Of course, many liberals are giggling out there because Cheney told the audience to go to FactCheck.com, when he apparently meant to say FactCheck.org. The dot-com address redirects you to GeorgeSoros.com, to a page titled, “Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush.”

Cheney additionally implied that all the charges about him and Halliburton were wrong, when in fact the Fact Check organization only addressed a few specific ads, and only points that they had contention with–and not even all the ads were Kerry’s. As Edwards pointed out:

The facts are the vice president’s company that he was CEO of, that did business with sworn enemies of the United States, paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false financial information, it’s under investigation for bribing foreign officials.

The same company that got a $7.5 billion no-bid contract, the rule is that part of their money is supposed to be withheld when they’re under investigation, as they are now, for having overcharged the American taxpayer, but they’re getting every dime of their money.

There’s also the fact that there is an incredibly blatant conflict of interest, wherever Halliburton received a no-bid contract and was not the only outfit that could take on the task. Both the administration’s choice of no-bids for Halliburton and the conflict of interest stink to high heaven, and Cheney knows it. His claim that Halliburton is brought up “because they want to obscure their own record,” which is laughable, because Halliburton was brought up countless times before either Kerry or Edwards even announced their candidacies. It’s Cheney who’s erecting the smokescreen.

That’s your view as a Republican. A poll of uncommitted voters at CBS found Edwards beating Cheney, 41% to 28%, with 31% calling it a tie.

Most outlets are quoting an ABC poll, which has Cheney beating Edwards 43% to 35% with 19% calling it a tie–but ABC did not interview uncommitted voters, and their sample had more Republicans in it by a ration of 38% to 31% for Democrats–a difference that almost exactly reflects the “higher” Cheney numbers for the poll. Real scientific there, ABC.

On another note, remember that Cheney claimed that he had never met Edwards before. Interesting. It must have been Cheney’s clone in this picture, taken in February 2001, when Cheney thanked Edwards by name in his introduction. Edwards also met Cheney in the Senate in January 2003. Wait a few days while people check through Senate records, and they’ll likely find a lot of other times they were both on the Senate floor.

Cheney also gave an interesting recount on how many times Kerry voted for tax hikes–Republicans have always said 350 times, but Cheney said 98, God alone knows the reasoning behind it, but that number still includes times Kerry voted for tax cuts which were not as low as Republicans wanted to go.

I think they’re going to call this one a draw. This will almost certainly not effect much. Both candidates had their own appeals, both attacked the other rather savagely, both defended themselves well. There were a few zingers in there, but also quite a bit of snooze time. As I mentioned before, your opinion may vary according to which personal style you prefer; it may also vary according to your prior expectations about who would win.

To repeat a prior concern, it really seemed to me that Ifill chose her answers more to the benefit of Cheney; I’ll have to read the transcript and see if that was really the case, or was I just imagining it. For example, she asked Edwards about his inexperience, but (unless I missed it) she did not ask Cheney about his health, just as cogent and roughly equivalent. She also asked about two issues which are Republican chestnuts: gay marriage and flip-flopping. Yes, she framed the flip-flopping question in the context of both candidates doing so, but it’s still a Republican attack point.

And now to see what spin prevails in the media…

Cheney just tried to claim that his personal experiences and job background are very similar to Edwards, in that he has a humble background. Sorry, Cheney, but that ain’t gonna fly. Edwards was no a long-time political party hack, does not have two DUI arrests, and has not been a corporate bigwig for a giant multinational.

Cheney is also covering up his microphone from time to time, muffling his voice, by lacing his hands just below his mouth.

Ifill is at it again, bringing up a pet Republican topic–flip-flopping. After asking about Edwards’ inexperience. What is she thinking here?

Cheney is spouting off numbers and statistics, ‘facts’ and claims at a furious rate. This will undoubtedly result in detailed lists of inaccurate and misleading statements laid out on blogs in the next days, but Cheney knows that if you make one lie, you’ll get nailed for it, but if you make a hundred small lies, people will not pay attention to them.

Ifill is asking about same-sex unions, which is further eroding my respect for her. Bring up a classic Republican chestnut, which the GOP set up as a distraction? Could she really find nothing else to bring up, no other issue? Good for Edwards for pointing out that the matter is purely a political tool, and that they should be focusing on real issues.

But one thing I have to say, this debate is not nearly as engaging as the Kerry-Bush debate. I feel my interest drifting away from time to time. I doubt too many people will come away from this with very strong feelings unless they had those feelings already.

Cheney has gall, you gotta give him that: he looked Edwards straight in the eye and told him that the reason he’s bringing up Halliburton is because he’s missed so many Senate sessions. Edwards is not faring as well in the “you’re a bastard” exchange.

Ifill just did a big no-no: when Cheney said it was not his turn to take a question, Ifill said she’d asked Edwards a question about Israel but that Edwards had not answered the question, that he hadn’t talked about Israel–a direct put-down, leaving Edwards to defend himself, quickly, and looking like he’s on the defensive. That was incredibly inappropriate of her to say that.

There was just a bit of a scuff-up between the two, with CHeney insisting Edwards is not respecting Iraqi sacrifices, Edwards interrupting him denying it, Cheney interrupting right back and insisting it’s true. One thing about Cheney, he’s able to say anything you could imagine and look like he believes it one hundred and ten percent. He could say, “the tooth fairy abducted Elvis in a UFO” and come across looking absolutely convinced, credible, and that there is no question but that it is true; you have to switch on your skepticism full strength to look at his statements and see that they’re pure baloney.

Edwards is bringing up Halliburton, and Cheney’s response is basically, it’s a smokescreen and I don’t have time to argue about it. A perfect example of Cheney’s Credibility Field–pure BS, but he is relentless in insisting and acting like it’s God’s own truth.

You can really see Edward’s practice as an attorney here, for example when he asked the American people to listen very carefully to a point he was about to make, and telling viewers to carefully watch what Cheney said about the issue because of what Edwards expected him to say. These sound like what an attorney would say in giving the closing argument of a case.

Both are trading shots back and forth. Cheney directly addresses Edwards back, giving as good as he got, accusing Edwards to his face of being wrong, lacking conviction, and so forth–even taking a pot shot at Edwards about his voting record while running for office. Edwards holds his own in that respect, shooting right back. Cheney is not letting Edwards put him on the defensive like Bush did–showing that he’s a lot more capable than Bush, making you understand why Bush insisted Cheney be with him when he went before the 9/11 commission.

Both are coming across as convincing, knowledgeable, aggressive, calm, and convincing. So far, this debate looks like it will come out a tie. The only thing I can see them affecting in undecided voters is their manner: Cheney being calm, quiet and professional-looking, Edwards being more personable, likable, and just as convincing.

Okay, here we go with the second debate.

Ifill’s first question was to Cheney: Bremer said we had not enough troops, a good plan, and did not stop looting, Rumsfeld said there was no connection between Hussein and al Qaeda; Cheney’s answer was a succinct summary of all the old excuses. Edwards faced and addressed Cheney directly and told him he wasn’t being straight with the American people, and then gave what seemed like just as scripted a reply. Edwards seems to be taking the strategy of directly addressing Cheney to tell him he’s wrong.

Cheney is coming across as calm, clear and professional; Edwards is too, with a sense of easiness and a southern accent. So far both are solid in their own ways.

Okay, it looks like things may start happening fast in the next few days, and maybe last until past the end of the last debate in a week or so.

The Edwards-Cheney debate is due to start in about seven hours. A lot of people have been painting Edwards as a “silver-tongued” trial attorney, fast on his feet and experienced at zapping corporate heads before juries–but Cheney, while being the curmudgeon he is, exudes a great deal of confidence and authority; in short, he’s no pushover. This will be a challenge, for both of them.

Bush is poised to steal the limelight should Edwards score points: he has scheduled a “significant” speech at the last minute that is to focus on terrorism and the economy. There have been a few whispers about this being the “October Surprise,” but others feel that it’s just being pumped up in order to trick the networks into giving Bush live air time so he can speak without Kerry there to whup his ass.

It may be Bush taking preemptive action against Kerry before the next presidential debate, as there are reports that the White House is spreading rumors of a “revision” to jobs numbers from March 2003 to March 2004, adding as many as 288,000 jobs to that time period, adding 40% more jobs created. Have your BS Detectors on full-charge, though–economists say that the revision would be more like 140,000 jobs, which could be subtracted from the total as well as possibly being added.

Wall Street expects about 150,000 new jobs to have been created in September, which would be about the number needed to keep up with population growth–no real job growth, in other words. But that number may not be reached–there were huge layoffs this September, 107,863 to be exact, 41% more than this time last year. Layoffs were mostly in computer, transportation, telecommunications and consumer products industries–mostly high-paying markets.

In the meantime, a notable Republican has just endorsed Kerry: Marshall Wittmann, until recently an aide to Senator John McCain, is putting his weight firmly and fully behind Kerry and Edwards; give his announcement a read.

And an incentive to vote Kerry if you’re pro-choice and undecided: thirty states are poised to outlaw abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court. If Bush gets into office again–lest we forget–he will likely have a shot at at least one and perhaps as many as four appointments to the SC. Meaning that the court could be stacked solidly with conservatives who will likely be in lockstep with radical conservatives on a wide range of issues, abortion being only one. Others will concern constitutional rights and antiterrorism laws, separation of church and state, gun control, and a host of other issues of vital importance to many. That alone is good reason to vote Bush out.

There is good news in the polls: Rasmussen, one of the more honest polls, had Bush ahead of Kerry 49% to 45% just three days ago. Over each of those last two days, however, Kerry has gained one point per day, and Bush has lost the same, putting both at 47%.

Oh, and hey, remember Florida? More suspicious activity. The Republican, strongly pro-Bush secretary of state Glenda Hood is now pressuring counties to disqualify large numbers of voters based upon a technicality, namely “skipping the citizenship box if they affirmed elsewhere with their signatures that they are U.S. citizens.” In other words, they affirmed they were citizens, but if they didn’t do it twice, then they are denied the right to vote. Miami-Dade, Leon and Orange counties are defying the order, and will not deny citizens the right to vote over such a trivial oversight. Broward county, however, is gung-ho in following the order. If you recall, Broward was one of two counties in 2000 which allowed Republican operatives unlimited and illegal access to absentee ballot requests that had been filled out wrongly, essentially allowing the local GOP reps to erase all the mistakes made by Republican applicants. That was one of the several independent incidents of election fraud of which any one gave the election to Bush.

There’s a lot more, but it’s late and I’m tired… I have to wake up in time to catch the debate! Stay tuned–it’s only going to get busier.

Well, I thought I had a great way of keeping spammers at bay, with the .htaccess file. As it turns out, I also seem to be keeping out most of the legitimate visitors as well; reports have come back from helpful visitors that sometimes even access to the comments themselves is restricted. Damn. Well, the .htaccess is gone, so now there should be a lot more visitors leaving comments again… as well as a flood of spammers.

Time to start looking into MT 3.0 and comment registration again.

Update: …aaaand within just a few hours, spam starts rolling in. Ah, well. Meanwhile, the referral spamming cockroaches are crawling into the site at full force; more than 600 such spams in five days, more than any other time before.

You gotta love the title of this Seattle PI story:

Darth Cheney meets Luke Edwards

Ever since I put in the spammer-block on my mt-comments script file, I’ve had a drop-off in comments, and am beginning to wonder if it doesn’t have anything to do with the script. I have been getting comments, and all experiments with various people I’ve asked to post comments have been successful. However, one person who has my email address has noted that he had a problem commenting here from Firefox–though I tested the browser on my PC and was able to get through myself. Anyone else who can’t get a comment through can’t reach me, so I’d be unable to hear about problems like that.

The easy way would be to have an active email address for this site posted, but spammers would get it and drown me in spam (I tested that before). So here’s what I’d like to try:

I will post a comment myself to this entry. I will use a new, unique email address that I can throw away later if it get spammed. It should be protected by the spam block feature in the link (this will be a good test of that as well).

If you have tried commenting to this site before and were blocked, then get the email address from the first comment to this post and send me an email letting me know if there’s a problem.

Thanks for your help!

The tactic of using .htaccess to shut out spammers has been widely successful, but not entirely. One spammer has somehow gotten through the block, and has attempted to spam this site 534 times in the past one week. Persistent little cockroach. Thank goodness for MT Blacklist.

I still haven’t found a way to deal with the other scumwads, namely referral spammers. Tried to do an htaccess script on them as well, blocking access to anyone coming from a certain URL, but for some reason the script made the site invisible to me, and I know I didn’t use keywords that are likely to be in my ISP’s URL. Anyone know about what to do about these spammers?

Well, it’s pretty much official. In two major polls–both weighted towards Republican voters–Kerry has a post-debate bounce of 5% to 6%. Gallup has him at 49% now, as opposed to 44% before the debate; Newsweek puts Kerry at 47% as opposed to 41% before. Bush has suffered a drop of about the same amount, putting him and Kerry about equal as Kerry’s numbers are on the rise leading into the second debate.

No time to comment on it or summarize, maybe later. Give it a read though, on the Kerry web site.

One thing to keep in mind: by the time the next debate comes round, the new numbers for employment for the month of September–and possibly revisions for July and August–will be coming out, last jobs report before the election. And the economy will be one of the big issues in that debate. If the numbers stink, Bush will have to go into “around the corner” overdrive, and Kerry can mop the floor with him on it; if the numbers are good, then Kerry will have to try to make the point about overall job loss, outsourcing and the deterioration of job quality, while Bush can simply smirk and say, “the numbers are good.” But the Veep candidates will get first shot: the numbers are due out on October 8th, the day of the Edwards-Cheney debate.

Food for thought.

Well, the first major post-debate poll is out, and it has Kerry leaping ahead of Bush. Remember, Newsweek was one of the polls which had Bush out in front by double digits, as they disproportionately weight their polls towards Republican voters. Their last poll had Bush ahead 52% to Kerry’s 41%.

And now? Kerry leads with 47% to Bush’s 45%, a huge change from before–and remember, the poll is still weighted towards Republicans. It will be very interesting indeed to see what one of the more balanced polls will demonstrate in the next few days. And if one of them has Kerry with a significant lead, will all the news services trumpet it as much as they trumpeted Bush’s lead before?

On a side not, it seems that Newsweek is also paying attention to the blogs. Soon after Newsweek reported that Bush’s lead had “all but evaporated,” Josh Marshall jumped on them for inaccuracy: according to their poll, Bush’s lead had entirely evaporated., and Kerry led by two points. And soon after, Newsweek, in an update, changed the headline to say that Bush’s lead “has evaporated.” Not as egregious as FOX’s errors and later revisions, but it does emphasize how much clout bloggers are beginning to have as counterweights to the major news sites.

By the way, my absentee ballot arrived in the mail yesterday. In an interesting twist, much of the ballot is crossed out, preventing me from voting on city and county races and all initiatives in the state. I’m OK with it, but it makes me a bit nervous–will they cross out Senate and House races next?

Apparently they might–it’s already happening in some states. According to Ruth McCreery of Democrats Abroad,

We have already found several counties that are placing restrictions on overseas voters (such as requiring copies of ID with the ballot or re-registering after the primary) that are contrary to federal law. We have also found that several California counties are sending out what is labelled a “sample ballot” instead of a real one, and some in Indiana are only sending out the ballot for state offices, with extremely obscure instructions about securing a federal ballot. One county in another state left the candidates for House of Representatives off the federal ballot!

When you get yours, better check it carefully. Make sure it is all in order, read the instructions excruciatingly carefully, do everything by the numbers, and send it back soon. I just hope the post office will get it there in time–when I sent in my absentee ballot request, by registered mail, the Japanese P.O. mucked it up and didn’t get it there until an entire month later. They still haven’t delivered me the receipt. This time I’m sending it from the Shinjuku Main Post Office, no local yokel branch for this delivery.

Atrios caught FOX News representing the Republican group “Communists for Kerry” as an actual pro-Kerry group, when in fact it is a Republican group running a “satire” web site. The original FOX story read:

Of course, there were some Kerry supporters in attendance who had no doubts whatever about their candidate.

“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.

Apparently, word got back to FOX that they had screwed up yet again, and so they altered the story, without comment or explanation, at the exact same address of the original story:

And then there were the pranksters in the audience . . . the Communists for Kerry (who, in fact, are rooting for Bush) and the Billionaires for Bush (who, of course, are Kerry supporters).

“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.

One would think that they would at least have the decency to post an Editor’s Note explaining why they posted this fake story, like they did yesterday with the story that contained fake Kerry quotes.

I guess that fatigue and poor judgment must be endemic at FOX News.