NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Tue, 28 Sep 2004
On Polling
I just sent this to my friend Tracy, who expressed concern (and
amazement) at the polling numbers being reported in the major media. I
guess that it's worth a post here as well.
I addressed the polling questions that you mentioned, a few days back
in my weblog; it's here
if you want to read Jimmy Breslin's take on it.
The main thing is that "likely voters" (to pollsters) are voters that voted
in the last three elections. In this election, that is absurd. Several tens
of millions of first-time voters have registered in the last three months,
and they are overwhelmingly young, informed, and liberal in their political
views. And those that didn't bother to vote in the last school board
election (or whatever) are absolutely motivated to get to the polls in this
election. So pollsters have already ignored a huge segment of the voting
public - a segment that will overwhelmingly vote democratic.
The second issue with polling is that they do not poll cell phones. Again,
this segment of the population -- 169 million cells nationwide, with 22
million using the cell as their *only* phone -- tend to be better informed
and better educated. And the "only a cell phone" crowd is overwhelmingly
young, liberal, and motivated.
Third, and most important, the polls are all over the map this year. On
Sept. 12th, Time had Bush up by 12 points, while Zogby had him up by 2. On
the 15th, Gallup had him up by 13, and Democracy Corps had him up by 1.
(See http://pollingreport.com if you're into the details on this one.)
These disparities indicate a profoundly broken polling model. The bottom
line is that polls are meaningless this year, because demographics have
changed dramatically in the last few years, and the pollsters have no idea
how to get a representative sample. If you are going to call only land-line
phones of people who voted in the last three elections, you are going to
get an unrepresentative sample of home-bound, generally older people in the
mix. They tend to (statistically) skew towards conservative in their
political views.
Remember: Bush lost by half a million of the popular votes in 2000, and
liberal turnout was lackadaisical at best. I don't think that Bush has
converted many liberals to his side -- but he surely has motivated a huge
number of liberals to get to the polls and vote democratic this season. The
3 million Nader voters from 2000 are *overwhelmingly* back in the Dems camp
as well -- even Nader's 2000 senior campaign staffers have endorsed Kerry.
Additionally, Bush has lost Republicans to some extent, although it's hard
to get a clear bead on this one. Are you aware that one in eight Texas
Republicans voted "uncommitted" -- e.g., for "not Bush" -- in the Texas
Republican Presidential Primary this year? And that's on his erstwhile home
turf. In the Idaho primary, it was one in nine. It's anyone's guess how
this plays out in the popular vote, but you can bet that Karl Rove is
ordering Tums by the case lot.
I think that we may be in for a blockbuster of a pleasant surprise on
November 2nd - maybe not a 1932 Roosevelt-Hoover train wreck, but Bush
is in a LOT more trouble than big-shop national polling firms indicate
-- because polling firms and their statistical models have been
bypassed by national lifestyle changes.
A little-known fact: the Democrats are depositing 50,000 checks a day from
politically motivated contributors. That bears repetition: 50,000 a *day.*
This is utterly unprecedented -- completely off the scale in political
fundraising history.
But don't get complacent -- make this information motivate you! Make
sure all of your friends vote. Give people rides on Nov 2nd. Call
'em. Remind 'em.
In Texas, new voters have until end of day on October first to register to
vote in the November 2nd election. That is essentially *this Friday* at
5:00 PM when they lock the County Clerk's office. Ask around -- and Get
People Registered.
Forward this along to anyone you care to.
[Update: "several tens of millions" of new registrants is probably an
exaggeration; it appears to be approaching 9-10 million as far as I can
discern, from an informal sampling of Offices of the Secretary of
State and voter reg sites.
And, by the way, you can verify that you
are registered in Texas by calling (800) 252-VOTE. Other states
have different phone numbers; you can get yours at JustVote.]
Posted at 12:58 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Let's not forget...
The St. Pete Times has an excellent column
online entitled "When five voted for millions." It's a recap of how
the supreme court installed our President into office back in 2000. It
remains a completely indefensible decision, ranking up there with Dred
Scott as an all-time low point.
For a more detailed legal examiniation of this issue, Vincent
Bugliosi's None
Dare Call It Treason in The Nation remains one of the very best
contemporaneous analyses. It was published a month after the Bush v
Gore decision.
Heads up, people. Another election is coming, and these same
ethically-bereft people are still in power.
Posted at 10:01 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Fri, 24 Sep 2004
The perfect cartoon
As Josh Marshall
points out, the perfect summary of this election is available in
cartoon form right
here.
Posted at 11:30 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Thu, 23 Sep 2004
War on terror?
Over at Alternet:
With the latest Detroit convictions overturned, Ashcroft has not convicted a single person of terrorism since 9/11.
On Sept. 2 a federal judge in Detroit threw out the only jury
conviction the Justice Department has obtained on a terrorism charge
since 9/11. In October 2001, shortly after the men were initially
arrested, Attorney General John Ashcroft heralded the case in a
national press conference as evidence of the success of his
anti-terror campaign. The indictment alleged that the defendants were
associated with al Qaeda and planning terrorist attacks. But Ashcroft
held no news conference in September when the case was dismissed, nor
did he offer any apologies to the defendants who had spent nearly
three years in jail. That wouldn't be good for his boss' campaign,
which rests on the "war on terrorism." Here, as in Iraq, Bush's war is
not going as well as he pretends.
Let's be more specific. Not one of the more than 5000 human
beings rounded up and held for years without representation,
communication, or recourse have been convicted. The overwhelming
majority haven't even been charged.
Are you proud to be an American today? They are, after all, doing
this in your name and with your leave...
Posted at 11:08 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Tue, 21 Sep 2004
Secrecy In The Bush Administration
The Minority Staff of the House Committee on Government Reform has
released their report, commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman, entitled
Secrecy In The Bush Administration.
It's worth attention, if only to see for yourself how much power
the executive branch has to destroy implementation of Congress' clear
intent in law, and especially in sunshine laws.
It's the key, gang. Bush can't do his damage without secrecy -- if
he tried most of what he's doing in the open, he'd be run out of town
wearing a fresh suit of tar and feathers -- and he can't do his
paranoid secrecy without a whole collection of executive-directive
"findings."
Open government is mandatory in a democracy.
Posted at 08:25 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Mon, 20 Sep 2004
Art & Nostalgia
A very nice place to spend time: American Art
Archives.
Posted at 14:13 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Fri, 17 Sep 2004
Tobias on the election
Andrew Tobias (yes, that Andrew Tobias) has a very heartening and very long column today on why we're going to win. The whole thing is worth a read; here are some selected excerpts:
We're going to win, first of all (before getting into turn-out, the
Electoral College, Florida and all of that), because over the next 46
days, as voters begin to really focus, they will conclude that on the
issues they care about, President Bush has not served us well.
Take jobs. After 9/11, and after he knew we were in a recession and
after the eruption of corporate scandals, President Bush announced
that his policies would create 6 million new jobs during his
presidency. Instead, we will have lost 1 million jobs -- a swing of 7
million worse than he promised -- not least because it turns out that
giving the biggest tax cuts to those who need them least is not the
best way to rev up the economy. (Could anyone, including President
Bush, actually have believed that it was?)
We didn't reelect Herbert Hoover -- the last president to lose jobs on his
watch -- and were not going to reelect George Bush.
[...]
We won last time when Democrats were largely complacent. Things
always seemed to get a little better every year (it's human nature for
the previous eight years to feel like always) so what difference did
it make? Well, now the difference is apparent. Democratic turn-out
will be enormous. We saw unprecedented turn-out in the primaries and
we are seeing direct-mail results that have direct-mail consultants
slack-jawed. We are depositing 50,000 checks a day. Millions of new
voters are registering, and Democrats who haven't voted for years plan
to come out this time.
Last time, we got 51 million votes -- 537,000 more than Governor Bush
despite 3 million votes that went to Nader. Nader voters are almost
all well-meaning and smart. My firm belief is that in swing states
where it matters they will not fail to do all they can to fire George
Bush. As reported here Tuesday, two-thirds of Nader's 2000 leadership
group have already signed onto a statement urging everyone in swing
states to vote for Kerry.
[...]
We've begun to fight back. If you saw James Carville on the Today
Show last week or have heard Paul Begala lately or caught Joe Lockhart
on TV, you know the Campaign has expanded to include some very
talented tough veterans of the Clinton campaigns. Was this a
shake-up? Whether you call it an expansion or a shake-up, Carville
cut to the heart of it: John Kerry sees a problem and fixes it.
George Bush sees a problem and denies it. What kind of leader would
you rather have?
[...]
Our guy is a fighter, and his pattern, in campaign after campaign,
is to hang back and finish strong. And win. Mock his Navy years if
you will, while insisting that Bush served honorably. (Bush had no
doubts about the Vietnam War he was all for it, so long as he didn't
have to actually fight in it.) But this is a guy who volunteered to
face death for months and who turned his boat into oncoming gunfire
and attacked the enemy head on. So he may not be quite the indecisive
wimp Dick Cheney and the rest of the team are having so much fun
portraying him as.
There's plenty there. I am not much on triumphalism this far away
from the election (or anytime, really -- knock wood early and often),
but good points are made here, and it deserves attention.
Just don't let it create any complacency.
Posted at 17:56 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Breslin on polling
Jimmy Breslin makes what I think are some very compelling points in
this column:
Anybody who believes these national political polls are giving you
facts is a gullible fool.
Any editors of newspapers or television news shows who use poll
results as a story are beyond gullible. On behalf of the public they
profess to serve, they are indolent salesmen of falsehoods.
This is because these political polls are done by telephone. Land-line
telephones, as your house phone is called.
The telephone polls do not include cellular phones. There are almost
169 million cell phones being used in America today - 168,900,019 as
of Sept. 15, according to the cell phone institute in Washington.
There is no way to poll cell phone users, so it isn't done.
Not one cell phone user has received a call on their cell phone asking
them how they plan to vote as of today.
Out of 168 million, anything can happen. Midway through election
night, these stern-faced network announcers suddenly will be frozen
white and they have to give a result:
"It appears that the winner of the election tonight is ... Milford
J. Schmitt of New Albany, Ind. He presently has 56 percent of the
vote, placing him well ahead of John Kerry, George Bush and another
newcomer, Gibson D. Mills of Corvallis, Ore. It appears the nation's
voting habits have been changed unbeknownst to us. Mr. Schmitt was
asked what party he is in. He answered, 'The winning party.'"
Those who have both cell phones and land lines still might have been
polled the old way - on their land lines by people making phone calls
with scientifically weighted questions and to targeted areas for some
big pollster. These results are announced by the pollsters: "CBS-New
York Times poll shows George Bush and John Kerry in a statistical dead
heat in the presidential race."
Beautiful. There are 169 million phones that they didn't even
try. This makes the poll nothing more than a fake and a fraud, a shill
and a sham. The big pollster doesn't know what he has. The television
and newspaper brilliants put it out like it is a baseball
score. Except not one person involved can say that they truly know
what they are talking about.
Posted at 11:13 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Thu, 16 Sep 2004
Illegal
From ACSBlog:
Iraq War "Illegal," Declares UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Kafi Annan told the BBC,
"I have indicated [the Iraq War] was not in conformity with the UN
charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was
illegal." Annan added, "I think there has been lessons for the US and
there has been lessons for the UN and other member states and I think
in the end everybody is concluding that it is best to work together
with our allies and through the UN to deal with some of these issues.
And I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long
time."
Huge.
Posted at 10:45 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
(snort)
Slashdot has a link to Nature
magazine's questions to our presidential candidates and their
answers. It took about ten seconds to elicit an involuntary horse
laugh out of me when reading Bush's answers. Example:
Q: Recent months have seen various charges of political bias against
scientific panels that advise the US government at different
levels.What would you do to ensure that your administration receives
genuinely impartial scientific advice?
Bush: My administration has a strong commitment to the highest
scientific standards in decision-making. On issues ranging from
climate change to nanotechnology, I have sought out the best
scientific minds inside and outside the government for policy input
and advice, especially the independent National Academies. My
commitment to sound, independent scientific advice is unwavering. And
my senior science adviser in the White House, John Marburger, happens
to be a Democrat.
Go read it. There's a PDF of the whole thing here
if you don't want to do the flash version.
Truly surreal. It's as if most of the Bush responses were written by
the comedy staff of the Daily
Show.
Posted at 10:10 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
So you think it's your computer? They don't.
My buddy Frank over in Germany just sent me links to a couple of
articles; a fellow at Sans took the time to
do a fresh install of XP Home Edition, and then went to some selected
gaming sites. He traces down all of the spyware and malware that gets
installed by simply visiting the wrong web page using Internet Explorer.
Now, I realize that the people who will not take the time to read
these articles are exactly the ones who need to, but this is my
pathetic little attempt at enlightening the world and doing a public
service. So read these, especially if you're not interested in
computer geekery. Really. Please.
Article one of "Follow the Bouncing Malware" is here, and
article two here. Once
you've read them, you'll understand why you should be browsing with Mozilla
Firefox, and why you should install Ad Aware, and
why you should install WinPatrol, and why you should
install Spybot
S&D.
Thank you, and thanks, Frank.
[Update] If you're into geekery, the Handler's Diary is a very
good daily read; I just poked around it a bit. And added it to my
"morning musts" bookmark folder.
Posted at 09:55 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Sun, 12 Sep 2004
It's good to be king
Bush misses
the filing deadline in Florida -- but it doesn't matter.
I think that the Dems should hire a skilled partisan litigator (a
James Baker type) and go to court to keep him off the ballot. You can
bet your eyeteeth the Republicans would in a turnabout situation.
Posted at 10:49 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Sat, 11 Sep 2004
On Leadership
It seems that, increasingly, my conservative friends are forwarding
along pep-rally e-mail that stresses Bush's "strong leadership" and
"decisive action" (etc) as the primary talking point. I have a few
thoughts on the matter.
You'll get no argument from me about his leadership and decision
making skills. The problem is that he makes "decisive" mistakes based
upon false assumptions and then boldly and promptly "leads" us down
blind alleys into deathtraps that could easily be avoided with even a
modicum of common sense and sober reflection. And when new data
appears, it is ignored, or massaged into a more ideologically
acceptable subset, or outright re-fabricated into a falsity to support
a wrong decision. Finally, when the political wind blows against him,
he promptly does an about face, runs to the head of the line, and
"leads" in the other direction. Witness homeland security, the 9/11
panel, medicare, and a host of other policy about-faces in his
administration.
"Decisive leadership" without correct decisions based upon factual
data is worse than bad -- it is the very definition of
incompetence. After all, George Custer was a strong leader who was
known for decisive action.
Thanks for the e-mail, guys. Keep those talking points coming in.
Posted at 09:22 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Fri, 10 Sep 2004
They'll do ANYTHING
The so-called republican senators are seriously considering trying
something truly revolutionary to accomplish their goal of stacking the
judiciary with right-wing judges. They are planning to have the senate chair (Dick Cheney) declare filibusters to be "unconstitutional." Read more from the American Constitution Society:
To achieve this result, Frist would invoke a controversial procedural
maneuver known as "the nuclear option." Under this procedure, the
person chairing the Senate, presumably Vice President Cheney, would
rule that filibusters of judicial nominations are
unconstitutional. Nuclear option proponents contend that only a simple
majority vote (51 senators) of the Senate would be needed to approve
that ruling - despite the fact that Senate rules require a 3/5 vote
(60 senators) to stop a filibuster and a 2/3 vote (67 senators) to
amend filibuster procedures. Their ploy would simply be to exploit
their control of the chair to overrule or ignore Democratic
objections. Then they could proceed to vote on - and, presumably,
narrowly confirm - each of the would-be Bush federal judges stalled to
date because Republicans could not find the 60 + votes needed to cut
off debate.
Read the full post.
These are the most corrupt people that I have ever seen infesting
our government.
Posted at 18:35 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
The guy can turn a phrase...
"If the price of ignorance ever goes to forty dollars a barrel, I want
drillin' rights on that man's head." -- Jim Hightower
Posted at 09:29 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Thu, 09 Sep 2004
Art
My old friend Wilby is doing some pretty amazing computer artwork these
days out in Hawaii. Check it
out. Very neat stuff.
Posted at 12:15 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Moral Cowardice
Josh Marshall has a very plain-spoken and hard hitting article at
The Hill's website entitled "His moral
cowardice has guided him all along." Required reading. Some
selected excerpts:
The president didn't think he could convince the public of the
merits of his reasons for going to war. So he and his key advisers
lied to them. He greatly exaggerated what was thought to be the
evidence of weapons of mass destruction and completely manufactured a
connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. He couldn't get the country
behind him on the up-and-up. So he took the easy way out; he took a
shortcut; he deceived them. And now the country is paying a terrible
price for it.
He and his advisers knew that if they leveled with the public
about the costs of war in dollars, years, soldiers he'd have a very
hard time convincing them. So he didn't level with them. He took the
easy way out.
The sort of forward planning that would have made a big
difference in postwar Iraq was scuttled or derided because it made the
job of selling the war harder. Those who sounded the alarm had their
careers cut short.
Once we were in Iraq and it was clear that we had been wrong
about the weapons of mass destruction a -- judgment thats been clear for
more than a year -- the president refused to admit it. And he still
hasn't. A year and a half after we invaded Iraq and he still can't
level with the American people about this simple and now obvious
reality. He still relies on his vice president to try to fool people
into thinking Saddam Hussein was tied to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11
attacks.
More important, once it became clear that the president's
plans for postwar Iraq were producing poor results, he refused to
shift policy or to reshuffle his team. He refused to demand
accountability from his own team because of how it would have
reflected on him. He has preferred to continue on with demonstrably
failed policies because to do otherwise would be to admit hed made a
mistake and open himself up to all the political fallout that would
entail. That was something he wasn't willing to do.
The stubborn refusal ever to change course, which the president tries to pass off as a sign of leadership or devotion to principle, is actually an example of his cowardice.
It's a true pleasure to see someone actually talk common sense
in the midst of this kindergarten-level taunting that we have come to
accept as legitimate political discourse.
Posted at 11:47 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Fortunate Son
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail To The Chief",
Oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no senator's son,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman come to the door,
Lord, the house look a like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no millionaire's son.
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Yeh, some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give,
Oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no military son,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate son, no no no,
- John C. Fogerty
Posted at 09:55 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
AWOL
CBS has now put up an all-but transcript of last night's Bush/TxANG
revelations; there's video of the segment there as well.
[I've redacted this paragraph; the white house released copies of the CBS
material, and did not sit on their own copies.]
John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog has a
great deal of material on these and other related issues. If you
want a very detailed, spend-all-day kind of analysis, take a look-see at the AWOL Project.
I guess that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Swift Boat Veterans
for Truth. They decided to make Vietnam-era military service a
campaign issue, with a nod & a wink from the Bush people. The
national media has now, finally, picked up the story with more than
perfunctory attention. On this fine morning, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie
is spinning so fast and furious that his arms may come off from the
centrifugal force...
UPDATE: CBS has the Barnes interview transcript up now.
'NOTHER UPDATE: Salon weighs in, and it's a very serious piece.
Posted at 09:27 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Wed, 08 Sep 2004
Polling
If you're a poll wonk, Polling
Report is your place, specifically their White House Summary.
They simply take all the important polls and put them into a table
with also-important comparitive information. For example, you can see that
on the same day/dates that Time had Bush up by ten, Zogby had him up
by two. Very useful.
Posted at 12:24 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Nevada Touch-Screen Voting Has Paper Trail
Via
Yahoo News.
How to do it right:
CARSON CITY, Nev. - Nevada residents became the first in the nation
to vote on computers that leave a paper trail, taking part in a
primary that produced scattered reports of delays though none of the
serious problems that have cast doubt upon electronic voting systems
in other states.
A delegation of federal election officials monitored the
equipment's debut Tuesday in the state capital as voters cast ballots
for congressional candidates, state legislators, school officials and
judges. Results matched expectations.
Scattered reports of problems including in Nye, Washoe and
Pershing counties delayed vote tabulation, but didn't throw election
results into question.
Officials in Nye County couldn't read the data on one computer
but weren't overly worried. If they couldn't tease the results out of
the machine which held an unknown number of votes they could count
paper ballots by hand instead.
"If we can't ever read it, we'll use the paper trail as the
backup," said Nye County deputy clerk Laura Zubia, who helped recover
the data shortly after midnight. "That's the whole point of the paper
trail, isn't it?"
Yes, it is. And mandatory auditing is a procedural requirement:
Voter advocates praised Nevada's system, which requires county
registrars to randomly select a small percentage of machines from 1
percent to 3 percent of a county's total and compare printed records
with the vote totals taken from computers' memory cartridges after
polls close. The paper records (which voters can see through a plastic
window but cannot touch or take home) will be kept in county election
offices for 22 months and used in case of a recount.
Hear, hear brethren and sistren.
Thanks, Slashdot.
Posted at 12:12 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Humor Break
A magician was working on a cruise ship in
the Caribbean. The audience would be different each week, so the
magician allowed himself to do the same tricks over and over again.
There was only one problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows each
week and began to understand how the magician did every trick. Once he
understood he started shouting in the middle of the show:
"Look, it's not the same hat"
"Look, he is hiding the flowers
under the table"
"Hey, why are all the cards the Ace of Spades
?"
The magician was furious but couldn't do anything; it was,
after all, the captain's parrot.
One day the ship had an
accident and sank. The magician found himself on a piece of wood in
the middle of the ocean -- with the parrot, of course.
They stared
at each other with hate, but did not utter a word. This went on for a
day and another and another.
After a week the parrot said: "OK, I give up. Where's the boat?"
Posted at 10:59 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Teflon? Bah!
Science Daily says:
In the Friday 3 September 2004 issue of Science Express, two
physicists from Penn State University will announce new experimental
evidence for the existence of a new phase of matter, a "supersolid"
form of helium-4 with the extraordinary frictionless-flow properties
of a superfluid.
Neat. Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Superfluid, Supersolid?
Posted at 10:10 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Tue, 07 Sep 2004
Project Censored 2005
Project Censored has
released their "most underreported stories list 2005."
Here they
are:
#1:
Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and Democracy
#2:
Ashcroft vs. the Human Rights Law that Hold Corporations Accountable
#3:
Bush Administration Censors Science
#4:
High Levels of Uranium Found in Troops and Civilians
#5:
The Wholesale Giveaway of Our Natural Resources
#6:
The Sale of Electoral Politics
#7:
Conservative Organization Drives Judicial Appointments
#8:
Cheney's Energy Task Force and The Energy Policy
#9:
Widow Brings RICO Case Against U.S. government for 9/11
#10:
New Nuke Plants: Taxpayers Support, Industry Profits
#11:
The Media Can Legally Lie
#12:
The Destabilization of Haiti
#13:
Schwarzenegger Met with Enron's Ken Lay Years Before the California Recall
#14:
New Bill Threatens Intellectual Freedom in Area Studies
#15:
U.S. Develops Lethal New Viruses
#16:
Law Enforcement Agencies Spy on Innocent Citizens
#17:
U.S. Government Represses Labor Unions in Iraq in Quest for Business Privatization
#18:
Media and Government Ignore Dwindling Oil Supplies
#19:
Global Food Cartel Fast Becoming hte World's Supermarket
#20:
Extreme Weather Prompts New Warning from UN
#21:
Forcing a World Market for GMOs
#22:
Censoring Iraq
#23:
Brazil Holds Back in FTAA Talks, But Provides Little Comfort for the Poor of South America
#24:
Reinstating the Draft
#25:
Wal-Mart Brings Inequality and Low Prices to
the World
The original is here. Again,
it sure would be nice if our national news media would take the time
to do its job.
Posted at 09:37 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Mon, 06 Sep 2004
Happy Labor Day
From the AFL-CIO:
Sept. 3 - As Labor Day approaches, 10 million unemployed U.S. workers
still are struggling to find jobs or have given up looking for jobs,
according to August unemployment figures released today by the federal
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The 144,000 new jobs created in August fall far short of many
economists predictions and the White House promise of 306,000 new jobs
each month when it pushed through the most recent tax cuts. The Bush
administration promised in February 2002 that its tax cuts would
create some 6 million new jobs between January 2001 and July
2004. Instead, the economy has lost nearly 1 million jobs since
President George W. Bush took office in 2001, making it almost certain
Bush will become the first president since Herbert Hoover and the
Great Depression to end his term with a net job loss.
And increasingly, workers are finding that most of the new jobs being
created do not pay as well as the jobs they lost and do not offer
health care or retirement security a trend many analysts see as
long-term, according to a new AFL-CIO report, Job Quality: Here to
Stay?
America and Americas families will not prosper if our job market is
dominated by low-wage Wal-Mart-type jobs that don't provide benefits
and can't support families, says AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. The
prolonged jobs crisis has diminished the hopes of skilled workers,
even those with multiple degrees, who have watched the decline of
quality jobs because of economic policies that benefit corporations
over workers.
I am here to tell you that it's all true.
Posted at 08:54 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Sun, 05 Sep 2004
Swift Boat Liars for Wingnut Propaganda
My Left Brain does a
fine job of collecting all of the falsehoods of the so-called "Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth," and their historic connections to both the
Bush campaign and John Kerry. They also document a large number of
swift boat veterans who are pro-Kerry. Read all about it at this
link.
It sure would be nice if our national news media would take the time to
do its job.
Posted at 11:18 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Fri, 03 Sep 2004
Listen.
Just a reminder. You need to vote, and you need to get your friends
to vote. If you need a reason, here is the best one: The next
President of the United States will likely appoint no less than four,
and more probably six Supreme Court Justices.
Are we clear now? Any questions?
If you are not registered to vote in this election, you are in your
final three weeks of eligibility. Do it; now. Please.
Posted at 10:35 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
Gentlemen, start your engines...
Okay. We're starting the home stretch. I've seen, over and over,
the whole "just wait" motif from long-time Kerry watchers, saying that
he's a fighter, that he's not one to expose his belly or let anything
go unanswered.
Well... maybe they're right after all. Kerry appears to (finally!)
be ready to do some good old fashioned red-meat politics. Let's hope
that he keeps the gloves off for the duration.
Excerpts from an article in the Washington Post this morning:
"I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country
questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by
those who have misled the nation into Iraq."
...and...
"Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty.
Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead
this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs
makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go
without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the
Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead
this nation. Handing out billions [in] government contracts without a
bid to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you
unfit."
...and...
"I'm going to leave it up to the voters whether five deferments
makes someone more qualified than two tours of duty."
Nice, nice, very nice.
Posted at 10:05 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
[Reload all]
[E-mail]
