Vikings head coach Mike Tice giving President Bush a Vikings jersey and a ringing endorsement yesterday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Tice stating during the rally, "When it's the fourth quarter and the game is on the line, you want somebody with a cool head calling the plays." Today Mike Tice lead his Vikings to resounding 13-34 defeat at the hands of the New York Giants. I guess it's time for both President Bush and Mike Tice to be replaced! P.S. Vikings suck.

Keith Olbermann: I saw or read nearly the entirety of the Bin Laden tape and it’s the damnedest one yet. I can’t understand how it could be viewed as being beneficial to Mr. Bush. On a fundamental level, it’s clearly recently-recorded - the Ramadan reference suggests maybe as late as a week ago - and he’s clearly alive and healthy. I can’t imagine that among the Soccer Moms and the others dismissing all other issues to focus their vote solely on the terror threat, that one of the other primal reactions in their synapses wouldn’t be “Umm, how come we haven’t caught him yet? Who’s in charge of that?” ... What will sound more loudly in the psyches of more voters on Tuesday? The idea that terrorists are still an extraordinary threat, or the idea that George Bush’s presidency, whether through his fault or merely by the circumstances of history, has been a time of stress and death and war and falling skyscrapers and terror color codes - things we may or may not be personally able to alter or impact in any way - but which we really wish would just go away.

How come we don't see Republican's getting this kind of crap?

Sunday pumpkin blogging.

Happy a happy and safe Halloween!

You thought 377 tons of missing explosives was a lot? Even while the Pentagon reports that U.S.-led forces have destroyed 240,000 tons of munitions and have secured another 160,000 tons that is awaiting destruction, as many as 250,000 tons remain unaccounted for. AP has the story here.

Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC 10/29 CHRIS MATTHEWS: The big thing in politics, of course, is picking the right topic. This shifts the topic from Iraq where the challenger was hitting the president hard for alleged mismanagement of the war. Now it takes it all back to 9-11, the moment of the president's greatest heroism. ... This creates a terrible situation for the challenger because it seems to me that Karl Rove has his finger on this. He knows that the American people have only one president at a time. And that's George W. Bush. We only have one protector at a time. We have to rally behind the president when we're threatened by an enemy. Osama bin Laden. And he's done it again. ANDREA MITCHELL: Absolutely. And it almost makes it more difficult for John Kerry to use a standard part of his stump speech when he talks about having his allegation that George Bush let Osama bin Laden get away In Tora Bora. It is almost difficult now for him to do that because he would appear to be taking advantage of this new tape. It makes it harder for Kerry, and it shifts the subject matter back to what George Bush is strongest on. The Bush people may not say that they are happy about this, but I'm sure that they could not be more pleased that this is the subject of the closing days. How do you say October surprise? This is one that could benefit the president. Is this some kind of joke? Are these two idiots working for the Bush campaign? A new tape of bin Laden, proving that George Bush did, in fact, let Osama bin Laden get away in Tora Bora, is somehow a positive for Bush? How does this tape make it more difficult for Kerry to talk about bin Laden getting away, when the tape proves this very fact? What worthless dog crap we have for journalists in this country...you can find more proof of this here. On the positive side, in the face of all this pro-Bush spin by our supposed non-partisan press, it appears that the people of the United States really do know better. A FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll, conducted October 28 and October 29 and released late Saturday, showed Bush's support falling three points, from 50 to 47 percent.

Another professional cyclist has been reported to have tested positive for a blood transfusion. This would be only the second rider in history to have tested positive for blood transfusion. The first was American Tyler Hamilton, who rides for the Phonak team. The second? Spaniard Santiago Perez, who also rides for the Phonak team. Two riders, having the first ever positive tests for blood transfusion, being on the same team? This would be bad news for the true believers.

Atrios brings to light some fantastic work by the press in regards to intercepted intelligence chatter: CNN LOU DOBBS: Level of chatter at this point? KELLI ARENA: Low. Lower than it's been. Now it does ebb and flow, but it's interesting to note that before the September 11 attacks, the chatter level fell. No one is saying that that means anything. It is what it is, but the chatter level has fallen over recent weeks. MSNBC Francona: The people I've talked to are telling me that they've seen increased chatter over the last several weeks and they attribute this as we lead up to the election process, but once again no specific threats and nothing that they can pin any reason to raise the level of alert. Willow Bay: Now when you say chatter, is it chatter similar to the level around 9/11? Francona: It's not that high but it's that type of traffic. They're seeing more internet traffic. More telephone calls. Chatter fell to a low point before the attacks of 9/11, except that the chatter rose and was at a high point before the attacks of 9/11. Do they just make this stuff up? Of course they do! It's a rule of journalism, if you can't report news, then make the news.

The company I work for received this e-mail today: You chose to spend advertising dollars in VeloNews, November 15, 2004 issue. That issue was a blatant attempt to smear the reputation of USA Olympic Gold Medal Winner, Tyler Hamilton, including a pathetic illustration of that dedicated, true gentleman with a gold question mark around his neck. At the same time, they used an up close face shot of him on the cover. We assume they chose Tyler again because his image sells more copies than any other cycler, before or after the Olympics. As both cycling spectators and participants, we choose to never purchase any of your products in the future.We also noticed which regular advertisers chose not to touch that issue. Those companies will enjoy the profit of making good decisions. Truly disappointed in your poor judgment. This is a uniquely American phenomenon. If Tyler Hamilton was from any other country in the world this e-mail would have never been written. But, for some reason, Americans seem to have this overwhelming need to give American athletes the benefit of the doubt. Normally that's great, but in this case this American has failed two separate blood tests and is simply waiting to find out what his punishment is going to be. The benefit of the doubt is gone, Hamilton has been convicted and is now waiting for his sentence. I am certain that VeloNews put Hamilton on the cover because it is their first issue to go to print after the Hamilton story broke. Of course they are going to cover it. Hamilton's image sells more copies of VeloNews than any other rider? More than Lance Armstrong? I would have to see the circulation numbers to believe that. We did not choose to advertise in VeloNews because they were going to run a story on Hamilton. We ran ads in VeloNews because we always run ads in VeloNews. We don't check with VeloNews to determine what their cover is going to be or what their articles are going to contain before we run our ads. Maybe we should, but we don't. I guess the gist of this e-mail was that we should have known that VeloNews was going to run an article on the Hamilton situation and we should have pulled our ads from VeloNews in support of Hamilton. But this is not some gossip piece or whisper campaign against Hamilton. The truth is that this is a legitimate story and it's going to be published. As opposed to the Sinclair broadcasting situation, I don't see that advertisers should be punished for supporting the press, with advertising dollars, while the press reports legitimate news.

AFP 10/29/04 (red) and the Washington Post 4/17/02 (blue): President George W. Bush called Democratic rival John Kerry's charges that Bush failed to catch or kill Osama bin Laden "especially shameful" given a new tape by the terrorist mastermind. "Unfortunately my opponent tonight continued to say things he knows are not true, accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora," an Afghan stronghold, in 2001, Bush told cheering supporters here. WP: The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge. "As the commander in charge of that operation, (retired general) Tommy Franks has said: It's simply not the case," Bush said. "It is especially shameful in the light of a new tape from America's enemy." WP: In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. Franks did not perceive the setbacks soon enough, some officials said, because he ran the war from Tampa with no commander on the scene above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The first Americans did not arrive until three days into the fighting. Kerry has repeatedly accused Bush of overrelying on Afghan fighters to flush the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from Tora Bora, enabling him to escape. WP: In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. "If we'd ever known where Bin Laden was, we would have gotten him," said the president, who told a crowd of thousands that US intelligence placed bin Laden in several countries. WP: Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Speaking to reporters outside the campaign rally here, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said that the tape should not affect the way Bush campaigns but that Kerry should have marked a 12-hour truce. "You would think that there would be a, maybe, 12 hours to let the American absorb what has just happened today," he said. Prodded on why, if the tape ought not to affect the campaign, Kerry should have stopped criticizing the president, Bartlett revised his statement, saying that the problem was that Kerry's attack had been "discredited." WP: "We [messed] up by not getting into Tora Bora sooner and letting the Afghans do all the work," said a senior official with direct responsibilities in counterterrorism. "Clearly a decision point came when we started bombing Tora Bora and we decided just to bomb, because that's when he escaped. . . . We didn't put U.S. forces on the ground, despite all the brave talk, and that is what we have had to change since then." However, unchallenged news reporting about the standoff and public remarks by Bush aides, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, also placed Al-Qaeda's mastermind in the remote bastion. And Kerry aides point out that Franks, who frequently campaigns for Bush, ran the siege of Tora Bora. WP: After-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States. A common view among those interviewed outside the U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader. "Terror is bigger than one person," Bush said March 14. "He's a person that's now been marginalized." The president said bin Laden had "met his match" and "may even be dead," and added: "I truly am not that concerned about him." Top advisers now assert that the al Qaeda leader's fate should be no measure of U.S. success in the war. So easy to say when bin Laden is still on the loose. And Dan Bartlett's idea of a 12-hour truce by the Kerry campaign while President Bush could continue to go out in public and lie about John Kerry's statements, record and proposals? Good one Bartlett. If they want to talk about running some kind of ethical campaign maybe they should have shared the bin Laden video with the Kerry campaign as soon as they received it Friday morning instead of keeping it held until late in the day.

This is not the way it was supposed to happen for President Bush. They will be saying that again next Tuesday evening.

From Rob at AmericaBLOG: CNN's State Department reporter just came out and said that the Qatar government gave a copy of the Bin Laden tape to the government. The U.S. Ambassador after viewing the tape asked the Government of Qatar to get Al Jazeera to not air the tape. Think the Bush Administration believes that this video helps their cause?

("Whud I say!?")

President Bush might be best served to just stop talking between now and election day to avoid any additional gaffes. From Wednesday: "For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief." Jump to what kind of conclusions? Conclusions like Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction? From Thursday: "The role of a president is to confront problems, not to pass them on to future generations and future presidents." Confront what kind of problems? Problems like a massive budget deficit and ballooning national debt? Problems like an ill-planned war? On the other hand, maybe the President should just keep talking. The closer we get to November 3, the closer to the truth he seems to get!

Well, it's obvious that bin Laden is still alive. WTF are we doing in Iraq? Why aren't we hunting this guy down? Why is this man still making videos? Oh yea, President Bush is just not that concerned about him...

Osama bin Laden alive? Al Jazeera has stated that it would broadcast a video tape from bin Laden addressing the American people. It said the tape, to be aired at 4 p.m. EDT, would discuss the reasons behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and their repercussions. It gave no further details. Will there be any evidence on the tape to determine if the tape was made recently? Could bin Laden still be alive? Don't give me any of that bunk about bin Laden being dead in a cave at Tora Bora.

Career military officers on al Qa Qaa: "That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send."

Rush Limbaugh is saying that John Kerry has removed all references to the missing al Qa Qaa explosives from his web site. Wrong.

Not a very effective press conference at the Pentagon today. Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita presented U.S. Army Major Austin Pearson to explain that his unit removed and destroyed roughly 250 tons of equipment, ammunition and explosives from somewhere in the al Qa Qaa facility in early April 2003. The major was asked if this 250 tons were part of the 380 tons of missing HMX and RDX explosives that are missing from the site. Di Rita tried to answer for Major Pearson but Pearson made it clear that he did not know. The major was asked if he saw any IAEA seals on any of the equipment, ammunition or explosives they removed. Pearson said that he did not. Basically, Pearson stated that he had taken some material from the al Qa Qaa site and that this material was destroyed. This removal and destruction took place before the KSTP 5 Eyewitness News crew shot their video tape on April 18 2003.

One of the KSTP 5 Eyewitness news crew is on KSTP AM 1500 radio right now. He is stating that a Pentagon spokesperson is going to have a press conference today to state that the explosives at al Qa Qaa were destroyed by U.S. armed forces between April 9 and April 13 2003. The news crewman says that this is a problem because their video of the explosives was recorded during their visit to the site on April 18. The Pentagon may call into question the date that the video was shot as the video is not time stamped. But the label that the cameraman put on the video after it was shot, and all the news crewman's notes regarding their visit to the site list one date: April 18 2003.

Bob Woodward: Plan of Attack

I finished it last night. After reading this book and then looking back over the events in Iraq since the war began on March 19 2003, it's pretty easy to see that the only plan the Bush Administration had was a plan of attack. The strategy devised by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks and approved by President Bush, was nothing short of revolutionary in its goal of drastically trimming the number of troops required for the invasion, the time frame for the build up to the start of the war and the length of time it took to defeat the regime of Saddam Hussein. And it worked. Baghdad fell 21 days after the war started. As opposed to the work and detail that was put into the war plan, I was amazed to find such little mention of any plan for Iraq in the post Saddam aftermath of the war. Widespread looting after the fall of the regime, failure to adequately secure weapons and explosives during the course and aftermath of the war, the widespread insurgency that developed and the abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison that occurred in reaction to the insurgency; none of these possibilities received more than a cursory mention during the course of reading this book. All these issues were a surprise to the Bush Administration and observing the reaction of the Administration to this issues during the past year makes obvious that their planning ended with the defeat of Saddam Hussein. One can only conclude that this was President Bush's only goal for Iraq. The writer Michael Holmboe Meyer was quoted "one can always win a war, but how does one conquer peace?" The first step is to make a plan. History will write that President Bush's greatest failure was the lack of a plan to conquer peace in Iraq.

New poll up on the left, take it! Below are the results of the last poll.

Sorry, Elizabeth. You totally deserved to get canned.

Former weapons inspector David Kay interviewed by Aaron Brown Thursday night: Aaron Brown: And tell me if this is an IAEA seal on that bunker at that munitions dump? DK: Aaron, about as certain as I can be looking at a picture, not physically holding it which, obviously, I would have preferred to have been there, that is an IAEA seal. I've never seen anything else in Iraq in about 15 years of being in Iraq and around Iraq that was other than an IAEA seal of that shape. AB: Was there anything else at the facility that would have been under IAEA seal? DK: Absolutely nothing. It was the HMX, RDX, the two high explosives. AB: OK now, I’ll take a look at barrels here for a second. You can tell me what they tell you. They, obviously, to us just show us a bunch of barrels. You'll see it somewhat differently. DK: Well, it's interesting. There were three foreign suppliers to Iraq of this explosive in the 1980s. One of them used barrels like this, and inside the barrels a bag. HMX is in powder form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons. And particularly on the videotape, which is actually better than the still photos, as the soldier dips into it, that's either HMX or RDX. I don't know of anything else in al Qaqaa that was in that form. AB: In regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over? DK: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed. With this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called pottery barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security. AB: It suggests that maybe they just didn't know what they had? DK: I think you're quite likely they didn't know they had HMX, which speaks to lack of intelligence given troops moving through that area, but they certainly knew they had explosives. And to put this in context, I think it's important, this loss of 360 tons, but Iraq is awash with tens of thousands of tons of explosives right now in the hands of insurgents because we did not provide the security when we took over the country. AB: Is there any reason not to have anticipated the fact that there would be bunkers like this, explosives like this, and a need to secure them? DK: Absolutely not. For example, al Qaqaa was a site of Gerald Bull's super gun project. It was a team of mine that discovered the HMX originally in 1991. That was one of the most well-documented explosive sites in all of Iraq. The other 80 or so major ammunition storage points were also well documented. Iraq had, and it's a frightening number, two-thirds of the total conventional explosives that the US has in its entire inventory. The country was an armed camp. AB: As dangerous as this stuff is, this would not be described as a WMD, correct? DK: Oh absolutely not. And, in fact, the loss of it is not a proliferation issue. AB: It's just dangerous and its out there and by your thinking it should have been secured. DK: Well look, it was used to bring the Pan Am flight down. It's a very dangerous explosive, particularly in the hands of terrorists. Emphasis mine.

Dr. Robert M. Nelson, a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis says: "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate. This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt. I'm putting myself at risk for exposing this. But this is too important. It's not about my reputation. If they force me into an early retirement, it'll be worth it if the public knows about this. It's outrageous statements that I read that the president is wearing nothing under there. There's clearly something there."

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and conservative radio host Laura Ingraham both join Rudy Giuliani in blaming our troops instead of the Commander in Chief and his idiotic plan. Kristol on FOX News Live 10/28/04: George Bush didn't decide, you know, "skip that dump." That was 101st or the 3rd ID, "skip that arms dump." That's not a decision made by the president, that's made on the ground. FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes 10/27/04: STEVE MURPHY (FORMER MANAGER OF REP. DICK GEPHARDT'S (D-MO) PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN): Laura, Laura, John Kerry did not question the troops. John Kerry questioned the leadership of -- LAURA INGRAHAM: Oh, really? Who was looking for those weapons, Steve? MURPHY: He questioned the leadership of George Bush. George Bush did not send enough soldiers. INGRAHAM: Was George Bush on the ground there? The military commanders were on the ground there, Steve. These guys will go to any length in the attempt to save their King George. Our precious President can do no wrong! Don't you understand? When you criticize our wonderful President you are actually criticizing our troops! It's predictably revolting.

GOP strategy for Wisconsin: keep the black voters away from the poll by any means necessary.

Reuters: ABC News on Thursday showed video that appeared to confirm that explosives that went missing in Iraq did not disappear until after the United States had taken control of the facility where they were stored. ABC said the video was shot by an affiliate TV station embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when members of the division passed through the facility on April 18, nine days after the fall of Baghdad. You have to hand it to our ABC affiliate here in the Twin Cities. KTSP Eyewitness Channel 5, the local station with a track record for conservative journalism and a station owner who is a heavy contributor to the Bush Campaign, may have actually come up with the goods that will cost President Bush the White House. If you tried to make up this story before hand you could not have come up with a crazier scenario.

Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita has been handing out this satellite imagery to prove that Saddam Hussein was removing the RDX and HMX explosives.

GlobalSecurity.org says differently: A comparison of features in the DoD-released imagery with available commercial satellite imagery, combined with the use of an IAEA map showing the location of bunkers used to store the HMX explosives, reveals that the DoD image is not one of the bunkers containing the missing stockpiles. Another bullshit claim down the drain. What's the next story for us, Mr. Di Rita?

ABC reports on the KSTP video: The strongest evidence to date indicates that conventional explosives missing from Iraq's Al-Qaqaa installation disappeared after the United States had taken control of Iraq. Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell. Experts who have studied the images say the barrels on the tape contain the high explosive HMX, and the U.N. markings on the barrels are clear. "I talked to a former inspector who's a colleague of mine, and he confirmed that, indeed, these pictures look just like what he remembers seeing inside those bunkers," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. The barrels were found inside sealed bunkers, which American soldiers are seen on the videotape cutting through. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency sealed the bunkers where the explosives were kept just before the war began. "The seal's critical," Albright said. "The fact that there's a photo of what looks like an IAEA seal means that what's behind those doors is HMX. They only sealed bunkers that had HMX in them." After the bunkers were opened, the 101st was not ordered to secure the facility. A senior officer told ABC News the division would not have had nearly enough soldiers to do so. It remains unclear how much HMX was at the facility, but what does seem clear is that the U.S. military opened the bunkers at Al-Qaqaa and left them unguarded. Since then, the material has disappeared. The U.S. military left the al Qa Qaa site unguarded because there were insufficient troops in place in Iraq to guard these weapons storage sites.

KSTP 5 Eyewitness News has an update on their earlier al Qa Qaa weapons story.

Video showing that the IAEA seals were in place at the time the 101st Airborne Division visited al Qa Qaa was released by KSTP today.

Boston Red Socks pitcher Curt Schilling, interviewed on ABC's Good Morning America stated, "Tell everybody to vote. And vote Bush next week." Laura Ingraham will, I am certain, be following up her previous work with Shut Up and Play: How Professional Athletes are Subverting America.

Do they really think that no one will notice this kind of thing? Below is an image from the most recent Bush Campaign ad, Whatever it Takes.

Notice anything odd about the crowd of soldiers? Can you imagine what the press response would have been four years ago if Vice President Gore would have run an ad with Photoshopped images of U.S. troops?

Kerry Campaign Spokesperson Joe Lockhart :

"Now we know why this ad is named `Whatever it Takes.' This administration has always had a problem telling the truth from Iraq to jobs to health care. The Bush campaign's advertising has been consistently dishonest in what they say. But today, it's been exposed for being dishonest about what we see. "If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else. This doctored commercial is fundamentally dishonest and insults the intelligence of the American people. The Bush campaign has no choice but to take this ad down immediately and issue an apology for its latest attempt to mislead the American people. "Unless George Bush has changed its position on human cloning, it's got to pull this fundamentally dishonest ad immediately."

Health Updates! Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist may be more gravely ill than has been widely reported. From the LA Times: "At his age, having had a tracheotomy, the first thing that comes to mind is whether or not he has anaplastic thyroid cancer," said Dr. Peter Singer, chief of clinical endocrinology at USC's Keck School of Medicine. The most dangerous form is anaplastic. It accounts for fewer than 5% of cases and mainly affects people older than 70. Those diagnosed often have long histories of thyroid problems. "It is one of the most malignant types of cancer known to humans," said Dr. Yuri Nikiforov, a pathologist and thyroid expert at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. "To label a guy with anaplastic basically gives him a death sentence in a matter of months," he said. Fatality rates top 95% in the first year after diagnosis. How will the loss of Rehnquist affect the Supreme Court? A new chief justice would have to be named either from inside the current court or brought in from outside the court. The President would nominate their choice for the replacement. Looking at President Bush's previous court nominees is a pretty clear indication of the type of candidate he would choose. Yasser Arafat is now said to have a blood platelet deficiency. Unfortunately, the future of Palestine is tied to Arafat. If Arafat is out of the picture, would this create an opportunity to restart the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians? It would take a President with real leadership to recognize and take advantage of an opportunity to restart the peace process. President Bush has shown his unwillingness to get the United States involved in this process.

AP: In Iraq, U.S. military maneuvers including stepped-up air strikes raised the prospect of a decisive showdown with insurgents in Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi. The goal would be to restore government control for the Iraqi national elections by the end of January. Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday night in Wisconsin that the terrorists and insurgents “know once those elections are held, they’re out of business. They’ve said as much” in “communications that we’ve captured between Zarqawi and the bin Laden crowd.” Cheney was referring to terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What? After the elections in Iraq are held the terrorists and insurgents are out of business? Why would this be? I'm pretty skeptical that the terrorists and insurgents are just going to hang it up after the Iraq elections. I guess Vice President Cheney is just a lot more optimistic than I am! Yea right...

Gossip within the cycling industry is that Lance Armstrong is pressuring Trek to drop the LeMond (as in Greg LeMond, 1986 & 1989-90 Tour de France winner) brand name. For those unfamiliar with the cycling industry, Armstrong bike sponsor, Trek, owns a number of other brands including Fisher, Klein, Bontrager and LeMond. There has been an ongoing row between Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond dating back to August of 2001. Armstrong had just won his 3rd Tour de France and LeMond was quoted questioning Armstrong's association with physician Michele Ferrari, an Italian doctor linked to drug use in sports. LeMond stated "In the light of Lance's relationship with Ferrari, I just don't want to comment on this year's Tour. This is not sour grapes. I'm just disappointed in Lance." I occasionally pick up some stories from inside the industry and, from what I heard, Armstrong went absolutely ballistic in regards to LeMond's comments. From what I was told, Armstrong phoned his contacts at Trek and demanded that LeMond make a public apology or Armstrong would see to it that the U.S. Postal Service would be riding a different brand of bicycle in 2002. LeMond made the public apology and that was that. In July of 2004 LeMond was again questioning Armstrong. "Lance is ready to do anything to keep his secret," LeMond was quoted as saying. "I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence." If the 2001 story is true, it would not surprise me one bit if Armstrong is pressuring Trek to dump the LeMond brand. I also assume that, as Armstrong gets closer to the end of his career, he starts thinking about his post racing life which may include a bike brand of his own. Maybe getting Trek to drop LeMond will take some wind out of the sails (and sales) of the LeMond brand and make it easier competition against an Armstrong brand? Who knows? But, from the other stories that I have heard about Armstrong, none of this would surprise me one bit.

Kevin Drum makes his electoral vote prediction, I'll make mine.

While I think that Florida will be as big a battleground as it was in 2000, I am optimistic that it is going to go Kerry's way. I also think the Bill Richardson is going to deliver New Mexico for Kerry.

You can make your own prediction here.

Who is blaming the troops now? GOP attack turd Rudy Giuliani, that's who. "The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?" Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak responds: "It’s outrageous that the Bush campaign is now deliberately trying to shift blame and responsibility for their failure to the brave men and women in Iraq. Make no mistake: the failure to secure these explosives lies with the President and his national security team who have mismanaged this war from its very inception. This Commander in Chief thinks the buck stops anywhere but his own desk, and that’s why it’s time for a new one. George Bush was the engineer of this train wreck. Now he needs to take responsibility for it." McPeak is right. This is outrageous. In order to preserve President Bush's infallibility complex the GOP is now turning on the members of our armed forces. These guys are completely worthless.

We will be celebrating the Pumpkin Gospel at our house this year. What you need: • pumpkin • newspapers • sharp knife • spoon • large bowl • candle • matches • Bible! What to do: Prepare a place for your pumpkin carving. Set newspapers on a table and get out the knife, spoon and bowl. Cut an opening in the top of the pumpkin. Have your kids pull out all of the seeds and scrape out the inside of the pumpkin. What to talk about: • How is the stuff we pulled out of the pumpkin like sin in our heart? (They’re both yucky; sin is inside us; it’s sticky and smelly.) • How is the way we cleaned out the pumpkin like the way Jesus cleans us out when we confess our sins? (All the yucky stuff is taken away; Jesus scoops out the sin.) What to do: Draw a happy face on the pumpkin, then use the sharp knife to carve it out. When you are finished, read aloud 2 Corinthians 5:17 and/or Ephesians 2:10. What to talk about: • How have we made this pumpkin a “new creation”? (It has a face now; it used to be just a pumpkin, but now it’s a jack-o’-lantern.) • How do we become a new creation when Jesus comes into our hearts? (We learn to love Him more; we’re no longer filled with yucky stuff; we become God’s children.) What to share: When Jesus comes into our hearts, we become new creations, just as our pumpkin became a new creation. Read Matthew 5:14-16. Then light a candle and place it in the pumpkin. Turn off the room lights so everyone can see the candlelight coming through the pumpkin’s face. What to talk about: How is the way the candlelight comes through the pumpkin like the way God wants our light to shine? (God wants others to see how much we love Him; God wants our light to be seen by others.) I read aloud 2 Corinthians 5:17 and/or Ephesians 2:10 for more than just carving out pumpkins! I always feel better reading scripture after doing the dishes or laundry. I read Matthew 5:14-16 after I bag up dead leaves in the yard or clean out the toilet. There is never a moment in life that can't (or shouldn't) be shared with scripture!

Our local ABC TC station, KSTP 5 Eyewitness News, may have actually proved that the now missing explosives were still in place as of April 18 2003, nine days after the fall of Baghdad.

KSTP had a crew embedded with 101st Airborne and it appears that the 101st went back to the al Qa Qaa site on April 18 2003 after their first visit on April 10 2003.

During that trip, members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew bunker after bunker of material labeled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.

"We can stick it in those and make some good bombs." a soldier told our crew.

There were what appeared to be fuses for bombs. They also found bags of material men from the 101st couldn't identify, but box after box was clearly marked "explosive." "We weren't quite sure what were looking at, but we saw so much of it and it didn't appear that this was being secured in any way," said photojournalist Joe Caffrey. "It was several miles away from where military people were staying in their tents".

Officers with the 101st Airborne told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that the bunkers were within the U.S. military perimeter and protected. But Caffrey and former 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Reporter Dean Staley, who spent three months together in Iraq, said Iraqis were coming and going freely. "At one point there was a group of Iraqis driving around in a pick-up truck,"Staley said. "Three or four guys we kept an eye on, worried they might come near us." On Wednesday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS e-mailed still images of the footage taken at the site to experts in Washington to see if the items captured on tape are the same kind of high explosives that went missing in Al Qaqaa. Those experts could not make that determination. The footage is now in the hands of security experts to see if it is indeed the explosives in question.

Peter W. Galbraith, Eyewitness to a failure in Iraq: On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn't know the building was important. When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, "I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon." About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq's sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad's outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere. It is my own country that is worse off -- 1,100 dead soldiers, billions added to the deficit, and the enmity of much of the world. Someone out there has nuclear bomb-making equipment, and they may not be well disposed toward the United States. Much of this could have been avoided with a competent postwar strategy. But without having planned or provided enough troops, we would be a lot safer if we hadn't gone to war. That's the sad truth of the current situation in Iraq. President Bush accuses John Kerry of denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field. But it was President Bush and the rest his administration, who planned so poorly for the aftermath of the war, that created the situations where our troops in the field feel like failures. The President did not give our troops the tools they needed to succeed. And John Kerry is laying blame, not at the feet of our soldiers, but at the feet of the Bush Administration where it clearly belongs.

Reuters: The first U.S. military unit to reach the site in Iraq where U.N. officials say 377 tons of high explosives are missing did not carry out a hunt for such material, the unit's commander said on Wednesday. Col. Dave Perkins, then the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, said the immediate concern when his troops reached the Al Qaqaa site on April 3, 2003, was to defeat a couple of hundred Iraqi troops who were firing from the compound as the Americans surged toward Baghdad. So now it appears that neither the 3rd Infantry Division on April 3 2003 or the 101st Airborne on April 10 2003 ever made a search for weapons at the al Qa Qaa site. Atrios comments: While the media seems to understand that the missing explosives are a story, they haven't, as far as I have seen, addressed why. For me, once it became clear that after the fall of Baghdad the securing of WMD sites wasn't a top priority (though finding them was), I knew that the Bushies weren't genuinely concerned about WMDs as a threat. They wanted to find them for propaganda purposes, but they weren't actually worried about them. And, then, they seemed uninterested in securing even the conventional sites. But, here's the deal. The Bushies wanted to prove they could kick ass quickly and easily. The al Qa Qaa issue isn't about a failure of Bush to be omniscient. It's about a failure of the administration to commit sufficient troops to cover all bases.

Some reaction to John Shaw's claim that the Russians took the missing explosives from the al Qa Qaa site: • The Russian embassy in Washington rejected the claims as “nonsense”, saying there were no Russian military in the country at the time. • Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita - "I am unaware of any particular information on that point."

Boston wins, just like I knew they would. John Kerry will add one more victory for Massachusetts next Tuesday.

The Bush Administration's bullshit story is spinning out of control. • Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita now claims that the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division did not find a "huge quantity of munitions" at al Qa Qaa on April 4 2003 because the RDX and HMX explosives had already been taken away. The Washington Post report from April 5 that the 3rd Infantry found "thousands of vials of white powder, packed three to a box." The Associated Press stated on April 5 "A senior U.S. official familiar with initial testing said the powder was believed to be explosives. The finding would be consistent with the plant's stated production capabilities in the field of basic raw materials for explosives and propellants." Guess what? RDX and HMX are white powders. • Larry Di Rita then presented the then-commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, who were the first troops to arrive at the al Qa Qaa site, who stated that it would have been "very highly improbable" to haul away 380 tons of explosives from al Qa Qaa after April 3 2003 because the two roads through the area were filled with U.S. military convoys bringing men and materiel into the country. However, former weapons inspector David Kay then came on CNN and stated that he does not believe, due to the satellite and unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance of the area, that the weapons could have been removed before April 9 2003. He also went on to state that he would not "find it hard to believe that looters could carry it off in the dead of night or during the day and not use the road network." • Deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, John A. Shaw, is now stating that the Russians removed the weapons before the start of the war because U.S. intelligence was watching the al Qa Qaa site so closely during the build up to war and after the war began. Josh Marshall is doing hero's work on this story.

James Lileks: I admit. I have a fantasy. Kerry wins. He’s having a summit with Tony Blair. In the middle of the conversation, Chirac calls up; Kerry excuses himself and has a brief chat about a new resolution to let French oil companies bid on reconstruction projects, and they have an amiable conversation in French. Kerry hangs up. “Your predecessor,” Blair says, “spoke to him in English.” “I know,” says President Kerry. “He couldn’t speak French.” “He didn’t have to,” Blair notes. He gives a tight smile. And sighs. And gets down to explaining what now must be done. Blair explaining to Kerry what must now be done? Blair has all the answers? Kerry is subservient to Blair? The United States of America subservient to the United Kingdom? That's your fantasy Lileks? Or was it just the lame ass French bashing? Yea, that was a good one...

Mohammed al-Sharaa, head of the Iraqi science ministry's site monitoring department, dropped a bombshell today: Officials at Al-Qaqaa, including its general director, whom he refused to name, made contact with US troops before the fall of Baghdad, in an effort to get them to provide security for the site.

Our President.

For six more days anyway...

UPDATE

See the full video here (Windows Media file, 754k). Thanks to John for sending it over.

Asked to name the country's biggest problem, 12-year-old Vivian Resto said, "Homosexuals." How enlightening.

President Bush today: “Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, 'we do not know the facts.' Think about that — the senator’s denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, that’s part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected. Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios, including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site. This investigation is important and it's ongoing, and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief.” Some military men comment on President Bush's statements: Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark said Bush's words amounted to "a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected." It was Bush who "jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad. By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our commander in chief." Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak said in a statement that Bush seems to believe that Kerry should not be criticizing him "since the president thinks he has never made a mistake." McPeak continued: "Let's be perfectly clear: it is the President who dropped the ball. Senator Kerry is being critical of George Bush, not the troops. By embarking on the line of attack, George Bush is deflecting blame from him over to the military. This is beneath contempt."

Find your polling place here!

Rush Limbaugh and the rest of his right wing wacko crew have been spending the last two days desperately trying to spin the al Qa Qaa weapons looting situation. Limbaugh was on today claiming that the weapons had been removed by Saddam Hussein before the start of the U.S. led invasion on March 19 2003. Limbaugh called the New York Times story false, derided John Kerry's irresponsibility for talking about this false story and accused John Kerry of calling U.S. troops incompetent. Today President Bush accused Kerry of making "wild charges about missing explosives." But no matter how hard and fast Limbaugh, the Pentagon and the Bush Administration try to spin this story, the truth about this situation is becoming clear. From the AFP: A top Iraqi science official said it was impossible that 350 tonnes of high explosives could have been smuggled out of a military site south of Baghdad before the regime fell last year. "It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," said Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the science ministry's site monitoring department and previously worked with UN weapons inspectors under Saddam. "The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of." Sharaa also warned that other nearby sites with similar materials could have also been plundered. "The Al-Milad Company in Iskandariyah and the Yarmouk and Hateen facilities contained explosive materials that could have also been taken out," the official told AFP in an interview. The amazing thing is that this situation is not limited to the al Qa Qaa site. Before the start of the war, the Bush Administration declared that preventing the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction know-how and material was the major aim for the war. However, since the fall of Baghdad on April 9 2003, there has been widespread and systematic dismantlement of buildings in Iraq that housed key nuclear dual-use items. Among them are precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders that before the war were tagged with IAEA seals and monitored to ensure that they were not used for an illicit weapons program. Jon Wolfsthal, a proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, stated "It's very troubling that any of this stuff should be unprotected, let alone go missing. If one of these things went missing in the US, there would be a massive criminal investigation ... and people going to jail." The commander of the first unit into the al Qa Qaa area told CBS he did not search it for explosives or secure it from looters. "We were still in a fight," he said. "our focus was killing bad guys." He added he would have needed four times more troops to search and secure all the ammo dumps he came across. Does this mean that there were too few troops allocated for the war in Iraq? If preventing the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction know-how and material was the major aim of the war then why was there not enough troops on hand to secure these weapons sites as soon as they were found? This is President Bush's war and President Bush will be held responsible for these screw ups, no matter how much he, or his surrogates like Rush Limbaugh, try and avoid it.

A black voter in Florida shows up at their polling place but is denied their ability to vote because their voter registration was not filled out correctly. Rules are rules right? God forbid anyone attempt to disqualify a ballot from a member of the armed forces sent from oversees because it was not filled out correctly or delivered by the deadline date. Support our troops! Don't disenfranchise the brave members of our military! But that guy in Florida? Screw that moron.

Jerome at MyDD got a note from a pollster in Florida: The word I hear is that NYT/CBS are not going to release their latest FL survey, because it shows Kerry up by 4 points. Apparently, they [CBS & NYT's] think that is an implausible result, so they are suppressing it. Of course, it's not implausible at all. And imagine the reverse: would they have suppressed a poll showing Bush up 4? The gossip out there is that the New York Times/CBS poll originally stated that Kerry was up in Florida by 9 points. They thought this was impossible so they re-polled and came up with the 4 point Kerry lead. Still thinking this was impossible, they simply spiked the poll. Why is it that the liberal media has no problem publishing polls when President Bush is in the lead? Why do they say President Bush is "ahead" when he leads in a poll by 3 points in a poll with a margin of error of 5% but when Kerry leads by this same amount in the same poll they say the race is too close to call? Maybe the media is biased, but you won't convince me they are biased against President Bush.

Ed Gillespie, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, sends an e-mail to his fans: Dear [E-mail recipients name], It's October, but it's no surprise. Remember last week, when I highlighted a quote by Newsweek editor Evan Thomas that the media's desire to see John Kerry elected may be worth five-to-twenty million votes, and urged you to be on the look-out for evidence of that desire in articles and news programs? Well, yesterday the front page of New York Times featured a flawed article asserting, "The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives — used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons — are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday." "still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday." That says everything we have to know about what kind of priority President Bush put on securing weapon dumps like the al Qa Qaa site. CBS News' "60 Minutes" admitted today they were saving the same story to air the Sunday before the election. John Kerry seized on the New York Times headline to launch a political attack on President Bush, saying U.S. troops "failed to guard those stockpiles" and that is "one of the great blunders" of the war. Senator Kerry and the New York Times leave the impression that these weapons went missing recently and U.S. troops were derelict in their duty to guard the stockpile — neither of which is true. John Kerry never once stated or implied that U.S. troops were derelict in their duty. What he has stated is that President Bush has been derelict in his duty, and this situation is just the latest example of this dereliction. Network and cable news programs repeated the incomplete report and Sen. Kerry's attacks more than 100 times on Monday. But last night NBC "Nightly News" reported that on April 10, 2003, one day after Baghdad fell, U.S. troops entered Al Qaqaa, accompanied by an embedded reporter from NBC, and found no such weapons. NBC backed off this story Tuesday. The embedded reporter stated that the visit to al Qa Qaa was nothing more than a pit stop on the push to Baghdad and no search for weapons was ever undertaken. It also turns out that our troops have found and destroyed or are destroying 400,000 tons of weapons and explosives. There was no mention of either one of these facts in today's New York Times front page story, which regurgitated yesterday's charges and Senator Kerry's attacks based on them. Liberal groups like MoveOn.org have already blasted out e-mails repeating the discredited report and urging people to vote against President Bush based on the flawed coverage. We can not count on the media to set the story straight. We have to get the truth out to our friends and neighbors ourselves. We are counting on YOU to set the record straight. Please forward this e-mail and the attached fact sheet to family and friends, call your local network, call talk radio, write letters to the editor, and post facts on blogs. I suspect you'll be hearing from me again in the course of the next seven days as Mr. Thomas's prediction proves true again. Sincerely, Ed GillespieChairman, Republican National Committee Meanwhile, President Bush starts day three without making a comment regarding this situation. And, while Ed Gillespie and the conservatives are all upset about CBS and the New York Times pushing this story, someone in the Pentagon is leaking information to the press.

Kerry in Philadelphia, over 100,000 people turned out.

Show me an event where over 100,000 turned up for President Bush. Protests don't count.

Americans burn U.N. flag - Montana Radio listeners torch blue banner to protest United Nations Day

"We began with the Star Spangled Banner blaring across the airways, saluting the U.S. flag flying high above the station, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and a very appropriate prayer for our nation, our Constitution and the Republic," Stokes explained. "Then the volunteers provided the pole and gas, and I provided the despicable U.N. flag." The crowd shouted out a verbal countdown before the flag was torched. Said Stokes: "Whoosh. It was completely gone in seconds. I hope it was an omen." Scary!

Which photo is more ridiculous?

or

Hint: It's not the one with the doggie in it...

On top of the al Qa Qaa weapons theft, the Iraqis are now accusing the U.S. of negligence in the training, and unfortunate death, of 50 Iraqi National Guardsmen. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi told the Iraqi National Council, a government oversight body, that coalition forces’ handling of security was responsible for Saturday’s deadly ambush along a remote highway near the Iranian border. “It was a heinous crime where a group of National Guardsmen were targeted,” Allawi said. “There was great negligence on the part of some coalition forces.” Why does Ayad Allawi hate America?

Here is a rough timeline that I can piece together so far on the lost al Qa Qaa weapons situation: January 2003 IAEA al Qa Qaa inspection, munitions were on site and inspected, IAEA seals were intact (link) March 8 2003 IAEA al Qa Qaa inspection, munitions were on site and IAEA seals were intact (link) March 19 2003 Invasion of Iraq began (link) Sometime between March 20-31 2003 Pentagon confirmed that US-led coalition troops has searched al Qa Qaa and confirmed munitions were on site (link) Late March-early April 2003 Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita stated yesterday that weapons were moved by Saddam Hussein during this time (link) April 4 2003 US 3rd Infantry Division visits al Qa Qaa, numerous weapons were found during spot checks. Weapons were initially thought to be chemical weapons but were tested to be explosives. (link) April 9 2003 Baghdad falls to US-led coalition (link) April 10 2003 US 101st Airborne visits al Qa Qaa, made no attempt to inspect facility for weapons of any kind (link) Sometime after April 9 2003 Iraqi interim government claims weapons were looted from al Qa Qaa due to a lack of security by US-led forces (link)

From US News and World Report: Unity Call - The Kerry transition team, hastily planning a Democratic administration should their man win, says it wants to put Republicans in the cabinet. "We want to make it clear that a Kerry presidency will unite," says a Kerry insider, "not divide." Hummm. Do you think that a Kerry Administration should appoint Republicans? President Bush kept one Democrat in his cabinet (Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta), but has otherwise been thoroughly partisan in those that he picked for cabinet positions and nominated for judgeships. Why should Kerry do any different? Kerry a uniter instead of a divider? Will that make a difference to Republicans? Will a few token Republicans in a President Kerry cabinet help get his initiatives passed in the House and Senate? Will congress act quickly to confirm President Kerry's judge nominations if there are some Republicans included? Should President Bush lose the election next Tuesday I think the Republican party might be ready for civil war. The fiscal conservatives may have finally had enough of the moral conservatives and the religious right dominating the party. Maybe President Kerry tapping some of these reasonable Republicans (John McCain, Paul O'Neil for example) can help tilt the balance of the Republican party away from the moral and religious zealots. On the other hand, would it of greater value to the Democratic party, to tilt the balance towards the zealots? It would create a very clear line between the two parties. The Democrats can be the party of responsible government spending, separation of church and state and keeping the government out of citizens private lives. The Republicans can be the party of dramatic increases in government spending while cutting taxes, the integration of the Christian religion into government policy and government dictation of private behavior. What do you think? Should President Kerry unite or just give the Republicans a big "up yours!" Will it even make any difference?

Greg Palast, BBC: A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals. Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list". It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents. When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature. Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner. The Bush campaign trying to disrupt voting, possibly in violation of U.S. law? Of course they are!

Bad sign for Bushie. From Bloomberg: U.S. consumer confidence fell for a third straight month in October, suggesting growing voter discontent with the economy a week before President George W. Bush seeks re-election. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index dropped to 92.8, the lowest since March, from a revised 96.7 in September, down from the previous estimate. Americans' assessments of the current economy and their outlook for the next six months fell. The survey is the Conference Board's last before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 2. Since the index began in 1967, every incumbent president has lost his re-election bid when the consumer confidence index was below 99 on Election Day.

Josh Marshall has the best coverage of the al Qa Qaa/missing explosives story currently available. Drudge reports that an NBC story airing tonight will state that the 380 tons of HMX and RDX explosives were already missing by April 10, 2003, the date when U.S. troops arrived at the installation south of Baghdad. Yesterday, Pentagon spokesperson Larry Di Rita suggested that the weapons may have been removed from the al Qa Qaa site during the final days of the Hussein regime. "It's very possible -- certainly it's plausible -- that it was the Saddam Hussein regime that last had control of these things," Di Rita stated. There are some problems with Di Rita's statement however. The IAEA inspected the al Qa Qaa site in January 2003 and, then again, in March of 2003, a week before the war began. The IAEA reported that the weapons were in place and the inspections seals had not been not tampered with. In addition, a Pentagon official stated yesterday that "US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact." That means that these weapons were not removed from the al Qa Qaa site until after the war began and after the U.S. had taken responsibility for this site. The Bush Administration is attempting to deny both knowledge and responsibility for the incredible lapse in security, but all fingers just keep pointing back at them.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Viacom is keeping an ad for this website from airing on their stations including Comedy Central, MTV and VH1. Why? According to Sumner Redstone, Viacom CEO and self-proclaimed "liberal democrat", it’s because "the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people. . . . But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company." Mr. Redstone believes that Republican values are what U.S. companies need. "I look at the election from what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today, Viacom." So check out the website and try and figure out what is so wrong with a site that simply points out the obvious differences between the President and John Kerry’s positions on issues like the war in Iraq, education, heath care and the economy.

Piss poor job continued: CNN October 12 2004: The senior adviser to Iraq's Interior Ministry blamed U.S. forces Tuesday for not securing facilities where the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons has vanished. According to an October 1 letter from IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei to the U.N. Security Council, satellite imagery showed that not only was dual-use equipment missing, but buildings that once housed it had been dismantled. "The imagery shows in many instances the dismantlement of entire buildings that housed high precision equipment ... formerly monitored and tagged with IAEA seals, as well as the removal of equipment and materials (such as high-strength aluminum) from open storage areas," ElBaradei's letter said. ElBaradei said that although some radioactive equipment taken from Iraq after the war began has shown up in other countries, none of the missing dual-use equipment or materials have been found.

April 17 2002: The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December. October 25, 2004: He says he was right when he voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but that I was wrong to use force against Saddam Hussein. Now my opponent is throwing out the wild claim that he knows where bin Laden was in the fall of 2001, and that our military passed up the chance to get him in Tora Bora. This is an unjustified criticism of our military commanders in the field. This is the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking. And that's what we've come to expect from Senator Kerry. Wild claims with no basis in fact. That’s what we’ve come to expect from President Bush.

A preview of electronic voting in Florida.

CNN: White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush wants to determine what went wrong. McClellan, on Air Force One, stressed that the missing explosives were not nuclear materials, and said the storage site was the responsibility of the interim Iraqi government, not the United States, as of June 28, when the United States turned over the nation's administration to the Iraqis. The missing explosives were taken from the al Qa Qaa site more than a year before the interim Iraqi government took power on June 28th. Coalition Administrator Jerry Bremer was told about the missing explosives more than a month before the interim Iraqi government took power. What kind of crap is the Bush Administration trying to pull here? Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt stated today: "John Kerry has no vision for fighting and winning the War on Terror, so he is basing his attacks on the headlines he wakes up to each day." Maybe there would not be headlines to wake up to each day if the Bush Administration was not doing such a piss poor job in Iraq!

100 Facts and 1 Opinion The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration by Judd Legum

According to the first (and only) poll that I have seen to date (Star Tribune), the 6th District Congressional race between Mark Kennedy and Patty Wetterling is not as close as the local media has led us to believe. Taken last week, the KSTP poll of 351 likely Sixth District voters found 52 percent favored Kennedy and 34 percent favored Wetterling, with 14 percent undecided. KSTP is the "conservative" station in town, so it's really not surprising that they came up with a poll that shows Kennedy ahead. However, the margin of his lead is big enough to prove that this race may not really be as close as the rest of the media says it is.

AP: In a taped interview with Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," Bush was asked whether the nation would always be vulnerable to another terror attack and whether Americans would always have to live with that. "Yes, because we have to be right 100 percent of the time in disrupting any plot and they have to be right once," Bush said. He said the nation is safer from terrorism, but "whether or not we can be ever fully safe is up - you know, up in the air." Oh how sweet it would be if that idiot Sean Hannity helps President Bush lose the election.

President Bush 7/12/04: Today, because America and our coalition helped to end the violent regime of Saddam Hussein, and because we're helping to raise a peaceful democracy in its place, the American people are safer. New York Times 10/24/04: The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Saturday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year. American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings. The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa, and somewhat larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people. The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material. But the other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain. "This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk," one senior Bush administration official said. The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Worst. Administration. Ever.

The Nation: John Kerry for President A matchup of the records of the two candidates only begins to measure the stakes in this year's election. These come fully into view only in the larger context of a deeper crisis that has overtaken the American system of government. To begin with, the irregular procedure of the last election lends a special importance to this one. In 2000 candidate Bush, who lost the popular contest by half a million votes and was put into the presidency by a Supreme Court decision, failed to receive a popular mandate. However, he embarked on a radical, right-wing course anyway, compounding the insult to democracy. Yet it is so far only the government that has asserted global imperial ambition, waged aggressive war on false pretexts, condoned torture, strengthened corporate influence over politics, turned its back on the natural environment and spurned global public opinion. If Bush is now elected, then a national majority--a far weightier thing--will stand behind these things. The consequences would be profound. A crippled presidency would begin to walk on two legs. At home, public affirmation would turn the record of the first term, now having been inspected and approved by the people, into the starting point for an accelerated movement in the same general direction. Bush has already put through a new round of federal budget-wrecking corporate tax cuts, called for new repressive legislation in a Patriot II act and clearly announced his desire to "democratize" not just Iraq but the entire Middle East. Abroad, such a vote would deepen and confirm the United States' separation from the rest of the world, enclosing it in an eccentric and dangerous mini-climate of ignorance and lies. On the other hand, if Bush is defeated, his entire presidency will acquire the aspect of an aberration, a mistake that has been corrected, and the American people will be able to say: We never accepted Bushism. We rejected the brutality, the propaganda, the misbegotten wars, the imperial arrogance. And we never, ever chose George W. Bush to be President of the United States.

The New Republic makes their endorsement.

The American Conservative: 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 naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support. Sheesh. If he can't even get the endorsement of a magazine called The American Conservative, President Bush must really be in trouble...

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post: Controversial program more balanced than many expected But spokesmen for several liberal and public policy groups said in a conference call that the program was far better than they had been led to expect and that they saw no reason to support earlier Democratic demands for equal time. "In general, it appears Sinclair listened to the American people," said Gene Kimmelman, Washington director of Consumers Union. "Sinclair certainly was acting like a broadcaster should tonight." Some on the right were disappointed by the final product. On the conservative Free Republic Web site, one poster wrote: "Sinclair has caved to the pressure. Very obvious that they're running scared. They letting the Kerry camp spout the same old BS without challenge." We'll see what else is said about the Sinclair show, but if the Freepers are not happy about it then it must not have really been all that bad.

Wolves versus eagles. Which ad do you think betters carries the message of optimism and responsibility? Which ad conveys pessimism and fear? Which ad tells Americans the we can move forward? Which ad uses distortion to confuse Americans? Which is the better ad? Hint - it's not the crappy wolves ad...

Some economic news! Not good. From the AP: The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched barometer of future economic activity, edged lower in September for the fourth month in a row, indicating a slowing in economic growth, a private research group reported Thursday. Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein called the September decline a "clear signal that the economy is losing momentum heading into 2005." Here is a look at the current economic indicators:

Consumer Confidence sliding down.

Retail Sales, all over the place.

GDP, moving the wrong direction.

Institute for Supply Management Index moving closer to 50%. That would indicate a shrinking economy.

Factory Orders, up, down, up, down...

Unemployment Rate, still down which is good, but unchanged from August.

Employment Situation, job growth is not what President Bush promised.

Consumer Inflation, moving up.

Housing Starts, moving down again.

Home Sales, the market is softening.

The President likes to remind us during his stump speeches that the economy is "strong and getting stronger." The evidence shows us the contrary is true.

How about some news from Iraq! AP: Iraq's new security forces are heavily infiltrated by insurgents, and the guerrilla groups have access to almost unlimited money to pay for deadly attacks, according to a U.S. defense official who provided new details on the evolution of the rebels.A significant part of the insurgents' money is coming from sympathizers in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi government is neglecting the problem, said the official, who was authorized by the Pentagon to speak on the issue this week, but only on condition of anonymity. Sheesh, that's not good. President Bush says that Saudi Arabia is one of our strongest allies. Let's see what else is going on. Washington Post: Leaders of Iraq's religious parties have emerged as the country's most popular politicians and would win the largest share of votes if an election were held today, while the U.S.-backed government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is losing serious ground, according to a U.S.-financed poll by the International Republican Institute. More than 45 percent of Iraqis also believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction, and 41 percent say it is moving in the right direction. Within the Bush administration, a victory by Iraq's religious parties is viewed as the worst-case scenario. Washington has hoped that Allawi and the current team, which was selected by U.S. and U.N. envoys, would win or do well in Iraq's first democratic election, in January. U.S. officials believe a secular government led by moderates is critical, in part because the new government will oversee writing a new Iraqi constitution. Hummm. That's bad too. Is there any good news from Iraq?

AP: Trembling, haggard and weeping into a tissue, Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped British aid worker who has spent nearly half her life delivering food and medicine in Iraq, begged Britain on Friday to help save her by withdrawing its troops, saying these "might be my last hours." Jebus, this place is a complete and utter disaster. How did we get into this mess?

Oh yea...

Josh Marshall: So why is the National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, out hitting the campaign trail? Think about that for a second. Is there any possible good answer?

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has officially endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Here are some outtakes from the 10/19/04 interview between KSTP's Ron Rosenbaum and Mark O'Connell and Minnesota 4th District Republican candidate Patrice Bataglia. QuickTime is required to listen to these clips. Clip #1 Rosenbaum: "What instance did he use biological warfare against our troops?" Bataglia: "In the Iraq/Iran war." Clip #2 Rosenbaum: "What instance do you have that he used biological weapons against American troops?" Bataglia: "We had Americans in the country during those times." Rosenbaum: "I'm not going to let you off the hook on that. During what times?" STUNNED SILENCE... Bataglia: "You know, the real point is that I'd really like to debate these issues with Betty McCollum." Clip #3 O'Connell: "I think what threw us off was that you said that you said that he used them on American troops." Bataglia: "I don't believe that is what I said." Clip #4 Rosenbaum: "When did Saddam Hussein use biological weapons on anybody?" STUNNED SILENCE Bataglia: "You know full well that the reason that I am willing to discuss these issues is because the current representative has not voted to fund $87 billion for our troops in fighting the war on terror. There was an instance where, the war with the Kurds and Saddam Hussein and Iraq." Rosenbaum: "And what happened there?" Bataglia: "Saddam Hussein used those weapons." Rosenbaum: "Which weapons?" Bataglia: "Against the Iranians and against the Kurds." Rosenbaum: "Do you know which weapons he used?" Bataglia: "The real reason why I want to talk about this is because I'd like to debate it with Betty McCollum." Bataglia clearly does not understand the difference between chemical weapons and biological weapons when she states that Hussein used biological weapons against the Kurds. This is supposed to be one of the central issues in her candidacy but she obviously does not have her facts straight. The entire interview can be downloaded in MP3 format here.

Supporters of President Bush are clearly living in fantasy land: • Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD. • 56% assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. • 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. However, there is no evidence of this. • 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. • 60% assume, incorrectly, that this is also the conclusion of most experts. • 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. • Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not have. The President has said, however, that, knowing everything he knows today about Iraq, he would still have gone to war with Iraq. • Only 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the US having gone to war with Iraq. 42% assume that views are evenly divided, and 26% assume that the majority approves. • 57% of Bush supporters assume that the majority of people in the world would favor Bush's reelection; 33% assumed that views are evenly divided and only 9% assumed that Kerry would be preferred. A recent poll by GlobeScan and PIPA of 35 of the major countries around the world found that in 30, a majority or plurality favored Kerry, while in just 3 Bush was favored. On average, Kerry was preferred more than two to one. • 69% believe that President Bush supports the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The President opposes this treaty. • 72% believe that President Bush supports the treaty banning land mines . The President opposes this treaty. • 51% believe that President Bush favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. He opposes this treaty. • 53% believe that President Bush supports the International Criminal Court. He opposes this court. • 74% believe that President Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. He does not. Supporters of President Bush maintain a tenuous grasp on reality: • 82% of Bush supporters perceive the Bush administration as saying that Iraq had WMD. The administration did, in fact, say this. However, the Duelfer report shows that this these statements were wrong. • 75% say that the Bush administration is saying Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. The administration did, in fact, say this. No evidence has been found to support these statements.

The crowd was estimated at over 30,000 Thursday night for the John Kerry rally at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. Here are some pictures I took at the event:

Big crowd!

Max Cleland, John Kerry and Walter Mondale.

Here is a movie as well! (1.37MB). The crowd booing at the start of the movie is their reaction to Kerry discussing President Bush letting Osama bin Laden escape during the battle of Tora Bora.

Sean Hannity makes the extra effort to prove he's a turd.

Thanks to those who have been e-mailing me tips and story ideas. I like to do some research and add more to a story than just reposting what someone else has written so I may not be able to write about your topic immediately. But keep those e-mails coming!

President Bush was in Rochester Minnesota yesterday. One of the usual points that he regurgitates during every stump speech is his claim that John Kerry will increase taxes on 900,000 small business owners. The President states that these tax increases on these small business owners will eliminate their ability to create jobs. Guess what? This statement from the President, like most of his campaign rhetoric, is a load of crap. President Bush includes in his definition of "small businesses" any high-salaried person who has even $1.00 of outside business income. There are two problems for the President with this definition: • Only 15% of these 900,000 "small business owners" actually have any employees. 85% have only themselves on the payroll. • Apart from the 900,000 businesses that the President claims will have increased taxes, 32 million of these "small business owners" would see no tax increase under John Kerry's plan. You don't, and won't, hear the President detail these facts in his stump speeches. Nor will you hear the President admit that John Kerry has proposed several tax cuts specially for small business owners to help them provide health care benefits to their employees, eliminate capital-gains taxes for "long-term investments" and to help them actually create jobs. This is a perfect example of the so called liberal media just shrugging their shoulders and refusing to cover what is an obvious fallacy on the part of the Bush/Cheney campaign. The media just chalks it up to a difference of opinion. Lucky for us we have FactCheck.org.

Check it out, Bush Relatives for Kerry! These guys are probably not going to be invited to the Bush Christmas party this year…

Josh Marshall reminds us that the Sinclair situation is not over by a long shot. Sinclair made a largely cosmetic retreat. They won't show 'Stolen Honor' in its entirety -- only, presumably, the most inflammatory parts, along with some padding whining about media bias. Despite the fact that they've moved the program to Friday and later in the evening, they're still forcing most of their stations to turn over an hour of the airwaves to what seems certain to be an hourlong anti-Kerry smear just before the election. Unfortunately, I sense they have fooled many into thinking they've backed down. But they haven't. Go here, make a difference.

Dr. Glen Harold Stassen is pro-life. He writes: I am a Christian ethicist, and trained in statistical analysis. I am consistently pro-life. My son David is one witness. For my family, "pro-life" is personal. My wife caught rubella in the eighth week of her pregnancy. We decided not to terminate, to love and raise our baby. David is legally blind and severely handicapped; he also is a blessing to us and to the world. Stassen reports that the abortion rate when President Bush took office, which had declined 17.4% while President Clinton was in office, was at a 24 year low. While President Bush has been in office this trend has been reversed. Kentucky's abortion rate increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. Stassen writes that 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction. Now, I am firmly pro-choice. But I also firmly believe in creating the conditions in the United States to make abortion less necessary. Stassen does as well and he lists three reasons why Bush Administration policies forced more women in the United States to consider abortion during President Bush's term in office. - First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed. - Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises. - Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency - with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million - abortion increases. President Bush, and the Republican party, claim they want to create a culture that embraces life, while creating the economic conditions in the United States that encourages abortion. If they were serious about reducing the rate of abortion they would use the power of the federal government to assure the adequate health care, health insurance, child care and a living wage were available to all potential mothers. But, they could care less about reducing the rate of abortion. Their stated goal is the outright outlaw of abortion. The 2004 Republican National Convention Platform specifically calls for an amendment to the Constitution to make abortion against federal law. However, I am not even convinced that they are genuinely serious about making abortion illegal. I think abortion, like tort reform and tax reform, is simply an issue that is used by Republicans during political campaigns to energize their base. Never-the-less, if they were sincere in their desire to eliminate abortion, they would enact legislation to create the conditions where it is economically easier to have children rather than consider abortion.

Boston wins...an amazing come back. It's just a beginning for the men from Massachusetts!

Pat Robertson, ardent Bush supporter: "You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now." And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' " Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." So now I am confused. Not by the President stating that the U.S. is not going to have any casualties in a war with Iraq. This is clearly the kind of, disconnected from reality, infallibility complex statement that the President makes all the time. What I am confused about is why Pat Robertson, who describes himself as a Bush supporter, would bring up an issue like this less than 13 days before the election? Robertson later goes on to state the typical, Bush is a good Christian President, babble later in the interview: Even as Robertson criticized Bush for downplaying the potential dangers of the Iraq war, he heaped praise on Bush, saying he believes the president will win the election and that "the blessing of heaven is on Bush." "Even if he stumbles and messes up -- and he's had his share of stumbles and gaffes -- I just think God's blessing is on him," Robertson said. But Robertson had to know that his statement about the President believing that the U.S. was not going to suffer any casualties would be damaging to the President's campaign effort? So why did Robertson say it? What does he have to gain by saying it? Is he angry at President Bush? Does he want the President to lose? Why?

Minnesota 6th Congressional district, things are heating up. Patty Wetterling gets the endorsement of the year from John Walsh. An endorsement from Mr. "America's Most Wanted" has got to make her opponent, Mark Kennedy, a bit nervous. Kennedy has been running lots of negative ads against Wetterling for the last two weeks. I can't find any polling data to determine what the race looks like but I have heard that things are close. The Minneapolis Star Tribune calls the race one of the 10 most competitive races in the nation.

Sinclair, partial retreat: Facing advertiser defections, a viewer boycott and a plummeting stock price, as well as strong opposition from Democrats, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. scrapped its plan to air a film that attacks the 1970s-era antiwar activities of Sen. John F. Kerry, and will instead run a special produced by its news division incorporating parts of the movie. Critics said the new program would probably still represent a wide airing for the charges that Sherwood made in the 42-minute "Stolen Honor" — namely that Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities prolonged the ordeal of American prisoners. Meanwhile, Sinclair shareholders are pissed:

Patrice Bataglia was on the phone again this morning with KSTP 1500 AM to attempt to do some damage control after her disastrous interview on the Ron and Mark show yesterday morning. Ron and Mark are conservatives and they make no bones about who they support in the Presidential election, but I have to say that they have the most objective show on the KSTP radio station (which isn't too hard with the Bob Davis, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Chris Krok shows also being broadcast on this station). They would not let Bataglia off the hook for the comments that she made yesterday. Numerous callers phoned the show and stated that she had lost credibility for, not only what she "mis-spoke" yesterday, but the fact that she is so desperately backtracking off what she clearly stated. Bataglia worked hard, in halting and stilted sentences, to try and clear up her position regarding Huessein's WMD, but I think she hears that toilet running...

Although the news is positive out of Florida now, I can't bring myself to say that it's in the bag for Kerry. I think President Bush has enough resources in place to make sure the fix is in to lock Florida up for the GOP. So here is my prediction for how Kerry's Electoral College victory will look: Washington 11 Oregon 7 California 55 New Mexico 5 Minnesota 10 Wisconsin 10 Illinois 21 Michigan 17 Ohio 20 Pennsylvania 21 Maryland 10 D.C. 3 Delaware 3 New Jersey 15 New York 31 Connecticut 7 Rhode Island 4 Massachusetts 12 Vermont 3 New Hampshire 4 Maine 4 Hawaii 4 TOTAL 277

Remember this photo? Remember this story? I just saw a Bush/Cheney campaign ad (broadcast on NBC/KARE 11 - ~9:25pm) featuring poor, manipulated Ashley Faulkner. This is beyond distasteful. A father using his daughter for political gain is disgusting. That the Bush/Cheney campaign actually used Ashley Faulkner in a T.V. ad shows how low they will go for votes. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel and, once again, it just shows how desperate they are getting.

UPDATE (10/19/04 9:46pm): Here is a video of the commercial. They have devoted a website to this story as well. This is utter exploitation of a little girl. It's revolting...

Republican Patrice Bataglia, Congressional candidate in the Minnesota 4th District, came across looking like a complete moron on KSTP 1500 AM radio this morning when she contended that Saddam Huessein had used weapons of mass destruction against American soldiers during the Iran/Iraq war. I'll bet that you did not know that American soldiers fought in the Iran/Iraq war! Neither did show hosts Ron Rosenbaum and Mark O'Connell. When Ron and Mark questioned Bataglia on her comment she responded with stunned silence. One could just picture Bataglia, on the other end of the phone, frantically trying to figure out what to say to prevent her campaign from swishing down the toilet. She finally came up with a comment to the effect of "I want to debate these issues with my opponent Betty McCollum." I'll bet that Betty McCollum would be very interested in debating that point with you, Mrs. Bataglia!

New York Times/CBS News Poll: President Bush's Job Approval Rating: 44% Americans who believe the country is heading in the wrong direction: 59% Americans who believe President Bush's policies favor corporate interests: 59% Americans who approve of the way the Republican controlled Congress is doing its job: 38% Americans who will vote for a Republican Congressional candidate: 38% Americans with a favorable view of the Republican Party: 47% Americans who believe President Bush's policies are cutting the number of jobs in the United States: 49% Americans who believe President Bush's policies increase the cost of the prescription drugs for the elderly: 49% Americans who believe President Bush's policies benefit the rich: 60%

Michael Barone, writing about the report of Iraq Survey Group head Charles Duelfer: We have no conclusive evidence that he collaborated with al Qaeda on 9/11—but also no conclusive evidence that he did not. Under those circumstances, George W. Bush acted prudently in deciding to remove this regime. He would have been imprudent not to have done so. He also states: Even if we had had human intelligence sources at the top levels of the Saddam regime who assured us WMD programs were not ongoing, how could we have prudently relied on them? Ok Barone, that’s our yardstick when it comes to war? Even with no evidence to conclude that Saddam did or did not collaborate with terrorists we invade? Even if we had human intel in place to inform us that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, we still invade? Are we going to use these same methods to justify war with Iran? With such a low bar to meet before war, what is to prevent President Bush from involving the United States in the next poorly planned, ill conceived adventure in the Middle East? Nothing apparently. And with a straight face, President Bush says "The best way to avoid the draft is to vote for me."

Currently at 43, US military fatalities in Iraq for October are on course to be higher than the number of fatalities in September. September casualty numbers were higher than August. August casualty numbers were higher than July. July were higher than June. See a pattern here? Think things are getting better or worse in Iraq?

From the Washington Post: The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now. The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low."

Bill Maher on the Mary Cheney controversy: And it is an issue. They made it an issue. It's an issue in this election. Don't talk about my daughter who we are trying to discriminate against in a constitutional amendment.

Local dumb ass James Lileks: Besides, why would anyone want to go into politics if their children are now “fair game,” as Kerry’s campaign manager said? So the Cheneys have a gay daughter. OMG! I go to church, ergo I should hate the Cheneys for not putting her under wooden planks and pressing her death with stones, old-skool style! This is truly upsetting to me, because as someone who believes in a permanent reduction in capital gains tax and a strong military posture I must ergo obviously stands-to-reason rear back in horror at the very idea of gay people walking around freely instead of herded into camps and made to sew pink triangles 18 hours a day. Kerry was right to expose this festering obscenity! What if she visits the White House? What if she touches the silverware? Icky icky icky! Kerry didn't "expose" anything. He simply mentioned a fact that anyone who had not spent the last year living in a cave would have already known. I wonder if they had a meeting and calibrated the impact of going after the daughter, weighed the options, and decided she was “fair game.” Hey: you don’t want to be brought up in a campaign, don’t be born. No, dumb ass, if you don't want to be brought up in a campaign, don't get involved in a campaign...

I am amazed, of all the issues to come out of the third Presidential debate, that the GOP and all their surrogates are holding on so tightly to this Mary Cheney issue. It's clearly not a national policy issue and it appears that they are just looking to use this issue to call into question John Kerry's integrity. I'm amazed, but not surprised. It's purely a desperation move. Karl Rove had developed an effective plan to paint Kerry as a rudderless flip-flopper since Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination earlier this year. The Bush campaign had Kerry effectively buttoned up as untrustworthily and without a consistent position on any issue. Kerry used the debates to easily destroy all these preconceptions, that had been carefully built and maintained by Rove for months, in just three quick nights. The Bush campaign planned on using the debates to finish Kerry off and knock him out of the race and they failed miserably. Instead of ending Kerry's hopes for victory, Bush was instead on the defensive and unable to escape his failed record of the last four years. Bush/Cheney '04 are now back on their heels. With 17 days to go before election day Chris Bowers projects Kerry ahead by 3.7% in Florida, ahead by 1.3% in Ohio and ahead by 3.6% in Pennsylvania. It's dawning on the Bush campaign that they are going to lose this race. As they get more desperate, you can be certain that the GOP will go negative and make this race as dirty as possible. The Swift Boat liars are already getting their second show. The label of "liberal", a tax raiser, a big government politician with no record of success is being thrown on Kerry. The Mary Cheney "controversy" is an example that anything will be used by the GOP to distract the citizens of this country from the continuing failure in Iraq, an unfair and unsuccessful tax plan, a perception drug plan that gives Medicare participants less choice for more money, a massive deficit at the same time the baby boomers just begin to retire and draw on their Social Security benefits. President Bush has no record to run on so his only choice is to continue to try and portray John Kerry as a candidate that would be worse for the United States than President Bush already is. The test for President Bush? Can he get John Kerry back in the box he was in before the debates? The test for John Kerry? Can he fight back against the lies and distortions of his platform and record and keep the focus on the President's failed term? The test for the rest of us? Can we decide who should be the next President of the United States based upon the candidates records and make the correct decision as to who would be best for the future of this country without falling for the lies, misstatements, half truths and distortions? I think we can!

We have the best health care system in the world! President Bush in the third debate: We have a fundamental difference of opinion. I think government- run health will lead to poor-quality health, will lead to rationing, will lead to less choice. President Bush, also in the third debate: My call to our fellow Americans is if you're healthy, if you're younger, don't get a flu shot this year. Help us prioritize those who need to get the flu shot, the elderly and the young. The CDC, responsible for health in the United States, is setting those priorities and is allocating the flu vaccine accordingly. I haven't gotten a flu shot, and I don't intend to because I want to make sure those who are most vulnerable get treated. Allocation...rationing...difference? CNN today: WOODRUFF: You know it's serious when you read that some states will fine or jail doctors and nurses who give flu shots to people who are not at high risk. SCHNEIDER: Right, and that sounds a lot like rationing.

Jon Stewart was priceless on CNN's Crossfire today. It was obvious that Begala and Carlson were unaware that Stewart makes fun of not just the political candidates, but the process and primarliy those journalists that cover the process as well. Here is a video. Here is the transcript. Here are some highlights: CARLSON: You have a chance to interview the Democratic nominee. You asked him questions such as -- quote -- "How are you holding up? Is it hard not to take the attacks personally?" STEWART: Yes. CARLSON: "Have you ever flip-flopped?" et cetera, et cetera. STEWART: Yes. CARLSON: Didn't you feel like -- you got the chance to interview the guy. Why not ask him a real question, instead of just suck up to him? STEWART: Yes. "How are you holding up?" is a real suck-up. And I actually giving him a hot stone massage as we were doing it. CARLSON: It sounded that way. It did. STEWART: You know, it's interesting to hear you talk about my responsibility. CARLSON: I felt the sparks between you. STEWART: I didn't realize that -- and maybe this explains quite a bit. CARLSON: No, the opportunity to... STEWART: ... is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity. --------------------------------------------------------- BEGALA: Well, it's because, see, we're a debate show. STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. BEGALA: It's like saying The Weather Channel reduces everything to a storm front. STEWART: I would love to see a debate show. BEGALA: We're 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out. STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that's like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition. CARLSON: Jon, Jon, Jon, I'm sorry. I think you're a good comedian. I think your lectures are boring. STEWART: Yes. CARLSON: Let me ask you a question on the news. STEWART: Now, this is theater. It's obvious. How old are you? CARLSON: Thirty-five. STEWART: And you wear a bow tie. --------------------------------------------------------- STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it. CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery? STEWART: Absolutely. CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you... STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. STEWART: What is wrong with you? CARLSON: Well, I'm just saying, there's no reason for you -- when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt boy, to go ahead and be his butt boy. Come on. It's embarrassing. STEWART: I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far -- you would not believe what he ate two weeks ago. --------------------------------------------------------- CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think. STEWART: You need to go to one. The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk... CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny. STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey. --------------------------------------------------------- CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're talking to Jon Stewart, who was just lecturing us on our moral inferiority. Jon, you're bumming us out. Tell us, what do you think about the Bill O'Reilly vibrator story? STEWART: I'm sorry. I don't. CARLSON: Oh, OK. STEWART: What do you think? BEGALA: Let me change the subject. STEWART: Where's your moral outrage on this? CARLSON: I don't have any. STEWART: I know. --------------------------------------------------------- CARLSON: I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion. OK, up next, Jon Stewart goes one on one with his fans... STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

The president's tailor, Georges de Paris, demonstrates how every suit gets a bump in the back when the wearer crosses his arms and leans forward.

Of course, the pictures shown below all show the President with the mystery BushBulge and he is not crossing his arms or leaning forward. There is lots more of this to see here.

And by the way, Georges de Paris is the French-est name that I have ever heard.

William Saletan on President Bush: I know I've been hard on the president lately. I'd like to say something nice about him. I'd like to be "fair and balanced." But my first responsibility as a reporter is to the truth. When one candidate tells half the truth, and the other says the truth doesn't matter, it becomes irresponsible for me or any other journalist not to report that by that standard—the standard of respecting the truth standard—one candidate is head and shoulders above the other. The fact that the rest of press is choosing not to live up to this standard blows the whole concept of "liberal media" out of the water. President Bush lies, Vice President Cheney lies, the GOP lies, and the press reports it as a difference of opinion. It's not a difference of opinion, it's a god damn distortion! President Bush can not justify his record so he misrepresents John Kerry's positions. Bush/Cheney campaign chair for New England resigned today over election tampering in the 2002 elections. A firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in Nevada systematically tore up Democratic registrations. Ohio's secretary of state, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations. In Wisconsin, a Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 - a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters. This is not a difference of opinion. This is not just a game of politics. These guys are liars and cheaters! And the GOP knows that the stupid press is going to play right along.

Wonkette reports on Jenna during last Wednesday night's debate:

Sleeping it off.

Max Boot: Yet, in the end, I'm a one-issue voter. Having seen firsthand the collapse of the twin towers, my vote is predicated upon this question: Who would do a better job of defending America over the next four years? Any guess who he picks? Then I read the Oct. 10 issue of the New York Times Magazine, which featured a cover story by Matt Bai on Kerry's foreign policy thinking. Bush has wrongly pounced on the part in which Kerry is quoted as saying that our goal should be to reduce terrorism to "a nuisance" because we can never completely eliminate it. That's true, and it's similar to a point Bush made in August. What's objectionable is not Kerry's goal, but how he plans to get there. Bai infers — though Kerry is too cautious to come out and say so — that the candidate agrees with his advisor, Richard Holbrooke, who says: "We're not in a war on terror in the literal sense. The war on terror is like saying 'the war on poverty.' It's just a metaphor." That's some metaphor — it killed 3,000 people. It is a metaphor. We can no more go to war on terror than we can go to war on flame throwers. Terror is a tactic and a tactic itself can never be beaten. So what is Boot's solution? Of course, Bush uses law enforcement tools against Al Qaeda. But he also believes it is vital to wage war on state sponsors of terror and to spread freedom in order to dry up the ideological cesspools that breed terrorism. Kerry disagrees. "You can't impose it on people," he says of democracy, ignoring our success in doing just that in Afghanistan. OK, well one satisfactory election in a country where terrorism is on the rise, drug exports are exploding and more American soldiers are getting killed can not really be classified as a success in Afghanistan. Boot's solution is to continue to wage war on the state sponsors of terror. More war. War against Iran. War against Syria. War against North Korea. War against Egypt? War against Saudi Arabia? War against any country that breeds terrorism? Boot is against John Kerry because he would engage the world and try and solve problems like nuclear proliferation and terrorism before they can affect the United States using diplomacy and the United Nations. Boot is voting for President Bush because he prefers that Bush keep the United State disengaged from world, allowing countries to develop their weapons and terrorist networks, until they become a perceived threat against the United States at which point these countries have to be dealt with militarily. Bush gets it; he was transformed by 9/11. His policy implementation has been shaky, to say the least, but at least he has shown a sense of urgency in combating terrorism and weapons proliferation that was missing in the 1990s. Kerry claims a similar sense of purpose, but he told the Times that the attacks on America "didn't change me much at all." That's a lot scarier than having a president who's clueless about "the Internets." No Max Boot, what is scary is that our current President had his head in the sand in regards to terrorism and weapon proliferation threats against the United States until 9/11, where as John Kerry "didn't change much at all" because he has been deeply concerned about these issues the entire time.

From the Strib: Chalk this one up to the unfiltered and unfettered power of the Internet. On Tuesday, e-mails were flying about an accusation posted in the political blog dailykos.com that the Minnesota Republican Party had sewn up the Freedom of Expression desks at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport by using its political pull with Metropolitan Airports Commission Chairwoman Vicki Tigwell. The story went that Tigwell, a longtime Republican activist, had used her authority to secure the desks for the sole and exclusive use of the Republicans through Election Day. Not true, according to MAC spokesman Patrick Hogan. The Republicans got a four-day permit from the airport director's office to register voters and distribute campaign literature at the desks, which are made available to all groups and located in the baggage claim area of the airport. Afterward, they asked for and received an extension through Election Day, with the caveat that they must share with any other group that wants the space, from Jehovah's Witnesses to the Democrats. Yea, sure. I think the MAC wised up and granted the caveat after complaints from outraged Minnesota Democrats.

David at AMERICAblog is right on the money with his latest post: All this hubbub about the Cheneys being upset at the mention of their daughter had me thinking -- where was this outrage when a certain Illinois senate candidate called Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist" on the radio? Let me get this, umm, straight -- Kerry saying Mary Cheney deserves the same rights straight people have is somehow wrong, but Alan Keyes gets a free pass for calling her a selfish hedonist and a sinner at the FREAKIN Republican National Convention? Did I miss the public statement from the Cheneys?

Didn't I just write about phenomenon this two weeks ago? The bigger they are, the harder they fall. I can't imagine that Fox News is too happy that this ended up on tape: If you cross Fox News Channel, it's not just me, it's Roger Alies who will go after you. I'm the street guy out front making loud noises about the issues, but Alies operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he is going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever. That day will happen trust me. O'Reilly then went ahead and implied that the President and Vice President also had it in for Al Franken: Just look who's on the cover of his book, they're watching him and will be for years. He's finished, and he's going to be sorry he ever took Fox News Channel on. Who's looking out for Bill O'Reilly? That guy is crazy...

October Surprise Watch. Is this it? El Mundo reports that Osama bin Laden has been hiding in China near the Pakistan border. Supposedly, bin Laden had negotiated a deal with China that would allow him to stay in return for arranging for the ending of attacks by Muslims in that area. If the report is true, President Bush has been in negotiations with China to turn over bin Laden in exchange for diplomatic and economic rewards. It is believed that the possibility for such a deal emerged early this year, after Donald Rumsfeld had met with a delegation of the Chinese government during a visit to the far East. Later, George Tenet, then director of the CIA, requested a viability study for an operation to capture Bin Laden. Tenet was informed that the only possibility would be if they could count on the cooperation of the Chinese. "To what extent that collaboration will occur in the few weeks remaining until the elections, will depend to a good extent on the confidence that Bush can inspire in the Chinese that he will be able to live up to his promises," confirmed the functionary of the Pentagon. What do you think?

OK, in reference to the "talent" on hand for the Sinclair party, maybe the term ho-bag was a bit harsh. My wife pointed out that not everyone who reads this site knows me personally and may have taken offense at my chosen term, although she thought it was funny. My goal was to question those women who would allow themselves to be hired as nothing more than eye and arm candy as well as to criticize those losers who thought it was really cool. So instead of ho-bag, I should have used the term bimbo. If you were offended then you are most likely not a bimbo or a loser or a ho-bag. You just don’t know me very well.

President Bush last night: I never want to impose my religion on anybody else. But when I make decisions, I stand on principle, and the principles are derived from who I am. I believe we ought to love our neighbor like we love ourself, as manifested in public policy through the faith-based initiative where we‘ve unleashed the armies of compassion to help heal people who hurt. Unfortunately, imposing religion on someone else is exactly what the President's faith based program does: Marvin Olasky, a Reconstructionist influenced professor of Journalism, has served as a close advisor to Bush. Olasky's book, Compassionate Conservatism, creates a justification for Bush's policies on faith based giving. Bush wrote the forward to the book published in 2000. Olasky is a compelling writer who shares his philosophical ideas through heart-wrenching and inspiring human interest stories. He makes a strong case for faith based giving. Evangelical Christian charities succeed, according to Olasky, where government fails. Olasky sees no problem with government funds going to missions that proselytize. The fact that someone who is hungry and vulnerable might have to undergo a religious conversion to get food and shelter doesn't bother him.

Some post debate wrap up: A good friend of mine wondered why Kerry missed some obvious opportunities to show that President Bush is the one outside of the mainstream. He mentions the following items that could have scored points with independent and moderate voters: • Tort reform is a GOP scheme to starve Dems of campaign contributions. • Our real problem with healthcare is the growing underclass working underpaid service jobs that can't and won't be outsourced, the sickest 5% consume 50% of healthcare dollars, and runaway pharmaceutical prices. • W's ballooning deficits are not an unintended consequence of recession and war. Various rhetorical screens are employed to ensure they grow, to trigger a fiscal crisis that will make W's latest reforms seem cuddly and friendly. I agree that Kerry missed these opportunities. It seemed that Kerry was comfortable falling back on his stump line of "having a better plan". Kerry could have done much better in attacking the President on these and other points including funding medical research and protecting the environment. However, Kerry amazed the pundits by having better answers than the President on issues that are usually GOP strong points like guns and immigration. The good news for President Bush was that last night was his best debate performance. The bad news for President Bush was that last night was his best debate performance. He still seemed jittery and barely able to contain himself from smirking and blinking rapidly. He attempts at humor were no better than Kerry's and his non-attack attack on the integrity of CBS News was embarrassing. Plus he had that weird drool thing on the right side of his mouth. The Republican spinners are whirling rapidly this morning and, so far, the worst that they can come up with is that John Kerry mentioned that Vice President Cheney's daughter, an out of the closet political activist, is gay. This smacks of utter desperation for the GOP.

From the International Herald Tribune: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Seventeen months into a shadowy uprising that has killed more than 100 people, numerous Saudis say they are angry not at the insurgents but at the United States for the invasion of Iraq, the signal event that they believe triggered the terror attacks. In interviews, the Saudis expressed unremitting disdain for the United States that some of them called hatred. They regret the terror attacks, aimed primarily at foreigners, but call them a small personal inconvenience that has not forced them to make significant changes in their daily lives. In fact many Saudis appear to have reached an intellectual accommodation with the insurgents. When asked about the attackers' goals, many assign a motivation that is consistent with their own social or political aspirations. The goal of this insurgency is to destabilize, and eventually replace, the government of the Saudi royal family. The fact that this insurgency has the tacit support of the Saudi population does not bode well for the royals. You think the price of oil is high now? Watch what happens when the current Saudi government is replaced with a fundamentalist regime. You can be certain that President Bush, if reelected, will do everything in his power to protect the rule of the Saudi royals and protect the Arabian oil fields from a potential radical Muslim government. The citizens of Saudi Arabia blaming the United States for the insurgency will create an utter disaster if the U.S. attempts to deal with Saudi Arabia in the same manner that it dealt with Iraq. President Bush may yet get his wish of a revolution in the entire middle east, but it will not be the revolution that he planned for.

Damn it! The Sinclair Imports party had ho-bags this year! And I missed it!

I went to the Sinclair party last year and it was BORING! Just a bunch of bike racer spanks and industry dorks (me included). The most excitement in the room that night, after everyone checked out the super sweet industry logos carved out of ice (yawn), was when Phil Liggett showed up…(snore!)

So, when I had a chance to go to the party this year I thought nothing of blowing it off. I spend the entire trade show dealing with bike racer spanks wanting sponsorship and industry dorks talking about the latest "trends". The last thing I need is more of the same during the off hours. I want to hit the strip and see some of them sights!

But now I find out that, in addition to last year’s sad crowd, they also had Vegas ho-bags! And I was not there to check ‘em out! What cruel fate!

Nothing livens up a loser cyclist party like some Vegas ho-bags and you can be damn sure that I won’t miss next years bash. I’ll be there for certain, son, gettin' my groove on!

Just like this guy...

(industry dork)

Josh Marshall sums up the final debate up quite nicely: Kerry looked more presidential than the president. I don't know how else to put it. He seemed collected and forceful through the whole thing. The president, meanwhile, seemed excitable, edgy and sometimes ungrounded. Again and again with the banging the table. Perhaps after one question you can get away with a cocky look of sarcastic disbelief after your opponent stops talking. But not every other time. At one point in the debate, after Kerry referred to two leading news organizations rejecting the president's attacks on Kerry's plan, Bush looked back at Bob Schieffer and made a crack about trusting "leading news organizations." I don't doubt a few media bias obsessives (and probably a few CBS execs) understood that this was a dig at Scieffer's employer, CBS. But I suspect it went right over most people's heads. As well it should have. Not everyone lives in wingerville. And the president's habit of roughing people up with jocular derision doesn't work as well when the trappings of power aren't all around him. Again, to recap, Kerry seemed more presidential than the president.

Kerry has used the past three debates to show the American people what he is made of and has shown himself a legitimate candidate for the Presidency. All of the online polls (except the one at CNN that the Freepers decided to attack) are showing a decisive victory for John Kerry in the debate tonight. My wife is skeptical of his chances but I believe that Kerry has the momentum on his side. Gallup, with their heavily Republican influenced poll, is now showing Kerry ahead by 1 point. Reuters/Zogby report that Bush's approval rating is only 46%. It appears that the Bush Campaign is giving up on Pennsylvania. I think this race is going to come down to a battle for two states: Ohio and Florida. Kerry is second in both of these states according to Electoral-Vote.com. We shall see if Kerry's momentum will turn the tide in these two states. I think it can. I think the only barrier to a Kerry victory on November 2 is an October surprise, and knowing the history of Karl Rove I am certain that he has something up his sleeve. Will it work? I am certain that the Kerry Campaign has thought of everything but we will have to wait and see...

AP: Israel said Wednesday it would severely limit the access of Muslim worshippers to Jerusalem's holiest site during the holy month of Ramadan, claiming it could collapse. Violence flared overnight as a series of Israeli airstrikes left five Palestinians dead in Gaza. Is Israel trying to start World War III??

I think the "mainstream" journalists are going to call this latest debate a draw. However, I think the President’s line about never saying that he was not concerned about Bin Laden is going to come back to haunt him in a big way. CNN has already played the video of Bush making that very statement. The DNC will probably be running this as an ad soon. Now it’s time for the spinners to do their evil work…

What kind of debate performance will President Bush have tonight? Who knows? Seen this video? It compares W in his 1994 first debate versus then Texas Governor Ann Richards to his performance in his first debate against John Kerry. While the President looks frustrated, irritated and distracted in his debate with Kerry (and who wouldn’t be with someone yelling hints in your ear), he looks absolutely hopped up on something during his debate with Richards. So the question before tonight’s debate is: How did George W. Bush turn into such a crappy debater?

Carlton Sherwood, producer of the anti-Kerry soon to be blockbuster Sinclair broadcast hit Stolen Honor, is a friend of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge! Said Ridge at a National Press Club luncheon on February 7, 2002: I do have a few thoughts I would like to share with you, but two people who have been very close to me that -- one you recognized but I want to recognize him again, my friend, Sergeant Schaff from the Washington Times. John Fields and I have been friends for 20 years. He'll be the first one to tell you, bet on a vet, right, John. Bet on a vet. And the other Marine -- I do have a couple Marines that are friends. Everybody ought to have a couple Marines as friends. Then your homeland would definitely be secure -- is Carlton Sherwood, who headed up my commonwealth media services when I was privileged to serve the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A decorated Vietnam veteran, a prizewinning journalist himself. So, Carlton, I would like you to stand up and be recognized. Turns out Sherwood was asked by the Bush Administration to create and manage a new Federal website, http://www.firstresponder.gov/ Check out the site! Not much there. As a matter of fact, Sherwood has received $2 million dollars to complete the site and it's now nearly eight months behind schedule. Apparently Sherwood had other priorities, like smearing John Kerry, instead of fulfilling his government contract. But when you are a friend of the Bush Administration, I guess they let things like that slide...

From KOS: Here's a new one. At Minneapolis-St. Paul Int'l airport, there is a Freedom of Expression desk that any group can apply to use for any reason. The other day my friend, [name omitted], noticed that the Republicans were there registering people to vote. She made a few phone calls and learned that Monday morning October 12, the chair of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, Vickie Tigwell, ordered the MAC to allow the Republican Party sole and extended use of that desk until the election. Vickie was formerly Mrs. John Grunseth, Republican candidate for Governor a few years ago. Her mother is a major activist in the Republican Party, and Vickie is a major activist in the Republican Party.

Vickie Tigwell, Chair of the Metropolitan Airports Commission

Kevin Drum reports on five of President Bush's worst deceptions that we can expect to see crop up during the debate tonight: • Kerry's healthcare plan amounts to a federal takeover. Flatly untrue. Factcheck.org says it's not true, the nonpartisan Lewin group says it's not true, and an all-star team of health policy analysts say it's not true. Jonathan Cohn examines — and dismisses — each of Bush's false charges here. Kerry's plan would cover more people, it would expand Medicaid, it would reinsure catastrophic health coverage, and it would cost a bunch of money. Those would be fair comments. But trying to pretend it's a government takeover of healthcare is a lie. • The deficit is solely the result of recession and war. Flatly untrue. It's also the result of tax cuts and spending increases. George Bush just doesn't like to admit it. • Kerry's tax plan will increase taxes on 900,000 small businesses. Flatly untrue. The 900,000 number (actually 995,000) refers to individuals with any amount of business income, not to small businesses themselves. The correct number for actual small businesses is about 500,000, less than 3% of the total. Over 90% of small businesses will get tax cuts under Kerry's plan. • Kerry opposes middle class tax cuts. Flatly untrue. Kerry's tax plan taxes only those with incomes over $200,000, he has pledged not to increase taxes on those under $200,000, and he has clearly stated his support for last month's bill extending middle class tax cuts. • Bush has reduced the growth of nondefense discretionary spending. Flatly untrue. Bush has increased nondefense discretionary spending during his first term faster than any president since LBJ.

John Kerry, optimist.

Matt Bai writes in the New York Times Magazine:

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

This analogy struck me as remarkable, if only because it seemed to throw down a big orange marker between Kerry's philosophy and the president's. Kerry, a former prosecutor, was suggesting that the war, if one could call it that, was, if not winnable, then at least controllable. If mobsters could be chased into the back rooms of seedy clubs, then so, too, could terrorists be sent scurrying for their lives into remote caves where they wouldn't harm us. Bush had continually cast himself as the optimist in the race, asserting that he alone saw the liberating potential of American might, and yet his dark vision of unending war suddenly seemed far less hopeful than Kerry's notion that all of this horror -- planes flying into buildings, anxiety about suicide bombers and chemicals in the subway -- could somehow be made to recede until it was barely in our thoughts.

UCI president Hein Verbruggen thinks that the case against Tyler Hamilton is a slam dunk.

Seymour Hersh speaking at Berkeley - Friday, October 8th: I got a call last week from a soldier -- it's different now, a lot of communication, 800 numbers. He's an American officer and he was in a unit halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. It's a place where we claim we've done great work at cleaning out the insurgency. He was a platoon commander. First lieutenant, ROTC guy. It was a call about this. He had been bivouacking outside of town with his platoon. It was near, it was an agricultural area, and there was a granary around. And the guys that owned the granary, the Iraqis that owned the granary... It was an area that the insurgency had some control, but it was very quiet, it was not Fallujah. It was a town that was off the mainstream. Not much violence there. And his guys, the guys that owned the granary, had hired, my guess is from his language, I wasn't explicit -- we're talking not more than three dozen, thirty or so guards. Any kind of work people were dying to do. So Iraqis were guarding the granary. His troops were bivouacked, they were stationed there, they got to know everybody... They were a couple weeks together, they knew each other. So orders came down from the generals in Baghdad, we want to clear the village, like in Samarra. And as he told the story, another platoon from his company came and executed all the guards, as his people were screaming, stop. And he said they just shot them one by one. He went nuts, and his soldiers went nuts. And he's hysterical. He's totally hysterical. And he went to the captain. He was a lieutenant, he went to the company captain. And the company captain said, "No, you don't understand. That's a kill. We got thirty-six insurgents." You read those stories where the Americans, we take a city, we had a combat, a hundred and fifteen insurgents are killed. You read those stories. It's shades of Vietnam again, folks, body counts... You know what I told him? I said, fella, I said: you've complained to the captain. He knows you think they committed murder. Your troops know their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Just shut up. Get through your tour and just shut up. You're going to get a bullet in the back. You don't need that. And that's where we are with this war.

FCC commissioner, Michael Copps, on Sinclair: "This is an abuse of the public trust. And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative. Some will undoubtedly question if this is appropriate stewardship of the public airwaves. This is the same corporation that refused to air Nightline’s reading of our war dead in Iraq. It is the same corporation that short-shrifts local communities and local jobs by distance-casting news and weather from hundreds of miles away. It is a sad fact that the explicit public interest protections we once had to ensure balance continue to be weakened by the Federal Communications Commission while it allows media conglomerates to get even bigger. Sinclair, and the FCC, are taking us down a dangerous road."

Was President Bush wired at the first debate? "There's no question about it. It's a pretty obvious one -- larger than most because it probably has descrambling capability," said Alex Darbut, technical and business development vice president for Resistance Technology in Arden Hills, Minn. Darbut examined photographs of the president's back taken from the Fox News video feed at the first presidential debate in Coral Gables, Fla., as well as 2002 photos of the president driving and working in a T-shirt on his Crawford ranch, which were posted on the White House Web site. Darbut speculates that the device the president wears is provided by the Secret Service, noting, "They're not going to have him driving around the countryside on his ranch without being in instant contact with him."

Read more here.

This rules.

Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton is closing his Washington D.C. office from now through election day citing a top-secret intelligence report that made him fear for his staff's safety. "I take this step out of extreme, but necessary, precaution to protect the lives and safety of my Senate staff and my Minnesota constituents, who might otherwise be visiting my Senate office in the next three weeks." Dayton said he would advise people from his home state to avoid Capitol Hill until after the Nov. 2 election. "I would not bring my two sons to the Capitol between now and the election." Kind of spooky, eh?

Sinclair Broadcast Group is at it again. Previously Sinclair has gained notoriety by refusing to broadcast Ted Koppel's reading of Iraqi war casualties in April of 2004, by requiring its affiliates to air messages conveying "full support" for the Bush Administration in September of 2001, by refusing to air a Democratic National Committee ad in July of 2003 highlighting President Bush's false claim that Saddam Hussein attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, by airing the fake news broadcasts created by the Bush Administration to promote its Medicare prescription drug program and by firing the majority of the news staff at its local affiliates in March of 2004 in order to produce its own news content from a centralized facility near Baltimore Maryland. Now Sinclair is planning on airing a "documentary" critical of John Kerry's anti-war activities after he returned home from Vietnam. Sinclair has directed its affiliates, many in battle ground states, to pre-empt regular programming to run the documentary as part of an hour long program two weeks before the Nov. 2 election. The film, titled Stolen Honor, was produced by Carlton Sherwood, who also produced Inquisition, a 1991 expose on the US government's alleged 'persecution' of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The film was sponsored by the anti-Kerry group POWs for Truth. POWs for Truth has now merged with the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This film is nothing more than a one hour anti-Kerry ad that is going to be broadcast, on stations owned by a heavy contributor to the Bush Campaign, via publicly owned airways two weeks before the general election. The Swift Boat Veterans have had their time in front of the cameras and they have been proven to be liars. Mark Hyman, vice president of corporate relations for Sinclair who also is a conservative commentator for the company, said today on CNN: However, the accusations coming from Terry McAuliffe and others, is it because they are some elements of this that may reflect poorly on John Kerry? That it's somehow an in-kind contribution of George Bush? If you use that logic and reasoning, that means every car bomb in Iraq would be an in-kind contribution to John Kerry. Weak job performance ratings that came out last month would have been an in- kind contribution to John Kerry. And that's just nonsense. This is news. I can't change the fact that these people decided to come forward today. The networks had this opportunity over a month ago to speak with these people. They chose to suppress them. They chose to ignore them. They are acting like Holocaust deniers, pretending these men don't exist. Hyman has actually compared those who do not believe the Swift Boat Veterans lies to those who refuse to believe that the Holocaust took place. Sinclair's advertising customers are already starting to feel the pressure from their consumers and some are starting to pull their advertising from Sinclair in an effort to prevent them from broadcasting Stolen Honor. We have our own Sinclair affiliate here in the Twin Cities, KMWB TV channel 23. They currently have a poll up asking if they should run the "documentary". Maybe you should give them a phone call as well and let them know what you think? KMWB 1640 Como Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55108 (651)646-2300 You can find their advertisers here. Maybe they deserve a phone call too?

A friend of mine wrote me this morning about a conversation that he had with a Republican contractor over the weekend. They were talking about economic policy and the contractor was a big fan of President Bush's economic plan. He believes that the President's tax cuts are the main reason why businesses can afford to create new jobs, conduct research and development and expand into new markets. Too bad for him that he's wrong. The Economist magazine recently published the results of an informal poll conducted of 100 academic economists. The results? President Bush's economic policies are, for the most part, not too good. More than 70% of the 56 professors who responded to our survey rate Mr Bush's first-term economic policies as bad or very bad. Fewer than 20% give positive marks to Mr Bush's second-term economic agenda, and almost six out of ten disapproved. Mr Kerry hardly got rave reviews either, but his economic plan still fared better than the president's did. In all, four out of ten professors rated Mr Kerry's economic plan as good or very good, but 27% gave it negative scores.

The only real knock that Kerry received from the economists was his views regarding trade policy. His views on rolling back tax cuts for those making over $200,000, health care policy, removing tax deferral on foreign subsidies of US firms and his overall economic plan were all seen as positive. President Bush only received overwhelming support for reforming the tax code. He was knocked heavily for his plan for making the his tax cuts permanent and his overall economic plan was not viewed positively. You can seen the complete numbers from the poll here.

I believe that if business wants more profit (to create more jobs, for research and development, to expand into new markets) they are not going to get there via tax cuts. They need to increase profits. Instead of cutting taxes on business in the hopes of creating better economic conditions, I instead think that we need to cut taxes paid by the segment of the population with the most potential to increase their spending. This would be the low and middle class wage earners. The upper class wage earners already are spending at their capacity as they have very little financial barrier (like a lack of money for instance) to keep them from spending. Cutting taxes on the low and middle class wage earners will give this segment of the population more disposable income and thereby increase sales and profits for business. The President says he wants to reform the tax code and I am all in favor of that. But he has had four years to do so and has not changed anything. And I don't believe he will if given four more years to do so.

A posting that Digby found from one of my pals on FreeRepublic: Wouldn't rule out that Kerry might have spoke with Reeve before the last debate. Reeve might have had an idea the end was near for him and told Kerry to play up the emotional angle with stem cell research and Reeve's own paralyzed circumstance. Wonder if Hell is handicapped accessible.. The willingness to sacrifice another life to save his own was not worthy of the Man of Steel. I'm sorry, but I have no compassion for this man. He suffered a terrible injury through his own fault and, instead of accepting it, he lashes out in anger against Bush. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Kerry got the news of Reeve's death. Did he hang up and shout "YES!"? Did he dance a little jig? Did he excitedly phone McAuliffe with the news? Noone but Mama T knows... Reeve? Is this the guy who, his picture-perfect Hollywood life having been tragically altered by an accident, spent the remainder of his life advocating the killing of unborn children so that he might walk again? He was a 3rd-rate actor (Ever see him in any movie besides Superman? When playing a real human being, he was dreadful!). When injured living a life of luxury and leisure, he fought for vain, desperate hopes for what might keep him alive, even if it caused the deaths of millions. Contrary to mythology, he sunk into bitter, violent anger, pouring every ounce of derision he possibly could on Christianity and America. And then he simply died. I'm sorry for Reeve's family...his wife has stood by him for several tragic years. However, to have liberals (Ron Reagan will probably be leading the charge) milk this is disgusting. And let's be honest...Christopher Reeve WAS doing something that was very dangerous when he broke his neck. A lot of us common folks are living with situations that just happened...beyond our control and not our fault. That's what life is about, and we don't have wealthy friends helping support an extravagant lifestyle. I have a feeling that Kerry was tipped off about Reeve's condition prior to the 2nd debate, which is why he mentioned him along with Michael J. Fox. You can bet Kerry will again mention Reeve at the 3rd debate. It is this crude, blatant exploitation of the disabled and afflicted, which make the Dems so despicable. They provide false hope in order to win debating points and votes. The implication will be that GWB caused the death of Reeve. You could make an argument that the first implemention of "Political Correctness" was the custom of speaking better about someone after their death than while they were living. But I won't try to make that argument here. I will say this: if it were demonstrated that Reeve, knowing the seriousness of his condition, actually made an explicit request that his possible death be used to help the Kerry campaign, all subsequent scorn would be deserved. Oh, this is going to be disgusting. Bitter twst of fate that Reeve is mentioned by Kerry and then he dies. Or perhaps did Kerry know in advance Reeve was ill/on his deathbed? Is there no level of filth to which these Dems won't sink? The main gist of the dem line is: we need to keep legal the ability to take growing humans and detroy them through abortion so we can use their body parts to help other people like Chris Reeve (potentially) live better. The bloodlust is positively demonic. I am just not happy hearing about this this AM. Ahh... reminds me of the Paul Wellstone rally err memorial service. Always trying to work in a political advantage over a death, aren't they. You think you're cynical? I am wondering if Clark Kent would possibly pull the plug on himself in a desperate attempt to "matyrize" the stem-cell issue and help Kerry? Reeve seemed like a nice chap until he got involved with the pro-death wing of the democrat party. We can't always get what we want, but we often get what we deserve. The fact is, Mr. Reeve spent his last days using his fame and access to champion the murder of unborn children. The fact is, Mr. Reeve took very clear and very selfish political stands and used his medical condition to gin up sympathy for murder. My point is that some people spend their entire lives breaking down traditional morality and then when they die they are eulogized as if they did as much for the world as Mother Theresa. Reeves spent his last few years advocating the destruction of human life in order to find a cure for what ailed HIM. It may have seemed selfless to some, but in reality and objectively, it was selfish. He was looking for a cure and if it meant the destruction of unborn children to acheive that end, then too bad for them. He was not willing to let a fetus stand between him and his goalpost. Sure hope he was a saved man. Otherwise right now he is roasting in hell. Beyond belief... You were a brave man Christopher Reeve. Rest in peace Superman.

The bicycling industry trade show for North America, INTERBIKE, seemed to be a big success this year, at least for my company. Lots of dealers, lots of excitement about the products, very busy. Tyler Hamilton was at the show on Thursday signing autographs at the BMC booth, the Speedplay booth and the Bell Sports booth. As is usual for celebrity American bike racers, the line was very long with those looking to share a few words with Hamilton and to get his signature on a poster. But this may have been the first time at INTERBIKE that an athlete who has tested positive for blood doping and is currently waiting to receive word on a possible suspension from racing was making a promotional appearance. Hamilton continues to protest the results of the tests and claims his innocence and his team is calling into question the legitimacy of the tests. Bell Sports actually created a promotion using Hamilton’s situation, printing up buttons that stated “I believe Tyler.” I spoke with a number of people during the course of the show and there is the widespread belief that Hamilton’s Phonak team will fight to the end to try and prove his innocence. Phonak, and the sponsors of the Phonak team, have a huge investment in Hamilton and it would be very costly to lose this investment. Never-the-less, I think if it was an athlete from any nation other than the United States, this athlete would have never been allowed to show his face in association with a sponsors product if and until this athlete had been exonerated of the charges against them. I have stated my position on professional cyclists and drug use previously. It would be nice to believe that Hamilton is innocent of the charges against him but I believe that he did exactly what he is charged with doing and that his case is not unique in the world of professional cycling. I think it’s naïve to think that just because Hamilton is an American, or he seems like a nice guy on TV, or that a lot of sponsors have a lot of money invested in him, that he would never use performance enhancing drugs. The reality is that the fans of professional cycling, and most amateur bicycle racers for that matter, do not really know anything about these athletes and do not have a clue what kind of pressure and stress professional cyclists are under to perform. During the course of the show I spoke with a few professional cyclists that race primarily in the United States and they all just shrug their shoulders at Hamilton’s situation. “That’s just the way it is, it’s how the game is played,” they told me. Drug use is widespread in professional cycling and the athletes know the risks long before they ever become superstars. It’s the risk that they take at having their own chance to be a superstar. It’s tempting to feel sorry for Tyler Hamilton. If U.S.A. Cycling sanctions him for the positive test he could face a two year ban from racing. In the world of professional cycling two years is a lifetime. But I really question the marketing strategy of those sponsors who continue to closely associate themselves with an athlete who is not just under suspicion, but has actually failed two tests. Some might say that Hamilton should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The fact is that he has already been proven guilty and is simply waiting to see what his punishment is going to be. Those sponsors that rally behind Hamilton taint their products and reputation with their association to Hamilton. It seems like a questionable marketing decision to me but we’ll have to see how it all turns out. Maybe they all know something I don't.

President Bush keeps talking about a future democratic and free Iraq and how it would revolutionize the Middle East. He states that Iraq could be the first free Arab nation that could create the conditions for additional free Arab nations. Could this not be considered a new Domino Theory for the 21st Century? Instead of nations falling to communism in the 1960's, nations would be falling to democracy in the 2000's? Didn't our little experiment in Vietnam, where 58,000 American soldiers died and the people of that country did not seem to care strongly for either communism or democracy, prove that the Domino Theory is just a bunch of BS?

John Kerry in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine: "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," Kerry said. "As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life." President Bush's ad in response to Kerry's statement: More about law enforcement than a strong military? Terrorism a nuisance? How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat? So, apparently, President Bush believes that it is the job of the military to go out and hunt terrorists right? However Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld said on October 2: "It's very hard to do. The United States military wasn't organized, trained and equipped to go out and do manhunts. That's an FBI job." Kerry is not talking about backing off the threat of terrorism as soon as he is inaugurated. But he wants to create the conditions internationally and within the United States that allows the citizens in this country to start to relax and live their daily lives without constantly worrying about the next terrorist attack. The Bush Administration simply wants to keep us afraid. Watch this video if you have not seen it yet.

Fantasy: Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising at 15 percent a year when I got into office. And today it's less than 1 percent, because we're working together to try to bring this deficit under control. - George W. Bush, Presidential Debate, October 8th 2004 Reality:

$2.3 million. That's how much the Bush Administration has spent in the last four years to determine if prayer can heal illness. So that's awesome. Not only is tax revenue going to try and link science and religion, but the way the research was conducted was fundamentally flawed.

Las Vegas McCarran Airport experienced a "breach" in security this morning and I was "lucky" enough to see the results firsthand.

I was on my way back to Minneapolis and had boarded the plane for the first leg to Chicago. There was still about 10 minutes before the airplane door was going to close and I would estimate that the plane was 75% full. There are always quite a few stragglers that end up boarding the plane close to the deadline and we were just waiting for those dopes to show up so we could leave.

Suddenly, the gate attendant, who was busy welcoming passengers on the plane, got a call on the jetway phone. The call was short and after hanging up the attendant quickly directed the plane door shut and then she pulled the jetway back away from the plane. Looking out the window I noticed that the plane right next to ours also had the jetway pulled back. Something was amiss!

The pilot came on the intercom and announced that the airport had experienced a security breach at one of the bag screen stations that are placed at the entrance of each concourse. He stated that there are a number of hunters that visit Las Vegas and that sometimes these hunters show up at bag screening with items that are not allowed on the plane. Items like guns and bullets. The pilot then told us that this kind of thing happens "more often than you would think" before correcting himself by saying it actually happens "all the time." He informed us that all the planes at the airport were locked down, that security was looking for a particular individual and that our flight would be delayed until this individual could be found. A few moments later he announced that he felt he owed us all the details regarding the situation and proceeded to tell us that this individual went through security with "several clips of ammunition."

So, while being fairly impressed with the speed that the individual planes were able to be secured after this security breach, I was totally impressed that:

- Someone walked through the bag screening station with a number of rounds of live ammo in their carry-on bag

- The security agents were not able to determine that this individual had the ammo in their bag until after the individual had left the security station

- This kind of thing happens all the time!

After nearly a half an hour the pilot announced that security had found the culprit, the jetway was brought back over to the plane, the door opened and the balance of the passengers were allowed to board. (Just before the plane was all buttoned up and ready to go, four passengers sitting at the back of the plane realized that they were on the wrong plane, got up and quickly exited. Isn’t there some kind of boarding process that is required to confirm your destination before you get on the plane?) We then quickly got on our way in an attempt to make the connecting flight out of Chicago.

But I was left wondering if this level of security is typical of airports in the U.S. or if this is more a phenomenon of the wild west. Maybe Homeland Security needs a bit more funding? Maybe they could catch that ammunition at the security station instead of letting it get on the plane?

On a more positive note, I breezed right through check-in this morning, which tells me that one of two things happened:

- Either my name is no longer on the "deny boarding" list and I no longer require extra screening by the airlines before flying (this is good for me!)

or

- The line in front of the United Airlines ticket counter, which took me nearly 45 minutes to get from the back to the front, was just too long for United to be spending time with extra security screening. (this is bad for all of us…)

Trade show work here in Las Vegas has kept me very busy but I hear that Edwards more than held his own against Vice President Cheney tonight. We shall see how the pundits spin it but I think that Edwards continued to add legitimacy to the ticket. It’s a race! Donate to the DNC!!

More conspiracy theories! Were the forged CBS memos actually a product of the White House? Did President Bush use an ear piece and get coached during the debate last week? Inquiring minds want to know!

The friend of mine, who last week sent me the site questioning the September 11 2001 plane crash at the Pentagon, sent me this site which pretty much provides conclusive evidence that American Airlines Flight #77 did in fact hit the Pentagon. So enough of the conspiracy theories…

At this point we can safely say who won the post debate spin war: From the Washington Post: Bush advisers were described as stunned by how negative the reviews were of the president's performance, which many of them regarded as not his best but not so bad.

MSNBC: President Bush said Saturday Democrat John Kerry's debate remark that U.S. preemptive military action should be subject to a "global test" would give other nations a veto over American national security decisions. He might have picked the wrong term, but I think it was pretty obvious to most that Kerry was referring to a "smell test." Kerry specifically stated during the debate that he would never defer to other nations when it came to U.S. national security. When he said "global test" he was saying, if we are going to launch a pre-emptive strike against another country, we need to have a clear cut case that this country is an immediate threat (not a growing threat, not an gathering threat, not a potential threat) to our security. Otherwise the strike will have no justification and the U.S. will have lost even more international credibility. President Bush attacked Kerry numerous times during the debate, and in the days following, for what the President believes are Kerry’s inconsistent stance on the Iraq war. Kerry has called the Iraq war the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. But Kerry has also said that he intends to win in Iraq. Bush says that these are inconsistent views. They are not. Let me put it this way. It’s the middle of winter and you decide you want to play baseball in the house. Mom says not to do it because you might break a window. You go ahead and play anyway and a window gets broken. Mom says that it was the wrong game, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But it’s winter and it’s cold outside. That window has to be fixed! Meanwhile… Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell made what were basically lies of omission when it came to presenting the data that Iraq had a nuclear arms program. What was I saying about international credibility? Don Rumsfeld is now saying that the U.S. military is not up to the task of hunting down terrorists and that the F.B.I. should be doing this work. This basically implies that the hunt for terrorists is now just another law enforcement job. The Veterans Administration is so overloaded, as they have been for decades, that our soldiers suffering with physical or psychological injuries from Afghanistan or Iraq are not getting the help they need. The VA has a backlog of over 300,000 claims. President Bush’s 2005 budget calls for cutting the Department of Veterans Affairs staff that handles benefits claims. Support our troops, eh Mr. President? Worst. President. Ever. Time for a change!

Newsweek reports that President Bush has blown the 11 point lead he picked up out of the GOP convention and now trails John Kerry by 3 points. They report that Bush's approval ratings have dropped below 50% (down to 46%) as well. I am skeptical about any polls using phone polling methods, but the Newsweek poll shows that the momentum is definitely swinging Kerry's way. And the Foreign Policy debate was supposed to be Kerry's weakest subject!

Fox News continues to blow any remaining amount of credibility. In this story, Fox News correspondent Jane Roh reports on the group Communists for Kerry: "We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office," said 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry. "Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush," Rob said, before assuring FOXNews.com that his organization was not a parody group. When asked his thoughts on Washington's policy toward Communist holdout North Korea, Rob said: "The North Koreans are my comrades to a point, and I'm sure they support Comrade Kerry, too." It is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement. Fox reports on this group, as if it was a legitimate organization actually supporting Kerry. In reality, it's a Republican organization that exists for the stated purpose of: "Informing voters with satire and irony, how political candidates make decisions based on the failed social economic principles of socialism that punish the individual by preventing them from becoming their dream through proven ideas of entrepreneurship and freedom." Our members help elect candidates who support economic growth through Entrepreneurship, limited government and lower taxes. Communists For Kerry is separate and distinct from the Communist party of America and any of its organization. None of it's members are members of any communist organizations. The Fair and Balanced network is proving itself nothing more than a shill for the Bush campaign.

I'll be in Las Vegas all next week for INTERBIKE so updates might be less frequent.

GOP, keeping you scared! Thanks to Oliver Willis.

I added a notation to the top left side to alert readers as to my travel status. I do a fair amount of traveling and it is sometimes difficult to update from the road. So if you notice that I have not written for a while, now you will know why. Thanks!

Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi writes a disturbing e-mail from Baghdad. You can read it all here but here are some highlights: - Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest… my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. - Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come. - The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them. - The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating. - The cops are being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly. - As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. - I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. - The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war. Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi would probably beg to differ with this account of the conditions in Iraq. I might believe what he has to say, except for the fact that his recent speech before Congress was written by Bush’s reelection campaign staff.

Faux News, fair and balance indeed. First, they PhotoShop an additional 3 inches in height for the President. Second, the correspondent assigned to cover John Kerry, is blatantly anti-Kerry. And this is the crew that is the most indignant about Dan Rather and CBS. They are making it difficult for me to consider them a real "news" station…

No commentary required…

Local radio and some web sites (Drudge for a while this morning) have reported various reasons why President Bush may have been off his game last night. Some have reported that Bush spent the day with Hurricane victims and that left him emotionally drained for the debate. Some have reported that Bush was kept up past his normal bed time and that left him tired and ornery for the debate. Ummm, is the President a grown up or a three year old? I get tired too sometimes but I guess I am still supposed to get my job done without being crabby.

President Bush is saying that it's just too expensive to protect the United States from Terrorists! Last night debate moderator Jim Lehrer asks John Kerry: As president, what would you do, specifically, in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing? Kerry says: Jim, let me tell you exactly what I‘ll do. And there are a long list of things. Kerry then proceeds to discuss President Bush cutting funding to the U.S. Justice Department Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, Bush cutting funding to firehouses and other first responders, Bush not sufficiently funding U.S. port security, Bush not sufficiently funding airline cargo security, Bush not demanding that the chemical industry protect their plants from terror attacks and Bush not acting quickly enough to secure loose nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. Bush's response? BUSH: I don‘t think we want to get to how he‘s going to pay for all these promises. It‘s like a huge tax gap. "All these promises?" Hey little man, this isn't some piece of pork legislation to send federal funds off for some congressman's pet project! This is funding for the protection of the citizens of the United States! Obviously, for the President, a tax cut for those who make over $200,000 a year is much more important than keeping Americans safe at home.

James Wolcott on the little man:

Since then Bush has been wheeled out into forums where no one can dare question or contradict his majesty, where he can lean forward and repeat ad nauseam his patented soundbites. Last night I believe we saw the ugly comeback of the private face of Bush--the irritable expressions he flashes subordinates when he's presented with information he doesn't like or feels someone's taken up too much of his time or is pressed to explain himself to people he shouldn't have to explain himself to because he's the president and fuck you. The notion that Bush is "likeable" has always been laughable. It takes a Washington pundit to be that dumb. He's an angry, spoiled, resentful little big man--I use "little big man" in the Reichian sense of a small personality who puffs himself up to look big through bluster and swagger but remains a scheming coward inside--and next to a genuinely big man like Kerry, shrunk before the camera's eyes.

World Anti-doping Agency head Dick Pound talks about Tyler Hamilton's Olympic situation: "It appears a cyclist might have escaped this net because of human error, but I can assure you it's no longer a gold medal in the eyes of the world. But if nothing else, we got him on the second bounce. Ninety-nine percent of doping is not accidental. People who do this do not belong in sport."

Various debate analysis: Josh Marshall writes about one the President's major attacks on Kerry, his claim that Kerry's criticism of his war plan policy makes him unfit to be president. The President has screwed up Iraq and refuses to admit it. Because of this refusal to see the reality in Iraq he thinks Kerry's criticism of his policy is affecting troop moral. Maybe sending the troops into battle without sufficient equipment and armor and without a plan to secure the country after defeating Saddam is what is affecting troop moral? Marshal points out that the President does not seem to know what his own policy regarding North Korea really is. The President mis-stated Kerry's position regarding drawing down the troops in Iraq. The President stated that Pakistani nuclear proliferators A.Q. Khan has been brought to justice when, in fact, Khan was simply asked to apologize and then was immediately pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Kevin Drum writes about the debate regarding the Iraq War coalition. Kerry suggested that the coalition, consisting of the U.S., Britain and Australia was not sufficient. Bush's irritated response, "He forgot Poland." Here is what Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski thinks of the coalition: "They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride." Atrios writes about my wife's favorite throwaway line from the debate: "It's hard work." Jack Pine Savage writes about a conference call for GOP supporters held by campaign team leader Ken Mehlman. Mehlman said Kerry started with a credibility gap and ended with a credibility canyon, and babbled in and around this point for five minutes or so. Then they announced that they were going to take three questions. The first was from a "young Republican in Washington." She proceeded to say that Kerry was very credible and that she had decided to vote for him. The second caller said she thought Kerry would make a credible Commander in Chief and the third call took Bush to task for not mentioning the al Quida members not captured.

Faces of Frustration

CNN / GALLUP POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE Kerry: 53 Bush: 37 CBS POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE: Kerry: 44 Bush: 26 Tie: 30 ABC POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE: Kerry: 45 Bush 36: Tie: 17 Mort Kondracke: “This is the President's turf, this is the place that the President is supposed to dominate, terror and the war in Iraq. I don't think he really dominated tonight. I think Kerry looked like a commander-in-chief.” Kate O'Beirne, National Review Online’s the Corner: "I thought the President was repetitive and reactive." Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online's the Corner: "The Bush campaign miscalculated on having the first night be foreign policy night." Bob Schieffer: “The President was somewhat defensive in the beginning” Mark Shields: "The President showed a few times obvious anger" Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard: “I think Kerry did pretty well tonight, he was forceful and articulate.” Bob Schieffer: “Kerry got off to a very good start.” Joe Scarborough: “It was John Kerry’s best performance ever…As far as the debate goes, I don’t see how anybody could look at this debate and not score this a very clear win on points for John Kerry.” (MSNBC) Andrea Mitchell: “This is the toughest we’ve ever seen John Kerry. He attacked the very core of the President’s popularity. He’s basically saying, who do you believe?” (MSNBC) Tim Russert: “Tonight he seemed to find his voice for the Democratic view of the world.” Fred Barnes on FNC: "Kerry did very well and we will have a Presidential race from here on out." Kate O'Beirne: "I thought the President was repetitive and reactive." Mark Halperin: “The president was remarkably angry seeming" Milbank and VandeHei: "Bush appeared perturbed when Kerry leveled some of his charges, scowling at times and looking away in apparent disgust at others."

Last night the host of the debate party that I attended asked me if I had heard any rumors that supposedly have been circling about the September 11 crash of American Airlines flight #77 into the Pentagon. Not having heard anything at all, I shrugged my shoulders. This morning a friend of mine asked me about this website. The site contends that a Boeing 757 could not have crashed into the Pentagon. The "minimal" amount of damage to the building, damage to the building not consistent with an airplane crash, and no evidence of plane debris at the crash site are all detailed. They make a compelling point but they do not explain what happened to the plane and the passengers on AA #77. Will there be more to come?