Sunday, October 31, 2004
How Republicans feel about your right to vote
About 9:30 last night, I saw a man ripping down the large “VOTE HERE” signs from the light poles at the Multnomah County Elections office. He had a stack of 2 or 3 other similar signs, and threw them all into the back of his pickup. I was sitting at the light at SE 11th and Morrison waiting for the light to turn. He pulled away from the curb and stopped at the light at 11th and Belmont where I pulled up behind him.
It was a white Toyota Tundra pickup, Oregon license plate YCU 964, with Bush/Cheney stickers and a “I’d rather be RIGHT than Politically Correct” bumpersticker. It had some other Republican stickers on it I didn’t catch.
This just seems typical of some Republicans - anything to suppress the vote in a highly Democratic area. The building itself is fairly nondescript, without the signs, it’s not at all obvious what it is.
I’ve talked to people at the elections office and filed a report with the Portland police, now let’s see if anything comes of it. I hope they go visit the guy and find a stack of stolen signs in his possession. A little jail time would be a good civics lesson, in this case…
- Bob Woods
Also:
Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to block thousands of young people’s votes, following a request by GOP lawyers to review ballots cast by first-time voters in Oregon’s most populous county.
In a letter issued Friday, attorneys for the Oregon Republican Party demanded that ballots cast by voters in Multnomah County who have not provided proof of identification be set aside and challenged if necessary.
Democrats challenged that request Sunday, saying it flies in the face of Oregon law, which does not require voters to show proof of identification when registering.
At stake are the votes of 207,053 first-time voters, of whom 73,226 are between the ages of 18 and 24. Nearly a third live in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, according to Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.
Monday, October 25, 2004
In Deep Qa Qaa
This morning I heard on the news what the Bush administration has been trying to keep under wraps for a year and a half - that 760,000 pounds of super high-yield military-grade RCX and HMX high explosives, with an explosive power of well over a megaton of TNT have been stolen from an Iraqi facility in al Qa Qaa, south of Baghdad. Less than a pound of this explosive was sufficient to bring down Flight 103 over Scotland back in 1988.
The explosives had been turned over to U.S. control from the IAEA, and had been under UN guard for years, as part of the UN sanctions sneeringly dismissed by Bush and the neocons. Sanctions that look more and more as having done their job. The explosives were noted by U.S. troops as being in place in April 2003. Then, as the insurgency started to roll in Iraq, the explosives were left unguarded due to the grossly inadequate level of troops.
The Bush administration barred the UN from any involvement in the invasion of Iraq and occupation process, and blocked all IAEA requests to help in the search for WMD and other dangerous materials. The administration has known of the theft for a year and a half, but ordered the Iraqi provisional government to keep quiet about it and not tell the IAEA.
No wonder a high-ranking administration official told Chris Nelson (author of ‘The Nelson Report’, an Asian business and politics newsletter), “This is the stuff the bad guys have been using to kill our troops, so you can’t ignore the political implications of this, and you would be correct to suspect that politics, or the fear of politics, played a major role in delaying the release of this information.”
In response to questions about whether the material might have been smuggled out of Iraq, another source told Nelson, “It’s still in Iraq, and this is the most likely primary source of the explosives which have been used to blow up Humvees and in all the deadly car bomb attacks since the occupation began. What the hell were WE doing in the year and a half from the time we knew the stuff was gone, is obviously a huge question, and you can imagine why no one [in the Administration] wants to face up to it, certainly not before the election.”
Of course, they don’t want to face up to it.
It is just one more glaring example of utter incompetance and dishonesty.
- Bob Woods
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Abortion crusade turns Republican women off Bush
Joanna Walters in New York
Sunday October 24, 2004
The Observer
George Bush’s crackdown on abortion has inflamed women in his own party to the point where they are openly turning against their President.
Fuelled by a fear that a Bush victory in next month’s election could lead to many states overturning 30 years of legal terminations in the US, several moderate Republican women are rebelling against the crusade against sex education and unmarried women’s access to contraception.
Linda Binder, a Republican State Senator in the conservative state of Arizona, is typical. Despite voting for Bush in 2000, she has pulled her support over what she calls his ‘wacky, far right’ position on women’s rights.
‘We don’t want to go back to coathanger abortions… As legislators, my fellow moderates are feeling the push for more faith-based programmes on sex education and contraception coming from the Bush administration,’ she said.
Binder, 56, is one of a growing number of Republican women renegades infuriated by Bush’s slogan that the W in his name ‘stands for women’.
Mary Lou Halliburton, a Colorado Republican, is a retired lawyer who worked in the Nixon White House and of the family who founded Halliburton - the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney and now enjoying a $7.5bn contract in Iraq.
She helped create a group called Republicans Who Want Their Party Back.
‘Our issues and concerns are everything from foreign policy to deficit spending to choice to stem cell research to the Iraq war,’ she said.
If Bush is re-elected he is expected to appoint more conservative judges to the Supreme Court, who will overturn the 1973 Roe V Wade case that legalised abortion in the US. Federal restrictions already imposed by Bush on abortions have led to women being refused terminations after only 13 weeks, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
‘It has become illegal here for a girl to get an abortion without her parents’ consent. You cannot legally get the morning after pill - even if you have been raped,’ said Binder.
She will not reveal who she will vote for on 2 November. But many suspect she will vote for Kerry.
Judith Allen, another lifelong Republican, has no reticence. This former Superior Court clerk is a member of Republicans for Kerry, which contributes funds to the Democrats. It is estimated to have many thousands of members.
‘I just do not have the sense that Bush is bright. And I’m embarrassed to say that about our President,’ she said.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Editorials up the wazoo
It’s election editorial endorsement time, kiddies - Here’s a pile of links to the articles online and excerpts. Quite a few have been from papers that endorsed Bush the last time around. Seems that many switched their position this time, due to the all-too-obvious incompetance of Bush and his cronies. Here’s the pile-o’-links to the editorials, click the “More” link to get the short-and-sweet excerpts. (Note: some of these links will not work for long, as the websites move or archive each day’s articles)
- Bob Woods
www.oregonlive.com
www.nytimes.com
www.floridatoday.com
www.ohio.com
www.bradenton.com
www.grandforks.com
www.roanoke.com
www.dailycamera.com
www.sptimes.com
www.miami.com (may require registration)
www.kansascity.com
www.freep.com
www.startribune.com
www.boston.com
www.daytondailynews.com (registration)
www.news-journalonline.com
www.dailystar.com
www.dailyherald.com
www.mercurynews.com
www.fresnobee.com
www.charlotte.com
www.cavalierdaily.com
www.sfgate.com
www.palmbeachpost.com
www.abqtrib.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/campaigncentral/oregonian/opi ...
Bush’s term in office has been marked by two major failures. One is his conduct of the war in Iraq. The other is his stewardship of the nation’s fiscal health. Bush ran for president as a “compassionate conservative.” But true conservatives don’t choose to go to war without proper planning or pursue fiscal policies leading to the deepest federal deficits in our nation’s history…
We believe the White House’s policy-makers approached the war with preconceived notions about success based on what the president later called “just guessing.” They brushed aside warnings and contrary opinions. They chose ideology over expertise. This arrogance led to a series of military, political and diplomatic blunders and, we believe, resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many brave Americans…
In almost every area, deliberate gaps between the administration’s rhetoric and reality have become routine. Last year’s misinformation about the cost of Medicare drug coverage is just one example…
Foreign leaders may well understand that their long-term interests lie in sticking with the United States. But Bush has made it politically impossible for them to do so. Kerry has some chance of rebuilding the international alliances that Bush and his people have shattered…
We believe the top choices in a Kerry administration also would be more vigorous in pursuing both the letter and spirit of the nation’s environmental protection laws. A Kerry attorney general might have a more coherent and defensible view of citizens’ civil liberties and constitutional rights than John Ashcroft, Bush’s attorney general…
One or more seats on the high court may open in the next four years, and it would be a shame if they were filled with jurists with political and social agendas who seek to turn back the clock. We believe Kerry would nominate more moderate candidates to the court.
When George W. Bush took office in a deeply divided nation, he promised to reach out to unite the country. If anything, he has helped make the rifts deeper. That may be his real failure as president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?o ...
There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush’s disastrous tenure….
We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge. Another Bush selection, J. Leon Holmes, a federal judge in Arkansas, has written that wives must be subordinate to their husbands and compared abortion rights activists to Nazis…
We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.
http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/opedstory1017WKERRY.htm ...
This is what America faces this morning:
U.S. troops are under fire and dying in Iraq—the worst foreign-policy debacle since Vietnam—in a war that didn’t need to be fought.
More Americans are without health care, nearly 45 million, and in poverty, almost 36 million, than ever in the nation’s history.
Working-class families are steadily losing ground as decent-paying jobs disappear, while a record federal budget deficit and historic national debt are drowning the country in red ink that will choke future generations.
That’s the tip of the iceberg, and all of it has occurred under President George W. Bush.
Stay the course? Not us, and neither should the nation.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/editorial/99 ...
George W. Bush has embarked on paths both at home and abroad that depart radically from the concept of sound stewardship….Bush the younger has presided over the squandering of the budget surplus. He has so poorly managed the war against terrorism that the unity of that ghastly day has virtually evaporated, the country neglecting alliances nurtured over generations, largely going alone in a fight that requires a corresponding network of countries to subdue a far-flung organization of killers….The president talks about “hard work.’’ He has made the task immensely more difficult (in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere) with his long string of blunders.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/opinion/993 ...
Even as Iraq moves closer to anarchy, the president is in a state of denial. His rosy assessments of progress are mocked by the rising toll of American casualties, the savage beheading of American citizens and the virtual siege of the country by enemy forces. Bush’s defense of this chaos - “Winning the peace is hard work” - is a pathetic defense of such incompetence….
Remember, 9/11 occurred on Bush’s watch and has been characterized as the biggest intelligence failure in American history. Yet not a single person responsible for that failure has been fired, and Bush cannot think of a single mistake he might have made…
It comes down to this simple question famously asked by Ronald Reagan in 1980: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer, clearly, is no.
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/editorial ...
The Bush administration inherited a budget surplus. In four years, it has produced the largest budget deficit in American history.
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials%5C12328.html
President George W. Bush has failed that iconic America and the somewhat flawed real thing. In four years, he has damaged the United States at home and abroad. He does not deserve re-election; he has richly earned defeat….
He pursued an arrogant foreign policy with single-minded determination to turn 9/11 into an opportunity to invade oil-rich Iraq. That decision defined the administration and revealed it as manifestly incompetent, from its hyped interpretation of prewar intelligence to its na•ve confidence in a quick, stable peace in the end. Iraq, it turns out, was not a terrorist threat. But it is now….
Soon after 9/11, the president told Americans eager to sacrifice for their country that they should go shopping. And he spent his political capital on the wealthy, for huge tax cuts.
Kerry’s commitment to principles of freedom and justice will draw to his administration a strong corps of advisers schooled in real-world geopolitics, unlike Bush’s clique of blinkered neocons.
After four ruinous Bush years, John Kerry is clearly the right choice on Nov. 2. We heartily recommend him to voters.
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/editorials/article/0,171 ...
This nation did not have to become as fractured, overextended and isolated as it is today. It did not have to define its military objectives so broadly — and everything else, from civil liberties to economic and social needs, so narrowly. To treat those changes as inevitable, or to dismiss them with a defiant chorus of “We’re at war!”, is to deny that the most powerful nation on Earth had any choice in shaping its own destiny. It did. The United States chose to follow a course set by George W. Bush, and is weaker today because of it….
The United States will pay a price for years because President Bush failed to anticipate, manage or speak candidly about the consequences of the war….
Bring on new leadership, a new vision and new hope. John Kerry is the clear choice in the 2004 election.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/17/Opinion/John_Kerry_is ...
Yet the president continues to try to defend the indefensible: pre-emptive war based only on the possibility that Iraq might one day have posed an imminent threat to the United States. That standard makes a mockery of American tradition and international law. It also sets a dangerous precedent that could be seized by other governments claiming a right to pre-emptive war….
The best evidence of the poverty of the Bush administration’s record is the Bush re-election team’s incessantly negative campaign against John Kerry….
…if addiction to federal spending and big deficits is the mark of a liberal, Bush, not Kerry, is the biggest liberal in U.S. history.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/99301 ... (may require registration)
Insisting that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein while ignoring the price being paid, not to mention the failure to discover illicit weapons or the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, indicates the absence of a learning curve.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/news/opini ...
So much has changed in one presidential election cycle. Today, Americans worry on a daily basis about terrorist threats, a bungled U.S. occupation in Iraq, international disapproval, widespread job insecurity, runaway federal budget deficits and a host of other problems.
The challenges ahead, particularly in defending the United States from catastrophic attacks, call for a national leader with energy, intelligence, focus and determination.
Over the last four years, President Bush has amply demonstrated that he is not such a leader….
In talking about the “pre-9-11 mentality,” some humility on the part of Cheney and Bush would be in order. They are Exhibit A for this defect, as the final report from the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission makes clear….
The list of administration mistakes in Iraq is a long and depressing one: Inattention to planning and expert advice, failure to deploy enough troops and to ensure that they were adequately equipped, failure to quickly secure ammunition dumps and other key facilities, Bush’s embarrassingly premature declaration of victory last year, shifting strategies for dealing with extremists, no-bid contracts and too-early transfer of power last summer to a weak interim government.
Special note must be taken of the horrendous abuses of prisoners in Iraq, an international embarrassment for which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should have either resigned or been fired…
Kerry is a man of obvious intelligence, compassion, patriotism and courage whose presidency would be guided by a clear understanding of what went wrong in the last four years and what needs to be done in the next four.
http://www.freep.com/voices/editorials/eprez4_20041004
The Free Press believes the nation will be better served by electing DEMOCRAT JOHN KERRY as the next president of these United States, and we emphasize united…
John Kerry offers new approaches that are worth trying. But it is Bush who has really made the case for change. The Free Press endorses JOHN KERRY for president.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/5035411.html
While seeking office in 2000, Bush defined himself as “a uniter, not a divider.” He has proved to be the most divisive, insular and partisan president since Richard Nixon. He ran as a moderate, but has pursued radical goals that have plunged the nation into debt and injected the government into the most personal of family matters. He promised to conduct foreign policy humbly, yet he repeatedly spurned allies, culminating in his arrogant and misguided rush to war on Iraq.
Nothing in President Bush’s performance has been more damaging to U.S. strength and security than his wholesale redefinition of America’s relationship with other nations. Disdainful of policy nuances, Bush relied on a small group of advisers to craft a dangerous departure from consultative foreign policy….
…And instead of waging an open assault on environmental protections, Bush hid plans to weaken air pollution laws and open more public lands to logging behind Orwellian names like “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests.”
The United States is paying for all this—with a declining standard of living for the middle class, a massive debt left to future generations, and a weakened position abroad. A turnaround is essential.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/edit ... /
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the presidential historian, was asked by Globe editors recently whether he saw any comparisons between Kerry and John F. Kennedy, in whose administration Schlesinger served. Although he knew Kennedy better, he said he found the two men “similar in that they prove politicians can be intellectuals.” Despite the general debasement of American politics, this is still a desirable trait in a president….
Iraq, simply put, is out of control. Kerry is best qualified bring it under control, not least by reassuring the Iraqis themselves that the United States does not have permanent designs on their strategic bases or oil….
Kerry is best suited to heal our painful rifts now—not just with the community of nations but within this nation, rent by social, ideological, economic, and religious divisions. These sap the strength of America. We are confident a Kerry presidency will restore both unity and strength.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/content/opinion /... (registration)
The nation confronts a failed presidency. George W. Bush has done serious harm with his most important foreign and domestic trusts, and he has managed this democracy all wrong….
For the first time in history, we are fighting a major war while cutting taxes and without a draft. The president has ignored the views of military leaders with Mideast experience about how difficult the aftermath of war would be.
History will marvel that anybody undertook to change the world so cheaply….
The president has been so wrong about so much that’s so important: wrong about whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction; wrong in seeing meaningful ties between al-Qaida and Iraq; wrong about expecting Americans to be welcomed as liberators; wrong in saying long ago that “in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
Today nobody knows whether Iraq is salvageable. And nobody has any reason to believe the president on the subject….
John Kerry is a credible, prepared, likely choice for a nation that should expect more sophistication, more skill, less failure and more focus on the problems of the American mainstream than George W. Bush has offered.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opi ...
Case against Bush
Eight months later, his embarrassing performance—indulging his party’s religious fringe, shilling for big corporate cronies, withdrawing from foreign alliances, cloaking his administration in secrecy—had so disgusted the majority of Americans that his approval rating was in freefall at 49 percent. Rarely has a presidency plummeted so low so fast so early in its first term. Mention of a second term became a punch line.
Until Sept. 11, 2001. On the day the Twin Towers collapsed, Bush resurrected his presidency on the rubble of fear. It is to that fear that he returns now, implying that voters risk graver danger from terrorists if they deny him a second term.
Fear is the dominant, almost exclusive message of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. It has to be. Without fear to fuel the language of war, this administration can’t maintain the illusion of legitimacy. Its policies, domestic and foreign, are bankrupt, its promises shards of hubris. Take a look at the broken pieces….
But why then, given the forecast of a $500 billion deficit and counting, did he push Congress to make the tax cuts permanent long after he declared the recession ended? And why weren’t those tax cuts directed primarily to the working middle class, whose consumer spending fuels two-thirds of the economy? The more believable answer is that Bush is presiding over one of the largest deliberate transfers of wealth in this nation’s history.
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/allheadlines/41363.p ...
It is clear that a change is needed. We believe the policies and management style that Kerry represents offer more hope than the current administration’s stubborn allegiance to isolationist rhetoric, the unjustified use of military force and economic policies that provide instant gratification to some and long-term danger to the nation as a whole.
For many voters, unfortunately, the election is essentially a personality contest. People tend to regard the candidates the way they do celebrities. And while that is always a mistake, this year it would be a particularly egregious mistake to vote without examining closely the leadership qualities and philosophical underpinnings of each presidential hopeful....
President Bush had never served in a state legislature or either house of Congress before he was elected. His only preparation for the job had been six years as governor of Texas and social contact with his father’s friends and associates. The effects of this shallow background, coupled with a simplistic world view, can be seen in the deadly chaos of Iraq, the decline of U.S. prestige abroad and impending domestic crises in health care and Social Security....
Come January, either Bush or Kerry will have to address the deteriorating mess in Iraq as well as the deficit and the approaching drain on the Social Security trust from baby boomers reaching retirement age.
And just as there is no evidence that Bush ever accepted the predictions of his intelligence and security experts with respect to Iraq, there is nothing to suggest that he will reverse his politically opportunistic tax cuts…
President Bush had four years to prove himself and did poorly. It is time to elect a president with a broader understanding of international affairs and a greater concern for the welfare of those living on slender incomes. Elect John Kerry.
http://www.dailyherald.com/oped/index.asp
But before long, the president veered far off-course, and a review of his four years underscores that he and his band of neoconservatives have not acted conservatively in any sense of the word.
They have driven the budget deficit to record levels with no honest plan to reverse course....
Most seriously, the president rushed the nation into a war in Iraq that increasingly looks unwinnable, using a shifting series of justifications. The war has further destabilized the Middle East. It has siphoned resources needed to stabilize Afghanistan and hunt down Osama bin Laden’s organization and face tyrannies that appear even more threatening in Iran and North Korea. We simply cannot endorse this record or the man most responsible for it.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion ...
Bush does not merit another four years as president. A part of our recommendation of Kerry is simple: He is not Bush. But Kerry is a good choice on his own merits as well....
While indecision is not a virtue in a president, an ability to understand issues in all their complexity is. The world is not the black-and-white TV show Bush seems to think it is…
George Bush likes to remind voters that “you know where I stand.’’ It’s not always true. Too often when it is, it’s not where we think the country ought to be. John Kerry is in the right place. Americans should put him in the White House.
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/9292568p-1019794 ...
When he campaigned in 2000, George W. Bush said he would be a “uniter, not a divider.” The closeness of that election made that unlikely, and the course of his administration has made the very idea preposterous. The nation has paid a steep price during the Bush presidency — mounting deficits and debt at home, loss of standing and effectiveness abroad.
Based on the president’s record, he has not earned a second term…
Voters have plenty of reasons to deny Bush a second term, but two stand out. Consider the twin centerpieces of the Bush presidency — the war in Iraq and tax cuts.
The invasion of Iraq was a war of choice, not of necessity. It has overextended our military and limited our options in dealing with the more immediate threats of al-Qaida and nuclear proliferation.
In the rush to war, Bush assumed the presence of weapons of mass destruction but did not confirm it — and none were found. He assumed an easy change of regimes and, thus, did not anticipate the current insurgency. He didn’t even make sure that our forces secured conventional weapons and ammunition dumps, which are now being raided and used to attack American soldiers and Iraqis. The very thing Bush said he sought to prevent — the spread of weapons to terrorists — he has brought about…
The Bush circle is so self-enclosed and Bush himself so protected from dissenting views that they seem unaware of the long-term consequences of their policies. John Kerry is the best choice in this election.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/editorial/99 ...
Why, then, do we think change is needed? One further quality is indispensable for the chief executive: judgment. We think George W. Bush has made the wrong choices on too many matters important to our country. We will focus on three: Iraq, the tax cuts and the deficit…
Recent polls find more than 50 percent of Americans think our nation is headed in the wrong direction. We agree that on many scientific policies, the environment, poverty, international relations, judicial appointments and civil rights, America needs a new course.
We’re concerned, too, about how the Bush White House works. Some say it is a rigid, secretive place where on some vital issues dissenting opinions are not welcome and criticism is not heard. To some, it may be reassuring that a president can survey the past three-plus years and see no mistake worth mentioning. To us, it’s alarming.
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/lead.asp?pid=1196
The president’s one-track mind for Saddam Hussein’s ouster prompted the deception of America regarding weapons of mass destruction, and his push for unilateral military intervention over diplomacy alienated most of the world. Kerry’s level-headedness and absence of personal vendettas will ensure a more rational, cooperative approach to world relations. With potentially volatile situations in North Korea and Iran, the senator will provide a desired alternative to the current cowboy mentality in the White House.
Now that the war in Iraq is sucking billions of dollars out of the federal budget, it only makes sense to reevaluate our tax policy. Simply, it’s completely unprecedented to cut taxes in a time of war…
Particularly troubling about Bush’s convictions is the blind eye he is willing to turn in order to satisfy his ideological framework. Teenagers shouldn’t be having sex? Then abstinence education is the only feasible option. No WMDs in Iraq? We’re spreading democracy in the Middle East. Thankfully, Kerry is worldly enough to recognize that one person’s motives should not be guiding science, reproductive choices or international relations....
The repercussions of this year’s elections will last for decades in everything from the Iraqi occupation to precedent-setting Supreme Court cases and tax reform. Nearly all of these issues will touch every citizen in some way, especially college-age voters who will be coming into their own as the next president’s policies take effect. So invest the time to vote Nov. 2, and vote for John Kerry.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronic ...
Bush, with his good-versus-evil certitude on everything from foreign policy to same-sex marriage, has failed that test of leadership for these troubled times.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/ep ...
There are many reasons to declare George W. Bush a failed president. We frame the election in terms of why people should vote for Sen. John Kerry.
John Kerry would not rush the country into a war that harms the campaign against terrorism, stretches the military dangerously thin and diverts attention from real nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea. Instead, he would refocus attention on Al-Qaeda and try to reclaim the near-worldwide sympathy, goodwill and cooperation that flowed to this country after 9/11 and which President Bush squandered by invading Iraq…
John Kerry would not allow unfair tax cuts and unchecked spending to swell the deficit, threatening the nation’s economy and passing on huge IOUs to younger Americans. Unlike President Bush, whose ideas for tax reform would shift the burden from wealthier Americans to working Americans by taxing wages or consumption more, John Kerry would not allow the tax system to punish the middle class…
John Kerry would not favor an energy policy whose centerpiece is drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which contains at most a six-month supply of oil. He would not allow his vice president to hold secret hearings with energy executives, allow them to write a policy that pleases them but doesn’t help the country, then fight in court on the public’s tab to keep the public from knowing what happened in those meetings.
John Kerry would not support an environmental policy that is named “Clear Skies” but actually would be an industry-authored pollution authorization bill. He would not ignore the problem of global warming until just before running for reelection. He would not dismiss science just because it contradicts his policies. He would not compile the worst environmental record of any modern president. He would embrace new, job-creating technology that cleans the air and water. He would realize that self-enforcement of environmental laws is an open invitation to pollute.
In Wednesday’s third debate, as in the first two, John Kerry looked and sounded presidential while Mr. Bush looked confused. Mr. Bush has spent so much time before handpicked audiences that he was puzzled when he threw out campaign applause lines and got silence back. Sen. Kerry displayed more command of issues and showed Americans that he isn’t the campaign caricature drawn by the president’s political henchmen…
Through arrogance and ignorance, the reckless ideologue who called himself “a uniter, not a divider” has divided the country against itself and the world against the country. He has bullied, not persuaded. He has made America weaker, not stronger. Desperately seeking reelection, President Bush refuses to acknowledge the reality of Iraq, offering such platitudes as “freedom is on the march” when the country wants a plan.
John Kerry is not in denial about Iraq or any of the other problems Mr. Bush will have left him. Unless the nation is in denial, Sen. Kerry will win on Nov. 2. Anyone who has failed as badly as Mr. Bush does not deserve another chance.
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/opinions04/101204_opini ...
The Tribune endorses John Kerry for president of the United States.
He has earned the job - and the chance to return security, prosperity, freedom, consensus and the American identity to a nation at odds with the world and itself.
The United States has lost its way under President Bush, who too often has failed on both foreign and domestic fronts....
Bush, whom The Tribune endorsed in 2000, has offered simplistic slogans to complex problems, while Kerry sees complicated problems and offers the promise of appropriate solutions - complex or not…
...the damage Bush has done to U.S. interests and respect, both internally and externally, has been devastating and long term.
From the war in Iraq and the acidic sections of the Patriot Act to global warming and national energy policy, Bush’s foreign and domestic policies have been based on secrecy, fear, distortion and misinformation…
Bush continues to insult American intelligence with his:
Mistaken and unreal views of the war in Iraq, with its mounting costs in American and Iraqi lives, money and good will.
Failure to focus U.S. military might on pursuing our real enemy, the terrorists.
Willingness to compromise American freedoms, in contrast to a resistance to develop and implement safeguards to protect our people, borders, ports and infrastructure from future terror attacks.
Unabashed flip-flop of the conservative fiscal ideal, turning a balanced federal budget - indeed, a huge surplus - into the largest deficit in U.S. history.
Unrelenting attack on 30 years of environmental promise to benefit political friends in the fossil fuel and utility industries.
Willingness to accept a $422 billion federal deficit, a ballooning $7.42 trillion national debt and grossly unfair tax cuts.
Oregon Police Fire On Bystanders Watching Presidential Motorcade
portions from the Crawford, TX (!) Iconoclast
and the Medford Mail Tribune
October 17, 2004
JACKSONVILLE, Ore. — Things got out of hand last week in Jacksonville, Ore., leaving some local residents there expressing fear of freely voicing their opinions.
Some residents of Jacksonville feel that their First Amendment rights were taken away as they witnessed an encounter that resulted in pepper balls fired into crowds of men, women, and children as an abrupt “sweep” of a sidewalk erupted into chaos as the presidential motorcade drove by last Thursday.
According to a news story in the Medford Mail Tribune, one man said he was shot in the back seven times with pepper balls (plastic paint balls filled with capsaicin). He said he saw a man get hit with a baton and fall to the ground. “With my back to the police — as I was picking him up — that’s when I was shot.”
Trish Bowcock, a resident of Jacksonville and a retired attorney, was an eyewitness to the disturbance and penned her impressions of the scene from a personal standpoint.
Mail Tribune staff members confirmed her contention that law enforcement concentrated on anti-Bush protestors, rather than pro-Bush demonstrators, and that the order to stop the protests came from the U.S. Secret Service. Mail Tribune coverage of the protest is available at http://www.mailtribune.com/.
Silenced by the President
By Trish Bowcock
Oct. 16, 2004
A few weeks before my father died, he woke me in the wee hours of the morning. He needed to talk. He was worried about Attorney General John Ashcroft and the destruction of American civil liberties. I comforted my father, believing he was delusional from medications. I was wrong.
I write this from my home in Jacksonville Oregon (population 2,226). President George W. Bush came here this week. The purpose of his visit was political. Southern Oregon has been deemed a “battle ground” area in the presidential race. John Kerry has made incredible inroads in this traditionally Republican stronghold. President Bush’s campaign stop was an attempt to staunch the slide.
Jacksonville is an old gold mining town. Our main street is only five blocks long, lined with restored storefronts. The sidewalks are narrow. We are a peaceful community. The prospect of an overnight presidential visit was exciting, even to me, a lifelong Democrat. My excitement turned to horror as I watched events unfold during President Bush’s visit.
In the mid 1800s, when Indians invaded Jacksonville, citizens clambered upon the roof of the old library. It was the one building that would not catch fire when flaming arrows were shot. This week it was a different scene. Police armed with high powered rifles perched upon our rooftops as the presidential motorcade approached. Helicopters flew low, overhead. A cadre of motorcycle police zoomed into town. Black SUVs followed, sandwiching several black limousines carrying the president, his wife and their entourage as they sped to the local inn where they would eat and sleep.
The main street was lined with people gathered to witness the event. Many supported the president. Many did not. Some came because they were simply curious. There were men, women, young and old. The mood was somewhat festive. Supporters of John Kerry sported signs, as did supporters of George Bush. Individuals, exercising their rights of free speech began chanting. On one side of the street, shouts of “four more years” echoed in the night air. On the other side of the street, chants of “three more weeks” responded. The chants were loud and apparently could be heard by President Bush. An order was issued that the anti-Bush rhetoric be quieted. The local SWAT team leapt to action.
It happened fast. Clad in full riot gear, at least 50 officers moved in. Shouting indecipherable commands from a bullhorn, they formed a chain and bore down upon the people, only working to clear the side of the street appearing to be occupied by Kerry supporters. People tried to get out of their way. It was very crowded. There was nowhere to move. People were being crushed. They started flowing into the streets. Pleas to the officers, asking, “where to go” fell upon deaf ears. Instead, riot police fired pellets of cayenne pepper spray into the crowd. An old man fell and couldn’t get up. When a young man stopped to help, he was shot in the back with hard pepper spray balls. Children were hit with pepper spray. Deemed “Protesters” people were shoved and herded down the street by the menacing line of armed riot police, until out of the President’s ear-shot.
There the “Protesters” were held at bay. Anyone vocalizing anti-Bush or pro-Kerry sentiments were prohibited from venturing forward. Loud anti-Bush chants were responded to by the commanding officer stating: “FORWARD,” to which the entire line of armed police would move, lock-step, toward the “Protesters,” forcing backward movement. Police officers circulated filming the crowd of “Protesters.” Some were people like me, quiet middle-aged women. Some sported anti-Bush signs, peace signs, or Kerry signs. A small group of youth, clad in black with kerchiefs wrapping their heads chanted slogans. A young woman in her underwear, sporting a peace sign sang a lyrical Kumbaya.
Mixed among the “Protesters” were supporters of the President. One 19 year- old man shouted obscenities at anyone expressing dissatisfaction with the president, encouraging the police to “tazar” the “Stinking Protesters.” Neither the “Protestors,” nor the police harassed this vocal young man. Across the street, individuals shouting support for the president were allowed to continue. Officers monitored this group but allowed them to shout words of support or hurl derisions toward Kerry supporters, undisturbed. Honking cars filled with Bush supporters were left alone. A honking car full of Kerry supporters was stopped by police on its way out of town.
The standoff with “Protesters” continued until the President finished his dinner and was secured in his hotel cottage for the night. Only then were the riot police ordered to “mount-up,” leaping upon the sideboard of a huge SUV, pulling out of town, and allowing “free speech” to resume.
In small town American I witnessed true repression and intimidation by law enforcement. I saw small children suffering from the effects of being fired upon by pepper bullets. I felt legitimate fear of expressing my political opinions: a brand new feeling. Newspaper accounts state the chaos started when a violent “Protester” shoved a police officer. No one I talked to witnessed this account.
It is reputed that President Bush and his staff will not allow any opposition activity to occur within his ear or eye sight. I can confirm, that in tiny Jacksonville, Oregon, this was true. Physically violent means were taken to protect the president from verbal insults. Freedom of speech was stolen.
My father was not paranoid as he lay dying. He was expressing great insight into the dangers of our current presidential administration and its willingness to repress personal freedoms. If I could talk to my father today, I would say, “I am sorry Daddy for doubting you.” And, no matter what, I will continue to exercise my individual right to freely express my opinions. Americans cannot take four more years.
