November 01, 2004

LNS Countdown to Electoral Uprising -- The most illegitimate, corrupt and incompetent regime in modern American history is going to come to an end TOMORROW

Tomorrow there will be an Electoral Uprising in America. Indeed, it has already begun, with all voting all across the country…They cannot steal it if enough of us vote…NO DEFEAT/NO SURRENDER...The most illegitimate, corrupt and incompetent regime in modern American history is going to come to an end…TOMORROW...Remember Duval County!

Associated Press: A federal judge in Cincinnati early today barred political party challengers at polling places throughout Ohio.
In another legal setback for Republicans, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ruled that the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process would impede voting on Tuesday.
She ruled that application of Ohio's statute allowing challengers at polling places is unconstitutional.
Dlott ruled on a lawsuit by a Cincinnati couple, Marian Spencer, a former Cincinnati city council member, and her husband Donald.
The Spencers said Republican plans to deploy challengers to largely black precincts in Hamilton County was meant to intimidate and block black voters.


Associated Press: The state Republican party is questioning another 37,180 addresses of people registered to vote in the city along with the more than 5,600 it already had flagged last week.
The party is demanding city officials require identification from all of those voters Tuesday or it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual at the polls.
"It's not a leap at all to say the potential for voter fraud is high in the city, and the integrity of the entire election, frankly, is at stake," state GOP chairman Rick Graber said. "The city's records are in horrible shape."
Any inaccurate address is an opening for someone to cast a fraudulent vote, he said.
Last week the party claimed Milwaukee had 5,619 bad addresses, but the challenge was dismissed 3-0 by the city Election Commission.
Democrats condemned the latest move as a last-minute effort to suppress turnout in the largely Democratic city of Milwaukee by creating long delays at the polls.
City officials, who already were trying to establish safeguards in response to the party's claim of 5,619 bad addresses, were surprised by the new number.
City Attorney Grant Langley labeled the GOP request "outrageous."

John Nichols, The Nation: If the United States had major media that covered politics, as opposed to the political spin generated by the Bush White House and the official campaigns of both the Republican president and his Democratic challenger, one of the most fascinating, and significant, stories of the 2004 election season would be the abandonment of the Bush reelection effort by senior Republicans. But this is a story that, for the most part, has gone untold. Scant attention was paid to the revelation that one Republican member of the U.S. Senate, Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, will refrain from voting for his party's president -- despite the fact that Chafee offered a far more thoughtful critique of George W. Bush's presidency than "Zig-Zag" Zell Miller, the frothing, Democrat-hating Democrat did when he condemned his party's nominee. Beyond the minimal attention to Chafee, most media has neglected the powerful, and often poignant, condemnations of Bush by prominent Republicans.
Former Republican members of the U.S. Senate and House, governors, ambassadors, aides to GOP Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush have explicitly endorsed the campaign of Democrat John Kerry. For many of these lifelong Republicans, their vote for Kerry will be a first Democratic vote. But, in most cases, it will not be a hesitant one.
Angered by the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq, record deficits, assaults on the environment and secrecy, the renegade partisans tend to echo the words of former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, who says that, "Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on November 2."
Many of the Republicans who are abandoning Bush express sorrow at what the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies in Congress have done to their party: "The fact is that today's 'Republican' Party is one that I am totally unfamiliar with," writes John Eisenhower. But the deeper motivation is summed up by former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican, who explained in a recent article for the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper that, "For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction. If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution. I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path."

Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers: The presidential election on Tuesday is one of the most crucial in American history.
There are many reasons -- in foreign policy and on the domestic front -- why President George W. Bush should not be reelected.
Among them is the dominance of the radical right in his advisory councils, who are taking the United States down the wrong road at the start of the 21st century.
The road could lead to more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country.
There will be only one way to read the election results if Bush wins: The world will see his victory as an affirmation by the American people of his disastrous preemptive war policy, which led the United States to invade Iraq without provocation.
The U.S. attack on Iraq is a clear violation of international law and has made us helpless to condemn others for similar acts.
If he wins reelection, Bush may see his victory as a signal to follow the neo-conservative dream of a political transformation of the Middle East through military force.
The president also would likely continue his new-style isolationism by giving short shrift to post-World War II treaties, such as those banning biological and chemical weapons. There is nothing to indicate Bush is willing to stop the gross violations of the Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Dark reports of the shameful treatment and secret transfers of detainees still emanate from Iraq and the U.S. brig at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba.
Despite his vehement denials, Bush may be compelled to call for another military draft if he persists in making war…
On the homefront, the rich will be sitting pretty again with big tax cuts while the budget deficit and national debt zoom sky high.
Bush donors from the military-industrial complex are being well rewarded, especially Halliburton, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, which already has reaped no-bid contracts to the tune of billions of dollars…
If reelected, Bush -- who has injected religion into public affairs more than any president has in modern times -- is expected to continue his messianic mission in the White House. He will blur even more the separation of church and state.
For women and minorities who support abortion rights and affirmative action, there is the scary prospect that the candidate who wins Tuesday may be able to appoint three, perhaps even four Supreme Court justices.
Bush undoubtedly will see his reelection as a mandate to push the country further to the right. And if he elected, he will be answerable to no one.

Greg Mitchell, Editors & Publishers: Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a surprisingly one-sided victory in the race for 2004 newspaper endorsements with another solid performance on the closing Sunday of the race. Gaining 22 new papers to President Bush's 18, Kerry holds a 208-169 lead in E&P's exclusive tally.
E&P election-year surveys in recent decades concluded by giving an overall edge to the Republican candidate for president, except in one of Bill Clinton's races. In the past, major metros tended to split right down the middle, but Kerry has carried them by about a 5-3 margin this year. This gives him an edge in the circulation of papers backing him of about 20 million to 14 million (our chart below will be updated Monday).

Le Monde Editorial: Taking a position on a foreign election is not Le Monde's tradition. The exceptional stakes of the November 2 presidential election, however, and the terms in which this historic choice present themselves have convinced us that John Kerry's victory is desirable well beyond the United States' borders…
John Kerry knows that the world changed on September 11, 2001, but he rejects terrorism as some superior force that justifies reconsideration of the foundations of American democracy and of international order. His personal commitment during the Vietnam war, his experience in foreign policy and his "internationalist" vision of the world, his capacity for acknowledging his mistakes, as well as the strength of conviction he demonstrated during the three presidential debates make him a statesman much more capable than Mr. Bush of responding to the challenges of a post September 11 world.
For the working order of the world, John Kerry's victory November 2 is preferable. So that Europe and the United States have a chance to make a new start together. And so that the White House is invested with a new team guided not by Good and Evil, but by law and justice.

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 (i.e., the Bush cabal, its Wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party & the US regimestream news media), Defeat Bush (again!)

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110204Z.shtml

Judge Bars Challengers From Polling Places
The Associated Press

Monday 01 November 2004

Dlott hands Republicans another legal setback.

A federal judge in Cincinnati early today barred political party challengers at polling places throughout Ohio.

In another legal setback for Republicans, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ruled that the presence of challengers inexperienced in the electoral process would impede voting on Tuesday.

She ruled that application of Ohio's statute allowing challengers at polling places is unconstitutional.

Dlott ruled on a lawsuit by a Cincinnati couple, Marian Spencer, a former Cincinnati city council member, and her husband Donald.

The Spencers said Republican plans to deploy challengers to largely black precincts in Hamilton County was meant to intimidate and block black voters.

Republicans said they wanted to prevent voter fraud.

Dlott said in her preliminary injunction order that the evidence "does not indicate that the presence of additional challengers would serve Ohio's interest in preventing voter fraud better than would the system of election judges ..."

It was the second election-related ruling by Dlott that went against the Republicans.

On Friday, Dlott stopped all hearings on about 30,000 new voter registration challenges in Ohio.

While Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell was named as a defendant in the suit, he spoke out Friday against allowing the private challengers in the polling places.

On Friday, Blackwell instructed Attorney General Jim Petro to recommend that challengers from both political parties be excluded from polling places because there was not enough time to resolve the legal issues. Petro refused, saying Blackwell's request was illegal.

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Jump to TO Features for Tuesday November 2, 2004


Wis. Republicans question another 37,000 Milwaukee addresses

Associated Press

MILWAUKEE - The state Republican party is questioning another 37,180 addresses of people registered to vote in the city along with the more than 5,600 it already had flagged last week.
The party is demanding city officials require identification from all of those voters Tuesday or it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual at the polls.
"It's not a leap at all to say the potential for voter fraud is high in the city, and the integrity of the entire election, frankly, is at stake," state GOP chairman Rick Graber said. "The city's records are in horrible shape."
Any inaccurate address is an opening for someone to cast a fraudulent vote, he said.
Last week the party claimed Milwaukee had 5,619 bad addresses, but the challenge was dismissed 3-0 by the city Election Commission.
Democrats condemned the latest move as a last-minute effort to suppress turnout in the largely Democratic city of Milwaukee by creating long delays at the polls.
City officials, who already were trying to establish safeguards in response to the party's claim of 5,619 bad addresses, were surprised by the new number.
City Attorney Grant Langley labeled the GOP request "outrageous."
"We have already uncovered hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of addresses on their (original list) that do exist," said Langley, who holds a nonpartisan office. "Why should I take their word for the fact this new list is good? I'm out of the politics on this, but this is purely political."
The initial GOP challenge cited thousands of cases where no voter address exists, such as vacant lots and, in one case, a gyros stand.
The Republicans generated the list using a computer to compare the city's list of 386,526 registered voters to a U.S. Postal Service list of known addresses.
The same list generated about 13,300 cases in which incorrect apartment numbers were listed, and some 18,200 more cases where no apartment number was listed for an existing building. The party didn't include any of those in its original challenge, filed three minutes before a 5 p.m. Wednesday deadline.
Legally, neither the city nor the state Elections Board is required to consider any of the newly identified addresses by Tuesday.
Graber acknowledged the party is asking local officials, including the Milwaukee County district attorney's office, to voluntarily take the step as the right thing to do.
Asked why the party was not asking other communities to take the same precautions and computer check their lists, Graber said the Milwaukee voter list is a "mess" and cause for great alarm.
"You mean why aren't we doing this in Wausau?" he said. "We certainly could."
After a pause, he added, "And perhaps should."
Democrats say the effort is designed to give the impression it will be difficult to vote in Milwaukee in hopes of giving an advantage to President Bush over Democratic Sen. John Kerry.
"There's a real disturbing pattern of them making these charges in Wisconsin and in Ohio," said George Twigg, state spokesman for the Kerry campaign. "It's disappointing that they're continuing to beat this dead horse when they've already been proven wrong."
Democrats intend to have lawyers at polling places throughout the state to protect the rights of voters, he said.
The Milwaukee County district attorney's office and the city attorney's office began reviewing the 5,619 names Friday. It found many cases where an address does not exist but also hundreds where it believes an address does exist.
The GOP argues any address deficiency constitutes an invalid registration.
Langley said he is not prepared to review more than 37,000 addresses by Monday, which would be necessary in order to be confident any "watch" lists given to poll workers do not include any valid addresses.
"Here we are Saturday night at 5 p.m., and they're going to drop 37,000 names on me?" Langley said. "There has got to be a deadline for a reason."
Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the state Elections Board, has worked with the city on the 5,619 addresses to put safeguards in place to flag questionable addresses.
"The concern the board has is the pall it casts over the process," he said.
ON THE NET
State Elections Board: http://elections.state.wi.us/
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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/31/opinion/main652488.shtml
Even Republicans Fear Bush

Oct. 31, 2004


(The Nation) This column from The Nation was written by John Nichols.

The most divisive election campaign in recent American history has not merely split the nation along party lines, it has split the Grand Old Party itself. Unfortunately, most Americans are wholly unaware of the loud dissents against Bush that has begun to be heard in Republican circles.

If the United States had major media that covered politics, as opposed to the political spin generated by the Bush White House and the official campaigns of both the Republican president and his Democratic challenger, one of the most fascinating, and significant, stories of the 2004 election season would be the abandonment of the Bush reelection effort by senior Republicans. But this is a story that, for the most part, has gone untold. Scant attention was paid to the revelation that one Republican member of the U.S. Senate, Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, will refrain from voting for his party's president -- despite the fact that Chafee offered a far more thoughtful critique of George W. Bush's presidency than "Zig-Zag" Zell Miller, the frothing, Democrat-hating Democrat did when he condemned his party's nominee. Beyond the minimal attention to Chafee, most media has neglected the powerful, and often poignant, condemnations of Bush by prominent Republicans.

Former Republican members of the U.S. Senate and House, governors, ambassadors, aides to GOP Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush have explicitly endorsed the campaign of Democrat John Kerry. For many of these lifelong Republicans, their vote for Kerry will be a first Democratic vote. But, in most cases, it will not be a hesitant one.

Angered by the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq, record deficits, assaults on the environment and secrecy, the renegade partisans tend to echo the words of former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, who says that, "Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on November 2."

Many of the Republicans who are abandoning Bush express sorrow at what the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies in Congress have done to their party: "The fact is that today's 'Republican' Party is one that I am totally unfamiliar with," writes John Eisenhower. But the deeper motivation is summed up by former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican, who explained in a recent article for the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper that, "For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction. If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution. I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path."

In the end, of course, the vast majority of Republicans will cast their ballots for George w. Bush on Tuesday, just as the vast majority of Democrats will vote for John Kerry. But the Republicans who plan to cross the partisan divide and vote for Kerry have articulated a unique and politically potent indictment of the Bush administration.

Here are a dozen examples of what Republicans are saying about George W. Bush -- and John Kerry -- as the November 2 election approaches:

"As son of a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry."
-- Ambassador John Eisenhower, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece published in The Manchester Union Leader, September 28, 2004.

"The two 'Say No to Bush' signs in my yard say it all. The present Republican president has led us into an unjustified war -- based on misguided and blatantly false misrepresentations of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The terror seat was Afghanistan. Iraq had no connection to these acts of terror and was not a serious threat to the United States, as this president claimed, and there was no relation, it's now obvious, to any serious weaponry. Although Saddam Hussein is a frightful tyrant, he posed no threat to the United States when we entered the war. George W. Bush's arrogant actions to jump into Iraq when he had no plan how to get out have alienated the United States from our most trusted allies and weakened us immeasurably around the world... This imperialistic, stubborn adherence to wrongful policies and known untruths by the Cheney-Bush administration -- and that's the accurate order -- has simply become more than I can stand."
-- Former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, a Republican, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 13, 2004. Andersen argued in the piece that, "I am more fearful for the state of this nation than I have ever been -- because this country is in the hands of an evil man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the country, not George W. Bush."

"George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naive belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American enemies -- a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft."
-- Scott McConnell, executive editor, The American Conservative, endorsing Kerry in the November 8, 2004 issue.

"I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep the secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court."
-- Former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, Republican from Kentucky, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece that appeared in The Louisville Courier-Journal, October 20, 2004.

"My Republican Party is the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who fought to preserve our natural resources and environment. This president has pursued policies that will cause irreparable damage to our environmental laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the public lands we share with future generations."
-- Former Michigan Governor William Milliken, from a statement published in the Traverse City Record Eagle, October 17, 2004.

"As an environmentalist who served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I know that this administration has turned environmental policy over to lobbyists for the oil, gas and mining interests. On the other hand, I know first-hand of your commitment to a more balanced approach to environmental policy -- one where we can have both jobs and profit for industry as well as clean air and water. There is no stronger evidence of this than your outstanding leadership and support in the restoration of the Florida Everglades. John, for each of these reasons I believe President Bush has failed our country and my party. Accordingly, I want you to know that when I go into the booth next Tuesday I am going to cast my vote for you."
-- Former U.S. Senator Bob Smith, Republican from New Hampshire, from an endorsement letter sent to John Kerry, October 28, 2004.

"Nixon was a prince compared to these guys."
-- Former U.S. Representative Pete McCloskey, R-California, from an article in the Palo Alto Weekly, September 8, 2004. McCloskey, who is active with Republicans for Kerry, says of members of the Bush administration, "These people believe God has told them what to do. They've high jacked the Republican Party we once knew."

"The war is just a misbegotten thing that's spiraling down. It's a matter of conscience for me. After 9/11, the whole world was behind us. That's all gone now. That's been squandered. Now we've made the entire Muslim world hate us. And for what? For what?"
-- Former State Senator Al Meiklejohn, Republican from Colorado and World War II combat veteran, explaining his decision to support John Kerry in an interview with The Denver Post, September 19, 2004.

"We need a leader who is really dedicated to creating millions of high-paying jobs all across the country."
-- Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, who campaigned for George W. Bush in 2000 and appeared in television advertisements for the Republican Party of Michigan that year. Iacocca, who complains that under Bush deficit spending is "getting out of hand," endorsing Kerry on June 24, 2004.

"In a dangerous epoch -- made more so by a president who sees the world in stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites -- John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place at the right time to lead our country."
-- Tim Ashby, who served during the Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush administrations as director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean for the U.S. Commerce Department and acting deputy assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Western Hemisphere, endorsing Kerry in a Seattle Times, October 14, 2004.

"I have always been, and I still am, a registered Republican, but I shall enthusiastically vote for John Kerry for president on November 2... If the Bush administration stays in power four more years, it will pack the Supreme Court with neocons who reject the idea that the Constitution is a living document designed to protect the freedom of the citizens."
-- Anne Morton Kimberly, widow of former Republican National Committee chair Rogers C.B. Morton, Secretary of the Interior during the Nixon administration and Secretary of Commerce during the Ford administration, endorsing Kerry in a an opinion piece that appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal, October 14, 2004.

"Mainstream Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility, internationalism, environmental protection, the rights of women, and putting middle-class families ahead of big business lobbyists. Moderate Republicans should not be asked to swallow the right-wing policies of George W. Bush."
-- Clay Myers, who was Oregon's Republican Secretary of State for 10 years and the state's Treasure, endorsing Kerry at a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004.

"The current administration has run the largest deficits in U.S. history, incurring massive debts that our children and grandchildren will have to pay. Two and a half million people have lost their jobs; trillions have been wiped out of savings and retirement accounts. The income of Americans has declined two years in a row, the first time since the IRS began keeping records. George W. Bush will be the first president since Hoover to have a net job loss under his watch... President Bush wanted to be judged as the CEO president, it is time to say, 'you have failed, and you're fired."
-- William Rutherford, former State Treasurer of Oregon, endorsing Kerry as a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004.

"I served 20 years in the Ohio General Assembly as Republican. People have asked me why I oppose George w. Bush for president. My first response is, 'He is incompetent.' His behavior, his bad judgment, his record, all demonstrate a failure as president. He certainly misled the country into a no-win war in Iraq. Following his preemptive invasion, he totally misjudged the consequences of his action. He made a bad situation worse, fomenting widespread terrorism, all done with a frightful loss of lives and money."
-- Former Ohio State Representative John Galbraith, a Republican legislator for 20 years, endorsing Kerry in a letter to The Toledo Blade, September 28, 2004.

"Before the current campaign, it might have been argued that at least in affirming the importance of faith and respecting those who profess it the administration had embraced traditional conservative views. But in the wake of the Swift Boat ads attacking John Kerry, even this argument can no longer be maintained. As an elder of the Presbyterian Church, I found that those ads were not at all in the Christian tradition. John McCain rightly condemned them as dishonest and dishonorable. The president should have, too. That he did not undermines his credibility on questions of faith.
Some say it's just politics. But that's the whole point. More is expected of people of faith than "just politics."

The fact is that the Bush administration might better be called radical or romantic or adventurist than conservative. And that's why real conservatives are leaning toward Kerry."
-- Clyde Prestowitz, counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration and an elder of the Presbyterian Church, from "The Conservative Case for Kerry," published in the Providence Journal and other newspapers, October 15, 2004.

By John Nichols
Reprinted with permission from the The Nation.

OME | Helen Thomas
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Bush Win Would Mean Dark Times
World Would Perceive Support For Preemptive War
POSTED: 2:45 pm CDT October 29, 2004
The presidential election on Tuesday is one of the most crucial in American history.
There are many reasons -- in foreign policy and on the domestic front -- why President George W. Bush should not be reelected.
Among them is the dominance of the radical right in his advisory councils, who are taking the United States down the wrong road at the start of the 21st century.
The road could lead to more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country.
There will be only one way to read the election results if Bush wins: The world will see his victory as an affirmation by the American people of his disastrous preemptive war policy, which led the United States to invade Iraq without provocation.
The U.S. attack on Iraq is a clear violation of international law and has made us helpless to condemn others for similar acts.
If he wins reelection, Bush may see his victory as a signal to follow the neo-conservative dream of a political transformation of the Middle East through military force.
The president also would likely continue his new-style isolationism by giving short shrift to post-World War II treaties, such as those banning biological and chemical weapons. There is nothing to indicate Bush is willing to stop the gross violations of the Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Dark reports of the shameful treatment and secret transfers of detainees still emanate from Iraq and the U.S. brig at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba.
Despite his vehement denials, Bush may be compelled to call for another military draft if he persists in making war.
He is scraping by now with his all-volunteer military, along with reservists and National Guard members, keeping them on duty longer than planned with a so-called a back-door draft. If he wins a second term, he wouldn't have to worry about running again and would have a free hand to undo his read-my-lips campaign promises.
On the homefront, the rich will be sitting pretty again with big tax cuts while the budget deficit and national debt zoom sky high.
Bush donors from the military-industrial complex are being well rewarded, especially Halliburton, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, which already has reaped no-bid contracts to the tune of billions of dollars.
Organized labor will still be behind the eight ball under a new Bush administration. Workers will be pressured to accept "comp time" in place of overtime pay, and the lowered safety standards imposed by Bush's Labor Department will lead to more industrial accidents.
Don't expect Bush to lift a finger to stem the tide of outsourcing of the nation's biggest companies to China, India and other points East, where they can find cheaper labor.
The president is expected to keep trying to weaken public education with voucher programs to aid private schools, many of them religious. He is certain to follow through on his pet project to privatize part of the Social Security system with voluntary private investment accounts, driving a big hole in the program's trust fund. We should all hope that Congress won't go along with such a dangerous idea.
Social Security was the 1936 Depression-era program to support the elderly, the disabled and deprived dependent children.
Senior citizens, meantime, are staying away in droves from Bush's highly touted prescription drug program, which the administration publicly underpriced by $1 billion. Furthermore, the resident's compassionate conservative legislation banned importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. That is not expected to change in a new Bush term.
Bush also wants to cater to corporate interests by capping damages in medical malpractice suits at $250,000.
If reelected, Bush -- who has injected religion into public affairs more than any president has in modern times -- is expected to continue his messianic mission in the White House. He will blur even more the separation of church and state.
For women and minorities who support abortion rights and affirmative action, there is the scary prospect that the candidate who wins Tuesday may be able to appoint three, perhaps even four Supreme Court justices.
Bush undoubtedly will see his reelection as a mandate to push the country further to the right. And if he elected, he will be answerable to no one.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
http://forums.ibsys.com/viewmessages.cfm?sitekey=bos&Forum=79&Topic=10620 Discuss Helen Thomas' Opinion
Copyright 2004 by Hearst Newspapers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Daily Endorsement Tally: Kerry Wraps It Up with Another Strong Day

By Greg Mitchell

Published: October 31, 2004 1:00 PM ET
NEW YORK Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a surprisingly one-sided victory in the race for 2004 newspaper endorsements with another solid performance on the closing Sunday of the race. Gaining 22 new papers to President Bush's 18, Kerry holds a 208-169 lead in E&P's exclusive tally.

E&P election-year surveys in recent decades concluded by giving an overall edge to the Republican candidate for president, except in one of Bill Clinton's races. In the past, major metros tended to split right down the middle, but Kerry has carried them by about a 5-3 margin this year. This gives him an edge in the circulation of papers backing him of about 20 million to 14 million (our chart below will be updated Monday).

Kerry picked up another major paper today, as expected: The Sun in Baltimore. But Bush gained one of his rare "flip-flops" from the Democrats' column in 2000, securing the New York Daily News. This could help him in New Jersey, if that state's vote is close.

The president also finally gained a good-sized paper in Florida, winning the Jacksonville Times-Union, plus the Albuquerque Journal in another swing state, New Mexico.

As anticipated, Bush also nabbed the Providence (R.I.) Journal and the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh, but the editorial in the latter underscored what E&P has found (in reading hundreds of editorials) to be a perhaps significant trend: even supporters find much to strongly criticize about the president.

The Tribune-Review, a proudly conservative paper owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, said today, "The presidency of George W. Bush has been a disappointment in many regards." It then cited the war in Iraq, "runaway domestic spending," in which Bush "has been sickeningly accommodating; the ever-porking of taxpayers is an economic, political and moral disgrace."

But the paper was not through, hitting Bush on immigration and the Medicare drug plan, leading to this startling revelation: "All of this sounds like a strong argument against endorsing the president. We considered doing just that." It added: "But then we considered the alternative. Sobriety is a wonderful thing."

Two Michigan papers that endorsed Bush also did so barely. The Kalamazoo Gazette required a tie-breaking vote on the board, and the Ann Arbor News professed disappointment with both candidates.

It got worse for Bush in California, where the North County Times near San Diego withdrew its Bush backing from 2000, opting for neutrality. And in battleground state of Colorado, the Greeley Tribune switched from Bush to Kerry.

This gives Kerry 43 papers that backed Bush in 2004, and at least another 16 from the president's column in 2000 have gone neutral. Bush has now gained seven from the Al Gore column in 2000.

Other additions to our tally for today not mentioned above:

For Kerry: Albany Times-Union and Corning Leader in New York; the Anchorage Daily News and Nome Nugget in Alaska; the Montgoermy (Ala.) Advertiser; Athens (Ohio) News, Springfield (Ore.) News; Huntington Herald Dispatch and Grand Coulee Star in Washington; Greensboro (N.C.) News-Record,Sheboygan (Wi.) Press; Delaware News Journal (New Castle-Wilmington); Vallejo (Ca.) Times Herald; Saginaw (Mi.) News; the Journal Tribune of Biddeford in Maine; the Times-Argus in Barre-Montpelier, Vt.; the Myrtle Beach Sun-News and Anderson Independent-Mail in South Carolina and two papers in New Jersey: the Jersey Journal in Jersey City and the Bridgewater Courier News.

For Bush: The Redding Record Searchlight and Chico Enterprise-Record in California; Glasgow (Ky.) Daily Times; McCook (Neb.) Daily Gazette; The Joplin (Mos.) Globe, The Daily Mining Gazette in Michigan, The Lebanon Daily Record in Missouri, Staunton (Va.) News Leader, the Caspar Star-Tribune and Jackson Hole Star-Tribune in Wyoming, and the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

Thanks again to Erin Olson, Teresa LaLoggia, and others who have sent in editorials.

Here is our chart, state by state, as of Friday (we have not yet updated additions from yeserday or today), including each paper's most recent ABC daily circulation total and an indication of who the paper backed in 2000, Bush or Gore (if we know it). Note: We are not including weeklies or college papers.

JOHN KERRY
175 newspapers total
18,757,511 daily circulation

ALABAMA (3)
The Tuscaloosa News (G): 34,616
The Anniston Star (G): 26,527
The Decatur Daily (G): 23,641

ARIZONA (1)
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) (G): 109,592

CALIFORNIA (19)
San Francisco Chronicle (G): 501,135
The Sacramento Bee (G): 303,841
San Jose Mercury News (G): 279,539
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek) (B): 186,335
Daily News (Los Angeles) (B): 178,044
The Fresno Bee (G): 166,531
La Opinion (Los Angeles) (G): 126,628
Ventura County Star (B): 93,664
The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa) (G): 89,384
The Modesto Bee (G): 87,366
The Oakland Tribune (G): 67,807
Marin Independent Journal: 40,444
The Daily Review (Hayward) (G): 38,848
San Mateo County Times (G): 35,708
The Monterey County Herald (B): 34,813
The Argus (Fremont) (G): 33,558
Santa Cruz Sentinel (B): 26,136
Times-Standard (Eureka) (B): 19,129
Merced Sun-Star: 17,247

COLORADO (4)
Daily Camera (Boulder) (B): 33,419
Fort Collins Coloradoan (G): 28,415
Aspen Daily News: 12,100
Durango Herald (G): 8,621

CONNECTICUT (2)
The Day (New London) (B): 39,553
The Stamford Advocate (B): 27,350

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (1)
The Washington Post (G): 772,553

FLORIDA (10)
St. Petersburg Times (G): 358,502
The Miami Herald (G): 325,032
Orlando Sentinel (B): 269,269
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale) (G): 268,927
The Palm Beach Post (G): 181,727
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (G): 121,272
Daytona Beach News-Journal (G): 112,945
Florida Today (Melbourne) (G): 90,877
Bradenton Herald (B): 52,163
The Gainesville Sun: 48,747

GEORGIA (2)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 418,323
The Macon Telegraph: 65,871

HAWAII (2)
The Honolulu Advertiser (G): 145,943
Honolulu Star-Bulletin (G): 64,305

IDAHO (2)
The Idaho Statesman (Boise) (B): 65,714
Bonner County Daily Bee (Sandpoint): 4,537

ILLINOIS (6)
Chicago Sun-Times (B): 486,936
Daily Herald (Arlington Heights) (B): 150,794
Rockford Register-Star (B): 65,685
Daily Southtown (Chicago) (G): 48,858
Chicago Defender: 14,686
Edwardsville Intelligencer (B): 5,092

INDIANA (2)
The Times (Munster): 86,474
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) (G): 61,205

IOWA (4)
The Des Moines Register (G): 155,898
Quad City Times (Davenport) (B): 53,872
The Hawk Eye (Burlington) (G): 19,000
Iowa City Press-Citizen (B): 15,077

KANSAS (2)
The Hutchinson News (G): 32,625
The Emporia Gazette: 8,500

KENTUCKY (3)
The Courier-Journal (Louisville) (G): 216,934
Lexington Herald-Leader (G): 122,748
Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer: 28,445

LOUISIANA (1)
The Times (Shreveport) (G): 66,614

MAINE (4)
Portland Press Herald (G): 73,211
Bangor Daily News (B): 61,337
Morning Sentinel (Waterville): 19,639
Kennebec Journal (Augusta): 14,845

MASSACHUSETTS (5)
The Boston Globe (G): 452,109
Telegram & Gazette (Worcester) (B): 103,586
The Republican (Springfield): 84,694
The Standard-Times (New Bedford): 35,299
The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield): 31,152

MICHIGAN (10)
Detroit Free Press (G): 354,581
The Flint Journal (B): 84,313
Lansing State Journal (G): 73,594
The Muskegon Chronicle (B): 46,505
The Bay City Times: 34,126
Times Herald (Port Huron): 29,488
Traverse City Record-Eagle: 26,502
Battle Creek Enquirer: 24,831
Livingston County Daily Press & Argus: 13,472
The Argus-Press (Owosso): 11,438

MINNESOTA (3)
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (G): 377,058
Duluth News Tribune: 45,688
The Free Press (Mankato): 21,591

MISSOURI (4)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (G): 281,198
The Kansas City Star (G): 269,188
Springfield News-Leader (G): 62,158
Columbia Daily Tribune (B): 18,874

MONTANA (1)
Billings Gazette (B): 47,849

NEVADA (3)
Reno Gazette-Journal (G): 66,073
Las Vegas Sun (G): 34,407
Nevada Appeal (Carson City): 15,296

NEW HAMPSHIRE (5)
The Telegraph (Nashua): 26,762
Concord Monitor (G): 19,984
Valley News (Lebanon-Hanover): 16,984
The Keene Sentinel (G): 13,620
Portsmouth Herald (G): 13,551

NEW JERSEY (6)
The Star-Ledger (Newark) (G): 407,945
The Record (Hackensack) (G): 171,251
Courier-Post (Camden) (B): 79,400
The Times (Trenton) (G): 73,235
Daily Record (Parsippany): 42,665
The Gloucester County Times (Woodbury): 23,827

NEW MEXICO (2)
The Santa Fe New Mexican (G): 25,308
The Albuquerque Tribune (B): 13,536

NEW YORK (8)
The New York Times (G): 1,133,763
Newsday (Melville) (G): 580,346
The Buffalo News (G): 201,900
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (G): 169,697
The Journal-News (White Plains) (B): 142,145
The Post-Star (Glens Falls): 33,608
Star-Gazette (Elmira) (B): 28,826
The Daily Star (Oneonta) (G): 17,962

NORTH CAROLINA (6)
The Charlotte Observer (G): 231,369
The News & Observer (Raleigh) (G): 173,329
Asheville Citizen Times: 55,982
Star-News (Wilmington) (G): 54,231
The Daily Reflector (Greenville): 25,777
The Daily Advance (Elizabeth City): 10,514

NORTH DAKOTA (2)
Grand Forks Herald (G): 32,385
The Bismarck Tribune: 27,111

OHIO (4)
Dayton Daily News (G): 183,175
The Blade (Toledo) (G): 139,293
Akron Beacon Journal (G): 139,220
Times Recorder (Zanesville): 21,329

OREGON (7)
The Oregonian (Portland) (B): 342,040
The Register-Guard (Eugene) (G): 72,411
Statesman Journal (Salem): 56,298
Mail Tribune (Medford): 35,524
The World (Coos Bay): 12,711
East Oregonian (Pendleton): 10,236
The Daily Astorian (Astoria): 8,429

PENNSYLVANIA (12)
The Philadelphia Inquirer (G): 387,692
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (G): 245,065
The Philadelphia Daily News (G): 139,983
The Morning Call (Allentown) (B): 131,110
The Bucks County Courier Times (G): 67,722
Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre): 44,639
The Doylestown Intelligencer: 43,053
Beaver County Times (G): 41,950
Observer-Reporter (Washington) (B): 34,643
The Citizens' Voice (G): 33,343
Herald-Standard (Uniontown) (B): 28,453
Centre Daily Times (State College): 25,354

TENNESSEE (3)
The Tennessean (Nashville) (G): 205,158
The Commercial-Appeal (Memphis) (B): 189,961
The Jackson Sun (G): 35,561

TEXAS (5)
Corpus Christi Caller-Times (B): 60,537
Waco Tribune-Herald: 40,699
Longview News-Journal: 29,509
The Lufkin Daily News: 14,608
The Baytown Sun: 11,374

VERMONT (2)
The Burlington Free Press: 47,278
Rutland Herald (G): 21,125

VIRGINIA (3)
The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk) (G): 201,473
The Roanoke Times: 100,447
Daily Press (Newport News): 95,228

WASHINGTON (8)
The Seattle Times (B): 237,303
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (G): 150,901
The News Tribune (Tacoma) (G): 128,748
The Herald (Everett) (G): 50,998
Tri-City Herald (Kennewick) (B): 42,285
The Olympian (Olympia) (G): 34,482
The Sun (Bremerton) (B): 30,731
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin (B): 14,275

WEST VIRGINIA (1)
Charleston Gazette (G): 49,529

WISCONSIN (7)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 244,893
La Crosse Tribune (B): 34,283
The Journal Times (Racine) (G): 29,264
Kenosha News: 26,665
The Wausau Daily Herald (B): 22,757
The Capital Times (Madison) (G): 19,410
The Green Bay News-Chronicle: 7,100
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110104H.shtmlThe American Choice
Le Monde | Editorial
Saturday 30 October 2004
Will Osama bin Laden vote for George W. Bush or John F. Kerry? The al-Qaeda leader's Machiavellian incursion into the American electoral campaign four days before the vote, the famous "October surprise" feared by all strategists, has brutally returned this election to its true context: September 11 and its aftermath.
Democratic candidate John Kerry considers that the war in Iraq, by diverting American military resources from the struggle against al-Qaeda, prevented bin Laden's capture and strengthened the terrorist threat. President Bush openly plays on the fear of new attacks, ever-present among his fellow citizens, and asks voters to give him four more years to complete his "global war against terrorism." Consequently everyone can exploit Osama bin Laden's intervention to his own advantage: Mr. Kerry by seeing it as proof of the failure of his adversary's policy, Mr. Bush by pushing the fear factor a little further.
Taking a position on a foreign election is not Le Monde's tradition. The exceptional stakes of the November 2 presidential election, however, and the terms in which this historic choice present themselves have convinced us that John Kerry's victory is desirable well beyond the United States' borders.
Since at issue is a choice between two visions of the world and of the law. George W. Bush proposes that his countrymen exit the system they had known up until September 11, 2001, the very system for which he campaigned in 2000 when he promised an American foreign policy stamped with the seal of "humility". President Bush's vision is one of a country at war, a new form of war with rules and contours impossible to define. A war so peculiar that the rules of law on which American democracy was founded must be sacrificed to it, the tradition of transparency replaced with opacity and manipulation, and the international architecture which has been the center of a global consensus for over a half century ignored.
John Kerry knows that the world changed on September 11, 2001, but he rejects terrorism as some superior force that justifies reconsideration of the foundations of American democracy and of international order. His personal commitment during the Vietnam war, his experience in foreign policy and his "internationalist" vision of the world, his capacity for acknowledging his mistakes, as well as the strength of conviction he demonstrated during the three presidential debates make him a statesman much more capable than Mr. Bush of responding to the challenges of a post September 11 world.
For the working order of the world, John Kerry's victory November 2 is preferable. So that Europe and the United States have a chance to make a new start together. And so that the White House is invested with a new team guided not by Good and Evil, but by law and justice.

Posted by richard at November 1, 2004 09:18 AM