Via Quaoar's KOS diary: quoting an LA Times story picked up by the Statesman (LA Times link not yet available).

In Fallujah, meanwhile, hundreds of newly recruited police officers failed to show up for work Sunday after insurgents disseminated pamphlets threatening officers who stayed on the job, according to police officials in the restive western city.

"We will kill all the policemen infidels," read the pamphlets, "whether or not they quit or are still in their jobs."

Fallujah Police Lt. Mohammed Alwan said that the force, which he estimated had increased to more than 2,000, has shrunk to only 100. Alwan said insurgents have killed dozens of policemen in their homes and also attacked family members in a weeks-long intimidation campaign.

A Fallujah police major, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that at least 1,400 policemen had left their jobs since Friday, 400 of them police officials above the rank of officer.

Marine Lt. Lawton King, who is stationed in Fallujah, called those figures "inaccurate and grossly exaggerated," saying that only 32 police officers had been assassinated since January and that "substantially fewer than the exaggerated 1,400" officers had failed to report for work.

This KOS diary by Farmbo reminded me of the story I saw in this morning's Toledo Blade, way before coffee had reached my brain.  It makes me want to remind every Ohio citizen voting for Democrats this fall to remember to bring your ID and proof of residency.  And it wouldn't hurt to "misplace" your Republican uncle's driver's license the day before the election, not that it would matter if he "looks" like a Republican.

BWC tried to keep $215M loss under wraps prior to '04 vote: "COLUMBUS - Less than a week before the 2004 presidential election, Jim Conrad, then head of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, took steps to ensure that a $215 million investment loss in an offshore hedge-fund would not become public, documents obtained by The Blade show."

Between Governor Taft's appointees covering up the scandal that led to the conviction of Bush fundraiser Tom Noe in "Coingate," and the New York Times facilitating the Oval Office's suppression of the NSA wiretapping scandal -- both of which were known but not made public before the 2004 Presidential election -- Ohio Democrats have a lot to be angry about.

Add to all this the very idea that instead of appealing to integrity and honor, House GOP Leader John Boehner implored his fellow Ohio Congressman, Bob Ney, (affectionately known as Representative #1) to step down, "for the children."  His own.

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) met with Ney last week to urge him to step aside, reminding him that with a son in college and a daughter nearing college age, he will need money, according to several congressional Republican aides.  If he lost his House seat for the party, Boehner is said to have cautioned, Ney could not expect a lucrative career on K Street to pay those tuition bills, along with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees piling up.  [my emphasis]

The Ohio Attorney General has ruled that state Senator Joy Padgett is not precluded by the "sore loser" statute from running for Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) seat.

But that was no suprise to Ohio Democrats; Ohio's Attorney General is Jim Petro, who was Padgett's running mate in this year's gubernatorial election.

"The fix is in," Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Brian Rothenberg told me, who added that the party's lawyers would "probably take action" to halt Padgett's bid.

In France, you can't even get away with taking a Viagra before a silly bike race.  If they could prove that the Browns and the Cavaliers were "fixing" point spreads, or the Indians were throwing games, there'd be riots on Euclid Avenue.  Push some inconvenient voters in the wrong direction, undermine our very democracy, and it's just business as usual.

Of course, the last time we witnessed any serious Ohio activists challenging a Republican administration, both in Columbus and Washington DC, there were funerals at Kent State.

The incomparable Bob Somerby should always be consulted when thinking about a meta-story about media bias, and the Daily Howler seldom disappoints.

For forty-plus years, they’ve yelled “liberal bias”—going all the way back to a time when the complaint might have been justified (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/14/03). And now, at long last, just this week, Mike Allen has written a “news report” so perfectly awful that we can finally, definitively say it—after reading Allen’s “news report,” you’d really have to be out of your mind to believe in that tired old cry.

There is "bias" in the media -- but I wouldn't call it "liberal."  It's not necessarily conservative either.  There's an institutional bias in favor of covering the publication's own ass.

Without fear of exaggeration, the New York Times made decisions in the fall of 2004 that altered the course of world history.   Where does it say that it's ethical to withhold information that would influence an election?  News is news.  Like the Rush song says:

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

To be fair, if Ohio hadn't been stolen had gone Kerry's way, the Time's decision to sit on the NSA domestic spying story wouldn't have been as crucial.  As it turned out, publication of the story at the time they learned of this clearly unconstitutional invasion of Americans' liberties would have swept Kerry into office.

They admittedly sat on a story that would have would have erupted ten times worse than the firestorm already witnessed --  with calls for the heads of all involved.  Of course, that wouldn't change the current polarized political climate.  Santorum would still be calling journalists "traitors."  The difference being that he would likewise be charging that the President of the United States was a co-conspirator with those treasonist boogeymen.

This isn't just sour grapes.  With a Kerry presidency, and the certain allegations that he was aided and abetted in his election bid, the chances of wrenching Congress from the GOP's sticky fingers would be a pipe-dream instead of the very realistic chance of it happening that it is today.  It would have also doomed John Kerry to a one-term administration.

Timing is indeed everything.

Never let it be said that when I make an error of judgment, I can't be persuaded I was mistaken.  More importantly, be it known that I am all too willing to acknowledge that the proper thing to do is to publicly admit my blunder.

So, here goes:  I should never have given the Roviavellians in the White House even the slightest benefit of the doubt that they were not purposely politicizing the "liquid bomb threat."  At the risk of violating Drum's Law, I'll do a little "nutpicking" on myself and retract this otherwise rational and reserved assessment.  They knew about this kind of threat long ago, and went after granny's nailclippers instead of the obvious.

WASHINGTON - While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.  [HT-Cloverdale]

They politicize EVERYTHING.  It's pathological.  The only thing that makes me certain that they were not in complete control of the timing of the British round up of the terrorist suspects planning to blow up trans-Atlantic flights with exploding Gatoraide bottles, is that the arrests and subsequent alerts did not happen Monday -- in time to affect the Lamont/Lieberman election -- as O'Reilly and Hannity desired.  Had our British cousins been more trusting of Dick Cheney's ability to restrain himself from using classified information to political advantage (prudently, they were not), the White House certainly would have exerted irresistable pressure for Scotland Yard to move up their time-table enough to assist Joe Lieberman (which you can't spell without "lie").

I came across a wonderfully written call to arms against the fear mongers at Black Sky Theory (wherein the GOP puts so many targets up in the air it's impossible to concentrate your outrage on a single atrocity, and the media tells us it's just dark out).

Brothers and sisters......they've got us afraid of fucking toothpaste.

And when I say "they", of course, I'm referring to the Bush Administration.  Fear is their tool, their weapon, their friend.  They are using fear to cower the populace.  They are engaging in terrorism against the American people. No, they aren't blowing up office buildings, but as noted above, that's not the objective of terrorism.  The objective of terrorism is to create fear among the civilian populace, and that is what they have done and that is what they continue to do.  When a suicide bomber blows up a candy store, he is engaging in high level terrorism from a low-level platform; when Bush, or Cheney, or Lieberman, or Hannity invoke boogeymen such as Osama bin Laden, or Ned Lamont, or Markos Moulitsas, they are engaging in low-level terrorism from a high-level platform.  The only valid metric by which we can compare the two is by calculating the number of people they frighten.  And many, many Americans are frightened enough to vote Republican.

Roosevelt said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  The fear-mongers in Washington and in the media are whipping up a fresh batch of fear every goddamn day. We have to take them on one frightened neighbor at a time.  Make an effort to ease the fear of a Republican voter today. Tell them it's going to be OK.  Remind them that America is strong.  We weren't afraid of the British in 1776, we weren't afraid of the Nazis in 1944, and we have nothing to fear but the fears that are implanted in us.  Some kid with a bottle of Sierra Mist is not coming to Minneapolis, or Indianapolis, or Gallapolis, or Kannapolis to kill us. Take them by the hand as you would a small child, and alleviate their fear.  Tell them to suck it up and be as brave as their fathers and mothers, their grandfathers and grandmothers.  Tell them to quit being such a bunch of fucking pussies.  Tell them "Fuck Fear!"  And remind them that millions of their fellow Americans, armed with pitchforks and torches, will protect them.

Ken Mehlman is all over Ohio, wound up like the little robot he is, already primed with his "Democrats are pussies" talking points at the ready painting 60% of Americans as defeatist weaklings.  Shrub himself let's loose with an LGF patented "Islamic-Fascist" quote, which insults Muslims and trivialized the danger posed by fascism (otherwise know as unbridled corporatism, or neoconservatism).  Meanwhile Lord Cheney of the Sith and his pet poodle spins the bedwetting meme that Connecticut just voted for Osama himself.

What cogent piece of reality brought me to the light?  There was, of course, the timing.  They knew this was coming for two weeks now -- and were just itching to let loose.  They're also primed with the watch-word that strikes fear into every independently minded voter when courting the Democratic Party instead of Republican orthodoxy, quickly sending them under their piss-stained matress -- Al Qaeda.

• I certainly looks like al Qaeda.
• It would have been spectacular (if you can characterize mass-murder that way), just like al Qaeda.
• It involved planes, al Qaeda has a thing for planes.
• Explosive Slurpies certainly count as "improvised," and al Qaeda loves them some IED's.
• The scale of the thing, and it's "sophistication" is just like al Qaeda -- except for the getting caught part.

If we had just caught the 38th number three guy in al Qaeda, don't you think Bush would have announced that loud and clear instead of all the conjecture and insinuation that al Qaeda might be, probably could, looks like they're responsible?  Has al Qaeda ever been reluctant to take credit?  But is it really al Qaeda?  Well, maybe.

I haven't decided which is worse, a still dangerous bin Laden led organization, or that their methods have been mimicked -- that al Qaeda is more a idea than an actual enemy to be defeated.  Apparently, the administration thinks that they'd rather go with the idea that they've thusfar failed to defeat our declared foe than admit they've created even more.  At least then they can claim a victory today.  You'd think they could just go with that, but no.

After two solid days of Demo-Bashing, his points having been etched in the now "so yesterday" Lieberaman/Lamont spin wars, the Kenny's (Mehlman as he helps out the increasingly irrelevant Blackwell) tell us, "instead of focusing on political attacks, we should focus on the fact that we are at war."  Sounds like someone got a new memo because the public ain't buying it  -- and he should take his own advice.

After all, these are the folks who see the population of Haifa living in their basements as an "opportunity" and the demolition of the entire state of Lebanon merely "birth pangs."

The fact is, with this crew they never give you a chance to give them the benefit of the doubt even when you want to.  On everything, they come out swinging for political advantage.  The last time I can remember when Bush acted like the leader of the Nation instead of leader of the Republican Party, his approval rating soared into the 90's (even though at the time I remarked that under the circumstances a trained monkey could have delivered his speech standing on top of that mass grave in Midtown Manhattan and gotten all of America behind him).  Since September of '01, it's been straight downhill. 

Now we're wallowing in the gutter with the administration hacks seizing each and every opportunity to turn tragedy and terror into a boon for the GOP.  If they spent half their energy fighting terrorists instead of liberals, we'd all feel a lot safer.  It's simply callous.

Keep this in mind about the Cheney administration as they head into the midterms.  They want you to be as afraid as they are.  And they're scared to death.

They aren't afaird of terrorists, don't be silly.  The administration's fortunes are completely intertwined with the continuation, not the defeat, of a terrorist threat.  They're afraid of answering for their crimes if they lose control of their Rubber-stamp Congress.  We desperately need a check on this White House to restore the balance where enemies were fought to quell our worst fears, instead exploiting those fears for political gain.

Where is the "tough on crime" crowd when this crap happens?

CLEVELAND — Election officials in Cuyahoga County have replaced seven of the 13 electronic voting machines assigned to a church in suburban Cleveland because the seals were not intact. Elections director Michael Vu says the seals were in place when the machines were sent to the North Olmsted church, but they were either completely or partially removed when checked at the polling place.

Tuesday’s special election is the county’s first since a slew of problems in the May primary that led to delayed results and an outside investigation.

(Via Suburban Guerrilla.)

The mainstream press will lead tomorrow's conventional wisdom that bloggers must die.  It doesn't matter if Lieberman wins or loses, online activists will be blamed for the loss or blamed for leading the Democratic Party off the cliff.  We're evil, period.

An exhausted Chris Bowers sums it up:

Wednesday will be the worst day of press for the progressive netroots in years.  If Lamont loses, we will be branded as ineffectual, irrelevant, extremist, and destructive.  If Ned Lamont wins, we will be branded as powerful, relevant, extremist, and destructive.

The days of wealthy board-room execs deciding the fate of the planet are not over, yet, but you are witnessing the very, very, very beginning of their demise.

Economic analysis can be a tedious chore, at least for me.  Number crunching was never my passion.  Fortunately Hale Stewart at BOPnews -- Complete Refutation of New GOP Economic Talking Points is more than willing to do my homework for me.

Raw Story is claiming it has obtained a copy of the GOP election playbook.  All of the points made therein are crap -- as in pure crap.  Assuming this is the true playbook, here are the basic rebuttals to the economic claims made therein.  This information is free to all to use.

If you only take away one fact from Stewart's analysis, here's the clincher:

Even using the Republicans incorrect figures, the economy is only creating about 158,000 jobs/month.  The economy has to create 150,000/month to keep up with population growth.  In other words - using their numbers - the rate of job growth still stinks.

Other quick points?

He's so Funny, especially when he does a little research.  Here's the funny quote he found by a well known Senator:

"If I were President, I'd get a new secretary of defense."

Mind you this was some time ago, and this would only be shocking if the Senator were a Republican criticizing his own party's leadership, right?  I mean, back in 2003 the Democrats were in disarray about their opposition to the war, especially those who had voted to authorize the Iraq invasion.

It took a special kind of courage to oppose the administration on the war that early in the debacle.  What kind of die-hard liberal partisan could say these kinds of things on Face the Nation back then?

Look--look, the administration keeps talking--Ambassador Bremer, President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, 'Everything's going great in Iraq.' We know everything is not going great in Iraq, even those of us who feel that what we did in Iraq was--was right, that the world is safer with Saddam Hussein gone feel even more intensely that the administration has--has really messed this up by its one-sided foreign policy which--which has kept other countries away from helping us and--and by its failure to have any kind of plan to secure post-Saddam Iraq.

What?  That wasn't Biden?  Kerry then.  Kerry was always saying this kind of thing:

Remember General Eric Shinseki, the head of the Army, earlier this year, said that we would need more than 200,000 troops, not just to win the war but more to secure the peace. He was right. Secretary Rumsfeld, the administration, all--they disagreed with him. They, in some senses, demeaned him. The fact is that if the--the administration had a more multilateral, open, cooperative policy, we'd have foreign troops in there helping American troops to keep the peace. We'd have foreign countries paying more of the cost of rebuilding Iraq than they were willing to pledge the other day in Madrid.

Not Kerry?  I dunno, I give.  Maybe Hillary was feeling her oats that Sunday and blurted:

Well, look, ultimately the buck stops at the--at the w--president's desk. He's the commander in chief. He has to take accountability if things don't work well. I'll--I'll--I'll tell you this, that Secretary Rumsfeld told the truth in that private memo, that they haven't been as trusting of the American people to tell us the truth about the fact that we're not doing as well as they--that we should be doing in the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. And--and the worst thing about Don Rumsfeld's time at the Pentagon, the uniform military feel deeply that he doesn't respect them, doesn't listen to them. That--that's not the kind of relationship that we need between a secretary of Defense and the military. Judgment about whether he stays or not is up to President Bush, but if I were president, I'd--I'd get a new secretary of Defense.

Yeah, that sounds like Hillary.  It's obvious from the way she grilled Rumsfeld thursday then blasted him again to the press later, she's always had it in for Rummy.

I'm sure the Senator who said, "It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril.  would disapprove of such behavior by a member of his caucus.

Oh, No!  Say it ain't so, Joe.  Say it ain't you that would say that Joe.  Joe?  JOE!?!

Really?  Oh no, Joe.  How could you criticized the president and his administration at a time of war like that, Joe?

Come On Joe.  It's time one of the great statesmen of the U.S. Senate lent that great voice of his to oppose this disastrous war.

BWAHahahahahhahahahahaha!

Can't......catch......my.......breath....(gasp).....I.....ah, I.....just......peed my.....pants.

Hat Tip: Digby

I cringe when I think of the arrogance it took for Bush to start the Iraq war.   The sheer naiveté it took for a man whose formal business degrees qualified him only to fail at every enterprise he undertook, whose life experience in no way prepared him to even suspect he was in any way capable of transforming the Middle East into a peaceful bastion of democracy -- settling decades of direct conflict and centuries of unrest with a simple promise of "one person, one vote."

Of course, as was always suspected, Bush had absolutely no understanding of what he was doing, how to do it right, or an appreciation of the consequences of the his actions.  The quote you're going to be seeing a lot of from former Ambassador Peter Galbraith's new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, comes to the internetz via Raw Story (HT: SusanUnPC at No Quarter)

Galbraith reports that the three of them [Iraqi-Americans briefing Bush about the likely post-invasion political situation] spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded,"I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"

Can there be any doubt that Bush's unfamiliarity with the complexities of the region  (I'm being kind here by not screaming that he's an ignorant ass) made him ripe for the seemingly thoughtful sales-job Cheney and Rumsfeld and their neo-con associates had been pushing for the better part of a decade?.  Finally, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Elliot Abrams -- deluded ideologues all --  found a rube who wouldn't question why the magic elixir tasted like snake-oil; until we were so mired in the slimy goo there was no choice but the clash of civilizations their greed and power-lust craved.

The Ambassador, son of the late, great economist John Kenneth Galbraith, describes the root causes of the quagmire ...

Galbraith argues that because the new Iraq was never a voluntary creation of its people--but rather held together by force--America's ongoing attempt to preserve a unified nation is guaranteed to fail, especially since it's divided into three different entities.

"You can't have a national unity government when there is no nation, no unity, and no government," said Galbraith. "Rather than trying to preserve or hold together a unified Iraq, the U.S. must accept the reality of Iraq's breakup and work with the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs to strengthen the already semi-independent regions."

Galbraith says that, "thanks to George W. Bush, Iran today has no closer ally in the world than the Iraq of the Ayatollahs." As a result, he argues, sending U.S. forces into Iraq, has in effect, made them hostage to Iran and its Iraqi Shiite allies and left the U.S. without a viable military option to halt Iran's drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

So, what do you think are the chances that George has learned something from all this?  Do you think his on-the-job training has taught him how to avoid World War III?

I didn't think so.  And if you thought I was pessimistic, read Billmon.

Just one thought I'd like to pass on to our grandchildren.  Next time some Bozo decides to commit the US to an open ended war with no clear objective, learn the lessons from Iraq that we failed to remember from Vietnam -- pick on someone with a decent climate.  Jungle warfare, desert warfare; what bullshit.

It's bad enough to get shot at for no damn good reason.  The least we can do for our boys and girls in uniform is find them some decent weather to fight in.  How about France?  It's been a long time since we invaded Europe.