October 31
Both parties have been trying to register more voters among Americans overseas. I heard from an American working with the armed forces stationed in Germany. It would cause this person trouble trouble if I gave a name, so I hope I've built up enough credibility with readers to be believed when I say I got these messages, edited to disguise the identity, which should give encouragement to the good guys.
...not only did I send in my ballot a few weeks ago (Go Kerry!) but I [helped] and registered hundreds of overseas Americans (military and civilian) and helped a couple hundred fill out the Federal Write In Absentee Ballot when state-issued ballots didn't show up on time. I had to be totally non-partisan in registering people but - though at first the Republicans ... marched in and started out registering in heart-breakingly larger numbers - we ended up with a LOT more (better late than never) Dems. The AMAZING news is that a surprising number of soldiers openly voted Democratic; the civilians and retirees are overwhelmingly on our team.Let me see if I can find you the article I read where the Dems Abroad had apparently registered 40,000 Democrats in Ireland alone. Italy, according to Sylvia Paggioli, has also registered more than 100K Dems. We in Germany have registered thousands and the www.overseasvote2004.com has helped 75,000 overseas Americans, most of whom are Dems. It's hard to live overseas and not be against Bush - without Fox indoctrination, he's just plain indefensible.
One thing you might also add to your site: any Dem who votes absentee should go to www.myvotecounts2004.com to register - the Dems are going to check after the election to make sure that our votes did indeed get counted. Too many missing ballots in FL already (58K+!!) so the Dems are going to be looking into this.
A new Republican lie: Minnesota Republican chairman Ron Eibensteiner was on 4 News Sunday on WCCO TV this morning and said the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor Party, the name of the Minnesota Democrats) is illegally planning to have volunteers vouch for people they don't know (I normally put a link here, but found nothing to link to on the WCCO site). There was no elaboration on the program. Thinking it unlikely the DFL would plan something illegal and then detail it on paper with thousands of copies, I looked on the MNGOP site and found this description of a press conference by Eibensteiner. He's basing the charge on DFL canvassing scripts and some bizarre interpretation of the law. He hasn't shown the scripts, but says one includes an offer to vouch for the person being canvassed for registration at the polls. He asked, "How can a block walker personally vouch for someone's residency when they just met them?" Simple. The law is straightforward. To vouch for someone, you have to be pre-registered, live in the same precinct as the person you're vouching for, and know the person you're vouching for is a resident. There's no requirement to know anything else about them, know them for any length of time, know the names of their kids or their pets, just that they're a resident. A campaign volunteer who knows someone is a resident, even if they don't know the name, is not breaking any law. This is hardly the mass fraud Eibensteiner charged this morning. He didn't say what standard he would set for knowing someone. He did however include a lie of his own in his press conference. He referred to the Democratic army of lawyers nationwide (the Republicans have their own, but he forgot to mention that), and called Democratic poll watchers "a bunch of East Coast lawyers". That's a lie. I'm a poll watcher, and when I went to training, every accent sounded like Minnesota. A bunch were lawyers, but not all, maybe not the majority, I don't know. Maybe he didn't know his statement was false, but he had no reason to think it was true. Therefore, he lied.
I found something else cheesy on the MNGOP site, not that it's difficult. They want to raise a big stink about a 527 ad that's just awful. A small group of people in Minneapolis raised all of $1000 to fund George The Menace and produced an ad that's a voiceover of an Osama Bin Laden video which ends with one of the men holding a Bush sign. No one who watches the ad should be fooled into thinking that's really what Bin Laden was saying, but it sounds like a translator and someone only half listening could be fooled, thus why I say it rather implies Bin Laden was really thanking Bush for screwing up. Now here's why I say the GOP is being deceptive too. They don't mention that this is an independent group, not anyone affiliated with the Democrats, that the money to produce a cheap ad is all they have and it hasn't been run anywhere but on their web site, and above all, they don't mention that the Kerry campaign denounced it. But will the Republicans denounce any lying ad put out on their behalf, like the swift boat ads? No. That's the difference between these candidates. Kerry will denounce something helpful to him but not true. Bush won't.
October 30
I think the question of who the Bin Laden video helps is solved. Bush won't talk about it anymore (click on first story). He twists anything he can, so if he thought this would help he'd mention it every couple minutes. Maybe hearing Bin Laden talk about how Bush's paralysis on 911 gave Al Qaida time it never expected just rings true after seeing the video of Bush frozen in the classroom after hearing the country in under attack. Even Bin Laden figured he would excuse himself and go ask what information we had.
Election Systems & Strategies (ES&S) is a competitor to Diebold in the touchscreen voting business. I haven't heard if their software has as many holes as Diebold, but they have plenty of dirt of their own. In Florida, although brother Jeb's task force on voting said go with the optical scanning, which is far more accurate, reliable, and cheaper than touchscreens, Jeb went for the touchscreen. He was prevailed upon by Sandra Mortham, founder of Women for Jeb Bush, who used her pull to lobby for the touchscreens. She was also on the lobbying payroll of ES&S, whose machines were purchased and which have proven less than reliable. But that's not all. One of the principal owners of ES&S is Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Another part owner is the Omaha World-Herald Co., which publishes Nebraska's largest newspaper. They got the state to run its elections with ES&S machines. Having privatized the election, in 1996 ES&S machines produced an upset victory for for its owner, and, once again blowing away the polls, Hagel was reelected with 83% of the vote in 2002. If you're ready to believe a senate election was that lopsided, I'd like to sell you beachfront property on the Canadian riviera.
In Ohio, Florida for people afraid of alligators, Republicans challenged thousands of registrations. They sent mail and when it came back, used that as the basis for the challenge. They challenged people who were homeless, using a post office box, and even serving in Iraq. The law requires the challenger to know the registered voter does not live where they say. Challenger after challenger knew nothing of the challenged person, had no evidence, and said they just took the word of someone working for the Republican party. Those challenged, though the cases were quickly thrown out, still showed up and lost a day to defend themselves from fake charges. Here's the whole transcript from Summit County. Any honest person who reads this must be outraged at this blatant attempt by the Republican party to disenfranchise legitimate voters.
In Minnesota, the good guys won one. A U.S. District Court has thrown at a decision by the state Secretary of State, Mary Kiffmeyer, that tribal IDs are good only on Indian reservations. This prevented Indians who live off the reservation but don't have drivers licenses from registering. Some might have been able to find a registered voter in their precinct to vouch for them at election day registration, but most couldn't vote. This could mean 5,000 more voters who lean Democratic anyway, and sure know who was stopping them from voting. The bad news: anecdotal evidence college students trying to vote absentee aren't getting registration confirmations and thus, no ballots (scroll to Absentee Flies Home).
October 29
The source of the news story that 100,000 Iraqis have died because of the war is The Lancet, a British medical journal. This is a respected scientific journal with tough requirements for scientific peer review, so they didn't just throw this out there in hope it sticks. They also have the caveats that the study was done in difficult circumstances and they point out potential problems themselves. Go see the report for yourself. Then consider the implications of 100,000 dead from an unnecessary war fought for false reasons. Aggressive war is a war crime, just like the mistreatment of detainees.
Bush's excuses on the missing explosives keep falling apart. The KSTP video shows an unbroken seal. I didn't know what it was when I first saw the video or I would have pointed it out, and likewise the soldiers in the video and embedded reporter didn't know or maybe they wouldn't have broken it to get in to the sealed building. It's confirmed that it's an IAEA seal. David Kay confirmed the seal, and David Albright confirmed that the explosives in the video are HMX. That still doesn't prove the quantity present, but you have to love the excuses. There's more since yesterday. Last night on Paula Zahn Now, Orrin Hatch said the reason the seals weren't broken is the Iraqis sneaked explosives out through the ventilation. Apparently as the U.S. Army was bearing down on them and Saddam was about to fall, the Iraqis delicately move small amounts of explosives through the vents rather than break the IAEA seals. Then why would they need trucks? The Pentagon released a satellite photo of Al Qaqaa showing a couple trucks parked out side the bunkers to bolster their claim the explosives were already moved. They need trucks for quantities so small they were moved through the ventilation? And what do two or three trucks tell us? That's still not 377 tons, and we can't tell when the photo was taken or what the trucks were doing.
But the excuses don't stop there. In a replay from the leftover cold warriors, the Russians did it. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said the Russians "almost certainly" did it. You'll notice the linked article from the Washington Times lacks any proof. Poor Shaw has some explaining to do, because the Pentagon, including his boss, said there's nothing to it and experts in the field say it make no sense for Russia to do this.
The funniest line, perhaps of the whole campaign, has to be Bush not just saying Kerry doesn't have all the facts, but saying, "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief." Every late night comic must have shown that clip and said, "Sometimes the jokes just write themselves."
Halliburton is in the news again because the FBI is investigating how it got the $7 billion no bid contract, which means it's become a criminal investigation. Rather then segueing into this story's connection to Iraq, I'm going to do the classic blogger thing of bringing up an underreported story. Halliburton is perhaps the poster child for the corporate scandals that struck a couple years ago. I say "perhaps" because Enron may still hold that status, but it's been mostly forgotten. The fines Halliburton has actually paid were for accounting fraud when Cheney was the CEO, and he still gets paychecks in the form of deferred compensation and he holds stock options, meaning the acting vice president has a personal stake in a company which depends on federal contracts. But on election day, remember Enron too. It wasn't just big, but heavily connected to Bush. Former executives found jobs in the Bush administration, Ken Lay was Bush's main backer when he became governor and ran for president, and Lay even got to interview candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -- the body that regulates Enron. The FERC's blind eye was vital in the fake power shortages in California, which included other energy companies besides Enron, like CMS and Dynegy. Bush watched and let it happen. He also had his own scandal as a director at Harken Energy, where charges of insider trading were snuffed by the SEC, which at the time was run by a Bush family lawyer and Bush Sr. was president. I'm not going to go back over every scandal. I just want to remind readers, especially those of you persuadable on how you vote, that this stuff was epidemic, promoted by deregulation promoted by the Republicans, and rampant with cronyism.
October 28
I normally can't stand rap, and I can't make out all the words, and I'll admit I don't watch a lot of music videos. However, despite all the caveats, Eminem's Mosh is just a stirring call to action to remove this fraud of a president.
This is amazing. At one and the same time, Bush accuses Kerry of blaming the troops and one of his lying chatterers does just that. There's been not one bit of proof Kerry said anything of the sort, or maybe I should stop looking for it on these liberal sites, like georgebush.com. That's the Bush campaign site, in case someone missed the irony. Bush has managed to make his charge the sound bite of the day, hoping repetition will make it believable. Meanwhile, from a conservative news site (no irony, it really is), Rudy Giuliani is quoted saying the soldiers might be to blame, in an article saying he didn't say that. Bizarre. Alas for the acting president, another piece of evidence supports the Iraqi government (which apparently isn't accepting the blame for something that occurred over a year before it existed). KSTP, a TV station in the Twin Cities, had embedded reporters filming Al Qaqaa in late April and shows soldiers finding explosives. The quantities can't be seen from the video, but the facilities were closed and the soldiers had to break chains to get inside. The buildings were then left unsecured. This still leaves quantities in doubt, the presence of explosives proven, the facility left unsecured, the soldiers having no orders to the contrary since they weren't WMD, the administration covering up, the Iraqi government contradicting Bush, and blame being shifted by Bush to the Iraqis, the troops, and to Kerry for using it in his stump speeches, which constitutes blaming the troops if we believe Bush. The last part is generally a bad idea.
In the newest lie, the acting vice president has started saying the administration has "communications that we've captured between Zarqawi and the bin Laden crowd," which show they think once the Iraqi elections happen, "they're out of business." Really Dick? Show us. If he had anything, it would be on every conservative news outlet every ten minutes. After all the lies he's been caught in, it's flabbergasting that anyone would believe anything he says. If he says the sky is blue, look outside.
A win on the voter suppression front: an Ohio judge rejected Republican challenges to 35,000 registered voters. They still hope to challenge voters at the polls. This bit is revealing: Republican lawyer Mark Weaver said, "The ironic twist here is that now there will be longer lines [at the polls] because questions about voter eligibility will have to be decided on Election Day, rather than ahead of time." Well, that's a nice way of feeding concerns that the Republicans plan to slow down the lines at the polls in hopes voters will get disgusted and leave. They are posting poll watchers, called "challengers" in some states, to challenge voters they suspect are ineligible. They will focus of course on Democratic precincts. Democrats get to post people too, and it's rather telling that despite the title "challengers" they will be in Democratic precincts too. The intention is to help voters get through the process, not slow things up. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll be one of those "challengers". That same article quoted a DNC lawyer saying, "our watchers will be there to help voters, not to hinder them, to answer their questions, not to question them." That's the instruction I received too. We want to help people vote. The GOP wants to hinder voting. That's the key difference between the parties. Ohioans are reasonably worried that Ohio will be the next Florida (don't worry too much, the absentee ballot problem keeps Florida in the running to be this year's Florida).
Minnesota has a deserved reputation for model elections and we don't expect to descend to Floridian levels, but we have problems, and now, thanks to idiots in state government, we've made national news media. The Boston Globe picked up the story that news media access to polls is being restricted. Media have to arrange access for a specific place and time, and only for 15 minutes. St. Paul Pioneer Press editor Vicki Gowler said, "The fact that we're restricted means ... it can be staged."
October 27
The twists and turns of the Al-Qaqaa munitions story are fun, mostly because of the desperate Republican spin on a story that couldn't have come out at a worse time. First the news broke that 377 tons of high explosives disappeared after the invasion. The International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA) wanted to know what happened to the site, which it had no access to after the U.S. invasion, and the answer was they were gone. The fun twist: the answer came from the interim Iraqi government. Oops, how embarrassing for Bush. The Republicans tried to spin this by pointing out this was a tiny tonnage by comparison to something like 400,000 tons already seized. That figure of course includes everything -- land mines, artillery shells, grenades, etc. The IAEA wasn't interested in all of that, just the high explosives, because potentially HMX and RDX can be used in atomic bombs, being powerful enough to compress fissile material to critical mass. Atomic weapons are rather tricky, but other bombs aren't, and this stuff has been used by the insurgents. It's more powerful than TNT and quite stable, so quite handy that way.
Then supporters of the acting president found a straw to grasp. An embedded NBC reporter said nothing was found during the invasion, giving the appearance it was gone already. The spin machine went into action, saying this reasonable doubt was definitive proof it was gone, and it was just for political advantage Kerry tried to make something out of nothing. Surely this NBC report was definitive and the New York Times and CBS got caught being partisan, and those irresponsible Democrats jumped all over it before all the facts were known. Oops again, it turns out the GOP jumped all over something before the facts were known, because the NBC reporter, Lai Ling Jew, said the army just made a pit stop. They never looked for the explosives. How embarrassing, especially for those that threw around accusations of lying. What makes it bad either way is that even if the explosives were already gone, the Bush administration didn't tell anybody, like the IAEA which wanted to know.
The spin wasn't done yet. Why did this story come out so close to the election? For partisan advantage, right? Was this the dreaded "October surprise"? That's the way the yarn was spun. Oops again, because there's that little matter of not having told anyone. They wouldn't be trying to keep it secret until after the election, would they? The IAEA finally asked the Iraqi government two weeks ago, which said 377 tons was missing. The Iraqi government isn't exactly out to get Bush. One might suspect the story was rushed to print to scoop the competition or, that dastardly liberal media, get it out before the election, which would be a reasonable suspicion if the story was wrong, but it held up. There's more. The IAEA told the administration on the 15th the stuff was missing (as if they didn't already know). Bush could have said something, admitted it before he got caught. I thought he liked preemptive attacks. He decided to hide it. Hoist by your own petard, Mr. Acting President. Sorry, maybe that's a bit too literal when explosives are the actual problem.
Maybe it's best to cling to the idea the explosives were already gone. Some soldiers were there April 3, 2003 and also didn't find anything -- or so right wing punditry hoped. Unfortunately, they did find some white powder which they thought was WMD but turned out to not to be. By hey, HMX and RDX are white powder. Uh oh, it's looking like the explosives were there.
Now it gets worse. Yes, worse. Witnesses saw the complex being looted after the Americans left. Even worse, employees of the site asked the army to guard it. They didn't. Must have been too busy guarding the Ministry of Oil. So, to sum up, troops went to Al Qaqaa but weren't told what was there or to secure it. They didn't recognize the white powder and left it since it wasn't the WMD they were looking for. The looters moved in shortly afterward, grabbing this high explosive that has been used to kill our soldiers. Bush didn't tell anybody, even though the IAEA wanted to know, and who knows where the stuff is now. The IAEA asked the Iraqi government, which spilled the beans. The IAEA told the administration, which didn't bother to tell the public.
The next bit is predictable. ABC reported IAEA documents indicate there might have been just three tons there. Now we'll hear the amount is too trivial to worry about. That begs some questions. Why would the IAEA care if the amount were trivial? Instead they kept asking about it. Why would the Iraqi government release misinformation that would hurt Bush so badly? He's about the only one on the planet who thinks they're actually a government. Since they couldn't know just how much was there, why didn't the administration secure the site? Above all, why didn't they tell us?
October 26
Has the acting president ever told the truth about what he did before entering politics? As recently as 2000, Bush claimed he worked for Professional United Leadership League (P.U.L.L) in 1973 and this was a basis of his compassionate conservatism. Hopefully he did learn some compassion, though he hasn't shown much sign of it. Now it turns out it wasn't exactly voluntary according to the P.U.L.L administrator's assistants. On the up side, maybe it partly explains where Bush was when he was AWOL.
From lying to incompetence, a problem with starting a war when you don't have to is the inability to deal with other problems that come up. That's been mentioned somewhat in regard to Darfur, but there's maybe even a better example. For inattention and lack of resources, Bush is missing an opportunity to establish a democracy in another Arab nation, Lebanon. This country has rebuilt from its civil war, has a functioning government, a democratic structure, but a much bigger neighbor, Syria. Throwing its weight around, Syria forced Lebanon to change the term limits rule to allow its preferred president another term. The prime minister resigned, after resisting Syrian bullying. If the acting president had not entangled us in Iraq, we could have countered Syrian influence and allowed Lebanon real independence. With the rebuilding that's happened, a legitimate government, and leaders trying to run things democratically, this was the prime opportunity for a Arab democracy. Almost surely no military deployment necessary, except perhaps to tell the Syrians we were serious, and they wouldn't have taken us on one on one. Now of course Syria knows we can't do squat. Bush blew it.
Just for fun, Wearable Dissent let's you try to vote in Florida.
Even more fun, Kerry has been endorsed by another conservative Florida newspaper. The Orlando Sentinel last endorsed the Democratic candidate in 1964. Perhaps this is like the non-endorsement by the Tampa Tribune. It's significant because it's a switch from 2000 by a conservative paper in a swing area in swing state. While looking at the Sentinel's endorsement, I found an interesting bit of hypocrisy. Orlando is getting a big grant for a power plant. That the announcement is right before the election is mere coincidence, says Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, as is the selection of an area so vital to the election when there were 13 other applicants for the grant. This from the same people who accuse John Kerry of pandering because he went goose hunting for a few hours.
Thinking about those newspaper endorsement switches, and the many other stories of conservatives, Republicans, and people who voted for Bush in 2000 who have switched, the natural question is why the polls are close instead of showing a landslide for Kerry. I have a theory, aside from anything about the polls being wrong. It's a common opinion that we have to support the president in wartime, no matter what. His mistakes not only shouldn't be discussed, to do so is disloyal, even right before an election. I don't know how many people hold this opinion, so my impressions are anecdotal, but I believe the numbers are high and account for almost all who switched to Bush this year. I'm convinced that without a significant number of people holding that opinion, Kerry would be looking at a landslide. The challenge over this week is to get such voters to accept that it's okay to question a president and hold him accountable during a war, at least on election day.
An interesting bit on the voter suppression front. I hope this was just a mistake, but with all that's happened you have to wonder. The Minnesota Department of Motor Vehicles posted signs saying that registration was closed, but without mentioning that it was just pre-registration that was closed and Minnesota has same day registration. Most Minnesotans will know better, but people getting drivers licenses might have just moved in from out of state and wouldn't know that. A bit of good news though is 81% of eligible voters are registered, and more will register election day, so there will be huge turnout.
October 25
I found out what's behind the Republican charge that the DNC is telling supporters to claim there are problems at the polls even if there aren't. While checking out the story two days ago about Maryland not allowing international observers to go where they want, I found this press release on the Maryland GOP site. It repeats the charge and links to a page of the Drudge report. Look at what the charge is based on. If it's real, one never knows with Drudge, it's a page from a manual for Colorado telling Democrats to be preemptive in countering voter suppression efforts. I suspect it's real because it completely blows apart the GOP charge. Nowhere does it suggest lying, distorting, twisting, or anything else unethical. It tells how to play up the concerns about suppression, mostly intimidation of minorities. Funny, suddenly Republicans think preemption is wrong.
It was two years ago today that Senator Paul Wellstone died in a small plane crash, along with his wife, daughter, three campaign staff and the plane crew. It was the first time I ever shed tears over a politician, even though I never met him. My wife, who did get to meet him, bawled when I broke the news to her. We, meaning progressives of all varieties in this state, would have mourned if Wellstone had died of old age, but for him to be taken so suddenly added a huge shock. Added to grief was anger that still burns over how the conservative pundits, in their willingness to lie and twist in order to win the election, distorted what happened at Wellstone's public memorial. I was present, and will attest that they didn't tell the truth. It went on for over three hours, and including eulogies for all who died in the crash. The DFL, which had to throw this together in a couple days, let families pick the speakers and didn't check or edit the speeches beforehand. Three eulogies of got partisan, the two by Wellstone's sons and particularly one by a longtime staff member and friend. No question he showed horrible judgement and said things inappropriate, but the man was speaking from grief. Wellstone's sons were coping with the death of both parents and their sister, but did the chattering class cut them any slack? No, they thoroughly twisted what happened for partisan advantage and roused the resentment of many who watched on television felt over partisan speeches at a memorial. A local TV anchorman, Don Shelby, apologized to viewers as if he had anything to apologize for, and acted like he'd been tricked. He was covering this for his station. He must have known better. One pundit, Sarah Janacek, told those not present that the audience was prompted on the video screen when to laugh, applaud, etc. She was referring to the closed captioning, which all present, including Janacek, could see was following the words and applause, not coming before. She just lied, and even if she was stupid enough to believe that at first, she maintained it later. I won't go into details about all the lying that went on, and nationwide as well as in the state. I'll just say that because of it, a weasel got elected over an elder statesman. Yes, we're still bitter. For details, see Al Franken's book, Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, in which he devotes a whole chapter to the memorial. Parts of what he describes I didn't see myself, but I saw enough to believe he's telling the truth. Wellstone.org has a memorial on their home page.
As I was writing the paragraph above, I heard a Republican consultant, Bill Greener, say Kerry must have been pandering when he went goose hunting because he was out only two hours (scroll to "Courting the rural vote"). He said everyone he knows who hunts birds says it takes two hours just to get organized. What is this, Swift Boat Goose Hunters for Truth? I don't hunt geese either, but I used to fish. I'd often be out only a couple hours if I had other things to do. Gee, I wonder if someone running for president had anything else to do? So this is their evidence he's pandering. I guess a candidate can't take off even a few hours. Or maybe it's another Republican talking head with no sense of shame.
Are we finally getting closer to war crimes charges high up in the administration? And why was this story on page A8 of the printed edition? The CIA hid prisoners from the Red Cross, took them out of Iraq in violation of the Geneva conventions, and the Justice Department gave an opinion beforehand saying it was OK. The good news is we're getting closer to showing definitively the guys at the top knew and approved of prisoner abuses, and it wasn't just a bunch of enlisted men doing this on their own. It looks like someone high up in Justice approved of a war crime. No wonder the Bush administration is against the international war crimes court. They might be sitting in the defendant's chair.
October 24
Here's a shock: there are more Republican election evil deeds. In Philadelphia, they tried to move the polls in black neighborhoods just days before the election. Of 63 locations they asked to move, 53 are less than 10% white. Fortunately they got stopped. Matt Robb, a Republican leader of Philadelphia's 48th ward, admitted race was the reason for the request to move at least five locations. Not that he's bigoted, but, "It's predominantly, 100 percent black. I'm just not going in there to get a knife in my back." Some locations sound odd to me I'll admit, but Philadelphia has a process for moving polls, and it doesn't include making the request after it's too late to notify voters.
This infringement of basic rights might be costing the Republicans. Even conservatives can believe in civil liberties. Carl F. Worden explains his disgust with the insistence of the Bush campaign on allowing only supporters at rallies. The "last straw" was the removal of three people for wearing t-shirts that said, "Protect Our Civil Liberties". Other than an American flag, that's all that was on the shirts, but that was enough not just for staff at the rally but for Republican officials who backed them. As I write this, I'm starting to realize that the Kerry campaign hasn't made as much of this as they might. They try to get undecided voters to go to events and ask questions, but they don't make a big deal of pointing out that they do this. I can attest that grassroots Democrats, given a forum, do make the point.
On the subject of conservatives who can't stand Bush, is Bush a leftist paranoid fantasy come true? I find myself actually agreeing with The American Conservative about the war in Iraq, though not much else. I do think though the writers at this magazine are on the up and up, unlike the looters and neocons who run the government and their lying spinmasters.
October 23
Lots of new voting problems to tell you about, but first something for laughs. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ran around the spin room after the third debate verbally puncturing a bunch of gasbags. He took apart both sides, though I liked best what he said to Karl Rove as Rove walked away refusing to talk to a dog puppet: "You're Bush's brains Karl. I was expecting a much smaller man." It will take time to download on dial-up but it's worth it.
Before getting on Florida yet again, a trip to California, where the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says the state has made paper ballots available to anyone who asks, but if voters don't ask, the poll workers are being told not to tell them. EFF's Annalee Newitz was on Talk of the Nation.
Okay, Florida. An Associated Press story on Florida's problems confirms my anecdotal impression that nobody who works in computers, including me, trusts these touchscreen machines: "Computer scientists, practically as a profession, don't trust them — not without a range of safeguards that aren't in place for this election. They say the touch screens now in use could alter or delete votes — and that without paper copies, voters will never know if their votes counted." Jeb Bush calls concerns about these machines "conspiracy theories", even though state Republicans told supporters to vote absentee because the new machines are unreliable. They also tried to ban recounts of these machines, until the ACLU successfully sued to require recounts as required by state law. Unfortunately, all that's possible is to check that the numbers of blank votes match.
This article from Slate takes a long view on Florida's problems to show how fraud has been ingrained. Going back only to 2000, the Miami Herald found that despite their claims they weren't in contact during the recount, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris had exchanged emails and then tried to delete them. Harris even replaced her PC operating system with an older version to wipe out the traces. Too late apparently. The current secretary of state, appointed by the governor rather than elected or selected by some impartial body, along with the Bush brother who appointed her, pushed a new state law that removes the requirement that absentee votes be witnessed. The question is just how big a victory Kerry has to win to actually be declared the winner.
In Maryland and Virginia, state election officials will allow international observers only at designated sites. Even China lets observers go where they will (scroll to Legal Battle Looms over Voting Rules).
Then again, Bush shouldn't have to worry. He's a shoo-in to win a fair election with that endorsement by Iran.
October 22
I generally figure newspaper endorsements don't mean much. They summarize the case for their candidate, but I've never known anyone to change a vote because of it. Here's the "however" you're expecting: I think there might be an exception this time. I'm not referring to the endorsement of Kerry by the Crawford, Texas local paper, neat as that was. I'm referring to the refusal of the Tampa Tribune to endorse anybody. This is a conservative paper that has backed the Republican candidate all but once since 1952, but this time can't endorse Bush. They won't endorse Kerry either because they're conservative and don't agree with him. It's the reasons for refusing to endorse Bush that are interesting. They admit he has been dishonest and incompetent. Why this time the endorsement, or non-endorsement, matters, is the shock value of a conservative paper saying it can't trust this guy, saying it to a readership that presumably knows the conservative leanings, in what I understand is a Republican leaning area, in a swing state --- and Florida no less.
Another Florida newspaper put together an excellent summary of the case against Bush. It's rather long, but covers about every issue.
Cheesiness in congressional campaigns: the race in Minnesota's 2nd district appears to be close with silly attacks going on. The Democratic challenger, Teresa Daly, ran a TV ad where she said Republican incumbent Jon Kline didn't want to protect children from Internet porn. I don't know what Kline said, but I suspect his words were twisted. Kline has returned the cheesiness, by jumping all over a donation Daly received from a sex toy store owner, even though the Daly campaign says they aren't accepting the donation. Meanwhile, like all but a few Republican House members, Kline has taken money from Tom Delay's PAC. Delay has been in a lot of ethics trouble lately, partly because of that PAC, and most recently because he used federal government resources to track down Democratic members of the Texas state senate during the fight over redistricting in the middle of the census cycle (which might yet be thrown out in court). Earlier today I saw a Kline TV ad where he said, horror of horrors, Daly voted to raise taxes while on the Burnsville, MN city council. That's happened all over the state, as local governments have had to make up the difference as the state has made big cutbacks to keep the governor's stupid no tax pledge. The key thing is actually Tom Delay. He will continue to be majority leader as long as the Republicans are the majority in the House. So in the 2nd district, hold your nose and vote to get rid of the crooks who run the House. I'm not calling Kline a crook. I've no reason to think he's not honest, but any Republican will vote to keep the crooks in power.
October 21
I was in attendance at the Kerry rally in downtown Minneapolis tonight. It was held in a Metrodome parking lot, and I will attest that the line to get in was incredible. The available space appeared nearly full with as many people waiting to get in. I've been to a bunch of events at the dome and the crowd was in the tens of thousands. Campaign staff said they were told by the city fire marshall that the crowd was 30,000. My wife spoke to someone who stayed through the whole thing and was told 40,000. I've been to rallies before. I'll be quite surprised to ever even hear of one bigger. Unfortunately I had to leave early so I can't comment on any of the speakers, but I will attest that liberals, progressives, Democrats, pick your description, are motivated. Probably Republicans are too, and they're going to have to be. We're angry about the constant lies, about the undermining of our democracy, and we intend to do something about it.
Teresa Kerry shouldn't have made her remarks about Laura Bush never having had a real job. She showed grace by admitting she was wrong and apologizing. Laura Bush showed grace by accepting the apology and saying it wasn't necessary. The Bush campaign's surrogates have been utterly graceless in spitting Kerry's apology back in her face by accusing her of demeaning child rearing. I heard it three times in short order from Republican members of the chattering class, Karen Hughes, Robert Novak, and Bay Buchanan. Gee, I wonder if this was a talking point, the fake outrage of the day. Why doesn't Mr. or Mrs. Bush ever tell their surrogates to stop the cheap shots?
Bay Buchanan made her remarks on Inside Politics. She appeared with frequent CNN guest Donna Brazile who is supposed to provide the Democratic spin. Sorry to be so obvious as to say spin, but she's so obvious she's more spinamateur than spinmaster. She just ignored Buchanan's cheap shot at Teresa (wasn't attacking the opponent's family wrong?). It's like she has her lines to say and isn't even listening. Shortly after the cheap shot, Buchanan told a whopper of a lie. She said, "I mean, you have the DNC saying even if there's no trouble in your precincts and in the voting, just say there is. I mean, what kind of statement is that? Just let's start problems, let's start a controversy, let's make it look like they shouldn't have won." Brazile just sat there. The host, Judy Woodruff, is an objective journalist, but she won't challenge her guests when they pull crap like that. Maybe she thinks that's the other guest's responsibility. It is, but it's hers too. Just in case someone doubts Buchanan was lying, I get the emails the DNC sends to supporters, like the ones asking us to write letters to the editor and call talk shows after the debates. I imagine I would have gotten this memo. Just in case, I looked at the DNC site and there was nothing there. I checked a couple search engines and a couple news sites. Besides, I'm a news junkie. I think I would have heard this, but I found it nowhere. She lied.
One bit of good news reported on that program: a poll showed support for abolishing the electoral college 61% to 39%. On MPR's Midmorning, the first hour was about the electoral college, and the arguments for it get pathetically weak (scroll to "Voting on the Electoral College"). This time, the defense was that it offers a chance for third parties to have influence by winning a state and using those electoral votes to decide a close election. Uh huh. This has happened how many times in 216 years? Like I said in 2001 after the 2000 farce, The Electoral College Needs to Graduate.
October 20
Here's something that should give pause to all who believe Bush has been an effective leader. Columnist Robert Sheer reports that insiders in the CIA tell him that a report the Bush administration refuses to release names names of those who screwed up before 911. Even the House Intelligence Committee isn't being allowed to see it, despite a specific request. It may seem premature that the report would be very bad for the acting president, except that these same people fought the 911 commission tooth and nail, and it turned out they had a lot to hide. The most damaging revelation was probably the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that warned of imminent attack by Osama Bin Laden, probably with planes, probably on New York. That was revealed to the commission only after the commission asked for everything, got something they were told was everything, then they'd find out there was more, and this happened I'm not sure how many times. The commission had to threaten subpoenas to get cooperation. So if this CIA report on 911 is being covered up, the only reasonable conclusion is that there's actually something worse to reveal. The only hope of getting this out before the election is enough of the public demanding it and putting pressure on Bush. If it's so bad that even with all that's come out, it's still worth covering up, I wonder if we're talking mere severe embarrassment or outright impeachment. The Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about an affair. What should happen to someone who lied about the biggest attack on U.S. soil?
Speaking of Bush lying, I saw a fact checking segment on the CBS Evening News where they called Kerry on saying Bush wants to privatize Social Security. The clip showed Kerry saying he was quoted Bush. As it happens, he was quoting. Bush did indeed say, ''I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in, with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The bolding is mine.
The instinct to cover up has spread to the state level. Supporters of the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor Party, the name of the Minnesota Democrats) have coined the term "texification" to describe the sort of policies and arrogance of the Minnesota Republicans that strikes them of being like Republicans in Texas, like Bush and Tom Delay. An example of this was revealed today. Prof. Tyrone Hayes, an endocrinologist form the University of California at Berkeley, was to be the keynote speaker at a conference hosted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. However, his work has been about the effects of the pesticide atrazine on amphibians. When they learned that would be the topic of his speech, and he wouldn't drop the amphibian and atrazine references, the MPCA dropped him. Apparently the chance of offending certain interests was worse then a speaker bringing up pollution at a conference on pollution. Just like Bush, if it's embarrassing to you or your rich friends, cover it up. We can't vote out the executive branch for a couple years, but we can remove the Republican majority in the state house.
Even if there is no malfeasance with touchscreen voting this year --- insert laughter here --- the technology still has all sorts of unresolved problems. We would never tolerate it with ATMs, but Larry Decklever, the founder of a quality assurance company, says the technology isn't near ready yet.
Knight Ridder newspapers ran a series on the gross incompetence and misjudgements that led to the mess in Iraq. The reporters were interviewed today on Minnesota Public Radio's Midday. Scroll down to "Are we losing the peace in Iraq?" Find the articles here.
October 19
A judge in Michigan decided today that voters must be allowed to cast provisional ballots when they're in the wrong precinct, as long as they're in the right local jurisdiction. It's similar to a ruling in Ohio, though the Florida Supreme Court is requiring that provisional ballots be cast in the correct precinct. It seems reasonable on the surface to require voters to get to the right polling station. Some voters probably are as dumb as conservatives say they are when they object to anything that makes voting easier, or resolves issues in the voter's favor, but it's not always the voter's fault. There are good reasons for allowing provisional voting in the wrong precinct but correct locality:
- The Ashcroft Justice Department opposes it. Okay, that's not a legal reason, but whenever Ashcroft gets involved, it seems "justice" is the last thing he's protecting.
- These are provisional ballots, not the regular ones. Resolving problems like where a voter is supposed to vote is exactly why these ballots were made.
- Many states have been inundated with registrations and are behind in processing, so some voters may not even be on the rolls by election day, and many won't have received the postcard giving them the correct location.
- Some states have revamped registration systems, and there are bugs, like voters being sent to the wrong place, like happened in Kansas City.
- Low income voters are adversely affected because they're much more likely to move, therefore more likely to have the wrong information. They also lean Democratic, which is why Democrats get suspicious of Republican pushes to disallow provisional ballots in the wrong precincts.
- In the case of Florida, the hurricanes destroyed a lot of polling places, so the places voters have been going for years just plain aren't there. Also, many voters are in temporary housing, which will lead to confusion about where they're supposed to vote. Add in that Florida too has had lots of new registrations, and their state supreme court didn't do them any favors.
ACORN has gotten in trouble with the fraudulent registrations they've turned in. There's no evidence yet that Republican registrations were torn up. Maybe Republicans can't stand it that their side got caught doing just that. That said, ACORN was absolutely stupid to pay employees for each registration. No question they should have seen it coming. However, they are the biggest victim because they paid for these fake registrations. A grassroots group operating in the inner city isn't exactly bursting with funds. If they were trying to register fake voters so they could vote multiple times, they presumably could have done better than registering an employee's girlfriend 20 times, or turning in a form for Michael Jordan. If the intention was to cast more votes, then someone is bound to blow the whistle and say they were asked to vote multiple times, probably one of these employees they've fired. One former employee was caught with 300 registrations he never turned in, but the signatures checked were genuine. So how was ACORN supposed to be helped by these not being turned in? Moreover, this sort of fakery is usually done by fly by night operations, like Voters Outreach of America or those temporary organizations that run deceptive political TV ads, not long established advocacy organizations with a reputation to protect. That reputation is badly tarnished, but aside from unproven allegations, ACORN is the victim, not the perpetrator of fraud. Now if the turnout exceeds the number of eligible voters, okay, we bang on ACORN's door first.
Another problem with the charges of fraudulent registrations is that the unrealistically large number of registered voters in some states are probably accounted for by people re-registering after they move, or registering multiple times to be sure they get in, like the aforementioned Kansas City voter. In states where voters declare a party, party-switchers usually re-register. That doesn't rule out fraud, but it does explain higher than expected registrations.
October 18
Is it OK to say I told you so? Touchscreen machines failed already in Florida's early voting. Orange County's system crashed after the first vote. They rebooted, so did they lose that one vote? Be glad it was only one. In Palm Beach County, a state legislator who had the sense to request a paper ballot said half of it was missing, and election officials were indifferent. Yesterday I mentioned the problems in Duval County. Today the supervisor of elections resigned suddenly for health reasons. Since there were charges of partisanship, this is probably a win for the good guys, but it's hard to know, or to know just what the effect will be. The good guys might win another one, since the story I mentioned yesterday about Jeb Bush knowing about the problems with the felons list has been picked up by Salon, which cites the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, though I haven't been able to find the Sarasota Herald-Tribune story. I did find this story there though, about only a fraction of the voters removed from registration rolls as happened in 2000 or would have happened had the state's list been used this time. Along with the sharp rise in black registration, this could be what turns Florida --- assuming the registrations are properly processed and all the voters are counted, which isn't a safe assumption but let's keep trying.
On the bad news side, servicemen deployed overseas can vote by fax or e-mail, but their vote isn't secret and the Pentagon hired a private contractor to handle the votes. This contractor, who had no qualifications besides being a Republican donor, will be seeing the votes, and won't say who is handling the votes and there's no oversight.
Back to good news, the Supreme Court has ordered a lower court to have another look at its decision to allow the Texas redistricting plan that gerrymanders the districts for Republicans' benefit, and did so in the middle of the census cycle (scroll to "Supreme Court Orders Review of Texas Districts").
Back to Minnesota, which I still optimistically hope isn't that bad, but just keeps popping up because I live there and get the Minnesota media, where we're one of only nine states to implement the new federal registration system, and it's been a cock up. Part of it was the insistence of the secretary of state, Mary Kiffmeyer, that a voter be disqualified if the name isn't exactly the same everywhere. So if you're Pat Smith on your registration but Patrick Smith on your drivers license, you can't vote.
Just for fun, let's get back to utter incompetence of the Bush administration in Iraq. I learned something new which maybe was widely known, but not to me so I pass it on. It's definitely widely known that one of the first decisions of the Coalition Provisional Authority was to disband the army and leave all those soldiers unemployed in a chaotic country. What I didn't know was that for 11 years before, the U.S. government had promised soldiers would keep their jobs after an American invasion if they didn't fight. Most of them didn't fight. Contrary to 11 years of promises, they lost their jobs. So much for credibility. They did however know where all the guns were, as any idiot would have figured except for the idiots picked by Bush. Apparently Bush's gut didn't tell him that.
October 17
A reader might conclude from yesterday's entry full of Republican attempts to cheat by suppressing voting that I don't think the Democrats are as bad. You'd be right, which isn't to say Republicans aren't making such charges, but, well, let's have some proof. Interestingly, the charges are exactly the opposite of the Democratic charges, that they're trying to let people vote who aren't eligible. There's a legitimate philosophical difference in that one side believes people have a right to vote unless it's proven they're ineligible. The other believes people must prove their eligibility, and if there's any doubt, must be disqualified. The fight comes in when the doubts are trumped up, like technicalities being enforced that aren't enforced evenly, as is a charge in Florida, or weren't enforced until now, when registrations are running Democratic, like Florida and Ohio. Columnist Joe Soucheray explained the Republican case, though not that well. It's apparent he's heard there are accusations, but hasn't actually looked into them since they don't fit his preconceived notion that voting is easy and there are no obstacles. Apparently having your registration form thrown out for declaring the wrong party in a state with no election day registration isn't a problem. He's shocked the Minnesota could be a state with problems. So am I, and while it's not at all on the level of Nevada, Florida, or Ohio, it's our state, so I'm shocked too. We've long had a reputation for model elections. I mentioned Minnesota yesterday, but forgot one thing in that same article (from Soucheray's newspaper too). The Secretary of State, who should have known better with the suspicions of partisanship that have come her way, has recruited her own volunteer poll watchers, but they appear to be coming from Republican ranks only. And now, unfortunately, back to Florida.
Florida is having problems with selective enforcement of registration laws and the partisanship of election officials, including Secretary of State Glenda Wood. This is now an appointed post, so no chance to replace her without replacing the governor. One might expect brother Jeb to appoint a non-partisan technocrat, but Wood was an elector in 2000. She told counties to start requiring that a citizenship check box be checked, even though registrants have to sign an oath stating the same thing. Like in other states, the enforcement of technicalities started when registrations were running heavily Democratic. There are also charges that the selective enforcement has gone beyond just a newly enforced rule, beyond that rule being illegal, to the rule being applied more against blacks. In Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, there is only one location for early polling while other areas of similar size have several, and that location is far from black neighborhoods. The Washington Post investigated and found blacks are running into more problems than whites. County officials have been slow to tell people there are problems with their registrations, but quick to disqualify them as felons. Paul Krugman said in a recent column that a Greg Palast article upcoming in Harper's will show that people misidentified as felons have a bunch of hoops to jump through, like getting clemency for crimes someone else committed. By the time you read this, the article may be available at the Harper's web site. Here's one that could have some nasty repercussions for brother Jeb if it's true: People for the American Way claim they have an e-mail that shows he knew about the problems with the discredited felons list before the state government tried to use it and deny access to the press. I want to be clear that I don't know if it's genuine. It has credibility because it fits the pattern with what's been proven.
As I was writing this, I just heard on the BBC that touchscreen machines in Florida are being used for early voting, and have to remain running for two weeks (the story isn't on the site yet, so you'll have to search for it). These are Windows machines. Two weeks without freezing? Not impossible, but that has to give every experienced computer user pause. That assumes no tampering over that whole time.
October 16
I'm convinced some Republicans are trying to steal the election, and it's not just because of things I've written about before regarding Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan,or touchscreen voting. A blatant example has been found in Nevada, with more problems in Oregon, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and again in Minnesota.
Nevada seems to be the most serious because the people pulling this are working in several states and get their fees from The Republican National Committee (RNC). The RNC hired Sproul & Associates, based in Arizona, run by the former executive director of the Arizona Republican Committee Nathan Sproul, to conduct voter registration drives in Nevada. Sproul formed a company called Voters Outreach of America, which also used the name of a Democratic organization, America Votes. The accusation is they turned in only the Republican registrations (many states, including Nevada, require voters to declare a party when they register) and destroyed the rest. A local TV station in Las Vegas caught them.
It turned out this company has been operating in Oregon too, and the Oregon attorney general has opened a criminal investigation. They also tried to register at libraries passing themselves off as non-partisan. The aforementioned Sproul has been active in his home state too. There is something you can do about this. Sign this online petition from Working for Change.
Back to Nevada, a former state Republican chair tried to challenge 17,000 voters. The challenge was rejected since he can challenge only in his precinct and only with personal knowledge. The Clark County registrar said, "I don't think pulling names off a database equates to personal knowledge." Nevada is a swing state, so the people disenfranchised by this cheating, if no provision is made for them to register, could make the difference in the presidential election.
In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County is printing fewer ballots for the city of Milwaukee than in 2000 or even 2002, despite the expected higher turnout. Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, co-chair of the state Bush campaign, made the decision, claiming he was reducing the number of ballots to prevent fraud. Mayor Tom Barrett, co-chair of the state Kerry campaign, is irate, having requested more ballots. Milwaukee, like many Democratic areas, has seen a huge increase in registrations this year. Doug Haag, Chairman of the Milwaukee County Commission and of the county Republican Party, didn't inspire confidence when he said, "Why is there this need to get all these people registered? If people want to vote, they will vote. If they want to stay in bed and not vote, they don't have to bother." Apparently he doesn't care that waiting for more ballots to arrive, and not getting ballots, just might stop people in heavily Democratic Milwaukee from voting. Or maybe he does. Or maybe he can't see that having to wait in line to register at busy polls (Wisconsin allows registration at the polls) is another deterrent. Or maybe he does.
In Minnesota, the state Republicans are suing Hennepin and Ramsey counties, which include Minneapolis and St. Paul respectively, on the grounds too many election judges are Democratic. I don't know if their numbers are correct. I do know I'm much more worried about something else they're doing with election judges. Republicans are having additional training session for judges, apart from the non-partisan sessions. No one else can participate or even watch. This has never been done before, by any party. What are they hiding, and given all that their party has been up to, is it any wonder I'm suspicious? I suspect they're training in ways to find any reason to prevent likely Democratic voters from voting. I don't know that, but all they need to do is allow outside observers at the training.
In New Hampshire, John Ashcroft's Justice Department has interfered in an investigation of fraud committed in 2002. Computerized dialing jammed Democratic phone banks being used for get out the vote (GOTV) efforts. Democrats were about to depose a Republican witness under oath. An alleged conspirator is Jim Tobin, the director of the New England Bush campaign, and in 2002 he was regional director of the Republican Senatorial Committee.
See the archives for earlier entries.
