This site predicts the Electoral Votes as Kerry 302 and Bush 232 (Kerry wins). Updated frequently. The last site below gave Kerry 286 in March (beating Bush with 252). So, in this very unscientific process, Kerry’s lead is increasing. mjh
Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004
Bush Campaign Distortions Keep National Guard Story Alive
By Joshua Micah Marshall
When the president filled out his enlistment papers, those forms included a checkbox asking whether he wanted to serve overseas or not. The president checked off the box labeled ”I Do Not” volunteer to serve overseas.
Just when you start to wonder why and how much President Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service record should be an issue in the 2004 campaign, a light goes on over your head. Why? Because he and his surrogates and spokesmen simply won’t stop lying about it. …
The president’s and Kerry’s service records, ”compare very favorably,” said [the president’s campaign chairman and chief election spokesman, former Montana Gov. Marc] Racicot.
The president ”signed up for dangerous duty,” he said. ”He volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wasn’t selected to go but nonetheless served his country very well.”
You didn’t know the president volunteered to go to Vietnam? If this is news to you, it’s probably because it’s simply not true. …
When the president filled out his enlistment papers, those forms included a checkbox asking whether he wanted to serve overseas or not. The president checked off the box labeled ”I Do Not” volunteer to serve overseas.
In recent years, the president and his aides have had different explanations for how that checkmark got there. Some have speculated that some other, unknown person checked off that box without the president’s knowledge. Somewhat more plausibly, they’ve suggested that he was instructed to check off that box since obviously what he was really trying to do was sign up for service in Texas, not Vietnam.
However that check got there, the fact that the president filled out a form stating explicitly that he did not volunteer for service in Vietnam would seem to create at least a few credibility problems for Racicot when he claims the president did just the opposite.
—
Originally published in The Hill, a weekly covering congressional and White House affairs.
mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: On Overview of Bush’s Alabama Controversy
My favorite of THE WOOD’s environmental photos from Metaquerque. It’s a bit more whimsical than this Alibi cover. mjh
Reagan, Race and Remembrance on
the Great Divide
by Tim Wise
This is the twisted psychosis of growing up privileged, as a member of the dominant group: a group
that must view their nation as fair and just, as a place struck off by the literal hand of God, as a place where ”average” guys
like Ronald Reagan can become ”great leaders.” As a place where an ”aw shucks” smile, and a profound lack of knowledge about
the details of public policy — or even the names of foreign leaders — is not only not cause for embarrassment, but yet another good
reason to vote for someone; where refusing to read up on important policy details prior to a key international meeting so one can watch
The Sound of Music on TV, is seen as endearing rather than cause for a recall.
This is why we get people like George W. Bush, for
those who haven’t figured it out yet. Oh sure, vote fraud and a pliant Supreme Court help, but were it not for the love affair white
Americans have with mediocrity posing as leadership, things never could have gotten this far.
It’s why a bona fide moron like
Tom Delay can brag about not having a passport (because, after all,
why would anyone want to travel abroad and leave ”Amur’ca,” even for a day) and not be seen as the epitome of a blithering
idiot, and why he could probably be elected again and again in thousands of white dominated congressional districts in this country,
and not merely in Texas.
Village Voice: Nation: Press Clips: Das Rongold by Richard Goldstein
Reagan’s funeral as a Wagnerian opera.
And every other
piece of news was pulled into the funeral’s magnetic orb. Ray Charles’s death was dealt with by working his rendition of ”God Bless
America” into the soundtrack. That was a deeply ironic flourish in an almost lily-white — and for that matter, masculine —
occasion. Women may have a place on the battlefield, but they can’t be trusted to carry the Great One’s coffin or handle the flag that
drapes it. Manly shoulders must bear him to his rest. (Mohammed Atta, who stipulated in his will that no women attend his funeral, would
have understood.)
of Former President Reagan
William Bennett, America’s scold, still sells books and speaks
publicly after his gambling addiction was revealed. Lush, er, Rush Limbaugh bounced back quite quickly from his addiction to
prescription drugs — and his violation of federal law. Greg Payne has returned from alcoholism (and ‘assault’ with a can). What
makes these three models of redemption? Oh, yeah, they’re conservative. Is it too late for former Judge Brennan to join the
Republican Party?
The truth is, until conservatives took power, American’s believed crime was an aberration and one could pay
one’s debt and resume a normal life. Now, we have a larger percentage of citizens in prison than the old Soviet Union or China. Now, we
don’t punish, we torture. From Nixon to Reagan to Bush, we’ve grown meaner and more afraid, at home and abroad.
mjh
It is my pleasure to announce a new member of the EdgeWise community: www.abogadapress.com. Abogada
Press publishes legal self-help books, including Life Planning in New
Mexico, by Merri Rudd (Bernalillo County Probate Judge), and Family Law in
New Mexico, by Barbara L. Shapiro (attorney).
Though not a blog, www.abogadapress.com is a public-interest website I developed and host. In the interest of full
disclosure: Merri Rudd and I are long-time companions. mjh
Report: World military spending nears Cold War levels
World
military spending surged during 2003, reaching $956 billion, nearly half of it by the United States as it paid for missions in
Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror [according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute]. …
Military spending
rose by 11 percent, which the group called a remarkable increase. The amount was up 18 percent from 2001.
The $956 billion spent
on defense costs worldwide corresponded to 2.7 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, according to the annual report.
”It’s very close to the Cold War peak in 1987,” said institute researcher Elisabeth Skoens, who co-authored the report. …
The United States led the world in defense spending, accounting for 47 percent of the total[mjh: !], followed by Japan with 5
percent and Britain, France and China with 4 percent each.
So the world (the US) is spending nearly as much today on
defense as we did at the height of the Cold War. Then, our enemy was a superpower with massive weapons of destruction and a huge army.
Now, our enemy uses box cutters and donkey carts. Something’s not quite right.
Could it be that the Military-Industrial Complex has
seized the opportunity to continue to grow fat on fear? Are you safer than you were 4 years ago? mjh