Wednesday, September 29, 2004
[Dreaded?] Election Draws Near:
The struggle: coming to terms with a country that may elect a deceitful group that has so grievously harmed the country. And, democracy continues its retreat.
The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.
The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html
Jimmy Carter warned that Florida is no less corrupt than in 2000. Foreign observers agree.
Palm Beach isn't the only place in Florida where crazy things have happened. Officials up and down the state have behaved like drunks caught out on one bender too many. They have talked the talk of reform quite convincingly, and even lavished considerable expense on covering up their past lapses. But the bottom line is that the voting machines still don't work, political corruption and underhand campaign tactics remain rampant, and too many black and lower-income voters face daunting, often insurmountable obstacles in exercising their voting rights.
In a state that promises to be every bit as pivotal as it was last time, this is deeply worrying. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566688
And in Ohio, folks there know that fraud isn’t limited to the Sunshine State.
Voters-rights advocates are criticizing two recent decisions by Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell that they say will unfairly limit some people's ability to vote Nov. 2. Blackwell's office has told county boards of elections to follow strictly two provisions in Ohio election law: • One requires Ohio voter registration cards be printed on thick, 80-pound stock paper. • The other ordered boards to strictly interpret the rules regarding provisional ballots, the ones cast by voters who move before the election but are still registered in Ohio. The paper-stock issue is frustrating Montgomery County Board of Elections officials, who have a backlog of registrations to complete. If they get an Ohio voter registration card on paper thinner than required, they are mailing a new card out to the voter. But if they still have the backlog by the registration deadline, Oct. 4, voters will not have another chance to get their correct paperwork in, said Steve Harsman, deputy director of the Montgomery County board. In Montgomery County there is a backlog of around 4,000 registrations, Harsman said. A few hundred could be affected by this provision, he said.
www.kaytonforkerry.com via the Dayton daily news
Yet, most of the media keep pretending that Jeb is just another governor, that “It” can’t happen here…again.
And, of course: Dumbed Down Public + Republican repetition = Trouble
Bush's relentless attacks on Kerry have badly damaged the Democratic nominee, the survey and interviews showed. Voters routinely describe Kerry as wishy-washy, as a flip-flopper and as a candidate they are not sure they can trust, almost as if they are reading from Bush campaign ad scripts. But Kerry's problems are also partly of his own making. Despite repeated efforts to flesh out his proposals on Iraq, terrorism and other issues, he has yet to break through to undecided voters as someone who has clear plans for fixing the country's biggest problems. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54435-2004Sep27?language=printer
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Handful of Terrorists: The Times and the Post make it clear:
Over the past 30 days, more than 2,300 attacks by insurgents have been directed against civilians and military targets in Iraq, in a pattern that sprawls over nearly every major population center outside the Kurdish north, according to comprehensive data compiled by a private security company with access to military intelligence reports and its own network of Iraqi informants.
The sweeping geographical reach of the attacks, from Nineveh and Salahuddin Provinces in the northwest to Babylon and Diyala in the center and Basra in the south, suggests a more widespread resistance than the isolated pockets described by Iraqi government officials. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/international/middleeast/29attacks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.
While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58183-2004Sep28.html
Cheney et al knew the invasion would be messy
The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/28intel.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Powell Admits Iraqi Truths
Secretary of State Colin Powell sees the situation in Iraq "getting worse" as planned elections approach, and the top U.S. military commander for Iraq says he expects more violence ahead.Their comments yesterday came after a week in which President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi optimistically spoke about the situation despite the beheadings of two more Americans and the deaths of dozens of people in car bombings.In its latest report, the military said four Marines died Friday in separate incidents, adding to a toll that has topped 1,000 since the U.S.-led invasion.Powell said the insurgency is only becoming more violent as planned January elections near."It's getting worse," he said on ABC's "This Week." "They are determined to disrupt the election. They do not want the Iraqi people to vote for their own leaders in a free, democratic election. http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Sep/20040927News011.asp
Still More Confirmation that Saddam was no threat, had no “smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud”.
A new book, The Bomb in My Garden, a memoir written by “Saddam’s bomb-maker”, Mahdi Obeidi, details that Saddam not only had no nuke program after 1991, but that he could not have had one, as all the advanced technologies required could only be secured from foreign sources. In view of the embargo, the spy flights, the bombing, etc., it wasn’t gonna happen, and he made no concerted effort to attain... regardless of claims to the contrary by the Bushies.
Stunning (Tuesday) News Shorts:
*[Eric Lichtblau], NY Times: "More than 120,000 hours of terrorism-related recordings have not been translated by the F.B.I., and computer problems may have erased some Al Qaeda recordings."…. Unreal.
*The WaPost on strategic defense: "What the Bush administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a missile defense system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work. "
What’s Happening, Turkey: Just keeping tabs…
Four bombs that went off simultaneously in separate Turkish cities targeting British and US interests caused material damage and left one man slightly injured, Anatolia news agency reported.
Three branches of the British-based banking giant HSBC were targeted. The bank's Turkish headquarters -- as well as two synagogues and the British Consulate -- was hit in suicide bomb attacks last year in Istanbul that killed 61 people. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040928/1/3nf9r.html
What’s Happening, Korea: Postscript (to no policy)
Minister: N. Korea Has Nuclear Deterrent
North Korea says it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats and to prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia. Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula ``is snowballing,'' Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon provided details Monday of the nuclear deterrent that he said North Korea has developed for self-defense. He told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had ``no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent'' because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to ``eliminate'' North Korea and make it ``a target of preemptive nuclear strikes.'' ``Our deterrent is, in all its intents and purposes, the self-defensive means to cope with the ever increasing U.S. nuclear threats and further, prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia,'' he told a news conference after his speech. http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20040928%2F0515512476.htm&sc=1104&flok=NW_5-L2&floc=NW_1-T
“Debate”- Again, there’s no reason for Kerry to avoid the truths. He’s gotta say the strong stuff in the first 20 minutes before the public starts tuning out. Perhaps Kerry could note the catastrophic intelligence failures, the lies that led to a catastrophic invasion, the federal offense of outing a CIA agent, the lies the budget team told to Congress about the Medicare bill’s cost…and that no one was held responsible.
-R
The struggle: coming to terms with a country that may elect a deceitful group that has so grievously harmed the country. And, democracy continues its retreat.
The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.
The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html
Jimmy Carter warned that Florida is no less corrupt than in 2000. Foreign observers agree.
Palm Beach isn't the only place in Florida where crazy things have happened. Officials up and down the state have behaved like drunks caught out on one bender too many. They have talked the talk of reform quite convincingly, and even lavished considerable expense on covering up their past lapses. But the bottom line is that the voting machines still don't work, political corruption and underhand campaign tactics remain rampant, and too many black and lower-income voters face daunting, often insurmountable obstacles in exercising their voting rights.
In a state that promises to be every bit as pivotal as it was last time, this is deeply worrying. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566688
And in Ohio, folks there know that fraud isn’t limited to the Sunshine State.
Voters-rights advocates are criticizing two recent decisions by Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell that they say will unfairly limit some people's ability to vote Nov. 2. Blackwell's office has told county boards of elections to follow strictly two provisions in Ohio election law: • One requires Ohio voter registration cards be printed on thick, 80-pound stock paper. • The other ordered boards to strictly interpret the rules regarding provisional ballots, the ones cast by voters who move before the election but are still registered in Ohio. The paper-stock issue is frustrating Montgomery County Board of Elections officials, who have a backlog of registrations to complete. If they get an Ohio voter registration card on paper thinner than required, they are mailing a new card out to the voter. But if they still have the backlog by the registration deadline, Oct. 4, voters will not have another chance to get their correct paperwork in, said Steve Harsman, deputy director of the Montgomery County board. In Montgomery County there is a backlog of around 4,000 registrations, Harsman said. A few hundred could be affected by this provision, he said.
www.kaytonforkerry.com via the Dayton daily news
Yet, most of the media keep pretending that Jeb is just another governor, that “It” can’t happen here…again.
And, of course: Dumbed Down Public + Republican repetition = Trouble
Bush's relentless attacks on Kerry have badly damaged the Democratic nominee, the survey and interviews showed. Voters routinely describe Kerry as wishy-washy, as a flip-flopper and as a candidate they are not sure they can trust, almost as if they are reading from Bush campaign ad scripts. But Kerry's problems are also partly of his own making. Despite repeated efforts to flesh out his proposals on Iraq, terrorism and other issues, he has yet to break through to undecided voters as someone who has clear plans for fixing the country's biggest problems. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54435-2004Sep27?language=printer
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Handful of Terrorists: The Times and the Post make it clear:
Over the past 30 days, more than 2,300 attacks by insurgents have been directed against civilians and military targets in Iraq, in a pattern that sprawls over nearly every major population center outside the Kurdish north, according to comprehensive data compiled by a private security company with access to military intelligence reports and its own network of Iraqi informants.
The sweeping geographical reach of the attacks, from Nineveh and Salahuddin Provinces in the northwest to Babylon and Diyala in the center and Basra in the south, suggests a more widespread resistance than the isolated pockets described by Iraqi government officials. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/international/middleeast/29attacks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.
While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58183-2004Sep28.html
Cheney et al knew the invasion would be messy
The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/28intel.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Powell Admits Iraqi Truths
Secretary of State Colin Powell sees the situation in Iraq "getting worse" as planned elections approach, and the top U.S. military commander for Iraq says he expects more violence ahead.Their comments yesterday came after a week in which President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi optimistically spoke about the situation despite the beheadings of two more Americans and the deaths of dozens of people in car bombings.In its latest report, the military said four Marines died Friday in separate incidents, adding to a toll that has topped 1,000 since the U.S.-led invasion.Powell said the insurgency is only becoming more violent as planned January elections near."It's getting worse," he said on ABC's "This Week." "They are determined to disrupt the election. They do not want the Iraqi people to vote for their own leaders in a free, democratic election. http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Sep/20040927News011.asp
Still More Confirmation that Saddam was no threat, had no “smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud”.
A new book, The Bomb in My Garden, a memoir written by “Saddam’s bomb-maker”, Mahdi Obeidi, details that Saddam not only had no nuke program after 1991, but that he could not have had one, as all the advanced technologies required could only be secured from foreign sources. In view of the embargo, the spy flights, the bombing, etc., it wasn’t gonna happen, and he made no concerted effort to attain... regardless of claims to the contrary by the Bushies.
Stunning (Tuesday) News Shorts:
*[Eric Lichtblau], NY Times: "More than 120,000 hours of terrorism-related recordings have not been translated by the F.B.I., and computer problems may have erased some Al Qaeda recordings."…. Unreal.
*The WaPost on strategic defense: "What the Bush administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a missile defense system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work. "
What’s Happening, Turkey: Just keeping tabs…
Four bombs that went off simultaneously in separate Turkish cities targeting British and US interests caused material damage and left one man slightly injured, Anatolia news agency reported.
Three branches of the British-based banking giant HSBC were targeted. The bank's Turkish headquarters -- as well as two synagogues and the British Consulate -- was hit in suicide bomb attacks last year in Istanbul that killed 61 people. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040928/1/3nf9r.html
What’s Happening, Korea: Postscript (to no policy)
Minister: N. Korea Has Nuclear Deterrent
North Korea says it has turned the plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats and to prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia. Warning that the danger of war on the Korean peninsula ``is snowballing,'' Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon provided details Monday of the nuclear deterrent that he said North Korea has developed for self-defense. He told the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting that Pyongyang had ``no other option but to possess a nuclear deterrent'' because of U.S. policies that he claimed were designed to ``eliminate'' North Korea and make it ``a target of preemptive nuclear strikes.'' ``Our deterrent is, in all its intents and purposes, the self-defensive means to cope with the ever increasing U.S. nuclear threats and further, prevent a nuclear war in northeast Asia,'' he told a news conference after his speech. http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20040928%2F0515512476.htm&sc=1104&flok=NW_5-L2&floc=NW_1-T
“Debate”- Again, there’s no reason for Kerry to avoid the truths. He’s gotta say the strong stuff in the first 20 minutes before the public starts tuning out. Perhaps Kerry could note the catastrophic intelligence failures, the lies that led to a catastrophic invasion, the federal offense of outing a CIA agent, the lies the budget team told to Congress about the Medicare bill’s cost…and that no one was held responsible.
-R
