Us presidential election 2004

[theavonlady 2]

Bush wins Iran's endorsement

Quote[/b] ]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.

"We do not desire to see Democrats take over," Rowhani said when asked if Iran was supporting Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) against Bush.

The Bush campaign said no thanks.

Hehehe. I like how everyone who would use it against Kerry if he was endorsed will now completely ignore this.

Who would teh terorists REALLY vote for!?

But what it really boils down to is the bolded paragraph in this news item:

Quote[/b] ]Arabs No Longer Want 'Devil They Know' in White House

Mon Oct 25, 7:23 AM ET

By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO (Reuters) - In U.S. presidential elections Arab leaders usually prefer the devil they know over any candidate challenging the man in the White House, however much they view the incumbent as an overbearing partner.

But as Americans choose between President Bush (news - web sites) and Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) on Nov. 2, analysts say many Arabs wonder whether anyone could be worse than a U.S. president who occupied Iraq (news - web sites), aligned himself with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) and turned his back on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Bush, they say, has also blotted his copybook by repeatedly ignoring Arab opinion and advice on foreign policy and launching a heavy-handed campaign for reform which has earned him credit only with a tiny number of middle-class liberals.

"I don't believe that anyone worse could possibly come," said Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, one of the Arab world's most influential Islamist groups.

"The only difference that might tilt the Arabs toward the Democratic candidate is... that there is a belief that it really can't be worse," added Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.

"Bush is a lost cause for most Arabs... Kerry might do better, especially if he does disengage from Iraq," said Mustafa Alani, senior adviser at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.

A section of Arab public opinion either says "a pox on both your houses" or prays that the U.S. electorate will give Bush a public humiliation. But some Arab analysts say a Kerry presidency really could be better than the last four years.

They do not believe the Democratic candidate will instantly withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, recognize that grievances lie behind much Middle East violence or try to impose a two-state peace settlement on Israelis and Palestinians.

In fact many of them say that Kerry's few remarks on the Middle East are disappointing indicators that he would continue many of the pro-Israeli attitudes which have alienated so many Arabs and Muslims from the Bush administration.

He favors the U.S. boycott of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), supports the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank and says that "Israel's cause must be America's cause."

IMAGE PROBLEM

On the positive side, from the Arab point of view, is his commitment to multilateralism, which implies he might take into account the views of others and adjust U.S. policy for the sake of common action.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he has promised to name a high-level envoy -- a signal that he might resume the intense diplomacy abandoned when U.S. President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) handed over the White House to Bush in 2001.

Abdel Moneim Said, director of the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said he expected U.S. priorities in the Middle East to shift, away from Iraq and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which most Arabs see as the core of the region's problems.

"If Kerry won, then we would move into a new involvement period. If Bush, I think we would have an approach even more restrained than already exists," he said.

In the Arab world, Washington's image problem stems largely from its support for Israel, compounded by the perception that Bush's "war on terror" demonizes Arabs and Muslims by ignoring the roots of violence.

As long as there is no Israeli-Palestinian settlement, Arab-American relations will stay strained, even if Washington can achieve what think tanks say are its two main Middle East goals -- the security of Israel and a steady supply of oil.

The exceptions who favor Bush, analysts say, are the Saudi royal family, whom Kerry has personally antagonized, a small group of liberals who take seriously Bush's commitment to political reform in the Middle East, and a minority who hold that Bush would adjust his policies in a second term.

Habib of the Brotherhood said a second-term Bush would "be free of the pressure of the Zionist lobby." "But Bush might continue his complete support for the Zionist entity," he added.

Neutral analysts said they doubted Bush had the will to shake himself free of the hard core of foreign policy advisers closely associated with the views of Sharon's Likud party.

"Some Arab officials say they wish Bush would announce that he will get rid of the group surrounding him if he is re-elected... I believe they are naive and deluded. It is doubtful Bush can continue to run the United States in the absence of this group," said Egyptian commentator Gamil Matar, writing in the Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat.

The U.S. presidential election campaign is hardly the talk of Arab cities or villages, where indifference to the result and contempt for both candidates are widespread, analysts say.

"The great majority, even more than 70 percent, don't think that Bush or Kerry make a difference because both are evil, because the United States is evil," said Abdel Moneim Said.

[Blake 0]

Quote[/b] ]"The great majority, even more than 70 percent, don't think that Bush or Kerry make a difference because both are evil, because the United States is evil," said Abdel Moneim Said.

Maybe there's the slight difference between Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil  

[Gollum1 0]

http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/.Pictures/RealBandofBrothers.jpg

Terrorist reverse psychology!? Are you with us or against us!?

lael@Blake

[ogre_h 0]

Quote[/b] ]Oh for christs sake.

You really think a freakin' first grader really knows anything? What do you think the chances are they just picked the person they recognized? Given the 50-50 chance of picking the winner, I see little to woot about in this "poll."

Heh. I said the same thing right before Clinton won in '92. Except for the "woot". Didn't say "woot". Damn I'm old.

[BoweryBaker 0]

I just saw Eminem's video Mosh. Quite radical only because the words sounded like they support coup d'etat one second and organized civil ways of choosing a new president the next. At times the video differed from the views of the song, but It's good to get the feeling out though there. I wouldn't misbehave though, to all of you impressionable youth out there who may want to get involved, there are civil ways of going about your choice. I really hope Eminem don't get sniped, or even me for that matter.

[BoweryBaker 0]

Hmmm, terrorist reverse psychology. You're onto something gnome....

[joltan 0]

New Florida vote scandal feared

Quote[/b] ] Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Political party members allowed to prevent people from voting??? Jesus, that's worse than a banana republic! So much for constitutional rights...

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]"The great majority, even more than 70 percent, don't think that Bush or Kerry make a difference because both are evil, because the United States is evil," said Abdel Moneim Said.

And who can blame them , i mean what difference would putting Kerry in make except the immediate IRAQ scenario , the whole Yank scratch Israel back thing continues and so life goes on ......

[ralphwiggum 6]

yeah, just like thinking that terrorist attack can be effective.

anyways, Bush's NG episode won't go away.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....guard_3

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON - Unearthed under legal pressure, three-decade-old documents portray President Bush (news - web sites) as a capable and well-liked Air National Guard pilot who stopped flying and attending regular drills two-thirds of the way through his six-year commitment — without consequence.

The files, many of them forced to light by Freedom of Information lawsuits by The Associated Press, conflict with some of the harshest attacks Democrats have levied on Bush's Vietnam-era service, such as suggestions that Bush was a deserter or absent without leave.

But gaps in the records leave unanswered questions about the final two years of his military service in 1972 and 1973. Chief among them: Why did Bush's commanders apparently tolerate his lapses in training and approve his honorable discharge?

Bush's commanders could have punished him — or ordered him to two years of active duty — for missing drills for six months in 1972 and skipping a required pilot's medical exam. Instead, they allowed him to make up some of his missed training and granted him an honorable discharge.

"Obviously, the commander saw the lieutenant's interest in the guard was waning," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver Jr., a former head of the Air National Guard. "Had he been good before? Yeah. Does that mean he should nail him to the wall? No. The culture at the time was not to enforce that."

But the culture apparently did not apply to everyone. Although no records mention any punishment against Bush other than being grounded, the Texas unit's files show another airman was ordered to involuntary active duty in March 1972 as punishment.

There are also unresolved questions about what, if any, work Bush did while temporarily assigned in 1972 to an Alabama unit and why the future president suddenly switched back to training jets shortly before giving up as a pilot.

[shinRaiden 0]

Bah. Those RNC lists are for getting people TO the polls, not keeping them away. It's a massive 4+ year project of private data, not public elections data, so we don't have to share. neyah-neyah.

Sharecropping in Milwaukee?

Quote[/b] ]

GOP worker Yuri Nielsen Monday carefully scanned a crowd of largely African-American would-be voters gathered in City Hall to fill out registration forms, looking for the notorious "Cigarette Lady" who during the 2000 election distributed beer and smokes in the city's homeless shelters in exchange for Democratic votes, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"(I'm) looking for any group that comes in with one person telling them what to do," which would be "a definite red light for 'smokes for votes,'" Nielsen said.

Milwaukee Democratic Party President Martha Love protested: "It's plantation style. He's just sitting there, watching. It's an owner mentality."

Hollister, TX vandalism

Quote[/b] ]

Sometime between Oct. 12 and Oct. 16 unknown suspects vandalized a large Bush/Cheney campaign sign posted in the 700 block of McCray Street, spraying vulgarities denouncing the president, according to a Hollister police report.

Volunteers found the sign on Saturday, Oct. 16 and immediately took it down, said Jeannie Glass, San Benito County Republican Party volunteer.

Including several obscenities splashed across Bush and Cheney’s name, at the bottom the vandals sprayed the “F†word followed by the words Texas and Florida.

“To combine that word with Florida and Texas, someone understood the past election and where Bush is from, which is what made it interesting,†Glass said. “It wasn’t just kids.â€

Several days later they noticed there was also a foot print on the sign, which meant someone had taken the large 4-by-8-foot sign down, sprayed the vulgarities on it and then put it back up, she said.

Now the sign hangs in the front window of the local GOP headquarters on San Benito Street, with pieces of paper labeled “censored†across the swear words and “compliments of a Kerry supporter†taped to the top.

Other than some signs being blown over in the wind, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hasn’t had any problems with their signs being stolen or vandalized, said Jeanie Wallace, San Benito County Central Committee chairperson.

I assure you there are no imperialist liars in the media closets...

Quote[/b] ]

CBS would not address its initial plans to air the anti-Bush story two days before the presidential election, but pundits interpreted it as an "October surprise," a late-breaking news event designed to tilt an election one way or the other.

Some Democrats have accused Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign of conspiring with the regime in Iran to extend a hostage crisis that damaged President Carter's standing. The charges were investigated by a congressional committee, and Mr. Reagan's team was cleared.

In 1992, Republicans cried foul when — after six years of Iran-Contra investigations and on the Friday before Election Day — Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh announced a new indictment of Caspar W. Weinberger, secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

Four years ago, just five days before Election Day, a Democratic operative in Maine alerted the press to a previously unreported 1976 drunken-driving citation for George W. Bush.

"Major media outlets have constructed this story to appear that the Bush administration is to blame, a week short of an election. It's become fodder for the campaign, and in a close race like this, the story easily could sway voters," said Clifford May, a syndicated columnist and president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a District-based nonprofit group that analyzes global terrorist threats.

Attempts to manipulate the U.S. election with strategically timed leaks goes beyond journalists, Mr. May said.

"What has to be investigated here is whether [iAEA Director-General] Mohamed ElBaradei has attempted to manipulate an American election, and whether certain components of the American media helped him by not exercising sufficient journalistic skepticism," he said.

In an online column of the National Review yesterday, Mr. May wrote, "The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud."

"The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohamed ElBaradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The U.S. is trying to deny ElBaradei a second term, and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear-weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear-weapons program."

Variations of the missing-explosives theme also appeared on CNN, CBS and ABC.

Stop the elections? They shouldn't have started yet...

Quote[/b] ]

Democrats in Florida already are pursuing nine election-related lawsuits, accusing state election officials of conspiring to disenfranchise minority voters.

Led by the Florida Democratic Party, the People for the American Way, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the AFL-CIO, the lawsuits target, among others, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother.

The suits say Republican officials refused to count provisional ballots, improperly disqualified incomplete voter registrations, established overly restrictive rules to disproportionately hurt minority voters and actively sought to disenfranchise blacks.

Matt Miller, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, said Republicans are "trying to scare people away from the polls."

But Mrs. Hood's spokesman, Alia Faraj, described the lawsuits as politically motivated, saying they were eroding public confidence in the election process by challenging "every single law we are following."

One suit challenges a ruling by Mrs. Hood to throw out forms on which new voters had failed to check a box indicating whether they were U.S. citizens, and another argued that although only 17 percent of the voters in Broward County and 20 percent in Miami-Dade County were black, more than a third of the voter-registration forms that were determined to be incomplete and invalid in both counties involved black voters.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has successfully challenged a ruling on how counties with touch-screen voting should conduct manual recounts. The state had banned the recounts, but an administrative-law judge agreed with the ACLU challenge and tossed that rule in August.

Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, yesterday predicted that Mr. Kerry would employ "fraud, intimidation and lawsuits" in an attempt to overturn a Bush victory on Tuesday. He said if Democrats lose at the ballot box, they would use lawyers "to try to shoehorn a victory."

"What you're seeing is an attempt, through lawsuits and through intimidation, by Democrats to convert their allies' registration fraud into voter fraud on Election Day," he said. "What you're going to see is an attempt by them, regardless of what the outcome is, to say: 'It's unfair. We're going to sue.' "

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Ed Gillespie said the lawsuits are part of a Democratic plan to "use lawyers and baseless allegations to skew the results in their favor." He said the RNC thinks that "no legitimate voter should be disenfranchised, either by being denied a vote or by having an honest vote canceled out by a fraudulent vote."

Mr. Gillespie said teams of Democratic lawyers will seek to change the rules in ways that would make it easier to engage in systematic voter fraud on Election Day.

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

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe has accused Republicans of engaging in "systematic efforts" to disenfranchise voters, imposing unlawful identification requirements on voters, throwing eligible voters off the rolls and depriving voters of their right to cast a provisional ballot.

"Regardless of party or candidate, it is the civic and moral duty of both parties to encourage complete and full participation in the democratic process," he said in a recent letter to Mr. Gillespie.

In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a Florida recount be halted after 36 days, giving the state's 25 Electoral College votes to Mr. Bush, which put him in the White House. The high court, according to public statements by several justices, did not think the ruling would prompt a flood of lawsuits in future federal, state and local elections. But both major parties since have hired an army of lawyers to respond to potential legal challenges this year.

The DNC has 10,000 lawyers on call, including six "SWAT squads" that are ready to deploy on the orders of Mr. Kerry and his campaign staff. The team is headed by Steven Zack, whose law partner, David Boies, argued for former Vice President Al Gore before the Supreme Court in 2000.

The RNC is coordinating a countervailing force of lawyers to respond to voter challenges in 30,000 key precincts, mostly battleground states. The effort is being directed through Republican state party officials. Former Bush administration Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, who argued for Mr. Bush in the Supreme Court case, is expected to be a key player in any Republican legal challenges.

"We will have the folks on the ground, we will have the strategy to deal with that and we will protect the integrity of the election process," Mr. Mehlman said.

In 2001, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said after a three-month investigation that the Florida presidential election was rife with "injustice" and "ineptitude" that resulted in the disenfranchisement of black voters.

But two members of the eight-member panel, Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican, and Russell G. Redenbaugh, an independent, disputed the findings in a 50-page dissent, saying commission investigators used flawed data to justify a "preconceived, partisan belief" the election was marred by discrimination and disfranchisement of minority voters.

Mrs. Thernstrom said at the time that a more rigorous statistical analysis showed that race was unrelated to the rate of ballot spoilage and that no evidence supported accusations of disfranchisement or discrimination of minorities. She said the Florida election was "hampered only by problems that were neither motivated by racial discrimination nor served to disfranchise minority voters."

During hearings in Tallahassee, Fla., the commission called three black voters to substantiate what the panel said was a "conspiracy" to block minority voters from polling places, but none of three could show that they had been denied their right to vote. No other witnesses were called.

John Nelson, the Rev. Willie D. Whiting and Roberta Tucker, all of Tallahassee, testified under oath that they had concerns and had read about problems concerning voter irregularities, but all of them voted at their polling precincts.

Mr. Nelson said he saw unmanned police cars near different polling places on Election Day and thought that was "unusual." Mrs. Tucker said she was detained at a routine police driver's license checkpoint that had been functioning for weeks before the election, but was waved on after producing her valid license. Mr. Whiting said his name had been purged by mistake from the voting rolls when he had inaccurately been identified as a felon, but was allowed to vote after a call to an election supervisor.

Commission Chairman Mary Frances Berry, an independent who has supported Democratic candidates and causes, said at the time that even though none of the witnesses had been denied access to a polling site, "we know some bad things happened."

In case you folks don't recognize the name David Boies, this is the same guy who is the prinicpal in representing SCO in their idiotic attempts to destroy Linux via litigation on baseless extortion attempts (groklaw et al). That whole mess will end up costing the world dearly, but not as much as slacking off and voting in someone to hari-Kerry the US.

Oh, and if you plan to poll-watch as an observer, better check with your county elections boards. Registration is being required in many jurisdictions for the first time. PCO's 'should' still be automatically covered, but you still better check just to make sure.

[theavonlady 2]

In case you folks don't recognize the name David Boies, this is the same guy who is the prinicpal in representing SCO in their idiotic attempts to destroy Linux via litigation on baseless extortion attempts (groklaw et al).

Wow! He's really multi-talented!

[EiZei 0]

Apparently georgewbush.com is no longer accessible for pinko europeans anymore, oh well.

[theavonlady 2]

Apparently georgewbush.com is no longer accessible for pinko europeans anymore, oh well.

Nor us mideast pinkos, too!

[Colossus 2]

Apparently georgewbush.com is no longer accessible for pinko europeans anymore, oh well.

Nor us mideast pinkos, too!

They are too afraid of us now, we know there secrets

[BoweryBaker 0]

Anger directed at Bush is useless at this point.  Someone has to influence his strategy... There isn't any time for that. In case there is though, read the signature. Another thing, if Kerry wins, then lets make preparations to get our view up in there as far as the strategies we learned. I didn't play this game and learn nothing.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

The Guardian

I dont know if anyone posted this before but... it is damn funny!

[Badgerboy 0]

The war of 1812? Wasn't that when the US tried to invade Canada and got a good shoeing?

[theavonlady 2]

The Guardian

I dont know if anyone posted this before but... it is damn funny!

And I thought this was funny:

Quote[/b] ]Screen Burn, The Guide

Sunday October 24, 2004

The Guardian

The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer.

"Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

The expunged paragraph read:

Quote[/b] ]On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

Ha! Ha! Funneh!

Not.

[Badgerboy 0]

Ho ho, I didn't know My Brooker was writing for the Guardian. Trust him to cause an international scene.

Last time he kicked up a fuss was in the UK games mag PC Zone. He used to freelance review, and draw cartoons for the mag. One month, there was a feature called 'Cruelty Zoo'. It was a satire concerning the depiction of children and violence in the media, and consisted of kids smashing monkeys heads in with hammers, and nailing penguins to the floor.

It was in short hilarious. The magazine was then sued, had the issue pulled, got a bollocking from the home office, and had questions in parliment. Superb, I still have my original copy!

Here is one of his recent projects. Not as good as the old stuff, but he would have been lynced by now otherwise!

[Acecombat 0]

AHAHAHAHA

man this thread is getting hilarious by the post

[theavonlady 2]

Yeh I love fun stuff.

[Badgerboy 0]

Yeh I love fun stuff.

PLEASE tell me they don't show those sort of adverts on US TV!

Has politics in the US become that pathetic and childish? What happened to civility between parties?

[hardrock 1]

Yeh I love fun stuff.

No!

[theavonlady 2]

Yeh I love fun stuff.

PLEASE tell me they don't show those sort of adverts on US TV!

Has politics in the US become that pathetic and childish? What happened to civility between parties?

Naw! Kerry's latest ad is so mature.

But of course, it's looking more and more like another big lie. So sing along and laugh:

EDIT: BTW, that Kiss-Me-Kerry ad was privately produced. GWB hasn't approved of that message.

[theavonlady 2]

But in all honesty, I prefer the Wizzard of Id's hopes for this last week prior to the election: