the Sugar Conspiracy 

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Friday, October 01, 2004 In case you missed the debates Tbogg has your water-coller talking points. "I don't think having Bush begin each answer with "So, I'm all, like...." helped sway the youth vote." "We've come a long way from Al Gore's sighs to John Kerry making a jerk-off motion whenever Bush said something." "Don't shows like this have a wacky neighbor? It really needed a wacky neighbor." "That part where Jim Lehrer started laughing and couldn't stop was pretty good. He really should team up with Tim Conway more often..." "Having Karl Rove toss George Bush an anchovy after each correct answer was mildly amusing." "MSNBC had Jesus on after the debate and he kept saying he wouldn't comment because he didn't want to get involved." "I thought Kerry's flashing a shiny dime at Bush when he was trying to answer was really unfair." "Remember when George Bush's 'hearing aid' fell out and he just stood there saying "Karl? Karl? Helloooo...Karl?" That was pretty cool." "Kerry grimacing and saying it was just the shrapnel shifting was pretty smooth." Much more. posted by chris at 11:03 AM   Post-debate President: "You can not change positions in the war on terror if you expect to win" BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" (President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01) ...BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA "I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him." (President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02) BUSH SAYS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEEN AL QAEDA AND SADDAM... "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."([President Bush, 9/25/02) ...BUSH SAYS SADDAM HAD NO ROLE IN AL QAEDA PLOT "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11." (President Bush, 9/17/03) From the Center for American Progress (and Kos). posted by chris at 10:51 AM   ------------------ Thursday, September 30, 2004 Patriot Act takes a hit Surveillance powers granted to the FBI under the Patriot Act, a cornerstone of the Bush Administration's war on terror, were ruled unconstitutional by a judge on Wednesday in a new blow to U.S. security policies. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, in the first decision against a surveillance portion of the act, ruled for the American Civil Liberties Union in its challenge against what it called "unchecked power" by the FBI to demand confidential customer records from communication companies, such as Internet service providers or telephone companies. Marrero, stating that "democracy abhors undue secrecy," found that the law violates constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches. He said it also violated free speech rights by barring those who received FBI demands from disclosing they had to turn over records. Story. posted by chris at 5:36 PM   More on the debates Democracy Now disucsses how the presidential debates are structured: They hand the document to an organization called the Commission on Presidential Debates which obediently implements every stipulation of the contract. Why? Because the commission, which masquerades as a non-partisan sponsor was created by the Republican and Democratic parties for the Republican and Democratic parties. The commission was created in 1986 after the parties ratified an agreement to “take over the presidential debates.” And how excluding third party candidates hinders our democracy: It’s an extraordinarily difficult place to be as a third party challenger in the United States of America, which is a shame because third party candidates have raised crucial issues that have been co-opted by the major parties. They raise the issue, they attract popular support, and the major parties steal them. Third party candidates are responsible for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, public schools, public power, minimum wage, direct election of Senators, Social Security, unemployment compensation, the child labor laws. The list goes on and on. And when we exclude these individuals, particularly when a majority of eligible voters want to see them, from the most important public forums of the American people, you are also excluding their groundbreaking issue and preventing them from breaking the bipartisan conspiracy of silence on certain critical issues... posted by chris at 5:33 PM   FAIR warning From Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting: The fact is, voters don't need to be told whether they are put off by a candidate's style or mannerisms; they are fully capable of analyzing their own reaction without pundit intervention. What the public cannot easily do is determine whether factual claims made during a debate are accurate or not-- and in this far more critical role, media commentators have often fallen down on the job. posted by chris at 5:30 PM   ------------------ Tuesday, September 28, 2004 Fair warning The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday. The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict. One of the reports also warned of a possible insurgency against the new Iraqi government or American-led forces, saying that rogue elements from Saddam Hussein's government could work with existing terrorist groups or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare, the officials said. The assessments also said a war would increase sympathy across the Islamic world for some terrorist objectives, at least in the short run, the officials said. More. posted by chris at 10:08 PM   Gallup polls oversample Republicans From the left coaster: Gallup has done it again. After supplying CNN and USA Today with a poll two weeks ago that showed a double-digit Bush lead amongst likely voters that turned out to have a significant bias in its sample favoring the GOP, Gallup did it again yesterday. Except that yesterday, they not only did it again, they apparently felt that a 7% GOP bias wasn't good enough. So they perpetrated the same fraud upon the media (including their partners CNN and USAT) and voters and this time used a 12% GOP bias in their likely voter screen. I kid you not. Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 13-15 Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42% Total Sample: 767 GOP: 305 (40%) Dem: 253 (33%) Ind: 208 (28%) Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 24-26 Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44% Total Sample: 758 GOP: 328 (43%) Dem: 236 (31%) Ind: 189 (25%) posted by chris at 9:59 PM   Do they just not see the irony? U.S. officials tell TIME that the Bush team ran into trouble with another plan involving those elections — a secret "finding" written several months ago proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favored by Washington. A source says the idea was to help such candidates — whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran — but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections. But lawmakers from both parties raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. ...But, [Rice spokesman] McCormack says, "there have been and continue to be concerns about efforts by outsiders to influence the outcome of the Iraqi elections, including money flowing from Iran. This raises concerns about whether there will be a level playing field for the election. This situation has posed difficult dilemmas about what action, if any, the U.S. should take in response. In the final analysis, we have adopted a policy that we will not try to influence the outcome of the upcoming Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office." Story. UPDATE: Juan Cole has more. posted by chris at 9:39 PM   A $15 video Sarah McLachlan has a new video that desperately needs to be played on MTV. (Quicktime required) (via August.) posted by chris at 1:58 PM   ------------------ Monday, September 27, 2004 The mess that is Florida The UK Independent runs down the politics and sleaze while Jimmy Carter says that the debacle that was the 2000 Florida elections could happen all over again. posted by chris at 7:22 PM   Losing it all An exclusive report from Knight Ridder's Washington office, which has gained much renown for this sort of thing in the past year, revealed Saturday that U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis, most of them civilians, as attacks by insurgents. The statistics were compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder. Iraqi officials said about two-thirds of the Iraqi deaths were caused by the U.S. side and police; the remaining third died from insurgent attacks. Story. posted by chris at 7:20 PM   Losing hearts and minds An exclusive report from Knight Ridder's Washington office, which has gained much renown for this sort of thing in the past year, revealed Saturday that U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis, most of them civilians, as attacks by insurgents. The statistics were compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder. Iraqi officials said about two-thirds of the Iraqi deaths were caused by the U.S. side and police; the remaining third died from insurgent attacks. Story. posted by chris at 7:16 PM   When reality intrudes, part III One: Bush said more than $9 billion would be spent on contracts in the next “several months” to rebuild Iraqi schools, refurbish hospitals, repair bridges, upgrade the electrical grid and modernize the communication system, although congressional aides and some administration officials said spending would increase more slowly. Two: Bush said preparations were also under way to conduct “free national elections no later than January.” He said an Iraqi electoral commission had already hired personnel, and U.N. electoral advisers are on the ground. Critics countered that many of the critical steps in conducting the elections, such as the procurement of vehicles, voting equipment and ballots, had not begun. They said the electoral commission had received only $7 million of the $232 million set aside in Iraqi funds and that the United Nations had only a few advisers in the country. Three: Bush on Saturday also touted efforts to train Iraqi security forces. He said nearly 100,000 “fully trained and equipped” Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel were already working and that the Iraqi government was on track to build a force of over 200,000 security personnel by the end of 2005. Documents prepared by Defense Department officials and given to lawmakers showed fewer than 100,000 would be trained by the end of this year. They also showed that of the nearly 90,000 now in the police force, only 8,169 had the full eight-week academy training. It will be July 2006 before the administration’s new goal of 135,000 fully trained police is met. At what point can we just start calling these lies? (via Tbogg.) UPDATE: Reuters lays it all out. posted by chris at 3:40 PM   When reality intrudes, part II Karl Rove: Rove also predicted that “we’re going to win Ohio comfortably” in the race against Bush’s Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. The Bush campaign is “building the greatest grass-roots apparatus that Ohio has ever seen,” Rove said. The state’s 20 electoral votes could determine the election. Reality: A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows. The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas. Don't believe the hype. This isn't over by a long shot. posted by chris at 2:15 PM   More fear tactics from the Republican party The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush. The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians. Story. posted by chris at 1:40 PM   When reality intrudes, ignore it President Bush, September 25, 2004: We're making steady progress in implementing our five-step plan toward the goal we all want: completing the mission so that Iraq is stable and self-governing, and American troops can come home with the honor they have earned. The Washington Post, September 26, 2004: Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government. Attacks over the past two weeks have killed more than 250 Iraqis and 29 U.S. military personnel, according to figures released by Iraq's Health Ministry and the Pentagon. A sampling of daily reports produced during that period by Kroll Security International for the U.S. Agency for International Development shows that such attacks typically number about 70 each day. In contrast, 40 to 50 hostile incidents occurred daily during the weeks preceding the handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, according to military officials. -clip- In number and scope, the attacks compiled in the Kroll reports suggest a broad and intensifying campaign of insurgent violence that contrasts sharply with assessments by Bush administration officials and Iraq's interim prime minister that the instability is contained to small pockets of the country. posted by chris at 1:24 PM   The Man Who is Never Wrong President Bush said he had no regrets about donning a flight suit to give his "Mission Accomplished" speech on Iraq in May 2003 and would do it all over again if he had the chance, according to excerpts from an television interview released on Sunday. When asked by Fox News if he still would have put on a flight suit to declare major combat operations in Iraq over, Bush replied, "Absolutely." When Bush gave his May 1 speech fewer than 150 Americans had died in the war. Since then more than 900 have died. Tell the families of those 900 Americans who will never see their loved ones again that it was worth it. posted by chris at 1:19 PM   Filthy rich The Fortune list of the top 400 richest Americans has been published. Most of this is just fodder for dreams of wealth that can't possibly be realized by the average person. But I think it's instructive to note that fully HALF of the top 10 richest people in the country have the last name of Walton and got their fortunes from the Wal-mart empire. I guess all those cost cutting measures - always low wages, inadequate health care, poor treatment of women, use of undocumented workers - really do pay off. posted by chris at 11:06 AM   ------------------

    

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