The Staton Jones Report

Maps can convey all sorts of useful information, which explains why most Americans are utterly unfamiliar with them. Of course, that rule of thumb goes out the window when someone comes up with a map that's essentially inaccurate.

For example, any one with a standard 50-state map of the US can see that Texas is twice the size of Alaska. Wrong. Not only is Texas the second largest State, but the fact is that Alaska could split into two smaller States making Texas the third largest State.

Similarly, the map of the continental U.S. in the upper left, promotes the false impression that the vast majority of the United States is dominated by Republicans (shown in Red). This is, again, inaccurate, so expect to see this map a lot over the next four years. Don't expect to see much of this map, however:

This map shows the continental U.S., colored Republican Red and Democrat Blue, but with the surface area of each region scaled by population density. It's the work of M. T. Gastner, C. R. Shalizi, and M. E. J. Newman of the University of Michigan, and it summarized here. There is free software to draw your own maps and everything.

Heil Bush.

Maps can convey all sorts of useful information, which explains why most Americans are utterly unfamiliar with them. Of course, that rule of thumb goes out the window when someone comes up with a map that's essentially inaccurate.

For example, any one with a standard 50-state map of the US can see that Texas is twice the size of Alaska. Wrong. Not only is Texas the second largest State, but the fact is that Alaska could split into two smaller States making Texas the third largest State.

Similarly, the map of the continental U.S. in the upper left, promotes the false impression that the vast majority of the United States is dominated by Republicans (shown in Red). This is, again, inaccurate, so expect to see this map a lot over the next four years. Don't expect to see much of this map, however:

This map shows the continental U.S., colored Republican Red and Democrat Blue, but with the surface area of each region scaled by population density. It's the work of M. T. Gastner, C. R. Shalizi, and M. E. J. Newman of the University of Michigan, and it summarized here. There is free software to draw your own maps and everything.

Heil Bush.

Maps can convey all sorts of useful information, which explains why most Americans are utterly unfamiliar with them. Of course, that rule of thumb goes out the window when someone comes up with a map that's essentially inaccurate.

For example, any one with a standard 50-state map of the US can see that Texas is twice the size of Alaska. Wrong. Not only is Texas the second largest State, but the fact is that Alaska could split into two smaller States making Texas the third largest State.

Similarly, the map of the continental U.S. in the upper left, promotes the false impression that the vast majority of the United States is dominated by Republicans (shown in Red). This is, again, inaccurate, so expect to see this map a lot over the next four years. Don't expect to see much of this map, however:

This map shows the continental U.S., colored Republican Red and Democrat Blue, but with the surface area of each region scaled by population density. It's the work of M. T. Gastner, C. R. Shalizi, and M. E. J. Newman of the University of Michigan, and it summarized here. There is free software to draw your own maps and everything.

Heil Bush.

Maps can convey all sorts of useful information, which explains why most Americans are utterly unfamiliar with them. Of course, that rule of thumb goes out the window when someone comes up with a map that's essentially inaccurate.

For example, any one with a standard 50-state map of the US can see that Texas is twice the size of Alaska. Wrong. Not only is Texas the second largest State, but the fact is that Alaska could split into two smaller States making Texas the third largest State.

Similarly, the map of the continental U.S. in the upper left, promotes the false impression that the vast majority of the United States is dominated by Republicans (shown in Red). This is, again, inaccurate, so expect to see this map a lot over the next four years. Don't expect to see much of this map, however:

This map shows the continental U.S., colored Republican Red and Democrat Blue, but with the surface area of each region scaled by population density. It's the work of M. T. Gastner, C. R. Shalizi, and M. E. J. Newman of the University of Michigan, and it summarized here. There is free software to draw your own maps and everything.

Heil Bush.

The Bush Method of winning elections: get your shadowy henchmen to do the dirty work (remind you of Nixon?) while you remain "above the fray". Alas, Americans just aren't seeing this for what it is, and thus the "Swift Boat Vets for Truth" are eroding Kerry's lead over Bush despite their documented ties to the Bush re-election gang.

Here is a very good article about how the Bushies work behind the scenes.

Any student of Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their alleged character.

Even the audaciousness of this year’s episode is not surprising. Who would have believed that George Bush, with all the trouble over his National Guard service, could get John Kerry in hot water for his combat duty and medals in Vietnam? Well, anyone who saw what George Bush did to former POW John McCain in the 2000 primaries, which was even more outrageous.

The ancestral origin of Bush family gut fighting came in George H. W. Bush’s 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis in the form of the infamous Willie Horton ad. (Historical footnote: Horton actually went by William, not Willie, and is referred as William in all legal documents; the ad makers thought Willie sounded scarier and blacker.)

That ad was produced by an outfit allegedly independent of the official campaign. It wasn’t aired on TV much but got most of its play in the press. Papa Bush and his official staff maintained they knew nothing about such déclassé skullduggery. There was nothing blatantly untrue about the ad, but it was hugely misleading and subtly racist.

The ad also attacked Dukakis right where he was supposed to be strongest. If the Duke had a strength (a big if), it was as a highly competent government CEO who led the Massachusetts Miracle. The ad gave an emotional snapshot of a guy whose incompetence let a killer out of jail so he could commit assault and rape. It worked.

In a very clever move (unless you saw the end of the movie Dick), GOP protestors are painting huge "Re-defeat Bush" and other anti-GOP slogans on rooftops in NYC on known flightpaths into the major airports.

"We just hope that they'll look down and ask themselves, 'Why, why do they feel so strongly? Why is it that New York feels this way?'" said Genevieve Christy, who has painted more than 80 banners since thinking of the idea a few weeks ago.

The movement is so popular in her neighborhood that Christy, a 57-year-old consultant, is putting orders on a waiting list. She even brought supplies with her on vacation so she could keep working.

The banners and signs, Christy said, are a form of safe, silent protest that many New Yorkers prefer over the dozens of rallies planned throughout the week of the convention.

This is a very clever and effective idea that doesn't get anyone tear gassed (or worse). I just hope the drunken GOP delegates look out the windows of their American Airlines jets on their way in. They'll probably get a flyer telling them to shutter the windows, put a pillow in their lap and bend over on approach to NYC.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times has an editorial about Florida officials visiting elderly black voters and threatening them with an "investigation" into voter fraud.

State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.

Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.

"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.

The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I'd wager that the Rove plan to eliminate 100K black voters from the fall election has begun. You may que The Empire Strkes Back theme song now.

The Washington Post has a biting article about how the Bush Administration has done fewer than a dozen press conferences in three and one-half years, but is holding a dozen "town hall" styled love-ins this month that pretend to be real forums with real voters asking Bush tough questions.

The press corps appears to have had about enough of those hokey "Ask President Bush" events.

Instead of taking questions from reporters, President Bush has become increasingly partial to playing talk-show host to an audience of sycophantic fans.

There were four "Ask President Bush" events last week and in each case, after a long speech and staged interviews with prepped guests, Bush opened the floor to some incredible softballs.

The format allows the president to come off as very smooth.

As John Harris writes in The Washington Post: "In loosening his style, Bush tightened his message. Fielding friendly questions at 'Ask President Bush' forums, or lathering up the crowds at pep rallies like the one here on Saturday afternoon, he presented his case for reelection with a force and fluency that sometimes eluded him at important moments over the past year."

There's never a nasty question, never a heckler, nothing but love. That makes for great imagery and great soundbytes.

But now the press is pulling back the curtain.

Well it's about goddamned time.

For a while, I was seriously considering driving down to NYC to join in the protests that will surround the Republican National Convention at the end of the month. But today Salon ran a story that's convinced me to stay the heck away:

On the evening of June 11, over 100 people gathered at Saint Marks Church for one of the monthly No RNC Clearinghouse meetings, in which organizers plot strategy and apprise each other of their progress. The room was stifling and the meeting tedious until a strikingly pretty dark-haired woman stood up and electrified the crowd with her call to civil disobedience.

"The Republicans are coming," she began. "In a shameless effort to exploit the tragedy of 9/11, they will craft an agenda that erodes the very freedoms they claim to fight for.

"This is where we step in," she continued. "On Tuesday, Aug. 31, a day of nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action will commence." It will start, she says, with a shout. "As clocks strike 11 a.m., two days before the renomination of George W. Bush, the people of the world will shout 'no' with one voice. From Brooklyn to Baghdad to London to Lisbon, from Selma to Sao Paulo, we'll raise our voices in this global expression of outrage ... Here in New York we will converge on Madison Square Garden. We will sit down in the streets and refuse to move ... We want more than speeches and protest pens. We want change!"

Never before has so much law enforcement -- aw who are we kidding? Military Rule -- been applied to a major U.S. city before this fiasco in the waiting. From the sounds of it, the violence in the streets will only be a backdrop to the pandemonium in Madison Square Garden as these anarchists infiltrate the convention and disrupt it where ever they can.

I certainly feel the rage and if I didn't have a strong desire never to be arrested, let alone shot with rubber bullets and pepper sprayed, I wish I could be there. Bush will be in the bubble, but his closest followers are in for a rude awakening; America really, really hates the GOP.

CNN.com is reporting that the US national elections will have international observers for the first time.

Good. The cretins currently in power played particularly dirty last time and it's not unreasonable to suppose that they've been laying groundwork for similar or worse this year. Having some oversight from the UN won't stop them, of course, but it'll make things harder on the forces of evil to get away with their perfidy.

More to the point, Shrub & Co. are going to lose in November, and we need to make sure that the loss is fair and proper. If it takes some additional eyes to verify that the stake is placed properly and driven home, so be it. The rest of the world is pretty pissed off at BushCo (as are many of us living under their odious thumb), and I welcome the participation of observers to validate the proper execution of the exorcism to come.

Bring 'em on.

CNN.com also has a poll, which of course is voluntary and therefore non-scientific, which shows majority support for the observers. Last I checked, it was running 53-47, with 31,600+ votes cast.

At least one of the men who served in Vietnam with Sen. John Kerry is now openly regretting his participating in the Roveian stealth campaign to discredit Kerry.

a key figure in the anti-Kerry campaign, Kerry's former commanding officer, backed off one of the key contentions. Lieutenant Commander George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star -- one of the main allegations in the book. The affidavit was given to The Boston Globe by the anti-Kerry group to justify assertions in their ad and book.

I think this guy actually has some inkling that his oath as a military officer means that he shouldn't be falsely accusing his fellow vets, and that his conscience caught up with him. Perhaps he was approached in a way that misled him to think his participation wasn't what it ended up being.

Here's a link to a story about the nutjobs behind the vets attacking John Kerry.

The New York Times is covering serious problems with Provisional Voting, a methodology intended to prevent disenfranchisement, appears to be aiding and abetting it instead.

In the primary, provisional ballot problems were more likely to disenfranchise minority voters in Chicago than white voters, exactly the problem in Florida four years ago that provisional voting was intended to address. In wards that are 80 percent or more minority members, the rate of disqualified ballots was double that of wards that are 80 percent white.

Florida 2000, here we come again.

Pretty damn evil.

That's right, you have to be pretty damn evil for the Republican Party to distance itself from you, but that's what the Shelby County (Tennessee) Republican party is having to do with candidate James Hart. Hart is running unopposed in this Thursday's primary to choose candidates for the Congressional district. The Republicans would like to unseat the incumbent Democrat, and they've decided Hart isn't going to do it for them.

Since they didn't get a chance to put a more reasonable candidate on the ballot, they are urging a write-in campaign to unseat Mr. Hart. The problem? Oh, where to start... but lt's just say that Mr. Hart has a particularly stringent take on the "purity" of marriage; he wants to keep it racially pure.

Remember, the Republicans didn't mind David Duke.

Hart says he is not a racist, but that some races are "favored."

Interesting distinction.

This is the funniest damn thing I've seen in quite some time.

Electronic voting records from Dade County, Florida, were lost last year, Salon reports.

A computer crash erased detailed records from Miami-Dade County's first widespread use of touchscreen voting machines, raising again the specter of elections troubles in Florida, where the new technology was supposed to put an end to such problems.

The crashes occurred in May and November of 2003, erasing information from the September 2002 gubernatorial primaries and other elections, elections officials said Tuesday.

The malfunction was made public after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a citizen's group, requested all data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride.

...

The loss of data underscores problems with the touchscreen voting machines, the citizen's group said. "This is a disaster waiting to happen," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. "Of course it's worrisome."

The group is concerned about the machines' effectiveness, following revelations about other problems with the system. Last month, state officials said the touchscreen systems used by 11 counties had a bug that would make a manual recount impossible. Earlier this month, a newspaper study indicated touchscreen machines did not perform as well as those that scanned paper ballots.

We cannot trust e-voting for this election. Contact your local election officials and find out how to vote on paper!

I remember marching in downtown Dallas to that slogan in the Fall of 2000. I couldn't believe something as simple and straightforward as counting votes would be so repugnant to Republicans. Man, did I get a civics lesson that year. This is a party that only cares about winning, and having won just like a dictatorship, pursues the same policies as one (e.g. starting unprovoked wars, obesssing on secrecy).

Today's Krugman column is a refresher course on this problem.

It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn't a paranoid fantasy. It's a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr. Gumbel's full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a suspect election.

Folks, this is as serious as a heart attack. The GOP is poised to rig elections electronically and they've focused their counter-democratic efforts in the key swing states. Voters in Texas and New York have little to fear, but Ohio and Florida are a whole other story. Start to protect your francise now by contacting your local election officials and find out if they are going to do chads or bits. Find out how to vote on paper, and do it. Maybe it's only available under certain conditions -- meet those conditions and vote on paper.

I know it sounds paranoid, but did you really think Bush would invade another country? Erode a woman's right to choose? Steal the election? Believe it.

Hillary spoke tonite at the Democratic National Convention, and Lordy oh Lordy! she didn't declare herself a candidate for President. The GOP must be in shock ... their whole strategy of countering her surprise nomination in the crapper! The panic in the "war room" must be palpable.

Drudge, Rush, Malloy, and all you dickheads at Fox: Get a Clue. It Didn't Happen.

The AP is reporting that Bush's 1972 military payroll records have mysteriously been undestroyed in what the Pentagon is referring to as an "inadvertent oversight."

A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."

Like records released earlier by the White House, these computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.

The records do not give any new information about Bush's National Guard training during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend. The payroll records do not say definitively whether Bush attended training that summer because they are maintained separately from attendance records.

My ass. Rove got wind of the reaction to the announcement that the microfiche had been destroyed and decided to reverse himself. He's getting sloppy! And since the release of this info changes nothing, it probably also only hurts Bush's "credibility" ("You keep using that word ... are you sure you know what it means?" -- I. Montoya).

Hats off to Jeff Simon for his daring commentary on the Bush Presidency in Tuesday's Buffalo News. While he spends a great deal of time confiming what we already know, (i.e. Kerry isn't the most exciting candidate we could hope for) he also brilliantly summarizes the key points that make Bush unelectable in November.

...I'm among the millions of Americans reeling from daily horror at the current adminisitration. For the first time in our late middle-aged lives, we can find almost nothing to like in the past 3 1/2 years.

Tell it, Jeff, tell it! He continues:

...I've not been able to find anything to dissuade me from the not uncommon opinion that he and his Administration are a nightmare unique in our lifetime.

Believe that! Believe it, believe it!

In an unsurprising turn of events, GW has decided to pimp his daughters out to the press as announced in Monday's Buffalo News article. Are there any other feminists out there who take offense?!?! He couldn't keep his girls far enough away from the media during their drunken debacles and prescription writing frenzy, but now doubtless wishes to have his girls represented since candidate Kerry's daughter is stumping for him. Who reads this stuff and doesn't see right through GW, simple minded fool that he is? I have asked myself this over and over throughout his Presidency. Who really finds this President credible in any way?

Anyway, back to the Bush girls. In May, Jenna and Barbara posed for Vogue draped in an Oscar de La Renta gown & Harry Winston bracelet and a Calvin Klein gown, respectively. Okay, is it possible they are somewhat motivated to help their daddy out of a desire to preserve their own riches and royalty-like status? Certainly! Were I "fresh from a post-graduation European vacation", perhaps I too would take up my designer labels and prostitute myself for daddy's campaign. However, it's not bloody likely I would ever be in those expensive shoes as I am definitely for dividing the wealth and find such trappings offensive.

What is even more offensive is the cultural truism that "sex sells." Let's just call it what it is. This isn't about softening their father's image. This is clearly about exploiting a couple of attractive young women in the hopes of winning votes based on the size and quality of their respective racks. While they may be willing victims, it makes it no less degrading to women (and men, forever pegged as ruled by the nether regions) as a gender.

While the entertainment value may be unsurpassed, I urge you not to buy this issue of Vogue and further, to consider cancelling your subscription to Vogue should you be a subscriber. I haven't read this glossy in years and years as I learned early on that magazines of this type merely contribute to women's collective dissatisfaction with themselves in every possible sense. Let's not forget WE are the culture that perpuates the popularity of T&A and we need to stop contributing to that.

What's next for Georgie? Laura and GW's mother Barbara in Penthouse? I put absolutely nothing past this simpleton.

Here's something that should scare the shit out of Karl Rove: smart people are trying to fix the bugs in the American election process. As we know, Rove and the other Rabid Republicans are all for fixing elections, but not in the sense of reducing the problems — they're more interesting in reducing the number of Democratic votes in the tally.

The Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project was formed by the presidents of MIT and CalTech right after the 2000 election debacle. This month, they've published recommendations to improve the accuracy of vote counting in the upcoming election.

Anyone want to bet me that even a single one of these ideas will be used?

I mean used before Kerry wins.

In keeping with the attacks on John Edwards based on the fact that he's a — gasp — lawyer, Bush said, "I am not a lawyer, that's the other guys." That's true, but there's a critical underlying detail that Bush omits (big, surprise, huh?).

Bush isn't a lawyer because unlike John Edwards, Bush couldn't get into law school. Oh, he tried, but after losing his Senate seat to Lloyn Bentsen, George Senior was unable to force the University of Texas to accept Shrub's law school application. So George W. Bush isn't a lawyer because he failed in his attempt to be a lawyer.

Bush isn't a war hero, either. Again, that's the other guy. There's been a lot of talk about how Bush actively avoided service in Vietnam, but again, there's an overlooked detail. Before joining the Texas Air National Guard, young Dubya applied to be a pilot in the United States Air Force. He failed the test.

So the next time someone points out how great it is that Bush is nothing like Kerry or Edwards, you might want to point out Bush tried to be like Kerry and Edwards, but couldn't.

Ariana Huffington brands Bush the real "flip-flopper" in her column today.

The list of Bush's major policy U-turns is as audacious as it is long. Among the whiplash-inducing lowlights:

In September 2001, Bush said capturing bin Laden was "our No. 1 priority." By March 2002, he was claiming, "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important."

In October 2001, he was dead set against the need for a Department of Homeland Security. Seven months later, he thought it was a great idea.

In May 2002, he opposed the creation of the 9/11 commission. Four months later, he supported it.

During the 2000 campaign, he said that gay marriage was a states' rights issue: "The states can do what they want to do." During the 2004 campaign, he called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Dizzy yet? No? OK:

Bush supported CO2 caps, then opposed them. He opposed trade tariffs, then he didn't. Then he did again. He was against nation building, then he was OK with it. We'd found WMD, then we hadn't. Saddam was linked to Osama, then he wasn't. Then he was ... sorta. Chalabi was in, then he was out. Way out.

In fact, Bush's entire Iraq misadventure has been one big, costly, deadly flip-flop:

We didn't need more troops, then we did. We didn't need more money, then we did. Preemption was a great idea -- on to Syria, Iran and North Korea! Then it wasn't -- hello, diplomacy! Baathists were the bad guys, then Baathists were our buds. We didn't need the U.N., then we did.

Gotta love those GOP. While they're busy bashing John Edwards for being a trial lawyer, they turn out to have a "love child" lawyer themselves, James E. Sharp. Yes, Mr. Sharp has the fine distinction of being President Bush's counsel if (and when) he gets dragged before a Grand Jury and at the same time, he's Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay's defense attorney. Before he took on these two stellar clients, he represented Mr. Magruder of the Watergate scandal.

"He's an absolutely superb trial lawyer, but as good as it he is, he's a very private guy," said Tom Mills, managing partner of the Washington office of the law firm, Winston & Strawn, where Mr. Sharp worked several years ago. "From the president's standpoint, he was a superb choice. From Jim's standpoint, he probably loves the client but hates that he raises his profile."

...

Mr. Sharp, however, has been entirely nonpolitical in giving his time and expertise. During the Watergate scandal of the 1970's, Mr. Sharp represented Mr. Magruder, the deputy director of President Richard M. Nixon's re-election campaign who was charged with obstruction of justice and was sentenced to four years in prison. He served less than a year.

Mr. Magruder was so appreciative of Mr. Sharp's counsel that he thanked him with an acknowledgement at the beginning of his 1974 book "An American Life: One Man's Road To Watergate."

CNN is reporting that Diebold is being sued (again) under a whistle-blower law.

Critics of electronic voting are suing Diebold Inc. under a whistle-blower law, alleging that the company's shoddy balloting equipment exposed California elections to hackers and software bugs.

California's attorney general unsealed the lawsuit Friday. It was filed in November but sealed under a provision that keeps such actions secret until the government decides whether to join the plaintiffs.

Lawmakers from Maryland to California are expressing doubts about the integrity of paperless voting terminals made by several large manufacturers, which up to 50 million Americans will use in November.

The California lawsuit was filed in state court by computer programmer Jim March and activist Bev Harris, who are seeking full reimbursement for Diebold equipment purchased in California.

The article goes on to note that the plaintiffs would receive up to 30% of the judgement against Diebold. Good luck, guys!

This story came out last week: Bush won't appear at NAACP Convention, turning them down for a fourth year in a row. Apparently the "uniter, not a divider" President is too big a coward to appear before an audience of critics (and that's putting it nicely). Rove apparently cannot "manage" the situation to his liking (say, buy getting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir positioned behind Shrub while on camera) so he just pulled the plug. Oh, excuse me, President Bush made that decision! What was I thinking?

Footnote: this makes Bush the first President since Hoover™ to do this. He's really after that coveted Hoover Award, now isn't he? The winner gets one term and a Great Depression thrown in as a door prize.

CNN is reporting that the GOP has had discussions with various members of the Federal Government to delay the national elections to "thwart terrorists plots" against our Nov. 5 date.

The news that such discussions have taken place raised other eyebrows on Capitol Hill as well.

"I don't think there's an argument that can be made, for the first time in our history, to delay an election," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Intelligence Committee.

"We hold elections in the middle of war, in the middle of earthquakes, in the middle of whatever it takes. The election is a statutory election. It should go ahead, on schedule, and we should not change it."

But the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Christopher Cox of California, said on "Late Edition" that he sees Ridge's request as part of a prudent effort to plan for "doomsday scenarios."

"We don't have any intelligence to suggest that it is going to happen, but we're preparing for all of these contingencies now," Cox said.

Am I the only person who sees this as a coup d'etat?

DELAY the Elections because of a "terror threat"? What kind of CRAP is that? "Doomsday scenarios" ... like the GOP losing in a LANDSLIDE? The only example given by the GOP for justifying this is the Spanish election in which the incumbents, staunch supporters of Bush, were blown out of power days after a horrific terror attack. Do the GOP really think they can just seize power claiming the threat of terror attacks invalidates the fucking citizen's franchise?

Folks, if this doesn't scare the be-jeezus out of you, then you just don't realize how power mad these bastards are. The fact is they are (obviously) going to remain in control using any tactic they can sell to the public. Don't buy this argument -- it's bullshit pure and simple.

The New York Times is reporting that the GOP is going to ease off the "felon voter list" it used so sucessfully in Florida in 2000 to keep likely Democratic voters from exercising their francise rights (in simple terms: keeping the blacks from voting) because this time it will cost them Hispanic votes. So, like the recent revelation that Bush has been putting the pressure on Pakistan to produce Usama bin Laden before the Democratic Covention opens in Boston at the end of the month, the GOP is finally doing the right thing for the completely selfish and (in some cases) too late reasons.

Gov. Jeb Bush said that not including Hispanic felons on the list "was an oversight and a mistake." He added, "We accept responsibility, and that's why we're pulling it back."

Governor Bush said the mistake occurred because two databases that were merged to form the disputed list were incompatible.

When voters register in Florida, they can identify themselves as Hispanic. But the felons database has no Hispanic category, which excluded many people from the list.

The article pointed out that less than 70 Hispanic felons were identified in the combined databases, effectively missing all but a handful.

How frigging convenient.

Bush's payroll records from a critical period in 1972-3 have been lost, according to the Pentagon. According to the article, this comes as a complete surprise to people doing research, both pro and con, about Bush's time in the Texas Air Guard.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

I think Rove was sloppy to do it so late in the election cycle. They're erasing Bush's history and rewriting it to hide his nine month AWOL drunken spree.

The Lies and Cover-Up continue ...

I'm reading a lot of newspaper stories about John Kerry's choice of John Edwards for VP, and a theme that comes up often is how brief Edward's political career is.

He's been in the Senate for six years. He's running for VP. Let's compare his record with G. W. Bush's.

While he was the "Guv" of Texas, Shrub held office for less than four years before announcing his campaign for President. In case you didn't already know, the Gov. of Texas is almost a ceremonial office. I hasten to remind you that Bush had held no public office before he ran for the relatively harmless role ofGovernor (aside from a veto, he's got little or no power). Bill Clements, the first GOP Gov. of Texas, used to play cards when the Lege was in session, he had so little to do. In Bush's case, Bob Bullock ran the Lege and made Bush look good by passing many of his signature bills (Bullock was a Democrat in name only). Before that, Bush was a partner (minor) with the Texas Rangers where he "made his millions", and before that, he was CEO of various oil companies (all of which he drove into the ground).

Update: read this essay by E. J. Dionne to get a handle on the hypocracy of the "experience" issue and the GOP.

Edwards is the first son in his family to attend college, earn a degree, and a license to practice law. He is a very successful trial lawyer who has won several landmark cases for poor plaintiffs. He's been in the Senate for six years, enacting real legislation. Stepping up to President of the Senate is not that big a step for him (the VP is also the Pres. of the Senate).

It's a slam dunk case, really. Republicans who are grousing about Edwards' alleged lack of experience are setting up Bush for a big fall -- a simple comparison of resumes is devastating to Bush.

So keep on complaining, GOP. We welcome you to "bring it on". Your Vietnam vet never went to 'Nam but ours did. Your VP candidate was in the Senate and voted against military weapons bills. Ours is in the Senate, too, and unlike yours, isn't a sneering, "fuck you" kind of CEO. In fact, he seems to genuinely like the citizens of this country (even the poor ones) -- maybe because he's still one of us and Cheney and his Highland Park, Texas neighbor G. W. Bush ain't.

It's official, John Kerry overcame his problems with John Edwards and selected him as his running mate.

This choice, while obvious to the lay political observer, was not a shoe-in. Kerry reportedly didn't warm to Edwards and of course, the two of them were running against each other for the nomination which probably made for some hard feelings. But he also had to face the music -- Edwards is a superb campaigner, a charismatic and quite handsome fellow, and Kerry needs a strong running mate.

Edwards' back story is as powerful as Clinton's, so he has a lot of appeal to middle-class and poor voters. Unlike Dan Quayle, John Edwards is exceptionally talented, well educated and very, very articulate. And he's a Southerner.

Remember that Karl Rove first did opposition research on Edwards -- he's the guy that Rove was afraid of back in 2002. He bests Bush on charisma, and obviously on any other attribute involving intelligence and public speaking. If Rove was looking for dirt on him before all the others, it means that he knows he can be beat by John Edwards.

Just as he promised, John Kerry's campaign first sent notice of the selection by e-mail. I received my message at 8:13am EST, and the announcement was made at 9:00am EST.

Let's say you're a regular kinda guy who goes to your local Methodist church regularly, and for the most part goes through the rituals of service and worship but who doesn't get too involved in the extra activties at church. Then one day you start getting GOP literature addressed to you from out of no where. Wonder where it came from?

How about your local church. The Washington Post found a memo from the Bush/Cheney campaign instructing Christian volunteers to loot their church's database for potential GOP voters:

• Send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters or give to a BC04 Field Rep.
• Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush.
• Recruit 5 people in your church to help with the voter registration project.
• Begin to organize a voter registration drive at your church.
• Encourage new Bush Volunteers to attend Bush/Cheney '04 training session in your area.
• Host a coffee/pot luck dinner/"Party for the President" with church members - July 15th, 2004.

Why do churches get to do PAC work and still get tax free status? Could someone explain that to me?

Finally, some good election news . The Liberal party of Canada (think Democrats who actually enact legislation for the working class) has survived a very close call against the Conservative party (one really sensible thing about Canada is that the good guys and the bad guys actually give themselves obvious names like "Dr. Evil") in a national election that was rocked by the Sponsorship Scandal and the new health care premium in Ontario. The Conservative leader, Stephen Harper, made some spectacular mistakes by not keeping his minions at bay (they accused the Liberal leader Paul Martin of "supporting child porn" at one point), and his Bush-esque platform is repellent to many Canadians (he wants to take Canada into Iraq, for instance).

Al Gore delivered a long yet very inciteful speech this last week. I urge you to read it. He deconstructs the ideology and methodology of the Bush Administration, and does so with a vigor we don't normally associate with Gore. I'll edit this post to include key excerpt later.

For a guy most conservatives have crowned the king of boring policy-wonk liberalism, former Vice President Al Gore sure has Bush boosters whipped into a frenzy of late. Last Wednesday he delivered a speech sharply critical of President Bush's Iraq war policy and called for the resignation of its key architects inside the administration. Gore's language was fiery and dramatic, and at 6,000-plus words there was plenty of it. But his essential argument was clear: Bush's foreign policy has imperiled American freedom and security, and fixing the problems wrought by it in Iraq and elsewhere now requires changing the primary players in Washington.

The Washington Post has a story about the impact of Michael Moore's film on independent ("fence sitting") voters.

The film seems unlikely to change minds that are set in stone. But judging by the reaction of the crowd in Washington, it does have the potential to move people off the fence.

If this year's presidential election is as close as the one in 2000, it won't have to move many to make a difference in the outcome.

The GOP and their "behind the scenes" zombies are trying to stop the film in its tracks.

The White House, furious about the Bush-bashing, anti-war movie, has wisely decided to take a low-key approach, allowing surrogates to do most of the work – and they've done it with zeal. One California-based organization, Move America Forward, has orchestrated a letter-writing campaign to theaters around the country, demanding that they refuse to show Moore's movie. Conservative talk radio and television hosts have filled their segments with rants against it. And the president's father called Moore a "slimeball."

The conservative group Citizens United announced Thursday that its president, David N. Bossie, had filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, asserting that television ads for the movie are restricted under some of the new campaign finance rules created by the McCain-Feingold legislation.

The attacks from the right have only seemed to embolden Moore. Clearly he relishes the fight, which not only allows him to play the role of David to the GOP's Goliath, but helps drum up publicity for his film. Typically efforts to suppress free speech have the opposite effect. Just ask former Broward County, Fla., sheriff Nick Navarro, who famously propelled the talentless "rappers" 2 Live Crew to fame in the early 1990s by trying to put them out of business.

Fortunately, their efforts only fan interest in the film.

Chris Lehane, the former spokesman for Al Gore's presidential campaign and new media strategist for Moore, seemed almost disappointed.

"We wanted to thank them for sending people to the movie," he said, flashing a broad smile at Moore.

Go see this film.

According to Chicago's CBS 2, Republican Jack Ryan coerced his actress wife Jeri Lynn Ryan into going to S&M and swingers clubs.

Offered the chance to deny that he visited sex clubs or wanted his wife to have sex in public, Ryan demurred and suggested Jeri Lynn Ryan's allegations would have little political traction.

“Well, we were married for almost eight years,” he said. “The worst of that was over ... eight years that we went to places that she felt uncomfortable. That's the worst of it.

The breakdown of the
family over the past 35
years is one of the root
causes of some of our
society’s most intractable
social problems-criminal
activity, illegitimacy, and
the cyclical nature
of poverty.

from Jack Ryan on the Defense of Marriage
as posted on his campaign site.

“If that's the worst, then I think people will say, gosh, that guy's lived a pretty clean life.”

...

Jeri Lynn Ryan charged during a custody hearing that Ryan took her on surprise trips to New Orleans, New York and Paris in 1998, and that he insisted she go to sex clubs with him on each trip.

She said that after going out to dinner with Ryan in New York, he demanded that she go to a club with him.

“It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling,” she said. She said Ryan asked her to perform a sexual act while others watched, and she refused.

She said they left and Ryan apologized to her and said it was out of his system. But then, she said, he took her to Paris and again took her to a sex club.

She said she cried and became physically ill at the club, and her husband got angry with her. She said she could never get over that incident.

She also accuses him in the papers of being controlling and lying repeatedly throughout the proceedings.

He sounds like a typical GOP candidate for the Congress to me. Packwood, Livingston, and Gingrich all had similar backgrounds. It'll be digusting watching them attack Clinton for screwing around on his wife all the while they conveniently forget about their own bad behavior.

[Additional material added by Winston Smith]

If this film debuts in the top five or, heavens forbid, the top grossing film this weekend, Karl Rove will pop a blood vessel. So get out there and go see this film this weekend! Go see it twice for Shrub's sake! I'll bet Moore will take the weekend's proceeds and pour them into anti-Bush campaigns across America, so think of this as a 527 fund raiser with a good film.

Go.
See.
This.
Film.

Opens this Friday. Click here to find a theater near you (and thanks to PABAAH for the link -- too bad they're protesting the film).

Once again, e-voting hardware is buggy enough to endanger a recount. The state this time? Why, none other than Florida, recount capital of the U.S.

Touchscreen voting machines in 11 counties have a software flaw that could make manual recounts impossible in November's presidential election, state officials said.

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state called the problems "minor technical hiccups" that can be resolved, but critics allege voting officials wrongly certified a voting system they knew had a bug.

The electronic voting machines are a response to Florida's 2000 presidential election fiasco, where thousands of punchcard ballots were improperly marked. But the new machines have brought concerns that errors could go unchecked without paper records of the electronic voting.

The machines, made by Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb., fail to provide a consistent electronic "event log" of voting activity when asked to reproduce what happened during the election, state officials said.

Officials with the company and the state Division of Elections said they believe they can fix the problem by linking the voting equipment with laptop computers. Florida's two largest counties — Miami-Dade and Broward — are among those affected by the flaws.

For crying out loud, why can't Florida get this right?

The Washington Post has an article on Bush's polling with respect to the economy today.

The nation's economy is growing smartly, wages have begun to rise, and employers have added more than 1.4 million jobs to their payrolls in the past nine months. Yet voters continue to give President Bush poor ratings on his handling of the economy.

It may sound baffling, but interviews with voters, pollsters and economists suggest Bush's stubborn difficulties on domestic policy boil down to an obvious problem abroad.

"It all goes back to Iraq," said Steven Valerga, 50, a Republican in Martinez, Calif., who voted for Bush in 2000 but plans to vote for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in November. "It's a drain on the economy, when there's so much needed elsewhere. My gosh, we didn't need to be there."

However, later in the article you get to hear from the truly idiotic voters (these are the working poor who support Bush). Instead of trashing these folks, I'll let their own words damn them:

For Bush, that sensitivity to foreign affairs is not all bad. Maria Sandoval, an elderly Democrat in Colorado Springs, has had a rough time of it in the past few years, living solely on Social Security and relying on the county clinic for her health care. On the economy, Bush "hasn't done very good," she allowed. He could have offered more help, she said, and his prescription drug law does not promise her much, either.

But Bush has her vote, she said firmly. "I guess he hasn't put too much into [the economy], but he's busy with a lot of other things. He's on top of everything. That's what I like about him."

During the Clinton years, Jeremy Tuck said he had been selling mobile homes in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and, at $45,000 a year, making good money. Last year, he was assembling mobile homes, earning $15,000 and living hand-to-mouth. But Bush has his vote this November. Had Gore been elected in 2000, Tuck said, "we would've been taken over by Saddam Hussein or [Osama] bin Laden."

That's right. Bush is on top of EVERYTHING. Uh huh. And Osama bin Laden and Saddam were poised to take over America! Glad they got Faux News' message "in one gulp". If I went from making $45K to $15K over the last three years, I'd crucify the President who was in office.

Worst. Voters. Ever.

Check out the George W. Bush Re-election Site.

Funny thing ... it's not about George anymore. It's all Reagan, all the time now. Rove, never one to pass up an "opportunity", has dragged Reagan's dead carcass onto the podium with Shrub in a pathetic, disgusting and completely predictable attempt to anoint Bush with Reagan's mojo. I have no doubt it will work like a charm, too.

People, get a clue! Vote for the PARTY, not the CLASS PRESIDENT. Bush is NOT the "Second Coming of Reagan" either. And even if he was, Reagan was an awful President.

Salon reports that the GOP lost their South Dakota House seat. The office was vacated by Bill Janklow after he was convicted of manslaugther for running over a motorcycle rider.

Despite the fact that Janklow spent four years as the South Dakota Attorney General, followed by sixteen years as Governor, he seemed unaware that he would be unable to participate in the House proceedings were he to be convicted. At a press conference shortly after his sentencing, he explained that he "couldn't be sorrier" about the death and planned to get back to work in Washington as soon as possible. Clearly, as a Republican, he had forgotten that being a criminal is supposed to be incompatible with serving in government.

His apologies similarly fell flat, due to his history of bragging about his "lead foot" — an admission that was supported by an impressive collection of traffic citations.

This is the first time in a while that GOP arrogance and hubris, has delivered an election to the Democrats. Kudos to challenger Stephanie Herseth for running a relatively positive campaign.

This story on CNN via The SANS Institute:

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley says that ten of his state's counties have agreed to meet an array of conditions so that they may use touch screen voting systems in the upcoming election. The conditions include precautions against tampering and providing paper ballots to voters who prefer them. Four counties remain banned from using touch screen system in the election because Diebold machines used there in the March election did not have federal approval.

I don't know if the counties allowed to vote are the ones not using Diebold equipment.

This from Salon's "The Fix":

Manhattan real estate lawyer David Richards, who tapped George W. Bush to join the secret society Skull & Bones at Yale in 1967, now says he'd like nothing more than to see him ousted from the Oval Office. "I think it's pretty grim, I think he has trashed the economy, and I think he has conducted foreign policy badly, and I think he is a bad President. I don't know what he has done well," Richards says in the new book "Ambushed." Adds Richards, "My personal choice is [Sen.] John Kerry" -- Yale class of 1966 and also a Bonesman, of course.

Read the NY Daily News story here.

Say good bye to 90% approval, Shrub.

Say hello to 41%. I suggest going lower to show up the old man. After all, attacking Iraq was part of the "my balls are bigger than yours, Dad" inner child rage you are experiencing. Now that you've sunk to his low approval rating just before Bill Clinton trounced him, you need to go a few more points down to clinch the deal.

You have our wholehearted support.

Remember those news reports explaining how the Medicare reform bill passed at the last minute in the middle of the night (and not without threats of extortion) would help Americans save on their medication bills? No doubt you do. Many TV stations ran the news story.

Do you remember seeing the follow on news stories explaining how the original news story was all a fabrication by the Bush Administration? I didn't think so.

Well today the GAO declared the ads illegal. Yes, ads. You thought it was the nightly news, but it was just a new kind of political double-speak. With this kind of crap coming out of Rove's head, what's next? Product placement during the State of the Union Address? I can just see Chimpy coming on to the podium dressed like a NASCAR driver (Halliburton, Enron, and The Southern Companies buying the higher profile vest pocket spots).

The General Accounting Office said that a specific part of the videos, a made-for-television "story package," violated the prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda.

People seeing the videos in a newscast would "believe that the information came from a nongovernment source or neutral party," it said.

William A. Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, who helped develop the videos, said: "We disagree. It's not covert. TV stations knew the videos came from us and could have identified the government as the source if they had wanted to."

The accounting office dismissed that argument. The intended audience, it said, was not news directors, but viewers, and "the video news releases did not alert viewers that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was the source."

Moreover, it said, "some news organizations indicated that they misread the label or they mistook the story package as an independent journalist news story."

Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." A third video is narrated, in Spanish, by a man who identifies himself as "Alberto Garcia reporting." The scripts were prepared by the Bush administration at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services.

This is so mendacious I can barely contain my contempt for it. When the Bush Administration cannot stifle speech (like they did with the UN family planning commission, which they defunded to the tune of $34M -- a drop in the bucket -- for daring to discuss abortion as a family planning option) they create their own propaganda and present it as "news" or worse, "scientific fact". I'm more willing to believe in intelligent design than this video bile about the Medicare bill. And I don't believe in ID whatsoever.

The anti-semite canon contains an ironic compliment to the Jews: the depiction of Jews as fiendish, conspiratorial schemers contains a tacit attribution of intellectual superiority — apparently part of hating Jews involves admitting that they're smarter than you. It's not a stretch — I have dryer lint smarter than most bigots.

Sadly Jews are just as dumb as the rest of humanity, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is eager to prove it. These geniuses want all American Jews to vote for Bush. On the bright side, this puts to bed both the myth that Jews are inherently smarter than non-Jews and the myth that Jews are greedy (Bush's place in the history books will probably be next to Hoover in the section on economic downturns).

Well, what, then, would inspire Jews to want George Bush in office? My first theory was that they were hoping Yiddish, which has about six dozen different words for "bumbling idiot," would make a big comeback. That's not it.

According to an LA Times Story:

Bush won about 17% of the Jewish vote in 2000, but supporters are aiming to raise that to about 30% in this election, based largely on his support for Israel.

"By defending the freedom and prosperity and security of Israel, you're also serving the cause of America," Bush told the AIPAC delegates Tuesday.

His 39-minute speech was interrupted repeatedly with cheering and applause. On two occasions, at least a third of the audience burst into chants of "Four more years!"

Yesterday's raid on Gaza nets a dangerous terrorist... or future terrorist... yeah, that's it.

Yup, these geniuses want Bush to bring his zealous anti-terrorist efforts to Israel — after all, they've been so successful. Just ask the (Jewish!) family of Nick Berg. As readers of SJR know, Berg was killed by a Jordanian terrorist, Zarqawi, that Bush let fester in Iraq because his presence strengthened the case for invading. Now that millions have watched the screaming, terrified Berg have his head sawed off by Zarqawi, Bush will get a much higher ratings bump for nabbing the bastard. Thanks, Nick! Hope Dubya gives you a shout-out at the convention.

Anyway, as the photo to the left amply demostrates, the Israelis are already applying an approach similar to Bush's sharply-focused anti-terrorism strategy. This should work great.

This only leaves one question: Can the Republicans convince Jews in South Florida to vote against Pat Buchanan?

The New York Observer (one of the journals that publishes the likes of Joe Conason) has a hilarious faux memo describing the new Bush Administration vernacular.

1) "Shock and Awe." Deleted. Archaic. Please resist the urge to describe the goings-on in the soon-to-be-renamed Abu Ghraib prison (see below) as "Shock and Flaw," "Shocking and Awful," etc., etc.

2) Abu Ghraib prison. Henceforth, this will be known as the "Khalil Gibran/Dale Earnhardt Jr. vocational-training facility and recreational center." As John Kerry himself has asked: "Who among us does not like NASCAR?"

3) "Mission Accomplished." Unoperative. And please avoid the alternate punctuation: "Mission accomplished?"

4) "Bringing peace, freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people." To better reflect our current goals, please substitute "Protecting the American homeland from vicious Al Qaeda terrorists."

5) Ahmad Chalabi is no longer "the legitimate voice of the Iraqi people." Please update your records to cite U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi in this role, and avoid quoting his recent speech on French radio blaming the whole mess over there on "the Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians."

6) "High moral ground." We’ve lost it. Lose it from your vocabulary.

Check out this link to a list of Bush's accomplishments in his first three and one-half years. Now, just imagine what he can accomplish with a blank check (Again?) and all the "experience" he's gained. Then think about the most important thing you can do on Nov. 5th, 2004. Think hard. Think. THINK!

This is a propagandist animation, but it's my kind of propagandist animation.

The title really says all you need to know ... but I have to quote this Salon 'graph:

President Bush rode across Ohio on Monday in a bus emblazoned, "Yes, America can." It turns out the bus was made in Canada.

Foreign-made vehicles are a touchy topic in the job-strapped industrial Midwest – states like Michigan and Ohio, which Bush has been touring for two days.

"Seeing the president drive around in this Canadian-made luxury bus is just another reminder of George Bush's failed economic policies and underscores that it's time for a change," said Phil Singer, a spokesman for Democrat John Kerry's campaign.

Sometimes, it just seems like the Bushinistas can't get anything right. Where are your mystical powers now, Mr. Rove? As an aside, I'd rather fancy a Canadian bus about now!

The New York Times reports that Kevin Shelley, the California secretary of state, has banned Diebold e-voting systems "because of security and reliability concerns." Furthermore, he found working with Diebold to be a frustrating and deceitful experience:

Mr. Shelley said that he was recommending that the state's attorney general look into possible civil and criminal charges against Diebold because of what he called "fraudulent actions by Diebold."

In an interview, Mr. Shelley said that "their performance, their behavior, is despicable," and that "if that's the kind of deceitful behavior they're going to engage in, they can't do business in California."

Many voters in the Super Tuesday primary in San Diego were not able to vote because of Diebold hardware and software failures. The New York Times noted that "Mr. Shelley has said Diebold's missteps 'jeopardized the outcome' of the primary" because of the failures. For months, security specialists have warned of the ease by which Diebold's system is compromised through simple "cracking" techniques.

All I can say is: one down, forty-nine to go (including my home state of Texas)! I have no idea how this ban will play out, but in the eighteen "battlefield" states, e-voting must be blocked or Rove will be able to steal the election without firing a shot.

This article in The Globe and Mail today discusses an economic political model that has accurately (retroactively) predicted the outcome of elections in the U.S. for President based purely on economic data. I think (and hope) it's dead wrong this time, because despite the economic outlook "improving" (for CEOs, at least) it has lead to a "decoupling" (as the model's author puts it) of the benefits of the renewed economy and the pocketbooks and jobs of real Americans. We will vote our pocketbooks, but we'll also vote our conscience, too.

Dick "Head" Cheney gave a speech yesterday at Westminister College in Fulton, MO where he "sandbagging the University President", according to Josh Marshall, when he denounced John Kerry's service record and suggested he didn't earn all his medals. This, coming from a war criminal who never served a minute's time in the military, let alone in active duty, let alone in combat, is the lowest of the low. If the Military Class in this country doesn't see this for what it is (hint: craven hypocrisy), I have no respect for them whatsoever. The GOP took Max Cleland's sacrifice and dishonored him. It takes John Kerry's sacrifice and disgraces it, just to win an election. If John Kerry wanted to give up his medals, that's his choice because he earned them the hard way.

Following the lead that Winston offered in the previous post, I took a look at GWB's Miserable Failure Reappointment site. What a magical, weird world it is. Blue meanies abound.

For instance, according to the site, John Kerry is going to massively enlarge the size of the Federal Government by ... increasing financial aid to college students. Don't see how? Read their own words ...

John Kerry's answer to rising tuition costs is to enlarge the federal bureaucracy by a half-million people at a cost of billions of dollars and call it "national service."

Perhaps the idea of all these young people earning four-year public-university scholarships through two years of work appeals to you. Don't suppose, however, that needy, young people are not already receiving considerable help. One estimate is that 60 percent of students at public universities get aid of some kind.

Kerry is also calling for a tuition tax credit, which is a way of giving help to many who need it least and, thus, contributing still more to tuition inflation. There is little doubt that federal programs have caused student fees to go up in private schools by making consumers less reluctant to pay amounts that sometimes go to finance appealing frills. Kerry would contribute to that inflationary spiral through a beneficence that is not so beneficent, after all.

The fact is, taxpayers at all levels of government are already paying for most of the costs of higher education in this country, not the students. Kerry's ideas would cost taxpayers still more, which is in keeping with other ideas he has.

Clearly, the GOP feels that there's enough finanical aid out there, thanks very much. So can we stop calling him the "Education President"? I was at my alma mater two weekends ago, where I found out that four years at RPI costs as much as the median home price in the U.S. So ... all I gotta do is mortgage my home for 100% and I've got 1/2 of my college expenses covered ... who says there's enough finanical aid? Rich assholes.

From Bruce Schneier's Crypto-gram:

There are major efforts by computer security professionals to convince government officials that paper audit trails are essential in any computerized voting machine. They have conducted actual examination of software, engaged in letter writing campaigns, testified before government bodies, and collectively, have maintained visibility and public awareness of the issue.

The track record of the computerized voting machines used to date has been abysmal; stories of errors are legion. Here's another way to look at the issue: what are the economics of trying to steal an election?

Let's look at the 2002 election results for the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. In order to gain control of the House, the Democrats would have needed to win 23 more seats. According to actual voting data (pulled off the ABC News website), the Democrats could have won these 23 seats by swinging 163,953 votes from Republican to Democrat, out of the total 65,812,545 cast for both parties. (The total number of votes cast is actually a bit higher; this analysis only uses data for the winning and second-place candidates.)

This means that the Democrats could have gained the majority in the House by switching less than 1/4 of one percent of the total votes -- less than one in 250 votes.

Of course, this analysis is done in hindsight. In practice, more cheating would be required to be reasonably certain of winning. Even so, the Democrats could have won the house by shifting well below 0.5% of the total votes cast across the election.

Let's try another analysis: What is it worth to compromise a voting machine? In contested House races in 2002, candidates typically spent $3M to $4M, although the highest was over $8M. The outcomes of the 20 closest races would have changed by swinging an average of 2,593 votes each. Assuming (conservatively) a candidate would pay $1M to switch 5,000 votes, votes are worth $200 each. The actual value is probably closer to $500, but I figured conservatively here to reflect the additional risk of breaking the law.

If a voting machine collects 250 votes (about 125 for each candidate), rigging the machine to swing all of its votes would be worth $25,000. That's going to be detected, so is unlikely to happen. Swinging 10% of the votes on any given machine would be worth $2500.

This suggests that it is necessary to assume that attacks against individual voting machines are a serious risk.

Computerized voting machines have software, which means we need to figure out what it's worth to compromise a voting machine software design or code, and not just individual machines. Any voting machine type deployed in 25% of precincts would register enough votes that malicious software could swing the balance of power without creating terribly obvious statistical abnormalities.

In 2002, all the Congressional candidates together raised over $500M. As a result, one can conservatively conclude that affecting the balance of power in the House of Representatives is worth at least $100M to the party who would otherwise be losing. So when designing the security behind the software, one must assume an attacker with a $100M budget.

Conclusion: The risks to electronic voting machine software are even greater than first appears.

This article can be found online here.

The NY Times is running a story about second thoughts the GOP is having, now publicly, about holding the re-coronation of Prince George in NYC.

"The premise for coming to New York is no longer valid," said Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political strategist who supports President Bush but is also known as a maverick who at times has opposed Republican candidates. "Karl Rove's master stroke idea may turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. It has the potential to highlight an issue that may be a negative by the time he gets to the convention."

It remains to be seen if Rove will carry through with the presumed speech at Ground Zero, which (if it occurs) will be the Most Craven moment in the week long conservative fete.

Having just seen to sparring that goes on between Democrats challenging each other for a nomination — economic policy, what do do about Iraq and the like — we now look at a Republican contest. In Dallas, Sam Walls and Rob Orr are vying to win the Republican nomination for a Texas House of Representative seat. Sam Walls, bouyed by solid endorsements by prominent Texas Republicans, was expected to win the April 13^th contest.

Well, that was beforel photos of him in drag were circulated. Read the Reuters story, printed in the Houston Chronicle:

Walls, 64, who describes himself as a fervent Baptist, told the paper his family had "dealt with" the issue of his cross-dressing and that he asked for forgiveness.

Hate the sin, vote for the sinner? Who knows, and — let's face it &mdash who cares?!

Senator Ted Kennedy (yes, that Ted Kennedy) gave a strong speech concerning the lies and deceptions of the Bush Adminstration yesterday. Here is the conclusion:

This is the pattern and the record of the Bush Administration. Iraq. Jobs. Medicare. Schools. Issue after issue. Mislead. Deceive. Make up the needed facts. Smear the character of any critic. Again and again and again, we see this cynical and despicable strategy playing out. It’s undermining our national security, undermining our economy, undermining our health care, undermining our schools, undermining public trust in government, undermining our very democracy. We need a change. November can’t come too soon.

I urge you to read the whole text. Re-defeat Bush.

Henry Cuellar, an Hispanic lawyer who once served on Gov. Rick Perry's cabinet is embroiled in a recount fight for the newly redistricted District 28 runoff for the Democratic House nominee. The incumbent, U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, is claiming voter fraud when, during the recount requested by Cuellar, 300 "missing" ballots appeared.

I have no idea what is really going on there but I think we're going to see more and more of this kind of razor-edge voter fraud leading up to the general election, when Rove will try to finesse the election any way he can.

And by "finesse" I do mean electronic voter fraud.

Check out this link to Fund Race, a GIS website that lets you identify individual donors to all Presidential candidates by amount, ZIP and name. It's amazing. I looked up Staton and found most (all but two) gave to Bush, and for $2000 at that. I'm so embarrassed.

Just musing a bit, but...

Remember:
1. The Aznar government failed to protect the people of Spain from al-Qaeda terrorism (~200 dead, 11-March-2004).
2. The Aznar government lied to the people of Spain about the reasons for the war in Iraq.
3. The people of Spain voted out the Aznar government.

Compare:
1. The Bush government failed to protect the people of the United States from al-Qaeda terrorism (~3000 dead, 11-September-2001).
2. The Bush government lied to the people of the United States about the reasons for the war in Iraq.
3. Recognize a good idea when you see it, America.

Re-Defeat Bush.

According to an article in the Washington Post, only 18 states are in the running this year for the race to the White House. The other 32 states are essentially locked in by one side or the other, and won't affect the outcome of the election at all. As a result, both the Bush and Kerry campaigns will focus all their hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign war chests on these critical states.

The states include: Florida, West Virginia, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine, Arkansas, and Louisiana.