slapnose.com

This is an old one, so hopefully not very many people will fall for it. Unfortunately, the reason tactics like this pop up every election is that they work.

How do they sleep at night? Really, I have trouble sleeping at night and I'm not even close to that evil.

Via The Poor Man, and Salon.com before him.

Why does Colin Powell hate our troops?

Kos has a good sampling of Republican voter suppression efforts around the country.

Read, and be horrified.

The Guerrilla News Network has the story of George Bush's intention to invade Iraq if he were elected president all the way back in 2000.

The source for this bombshell is a reporter who once served as Bush's ghost writer on "A Charge to Keep" and an old Bush family friend. The article is written by Russ Baker, a reporter with a solid reputation. (This source verification from Josh Marshall.)

Is that what they're teaching at Harvard Business School these days? Being a leader means never admitting a mistake?

A story has been floating around recently about how the Washington Redskins have correctly predicted every presidential election since 1936, in that if the 'Skins win their last home game before the election, the incumbent party retains the White House. If they lose, the incumbents are out. This has held true for 16 elections, going all the way back to 1936 when the Washington Redskins were the Boston Redskins.

The Redskins had a home game today versus the Green Bay Packers.

Final score:
Green Bay: 28
Washington: 14

Between this and the whole Indian astrology thing, things are looking pretty good.

... you can learn on This American Life.

I HIGHLY recommend taking a listen to this week's episode, entitled "Swing Set," which focuses on undecided voters. There is also a segment about voter fraud, which will, if you have any sense of what is right at all, have you screaming at your radio (or radio-streaming computer), as Ira Glass warns.

So worth an hour of your time, it's not even funny.

The DNC posts their Voter Bill of Rights.

Learn in. Live it. Love it.

Zogby International has the results of their first-ever text-messaging poll.

Kerry - 55%
Bush - 40%

... among 18-29 year-old likely voters.

Only 2.3% of 18-29 year-olds said they did not plan to vote, with another .5% saying they weren't sure if they would vote.

Good news.

Happy Halloween.

The countdown until Bush-loving ruffians smash it starts now.

Bush campaign officials respond to the recent Osama tape

A "little gift." The man who murdered over 3,000 people on September 11 is still at large and sending threatening messages to the American people. And that's celebrated as good news by the Bush campaign. They're excited about the fact that you're terrorized. This is good for them. They came right out and said it. Be afraid, it helps us.

This is beyond disgusting.

David Brooks is freaking out over the video, consumed by the emotions he felt 3 years ago and looking for a leader that shares his irrationality.

Well allow me to reveal myself, David. I hate you.

I hate that you think it's better to have a leader who is "consumed" by hate than one who understands world issues rationally and acts after considering the facts. I hate that you accuse Senator Kerry of politicizing September 11th, when George Bush invented politicizing September 11th.

All that the Osama tape shows is that the man responsible for September 11th is still at large and still threatening our lives. Who is responsible for allowing him to remain at large? John Kerry? Democrats?

No. George Bush is responsible. He squandered unprecedented world support for the hunting down of this killer in a matter of weeks, embarking on a costly and deadly adventure which diverted nearly all resources from the hunt for this man. If bin Laden strikes again, blame George Bush.

From a Bush television ad:

Story on Salon.com and LA Times.

Naturally, the Bush campaign blames some "renegade editor" for the doctored image. I'm sure the people who edit the Bush campaign's ads in the final weeks of the most expensive and contentious political campaign in history are just given free reign. Lying bastards.

Anyway, see, again, how they lie. Lie, Bush, lie.

While I really can't say enough bad things about the site design (I feel like I'm being invited to a bomb-themed wedding), Internets Vets for Truth is a great site to bone up on our truth before Tuesday.

My particular favorite video is this one, which nearly made me vomit in furious rage.

South Park explains why it's important to vote.

Brilliant.

On The Daily Show last night, Stewart asked John Zogby (of polling fame) who was going to win the election.

Zogby said, simply, "Kerry."

I'm so glad he said that. I'm still nervous as hell, but for a second there, it felt like Christmas.

Sit back for a second and try to remember what this country is really supposed to stand for. I'm sure you learned it once. Try to remember what words like "freedom" and "democracy" really mean.

Now read on..

From Dan Froomkin

Seriously, I would like to find one, just one, person that can mount even the most rudimentary defense of this. This is straight up totalitarian dictator stuff. Do you think Saddam Hussein let people who disagreed with him near his rallies? Of course not. Sure, he killed them, and we're not at that point yet. But apparently we're at the point where campaign workers will threaten to have someone killed.

And then there's this, from Law Geek, an image of a fraudulent letter that was sent out to Democrats in Lake County, Ohio.

Here's a PDF of the Lake County Election authority's response, warning people that the letter is fake.

More? Here's an image from a Bush rally, showing a brown-shirt tearing down a sign that read "Republicans for Kerry."

We've all been conditioned even, to think that maybe they have a right to restrict opposition signs at their functions. Why should they have to allow the other side at their event?

The answer is easy. Because of freedom. That's what it really means. If the protesters are yelling or throwing eggs or poop or something, then fine, remove them. But wearing a button is not disruptive. Holding a sign that says something different than everyone else's sign is not disruptive. Getting a ride from someone with a bumper sticker for the other guy on their car is not disruptive.

If it becomes disruptive, it's only because these people's FREE SPEECH is butting heads with the fascist intolerance of Bush-rally-attending, goose-stepping, Kool-Aid drinking jackasses*.

Really, what is going on around here?

* Naturally, while I consider these people to be jackasses of the first order, I would never suggest that they don't have the right to be so, or that they have the right to show up at public functions and act like the jackasses that they so obviously are. That's the difference.

You should definitely vote anyway, you know, just to keep up appearances, but this thing's already in the bag.

Cosmic writ! Awesome!

They're freedom-hating religious nutjobs.

The offending cover..

Robert Nelson, a NASA scientist and international authority on image analysis, has come forward with his opinion on the Bush bulge. His conclusion?

"I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate."

Full story on Salon.com (registration required).

Bush elevates the discourse. Video.

After 380 tons of explosives went missing in Iraq earlier this week and John Kerry pounced on it as yet another staggering example of the Bush administration's lack of planning and stunningly poor execution of this war, the Bush people started firing back yesterday, accusing Kerry of "jumping to conclusions" and asserting that those weapons could very well have been removed before our forces arrived in Iraq.

Well, that irksome little thing called THE TRUTH just keeps popping up and biting these jerks in the ass, doesn't it?

KSTP News 5 has video of U.S. soldiers at Al Qaqaa inspecting craploads of what are most certainly explosives last April. We knew they were there and we just left them out in the desert unprotected. Now who knows whose hands they're in and who knows how many deaths they've caused.

Worse, there is little chance that the administration doesn't know we knew they were there. If the 101st Airborne found this stuff last April, someone knew they found it. And we didn't secure it.

CNN had former head weapons inspector David Kay on to analyze the video..

How could it be any clearer? This was a colossal failure which has probably cost many people their lives and will continue to kill more, and then they lied about it. So, after we kick these people out of office, what say we round 'em up and try them for war crimes? Come on... it'll be fun!

Got to give it up to The Stranger, my employer, for the cover this week..

More scary Halloween costumes here. The Lyndie England one is my favorite.

If we reelect the people who launched this war, a war that was launched with no provocation, we will all have the blood of those 100,000 Iraqis on our hands. It makes me sick to my stomach.

Via alert reader Mike...

"A Democratic, partisan get-out-the-vote effort." That's what he said. Despite the fact that these kids weren't suggesting people vote one way or another, just that they vote.

Republicans continue to astound with their stance against freedom and democracy. If these kids had been canvassing in wealthy white neighborhoods that tended to vote Republican, would they be complaining? No. Any get-out-the-vote campaign threatens them because the more people that vote, particularly low-income people and minorities, the better chance Kerry has of being elected president. They know this and they're actively trying to keep turnout to a minimum, especially in areas where those people live.

They know nothing about democracy or freedom. They know only power. Stop them. Please.

I know you've all been waiting. Here it is, my official endorsement.

John Kerry for President.

There.

I know it's traditional to back up an endorsement with a lengthy essay explaining the reasons behind it, but mine will be relatively short. To wit:

George Bush is a terrible, dangerous, scary man who intends to dismantle everything good about this country. John Kerry has no such intentions.

Shouldn't that be enough?

For a much more thorough, though lengthy, but still worth reading, endorsement-- one that receives my full endorsement-- please see The Nation's endorsement.

In a bit under 4,000 words, the editors of The Nation lay out the progressive case for voting for Kerry. He's not perfect by any stretch, and there are many serious reasons for disagreeing with him, but no less than the future of American democracy may be at stake in this election.

Some excerpts:

On Kerry's qualifications

On the Danger of a True Bush Mandate

On What's At Stake

On Why Electing Kerry is The Most Important Thing We Can Do

Full text of The Nation's endorsement of Kerry.

This really adds nothing to our understanding of the situation (if you're new, let me catch you up to speed.. Republicans are crooks), but just to note for the record...

I tend to believe the Postal Service here. They lose remarkably little mail, and 58,000 of the same thing? Doesn't seem likely. That's a damn lot of ballots.

Okay, he didn't really say that.

Here's what he did say today, in Lancaster Country, PA:

Ah... yes. And where are those weapons now, Mr. Douchebag? Why, jeez, they're most likely in the hands of our terrorist enemies!

So, if Kerry "had his way," according to Bush's seriously insane view, those weapons might have gotten into the wrong hands. With Bush in power though, they're completely secure.. Err... no. Shit. What was it again? Oh yeah, they're in the hands of our terrorist enemies. Damn you, Senator Kerry!!! How could you let this happen!?!?!

See, it's not even funny anymore. They don't even try to make sense. They just spew out some words that make people cheer because the people have had their brains turned to jelly by his evil Brain-to-Jelly Ray™. Can't you see that?

Bush also offered his opinion today that these missing 380 tons of explosives may have gone missing before the U.S. ever invaded. It's "one possibility." Yeah, sure, it's one possibility. One that has no evidence to back it up. He's actually playing the "it's posssssible" game, and it's working on far too many of us.

What we always miss is the stupendously obvious. It's uncontested fact that we knew this pile of explosives was there before we went to Iraq. The IAEA warned us about it. It's documented fact. We didn't send anybody there to guard the stuff. That is a MASSIVE screw-up. Even if the weapons were removed before we got there, it may have been a good idea to send someone around to check. Didn't do that. Bush's "possibilities" really aren't possible. Even if they were possible, they represent just as colossal a mistake as the one he's trying to squirm his way out of.

I won't even go into the disingenuousness of his little "Global Test" crack. What a pile of shit this guy is. It's truly astounding that anyone would even shake his hand, let alone vote for him to rule the world.

Quote of the day:

BwwwAAAhahahahahahahaha.

Actually, it would be funny if so many people hadn't been killed because of his "jumping to conclusions." Oh, and not only does Bush jump to conclusions without the facts, but when the facts emerge, he retains his faulty conclusions.

Is THAT the kind of person we want as commander in chief?

Huh?

Is it?

Alert reader Patti forwards this BBC News article.

Apparently, according to Florida law, operatives of political parties are allowed to hang out inside polling places and identify voters they believe are ineligible for whatever reason, causing that voter to be given a "provisional ballot" and sent on his/her way. According to the report, provisional ballots are almost never counted. No mention of what cause, if any, the operatives have to show to single someone out.

If you watch the video of the report (link on right sidebar), there's another crazy little story.

Election supervisor Ion Sancho recounts the story of his daughter's registration mysteriously being changed to another county. Someone had gotten her to sign a petition to legalize marijuana that had carbon paper and a registration change form underneath it on the clipboard, lined up just so. Her vital information was transfered to the registration form, it was fraudulently signed and mailed in. If her father hadn't happened to be an election supervisor, no one would ever have figured it out.

If these bastards manage to steal this election, I say we kick some serious ass. I'm talking 5 million person marches on Washington, civil disobedience, whatever. If all of this significant evidence of fraud and intimidation has its intended result, we should shut this society down.

Oh, and lest anyone accuse me of ignoring evidence of Democratic election fraud, I honestly haven't seen any compelling evidence of it. I've seen several attempts at smear campaigns, but they were disingenuous at best.

For example, here's an email I received from the RNC today. It's boldly titled DEMOCRAT VOTER FRAUD WATCH and it quotes a story reported by KRQE-13 on fraudulent registrations in New Mexico. New registration for dead people, people no one's ever heard of, etc., etc.

Sounds bad, huh? Well, the report by KRQE-13 never once mentions the word "Democrat" or says a thing about who may be responsible for these registrations. Not a word. Not in the print version or in the video.

And yet, here's the email, titled "DEMOCRAT VOTER FRAUD WATCH". How strange.

So here's a likely scenario: Republicans are scouring news outlets for reports that don't specifically implicate them and using those to implicate us.

As some have noted, it appears that I have died.

Fortunately, it's not true. Although, if I were Anthony Hecht the poet, I would have won a Pulitzer Prize and lived a pretty rich life, so maybe I would be better off if I were dead. Oh well, I guess I'm stuck with being alive and not particularly noteworthy.

Strangely, though, Anthony Hecht's death seems to have increased my standing in the world as far as Google is concerned. It used to be you'd never find me through a Google search, but now this very site appears as the 11th result! Naturally I can't really prove that this has anything to do with the death of my doppelganger -- I would think that would have the opposite effect -- it may have more to do with the recent uptick in Slapnose traffic.

To sum up -- Not dead. More popular than ever.

I'm always a day behind on my Daily Show watching, due to certain TiVo related issues not worth getting into here, but as such I just watched the interview with Madeline Albright from last night.

She's smart, I like her. She really fucked up on the whole Rwanda thing, but you know.. it was only genocide. Actually, she wanted to do something about Rwanda but was told it couldn't be done; that it wasn't politically possible. From what I understand she was one of the strongest dissenters. Still, in the end she caved, which sucks.

Anyway, now she's talking about now.

She brings up a very interesting point, one that I've heard floating around a bit lately -- that much of the world is waiting for November 2 to see just how crazy we really are.

Currently, many people in the western world are really pissed at us, but their anger and disgust is focused on our leaders and our government, not we, the people. They consider the Bush presidency to be illegitimate, which, you know, it is. He's a psycho, but a majority of us voted for the other guy and we are not blamed for his running around invading everything.

Additionally, we didn't really know him in 2000. He was a relative new arrival in politics, most people had never heard of him and he seemed all folksy and whatnot. And, say it with me, the world was a different place then, we didn't think he'd cause too much trouble. (More accurately, we didn't listen to the people who knew he would, but we can be somewhat forgiven for that too, given the above discussion.)

If we reelect him now, though, knowing what we know about him, and having lived through the last four years, we're going to lose all that benefit of the doubt, but quick. We will no longer be separate from our leaders, in fact we'll be worse for having applauded them for ruining the world. We will show to the world that we've really lost our damn minds, and I'm not sure what will happen then.

Certainly nothing good will come of it. Does anyone really imagine a big celebration if Bush wins? I mean other than in secret chambers and lairs or in the yards of the dangerously misguided. What's to celebrate? War? Poverty? The ruining of the environment? Giant leaps backward in science and education?

So, at the risk of being repetitive (more so), can we please not reelect him? We'll never be able to show our faces in civilized society again.

Reuters:

Weirdly, the Iraqi government later softened the tone of their accusations, saying they would wait for the results of the investigation, which is awesome for us, because we're great at bullshit investigations that clear us of any wrongdoing! Score!

The U.S.-led forces released a statement blaming the attacks on terrorists and terrorists alone.

A statement by the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq blamed the killings on "terrorists."

It strikes me that this is really illustrative of our entire problem. Bad things are the work of bad guys, period. Contributing factors and context are completely irrelevant. They would have committed these horrible acts anyway, because they're evil. What we've done before has no bearing, and we have no responsibility for the eventual consequences of our actions or inactions. Forgot to guard 380 tons of explosives? Well, that may have been a mistake, but if someone uses it to blow up thousands of people, how is that our fault?

Until the morality and foresight displayed by our policies achieves or surpasses that of a 13-year old bully, I don't really see our situation improving much.

Jon Stewart was interviewed by author Ken Auletta last weekend on C-SPAN.

In between throwing out some good jokes, Stewart's incredibly sharp mind and his deeply held convictions really come through in the hour-long interview. This is a very smart man.

If you have an hour to spare, I highly recommend it (it's the October 23 edition of American Perspectives).

Image of a ballot for Cuyahoga County, Ohio, via Aaron's Room (larger version available on his site).

As the wealthiest and most technologically advanced country that has ever existed on Earth, you'd think we could come up with a reliable way to count votes. I realize there are countless systems, each with their strengths and weaknesses, but clearly what we have now is just about the worst.

This is going to be ugly.

Lots has been said recently about Tucker "Dick" Carlson's accusation that Jon Stewart threw softball questions at John Kerry when he interviewed him, and thus had no right to criticize CNN and other major news outlets for going easy on politicans. Carlson and Begala also did a bit of protesting that, in fact, the media isn't easy on politicians; that it was some kind of popular myth.

Salon's War Room runs down some of the tough questions Bush and Cheney have had to endure in their rare television inrterviews..

This brings to mind one of my major policy proposals, so I suppose now is as good a time as any to unveil it publicly. I'm not running for any office, I'm just saying I think it's a good idea. If someone who is in power wants to steal it, go right ahead. A little shout-out wouldn't kill ya though.

So here it is.. I think we should pass a law that requires every sitting president to have a press conference at least twice a month, in prime-time. The pool of journalists from major and not-so-major media would rotate through, with you know, maybe some organizations having permanent people there while the lesser ones made it in every now and then. It would be strictly against this law for the administration to have any voice whatsoever in who got to ask question, what types of questions they were allowed to ask, or whether or not the events took place.

If the president had to miss a conference, he'd better have a damn good excuse and would have to make it up as soon as possible.

Taking it a step further, follow-up questions would not only be encouraged, but a reporter would have to agree to cede the floor before the next question could be asked. And maybe two or three times a year, a randomly chosen group of interested members of the general public would take the place of the journalists.

We need to do something, this shit is just getting ridiculous. Jon Stewart was exactly right when he told Carlson and Begala that they were "part of their [the politicians] strategy." They're all helping each other out, getting each other re-elected and boosting ratings. Everybody gets something. Everybody, of course, except us.

Howard Kurtz has a rundown of some envisioned scenarios in today's Post.

The New Yorker has broken with 80-years of tradition by endorsing a candidate for president for the first time, and it's not George W. Bush.

I've been thinking about this, "What if he wins?" question quite a bit lately, and I really don't know the answer... basically, I agree with Hersh; if he's reelected, we're in big trouble. How that trouble manifests itself, I don't know. It could be massive protests, protracted legal battles, a rapid widening of the already giant partisan gulf. Or it could just appear that everything's okay. People go back to their jobs and kind of shrug it off. I think I'm more afraid of that outcome.

UPDATE :: The links below are unreliable at best, though they seem to work sometimes. Here's an alternative source, via Marshall.

Via Luke (from whom I also swiped the fab screen shot):

Eminem has a new video for the song "Mosh." Really incendiary, powerful stuff, and most importantly, something that will reach an audience that desperately needs reaching. As far as we've come in the past four years with making giving a shit cool again, it's never enough, and it's great to see people like Eminem reaching out.

Watch it.

Just for a little perspective, the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 over Scotland in 1988 used less than a pound of the same type of explosive. We've lost track of over half a million pounds. 380 times the amount needed to detonate a weapon like the one we dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

They knew this stuff was there, and they did nothing to protect it. On top of that, they're not even offering an excuse. Scott McClellan said it was the Iraqis' responsibility to guard it. Someone should go to jail. We launched an invasion, knowing full well that there was this massive pile of explosives, and in almost two years, we've failed to even guard it. To think that some of that material has been used to kill American soldiers is not much of a stretch, and if it hasn't yet, it surely will be. This isn't an intelligence failure, they knew it was there. So what is it? Why? What possible excuse could there be for this?

Most importantly, though, is how will this story play in the media?

I know, I know, it really seems like we don't need any more evidence that the administration is filled with liars and that they've deliberately and destructively manipulated the entire world to enrich themselves and their friends and pursue their radical, ultra-conservative psychotic agenda, but the story just isn't sticking, so we'll just have to keep at it.

One of George Bush's Harvard Business school professors, Yoshi Tsurumi, speaks out recalls his famous student...

Sweeeeet.

Via alert reader Alec..

A short clip of Congressman Tim Ryan (D- Ohio) going OFF on the whole "the country is being run by a bunch of lying crooks" thing.

More like this, please.

Ugh. This is really just a god-awful mess.

Filmmaker Errol Morris has created a (big) series of ads for MoveOn.org, worth a look. They take their style from Apple's "Switch" ad series and feature former Republicans and other former Bush supporters who have changed their tune.

See them all here.

I'm out of town and thus not, you know, blogging a lot, but you can go and read all about it.

I'm sorry, I really, really want John Kerry to win this election, like, in a BIG way, but this hunting trip thing was just dumb. Who the hell is making these decisions?

Who in their right mind thinks John Kerry just really loves to hunt and decided he really needed to get out there and bag him a goose? He's running for president, you'd think he'd be pretty busy.

Are there really a significant number of people out there that would be in any way influenced by this?

Via the similarly last-named Andrew comes this little gem:

What the report implies but never comes out and says is that the beliefs found to be characteristic of Kerry voters all happen to be THE TRUTH, supported by actual, you know, facts, while the beliefs of Bush supporters are more on the order of complete horseshit.

It's weird how the world has become a place where substantially evidenced facts are at a distinct disadvantage over completely made-up stuff. The actual truth value of an idea or statement has become basically irrelevant. It's truly a miracle of social evolution. We should be very proud..

Okay, that's a terrible title, but it's all I got.

The New York Times' Alessandra Stanley is quite keen on Jon Stewart's performance on Crossfire last week.

Oh, and if you haven't seen the video of his appearance yet, there's always time.

Somehow, William Safire has managed to fill an entire column today arguing that the Kerry campaign is using fear to manipulate the electorate.

That's not a typo, he's actually talking about the Kerry campaign.

Now, to be fair, the Kerry campaign is using fear to manipulate the electorate, but to be more fair, the Bush campaign, not to mention the Bush administration and Safire himself, have been using fear to manipulate the fate of the entire human race for years. Safire, for some reason, doesn't mention any of that.

Examples of the terrifying fear tactics the Kerry campaign has stooped to:

-- Warnings that if things continue the way they're going, some kind of draft may prove necessary to maintain troop levels.

-- Christopher Reeve died, and he advocated for stem cell research, which could provide some hope for people in his condition. BOO!

Strangely, no mention of terror alerts that never amount to anything, yet always seem to occur right after something embarrassing for the administration, or the constant threats of imminent death coming out of Bush's mouth.

William Safire, you suck.

Today is a great day to give a little sumpin'-sumpin' to the DNC, their "Countdown to Victory Matching Fund" is matching every contribution today dollar-for-dollar.

Donate Here.

Hey, these fake George Bush ads are pretty funny.

It gets better...

Dude, WTF?

Another terrifyingly illuminating passage from Ron Suskind's oft-cited, but no less terrific Times Magazine article, "Without a Doubt."

Again, the whole article is well worth your time.

Well, Tennesseeans, anyway, though it isn't much of a stretch to assume that the results would be similar elsewhere.

The poll summary starts out with the usual stuff.. Bush leads among white, Evangelical Christians (get out!), blah blah. Then comes to dumbasses part:

So there you go -- they did no better than chance when it comes to knowing that even their own candidates stand for.

Damn the damned fog!

(If you don't know where your candidates or elected officials stand on the issues, FIND OUT.)

As Luke pointed out in comments and My Dad pointed out again, Sinclair Broadcasting has fired the reporter who spoke out against their airing of "Stolen Honor."

The justification?

Imagine, if you will, that Jon Leiberman had spoken out in support of Sinclair. Do you suppose that would have caused him to be fired?

I'm happy to announce that the winner of the Most Completely Batshit Insane Republican of the Week Award goes to, once again, Alan Keyes!!!

Go Alan! You so crazy!

Alan's prize is yet another ignominious defeat. Congratulations, Alan!

Forwarded to me:

Do it.

Florida started their early voting today, and already there are issues.

This is only the first wave, imagine what's going to happen when the other 80 or 90 million people all try to vote at once.

This could be a fiasco for the ages.

Via alert reader My Dad...

You go boy.

Everything you always wanted to know about Texas Redistricting but didn't know you wanted to know about Texas Redistricting.

A friend sends these links:

His Congressman before redistricing.

His Congressman after redistricting.

It is, how do you say, to vomit.

Clip from Bush's video taped message to the Iraq Survey Group.

Really just too scary for words. You have to watch this.

Ladies and gentlemen, the most powerful man in the world.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Matt Yglesias begins his post by admitting that when some on the left have implied or flat-out said that Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and their ilk are as dangerous if not more dangerous to our country than specters like Osama bin Laden and so on, he had found the arguments to be beyond the pale. Surely these people had lost all perspective.

But now..

Exactly. Exactly, exactly.

We naturally can't and shouldn't diminish the tragedy of those killed in terrorist attacks or the loss suffered by their families, or indeed by all of us. However, in the end we suffer a far greater loss if the fear and panic that stems from those tragedies causes us to give up on our ideals and to leave future generations a less free society.

This is exactly what is happening in Russia, and, sadly, under our own noses. It's naturally much harder for us to see it under our own noses.

Tom Tomorrow's latest comic is simply perfect. This is exactly what happens all the frickin' time.

The part I hate the most is the Wolf Blitzer frame, in which he seeks a reaction to someone's claim that their words have been twisted from the very people who do the twisting.

I suppose just telling us what the person in question actually said, and whether or not it was true wouldn't be "impartial."

Look, I hate to be the one to say this, but...

Baseball isn't important.

Seriously, it's not even close to important.

Don't get me wrong, I like baseball. It's pretty cool. Fun and stuff. Good times watching a good game with friends, always a pleasure to go out to the old ballpark and get wasted on $7 Budweisers. No question.

So what bugs me is not the game itself, it's that people get really emotionally involved in it. They devote a fairly large part of their lives to following and supporting their favorite team, and many can recite endless statistics about hundreds of different players. They follow these guys as if what they do has any bearing on our lives, while often completely ignoring the events going on around them that actually do have an affect on their lives, and the lives of nearly everyone on earth.

You knew I was going to bring this around to politics..

It's the contrast that gets to me. If you both love and are devoted to baseball, but also interested and somewhat informed about politics, well then good on ya, mate. But if you follow baseball religiously, know the names and stats of all the players, but can't be bothered to know the names of your Senators, or vote or pay any attention at all, well that pisses me off.

It pisses me off that knowing all this crap about sports is considered normal, but knowing a lot about politics is considered nerdy and unimportant. If we meet someone, particularly a male someone, who says he doesn't like sports, we look at them a bit askew. "Really? Are you an Eskimo?"

Not knowing anything about politics, on the other hand, is just what we generally assume about each other. We need to elevate politics to the level of baseball around here. Imagine if everyone were watching the Senate in prime-time, keeping little score sheets, wearing their hats backwards. "Damn!! Pelosi just completely schooled Bill Frist! He did not see that coming! Can o' Corn! Can o' Corn!"

So let's just try to have a little perspective, okay? I'm not trying to spoil anyone's fun, I'm just saying that, in the end, if the Red Sox lose or if they win, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Whether or not Bush wins, well, that matters.

There I said it.

(By the way, the Red Sox just won. A great game. But you know, a game.)

Another stunning passage from Ron Suskind's excellent Times Magazine article.

Yes, lord have mercy on us if our media is based in "reality." Good heavens.

There's more to say, or at least quote from, this article in today's Times Magazine, but I want to let that passage stand on it's own.

Paul Krugman and Salon have good articles on the overwhelming evidence that Republicans all around the country are engaged in various techniques to steal the election. Everything from continued disenfranchisement of blacks in Florida to the shredding of Democrats' registrations, it's all some pretty wild stuff.

Lawsuits are already starting all over the country. If Bush wins, there's going to be a deluge. Should be some really, really good times.

This weekend Liz went out and did some canvassing in our neighborhood as part of Moveon's campaign to reach out to infrequent voters. She received a list of people in our area who are likely to be Kerry supporters but might not vote, and went to encourage them to get off their lazy asses.

The results were less than inspiring.

Of 8 people she actually spoke to (it was a short list, and many weren't home), 4 were planning to vote for Kerry and 4 were planning to vote for Bush. At first glance, this highly unscientific survey would mirror the national polls - pretty evenly split. What worries me, though, is that this is in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, a liberal, though relatively wealthy, neighborhood in a very liberal city. If we're evenly split in Queen Anne, what hope do we have in, say, Issaquah? Des Moines? Cleveland?

So what I'm saying is don't assume that your state or your district or your precinct is already decided and your vote won't matter. I'm thinking particularly of my friends and family who live in Washington, New York, and Maryland. Washington is decidedly a swing state, while New York and Maryland are not considered swinging. Don't believe it. It matters. The polls are crap.

Vote early, vote often, vote Kerry.

I wonder how many years it will be before anyone of any significance is held accountable for all of this stuff, not to mention Abu Ghraib.

Pentagon officials released a statement containing this amazing little bit:

A relationship of trust? Are they serious? They could at least try to sound a little credible and just say that these techniques are necessary to fight the war on blah blah blah, but "a relationship of trust?" They've got to be kidding.

I've fixed the comments on Slapnose -- I think -- so now you three can just go nuts.

Details for the interested: The whole Typekey/authentication thing just didn't seem to be working and I was damn sick of it, but I didn't have any motivation to mess with my Moveable Type installation, as whenever I do that, bad things happen.

But I was getting lonely.

So I turned off the authentication, opening the comments gates wide, thinking I could just manually deal with the inevitable comment spam. No, no, no. Within an hour or so I had been hit with at least 20 spam comments and they showed no signs of letting up. I'm not about to copy and paste the IP address of each commenter into the IP banning thing, so something had to be done.

I installed MT-Blacklist. Yay! It's great, it's working, it blocked 16 comments in the first half hour.

That's it. Comment away.

As we all know, because the president said so, things in Iraq are going really awesome. Any problems you might be seeing on the "television screens" are most likely the fault of the liberal media or John Kerry's protests against the Vietnam War.

That's why it's so weird that a unit of reservists refused an order to go on a convoy mission, claiming that the mission was too dangerous.

Naturally this whole thing about the bulge in Bush's back during the first debate (see isbushwired.com for all the details), is being presented as a wild conspiracy theory. Naturally this view of the debate is being promoted by no one more than the Bush campaign.

This is all quite natural.

The big question, though, is what if it's true? Is it really hard for us to believe that political campaigns -- particularly the Bush campaign -- would stoop to wiring the president for sound? It's not even slightly hard for me to believe.

As evidence mounts about this whole thing, though, it's never really left the realm of conspiracy theory.

The evidence:
-- There is clearly something on his back. Suits don't bunch in rectangles. No one has disputed this, including the Bush campaign. They haven't offered any explanation as to what the bulge in his back might be, they've just ridiculed the mere mention of the issue, a very effective tactic.
-- During the debate, Bush said, "let me finish" when no one interrupted him. I've seen the video of this, and it's really weird. His podium light is green, so no one was telling him his time was up. You can hear, but not see, the clip here. (If anyone has the video, please let me know.)
Here's what happens: Bush goes from one oft-repeated RNC talking point -- that Kerry is a flip-flopper -- to fumbling and mumbling for a second, and then he says "let me finish" to no one, and then he goes directly into another precisely worded talking point, "The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at," without a stumble.
-- The Memorandum of Understanding between the campaigns as to the format of the debates includes a section (sec 9, paragraph a, subparagraph vi) which specifically forbids camera shots of the candidates from the back. Bush's negotiator James Baker III reportedly demanded this provision (which the networks refused to comply with, otherwise we wouldn't have these images of the bulge at all.)

Anyway, this probably will never be proved, and the Bush campaign will likely be successful in keeping the issue in the realm of whacko theories.

I'm becoming more convinced, I don't care what kind of theory they call it.

In the end, though, what does it add to my understanding of George W. Bush? Nothing. He's a liar and a cheat and he'll do anything to stay in power. I already knew that.

UPDATE :: You can watch the video of Stewart's appearance on Crossfire here.

---Original Post Below---

I got a bit of a traffic spike today, and it's almost all from people googling some variation of "stewart crossfire video." A post I wrote in July comes up pretty high in those results, so everybody's coming to Slapnose!

This naturally makes very little difference to me, except in a stupid, "I feel popular because Google is misdirecting people here" kind of way. Still, that's not bad. If even 1 out of 10 of those people sticks around on my site and buys like a thousand t-shirts, it could make a real difference in my life.

But that's not the point. Not the point at all.

The point is that these Google searches made me curious, as I so love Jon Stewart and I didn't know he was going to be on Crossfire. So I went and read the transcript of Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire today (this is what you're looking for, googlers), and DAAAAAAAMMN!! I can see why everyone is looking for this!

Normally reading transcripts of television shows is unimaginably boring. Especially of Crossfire, which is unimaginably irritating even when you can see it. But this transcript is different. This transcript made me laugh out loud at least 10 times. Hard. I was laughing and slapping my knee, and nobody's even here. I wasn't making a big show of it because there's no one to see me. It's just that funny.

It firmly solidifies Jon Stewart's position as my number one hero. I kiss him.

Go and read the whole transcript, it's totally worth it. He rips Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala fresh arseholes and literally begs them to have some journalistic integrity. It's really great stuff.

Some excerpts:

And then this brilliant coup de grace:

I love that guy.

Almost as much as I hate those other guys.

During Wednesday's debate, George Bush said that John Kerry had no record to support his talk of "fiscal sanity." Bush said the he himself was the better man to steward the American economy.

The next day, the Bush administration asked Congress to raise the nation's debt ceiling, again.

Good old fiscal sanity.

I haven't really wanted to mention all the talk about whether or not Bush may have been wired -- someone feeding him lines via a hidden radio -- during the first debate, but now I'm not sure why I didn't want to.

I'd seen this picture floated around..

It does really look like he's got something stuck to his back, and you can even see what appears to be the outline of a wire snaking up towards his head. And of course, it all fits perfectly well with what I know about the man and the people who work for and with him. They'll do anything at all to get and keep positions of power.

The reason I had dismissed the theory was that it seemed just too stupid. I thought that if they were going to wire him, they would have done a better job of hiding it. Between the shoulder blades seems to be just asking to get caught. Why not tape it to his balls or something? They're not going to show his crotch on tv, not unless he's sitting down with a world leader or something.

I thought the Secret Service or whoever would certainly have more sophisticated stuff than something that big he had to wear right on his back. I still kinda think they do.

But that may not be the case. The important point is that they'd have to do everything possible to make sure that no one else could pick up the transmissions they were sending to the president, so the receiver would have to be powerful enough to pick up a very, very weak signal.

During the debate, Bush snapped, "Let me finish!" at one point even though he had time left and no one had audibly interrupted him.

Salon has more on the story, including statements by a "spyware expert" who has examined the photos and agrees that the bulge could be part of a radio system, and this rather astonishing bit about evidence that Bush may have used similar technology before.

Anyway, something like this is unlikely to ever be provable. I certainly wouldn't put it past them, though, the cheaters.

Below is another, super pop-reference-errific take on the controversy, swiped from Happy Go Larry.

I really hate this story. I watched NBC News tonight and they led with it, but failed to mention even one of the out-and-out lies Bush told last night. Kerry said something that was true, but something that makes bigots uncomfortable. The Republican party naturally sees this as a great opportunity to shift focus from their pathetic-ass selves and their insane leader, so they push it as the post-debate story. The media gladly lap it up, forcing me to spend one more night vomiting continuously.

Dave Cullen writes well in Salon about this travesty (membership or ad-watching required).

Kos has the story of how Ed Gillespie, Chairman of the GOP, has sent a threatening letter to Rock the Vote, insisting that they stop even discussing the idea of a return to a military draft.

Rock the Vote responds to Gillespie, and kicks his ass.

Some things are just funny.

On the other hand, some things are not funny.

Still other things are sort of funny, but not funny at all to some people, and funny as hell to some other people.

This is one of the.. uh, the first kind.

It's funny.

According to me.

I swear, if the major issue in the last two weeks of this campaign becomes that John Kerry said Mary Cheney is a lesbian, I'm going to throw up continuously on my way to another country.

I just hope they'll let me in with a non-stop stream of vomit pouring out of my mouth.

The fact that the Republicans are all over the place hammering this "issue" is very telling indeed. It's telling in the sense that it shows just how douche-baggy they really are. If they had any reason to think their candidate had done well in the debate last night, maybe they'd have something to say that was, you know, in any way relevant.

Naturally, the media will be all too happy to pick up and run with this story.

"We interrupt our report on the insurgents penetration into the 'Green Zone' and killing four American civilians with this breaking story about lesbians. Lesbians, lesbians, lesbians."

Though it's been pointed out everywhere, and was pointed out nearly immediately after he said it, when George Bush tonight claimed that he never said he wasn't too concerned about Osama bin Laden, he was lying.

From a March, 2002 press conference (yes, he has held a couple of those).

Josh Marshall is exactly right on this one, and it's something I was saying to Liz the other day.

The fact that people act like mentioning that Mary Cheney is a lesbian is somehow a bad thing to do only serves to betray the speakers' own prejudices. If being gay were perfectly alright to these people, mentioning it would never be a "political trick." As Marshall points out, if Mary Cheney were a paraplegic, would it be unfair of John Kerry to mention that in the context of a question about the rights of the disabled?

I'm a bit too tired to really go into a major analysis of the last debate, but here's some quick thoughts.

I think -- and apparently I'm not alone -- that Kerry ran away with it. He seemed calm, measured, confident, and dare I say it, presidential. He clearly has a command of the facts and a good mind and he showed that once again tonight. Once again I thought he missed a few opportunities to bust GW in a big fat lie, but that's probably okay. He did what he needed to do.

Bush, in my opinion, looked terrible. And I'm not just saying that because I think he's one of the more vile human beings to ever walk the earth. I'm sure that has something to do with it, but I did really try to watch the debate as if he were somehow worthy of any sort of respect.

In stark comparison to Kerry, Bush hesitated, he hemmed and hawed, and most glaringly, he made really inappropriate and just plain bad jokes. He laughed when nothing was funny. He tried to josh around with the moderator (they're friends), but he came off looking like he's not taking the whole thing very seriously. He offered no concrete plans or policies, just tried, and failed, to attack Kerry on his record. Kerry swatted down most of the attacks deftly.

This looks very good for the good guys. Provided the momentum and spin stays on Kerry's side for the next week or so, and the administration doesn't pull some Osama out of their hat two days before the election, which is always a possibility, I think we're in a good position. Naturally, they could just go ahead and steal it, but we'll deal with that possibility if/when we have to.

Even the poll on Foxnews.com has Kerry winning the debate 53% to 46% after nearly 300,000 votes. Other sites such as MSNBC show an even bigger margin of victory for Kerry.

Awesome.

Don't forget to vote.

Via alert reader Elbert...

If you registered to vote via somebody standing on the street or outside a supermarket or by any other means that didn't involve direct contact with a government official, you may want to double check with your local election authority, especially if you're a Democrat.

This time, it seems, the Republicans are stealing our votes before they've even been cast.

The television station managed to retrieve some of the shredded forms via an ex-employee and verified that those people had never been registered with the county.

Naturally, this is all highly illegal.

Also naturally, the company has closed their offices in Nevada and is apparently operating in Oregon, presumably under a different name.

Ron Reagan, Jr, presents The Case Against George W. Bush in a piece in Esquire magazine.

It's quite a convincing case, not that anyone should be surprised by that.

Some choice excerpts:

The only quibble I have with Reagan's argument is that he lets the press off the hook too easily. People like George W. Bush would never be able to get away with these lies if the media didn't, as he puts it, "quickly return to the more germane issues of Gore's pancake makeup," etc. In order for our leaders to be accountable, someone needs to hold them accountable.

Similarly, the only quibble I have with my own argument above is that I'm letting the American public off the hook too easily. People like "The Media" woudn't be able to get away with talking about pancake makeup if we didn't continue to watch it and even encourage it. In the end, we are the consumers of this garbage and it's our responsibility to demand accountability, both from our politicians and from our media. All the self-righteous rhetoric in the world doesn't mean a thing to these companies as long as their profits keep going up. They only understand money, and it's our money.

The whole thing is well worth reading. I would love to see anyone make as convincing a case -- based on facts, as this one is, and not on whatever it is that Republicans seem to base things on these days -- for George W. Bush as an even passable leader.

He is not. Not even close. He is an awful, awful leader; a failure in the grandest possible way. He was ruined or threatened more of the things that ordinary peope hold dear than it's comfortable to contemplate. It's positively terrifying that this many has supporters.

I'm begging you -- please don't vote for him.

Luke points to this unbelievable story from Seymour Hersh, who is, unfortunately in this case, a very reliable source.

The rest.

UPDATE :: Much more detail -- first-hand detail -- on this from UC Berkeley News.

I really just don't know what to say.

Note that this is in the "Money" section of CNN.com. It's also featured near the bottom of the New York Times' web site's front page.

The Sinclair Broadcasting Group is the same company that refused to air Nightline's special "The Fallen", during which Ted Koppel read the names of all the soldiers killed in Iraq up to that point.

Sinclair executives have given nearly $68,000 to political campaigns this year, 97% of it to Republicans.

If you're thinking that this sounds completely illegal, and the words "equal time" keep popping into your head, you're not alone. That's exactly what I thought. Sinclair's attempt to dodge this bullet is simply amazing.

This is from the front page of Sinclair's web site:

Pretending to be fair by saying that Kerry has "been invited to participate" is the worst kind of garbage. They make completely baseless charges 2 weeks before an election, and then try to paint the target of their slander as refusing to engage the debate. It would be like me saying that the President of Sinclair Broadcasting fucks goats, which is what I'm saying, and then implying that it must be true because he has refused to respond to the charges. Well, goat-fucker? What do you have to say for yourself?

Please email Sinclair and tell them what you think of this. Be friendly, but be firm. Try to avoid the term "goat-fucker."

I'll try to find a list of Sinclair advertisers so we can start emailing and calling them, too. They don't care what we think, but they care about their bottom line.

UPDATE :: If Sinclair really wants to give John Kerry equal time, maybe they could air "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry." I haven't seen this film yet, but I've heard it's good. I downloaded it using the bittorent from this site, which now appears to be down. You can see the trailer here.

Sorry for the dearth of posts, I've had a parental visit on my hands. So, you know.

Second debate: Listened on the radio, so I can't speak to how they came across visually, but Bush sounded like a whiny teenager, incredibly defensive, and Kerry sounded mostly calm and smart. I don't think Bush tanked as badly as he did in the first debate, but I do think that it's becoming clear to more and more people every day that he's a terrible leader, plain and simple. I mean, seriously, he sucks.

For more evidence of this, see the latest polls and the ever-useful electoral-vote.com.

More later. For now, how about this.

Via this guy.

Texas Representative and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been chastised for the fourth time by the House ethics committee.

He was admonished unanimously by the 10-member, bipartisan committee.

House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, are calling for him to step down.

Most of the allegations concern DeLay's involvement with the Texas redistricting fiasco of 2002, when the Republicans stole the state government.

DeLay was also admonished last week for strong-arming Rep. Nick Smith into voting for the Medicare Bill earlier this year, threatening to derail Smith's son's Congressional campaign if Smith didn't play along.

Naturally, all this doesn't seem to phase DeLay one bit. In fact, in yet another awe-inspiring display of up-is-downism, DeLay has declared his four admonishments a victory.

See that? The charges were dismissed! Meaning that they didn't punish him as harshly as they might have. His name is cleared!

We should really think about instituting more public and more humiliating punishments for politicians who pull this kind of shit. No more admonishments, censures, or slaps on the wrist -- I want to see DeLay put in the stocks in front of the Capitol for a month. Members of the public would be encouraged to stop by and kick him in the ass or spit in his face.

Or what about a good old fashioned tar-and-feathering? Strip the jerkass naked and feather the shit out of him. Then make him wander around the Captiol grounds for 6 weeks with a sign on him that says, "I am a Lying Sack of Shit." Kids could take field trips to see him.

The following headline was in the New York Times, not The Onion, but you would be excused for making the mistake.

How could he possibly make this argument? Check it out, it's a true masterpiece of absurdity...

- The report states that Saddam was trying to get international sanctions lifted from Iraq.
- Cheney asserts that if those sanctions had been lifted, "he [Saddam] had every intention of going back" to his weapons program. This, of course, is pure speculation. Speculation on top of a speculation.
- Thus, if the sanctions had been lifted, and then if Saddam had gone back to his weapons program, there is a chance he could have had dangerous weapons in, say, 5-10 years.
- Therefore, we had no choice but to invade immediately.

Clear as an unmuddied lake, no? I mean, really, what choice did we have? Were we supposed to just sit around, hoping that the sanction wouldn't be lifted and Saddam wouldn't go back to developing weapons that there was no evidence he had any intention of using against us or supplying to terrorists? Could we just sit on our hands while the slim possibility of those events taking place in the next decade existed? What of the children?

Cheney in August, 2002, in a speech to the VFW.

In case you missed it.

Full text of the report.

Bush responded to the report:

Look man, are you insane? How many reports have to come out stating conclusively that you were wrong before you can admit it? YOU WERE WRONG! Say it!

Actually, you know what? Don't say it. Just keep up what you're doing. With every passing day, more and more Americans are waking up to your lying ass being a lying ass.

Funny how the one regime that "stood out" turned out not to have had a trace of these "weapons of mass murder" for more than a decade, and yet Iran is enriching uranium as we speak, and North Korea may already have nuclear weapons within range of the United States, and at the very least is working on it.

Feel safer?

Donald Rumsfeld says there is no proof of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Wow!

Yeah, Rummy, it's been "amazing" to watch the answer to that question "migrate" for the rest of us too. Quite a show.

Hell, here it goes migrating right now!

This is what they've stooped to. "Links" between Iraq and al Qaeda are now "similarities."

Why, many Iraqi have dark skin, as do many al Qaeda operatives. Coincidence? We think not.

An Iraqi leader was once heard uttering the name "al Qaeda" and we suspect that they may even have the same taste in movies. What more of a link do you want?

The fact that they've gotten anybody to believe that there are direct links between Iraq and al Qaeda and Iraq and 9/11 is one of the greatest eye-wool-pulling-over moves in history. The fact that they've convinced a very large percentage of Americans, well, it's just pathetic.

I insist that you watch this video.

It's funny, in a "really not funny at all" kind of way.

I was talking with someone last night and we agreed that the results of this election will be a very important window into the mental health of our society. If Bush wins, we're seriously in a lot of trouble.

Via Bush Greenwatch.

Kerry should bring this up during the next debate.

"So, George, why are you proposing dumping shit into people's water? Do you think the American people like shit in their water?"

Of course, this would assume that they were allowed to ask each other questions, and, you know, debate, which is just silly.

Lawrence Lessig is brilliant in his Wired column this month.

As a society, we have become fundamentally selfish, trading short-term gains and perceived - but not actual - security for a truly sustainable future. As Lessig puts it, "the future doesn't vote," so we've taken to screwing the future, which I shouldn't have to remind you is made up of our own children and grandchildren, in order to have a more convenient and shallow existence for ourselves.

Lessig says it better:

Totally.

Following up on this post of mine from the other day, reader Emily passes along this nice little site...

Come to Gaymerica. See how ridiculous their (or possibly your) views are.