Ow ow ow ow ow. Ow ow OW, ow ow ow ow. Ow, ow ow ow, ow ow.
Ow.
Ow.
October 2004 Archives
I am watching a copy of Eminem's new video, "Mosh".
I have newfound respect for Eminem.
Did I just say that out loud?
See Bush in action! This image is made of stills from a video taken while he was governor of Texas. Click here to see the whole thing.
I hesitate to make too much of the whole thing. There are plenty of stories about Kerry being less than warm and fuzzy, plus I am the woman who cannot resist sticking my tongue out and making horrible faces in the presence of a camera. Then again, I'm not running for higher office. Or lower office. Or anything.
Anyway, it's the most hilarious performance on film since Wolfowitz's spit-and-polish hair grooming.
This is a good article, and one that I wish I'd gotten to read a couple of months ago!
Some Republicans.... were willing to talk. I reached Mark in Portland, Oregon after dialing the wrong number. When I asked him if he was interested in voting Democrat, he replied, "No, I'm a hardcore Republican and very much in favor of the war; in fact, I'm in favor of World War III."
When we reach people who have made up their minds, we usually end the conversation, but I had to tell Mark that I was uncomfortable talking to someone who supports killing innocent people.
"War isn't easy, but it's our only option," he responds.
As we talk about the war and Republican values, his position gradually grows more moderate. He concedes that right wing fundamentalists have hijacked the Republican party, but is hopeful it will move back to the center in another four years. Before we say goodbye, Mark thanks me for calling and says while he doesn't agree with me, he hopes ReDefeat Bush keeps up the good work.
I may be the last person on the Internet to have seen this, but boy is it funny. If you haven't heard it yet, though, imagine the following lines purred by a sexy female voice.
Favorite lines:
"I want your smoking gun to come in the form in a mushroom cloud!"
"Your coalition is so big! ... Your coalition is so willing!"
"Oh, enter Fallujah now! Pull out. Pull out quickly! Let me finish! Mmm. Mission accomplished!"
"I'm wearing my religion on my sleeve! If only I was wearing some clothes!"
Sooo... What do you wear to a civil war, anyway?
I'm keeping a list of Republicans/conservatives (fiscal and otherwise)/libertarians who have endorsed Kerry. I just added this one to the list (requires registration to read; try Bugmenot).
This is the argument that resonates strongly with me:
Endorsing Bush, however, would be tantamount to an endorsement of the administration's past and continued mistakes, not only at home, but in Iraq.
Bad performance, bad deeds should never be rewarded.
"Girl blog[ger] from Iraq" Riverbend has written a long and thoughtful post on our election next week. Of course, I agree with her 110% on her main point — get Bush the hell out of the White House! — so I am probably considered hopelessly biased.
Here's something else she said, though...
I think many of us realized long ago that American foreign policy really had nothing to do with this Democrat or that Republican.
It sometimes seems, from this part of the world, that democracy in America revolves around the presidential elections — not the major decisions. War and peace in America are in the average American’s hands about as much as they are in mine. Sure, you can vote for this man or that one, but in the end, there’s something bigger, more intricate and quite sinister behind the decisions. Like in that board game Monopoly, you can choose the game pieces- the little shoe, the car, the top hat… but you can’t choose the way the game is played. The faces change but the intentions and the policy remain the same.
I've had a conversation about this last week... that nothing will really change fundamentally if the Democrats re)gain power. We'll still be playing the same international games, backing the wrong leaders, etc. It disturbs me and I don't know what the answer is. The Green Party? River mentions an Iraqi saying "'Lo tetla’a nakhla ib rasseh' (if a palm tree grows out of his head)" — I much suspect this corrolates to the phrase "And monkeys might fly out of my butt."
Still, we've got to start somewhere. We can't keep going this way.
Some people associate the decision to go to war as a ‘strength’. How strong do you need to be to commit thousands of your countrymen and women to death on foreign soil? Especially while you and your loved ones sit safely watching at home. How strong do you need to be to give orders to bomb cities to rubble and use the most advanced military technology available against a country with a weak army and crumbling infrastructure? You don’t need to be strong — you need to be mad.
Exactly.
Spotted on the Ave...
Somebody responded very creatively to a spilled beverage. |
The guy that owns this store is a rabid, and I do mean, rabid, Republican. |
I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, but now I have an excuse! A friend of mine from Leicester is visiting the Bay Area for the first time with her husband, and they're trying to plan their week. So here are my suggestions, starting with San Francisco itself...
Continue reading San Francisco Bay Area 101.
A friend calls me and leaves a message on my voicemail. "I've been having the weirdest dreams every night. Last night I dreamed that I went on a date with Mary Cheney. Her mother was the biggest bitch, kept saying things like, "Huh. She's not even a real lesbian!" about me. God, I can't wait until this election is over!"
A group named PIPA (like my niece!) has released a very interesting report...
Bush Supporters Misread Many of His Foreign Policy Positions
Kerry Supporters Largely Accurate / Swing Voters Also Misread Bush, But Not Kerry
As the nation prepares to watch the presidential candidates debate foreign policy issues, a new PIPA-Knowledge Networks poll finds that Americans who plan to vote for President Bush have many incorrect assumptions about his foreign policy positions. Kerry supporters, on the other hand, are largely accurate in their assessments. The uncommitted also tend to misperceive Bush’s positions, though to a smaller extent than Bush supporters, and to perceive Kerry’s positions correctly. Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments: “What is striking is that even after nearly four years President Bush’s foreign policy positions are so widely misread, while Senator Kerry, who is relatively new to the public and reputed to be unclear about his positions, is read correctly.”
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%).
So this raises another interesting question. How the hell do you communicate with people who, when you try to present them with actual facts, clap their hands over their ears and start shouting "La la la la la, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!?!?!?!?"
A woman adopts Iraq as her country, she marries an Iraqi, she works for humanitarian causes her whole career, and this is the thanks she gets. Stupid kidnappers are hurting themselves and their country, stupid Bush and Blair caused the conditions that led to this.
So Bush is attacking Kerry's health plans by saying stuff like this:
"When the federal government starts to write the rules, the government decides who's covered and who gets the coverage and how much care you get."
A friend of mine was telling me about an acquaintance who was diagnosed a year or so ago with a brain tumor. She is a Kaiser patient. He asked her, "So, are you going to have surgery?" No, none of that. They won't pay for her to get a second opinion, they won't operate, they just told her to come back in a year and they'd monitor the tumor in some way. Yes, this is just anecdotal evidence, but you talk to people and you hear stories like that more frequently than you would like.
Newsflash, Mr. President: right now, health insurance companies get to decide who's covered and who gets the coverage and how much care you get. And if you aren't the president, your choices suck.
I get two!
One was from "Ned Beatty" with no subject mentioned. I've gotten a few messages from the Democratic Party or John Kerry which were written by a celebrity, so I was fooled. But nobody really knows who he is these days, or remembers his comic turn in Silver Streak, do they?
The other bore the intriguing subject line, "storming column of men".
Both messages were about low interest rates.
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." President Bush in March 2003, as quoted by Pat Robertson
I made a pendent:
and a bracelet (still need to buy a chain and clasp)
The bracelet was particularly tricky, since the corners kept breaking off when I tried drilling the holes for the wire. I ended up changing the design a bit because it was just getting too funky looking where I had to patch it. Luckily, I'm happy with the results! The pendant is the product of an experiment in which I made small clay leaves and stuck them on. Usually, stamping works better for me than trying to score clay by hand with a tool, but I like the way this came out too.
I'm on haitus from jewelry class for a few weeks while getting ready for the Big Event... looking forward to getting back to it!
TEHRAN, Iran - The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush (news - web sites) was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.
"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another. Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.
Heh. When we were canvassing in Reno, we walked by one scary house that had a sign up reading "Kerry is Osama's man, Bush is mine." Wonder what they'd make of this piece of news?
http://simonworld.mu.nu/archives/050971.php
"If they [the Democrats] turn out the minority vote in half a dozen cities, it gets very difficult to see how we win. That to me is the scariest thing in this race." GOP consultant Eddie Mahe in the L.A. Times. (Found via Body and Soul)
From today's Chronicle, an interview with novelist Orhan Pamuk:
It's arguably the most acclaimed novel of the year. In August alone, "Snow" was lauded in the pages of the New Yorker (by John Updike, no less) and on the cover of the New York Times Book Review (by Margaret Atwood). Two months earlier, even President Bush lavished praise on the book's author, saying Orhan Pamuk "has been a bridge between cultures."
Pamuk is both happy and irritated -- happy because, at age 52, he's accomplished what no Turkish novelist ever has: Fame and fortune at home and abroad, writing about characters who are sandwiched by the influence of East and West. Pamuk's irritation is visible when Bush's comments are mentioned. Sitting in a San Francisco cafe, Pamuk searches for a diplomatic way of saying the president was out of bounds when he spoke at a NATO meeting in Istanbul. Finally, Pamuk settles on a direct response.
"His speechwriters pulled things from my articles in which I said, in effect, that one thing we have to learn about civilization is that people are the same everywhere -- and that this (should bring) peace," Pamuk says. "But Bush has never acted this way. With the Iraq war, he made regular citizens of Islamic countries full of resentment against the U.S. and the West. I never wanted this. All my art is based on (the premise) that East and West can get together."
To which I'd add: I read The Black Book, one of his earlier novels. It took me two attempts to do so. It is brilliant, but extremely confusing to me. Postmodern doesn't even begin to cover it. There is no way in hell that Bush even read the back cover, much less any of his books.
The U.K.-based paper The Guardian, which I love dearly but which is not regarded with total trust by some of a less-than-lefty pursuasion, has launched a campaign allowing readers abroad to send messages to voters in the swing state of Ohio and urge them to vote against Bush.
The result:
"We know that in many ways this is the world's election, and we understand the passion and concern in many parts of the world over it. But I wonder how people here in the UK would react to Americans telling them how to vote," Democrats Abroad's Manitta said.
"This will certainly garner more votes for George Bush. I have strongly advised other media entities who have come to me and suggested this against doing so," she added.
While some e-mails to the Guardian from Democrats in Ohio were supportive, others suggested the campaign was misguided.
But their mild admonitions paled into insignificance against the more reactionary views received by the paper.
"Real Americans aren't interested in your pansy-ass, tea-sipping opinions. If you want to save the world, begin with your own worthless corner of it," wrote one from Texas.
They did acknowledge that this could be somewhat risky...
It's worth considering at the outset how counterproductive this might all be, especially if approached undiplomatically. Anybody might be justifiably angered by the idea of a foreigner trying to interfere in their democratic process. But this year the issue is more charged than ever: the Bush/Cheney campaign has made a point of portraying Kerry as overly concerned about what other nations think, and the Democrat's ambiguous debate point about American foreign policy decisions needing to pass a "global test" has become one of the president's key lines of attack. "People don't necessarily want to hear what people from other countries have to say," says Rachelle Valladares, the London-based chair of Democrats Abroad. "If you contact someone you know personally in the States, and urge them to vote, it would probably carry twice the weight." Michael Dorf, a Columbia university law professor who has studied foreign influences on US elections, points out that it would not be to either candidate's advantage "to be seen as the candidate of the foreigners. Part of it's just xenophobia, but there is also a sense that, you know, this is our election: you vote for your parliament and prime minister, we vote for our president and Congress."
On the other hand, being from Britain ought to give you a certain leverage: in stump speeches and debates, Bush has repeatedly praised Tony Blair's cooperation over Iraq, making America's long-treasured alliance with the UK key to the president's defence of his foreign policy. Kerry, too, knows that he's speaking to a resilient strand of opinion when he emphasises the need for strong international alliances: a better coalition in Iraq, he constantly reiterates, might have saved US lives. (One recent poll suggested that 43% of Americans think that declining world respect for their nation is a "major problem".) As a British citizen, you can certainly wield some influence, but you could seriously alienate people too.
If you were resolved to win a war in Iraq, would you
3) Ignore a request from the top U.S. civilian running Iraq for more troops?
4) Allow Abu Ghraib to happen and not do a damn thing about it?
Hey, but as long as you have a strong will and a clear vision, and you're really resolved and shit, good job! Let's stay the course!
OK, I can't resist a translation:
1) Most hard-right Bush supporters aren't really paying attention to the real world and somehow missed the widely publicized fact that the vice president's daughter is gay (and in her 30s, and worked for Coors doing outreach to the lesbian and gay community, and that her father mentioned her l-status in speeches.)
2) John Kerry DELIBERATELY mentioned she was gay! On national television! In front of all those people! Omigod!
3) He could only have had dark and nefarious purposes! He should be very, very, very, very ashamed!
4) This horrible, horrible mistake should cost him the election.
5) Profit!
And then we don't have to talk about false rationales for war, rise in global terrorism, lack of post-war planning, Abu Ghraib, nearly 1100 dead soldiers, job losses, program gutting, environmental plunder, right-wing initiated preemptive culture wars, or anything else of substance.
What an asshole.
The Chicago Tribune endorses Bush.
"...For his resoluteness on the defining challenge of our age ... the Chicago Tribune urges the re-election of George W. Bush."
Ah, resoluteness!
I am absolutely resolute about losing 15 pounds! My goal has always been to lose a little weight. I have never had the goal of gaining weight. I have long resolved to lose these pounds!
(I also had french fries for dinner. Mmm. Tasty.)
OK, so there's more to this endorsement, that resoluteness thing, than that.
"Bush's sense of a president's duty to defend America is wider in scope than Kerry's, more ambitious in its tactics, more prone, frankly, to yield both casualties and lasting results. This is the stark difference on which American voters should choose a president."
I have also been ambitious in my tactics! I was walking an hour to BART in the mornings. In the last year, I also went to a health spa with my mother, joined the gym down the street so I could use their treadmill, and went on several great long hikes.
Mmm. Tasty fries. The weather is kind of bad right now, so I probably won't go for a walk tomorrow (although I guess I could dig up my umbrella.)
But I am serious about losing those 15 pounds! Resolute, one might say...
WASHINGTON - In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.
The slide said: "To Be Provided."
A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.
In fact, some senior Pentagon officials had thought they could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003. Instead, more than a year later, 138,000 U.S. troops are still fighting terrorists who slip easily across Iraq's long borders, diehards from the old regime and Iraqis angered by their country's widespread crime and unemployment and America's sometimes heavy boots.
"We didn't go in with a plan. We went in with a theory," said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.
From Post-war planning non-existent, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, October 17, 2004
"Stay the course"?
Lemming leadership...
Michael is calling Kerry supporters in Florida to ask them to volunteer for the campaign — trying to get them to join a door-to-door canvassing effort there. He just came in and said,
"This guy told me he can't do it — because next weekend he's going to Orlando to show Fahrenheit 911 to a bunch of people there, and the following weekend, he's showing it in Tampa!"
I said: "Man. People will just say ANYTHING to get out of volunteering!"
The Chronicle is running a series of articles about the impacts of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which happened on this date in 1989, on Santa Cruz and San Francisco.
This date is of particular interest to me because I was a student living in Santa Cruz at the time. More about that later...
Michael and I went out for sushi tonight and ended up seated at the bar next to a couple who were deeply engaged in a very earnest discussion of John Kerry and George Bush. I could not hear most of the details, but I did hear the man's very earnest and droning, let-me-explain-it-to-you-little-lady voice, and the occasional sentence fragment ("Kerry played his card first." "He should have talked about his record more," etc. etc.) I didn't hear as much from the woman, perhaps because she could barely get a word in edgewise. She was clearly supporting Kerry, Michael managed to pick up, and she was clearly not loving this conversation.
When we left the restaurant, Michael exclaimed, "I couldn't stand another minute. He was so pompous and kept speaking in catchphrases. 'We have to stay the course.'"
So I told him about the man I heard on NPR the other day who claimed that his support for Bush was justified by business priniciples.
And it made me think. A female friend of mine told me that "you vote with your gut." I find that notion somewhat appalling, since, personally, my gut has been known to be absolutely wrong about important things, such as my choice of boyfriends. (My mother frequently criticizes the common practice of picking a candidate based on his or her personality — she's got a point, particularly if you're not good at reading someone's true personality!)
In any case, though, at least my friend was honest about her gut factor. I think a lot of people are like that. But these men, the one tonight and the one from the other day, aren't comfortable with admitting that. So they have to come up with elaborate intellectual rationalizations for their positions.
"Bush makes me feel less helpless" doesn't sound good to them. "It's better to fight the terrorists in Iraq than here at home," does.
Cease and desist, says Ed Gillespie. Rock the Vote, you're just trying to scare young people. Why, the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense all say there ain't gonna be no draft, so there. And we're mobilizing our army of young jackbooted thugs — sorry, I mean, committed young people!
Josh Marshall is right. Why aren't more people making a big deal of this? Rock the Vote is not saying "Vote for Kerry", "Vote for Bush," or, for that matter, "Vote for Nader". There could very well be a draft if something else happens that requires more troops than we currently have. This is true no matter who is in office. We are stretched thinner than we were before Iraq and Afghanistan. It is an indisputable fact, and it needs to be talked about openly. If there's a way to avoid needing a draft, then we can talk about that too.
Some juicy bits, from the CNN transcript
CARLSON: Jon, Jon, Jon, I'm sorry. I think you're a good comedian. I think your lectures are boring.STEWART: Yes.
CARLSON: Let me ask you a question on the news.
STEWART: Now, this is theater. It's obvious. How old are you?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Thirty-five. STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Yes, I do. I do.
STEWART: So this is...
CARLSON: I know. I know. I know. You're a...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: So this is theater.
CARLSON: Now, let me just...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Now, come on.
STEWART: Now, listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not a smart guy, because those are not easy to tie.
CARLSON: They're difficult.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: But the thing is that this -- you're doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great.
BEGALA: We do, do...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.
CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?
STEWART: Absolutely.
CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: What is wrong with you?
(APPLAUSE) CARLSON: Well, I'm just saying, there's no reason for you -- when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt boy, to go ahead and be his butt boy. Come on. It's embarrassing.
STEWART: I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far -- you would not believe what he ate two weeks ago.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.
Let's just say for the sake of argument, hypothetically speaking, that our President was in favor of a law that would require that Christianity, and Christianity alone, be taught in schools — no other religions allowed.
And then let's suppose that we had a Vice President whose daughter had married a Jewish guy and converted to Judaism. She doesn't exactly hide it. In fact, the young couple have had both their families over for Seders, break-the-fasts, Chanukkah candle-lightings... and beyond that, the daughter works for a Jewish organization of some kind. The veep, in fact, has gone and spoken at a Jewish Federation in South Palm Beach and mentioned his daughter in the course of the speech.
If a question came up in a debate about the candidate's view of religion in general, and this proposed law in particular — would the opposing candidate be out of line to say, "I believe all faiths share some universal truths, and I'm sure the Vice President's daughter feels as strong a connection to her G*d as we do to ours,"
How would everyone react?
Edited to add: You've got to be kidding me! Two-thirds of Americans polled thought that Kerry mentioning that Cheney's out-and-proud lesbian daughter was a lesbian was inappropriate. People never fail to disappoint me...
OK, please explain to me why PAKISTAN signed this UN agreement on women's rights and the United States can't be bothered... because of the words "sexual rights."
UNITED NATIONS — The United States has refused to join 85 heads of state and government in signing a statement that endorsed a 10-year-old U.N. plan to ensure every woman's right to education, healthcare and choice about having children.
The Bush administration said it withheld its signature because the statement included a reference to "sexual rights."
Kelly Ryan, deputy assistant secretary of State, wrote to backers of the plan that the United States was committed "to the empowerment of women and the need to promote women's fullest enjoyment of universal human rights.""The United States is unable, however, to endorse the world leaders' statement," Ryan said, because it "includes the concept of 'sexual rights,' a term that has no agreed definition in the international community."
More information: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/9910989.htm
Why does Bush want to bring back homes for unwed mothers? He calls them something else, but that's what they are. I thought that was something from the bad old days when a "girl" "got in trouble" and got shipped out of town in disgrace. I haven't heard or read any commentary on this yet.
So Kerry won. That seemed pretty obvious to Michael and me, less so to my family. Will it make a difference? We won't know for a while.
I was listening to NPR this morning, and they had one piece in which the reporter watched a debate with five voters in Minneapolis and got their take on it. One guy's comment really irked and disturbed me; he said something like, "Well, it's a rule in business that changes can take years to implement and really take root, and maybe it's a mistake not to stay the course..." Guess who he was planning to vote for?
Honestly. What kind of stupid "business rule" is that? Is he saying that presidential terms should last longer than four years? Who did he work for, Enron!?!?!
If this is true, Bill O'Reilly is a very, very, very,
veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery
veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery
veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery
veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery
veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery
veryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryveryvery
(times 1000 jillion)
sick boy, indeed.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/13/15534/960
Grrrrrrr.
Nevada:
Voters Outreach of America AKA America Votes tears up Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada.Oregon:
Company claiming affiliation with non-partisan 'America Votes' to register voters in Oregon is actually GOP consulting firm Sproul & Associates, Inc.West Virginia and Pennsylvania:
Sproul & Associates AKA America Votes workers in WV and PA refuse to register Kerry voters.Oregon
Democrats in Oregon have complained that canvassers for Arizona based Sproul & Associates have been pressuring residents to register as Republicans so that they can get paid.Arizona
Arizona Nader campaign was assisted in its petition drive by an unlikely figure: the ultra-conservative former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, Nathan Sproul.----
KLAS-TV, Las Vegas:
"The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee."CareerBuild.com listing:
Help wanted ad for Voters Outreach of America says "Paid for by the Republican National Committee".
Today's crankiness has been brought to you by 1) the shoe fashion industry and 2) lying bastard snakeweasel voter registration outfits.
First up is the shoes. I cannot find a pair to go with my wedding dress. What's up with that? Inexplicably, every shop, every designer has decided that shoes should all be narrow, pointy, and very high-heeled. My feet don't do narrow and pointy, and can only take high heels with some support and balance — not the rediculous little stilts they stick on these days.
It's not even like they're particularly attractive, either. They look strangely dated and unsexy, really. What happened to my beloved clunky platform shoes? Don't force me to wear Danskos on my wedding day...
Next up, in ascending order of outrage, comes this news out of Nevada...
Voter registrations may have been trashed
(Oct. 12) — Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day.
The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash. Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.
The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats.
The focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes. The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations. Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.
"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee. Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.
...We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else. The landlord says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters. It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there...
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.
For the past couple of months, I've been helping run a voter registration table. We've got Kerry signs and buttons everywhere, but people have still come up and checked "Decline to state", and a few have even registered as Republican. We send every single damn one of those registrations in, because it's the right thing to do. We just hope they'll look at the facts and make the right decision.
The RNC, on the other hand, has basically just come out and admitted that they don't think they can win except unless they prevent some people from voting.
What this group did casts a cloud on us, and everyone who tries to get people to vote.
It makes me want to don a pair of those horrible little spiky witch shoes, just so I can kick the living **** out of them.
Consider this.
Security Grants Still Streaming to Rural States
One of the nation's least populous states, Alaska is flush with domestic security grants, on a per-resident basis second only to Wyoming and about three times the amount allocated to New York over the past two years...
While there is consensus that the threat of an attack should supersede politics as usual, the billions of federal dollars for terrorism preparedness are being doled out to states in much the same way as money for schools, bridges and other routine federal projects.
No, it's not really ALL Bush's fault. But where's the vaunted "leadership" to ensure that the most vulnerable areas of our "homeland" (I hate that word) are kept safe? I mean, he can certainly pressure Congress about all sorts of other stuff...
Now this next story IS all Bush's fault. Why the hell would we invade Iraq because we were worried about WMDs and then not ensure that whatever they had wouldn't fall into the wrong hands?
Nuclear equipment vanishes in Iraq
Nuclear equipment - and in some cases whole buildings - have vanished in Iraq, the UN’s nuclear watchdog is warning, amid fears that the material could be used to make nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised concerns “about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq’s nuclear programme”, since coalition forces wrested power from Saddam Hussein.
Satellite imagery has revealed the disappearance of entire buildings which housed high-precision, "dual use" equipment, as well as the removal of materials from open storage areas, warned Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, in a letter to the UN Security Council on 1 October. Dual use equipment has commercial uses but could also be harnessed to manufacture nuclear arms.
Their disappearance, along with materials such as high-strength aluminium “may be of [nuclear] proliferation significance”, says ElBaradei.
Did you hear about this?
Mundra port authorities in Kutch district of Gujarat have stalled 15 containers that came from Iran onboard a ship after some "explosive material" was recovered from one of them during inspection by customs officers.
Each year, 9 million containers arrive at the nation's 361 seaports, filled with goods from around the world. But only about 5% are inspected for weapons or deadly agents.
It's really, really scary. And for some reason, all too many people in this country think Bush will bring a solution to these problems. Well, he's had three-plus years to try, and he's failed miserably. Why should more people have to die to highlight just how true this is? I don't care how charming he can be or how many people he prays with. The president isn't supposed to be your pal. He's just supposed to do his job. This one has not.
Kevin Drum decides to take a look at the question: who lies more, and more significantly? Bush or Kerry?
Bush: 18 lies, total score of 118.
Kerry: 10 lies, total score of 60.
Perhaps more important than the total score, though, is the number of serious lies. Bush had 7 serious lies (those with a score of 9 or above) while Kerry had only one.
In other words, Bush rather clearly lied more than Kerry and lied more seriously than Kerry. I did my best to apply the same rigor to both candidates, but even with a different formula and different scoring, it's hard to see how Bush wouldn't come out as seriously more deceptive than Kerry. As Halperin said, deception seems to be central to George Bush's campaign while it's basically peripheral to John Kerry's.
And the Economist polls a bunch of economists, and finds that
...Mr Bush's policies win low marks. More than 70% of the 56 professors who responded to our survey rate Mr Bush's first-term economic policies as bad or very bad. Fewer than 20% give positive marks to Mr Bush's second-term economic agenda, and almost six out of ten disapproved. Mr Kerry hardly got rave reviews either, but his economic plan still fared better than the president's did. In all, four out of ten professors rated Mr Kerry's economic plan as good or very good, but 27% gave it negative scores.
The only area where Bush rated higher was his in positions on trade and outsourcing.
The Tuesday Paul Krugman column helpfully runs through some of Bush's top lies (job market improving, Kerry is going to take away the power to make your own healthcare choices, blah blah blah), but it does something even better at the end:
By singling out Mr. Bush's lies and misrepresentations, am I saying that Mr. Kerry isn't equally at fault? Yes.Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers nitpickers things to complain about. He talks of 1.6 million lost jobs; that's the private-sector loss, partly offset by increased government employment. But the job record is indeed awful. He talks of the $200 billion cost of the Iraq war; actual spending is only $120 billion so far. But nobody doubts that the war will cost at least another $80 billion. The point is that Mr. Kerry can, at most, be accused of using loose language; the thrust of his statements is correct.
Mr. Bush's statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr. Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers.
Yes, there are lots of people out there who end up saying, "Well, Candidate A says one thing, Candidate B says another — Who the hell knows? It's all just opinion and bullshit anyway." Then they throw up their hands and vote for an ex-bodybuilder or something. Will they get this message? Probably not... which is a real shame, if not a crime.
Not listening, not apologizing, and getting all up in the face of the person you are talking to doesn't work for women, because, believe us, we've heard it all before.
A race that many Republicans privately hoped might be wrapped up by now has come down to hand-to-hand combat, fought not just by two bareknuckle candidates but also by thousands upon thousands of soldiers in the trenches, signing up every last voter, knocking on doors, drilling through databases and aiming for Nov. 2, when whoever has the stronger ground game wins.
Both candidates stand before the same audience, but they talk to different ones, and in their responses, you can read the race. If, during the first debate, Kerry came back from near death to win a second look, on Friday night he appeared to have a more specific audience in mind: the uncommitted female voters who admire Bush's strength but are worried about his methods.
These are the ones, a Republican operative admits, who "hated Bush's first performance, said that the President reminded them of the husbands they have or the ones they left who don't listen and won't talk and don't like to be criticized."
A Time poll found that women moved hard to Kerry after that showing, from a near dead heat to a 12-point Kerry advantage. In a race this tight, that is an earthquake. Without women on his side, Kerry is not even in the game, since Bush holds a 16-point lead among men.
So in the town hall-style debate last Friday, Kerry was clearly intent on courtship. He used the word respect each time he answered a woman's question about values, and he presented himself as a drug-reimporting, budget-balancing, stem-cell-researching champion of middle-class families. Sometimes even blatant pandering works if it shows that you're listening.
"It's time for the American people to be told the painful, unvarnished truth: that an arrogant and unaccountable administration, convinced as if by religious revelation that Saddam Hussein had to be removed, essentially suspended the process by which such claims are evaluated (it's called "democracy") and made war by fiat. If they then still wish to re-elect the King, I mean president, who made this decision for them, let them." Salon.com
"I think we are getting the message out there," Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie said. "But I think we have to overcome . . . the glass-half-empty argument" of the Democrats.
Dude, the glass isn't just half-empty... it's been smashed on the ground into little pieces and stepped on by bare feet which are now bleeding.
Anyway, perhaps it's not surprising that an article called "October is unkind to Bush / Bad news piles up during days leading to the election" is getting published now. But the fact that it's getting published in an Arizona newspaper is quite something.
Could an October surprise have already hit President Bush?
Troubling headlines, coupled with his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, performing well in the first two debates with Bush, may have turned a Bush advantage of mid-September into an October clinch.
Just over three weeks before the election, Bush is not running against Kerry as much as against events that are largely out of his control.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Anyway, we shall see. It's too close to call.
Found this link via DailyKos. It's a four-megabyte movie showing Bush speaking in a debate during the Texas gubernatorial race ten years ago, and then showing him speaking in the first presidential debate last week.
It's clearly the product of, well, not Republicans. And it has a quote from a doctor who wrote a letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly suggesting that Bush has presenile dementia, but they make it sound like it was a published article, not just a letter. All motivations on this one are somewhat partisan.
Still, the moving pictures speak for themselves, and so does the Bush of ten years ago. He speaks quickly and articulately. The Bush of today fumbles for words, pauses a lot, and goes blank.
Something is really, really wrong with that guy. Seriously. You've got to see it for yourself.
Maybe it's halfassed, but it's also really funny. Read Wonkette's take take on the debate Friday.
Shorter Bush: He was against embryonic stem cell research before he was for it. 10:21 Ha! Bush said he'd choose judges based on whether or not they'd vote for him! Ha! Ha! Funny because it's true. 10:22 Dred Scott case? Wha? Isn't this teevee? Oh well. At least we know for sure that Bush doesn't support slavery. Whew. 10:28 Q: Name three times you've made a mistake. A: I WAS RIGHT TO GO TO WAR. AND THAT'S A TRICK QUESTION. FUCK YOU. 10:30 Dad Wonkette writes in with his summation: "Kerry waxed Bush's ass." And you wonder how I turned out this way.
"If Iraq were to fail, it would be a haven for terrorists!"
"I know how these people think!"
"Spread freedom!... that's what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq!"
He won't allow the importation of drugs from Canada because they might come from "the Third World"?!?!
"That's what leadership is all about!"
"That's what liberals do!"
Oh, he just couldn't resist saying "hard work!" again — about Kerry being liberal.
It has been pointed out on Blog for America that Dubya pronounced the Internet as "Internets", plural. Heh.
Kerry rocks. "We did something you don't know how to do. We balanced the budget!'
Now Kerry's pissed. "Labels don't mean anything."
God, Bush is a pissy l'il bitch, ain't he?
Yeah, blame the stock market, blame the war, blame everything but yourself.
Kerry: "RIGHT INTO THE CAMERA!" Good answer on taxes. "Three people here are going to be affected. The president, me, and, I'm sorry Charlie, you too."
The CNN abbreviations of the questions at the bottom of the screen are funny. "KERRY PLEDGE NOT TO INCREASE".
"Battling green eyeshades?" I don't even know what Bush is talking about anymore. "You can run, but you can't hide!"
"Sore spots"? What does that have to do with energy? The problem with forests is they are "not harvested!"
"I'm a good steward of the land!" Yeah, my ASS.
("We're gonna harvest forests now?" asks one of my fellow watchers.)
CNN question abbreviation: "WHAT HAS BUSH DONE TO IMPROVE" (the ultimate question!)
Michael points out that Kerry keeps going back to previous questions, which may not be so smart.
Bush again: "In order to be popular in the halls of Europe..." Kerry wanted to sign Kyoto.
OK, Bush just denied that the Patriot Act takes away anyone's rights. He also said air quality has improved under his administration. Can this be verified or disproven somewhere?
Hmmm. Kerry is flailing a bit here. He should be stronger on the stem cell thing. Namechecking his celebrity buddies isn't going to cut it. Why isn't he pointing out that the current cell lines are insufficient?
Bush was the first president to allow federal funding of stem cell research? Also, didn't he just exaggerate the number of stem cell lines? Not really 22, I think?
OK, was that line about wanting all the supreme court judges to vote for him supposed to be funny?!?!
Oh, and he wouldn't appoint a judge who says slavery is OK. Bravely slaying that straw man! "The constitution doesn't say that. Um..."
CNN question: "HOW WOULD BUSH FILL A VACANCY". Heh.
Did Kerry just say "Y'all"?!?!?
What the fuck kind of question is that one about abortion!?!?!? Good answer by Kerry. "I can't take what is an item of faith for me and legislate it for someone else who doesn't share that belief."
CNN question: "CAN KERRY PROMISE TAX DOLLARS"
Bush: "I'm trying to decipher that." The questioner is looking at him with undisguised worship in her eyes (or perhaps she is a fembot).
Did Bush just say he wants to bring back homes for unwed mothers? I believe he just did?
Good for Kerry. "I'm not going to require a 17 year old that's been raped to notify her father."
Gah, this is one of my hot-button issues.
Did Bush just say "reality"? And nobody has pointed out that the "Partial Birth Abortion" law got overturned because IT DIDN'T HAVE AN EXEMPTION FOR THE HEALTH OF THE MOTHER.
Oh goody! Great question about Bush's mistakes! Of course he won't answer it. In fact, he just basically insulted the woman who asked it.
"I did the right decision." Hah!
Kerry: "I didn't want to give Halliburton a slush fund." Good one!
Closing statements. Darn, Bush gets the last word. Make it count, monkey-boy!
Edited to add: It seems that I missed some of the best parts of Kerry's answer on abortion — and Bush's worst. Body and Soul has more.
It's fun watching the debate in a cybercafe full of people and listening to their reactions. (One guy was particularly amused by "I know how these people think!")
Bush is stronger this time than last, not flailing so much. His body language is much better.
But when Kerry is speaking, you can see the fear on his face.
He is brilliant. He understands the Middle East. Our president does not. This is causing a lot of trouble.
Read Juan Cole. Did I mention you should read Juan Cole?
That is all.
Now, to go watch the debate...
I met Howard Dean today! In between my haircut and meeting the florist, I decided to stop by Sproul Plaza for the commemoration of the Free Speech Movement, even though I really didn't have time to stay for all of it. Not five minutes after plunking myself down on the steps of Sproul Hall, I looked up and he was walking up the stairs towards me. My suspicion is he was hoping to sneak in undetected and get ready for his speech, and was hoping not to get ambushed by worshippers. Sorry, Howard! Did I blow your cover? Anyway, I shook hands with him and said something dorky like, "I was a big supporter of yours." He just said "Thank you." I didn't get to stay for his speech, sadly, but still — I shook hands with Howard Dean! Howard Dean! I'm such a dork.
Getting this out of my system so I don't send it to the person I shouldn't send it to. Because I don't want this to happen.
-----------
I don't love taxes either. But we all want working roads, police, fire, and ambulance services, plus we now have security and wartime expenses. And our governor got elected partly because he kept talking about lower taxes, but also because he cares about education. Alas, schools cost money! It's all a shell game. If our city and state get less money from the federal government, they have to get more money from somewhere. So now I'm paying more to ride BART, parking ticket fees have doubled, and I think my property taxes just went up. It's just the way it is. I'd just rather than the fire station near my house didn't sometimes have a sign up saying "This station is closed today", especially during fire season! But I'm getting off topic. Anyway, on to the second point...
Continue reading Friendship and politics, and not contaminating the two.
Courtesy of Political Animal, a rundown of every major fib Cheney made in his debate with Edwards, in handy table format. Poor Cheney must have forgotten that there's an army of extremely motivated people out there scrutinizing everything he says... and they aren't inclined to keep quiet about it. Plus, perhaps they are just a bit more net-savvy than he is.
"The fundamental question in this campaign is the war in Iraq. Was it worth starting? Has it been conducted well? Will it make us safer? My answers to those three questions are, briefly, yes, no, and, it depends. But from a broader perspective, the following facts are simply indisputable. The fundamental rationale for the war - the threat from Saddam's existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction — was wrong. Period. In the conduct of the war, it is equally indisputable that the administration simply didn't anticipate the insurgency we now face, and because of that, is struggling to rescue the effort from becoming a dangerous mess. Period. So the question becomes: how can an administration be re-elected after so patently misjudging the two most important aspects of the central issue in front of us? It may end up as simple as that. Maybe, in fact, it should end up as simple as that."
But he has more. Like, why didn't they seal the borders after invading Iraq?
Read all about it. So what's the latest "reason de jour" for invading Iraq? Saddam was funding Palestinian suicide bombers? So was Saudi Arabia. Next?
Oh well, I guess the one nice thing you can say about him is he loves his gay daughter. She just can't get married because apparently that would be wrong, unlike, say, lying about the reasons for a war that's killing thousands. I find the new morality so confusing...
As little as 27 cents of every dollar spent on Iraq's reconstruction has actually filtered down to projects benefiting Iraqis, a statistic that is prompting the State Department to fundamentally rethink the Bush administration's troubled reconstruction effort.Between soaring security costs, corruption and mismanagement, contractors' profits, and U.S. governmental costs, reconstruction funding is being drained away, leaving little left to improve the lives of Iraqis, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. Senior administration officials and congressional experts on the reconstruction effort called the analysis credible. One senior U.S. official familiar with reconstruction suggested as little as a quarter of the funding is reaching its intended projects.
Man. Do we really have to wait a whole month to fire these people's asses?
Given these two stories:
It appears that the rationale for the invasion of Iraq was wrong.
Given this story:
It appears that the planning for "winning the peace" was extremely poor.
Given these stories and many more like them:
- More car bombs target Iraq's green zone
- Bomb found at cafe inside Baghdad's well-guarded Green Zone
- Police foil plot to kidnap US officials in Green Zone
- Baghdad's Green Zone 'island' prepares for rough seas
It appears that we're not even controlling the "safe zone".
So who want to let the jackasses in the Bush administration have another five minutes, let alone four more years, to screw things up?
Lest you believe the old saw about not changing horses in midstream, please understand that to reelect Bush is not playing it safe. It is to flat-out state: "I approve of the job Bush has done and I wish to reward him with a second term."
This is simply appalling.The Independent Women's Forum is anti-women, and if the Bush administration is giving them a grant, they are also anti-women.
I mean, what is this horseshit?
One of the great achievements of early feminists was winning the right for each woman to pursue her own vision of happiness. Unfortunately, modern feminist leaders regularly abandon true independence for women in favor of a political agenda of expanded government dependency. In other words, they want women to reject traditional relationships with individual men in favor of a new provider named Uncle Sam... Women deserve better than the one-side perspective presented by the dependency divas that currently dominate college campuses. They should be exposed to facts that show how women are prospering, how marriage makes men and women healthier, happier, and safer, and how limited government can lead to greater prosperity and freedom for everyone.
The debate last night wasn't as exciting as the one last week. Cheney and Edwards are both very good speakers, though one of them is a tad deficient on the charm and health side of the ledger (guess which one I'm talking about) and Edwards blinked way too much.
If you couldn't hear anything they were saying, you'd think that Edwards was very nervous and Cheney was very angry, perhaps some kind of fire-breathing preacher of an apocalyptic Church of the Brimstone-Laden Intestines.
My favorite part was when Cheney got all defensive about Halliburton and told his audience to check out Factcheck.com, which would clear things up nicely about his record. The problems with that were that 1) I knew what page he was talking about and it only addresses the issue of his deferred compensation from Halliburton, not their investments in Iran or the investigations for bribery and 2) that page is not at Factcheck.com, it's at Factcheck.ORG.
Interestingly enough, until yesterday, Factcheck.com was nothing but a link farm — set up to entrap careless typers and drum up hits for advertisers. But somebody managed to redirect it to George Soros' web page! How'd they do that so fast? (Update: it seems that the domain owners did the redirect themselves, and the Soros team had nothing to do with it.)
Perhaps Cheney misspoke on purpose (as he did on so many other things), because the REAL FactCheck is pretty harsh on him today.
Another update:
The company decided to redirect traffic to the Soros site after it became inundated with hits -- about 100 a second after the debate, John Berryhill, a Philadelphia lawyer for FactCheck.com, said Wednesday.
"This was to relieve stress on the service and to express a political point of view," said Berryhill, who spoke with the site's administrators shortly after the debate ended.
They picked Soros not only for his political views, Berryhill said, but because the billionaire could afford the costly deluge of hits the site would receive in the wake of the debate. Plus, the site administrators didn't want to point surfers to a candidate's site that was asking for money.
Web site operators typically pay fees to the companies that host their sites. The more hits a site receives, the more its operator pays.
Soros was not advised of the switch and did not know it had taken place until Wednesday, said a spokesman, Jeremy Ben-Ami.
"We are as surprised as anyone by this turn of events but certainly encourage voters to visit both of these valuable sites," Michael Vachon, a senior aide to Soros, said in a statement.
An unprecedented number of visitors to FactCheck.org caused the site to crash several times Wednesday, said Brooks Jackson, the site's director.
Considering that the site is headquartered in the Cayman Islands, presumably for tax reasons, I'm pleasantly surprised at their politics.
Two voter registration tables.
The Democrat table:
And the Republican table:
Awwwwwwwwwwww.
So one of the things that really irks me about this presidential race is how the Bushies have successfully equated criticism of the government's policies and conduct of a war with criticism of the soldiers fighting in the war. Thus, we get people saying things like "I don't vote for traitors." "I remember what Kerry did during Vietnam." or, more mildly, as one friend of mine wrote me, "I've chatted with military guys (who have first hand knowledge of working in Iraq) who tell me about the good that is being done in Iraq. There's a lot of rebuilding that's going on and making some headway, but our airwaves are filled with just the violence, another soldier dead, yet another kidnapping, so we don't see this." I don't doubt that she, and they, are right, that the soldiers are good people doing good work. But if your boss sucks and makes bad decisions, your good deeds cannot reverse his disasters.
And what kind of boss treats his employees like this, when they've put their lives on the line for him?
Robert Acosta, 21, of Tustin, Calif., said he relies on his disability checks of $2,332 a month to survive, but the VA is now reevaluating his case. Acosta's right hand was blown off and his left leg was shattered when he was ambushed at the gate to Baghdad International Airport on July 13, 2003. The passenger in a Humvee, he grabbed a grenade that had been lobbed through the window, saving his driver.
Acosta said he cannot work because his prosthetic right hand has been giving him trouble, his left leg has not returned to normal and he suffers from nightmares. Initially, he was rated 70 percent disabled -- the medical board did not want to account for his leg injury, his PTSD claims and his hearing loss. After accepting those claims and rating him 100 percent disabled, the VA is questioning them again, asking Acosta to prove that some of his disabilities are service-related.
"They said there was no proof of it," Acosta said, referring to his PTSD claim. It took two months after he left the service for him to get his first disability payment, he said, and he spent his savings in the meantime. "I'm going to therapy every week. I'm working on it. I have bad dreams, I don't sleep at night and I get really jumpy. I don't know what they want me to do."
The VA system is reeling under the strain:
Thousands of U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical injuries and mental health problems are encountering a benefits system that is already overburdened, and officials and veterans' groups are concerned that the challenge could grow as the nation remains at war.
The disability benefits and health care systems that provide services for about 5 million American veterans have been overloaded for decades and have a current backlog of more than 300,000 claims. And because they were mobilized to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly 150,000 National Guard and reservist veterans had become eligible for health care and benefits as of Aug. 1. That number is rising.
At the same time, President Bush's budget for 2005 calls for cutting the Department of Veterans Affairs staff that handles benefits claims, and some veterans report long waits for benefits and confusing claims decisions.
Yes, I know, it takes two parties to botch a government agency. But you'd think that in a time of national crisis, in a time of war, Bush would make taking care of the soldiers a higher priority than giving people tax cuts. No such luck.
Michael and I spent the weekend in Reno volunteering for the Kerry campaign and I didn't even get a lousy t-