There are 42 days to go until the national referendum on the CREDIBILITY, COMPETENCE and CHARACTER of the _resident and the VICE _resident...Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) appeared on David Letterman's show last night, and hung out for through two commercial breaks...It was a poignant act of resistance by Letterman and SeeBS. JFK and Letterman talked at length, and in a serious way, about the war in Iraq and the failed administration in the White House...,JFK taunted and baited the _resident...Associated Press: Besides reading his "Top 10" list, Kerry also poked fun at the tedious debate negotiations between the rival campaigns that ended in agreement Monday. Kerry said he wanted running mate John Edwards to stand in the vice presidential debate, but Cheney wanted to sit. "We compromised and now George Bush is going to sit on Dick Cheney's lap," he said...Kerry's "Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals" are:
10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.
9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.
8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.
7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.
6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.
5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.
4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.
3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.
2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of "nucular."
1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.
Here are five very important LNS selections. Please read them and share them with others. Please vote and encourage others to vote. Please remember that the US regimestream news media does not want to inform you about this presidential campaign, it wants to DISinform you...There is an Electoral Uprising coming at the Ballot Box in November...
Jennifer Barrett Ozols, Newsweek: Kristen Breitweiser supported George W. Bush in 2000. This year, she’s endorsing his opponent. She is certainly not the only woman in America to change her mind about whom she plans to vote for this election, but Breitweiser is no ordinary voter. The New Jersey lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom has taken on an increasingly prominent role since September 11. After her husband, Ron, a vice president at Fiduciary Trust, was killed in the World Trade Center, she joined three other widows from her state as activists demanding a full investigation into the 2001 attacks. The group, who call themselves "The Jersey Girls,” have since testified before Congress, met with administration officials, and lobbied successfully for the creation of the 9/11 Commission to look into intelligence failures leading up to the 2001 attacks.
Now Breitweiser has volunteered to join John Kerry’s campaign, speaking out in support of the Democratic challenger across the nation—even agreeing, for the first time since 9/11, to fly on an airplane to get the word out. This Tuesday, she and four other 9/11 widows, along with a survivor of the Pentagon attacks, held a press conference to endorse Kerry. As they described it, their reasons for speaking out are twofold: anger at the war on Iraq and a growing frustration with an administration they accuse of obstructing the investigation into intelligence failures. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett Ozols spoke with Breitweiser about her decision and her new role in the White House race. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: You supported Bush in 2000. Why are you changing your vote this year?
Kristen Breitweiser: The predominant reason is because I don’t feel President Bush has done everything he could do to make us safer in the three years since 9/11. I’ve personally spent the last three years fighting to try to fix the problems that plague our intelligence apparatus, so we would not be so vulnerable to Al Qaeda the next time around. And during the three years, our largest adversary was the administration. Because of that, I can’t in good conscience vote for President Bush.
The second largest reason is the war in Iraq. We have lost more than a thousand soldiers in Iraq, thousands have been wounded—Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The net result is that we are more vulnerable to terrorism because Al Qaeda has increased [its] recruitment there, the hatred and animosity toward Americans has increased, worldwide support for Americans has decreased … If President Bush is in office for another four years, I shudder to think of how many other wars unrelated to terrorism he’ll take us into.
Was there a particular moment that triggered your decision to speak out in favor of Kerry?
For me, it was the [Republican National Convention] … At the convention, 9/11 was spoken about constantly and I thought, where was this interest, this passion, this fervor for the last three years when we [9/11 widows] were begging and pleading and screaming to get 9/11 issues addressed by this administration? They wanted nothing to do with it, and then there’s a convention where that’s all they’re talking about: 9/11. I can [also] give you a laundry list of other things that could have been done by this administration in the past three years that were not done. That’s upsetting to me.
William Rivers Pitt., www.truthout.org: The American mainstream television news media, in whole and in part, has catastrophically failed the American people and is singularly responsible for the untimely deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people...
The decision by the mainstream television news media to get into bed with the very entities they are supposed to stand watchdog against has been a mortal one. Once it becomes acceptable to get your reporting from Defense Department and military spin-doctors, without doing any work on your own, the game is over. What started with the Gulf War as a new 'reporting' technique has become an institutionalized process of standing as mouthpiece for those who deserve the strongest scrutiny.
The White House and Defense Department boys know this, and exploited it ruthlessly in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration sought to capitalize on the tragedy by using it as an excuse to invade Iraq, something the power-pitchers in the administration had wanted for more than a decade. A shadowy and little-known media consulting company called The Rendon Group got a $100,000-a-month contract from the Pentagon right after the attacks. The Rendon Group was getting paid to offer media strategy advice. Or, in other words, propaganda.
The Rendon Group has been around a long time, and stands at the center of the media's failure to report accurately on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Rendon Group has received close to $200 million from the Pentagon and CIA over the last several years to spread anti-Hussein propaganda far and wide. One of the first steps they took was to create in 1992, out of absolute thin air, the Iraqi National Congress. The Iraqi National Congress, and its most famous spokesperson Ahmad Chalabi, are entirely the creation of a media strategy company doing the bidding of the United States government.
www.mediamatters.org: The Republican National Committee (RNC)'s public relations firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, sent a memo to conservative media outlets instructing them not to give airtime to Kitty Kelley, author of The Family: The Real Story Of the Bush Dynasty (Doubleday, September 14). And according to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, White House communications director Dan Bartlett also discouraged news outlets from covering the book. Media Matters for America tracked mentions of Kelley and her book, as well as her personal appearances, during the week of the book's release (September 13-17) on the four major cable news networks: CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC. The only network on which Kelley did not appear in person is FOX News Channel.
Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive: What if Republican shenanigans tip the election? Many members of the media are looking at the dangers voting machines may pose to the integrity of the national election. Others are wondering whether voters may be disenfranchised by use of faulty felon lists, as happened in Florida in 2000. But there is another danger: Republicans may use a variety of tactics to suppress the vote of racial minorities in swing states. These tactics could determine control of the White House or the Senate.
In August, the Zogby International poll raised the number of battleground states from sixteen to twenty. In those states, notes John Zogby, "the pounding has been relentless."
Zogby was referring to negative ads, but the sanctity of the vote is also taking a pounding. In some states, Republicans are threatening to conduct widespread vote challenges in heavily minority areas. In others, recent events suggest that poll workers may wrongly turn away voters. In still others, new laws passed or enforced by Republicans have erected hurdles to trip up the minority vote. And on Election Day itself, say advocates, Republicans may direct numerous tricks at Democratic districts in an effort to confuse or frighten voters.
Here's a rundown of what's happening in several swing states...
[The LNS disagrees with M.M.'s assessment of JFK but M.M. is entitled to his opinion uncensured. He is one of the heroes of the Republic...]
Michael Moore, www.michaelmoore.com: My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.
3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).
4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.
Support Our Troops, Save the US Constitution,
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Restore Fiscal Responsibility in the White House,
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Save the Environment, Break the Corporatist
Stranglehold on the US Mainstream News Media, Rescue
the US Supreme Court from Right-Wing Radicals, Cleanse
the White House of the Chicken Hawk Coup and Its
War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat the Triad, Defeat Bush (again!)
MSNBC.com
‘He Can Make Us Safe’
A prominent 9/11 widow—and former Republican—explains why she now wants Kerry to win the White House race
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Jennifer Barrett Ozols
Newsweek
Updated: 4:21 p.m. ET Sept. 17, 2004
Sept. 17 - Kristen Breitweiser supported George W. Bush in 2000. This year, she’s endorsing his opponent. She is certainly not the only woman in America to change her mind about whom she plans to vote for this election, but Breitweiser is no ordinary voter. The New Jersey lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom has taken on an increasingly prominent role since September 11. After her husband, Ron, a vice president at Fiduciary Trust, was killed in the World Trade Center, she joined three other widows from her state as activists demanding a full investigation into the 2001 attacks. The group, who call themselves "The Jersey Girls,” have since testified before Congress, met with administration officials, and lobbied successfully for the creation of the 9/11 Commission to look into intelligence failures leading up to the 2001 attacks.
Now Breitweiser has volunteered to join John Kerry’s campaign, speaking out in support of the Democratic challenger across the nation—even agreeing, for the first time since 9/11, to fly on an airplane to get the word out. This Tuesday, she and four other 9/11 widows, along with a survivor of the Pentagon attacks, held a press conference to endorse Kerry. As they described it, their reasons for speaking out are twofold: anger at the war on Iraq and a growing frustration with an administration they accuse of obstructing the investigation into intelligence failures. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett Ozols spoke with Breitweiser about her decision and her new role in the White House race. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: You supported Bush in 2000. Why are you changing your vote this year?
Kristen Breitweiser: The predominant reason is because I don’t feel President Bush has done everything he could do to make us safer in the three years since 9/11. I’ve personally spent the last three years fighting to try to fix the problems that plague our intelligence apparatus, so we would not be so vulnerable to Al Qaeda the next time around. And during the three years, our largest adversary was the administration. Because of that, I can’t in good conscience vote for President Bush.
The second largest reason is the war in Iraq. We have lost more than a thousand soldiers in Iraq, thousands have been wounded—Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The net result is that we are more vulnerable to terrorism because Al Qaeda has increased [its] recruitment there, the hatred and animosity toward Americans has increased, worldwide support for Americans has decreased … If President Bush is in office for another four years, I shudder to think of how many other wars unrelated to terrorism he’ll take us into.
Was there a particular moment that triggered your decision to speak out in favor of Kerry?
For me, it was the [Republican National Convention] … At the convention, 9/11 was spoken about constantly and I thought, where was this interest, this passion, this fervor for the last three years when we [9/11 widows] were begging and pleading and screaming to get 9/11 issues addressed by this administration? They wanted nothing to do with it, and then there’s a convention where that’s all they’re talking about: 9/11. I can [also] give you a laundry list of other things that could have been done by this administration in the past three years that were not done. That’s upsetting to me.
Can you give some examples?
Border security. The 9/11 Commission found that border security is in very bad shape. We’re less secure with regard to border safety than we were. That would take a simple reallocation of funds and for whatever reason it hasn’t been done. There are harder things to do, too, like the reorganization of the intelligence community. I understand that’s a concept that has been out there for 15 years and couldn’t get accomplished. But my God, if 9/11—the largest intelligence failure in U.S. history—was not enough to awaken President Bush to the need to reorganize the intelligence community, I don’t know what is.
What role will you have in the Kerry campaign?
I want to be able to talk to people across the country and make them understand that homeland security must be a priority and explain to them why, in the last four years, homeland security was not a priority. Bush is constantly saying national security is a priority, but where is the proof?
Did the Kerry campaign approach you?
No, I called the Kerry campaign and said we [the group of 9/11 widows] want to support John Kerry and do what we need to do to get the word out. Because we feel like he can make us safe.
You say you encountered initial resistance from the administration regarding the creation of a 9/11 commission. Why was that?
Well, the first argument was that we were a nation at war and we couldn’t spare the vital resources. But if we had established a commission sooner to investigate, as we did with Pearl Harbor, we might not have gone to Iraq because we might have learned that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
In your opinion, what needs to be done now to improve our national security?
Obviously, I’d like to see the 9/11 Commission recommendations thoughtfully put into legislation, which would entail a reorganization of our intelligence committee to better fight terrorism and groups like Al Qaeda specifically. And I would like to know that our transportation system—whether it be subways, buses or planes—are a serious part of our homeland security plan. Borders, nuclear plants, water plants are all vulnerable. Also, I’m a lawyer, and I know that our judicial system needs to be set up so we can successfully prosecute the terrorists. It’s not now. We need to make sure detainees’ rights aren’t being violated, [that] prisoners aren’t being abused. We need to dry up those money lines [to terrorist groups]. We have not made the efforts there.
How hopeful are you that all the 9/11 Commission recommendations will be implemented?
I truly feel the only way the 9/11 Commission recommendations will be implemented with the spirit and intent of what the commission wanted is if Kerry is elected.
Did you ever imagine you would be campaigning for Kerry or playing such a public role?
No, I am a very private person; I am a mom. Now I am a single mom. But what is so motivating for me is the amount of people who have contacted me to say thank you or to say, I feel the same way, I am scared. They ask me, why aren’t we fixing border security and looking into alternative energy sources to oil? That is what keeps you going … We have spent three years being very engaged in this because we feel we have to be. I would love nothing better then to have spent the last three years instead knowing we are safe. I think it’s sad that homeland security is even an issue in this election. I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now if we had addressed this earlier.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6030699/site/newsweek/
Your Media is Killing You
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 21 September 2004
The American mainstream television news media, in whole and in part, has catastrophically failed the American people and is singularly responsible for the untimely deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people.
The trajectory of this plunge is easy to chart. The 1980s saw unprecedented deregulation of the rules pertaining to the ownership of media outlets. Thus began the combination and consolidation of dozens of differing viewpoints under the iron control of a few massive corporations. The many voices became one voice, and a dullard's voice at that.
The opening year of the 1990s saw the push towards our first war in Iraq. Rather than hold to basic standards set by Edward R. Murrow and the other giants of journalism - see it for yourself, do the legwork, because the American people deserve to know what is happening - the mainstream television news media decided their best course was to allow themselves to be hand-fed by the Pentagon. No footage, no reports, no news whatsoever would be released to the public without first passing through Defense Department screeners. The American people learned from this that war looks like a video game, that death is remote, that victory is a simple matter of pushing a button.
After surrendering their integrity to governmental and military entities which lie as a matter of course, the mainstream television news media learned with the trial of O.J. Simpson the simple truth espoused by H.L. Mencken: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." Day after day, for sixteen months, every television was filled around the clock with soap-opera entertainment passing itself off as news. The American people, deprived of substantive information about the world around them, learned that real news is only about celebrities.
Then came the greatest entertainment-as-news extravaganza of all time: The Monica Lewinski scandal and the impeachment of a President who lied about sex. As an athlete will lose muscle tone if he stays away from the gym or the playing field, so did the intellectual muscles of the media atrophy after years of avoiding the basic efforts required in their field. Why run a scoop down about the war if I can just publish this Pentagon-prepared battle assessment? Why investigate Whitewater and the death of Vince Foster when I can just regurgitate this fax I just got from the Republican National Committee's media headquarters? If I can just get in front of the camera with a salacious bit of gossip, I can become an anchor. For many 'journalists,' the inflated nonsense of the impeachment was their "White Bronco."
Meanwhile, during the period beginning with the O.J. trial and concluding with the impeachment extravaganza, the Taliban was taking control of Afghanistan in the wake left by the completion of our anti-Soviet policies in that nation. A man named Osama bin Laden was preparing to attack anything and everything American he could get close to. UNSCOM weapons inspectors under Scott Ritter were taking Iraq's chemical and biological warfare capabilities apart literally brick by brick, and the sanctions against that nation, which were killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, were also reducing Saddam Hussein's conventional arsenal to a large collection of formidable paperweights.
One threat was on the rise, another was on the wane, but this is boring stuff compared to ill-fitting leather gloves and a stained blue dress. The American people were never provided the full scope of the security issues facing their country, because the television news media they relied upon didn't want to put in the work. Often, when then-President Clinton acted to address these security issues, he was accused of "wagging the dog," i.e. manufacturing unimportant threats to obscure the really important stuff, like whether or not he purchased gifts for Lewinski at the Big Dog store on Nantucket.
Think of these points - media laziness, media complicity with the powers-that-be, media obsession with fantastically unimportant gossip and tabloidism - and then remember those tall buildings in New York collapsing to the ground. Perhaps the 'journalists' involved could have been focusing on other things before that dark day?
Sunday night's episode of the CBS News program '60 Minutes' had a long, detailed and graphic expose on the fighting that recently took place in Najaf and Fallujah. All of the commercials for the program, however, focused on the '60 Minutes' interview with New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick. It was a clever bit of sleight-of-hand; by now, Americans have been well-trained to spurn whatever tiny molecules of substantive news that might somehow blunder across their screens, because the truly important stuff has more to do with who is sleeping with J-Lo and how Ben feels about it.
Sports is, of course, the champion distraction. Listen to any sports talk radio show; if the American people could rattle off housing or budget statistics, if they could quote from memory the casualty statistics from Operation Iraqi Freedom, the way they can tell you in half a second how many doubles Manny Ramirez hit in his rookie season, half-bright loafers like George W. Bush would never have a prayer in American politics. Perhaps CBS knew this. Millions of viewers made time to watch Belichick, and were treated to a bloody and terrifying and accurate view of the Iraq occupation that has been thoroughly, completely and utterly absent.
For more than two years now, this column space has been dedicated to describing, with all truth and verified data in hand, the mess an invasion of Iraq would create. This column was among the first to declare that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that any alleged connection between Osama bin Laden and the government of Iraq was laughable on its face, that democracy was a pipe dream in Iraq, that we would not be greeted as liberators, and that any military action in Iraq based upon these unfounded claims would result in a destabilized Middle East, a world filled with furious former allies, and an ocean of blood spilled by American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
All of this has come to pass.
How is it that little truthout.org, with its limited resources and small staff, got it right time and again while ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN and Fox - with their massive financial resources and their huge pool of reporters - got it so totally and continuously wrong? The answer comes in two parts.
The first part is the degree to which these nationally broadcast news stations have become compromised by the corporations that own them. The ownership of the media is key to understanding the process. Take the example of General Electric, owners of NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. This company is one of the largest defense contractors in America; they get paid every time we go to war, and yet we somehow believe they will tell us the truth of war, even though it affects their profit margin. Such thinking is folly.
Take the example of AOL/TimeWarner, owner of CNN. This company lives and dies by the 'outsourcing' of American technological jobs overseas, where labor is cheaper. Do you think they will tell a straight story about the economy with so much on the line? Such thinking is folly, and never mind the fact that AOL/TimeWarner's largest investor is a Saudi. So much for the truth about who really supports Osama bin Laden and international terrorism. So much for the truth about what really happened on September 11, and why.
The decision by the mainstream television news media to get into bed with the very entities they are supposed to stand watchdog against has been a mortal one. Once it becomes acceptable to get your reporting from Defense Department and military spin-doctors, without doing any work on your own, the game is over. What started with the Gulf War as a new 'reporting' technique has become an institutionalized process of standing as mouthpiece for those who deserve the strongest scrutiny.
The White House and Defense Department boys know this, and exploited it ruthlessly in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration sought to capitalize on the tragedy by using it as an excuse to invade Iraq, something the power-pitchers in the administration had wanted for more than a decade. A shadowy and little-known media consulting company called The Rendon Group got a $100,000-a-month contract from the Pentagon right after the attacks. The Rendon Group was getting paid to offer media strategy advice. Or, in other words, propaganda.
The Rendon Group has been around a long time, and stands at the center of the media's failure to report accurately on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Rendon Group has received close to $200 million from the Pentagon and CIA over the last several years to spread anti-Hussein propaganda far and wide. One of the first steps they took was to create in 1992, out of absolute thin air, the Iraqi National Congress. The Iraqi National Congress, and its most famous spokesperson Ahmad Chalabi, are entirely the creation of a media strategy company doing the bidding of the United States government.
Since 1992, the Iraqi National Congress has become accepted completely by the mainstream news media as a legitimate group. They were embraced by the American Congress under Newt Gingrich and given hundreds of millions of dollars. They were, with the help of the aforementioned Congress, the driving force behind the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998, an Act which made the removal of Saddam Hussein a matter of American law. All this for a group made out of nothing by what amounts to a media consulting company.
The post-9/11 money paid to the Rendon Group returned handsome dividends for the investment. Rendon creation Ahmad Chalabi, who has since been accused of giving vital national security secrets to Iran, arranged an interview between Judith Millerof the New York Times and an Iraqi defector named Adnan Ishan Saeed al-Haidieri. al-Haidieri claimed to have personal knowledge of the vast and growing stockpiles of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Miller, thinking Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were worthy sources, believed al-Haidieri and printed an exclusive report on the threat posed by Iraq in the Times.
Time and a little legwork has since exposed al-Haidieri as a total fraud, but Rendon's propaganda got out there; as the New York Times goes, so goes the rest of the mainstream media. Miller's report, released in 2001, created a landslide push towards war, and allowed George W. Bush to sell the American people a frightening and utterly inaccurate portrait of why war was necessary, and necessary now.
Companies like The Rendon Group are a bellweather for exactly how depraved our journalistic institutions have become. Millions of dollars in government contracts are there for the taking by anyone who wants to scam the media with bogus stories. The media is more than happy to oblige, because it relieves them of having to put the necessary work in. Meanwhile, stories that might negatively affect the parent companies go by the boards, and everyone is happy.
Well, almost everyone is happy. The families of 1,033 American soldiers who have died in Iraq aren't happy. The families of the 17,000 or so American soldiers who have been 'medically evacuated' from Iraq for things like missing legs and faces aren't happy. The families of the 20,000 or so civilians killed in the invasion of Iraq aren't happy, and a lot of them are taking their unhappiness to the streets with grenades and rifles so they can make more American families unhappy by killing American soldiers.
Don't look to the mainstream television news media for an apology or a reversal of course anytime soon. They can't report the truth now. To do so would expose them as the incompetent lapdogs they have become, and as anyone who has ever screwed up at work knows, the hardest person to face after a grievous error is the person you find in the mirror.
The second part of the answer to that question - How is it that little truthout.org got it right time and again while the entire mainstream television news media got it wrong? - is simplicity itself.
We put in the work. We did the research in triplicate. We talked to the people who knew the score. We took the time. We cared. We understood that September 11 did not require us to click our heels and say "Yes sir!" to whatever balderdash Mr. Bush and his crew spouted. Quite completely the opposite is true. We understood that September 11 made it more important than ever for us to be very, very good at what we do.
The American mainstream television news media, in whole and in part, has catastrophically failed the American people and is singularly responsible for the untimely deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. It is not too late for them to reverse course, to take again the simple rules and requirements espoused by Murrow and Mencken and place them at the forefront of their institutional mission. Nothing less than the basic stability of our republic is at stake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
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RNC's p.r. firm urged conservative media to ignore Kelley's Bush book; FOX the only cable network not to host author
The Republican National Committee (RNC)'s public relations firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, sent a memo to conservative media outlets instructing them not to give airtime to Kitty Kelley, author of The Family: The Real Story Of the Bush Dynasty (Doubleday, September 14). And according to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, White House communications director Dan Bartlett also discouraged news outlets from covering the book. Media Matters for America tracked mentions of Kelley and her book, as well as her personal appearances, during the week of the book's release (September 13-17) on the four major cable news networks: CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC. The only network on which Kelley did not appear in person is FOX News Channel.
As of September 17, Kelley had personally appeared for three interviews on CNN (NewsNight with Aaron Brown, American Morning, and Lou Dobbs Tonight), one interview on MSNBC (Hardball with Chris Matthews), and one interview on CNBC (Capital Report). In addition, several news programs on CNBC, CNN, and MSNBC aired clips of Kelley's interviews on NewsNight and on NBC's Today show. FOX News Channel, meanwhile, did not air or schedule a single interview with Kelley.
While Kelley has not appeared on the network, FOX News Channel hosts have made negative references to her on their programs. Brit Hume labeled Kelley a "gossip" [Special Report with Brit Hume, September 9]; Sean Hannity claimed Kelley was "discredited" and expressed outrage that the Today show would devote three days to her [Hannity & Colmes, September 15]; and Bill O'Reilly disparaged The New York Times for publishing a review of "the Kelley dirt" and the media in general for "giving huge exposure to Kitty Kelley's hatchet job on the Bush family" [The O'Reilly Factor, September 15]. O'Reilly solicited input from viewers and listeners on whether or not he should interview Kelley on his show. On September 14, O'Reilly reported that "50,000 Factor viewers and listeners voted down Ms. Kelley in a billoreilly.com poll. So we canceled her appearance here." O'Reilly said: "I just didn't want to get down there in the muck."
U.S. News & World Report's September 14 "U.S. News Bulletin" reported that Shirley & Banister Public Affairs sent a memorandum to conservative media outlets discouraging them from giving Kelley airtime:
"New Media" Urged To Ignore Kitty Kelley And Her Book.
Conservative talk radio, TV and print outlets are being urged to ignore Kelley, author of The Family: The Real Story Of the Bush Dynasty. "Don't give Kitty Kelley air time," says a memo from the conservative and influential PR firm Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. The memo was sent as NBC's Today Show was set to interview Kelley over three days.
Shirley & Banister Public Affairs is a public relations and government affairs firm founded by Craig Shirley, a longtime Republican activist. Shirley & Banister's client list is a virtual Who's Who of Republican and conservative organizations, including the RNC, the Cato Institute, Citizens United, The Club for Growth, The Federalist Society, The Gingrich Group, The Heritage Foundation, and the National Rifle Association. Shirley's clients have also included discredited right-wing authors Gary Aldrich and Ann Coulter.
— A.F. & M.J.
Posted to the web on Monday September 20, 2004 at 12:34 PM EST
Counted Out
By Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive. Posted September 20, 2004.
What if Republican shenanigans tip the election? Many members of the media are looking at the dangers voting machines may pose to the integrity of the national election. Others are wondering whether voters may be disenfranchised by use of faulty felon lists, as happened in Florida in 2000. But there is another danger: Republicans may use a variety of tactics to suppress the vote of racial minorities in swing states. These tactics could determine control of the White House or the Senate.
In August, the Zogby International poll raised the number of battleground states from sixteen to twenty. In those states, notes John Zogby, "the pounding has been relentless."
Zogby was referring to negative ads, but the sanctity of the vote is also taking a pounding. In some states, Republicans are threatening to conduct widespread vote challenges in heavily minority areas. In others, recent events suggest that poll workers may wrongly turn away voters. In still others, new laws passed or enforced by Republicans have erected hurdles to trip up the minority vote. And on Election Day itself, say advocates, Republicans may direct numerous tricks at Democratic districts in an effort to confuse or frighten voters.
Here's a rundown of what's happening in several swing states.
Arizona
On the ballot in Arizona this November is a Republican-authored referendum called Protect Arizona Now or Proposition 200, which would do several things, including requiring proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote. Steve Gallardo, a Democratic state legislator from Arizona, worries about what some supporters of that initiative might do. "There's a lot of rumors... that they want to stand out in front of polling places and report voters-anyone they feel is here illegally and is voting in our elections," he says. "Our fear is they're going to intimidate Arizona citizens, U.S. citizens who are brown-skinned. Imagine going up to the poll and seeing a man standing there with a gun and asking if you're a citizen. Are you not going to turn away?"
The Arizona attorney general's office acknowledges that it has heard similar rumors.
Does Protect Arizona Now plan to make an appearance at the polls? "I really don't know what we're going to do," says Kathy McKee, the founder of Protect Arizona Now. She says she's worried about fraud.
"In our state, a person can register to vote from a computer in their home, mail in their registration, and they have not shown their face in public, much less their identity," says McKee. Lots of people, she says, are "coming across our borders illegally and getting jobs, which is a felony. Why would they hesitate to vote?" McKee and other Protect Arizona Now members say that voter fraud is already high in the state and is bound to rise in the close election. The voter registration drives targeting the state have piqued their anger. "There are several groups from around the country that have just besieged Arizona," says McKee. "Project Vote Smart, which really disappointed me. The infamous Southwest Voter Registration Project, Moving America Forward, New American Freedom Summer, the Urban Institute. They have been in this state only targeting Hispanic voters. That's the most racist thing I've ever heard."
On September 7, primary day, two gentlemen came to Tucson Precinct 30, says a poll worker there named Ross (who does not want his last name mentioned). "They were both very intimidating and forceful looking," he says. "They said they were checking polls to see if illegal aliens were voting. They said their organization's name was Truth in Action." The men, says Ross, told him they believed that "Mexicans are coming to vote because it's really easy."
"They were making the runs on all kinds of polls," says Aurora Duron, AFL-CIO Tucson coordinator of the My Vote-My Right Campaign.
Russ Dove is editor of tianews.com, the website of Truth in Action, which supports Protect Arizona Now. He says he visited five polls on September 7. As a door-to-door campaigner for Proposition 200, Dove says he heard "verbal evidence from individuals on the street who said, 'Yes, illegal immigrants are voting.' " Dove says he is "bent on discovering" how many are doing so.
On the day I contact Dove, he is a little out of sorts. The AFL-CIO, he says, has accused him of intimidating voters. "Why would someone who supports the Constitution and wants to exercise his rights as a citizen intimidate U.S. citizens?" he asks. "What they're saying is that they know there are illegals voting."
On primary day, Dove says he sported "a black T-shirt with 'U.S. Constitutional Enforcement' on the back" and the image of a badge on the front. "I wear a tool belt," he says. On primary day, that belt carried tools, a camera, and a video recorder. Dove says he used the camera to take "some photographs of the polling places." He used the video recorder to film "all the conversations I had." Dove says that more people want to monitor polls in November. "After the AFL-CIO threw their fit," he says, people started wanting to get involved. "They said, 'Let's get the T-shirts printed up and let's go," he says.
"The only people we will bother are people who are in violation of the law," says Dove. For instance, if he sees "a busload of Hispanic individuals who didn't speak English and who voted," he plans to follow that bus to make sure they aren't voting more than once.
Florida
The state that started it all in 2000 is no stranger to controversy this election. In July, The Miami Herald revealed that the state issued faulty felon purge lists containing the names of 48,000 people it said were ineligible to vote. Among these were 2,100 who actually were eligible voters. Many of these people were African American Democrats. The list of 48,000 also contained only sixty-one Hispanic names. (Because of Florida's large Cuban population, the Hispanic vote in Florida is predominantly Republican. The Florida African American vote, on the other hand, tends to be heavily Democratic.)
In mid-August, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert revealed that the state was investigating get-out-the-vote drives among blacks in Orlando by sending armed police officers into the homes of citizens who had filed absentee ballots. Most of these citizens were African American, and many were elderly.
And in Florida's late August primary, representatives from People for the American Way saw poll workers turn back registered voters who neglected to bring their IDs. "Under Florida law," noted The New York Times, "registered voters can vote without showing identification."
But there's a lot more going on in the state, according to Alma Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the Voter Protection Coalition in Florida and special counsel to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "We keep hoping that they've learned from 2000," but early indications are that they haven't, she says. "When some of our members have gone to early voting or to register to vote, they're being asked if they're citizens of the United States." Gonzalez says she has heard from "about half a dozen people, all of them in South Florida," who approached the polls as part of the early election only to be asked their citizenship. And it's not poll watchers who are asking, says Gonzalez. It's "the poll workers, the duly deputized election officials."
Registered voters, Gonzalez points out, have already attested to their citizenship in their registration forms. "They cannot ask you your citizenship at the polling place. It's unlawful," says Gonzalez. "When that question is asked of you" based on your skin color or the fact that you have an accent, "it is not intended to ensure that you're complying with the law. It's intended to suppress voters." And, even though public attention to the faulty felon voter purge lists led the Florida government to say belatedly that it would not use them this time, the word has traveled slowly. "We are still getting reports from people when they go to vote in different parts of the state," says Gonzalez. "Apparently, there are still inaccuracies."
Then there's the provisional ballot crisis. In Florida in 2000, many people who attempted to vote found that they were not on the rolls, even though they had registered. This is the reasoning behind the provisional ballot requirement in the federal Help America Vote Act. If a voter is wrongly removed from the rolls in the future, he or she should be able to file a provisional ballot. Most states interpret this part of the act as allowing provisional ballots as long as the voter files them in the correct county. Florida is a little different. Rather than the correct county, voters must submit their provisional ballots to the correct precinct. "This will disenfranchise thousands and thousands of voters," says Gonzalez.
So the AFL-CIO is suing Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, along with two election supervisors from areas of Florida that have seen some of the largest population increases, and some of the most marked changes in precinct lines. The precinct requirements "impermissibly abridge the right to vote," the AFL says.
How intentional is all this on the part of Florida officials? "They're all intentional," Gonzalez says. "People didn't do these things in their sleep." Then she qualifies the point, saying the real question is, are they intentionally trying to suppress voter turnout? "I'm not going to make that allegation," she says. "I know what the result is." And, she points out, under the Voting Rights Act, the issue is not whether you intended to disenfranchise people, but what is the result. "These election schemes and the conduct of these officials are undermining" the rights of people to vote.
Michigan
Michigan is the state that Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, mentions as a potential trouble spot. On July 16, the Detroit Free Press quoted John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative from Troy, Michigan, who said, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle." Detroit is 83 percent African American.
Pappageorge later told the Associated Press that he was not advocating suppression of the black vote but that "you get it [the Detroit vote] down with a good message."
Cecelie Counts, AFL-CIO director of civil, human, and women's rights, says she thinks Pappageorge was acknowledging the truth the first time around. "That is the political reality in most of these swing states," she says. Democrats "can't win Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania without the African American vote, without a tremendous African American vote." And, she says, by using census numbers, Republican strategists "can pinpoint places" where minority voters are likely to influence an election. "They know it's Detroit. They know it's Kansas City and St. Louis. They know it's Las Vegas."
In late April, the Republican Party of Michigan announced that it hoped to recruit 1,000 poll watchers to monitor elections. The party told the Detroit Free Press that it planned to assign 300 of those to Oakland County, home of Pontiac, which is heavily minority. Why? The Republicans claimed that they had evidence that some people there had voted up to four times under different names. But even Republican Oakland County Clerk G. William Caddell doubted the allegation. "Last night was the first I'd heard of any problems," Caddell told the paper. "I want to be a good party person, but I haven't heard about this, and none of my local clerks have reported problems."
"We know there is going to be an aggressive effort to have poll watchers" across the country, including in Pontiac, says Greenbaum. "A poll watcher can be very intimidating." He says poll workers can confront voters with questions like, "What's your name?" or "What are you doing here?" or imply that the voters shouldn't be voting.
At issue is whether the poll watchers "are making accusations" that are based on real reasons or whether they're trying to slow down the lines "and impede voters, so less polling gets done," says Greenbaum.
Michigan is no stranger to aggressive poll watchers. In the 1999 election, a group calling itself Citizens for a Better Hamtramck went to the polling centers in Hamtramck, Michigan, and approached people who appeared to be Arab. "As people were standing outside waiting to vote, this group took it upon itself to ask people to prove they were citizens," says Laila Al-Qatami, communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "They were asking voters to step aside and say an oath of citizenship, even if they were capable of producing a U.S. passport." The group, says Al-Qatami, humiliated people, prohibited people from entering and voting and broke the law. The U.S. government filed a lawsuit that claimed violations of the Voting Rights Act. As part of an agreement resolving the suit, the U.S. Justice Department sent election monitors to Hamtramck between 2000 and 2003.
Missouri
The secretary of state of Missouri, Matt Blunt, is running for governor on the Republican Party ticket. "This gentleman has a vested interest in suppressing the black voter turnout in this state," says John Hickey, executive director of the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition.
"That is a ridiculous statement," says Spence Jackson, spokesperson for Blunt. "It is directly because of Matt Blunt's leadership that we have provisional balloting in our state." Because of Blunt, says Jackson, "thousands of voters have been given the opportunity to vote when they otherwise would not have had it." Provisional ballots allow voters who lack IDs, or whose names don't appear on the rolls, to cast votes. But the version Blunt introduced, concedes Jackson, requires that voters file any provisional ballots in the correct precinct-a demand that prompted a lawsuit from the Democratic Party and some citizens of Kansas City.
The suit claims that the new federal Help America Vote Act supersedes the older state law. It also alleges that toll-free help lines were so jammed during the August primary that many voters were unable to find out their correct polling site.
Other ominous problems cropped up that day. "In Democratic districts, which also happened to be predominantly African American, there were polls that opened late, like 10 a.m. instead of 7 a.m., which is a real problem for working people," says Counts of the AFL-CIO. "The hours weren't extended during the evening." Counts also says that "people who showed up without ID were turned away from the polls and not given /provisional ballots," even though that's what the law required.
The ID requirement, says Hickey, is a new law aimed at the black vote. It requires voters "to present the picture ID, unless the election official recognizes you." Where are they going to recognize you? asks Hickey. In small towns and rural areas, which, he points out, are majority white. In urban areas, says Hickey, it's more likely that poll workers won't recognize you, especially in areas that are poor and where people move frequently. "That means you need a picture ID in the city and not the country. The city's black. The country's white."
The new law amounts to "a sophisticated effort to suppress the vote," says Hickey. And he says the Republicans have given thought to this strategy. "OK, if we can shave off 1,000 black votes here and 500 black votes there, that's how" we're going to win. "It is disproportionately excluding poor and minority voters, and that is exactly why the Republicans passed that law after they took over the legislature."
Nevada
In late August, Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, met with the registrars from the Reno and Las Vegas areas. Peck says the registrar of Washoe County, which includes Reno, "noted that he had received calls" from people identifying themselves as members of the Republican Party. These Republicans, according to Peck, said "they intended to be out at polling places to challenge voters."
The registrar of Washoe County is Daniel Burk. "An official of the Republican Party" came to his office one day with a small group, he says. The official asked how to launch a "full-scale program for challenging voters who come to the polls." Burk says he informed the Republicans that vote challenges should be used narrowly, when one voter with personal knowledge of another calls attention to a problem.
"One said, 'Well, we were thinking of a wider scale use of it. We were thinking of challenging lots of voters,' " says Burk. It was the way they looked at each other, he says. "I began to wonder, what are they up to? I just told them I wouldn't tolerate it. The process isn't designed for one party challenging another."
Burk worked as a registrar in Oregon for eighteen years before he came to his position in Nevada seven years ago. "I have never in all those twenty-five years had a person challenge another person," he says.
The revelations, says Peck, are "consistent with reports people are getting all around the country. Republicans have a national strategy of going out and challenging voters" come November 2. "Our concerns are utterly nonpartisan," says Peck. "It's the integrity and fairness of the election." Although Nevada law does allow for voter challenges when a challenger has personal information about a voter's citizenship or place of residence, "it becomes problematic when people are using this strategically, in a partisan way." For instance, he says, "it would certainly be improper if they picked out the names of Latinos."
Juventino Camarena, a field representative for the Painters Union, is registering voters and keeping an eye out on voter protection issues as part of the My Vote-My Right campaign of the AFL-CIO. He is worried. "The people have been thinking what happened in Florida couldn't happen in Nevada," Camarena says. "Now, we're seeing little tactics here and little tactics there. There are all kinds of ways to confuse a person so bad that he takes it to his heart that it's so difficult, and I'm doing it for what? I've seen it in Mexico since I was a little kid. That's why I took it to heart to stop it. They're suppressing the right of the voter."
New Mexico
In August, a group comprised mostly of Republicans filed a suit claiming that people who were registering for the first time through a third party voter registration group, such as ACORN, should have to show IDs when they voted. The group said it was worried about voter fraud. Democrats said the Republicans were trying to disenfranchise voters.
"The plaintiffs are not able to demonstrate any fraud whatsoever," Luis Stelzner, an attorney, said while arguing against the ID requirement, according to the Associated Press. "The only thing we've heard from them is a vague fear of fraud." (Two plaintiffs in the suit who said that they were concerned about voter registration fraud admitted that they knew of no instances of the crime.) On September 7, Robert Thompson, a state district judge, refused to issue an injunction to force people to show IDs at the polls. "The eleventh-hour request by the plaintiffs creates a risk of substantially disrupting the public voting process, which far outweighs any potential harm to the plaintiffs," wrote Thompson in his decision.
The fraud allegations may be the least of the problems. Reyna Juarez, the administrative director of Revisioning New Mexico, a social justice organization connected to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, says that in 2000 her organization received reports that the immigration patrol showed up near some New Mexican polling sites. "Down south, they have the migra trucks that sit outside and scare people away," she says. "Not necessarily right outside the polls but in the neighborhood of the polls, so you see these enormous lime-green trucks."
South Dakota
South Dakota is hardly a swing state in the common sense, since George W. Bush is set to win here by a landslide. But the state is seeing a rough Senatorial race. The Republicans have targeted Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle for removal. And one tool is a new law that requires all voters to show ID at the polls and get all absentee ballots notarized.
During the 2002 election, Democratic Senator Tim Johnson won his seat by only 524 votes. He had strong Native American support. Republicans weren't happy about that. "In South Dakota, the common tactic is to allege voter fraud," particularly when the Democrats win, says Bryan Sells, staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. "Usually it's called 'Indian voter fraud.' In fact, I can't recall a case of someone alleging 'non-Indian voter fraud.' The idea is, whether true or not, you create the sense" that Native American voters are not to be trusted.
After investigating fifty charges of fraud following that 2002 election, State Attorney General Mark Barnett, a Republican, said, "There was no widespread fraud and the election results are valid. No one stole the election."
Nonetheless, Republicans introduced legislation that Sells characterizes as "voter suppression." The legislation requires South Dakotans to show a picture ID in order to vote or else write up an affidavit. And, if they vote by absentee ballot, they need to get it notarized. The legislation, he says, will make it "harder to vote at the polls, harder to register, and harder to vote by absentee ballot," especially for people on reservations. "I don't know if you've ever been to a reservation, but there aren't a lot of notaries around."
Among Native Americans in South Dakota, there is a widespread belief that the legislation is aimed at them. "They decided, we got to do something to slow down the Indian vote," says Alfred Bone Shirt, a plaintiff in one of the five recent voting rights lawsuits the ACLU has filed in the state. "The bottom line of it all is racism." Jesse Clausen, who has been active in many voter registration drives, puts it another way. "In the summer of 2003, the South Dakota State Senate passed new laws to keep Native American people from voting," Clausen says. "Indian people living in poverty might have higher priority on other things than spending $8 to get their driver's license." Clausen points out that many people on the reservations don't have cars.
During a special election held on June 1, the effect of the new law on the Native American vote started to show. "People would go in and say, 'Well, I don't have an ID,' and [poll workers] would let it be known that if they didn't have an ID, they should turn around and leave," says Clausen.
Poll workers weren't supposed to do that. According to the law, they were supposed to give voters who lacked IDs an affidavit. Once signed, the affidavit would allow people to vote. Jason Schulte, executive director of the Democratic Party of South Dakota, says that, "mostly on or near reservations," people who forgot to bring their IDs "were not told about the affidavit scenario." Daschle himself says he "heard from countless voters who experienced difficulty when attempting to vote."
"Indians were disproportionately affected by the ID requirement," says Sells, adding that there were just more hurdles for Native Americans to leap.
Is this intentional on the part of the Republicans? Sells doesn't hesitate. "Yeah," he says. "In South Dakota, anyway. I don't for a minute suggest that Republicans have the suppression market cornered, but that's how it operates in South Dakota."
Additional efforts to suppress the vote are bound to happen in the last week of the campaign and on Election Day itself. Then, it will be almost impossible to remedy the situation.
Jim Gardner, communications director for the Missouri Democratic Party, describes some of the tactics that he says have happened in his state during past elections: "Videotaping people as they're coming into the polling place. Parking near a polling place in a Crown Victoria with a couple of guys in dark suits.... A whisper campaign that everyone trying to vote who has outstanding traffic tickets will be arrested." Gardner, who says the party had reports of such occurrences in 2000, says the Missouri Democrats have also heard stories in past elections of people handing out flyers in Democratic precincts that say, "Don't forget to vote on Wednesday, November 4," when the election is Tuesday, November 3.
If groups start trying to suppress the vote a month out from the election, says Greenbaum of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, "it gives people like us plenty of opportunity to react." Whereas, if voter suppression happens just before or the day of the election, "it's actually more likely to be effective." Greenbaum's organization faxed me a series of signs that have appeared in Democratic precincts on or near election day. One sign, which appeared in Baltimore in 2002, is entirely in capital letters. "URGENT NOTICE," it reads. "COME OUT TO VOTE ON NOVEMBER 6th. BEFORE YOU COME TO VOTE MAKE SURE YOU PAY YOUR
- PARKING TICKETS
- MOTOR VEHICLE TICKETS
- OVERDUE RENT
AND MOST IMPORTANT
ANY WARRANTS"
A second sign, this one from 1996, uses a tiny font to inform prospective voters that they may get into trouble when they walk into the booth. "Thanks to advances in computer technology Voting Machines can now be equipped with computers inside. The computers can be connected to a phone line to Federal State, and Local government agencies to instantly check if a voter is:
A NON-CITIZEN
Wanted on Criminal or Traffic Warrants or Parole or Probation violations
Is behind on child support payments
Is cheating on Welfare, Food Stamps, AFDC, Section 8 or Medicaid by earning money 'off the books'
Has defaulted on government-backed student loans
Has failed to file income taxes for two or more years."
In late August, People for the American Way and the NAACP released a report entitled, "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today." "In every national American election since Reconstruction, every election since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, voters-particularly African American voters and other minorities-have faced calculated and determined efforts at intimidation and suppression," says the report. However, it describes recent voter suppression tactics as "more subtle, cynical, and creative" than "the poll taxes, literacy tests, and physical violence of the Jim Crow era."
Jim Crow is still casting a very long shadow.
Anne-Marie Cusac is an investigative reporter at The Progressive.
Mike's Words : Mike's Message
Monday, September 20th, 2004
Put Away Your Hankies...a message from Michael Moore
9/20/04
Dear Friends,
Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!"
Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.
They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.
Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!"
No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.
Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.
My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.
3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).
4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.
So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a candidate who didn't windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you -- "Kerry voted for the war...Kerry voted for the war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr..."
Yes...Yes...Yesssss....He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now...what I need is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp...
WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT?
Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com