Rove doing advance recon for later spin
Thu Oct 28, 2004 at 11:44:44 PM PDT
It started the other day, when
James Wolcott noticed Fox News talking heads start to bring up the same points.
It is pretty obvious that this election will turn into a full blown battle in the court system, though luckily, the courts aren't falling for early Republican antics.
But New Donkey has seen the trends, with articles this week here and here talking about how the early Republican antics are setting the stage for a huge advantage in manipulating the media later. And he smells Rove all over it:
Now I have no direct evidence that Karl Rove has planned and is executing this voter suppression strategy, though it's interesting that every Republican hack and pundit in the universe started singing like a cicada about "voter fraud" about a week before the Ohio story got into the national news. But it sure as hell fits Rove's M.O. like a glove.
The wholesale manipulation of the election is in the works. Don't say that we weren't warned this time.
Rove is in a corner. It's gonna get ugly.
Tue Oct 19, 2004 at 01:00:52 PM PDT
Read
The Atlantic article by Josh Green about Rove? Excellent piece.
It details how Rove is truly at his slimeball best when backed into a corner. That is when the smear machine starts up, doing things like anonymously releasing huge smears about HIS candidate to generate public backlash against the "dirty tricks" of his opponent. Or the whisper campaign calling an Alabama judge who ran a children's fund a pedophile (attacking the greatest strength), or calling McCain "mad", unbalanced and saying he has a black child in the SC primaries in the last presidential race. Rove cuts to the bone.
It's too late for whispers in this national stage, and while Rove has Washington locked up by Republican operatives, he dosen't have a national network to disseminate his "whisper" tricks.
But you can see shades of all the rest of his trick book. SBVT & now Sinclair attacking Kerry's patriotism, conceivably his greatest strength. We've watched as the Republican Media Machine takes to the airwaves after any major event, each with exactly the same message to push.
More thoughts below the fold...
Supreme Court protects both church AND state
Mon Oct 18, 2004 at 01:03:15 PM PDT
In case you aren't scared enough of another George Bush presidency, read this
NYT op-ed outlining how the president can shape the Supreme Court for decades to come. Scalia and Thomas are already scary enough -- more justices like them and America is going to be a very different place.
As PFAW summed it up in an action email:
It's frightening to contemplate, but before going to the polls next month, all Americans need to think about what just one more right-wing Justice on the Supreme Court will mean:
- George Bush being allowed to deny any citizen due process;
- Dick Cheney running a secret government accountable to no one; and,
- John Ashcroft grabbing more unchecked, unconstitutional powers.
...
From the right to privacy that serves as the foundation of Roe v. Wade and every American's reproductive freedom, to the separation of church and state that keeps government out of religion (and vice-versa!)... from protections against discrimination in the workplace, courtrooms and voting booths, to bedrock environmental laws, we could lose it all if anticipated Supreme Court vacancies are filled with far right ideologues.
I think my highlighted passage above really needs to be made clear to those in the religious right who want the government pushing their moral agenda -- they never think their policies through to the other side, where the government is pushing mandated RELGIOUS beliefs on the people.
Separation of church and state is for the protection of BOTH sides.
GeorgeWBush.com blocks foreign viewers from seeing site
Thu Oct 14, 2004 at 11:29:15 AM PDT
I have not been able to access
http://www.georgewbush.com all week long. I thought it was a fluke at first, but after a few days began to have a suspicion that it was blocking my foreign IP.
I am accessing the web via DSL in Baja Mexico and have a clearly identifiable IP as Mexican origin, as Google routes me to a Latin American version, CNN goes to International Edition and I get a continual stream of ads in spanish on websites I visit.
All along, I figured George's reelection site maybe had problems, a DOS attack or something. Today I decided to log into my web server in Colorado and found it could access George's site just fine.
Why in the hell would the Bush campaign BLOCK the world outside of the US from seeing his information? Last week I was in there fine. This week, I get nothing but a timeout when I try to access his site. What gives?
Is he blocking ALL non-US viewers from the site, or just Mexico? There are lots of Republicans down in these parts that he could be alienating with this action (which is fine by me), but it really just looks suspicious in my view.
Maybe he's blocking people from applying that "global test"...
Update [2004-10-14 15:5:12 by muji]: So far Costa Rica and Brazil are also blocked. UK and Canada are not. So it looks like a complete block of Latin American viewers so far.
Drudge: FCC commissioner criticizes Sinclair [not full FCC]
Tue Oct 12, 2004 at 02:10:41 PM PDT
Drudge alert:
FCC COMMISSIONER COPPS CRITICIZES SINCLAIR CORPORATE DECISION TO PREEMPT LOCAL STATIONS FOR POLITICAL BROADCAST
Commissioner Michael J. Copps reacted to reports that Sinclair Broadcast Group will preempt more than 60 local stations across the country to air an overtly political program in the days prior to the Presidential election.
Copps stated: "This is an abuse of the public trust. And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative. Some will undoubtedly question if this is appropriate stewardship of the public airwaves. This is the same corporation that refused to air Nightline's reading of our war dead in Iraq. It is the same corporation that short-shrifts local communities and local jobs by distance-casting news and weather from hundreds of miles away. It is a sad fact that the explicit public interest protections we once had to ensure balance continue to be weakened by the Federal Communications Commission while it allows media conglomerates to get even bigger. Sinclair, and the FCC, are taking us down a dangerous road."
Not verified.
BTW, I'm compiling another "centralized" post on attack stradegies that have been floating on the various Sinclair posts at DKos. Stay tuned.
Oh, yeah, we're at war...
Sun Oct 10, 2004 at 12:34:18 AM PDT
All this hubbub about debates and elections has distracted us from the real news -- Iraq. What in the hell IS going on in Iraq these days? Two articles captured my attention this evening.
WaPo has an article interviewing Marines, and their viewpoint is that Iraq is a major diversion from the fight against Al Queda. Also, Juan Cole breaks down the history of the Bush's "War on Terror", and why the whole concept is this administration's wet dream -- an easy way to con the American people into supporting anything that the Bush administration wants by wrapping the flag around it and labelling it "War on Terror".
Much more from the articles and my thoughts below the fold....
[originally posted on schadenfreude]
Ashcroft on the way out?
Thu Sep 16, 2004 at 05:42:56 PM PDT
Mark Kleiman reports that White House isn't happy with Ashcroft and may replace him after reelection. He reports:
My source reports that the President is "very disappointed" with his Attorney General, and that the White House Counsel's office regards him as "a boob."
Via Digby comes the perfect button to sum up this situation...
[from my schadenfreude blog]
Abu Ghraib independent probe report available
Wed Sep 08, 2004 at 01:25:56 PM PDT
I haven't seen this mentioned on DKos and I just came across it today. It was released on Aug 24 and I've been travelling, so pardon me if it's been thoroughly discussed already....
Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations (full PDF via FindLaw)
At first glance it seems pretty tame. But it names names and has all the pertinant information all in one summary. It squarely puts the blame on individuals like Miller and Sanchez as well as CENTCOM and DoD for their confusing and conflicting orders, especially since Bush determined Taliban in Afganistan weren't subject to the Geneva Conventions (and here I thought it was an official war, meaning they are lawful combatants duly protected under the Conventions).
The PDF is unfortunately just an image capture so I can't quote it here easily, nor can you search it for keywords like 'rape' or 'torture'.
Suffice to say, it makes clear that the buck doesn't stop with Sanchez and Miller and those in direct command of the prison in Iraq. CENTCOM and DoD had conflicting orders and the non-Geneva sanctioned treatment of the Taliban & Al-Queda slowly moved from Afganistan into other arenas without any direct commands from superiors in Washington to supress it.
I think I know where the buck stops and it is even beyond Rumsfeld (on whose watch this all occured). Perhaps if Bush hadn't officially null & voided the Geneva Convention for the war prisoners in Afganistan, this type of activity wouldn't have permeated out into our other arenas of combat. I think the buck stops squarely at our Commander in Chief.
There is also the Taguba Report if you feel like reading up on it all.
Update [2004-9-8 16:30:31 by muji]:
Damn, I searched the Diaries on the wrong term. This was talked about a lot back on Aug 24.
There are stores here and here and here
and here.
Doh! Okay, consider this diary to be the round-up!
Garrison Keillor rips Bush a new one
Tue Aug 31, 2004 at 12:25:52 AM PDT
Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon fame rips Bush a new one in In These Times this month. He starts by wondering how the party of Lincoln "transmogrified" to the current right-wing, big business bible thumpin' party.
He goes on to nail Bush's platform to the wall in this incredibly accurate description:
Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy--the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president's personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
Read it.
CNN actually gives both sides of Swift Boat story.
Thu Aug 19, 2004 at 12:23:53 PM PDT
In an article today on CNN, they finally manage to sum up the entire Swift Boat affair, presenting both sides of the story for once, as well as showing the hypocrasy from author Thurlow.
www.cnn.com :
Thurlow's account differs not only from those of Kerry and Rassmann but also that given in the Navy's letter awarding Kerry the Bronze Star. The letter finds Kerry exhibited "great personal courage under fire" in rescuing Rassmann, an Army officer who recommended Kerry for the decoration.
The Navy citation for Thurlow's Bronze Star also said that "all units began receiving enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks."
Thurlow said Thursday he did not even know he had received a Bronze Star until after he left the Navy, and he had not seen the citation in 30 years.
Let's hope this is a trend -- actually quoting other sources (in this case, Rasmussen), and getting a response from the Democratic candidate before printing the RNC talking points.
Too bad it didn't happen like this until Kerry was above Bush in CNN's polling.
Meanwhile at a Bush grassroots event [more image fun]
Wed Aug 18, 2004 at 05:42:45 PM PDT
Someone call the Walmart up off Route 280. I think I located a piece of their missing sign at today's Bush Rally.
Bush confounded by wrench. News at 11. [aka a great Bush photo today]
Wed Aug 18, 2004 at 05:25:29 PM PDT
Here's a choice image from Yahoo News today (via Reuters).
"U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) wields a wrench while looking at the inside of a CH-47 helicopter during a tour of the Boeing Company in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, August 17, 2004. Bush on Tuesday portrayed himself as a decisive war leader and Democrat John Kerry as a flip-flopper on his 32nd visit to Pennsylvania, a state he lost in 2000. Bush appeared at a Boeing Co. plant in this Philadelphia suburb that employs 4,700 people and manufacturers and modernizes CH-47 Chinook helicopters for the U.S. Army and used in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Distribute it far and wide, people.
OLYMPICS Opening Ceremony summary
Fri Aug 13, 2004 at 02:52:36 PM PDT
Here in Mexico they showed the Opening Ceremony live. I believe NBC in the states is playing it later during prime time, so I thought I'd give a quick play-by-play, as it's 3 1/2 hours long.
I highly recommend watching the beginning and end. Also, the statium is fantastic. Very modern design with swooping curves along the upper edges and well lit through out. It's huge.
Start of the ceremony was the absolute best part. It is a surreal piece with theatrical sets of people moving around the track, while people are swooping in the air above them interacting with them. Very much like a type of puppet show with choreographed humans playing the parts. Incredible visuals, outfits, and movement. It seemed like a walk thru the history of empires (Egpytian, Greek, Roman).
The center of the stadium was like a large wading pool, with people playing and walking through it. It eventually centered on a pregnant woman whose stomach started to eerily glow.
Very impressive light & smoke show that was incredibly 3 dimensional. Lots of fireworks shooting out of the top of stadium. They eventually lower a Tree of Life onto white pieces to resemble a hill. This tree seems to be the "theme" image.
Entrance of every country's team. It's in order by Greek alphabet. V's are in the B's... F was near the end. Greek team last then a separate loop of their flag. This part took forEVER and I only caught bits and pieces. Water that was in the middle was drained right before this so the teams could gather there.
After the Walk of Nations, Bjork sings while a fog of fabric envelopes the athletes in the middle. Not nearly as cool as I thought it'd be. Even via video, it felt like you were watching a Bjork arena show from the back seats.
Speeches by president of the Greece organizers and the president of Olympic committee.
Olympic Flag makes it's way around.
Torch lighting. First they go around the track, passing it to 3-4 people in stages. Then it goes back to the first guy who goes up the center aisle thru the athletes and walks up a white staircase to nowhere. The primary torch is amazing. It's at one end of the stadium, and is collapsable. While he was running up, it was lowering itself to the top of the staircase. Once lit, it raised back up. Very nice visuals there again, with the flame and the red-light inside of the stadium behind it.
Fini. Lots and lots of fireworks shooting out of the top of stadium again.
Tivo it and fast forward through the Nation Walk and the speeches and it'll be a great show.
[edited as I forgot the water part]
Bush, Serious on Terror (while vacationing)
Sat Aug 07, 2004 at 11:53:45 PM PDT
Bush's comments today on the recent terror alerts:
"We're still not safe," said Bush,
who was spending the weekend at his family's oceanfront compound in Maine to attend the wedding of his nephew, George P. Bush, the son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. He also found time to do some fishing with his twin daughters and father, former President George Bush.
"We'll keep our focus, we'll keep our resolve, and we will do our duty to best secure our country," he said.
How exactly can Bush be doing his "duty to best secure" the US while... umm... on vacation?
That's our President Bush! Ever vigilant in today's unsafe world.
Advertising Standards as Censorship
Tue Aug 03, 2004 at 12:24:26 PM PDT
Google's Adwords are a revelation in internet advertising, directly linking to ads that are (mostly) relevant to the topic you are viewing.
However, here is a story detailing one progressive website's battle against the Google Adwords editorial board.
Google apparantly dropped their ads due to "language that advocates against an individual, group, or organization". However, this broad brush pretty much removes any sort of journalistic or religious website from their ads, as well as any blogs. And it appears that Google has a little bit of bias when it comes to which ads need removing:
Given the recent flaps over the apparent double-standard in prime-time advertising at CBS (running virulently anti-Clinton ads by the right-wing Citizens United, refusing to air ant-Bush ads by MoveOn during the Super Bowl), I was immediately suspicious of anti-liberal bias by Google towards advertisers. Doing a quick check, I found no shortage of conservative advertisers currently on Google that made me seem like Mother Theresa in comparison.
Liberal sites' ads seem to be getting removed while conservatives sites' ads seem to be remaining. Though it's hard to tell if this is calculated on Google's part, or just another media outlet that got deluged with complaint letters from conversative viewers. Either way, the effect is the same.
Several progressive blogs on my daily read list use BlogAds instead, which are perhaps much more appropriate to political blog readers themselves. Guess we have another good reason now why BlogAds was a better decision.
Future of the Courts decided in this Presidential Race
Mon Aug 02, 2004 at 01:48:57 PM PDT
The American Prospect has a brand new article today discussing a theme I've been extolling lately --
the effect of the courts on our future. I think it's the most important issue this year, as 4 more years of Bush could ruin our nation for at least a generation or two based on his potential court nominations, including several on the Supreme Court.
"Given what this administration has done both in Congress and the presidency, the courts are now our last hope," said Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, noting the court's check-and-balance power. "If [George W.] Bush is elected and guts the court, all hope is lost for everybody."
One area Democrats are especially concerned about is abortion rights. In 1992, the court was one vote away from overturning Roe v. Wade. The same is true this year.
Just as importantly, if the election winds up a nail-biter like 2000, it's not inconceivable that the court could step in again and swing the election Bush's way.
[...]
While Bush will have to win the Senate's support on his Supreme Court nominees, he's routinely ignored its advise-and-consent role on other choices, such as Charles Pickering and Bill Pryor, whom he installed as appellate judges through recess appointments earlier this year. And just last week, with the spotlight safely off him, Bush made 20 recess appointments for executive positions such as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, no small matter.
Bush has made himself quite clear in his nominees over the past 4 years. Extremely right-wing, sexist and borderline racist nominees that are all willing to push any religious right ideaology that comes through their courtrooms. Bush has also proved, like a spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum, that he's willing to abuse to the executive privilege if he doesn't get his way in Congressional approval of his nominees through "emergency recess appointments".
If Bush retains the presidency and both sides Congress in 2004, the last check-and-balance, the courts, are going to fall and fall quickly. Say goodbye to the people's rights for a long, long time.
[from my schadenfreude blog]
Did al-Qaeda help goad the US into Iraq?
Sun Aug 01, 2004 at 02:25:45 PM PDT
Juan Cole has a good line of reasoning on how he believes al-Qaeda has been using tactics to lead America into war with Muslim countries, in order to prove their agenda that the US covets Muslim nations, and thereby creating one big mass recruitment poster for moderate Muslims to join the radical al-Qaeda way of thinking.
It started with drawing US into Afganistan...
