This article from the Chicago Tribune (I have posted the Yahoo edition of it to save registration problems for people) indicates 60,000 absentee ballots are unaccounted for in Broward County and that, in several jurisdictions, the touch-screen machines are so slow that they will only be able to deal with a small fraction of voters on election day.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&ncid=2027&e=2&u=/chitribts/2004 1027/ts_chicagotrib/earlyvotinginfloridagivescauseforconcern

If these numbers are right, what we are facing in Florida is far worse than 2000 -- instead of a few tens of thousands of voters being disenfranchised, we'll be talking hundreds of thousands.  

We need GOTV on a massive scale in other states to compensate for this -- as for Florida, it is time to go to the next stage, mass activism.

The crucial premise of the war on Iraq was to secure weapons of mass destruction and the means of producing them.  It is now clear that the Bush Administration has failed to do this in the most spectacular way.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=10&u=/nm/20041014/wl_nm/nuclear_ir aq_dc

What we have here is confirmation that nuclear related sites in Iraq that were being closely monitored by the UN inspectors and IAEA were completely IGNORED by the US after the invasion, and of course the Bush Administration refused to let the inspectors back in.

So, under the Bush Administration's watch, their best reason for invading Iraq turns out to have ended into one of the worst single failures of arms proliferation of all.  The justification for invading Iraq was precisely to prevent this kind of stuff from being used against the United States.  Instead, this administration's gross negligence has resulted in their most important specific war aim turning into the most explicit failure of the entire episode.

This is an issue that the Kerry campaign must hammer Bush on between now and the election.  It cuts to the core of Bush's fitness to serve as commander-in-chief.  It is an issue that everyone will be concerned about, and it is an issue that will swing moderate Republicans into the Kerry camp.

Now the national press, not content with misreporting the presidential race, is going around telling the people they interview that the Bush campaign really isn't all that bad after all.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&ncid=1803&e=1&u=/washpost/20041 011/pl_washpost/a22734_2004oct10

Note in particular this following section.  Unbelievable.

In fact, the most memorable ad for Sara Agocs, 25, has been "the one President Bush did attacking John Kerry's service in Vietnam. It seemed very unfair to me." Informed that the ad was aired by an independent group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and not the Bush campaign, Agocs seems surprised.

"See, I didn't know that," she said. "All these independent agencies. I don't know what's coming from who."

Many of you will recall the massive flap a few weeks ago about Sandy Berger stuffing his pants with classified documents.  But I wonder if the SCLM will make as big a fuss about Richard Shelby (R-AL), the erstwhile chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee?

Shelby, you may recall, did a Zell back in 1993-94 before finally making his GOoPer status official after the Gingrich takeover.  Since then, he has made intelligence his bailiwick.  Which is why it is good to know that he LEAKED classified information to his friends at CNN and Faux News -- so reassuring that he is only leaking to those he trusts.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5504846/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40886-2004Aug4.html

Mark my words, without the blogosphere this will get fewer column inches than Berger did.