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Sunday, October 31
October Surprise: No Osama!
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 31 Oct 2004 04:26 PM CST
 October Surprise: No Osama!
A Buzzflash Editorial
Our tinhorn Texas sheriff has failed spectacularly.
If ever
there was a sign of Bush's failure to fight Al-Qaeda, it was the
"October Surprise" of a gloating bin Laden videotape emerging late on a
Friday afternoon. Bush had promised in 2002 to get bin Laden
"Dead or Alive" - and he failed. After he failed to get bin Laden
again, at Tora Bora, Bush claimed that bin Laden wasn't that important
anyway.
Now bin
Laden is back, when he should be behind bars. And Karl Rove
thinks bin Laden's reappearance should HELP Bush. Yes, Rove is
relying on primal, irrational fear to push undecided voters into the
Bush "Kool-Aid-Jim-Jones" camp of voters. Rove is hoping people
will get such a Halloween fright that they will vote for Bush, even
though Osama's tape only emphasizes Bush's failures.
Remember when everybody thought that the October surprise was that Bush would produce Osama in chains? But we miscalculated on that one. That would assume that Bush could actually succeed at something besides stealing an election.
And, indeed, with just a videotape of a boastful Osama to air, the Bush
Cartel has sealed four years of failure with a nail that exemplifies
their ineptitude at protecting us.
(Click here to read the complete editorial.)
Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue (video)
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 31 Oct 2004 12:49 PM CST
 Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue
Human Rights Campaign Video
"Bush and Cheney are so over," says Rover.
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 31 Oct 2004 07:49 AM CST
"Bush and Cheney are so over," says Rover.
Good doggie, good doggie!
Blog for Iowa sinks to a new low,
but we can't help ourselves.
Lovely, patriotic doggie.
And speaking of signs . . .
Seems like there has been a rash of sign thefts lately. The Iowa
City crowd keeps getting their signs stolen from their lawns, and I
hear that when Kerry spoke in the Des Moines area recently, Kerry signs
went missing all over. (They didn't take the other candidates'
signs, just the Kerry signs. A selective group of thieves, as it were.)
Here in the boonies, the Thieman household had just made the trip to
Sioux City to pick up an Art Small sign and a Joyce Schulte sign - an
hour and a half drive for us - when the guy who mows our lawn, bags our leaves, and shovels our snow came over
and failed to replace our signs when he was done mowing.
And he
took the signs with him, apparently storing his equipment on top
of them on his flatbed. So, the next morning, I left a message on
his answering machine and asked him to please put the signs back.
Eight
hours later, at four in the afternoon, I called again and left a
message with his son. (This is a guy who, if you call him and
tell him you have a check for him, will be there in five minutes
flat.) Three hours later, still no signs, so I
called his wife. That did the trick. The next morning he
returned the Joyce Schulte sign to our yard, although it was half-way
shredded. Apparently, the Art Small sign was completely
shredded.
So, we went to Dem HQ in Sioux City again and got ourselves a new Art Small sign
and a new Joyce Schulte sign.
Unfortunately, the new signs had only been up one day when the wind
tunnel we live in grabbed the Schulte sign and blew it away. We
hope it landed upright in a Republican neighbor's yard. I'm
telling you, it is so windy here that if I had put a wind turbine on my
front lawn a year ago, I'd be a millionaire by now.
The Art Small sign still stands, although it did get rather mowed down
by the wind, too. It's not quite as flat, however, as our Howard
Dean sign after two feet of snow fell on it last January.
Then, last night, I got a call from the BV County Dems HQ and they told
me that our absentee ballots had not been recorded as returned.
And we mailed those in 3 weeks ago! We mailed them from the Storm
Lake post office and they had to travel a full half mile to get to the
courthouse. So, now, I'll be chasing that down on Monday.
Either it just didn't get put up on the website that the Dems are
using, or the Republican county auditor is losing a lot of Dem absentee
ballots.
If you sent in your absentee ballot ages ago and keep getting panicked
calls from national, state, and local Dems asking if you've returned
it, take the hint and call your county auditor to see if your ballot has been received. Monday is the last day.
Politicking is haaarrrrrrrdddddd!
Linda Thieman
Howard Dean: Count Every Vote
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 31 Oct 2004 04:06 AM CST
 Count Every Vote
by Howard Dean
A request from your favorite New England Governor...
After
the Florida disaster in 2000, Congress had an opportunity to fix
problems and build a better electoral system. It failed to act quickly.
When it finally did act, the limited reforms that managed to pass
didn't receive sufficient funding.
Now we
face an election that, if the results are close, could be even worse.
Republican officials in several states have tried to keep people from
voting, and the widespread use of paperless electronic voting machines
means that some votes can't be recounted.
That's why we all have to take personal responsibility for the integrity of the voting process. Rep. Rush Holt
of New Jersey, who has been a leader on election reform, has put
together a resource for all of us who want to make sure our elections
are fair:
http://www.counteveryvote.org
We have an obligation to ensure that our elections are fair and accessible. At this web site, you'll find information about volunteering at polling places and reporting any problems.
We also
have to make sure elections are auditable. Congressman Holt was the
only member of Congress who saw that electronic voting machines were
flawed. I support his bill to provide a voter-verified paper trail -
but the fact is that many people have not used these machines and don't
know what to expect.
As more
people have learned about electronic voting machines, support for the
bill has grown. There are now more than 150 Congressional co-sponsors.
But Congress left town without passing it. That's why advocates for
voting rights on the ground will be crucial. Please get involved:
http://www.counteveryvote.org
When
Congressman Holt started his work on these vital issues, he was all
alone. But elected leaders and ordinary Americans have begun to follow.
Join us to make sure that this time we have an election worthy of the
world's greatest democracy.
Thank you,
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Saturday, October 30
This Year For Halloween, Go Trick-or-Voting!
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 30 Oct 2004 05:28 PM CDT
 This Year For Halloween, Go Trick-or-Voting!
by T. Eve Greenaway and Chinyere Tutashinda, AlterNet.org
By going
door-to-door in costume, offering up treats, voting tips and directions
to polling places, this year’s trick-or-voters will also be spreading
the word: there has never been a better time to make politics fun.
“People
are already expecting you to knock on their door on Halloween. So it’s
the one day of the year where people will be home and ready to answer
the door,” says Sarita “the Great Witch” Ryan, an organizer for Trick
or Vote. “This way, it’ll be fun for everybody involved, not just
another [election] canvasser coming by.”
The idea
is simple enough. This year, Halloween falls just two days before what
many are calling the “most important election of our lifetime.” And,
while most of us have had it up to here with both Bush and Kerry –
their voices on the radio, their mugs all over the television and on
the front of all the newspapers – young people everywhere are using
this holiday to remind each other that the election is as much about
one another, and the issues we care about, as it is about the
candidates. By going door-to-door in costume, offering up directions to
polling places, reminders to bring an ID, and Halloween classics like
Tootsie Rolls and Pal bubblegum, this year’s trick-or-voters will also
be spreading the word: politics and fun are not opposing forces.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Drury and Johnson Hold Political Pumpkin Painting Party
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 30 Oct 2004 08:38 AM CDT
Drury and Johnson Hold Political Pumpkin Painting Party
Bush's Propaganda Machine Can't Hide Wealth of Bad News
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 30 Oct 2004 04:07 AM CDT
 Bush's Propaganda Machine Can't Hide Wealth of Bad News
by Scott Lindlaw, AP, Sierra Times.com
YARDLEY, Pa.
- The presidency comes with powerful tools that can help incumbents
keep their jobs: a mighty public-relations machine, a bully pulpit, a
famous airplane. Yet George W. Bush has been powerless to halt a recent
tide of bad news, from surging violence and missing weapons in Iraq, to
missteps by his own campaign, to a potentially damaging new probe by
his own FBI .
...In a
Friday speech, Kerry hoped to stoke the latest revelation: news that
the FBI has begun investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded
no-bid military contracts to Halliburton Co., formerly headed by Vice
pResident Dick Cheney.
...For
four straight days, Bush had been dogged by a report that nearly 400
tons of explosives disappeared from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa military
installation. Bush aides winced when former New York City Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, a frequent Bush campaign partner and surrogate, said the
troops in Iraq, not Bush, bore the responsibility for searching for the
explosives.
There was more:
The U.N. nuclear agency said U.S. officials were warned about the
vulnerability of explosives stored at the installation after another
facility was looted.
Minneapolis
ABC affiliate KSTP-TV, which had a crew embedded with the 101st
Airborne Division during the war, released videotape that it said
showed soldiers examining explosives at the massive Al-Qaqaa facility
nine days after the fall of Baghdad. The video [undermines] Bush's
suggestion the explosives were looted before the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq.
Other "headlines" hurting Bush:
--More than 1,100 U.S. service members have died since Bush launched is Iraq war in March, 2003
--100,000 Iraqis are dead because of Bush's war
--Bush will ask Congress for another $75 billion to finance his wars on top of the $215 billion already allocated
--The Bush campaign was caught using a doctored photo in a campaign ad
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Friday, October 29
Connie Wilson: Kerry and Company (Bon Jovi et al.) Pack U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids on Oct. 27th
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 29 Oct 2004 05:02 PM CDT
 Kerry and Company (Bon Jovi et al.) Pack U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids on Oct. 27th
by Connie Wilson
When Tom Harkin spoke to the assembled crowd of close to 8,000 cheering Democrats at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday, October 27th, he came with some “good news.”
Harkin noted that 50,000 new Democratic registrations have been processed in Iowa. 20,000 new independent voters have registered in Iowa for the 2004 election. And new registered Republicans? Why, only 9,400 of them.
These statistics add to the news (reported in Tuesday’s Quad City Times) that a record 2.1 million Iowans were registered to vote by Saturday’s registration deadline. That is 6% more than the number registered in the 2000 election. 95% of eligible Iowans are registered to vote and the total number, for 2004, is 2,106,658, compared to 1,969,199 Iowans registered to vote in the 2000 general election.
Jon Bon Jovi performs at the Kerry rally
in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday
The Quad City Times also reported that there were 604,277 registered Republicans, versus 598,296 Democrats, and 736,007 registered with neither party.
Supporting Harkin’s announcement at this rally, however, was the Quad City Times’ contention that Democrats have gained 66,409, while Republicans have added only 21,903 new voters.
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