Steal the Vote 2004, part 19

In Florida, the Republicans are up to their old 2000 tricks, as descriped in this interesting, in-depth article on Mathaba.net:

At the eye of the storm is Glenda Hood, Florida's secretary of state and the chief official responsible for running elections. Hood, a Republican who was mayor of Orlando in the 1990s and whom Gov. Jeb Bush appointed in 2003, has been criticized not only by Democrats but also by independent observers for her exceedingly partisan approach to managing elections. Her critics note that politically, Hood is firmly in George W. Bush's camp; she was a Bush-Cheney elector in 2000. Jimmy Carter has urged Jeb Bush to replace her. The New York Times has called her Katherine Harris II. Hood's critics point to a string of decisions that favor Republicans or, at the very least, undermine voters' confidence in the fairness of Florida elections. Even though Florida law requires a manual recount of ballots in close elections, Hood has issued election rules barring such a count for electronic machines. After a judge ruled in early September that Ralph Nader's name should not appear on the Florida ballot, Hood ordered local officials to add him to absentee ballots anyway (the courts later reinstated Nader).

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Posted 12:21 PM by Martin Wisse

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Towards a one party state: no criticism allowed

The IRS (US tax service) is investigating the NAACP's (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) tax-exempt status, according to the NAACP's chairperson, because of a critical speech he made about Bush:

Documents provided to The Associated Press on Thursday by the office of Julian Bond, chairman of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said IRS agents were investigating his keynote address July 11 at the NAACP's annual convention in Philadelphia.

In that speech, Bond said of the Bush administration: "They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division. They've tried to patch the leaky economy and every other domestic problem with duct tape and plastic sheets. They write a new constitution of Iraq and they ignore the Constitution here at home."

For an organization to keep its tax-exempt status, "leaders cannot make partisan comments in official organization publications or at official organizational functions," according to an Oct. 8 letter to the NAACP from the IRS office in Louisville, Ky.

The NAACP had until last Saturday to respond but was granted an extension until next week, Bond said. He criticized the IRS for trying to limit the group's ability to express its opinions.

"Coming just weeks before the election, what other reason could there be," Bond said in a telephone interview Thursday. "We have always been nonpartisan, but we are not noncritical."

He charged that the investigation amounted to a "blatant political use of the IRS."

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Posted 12:07 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 18

In Philadelphia, the GOP tried to move 63 polling places, mostly in black (=Democratic) neighbourhoods. One of the people who put their name under the request was Matt Robb a Republican ward leader in South Philadelphia, who said "I'm just not going in there to get a knife in my back." Fortunately, this attempt got squashed (free registration required):

REPUBLICAN OPERATIVES working to re-elect President Bush submitted last-minute requests in Philadelphia on Friday to relocate 63 polling places.

Bush's Pennsylvania campaign staff filed the requests, using the names of two Republicans running for the U.S. Congress and seven Republican ward leaders.

Of the 63 requests for changes, 53 are in political divisions where the population of white voters is less than 10 percent.

"I think this is more evidence of Republicans working to disenfranchise low-income and minority voters," said Mark Nevins, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Kerry. "It's despicable."

Bob Lee, voter registration administrator for the City Commission, said the requests appear to be "discriminatory" and were filed too late to be eligible for a hearing on Wednesday.

"They're trying to suppress the vote," Lee said of Republicans.

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Posted 12:00 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 17

In Nevada, as in Ohio, Republicans tried to get Democratic voters of the rolls. This time it was Dan burdish, "a Las Vegas businessman and former executive director of the state Republican Party" who tried to get 17,1000 voters declared illegitamite. Fortunately, this attempt was quickly squashed:

LAS VEGAS - Clark County officials have rebuffed an effort by a former GOP operative to purge about 17,100 Democrats from the voter rolls in a hotly contested Nevada congressional race with important political implications.

Dan Burdish, a Las Vegas businessman and former executive director of the state Republican Party, had tried to get the Democrats off the voter rolls by claiming in a challenge last week that they were inactive voters.

But county Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said Tuesday that he will not move forward with Burdish's self-admitted and partisan attempt to influence certain local races. He said Burdish can only challenge voters in his precinct, and not in the entire 3rd Congressional District.

Lomax said that means just over 100 residents could be challenged - but they still have the right to vote if they can provide oral or written proof that they lived at their old addresses before moving elsewhere.

Nevada is also where a GOP connected company was accussed of shredding hundreds of voter registration forms, all belonging to Democratic voters.

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Posted 11:50 AM by Martin Wisse

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Not fought for oil but re-election

That Bush already wanted to invade Iraq in 1999, wasn't news to me. What was news to me, were his motivations:

Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.”

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained politically.

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Posted 8:35 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 16

Or, don't complain while we steal your election, fool

Bush seek to limit voters rights to sue him when he steals the election, again:

WASHINGTON — Bush administration lawyers argued in three closely contested states last week that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election.

Veteran voting-rights lawyers expressed surprise at the government's action, saying that closing the courthouse door to aspiring voters would reverse decades of precedent.

Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote, often with the support of groups such as the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters or the state parties. And until now, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court had taken the view that individual voters could sue to enforce federal election law.

But in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions. These include a requirement that states provide "uniform and nondiscriminatory" voting systems, and give provisional ballots to those who say they have registered but whose names do not appear on the rolls.

Found via Steve Gilliard

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Posted 8:27 PM by Martin Wisse

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Teach your children well...

College Republicans scam pensioners out of millions by pretending to collect for the Bush election campaign:

The College Republican National Committee has raised $6.3 million this year through an aggressive and misleading fund-raising campaign that collected money from senior citizens who thought they were giving to the election efforts of President Bush and other top Republicans.

Many of the top donors were in their 80s and 90s. The donors wrote checks — sometimes hundreds and, in at least one case, totaling more than $100,000 — to groups with official sounding-names such as "Republican Headquarters 2004," "Republican Elections Committee" and the "National Republican Campaign Fund."

But all of those groups, according to the small print on the letters, were simply projects of the College Republicans, who collected all of the checks

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Posted 2:30 PM by Martin Wisse

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Winning the election is only the start of the war

David Neiwert over at Orcinus has written a post that says what I was thinking this morning: winning the election is only the first battle. The thuggist factions within the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement are already firing themselves up for the possibility that Bush will not win. Who knows what they will do when Kerry is elected president.

And more and more I believe that Kerry will be elected and will be elected with a clear majority. Forget the opinion polls for a moment and look at the mood fo the nation: Democrats and liberals are incredibly combative, the media is turning against Bush and his cronies with the news dominated by a series of bush failures and there are millions of new voters registrered, who certainly will not be overwhelmingly voting for Bush.

But even with a clear Kerry win, there are dangers. For one thing, Bush will remain in power until January 2005 and that is plenty of time to fuck things up nicely for Kerry, even more so then he has already done, hard as that is to imagine. For another, be prepared for a series of challenges by the Republicans and their allies, both legal and extralegal as to the legitimacy of a Kerry presidency which will make the hounding of Clinton look like a picnic. The worst mistake the Democratic Party and we could make is to turn bipartisan and forgiving after the election; the Republican thugs must be given no chance to recover and fuck things up again.

If Kerry loses, which I don't think will happen unless voter fraud is even more massive than is now evident, prepare for a shitstorm. With much Republican shenanigans already known, I don't think there will be many Democratic activists willing to swallow another fraudulent election. Nor should they.

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Posted 10:01 AM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 15

New Hampshire Republicans threaten out of state students with financial consequences if they vote in New Hampshire:

The Republican-dominated legislature passed a law last year that requires people whose identification indicates they are from out of state to sign an affidavit that shifts their "domicile" to New Hampshire before they can register to vote.

Election officials say the new law is intended to clarify voter eligibility and to bar people from voting in multiple states. But Republican legislative leaders have said that they also hope it will prevent out-of-towners from exercising too much influence over state politics.

An informational posting on a state election Web site advises college students that changing their domicile requires them to re-register their cars within 60 days and to apply for a new driver's license. It also warns that, in some instances, health and auto insurance coverage, tax status and scholarships could be affected.

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Posted 8:46 AM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 14

Jerome Amstrong at MyDD has the inside scoop on how the Republicans are challenging voters in Ohio. He has put up an extract from one of the hearings in which the "challenger", Republican Barbara Miller admits that she has no personal knowledge whatsoever about the eligibility of any of the 976 (!) challenged voters, but based her challenges on a list of "undeliverable mail" given to her by the Republican Party!

It is to weep.

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Posted 8:32 AM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 13

Not content with attempting to challenge any new voter who migh concievably vote for John Kerry, Ohio Republicans are allegedly sending out fake election board letters telling people they're not allowed to vote:

PAINESVILLE -- It is an outright case of election fraud in Lake County.

The phony letter says newly registered voters signed up by the Kerry or Capri Cafaro campaigns or the NAACP, their registrations are illegal and they will not be able to vote.

“That was not authorized by the Board of Elections, said Elections Director Jan Clair. “It was not mailed by the Lake County Board of Elections.”

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Posted 8:33 AM by Martin Wisse

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Good news from Ohio

The Republican plan to challenge the legitimacy of thousands of new voters before the election day, I reported on earlier have been kiboshed:

A U.S. District Court judge yesterday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year's presidential race.

Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati issued an order preventing local election boards from going forward with plans to notify challenged voters and hold hearings until she hears legal arguments tomorrow. But because her ruling means that those election board hearings cannot take place within the time frame state law requires before the election, Dlott's ruling killed the GOP effort that had targeted 35,000 voters, Democratic and Republican party officials said.

However, they still intend to go on with their insane plan to put thousands of "poll watchers" inside the voting stations on election day itself, to disrupt the elections "to safeguard the election against fraud", as they call it.

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Posted 7:58 AM by Martin Wisse

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For Fuck's sake

They said the removal of this dual-use equipment - which until the war was tagged and closely monitored by the agency to ensure that it was not being used in a weapons program - was planned and executed by people who knew what they were doing.

"We're talking about dozens of sites being dismantled," one diplomat said. "Large numbers of buildings [were] taken down, warehouses were emptied and removed. This would require heavy machinery, demolition equipment. This is not something that you'd do overnight."

Nuclear material taken by experts not looters, say diplomats

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Posted 11:47 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 12

What if the Republican Party does not succeed in stealing the vote and Kerry wins? Then they'll deny the legitimacy of Kerry, as they denied the legitimacy of Clinton and tried to destroy him. James Wolcott reports on the first sings on Fox News of this strategy: excuse "the media" of having a liberal bias and that's why Kerry will win:

There are no coincidences at Fox News. Three times today, and the day is still relatively young, Fox hit the note of liberal bias to sound the theme that the press is "in the tank" for Kerry, and that any victory he gets will be a tainted gift from the media elite.

I'm not saying Fox News is anticipating a Bush loss, only that they seem to be laying the ground work for the blame game should he cough it up on November 2nd. They are taking the first baby steps to denying the legitimacy of a Kerry win, preparing the first batch of sour grapes.

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Posted 11:32 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 11

In Broward County, Florida, as many as 58,000 absentee ballots may have gone missing:

Local 10 has learned that many as many as 58,000 ballots that were supposed to mailed out on Oct. 7 and 8 could be missing.

The Broward County Supervisor of Elections office is saying only that the situation is "unusual," and they are looking into it.

Gisela Salas, Broward Deputy Elections Supervisor, said, "I hate to say 'missing' at this time because that has not yet be substantiated. Some ballots are starting to arrive. But there is an extraordinary delay."

An elections office representative told Local 10 that the office has investigated with the U.S. Post Office what might have happened to the ballots, but so far, no one has been able to figure it out.

"It is unusual. It's a puzzle on the part of our office and the postal service," Salas said. "Our office did make the delivery and the post office assures us they were processed. What happened is in question."

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Posted 11:53 AM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 10

Meanwhile in California, Republican candidates get free airtime. Democratic candidates, don't:

Attempting to boost Republican Party prospects, the owner of a chain of Central Valley television and radio stations has donated $325,000 in air time for GOP candidates in many of the state's hottest legislative elections.

The contribution by Harry J. Pappas comes in the final days of campaigning, and those involved in the campaigns could not recall another instance in which a California media mogul donated time on public airwaves for advertisements to benefit one party over another.

Critics say the contribution is a clear attempt to sway close elections, is likely to raise new questions of media bias, and violates federal law requiring broadcasting companies to provide equal time to political candidates.

"They're the public's airwaves," said attorney Karen Getman, who represents the Assembly Democratic Caucus and formerly served as chairwoman of the state's Fair Political Practices Commission. "You're not free to give them to one side in a partisan debate."

This is unbelievingly immoral and the shocking thing about it is that it's being done so blatantly. It is quite literally the sort of media behaviour you see in Putin's Russia. As we all know, the power of the media, especially radio and television to influence elections is enormous. If one side can get unlimited access to the media and the other side cannot, you cannot hold free elections!

If you are as disgusted as I am with this practise and live in the areas mentioned in the article, let them know:

• KMPH Fox 26 and KFRE 59, Fresno and Visalia
• KTNC in the Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and San Jose areas
• KBFX Fox and KABZ, Bakersfield
• KAZA, Los Angeles
• KSWT, El Centro
• KMPH 107.5 FM in Fresno and Visalia
• KTRB 860 AM in the Stockton-Modesto areas

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Posted 8:19 AM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 9

Like Florida in 2000, Ohio is the state the Republicans seem to concentrate most of their effort on, because Bush and KErry are in a dead heat there and the state could swing the election either way. Not surprising then that the most blatant incidents come from Ohio. The Washington Post has a good overview of some of the trouble brewing in Ohio, which contains the follwoing nuggets:

Republicans have already filed 35,000 challenges to voters' eligibility and are preparing to send recruits into 8,000 polling places next Tuesday to challenge other voters they suspect are not eligible, particularly hundreds of thousands of the newly registered. Democrats are alarmed at the effort, saying it could tie up voting and keep many away from the polls.

[...]

Ohio law states that a party can challenge a voter's eligibility if the challenger has a reasonable doubt that the person is a citizen, is at least 18, or is a legal resident of the state or the county where he shows up to vote. The law also states that local election boards must give voters challenged before Election Day three days' notice before holding a mandatory hearing, no later than two days before the election.

[...]

Republicans have pointed to what they contend is widespread evidence of fraud in voter registration. Making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, for instance, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie pointed out that in Franklin County, the latest Census shows there are more registered voters than there are age-eligible residents.

Take good notice of the sentence I've emphasised, because that is something you are going to hear or are already hearing a lot from Republicans: the accusation that it's the Democrats who are involved in voter fraud, by actually registrering people to vote. Don't be fooled by this: they can dress it up as nicely as they want, the crux of the matter is that the Democrats want as many people as possible to vote, while the Republicans only want their people to vote.

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Posted 8:10 AM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 8

Last night the BBC2 newporgramme Newsnight revealed details of a Republican plan to disrupt voting in predominantely black (and hence Democratic voting) districts in Jacksonville Florida:

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

A realplayer clip of the report is available today and tomorrow.

Republican partisans will try and pretend it is all legal and aboveboard to stop people from voting because of alleged "irregularities" in their personal data, but reminder two things: First, in 2000, even before the elections they managed to stop thousands of black Americans in Florida from voting who had every right to do so, because they were put on a felons list. Second, when it looked like it was the absentee ballots of oversea soldiers that might give their boy the election, they did everything in their power to get each and every one of those with a vote for bBush counted, whether or not these were dated after the election, were valid ballots or were cast by people who had already voted...

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Posted 7:56 AM by Martin Wisse

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Republicans: bravely marching forward to a one party state

This is a fairly typical example of what has been happening at Bush rallies around the US. You have the paranoid screening of audience members for anybody who isn't a Bush supporter already, followed by bloody repression when some protesters still have the temerity to show up at what should be public occasions.

It reminds me of nothing as much as the carefully orchestrated May 1 celebrations you used to see when the Soviet Union was still alive and well, only clumsier. but then the regimes there had a lot more experience in that sort of thing, the Republicans are only starting. Give them some time.

I have blogged some half dozen incidents today in which individual Republicans or the Republican Party as a whole seem to be involved in election fraud or voter intimidation. I did not have to search long for these incidents and indeed there are many more incidents I could and will mention.

It seems to me that the Republican Party is engaging in a systematic attempt to sabotage the presidential elections, either hoping to suppress enough votes to let Bush "win" outright or at the least throw the election into enough doubt that Bush can win his "election" in the courts, again. This is not the first time modern Republicans have done so; both in 2002 and 2000 there were incidents of voter fraud and intimidation throughout the country, but it is the first time it seems to be both centrally organised and this widespread.

During the 2000 elections, most of the incidents seemed to have been adhoc attempts, with the Republicans making a serious attempt to circumvent the democratic process only after the elections. But once the opportunity was there, they did not hesitate to make use of it, culminating in the socalled "preppie riot" which shut down the recounts. Quite a lot of the people involved turned out to be on the staff of Republican senators or representatives, including one Tom Pyle, then policy analyst on the staff of Tom Delay...

At the same time, the Republican Party has been busy building its powerstructure, in the Executive Branch, in the Judicidary and in Congress, the media and in business. This process, which has been going on for decades has accelerated during the Bush administration. The Rpeublicans have used the great corruptive power of government, the power to hand out money to increase their power, by rewarding those loyal to them, punishing their enemies and letting their friends built their fortunes on the back of the taxpayer.

Ironically enough, it was Dwight Eisenhower, the last honest Republican president who first warned of the corrupting power of the "military-industrial complex", but if he ever thought it would get this bad?

What the Rublican Party is trying to do is create a one party state, a United States which has the veneer of democracy, will still have multiple parties and hold elections, but in which only the right people will win those elections. That is why this election is so important; if Bush "wins" this process will only accelerate, but if Kerry wins there is at least the chance to turn the tide. This won't be an easy process and we should not be resting on our laurels once Kerry is elected; the Republican Party won't go away just because Bush loses, nor will it see the errors of its ways. It will be a long, hard slog, in which Democrats, liberals and other sane people must not fall in the old trap of thinking it's all a game played by people with honourable intentions on all sides or think the Republicans are interested in anything other than their own power.

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Posted 11:43 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 7

On October 15th, Jim Tobin, the Bush-Cheney New England campaign chairman had to resign because of his involvement with a phone jamming scandal during the elections of 2002:

The resignation came as the Democrats and Republicans fought in court over whether the Democrats could question GOP officials about Tobin's alleged role in the illegal jamming.

Get-out-the-vote phones run by Democrats and the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters union were jammed on Election Day two years ago by more than 800 computer-generated hang- up calls. The calls tied up the phones for about 1 1/2 hours.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo revealed that a source of his told him on July 1st that Allen Raymond, one of the key players in the scandal had fingered Tobin for his involvement. Yet for some three and a half months the Bush campaign did not nothing about him.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is busy trying to prevent disclosure of evidence about the scandal. Don't want to influence Bush's election chances, eh?

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Posted 8:23 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 6: senate edition

It doesn't just happen for the presidential election, the anti-democratic forces are also active in senate races, as the following incident makes clear:

The white-on-blue sticker reads, "Vote for Daschle & Vote for SODOMY." A disclaimer alerts readers that fees were "Paid for by someone who loves Jesus and friends of swlJ. This ad is not authorized by any candidate of (sic) candidate committee."

The mass mailing went out earlier this month to churches statewide. A select few homeowners with yard signs supporting Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle also received copies in their mailboxes.

The anonymous disclaimer offers no real identity, and the return address is that of Daschle's re-election headquarters.

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Posted 6:33 PM by Martin Wisse

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Finally somebody gets angry

Even pundits can get fed up with the lying, as Lawrence O'Donnell demonstrates in the videoclip above where he takes John "lying liar" O'Neill of the Swiftboat Veterans for Lies to the woodshed.

Video is in Windows Media format; apologies to all non-Windows users. Direct link here

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Posted 5:58 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 5

A company paid by the Republican Party is accused of having thrashed or shredded hundreds of voter registration forms belonging to Democratic voters:

Russell worked for a company called Voters Outreach of America, along with 300 other people. He says he got into a beef with the company over a pay dispute, and witnessed his bosses ripping up registration forms that had been filed by democrats.

"They were thrown away in the trash. I grabbed them out," said Eric Russell. One of those forms belonged to Daren Gray, who was shocked to learn that the re-registration form he filled out was never turned in.

"I'm pretty mad, upset. I'm still gonna vote," said Daren Gray. Russell doesn't know how many democratic registrations were tossed in the trash but guesses the number could be very high since Voters Outreach of America operated in Las Vegas for more than two months.

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Posted 2:51 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 4

Republican party officials, caught red handed with dodgy voting registrations in South Dakota move to Ohio to continue their work (link goes to Google chache):

Larry Russell, 3 others move to Ohio campaign

South Dakota campaign official who resigned after questions arose over absentee-ballot applications will work in Ohio for the Bush-Cheney campaign, an internal Republican Party memo indicates.

Larry Russell, who was chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party's get-out-the-vote operation, resigned this week after questions were raised about the validity of some of the 1,400 absentee-ballot applications gathered, largely on college campuses, by the program Russell led.

Students on campuses in Brookings, Vermillion, Yankton and Spearfish have questioned the absentee-ballot application process, saying young men obtained their applications, but the notarization of the documents carried the signature of a woman.

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Posted 2:22 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 3

Ohio again. Somebody is calling mainly elderly residents, pretends to be from the election board and tells them the polling station has changed:

Damschroder said there are two scams: The caller tells voters their precincts have changed or the caller offers to pick up an absentee-ballot application, deliver the ballot to the voter and return the completed ballot to the elections office.

By law, the elections board mails absentee ballots and the only deliveries are made to voters in nursing homes by both a Republican and Democratic elections worker. The only person who can return an absentee ballot, besides the voter, is an immediate family member.

"People are calling saying, ‘I got a call last night when I was watching Oprah from this group,’ " Damschroder said. "By law, the board of elections does not give anybody a ballot to deliver."

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Posted 2:14 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 2

The New York Times has published an article on how the Rpeublican Party in Ohio is putting thousands of its people inside polling stations to, as they call it, "challenge" those voters they think are "not qualified to vote". In other words, who plan to vote Democractic.

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.

Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections.

A good example of the Republican mindset can be found in the following quote:

"The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters - I call them ringers - have created these problems," said James P. Trakas, a Republican co-chairman in Cuyahoga County.

One party thinks getting more people to vote is a good idea, while their opponents thinks of them as "ringers". One party is pro-democracy, the other objectively anti-democracy.

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Posted 2:03 PM by Martin Wisse

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Steal the Vote 2004, part 1

In Florida, "some partisans" (I wonder who?) are pretending to be voting officials:

Pasco elections officials have a warning for the county's absentee voters: Don't give your ballot to a stranger claiming to be from the elections office.

They're not who they say they are.

"The people who are soliciting your ballots in this manner are not elections officials," Pasco Elections Supervisor Kurt Browning warned Thursday.

Found via Archy

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Posted 10:18 AM by Martin Wisse

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Voting, process over substance, privacy and civic duty

Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has been on a roll the past few days, posting a series of excellent articles on the topic of voting, getting out the vote, the conflict between privacy and civic duty and the insane focus on process rather than substance of much of the press.

In his first post, Fred talks about his experiences going door to door in his district to get out the vote and how people seem overwhelmingly dismissive of Bush.

He then wrote two posts about secritve ballots. In the first he tries to tease out why so many people are so private about whom they are voting for. In the second he talks about why it is in fact important to discuss who you are going to vote for and why.

In between, Fred takes a swipe at the press for focussing so much on the process in political stories (who is doing what to whom?) rather than the substance of the conflicts.

An amazing set of posts y'all should read; if you haven't been reading Slacktivist every day, you are missing out. This is stuff that stands above "mere politics", this is the lifeblood of democracy itself.

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Posted 4:26 PM by Martin Wisse

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Florida 2000 = Ohio 2004?

It's worth remembering that only one side in the Florida debacle threatened violence and turmoil, and that was the Republican side. Obviously, as we saw in the aftermath, Democrats were not inclined to have responded violently to a Bush presidency; but Republicans had already rioted to shut down voting in Miami, and were responsible for ugly demonstrations that forced pro-Gore demonstrations to shut down in Palm Beach. Nearly the entirety of violent rhetoric and behavior around the Florida fight emanated from the right.

They're up to their old tricks and Orcinus has the goods.

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Posted 8:17 AM by Martin Wisse

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Posted 7:42 AM by Martin Wisse

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The Rise of Pseudo Fascism

Americans, particularly fundamentalist Christians, have always had a certain predilection for apocalyptic beliefs. How many times, after all, have you heard that the world was coming to an end soon in the years you've been alive? If you're typical, it's been a lot.

The Rise of Pseudo Fascism, part 5: Warfare By Other Means, by David Neiwert

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Posted 6:51 AM by Martin Wisse

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Of course Iraq is nothing like Vietnam.

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Posted 7:53 AM by Martin Wisse

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The anti-christ has to keep his devil's tail somewhere

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Posted 10:07 PM by Martin Wisse

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Fablog's *ahem* deconstruction of the New York Times obituary of Jacques Derrida is the first time somebody has made me curious enough to want to read some of Derrida's work.

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Posted 8:00 PM by Martin Wisse

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The Rise of Pseudo Fascism

David Neiwert has the third part in his series on The Rise of Pseudo Fascism up, this time about The Pseudo-Fascist Campaign.

• Part 1, The Morphing of the Conservative Movement
• Part 2, The Architecture of Fascism

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Posted 4:58 PM by Martin Wisse

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How should the anti-war left behave towards the Iraqi resistance?

That is the question asked at The Apostate Windbag.

The left and the anti-war movement should support the resistance in the broadest terms and wish devoutly for the defeat of the Coalition forces. Iraq is under foreign occupation. Legally and morally they have a right to resist militarily, no different from if the UK were under, say, Icelandic occupation (however benign that undoubtedly would be). Of course, if the mullahs maintain their hegemony within the resistance, then we are looking at the potential of an Iranian Revolution-style routing of U.S. forces, which, as in Iran, while being a defeat for U.S. imperialism, would also objectively be a defeat for the Iraqi working class. Thus, as I have said before, the key is for left/socialist/trade union/democratic forces to gain hegemony within the resistance.

But concretely, how do we in the West aid in that? I propose that the European and North American Left begin by organising Iraqi Resistance Solidarity Committees in Western cities, doing fundraising, benefit shows, awareness raising - the usual leaflet-and-bake-sale business that is the bread and butter of being on the left, with the proceeds going to progressive non-collaborationist forces within the resistance and civil society in Iraq. If I am honest, I would say that I don't think the anti-war movement has grasped the importance of this yet. In particular I would argue that given the centrality of the U.K. within the U.S. Coalition, the U.K.'s Stop the War Coalition needs to think beyond the electoralism of Respect - as impressive as some of its results have been - and start building such solidarity committees and organising such fundraisers. First on the list to benefit from such work, to my mind, should be the Workers' Communist Party of Iraq, who reportedly have not inconsiderable support within the nascent trade union movement there and which is opposed to both the occupation and the likes of Sadr - not least because some Islamist elements of the resistance are attacking trade unionists (just as Coalition forces are).

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Posted 2:04 PM by Martin Wisse

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It's hard work!

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Posted 12:13 PM by Martin Wisse

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Pen? Paper? It matters not

Did Kerry bring a pen to the debate with him? Did Bush had notes in front of him? It doesn't matter:

A 32-page document approved by the campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry stipulates the rules of the presidential debates, including the places, times and topics. A coin toss will determine who answers first; candidates are not to approach each other except to shake hands at the start; each candidate can use his own makeup artist; and no props, notes, charts, diagrams or other writings can be used during the debates. Candidates may, however, take notes -- on the type of paper of their choosing. The agreement also includes how the candidates will be told that the response time is up. Timing lights will flash when there are 30 seconds, 15 seconds and five seconds remaining. An audible cue will then sound, and the moderator will step in.

From CNN.com emphasis mine.

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Posted 5:53 PM by Martin Wisse

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Bertram Online points to an interesting interview with Victoria Hale, who helps run a non-profit drugs company:

When I was with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) I learned about “orphan” diseases, defined as diseases that fewer than 200,000 people in the US suffer from. I thought it strange that outside the US, some of these diseases are enormous. For instance, there are about 1000 cases of malaria in the US, and 500 or 600 million cases worldwide. You need to take your American eyeglasses off and consider the whole world. I wanted to do something about the fact that these were not orphan diseases at all – these were devastating diseases that had an impact on the economies of entire regions, and on political stability.

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Posted 5:27 PM by Martin Wisse

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Andrew Sullivan had a tiny problem with Bush's performance last night:

No president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever say he wants to put anyone on a leash. That's all.

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Posted 5:23 PM by Martin Wisse

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Even the conservative Jay Nordlinger thinks KJerry won last night's debate:

I thought Kerry did very, very well; and I thought Bush did poorly — much worse than he is capable of doing. Listen: If I were just a normal guy — not Joe Political Junkie — I would vote for Kerry. On the basis of that debate, I would. If I were just a normal, fairly conservative, war-supporting guy: I would vote for Kerry. On the basis of that debate.

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Posted 4:09 PM by Martin Wisse

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Burning Bird:

(Kerry toasted Bush! On a scale of lightly browned to burnt, President Bush was too done to even feed the hogs.)

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Posted 3:34 PM by Martin Wisse

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Demosthenes knows Kerry won the debate:

Yeah, there's no question about it. The only hole that Bush opened was, possibly, that "joining a war you called a mistake" bit, but other than that Kerry dominated it. He was pulling out EVERYTHING that the Republicans and Bush had screwed up, and Bush wasn't really able to rebut any of it.

More importantly, Bush's big "strength" here is his biggest weakness. He was consistent, and there's no doubt he intended to be. Kerry, however, did a fantastic job of saying that there's nothing good about being consistently wrong, and thus has opened the door to the Dems and 527s saying that Bush's consistency is due to his being completely out of touch. Since that hits Bush's greatest weakness, his competency, MoveOn and the rest can tear great chunks out of Dubya's hide.

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Posted 3:03 PM by Martin Wisse

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Michael Bérubé has watched the debate and he saw a strong Kerry and a Bush who had become (even more) soft from four years of friendly-friendly press conferences and softball questions:

[...] then came the discussion of North Korea, and holy Moloch in a chicken basket, it was like watching a real President debate a B-list actor. My God, Kerry sounded like he knew more about nuclear policy in and on North Korea than the guy who’s actually running the United States, and that’s largely because . . . guess what? He does! Then Jim Lehrer asked what Kerry thought would be the greatest threat a US President would face in 2005. I expected Kerry to take a deep breath and list a couple of things. I expected wrong. Kerry calmly said, “nuclear proliferation.” Short but dramatic pause. Followed by the best goddamn discussion of nuclear proliferation anyone has ever managed in 120 seconds or less. Followed, in turn, by a confused and defensive Bush demurring about one of Kerry’s statements about Iran before doubling back and saying that he agreed that the biggest threat was “weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist enemy” and then saying that he would be against this.

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Posted 2:59 PM by Martin Wisse

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Teresa Nielsen Hayden talks about the damage that is being done by the rightwing meme about how Social Security is broken:

I’ve been ruminating about a one-liner that’s been floating around the meme pool since lord knows when. You’ve probably heard it a thousand times:

By the time you retire, there’ll be nothing left in the Social Security retirement fund.

It’s untrue, of course; but for those who aren’t aware that it’s untrue, it’s profoundly frightening.

We’re set up to be a cooperative society. We believe that by working together, we can as a people be richer, safer, smarter, and happier. However, this cooperation requires a certain basic level of trust. The belief that you could be left penniless in your old age, after a lifetime of contributing your regular fraction to the public good, creates a huge breach in your sense of trust.

[...]

The other thing about believing there’ll be nothing left when you retire is that it makes you far less likely to scream in outrage over the long-term looting of the national treasury. After all, you already know you’re not going to get any of that.

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Posted 2:21 PM by Martin Wisse

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The Martini Republic watched the first debate:

Kerry's demeanor was the demeanor of someone the public can trust, and he scarcely seemed the flipflopper the Bush campaign presents him as; the President's demeanor, conversely, could only be termed as trustworthy by the most partisan Republicans. Kerry delivered with honesty, smoothness and strength; the President, conversely, stumbled many times--once, amazingly, saying that our troops were fighting "vociferously", another time calling the Senator "Bush" (?), was full of blinks and stammers, and began, probably to the horror of Karl Rove, explaining himself. Three times he asked for more time from the moderator to clarify not a Kerry charge but his own position.

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Posted 8:03 AM by Martin Wisse

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