Discounting the Gallup and Newsweek polls because of their clear Republican bias, we see a race in a statistical dead heat (all results within the margin of error) between Kerry and Bush, with the trend favoring Kerry:

Furthermore, Kerry now has an edge in the swing states, including one poll that shows him pulling ahead in Florida, and pulling farther ahead in Pennsylvania:

Florida: SurveyUSA. 10/15-17. MoE 4.1%. (10/6 results)

Kerry 50 (46)
Bush 49 (51)

Pennsylvania: SurveyUSA. 10/15-17. MoE 4.1%. ( 10/6 results)

Kerry 51 (49)
Bush 45 (47)

Note that in both states, Kerry is moving ahead–actually improving by 4% in Florida. These have yet to be reflected at ElectoralVote.com as of this writing, but even without Florida in his column, Kerry still enjoys a lead of 10 electoral votes on that map.

Michigan is already strongly for Kerry, but it is of note that its former Governor William Milliken, a Republican has endorsed Kerry for president, accusing Bush of pandering to the “far right wing.”

“If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.”

–Michigan State Representative John Pappageorge (R), July 16, 2004
   (Detroit is 88 percent black in a predominantly white state)

It’s almost as open as Pappageorge let slip back in July. Election fraud has already been found well under way in a dozen or more states, and by sheer coincidence, it is 100% Republican. And as in Michigan, much of the GOP fraud is aimed at keeping African-Americans from voting. This coming from a party that lauds itself as “The Party of Lincoln.”

It’s more visible in Philadelphia than anywhere else as of tonight, where the Bush campaign staff attempted a last-minute drive to shuffle around polling places in Philadelphia–again, a predominantly black city in a predominantly white state. The Bush team argued that they wanted to relocate 63 polling places because they allegedly lack sufficient handicapped access, and because of “intimidation.” Said Matt Robb, the Republican leader of the 48th ward in South Philadelphia, “It’s predominantly, 100 percent black. I’m just not going in there to get a knife in my back.” Another gem of a Republican said they were trying to change polling places in black neighborhoods because “The black neighborhoods are the ones that do the funny stuff. What are you supposed to do?”

This request comes at the last minute, after 1.1 million Philadelphians have already been mailed directions to the polling places. A switch at this point would be strategically timed to confuse and disenfranchise the greatest number of minority and Democratic voters. The white population in 53 of the 63 affected districts is only 10%.

In case you’ve lost track of the numerous early-bird election fraud events by the GOP (a tidal wave of others will come fast and thick election day, you can bet on it), here’s a quick list to remind you:

• Wisconsin: In Milwaukee, another city with a densely Democratic African-American population, more ballots were needed else the central-city districts run out, leaving thousands unable to vote. Guess who tried to block extra ballots from getting delivered? Yep. Republicans again.
• Florida: Jeb Bush, acting against the advice of Florida officials who informed him that the felon list was flawed, pushed for the list to be put into action secretly, actively denying public access to the information. Only after a court order released the list did we find that thousands of Democratic-leaning African-Americans entitled to vote would have been purged, while Republican-leaning Cuban felons had been removed from the no-vote list. Bush called it a “mistake.”
• Florida Again: Republicans caught immigrants who had just been naturalized and urged them to register to vote. The forms they gave the brand-new citizens had already been filled out as Republican.
• Florida Yet Again: U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler had to file a lawsuit in order to get a paper trail of votes in Florida. The GOP vigorously opposed him. The electronic machines that the GOP wanted to be without a means of vote verification are made by a company run by a Bush campaign manager.
• Ohio: Here’s where that Bush campaign manager is. He’s Walden O’Dell, CEO of Diebold, the company that makes voting machines that will be used nationwide. One would think that, in his position as the guy who makes the voting machines without paper trails, O’Dell would be careful to at least sound somewhat fair. Well, guess what. Aside from being a huge Bush supporter and state campaign manager, he also stated publicly that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
• Nevada: Former state Republican Party Chair Dan Burdish attempted to wipe 17,000 Democrats off the voter rolls. He was prevented from doing so, but tried anyway.
• Also Nevada: The first reports of the Nathan Sproul (former head of the Republican Party and Christian Coalition in Arizona) organization, Voters Outreach of America (VOA), a self-purported “non-partisan voter registration company” which is, by sheer chance, funded by the Republican National Committee. In Nevada, workers from within the VOA charged that the company was hiding their affiliation, and working outside shops and malls, was getting hundreds and probably thousands of Democrats to register to vote through them, and then destroying the applications so the Democrats would be deprived of their votes.
• Oregon: VOA was also found to be doing exactly the same thing in Oregon, where a worker reported that he was told that he “might” destroy Democratic applications.
• Pennsylvania and West Virginia: Here VOA did not destroy Democratic applications, they just denied Democrats the forms to register, sometimes falsely posing as pollsters asking who people were voting for, they would press Republicans to register while Democrats were thanked and the conversation ended. Not exactly kosher if you’re “non-partisan” and advertise yourself as such.
• Virginia: Even Nader is getting into the act, albeit via Republicans. In an attempt to get Nader on the ballot, Nader state campaign coordinator James P. Polk made 10 false statements in an official capacity, and has been indicted by a special grand jury . Polk is a former Republican activist.

Many of these and more are listed here.

What about Democrats? In Colorado, Republicans are making allegations of Democratic voter fraud. Only one problem: there is no evidence that any fraud is being perpetrated by Democrats. Some people are registering multiple times (though only being counted once); in other cases, false applications are being filled out by people registering others and getting paid by the registration. None suggest any organized fraud, nor does any evidence in the state suggest that Democrats or Republicans are guilty of transgressions more than the other.

This is a Republican game we’re playing, folks. And we’re not even two weeks away from the election yet. And you can bet your bottom dollar that we haven’t found half the election fraud that’s happened so far–most times people are smart enough to do it clandestinely. And as election day approaches, the amount of GOP fraud will steamroll until there will be just too damned much to stop.

Hopefully, Kerry will win despite this–and his poll numbers, as well as electoral vote counts, are suggesting he is headed that way–and so the fraud will matter slightly less. But if Bush gets a crucial state by a few hundred votes again–or even several thousand, this time, due to the scale of this year’s fraud–then we will have an historic second theft of the presidency on our hands.

Update: Here’s a site which keeps track of all the election fraud.

Query: Does anyone know a good forum, a discussion page where all types of spam can be talked about? I have searched all over for such a place and cannot find one–but I would think it would be a no-brainer, that several such forums should exist. And yet, none show up on searches. If you know of any place like that, please leave a comment pointing to it. Thanks!

And they’re back. The referral spammers, that is. After less than 24 hours of being shut out by the .htaccess script, they’re back in business. The comment spammers are back as well; the logs show them trying to access the mt-comments.cgi, getting bumped, then going into real posts, and finally ending up with the renamed comments script. And now they’re hitting full force again.

I ask anyone who knows: how can a referral for a URL be left on a site when that URL is blocked by htaccess? Furthermore, I block IP addresses in the same script, and the in my activity log I see the very same IP address hit my site minute by minute. They act as if the htaccess script just isn’t there, blowing right past it. How can that happen, and more to the point, how can it be stopped?

I hope I didn’t fall prey to a spammer posing as a commenter–someone posing as a kindred spam-sufferer asked for the sample of the htaccess script I wrote just a few hours before the script got bypassed… I may have been had.

The upcoming terrorist attack? I know it’s on my schedule here somewhere…

I find it interesting that this is not getting talked about. We are supposed to get attacked by al Qaeda sometime within the next two weeks, if I’m not mistaken. Is there a wide security net going up in the United States that isn’t being talked about? What’s being done to prevent it?

This is a rather complicated issue, and it is made far more difficult than usual because of the political dimensions, especially since this was used so often by Bush and his people as a political weapon. On the one hand, it seems likely: al Qaeda attacked in Spain just before a crucial election, and it is the time to attack if they want to have the maximum effect. On the other hand, the Spain election didn’t shift to the liberals because of the al Qaeda attack, but rather because the conservatives used the attack as part of their political campaign, falsifying reports to make it seem like it was the Basques. Additionally, an al Qaeda attack before the elections in the U.S. could be tricky: from all appearances, it would solidify support for Bush and win him the election, which is likely what the terrorists want–but it would be tricky, like a toss-up in basketball, where the slightest action could send the ball flying in the other direction, like it did in Spain. Bush will probably get automatic support like he did after 9/11, but he might also get blamed for letting al Qaeda get off another attack.

On the one hand, since it is the ripe time for the terrorists to attack, one would want to tighten security to the maximum to prevent it, and have the FBI, CIA, NSA, local police and every available boy scout working overtime on full alert. The problem, on the other hand, is how political homeland security has become: everyone has been painfully aware of how Ashcroft and the Bush administration have used terror alerts and color changes for maximum political effect, especially where there is no new data or real threat but there is a political event benefitting Kerry which gets derailed by said terror alert.

One thing I think is almost assured: there will be a huge terror alert, with the color code changing to orange or perhaps red, in the 3-5 days prior to the election. If Bush throws up a red alert in that time range, it will work to his favor politically. It also covers his ass in case there is a terrorist attack, making it so he can say “I was on alert and did my best.” And if Kerry criticizes him for it, Bush can always hit back with “he is interfering with your safety,” and knowing the Democrats, they will all go into their fair-minded “we support the president when it comes to security” mode. Bush has almost nothing to lose, and almost everything to gain. The only possible pitfall would be an adverse public reaction, but that is not too likely.

Still, I find it disturbing that with so little time left, so little attention is being paid to what will happen regarding an attack. This should be talked about, publicly, a great deal, so people will be aware of the situation and not taken by surprise at the last minute. Because if we don’t discuss this publicly, and we do forget about the threat, and then 2 or 3 days before election day something does hit, then it’s going to be chaos. No time for serious polling to figure out what’s happening, it will be a fog of political war with no way to discern truth from rumor from conspiracy from threat from dirty political tricks.

If there is a huge attack costing many lives, will we even be able to determine who it was? The obvious suspects would be al Qaeda, but let’s not forget that they’re not the only terrorists out there, and November 2 is a pivotal day in history for the entire world. If there is not enough time to investigate, then rumor will win the day, not truth.

Just like we prepare for earthquakes, we’ve got to prepare for this one. If Bush throws up a terror alert just before the election, then what? If the terrorists attack just before the election, then what?

Here’s one idea: if you know any undecideds, then tell them to write down their likeliest choice for president a week before the election, just in case something does happen. Then if an attack hits or a massive terror alert is put out, tell them to follow their choice from before the attack or the alert, as the way to ensure that they’re not being influenced by politicized homeland defense or by terrorist influence.

Any other ideas?

“My opponent seems to be willing to say almost anything he thinks will benefit him politically. After standing on the stage, after the debates, I made it very plain we will not have an all-volunteer army.”

–George W. Bush, October 16, 2004, Daytona Beach, Florida

From Jay Rosen’s blog:

“All we know is that we’ve invited one guest, Sen. John Kerry. We’ve made no other offers to anyone else.” People complaining about Sinclair’s decision ought to realize there hasn’t been any decision, he said. “If John Kerry sat down with us for two hours, we may end up with a 60-minute program that has 57 minutes of John Kerry presenting his side of the issues,” Hyman told the Newshour. “That’s fine. That’s what this is all about. We’ve made an open invitation.”

Sinclair has made no commitment to run the film. It wants Kerry to answer the POW’s. “We want to put his view on the air,” he said. “Putting on a few clips of what the allegations are, that will satisfy the concerns.” Have you seen any press accounts highlighting that quote? I have not.

What Mark Hyman has been saying to the point of braying it is– nothing’s firm, let’s negotiate. John Kerry can keep the documentary off the air by replacing it with himself. (And why not? Then it’s like appearing on any other “show.”) Sinclair has no other invitations out. So I say send Mike McCurry and Richard Holbrooke to Baltimore. Let them negotiate. Five minutes of film, 55 minutes of Kerry responding to questions sounds about right to me.

It doesn’t sound right to me. Essentially what is being done is that Kerry is being blackmailed, extorted into making an appearance on hostile ground, where the topic will be decided by people who hate him. Either that or allow Bush to get a free evening of anti-Kerry ads broadcast to a quarter of the nation just before the election.

As Heinlein once pointed out, the best way to find out if a deal is fair or not is to reverse it. Have a major network broadcast a rabid anti-Bush film for free just before the election, and the only way for Bush to be able to stop it would be to get him to appear in a live one-hour discussion/debate with Al Franken on any topic Franken pleases, like “did you use cocaine?” or “the lies of George W. Bush.”

Do you think that the Republicans would sit still for that? Hell, no. They would be apoplectic. No matter how much Al Franken protests that he “just wants to put Bush’s views on the air,” they would call it the biggest dirty trick of all time, an abomination–and they would be right. (Though admittedly, I’d love the hell out of it.) So how’s it fair to Kerry?

Sure, Kerry could potentially turn it to his advantage and debate Hyman or whomever else into the ground. But it is far more likely that Kerry would exposed to mostly smears and would be on the defensive most of the time–highly unappealing–and might even be seen as weak for letting himself be cornered like that.

No, the only fair solution is not to allow Sinclair to violate FEC laws in the first place. You might ask, where’s the line between free-speech editorializing and violation of campaign finance laws? I think that this case is clearly over the line–if you allow one individual to buy essentially a multi-million dollar broadcast to attack one candidate, then you open the doors for the airwaves to be filled with dreck like that, from both sides, next time out (or even this time), making a complete joke of campaign finance laws because whomever wins will be indebted to the broadcaster as clearly as if the broadcaster had put millions of dollars into the candidate’s palm. And I won’t accept the idea of ‘let it happen this once then its over,’ or even ‘let each side get a shot off.’ The very principle at stake here is highly important.

This one isn’t even close.

Ah… I finally found a way to format the .htaccess file which is keeping out the referral spammers. Sure, I’ll have to keep an eye on them and maintain the .htaccess file almost daily, but then the blog already requires a certain level of maintenance, and this isn’t much more.

If you’re interested in knowing the correct formatting for the file and how to execute it, leave a comment with an email addressed (masked by any URL) and I’ll email you a copy of what I have.

Now on to renaming the comments script to keep out the comment spammers–less of a hassle concerning the fact that MT-Blacklist is already keeping them off the site proper, though it’ll be nice to see the stats for the comments file drop below 400 hits a day, knowing that they are 98% spammers.

Update: …aaaand I just executed the major points of advice for comment spam listed on this page, and took a snapshot of the stats. Now time will tell if they work.

Talk about not having the message coordinated.

First, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he wanted Bush to win the election: “I don’t want to interfere with another country’s election but since I’m well-acquainted with President Bush, I want him to carry on,” he said to the media. That, in itself, is quite a statement: “I don’t want to interfere with the election, but here’s my interference.” His statement was immediately recognized by probably anyone who’s been paying attention in Japan for what it is: Koizumi wants to maintain and expand the Japanese military presence overseas as a major front in revising the no-war constitution (a very big right-wing goal here).

The troops, by the way, are hardly a military presence–they mostly sit around in their compound and purify water for the equivalent of a small town. Reports say that they have “built” four schools, two roads and a soccer stadium–but they contracted out for the actual work. And as “troops” they are laughable: they have to hire Dutch troops to protect them.

But Koizumi doesn’t want them to actually do anything in Iraq–in fact, he wants them to stay out of harm’s way because any incident would look bad back home–which is why he turned so viciously on three independent Japanese humanitarian workers for their crass rudeness in being taken hostage. Koizumi needs an eventless ‘military’ mission so he can slowly build support for making Japan’s military into a real war machine, and Bush is his best bet for that.

But a bit later in the day, Koizumi’s Chief Cabinet Minister attempted some damage control, saying “it’s not that the prime minister is saying who should win. No matter what the results of the election may be, the ties between the United States and Japan are solid.” A little diplomacy there, just in case Kerry wins it.

But then Koizumi’s Liberal Democratic (don’t let the title fool you, they’re right wingers) Party Secretary General (Chairman, I guess) Tsutomu Takabe removed all doubt, saying: “I think there would be trouble if it’s not President Bush,” opposing Kerry’s suggestion that bilateral talks be ongoing with the multilateral talks.

Note, by the way, that Japanese people, as opposed to the rightists in power, prefer Kerry 51 to 30. Which is in line with what I’m hearing from the Japanese people I speak to.

I haven’t had a chance to rename my comments script yet, and since I removed the .htaccess block on the script (due to many legitimate visitors being blocked) and I have not found a .htaccess script to keep referral spam out, spammers have had open access to both areas–though MT-Blacklist has done a great job of keeping out 99% of the comment spammers. Still, it’s not nearly enough.

The primary damage is to the access logs, which thanks to the spam are completely meaningless. There have been over 6000 hits on the comments script in two weeks, meaning 430 attempts are made to access the comments on any given day–and at most, I get 10 legitimate comments a day. My blog activity log shows the hundreds that are blocked every day. This bloats the number of counted visitors to the comments script, but probably not too much the number of total unique visitors, because they tend to use one IP address to spam with. When I had successfully blocked their access to the script, the number of spam that arrived were almost nil, but the daily visit numbers did not change much.

The referral spam, however, is another story. They must use IP spoofing a lot more. It used to be that one, maybe two or three referral spammers would show up in the top-25 logs, hitting my site maybe a dozen or two times a month. But now the top-25 list is nothing but spammers, the least of which has deposited 86 fake hits on my site. The worst by far is some place called “Burnhams” which by different referring URLs within their main site have hit me 351 times. The top 25 referrers have hit me a total of 2,691 times. 85 of the top 100 referrers are spammers, totaling about 4,000 hits. And the month is only half over.

I have got to get on top of this. It’s not just the destruction of my referral logs, it’s the principle of never giving a spammer a break.

If anyone out there knows of a way to purge access logs of identifiable spammers, I’d appreciate a tutorial…. this would, without a doubt, be a popular new piece of software. Something with a simple interface which would scan the logs and present a list of all referrers, with a check-box by each one; check the boxes next to spammers and click “delete and block,” and the script would edit out the hits made by each one and modify the .htaccess file to keep them out, then allow AwStats to recalculate the logs; maybe a central blacklist of referral spammers could be kept and updated. In other words, something like MT-Blacklist for referral spam. Maybe I’m asking for the impossible, maybe it would just be too much work to keep it up, for too little return.

But for me, it would be sweet.

Okay, I just got home after a day of avoiding all mention of news, so the debate will be fresh for me. One starting note: Bush’s back looks smooth this time, at least so far…. And I should apologize in advance for the sheer length of this post.

From the start Kerry came off strong; Schieffer sent him a national security fast ball right over the plate, and Kerry hit that sucker clear out of the park–a lucid, point-by-point best-of bullet list of what Bush has done wrong and what Kerry will do right. Direct, smooth, and right on target.

As for Bush: boy, it looks like he’s on prozac or something; his voice is lilting, he seems a bit tipsy, and he acted like he was almost about to break out into song when he announced that the first voter in Afghanistan was a 19-year-old woman (can you say “staged PR event”?). But his points are still the same old ones: we have to stay on the offensive, we already got 75% of al Qaeda, and we’ll spread peace and Democracy all around the world. Hard to believe he’s pitching that–Kerry should be able to hit that one out of the park as well. hell, much of what Bush has said has already been knocked down by FactCheck.org. And that’s what Kerry–

WHOA!!!! Bush just claimed he never said he wasn’t concerned about Osama bin Laden! Astounding! Here’s Bush’s quote from tonight’s debate:

BUSH: Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama bin Laden, that’s kind of one of those “exaggerations.”

And here’s Bush from March 13, 2002:

“I don’t know where [Osama bin Laden] is. I have no idea and I really don’t care. It’s not that important.” And on the same day: “I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”

This is incredible! I hope they played this on the news over and over again. Especially when Bush in tonight’s debate paused, got this funny look on his face, and said the word “exaggerations” in a theatrical way so as to put huge quotation marks around it. I don’t have to see the blogs tonight, I know exactly how they’ll report this! And keep in mind that the “I truly am not that concerned” quote comes directly from the White House web site!

New strategy for Kerry: use that “exaggerations” delivery on the stump! “Bush said his tax cuts would create more jobs; that must be one of those ‘exaggerations.’ Bush said we’d be greeted as liberators in Iraq; that was probably one of those ‘exaggerations.’ Bush said we are ‘turning the corner’; I guess it must be another one of those ‘exaggerations.'”

In the meantime, Bush is continuing to sound downright giddy. It’s bizarre.

The question on flu vaccines was interesting: if Bush’s answer was true, then it was a real softball thrown by Schieffer; but even so, it is ironic that Bush said that he is now depending on Canada to deliver a safe, uncontaminated vaccine when in the last debate he claimed that drugs from Canada were unsafe. His exact words: “When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn’t kill you.” So the flu vaccine bit is not exactly reassuring, if you take him at his word. He also wasn’t very clear on the age issue: if you’re young, don’t get the flu shot–reserve them for the elderly and young. Then Bush rather clumsily and obviously turned the topic to lawsuits, which is untrue–vaccines are in short supply because they’re not profitable, and so fewer drug companies make them.

Bush is getting a bit on edge already, seeming to strain at the bit to bark out that “a – plan – is – not – a – litany – of – complaints!” and then accusing Kerry outright of using “bait and switch.” He had numbers ready, which means that he was absolutely prepared and scripted on that one. But Kerry hit it right back: Bush himself promised the same thing to seniors, and the costs would not be as high as Bush promised because people would buy into it, not be given it for free as Bush was implying.

Wow, Kerry just repeated the 1.6 million jobs numbers–but then, both candidates are repeating the claims others have knocked down. Bush just repeated the “he voted for tax hikes 98 times” chestnut. Bush went on in a litany of fuzzy math attacks on Kerry–you can bet almost every one of them will turn out to be a distortion like the 98-tax-hikes lie. Fully 43 of the 98 in Bush count did not affect actual taxes, but rather set targets; no one paid a penny more from them. Another 16 of the votes counted were votes on one single bill–Clinton’s tax bill of 1993–that was voted on several times–and, by the way, a tax bill that heralded in one of the biggest economic booms of our time.

Then, on the question about what Bush would say to an American who lost a job to an overseas worker getting paid a frqaction of his salary:

BUSH: I’d say, Bob, I’ve got policies to continue to grow our economy and create the jobs of the 21st century. And here’s some help for you to go get an education. Here’s some help for you to go to a community college.

That’s it? “I’ve got a policy and here’s a couple bucks to study metal shop at a two-year college”? If I was in that spot and he said that to me, I’d be pissed. Bush is really tanking this debate so far. Kerry’s answer is devastating to Bush.

Boy, Bush is really pushing the fiction of Kerry’s voting record over the top-he’s repeated the 98-times number three times, the last time breaking the rules of the debate and addressing Kerry directly, insisting that he voted 98 times. But again, Bush is losing it. Kerry is coming across as convincing and presidential, and Bush is coming across as petty and childish. If this keeps up, then Kerry will have come away with a huge win.

Kerry also answered well on the question of the Catholic church saying that voting for him would be a sin. You could really see his humanity in the answer, as well as an eloquently stated argument concerning responsible enactment of the separation of church and state:

Now, with respect to religion, you know, as I said, I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I know that throughout my life this has made a difference to me. And as President Kennedy said when he ran for president, he said, I’m not running to be a Catholic president. I’m running to be a president who happens to be Catholic.

My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There’s a great passage of the Bible that says, What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead. And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people.

That’s why I fight against poverty. That’s why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That’s why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith.

But I know this, that President Kennedy in his inaugural address told all of us that here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own. And that’s what we have to – I think that’s the test of public service.

Bush, on the other hand, brought up “partial birth abortion,” a highly partisan micro-issue used as a political weapon, right after saying that we should all be able to come together.

On the Health Care question, Bush came across as weak explaining why health care costs are big, trying as much as he could to blame it on lawyers; but again, Kerry came through as decisive, again pointing out how Bush blocked drug imports from Canada, again pointing out how Bush forbade Medicare from negotiating for drug prices. bush then tried to attack Kerry on his record in the Senate, but Kerry hit back much harder, pointing out his authorship of bills and amendments and specifying one bill on health care that he wrote and got passed. Bush claimed he’d gotten 5 bills past, Kerry corrected him, noting he’d passed 56. Here’s a list.

Bush’s response to Kerry’s note of major news organizations calling Bush’s claims untrue was weird:

In all due respect I’m not so sure–is it credible to quote leading news organizations about– … uh, never mind. Anyway.. um… Let me quote the Lewin Report!

Wow, Kerry really blasted Bush to the ground on the Social Security private investment issue. And then on his own plans, he was solid. Kerry is just laying down his fire steady and confidently, point by point, staying on point–he’s clear and convincing. Health care. Social security. Immigration. Minimum wage. Bam, bam, bam, bam. He’s beating Bush with a stick on these things, and Bush is looking bushwhacked, pun intended. And he has some great lines in there, like “I’m tired of politicians who talk about family values and don’t value families.” Almost sounds like Aaron Sorkin wrote some of them.

On minimum wage, Bush weakly countered that there was a plan the he supported that “would have increased the minimum wage.” Ah. “Would have.” Well, that’s reassuring if you can’t afford to feed your children. Four years in office and there’s one plan he supported that never got passed. And he only had the presidency and both houses of Congress. And what was this brilliant plan that Bush approved of? Raising the minimum wage by one dollar instead of two, and including a loophole so that the wage could be stopped at the state border–any and all states could refuse to accept the new wage, which would give corporations a huge edge in that they can lobby the states more effectively. Essentially, Bush backs only an emasculated minimum wage.

Then he actually claimed that “the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it.” And he hasn’t even come close to fully funding it! If he’s right in how to look at NCLB, then he’s underfunded both jobs and education.

For his accomplishments in education, the only thing Bush could point to that even seemed positive was that he is “beginning to close a minority achievement gap now.” That’s his big achievement? First of all, it doesn’t make clear whether minority achievement is going up or if white achievement is going down. Second, he doesn’t say how it’s measured, and third, he only claims that it is “beginning” to happen. After four years that’s all he’s got?

Schieffer just asked about Roe v. Wade and whether Bush would overturn it, and Bush flatly dodged it, rephrasing the question to himself (after Schieffer laid it out as a direct question), and saying “no litmus test, no litmus test”–and then stopping after just 15 seconds, apparently unwilling to dodge the question for the other one minute and forty-five seconds he was allotted. And Kerry cam after it just right, pointing out that Bush didn’t answer the question. When Bush doesn’t want to answer a question, the by golly, he doesn’t answer it! Kerry at least has the guts to speak his opinion on the issue, knowing it will turn off a segment of the population.

And of course, Bush does have a litmus test–in fact, he has nothing but litmus tests. He just lies about it.

And now Kerry is just ripping Bush a new one on No Child Left Behind, with Bush just looking at him with a big, stupid, fake grin on his face, like he really doesn’t want to be there right then. And again, Kerry is blasting Bush, this time on the assault weapons ban.

Kerry slipped up a bit on which groups Bush didn’t meet with–he said Bush has never met with the NAACP or the Black Congressional Caucus. Bush countered that he did meet with the Black Congressional Caucus, in the White House, he added. And he did meet them–once. In the first two weeks in office. But not after that. And only because they came to the White House uninvited. On a bus.

Bush got off a few good laughs about listening to the strong women around him, and got the chance for a warm and funny last response. And Kerry got off his own great line (“and some would say maybe me more so than others!”). But that won’t really erase what happened in the rest of the debate.

If you’ve read my last analyses of the prior debates, you’ll see that I stayed pretty objective, not just claiming a Kerry or Edwards victory at every turn, admitting when Bush or Cheney came out ahead, and when Kerry and Edwards misstepped. And now I can honestly say that in this third debate was not even close. Kerry quite simply blew Bush out of the water. Kerry was on message, spoke clearly and confidently, and scored far more point than Bush, who stumbled just as much as before if not more, and came across as unconvincing.

And now a check on the news services tells me that again I called it right–Kerry wins this one hands-down.

Can’t wait to see the heavy-duty national and state polls in two or three days. I have the feeling that Kerry will pull ahead at least by two points, maybe even three.

We’ll see.

Turns out that the timing of this last debate will put it right at the beginning of my work day here in Japan; just as I leave for work in about an hour, the debate will be starting. So I’m recording it on my DVR, and will watch it tonight and blog on it then. I’ll have to avoid reading the news and political sites before then so as to avoid the spin…

This time its in Milwaukee, WI, a city with a lot of Democrats in a battleground state. A Republican politician is blocking a request for sufficient ballots in the city. The city asked for the ballots because of record registration, noting that districts in the city have run out of ballots in the past. Better to have too many than too few.

But the Milwaukee County Executive, Republican Scott Walker–who just coincidentally happens to be co-chair of the Bush campaign in Wisconsin–is refusing to provide the extra 260,000 ballots requested, on the grounds that he thinks that they could possibly be used for multiple voting. This is absurd, and the explosion of new voter registration is very real and strongly documented nationwide. The real reason for the refusal is more likely the fact that the area he is depriving of ballots just happens to be a Democratic stronghold in the state.

The mayor of Milwaukee said “I’m going to lay this at the footsteps of the county if there aren’t enough ballots in the city.” In my opinion, that’s not nearly good enough; if there aren’t enough ballots, then it will be too late, and those Democrats will be denied their constitutional right to vote. As for Walker’s claim of potential abuse, it is a pitiful excuse–you cannot deprive whole segments of the state population of their right to vote on the potential and unproven suspicion that some may break the law. This is little more than yet another case of Republicans going to any and every extreme to steal another election. They’re absolutely shameless this year, and have to be checked at every single turn.

Japan has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to World War II and the decades of imperial expansion that preceded it. Although many of its citizens know about the time, look upon it with disapproval, and are not apologists, there is a distinct segment of society that is strongly against recognizing the sins of Japan’s past, and the majority of people in Japan seem to go along with it. Japan, like so many other countries, claims to follow Santayana’s warning: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And like so many other countries, it heeds the warning wrongly. Santayana was telling us that we should remember the bad things we have done so that we can learn not to do them again. But nations tend to greatly dislike remembering their own misdeeds, led by nationalists and self-proclaimed patriots who assert national pride, but just as often suffer from denial.

Instead, nations profess to follow Santayana by remembering the misdeeds done to them by others. We all do it. Americans remember Pearl Harbor, but many protest when too much attention is paid to Hiroshima–not to mention the uproar we see now when anyone talks about American atrocities in Vietnam. Israel remembers the Holocaust, China remembers Nanjing, and so on. We memorialize and even aggrandize our victimization, and whitewash or tone down the darker parts of our own past actions. It is my assertion that this interpretation of Santayana is not just mislaid, but is opposite to his warning and can lead to the very condemnation he foresaw. If a nation feels victimized, it feels the right to go beyond ordinary means to defend itself, to the extent of paranoia. If a nation forgets its misdeeds, it feels more certain that it can do no wrong because its people look at the past and see few or no wrongs. This is a dangerous combination that makes a country feel threatened and righteous in going to extreme ends to ‘defend’ itself–in short, it leads us to exactly the fate Santayana warned us against.

I have witnessed both elements of the equation a fair amount in Japan. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are memorialized here far more than Pearl Harbor in America; survivors of the American invasion of the southern islands such as Iwo Jima describe the terrible experiences they suffered; and the primary mention of Japan’s incursion into mainland Asia tends to be about Japanese people left behind after the war who suffered for so many years in Soviet prison camps. So much of Japanese suffering is focused on to a great extent, even in children’s fiction–I remember early on in my Japanese language studies being made aware of a manga, a graphic novel written for children called “Barefoot Gen,” which relates in grotesque detail the suffering of people in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

But today, a similar manga is being censored because the storyline includes a reference to the Rape of Nanjing as an actual historical event. You see, a strident segment of Japanese society vehemently believes that the Rape of Nanjing was a false story created to put Japan down, to shame it after World War II ended. No amount of documentary evidence, including photographs, countless eyewitnesses and even the writings and admissions of Japanese soldiers themselves can dissuade these nationalists from their belief that it is all a hoax. But unlike those who deny the Holocaust, those who deny the Rape of Nanjing here in Japan are not scoffed at, dismissed, or censured, No, those people here tend to be the ones who hold public office.

This is why the publishers of the Weekly Young Jump, a widely read manga, have decided to cut the story, which is a serialized story of a bureaucrat during the 30’s, a serial carried by the publication for the past two years. This edition was to treat the Massacre as a historical fact, and would include a photograph. But that won’t come out, and it was not due to massive public protest, but rather by a group of 37 local politicians who claim that the massive killing spree never took place, and who protested at the publisher’s office last week. The publisher now calls the photo to be used a “fake” and says the story and the photo will be edited.

Those of you who have doubts might want to read Iris Chang’s “The Rape of Nanjing.” For those who want rebuttal, this Japanese site provides one.

Photos from Salon.com

Salon is carrying this story, along with a photo of Bush on his ranch with an identical bulge in the back of his T-shirt. It is a device which works with an earpiece lodged in Bush’s ear canal, receiving and sending via a transceiver unit worn on his back:

“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.”

The relevance is that if Bush were wired, it would be in direct violation of debate rules, and considered a rather severe case of dishonesty and cheating in such an important public event. The problem is, the Bush people can just keep denying it, and unless someone can bring up more proof, few enough people will accept it as certain, no matter what experts say.

It is not even certain that Bush stopped using one, or could conceal it better for the third debate. Ideally, the candidates would have their ears checked, but you know that Bush would never agree to that, even privately; he would just bull his way through. Scrambling transmissions would interfere with the TV broadcast, so those would probably be out as well.

Also from DailyKos: a private voter registration company has been registering people in Nevada–but they destroy the registration forms filled out by Democrats, making them think they’ve registered when they’re not. According to the report, “The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee.”

Just when you think you’ve seen the slimiest dirty tricks, the GOP finds new ways to utterly disgust you.

From the debate:

CHENEY: You made the comment that the Gulf War coalition in ’91 was far stronger than this. No. We had 34 countries then; we’ve got 30 today. We’ve got troops beside us.

It’s hard, after John Kerry referred to our allies as a coalition of the coerced and the bribed, to go out and persuade people to send troops and to participate in this process.

From a Financial Times story quoting the German defense minister:

Germany might deploy troops in Iraq if conditions there change, Peter Struck, the German defence minister, indicated on Tuesday in a gesture that appears to provide backing for John Kerry, the US Democratic presidential challenger. …

Mr Struck also welcomed Mr Kerry’s proposal that he would convene an international conference on Iraq including countries that opposed the war if he were to win next month’s election.

Support is already filing in for Kerry, and it is pretty undeniable that a Kerry victory would be exceedingly warmly received around the world, meaning more international cooperation, and yes, troops and money that the Bush administration has already tried to get, many times, only to be rebuffed.

Note that one of Gwen Ifill’s questions was, “French and German officials have both said they have no intention even if John Kerry is elected of sending any troops into Iraq for any peacekeeping effort. Does that make your effort or your plan to internationalize this effort seem kind of naive?”

Not quite so naive, it seems.

And do I really need to go into Cheney’s 30-nation-troop-alliance and how only a few of them sent actual troops–and how almost as many don’t even have actual troops?

DailyKos just printed an email from someone about going to events for Edwards and Bush. You’d think Bush was the bigger draw, but:

Bush is coming to Medford, Oregon Thursday. John Edwards is here Wednesday morning.

Edwards’ visit is already sold out. There are tickets available for Bush, even though his visit was planned in advance. This is in republican-leaning rural southern Oregon.

I tried to get tickets to both events. Edwards was sold out, but I could still get them for Bush, provided I:

1. was a registered republican
2. wrote an essay about why he should be president
3. promise to support him

Write an essay? Sheesh. No wonder he’s not sold out. Who reads the essays? Do they seat you according to writing style? And I bet you still have to sign a loyalty oath at the door in addition to all that, pledging your vote in advance. Bush could probably be way ahead by now if he gave free admittance like Kerry and Edwards. He’d get more hecklers, but he’d reach more undecideds.

In yet another demonstration of the right-wing nature of the media, Sinclair Broadcasting is planning to cancel regular prime-time programming two weeks before the election and instead give up their air time for free to broadcast a film that would smear John Kerry. Sinclair, along with Fox and Clear Channel, is well-known as a bastion of conservatism and has been known to take similar types of action before, such as when they refused to air Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” when they spent the entire broadcast honoring the fallen American soldiers in Iraq. Sinclair called the memorial “contrary to the public interest.” In a pathetic attempt to give the appearance of fair play, Sinclair plans to follow the 90-minute smear ad with a “panel discussion” to which Kerry is invited. The invitation, which they knew Kerry would have to be insane to accept, is their way of weaseling out of giving Kerry “equal time.”

In case Sinclair forgot, the airwaves are owned by the public; Sinclair’s action is nothing less than the use of public resources to air political propaganda, timed just before an election.

Remember how, just a few months ago, conservatives tried to ban any TV commercials for “Fahrenheit 9/11” because it could be construed as a political ad? Then what the hell is this? The complaint against commercials for F-9/11 might have been legitimate had they referred to any actual planned airing of commercials mentioning Bush 60 days before an election, but there were no commercials for the film planned during that time period, so the FCC concluded there was nothing to act on. This documentary, which very noticeably mentions Kerry and would be broadcast within the 60-day restriction, should be illegal itself under the same law used by conservative groups to try to silence Moore.

Don’t think this qualifies as a campaign ad? The filmmaker is Carlton Sherwood, a former journalist for the right-wing Washington Times (owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon), who later worked for Tom Ridge and finally was hired by the Bush administration to handle PR for Homeland Security. Carlton was arrested in 1983 for illegally taping a conversation, and in 1984 falsely accused Vietnam vets of misspending money for the Vietnam memorial.

If the broadcast is, in the end, allowed, then a panel discussion won’t be enough; Kerry should be given the exact same time slot one week later to run any damned thing he pleases.

Send email to the FCC expressing your outrage at this plan. The addresses are:

michael.powell@fcc.gov
kathleen.abernathy@fcc.gov
michael.copps@fcc.gov
kjmweb@fcc.gov
jonathan.adelstein@fcc.gov

Postscript: in case you thought that perhaps the guy running Sinclair is a paragon of virtue, check this out. He’s still President and C.E.O., by the way.

Update: The DNC has decided to file formal charges against Sinclair with the FEC on Tuesday, calling the infraction “Sinclair Broadcasting’s illegal in-kind contribution to the Bush-Cheney campaign.” The FEC is closed until Tuesday because of Columbus Day.

Meanwhile, people against Sinclair’s plans have wasted no time, and a variety of sites are now up and running, including this site to boycott Sinclair, with a list of their advertisers; give as many as you can a call. Also sign this petition. DailyKos is all over this one, and will likely continue to be.

Update 2: Morons.org has a pretty good rundown on how the Sinclair move violates Federal Election Law. It seems pretty clear that Sinclair’s action is completely illegal.

It started when bloggers first noticed a strange triangle-shaped bulge in the back of Bush’s jacket, and now the debate is growing fast: has George W. Bush been wired in the last two debates? Study the photos below:

The first photo is the one that caught everyone’s attention. At first, the Bush campaign claimed that the image had been Photoshopped, but quickly retracted the claim after it was clearly there on the video records. Then they claimed that it was simply a “rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric.” However, the questions persisted, and even noted newspapers such as the New York Times started asking the question. While Bush’s own tailor claims that it was simply an artifact of Bush’s stance, a Savile Row tailor in Britain said,

“Without a shadow of a doubt, I would say that he had some kind of wire running up his back underneath his clothing. Not even the seams on a cheap suit would look like that. It must have been some kind of transmitter.”

Additionally, during the second debate, it was noted that when Bush fidgeted with his jacket front and tie, what clearly appeared to be a wire hidden underneath became visible (second photo; for those of you who recorded it, it’s 28-1/2 minutes into the debate, near the end of Bush’s reply to the draft question).

Conservatives who are giant fans of Matt Drudge have been complaining about “Internet rumors,” the same dismissal they gave to speculation that Bush may have to enforce a draft in order to keep the military running. The birth of a story on the Internet does not speak to its veracity one way or the other; what matters is whether or not it stands up to scrutiny. So far, few outside of Bush’s core supporters have bought the “rumple in the fabric” story, and the bulge–not to mention the wire–have yet to be explained to satisfaction.

Update: Kudos to Yamantaka over at The Expat for the heads up on IsBushWired.com. Take a look.