Monthly Archives: October 2004

GOP Election Spin

Posted on October 25, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Somehow I got on a GOP mailing list. Here's today's wisdom from Chairman Gillespie:

There are only 8 days left until the election and, if you can, we recommend voting early.

Click here to find your early voting location. Because on Election Day we will need your help getting more people involved and getting voters to the polls. The Democrats have already begun to implement their plans to use lawyers and baseless allegations to skew the results in their favor.

We believe no legitimate voter should be disenfranchised, either by being denied a vote or by having an honest vote cancelled out by a fraudulent vote.

But a little intimidation never hurt anyone?

Democrats appear to be setting the stage to use the new provisional balloting rules to convert registration fraud into vote fraud, with the possibility of Kerry supporters voting in multiple jurisdictions or under multiple names.

In one contested election where provisional ballots have been cast, somewhere between 7-to-23 percent of them were valid. Democrats seem intent on making the case that every provisional ballot cast must be counted, and are deploying a horde of 10,000 lawyers to compel the counting of votes that were not legally cast.

Note that this says nothing about when or where that election was, nor what party cast the provisional ballots! It undoubtedly has nothing to do with Kerry.

They have made their strategy clear: If they lose they will sue, and haul the electoral process into courtrooms across the country so activist liberal judges can undermine the will of the people.

The American people should be confident that legitimate voters casting legitimate votes determine the outcome of this election.

Compare the above FUD-like allegations of fraud to reality.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 3 Comments

PTI 961 Mystery Solved

Posted on October 25, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Remember the AWOL Project's focus on the mysterious separation code “PTI 961” in Lt. Bush's records? Well, Paul Lukasiak writes to say that PTI 961 has been decoded … but all it means is “Loss to USAFR – Discharged due to change in residence.” Or, as Emily Litella used to say, “Never Mind”.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 1 Comment

Boom Goes the Last Shred of Bush’s Reputation as a Terrorism-Fighter

Posted on October 25, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

The New York Times has more details about this stunning piece of incompetence in the keystone kops war on terror.

The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked some of it. But the other components of an atom bomb – the design and the radioactive fuel – are more difficult to obtain. “This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk,” one senior Bush administration official said.

“not necessarily” — that means “might or might not be depending on whether they have plutonium” — I feel so much better now given what one hears about the plutonium bazaar in the southern parts of the former Soviet Union….

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

This translates as “they screwed up bigtime”.

… One senior official noted that the Qaqaa complex where the explosives HMX and RDX were stored was listed as a “medium priority” site on the Central Intelligence Agency's list of more than 500 sites that needed to be searched and secured during the invasion. In the chaos that followed the invasion, many of those sites, even some considered a higher priority, were never secured.

“Should we have gone there? Definitely,” said one senior administration official. “But there are a lot of things we should have done, and didn't.”

And what were the “high priority” sites, pray tell?

The remaining stockpile was no secret. Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the I.A.E.A., frequently talked about it publicly as he investigated, in late 2002 and early 2003, the Bush administration's claims that Iraq was secretly renewing its pursuit of nuclear arms. He ordered his weapons inspectors to conduct an inventory, and publicly reported their findings to the Security Council on Jan. 9, 2003.

So there really is no excuse here.

Posted in National Security, Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 10 Comments

Find Your Polling Place Online

Posted on October 25, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

With a plethora of court decisions around the country stating that votes cast at the wrong poling place won't be counted, this is a great thing to be doing:

My name is Keith Kritselis, and I have a website that I am trying to publicize.

Http://www.mypollingsite.com

The website's goal is to help voters find their polling place. Our database of online poll locators has been slowly growing. We now can get 63% of the US population the exact location of their polling site in 4 clicks or less. For the other 37% we provide a local phone number where they can call to get the information they need. This service is free to the public, it has no political affiliation or agenda, and I truly believe that civic participation is the key to a responsive government. This is a small 1 man operation with no marketing dollars. Anything you can do to help get the word out would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

Keith Kritselis

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 5 Comments

A Small Request from the Management

Posted on October 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Please do not include naked URLs in the first few lines of your comments. (It is ok to use HTML links if you know how to do that.) Long URLs in the first 75 characters or so tend to mess up the formatting of this blog when viewed under IE.

I will be travelling a lot in the next two weeks and I will not be able to fix problems (or kill spam) as quickly as I usually do.

Posted in Discourse.net | 6 Comments

Mistakes, Incompetence, and Coverup Beyond Fevered Imaginings

Posted on October 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

In my opinion, all you need to know to decide to vote against George Bush is that his administration has presided over a destruction of the rule of law unimagined since the Alien and Sedition Acts. I speak not of the Patriot Act, most and perhaps all of whose provisions (if not necessarily their uses) reasonable people might disagree about. Rather I mean the disregard for due process, basic human rights, and our treaty obligations. These actions are most visible in the torture memo scandal, the almost certainly related practice of torture in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and the administration’s practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’. Recall also that Bush’s team recently lobbied Congress to change the law to allow the outsourcing of torture.

But perhaps you think this concern with fundamental legality and minimal human decency is some bleeding-heart luxury this nation can no longer afford now that 9/11 ‘changed everything’. So let’s agree to disagree as to the extent that the nation should pervert itself in its drive to teach others that we lack the guts to uphold our fundamental values when challenged. Instead, let’s work with that claim that all that matters in this election is which candidate will better preserve our physical safety.

If all that matters is our safety and security, then today’s news makes it clear beyond peradventure that the Bush administration is horribly dangerous to our national security.

Continue reading →

Posted in National Security | 10 Comments