Juan Cole thinks BushCo is pressuring the FBI to hold off on several high-profile arrests — in the Valerie Plame case and in the Larry Franklin (likely Pentagon spy) case — until after the elections… Geez, what a cynic.

Judges are coming to their senses about the Patriot Act –

From today’s NYT:

A federal judge struck down an important surveillance provision of the antiterrorism legislation known as the USA Patriot Act yesterday, ruling that it broadly violated the Constitution by giving the federal authorities unchecked powers to obtain private information.

The ruling, by Judge Victor Marrero of Federal District Court in Manhattan, was the first to uphold a challenge to the surveillance sections of the act, which was adopted in October 2001 to expand the powers of the federal government in national security investigations.

The ruling invalidated one piece of the law, finding that it violated both free speech guarantees and protection against unreasonable searches. It is thought likely to provide fuel for other court challenges…

But the Torture Act marches on –

From the WaPo story:

Under the Hastert bill, U.S. authorities could send an immigrant to any country, regardless of the likelihood of torture or abuse. The measure would shift to the deportee the burden of proving “by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured” — a burden that human rights activists say is impossible to satisfy. It would bar a U.S. court from reviewing the regulations, which would fall under the secretary of homeland security.

The provision would apply retroactively, to people now in detention and those who may have already been secretly deported under classified procedures to countries with well-documented histories of torture and human rights violations.

It also would allow U.S. authorities to deport foreigners convicted of any felony or suspected of having links to terrorist groups to any country — even somewhere that is not a person’s home country or place of birth, contrary to current practice.

If you’ve got the stomach for it –

The October Vanity Fair has an incredible piece on the theft of the 2000 election. I’ve only been able to skim it so far, which is probably a good thing. I’m sure I’ll have more to say tomorrow. SCOTUSblog provides the article in two PDFs, here and here.

Here’s what we all need to know –

about the forged document story that CBS killed after embarrassing itself over Bush’s Guard documents. It’s the story of how Bush tricked the nation (well, 50% of it, anyway; the other half resisted) into an unjustified invasion of Iraq.

Since it’s all about the post-debate spin –

the DNC has sent out an e-mail providing the URLs of online post-debate polls. Here’s where you can vote/comment on the “performances”:

ABC News

CBS News

CNN

Fox News

MSNBC

USA Today

“Rights are like muscles, they disappear if you don’t use them.” –

Please read the whole thing. Here’s an important excerpt:

We should always, especially when it is difficult, exercise our freedoms of speech and assembly, and I mean the word exercise. Rights are like muscles, they atrophy and aren’t there when you need them if you don’t use them. The first amendment is in trouble not just because of John Ashcroft and the USA Patriot Act, but because of a pall of self-censorship – some have spoken up with great courage, but many have been silenced not simply by the acts of the authorities but by the prison of their own fear. Still, if people could stand up to Pinochet, if the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo could march in Buenos Aires during the time of the generals, if people spoke up in Prague in the 1980s, we can take a stand here, far more than we do. An atmosphere of repression exists specifically because people don’t speak up against it. When you speak up, you are not repressed – you might be suppressed or punished, but you have freed yourself. Too, a tyranny can rise more easily by shutting up a thousand people than a million, and that’s a reason to stand up and speak out.

(And here’s the very important report she cites.)

Please read this important post on legislation that will make torture tactics even easier, and then write your representatives!

“(Cheney) was against getting bogged down in Iraq before he was for it.” –

John Edwards, on Don Imus today, in response to this delicious discovery of a significant Cheney flip-flop (which you really should read, to see how insightful Cheney was 12 years ago).

Bush’s ever-shifting rationale for invading Iraq –

Wouldn’t it be fun if, in one of the upcoming “debates,” someone asked Bush to reconcile his many rationales for invading Iraq?

“The (Crawford, TX) Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.” –

When I linked yesterday to the story about Bush’s hometown paper, I should have urged you: don’t just relish the news — read the editorial, because it’s quite good. Here’s how it starts:

Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:

• Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.

• Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.

• Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.

• Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.

• Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.

• Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and

• Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.

These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.

The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.

Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.

Negativists and naysayers –

From WaPo yesterday:

A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.

Actually, we’ve already got the state-run television; it’s called FOX –

David Sirota:

“Our political system is starting to resemble the kind of banana republic authoritarianism we claim to despise. The only things missing are government-sponsored mural portraits of George W. Bush splashed on sides of buildings and state-run television.

Who knows? With Bush’s aircraft carrier stunt, Fox News’ incessant propaganda, and the White House now telling journalists it has a “different set of rules” for those who give too much coverage to the president’s opponents, anything is possible.”

How goes that Faith Based Intiatives program? –

How else? It goes to favorites, it goes with no accountability, and it goes without any measurable results. Modus operandi. If this were a Democratic initiative, Republicans would be demanding congressional hearings and independent investigators. See Amy Sullivan for more.

The sad thing is, I’m not at all surprised at this –

Most Bush supporters know nothing about his positions:

Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto Treaty on global warming (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44%) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%). However, majorities were correct that Bush favors increased defense spending (57%) and wants the US, not the UN, to take the stronger role in developing Iraq’s new government (70%). (via Daily Kos)

Via Body and Soul last week, I learned about about What She Said - an all-female blogger roll (addressing the widespread perception that there aren’t many female bloggers). If you’re newly visiting from the Left At The Altar profile there, welcome and thanks for your interest! And if you haven’t visited What She Said, do check it out.

Debatable –

I caught NPR’s “Fresh Air” this afternoon as I was driving back from class, and the substitute host was talking with James Fallows, who analyzed Bush and Kerry’s debate styles for a recent feature in the Atlantic Monthly. He played some audio clips, contrasting the Bush of 1994 — speaking (for him) rather fluently and with fairly complex, well-formed thoughts and words — with the Bush of today. (He also played a segment of a Kerry debate.) The interviewer asked about the obvious differences in 1994 Bush and 2004 Bush, and Fallows offered up two possibilities: first, that Bush speaks the way he does now on purpose, trying to sound “tough” and “direct,” and second, that Bush is more comfortable in his encounters with clearly friendly audiences, and in less formal settings. (Hmm, nothing about the presenile dementia hypothesis.) Today, Krugman and Marshall both remind us where the outcome of any presidential debate is ultimately decided: in the post-debate cable and network spinfest, where the really important things like body language are analyzed.

Bush’s hometown paper endorses… Kerry! –

Daily Kos has the story and excerpts.

More (and more) on the Republican “Block the vote!” movement – Here are parts 3 and 4 of Moving Ideas’ series on manipulating elections. The first two parts, which I linked to a little while back, are available there, too.

As long as we’re on the subject of Bush Democracy –

Here is a story about the administration’s plans to buy off the Iraqi elections.

If you keep a lot of antacid on hand –

You might want to stick this electoral vote count site on your “favorite list.” Take note (take heart?) of this observation: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the pollsters are producing the results that the people paying the bills want to hear. Even pollsters who were once thought to be above suspicion are now suspicious. Gallup, for example, is now normalizing its samples to include 40% Republicans, even though the 2000 exit polls showed the partisan distribution to be 39% Democratic, 35% Republican.” (Which reminds me, did you see MoveOn.Org’s ad in today’s NYT paper edition?

While Bush was failing to find oil in Texas –

John Kerry was spending his first term “in the Senate investigating the Iran-Contra drug scandal in Nicaragua, the role of the Panamanian government in drug trafficking and the corrupt activities at the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI).” Read more here and here.

Fewer choices, higher costs –

Um, was this how BushCo advertised the Medicare reforms?

“Seeds represent entire civilizations, miniaturized to fit into the palm of our hand” –

A food historian tries to preserve heritage seeds against agribusiness’ monoculture mentality… The article reminds me of a cool preservation group I knew of when I lived in Tucson, Native Seeds/SEARCH; they’re still at it.

Hey, the Bill Foundation needs your help –

This rescue organization does great work, and lots of it, but they’re out of money (if you link, scroll to the bottom of that page for the story of Ferris). Throw ‘em a bone if you can.

I said I wouldn’t use that word again, so here goes –

“In another (pick one) shameful/reproachful/repugnant display of (pick one) deceit/dishonesty/treachery” Republicans continue refining their fear, intimidation and voter disenfranchisement programs. (If you have the time, follow the links in that last one to some really useful analyses.)

Ron Reagan Jr in an interview with the Sunday Herald–

“The reality of this administration is so ugly that most Americans, even those who are more or less opposed to the administration, really don’t want to come to grips with that. This is an administration that has cheated to get into the White House. It’s not something Americans ever want to think about their government. My sense of these people is that they don’t have any respect for the public at large. They have a revolutionary mindset. I think they feel that anything they can do to prevail - lie, cheat, whatever - is justified by their revolutionary aims.”

For those who prefer to think in graphics –

NYT has a cool interactive graphic feature that tracks Bush’s approval ratings, the money race, House and Senate races by state, etc.

Kinder, gentler homophobia? –

“By way of explaining that it’s her Christian duty to love all homosexuals, Maureen explains that God loves Jeffrey Dahmer, too. Then she produces this theory about people whose sexuality is non-hetero: ‘I think the reality is that there are mistakes. There are handicapped people too. There are people that are retarded. We are not perfect. God does not make us all perfect.’”…Jana Prikryl reviews two thought-provoking books describing two very different paths taken by gay Christians.

Words of caution from the election monitor par excellence –

Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote

By Jimmy Carter

Monday, September 27, 2004; Page A19

After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American rlectoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act’s key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.

The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.

The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: “Why don’t you observe the election in Florida?” and “How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?”

The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

The most significant of these requirements are:

• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida.

It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state’s leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.

The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Nader’s name be included on absentee ballots even before the state Supreme Court ruled on the controversial issue.

Florida’s governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.

It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida.

Taking the “high road” with the Republicans —

You just have to see it (and here’s a bit of useful explication on the GOP’s increasingly repulsive and widespread efforts to simply scare voters into voting for Bush)

Not that I’m paranoid or anything –

And at least one of you will be sure to let me know that I am, but what are the chances that CBS got duped into accepting forged documents on Bush’s guard service precisely so that they would be completely discredited/discouraged from running this far more important and credible story on the administration’s being duped by forged documents on Hussein’s fictional attempts to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger, a story that has much darker and more far-reaching implications?

Settling for proportional voting in Iraq –

As Josh Marshall points out, Rumsfeld’s new plan for elections in Iraq has a precedent in the Supreme Court’s Florida decision.

Does Not Compute –

Try to square this with the happy talk coming from Bush and Allawi (the latter of whom went on Newshour and said, of course among other things, that (a) the press is focusing on negatives in Iraq and (b) if Hussein were still in power, there would have been more terrorist attacks on US soil, by now, a claim that even Colin Powell can’t bring himself to support): “Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government.” (In the process of trying to keep the regain the upper hand, the US is presently killing more Iraqi civilians than the insurgents are.)

Googlebombing –I comb Google News regularly, and am always startled by how many - as Josh Marshall puts it - “fringy right-wing nutball sites” appear as newslistings. The apparent explanation: Googlebombing by fringy right-wing nutballs.

Why can’t HE say that? –

It’s kind of a problem when a journalist does a better job of explaining John Kerry’s positionon Iraq than John Kerry does than John Kerry does.

This will probably surprise you –

A Boston Globe analysis finds that both presidential candidates engage in exaggeration and cherry-picking… “But Bush appears to be the worse offender this year, in terms of the number of misleading claims and the consistency of their appearance in his stump speech. A review of Bush’s public statements in recent days reveals a number of areas where he is repeatedly using exaggerated claims and incomplete statistics, in an apparent attempt to fit his campaign themes.”

Another language threatened –

The last woman proficient in Nushu died last week (thanks for the heads-up, JC):

Yang Huanyi, China’s last woman proficient in the mysterious Nushu language, died at her home last week. She was thought to be 98. Yang learned possibly the world’s only female-specific language from seven sworn sisters as a girl. Nushu characters are structured by four kinds of strokes, including dots, horizontals, verticals and arcs. Linguists believe her death marks the end of a 400-year-old tradition in which women shared their innermost feelings through codes incomprehensible to men.

Here’s a story from earlier this year (”Each word is like a flower,” Hu Cui Cui, aged 12), and some info on Nushu.

Hmmmm –

“Islam has made several trips to the United States in recent years, including one in May for a charity event and to promote a DVD of his 1976 MajiKat tour. He donated half the royalties from his most recent boxed set to the Sept. 11 Fund to help victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.” So then… Why exactly was it necessary to deport him THIS MONTH, in a breathless morning news headline-dominating scarefest, and not in May or during any of his previous “recent” trips to the US?

Emblairessment –

I have a friend who, for awhile, kept pointing to Blair’s endorsement of the Iraq invasion as “proof” that Bush and the neocons were right to pursue it, because Blair - afterall - is an intelligent and reasonable man, not given to reckless impulses that disregard the advice of experts and the lessons of history. Then again…

“Tony Blair was last night forced on to the defensive over Iraq after explosive leaked documents revealed that he was warned a year before the invasion that a war could send the country into meltdown. The Prime Minister was advised by officials that the country risked ‘reverting to type’ - with a succession of military coups installing a dictator who could then go on to acquire his own weapons of mass destruction - and that British troops would be trapped in Iraq ‘for many years’.

Even his own foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, concluded in a private note that President Bush had no answer to the big questions about the invasion - including ‘what happens on the morning after?’ The memos, showing how detailed military planning was even a year before the invasion, will prompt renewed questions about whether better planning for the aftermath of war could have prevented the bloodshed now engulfing Iraq.”

Election Protection Volunteer Opportunities –

For those who have the resources and flexibility, here’s an opportunity to PROTECT THIS ELECTION! Hats off to my friends DC and CW who are taking their vacation in Florida so that they can volunteer in Dade County on Election Day!

Words so good they hurt –

I’m pretty sure I linked to this piece by Hal Crowther before, but instead of hunting for that post, I’m going to link to it again. It’s one of the most eloquent pieces I’ve read on the realities of this election. Here’s a great bit of it, but please read the whole thing:

These are facts, not partisan rhetoric. Do any of them even make you restless? The cynical game these shape-shifters have been playing in the Middle East is too Byzantine to unravel in 1,000 pages of text. But the hypocrisy of the White House is palpable, and beggars belief. If there’s one American who actually believes that Operation Iraqi Freedom was about democracy for the poor Iraqis, then you, my friend, are too dangerously stupid to be allowed near a voting booth.

Does it bother you even a little that the personal fortunes of all four Bush brothers, including the president and the governor, were acquired about a half step ahead of the district attorney, and that the royal family of Saudi Arabia invested $1.476 billion in those and other Bush family enterprises? Or, as Paul Krugman points out, that it’s much easier to establish links between the Bush and bin Laden families than any between the bin Ladens and Saddam Hussein. Do you know about Ahmad Chalabi, the administration’s favorite Iraqi and current agent in Baghdad, whose personal fortune was established when he embezzled several hundred million from his own bank in Jordan and fled to London to avoid 22 years at hard labor? That’s just a sampling from my haystack. Maybe I can reach you as an environmentalist, one who resents the gutting of key provisions in the Clean Air Act? My own Orange County, N.C., chiefly a rural area, was recently added to a national register of counties with dangerously polluted air. You say you vote for the president because you’re a conservative. Are you sure? I thought conservatives believed in civil liberties, a weak federal executive, an inviolable Constitution, a balanced budget and an isolationist foreign policy. George Bush has an attorney general who drives the ACLU apoplectic and a vice president who demands more executive privilege (for his energy séances) than any elected official has ever received. The president wants a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage from homosexuals, of all things. Between tax cuts for his high-end supporters and three years playing God and Caesar in the Middle East, George Bush has simply emptied America’s wallet with a $480 billion federal deficit projected for 2004 and the tab on Iraq well over $100 billion and running. “A lot of so-called conservatives today don’t know what the word means,” Barry Goldwater said in 1994, when the current cult of right-wing radicals and “neocons” had begun to define and assert themselves. Goldwater was my first political hero, before I was old enough to read his flaws. But his was the conservatism of the wolf — the lone wolf — and this is the conservatism of sheep.

All it takes to make a Bush conservative is a few slogans from talk radio and pickup truck bumpers, a sneer at “liberals” and maybe a name-dropping nod to Edmund Burke or John Locke, whom most of them have never read. Sheep and sheep only could be herded by a ludicrous but not harmless cretin like Rush Limbaugh, who has just compared the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners to “a college fraternity prank” (and who once called Chelsea Clinton “the family dog” — you don’t have to worry about shame when you have no brain).

I don’t think it’s accurate to describe America as polarized between Democrats and Republicans, or between liberals and conservatives. It’s polarized between the people who believe George Bush and the people who do not. Thanks to some contested ballots in a state governed by the president’s brother, a once-proud country has been delivered into the hands of liars, thugs, bullies, fanatics and thieves. The world pities or despises us, even as it fears us. What this election will test is the power of money and media to fool us, to obscure the truth and alter the obvious, to hide a great crime against the public trust under a blood-soaked flag. The most lavishly funded, most cynical, most sophisticated political campaign in human history will be out trolling for fools. I pray to God it doesn’t catch you.”

What happens on November 3rd? –

Here’s what Alternet’s Kim Haddow and Holly Minch say:

If Bush Wins

We may all be tempted to apply for Canadian citizenship in the event that President Bush wins his first election. But a Bush victory means serious work for progressives.

Consider the political positioning of your organization: What can we do to stave off four more years of disaster? If Bush is (re?) elected and you are working to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act, raise the minimum wage, or secure voting rights for convicted felons – you may need to forget federal action and work the grassroots and statehouses even harder. Now is the time for a serious strategy re-assessment.

If Kerry Wins

After the dancing in the streets, after the effects of celebratory champagne, we’ve still got work to do. Many progressives may be tempted to go home and forget about politics for a while. But if we want to make a Kerry win meaningful, we have to be strategic and smart starting November 3rd.

Progressive groups will have a real opportunity to redefine their political positioning. We’ll all have to consider what we need to do to position ourselves to influence the new Administration. How can we position ourselves to see policy victories over the next four years?

And how fast do we need to mobilize to do it? Kerry will be looking for administrative action in the first 100 days to overturn damage done by the Bush administration, and we should be ready to supply him with ideas on the issues that matter to us.

A Kerry win will also mean some fundamental shifts in organizational thinking. Progressive groups will need to evaluate their programs and shift from a defensive posture to a proactive one. Now is the time to retool. Are there issues or campaigns you want to launch in this new environment? This also applies to organizing and messaging.

If No One Wins

There’s a very real possibility that we may experience another cliffhanger. Given how close the margins are expected to be in many states, we may see recounts that drag on for days or weeks. And it may not be just the White House this time around – we may also see recounts in hotly contested Senate races that have the ability to tip the balance of power.

If you are working in a swing state where the election is contested and recounts are hot, for heaven’s sake mobilize! Take a lesson from the 2000 Bush campaign, which turned out supporters, credible talking heads and staged rallies from day one of the Florida recount. Be vocal and visible in case of a recount in your area. Work the media, who will undoubtedly descend upon the story like bees to honey.

There’s more here.

Debates –

Yesterday morning, getting ready for work, I heard a reporter on “Good Morning America!” talking about how brutally divisive this election is, and how deep and heated the sentiments run. He showed a clip of Kerry supporters “beating up” a Bush supporter, and a clip of Bush supporters “beating up” a Kerry supporter, and then said that even the format of the debates specifies that the candidates not be near each other — almost implying they might just come to fisticuffs themselves. No, one suspects the greater issue in the debate format specifications is that Kerry will physically tower over Bush, and the Bush campaign doesn’t want that to be too apparent for too long (in the first round of 2000 debates, if I remember correctly, Bush was given a riser to stand on). It’s remarkably shallow, of course, but in this campaign, macho image does appear to be everything.

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(1) I linked to this fabulous cartoon briefly back in July, but at the time, the SF Chronicle didn’t archive their strips and the link vanished after a couple of days. Now they’re archived! So go and enjoy more of Donald Asmussen’s “Bad Reporter”!

(2) I’m very lucky: I have friends write wonderfully, think clearly, exhibit much more patience and generosity of spirit than I, and demonstrate it more regularly than I deserve to enjoy in the emails they send. Here’s an example, from my friend and occasional “comment” contributor, Anne, who was able to attend a talk by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton last night:

“I just got back from hearing Bishop Gumbleton, and he was WONDERFUL — so inspiring. His general topic was, how to be people of peace in a post-9/11 world. He spoke of the foundation for peacemaking as resting on the twin pillars of justice and forgiveness, the latter defined as “that particularly Christian way of love: enemy-love.” He drew on the scriptures to show how Jesus stood for these two foundational practices that can be seen as embracing the concept and practice of nonviolence. I was especially struck by this statement: “Jesus taught us how to die, not how to kill.” It reminded me, again, of Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” (Old non-inclusive translation!) Gumbleton told many stories of people he has met in his travels, famous and not, who exemplify the way of nonviolence in their work for justice and love. I was very moved by all this, and inspired to keep on with the work to get change in the leadership of our country — not only change from what we have now, but continuing work for change away from using force and war to solve problems. You just contrast what I heard tonight with the claims of G.W. to be Christian, and it makes you want to weep. Thank God for the prophets we have in our midst!”

(3) The numerous critical responses to Bush’s speech to the UN made me read it more closely, which allowed me to take note of this gem: “We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.” I wonder if he tried that shoe on before he said it? (Gruesomely mixed metaphor intended.)

Kofi Annan also spoke to the UN yesterday: “Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it, and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it.” Hmmm… I didn’t find the entire transcript, so I have no context; I wonder, whoever could he be talking about?

(4) I hope he’s wrong, but Juan Cole’s observation is consistent with human behavior in other risky situations.

(5) I’m not as keen a Michael Moore fan as many on the political left, though I appreciate his documentaries. But he can be counted upon to rally the troops just when it’s needed, and his message this week is pretty darn good…

(6) Even the Air Force Times sounds suspicious of Bush’s “honorable

discharge.” (Via Daily Kos)

(7) This would really be a problem if a gay man were desperate enough to “look at (him) like that”… Jimmy Swaggart says “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.” As this article points out, Swaggart’s threat amounts to hate speech, which is - among other things - an FCC violation. Let’s see if the FCC takes the same principled stand on homophobic hate speech that it takes with nipple exposures.

( OK, just GUESS who wrote this:

“Osama bin Laden is saying exactly what the enemies of the western empires said through the 20th century: The price of your occupation, the price of your empire in our world, is terror. The Islamic terrorists of 9/11 were over here because we were over there. We took sides in a religious civil war, their war, and they want us out of that war. The 15 hijackers from Saudi Arabia did not fly into the World Trade Center to protest the Bill of Rights. They want us off sacred Saudi soil and out of the Middle East.”

Patrick Buchanan! In a book (perhaps even more shockingly) recommended by Liz Smith.

(9) The Pentagon is selectively blocking access to the Federal Voting Assistance Program web site - the site through which most American civilians living overseas register to vote. An anonymous DOD employee spoke with Salon:

“This is a completely partisan thing,” one Defense Department voting official told Salon. The official, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being fired, is one of the many people in the department assigned to help both uniformed military personnel as well as American civilians register to vote. The offical described the Pentagon as extremely diligent in its efforts to register soldiers stationed overseas — for instance, voting assistance officers have been told by the department to personally meet with all of the soldiers in their units in order to help them register. But the department has ignored its mandate to help overseas civilians who want to vote, the official said.

Not surprisingly, political pollsters believe that uniformed military personnel, especially military officers, lean toward Republicans in their voting habits; American civilians who live abroad, meanwhile, are particularly progressive. One recent Zogby survey, for example, showed that voters with passports supported Kerry over Bush by a margin of 55 to 33 percent.

The official — a self-described Democrat who adheres to requirements of non-partisanship as a voting officer — could see no explanation other than pure political trickery in the Pentagon’s decision to block the FVAP Web site. “There is no way in hell that this is not a deliberate partisan attempt to systematically disenfranchise a large Democratic voting bloc,” the official said.

I’ve been taken to task for recently using the term “repugnican” when I am repulsed by Republican tactics — tactics such as tampering with election databases, intimidating non-Republican voters, distributing literature with incorrect election dates in neighborhoods where the electorate is less likely to vote Republican, distributing outright falsehoods as campaign literature, paying party operatives to make up lies about Democratic candidates, slandering the patriotism or service records of Democratic veterans, manipulpating legislative processes so that there is no possibility for fair votes, and perhaps even orchestrating the whole CBS guard document dispute. For Bush-era Republicans, the “ends justify the means” every time. No matter the means. And that disgusts me. It offends me as a Christian, it disgusts me as a human. But my admittedly small-minded “repugnican” designation has been compared (in private correspondence, not in the comments below) to — are you ready for this? — the vitriol spewed by Rush Limbaugh. The man whose utterances amount to inflammatory hate speech strung together with conjunctions. The mind, she boggles. If anyone else has taken that much offense, I deeply apologize. It was small of me, yes; Limbaughian — never occurred to me. In the future, when I am remarking on a repugnant tactic being deployed by the Republican party, I will clearly introduce it with something like, “in another (pick one) shameful/reproachful/repugnant display of (pick one) deceit/dishonesty/treachery, the RNC…” instead of using my petty shorthand.

Good EJ Dionne column, but don’t expect anything to come of it –

But a guy who is supposed to be so frank and direct turns remarkably Clintonian where the National Guard issue is concerned. “I met my requirements and was honorably discharged” is Bush’s stock answer, which does old Bill proud. And am I the only person exasperated by a double standard that treated everything Bill Clinton ever did in his life (”I didn’t inhale”) as fair game but now insists that we shouldn’t sully ourselves with any inconvenient questions about Bush’s past?

I’m as weary as you are that our politics veer away from what matters — Iraq, terrorism, health care, jobs — and get sidetracked into personal issues manufactured by political consultants and ideological zealots. But the Bush campaign has made clear it wants this election to focus on character and leadership. If character is the issue, the president’s life, past and present, matters just as much as John Kerry’s.

The company he keeps –

DeLay’s top PAC consultants have been indicted.

Bush’s speech to the UN –

If you can’t bear to listen to it, you can always read it. Seems to have taken a kinder, gentler tone since UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reminded everyone that this war was illegal.

George Bush’s version of “democracy” –

Sue Niederer attended a speech by Laura Bush and demanded the First Lady tell us when her children were going to serve; for her forthrightness, she was arrested and charged with trespassing. Charges have since been dropped.

I soooooo want to see this museum! –

The National Museum of the American Indian is open and looks spectacular.