Everything You Know Is Wrong

Heh, Nuff' said.

No matter what you think about Dan Abrams on MSNBC, if a conservative clerk had taken his challenge, he would have read the email. Abrams is no liberal (as far as I can tell) and wouldn't hedge on that.

IT WAS POLITICAL. HELLO.

What truly amazes me is not the mainstream media ignoring this but that Blogosphere Left has completely ignored the story.

I've always said (many times, in the Boonie blog)that the biggest story of the century is the Florida election fiasco. The lesson of fact that Bush and the courts made a sham of our electoral system should be in every History text books NOW.

No posting until I get back from Denver. Enjoy your Debate parties and FLOOD THE ZONE while I do some shots...

Dude Blah3 has a great idea, as usual:

Everybody. EVERYBODY. Find an online poll and vote. Early and often. Flood the goddam zone. If you know how to set up a voting script, set it up and use it.

Don't equivocate - DO IT - one thing I've always liked about Blah3 is that he's always been with me on the dirty-tricks-thing: if it's good enough for them why isn't it good enough for us? Especially when democracy is on the line. And we're not tossing out millions of African-American votes or bullying people at the polls, we're not LYING about the state of affairs here and abroad.

So what's a little skewing of the online polls? It's not like we're stealing elections or anything... so get to it and FLOOD THE ZONE (yo, Blah3, get that trademarked or something!).

I got this head's up from yesterday's "The Abrams Report" (transcript here, a little past halfway down page) that an article in the October 2004 issue of Vanity Fair, working with interviews of law clerks who worked on that ruling, says that the recount ruling was political. On Abrams last night:

Ever wonder how that decision was really determined, what really happened behind the scenes with the justices? Well, a new article in “Vanity Fair” magazine takes an inside look at how that opinion came to be and effectively says it was as political as many suspected.

They got exclusive interviews with some of the Supreme Court clerks, young lawyers just a year or two out of law school who often write the first of the justices. And according to this article, had more of an impact than many could even imagine.

The result, a blockbuster article with loads of new information.

Now remember, more than month after voters went to the polls, the court split decision 5-4 ruled that the recount violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution because they said there was not a uniform standard for counting the votes.

Many argue that reasoning was based more on politics than law, and this article suggests that‘s true.

That the ruling was political is hardly news; what's news is the fact that clerks on the ruling are now talking about it - - and pissing off a lot of conservative lawyers. Via Law.com:

More than 90 prominent lawyers and former Supreme Court law clerks including former Attorneys General Richard Thornburgh and William Barr have joined in a statement sharply criticizing the law clerks who gave behind-the-scenes details about the 2000 case Bush v. Gore to Vanity Fair magazine.

Interesting that these pinheads are griping about confidentiality and not the fact that the court ruled in a blatantly political manner, effectively usurping our democratic principles in order to put the worst president ever into office.

To his credit, Dan Abrams has offered conservative clerks the opportunity to rebut this from the shadows:

ABRAMS: I should tell you, you know. Look, if any of the conservative law clerks working at the time want to come on the program or call us, give us anonymous quotes to respond to this, I will put it on air.

I'll watch today's show and see what transpires; my bet is that NO ONE is going to address the issue and refute the statements in Vanity Fair's article but will merely (in true conservative fashion) parrot the inanities of a slimy idealogue like Thornburgh.

I'm buying my copy of Vanity Fair today and watching Abrams to see how this develops...

I read a post about blogging on Eschaton and I should take his advice... post more, provide unique spin on what I do post. Heh. And then I flake out. What I ought to do is cross post from my Boonie blog.

We'll see how that goes...

So CBS plays a little fast and loose with documents to back up a story and the US media is ALL OVER IT and for no good reason...

But a couple of weeks ago, when Sue Niederer protested outside a rally led by Laura Bush, exercising her 1st Amendment rights, pigs took her down... and where the fuck were CNN or MSNBC on that story? Christ, our rights are eroding faster than the Bush Twins' IQs and the media could care less.

Now, in today's NYT I read that the Secret Service is investigating Ms. Niederer over some off-hand remarks she posted on the net.

The federal officials are apparently investigating comments made by Mrs. Niederer in May on the Web site counterpunch.org, a political newsletter. In the Web postings, she is quoted as saying she "wanted to rip the president's head off" and "shoot him in the groined area."

Your tax dollars at work, folks... and your rights spinning down the shitter while CNN and the rest of that scum make goo-goo eyes at Bush and make all kinds of noise over the non-story of the year.

OOOoooh, my groined area....

Kerry being elected President (and Bush not just out of a job but indicted and incercerated) is not the extent of my fantasy that starts on November 3; no, what I really want to see (and I'm certain this is fairly common on the left side of the blogosphere) is the shaming of the media and the US press.

I guess I should take the advice given in an excellent piece by Michael Moore yesterday where he said, "Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie)." Unfortunately, I'm a junkie for news and I get jittery without hours of mindless babble.

CNN is a goddamn joke; Skelator and Wolf "Hey George This Beard Means My Mouth Is a Pussy" Blitzer really have nothing to report other than The Kerry Campaign Is In Trouble And So Far Behind In The Polls That, Well, Democrats Might As Well Just Stay Home On November 2nd And Accept Another Four Years Of Preznit Fuckhead. What a worthless turd herd and I might concede that justice indeed exists in this universe if Wolf and Skelator took their rightful place in the unemployment line. Shit Grin, too.

After the "Kerry's Gonna' Lose" mantra, the past week or so we've had the "CBS Really Fucked Up" giggle, kind of "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyahhhhh" as a way of distracting viewers from CNN's weak-ass handle on ANYTHING. Had the mental midgets at CNN put a TENTH of the energy into forged Niger documents as they have into negligible CBS documents, maybe the US would have 1,045 more soldiers alive. I heard Wolf commiserrating about "legal issues" with this non-story and I thought, "Go fuck yourself, idiot, what's criminal is that you gave Bush a pass on an illegal war when you should have been doing your fucking job and all of a sudden NOW you fancy yourself as a "serious journalist". Fuck you, I hope you get your ass raped in whatever shithole prison they send you to."

Journalism in the US is dead under the quasi-fascist regime of Bush. What next?

Unless someone piped in a few tons of Nitrous Oxide into the UN (following the lead of gas-passers at the Repuglican National Convention), I'm certain no one was buying an ounce of Bush's bullshit. Why should they? Unlike Bush, they know how to say "Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me..."

Not being in the business of peddling fertilizer, I'm posting the salient parts of his speech (and what he SHOULD have said), by all means check it against the transcipt here if you're certain I'm editorializing.

The American people respect the idealism that gave life to this organization. And we respect the men and women of the U.N., who stand for peace and human rights in every part of the world.

"...except, of course, Rush, Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, GFY, and 98% of the attendees at the Rethug National Convention."

Wise governments also stand for these principles for very practical and realistic reasons. We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.

"Ergo, I am a dictator."

Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights and every charter of liberty ever written are lies to be burned and destroyed and forgotten. They believe the dictators should control every mind and tongue in the Middle East and beyond. They believe that suicide and torture and murder are fully justified to serve any goal they declare. And they act on their beliefs.

"The US isn't huge on suicide but as Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons have shown, we sure do enjoy our torture and murder!"

AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death.

"Except of course those countries that endorse safe-sex or offer abortions... those bastards can burn in hell!"

Today the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others.

"They certainly don't pose any threat to the multitudes of militias that have risen up within their own borders to fill the power vacuum our forces have left in their wake."

The U.N. and its member nations must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal and free. A democratic Iraq has ruthless enemies because terrorists know the stakes in that country. They know that a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a decisive blow against their ambitions for that region.

"They must help even though my administration ignored the U.N. and its member nations when this body asked the US to exercise a little restraint and not embark on an illegal adventure in Iraq. And now that our adventure has been a 'catastrophic success' and we've essentially screwed everything, we need all the help we can get, especially since the US economy is in the toilet."

"As you may have guessed, a free Iraq would indeed be a block to other's ambitions because, free or not, it's where the US will be putting military bases... get used to it."

And today I assure every friend of Afghanistan and Iraq and every enemy of liberty, we will stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes of freedom and security are fulfilled. These two nations will be a model for the broader Middle East, a region where millions have been denied basic human rights and simple justice.

"...as a result of US interests in oil, since it has been US support for illegitimate and undemocratic regimes that has led to Islamist movements reacting in anger against those regimes."

For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. The oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach.

"...and bomb them back into the Stone Age."

The democratic hopes we see growing in the Middle East are growing everywhere. In the words of the Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary, democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency and accountability.

"Truer words have never been spoken and my own administration has shown that once you take away 'responsibility, transparency and accountability,' you destroy 'good government'. So no one should be using the US as an example, at least not the US government of the past 3 years..."

Because I believe the advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world, today I propose establishing a democracy fund within the United Nations. This is a great calling for this great organization. The fund would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law and independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions.

"...and as I just said, don't look to the US as an example (or for substantial funding in this endeavor) since we're in the process of dismantling our own trade unions, free press, and political parties..."

Money from the fund would also help set up voter precincts in polling places and support the work of election monitors.

"With the hurricanes in Florida and the lesson of our own election in 2000, the first place we'll need election monitors is the state where my corrupt brother is governor."

History will honor the high ideals of this organization.

"Unlike conservatives in the US who despise this organization and its ideals."

Here, in one of the most Republican counties in the US, one would expect "W '04" or "Bush/Cheney '04" stickers thick as fallen fall foliage. El Paso county, Colorado is notoriously right wing and with the exception of largely Hispanic districts, monochromatically Republican. Given that, one would expect Dubya bumper stickers to outnumber Kerry stickers 6 to 1 (given the spread Bush had over Gore in El Paso county in 2000).

That's not the case - it's a dead heat (bumper-sticker wise) in a Republican stronghold - which I think appears to be real trouble for Bush. Even in my parent's neighborhood, a mere two miles from Focus on the Family and five miles from the Air Force Academy, Bush stickers barely outnumber Kerry stickers; in that neighborhood I'd expect Bush stickers on every other car and at best, a Kerry sticker every 10th car. Surprise, surprise, either Bush supporters are half as inclined to put bumper stickers on their car or Kerry supporters are twice as likely to put a sticker on their car but it looks as though the National polls are missing something.

I'd dismiss this notion about bumper stickers except that the polls are giving Ken Salazar an 11-point lead over Pete Coors in our Senate race. OK, I just said that the polls were wrong RE: Bush v. Kerry - so why would I pay attention to the Salazar v. Coors polls? Because it's been apparent since day one that, in a race between Salazar and Coors (State Attorney General against crappy-beer boy), Salazar had it locked up. Applying my bumper-sticker logic to the Senate race, the numbers add up. Even in El Paso county, the numbers of Salazar stickers far out-number the Coors stickers.

I may not be onto anything here but I couldn't be any less wrong than the polls for the Presidential race...

Because I wonder why the Kerry campaign hasn't JUMPED ALL OVER this - cull 25 seconds worth (or whatever) from the scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 showing Bush getting the news of the 2nd airliner hitting the WTC and then quick cuts showing his reaction as time passes (with the time stamps on screen).

(Voice over)
"George Bush and Dick Cheney claim that America will be safer if they are given another 4 years in office. But when America was under attack, Dick Cheney hid in a bunker, unreachable by Pentagon Officials while George Bush..."
(Moronic deer-in-the-headlights look on Bush's face)
"...stood reading 'My Pet Goat' to Second Graders even though he was fully aware the country was under attack."
(More moronic deer-in-the-headlights look on Bush's face)
"Is this how you think a President should react in a time of crisis?"

"Kerry/Edwards - For a stronger America"

Put that puppy into heavy rotation and I guarantee you the polls will be 70% Kerry, 20% Bush. It ain't rocket science, folks.

I'd forgotten about the laughable Laffer Curve (and thanks to Atrios for reminding me), the notion that cutting taxes will always lead to increased revenues. Simple equation for simple minds and simply wrong.

I've made this challenge to conservatives before and no one ever - EVER - answered me back but it bears asking again: is there any historic precedent that large, comprehensive tax cuts (LCTC) have benefited an economy?

Look, I'm no historian and certainly not an economist but I have done several desultory searches (through libraries AND the web) to see if there was a single instance when an LCTC has stimulated economic growth in the long-term and I just can't seem to find the evidence!

Any students, professionals, people who know this stuff, etc. care to enlighten me?
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I'm off to Denver in a few so light (or no) posting until tomorrow night....

I'm still fuming after watching Uberwhore Shit Grin (Paula Zahn) and her "Rah Rah Bush Show"; what the fucking fuck?!? After Ivan, the show was devoted to CBS, Dan Rather, and Killian documents but not a SINGLE WORD about what those documents might mean (in a bigger picture). CNN doesn't even attempt to appear objective...

As I've been saying the past couple of weeks, the issue should not be whether or not the memos are real but the validity of what the memos say... jesuschristinarollingdonut, why isn't the press raising holy hell about Bush lying about his ANG service? Something that DEFINITELY goes against his integrity; the fact that no one is picking up the $60K bounty by proving he actually SERVED in Alabama also goes against that integrity as well as shows his dereliction of duty during war time.

I'm not taking on every media outlet... I want to focus on CNN because IMHO they've fallen so far into the thrall of the White House that one can't help but cry "Whores!". As Blah3 points out:

to my eyes the most interesting part of the article was the byline:

CNN's Jeanne Meserve, Dana Bash, Suzanne Malveaux, Peter Ornstein, Sarah Irwin and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

They put six reporters on raising 'doubts about the memos - and they still haven't asked Question One about the content of the memos.

If this meretricious horseshit was just here-and-there, maybe I'd be a little off base. But it's not like I'm the only one seeing any of this. Matthew Yglesias asks (somewhat) what I've been asking for the past few weeks, "Why doesn't Suzanne Malveaux just take a job in the White House press office if she's going to file reports like this on the Iraq NIE?"

I'm asking why CNN doesn't change it's motto to, "If there was no Fox News, we'd be the one to watch." Just pathetic.

Wingers have been howling worse than my three-year old after her little brother steals her Barbie and hits her with it over Kofi Annan's latest statement that the Iraq war was illegal so of course CNN (Lou Dobbs stand-in Kitty Wazzername) feels obligated to get the Heritage Foundation's mouthpiece to get REALLY retro on us, essentially:

Kofi Annan is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

I kind of thought that line of thinking went out with "The New Rock" so it was a moment of nostalgia (and highly amusing) to watch some banana brain from the HF break that golden oldie out. But maybe he got his cue from Colin Powell, who, in reaction to Annan's statement, responded:

Secretary of State Colin Powell disputed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's assertion that the US-led war in Iraq was illegal and said in an interview published yesterday the comment was "not a very useful statement to make at this point."
"What does it gain anyone? We should all be gathering around the idea of helping the Iraqis, not getting into these kinds of side issues," Powell said in an interview with The Washington Times.

It's Deja Vu, all over again.

It goes like this: when I listen to the audience's reaction to comments by Begala/Carville vs. Carlson/Novak, it always seems that a substantial number of the audience responds favorably to B/C while only a handful responds to C/N. By my (admittedly) untrained ear, it sounds like around 70% of the audience are behind B/C.

The C/N contingent sounds like a group of hillbillies - "Yee HAW!", whoops, screeches, the kind of reaction you'd expect from the front row at a Toby Keith concert (What has 24 teeth and an IQ of 140?). But making more noise doesn't mean more people. I judge the numbers based on the extent of applause and the applause for B/C is invariably deeper, fuller than the scattered claps given C/N.

Is it that liberals are more inclined to attend Crossfire tapings? That's a possibility but counter-intuitive; if this race is truly a dead-heat, one would expect equal amounts of applause for left and right on Crossfire. But that has not been the case the past two months and I tune in almost everyday. Based on my unofficial Crossfire "poll" can we conclude that maybe, just MAYBE, that the other polls are... um, WRONG (as Americablog suggests)?

I've heard that... that polls only question those who voted in 2000 (or "the last election" - I'm not sure if that means the last PRESIDENTIAL election or the general election in 2002 when the right seemed to be particularly mobilized) and not newly registered voters. If that's true (and I've heard it said rather frequently) then I think Kerry is going to win by a nice margin. Most of the new voters appear to be motivated by wanting to hand Bush a pink slip. I've been saying this for a couple of years, that ever since the 2002 rout the right has been feeling over-confident, that owning all 3 branches of the government had caused them to believe that they had a referendum of people who matter (those "others" would be prevented from voting ala Florida 2000).

That whiff of Nitrous has wafted over to the US press who manage to, at best, babble mindlessly, "Look at these numbers, Kerry might as well give up, go home, our boy Bush, despite being a coward, a liar, and a drunk/drug-addict is going to be the main man for the next four years." Atrios again seems surprised by this (as well as Skelator's mendacity), that Bush speeches get twice the coverage as Kerry's speeches on CNN. Well, no shit, Bush makes CNN feel all warm and fuzzy while Kerry makes them do their homework.

If anyone believes the press/media in this country has much interest in objectively reporting the news, they're looking at dealing with their tooth fairy issues. News in the US in the 21st century is nothing less than government propaganda. Thank god for the internet.

I don't know if this from today's New York Times struck anyone else as absurdly WRONG:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell expressed concern on Tuesday over President Vladimir V. Putin's recent action to consolidate his power in Russia, declaring that Mr. Putin was "pulling back" on democratic reforms in the name of fighting terrorism.

My question to Mr. Powell would be (of course), "And what is the Patriot Act?" In the name of fighting terrorism it seems that this country has wiped its ass with the Constitution. Is Colin Powell telling Putin that what's good for the US is not good for Russia? I doubt that Powell meant to make a clown of himself (although he's managed to do that PLENTY the last 3 years) but he did accent the Orwellian (or Kafka-esque?) proportions of this election.

The US press gave us this Orwellian nightmare. Dubya not only shirked his National Guard obligations but has LIED to the public about that service - that's obvious to anyone with a fistful of working neurons. But instead of the press harping on our President being a lame-ass liar, they're focused on the authenticity of the Killian documents. That's a load of crap; the real story is Bush lying (an obvious whopper) and phony documents are a damn footnote.

In today's NYT, Killian's secretary says that although she thinks the documents are bogus, the sentiments are on the money.

"We did discuss Bush's conduct and it was a problem Killian was concerned about," Mrs. Knox said. "I think he was writing the memos so there would be some record that he was aware of what was going on and what he had done." But, she said, words like "billets," which appear in the memorandums, were not standard Guard terms.

As if we needed anymore evidence that Bush is a damned liar... but who will tell the press?

A good interview with Bill Maher on Larry King (Lame-oh lets Maher talk), even if I had to sit through the intolerable Paula Zahn interviewing Barak Obama. Watching it and BAM! - car bomb kills 27 in Baghdad. Do I need to go into IRONY here, considering the things Maher says about Iraq?

Just sitting back, watching the wheels come off on the Bush/GFY campaign...

During a campaign stop in Iowa yesterday GFY played "Ooooo scary" by declaring:

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again."

I don't think most Americans are buying Cheney's horseshit and he's has most likely illustrated for the voters how his campaign is playing the fear card (along with the smear card). Why the press isn't making noise about how cynical GFY's statement was is... well, I'm not surprised, not in the least. I'm watching the pro-Bush Skelator (Judy Woodruff) on CNN just to see how much mouth-time she's giving Repugs (and, of course, her thighs are wide for a yellow power tie) and I see she's buried Cheney's statement half way into the show.

(Oh, and here's Skelator's hamster Bill Scneider co-signing GFY's crap. Ho hum.)

You'd think that a statement so blatantly undemocratic would get glaring headlines. Think again. Newsweek, as Blah3 points out, the same rag that had no compunction trumpeting the Swift Boat Vets book and

...floated a bogus poll over the weekend in order to create the illusion of a Bush 'bounce' - passed on excerpting Kelley's book, in an attempt to portray itself as a publication in posession of journalistic integrity.

I'm anxious to see how the press handles the renewed interest in Bush's Nation Guard service. Wolf "I Heart Dubya" Blitzer grilled "Texans For Truth" Bob Mintz in a way that made his treatment of the Swift Boat Vets look like gay porn. "60 Minutes II" is featuring Lieutenant Colonel Killian on this but, as Atrios points out, CBS couldn't resist taking an unfair shot at Kerry.

GFY's wish for the demise of democracy in the US is already coming to fruition in the demise of a free press. A press that works as a mouthpiece and cheerleader of the administration is hardly free. If there's going to be a regime change in our country, our next task should be overhauling our media.

Go Fuck Yourself is speaking at the RNC right now... those of us with actual brains are laughing our asses off because GFY can only demonize Kerry. He can't talk about the administration's record, really (except to embellish it with outright horseshit) and the crowd responds with Nazi-like furor, chanting, drooling, stuffing their pants with socks...

Jesusfuckingchristinagreenhat, they might as well have put a goddamn corpse on stage, GFY had all the personality of a sock monkey (interesting ticket, that - a REAL monkey and one knitted by crazzy Aunt Alice) and all the brilliance of phlegm. That the Repugs were "Heil" this and "Heil" that over his speech should only convince the rest of America the extent of the intellect of that party.

I'm watching MSNBC and they're blabbing about how Zell "Oh My Hemorrhoids" Miller made GFY look "warm and fuzzy". No, he only highlighted how fucking BORING Cheney is. Hey, I used to be a musician and you don't let a hot band open for tired old farts and Miller was Black Flag to Cheney's Wayne Newton.

COURAGE? The limp-dicks put a Democrat up on stage to say the things the rr-rrrrepublicans are too nutless to say. Just like they did with the Slime Vote Vets. But they like other folk to do their dirty work, fight wars, clean their toilet, etc.

I'm thinking of changing the title of this blog to "Connect the Goddamn Dots".