Sunday, November 07, 2004
Opposing Karl Rove: His master plan remains in place, well captured in the Globe Sunday piece by James C. Moore, one of the authors of Bush’s Brain:
The marketplace of ideas is no different than the marketplace of products. If a product is not properly branded when it is launched, the consumers will brand if for the manufacturer. And few products ever get out from under an image stuck on them by consumers. Consequently, Coke did not become "the real thing" by accident. Senator Kerry the product did not have a reputation as a "flip-flopper," either, until he entered into the presidential "market." Before Kerry had figured out how he wanted to sell himself to the public, or what his messages were, Rove had attacked the foundational strengths of the senator's candidacy. The man who had been tested in combat and whose character was tempered by war was painted as a politician so craven that he embellished his service record to get medals he did not earn. Never mind that the Department of the Navy had sworn affidavits testifying to their commander's courage from men who were at Kerry's side as the bullets were flying.
Under Rove's tutelage, such lying has become an acceptable political tool for Republicans. Unfortunately, Senator Kerry got bad advice and ignored the guns of August aimed at him by Swift Boat deceivers. The wound left Kerry staggering and cost him, at a minimum, the 100,000-plus vote margin in Ohio. The president, however, was packaged, branded, and marketed so effectively by Rove that his image as a spiritual man dedicated to protecting us from evil seemingly overwhelmed the disaster that is the Iraqi conflict and our quickly devolving economy.
Privately, Rove has not yet declared victory. Just as he views Iraq as a solitary battle in the wider war on terrorism, Rove sees the president's reelection as only another step to the fruition of his dream of a one-party America. Trial lawyers, whose financial support has sustained the Democratic Party's whimpering vitality, will come under further attack in Congress. Labor unions, the other source of Democratic strength, also need to gird for Rove's armies of the right. Eventually, he will attain his goal of a Democratic Party too weak to compete and a government turned into a vestigial organ, too monetarily listless to help the poor or regulate business because every scarce tax dollar is servicing a monstrous federal deficit. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/07/how_karl_rove_won_the_election_for_bush?mode=PF
Facts to Consider:
* Bush Mandate: They talk of their “broad nation-wide victory”, but won a narrow victory and only emphasized- and mobilized around- gay marriage and ‘traditional values’. Voters did not endorse changing the tax code and social security.
* There is a great divide: A fine letter to the editor addresses this:
I am having trouble understanding just how Democratic leaders should go about reaching out to the white evangelical Christians in America's heartland. What is the common ground?
John Kerry had no problems talking about his faith and religious upbringing, and he invoked these themes often. He was not rejected by these voters because he had no faith, but because he could not share their "values." He does not believe that abortion should be outlawed, that gays are an abomination, that the environment should be trampled upon and gun control should be taken off the national agenda.
I see no way to bridge this divide.
Rachel LeibmanMontclair, N.J., Nov. 3, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/opinion/l06kristof.html
*Tough Times To Come? The Iraq tragedy may further weaken the Administration, their financial house-of-cards may trigger a bona fide financial collapse. However, not only can’t we root for such, we can assume that their control of all levels of government and the media and their secrecy will spin and hide the potency such events so as to minimize damage. Too many are banking on the Right “overreaching” and self-destructing. Don’t count on it.
* Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who worked for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, notes that a startling turnaround among the electorate has occurred- the more educated voters were in 2004, the more often they voted Democratic, while the less educated (white) voters went strongly for Bush. Republicans, he notes, are now the party of the working class.
* The Democrats: Their candidate was again hamstrung; their will to win, their doing everything necessary, was lacking. They will continue to talk Edwards, hopefully forget about Hillary, and pathetically push Obama forward, though he hasn’t yet served a day. Others- Senators Chris Dodd, Jon Corzine, Chuck Schumer- are thinking of leaving their national posts.
What the story leaves out (at least in tone) is how ambitious all three men are, and how each one was strongly considering a run even before the election results were known.
All would have a very strong shot at winning... and capturing statehouses (where redistricting power resides) is the slow but surest way out of the wilderness for Democrats. In addition, in these states, being replaced by Dem senators is a distinct possibility, even a likelihood (but not a lock).
Right now, NY and CT have Republican governors while NJ is simply a mess. We could do worse, even if it's their own reasons that drive them (this is politics, after all). http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/nyregion/06dodd.html?hp&ex=1099803600&en=5f117c6c02ad5429&ei=5094&partner=homepage
* The Right Works Harder. It was heartening to see so many get active this Fall. However, the more politicized Right works at it 4 years out of 4, not just for part of the presidential election year. Richard Viguerie, the champ fundraiser for the Right notes that
Every day I get up thinking what four, five, six, things can do today to advance the conservative agenda? We've been doing that for decades, and the left hasn't done that. The left has been thinking of it as a sprint, election from election. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript344_full_print.html
*Grover Norquist, leading ideologue of the Right- we need to know where he’s at:
"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such."
So, what to do: One view: Nick Kristof: I’m not a fan
What do the Democrats need to do? Here are four suggestions:
• Don't be afraid of religion. Offer government support for faith-based programs to aid the homeless, prisoners and AIDS victims. And argue theology with Republicans: there's much more biblical ammunition to support liberals than conservatives.
• Pick battles of substance, not symbolism. The battle over Georgia's Confederate flag cost Roy Barnes his governorship and perhaps Max Cleland his Senate seat, but didn't help one working mother or jobless worker. It was a gift to Republicans.
• Accept that today, gun control is a nonstarter. Instead of trying to curb guns, try to reduce gun deaths through better rules on licensing and storage, and on safety devices like trigger locks.
• Hold your nose and work with President Bush as much as you can because it's lethal to be portrayed as obstructionists. Sure, block another Clarence Thomas, but here's a rule of thumb: if an otherwise qualified Supreme Court nominee would turn the clock back 10 years, approve; back 25 years, vote no; back a half-century, filibuster.
"The first thing we have to do is shake the image of us as the obstructionist party," notes Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who manages to thrive as a Democrat in the red sea. He says Democrats must show a willingness to compromise, to get things done, to defer to local sensibilities. "We have to show the American people," he says, "that Democrats aren't going to take away your guns, aren't going to take away your flags." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/opinion/06kristof.html
Fighting Back: Not the first entry about this, not the last; indeed, an ongoing, developing project. For now:
We can learn from Thomas Frank, who points out that the Right runs on “values”, then serves the business interests. Frank points out, but leaves to us to develop, the alternative platform of progressive populism. Many of us are noting that our “value”-laden issues include opposing pre-emptive war, socioeconomic injustice, racism, unemployment, denial of free access to health care, the death penalty, fiscal irresponsibility and the desecration of the environment.
Our opposition must be stronger, better organized, and it must fight back against the Right’s control of the Media. We must build and support structures / institutions to Combat the Right. [I’m not talking about the Democratic Party. Those wanting to work on that must fight the attempts to move rightward.] Here, I urge support for think tanks such as The Center for American Progress; for Media Matters, which monitors and debunks the lies of the Right media people such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity; Air America Radio which provides a morale-boosting home for progressive radio. I’m not shy of mentioning FITE- Fairness in Taxes for Everyone- which has developed a Talk Radio Initiative aimed at challenging the Right’s dominance of Talk Radio.
Links: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/c.biJRJ8OVF/b.8473/
http://www.mediamatters.org/
http://www.airamericaradio.com/
http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/
Environment: The ‘environmental lawyer-advocate’ Robert Kennedy Jr. talks movingly of his traveling the country- principally to “Red” states- where his talks are received with great enthusiasm. A critical issue, habitually relegated to second tier status.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Missing missiles
American intelligence agencies have tripled their formal estimate of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems believed to be at large worldwide, since determining that at least 4,000 of the weapons in Iraq's prewar arsenals cannot be accounted for, government officials said Friday.
A new government estimate says a total of 6,000 of the weapons may be outside the control of any government, up from a previous estimate of 2,000, American officials said.
The officials said they did not know whether missiles from Iraq remain there or have been smuggled into other countries, though a senior administration official said Friday that "there is no evidence that they have left the country.''
It was unclear whether Iraqi military or intelligence personnel removed the missile systems during the initial invasion of Iraq or whether they disappeared from warehouses after major combat ended.
Shoulder-fired missiles - which are small, lethal and easy to use - are attractive weapons for terrorists. In recent months, Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies have repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda intends to use them to shoot down. planes.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/politics/06weapons.html?ex=1100750909&ei=1&en=53d929b500bc7dd9
And the headline: Details are unnecessary.
52 Killed In Spate Of Attacks In Iraq
U.S. Forces, Insurgents Gird for Fallujah Battle http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30508-2004Nov6.html
Oh, and a "state of emergency” was declared, ostensibly tied to the upcoming assault on Fallujah. UN figures, foreign diplomats have warned that such an attack will only solidify the insurgency
Our President is a Liar; How Do We Integrate That?
I’ve long been musing about how our country is struggling with the notion that its president chronically lies, even about war, but since that it’s intolerable, so We deny. In other words, we’re psychically damaged; we’re a very unhealthy society. So, I was “glad” that Greg Thielman, addressed this on Moyers’ NOW on October 29, and have talked about it with great frequency. [Thielman was a foreign service official for 25 years and most recently part of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and research who had led a team of analysts in evaluating the intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq.] The key grafs:
One has to give the President a little bit of running room and a little bit of slack in taking the information as far as the intelligence community can provide. And then going a little bit beyond that.
So I'm sympathetic to all of that. What I'm not sympathetic to is distorting information so completely that in the end, the public gets exactly the opposite understanding of a situation than you believe to be the case.
But I also understand that there is a psychological element here for the American people, a desire to believe the President of the United States.
The realization that the President of the United States would distort — would knowingly distort issues or even negligently misinform them on issues that will result in the death of America's sons and daughters is so monstrous, that most good and decent and patriotic Americans can't believe that. They don't want to believe that. That's just too awful to contemplate, that the President would do that to them. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript344_full_print.html
Political Action: Contacting PBS One amongst many. Moyers will be missed. (He leaves in December).
Withhold or curtail your annual contribution to your local PBS affiliate. PBS cut Bill Moyer’s “Now” in half in order to accommodate a show featuring the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Do explain your action.
The Fraud Issue: Must give it its due. The Republicans have so institutionalized their voter suppression and other tactics that “we” have accepted their activity as part of the equation. Not good.
I am writing this because the media is inexplicably whitewashing what happened in Ohio, and Kerry's concession was likewise inexplicable. Hundreds of thousands of people were disenfranchised in Ohio.
People waited on line for as long as 10 hours. It appears to have only happened in Democratic-leaning precincts, principally (a) precincts where many African Americans lived, and (b) precincts near colleges. I spoke to a young man who got on line at 11:30 am and voted at 7 pm. When he left at 7 pm, the line was about 150 voters longer than when he'd arrived, which meant those people were going to wait even longer. In fact they waited for as much as 10 hours, and their voting was concluded at about 3 am. The reason this occurred was that they had 1 voting station per 1000 voters, while the adjacent precinct had 1 voting station per 184. Both precincts were within the same county, and managed by the same county board of elections. The difference between them is that the privileged polling place was in a rural, solidly Republican, area, while the one with long lines was in the college town of Gambier, OH.
Lines of 4 and 5 hours were the order of the day in many African-American neighborhoods.
Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
Countless other frauds occurred, such as postcards advising people of incorrect polling places, registered Democrats not receiving absentee ballots, duly registered young voters being forced to file provisional ballots even though their names and signatures appeared in the voting rolls, longtime active voting registered voters being told they weren't registered, bad faith challenges by Republican "challengers" in Democratic precincts, and on and on and on.
I was very proud of the way so many Ohioans fought so valiantly for their right to vote, and would not be turned away. Many, however, could not spend the entire day and were afraid of losing their jobs, due to the severe economic depression hitting Ohio.
I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to be counted.
Ray BeckermanBeldock Levine & Hoffman LLP99 Park Ave (Ste 1600)New York, NY 10016 http://www.spectrumz.com/z/fair_use/2004/11_04.html
And, from Robert Parry:
But the most perplexing fact is that exit polls into the evening of Nov. 2 showed Kerry rolling to a clear victory nationally and carrying most of the battleground states, including Florida and Ohio, whose totals would have ensured Kerry’s victory in the Electoral College.
Significantly, polls also showed Republicans carrying the bulk of the tight Senate races. However, when the official results were tallied, the presidential exit polls proved wrong while the Senate polls proved right.
Explanations from the architects of the exit-poll sampling system also sound specious. Their report said Kerry voters were simply more willing than Bush voters to answer the exit pollsters’ questions. But this “chattiness thesis” seems more like a post-facto excuse than a serious argument.
Another explanation from some pundits was that the exit polls were adjusted by late in the day to rectify pro-Kerry exaggerations from the earlier samples. But that is not what happened. As the New York Times reported, “The presumption of a Kerry victory built a head of steam late in the day, when the national survey showed the senator with a statistically significant lead, one falling outside the survey’s margin of error.” http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110604.html
Exit Polls and the Machines: Do we need an audit. Sure. Will we get one? Check the differential between the exit poll and what the machines produced. http://bestoftheblogs.com/exit.html
That Bulge on Bush’s back: (FAIR) Case closed?
Five days before the presidential election, the New York Times killed a story about the mysterious object George W. Bush wore on his back during the presidential debates, journalist Dave Lindorff reveals in an exclusive report on this week's CounterSpin, FAIR's weekly radio show. The spiked story included compelling photographic and scientific evidence that would have contradicted Bush's claim that the bulge on his back was just a matter of poor tailoring.
"The New York Times assigned three editors to this story and had it scheduled to run five days before the election, which would have raised questions about the president's integrity," said Lindorff. "But it was killed by top editors at the Times; clearly they were chickening out of taking this on before the election." http://www.fair.org/press-releases/bush-bulge.html
Other News:
Airlines in Trouble: Delta, United, Northwest
Three of the nation's largest airlines announced steep cost and job cuts yesterday in an effort to return to profitability and better position themselves for long-term survival.
UAL Corp., parent of United Airlines, asked a bankruptcy court judge yesterday to approve an additional $2 billion in cuts from its operations. The airline is seeking to modify its existing labor contracts to slash $725 million annually in worker pay and benefits. It also wants to eliminate its four employee pension plans. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29599-2004Nov5.html
Economy in Trouble (?) Not to cry wolf, but…
The dollar could slide still further, in spite of hitting an all-time low against the euro last week in the wake of George W. Bush's re-election, currency traders have said.
The dollar sell-off has resumed amid fears among traders that Mr Bush's victory will bring four more years of widening US budget and current account deficits, heightened geopolitical risks and a policy of "benign neglect" of the dollar.
India and Russia have reportedly been selling US assets, as well as petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern investors.
China, which has $515bn of reserves, was also said to be selling dollars and buying Asian currencies in readiness to switch the renminbi's dollar peg to a basket arrangement, something Chinese officials have increasingly hinted at. Any re-allocation could push the dollar sharply lower and Treasury yields markedly higher. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/257979a6-30f4-11d9-a595-00000e2511c8.html
Control Room Epilogue: Josh Rushing
The 32 year old Texas marine captain was the spokesperson for the military in the documentary about al Jazerra is out of the military. He left the military “in frustration and disappointment” when he was silenced after his comments in the film and in the Village Voice about the horrors of the war. He is without a job or direction, but hopes to stay involved in the media, and “is looking for an organization I can believe in.” http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=30-Oct-2004
Blair Pushes Middle East initiative. He’s trying to revive his political fortunes, and correctly prioritizes the issue.
Tony Blair will fly to Washington this week to launch a new Middle East peace initiative alongside George Bush, in a bid to show he can reap the rewards of the special relationship.
The trip is a high risk one, since the Prime Minister's popularity at home drops every time he is pictured alongside the President. Wary of public opinion, he will not be collecting the controversial Congressional Medal of Honor he was awarded for his staunch support for the war on terror. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5057197-103552,00.html
-R
The marketplace of ideas is no different than the marketplace of products. If a product is not properly branded when it is launched, the consumers will brand if for the manufacturer. And few products ever get out from under an image stuck on them by consumers. Consequently, Coke did not become "the real thing" by accident. Senator Kerry the product did not have a reputation as a "flip-flopper," either, until he entered into the presidential "market." Before Kerry had figured out how he wanted to sell himself to the public, or what his messages were, Rove had attacked the foundational strengths of the senator's candidacy. The man who had been tested in combat and whose character was tempered by war was painted as a politician so craven that he embellished his service record to get medals he did not earn. Never mind that the Department of the Navy had sworn affidavits testifying to their commander's courage from men who were at Kerry's side as the bullets were flying.
Under Rove's tutelage, such lying has become an acceptable political tool for Republicans. Unfortunately, Senator Kerry got bad advice and ignored the guns of August aimed at him by Swift Boat deceivers. The wound left Kerry staggering and cost him, at a minimum, the 100,000-plus vote margin in Ohio. The president, however, was packaged, branded, and marketed so effectively by Rove that his image as a spiritual man dedicated to protecting us from evil seemingly overwhelmed the disaster that is the Iraqi conflict and our quickly devolving economy.
Privately, Rove has not yet declared victory. Just as he views Iraq as a solitary battle in the wider war on terrorism, Rove sees the president's reelection as only another step to the fruition of his dream of a one-party America. Trial lawyers, whose financial support has sustained the Democratic Party's whimpering vitality, will come under further attack in Congress. Labor unions, the other source of Democratic strength, also need to gird for Rove's armies of the right. Eventually, he will attain his goal of a Democratic Party too weak to compete and a government turned into a vestigial organ, too monetarily listless to help the poor or regulate business because every scarce tax dollar is servicing a monstrous federal deficit. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/07/how_karl_rove_won_the_election_for_bush?mode=PF
Facts to Consider:
* Bush Mandate: They talk of their “broad nation-wide victory”, but won a narrow victory and only emphasized- and mobilized around- gay marriage and ‘traditional values’. Voters did not endorse changing the tax code and social security.
* There is a great divide: A fine letter to the editor addresses this:
I am having trouble understanding just how Democratic leaders should go about reaching out to the white evangelical Christians in America's heartland. What is the common ground?
John Kerry had no problems talking about his faith and religious upbringing, and he invoked these themes often. He was not rejected by these voters because he had no faith, but because he could not share their "values." He does not believe that abortion should be outlawed, that gays are an abomination, that the environment should be trampled upon and gun control should be taken off the national agenda.
I see no way to bridge this divide.
Rachel LeibmanMontclair, N.J., Nov. 3, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/opinion/l06kristof.html
*Tough Times To Come? The Iraq tragedy may further weaken the Administration, their financial house-of-cards may trigger a bona fide financial collapse. However, not only can’t we root for such, we can assume that their control of all levels of government and the media and their secrecy will spin and hide the potency such events so as to minimize damage. Too many are banking on the Right “overreaching” and self-destructing. Don’t count on it.
* Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who worked for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, notes that a startling turnaround among the electorate has occurred- the more educated voters were in 2004, the more often they voted Democratic, while the less educated (white) voters went strongly for Bush. Republicans, he notes, are now the party of the working class.
* The Democrats: Their candidate was again hamstrung; their will to win, their doing everything necessary, was lacking. They will continue to talk Edwards, hopefully forget about Hillary, and pathetically push Obama forward, though he hasn’t yet served a day. Others- Senators Chris Dodd, Jon Corzine, Chuck Schumer- are thinking of leaving their national posts.
What the story leaves out (at least in tone) is how ambitious all three men are, and how each one was strongly considering a run even before the election results were known.
All would have a very strong shot at winning... and capturing statehouses (where redistricting power resides) is the slow but surest way out of the wilderness for Democrats. In addition, in these states, being replaced by Dem senators is a distinct possibility, even a likelihood (but not a lock).
Right now, NY and CT have Republican governors while NJ is simply a mess. We could do worse, even if it's their own reasons that drive them (this is politics, after all). http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/nyregion/06dodd.html?hp&ex=1099803600&en=5f117c6c02ad5429&ei=5094&partner=homepage
* The Right Works Harder. It was heartening to see so many get active this Fall. However, the more politicized Right works at it 4 years out of 4, not just for part of the presidential election year. Richard Viguerie, the champ fundraiser for the Right notes that
Every day I get up thinking what four, five, six, things can do today to advance the conservative agenda? We've been doing that for decades, and the left hasn't done that. The left has been thinking of it as a sprint, election from election. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript344_full_print.html
*Grover Norquist, leading ideologue of the Right- we need to know where he’s at:
"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such."
So, what to do: One view: Nick Kristof: I’m not a fan
What do the Democrats need to do? Here are four suggestions:
• Don't be afraid of religion. Offer government support for faith-based programs to aid the homeless, prisoners and AIDS victims. And argue theology with Republicans: there's much more biblical ammunition to support liberals than conservatives.
• Pick battles of substance, not symbolism. The battle over Georgia's Confederate flag cost Roy Barnes his governorship and perhaps Max Cleland his Senate seat, but didn't help one working mother or jobless worker. It was a gift to Republicans.
• Accept that today, gun control is a nonstarter. Instead of trying to curb guns, try to reduce gun deaths through better rules on licensing and storage, and on safety devices like trigger locks.
• Hold your nose and work with President Bush as much as you can because it's lethal to be portrayed as obstructionists. Sure, block another Clarence Thomas, but here's a rule of thumb: if an otherwise qualified Supreme Court nominee would turn the clock back 10 years, approve; back 25 years, vote no; back a half-century, filibuster.
"The first thing we have to do is shake the image of us as the obstructionist party," notes Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who manages to thrive as a Democrat in the red sea. He says Democrats must show a willingness to compromise, to get things done, to defer to local sensibilities. "We have to show the American people," he says, "that Democrats aren't going to take away your guns, aren't going to take away your flags." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/opinion/06kristof.html
Fighting Back: Not the first entry about this, not the last; indeed, an ongoing, developing project. For now:
We can learn from Thomas Frank, who points out that the Right runs on “values”, then serves the business interests. Frank points out, but leaves to us to develop, the alternative platform of progressive populism. Many of us are noting that our “value”-laden issues include opposing pre-emptive war, socioeconomic injustice, racism, unemployment, denial of free access to health care, the death penalty, fiscal irresponsibility and the desecration of the environment.
Our opposition must be stronger, better organized, and it must fight back against the Right’s control of the Media. We must build and support structures / institutions to Combat the Right. [I’m not talking about the Democratic Party. Those wanting to work on that must fight the attempts to move rightward.] Here, I urge support for think tanks such as The Center for American Progress; for Media Matters, which monitors and debunks the lies of the Right media people such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity; Air America Radio which provides a morale-boosting home for progressive radio. I’m not shy of mentioning FITE- Fairness in Taxes for Everyone- which has developed a Talk Radio Initiative aimed at challenging the Right’s dominance of Talk Radio.
Links: http://www.americanprogress.org/site/c.biJRJ8OVF/b.8473/
http://www.mediamatters.org/
http://www.airamericaradio.com/
http://www.fairnessintaxes.org/
Environment: The ‘environmental lawyer-advocate’ Robert Kennedy Jr. talks movingly of his traveling the country- principally to “Red” states- where his talks are received with great enthusiasm. A critical issue, habitually relegated to second tier status.
What’s Happening, Iraq: Missing missiles
American intelligence agencies have tripled their formal estimate of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems believed to be at large worldwide, since determining that at least 4,000 of the weapons in Iraq's prewar arsenals cannot be accounted for, government officials said Friday.
A new government estimate says a total of 6,000 of the weapons may be outside the control of any government, up from a previous estimate of 2,000, American officials said.
The officials said they did not know whether missiles from Iraq remain there or have been smuggled into other countries, though a senior administration official said Friday that "there is no evidence that they have left the country.''
It was unclear whether Iraqi military or intelligence personnel removed the missile systems during the initial invasion of Iraq or whether they disappeared from warehouses after major combat ended.
Shoulder-fired missiles - which are small, lethal and easy to use - are attractive weapons for terrorists. In recent months, Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies have repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda intends to use them to shoot down. planes.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/politics/06weapons.html?ex=1100750909&ei=1&en=53d929b500bc7dd9
And the headline: Details are unnecessary.
52 Killed In Spate Of Attacks In Iraq
U.S. Forces, Insurgents Gird for Fallujah Battle http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30508-2004Nov6.html
Oh, and a "state of emergency” was declared, ostensibly tied to the upcoming assault on Fallujah. UN figures, foreign diplomats have warned that such an attack will only solidify the insurgency
Our President is a Liar; How Do We Integrate That?
I’ve long been musing about how our country is struggling with the notion that its president chronically lies, even about war, but since that it’s intolerable, so We deny. In other words, we’re psychically damaged; we’re a very unhealthy society. So, I was “glad” that Greg Thielman, addressed this on Moyers’ NOW on October 29, and have talked about it with great frequency. [Thielman was a foreign service official for 25 years and most recently part of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and research who had led a team of analysts in evaluating the intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq.] The key grafs:
One has to give the President a little bit of running room and a little bit of slack in taking the information as far as the intelligence community can provide. And then going a little bit beyond that.
So I'm sympathetic to all of that. What I'm not sympathetic to is distorting information so completely that in the end, the public gets exactly the opposite understanding of a situation than you believe to be the case.
But I also understand that there is a psychological element here for the American people, a desire to believe the President of the United States.
The realization that the President of the United States would distort — would knowingly distort issues or even negligently misinform them on issues that will result in the death of America's sons and daughters is so monstrous, that most good and decent and patriotic Americans can't believe that. They don't want to believe that. That's just too awful to contemplate, that the President would do that to them. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript344_full_print.html
Political Action: Contacting PBS One amongst many. Moyers will be missed. (He leaves in December).
Withhold or curtail your annual contribution to your local PBS affiliate. PBS cut Bill Moyer’s “Now” in half in order to accommodate a show featuring the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Do explain your action.
The Fraud Issue: Must give it its due. The Republicans have so institutionalized their voter suppression and other tactics that “we” have accepted their activity as part of the equation. Not good.
I am writing this because the media is inexplicably whitewashing what happened in Ohio, and Kerry's concession was likewise inexplicable. Hundreds of thousands of people were disenfranchised in Ohio.
People waited on line for as long as 10 hours. It appears to have only happened in Democratic-leaning precincts, principally (a) precincts where many African Americans lived, and (b) precincts near colleges. I spoke to a young man who got on line at 11:30 am and voted at 7 pm. When he left at 7 pm, the line was about 150 voters longer than when he'd arrived, which meant those people were going to wait even longer. In fact they waited for as much as 10 hours, and their voting was concluded at about 3 am. The reason this occurred was that they had 1 voting station per 1000 voters, while the adjacent precinct had 1 voting station per 184. Both precincts were within the same county, and managed by the same county board of elections. The difference between them is that the privileged polling place was in a rural, solidly Republican, area, while the one with long lines was in the college town of Gambier, OH.
Lines of 4 and 5 hours were the order of the day in many African-American neighborhoods.
Touch screen voting machines in Youngstown OH were registering "George W. Bush" when people pressed "John F. Kerry" ALL DAY LONG. This was reported immediately after the polls opened, and reported over and over again throughout the day, and yet the bogus machines were inexplicably kept in use THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
Countless other frauds occurred, such as postcards advising people of incorrect polling places, registered Democrats not receiving absentee ballots, duly registered young voters being forced to file provisional ballots even though their names and signatures appeared in the voting rolls, longtime active voting registered voters being told they weren't registered, bad faith challenges by Republican "challengers" in Democratic precincts, and on and on and on.
I was very proud of the way so many Ohioans fought so valiantly for their right to vote, and would not be turned away. Many, however, could not spend the entire day and were afraid of losing their jobs, due to the severe economic depression hitting Ohio.
I do not understand why Kerry conceded and did not fight to ensure that all Ohioans would have a chance to vote, and for their vote to be counted.
Ray BeckermanBeldock Levine & Hoffman LLP99 Park Ave (Ste 1600)New York, NY 10016 http://www.spectrumz.com/z/fair_use/2004/11_04.html
And, from Robert Parry:
But the most perplexing fact is that exit polls into the evening of Nov. 2 showed Kerry rolling to a clear victory nationally and carrying most of the battleground states, including Florida and Ohio, whose totals would have ensured Kerry’s victory in the Electoral College.
Significantly, polls also showed Republicans carrying the bulk of the tight Senate races. However, when the official results were tallied, the presidential exit polls proved wrong while the Senate polls proved right.
Explanations from the architects of the exit-poll sampling system also sound specious. Their report said Kerry voters were simply more willing than Bush voters to answer the exit pollsters’ questions. But this “chattiness thesis” seems more like a post-facto excuse than a serious argument.
Another explanation from some pundits was that the exit polls were adjusted by late in the day to rectify pro-Kerry exaggerations from the earlier samples. But that is not what happened. As the New York Times reported, “The presumption of a Kerry victory built a head of steam late in the day, when the national survey showed the senator with a statistically significant lead, one falling outside the survey’s margin of error.” http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110604.html
Exit Polls and the Machines: Do we need an audit. Sure. Will we get one? Check the differential between the exit poll and what the machines produced. http://bestoftheblogs.com/exit.html
That Bulge on Bush’s back: (FAIR) Case closed?
Five days before the presidential election, the New York Times killed a story about the mysterious object George W. Bush wore on his back during the presidential debates, journalist Dave Lindorff reveals in an exclusive report on this week's CounterSpin, FAIR's weekly radio show. The spiked story included compelling photographic and scientific evidence that would have contradicted Bush's claim that the bulge on his back was just a matter of poor tailoring.
"The New York Times assigned three editors to this story and had it scheduled to run five days before the election, which would have raised questions about the president's integrity," said Lindorff. "But it was killed by top editors at the Times; clearly they were chickening out of taking this on before the election." http://www.fair.org/press-releases/bush-bulge.html
Other News:
Airlines in Trouble: Delta, United, Northwest
Three of the nation's largest airlines announced steep cost and job cuts yesterday in an effort to return to profitability and better position themselves for long-term survival.
UAL Corp., parent of United Airlines, asked a bankruptcy court judge yesterday to approve an additional $2 billion in cuts from its operations. The airline is seeking to modify its existing labor contracts to slash $725 million annually in worker pay and benefits. It also wants to eliminate its four employee pension plans. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29599-2004Nov5.html
Economy in Trouble (?) Not to cry wolf, but…
The dollar could slide still further, in spite of hitting an all-time low against the euro last week in the wake of George W. Bush's re-election, currency traders have said.
The dollar sell-off has resumed amid fears among traders that Mr Bush's victory will bring four more years of widening US budget and current account deficits, heightened geopolitical risks and a policy of "benign neglect" of the dollar.
India and Russia have reportedly been selling US assets, as well as petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern investors.
China, which has $515bn of reserves, was also said to be selling dollars and buying Asian currencies in readiness to switch the renminbi's dollar peg to a basket arrangement, something Chinese officials have increasingly hinted at. Any re-allocation could push the dollar sharply lower and Treasury yields markedly higher. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/257979a6-30f4-11d9-a595-00000e2511c8.html
Control Room Epilogue: Josh Rushing
The 32 year old Texas marine captain was the spokesperson for the military in the documentary about al Jazerra is out of the military. He left the military “in frustration and disappointment” when he was silenced after his comments in the film and in the Village Voice about the horrors of the war. He is without a job or direction, but hopes to stay involved in the media, and “is looking for an organization I can believe in.” http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=30-Oct-2004
Blair Pushes Middle East initiative. He’s trying to revive his political fortunes, and correctly prioritizes the issue.
Tony Blair will fly to Washington this week to launch a new Middle East peace initiative alongside George Bush, in a bid to show he can reap the rewards of the special relationship.
The trip is a high risk one, since the Prime Minister's popularity at home drops every time he is pictured alongside the President. Wary of public opinion, he will not be collecting the controversial Congressional Medal of Honor he was awarded for his staunch support for the war on terror. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5057197-103552,00.html
-R
