The Liberal Coalition

It's official. Though no one with an understanding of the issues could have ever doubted it, a highly-respected, mainstream conservative publication, The Economist, confirms that the current state of electronic voting systems in the U.S. is a complete mess. And supposedly alarmist concerns about 'black-box' electronic voting are no longer just hypothetical; the uncertainty inherent in the system has already yielded at least one election --- in Florida, of all places --- where there is no way to be sure that the declared winner actually got the most votes.

Much more at edwardpig.

posted by David Bailey @ 10:38 PM |

Paul Krugman asks a very good question today in his NY Times column: "Where's the Apology?" He's asking why the Bush administration, after a series of mistakes and hyped intelligence reports that launched an invasion, after leaks from the White House that compromised the identity and perhaps the safety of a CIA employee, and after giving no-bid contracts to companies run by friends, there's not a word of acknowledgement or admission that maybe, just maybe, it's wrong.

Well, Mr. Krugman, don't hold your breath. The Bush administration will never admit to doing anything wrong and they will fight you tooth and nail to prove you are wrong for suggesting they are wrong. Not only would it be devastating in an election year, it would be counter to everything that makes up the character of George W. Bush. It wouldn't be manly, and woe betide anyone who suggests that George W. Bush and his administration is anything less than that.

Read the rest at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

posted by Mustang Bobby @ 3:55 PM |

Ok you all, there are a few of us done got ourselves a little competition going on how far a person can bat the penquin. I highly recommend this incredibly simple yet totally addictive game.

posted by Rook @ 1:12 PM |

"Since there's apparently no WMDs, we ostensibly went into Iraq to free the poor Iraqis from the iron grip of an evil dictator and allow them to chart their own course and create a government by the people and for the people, just like America, right?

Uh-uh. You see, our friends in Turkey don't like the Kurds. As a matter of fact, our genocidal friends in Turkey (talk to any Armenian) would probably like to make the Kurds just go away..."

Read the rest at MX23

posted by Anonymous @ 1:33 PM |

That shouldn't be big news, but as we all know, in today's media environment it's huge news. That the question was asked of Condoleeza Rice about BushCo's misleading WMD statements in the run up to the invasion of Iraq is of even greater import.

Unbelievably (in fact I almost choked on my breakfast), the SCLMW doing the interview was none other than Diane Sawyer. She acted almost like a true reporter when she didn't just accept the non-answer that Condi gave her and re-asked the same question in a tone of voice that left no doubt that it had not been answered the first time.

Did Condi answer the question? Did Diane bitch-slap Condi on national TV? Read all about it in my post on The Fulcrum titled: Shorter Condi: "Screw the American People."

posted by Charles Perez @ 9:54 AM |

You can find this post (with the link to the Center for American Progress article) at the Gotham City 13.

Bush at a news conference in Poland:

"And then we went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution -- 1441 -- unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in."

Okay, so we ordered Saddam to disclose and destroy his weapons program. Maybe, then, when Saddam chose "defiance", what he was really saying was that he didn't have anything to find.

Here's my take:

Saddam ruled by fear. His people feared that he would and could kill them.

GWB wanted to avenge his father's loss for personal gain so he began the run-up to war.

Along the way, GWB decided that Iraq's WMD threat was the best justification for war.

Grudgingly, he went to the UN to ask for inspections.

They agreed. The act of UN agreeing doesn't imply that the UN believed he had WMD. Maybe they agreed to let inspections resume so inspectors could find nothing, therefore smearing egg in the face of Bush.

So Resolution 1441 was passed. It ordered Saddam to allow inspections to continue.

According to Hans Blix, there was nothing. Long before him, Scott Ritter found nothing.

Saddam said nothing. He's not about to tell all the people that are so afraid of him that he doesn't have these horrific weapons to hold them down, is he? He's not that stupid! He used these non-existent weapons to scare his people into submission. All the while, he knew he didn't have them. That meant more money in his pocket and more mansions for him to reside in.

In short, he wanted people to think he had the weapons when, in fact, he didn't.

Maybe Saddam's "defiance" (as Bush put it) wasn't defiance at all, but a mere last gasp to scare his own people from coming to get him combined with nationalism.

Had Bush let inspections continue and if he had taken an objective look at the results of findings on Iraq's WMD program, then we would never be in the mess we are in today.

There were effective more ways to remove Saddam than to invade Iraq and get people killed under the false premise of WMD.

Bush, as always, became blinded by money and power...

...and here we are today....

512 dead and counting.

In this same vein, the Center for American Progress has "A chronology of how the Bush Administration repeatedly and deliberately refused to listen to intelligence agencies that said its case for war was weak" called: Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings. You absolutely must read it.

posted by I.C. @ 5:39 PM |

Very good news for John Kerry and Howard Dean in NH. Bad news for Clark, Lieberman, and Edwards, but Edwards can call it a safe loss. The race is back where I expected it to be, with Dean facing off with an untested Kerry instead of Clark. Dean is facing upwards momentum, Kerry is coasting on the glory phase of frontrunnership which will have its brakes slammed as soon as he gets the test by fire that Dean got.

Just for your own information, here's the real results, compared to the ARG poll and the Zogby polls from yesterday:

Kerry 38.5% (ARG: 35%) (Zogby: 37%)
Dean 26.2% (A: 25%) (Z: 24%)
Clark 12.4% (A: 13%) (Z: 9%)
Edwards 12.1 % (A: 15%) (Z: 12%)
Lieberman 8.6% (A: 6%) (Z: 9%)
Kucinich 1.4% (A: 1%) (Z: 3%)

Also interesting, in NH, if you want to change party affiliation, you have to write in a Republican name on the Democratic Party Ballot, or the other way around. There were 103 Write In's for GW on the Democratic Ballot, and about 4300 total write ins for Democrats on the Republican ballot (nearly 1400 for Kerry alone). Bush won New Hampshire by only 7200 votes in 2000. Maybe this is meaningless, but it could be a signal of a greater siphoning of Republican votes than Democratic votes. GW only got 85% of Republican votes cast in an unopposed primary.

-and then...?

posted by Eryk @ 3:21 AM |

All the best, my friend. I hope whatever you have to do works for you and that you come out of the darkness you're in sooner than later. There are things more important than liberal and conservative. Be well soon.

posted by Anonymous @ 1:04 AM |

I've been meaning to write this post for a long time, but never got around to it (those of you with children, you know). It's just as well. Daniel Ellsberg was the best person to make this argument anyway, and now he's finally done it.

The media have allowed the Bush administration to play cat-and-mouse with the public for too long. The media have obediently followed every Bush misdirection ploy to distract voters from the truth about the war (Hey, everybody, we're going to Mars! In 25 years or so.). On those rare occasions when the Democrats point out Bush's malfeasance, the media focus intently on Dean's rage or Clark's sweaters or Kerry's wife.

The media, in short, have demonstrated that they are utterly incompetent at their job.

So it's up to the insiders to come forward and tell their stories, and force the media to report them, make them front page news for days, weeks and months, so that everyone will know that a vote for Bush in November is a vote for criminal political opportunism, a vote for war profiteering, a vote of approval for lies and manipulation.

More at edwardpig.

posted by David Bailey @ 12:41 AM |

Kevin Phillips used to really piss me off. Back in the 1990's he'd get on NPR or some talking-heads show to excoriate Bill Clinton and the Democrats like all the other pompous and smug right-wingers - Bill Bennett, George F. Will, William Kristol, et al - and he did it with a professorial and studied manner of condescension that made me want to just slap him.

But in the last few years Phillips has had a come-to-Jesus conversion and has turned his wrath on Bush, and not just George W. In his new book American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, he takes it all the way back to before the start of the 20th century to include the partnership between George H. Walker and Samuel Bush and up through the business career of Senator Prescott Bush, father of George H.W. Bush, all the way to the present day. Joan Walsh in Salon.com takes a look at it.

Read more at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

posted by Mustang Bobby @ 8:01 AM |

I haven’t been able to reach Pandagon since Friday. Is anyone else having this problem? Does anyone know what the straight poop is on this? Are Jesse and Ezra under siege again, is it just me, or is something else going on? Did someone open the box and, upon finding no cat at all, cause the quantum wave function to collapse into a different shared reality with no Jesse and Ezra? And if so how will that effect the New Hampshire primary?

Just wondering.

posted by John McKay @ 3:54 PM |

I picked up Turbo Tax yesterday morning on the way home from the supermarket, and by the early afternoon I had finished and electronically filed my return. I should get my refund in a couple of weeks. It won't be a lot - another payment on the Mustang, maybe, or a donation to the Inge Festival - but at least my taxes are over and done with for another year.

I am one of the few people I know who has no complaint about paying taxes. That probably has to do with the fact that my taxes are pretty simple (single, no kids, no mortgage, one job, a pitance of interest earned) and it's been about twenty years since I've had to pay addtional taxes. (The last time I wrote a check to the IRS was thanks to an idiot stockbroker in Boulder who forget to explain to me about how capital gains will come back later and bite you in the ass.) But I don't really mind that much. It's the price we pay for what we take for granted in America, and if you want to fly first class, it's going to cost you something.

Read the rest at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

posted by Mustang Bobby @ 9:13 AM |