Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

Registered to vote? Are you sure?

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You might want to double-check your voter registration if you live in the Las Vegas area (and possibly somewhere in Oregon, also), as one RNC-funded organization has been destroying Democratic voter registration applications.

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

[…]

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

“We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me,” said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

[…]

The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.

(via BOPNews)

October Surprise on its way?

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Sean Bonner: “Imminent” Terrorist Attack?

I have a friend with a job that makes certain Police Department memos things he needs to take note of. This is the one he got this morning. I’ve known this person for a very long time and I’m vouching for it’s authenticity:

Subject: FW: Terrorist Attack on US Soil is Imminent Importance: High

LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE

At the meeting of the Southern District of the Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC) that was held yesterday in Houston, US Attorney Michael Shelby informed the group that a terrorist attack of 09/11/01 proportions was going to be carried out on US soil within the next 6 weeks.

Mr. Shelby stated that on 09/13/04, US Attorney General John Ashcroft had a conference call with all 93 US Attorneys, an event which is extremely rare.  The US Attorneys were informed that without a doubt an attack was going to be perpetrated in the US within the next 6 weeks, prior to the elections.  Mr. Shelby urgently requested that all law enforcement be aware of any situation that may be out of the ordinary and report the activity immediately.  Mr. Shelby also requested that we get the word out to patrol officers and detectives to talk to their informants and report anything odd or remotely suspicious.  Mr. Shelby ended this warning by saying that unless we get a bit of “luck” and the attack can be detected and prevented, that another attack of 9/11 scale will be carried out. 

Please disseminate to all of your law enforcement contacts ASAP.

New Mexico Investigative Support Center

Direct Line:    505-541-7000 Fax:              505-541-7006

John E. Vinson, Director

CNN: Sen. Dayton closes Capitol Hill office over terror worries

A Democratic senator said he will close his Capitol Hill office until after the November 2 election, fearing a possible terrorist attack that could harm his staff or visitors.

Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota issued a statement Tuesday, citing a “top-secret intelligence report on our national security” provided to congressional members by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee.

“Based upon that information,” Dayton wrote, “I have decided to close my office in the Russell Senate Office Building until after the upcoming election.

Cheery, no? Reality, or paranoia — who can tell, these days?

(both via Boing Boing)

iTunes ”May All Your Dreams Be Wonderful“ by Biafra, Jello from the album No More Cocoons (1987, 10:39).

Of nuance and nuisances

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There’s no way that this comment won’t end up getting spun to ridiculous extremes, but as far as I’m concerned, this may be one of the most reasonable statements I’ve heard from Kerry yet.

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,” Kerry said. “As a former law-enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life.”

(via Salon)

Bush’s Dred Scott reference

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Remember when Bush made the odd reference to the Dred Scott case during his answer to what kind of Supreme Court justice he’d appoint in the second debate? It didn’t seem to make a lot of sense, and had a lot of people confused. Looks like one of the diarists on Daily Kos may have stumbled upon the answer — it’s right-wing code for abortion.

The “Dred Scott” reference by Bush sent everyone at Atrios and other blog sites scrambling to historical tomes to figure out what on Earth Mr. Bush could mean, short of saying that he wouldn’t appoint pro-slavery judges.

Really, we should have just done a damn google search on the Internets.

Because it’s all there, plain as day. The Dred Scott reference is code language for abortion rights. Here’s how one anti-choice site describes it:

Stephen Douglas didn’t see Dred Scott as a person with rights because he was black; now Al Gore doesn’t see these children as people with rights because they are unborn.

[…]

In short:

When Bush made reference to “Dred Scott” he was assuring his anti-choice constituents that he would indeed only appoint Supreme Court justices who would remove abortion rights.

It’s unmistakable, once you know the code words. There’s no other reason he said it, that damned fundamentalist fascist.

(via Lane)

iTunes “Breakdown on Paradise Boulevard” by Chaykin, Maury/Jarmusch, Jim/Stanton, Harry Dean from the album Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1995, 7:41).

.com, .org, what’s the difference?

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Last night during the VP debates, I noted that Dick Cheney mentioned factcheck.com when responding to some of Edwards’ claims about Haliburton. I didn’t actually check out the site immediately post-debate, so I’m just now picking up on this funny little tidbit:

Cheney most likely meant to direct people to factcheck.org, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

He actually directed people to factcheck.com — which redirects to George Soros‘ website, where visitors are immediately greeted with a banner message proclaiming “Why we must not re-elect President Bush: A personal message from George Soros”, and a headline a little further down the page that says “President Bush is endagering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values.”

[Update:]{.underline}

Here’s what FactCheck.org has to say about the flub:

Cheney got our domain name wrong — calling us “FactCheck.com” — and wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton.

In fact, we did post an article pointing out that Cheney hasn’t profited personally while in office from Halliburton’s Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But Edwards was talking about Cheney’s responsibility for earlier Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right.

Go, Cheney, go! If only all Republicans could be this helpful.

Fox news really is Faux News

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While their rather strong obvious bias has earned Fox News the nickname of ‘Faux News’ for a while now, this past few days they seem to be doing an incredibly good job of living up to their nickname.

The first incident was Friday, when the following story appeared on the Fox News website:

Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday, Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night’s debate, in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.

“Didn’t my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!” Kerry said Friday.

With the foreign-policy debate in the history books, Kerry hopes to keep the pressure on and the sense of traction going.

Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.

“It’s about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures,” Kerry said.

Kerry still trails in actual horse-race polls, but aides say his performance was strong enough to rally his base and further appeal to voters ready for a change.

“I’m metrosexual — he’s a cowboy,” the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.

A “metrosexual” is defined as an urbane male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo picked up on this and started looking into it. Over the course of the day, the article was taken down, and then later replaced by an apology. Turns out the article was written by Fox News staffer covering the Kerry campaign, Carl Cameron.

Then, later that same day, one of Atrios’ readers picked up on a post-debate article on Fox News in which this appeared…

Of course, there were some Kerry supporters in attendance who had no doubts whatever about their candidate.

“We’re trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office,” said 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry.

“Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush,” Rob said, before assuring FOXNews.com that his organization was not a parody group. When asked his thoughts on Washington’s policy toward Communist holdout North Korea, Rob said: “The North Koreans are my comrades to a point, and I’m sure they support Comrade Kerry, too.”

It is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists’ endorsement.

The kicker is that when you visit the Communists for Kerry website and check their ‘About Us‘ page, you find this:

“Communists for Kerry” is a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy “527” organization that exists for the purpose of;

“Informing voters with satire and irony, how political candidates make decisions based on the failed social economic principles of socialism that punish the individual by preventing them from becoming their dream through proven ideas of entrepreneurship and freedom.”

Our members help elect candidates who support economic growth through Entrepreneurship, limited government and lower taxes. Communists For Kerry is separate and distinct from the Communist party of America and any of its organization. None of it’s members are members of any communist organizations.

The Fox article has since been updated to indicate that Communists for Kerry is a satirical orignization.

Does Faux News hold itself to any standards whatsoever?

iTunes “Don’t You Want Me (Hot Tracks)” by Human League from the album Edge, The Level 2 (1995, 6:52).