cleveland.com: NewsFlash - Neo-Nazis plan return to Toledo
11/9/2005, 11:14 a.m. ET
The Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- The neo-Nazi group whose visit last month touched off rioting said it plans to return to protest how the police and the city handled its visit.

Spokesman Bill White said the National Socialist Movement plans demonstrate downtown Dec. 10.

History Mike has detailed reporting, plus some propaganda by Mr. White himself in hie comments section, which Mike debunks here.

Mike also has some advice to our Mayor Elect, on just how to handle the Nazis this time around, so, you know, we don't start looking like France.

Me?  I'm hoping for a blizzard that day.  The hooligans will stay inside and the Nazis will be lost in the white-out.

Bill Moyer's speech last September for the Texas Observer is simply superb.

America is not yet a theocracy but Texas almost is and the Republican Party already is... .

* * *
The phenomenon of our time is how the religious, political, and corporate right, under the cloak of "moral values," has forged a mighty coalition for the looting of America. With one hand they stretch upward for the pearly gates, and with the other they reach down and behind your back to pick your pocket or your purse.

Their appointed poster boy is George W. Bush. Everything he knows, he learned here in Texas. Unfortunately.

No wonder the (now exposed and disgraced) neo-con operative recently in charge of PBS spent taxpayer dollars to monitor "anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay" guests on Moyers' show."  Moyers is a spot-on, effective and knowledgable critic of the charade of "compassionate conservativism."  A true danger to the money-changers and warmongers who have made Texas into Taliban Lite then incubated and promoted the vile spawn of "century of involvement in oil, armaments and global intrigue" to the highest office in the land.

An indifference to other people's reality remains the mark of the system of privilege and patronage that is Texas politics.

* * *
What the hurricane exposed is what the progressive advocate Robert Borrosage calls the "catastrophic conservatism" of the long right-wing crusade to denigrate government, ˜starve the beast," scorn its purposes and malign its officials.

We know now the results of their social ideal -- the "You get yours/I'll get mine" ethic as opposed to shared sacrifice and responsibility. It's as if they had scissored out of their Bible, "I am my brother's keeper."

(HT: The Left Coaster: Catastrophic Conservatism, VIA American Street)

REFORM OHIO NOW SOME DAY, MAYBE?

Too Much Legalese! Did you actually read the ballot language, all of it. Did anyone really finish both pages of each issue?

Look, I'm a lawyer and I thought the amendments were way too wordy, especially for a Constitution.

With almost 1 million votes counted statewide, we're getting hammered. Next time remember the KISS method -- Keep It Simple Stupid.

STATEWIDE AT 9:50
2 No-64% Yes-35%
3 No-67% Yes-32%
4 No 70% Yes-29%
5 No 71% Yes-28%

Remember the anti-gay marriage Amendment last year. Two devastating sentences. That's all.

When you have to turn a page to read an amendment is doesn't stand a chance. The things read more like statutes, not guiding principles like a Constitution should have.

Rewriting them to only two or three clear, unambiguous sentences will level the playing field to the point where ads and further voter education will make a difference. These things didn't stand a chance no matter how fabulous the idea -- and they were.

And when we campaign, tell folks like Arnold "Thanks, but no thanks." He did more harm than good. We needed home grown talent, like John Glen who surely helped Issue One, but why wasn't he featured on any RON commercials? Where was Paul Hacket's face, Sherrod Brown? They needed to be FEATURED.

Remember, the republithugs will lie, and lie believably. Don't give them ammo like being able to take a grass roots, anti-establishment effort and paint is as some kind of out-of-state back room shenanigans.

And K.I.S.S.


CROSS-POSTED AT :
Swing State Project: Reform Ohio Now: Election Results

---

UPDATE 11:30

It's official, and it's a shame, because if there ever was a State in desparate need of election reform, it's Ohio.

Voters reject election issues
11/8/2005, 10:18 p.m. ET
By ERICA RYAN
The Associated Press


COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Voters turned back four ballot proposals Tuesday to change Ohio election law, while a once-rejected high-tech research financing was comfortably ahead.

Issue 1 had 55 percent of the vote with 34 percent of the precincts reporting, according to unofficial returns compiled by The Associated Press. Backers combined the $500 million high-tech issue with a popular $1.5 billion highway maintenance bond issue after it lost two years ago.

The long statewide ballot issues confused some voters Tuesday in an off-year election with light turnout and few glitches from the use of new voting machines in about half of Ohio's 88 counties.

"I didn't understand a lot of them," said Cleveland voter Theo Bell, who skipped over the state questions. "I didn't want to put something down, not understand and vote for the wrong thing."

Yeah, like I was saying . . .

The election proposals — all constitutional amendments — would have opened absentee balloting to all voters, lowered the limit on individual campaign contributions, put a board in charge of drawing congressional and legislative districts instead of elected officials and switched election supervision from the secretary of state to another board.

I was also saying this . . .

The transition to new voting machines, mostly touch screens, went smoothly in most of the 44 counties that have them, election officials said. A handful of people left without voting because machines weren't running when polls opened in some precincts. A few polling places opened late.

At six precincts in Toledo, poll workers misplaced cards that the worker must insert to authorize the machine to turn on, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. A handful of voters said they couldn't wait.

Paper ballots were being used within 10 minutes, and elections officials made new cards that were sent to the polling places by about an hour after polls opened, LoParo said.

I'm hearing quite a few reports on the local radio here in Toledo that our new voting machines giving the volunteers poll workers fits at various polling places all over Lucas County, Ohio, and one report from Wood County.

Machines slow to be ready and operational, workers resorting to giving out paper ballots (which may or may not be counted), memory cards/chips not available, some machines not usable at all, untrained workers unable to get them to work or be able to explain how they work to voters.

Developing . . .

UPDATE, 8:30:
Toledo has one of, if not the biggest mayoral race in Ohio, yet several reports of voters wishing to vote early before work had to leave their polling center without voting due to the problems.

Lucas County Board of Elections apologised for the inconvenience -- none of the machines were ready at 6:30 when the polls were supposed to open -- and asked those voters who were turned away to come back later today.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell sais, "There will be problems and those problems will be solved."  Note to Kenny, timing is everything.

All rumours that the problems were some kind of Democratic Party conspiracy to embarrass Ken Blackwell and promote the necessity of the election reform initiatives on today's ballot are irresponsible and were started by WSPD's Bob Frantz, who reports that all the problems were "human error," and not technological, most poll stations are now working fine.

I just hope that I don't inadvertantly vote for Pat Buchanan or switch my phone company to Sprint when I go later this afternoon.

UPDATE 1:54
The Toledo Blade, of course, has more.

LAST UPDATE, 3:56 PM
I voted, and liked the new touch screens. It had a little printer where I could see my votes, quick and smooth.  Real low turnout in my precinct. I was the 50th voter at 2:45 pm.

Informed Comment notes not only the current allegations of war crimes directed at the US Government's for the use of incendiary phosphorous bombs against civilians in Fallujah, but documents some of the history of the allies use of the devices in Iraq as well as how we're going to weasel out of being criminally liable for this latest violation of international law.

The Italian press is calling the phosphorus bombs "chemical weapons" and alleging that they were used indiscriminately and against civilian populations.

My "informed guess" is that the world won't give a tinker's damn that we don't consider these devices "chemical weapons" or that we didn't enact all three parts of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons their use would appear to violate.  More at KOS

---

The Boston Globe article reprinted in Common Dreams is an excellent primer on the nefarious career of Vice President Dick Cheney and the malignant cancer his existence has been on the body politic of the United States.  Plus Bonus Cheney "incite" on his thing for torture.

---

As the Bush Administration claims that although "we do not torture," yesterday fresh formal abuse charges were filed against US Troops.   And in spite of troop levels at 160,000, with no plans for reduction anytime soon, mechanics are being used as security forces which really pisses off their commanding General.

No, we don't torture, but over 100 of our detainees have been killed by an administration that claims International Protocols against torture enacted under US law don't apply to us if we do it outside our own borders.  It's transparent legalese crap from our State Department, but not unexpected, actually.  Few things regarding the depravity of these criminals who hijacked our nation surprise me anymore.  But one thing is certain, The buck, no matter however long it takes to stop, will land at George W. Bush's feet.

Aren't you excited that SCOTUS is going to finally decide whether it's OK to use military tribunals for the occasional "enemy combatant" we admit we have in custody and deign to actually charge with something other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tell you what, I'll buy into the whole "War on Terror" thing, accept that it isn't a lexigraphically challenged description of an assault on a particular tactic instead of a struggle against something like, um, an actual person or group.  I might even let of my profound belief that the invasion of Iraq was a distraction from that so called "War," of which Afghanistan was unquestionably a part and is still left unfinished; instead of calling our presence in Iraq nothing more than a simple power grab.  I might even give Rumsfeld a break in my critique of his complete mismanagement of the "War" -- if the administraiton calls the people we have captured in this so called "War" are called and treated as "Prisoners of War."

IOKIYAR

What's wrong with this picture?

The IRS is coming down on a church, threatening to revoke its tax-exempt status, because the minister gave an anti-war sermon.  (And after all, promoting peace is what the "Prince of Peace" himself advocated.)

But if you're a Republican strategist, using the church to bring out the religious "wackos" is fair game when it supports the neo-con agenda.

[On Oct. 31, 2004, Rev. George F.] Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."

That's all it takes to get an investigation started by the godless bureaucrats of the IRS.

WWJD?  Somebody needs to drop a dime on these "wackos."

When Bush apologists play the "Clinton Card," they ain't got nothin'.

Contrary to what my local Nazi promoting, Limbaugh wannabe, radio talker would have you believe, the Huffington Post is not the "wacko liberal KOS/MOVEON.ORG site" that he would have you believe.

Case in point, it features the ramblings of Carol Platt Liebau who quotes extensively from Stephen F. Hayes' Daily Standard piece.  She/He tries to explain away Sunday's NYT article about the tortured Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi   A-Libi gave the warmongers in the White House a ficticious Iraq/al Qaeda connection -- exactly what they wanted to hear.  That gave them the wild goose chase they wanted to sell us based on intelligence they knew was not credible.

As Marty Kaplan said, also at the Huff, If that isn't fixing the intelligence to fit the policy (as the Downing Street Memo put it), what is?

Ms. Liebau seizes on Hayes' thesis that the Times article ignores Some Relevant Facts.  Specifically, that the Bush administration officials did not make up stuff on their own, but kept to the letter of the made up crap they beat out of their captives.  Somehow, this "proves" their good intent, or at least gives plausibility to their later denials.

That, and Clinton officials still claim the asprin factory in Sudan was connected to al Qaeda.

After striking pharmaceutical factories in Sudan back in 1998, the Clinton Administration justified the strikes by asserting both that they were suspected chemical weapons facilities AND that there was an al Qaeda presence there. As Hayes puts it, "These facilities, according to both Clinton administration spokesmen and senior intelligence officials, were the result of a collaborative effort between Iraqi scientists, the Sudanese Military Industrial Corporation and al Qaeda terrorists. Clinton administration officials stand by those claims today."

So someone tell me: Was the Clinton national security team "lying" too?

Seriously, is that all they got?

They weren't dead wrong go to war, kill tens of thousands, maim hundreds of thousands, destroy another country, bankrupt our own, wreck out standing in the world and completely abandon the moral authority this nation has always stood for -- because Clinton bombed a suspected munitions factory on intelligence of similar merit?

Explain to me when the Clinton administration was ever accused of torture.  And while we're at it, tell me just how many wars did Clinton sell the American people based on lies?

For The Record the reason there were no WMD's in Iraq for Bush to find, was because Clinton's containment refime and bombing campaigns wiped them out.

From Kevin Drum, who puts the al-Libi thing together so much better than I.

If conservatives dislike Dick Durbin's comparison of American practices to those of Hitler and Stalin, they should make clear to Dick Cheney that America doesn't condone the practices of Hitler and Stalin. Because apparently, the vice president of the United States does condone them. Vigorously. It's enough to make any decent human being puke.

Schadenfreude

n : delight in another person's misfortune

The GOP is truly unified.  Unfortunately it is in their belief that Shrub is indeed a miserable failure and that they will lose all they have fought for the last several decades, for the next several decades.

When a GOP strategist suggested last weekend that the President fire Rove, Bush exploded.

"You go to hell," he screamed at the strategist. "You can leave and you can take the rest of these lily-livered motherfuckers with you!" The President then stormed out of the room and refused to meet further with any other party leaders or strategists.

Bush's escalating temper tantrums and his intransigence on political issues increase Republican worries about the long term effects on both his presidency and the party's prospects in upcoming elections.

"Right now, George W. Bush is the Republican Party's chief liability," says a GOP strategist who has advised Presidential campaigns for 30 years. "The entire political future of the party and perhaps the nation now rests on the shoulders of a President that no one - Democrat or Republican - believes in or trusts."

There's even more, and it's most excellent fun.  The Bush era is effectively over.  My only regret is that is happened 12 months too late.

HT:  Avedon Carol

Now the Iraq/al Queda connection is exposed as the known manipulation of bullcrap claims by administration member's who knew better.

First Iranian spy/Jordanian embezzler Chalabi, then (LOL) "Curveball," now comes the "Alibi" -- Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi.

Smoking Gun on Manipulation of Iraq Intelligence? 'NY Times' Cites New Document

It shows that an al-Qaeda official held by the Americans was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the basis for its claims that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to this Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002.

It declared that it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, "was intentionally misleading the debriefers" in making claims about Iraqi support for al-Qaeda's work with illicit weapons, Jehl reports.

"The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility," Jehl writes. "Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

* * *
Libi is in custody, apparently at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was sent in 2003. According to Jehl, Secretary of State Colin Powell relied heavily on Libi for his speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, saying that he was tracing "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda." HT: Huff Post

And as for The Times' sourcing:

WHO:    Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

WHAT:   A newly declassified memo.

WHY:    To show what cards were on the table behind the closed doors of the Senate.

When and Where is really a question of how long until impeachment hearings and where will the criminals in the White House do their time.

JEBUS!  Atrios links an UPDATE FROM NEWSWEEK

They tortured the bastard into telling us what we wanted to hear.  Fuckers.

Juan Cole sheds even more light on why it was down right criminal for the administration war-mongers to shovel this shit:

Moreover, other high-level al-Qaeda operatives such as Khalid Shaykh Muhammad and Abu Zubaydah, who were far more important and informed than Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, were telling the same interrogators that Bin Laden had forbidden al-Qaeda operatives from cooperating with the secular Arab nationalist, Saddam Hussein . Their credible information, which tracked with the reality visible in arrests and the money trail, was suppressed by Bush and Cheney, whereas they trumpeted al-Libi's tall tales to the US public in order to build their case for an Iraq War.