iraq knew it was coming, and the Philippines and Israel also warned us), the president's brother may have had prior knowledge, and George Tenet just fucking knew. There's really no possible way that our government couldn't have known 9/11 was coming.

So why did it happen?

Writing and researching tends to be time consuming...

But there will be a large post later.

Remember, the W stands for Women!

A member of the audience pulls a demonstrator's hair as he forces her out of an auditorium where President Bush was addressing a crowd of supporters at Byers Choice in Colmar, Pa. Thursday Sept. 9, 2004. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)

The Nader Cult?

This ad for LetNaderDebate.org has been running predominately on, as far as I can tell, right wing blogs. Some of their ads show this image before bragging about the ad being rejected by dKos. So given that we have an ad for a candidate that the Republicans have supported all election season because he could take votes away from Kerry in critical swing states, running on mostly right wing blogs, I did some digging to see if their were any ties to Republican money going into these ads.

I didn't find any Republican ties. What I did find is that these ads are being produced and paid for by a cult.

Seriously.

One of LetNaderDebate.org's co-founders is Rich Sokolow, who is connected with Rainbow Lobby and the New Alliance Party, as proven in this House of Representatives document from 7/20/90.

Who exactly are the Rainbow Lobby and New Alliance Party (NAP)? Well, we're not talking about and amalgamation between Jesse Jackson (that would be his Rainbow Coalitiion) and white power groups (that would be the National Alliance). NAP and Rainbow Lobby are one and the same. Nader met with them earlier this year, and the Nation's Doug Ireland covered the story and has a good description of what NAP is all about.

What in the world is Ralph Nader doing in bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party?

That's the question raised by Nader's January 11 appearance as the featured speaker at a conference in Bedford, New Hampshire, of so-called "independents" that is nothing more than a front for the New Alliance crazies. The conference was arranged by something called the Choosing an Independent President 2004 Campaign ("ChIP"). ChIP's organizers--or "convenors," as they style themselves--are none other than Dr. Fred Newman, the cult's guru, a master manipulator and former associate of mad Lyndon LaRouche; and Dr. Lenora Fulani, the Afro-American former presidential candidate of the New Alliance Party, whom Newman describes as his "greatest creation."

Newman controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme--which he baptized "Social Therapy"--that has been described by one deprogrammed former member of his group as a "sophisticated indoctrination methodology which impairs critical thinking skills and which uses repression, dependency and guilt-inducing techniques to control and lure patients into political activity and, ultimately, into blind allegiance to Newman."

There's nothing at all "independent" about Newman and Fulani's latest creation, ChIP. It's just the latest in a skein of more than two dozen front groups and rackets Newman has created, all of which have as their ultimate goal nothing more than enlarging the cult and subsidizing Newman's and Fulani's lavish lifestyles.

All of that sounds pretty creepy. Why is Nader letting such a group front for him? Worse yet, is Nader letting this cult use him as a cash cow to net more members?

Now I wish that I found ties to filthy Republican lucre. I'm kind of freaked out by all of this cult business.

Mr. Popularity!

Only 16% of Canadians want to see Bush reelected. Ditto for the Brits. 7% in Spain, 18% in Mexico, 14% in Italy, 10% in Germany... Let's face it, the world fucking hates Bush.

Beating a live horse

On the not-so-forged documents: I know I've already said this today, but just to reiterate, the White House released the very same documents that 60 Minutes uncovered. Don't believe me? Then hear it from the BBC:

The White House later released the documents cited in the programme.

Does this not verify the fact that these documents aren't forgeries? We have two copies of the documents from two sources who are independent of each other -- in fact, two sources who disagree with each other. Two sources, same documents.

There is no possible way that the documents could have been forged. So how come this crap makes it to the front page of the Washington Post?

[9/11 update: AP says: "Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday the White House, which distributed the memos after obtaining them from CBS News..." This is the first I've heard of the White House releasing the documents after they got them from CBS, which blows my "two independent sources" argument out of the water.]

How conservative have judges appointed by Bush been?

I'm not sure if we should think Thomas, Scalia, or Scalia on crack.

Republican appointees issued liberal rulings in about a third of their cases while Democrats did so 45 percent to 50 percent of the time.

But in civil rights and civil liberties cases -- abortion, gay rights, freedom of speech, right to privacy, race relations, for example -- Bush judges made liberal decisions only 26.5 percent of the time.

That was well below 37.9 percent for appointees of Richard Nixon, 32.3 percent for Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) and 32.2 percent for George H.W. Bush, all fellow Republican presidents.

Appointees of Democrats Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (news - web sites) gave liberal rulings, respectively, 58.1 percent, 51.3 percent and 42 percent of the time in the same types of cases.

Powell: It's Genocide

My love/hate relationship with Colin Powell has shifted towards the former today as has declared that the Sudanese government is committing genocide in Darfur. Of course, it did take him an extremely long time to point out the obvious, but I'm not up for criticizing him today.

This may force the Bush administration to finally get off their ass and do something about the crisis.

Mr Powell, directly blaming the Sudanese government, said: "This was a coordinated effort, not just random violence."

The US now has an obligation under international law to act. Labelling violence as genocide is relatively rare.

Does this mean that my Genocide Watch countdown gets suspended? It will be for now, as I'll be monitoring the situation closely to see if Bush acts as he is obligated to.

The House blocks Bush's new overtime rules

Hah-ha. Kudos to the 22 Republicans who joined the unanimous Democratic bloc to make this happen.

The economy's doing great!

EDS is cutting 20,000 jobs. They have offices in over 60 countries and the article does not specify where the axe is falling, but I have two friends who work for EDS. One lives in Michigan, and the other lives in Pune, India. Which one do you think stands a better shot of keeping her job?

I never knew

Apparently, I'm an "Oliver Willis wannabe." That's weird, since I've only read Oliver's blog once and there's no link to it on my blogroll. Perhaps Oliver is secretly emulating me, instead...

Pathetic, but working, unfortunately

What happens when it's proven, again, that Bush is a gutless, AWOL prick? The Right screams that the documents must be forgeries, saying that they were produced in Microsoft Word.

Earth to dipshits: if somebody wanted to forge documents and say they were from 1972, don't you think they would have been smart about it and whipped out a typewriter so there's less to question? Or are we supposed to believe that these documents were written in Word, printed on new paper, maybe they got crumbled up a bit to make them look old, and then sent to CBS and the rest of the world? Is anybody really stupid enough to attempt such a thing and not think they would be caught. Please. Why can't these people ever admit to being wrong?

BoingBoing has more on this farce.

Someone posted the two images (White House released and Word generated), so I fired up an image editor and had a look. While the font character spacing are very similar, most typography experts in the threads agreed that the original had type-write like characteristics (number 8 slightly high on the line, etc.) that would be hard to reproduce in Word. More importantly, the superscript "th" which caused most of the interest is not in the same position in the two images (see attached superimposed comparison).

But an article asking if the documents were forged will be on page A01 of today's Washington Post. You have to admit that the right wing spin machine works wonders, because they've successfully placed doubt about the authenticity of these documents in everyone's mind. Now instead of people talking about the actual story, which is probably true, they'll talk about the documents. For the next two weeks, we'll be inundated with every sleezy fuckwad on the right screaming that the documents were forged and the Democrats are playing dirty tricks, the media is too goddamn liberal, blah blah blah. And then, as a lie repeated ad nauseum suddenly becomes the truth, the story will go away.

As much as I hate it, you have to admire the beauty of the Republicans strategy: Place the other side on the defensive at all costs, even if the charges you do such with at blatant lies. And we're always on the defensive, fighting an uphill battle. How do we reverse this? How do we take a knockout story like this and use it to knokout Bush, like it very well should?

...Ken Layne points out that if these documents were so fucking forged, then how come the White House released copies of them after the 60 Minutes interview? Further, how come the White House hasn't officially claimed that they are fake? Even further, knowing these facts, why in fuck is this even a story, nevermind a front page one?

Comments are off for the morning

For the third day in a row, Haloscan's servers are having issues which is causing this site to load very slowly, and I'm getting rather sick of it. Hopefully comments will be back up by 9am.

...Haloscan and Blogger appear to be operational again. I'll turn comments back on and keep my fingers crossed.

Newsblast!

Some things I would comment on separately, but I want my Instapundit post to be close to the top.

From a drug rape story in Britain, "One in four women say they have had a drink spiked in a club or pub." I'd say that's cause for alarm. I wonder what the statistics are state side...

New Technology Estimates Fast-Food Demand - Is it a scale?

Salon has more on AWOL details on our AWOL president.

The assault weapons ban is about to go poof, thanks to your friends in the Bush Administration and the NRA.

The Right is completely and totally fucking insane

By now, you may have seen 60 Minutes last night, or read the latest about Bush's National Guard "service" on Atrios, Talking Points Memo, and even this blog, where on Tuesday I asked, "Why. Isn't. This. A. Story?" Why isn't former Lt. Governor of Texas Barnes admitting that he gave Bush special treatment to get him into the National Guard a story?

Well, it's a story now. How do I know? Because the Republicans have gone mad. You can usually tell how big a story is by how much common sense the rabid right loses when they try debunking it. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't even sure if they were going to pay attention to the story. So I went to Instacrapbullshitabsoultewingnutterypundit and was met with this quote:

"Isn't strange that the biggest difference between the Bush National Guard stories and the Kerry Vietnam controversy is that, in the President's case, it's the major media dogging the story to death?"

Glen didn't write that. In fact, Glen doesn't write much on his own blog, which kind of defeats the purpose of blogging, but that's another discussion. In his typical fashion, Glen links to a lot of wingnuttery in an attempt to debunk the story. That quote comes from his first link, which argues that the media is liberally biased and has paid more attention to Bush's National Guard record then it has Kerry's Vietnam service record.

In other words, he's saying the media hasn't spent enough time giving free advertising to the Bush campaign covering Kerry/Vietnam/Swift Boat Vets. Yes, kids, that's right, we haven't heard ENOUGH about the Swift Boat Vets! Apparently, the story has received very little press!

Gee, you could have fucking fooled me. But this is the same view Glen has maintained since August.

As for Glen's latest post, it has more links, and it gets worse. The one constant I've noticed with all the links I've clicked (and I haven't clicked them all because I like my sanity, thankyewverymuch) is that none of them actually mention the new allegations against Bush. Indeed, the word "Barnes" isn't even on Glen's main page. His next link claims that the media wants Kerry to win, and then it starts bitching about the Texans for Truth 527, claiming that it's directly connected to Kerry because Kerry is directly connected to MoveOn.org.

It's nice of them to stick to the story. Oh, wait a second...

Glen next links to a AmericanDaily piece from 8/31/04 that claims to answer all the questions, but the article does not include the word "Barnes," so it doesn't even touch the new allegations. In Glen's next attempt to debunk the story, he links to a Chicago Sun-Times article from February. I know that article doesn't address the new allegations.

Then Glen links to a summary of Bush's service record and quips, "Seems like he put in more hours in the air than Kerry did in Swift boats." And that's just perfect, not only because it shows Glen for the jackass that he truly is, but it signifies just how badly he can miss a point that's right in front of him. Glen himself never directly addresses the new allegations, and neither do the people that he's linked to. They never once address the fact that the Lt. Governor of Texas in 1968 has admitted to granting a special favor to get Bush placed in the National Guard so he could avoid getting shipped off to Vietnam. But instead of commending John Kerry for placing himself in a dangerous situation, Glen has the gall to insult him by stipulating that Bush was better than Kerry because he logged more hours flying harmlessly over Houston then Kerry spent on a swift boat in the middle of a fucking warzone.

What a fucking asshole.

And the sad thing is that people will follow Glen's line of thinking. He and his propaganda machine are very representative of what's on the average Republican's mind. It shows that they don't wish to deal with the facts; only slander and smears interest them. They see no problem lambasting Clinton is a "draft dodger," but when Bush does the same thing and ends up committing a crime so serious that the arrest warrant remains valid for 40 years in the process, they are perfectly fine with this. And if Kerry doesn't dodge the draft and dares to run for president, then they'll make sure he has hell to pay. How dare Kerry seeks to run against Bush. How dare the media seeks to finally tell the truth about this lying, AWOL president whose never been able to sit correctly because he's got a silver spoon stuck up his ass.

To the right, if the media prints anything negative against Bush then they are biased. If the media prints anything against Kerry, then they haven't done it enough.

These people are just fucking insane.

[Hattip to Rimone.]

The economy's doing great!

Delta is cutting 7000 jobs and trimming all the other wages they have to pay.

Light blogging...?

I hardly have time to finish my lunch right now. Grumble. It better not stay busy for the rest of the morning.

...additionally, the site is loading slowly because Haloscan is down. Again. Grumble.

Let's just stand by and do nothing while people fucking die

I tried, I really tried, to read the latest news on Sudan...

The United States circulated a draft Security Council resolution on Sudan on Wednesday threatening penalties on its oil industry, expanding an African Union force monitoring violence in the Darfur region and calling for the United Nations to create an international commission to determine whether genocide had occurred.

...but I couldn't get past the first paragraph.

This is just getting fucking ridiculous. It was almost 40 days ago when we got a UN Security Council resolution passed giving the Sudanese government a 30 day deadline before we enforced sanctions on their ass, and now we're just going to try passing another resolution? We're going to put together "an international commission to determine whether genocide had occurred." Had? Had occured? This implies that genocide is already fucking happening! Worse, we're not doing a fucking thing about it! How many have died at this point, 30,000 - 50,000? How many thousands more will perish before we do something?

Another sign of freedom and democracy in post-Saddam Iraq

Remember how Allawi banned Aljazeera for 30 days, sending in Iraqi government troops to shut down their offices in Baghdad? Well, those 30 days have been extended, and Iraqi troops stormed Aljazeera's offices again on Saturday.

So much for freedom and democracy in Iraq.

The latest news from China! Well, err, sorta...

On my Bloglines account, I've subscribed to a news feed for China, since I'm interested in just about everything. I know the feed pulls from different sources, but I think their bot made a mistake when publishing a link to this story to their feed.

Guns N' Roses Closer Than Ever With 'Chinese Democracy'

Guns N' Roses bassist Tommy Stinson is convinced Axl Rose is close to completing the group's long-awaited new album 'The Chinese Democracy,' because he has been told to get ready for an extensive tour...

Heh. How long has this album been on the shelf? Five, ten years now? And check out Axl's new du. Fucking rasta, mon!

I [heart] pathetic rock stars.

In other news, Axl Rose says he has joined the metrosexual movement...

One million gay votes down the drain

The Log Cabin Republicans refuse to endorse Bush.

Third, fourth, and fifth parties

According to ballot-access.org, The Antichrist Nader is on the ballot in 23 states, and has the potential to be balloted in 45 states.

David Cobb, the Green Party's first non-Nader candidate, isn't faring so well. He's on the ballot in 28 states, but only has the potential to in the running for 34 states. Contrast that with the Constitution Party's Peroutka ballot access in 34 states, and the Libertarian's Badnarik having 43 states already under his belt, with a potential for all 50 plus DC. After this election is over, the Greens will no longer be able to claim that they are the fastest growing political party in America.

I can't say I'm too surprised by this news, the Greens "organizing" efforts are pretty horrible. Before I originally moved from RI to Cincinnati, I was a state Green Party Coordinating Committee member. When I tried contacting the Greens in Cincinnati, who had all of 4 members, I got one callback. After responding to that and trying to contact them again a bit later, I never received a response. When I moved back to RI and emailed the Greens here to get back on their list-serv, they never responded to me. So former Coordinating Committee members who had personally donated over $400 to the party in from 2000-02 are persona non grata. I'm not sure if the Greens strategy is to alienate everyone who used to give a shit about them, but if so, they're sure doing a great job.

Hey guys, if you thought the women in Playboy looked fake already...

Headline: "Playboy to Feature Video Game Characters."

Yes, the only reason to get Playboy now is for the articles. And the last time I picked up an issue, there was only one good article. So there's really no reason to purchase it anymore.

Just another fine example of how bloody liberal that gosh darn media is!

Why isn't the media applying the same tough standards to Bush that they are to Kerry?

The Post used Bush’s own words to describe his opponent’s character trait: Kerry tends to “worry issues to death.” Meanwhile, the newspaper presented Bush’s decision-making far more charitably: "Unlike the indecisive Kerry, Bush changes positions only “when necessary.” The Post didn’t explain why Bush’s change in position about the creation of a Homeland Security Department was anything other than a classic “flip-flop”; nor did the article include an explanation of why Bush’s flip was “necessary” – though we can assume that political considerations played a sizable role.

The Associated Press has been more overt in promoting the idea of Bush-as-steady-leader. On Sept. 2, the wire service ran an article headlined, “Steadfast, disciplined, Bush sees himself as unchanged by events of presidency.”

Even the use of the phrase "flip-flop" plays right into Bush's hands, since it was his campaign which coined it as their description of John Kerry. Anytime Kerry is perceived to have changed positions, he has "filp-flopped." The media even says it as such now. But if Bush does an about face on a position he once took, what is it called? Certainly not a "flip-flop," even though he just performed the same action he's always accusing Kerry of performing.

If Kerry can "flip-flop," then why can't Bush? Why can't the media print the fucking truth for once?

35,000 children dead

Here's the other side of the Chechen conflict.

Ten years ago Chechnya had a population of 2 million. Today it is 800,000, and Vladimir Putin has an army of what we estimate to be up to 300,000 Russian soldiers in Chechnya inflicting a regime of terror. Many Chechens are refugees and many others have simply disappeared, often in the night. At least 200,000 Chechen civilians have been killed by Russian soldiers, including 35,000 children. Another 40,000 children have been seriously injured, 32,000 have lost at least one parent and 6,500 have been orphaned. These are figures supported by reports of human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, and we believe they are conservative. This is how Putin's soldiers treat Chechen civilians.

Unbounced

To any fool who still believes that Bush got an 11 point bounce in the polls after the convention, check your RNC membership cards at the door and read up.

Forecasts of John Kerry's political demise may have been exaggerated in recent days, and he could still be clinging to a narrow lead in the US presidential race, according to a poll published yesterday.
The poll, by Zogby International, reflected the state of play in 20 swing states, and found that the surge in George Bush's support there after last week's Republican convention, was less pronounced than the double-digits suggested in two weekend polls. ...

The Zogby poll says the president has made up ground in many of the 20 battleground states, but Mr Kerry retains a slim lead in most of them - enough to give him a majority in the electoral college, if the vote was held now.

Unsurprisingly, I had to get this article from the international media. I guess I can't expect to find this in vangaurds of the US mainstream press like Time, who are responsible for one of the fault polls; and Newsweek, responsible for the other faulty one.

I can't believe people buy this shit

In fact, I can't believe people even think to sell it.

Wind From Hurricane for Sale on eBay ...

The starting bid for Tupperware filled with wind was a penny. Photos showed Broward County residents running around with the containers "catching" the wind. Surprisingly, someone had already bid $10 for one of the four containers.

Wind. For sale. What happens if the Tupperware is opened, do you get a refund?

Fucking Yankees

You know that hurricane which hit Florida over the weekend? People dead, property damage, etc. It also delayed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays flight to NYC for a few hours, making them miss the first game of a scheduled doubleheader against the Yankees.

The Yankees, in turn, showed their sympathy for Florida by demanding the Devil Rays forfeit the game. Did the Boss suddenly hire Karl Rove or something? I mean, jesus. I know the Red Sox are up their ass in the division race and they can't find a starting pitcher to replace that 40 year old walking injury they traded for this past offseason, but placing a baseball game above death and destruction? Talk about shameless.

Feel the love

Bush's creative use of the English language continues.

But then he added, "We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

Do I really need to add a witty punchline?

Bodycount: One Thousand and One. And counting.

It was only Monday when I reported that 979 of our soldiers had died in Iraq. Two days later, we have the blood of 22 more deaths on our hands. That just seems unfortunately quick.

Antiwar.com tells us that 862 soldiers have died since Bush stood under his "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner, 541 since we captured Saddam, and 144 since we supposedly gave Iraq their sovereignty on 6/29/04. I'm still focusing on the first number I listed... If the mission was so fucking accomplished, then how come 862 soliders have needlessly died since Bush wasted a few million taxpayer dollars in a staged photo-op to launch his campaign? Is there really anything more sick than this?

Yet another Bush lie

Salon's covering this one.

"My opponent and I have different approaches," Bush said in his convention speech last week. "I proposed, and the Congress overwhelmingly passed, $87 billion in funding needed by our troops doing battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. My opponent and his running mate voted against this money for bullets, and fuel, and vehicles, and body armor. When asked to explain his vote, the senator said, 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.' Then he said he was 'proud' of that vote. Then, when pressed, he said it was a 'complicated' matter. There's nothing complicated about supporting our troops in Congress."

Delegates booed and chanted "flip-flop," and the notion that Kerry has vacillated arbitrarily on the war was planted even deeper in voters' minds. The perception isn't accurate, of course. When Kerry voted for the use-of-force authorization in October 2002, he raised many of the same concerns that he raises now. And his for and against votes on the $87 billion were, in fact, votes on two different measures: one that would have paid for the war by repealing Bush's tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 a year, and one that simply added the costs to an already exploding federal debt.

Those votes might actually appeal to voters concerned about the budget deficit, but all they've heard about them is the flip-flop charge. As Kerry spoke to voters Friday on the front lawn of a home in Newark, Ohio, Mike Fox stood across the street, holding up a Bush-Cheney campaign sign. Fox, who owns a lock and security business and served as a city councilman in a nearby town, said he'd have no objection to raising taxes to pay for the war. "I'm in favor of supporting the troops in whatever way it takes," he said. "If it takes calling Mike Fox, who is not a rich American, and asking for more money, they've got it." When told that Kerry had supported such a measure, Fox seemed perplexed and changed the subject.

When will this shit make it into the mainstream press? Of course, it would help if Kerry grew a set and started talking about this. But, as the Salon article points out, he won't. And worse, Kerry's latest stump speeches have been rambling pieces of crap that never seem to come to a point.

This is troubling. Last February, I posted some analysis about a Bush/Kerry showdown. In retrospect, a lot of it was wrong because I gave Bush too much credit, but this point I made still sticks:

While Kerry has been offering bland, not very original or dynamic statements that talk down on Bush and the Republican Party, Bush is talking like your amusing coworker or next door neighbor, cracking jokes about his competition in the same manner he would use to discuss a football game.

We can make fun of Bush's (ab)use of the English language all we want, but until Kerry learns how to speak like a normal dude, it's advantage Bush. Somebody needs to tell Kerry, "Hey! Make your point and get the fuck outta there!"

...Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has a must read piece on lies the GOP passed off at their cash register convention, and how the mainstream media simply backed them up. Read it and try not to feel frustrated.

Not for nothing*, but at least Iran's great for headlines

"Iran calls threat of Israel attack silly joke."

* Sorry, slipped into Rhode Islandese for a minute there.

Loaded Mouth's Preemptive News Strike

Bush hasn't mentioned Osama bin Laden in over two years? Bollocks. Where do you think press releases saying the US is close to capturing bin Laden are coming from, the Afghan tooth fairy? I think it's fair to speculate that someone within the Bush campaign is approving these press releases, though at the same time Bush himself won't say peep about the man most responsible for murdering 3000 people in NYC. Bush is still trying to distance himself from assertions that they'll find bin Laden since they have already failed to find him countless times in the past 3 years. So, if anything, this means that bin Laden isn't being kept in the White House basement until October.

It's more important to focus on out countless failures in trying to locate bin Laden, though, because this is very important to the so-called war on terrorism. The fact that we haven't found him not only strengthens al-Qa'ida, but it also means that al-Qa'ida has had plenty of time to plan for life without bin Laden. We may have had a chance to catch him and really put a hurt on the organization before Bush decided to play cowboy in Iraq, thus focusing the majority of our resources on some dude who wasn't even connected with international terrorism. Since we've focused on Iraq, al-Qa'ida has been able to launch a few successful, deadly attacks, and who knows how many botched ones that came close to being successful. It's questionable whether or not bin Laden even had a hand in planning the bombings of Bali, Madrid, and Riyadh; or the attempted, and almost successful, assassination of Pakistani President Musharraf. Al-Qa'ida has spread from being just a group to becoming an ideology, and though it's questionable whether Bush could have stopped this by focusng more on the hunt for bin Laden, he could have at least fucking tried. But, instead, he led the country to believe that attacking Iraq was just much more important.

If bin Laden is captured before November, Kerry can kiss goodbye to any chance he has at winning the election. That's an especially painful fact since catching bin Laden at this point will do nothing to weaken al-Qa'ida.

Democracy - Bush Afghan Styyyyyle

Whenever Bush talks about the great, budding democracy Afghanistan is developing, why doesn't he discuss these facts?

With the election drawing closer, the high voter registration figures - more than 10 million so far, slightly more than the estimated voting population of about 9.5 million - have been celebrated as a sign of the Afghan people's thirst for democracy. But others say the high registration rate could turn the election into a farce.

"We are just beginning an exercise; people are enthusiastic, they want to have cards," President Hamid Karzai said recently, making light of the whole issue. "In fact, it doesn't bother me if Afghans have two registration cards. If they'd like to vote twice, well welcome, this is an exercise in democracy, let them exercise it twice."

He suggested that there could be anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 cases of double registration. Other election observers said it could be as many as a million.

[snip]

But as the plays touring the villages point out, multiple registration is in danger of undermining the credibility of the election. Many Afghans know of cases of multiple registration and admit that it has dented their confidence in the process.

Ibrahim, an office manager in Kabul, said he became disillusioned early in the registration process when he met an acquaintance who proudly showed him 10 cards that he had obtained for himself.

And why doesn't Bush talk about the presidential candidate which an Afghan court has demanded be removed from the ballot because he supports Afghan women's rights?

Afghanistan’s Supreme Court called for a candidate to be barred from the country’s first democratic presidential election, arguing he had committed blasphemy by speaking out against polygamy, a court official said on Thursday. The court also ordered that Latif Pedram be summoned to explain his comments “that with polygamy social justice will not be possible” and over women’s right of divorce within Islam, said Wahid Moshda, head of the Supreme Court’s publication department.

Why is it that shithead bloggers like myself are fact checking Bush's convention speech but the mainstream media isn't?

Bush gets Palasted, part two

Why hasn't Glenny Glen Glen talked about the mainstream media ignoring how the former Lt. Governor of Texas admits to helping Bush dodge the draft? Worse, Palast points out that Lt. Governor Ben Barnes could have killed Bush's political career in 1994, the year he was elected Governor of Texas, but he instead made a deal with Bush to keep hush-hush. In return, Bush let Barnes' client GTech keep the state's lottery contract that they were about to lose. GTech paid Barnes a cool $23 million for this favor.

Why. Isn't. This. A. Story?

Today's "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" moment, brought to you by Instahack

Unfortunately, he isn't joking.

I REMAIN DEEPLY SKEPTICAL of the Kerry/China money-laundering story, but it does seem to be getting some major-media attention. Funny that they'd pay attention to this while ignoring the Cambodia story.

It's not like everyone and their goddamn mother isn't familiar with the Kerry/Cambodia story by now. Nooo, to right wing fucknuts like Glen, the story hasn't received enough attention. I guess this is just another example of how liberal the media is, huh?

Christ, what a fucking hack.

Bush gets Palasted

Greg Palast, who I must say has one of the best senses of humor I've ever seen in a reporter, gives us the rundown on Bush's new overtime laws. You won't believe what this administration's Federal Register suggests.

Now I should say that, according to [Labor Secetary] Chao's press office, the changes will actually extend overtime benefits to 1.3 million burger flippin' managers. How does that square with the billion dollar "benefit" to business owners? Simple: The Chao hounds at the Labor Department suggest that employers CUT WAGES so that, added to the new "overtime" pay, the employees won't actually take home a dime more.

I can hear the moaners and bleeding hearts saying this sounds like the Labor Department is telling Big Business how to evade the law. Yep, that's what the Department is doing. Right there on page 15,576 of the Federal Register it says,

"Affected employers would have four choices concerning potential payroll costs: ... (4) converting salaried employees' basis of pay to an hourly rate that result in virtually no changes to the total compensation paid those workers."

And this just wouldn't be a Bush law without veterans getting the shaft.

My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the aircraft carrier.

I betcha $100 the Swift Boat Vets for "Truth" won't touch that one. Oh, remember all that new comp time these new laws were supposed to give us?

President Bush announced in his convention acceptance speech this week that he was changing overtime rules to give workers "comp time" off instead of pay. He forgot to mention that a couple of days before, on August 23, his Labor Department had already put in half the plan -- eliminating overtime pay for millions -- while failing to put into the regs one word about comp time. In the pre-September 11 days, we used to call that, "lying."

Indeed.

Ever want a vibrator to hook upto your USB port?

Oh my!

The only TV I wanna watch

Thanks to Ron for sending me a link to a picture of the TV I watched Bush's coronation speech on last Thursday.

The locals had a little fun. They also had a little beer, if you couldn't tell.

Mission Accomplished

Seven Marines and three Iraqi soldiers got their asses blown up in a suicide bombing today. And although I can't verify this right now, it looks like the rate of fatalities in Iraq has gone up since any story about the country has been relgated to page A35 while the Republicans continue to throw their, unfortunately successful, hissy fit about Kerry's military service record. Isn't it bloody fucking amazing that those trolls who haven't even served can criticize Kerry for serving, and then lemmings that make up their party just lap it up? None of these proud patriots ever questions why their candidates didn't fucking serve, but if Kerry is awarded a purple heart for getting a piece of shrapnel enlodged in his ass, then by golly that's a crime! Un-fucking-believable. I shouldn't be surprised at just how low the Republicans can take political discourse, an issue they are constantly playing limbo with, but my god. Do these people have any shame? John Kerry, not a patriot! Max Cleland, you only lost 3 limbs for your country? Well fuck you, you're not a patriot! It just fucking amazes me how low these fuckwits can go.

These election isn't even about issues anymore. Not like it ever was, but Kerry has tried focusing on issues while the Bush campaign unleashed the Swift Boat attack dogs, and what does the media focus on? What does the public focus on? Certainly not the loss of jobs or the state of the economy, certainly not Iraq, certainly not the fact that Bush has cut taxes so goddamn much that no matter who the next president is, taxes are going up. Up for whom, you ask? You and I, of course!, since Bush's tax cuts have shifted the burden of tax payment from the rich over to the middle class. And how are we going to pay these taxes when good jobs are being replacing by fast food shitworker positions? How are we supposed to afford the skyrocketing costs of health care?

We also certainly can't talk about what Bush would do to the Supreme Court, or how pro-life it isn't to have thousands of American women dying from unsafe abortions after Bush's Supreme Court outlaws the practice. If soldiers dying in Iraq can't make the frontpages, then women dying from botched abortions probably won't make the papers at all.

We can't talk about the state of our military, and just how unwise it is to throw them all into Iraq. What if another country threatens us, like North Korea? What if the already shaky governments in Pakistand and Saudi Arabia do actually fall? What do we do then?

And certainly don't expect there to be a discussion about the war or terrorism. The media won't even point out the absolute lies in Bush's acceptance where he drew connections to Saddam and terrorism. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, that whole goddamn speech was just one big lie.

No. None of this can be talked about. And I guess it's wise of the Republicans not to bring up issues in this election, since they must know that they are on the wrong side of every single goddamn one of them. So, just like in elections past, it's all about character assassination this year. If anybody in that fucking party was truly a patriot, one of them would stand up and speak out against this. One of them would say, "Hey guys, maybe we're going about this all wrong, and it would be better for our country if we discussed the issues and tried coming to a solution." But not one of these shameless fucking bastards has done such. Not. One. And, quite honestly, I don't think a single fucking one of them cares, because to them it's all about the power. It's all about making sure the have's have more, and the have-not's can just go fuck themselves. These assholes don't give a damn about the rest of us.

It's all image, no issues. And if the rest of the populace doesn't wake up to the scam we're being sold, then it's truly been a mission accomplished.

Now coming to the side of a milk carton near you!

I've been AWOL on a few issues lately. Granted last week was pretty busy for me, between taking two trips to NYC and a few trips to visit loved ones in the hospital, which lead to a couple of days where I spent 22+ hours awake. I'm afraid I'm going to have to use that as an excuse, even though I really should have tried to focus on other things for the blog.

I could have at least linked to feministe's post about how, yes, female political bloggers really do exist, though it created such a storm of responses from other bloggers that the topic didn't need my help. Of course, the majority of those responses came from other female political bloggers, and not male political bloggers like myself. So to all the men in the reading audience: Yes, female political bloggers do exist, and since many male political bloggers haven't been able to shut the fuck up about Swift Boat Vets lately, the female political blogs have been a breath of fresh air. I read them and scream, "Finally! Real issues!" So go here. And here. And here. And here. Here, too. And don't forget over here. And here. Over here. And here.

I also haven't paid attenion to Sudan in a few days. Whoops. Bad bad bad.. Of course, it doesn't help that the story seems to have fallen completely out of view when it was once almost on the front pages. So that's exactly the reason why I need to blog about it.

And then there's Iraq... 979 deaths, over 7000 injuries, and that's just among our soldiers. Iraqi citizen deaths are in the thousands. The US and Iraq's new government aren't allowed in cities like Fallujah, which allows the locals run them as mini-brutal dictatorships, complete with brutal laws and punishments such as beheadings. This brings into question just how many flags are flying over Iraq right now, a question that we still have to ask about Afghanistan. And in the areas which we are supposed to control, Iraqi police stations are still getting bombed, and our soldiers are still dying. The situation isn't nearly as rosy as the picture the Bush Administration paints, but will our "liberal" press dare to correct der leader? Noooo... Iraq needs to become an issue again. People are dying.

I might have had some sympathy for Chechen separatists if they didn't murder hundreds of children last week. But it is important to point out, as I learned from a conversation with a friend who's more concerned about Russian issues than I, that the main reason Russia just doesn't allow Chechnya to become a separate nation is because the of oil interests they have in the region, namely an oil pipeline that runs through it. Dying for oil, not just limited to Iraq anymore!

So there's a lot of things I need to pay more attention to. And I'll start by... Going to sleep. I only got 4 hours rest last night and I'm fucking tired. And then classes start this week, so I can only promise to do my best with keeping up.

[Actually posted at 23:11 on 9/5. Needed something for Monday while slept through the morning.]

The media's lies go both ways

When the AP lies and it's not in your favor, of course you don't want to mention it. But since I'm fair and balanced, Interested-Participant, (one of the only right wing blogs I can read and enjoy), has the story.

[Actually posted at 23:10 on 9/5.]

The Intangibles

There are certain intangibles about Republicans that cause one to hate them, and this image I came across tonight brings them all into perspective. Republicans aren't hated because they propose positions contrary to those which make sense, everyone tends to do that from time to time. Nor are Republicans hated because of their belief in God, and their demanding that Christianity be made a part of every Americans life, though this brings us closer to the answer. Republicans are hated because they see everything in black and white.

To them, there is no middle ground where parties can meet and agree on solutions, even though such a solution doesn't include everything they wanted. This is what rational people do, but to the Republicans, it's just not acceptable. There refuse to be reasonable all while fooling themselves into thinking they are such. And there's certainly no arguing with them; it's like trying to talk sense to a child, and likewise, they will act like children while proping themselves up as the mature adult who knows better, therefore a defense of their stances need not be applied. Just like an annoying parent who constantly tells their children, "Because I said so!," the Republicans treat those who question them like some insolent little brats who need to be punished, rather then intellectual equals who also have viable solutions to the world's problems.

They are smug, snobby, ruthless, unforgiving, and unwilling to see anyone else's point of view. And yet they wonder why we hate their guts.

I know some Republicans reading this, whom I have had good debates with, will protest simply because of the fact that they've listened to me, I've listened to them, and we've had open and honest debate. Unfortunately, it seems like they are becoming a minority under the Republican tent. In NYC, I was able to have an honest conversation with a Republican for over an hour, but many people couldn't hold such an exchange for 10 seconds. The Republican would keep interrupting, placing words in the other party's mouth, call them names... You just couldn't talk with these people. For a good example of this behavior, read this exchange between me and a member of the Protest Warriors. Compare his warped version of reality...

We were not there to provoke, only to debate... and I did meet plenty of people who were up for an honest debate as we infiltrated their march. Unfortunately, for every nice anti-Bush protester, there were about 50 completely crass, disrespectful, lemmings.

...to me telling him what actually happened.

As for you guys not being there to provoke, only debate, bullshit. The stance that Protest Warriors take is very aggressive, waving signs that blatantly make fun of protesters while shouting at us. That's no way to open an honest debate.

I know what went down, and the smug manner in which his group acted. But, to him and the rest of the Protest Warriors, they acted in a manner which invited open and honest debate. This is a great example of what today's Republican actually thinks.

The picture I found typifies the attitude of today's Republican. "Deep down you know he's wrong." Why? Because I told you so, that's why! Don't you dare provide a counterargument, because you're just wrong. Period. End of discussion. God Bless America!

How do you deal with people like this? Or, maybe a more important question to ask is can we deal with people like this?

Update #1: I posted this to my dKos diary and received this comment:

The intangible that always works for the Republicans is their ability to manufacture with a single-mindedness. Democrats are prone to probability and degress, Republicans tight slogans and monolithic, overarching directness. Bush operates on one or two "principles" which shape his every action, hence the meme that he is steadfast and true. Democrats look at the complexity, not easily given to sweeping tenets. Introspective, re-examination, while wiser, does not convey the confidence that brash assurdness does. Simplicity is the intangible, irregardless of whether it is right or wrong. These are vast generalizations, but I think there is some truth.

Update #2: Echidne has a great post about what the Republicans are doing.

My analysis of the Republican campaign has concluded that appealing to reason is so outdated. All that is required of a campaign is to cause the right emotions to surface. Never mind if they are not based on any facts at all. This worries me a lot, because if the Republicans succeed with this heinous plot it's pretty clear proof that democracy stinks.

The basic emotions the Republicans wanted to evoke were fear of terrorists, hatred of Democrats, especially Kerry, and a desire for a strong leader who views the Americans as ten-year olds needing an authoritarian father. And maybe they succeeded. Though the early polls were taken at a time when most Democrats were probably not paying attention to anything but the Labor Day weekend, and though there are some questions about the way the polls were conducted, they may show a post-convention bounce for Bush. Whether this will last is a question for the future. Maybe defreezing bin Laden is the next step in the emotional war of the right.

There's more. Read the whole thing, bunky.

Sunday is Cartoon Day!

As always, a couple by Ted Rall.

The sad part about this comic I know exactly what he's talking about, counties and all, because I lived in Ohio and I'm a big politics dork. He makes a great point.