November 1, 2004

The US Collides with Election Day

Scared S***less -- According to an NPR report, our tough-guy president was rattled by a confetti gun. See here.

Blair makes peace offering to Kerry -- The Independent

250,000 Tons of Missing Weapons -- The 377 tons of missing weapons that shook the US campaign last week are a drop in the bucket. According to MSNBC, "Even after the U.S. military secured some 400,000 tons of munitions, as many as 250,000 tons remain unaccounted for."

Bush Plummeting in Final Days -- The Big Mo -- straight down. According to Fox News' own research, "among likely voters Bush went from a seven-point lead on Oct 17/18, to five points by Oct 27/28, to two points on Oct. 28/29, to tied as of today. Even with his shoes on, Fred Barnes can calculate that as a 7-point drop in two weeks. Daily Kos

Zogby has Kerry leading nationally by a point.

November 1, 2004

Last Day of an Era

Written in the Stars -- According to top Indian astronomers, Bush's planets are in an uncomfortable position. Kerry's are in ascendance. According to their interpretation, Kerry will win. (Reuters)

Dark Days Ahead If Bush Wins a Second Term -- The great Helen Thomas explains with great clarity and authority how disastrous a second Bush term will be for the U.S. and the world.

Molly Ivins sticks her neck out and bets on Kerry.

Michael Moore will have "hundreds" of cameras watching in Ohio and Florida on election day. CTV

More Loose Arms -- Al-qaqaa is not the only ammo site that was left unguarded. See Oregon Live

Under Bush, the draft is inevitable. According to Senator Tom Harkin, Bush will reinstate the draft, no matter what he says now. A major terrorist attack is all that is needed. It's all in place.

Regarding Bush's bulge, NASA scientist Dr. Robert M. Nelson, "was not laughing," according to Kevin Berger at Salon. "He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority o­n image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons. For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. 'I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate,' he says. 'This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt.'"

Springsteen to Madison Kerry rally: "Paul Wellstone, the great Minnesota senator -- he said the future is for the passionate, and those that are willing to fight and to work hard for it. Well the future is now, and it's time to let your passions loose. So let's roll up our sleeves. That's why I'm here today, to stand alongside Senator Kerry and to tell you that the country we carry in our hearts is waiting. And together we can move America towards her deepest ideals."

Bush's Bird Activities -- vidvote.com

November 2, 2004

Awesome Democracy

Oh this glorious day! Election day has finally come and the power is tingling in the air.

For much of the election season I dreaded it because once it comes and goes, our last hope to derail the mad Bush agenda will be over. And Bush's sleazy smear tactics, lies and fear mongering all seemed to be working, if one believes the polls. Bush started a war on false pretenses, but never mind that -- Kerry is a flip flopper! Bush got a preferential pass into the National Guard forcing someone to go to Vietnam in his place, but that doesn't matter -- Kerry, who was a decorated veteran didn't really deserve those medals. As Robert Dole said, "He never even bled that I know of."

It was like living in a madhouse, the election debate was ruled by the inanities and absurdities of a mass media that lost its guts, heart and mind.

The Bush machine tried to present an image of absolute power. We just might call off the elections, they said. They tried to install themselves as absolute authority. But the people have defied them and are going ahead with an election anyway.

Democracy is only an idea on paper and in the hearts of human beings, and is meaningless unless actualized by citizens. The Bush administration has shown tremendous resourcefulness in ways to stifle the votes, intimidate voters, install flawed voting machines, wipe voters from voting rolls, move polling places, stop car pools en route to polling places. But now that the day is here and you can feel the energy, the determination of people to have their votes counted, the Bushies don't look so absolutely powerful after all.

The ideal of democracy is much more powerful than any man or group of men. Today we see it unfold in all its glory. This could be the closing act of the horrible Bush administration. It could be time to send Bush back to Crawford and restore the dignity and integrity of the United States. Let's hope so.

November 2, 2004

E Day: Kerry Will Win

Today is the Big Day. It will be the end of an era no matter what. If Bush wins, the future will make the present look mild. Bush and company, who have been relatively restrained because of the election we are now facing, will no longer have any elections to worry about. A couple more well-timed attacks on the homeland and they can cancel elections for good. But in any case, they won't have to worry about elections for a long time, so we will see a much less kind and gentle Bush than now, if you can imagine such a thing.

Now that it is here, my gut feeling is that Kerry will win and will do so by a decisive margin, which will render irrelevant the widespread voter fraud and suppression we have already seen. I could be dead wrong, surely, it's only a feeling. But I believe there are masses of very determined people who will make their voices heard tomorrow who have not been reflected in the mainstream media or the traditional pollsters up to now.

I believe history is on Kerry's side, on our side, the anti-Bush side. We shall see what happens. But that is what I expect. Kerry by a decisive margin.

William Raspberry agrees.

Molly Ivins does too.

Zogby says if Kerry wins Ohio, he's the next president.

The great Gore Vidal interviewed by Buzzflash: "If it means that he is far more intelligent than the average American and has read many, many, many more books than the average American professor, much less citizen, and that the other one is as close to a cretin as has ever served in that office, then of course, there’s no choice between them. Obviously it’s Kerry. He is intelligent. And at least once in his life he really did something of great importance when he turned on the Vietnam War. That was a splendid statement that he made to the Senate committee: 'Whom can you ask to be the last person to die for a mistake?' That’s immortal. Let’s hope he does as well yet again.... I mean, look, we’re up against despotism. And whatever rhetoric they want to use and say, oh, we’re not despots, we’re good Americans -- well, everybody says that. But they’re not. They are the enemy. And they have targeted the American people. They don’t like them. They don’t care anything about them. They’re interested in corporate America. They’re interested in Halliburton and their companies. They’re interested in making money. And they hate the people who stand for the old republic. They just don’t like them. And that’s the division here. And I think that’s why Bush will fall in the long run, but how long a run it’s going to be, I do not predict."

If young voters vote, Bush is a goner -- Springfield News-Leader

Faith in America -- Paul Krugman: "Here's what a correspondent from Florida wrote to Joshua Marshall, of talkingpointsmemo.com: 'To see people coming out - elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc. - and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours ... Well, it's humbling. And it's awesome. And it's kind of beautiful.' Yes, it is. I always get a little choked up when I go to the local school to cast my vote. The humbleness of the surroundings only emphasizes the majesty of the process: this is democracy, America's great gift to the world, in action."

Florida's corrupted voting system -- Greg Palast: "Even when computers work, they don't work well for African-Americans. A July 2001 Congressional study found that computers spoiled votes in minority districts at three times the rate of votes lost in white districts. Based on the measured differential in vote loss between paper and computer systems, the fifteen counties in Florida, can expect to lose at least 29,000 votes to spoilage—some 27,000 more than if the counties had used paper ballots with scanners. Given the demographics of spoilage, this translates into a net lead of thousands for Bush before a single ballot is cast."

Bush was wired -- See the proof with photos enhanced by a NASA scientist. motherjones.com

The World Is Depending on Us to Defeat Bush -- Norman Solomon quotes anti-imperialist writer Tariq Ali on WBAI Radio in New York: “This is what I constantly say when I'm in this country to people on the left: Look, you have a responsibility to the rest of the world as well. This is no time to fool around. ... Do not mimic the imperial rulers of your country and think exclusively about yourselves and your own interests, whatever these may be. ... Just look at the situation globally and ask yourselves this: Would a defeat for George W. Bush -- how would this defeat be seen in the world? I am 100 percent confident that from the Atlantic to the Urals, through Latin America, in Africa, in the Arab [world], this defeat would be seen as a victory. Now, the response to that comes, ‘Yeah, but Kerry would do the same thing’ -- but that's not the point. The point is Bush decided on this war, Bush took the country to war, the neocons and their supporters devised ... lies which they haven't been able to deliver that this was a war of liberation. It's been a complete and total disaster. Should Bush be punished for going to war or not? If you say ‘yes,’ then you have to punish him, and the best way to punish him is to remove him from office.”

The last Gallup Poll shows the hoped-for Kerry surge.

Kerry Landslide? Maybe. Eric Alterman: "As everything in the news recently—including Mr. bin Laden, who by the way, can apparently run AND hide (at least so long as his enemies are off fighting imaginary terrorists thousands of miles away as he sits pretty among his warlord protectors)--has served to remind voters of what an unprecedented disaster this administration is. Bush, Cheney and Rove have sought to scare people silly — literally — to try to convince them to forget how asleep at the switch they were before September 11th; how panicky they were on the day of the attack, and how mendacious, ideological and incompetent they’ve been virtually every day since. Much of the mainstream media has bought into their campaign of fear, but I don’t think ultimately, all that many Americans will. John Kerry is well-trained, moderate in demeanor, intelligent and ultimately, competent. Bush is none of these things. While some Americans have genuinely benefited from Bush’s presidency—almost exclusively conservative Christians, Fortune 500 CEOs and the like, and neoconservative Jihadists—the vast majority of Americans are unrepresented by this bunch, and I’m sorry, I just refuse to believe that come tomorrow morning, they will be too stupid to see through the punditocracy muck and vote their own self-interests. Inside the voting booth, voters will level with themselves and realize—it just doesn’t matter who you’d 'rather have a beer with.' Neither of these guys are coming over to your house for a beer. They’ll be too busy, for starters, attempting to fix the apparently unwinnable quagmire that the Bush team created in his hubristic ignorance."

In a very strange twist, William Rehnquist, head of America's most disgraced Supreme Court, is having trouble making it to the presidential picking party this year. International Herald Tribune

Other Evil Empires -- China, following the same authoritarian principles that motivate the Bushies, is cracking down on Internet cafes, trying to squelch freedom of information. Forget it. You will never do it, there, or here, just as the Soviets could not suppress information and stop the march toward freedom. It's so odd the way the American right wing obsessively tries to clamp down on Cuba, but China -- a real authoritarian, opressive government -- is a favored trading partner.

Bin Laden's latest hit tape says that his goal is to bankrupt the U.S. In that case, as in so many others, he and Bush are allies. While American media perpetuate the myth that Reagan forced the USSR into bankruptcy, bin Laden says he did. "We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said. CNN

Here is the full transcript of bin Ladin's speech. Al Jazeera.

Hatfield Was Right -- Former employees of a Project PULL center where Bush worked in 1972 have disputed his claims of why he was there. As Hatfield had reported, he was there because he had gotten in trouble. For reporting it, Hatfield was made a scapegoat, an example of what happens to people who cross the dreaded Bush mob, and he was hounded to death. Atrios

To begin with, the president is a fool. Richard Reeves

The Endarkenment -- "It is a shock to the people of Europe that this election is even a contest. How can people in these times, in the Information Age, have their collective heads in the sand and believe the nonsense that Bush spews on the campaign trail?" Linda Deak

Questions about Bush's health -- Online Journal

FDR's grandson compares Bush to Roosevelt and discusses what it is to be a war president. Newsweek

Polls Schmolls -- CBS

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