Thursday, October 28, 2004
Quotes of the Day
This is such an emotional lift for people in New England and all over the world; I hope they enjoy it. I hope they do something good with it. I hope they go vote Tuesday and make the world a better place. - Red Sox GM Theo Epstein [note: Schilling told the Today audience, ‘Vote Bush’]
The actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough…-Rudy Giuliani [ugly]
For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief. -Bush, re Kerry [Ain’t he self-aware!]
Those Missing Explosives:
It’s merely emblematic of the failed Occupation, but in the campaign’s final days, it has generated much heat. One aspect: Were the weapons gone before our troops arrived? Though the preponderance of evidence is that they were there, the Press is being careful, which aids the Rove line, ‘We don’t know.’
But one (Minneapolis) news crew apparently was there, and photographed and videoed the subject of concern.
A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons.
The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1
White House Explanations:
Typically they’ve been confidently -with resolve!- conveying as many as 5 different lines of explanation which have included relying on a discredited NBC report, alleging that the Russians walked off with the material, or Rudy Guiliani’s skuzzy blaming of the troops, (above).
But do people care? Will the historians care? Then again, who will write the history?
The basics, again:
Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?hp&ex=1099022400&en=b50b42da5ffd60de&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Post-war Chaos: A pro-war witness’s testimony Peter W. Galbraith
For those that missed this Globe piece. Maureen Dowd also referenced it extensively today. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/opinion/28dowd.html?oref=login&hp
In 2003 I went to tell Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz what I had seen in Baghdad in the days following Saddam Hussein's overthrow. For nearly an hour, I described the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion -- the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.
I also described two particularly disturbing incidents -- one I had witnessed and the other I had heard about. On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn't know the building was important.
When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, "I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon." About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq's sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad's outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere.
_____________________________
This was a preventable disaster. Iraq's nuclear weapons-related materials were stored in only a few locations, and these were known before the war began. As even L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator in Iraq, now admits, the United States had far too few troops to secure the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein. But even with the troops we had, the United States could have protected the known nuclear sites. It appears that troops did not receive relevant intelligence about Iraq's WMD facilities, nor was there any plan to secure them. Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/27/eyewitness_to_a_failure_in_iraq?mode=PF
Falluja, Fallujah…no, Ramadi!
The American military and the interim Iraqi government are quickly losing control of this provincial capital, which is larger and strategically more important than its sister city of Falluja, say local officials, clerics, tribal sheiks and officers with the United States Marines.
"The city is chaotic," said Sheik Ali al-Dulaimi, a leader of the region's largest tribe. "There's no presence of the Allawi government," he added, speaking of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
While Ramadi is not exactly a "no go" zone for the marines, like the insurgent stronghold of Falluja 30 miles to the east, officers say it is fast slipping in that direction. In the last six weeks, guerrillas have stepped up the pace of assassinations of Iraqis working with the Americans, and marine officials say they suspect Iraqi security officers have been helping insurgents to attack their troops. Reconstruction efforts have ground to a halt because no local contractors are willing to work. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28ramadi.html?hp&ex=1099022400&en=2de652b511e67fdf&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Halliburton Under [ongoing] Scrutiny: More leaking of stories that don’t flatter the Bushies. Last minute renegades hoping to do some damage…
The FBI has begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid contracts to Halliburton Co., seeking an interview with a top Army contracting officer and collecting documents from several government offices. The line of inquiry expands an earlier FBI investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq, and it elevates to a criminal matter the election-year question of whether the Bush administration showed favoritism to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002075416_webhalliburton28.html
From the Wall Street Journal’s Correction Section: I’m not making this up.
NEWS CORP.'S Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause.
I know a Greenwald DVD the WSJ could borrow…
Fraud / Cheating / Suppressing. WaPost’s Harold Meyerson:
With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.
This is civic life in the age of George W. Bush, in which politics has become a continuation of civil war by other means. In Bush's America, there's a war on -- against a foreign enemy so evil that we can ignore the Geneva Conventions, against domestic liberals so insidious that we can ignore democratic norms. Only bleeding hearts with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set still believe in voting rights. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A707-2004Oct26.html
A flyer is being distributed around Milwaukee's African-American communities. The basics are, ‘you can’t vote if…’, including “if anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything you can’t vote in the presidential election.”
John Dean on the Upcoming Chaos:
This is a climate for trouble. A storm warning is appropriate. In the end, attorneys and legal strategy could prove as important, if not more so, to the outcome of this election as the traditional political strategists and strategy. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/dean/20041022.html
“If it weren’t for the newly registered voters, Kerry would trail the President instead of being tied” (or winning)
Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio ‘s survey of 12 battleground states hammers home the point that Bush’s success depends on the newly registered NOT voting. So, it makes perfect sense that the ‘win at all costs’ Karl Rove would challenge / suppress ‘minority’ voters wherever possible. The survey/ press release is at www.fabmac.com
Rove Charges: Al-Qaeda wants Kerry to win? ABC wants Kerry?
I’m confused. The Republicans claimed this week that
1) al-Qaeda has a new videotape that allegedly threatens a major attack aimed to defeat Bush. And,
2) ABC wants to defeat Bush and that’s why it won’t release the tape since that will help Bush.
Huh?
Bush Loss: because of a ‘Stab in the Back’
Our political situation reminds me of Weimar Germany, circa 1932 [totalitarian putsch, weak, “democratic” opposition]. The Right-wing media have provided another such reminder. They seem to be preparing their explanation for a Bush defeat- that it was (gulp) because of the Liberal Media. Examples abound, including alleging that the missing explosives story emerged because of them Liberals. It’s sophomoric, as it was Allawi who broached the story, but reality, as we know, doesn’t apply to these guys. They know the Big Lie works.
Seymour Hersh. In between New Yorker articles / books, he’s interviewed by the Boston Phoenix.
…since Allawi’s been brought in, there’s no question the bombing has gone up exponentially. We don’t get any sortie figures; we don’t even ask. We don’t know how many bombs are dropped. All we know is that the bombing’s going up. And there’s been nothing said about the increase in American bombing of a country we’re occupying! I mean, how’s that compatible with getting the hearts and minds of Iraqis? Wholesale bombing. It’s madness. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multipage/documents/04224661.asp
Polls:
Democracy Corps poll: Kerry leading 49% to 46%.
Economist: Kerry leading 49% to 45%.
Rasmussen: Bush up 49% - 47%
State polls: Pennsylvania and New Jersey not secure, etc.
Pennsylvania: Bush 49, Kerry 47 (Quinnipiac)
Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 46 (Quinnipiac)
Wisconsin: Kerry 48, Bush 47 (ARG)
Iowa: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (ARG)
Oregon: Kerry 50, Bush 46 (ARG)
Yet, it’s all about turnout, suppression, lawyers, democracy. Baseball sure was simpler.
-R
This is such an emotional lift for people in New England and all over the world; I hope they enjoy it. I hope they do something good with it. I hope they go vote Tuesday and make the world a better place. - Red Sox GM Theo Epstein [note: Schilling told the Today audience, ‘Vote Bush’]
The actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough…-Rudy Giuliani [ugly]
For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander-in-chief. -Bush, re Kerry [Ain’t he self-aware!]
Those Missing Explosives:
It’s merely emblematic of the failed Occupation, but in the campaign’s final days, it has generated much heat. One aspect: Were the weapons gone before our troops arrived? Though the preponderance of evidence is that they were there, the Press is being careful, which aids the Rove line, ‘We don’t know.’
But one (Minneapolis) news crew apparently was there, and photographed and videoed the subject of concern.
A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those weapons.
The missing explosives are now an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when coalition troops moved in to the area http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1
White House Explanations:
Typically they’ve been confidently -with resolve!- conveying as many as 5 different lines of explanation which have included relying on a discredited NBC report, alleging that the Russians walked off with the material, or Rudy Guiliani’s skuzzy blaming of the troops, (above).
But do people care? Will the historians care? Then again, who will write the history?
The basics, again:
Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad, gutting office buildings, carrying off munitions and even dismantling heavy machinery, three Iraqi witnesses and a regional security chief said Wednesday. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?hp&ex=1099022400&en=b50b42da5ffd60de&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Post-war Chaos: A pro-war witness’s testimony Peter W. Galbraith
For those that missed this Globe piece. Maureen Dowd also referenced it extensively today. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/opinion/28dowd.html?oref=login&hp
In 2003 I went to tell Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz what I had seen in Baghdad in the days following Saddam Hussein's overthrow. For nearly an hour, I described the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion -- the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.
I also described two particularly disturbing incidents -- one I had witnessed and the other I had heard about. On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn't know the building was important.
When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, "I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon." About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq's sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad's outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere.
_____________________________
This was a preventable disaster. Iraq's nuclear weapons-related materials were stored in only a few locations, and these were known before the war began. As even L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator in Iraq, now admits, the United States had far too few troops to secure the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein. But even with the troops we had, the United States could have protected the known nuclear sites. It appears that troops did not receive relevant intelligence about Iraq's WMD facilities, nor was there any plan to secure them. Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/27/eyewitness_to_a_failure_in_iraq?mode=PF
Falluja, Fallujah…no, Ramadi!
The American military and the interim Iraqi government are quickly losing control of this provincial capital, which is larger and strategically more important than its sister city of Falluja, say local officials, clerics, tribal sheiks and officers with the United States Marines.
"The city is chaotic," said Sheik Ali al-Dulaimi, a leader of the region's largest tribe. "There's no presence of the Allawi government," he added, speaking of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
While Ramadi is not exactly a "no go" zone for the marines, like the insurgent stronghold of Falluja 30 miles to the east, officers say it is fast slipping in that direction. In the last six weeks, guerrillas have stepped up the pace of assassinations of Iraqis working with the Americans, and marine officials say they suspect Iraqi security officers have been helping insurgents to attack their troops. Reconstruction efforts have ground to a halt because no local contractors are willing to work. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28ramadi.html?hp&ex=1099022400&en=2de652b511e67fdf&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Halliburton Under [ongoing] Scrutiny: More leaking of stories that don’t flatter the Bushies. Last minute renegades hoping to do some damage…
The FBI has begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid contracts to Halliburton Co., seeking an interview with a top Army contracting officer and collecting documents from several government offices. The line of inquiry expands an earlier FBI investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged taxpayers for fuel in Iraq, and it elevates to a criminal matter the election-year question of whether the Bush administration showed favoritism to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002075416_webhalliburton28.html
From the Wall Street Journal’s Correction Section: I’m not making this up.
NEWS CORP.'S Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause.
I know a Greenwald DVD the WSJ could borrow…
Fraud / Cheating / Suppressing. WaPost’s Harold Meyerson:
With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.
This is civic life in the age of George W. Bush, in which politics has become a continuation of civil war by other means. In Bush's America, there's a war on -- against a foreign enemy so evil that we can ignore the Geneva Conventions, against domestic liberals so insidious that we can ignore democratic norms. Only bleeding hearts with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set still believe in voting rights. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A707-2004Oct26.html
A flyer is being distributed around Milwaukee's African-American communities. The basics are, ‘you can’t vote if…’, including “if anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything you can’t vote in the presidential election.”
John Dean on the Upcoming Chaos:
This is a climate for trouble. A storm warning is appropriate. In the end, attorneys and legal strategy could prove as important, if not more so, to the outcome of this election as the traditional political strategists and strategy. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/dean/20041022.html
“If it weren’t for the newly registered voters, Kerry would trail the President instead of being tied” (or winning)
Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio ‘s survey of 12 battleground states hammers home the point that Bush’s success depends on the newly registered NOT voting. So, it makes perfect sense that the ‘win at all costs’ Karl Rove would challenge / suppress ‘minority’ voters wherever possible. The survey/ press release is at www.fabmac.com
Rove Charges: Al-Qaeda wants Kerry to win? ABC wants Kerry?
I’m confused. The Republicans claimed this week that
1) al-Qaeda has a new videotape that allegedly threatens a major attack aimed to defeat Bush. And,
2) ABC wants to defeat Bush and that’s why it won’t release the tape since that will help Bush.
Huh?
Bush Loss: because of a ‘Stab in the Back’
Our political situation reminds me of Weimar Germany, circa 1932 [totalitarian putsch, weak, “democratic” opposition]. The Right-wing media have provided another such reminder. They seem to be preparing their explanation for a Bush defeat- that it was (gulp) because of the Liberal Media. Examples abound, including alleging that the missing explosives story emerged because of them Liberals. It’s sophomoric, as it was Allawi who broached the story, but reality, as we know, doesn’t apply to these guys. They know the Big Lie works.
Seymour Hersh. In between New Yorker articles / books, he’s interviewed by the Boston Phoenix.
…since Allawi’s been brought in, there’s no question the bombing has gone up exponentially. We don’t get any sortie figures; we don’t even ask. We don’t know how many bombs are dropped. All we know is that the bombing’s going up. And there’s been nothing said about the increase in American bombing of a country we’re occupying! I mean, how’s that compatible with getting the hearts and minds of Iraqis? Wholesale bombing. It’s madness. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multipage/documents/04224661.asp
Polls:
Democracy Corps poll: Kerry leading 49% to 46%.
Economist: Kerry leading 49% to 45%.
Rasmussen: Bush up 49% - 47%
State polls: Pennsylvania and New Jersey not secure, etc.
Pennsylvania: Bush 49, Kerry 47 (Quinnipiac)
Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 46 (Quinnipiac)
Wisconsin: Kerry 48, Bush 47 (ARG)
Iowa: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (ARG)
Oregon: Kerry 50, Bush 46 (ARG)
Yet, it’s all about turnout, suppression, lawyers, democracy. Baseball sure was simpler.
-R
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Re-visiting the Missing Explosives
Just thought it helpful to note the following from the original NY Times report:
The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.
1) The Iraqis informed the U.S.? Either: it’s a crock, that word was leaking so we had Allawi reveal it.
2) Allawi is ticked at the Administration for whatever reason, is seeking to embarrass the Administration.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.
The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."
Condi didn’t know? The National Security Advisor didn’t know about what was missing 18 months ago? Another claim: they didn’t want to reveal it sooner, fearing the Enemy shouldn’t know. Huh? Perhaps, the “enemy” has the explosives?
Upshot of Missing 377 tons of Explosives
Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the destructive consequences of the administration's failure to secure the site could be almost incalculable. "This is thousands and thousands of potential terrorist attacks," Cirincione told Salon. "It's like they knocked off the Fort Knox of explosives." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/26/explosives/index.html
Meanwhile, more dough is needed:
The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62554-2004Oct25.html
And then there’s this:
Concerned that they won't get enough new troops from allies to help provide security for Iraqi elections in January, Pentagon officials are considering increasing the current U.S. force by delaying the departures of some U.S. troops now in Iraq and accelerating the deployment of others scheduled to go there next year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-10-25-troops-increase_x.htm
So, we learn that more money, more troops…which raises the question of why this is the news NOW, not after next Tuesday. Are anti-Bushies in the Pentagon seeking to do him in?
Memory Lane: Ben Cohen, Sage: From 9/4/2001. Read and Weep
You may know some despicable characters, but are they mean enough to apply for this job posting?
ENEMY WANTED. Serious enemy needed to justify Pentagon budget increase. Defense contractors desperate. Interested enemies send letter and photo or video (threatening, ok) to Enemy Search Committee, Priorities Campaign, 1350 Broadway, NY, NY, 10018.
Here's the deal: We know our politicians have their work cut out for them. They need to find an enemy to justify maintaining the Pentagon budget as if the Cold War never ended. But the pool of credible enemies is evaporating. North Korea is even going diplomatic. The Soviets took themselves out of the running years ago. And countries like Iraq -- or tough looking trading partners like China -- don't make the cut.
So, I am distributing a job description as widely as possible to help our politicians find the enemy they seek. Even with the help of defense contractors -- who spend $50 million on lobbyists annually -- our politicians do not possess the creativity to find the right adversary. It's clear that the old concept of enemy doesn't work anymore.
The trouble is the Defense Department needs to find an enemy in a hurry. The Bush Administration has proposed to increase Pentagon spending by $33 billion, the largest defense increase since the Cold War. http://www.alternet.org/story/11427
Allawi Blames U.S. for Massacre
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, on Tuesday accused foreign troops in the country of "gross negligence" in the massacre of 49 Iraqi National Guard recruits over the weekend, an unusually critical remark by the U.S.-backed leader.
Allawi, in a weekly address to the Iraqi National Assembly, said his government had launched an investigation into the deaths of the U.S.-trained recruits, most of whom were lined up and executed shortly after sunset Saturday near the National Guard's main training base in Kirkush, about 60 miles northeast of the capital.
"A terrible crime was committed in which a large number of the ING were martyred," Allawi said. "We think this shows, in addition to gross negligence on the side of some of the multinational forces, it shows the kind of insistence to hurt Iraq and its people."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63772-2004Oct26?language=printer
Election: Nerve wracking… to the point of Breakdown? From Andrew Gumbel of the Independent
No need to wonder if this year's US presidential election is headed for another meltdown: the meltdown has already started. The voting machines have already begun to break down, accusations of systematic voter suppression and fraud are rampant, and lawyers fully armed and ready with an intimate knowledge of the nation's byzantine election laws have flocked to court to cry foul in half a dozen states.
_____________
How the courts will react to this hypothetical state of affairs is anybody's guess. They could accept the given election results, however flawed. They could allow the arguments to rage until December, when the electoral college is supposed to meet, or even into the new year, when an undecided election would be thrown into the House of Representatives.
Or they could be trumped, once again, by the Supreme Court. The most disconcerting possibility is that the highest court in the land could remove the electoral process from the voters altogether and turn it over to the state legislatures. Technically, they can do this under Article II of the Constitution, which offers no automatic right to vote. We know from the deliberations in 2000 that two, possibly five, of the nine justices have doubts whether the people should be the ultimate arbiters of presidential elections - a strict, literal reading of the Constitution that no modern Supreme Court countenanced before the current crop of ultra-conservatives. "After granting the franchise in the special context of Article II," the majority declared in its Bush vs Gore ruling, "[the state] can take back the power to appoint electors."
Were this scenario to play out it would leave the fate of many of the electoral battlegrounds in the hands of Republican-controlled state legislatures (in Florida and Ohio, for starters), who would promptly hand the election to George Bush. Talk about a nightmare scenario - which is why every elections official and every "small d" democrat in the land is praying it won't get that close. http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=575453&host=3&dir=70
Election Stealing (cont.)
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".
It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
Meanwhile…
The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office on Tuesday said it couldn't account for nearly 60,000 missing absentee ballots sent to voters and that its phone lines were being overwhelmed by calls.
Hoping to avoid another embarrassing election, Broward County commissioners Tuesday offered to send county employees to help. Dozens of county employees could begin assisting the elections office as early as today to answer telephone calls and to process voters at the 14 early voting sites. http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/10023659.htm
Rehnquist Vacancy…to be filled?
So, what if Rehnquist’s cancer forces his retirement or kills him in the next days. Is it possible / legal for Bush to make a ‘recess appointment’ of a justice? Rove must be thinking about this, in case a close election went to the Court, and a 4-4 decision loomed. Just thinking it through…
Polls:
4 years ago: Bush was up by 3 points in the Zogby poll against Gore. But Gore won.
TIPP: Bush +7% (updated 9 am ET)
Rasmussen: Tied (updated 12 pm ET)
ABC News/Washington Post: Kerry +1%
Democracy Corps poll Kerry leading Bush 49% to 47%.
State polls:
New Hampshire: Kerry 50, Bush 41 (Franklin Pierce College)
Colorado: Kerry 49, Bush 45 (Zogby)
Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 46 (Zogby)
Iowa: Bush 47, Kerry 45 (Zogby)
Michigan: Kerry 52, Bush 42 (Zogby)
Minnesota: Kerry 46, Bush 45 (Zogby)
Nevada: Bush 48, Kerry 44 (Zogby)
New Mexico: Bush 49, Kerry 44 (Zogby)
Ohio: Bush 47, Kerry 42 (Zogby)
Pennsylvania: Kerry 47, Bush 45 (Zogby)
Wisconsin: Bush 48, Kerry 45 (Zogby)
Pennsylvania: Kerry 50, Bush 47 (ARG)
Pennsylvania: Kerry 49, Bush 44 (Keystone)
Florida: Kerry 46, Bush 46 (Insider Advantage)
Florida: Bush 51, Kerry 42 (Gallup)
Florida: Kerry 50, Bush 48 (Survey USA)
Florida: Kerry 48, Bush 48 (Rasmussen)
Florida: Kerry 49, Bush 46 (ARG)
Ohio: Kerry 49, Bush 47 (ARG)
Arizona: Bush 47, Kerry 42 (KAET-TV)
Michigan: Kerry 45, Bush 44 (Mitchell Research)
Missouri: Bush 48, Kerry 45 (Research 2000) http://politicalwire.com/
-R
Just thought it helpful to note the following from the original NY Times report:
The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.
1) The Iraqis informed the U.S.? Either: it’s a crock, that word was leaking so we had Allawi reveal it.
2) Allawi is ticked at the Administration for whatever reason, is seeking to embarrass the Administration.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.
The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."
Condi didn’t know? The National Security Advisor didn’t know about what was missing 18 months ago? Another claim: they didn’t want to reveal it sooner, fearing the Enemy shouldn’t know. Huh? Perhaps, the “enemy” has the explosives?
Upshot of Missing 377 tons of Explosives
Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the destructive consequences of the administration's failure to secure the site could be almost incalculable. "This is thousands and thousands of potential terrorist attacks," Cirincione told Salon. "It's like they knocked off the Fort Knox of explosives." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/26/explosives/index.html
Meanwhile, more dough is needed:
The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62554-2004Oct25.html
And then there’s this:
Concerned that they won't get enough new troops from allies to help provide security for Iraqi elections in January, Pentagon officials are considering increasing the current U.S. force by delaying the departures of some U.S. troops now in Iraq and accelerating the deployment of others scheduled to go there next year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-10-25-troops-increase_x.htm
So, we learn that more money, more troops…which raises the question of why this is the news NOW, not after next Tuesday. Are anti-Bushies in the Pentagon seeking to do him in?
Memory Lane: Ben Cohen, Sage: From 9/4/2001. Read and Weep
You may know some despicable characters, but are they mean enough to apply for this job posting?
ENEMY WANTED. Serious enemy needed to justify Pentagon budget increase. Defense contractors desperate. Interested enemies send letter and photo or video (threatening, ok) to Enemy Search Committee, Priorities Campaign, 1350 Broadway, NY, NY, 10018.
Here's the deal: We know our politicians have their work cut out for them. They need to find an enemy to justify maintaining the Pentagon budget as if the Cold War never ended. But the pool of credible enemies is evaporating. North Korea is even going diplomatic. The Soviets took themselves out of the running years ago. And countries like Iraq -- or tough looking trading partners like China -- don't make the cut.
So, I am distributing a job description as widely as possible to help our politicians find the enemy they seek. Even with the help of defense contractors -- who spend $50 million on lobbyists annually -- our politicians do not possess the creativity to find the right adversary. It's clear that the old concept of enemy doesn't work anymore.
The trouble is the Defense Department needs to find an enemy in a hurry. The Bush Administration has proposed to increase Pentagon spending by $33 billion, the largest defense increase since the Cold War. http://www.alternet.org/story/11427
Allawi Blames U.S. for Massacre
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, on Tuesday accused foreign troops in the country of "gross negligence" in the massacre of 49 Iraqi National Guard recruits over the weekend, an unusually critical remark by the U.S.-backed leader.
Allawi, in a weekly address to the Iraqi National Assembly, said his government had launched an investigation into the deaths of the U.S.-trained recruits, most of whom were lined up and executed shortly after sunset Saturday near the National Guard's main training base in Kirkush, about 60 miles northeast of the capital.
"A terrible crime was committed in which a large number of the ING were martyred," Allawi said. "We think this shows, in addition to gross negligence on the side of some of the multinational forces, it shows the kind of insistence to hurt Iraq and its people."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63772-2004Oct26?language=printer
Election: Nerve wracking… to the point of Breakdown? From Andrew Gumbel of the Independent
No need to wonder if this year's US presidential election is headed for another meltdown: the meltdown has already started. The voting machines have already begun to break down, accusations of systematic voter suppression and fraud are rampant, and lawyers fully armed and ready with an intimate knowledge of the nation's byzantine election laws have flocked to court to cry foul in half a dozen states.
_____________
How the courts will react to this hypothetical state of affairs is anybody's guess. They could accept the given election results, however flawed. They could allow the arguments to rage until December, when the electoral college is supposed to meet, or even into the new year, when an undecided election would be thrown into the House of Representatives.
Or they could be trumped, once again, by the Supreme Court. The most disconcerting possibility is that the highest court in the land could remove the electoral process from the voters altogether and turn it over to the state legislatures. Technically, they can do this under Article II of the Constitution, which offers no automatic right to vote. We know from the deliberations in 2000 that two, possibly five, of the nine justices have doubts whether the people should be the ultimate arbiters of presidential elections - a strict, literal reading of the Constitution that no modern Supreme Court countenanced before the current crop of ultra-conservatives. "After granting the franchise in the special context of Article II," the majority declared in its Bush vs Gore ruling, "[the state] can take back the power to appoint electors."
Were this scenario to play out it would leave the fate of many of the electoral battlegrounds in the hands of Republican-controlled state legislatures (in Florida and Ohio, for starters), who would promptly hand the election to George Bush. Talk about a nightmare scenario - which is why every elections official and every "small d" democrat in the land is praying it won't get that close. http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=575453&host=3&dir=70
Election Stealing (cont.)
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".
It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
Meanwhile…
The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office on Tuesday said it couldn't account for nearly 60,000 missing absentee ballots sent to voters and that its phone lines were being overwhelmed by calls.
Hoping to avoid another embarrassing election, Broward County commissioners Tuesday offered to send county employees to help. Dozens of county employees could begin assisting the elections office as early as today to answer telephone calls and to process voters at the 14 early voting sites. http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/10023659.htm
Rehnquist Vacancy…to be filled?
So, what if Rehnquist’s cancer forces his retirement or kills him in the next days. Is it possible / legal for Bush to make a ‘recess appointment’ of a justice? Rove must be thinking about this, in case a close election went to the Court, and a 4-4 decision loomed. Just thinking it through…
Polls:
4 years ago: Bush was up by 3 points in the Zogby poll against Gore. But Gore won.
TIPP: Bush +7% (updated 9 am ET)
Rasmussen: Tied (updated 12 pm ET)
ABC News/Washington Post: Kerry +1%
Democracy Corps poll Kerry leading Bush 49% to 47%.
State polls:
New Hampshire: Kerry 50, Bush 41 (Franklin Pierce College)
Colorado: Kerry 49, Bush 45 (Zogby)
Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 46 (Zogby)
Iowa: Bush 47, Kerry 45 (Zogby)
Michigan: Kerry 52, Bush 42 (Zogby)
Minnesota: Kerry 46, Bush 45 (Zogby)
Nevada: Bush 48, Kerry 44 (Zogby)
New Mexico: Bush 49, Kerry 44 (Zogby)
Ohio: Bush 47, Kerry 42 (Zogby)
Pennsylvania: Kerry 47, Bush 45 (Zogby)
Wisconsin: Bush 48, Kerry 45 (Zogby)
Pennsylvania: Kerry 50, Bush 47 (ARG)
Pennsylvania: Kerry 49, Bush 44 (Keystone)
Florida: Kerry 46, Bush 46 (Insider Advantage)
Florida: Bush 51, Kerry 42 (Gallup)
Florida: Kerry 50, Bush 48 (Survey USA)
Florida: Kerry 48, Bush 48 (Rasmussen)
Florida: Kerry 49, Bush 46 (ARG)
Ohio: Kerry 49, Bush 47 (ARG)
Arizona: Bush 47, Kerry 42 (KAET-TV)
Michigan: Kerry 45, Bush 44 (Mitchell Research)
Missouri: Bush 48, Kerry 45 (Research 2000) http://politicalwire.com/
-R
Monday, October 25, 2004
The Rule of Law
What’s Happening, Iraq: Missing High Explosives
Another notable casualty of the sloppy early days of the Occupation-- 350 tons of high explosives have disappeared. They were looted during the early days of the US occupation and had been left unguarded. They are not only used for bombings in Iraq, but could also be used as part of the ‘triggering process’ for nukes. The Nelson Report notes that the Department of Defense had sought to keep this secret, from the U.S. public and from international agencies. More at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/ and http://www.talkingpointsmemo.org/ The Times picked it up this morning. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middleeast/25bomb.html?hp&ex=1098763200&en=fd35fdf4b6d46d61&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Meanwhile, The bodies of 49 newly trained Iraqi national guard recruits, lined up and executed by insurgents, were discovered on a roadside about 75 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Sunday.
In separate attacks, a member of the State Department's diplomatic security unit was killed when a rocket or mortar landed at a U.S. military base adjoining the Baghdad airport at 5 a.m. And a Bulgarian soldier was killed when a car bomb exploded near his convoy in Karbala. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58312-2004Oct24.html
Geneva? Que?
At the request of the CIA, the Justice Department drafted a confidential memo that authorizes the agency to transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation -- a practice that international legal specialists say contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
One intelligence official familiar with the operation said the CIA has used the March draft memo as legal support for secretly transporting as many as a dozen detainees out of Iraq in the last six months. The agency has concealed the detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other authorities, the official said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57363-2004Oct23.html
Bush Supporters Dumbing Down…and Down. The “PIPA” report:
Three out of 4 self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them. According to a new survey published Thursday, the same number also believes that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to al Qaeda.
But here is the truly astonishing part: as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs today than they did several months ago. In other words, more people believe the claims today –- after the publication of a series of well-publicized official government reports that debunked both notions. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20263/
PIPA is the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Fraud (Cont.) Ohio and Florida:
The caller interrupting a North Side couple’s dinner earlier this week said he was from the Franklin County Board of Elections.
He told the elderly woman that her voting site had changed and that on Nov. 2 she and her husband should cast their ballots at a South Side precinct. The caller even left the phone number of the board.
Her husband, who didn’t want their names published out of fear of retribution, called the board, sat through a long menu of automated options and finally spoke with an employee.
"They said there was no way in the world they would make such a call," he said. "I think it’s hankypanky and somebody in the election is trying to kill some votes."
At no time, Elections Director Matthew Damschroder said, does the board call voters. http://www.dispatch.com/election/election-local.php?story=dispatch/2004/10/22/20041022-A1-00.html
Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.
They're not who they say they are.
"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.
The warning came after a phone call from a west Pasco woman. Other Florida counties have gotten similar complaints.
"We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."
The Pasco woman said someone came to her home to collect her absentee ballot earlier this week. She said she was led to believe they were from the elections office. The woman told the strangers she hadn't completed the ballot, but they took it anyway. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/22/Pasco/Election_chief_warns_.shtml
Republicans Mobilized
Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.
Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections…
Democrats said they were racing to match the Republicas, precinct by precinct. In some cities, like Dayton, they registered more challengers than the Republicans, election officials said. But in Cuyahoga County, where the Republicans said they had registered 1,436 people to challenge voters, or one in every precinct, Democrats said they had signed up only about 300.
The parties are also preparing to battle over voter qualifications in Florida, where they had until last Tuesday to register challengers. In Fort Myers, Republicans named 100 watchers for the county's 171 precincts, up from 60 in 2000. But Democrats registered 300 watchers in the county, a sixfold increase. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/campaign/23vote.html?ei=5094&en=9f4420d7cc5a3720&hp=&ex=1098504000&oref=login&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position
The View from the Right: George Will makes comments that suggest that the problems lie with the Democratic voter registration efforts.
Given such measures, perhaps we should not be surprised that, as Fund reports, since 1995, Philadelphia's population has declined 13 percent but registered voters have increased 24 percent. Are we sure we should be pleased?
The unexamined belief that an ever-higher rate of voter registration is a Good Thing has met its limit in the center of the state that this year is the center of the political universe -- Ohio. The Census Bureau's 2003 estimate is that in Franklin County -- Columbus -- there are approximately 815,000 people 18 or older. But 845,720 are now registered.
One reason for such unacceptable numbers in various jurisdictions across the nation is that voter rolls are not frequently enough purged of voters whose status has changed. For example, in 2000, the Indianapolis Star's Bill Theobald reported that "hundreds of thousands of names, as many as one in five statewide" were improperly on Indiana registration rolls "because the people behind those names have moved, died or gone to prison." Unfortunately, there is reluctance, especially among Republicans, to support measures that might appear to have a "disparate impact" on minorities and therefore be denounced as racist. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55781-2004Oct22.html
Lie #8,243 Exposed. This one won’t get much play, since the others- including the ones that have resulted in the deaths of 1100+ Americans and 12,000+ Iraqis- have been ignored or treated gingerly by the press. Knight Ridder, [Meg Laughlin] again the source…
Former workers dispute Bush's pull in Project P.U.L.L.
President Bush often has cited his work in 1973 with a now-defunct inner-city program for troubled teens as the source for his belief in "compassionate conservatism."
"I realized then that a society can change and must change one person at a time ..." Bush said in a video shown at the 2000 Republican National Convention about his tenure at P.U.L.L., the Professional United Leadership League, whose executive director, John White, had played tight end for the Houston Oilers in the early 1960s.
But former associates of White, who died in 1988, have disputed in recent interviews much of Bush's version of his time at the program. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990590.htm
CIA Purge post-election. Don’t expect Republican types to be ousted.
Porter Goss' initial moves as CIA director appear to herald a post-election purge at the already troubled spy agency, according to current and former top U.S. intelligence officials.
Goss, a former Republican congressman, has put at least four former Capitol Hill Republican staffers into top positions in his CIA office and has given them broad authority to make personnel and restructuring decisions, the current and former intelligence officials said.
One of the aides, whose identity Knight Ridder is not disclosing because he served under cover, has been "going around telling people they are to fire 80 to 90 people" in the Directorate of Operations, the CIA's covert arm, according to a former official. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990739.htm
Polls Michigan? Clinton should hit Arkansas. Still even, but it’s only…
Iowa: Kerry 46, Bush 45 (Iowa Newspaper Assn)
Hawaii: Bush 43, Kerry 43 (Honolulu Advertiser)
Pennsylavnia: Kerry 48, Bush 46 (Morning Call)
Florida: Kerry 46, Bush 46 (St. Petersburgh Times/Miami Herald
Hawaii: Bush 46, Kerry 45 (Star-Bulletin)
Michigan: Bush 47, Kerry 42 (Detroit News)
Arkansas: Kerry 48, Bush 48 (Arkansas News Bureau)
Nevada: Bush 49, Kerry 47 (Research 2000)
Nevada: Bush 45, Kerry 41 (Belden Russonello Stewart)
Florida: Kerry 46, Bush 46 (St. Petersburgh Times/Miami Herald)
Missouri: Bush 50, Kerry 45 (Rasmussen)
Illinois: Kerry 50, Bush 42 (Chicago Tribune)
-R
What’s Happening, Iraq: Missing High Explosives
Another notable casualty of the sloppy early days of the Occupation-- 350 tons of high explosives have disappeared. They were looted during the early days of the US occupation and had been left unguarded. They are not only used for bombings in Iraq, but could also be used as part of the ‘triggering process’ for nukes. The Nelson Report notes that the Department of Defense had sought to keep this secret, from the U.S. public and from international agencies. More at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6323933/ and http://www.talkingpointsmemo.org/ The Times picked it up this morning. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middleeast/25bomb.html?hp&ex=1098763200&en=fd35fdf4b6d46d61&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Meanwhile, The bodies of 49 newly trained Iraqi national guard recruits, lined up and executed by insurgents, were discovered on a roadside about 75 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Sunday.
In separate attacks, a member of the State Department's diplomatic security unit was killed when a rocket or mortar landed at a U.S. military base adjoining the Baghdad airport at 5 a.m. And a Bulgarian soldier was killed when a car bomb exploded near his convoy in Karbala. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58312-2004Oct24.html
Geneva? Que?
At the request of the CIA, the Justice Department drafted a confidential memo that authorizes the agency to transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation -- a practice that international legal specialists say contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
One intelligence official familiar with the operation said the CIA has used the March draft memo as legal support for secretly transporting as many as a dozen detainees out of Iraq in the last six months. The agency has concealed the detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other authorities, the official said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57363-2004Oct23.html
Bush Supporters Dumbing Down…and Down. The “PIPA” report:
Three out of 4 self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them. According to a new survey published Thursday, the same number also believes that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to al Qaeda.
But here is the truly astonishing part: as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs today than they did several months ago. In other words, more people believe the claims today –- after the publication of a series of well-publicized official government reports that debunked both notions. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20263/
PIPA is the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Fraud (Cont.) Ohio and Florida:
The caller interrupting a North Side couple’s dinner earlier this week said he was from the Franklin County Board of Elections.
He told the elderly woman that her voting site had changed and that on Nov. 2 she and her husband should cast their ballots at a South Side precinct. The caller even left the phone number of the board.
Her husband, who didn’t want their names published out of fear of retribution, called the board, sat through a long menu of automated options and finally spoke with an employee.
"They said there was no way in the world they would make such a call," he said. "I think it’s hankypanky and somebody in the election is trying to kill some votes."
At no time, Elections Director Matthew Damschroder said, does the board call voters. http://www.dispatch.com/election/election-local.php?story=dispatch/2004/10/22/20041022-A1-00.html
Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.
They're not who they say they are.
"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.
The warning came after a phone call from a west Pasco woman. Other Florida counties have gotten similar complaints.
"We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."
The Pasco woman said someone came to her home to collect her absentee ballot earlier this week. She said she was led to believe they were from the elections office. The woman told the strangers she hadn't completed the ballot, but they took it anyway. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/22/Pasco/Election_chief_warns_.shtml
Republicans Mobilized
Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.
Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections…
Democrats said they were racing to match the Republicas, precinct by precinct. In some cities, like Dayton, they registered more challengers than the Republicans, election officials said. But in Cuyahoga County, where the Republicans said they had registered 1,436 people to challenge voters, or one in every precinct, Democrats said they had signed up only about 300.
The parties are also preparing to battle over voter qualifications in Florida, where they had until last Tuesday to register challengers. In Fort Myers, Republicans named 100 watchers for the county's 171 precincts, up from 60 in 2000. But Democrats registered 300 watchers in the county, a sixfold increase. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/campaign/23vote.html?ei=5094&en=9f4420d7cc5a3720&hp=&ex=1098504000&oref=login&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position
The View from the Right: George Will makes comments that suggest that the problems lie with the Democratic voter registration efforts.
Given such measures, perhaps we should not be surprised that, as Fund reports, since 1995, Philadelphia's population has declined 13 percent but registered voters have increased 24 percent. Are we sure we should be pleased?
The unexamined belief that an ever-higher rate of voter registration is a Good Thing has met its limit in the center of the state that this year is the center of the political universe -- Ohio. The Census Bureau's 2003 estimate is that in Franklin County -- Columbus -- there are approximately 815,000 people 18 or older. But 845,720 are now registered.
One reason for such unacceptable numbers in various jurisdictions across the nation is that voter rolls are not frequently enough purged of voters whose status has changed. For example, in 2000, the Indianapolis Star's Bill Theobald reported that "hundreds of thousands of names, as many as one in five statewide" were improperly on Indiana registration rolls "because the people behind those names have moved, died or gone to prison." Unfortunately, there is reluctance, especially among Republicans, to support measures that might appear to have a "disparate impact" on minorities and therefore be denounced as racist. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55781-2004Oct22.html
Lie #8,243 Exposed. This one won’t get much play, since the others- including the ones that have resulted in the deaths of 1100+ Americans and 12,000+ Iraqis- have been ignored or treated gingerly by the press. Knight Ridder, [Meg Laughlin] again the source…
Former workers dispute Bush's pull in Project P.U.L.L.
President Bush often has cited his work in 1973 with a now-defunct inner-city program for troubled teens as the source for his belief in "compassionate conservatism."
"I realized then that a society can change and must change one person at a time ..." Bush said in a video shown at the 2000 Republican National Convention about his tenure at P.U.L.L., the Professional United Leadership League, whose executive director, John White, had played tight end for the Houston Oilers in the early 1960s.
But former associates of White, who died in 1988, have disputed in recent interviews much of Bush's version of his time at the program. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990590.htm
CIA Purge post-election. Don’t expect Republican types to be ousted.
Porter Goss' initial moves as CIA director appear to herald a post-election purge at the already troubled spy agency, according to current and former top U.S. intelligence officials.
Goss, a former Republican congressman, has put at least four former Capitol Hill Republican staffers into top positions in his CIA office and has given them broad authority to make personnel and restructuring decisions, the current and former intelligence officials said.
One of the aides, whose identity Knight Ridder is not disclosing because he served under cover, has been "going around telling people they are to fire 80 to 90 people" in the Directorate of Operations, the CIA's covert arm, according to a former official. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990739.htm
Polls Michigan? Clinton should hit Arkansas. Still even, but it’s only…
Iowa: Kerry 46, Bush 45 (Iowa Newspaper Assn)
Hawaii: Bush 43, Kerry 43 (Honolulu Advertiser)
Pennsylavnia: Kerry 48, Bush 46 (Morning Call)
Florida: Kerry 46, Bush 46 (St. Petersburgh Times/Miami Herald
Hawaii: Bush 46, Kerry 45 (Star-Bulletin)
Michigan: Bush 47, Kerry 42 (Detroit News)
Arkansas: Kerry 48, Bush 48 (Arkansas News Bureau)
Nevada: Bush 49, Kerry 47 (Research 2000)
Nevada: Bush 45, Kerry 41 (Belden Russonello Stewart)
Florida: Kerry 46, Bush 46 (St. Petersburgh Times/Miami Herald)
Missouri: Bush 50, Kerry 45 (Rasmussen)
Illinois: Kerry 50, Bush 42 (Chicago Tribune)
-R
