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Video: Alternative
Views
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Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
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Video: Alternative
Views
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Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
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Doug's New Books & Related
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TV/Radio
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Tuesday, November 30, 2004
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Monday, November 29, 2004
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Ukraine vs. US
The mainstream media is wowed by a spectacle of voter fraud in a tiny mountain country but where is the interest in US voting fraud -- which whether or not it cost John Kerry the election (I still maintain that it may have) is documented to have been brutal and conspired and not just the fault of machinery.
The Judiciary and the people themselves have brought the Ukraine to a standstill as evidence is produced. This has not happened here -- is it because of the nature of the evidence?
No, what is charged in the Ukraine are cases of dead and non-existent people voting (same here in the US), of stuffed ballot boxes with numerous votes cast by the same person (same here in the US), of some districts having over 100% vote count (not here in the US to my knowledge, but we have e-voting glitches that add thousands of votes and subtract a big question mark of how many others), and of some districts being overwhelming for one candidate when the demographics would lead one to believe otherwise (this has been documented, for instance, in New Mexico and Indian country where people voted upwards of 5 out of 6 for Bush though exit and other polls pointed in the other direction completely).
The fraud charges are not dissimilar, then. Why is there no excitement over this story in the US?
Doug Kellner has wondered recently about having a truly impartial Judiciary to oversee the affairs and we know we do not have this.
But the real blame to date is square on the media themselves first and foremost -- as they say over and over in their conferences and spectacles of "how they got it wrong" after the fact, it is their job to probe and ask question and report as best they can the truth. This doesn't require objective news, but it does require that their are healthy numbers of newspeople that object to different party lines and interrogate the consumer status quo.
Second, the blame is on John Kerry and his campaign. If he would not have rested his case, the media would not have rested their's. Keith Olbermann has rightfully pointed out on his blog the ambiguous and political manner in which Kerry has attempted to steer his way out of this election without causing a fight and being tarnished a poor loser. This is pure politics at this point and has nothing to do with the good of the American people or democracy, save that in Kerry's own distorted ego he probably does really believe that if he maintains karma points from this election that he can fight on the Senate floor to push through legislation (like health care) that it is argued help people. Whether or not this is the case is too abstract a question for the likes of me -- I simply see someone of questionable belief patterns to begin with, shrinking from a fight as he wraps himself in the democratic blue and the American flag. Doesn't look good...
Third, the people themselves. This has been said many times. But truly, Americans must have it so well off -- well into the 50K and under Democratic base -- compared with the rest of the world, and our media is so hypnotic and adept at mind control that we cannot for more than one sustained minute rouse ourselves from our common identities to get out in the streets (as is done in the Ukraine and almost everywhere else in the world) upon high political crimes and misdemeanors and demostrate dissent and concern. The best of us sit on our computers and mouth off as blogging collectives. It's better than nothing at all -- don't get me wrong. But it's pretty tepid and it's certainly not going to take down a president. If Dave Winer or someone else would like to take that bet, I'm on...
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Sunday, November 28, 2004
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Salon.com | Counterinaugural at the Clinton library
here's an account by Sidney Blumenthal of Bush's petty and childish behavior at the Clinton library inaugaral that wells documents the smallness of the Shrub. Excerpt:
"At the dedication of the Clinton library last week in Little Rock, Ark., Karl Rove and President Bush received separate tours of the dramatic building, a glistening silver suspended boxcar filled with light and offering a panoramic view of the Arkansas River. Across the river stands an old railroad bridge that symbolically represents "the bridge to the 21st century," President Clinton's reelection slogan in 1996. The library exhibits, year by year, detail specific Clinton administration achievements in social and international policy, highlighting not only the arc of progress but the entwined method of governing and politics. And in one display, about the Republican Congress' failed impeachment trial of the president, emblazoned "The Fight for Power," the library makes explicit that these accumulated changes were fiercely resisted and hard won.
The opening ceremony was biblical in its spectacle, length and rain. For more than four hours we huddled in thin ponchos under the unrelieved downpour, through many church choirs and a Colombian children's band, a jazz trumpeter and Bono, awaiting four presidents. Only on election nights, after Clinton's two victories, was Little Rock previously inundated with such a cast of thousands -- former advisors and Cabinet secretaries, the diplomatic corps and high school friends of Bill, Wes Clark and Barbra Streisand, Madeleine Albright and Robin Williams -- spilling out of the Capital and Peabody hotels and down the main drag, and milling in the bars and streets until the wee hours. For the assembled Democrats, beneath the nostalgic celebration it was an unofficial convention, a kind of counterinaugural, with rueful discussions of the recent defeat.
Sen. John Kerry entered to take his front-row seat to defiant cheering from the crowd. Then, when the presidents were announced, Bush tried to push his way past Clinton at the library door to be first in line, against the already accepted protocol for the event, as though the walk to the platform was a contest for alpha male.
In his speech, Clinton sought to clarify the present by his broad analysis of globalization -- "an age of interdependence with new possibilities and new dangers" -- and the offer of conciliation: "America has two great dominant strands of political thought; we're represented up here on this stage: conservatism, which at its very best draws lines that should not be crossed; and progressivism, which at its very best breaks down barriers that are no longer needed or should never have been erected in the first place."
In his effort to transcend the division of America into two nations, red and blue states, Clinton was applying his tradition -- the absence of dogma, the belief that good ideas can come from anywhere, and that solutions cannot be imposed but must be worked out in democratic politics by building coalitions, compromises and experimentation, of which he was leading practitioner and survivor, ever the Comeback Kid.
Offstage, beforehand, Rove and Bush had had their library tours. According to two eyewitnesses, Rove had shown keen interest in everything he saw, and asked questions, including about costs, obviously thinking about a future Bush library and legacy. "You're not such a scary guy," joked his tour guide. "Yes, I am," Rove replied. Walking away, he muttered deliberately and loudly, "I change Constitutions, I put churches in schools ..." Thus he identified himself as more than the ruthless campaign tactician -- as the invisible hand of power, pervasive and expansive, designing to alter the fundamental American compact.
On his tour Bush appeared distracted and glanced repeatedly at his watch. When he stopped to gaze at the river, where Secret Service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said, "Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there." Bush replied: "A submarine could take this place out."
Was the president warning of an al-Qaida submarine, sneaking undetected up the Mississippi, through the locks and dams of the Arkansas River, surfacing suddenly under the bridge to the 21st century to dispatch the Clinton library with a torpedo that could travel on water and land? Is that where Osama bin Laden is hiding?
Or was this a wishful, paranoid fantasy of ubiquitous terrorism destroying Clinton's legacy with one blow? Or was it a projection of menace and messianism, with only Bush grasping the true danger, standing between submerged threat and civilization? Was his apparent non sequitur a reflection of his inner logic about American politics in a fog of war, where little is discernible in the miasma but fear? Or was this simply his way of saying he wouldn't build his library near water? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a submarine just a submarine. And sometimes we all live in a yellow submarine.
Clinton concluded his remarks with a challenge to Bush couched in terms of his own failure: "Where we fell short ... the biggest disappointment in the world to me ... peace in the Middle East ... I did all I could." He turned to face Bush seated behind him: "But when we had seven years of progress toward peace, there was one whole year when, for the first time in the history of the state of Israel, not one person died of a terrorist attack, when the Palestinians began to believe they could have a shared future. And so, Mr. President, again, I say: I hope you get to cross over into the promised land of Middle East peace. We have a good opportunity, and we are all praying for you."
At the private luncheon of distinguished guests afterward, in a heated tent pitched behind the library, Shimon Peres delivered a heartfelt toast to Clinton's perseverance in pursuing the Middle East peace process. Upon entering the tent, Bush, according to an eyewitness, told an aide, "One gulp and we're out of here." He had informed the Clintons he would stay through the lunch, but by the time Peres arose with wine glass in hand the president was gone."
Salon.com | Counterinaugural at the Clinton library
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Canadians ask: Pull welcome mat for 'war criminal' Bush?
how will War Criminal Bush be received in Canada?
The Smirking Chimp: "Canadians ask: Pull welcome mat for 'war criminal' Bush?"
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Observer | Revealed: how Britain was told full coup plan
both the US and Brit Govt were told in advance of British coup plan in Africa that Mark Thatcher, Maggie's brat, was involved in and did nothing, a brewing scandal for Britain but probably just more teflon for the Bush-Gang
Observer Revealed: how Britain was told full coup plan
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Saturday, November 27, 2004
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Ian H. Solomon: 'Validate the vote'
suspicions of vote fraud in US election continue to circulate
The Smirking Chimp
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Friday, November 26, 2004
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Thursday, November 25, 2004
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MSNBC -Zogby Vs. Mitofsky (Keith Olbermann)
here's Keith Olbermann's blog on possible election fraud, the only mainstream media figure that I know of pursuing the story....
MSNBC -
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Robert Parry: 'US vs Ukraine elections: Big media's democracy double standards'
here's a spot-on critique of double standards hyprocrisy of US media and politicians jabbering about Ukraine election and keeping silent about US system
The Smirking Chimp
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washingtonpost.com: Ukraine Opposition Files Supreme Court Appeal
Let's bring in the EU and Russia to check Ohio, Florida and other state ballot results, as well as the computer voting machines; what hutzpah for Powell to go on TV and say that there was a pattern of corrupt balloting in Ukraine and that this is unacceptible to the US washingtonpost.com: Ukraine Opposition Files Supreme Court Appeal
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Wednesday, November 24, 2004
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Anthony Wade: 'How much is enough for the media to cover votergate 2004?'
as evidence of election fraud grows the corporate media respond with a resounding silence
The Smirking Chimp: "Anthony Wade: 'How much is enough for the media to cover votergate 2004?'"
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Sara S. DeHart, Ph.D.: 'Exit poll data in Republic of Georgia vs. USA'
in democracy, they investigate and protest election fraud; where there are statistical anomalies, there is something rotten;
Indeed, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
The Smirking Chimp
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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
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Salon.com | Bush, The ugly American
Bush the global embarassment; so far, no one has mentioned how rash it was for Bush to rush into a crowd to play the macho when the crowd could have torn him apart. Here's Norman Birnbaum's take on the incident:
"On Sunday, President Ricardo Lagos of Chile canceled a dinner in honor of President Bush rather than have his other guests endure metal detectors and the other attentions of the U.S. Secret Service. Lagos apparently took the view that the dignity and sovereignty of his country counted for something. I can recollect another occasion when determined hosts resisted the importunities of an American guest.
May 8, 1985, was the 40th anniversary of Germany's capitulation and the end of the Third Reich. I was in Strasbourg with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spoke that day at the invitation of the Socialist group of the European Parliament at a ceremony commemorating the European resistance. The Parliament's official guest was, however, President Ronald Reagan. The invitation to Reagan had caused considerable dismay to many parliamentarians. He came directly from the grotesque German-American event at the cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, where S.S. graves marked the landscape.
The Parliament's president was Pierre Pflimlin, notable for having opposed de Gaulle's return to power in 1958 as French premier, only to figure immediately as vice premier in de Gaulle's government. Pflimlin, in order to invite Reagan, had on his own canceled a speech to be given that day by President Sandro Pertini of Italy. Pertini, a Socialist, was released from prison with the fall of the Mussolini regime in 1943, but had refused to leave jail until his Communist fellow prisoners were also freed. The king and his generals having abandoned Rome with indecent haste to flee the advancing Germans, Pertini organized resistance to the invaders at the gates of the city.
When Pflimlin informed the parliamentarians that they would have to submit to metal detectors before entering their own chamber to listen to Reagan, their accumulated anger surfaced. A group of women members, led by Luciana Castellana of Italy and Heidi Wieczorek-Zeul of Germany (now that nation's minister for development aid) wrote to Pflimlin expressing their distress at the distinguished visitor's apprehension about his safety. For their part, they would undertake to reassure him that they were not carrying weapons by entering the chamber without clothing. Pflimlin immediately canceled the metal-detector test, and the Reagan visit took its uninspiring course.
The misadventures of the Secret Service abroad are not the stuff of legend, alas, but of fact. Michel Rocard, the premier of France in 1989, recounted an attempt by Americans guarding the elder President George Bush to keep Rocard from entering President Mitterrand's office at the Elysée Palace. French agents then intervened in rather strenuous fashion to open the way for their head of government. In Santiago yesterday, President Bush himself joined a confrontation between Chilean security and some of his agents. Perhaps the American president wished to consolidate his support among that considerable segment of our citizenry that instinctively dislikes foreigners -- and whose understanding of manliness makes the primitives studied by anthropologists, or the large apes studied by the primatologists, seem very civilized. Perhaps he was inspired by the example of the NBA player Ron Artest, who the other day took on officials, players and the public in a violent episode at Detroit. He was suspended by the NBA for the duration of the season. But no one has the authority to discipline the president: We may have to wait a very long time for him, in matters great and small, to exhibit self-restraint.
It is not only the Secret Service that seeks to extend American sovereignty beyond our borders. Even before the attack of Sept. 11, 2001, and the liberties taken by American officials for the sake of "national security," they zealously ignored other nations' borders, laws and rights. The extreme distrust with which our present government regards supposed threats to our sovereignty in international treaties isn't matched by responsiveness to the concerns of others. It is now American policy that it is legitimate to abduct or murder foreigners in other countries, with or without the approval of their governments. When other nations refer to their own standards of justice, the recent American response has been to accuse them of egoism, short-sightedness, or "anti-Americanism." The arbitrary denial of visas to academic visitors, business representatives and students is a symptom of the same pathology. It is a complicated illness, combining extreme phobia and fantasies of omnipotence in a megalomaniac synthesis.
Of course, half the nation deplores our increasing isolation in the world community. There is method to the madness of the White House. By evoking systematic opposition abroad, it provides its most fervent supporters with tangible evidence of America's beleaguered state. That in turn serves as justification -- even without colored alerts -- for a perpetual state of domestic emergency. Recall the abusive treatment meted out in the past years to demonstrators protesting the president's policies, or the obsessive screening of those attending his campaign rallies. The attempt to extend abroad the unconstrained power of the American state is inextricably connected to the offensive against our liberties at home."
Salon.com | The ugly American
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Rather to Step Down in March (washingtonpost.com)
Rather's blunders in accepting Bush Air Guard memos seem to have done him in, combined with fierce rightwing attacks on him as biased against Bush (as should be every living and thinking human)
Rather to Step Down in March (washingtonpost.com)
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Keith Olbermann: 'Relax about Ohio, relax about the guy tailing me
Keith Obermann on how the Ohio vote controversies are playing out and the various challenges and scenarios-- so far, except for Keith, the mainstream has not touched this
The Smirking Chimp
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Monday, November 22, 2004
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Steven Rosenfeld: 'Ohio presidential results to be challenged'
Ohio election fraud will be challenged in court
The Smirking Chimp
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Sunday, November 21, 2004
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Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos (washingtonpost.com)
Iraqi children are paying the cost for the insane US invasion of Iraq. Read and weep and then get angry...
Excerpt: "Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.
After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein."
Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos (washingtonpost.com)
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John Pilger: The Greatest Political Scandal of Our Time
In a brilliant and timely article on the horrors of Fallujah and its normalization by the media, John Pilger delves into the 9/11 Commission report and notes that uniquedly the Norad antihijacking forces were not in the alert and action mode that morning and that Cheney and Rumsfeld should have been active and engaged (while Bush read My pet goat). Their inaction is a scandal not yet really confronted. Here's Pilger:
"Flying into Philadelphia recently, I spotted the Kean congressional report on 11 September from the 9/11 Commission on sale at the bookstalls. "How many do you sell?" I asked. "One or two," was the reply. "It'll disappear soon." Yet, this modest, blue-covered book is a revelation. Like the Butler report in the UK, which detailed all the incriminating evidence of Blair's massaging of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq, then pulled its punches and concluded nobody was responsible, so the Kean report makes excruciatingly clear what really happened, then fails to draw the conclusions that stare it in the face. It is a supreme act of normalising the unthinkable. This is not surprising, as the conclusions are volcanic.
The most important evidence to the 9/11 Commission came from General Ralph Eberhart, commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad).
"Air force jet fighters could have intercepted hijacked airliners roaring towards the World Trade Center and Pentagon," he said, "if only air traffic controllers had asked for help 13 minutes sooner . . . We would have been able to shoot down all three . . . all four of them."
Why did this not happen?
The Kean report makes clear that "the defence of US aerospace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with pre-existing training and protocols . . . If a hijack was confirmed, procedures called for the hijack coordinator on duty to contact the Pentagon's National Military Command Center (NMCC) . . . The NMCC would then seek approval from the office of the Secretary of Defence to provide military assistance . . . "
Uniquely, this did not happen. The commission was told by the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Authority that there was no reason the procedure was not operating that morning. "For my 30 years of experience . . ." said Monte Belger, "the NMCC was on the net and hearing everything real-time . . . I can tell you I've lived through dozens of hijackings . . . and they were always listening in with everybody else."
But on this occasion, they were not. The Kean report says the NMCC was never informed. Why? Again, uniquely, all lines of communication failed, the commission was told, to America's top military brass. Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defence, could not be found; and when he finally spoke to Bush an hour and a half later, it was, says the Kean report, "a brief call in which the subject of shoot-down authority was not discussed." As a result, Norad's commanders were "left in the dark about what their mission was."
The report reveals that the only part of a previously fail-safe command system that worked was in the White House where Vice-President Cheney was in effective control that day, and in close touch with the NMCC. Why did he do nothing about the first two hijacked planes? Why was the NMCC, the vital link, silent for the first time in its existence? Kean ostentatiously refuses to address this. Of course, it could be due to the most extraordinary combination of coincidences. Or it could not.
In July 2001, a top secret briefing paper prepared for Bush read: "We [the CIA and FBI] believe that OBL [Osama Bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning."
On the afternoon of 11 September, Donald Rumsfeld, having failed to act against those who had just attacked the United States, told his aides to set in motion an attack on Iraq when the evidence was non-existent. Eighteen months later, the invasion of Iraq, unprovoked and based on lies now documented, took place. This epic crime is the greatest political scandal of our time, the latest chapter in the long 20th-century history of the west's conquests of other lands and their resources. If we allow it to be normalised, if we refuse to question and probe the hidden agendas and unaccountable secret power structures at the heart of "democratic" governments and if we allow the people of Fallujah to be crushed in our name, we surrender both democracy and humanity."
John Pilger: The Greatest Political Scandal of Our Time
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Asia Times - Counterinsurgency run amok
here's a strong analysis of parallels with Vietnam using Hardt and Negri's notion of insurgency and US notions of counterinsurgency to describe the monstrosity of the US assault on Fallujah, and its inevitable failure and blowback
Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East
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NYT: US invasion of Iran would be catastrophe
next up Iran, number 2 in the Axis of Evil Hit List. Once again "no credibility" Colin "moderate" Powell is talking of Iraqi nuclear and missile programs and Bush is rattling the saber. This time, as NYT editorial suggests, it would hit the fan hard if US invaded a highly organized and well-defended Iran; how insane can these Bush lunatics be?
NYT: US invasion of Iran would be catastrophe
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Saturday, November 20, 2004
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Why Did Kerry Fold? Ohio Recount Stirs Distressing Nuttiness
although Ron Rosenbaum has not yet bought the Bush voting scam story, he is absolutely right about Kerry: his concession was inexcusable and he could have easily called for waiting for all the Ohio votes to be tallied-- that would create a space to go after possible voting fraud and dramatize the problem with the voting machines that must be addressed and solved if US democracy is to survive
Why Did Kerry Fold? Ohio Recount Stirs Distressing Nuttiness
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Recount New Hampshire
Russ Baker's article points out that it is DIEBOLD OPTICAL SCANNERS that have produced a fishy voting count in New Hampshire; its the same in Florida and Ohio, the Diebold optical scanner machines, even more than the new computer voting machines, that provide the fishy counts; this story is much bigger than anyone in the mainstream will admit: it could be that Diebold and perhaps other machines have SYSTEMATICALLY boosted Bush's vote everywhere and it could easily have been decisive in Ohio....
Recount New Hampshire
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The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: A Scandal Waiting to Happen
Tom DeLay is one of the most corrupt and vicious politicans in US history; last night Bill Moyers had a devastating section on him on PBS Now! The Bush-Rove-DeLay-Cheney Gang are the most corrupt politicans ever in the US, Teapot Dome is a tempest in a small teapot in comparison
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: A Scandal Waiting to Happen
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Friday, November 19, 2004
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Salon.com | Bill Frist exposed
good for Joe Conason for attacking the despicable attack by the sleaze-bag Bill Frist on Richard Clarke. Excerpt: "Short memories confer immunity on politicians, who are rarely accountable for the opportunistic, irresponsible or dishonest remarks they so often utter. In Washington's fetid culture of personal destruction, the powerful and privileged can trash an adversary's reputation without concern that the truth will embarrass them when it emerges months or years later. Consider the case of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Last March, Frist rose on the Senate floor to demonstrate his fealty to the White House by attacking Richard Clarke in the ugliest and most personal terms. Seeking to discredit the former counter-terrorism chief after his stunning appearance before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Frist essentially accused the former counter-terrorism chief of committing perjury.
But now we know who was telling the truth and who wasn't, thanks to the release of a newly declassified document. That document is the transcript of Clarke's testimony before a closed, joint congressional hearing in June 2002, when he discussed "the evolution of the terrorist threat" leading up to 9/11 with members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. While the declassified text contains lengthy redactions, it also shows conclusively that Frist slandered Clarke last spring.
The Frist assault was among the most publicized fusillades in a concerted effort to destroy Clarke, who had dared to criticize the Bush administration's halting, inadequate response to the looming threat from al-Qaida. Predictably, Frist echoed the White House sniping at Mr. Clarke's credibility, but went much further. In his furious floor speech, the senator mocked Clarke for acknowledging his own responsibility in the government's failure to prevent the 9/11 disaster, berated his "profiteering" from the tragedy with his revealing memoir, "Against All Enemies," and went on to insinuate that the star witness had lied and might be prosecuted:
"Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath," said Frist. "In July 2002, in front of the Congressional Joint Inquiry on the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Clarke testified under oath that the administration actively sought to address the threat posed by al-Qaida during its first seven months in office ... .[It] is one thing for Mr. Clarke to dissemble in front of the media. But if he lied under oath to the United States Congress it is a far more serious matter. As I mentioned, the intelligence committee is seeking to have Mr. Clarke's previous testimony declassified so as to permit an examination of Mr. Clarke's two different accounts. Loyalty to any administration will be no defense if it is found that he has lied before Congress."
Clarke reacted by urging the immediate declassification of the entire six-hour transcript of his secret testimony, confident that he would be vindicated. Eventually, Frist's own spokesman admitted that his boss hadn't read Clarke's testimony -- and that his only "evidence" was gossip from other unnamed legislators who had called the majority leader to complain that Clarke's "tone" differed from what he had said two years earlier. Some Republicans who had heard Clarke's testimony quietly suggested that Frist didn't know what he was talking about, including Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas.
At the time, though, Roberts declined to release the declassified testimony, despite repeated requests from his ranking minority colleague, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V. Perhaps Roberts thought it wiser to wait until after Election Day to revive this sore subject.
In fact, Clarke's declassified testimony contains very few references to the Bush administration -- but what he did say wasn't flattering. Neither criticizing nor praising the administration's efforts, Clarke offered a dry factual account of the bureaucratic approach toward terrorism taken by the president's appointees and advisors during the months that preceded 9/11. Clarke allowed the lawmakers to draw their own conclusions -- if they chose to do so -- by contrasting the slow official process with his vivid recollection of CIA warnings during the summer of 2001, when al-Qaida was preparing an "imminent" offensive that might include "multiple, simultaneous attacks, some overseas and some in the U.S." He didn't say one word that was later contradicted by his far more dramatic testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
Clarke's circumspect attitude toward the Bush administration was understandable, since he was still working for the president in 2002. But perhaps to the annoyance of the Republican legislators in attendance at the closed hearing, he went out of his way to praise the counter-terror efforts of the prior occupant of the Oval Office.
"You know," said Clarke, whose government résumé dates back to the Nixon era, "it is very rare in my experience when the President of the United States picks an issue after his administration has begun because the world has changed, and says, 'This is a priority, guys. I want you to create some new programs and deal with it.' But that happened, and I think both [of Clinton's] national security advisers and the Clinton administration spent an enormous amount of time on the overall issue of counterterrorism and the new threats."
His detailed description of those efforts, which explodes Republican attempts to blame Clinton for 9/11 and confirms both his testimony and his book, should be required reading for mythologizers like the Senate majority leader. And when Frist has finished reading the 103 pages, the majority leader ought to be decent enough to apologize publicly for lying about this remarkable public servant."
Salon.com | Bill Frist exposed
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Shamelessness Unbound
Top Repug campaign fund raisers refuse to show remorse in the face of the House ethic committee after they robbed millons from the Tigua tirbe of the El Paso valley. As Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon sit in their four million dollar homes on the sea, the Tigua tribe has seen nothing in return for their lobbying money that was meant to help re-open their state closed casino. Instead, millions were funneled into Bush and other Repugs campaigns. This story illustrates the absolute shamlessness and crookedness of the Repug party's fascist machine that robs from those who have been harmed most the strengthening Empire of the United States government.
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The New York Times > : Bush's Echo Chamber
bratty, immature and incompetent adolescents now rule Bush administration-- George, Condi and the Bush Texas Mafia; no one responsible, mature and competent is left [Rummy and Cheney have long been out of it, living in alternative worlds]
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bush's Echo Chamber
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University researchers challenge Bush win in Florida
academic studies are starting to come out challenging Florida (and also Ohio) vote; was it another steal?
The Smirking Chimp
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Thursday, November 18, 2004
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The New York Times > : A Plague of Toadies
Maureen Dowd documents how Bush loves Toadies and Yes People. Someone could also mention that Bush is filling top positions with mediocre Texas provincials who have played the Toad to him for years and are generally incompetent; has there ever been a worse administration?
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: A Plague of Toadies
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Fitrakis & Wasserman: 'Hearings on Ohio voting put 2004 election in doubt'
serious investigations of election fraud going on in Ohio but mainstream media won't touch this yet
The Smirking Chimp
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Wednesday, November 17, 2004
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AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Iraq Quagmire Deepens
argument that Fallujah just made Iraq more ugly and chaotic; you cannot destroy a village to save it, as Vietnam proved, you just have more people who hate you and want to kill you. another confirmation that those who do not learn from the errors of history are doomed to repeat them
AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Iraq Quagmire Deepens
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Why Powell Had To Go
here's one of the few commentaries in the mainstream media that actually criticizes Powell while most pundits slather over him. in fact, Powell's Febr 2003 UN speech before the Iraq invasion was the low point of US public diplomacy and his enabling of the Iraq catastrophe is deplorable and is his legacy.
Of course, Condi is 100 times worse and is more evidence of a coming Bush Reich. Few mainstream media commentators have noted she is one of the worst National Security advisors ever and has been caught in an unbelievable set of blatant lies about the US not having a clue that terrorists would hijack airplanes, about her own failure to take action against terrorist threats pre911, and, of course, she is on record and videotape with perhaps more blatant lies about supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction than anyone. It will be interesting to see how Congress treats her in the confirmation hearings. So far she is a media and Congress Untouchable who gets away with gross incompetence and lies
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The New York Times > International > Middle East > Body in a Mosque: Marine Set for Questioning in Wounded Iraqi's Shooting
through the global media the last two days there have been repeated pictures of US Marines breaking into a mosque and while uttering an obscenity a Marine shoots and kills a wounded Iraqi lying on the floor of the mosque; most of the world sees this as evidence of barbaric brutality of US forces, while rightwing media in the US attack those who cite this example and defend the brutality; the brutes are of the Bush Reich are snarling and frothing in a New Barbarism
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Body in a Mosque: Marine Set for Questioning in Wounded Iraqi's Shooting
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Monday, November 15, 2004
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Greg Palast: 'The ballots at the back of the bus'
latest on ballot fraud in Ohio by Greg Palast
The Smirking Chimp
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Antonia Zerbisias: 'Web abuzz with vote-rigging tales'
the story that the cowardly mainstream media won't touch. excerpt: ""No because, in many jurisdictions, including the contentious Ohio and Florida, real problems have been reported. Some local MSM (e.g. the Cincinnati Inquirer) and all kinds of websites (http://www.votersunite.org, to name one) have documented incidences of machine malfunctions, discrepancies between exit poll results and actual votes, 'disappeared' votes, 'extra' votes and other problems."
The Smirking Chimp:
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Sunday, November 14, 2004
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Consortiumnews.com Big Media, Some Nerve!
Bob Parry is right that it is deplorable for Big Gutless Media to attack efforts by the Heros of Democracy to investigate and publicize voter fraud and it is disgraceful that the Big Media are not carrying out such investigations themselves; but, as Parry argues, this is part of a history of the media going easy on the Bush dynasty
Consortiumnews.com
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Alan Maass: “The rise and fall of Newt Gingrich: A parable for our times,”
Here's a nice parable how the case of Newt Gingrich and the Republican right’s “Contract with America” may be instructive. Gingrich led a rightwing Congressional initiative that won Republicans a strong house majority in the 1994 midterm elections and promised a “political sea change” and Republican “revolution” with a ten-point program for change. There was a strong backlash against the Republican Right, Gingrich became “the most hated man in America” and resigned in disgrace.
The Smirking Chimp
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White House orders purge of CIA 'liberals,' sources say
the Bush Gang purges the CIA; the Reich cannot stand independent analysts
The Smirking Chimp
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Saturday, November 13, 2004
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Interpreting Election 2004
In reflecting on the categories necessary to describe the 2004 election, I am reminded of some key concepts of the Frankfurt School. When the German emigrants escaped from Hitler’s fascism to the United States in the 1930s, they saw German fascism as, in part, a gangster clique (see Kellner 1989). In a similar critical spirit, I will frequently use the term “the Bush/Cheney Gang” to describe the key cadres of the Bush administration. While Mark Miller’s “Bush & Co.” (2004) captures the quasi-fascist corporate nature of the clique, I choose to use the Gang metaphor since the Bush administration has systematically robbed the federal treasury to benefit the superrich, to provide favors for their big corporate contributors, and to dismantle programs that largely benefit working people. In addition, they have systematically violated international law, and are generally seen in the world as a rogue regime regularly subverting diplomacy, global treaties and organizations, and the national security policies of the post-World War Two period in favor of “preemptive war,” aggressive unilateralism, and unrestrained militarism.
To help make sense of the 2004 election, I also will make use of Frankfurt School categories of the culture industry, the authoritarian personality, one-dimensional man, and the dialectic of enlightenment. Throughout I will focus on the role of the media and culture industry in the election and how the Bush-Cheney campaign used and manipulated the media to advance their interests. Many of their supporters exhibit classic symptoms of the authoritarian personality, who thinks in binary categories of good and evil, projects evil onto an Other, and believes he or she is “good.” Such one-dimensional men and women are incapable of critical thought, are immune to ideas and information critical of their object of faith and devotion (Bush!), and reproduce the political slogans of their group, exhibiting herd conformity while performing liked trained seals (“Flip-flop!” “four more years!). Such empty sloganeering is symptomatic of a decline of individual thought and rationality and critical reflection.
As with the experience of the Frankfurt School in the 1940s (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972 [1948]), US society has seen a “dialectic of enlightenment” where culture has turned into its opposite for many, serving as manipulation and not nurture and development. Language, as for Orwell, is used to signify its opposite as when the “liberation” of Iraq describes an invasion and occupation, or a “clear skies act” describes environmental deregulation and increase of pollution. “Democracy” in Iraq signifies submission to rulers chosen by the Bush-Cheney Gang, while in the United States it is undercut by smear campaigns, false advertising, Big, Bold, and Brazen Lies (see Chapter 6), and dicey, perhaps rigged, voting machines.
Hence, at the conclusion of my studies, it is clear that three sets of rightwing forces have been operative during the past four years that will provide constant challenges to the hopes of US democracy in the future. First, an extreme rightwing and highly corrupt Bush/Cheney Gang control the higher institutions of the US government with an entire state apparatus dedicated to class war against working and middle classes and to attempting to transfer as much wealth and power to the rich and the corporate classes as is possible. They are dedicated to destroying the institutions of the Welfare State New Deal developed from the 1930s through the 1990s and cutting back on civil liberties and democracy itself (once Bush joked that it would be easier if he were a dictator and this is indeed his goal). On the level of foreign policy, the Bush/Cheney Gang envisages using US military power to create a new US hegemony and empire, dedicated in the short term to controlling oil and energy resources and envisaging expansion to outer space (see Kellner 2003b).
This corrupt cartel of hardright conservatives and militarists is under girded by a Republican party media attack apparatus, several decades in the making and now spanning a full spectrum of TV, radio, print, the Internet, mailing, and local political organization. It ranges from Fox TV News and the softer core NBC cable networks to a broad expanse of rightwing Talk Radio, print publications, and Internet sites. This rightwing cultural apparatus has done its work and has produced millions of conservatives who constitute a mass base for Bush/Cheney extremism, with overlaps and institutional support from the religious right. Masses of conservatives have created something like a Cult of Bush, a surprising phenomenon and one of the discoveries during the 2004 election campaign that often had the look and feel of religious revivalism. The rightwing mass base is highly intolerant, immune to opposing views, and aggressive and angry in its denunciation of liberals, gays and lesbians, feminists, or anyone who does not uncritically support Bush/Cheney policies. Its face is visible daily on Fox TV and its opinions can be heard on Talk Radio throughout the country.
This is not a pretty picture and many were extremely dispirited and depressed after the 2004 election when an obviously unqualified presidential candidate with the worst political record in recent history appeared to be re-elected. Opposing the conservative base, however, are legions of groups and individuals organized around disparate progressive issues and informed by a variety of alternative media. The 2004 election saw record turnouts for progressive America, unity against the Bush-Cheney Gang, and a remarkable set of cultural initiatives, political struggles and organization, and fierce resistance to Bush-Cheney. The country is sharply divided and while the liberal and progressive side do not have the financial resources, institutions, or media that the Republican Right has at its disposal, the battle is, not yet, completely uneven and a record amount of people participated in the struggle against the Bush-Cheney Gang and have hopefully learned that they have to work harder and do better next time.
For more on the Frankfurt school, go to my home page and see the Illuminations site
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/flash/kellneraug8.swf
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Friday, November 12, 2004
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From Olbermann
Good blogs lately from Keith Olbermann on his Bloggermann:{...} Questions about Ohio moved back into the mainstream yesterday with another cogent article in The Cincinnati Enquirer. The rationale for the bizarre “lockdown” of the vote-counting venue in Warren County on election night suddenly broke down when it was contradicted by spokespersons from the FBI and Ohio’s primary homeland security official.
County Emergency Services Director Frank Young said last week that in a face-to-face meeting with an FBI agent, he was warned that Warren County, outside Cincinnati, faced a “terrorist threat.” County Commissioners President Pat South amplified, insisting to us at Countdown that her jurisdiction had received a series of memos from Homeland Security about the threat. “These memos were sent out statewide, not just to Warren County, and they included a lot of planning tools and resources to use for election day security.
“In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services,” Ms. South continued, “we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10.”
But the Bureau says it issued no such warning.
“The FBI did not notify anyone in Warren County of any specific terrorist threat to Warren County before Election Day,” FBI spokesman Michael Brooks told Enquirer reporters Erica Solvig and Dan Horn.
Through a spokeswoman, Ohio Public Safety Director Ken Morckel told the newspaper that his office knew of no heightened terror warning for election night for Warren County or any other community in Greater Cincinnati.
Despite the contradiction from both security services, Ms. South again amplified, telling the Enquirer “It wasn’t international terrorism that we were in fear of; it was more domestic terrorism.”
So the media was kept two floors away from the vote counting at the Warren County Administration on election night on the basis of a “10” FBI terror threat that the FBI says was never issued. {...} Olbermann has another on evoting fraud from November 9th that's worth looking at.
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Thursday, November 11, 2004
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Betsy R. Vasquez: 'Think Kerry is not involved in this fight? Think again'
here's an interesting analysis: Fallujah invasion was set up for exactly after the election in case Kerry refused to concede and Bush Gang could attack him for being unpatriotic when troops were under fire. I wish I could also believe that Kerry knew this and is gathering information to protest once the data is in and that Nader is working with him to throw in question and protest the election by filing a lawsuit in New Hampshire questioning the Diebold machines count; I wish our side were this clever and Machiavellian...
The Smirking Chimp
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'Phantom Fury' Poised to Become Phantom Victory
the Bush Gang may be able to destroy Fallujah in order to save it but they are increasing hatred of the US throughout Iraqi and generating antiAmericanism throughout the world
'Phantom Fury' Poised to Become Phantom Victory
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Wednesday, November 10, 2004
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Is Bush Wired?
Update on Wired Bush and election fraud:
"Black Box Presidency
The Hill quotes an unnamed Secret Service source as saying that the box-shaped bulge under Bush's jacket at the debates was a strap for a bulletproof vest, a secret the Secret Service didn't want to reveal during the campaign, when the president was exposed to potential assassins out on the campaign trail.
Oddly, though, the president never seemed to have his bulgy protective strap on when he spoke at huge campaign rallies in his shirtsleeves -- though he's donned it for assassin-free zones, such as the East Room of the White House. Perhaps the Secret Service was speaking figuratively. It seems unlikely, though, that the Secret Service would ask that Bush lie about the device on television, as he did when he told ABC's Charles Gibson that he was "embarrassed" to say that it was just a wrinkle in his shirt.
The New York Times reports in tomorrow's paper (Nov 8) that the Secret Service won't comment on the question. The Times story doesn't point out that The Hill's attempt at Bush-buffing doesn't even make sense: Presidential body armor is hardly a secret, and how exactly would keeping it quiet help deflect attempts on the president's life? Wouldn't it have the reverse effect? Not to mention that people who know what bulletproof vests look like, i.e. actual soldiers, say there's no body armor in the world with that Rube Goldberg configuration.
I apologize for repeating myself, but what's a blogger to do when respectable journalists at the Times are more intent on writing entertainingly than on providing readers with all the relevant facts? It used to be that Times reporters, even those based in Washington, tried to do both.
So, here we are, a month and two days after we first broached the question of Bush's wire (Oct 5). Nothing has changed except that a few more people know about the fraud. But most major news media seem to prefer that the people be protected from this knowledge. They wish they didn't know it themselves. Soviet-style, newspapers around the country ran Doonesbury's strips on the Bush prompter without investigating their premise. How did they expect their readers to know what the strips were about, and whether or not they amounted to fair criticism or dishonest slurs?
More details on the failure to report the story by two major papers: According to Dave Lindorff, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward advised the NASA scientist who analyzed the video images of Bush's box to take the story to Salon, since he wouldn't be able to get it past his own editors before Nov. 2. And the New York Times killed a story scheduled for October 28 by reporters William Broad and John Schwarz because, Lindorff says, the Times feared that printing the news might influence the election. Of course, failing to inform the public also influenced the election, as the voters pathetically quoted in the Times as having chosen Bush because they felt he was "honest," demonstrate.
Certainly the hosts at NBC's "Democracy Plaza" (sadly, no more) whose hosts cited approvingly the ordeal of Ohioans waiting in line for hours to vote, weren't about to bring up questions about the president's honesty. That wouldn't fit with the cheery Disney script of democracy, any more than would a mention of leaky Diebold electronic voting machines, which reportedly use a code a ten-year-old could hack. Not to mention the voting irregularities, including incidents in several battleground states where Kerry voters found touchscreen machines repeatedly registering their votes for Bush.
Vote fraud is the sinister explanation, of course, for why raw exit polls wrongly omened a Kerry win nationally and in many states. The men who conducted the NEP polls for the networks and AP have explained the variance as likely due to greater eagerness by Kerry voters to talk to pollsters. Which makes sense -- except that it can't explain why Bush's large vote gains over the exit poll numbers occurred mainly in battleground states. Wouldn't Kerry voters be just as responsive -- and Bush voters just as reticent -- in Arizona or Connecticut?
In Venezuela's and other foreign elections, exit polls are seen as a check on possible fraud. Here that possibility was discarded a priori, perhaps because of Karl Rove's reputation for honest dealing. Steve Coll of the Washington Post suggested in an online chat that it seemed likelier that all the exit polls were wrong than that a large conspiracy hacked the election. But who said it would take a large conspiracy? Experts have warned for years that anyone with a home computer and inexpensive software could break into electronic voting tabulators. Using machines that are modem-equipped and that create no paper trail is like leaving a open bag of cash on a subway bench. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to say that someone will make off with it sooner or later.
I await the explanations of experts like mysterypollster.com, who can parse these contradictory exit polls further -- and I'll correct what I've written here accordingly. But for more on how to have an election whose results we can unreservedly trust the next time around, check out openvotingconsortium.org, demos-usa.org, verifiedvoting.org, and blackboxvoting.org.
That's if for IsBushWired. Barring developments, our story is done. We'll leave the page up for latecomers interested in knowing the full story. And feel free to write: isbushwired@gmail.com
posted by is bush wired? at 11:16 PM"
Is Bush Wired?
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Tanks Brought in as Show of Force Against Anti-War Protest in Los Angeles
What the fuck?!!! Was this to provoke people and attempt to spark a riot? Or was this a symbolic pro-war counter-demonstration by the Bush Term II that was meant to send a clear message early on that demonstrations will not be met (as previously) with the simple tolerance of numerous cops, undercover agents, copters circling, cameras clicking and videotaping, the occasional rough ups and arrests, toxic pepper spray and rubber bullets; but now, apparently, all bets are off, and as China looks more and more like capitalist America, the United States starts to look more and more like Tiananmen Square.
Video of Tanks at anti-war protest in LA (6.8 Megs)
LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location. Uploaded here is video from the event.
Via: Indymedia
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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
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'Scores of civilians' killed in Falluja
Reuters c/o Al Jazeera
Muhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city.
In the midst of a US onslaught and hemmed in by a round-the-clock curfew, he said he had little choice but to bury his eldest son, Ghaith, in the garden.
"My son got shrapnel in his stomach when our house was hit at dawn, but we couldn't take him for treatment," said Abbud, a teacher. "We buried him in the garden because it was too dangerous to go out. We did not know how long the fighting would last."
Residents say scores of civilians have been killed or wounded in 24 hours of fighting since US-led forces pushed deep into the city on Monday evening.
Doctors said people brought in at least 15 dead civilians at the main clinic in Falluja on Monday. By Tuesday, there were no clinics open, residents said, and no way to count casualties.
Medical supplies low
US and Iraqi forces seized control of the city's main hospital, across the Euphrates river from Falluja proper, hours before the onslaught began.
Overnight US bombardments hit a clinic inside the Sunni Muslim city, killing doctores, nurses and patients, residents said. US military authorities denied the reports.
Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said troops detained 38 fighters entrenched at Falluja Hospital and accused doctors there of exaggerating civilian casualties.
Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at Falluja Hospital, said the city was running out of medical supplies.
"There is not a single surgeon in Falluja. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move," he said by telephone from a house where he had gone to help the wounded.
"A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."
ICRC voices concern
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday that it was extremely worried about the fate of people wounded in the ferocious battle for control of the Iraqi city of Falluja.
"The ICRC urges the belligerents to ensure that all those in need of such care - whether friend or foe - be given access to medical facilities and that medical personnel and vehicles can function without hindrance at all times," a statement said.
The organisation said it was "deeply concerned about reports that the injured cannot receive adequate medical care."
Families flee
Weekend air raids destroyed a clinic funded by an Islamic relief organisation in the centre of Falluja and a nearby warehouse used to store medical supplies, witnesses said.
Many families fled the city of 300,000 long before the offensive began. An official from a Sunni Muslim group with links to some fighters in Falluja said on Monday only about 60,000 people remained.
Residents say they have no power and are using kerosene lamps at night. They say they keep to ground floors for safety. Food shops have been closed for six days.
"My kids are hysterical with fear," said Farhan Salih. "They are traumatised by the sound but there is nowhere to take them."
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday he did not foresee large numbers of civilian casualties in the assault, saying US forces were disciplined and precise.
Those words were of little comfort to the Abbud family, sitting in a house damaged by the bomb that killed their child.
"We just bandaged his stomach and gave him water, but he was losing a lot of blood. He died this afternoon," said Abbud.
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ABC News: Online news, breaking news, feature stories and more, but no election fraud story
I just saw a report on ABC News with Jake Tapper on possible election fraud where Peter Jennings saws that ABC has been bombarded with email on possible election fraud and reported that three Congressmen have called for federal investigations of suspect cases. But Jennings said that "they" don't believe in conspiracy theories and then Jake Tapper did a short report criticizing the Florida example of heavily Democratic counties going republican by focusing on one county that has heavy democratic registration but has gone republican for three elections. Not a word about possible computer fixes or even the reported Ohio examples; so people are contacting mainstream media which still refuses to touch the issue...
Oddly enough, this story wasn't list on the ABC News site below, at least when I accessed it after just seeing the ABC report
ABC News: Online news, breaking news, feature stories and more
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Informed Comment--
Juan Cole's blog on Iraq is best source on information; it appears that once again the US is destroying the village to save it, perhaps with really catastrophic global results
Informed Comment
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Keith Olbermann: 'George, John, and Warren'
this is the first indication I've seen by someone in the mainstream media who has raised the question of another stolen election
The Smirking Chimp
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Consortiumnews.com: Bush's 'Incredible' Vote Tallies
Was Florida stolen again?
Consortiumnews.com
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Monday, November 08, 2004
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U.S. Judge Halts War-Crime Trial at Guantánamo
an Honorable Judge fights the Bush Reich
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Evidence of a Second Bush Coup?
here's the big issue for the era, did they do it again and if so how?
Consortiumnews.com
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Bob Fitrakis: 'Did Kerry concede too soon?'
If Kerry hadn't of conceded the Big Story now would be how dangerous and corrupt the voting machines are which would trigger possible moves, as in California to eliminate the most corrupt machines (i.e. Diebold) and to require a paper trail; a major opportunity was lost
The Smirking Chimp
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washingtonpost.com: Evangelicals Say They Led Charge For the GOP
Evangelicals turned out massively for Bush but it was FEAR of terrorism, gays, liberalism, Hollywood, and the like that drove Bush voters-- FEAR promoted by the Bush Gang, media, talk radio, churches, and a vast rightwing apparatus
washingtonpost.com: Evangelicals Say They Led Charge For the GOP
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Sunday, November 07, 2004
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Thomas Oliphant: 'The gay marriage deception'
let us once and for all declare solidarity with gay and lesbian rights and NO to bigots and homophobes
The Smirking Chimp
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Ari Berman: 'Meet the new Republican Senate'
Repugs on parade in the Senate
The Smirking Chimp: "Ari Berman: 'Meet the new Republican Senate'"
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WIRED BUSH?
My Wired Bush article is now published, send this far and wide to help delegitimate the fraud
Flow
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Guardian | Iraq rebels launch raids on eve of crucial Falluja battle
Iraq is once again a Killing Fields, the Values President has killed as many as 100,000 civilians in Iraq, an estimate by British medical journal, the Lancet, and much more blood will be on his hands and every fool that voted for him
Guardian | Iraq rebels launch raids on eve of crucial Falluja battle
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Political Debts and Decent Society
As president Bush fumbles attempts to construct a democratic government in Iraq NY Times, he now is focusing on re-defining our democracy by limiting rights to citizens of this country once again NY Times. Bush's move to constitutionally ban gay marriages (this is clearly an imminent danger for our safe and decent society) indicates how much of a political debt he owes to the people who elected him president. If this is a forecast of what is to come from Bush's political debts, then we better brace ourselves for a long and difficult fight. When the constitution serves as a tool of oppression, such as the president's measure to ban gay marries or the manufactured Iraqi constitution that seeks to provide order for corporate colonization, it is clear that we are moving towards a model of 19th century democracy where white men ruled the country unquestioned and relatively unchallenged. Democracy can come in many forms, it is now the challenge of progressives and the left to create of form of democracy that is emancipatory instead of debilitating.
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washingtonpost.com: Four More Years Attributed to Rove's Strategy
Rove is now positioned as US media hero: if Kerry had not conceded and serious stories emerge that Ohio votes were stolen, then he'd be Public Enemy Number One and seen as the sleaze that he is
washingtonpost.com: Four More Years Attributed to Rove's Strategy
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Tompaine.com:Kerry Won. . .
just back from Ohio where people are superdepressed, angry and many are wishing that Kerry did not concede so quickly for the reasons that Greg Palast lays out below: a lot of votes weren't counted and stories of monkey business are starting to circulate
Tompaine.com - Print Page
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Voting System Error Gives Bush Extra Votes in Ohio
From the LA Times
COLUMBUS, Ohio — An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said Friday.
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush's total should have been recorded as 365, officials said. [...]
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More Hartmann on E-voting Scandal
Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked
by Thom Hartmann
When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.
"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.
And some believe evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.
The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling. [...]
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Saturday, November 06, 2004
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"The Latino Vote" and Whose Christian Values Anyway?
Much is being made of the Latino vote in the elections, but I have been troubled by the generalized terms made by the media and even fellow academics who have been discussing the "Latino vote". I want to ask them why they aren't talking about the "white" vote. These groups are both varied according to geography, class, race, nationality, and religion. Can we group a white jewish voter in New York with a white baptist voter in Georgia, or can we classify a hispanic catholic voter in Taos, New Mexico, with a catholic latino voter from Boyle Heights, California?
While an argument can be made that Latinos are religiously conservative, this simply cannot be the end point of this discussion. As progressives it is imperative we educate ourselves about this supposed monolith of peoples if we want to build coalition movments. Latinos are an extremely diverse groups in terms of race, religion, nationality, and this means they cannot be analyzed from a single position.
So where do we begin. I for one have a suggestion for myself- start at home. Folks from my community, 70% Mexican, Mexican-American, are catholic, with a growing number of evangelical denominations. Are there organizations at home which are doing the type of work that will mobilize these communities- yes. In my case it is called EPISO, an interfaith organization which works for social justice. Why is this important? It is important because this organization is taking and organizing with religion at its center as a progressive, transformative movement. We cannot shy away from religion. It can be scary for some activists who come from backgrounds who have been persecuted, but maybe it's time we look to interfaith organizations with a progressive, leftist agenda. This is not the only thing to be done. Quite the contrary it makes up only one aspect of the enormous task that organizing and struggling consists of.
For me, I know one of my many goals will be to take back the figure of Jesus and ressurect the bad ass social justice components of his life and what Chrisianity, in my learnings of it, is supposed to represent. Liberation theology is out there. Is this problematic for some? Why yes, religion may not be the ends of a leftist movement, but maybe it should be one of its components. No Christianity is not perfect, an argument I would make of many western religions. It does provide me many moments of struggle and disagreement, but this is exactly what I hope to engage with- the construction of faith which is in constant struggle, never dogmatic, never orthodox.
I obviously expose my position as a person who comes from colonized territories. I cannot escape Christianity, but that does not mean that I cannot take it for my own and work with other colonized peoples to reclaim it. For those of us who can locate ourselves from this position, let us share our insight with our Euro-American counterparts who may not understand this position and struggle together towards respect, mutuality, sustainability and the celebration of all our relations.
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North Anyone?
As it is now clear that the democratic party is planning to reposture for the 2008 election by dressing a candidate in a cowboy hat (Bill Richardson suggests that Kerry's reluctance to wear a cowboy hat during his campaigning in New Mexico is an indication of cultural unawareness within the democratic party NY Times) there seems to be little hope of an authentic critical politics arising from the democratic fold. So for those who have been mulling over the emigration option here is a something to guide you as you decide where to live next Slate. Of course, while leaving the United States may be a real and probably sound decision, we must not forget that from a position of despair a new radical politics can also be formed as an alternative to the rightward moving democratic party that held a monopoly over (un)progressive movements in the United States this time around.
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As Expected, Democrats Threatening to Move Further Right Still...
In the LA Times article today, Democrats Map Out a Different Strategy, views are expressed by people like Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, that should be a clear wake up call both to Northern and West Coast DNC supporters and those of a more radical persuasion who previously have convinced themselves that the Democratic Party represents the only institutional apparatus for elected change, no matter how deeply flawed.
Southern Democrats like Harpootlian spout off in the piece about how the writing is on the wall that the DNC's only chance at victory in the forseeable future is to present Southern candidates that won't alienate Southern and Midwestern while males -- the Deomcrats must have white men from the south...but who were Gore and Edwards then? Harpootlian then opines:"You can't go to a [Democratic National Committee] meeting and have the first act be to divide up into the caucuses: the African American caucus, the Asian American caucus, the Pacific American caucus, the lesbian and gay caucus, the Native American caucus," he said. "As a white guy from South Carolina, where's my caucus? Where's the white guys' caucus?
"That defines the problem of the Democratic Party," he added. "They've got to make folks like me welcome, and make it so I don't have to take a hard swallow every time I go to a DNC meeting." Wha, wha, what??? Are you kidding me?
This is such a joke -- the white man feels alienated in the DNC?
When Democrats start speaking like this, there's little reason to even think about them anymore as anything but a counter-revolutionary party. Their only hope of winning with this strategy is convincing the so-called Red States that the DNC economic plan is clearly superior (meaning that the economy finds itself in severe repression in 2008) and that culturally the Democratic platform is more or less the same as the compasionate conservatives. And, for argument's sake, let's suppose the dollar finds itself in grave crisis, inflation has boomed and jobs have tanked, supporting this plan. Let's further assume that the 3-4% that supported Nader in 2000 return to alternative to the DNC and RNC agendas.
So, despite the DNC hysteria about Nader and Greens costing them elections in Florida and elsewhere, what the Democrats must be assuming is that by moving far enough right they will pick up more votes than the percentages they would lose. Further, the assumption must be that most Greens are in states like California and Minnesota and New York that they will win anyhow, regardless.
The whole thing is senseless and the rush on behalf of leading Democratic operatives to apologize to rightist bases that are only potentially allies then to the leftists who swallowed their hearts in demonstrated alliance the last few times around borders on offensive. Why people like Kucinich continue to associate with this bunch is beyond me...
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Friday, November 05, 2004
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war and democracy
The nascar/evangelistic culture that now directs our social and political future, signals a major crisis in our democratic system that now lies in a naked, albiet bold form. As the motor of war is now shifting into high gear (conveniently timed to take place after the re-election campaign) progressives must stand on the margins and gaze in horror as our newly "mandated" president has taken the pre-reelection war gloves off as he resumes aggressions on Iraqi cities. With his new sense of confidence it is clear that Bush will sink us deeper into the abyss of death and pain. NY Times Perhaps political projects that focus on change in places where the moral majority resides is a step in the right direction, aiming to reverse the trend that our democratic practice now seems be following. ZNET Indeed, without confronting the dominant ideas and values of this country's culture a robust and critical democracy will remain far from the ground. These articles demonstrate the landscape of the present political moment; one through the brutal facts of war and presidential hubris and the other through hope in a movement toward an authentic democratic form.
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From Indian Country and Beyond
The views coming in from Indian country are varied, but one thing remains the same- that no matter if it is Democrats or Republicans in power, Indian peoples must keep struggling and fighting for protection of sovereignty and everything this implies. Indian country came out for Kerry on election day as evidenced by the swing state of New Mexico, but it was not to be. The the left or any peoples looking towards an example of how to maintain the fight for a better society would do well to listen and learn from tribal peoples who have been subjected to the outcomes of U.S. politics for centuries. The answer, though, is not to drop everything one is doing and rush to a reservation to "help" but to work in one's own communities, to persevere and understand that this process, this struggle is on-going. Indian country understands that both Bush and Kerry are representatives, with some distinction, of the same capitalist system that devours meaningful dialogues, and replaces them with vacant, unattached values that are easily announced. While I would argue that Kerry did offer us the hope of more dialogue and more options, the reality of Bush and his agenda must be dealt with.
I can only look to the experience of my own community to understand this- a community split by the borders imposed by Nation-States, but who nonetheless resists and flourishes despite its location at the crossroads of the "First" and "Third" worlds. While these political-geographic boundaries and labels are used, it is the knowledge of life and land which allow these labels to dematerialize. With this same vision, the left and progressive movements must not allow our sight to be blinded by the chatter that surrounds us in the media, and instead we must further entrench ourselves in movements that truly resound with humanity and indeed all life. Now more than ever a politics of sustainability, mutuality, community and respect must be pursued.
An interesting read on the elections can be found from the editors of Indian Country Today
In an article titled, "Waking up to a Republican Hegemony".
For others the results are mixed, and the fight now for many communities will be to maintain those things that are sacred and valuable.
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More on E-voting Scandal from CommonDreams
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy
by Thom Hartmann
The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?
Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said. [...]
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shattered dreams and new challenges
With the left still reeling from a questionable defeat, recriminations are quickly mounting that most certainly will haunt progressive political movements in the United States for days and years ahead. The sting, however, has been felt most by those who made political concessions to join the “anybody but Bush” coalition, falling ultimately victim to the reality of our country’s conservative political imagination and the all too bitter understanding that progressive ideas have little traction beyond the confines of moderate-to-liberal havens. Even in the moderately progressive states of the country (west coast, north east, Chicago, and sundry other “liberal” enclaves) still almost half of the population voted for a candidate who embodies the antithesis of all rational thought. How does the left pick up the pieces and move on from here? Where does one begin to delineate a project in which new coalitions and movements can reach out beyond the margins? Below are some articles that begin to address the task of where to go from here. Another looks back on how everything fell apart in the face of the neo-con leviathan and how the construction of the Kerry/Edwards movement displays the benign level that the left resigned itself to in the hopes of dethroning a common evil.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=6567
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=6567
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041122&s=editors
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Thursday, November 04, 2004
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And So It Begins...Pentagon OKs $245 bln Lockheed warplane move
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's top weapons buyer on Thursday cleared Lockheed Martin Corp.'s continued development of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the biggest warplane project ever and one valued at more than $245 billion, the Defense Department said.
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Some Pentagon officials have been fighting this because they felt that the program is simply too costly, but post-election victory the program rolls. The engine for this bomber-fighter, of which 5000 are to be made with 2500 to be sold overseas (so that the world can share in our hi-tech militarism), is to be made by GE. That's right -- the militaristic corporation General Electric, who owns NBC, the media outlet that many critics are calling Fox-lite.
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Arafat Dead?
At 11:10 am I am flipping through the channels and both Fox News and CNN are reporting about Arafat, saying he is on a life-support machine and showing his leadership compound. But Court TV, of all things, is reporting that he is dead.
What kind of a world are we living in when Court TV scoops the major news outlets?
If this is in fact the case, you heard it here first! Jeez...
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One Thing Kerry Got Right: Let Every Vote Be Counted
While Kerry's defeat has sent waves of nausea through the left voting bloc and his subsequent further selling out of the progressive movement in his misguided "time for unity, we're all Americans, let the healing begin" concession speech has the Anyone But Bush intellectual cadre who demanded we line up for Kerry running for cover, the fact is that Kerry/Edwards has correctly coded one final message that does deserve our vigilance -- we must keep our eyes on the vote.
Though election night found the media continuously apologizing for once again being "misled and over eager" to utilize exit polls, which in key states like Florida and Ohio showed a pro-Kerry emphasis that the vote then disproved, we should be wary to accept this conclusion. While it may in fact be misguided and inappropriate to be predicting winners via these polls (or any others), generally speaking it does appear that these exit polls provided reasonable estimates in states across the nation on election night...states without names like Florida and Ohio anyhow.
While polling inaccuracy is certainly a possible cause for the discrepancy, there remain equally plausible other explanations that deserve -- in fact, demand -- media and political investigation, as well as popular interest. One of these is clearly the failure of so-called evoting machines to produce proper numbers due to either equipment failure or conscious political hacking.
As to the former, already reports are coming out about thousands of votes being lost in a North Carolina district, as well as votes in Florida districts because of battery failure and because machines were left in 'test mode' for a time. Sites like VoteProtect.org are gathering numerous other cases of problems and irregularities -- which extend far beyond electronic voting of course.
But what about that conspiratorial word: "hacking"? Could it be that people, either on the direction of a political party organ or not, actually tampered with the evoting machines and so skewed vote numbers in key states so as to give just that little extra advantage, that slight shot of adrenalin that would be the ace of spades kicker in a battle of high stakes poker hands, two kings showing? Are evoting machines really that easy to put the fix on? -- after all, many people might think, just shopping online can be challenging enough.
Welcome to the real world of high-technology people. The fact is that behind the tech-spectacle and wizardry of worldwide information transferred and crunched at T3 speeds, machines are made and run by people...people of particular political persuasions and people who work for corporations that have particular political persuasions.
In a noxious example, for instance, we now know that much-maligned and proven to be hack-prone Diebold e-vote machines should be considered tools of the Republican party. This because, as documented in a CommonDreams article of 2003, we know that Warren O'Dell (Diebold's CEO) pledged in a Bush fund-raising letter that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, the infamous arbiter of fairness Ken Blackwell, did not see that it might be fitting to stop Ohio from allowing Diebold to sell its wares in the state following this revelation, however.
Diebold or not, electronic voting machines can be easily tampered with -- this was the testimony given this past year before the Congress -- and tech geeks with an understanding of source code and security would have little trouble in hacking popular electronic systems, experts from John's Hopkins and Rice University have found.
The argument often comes back that electronic voting has been around for decades and only now with touchscreen voting is there so much controversy. This is not a reason to conclude that there has not been reason for controversy all along, though. It appears that only now is the majority of the public familiar enough with computers and savvy enough about voting corruption within the United States that the issue has erupted front and center. For instance, in his classic paper "On Trusting Trust," dating back to August 1984, Ken Thompson demonstrated how easy it is to hack an evoting system. No massive conspiracy is necessary. And the technical skills required aren't that sophisticated.
Then there is the case of 2000 in Florida -- a state that Gore lost only by hundreds of votes. Internal Diebold memos, only coming to light in 2001, revealed that in at least one case some 16,000 votes for Gore were suddenly disappeared from a Global Elections System machine in a manner that subsequent investigation leads to the conclusion that it was a computer hack (and not Nader Greens) that arguably cost Gore the stolen election.
Thus, barring a hacker or hacking team stepping forward now to admit their crime -- a serious felony -- we the public have only our carefully crafted cynicism as regards evoting to guide us. We must exhibit dilligent patience and caution as we demand that the media play watchdogs on this issue, and fellow bloggers and other techies need to weigh in with timely analysis of the reports that have emerged and will continue to do so. America seems to have an almost unquestioning interest in believing its vote is conducted fair and square. But it's time to step up for democracy and unbury our collective heads and recognize that we've got it all wrong. Our interest is in distrusting the system with probing questions. It's time to get involved.
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Wednesday, November 03, 2004
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Salon.com | Bush unbound
Sidney Blumenthal is right that Rove mobilize fear effectively and will now go hard right, even harder and further, setting up four years of intense conflict. Excerpt:
Nov. 3, 2004 | "This country is going so far to the right you are not even going to recognize it," remarked John Mitchell, President Nixon's attorney general, in 1970. Mitchell's prophesy became the mission of Nixon's College Republican president, Karl Rove, who implemented the strategy of authoritarian populism behind George W. Bush's victory.
In the aftermath, Democrats will form their ritual circular firing squad of recriminations. But, finally, the loss was not due to their candidate's personality, the flaws of this or that advisor or the party's platform. The Democrats surprised themselves at their ability to raise tens of millions of dollars, inspire hundreds of thousands of activists, spawn extensive new organizations, attract icons of popular culture and present themselves as unified around a centrist position. Expectations were not dashed. Turnout vastly increased among African-Americans and Hispanics. More than 60 percent of the newly registered voters went for John Kerry. Those concerned about the economy voted overwhelmingly for him; so did those citing the war in Iraq as an issue. But the surge of the Democrats was more than matched.
Using the White House as a machine of centripetal force, Rove spread fear and fused its elements. Fear of the besieging terrorist, appearing in Bush campaign TV ads as the shifty eyes of a swarthy man or a pack of wolves, was joined with fear of the besieging queer. Bush's announcement that he favored a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was underscored by referendums against it in 11 states, including Ohio -- all of which won.
The evangelical churches became instruments of political organization. Ideology was enforced as theology, turning nonconformity into sin, and the faithful, following voter guides with biblical literalism, were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture. White Protestants, especially in the South, especially married men, gave their souls and votes for flag and cross.
The campaign was one long camp meeting, a revival. Abortion and stem cell research became a lever for prying loose white Catholics. (Rove's designated Catholic leader, his own political pontiff, had to resign in disgrace after being exposed for sexual harassment, but this was little reported and had no effect.) To help in Florida, a referendum was put on the ballot to deny young women the right to abortion without parental approval, and it galvanized evangelicals and conservative Catholics alike.
While Kerry ran on the mainstream American traditions of international cooperation and domestic investment, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for "the right God." During the closing weeks of the campaign, Bush and Cheney ridiculed internationalism, falsifying Kerry's statement about a "global test." They disdained Kerry's internationalism as effeminate, unpatriotic, a character flaw and elitist. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," Vice President Cheney derided in every speech. They grafted imperial unilateralism onto provincial isolationism. Fear of the rest of the world was to be mastered with contempt for it.
These emotions were linked to what is euphemistically called "moral values," which is actually social and sexual panic over the rights of women and gender roles -- lipstick traces, indeed. Only imposing manly authority against "girlie men," girls and lurking terrorists can save the nation. Bush's TV ads featured digitally reproduced crowds of cheering soldiers, triumph of the leader through computer enhancement. Above all, the exit polls showed that "strong leader" was the primary reason Bush was supported.
Brought along with Bush is a gallery of grotesques in the Senate -- more than one of the new senators advocating capital punishment for abortion, another urging that all gay teachers be fired, yet another revealed as suffering from obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's.
The new majority is more theocratic than Republican, as Republican was previously understood; the defeat of the old moderate Republican Party is far more decisive than the loss by the Democrats. And there are no checks and balances. The terminal illness of Chief Justice William Rehnquist signals new appointments to the Supreme Court that will alter law for more than a generation. Conservative promises to dismantle constitutional law established since the New Deal will be acted upon. Roe vs. Wade will be overturned and abortion outlawed.
Now, without constraints, Bush can pursue the dreams he campaigned for -- the use of U.S. military might to bring God's gift of freedom to the world, with no more "global tests," and at home the enactment of the imperatives of "the right God." The international system of collective security forged in World War II and tempered in the Cold War is a thing of the past. The Democratic Party, despite its best efforts, has failed to rein in the radicalism sweeping the country. The world is in a state of emergency but also irrelevant. The New World, with all its power and might, stepping forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old? Goodbye to all that.
Salon.com | Bush unbound
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Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
Kos' analysis is spot on target, that only alternative media and a progressive movement will save us and that when the conservatives were down they built up a winning movement, and that's our challenge. In fact, we can only expect so much and not much from the corporate media and democratic party. Excerpt:
"We put together an unprecedented ground operation, but it was matched by the zealots on the right. We experienced an explosion in the blog world and started a nascent liberal radio network, but our message machine was far outmatched by the rightwing noise machine (Fox News, the Washington Times, Drudge Report, Talk Radio, etc.) We put forth quality candidates in races nationwide, only to see most outclassed and outgunned by a GOP which ran on three simple tenets: God, guns and gays.
It's a bitter pill to swallow, but one that should hopefully lead to a brighter future. Bush owns his messes, and now he'll be forced to clean them up. He won't be able to hide behind 9/11 seven years into his term. Unless the Republicans can engineer a recovery of epic proportions, they will have a great deal to answer to in the 2006 midterms and 2008. And God help Bush if this nation suffers another terrorist attack.
But best of all, we'll continue to see this great resurgence in progressive activism - the kind not seen in American politics in over a generation. None of these new activists heeded the call to arms only to abandon the fight today. We are energised, and will continue to fight for a better future for our country.
This exactly what the Goldwater conservatives did in 1964 -- work to build that very same conservative machine that has propelled Republicans to electoral dominance."
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
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The New York Times > > Long Election Night Turns Into Triumphant Day for the President
Seeing that the Ohio vote was stacked against him and that he had little chance of prevailing in a count of the provisional ballots, Kerry called Bush to concede. In a painful concession speech, Kerry called for unity and healing painful wounds. But Bush wins by dividing and creating wounds and governs by bringing over conservative members of the other party to go along with his rightwing agenda so there is little possibility of healing and the likelihood of ever greater and deeper wounds so be prepared for pain.
The New York Times > Washington > Election 2004 > Long Election Night Turns Into Triumphant Day for the President
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Kerry to concede, Voters deny their own interests; The New York Times > : Living Poor, Voting Rich
As John Kerry has just announced he's conceding I am reading Nicholas Kristof's article on how the vast heartland of America voted against its economic interests in choosing Bush. Ideology has definitely trumped economic rationality in the election, with morality trumping interests. The puzzle is that of the one out of five voters who claimed morality was the major issue, over 80% choose Bush, one of the most immoral figures ever to inhabit, illegally, the White House. But it appears that issues of abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research so incensed rural voters and people in the so-called "heartland' (that may need to be renamed), that they went for Bush against their own economic interests. Bush's antiintellectualism was also extremely potent with people identifying with his plain folks aura and seeing Kerry as an aristocratic intellectual.
Of course, the country remains deeply divided but it appears that rightwing conservativism has triumphed. It's no real mystery how this happened with an effective rightwing propaganda apparatus going 24/7 with Fox TV (and its NBC softcore versions), ubiquitous talk radio, a global Murdoch press and media apparatus, and a powerful rightful Internet presence supported by rightwing think tanks, book publishers, and peridocials. Such a rightwing apparatus has obviously overpowered segments of the US public that are pawns of rightwing propaganda.
There are, of course, many enlightened and informed Americans but we appear in the minority. Until we strengthen our alternative media, produce more compelling culture, and offer powerful political visions while constructing a progressive movement we are doomed to marginality and watch the barbarians destroy the country and ravage the world. This ain't a happy day.
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Living Poor, Voting Rich
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washingtonpost.com: Bush Expected to Declare Victory Today
The Thug in Chief plays to call Victory for Himself; once again, there should be no real recognition of the criminal regime which play now have stolen it twice; this will, of course, be a first in US history: two coup e'tats in a row
washingtonpost.com: Bush Expected to Declare Victory Today
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The Ohio Story by the The Associated Press
The Ohio Story as told by AP is a story of uncounted ballots
The Associated Press
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OfficialWire: Congratulations, Mr. President!
For the last several days Greg Palast has been writing of fixed computers and reporting on BBC and makes the claim again this morning; will federal Govt investigate this? or there any international bodies that could investigate this. We have become worse than a Banana Republic as we devolve into high-tech fascism
OfficialWire: Congratulations, Mr. President!
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Yahoo! News - Bush Closes in on Win As Kerry Aides Meet
still a stalemate for the mainstream but leaning toward Bush; what will Kerry do? what should we do except be vigilant and ready to protest? [and see our voting system and media are sadly disfunctional? and large number of fellow citizens deeply irrational and manipulated by the rightwing media system of Fox TV, Talk Radio, wingnut Internet and whacked out books and print media
coordinated by a ruthless Republican attack apparatus
Yahoo! News - Bush Closes in on Win As Kerry Aides Meet
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Daily Kos ::LIARS! All exit polls matched results except OH and FL
Here's allegations of possible election fraud in Ohio and Florida based on discrepetency between exit polls and later counting; so far this hasn't gotten into the mainstream and points to the problems everyone feared about the reliability of the voting machines and THAT THEY CAN BE FIXED! the Repugs might have stolen another one... what a disaster.
Here's commentary posted on Diary at Daily Kos=
"LIARS! All exit polls matched results except OH and FL
by LondonYank
Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 09:34:38 GMT
It saddens me greatly to report that the voters in Florida and Ohio are staggeringly dishonest. They appear to have uniquely lied to the exit pollsters yesterday, unlike the honest citizens of every other state. This seems the only rational explanation for the very big discrepancy between (the original) exit poll results and the outcomes of their (reported) votes.
It is sad when the citizens of such fine states cannot be relied on to accurately report their votes. It is a good thing that Diebold is there to report their votes for them.
See below the fold for substantiation of the mismatch between exit polls and reported results courtesy of Requiem99 at DU."
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
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Tuesday, November 02, 2004
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washingtonpost.com: Schism of 2000 More Sharply Divides Voters
it's deja vu all over again:
in 2000, it looked like it was Gore from early election results and after Florida was called;
in 2004, it looked like Kerry after exit polls, Zogby call, electoral-vote.com for Kerry and other Internet sources;
in 2000, Florida was called for Bush and it looked like it was all over;
in 2004, it looked like Bush was on an election night victory roll as NBC called Ohio;
in 2000, Florida was called too close to call and election was suddenly hung up and we know what happened 36 days later;
in 2004, John Edwards just came out and said that Kerry was not going to concede Ohio and with provisional ballots still out, there may be a long wait;
and so once again its a hung election...
so far, I haven't read anything about suspected voting machine fixes but last time there were many statistical anomalies in Florida that suggested there was foul play in the election count but Dems never pushed this issue....
one suspects something might have been fixed somewhere and if so will Kerry fight it....
stay tuned...
washingtonpost.com: Schism of 2000 More Sharply Divides Voters
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Guardian | Websites predict Kerry win
yes, earlier today on the Internet it looked like a Kerry sweep and its has been a bizarre disconnect between watching the TV reports as I have been for the last hours and then seeing a very different picture on the web
Guardian | Websites predict Kerry win
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TAPPED
Since the positive exit polls that pointed to big Kerry momentum and Zogby's call for Kerry around 6:00 pm, its been a grim evening but here's a positive on Ohio that calls attention to the fact that provisional ballots have not yet been tabulated and they might tip strongly toward Kerry. It also looks like because of the latter we may not know the results until tomorrow or later. Here's from Tapped:
"LATE RETURNS. This is basically scuttlebutt, but here goes. I hear that John Kerry has run up huge numbers in Ohio that are not yet reflected in the count -- and that's why the Republicans are engaging in scorched-earth challenges at the eleventh hour. Florida looks worse for Kerry, but as far as I can tell the South Florida numbers are not reflected in the totals we're seeing on TV. Given early info on George W. Bush's poor returns among Hispanics, that might be crucial. We'll see.
Keep in mind, apropos of my earlier post, that the totals you see on TV do not include provisional votes -- and we don't know how many Democratic votes have been forced into the provisional rolls, as per the GOP strategy. Stay tuned. "TAPPED:
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LOOKING VERY GOOD FOR KERRY
Updated Late Afternoon Numbers
Mucho flattering to Kerry; plus Nader makes an appearance.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, at 4:28 PM PT
Florida
Kerry 51
Bush 49
Ohio
Kerry 51
Bush 49
Michigan
Kerry 52
Bush 46
Nader 1
Pennsylvania
Kerry 53
Bush 46
Iowa
Kerry 50
Bush 49
Wisconsin
Kerry 51
Bush 48
Nader 1
Minnesota
Kerry 52
Bush 46
Nader 2
New Hampshire
Kerry 54
Bush 44
Nader 1
New Mexico
Kerry 50
Bush 48
Nader 1
Colorado
Kerry 49
Bush 50
Nader 1
Arkansas
Kerry 45
Bush 54
Nader 1
Missouri
Kerry 47
Bush 52
New York
Kerry 62
Bush 36
Nader 2
Nevada
Kerry 49
Bush 48
Nader 1
New Jersey
Kerry 54
Bush 44
Nader 1
West Virginia
Kerry 45
Bush 54
Nader 1
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Early Exit--Kerry leads
Looking good so far but don't forget these are early exit polls
Early Exit
Kerry leads.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, at 2:49 PM PT
The first wave of exit-poll data reaching my desk comes from a variety of sources. In some states the sources disagree about the specific margin by which a candidate leads, but never about which candidate is out in front. Some of the confusion may stem from the mixing of morning exit-poll numbers with early afternoon numbers. With those provisos and the understanding that the early numbers are predictive of nothing without their accompanying computer model, here's what I've heard:
Florida
Kerry 50
Bush 49
Ohio
Kerry 50
Bush 49
Pennsylvania
Kerry 54
Bush 45
Wisconsin
Kerry 51
Bush 46
Michigan
Kerry 51
Bush 47
Minnesota
Kerry 58
Bush 40
Nevada
Kerry 48
Bush 50
New Mexico
Kerry 50
Bush 48
North Carolina
Kerry 49
Bush 51
Colorado
Kerry 46
Bush 53
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Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Stuck in the middle
It turns out that the best analysis I've read of the current divided America is by William Fulbright, a courgeous southern Senator who opposed the Vietnam war. Excerpt:
"Almost four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, the great liberal, Senator J William Fulbright, captured more eloquently than any recent commentary what is a stake in today's US presidential election. There were, he said, two Americas: "One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good humoured, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power."
Which of these two Americas prevails today is a question of huge significance for us all. It can be seen in the intensity of interest across the globe and in the large numbers of Americans who say this is the most important election of their lifetime. The outcome will determine whether America reaches out to the world in a spirit of partnership or continues with its posture of sullen rejectionism. It will determine whether this misdirected war on terror continues to escalate into a clash of civilisations that puts us all in greater danger, or can be turned into an effective campaign to address the political causes of terrorism.
It will also determine the course of American politics for a generation. With up to four supreme court judges likely to be replaced in the next four years, the occupant of the White House will be in a unique position to influence the direction of American constitutional law. A Bush victory would enable him to entrench his harsh, moralistic conservatism in ways that would be impossible to reverse for many years. A Kerry presidency would have less room for manoeuvre, but might at least stop the rot that has seen American liberalism in almost continuous retreat since the 1960s. This is a battle for America's political soul.
Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Stuck in the middle
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The New York Times > Op-Ed Columnist: Faith in America
it has been touching seeing long lines of early voters in Florida, standing in the sun for hours to vote; the armies of young militants for Kerry and the progressive organizations supporting him to get out the vote, and the patience and determination of people putting up with delays and harassment to vote-- hopefully against Bush. Bush is clearly the issue of the election and voting him out is the mandate
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Faith in America
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Monday, November 01, 2004
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The New Yorker--THE CHOICE
for the first time ever, the New Yorker endorses a presidential candidate and not surprisingly its KERRY
The New Yorker
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The New Yorker--THE CHOICE
for the first time ever, the New Yorker endorses a presidential candidate and not surprisingly its KERRY
The New Yorker
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AlterNet: Election 2004: Getting Physical
will it get physical tomorrow as the Ground War comes to its (provisional?!) end? or will a deadlock be the scene of intense physicality? both sides are psyched and angry
AlterNet: Election 2004: Getting Physical
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