Ok, Zarqarwi is Dead - Can we go home now?

The Mission is Accomplished. Again.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose bloody campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings made him the most-wanted terrorist in
Iraq, was killed when U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs on his isolated safe house, officials said Thursday. His death was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.

The targeted airstrike Wednesday evening was the culmination of a two-week-long hunt for al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Tips from senior militants led U.S. forces to follow al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser to the safe house, 30 miles outside Baghdad, for a meeting with the terror leader. The adviser, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was among seven aides also killed.

Two weeks? They only decided two weeks ago that al-Zarqawi needed some right fine killin'?
Just what nitwit us running things around here... Oh yeah - that one, never mind.

Already there are optimistic reports that this victory will give Bush a much needed bounce and deflate the prospects of the insurgency.

And certainly there is some legitimate credit due for finally killing the man that the Bush Administration let escape before the war, and who actually had been captured just before he was mistakenly released by the that Fine fresh New Iraqi Puppet Regime Demo(lition)ocracy we've managed to plaster together like a mismatched set of Legos(tm) and an Erector Set in Bahgdad.

Yay, for our side.

Can we bring our troops home now?

I know the President doesn't want to set "Timetables", he want to let the "Facts on the ground" dictate our troop deployment. But already, just hours after the news of Zarqawi's most excellent death the question is being asked.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House has cautioned against expecting that the killing of Al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, would lead to a quick change in US troop levels in that country.

"The death of Zarqawi does not change overnight the situation," said spokesman Tony Snow. "Nobody expects a snap change."

Oh, let's get serious please. Nobody expects any change what-so-ever. It doesn't matter that we've supposedly trained almost twice as many Iraqi troops as the America Deployment.
We've got new troops already on their way for their next rotation.

PENTAGON A defense official says an Army brigade whose deployment to Iraq was put on hold just last month is now scheduled to be sent there this summer.

When the Pentagon announced the unit would not begin its deployment to Iraq as scheduled, it triggered talk that a U-S troop cut might be in the offing. But it now appears American commanders are sticking largely to their original plan for early summer rotations. And that leaves unclear when and if a sizable reduction in troop levels will begin this year.

Now with a simple search for "iraqi army" on Yahoo I can find a ton of reports on how the Iraqis are finally being rotated in to replace American Soldiers -- it's just that those reports seem eerily similar to me.

1. Iraqi army takes over from US in rebellious area
   Reuters via Yahoo! News - Jun 06 7:05 AM
   An Iraqi army division has taken over from U.S. forces in patrolling an area in Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Tuesday, the first transfer on that level in the western heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency.
   
2. Iraqi army takes responsibility over part of restive Anbar from US
   Fort Wayne News Channel 15 - Jun 07 4:22 AM
   BAGHDAD, Iraq The U-S military command has officially handed over responsibility for patrolling a volatile part of Iraq to an Iraqi army unit.
   
3. Iraqi army takes responsibility over part of restive Anbar from US
   KRIS-TV Corpus Christi - Jun 06 6:57 PM
   BAGHDAD, Iraq The U-S military command has officially handed over responsibility for patrolling a volatile part of Iraq to an Iraqi army unit. Iraq's First Army Division is...
   
4. Iraqi army takes responsibility over part of restive Anbar from US
   KXLY-TV Spokane - Jun 06 4:28 PM
   BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- The US military command has officially handed over responsibility for patrolling a volatile part of Iraq to an Iraqi army unit. Iraq's First Army Division is now in control of security for an area in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, between the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.
   
5. Iraqi army takes over in Anbar
   News Interactive - Jun 06 1:22 PM
   AN Iraqi army division has taken over from US forces in patrolling an area in Anbar province, the US military said today, the first transfer on that level in the western heartland of the Sunni Arab insurgency.
   
6. Iraqi army takes over from US in rebellious area
   RedNova - Jun 06 9:11 AM
   BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi army division has taken over from U.S. forces in patrolling an area in Anbar province, the U.S.
   
7. Iraqi army takes responsibility over part of restive Anbar from US
   KBCI Boise - Jun 06 12:20 PM
   BAGHDAD, Iraq The U-S military command has officially handed over responsibility for patrolling a volatile part of Iraq to an Iraqi army unit. Iraq's First Army Division is now in control of security for an area in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, between the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.

Is it just me or that look exactly like one of Bush's Astro-Turfing Campaigns in full swing? Again, this is good news - it's what I think should have been happening for -- well, three fucking years now.

The real question is - will it change anything?

I severly doubt it, because why should the Bush Administration completely change their spots by actually doing the right thing rather than continue to manipulate the war on terror for political gain and let their next October surprise out of the bag before it can totally undermine the Democrats this November?

Not a chance.

Vyan

Nov 06: We're gonna need a bigger boat...

As you get up occasionally and walk away from the computer screen and interact with the non-online world (the supposedly "real" one), do you ever get an odd feeling of disconnection? Like you're living a parrellel existence that the "real person" on the street simply isn't quite getting, almost as if were living in a horror movie - but some of us just don't know it yet?

Like you're Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) from the Original Nightmare on Elm Street, fighting desperately to stay awake and explain to your dad (John Saxon) that this monster named "Freddie" is killing all your friends, including your boyfriend (Johnny Depp) by invading their dreams...

Well, that Nightmare is real, you are trapped in a terrifying dream - only "Freddie" is the Bush Administration and their Corporate Overlords - and you aren't going to be waking up anytime soon...

Or worse yet, you're Chief Brody on Amity Island in the middle of summer vacation season and you know in you're gut that there's a big f-ing shark out there in the water, but nobody else - especially not the city council who only care about making a profit on tourist season - will believe it until they start seeing bodies floating in with the tide. Maybe not even then.

Well, the bodies are starting to show up as I look at the results of tuesday's election results and I think we're gonna need a bigget boat.

We here on this site and elsewhere understand the gravity of the situation that America finds itself in, like being trapped in a pit of quicksand infested with rapid neo-conservative leaches - the values and ideals that this nation were founded upon have been ever-so-slowy, inch by inch, sinking into oblivion as our life (our blood, treasure and freedom) are sucked out of us.

It's a surprisingly peaceful process, as enzymes from the big business parasites who fuel the Bush Administration and now that cover nearly every portion of our extremeties extrete a steady stream of anesthesia (Gay Marriage, Immigration, Zarqawi) to numb the pain.

We have to keep focused on The Important Stuff (Froomkin).

President Bush is running around the country this week talking about immigration, and on Monday he gave a much-hyped speech on gay marriage. In neither case has he said anything remotely new, and yet the press coverage is intense.

But what about the stuff the White House doesn't want us talking about.

You know, the important stuff.

High on that very long list: The war in Iraq -- and particularly the atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. troops; also, the continued expansion of executive power -- including the administration's warrantless domestic spying.

People - not us of course, all those other people out there - don't yet take the important stuff seriously. They don't yet know how these things affect them in thier lives, in the real world. They don't yet feel the pain (except at the pump).

This is why we couldn't even win the vacant Republican seat left by criminal scum like Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Not only that but the three upstart challengers who called themselves the Impeach Team (Marcy Winograd CA-36, Charles Coleman, Jr. CA-28 and Bob McCloskey CA-29) all lost to their entrenched Democratic incumbents.

We're like Nancy and Chief Brody screaming - "Don't go back to sleep" and "Get out of the water" - and we know that to some of those we're trying to save, we sound like fucking lunatics, but we're still here - and we're gonna keep on screaming about the things that are gradually killing America.

• 750+ Signing Statements
  
• Warrentless Spying on Americans
  
• Haditha
  
• White Phosphorous and Napalm at Fallujah
  
• Torture at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and Bagram.
  
• Secret Prisons
  
• Insufficient Armor, Helmets and Healthcare for our troops,
  
• The Niger Forgeries that put at War with the Wrong Country (and may have been created as "black propaganda" by U.S. intelligence)
  
• Callous Incompetence that has left post-Katrina NOLA largely a wasteland.
  
• Still No FEMA Director as Hurricane Season '06 Starts
  
• Rampant Election Fraud
• Faked News Reports
• The Exploding Budget and Trade Defecits

And the Flaccid Do Nothing Congress that continues to let all this go on - unabbatted and unregulated.

Freddie and Bruce (The Shark) - under the guise of the neo-Conservative Cabal that has seeped it's way into both our government (Bushco) and top positions at many of our major corporations (Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing) - are still out there, circling, waiting for their next oppurtunity to strike.

Even though we suffered a series of defeats tuesday, we still have Jon Tester and Ned Lamont in the running. We still have an oppurtunity to show long term Faux-mocrats like Jane Harmon that it's not too late to grow a spine. Not yet.

We have to remember what's at stake.

The monster of neo-conservatism has been gathering steam for thirty years, it won't go down easily.

All we need is bigger boat...and a scuba tank, and one lucky shot...

(Although, having Ann Coulter display once again just how batshit crazy she is on National TV doesn't hurt. The truth is - she's far from alone in her viciousness.)

Vyan

Gay Marriage Amendment Blocked in Senate

From Bloomberg...

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate blocked a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as a Republican-led election-year drive fell short of clearing a procedural hurdle.

The Senate voted 49-48 to shut off debate on the measure, 11 votes shy of the 60 needed to force the proposal to a final vote. Supporters said they took some solace from the fact that the measure got a public airing and picked up one more vote than the 48 who backed it in a similar procedural test in 2004.

``The people around this country who care passionately about this issue have the right to have their voices heard,'' said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican.

Proposed amendments to the Constitution require the support of two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate -- 67 votes in the Senate -- and then passage by three-fourths, or 38, of the 50 state legislatures.

Now we all knew they were going to fail and fail badly, so what exactly was the point of this?

To create an issue to energize the base for November.

By yet again returning to the gay-bashing trough for votes, Republicans show exactly what their values are and that they care more about cultivating fear than they do about families.

For years, Republicans have claimed the the Liberal's "War on Poverty" was just a ruse. An attempt to make poor people dependant upon Democrats for government funds, and creating a permenent underclass of loyal Democratic voters.

Of course this argument is difficult to support when you look at the great success of Democrats at moving people out of poverty and growing the size of the middle-class when compared to Republians and Conservatives who've seen the ranks of the poor expand -- but it does allow us a window into the conservative mindset. Trying to help and protect people is bad because they might grow to expect if from you?

Frist vows to continue the fight...

Everyone knew it was going to fail and it did. So there was no surprise that the Senate voted this morning 49-48 to essentially keep debating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, the Senate's way of giving a piece of legislation the kiss of death.

But death in the Senate does not mean the demise of a gay marriage amendment as an issue. Sen. Bill Frist, (R-Tenn.,) the Senate Majority Leader and a presidential hopeful, indicated this is an issue he intends on keeping alive through a statement his office issued after the vote.

"For thousands of years, marriage -- the union between a man and a woman -- has been recognized as an essential cornerstone of society," Frist is quoted in the statement as saying.

Ok, So what then can we say about this entire "Defense of Marriage" business when the people putting forth the idea knew from the beginning that it never had a chance? Most likely, that the goal has nothing to do with protecting marriage at all.

Just as was beautifully displayed by Jon Stewarts debate with Bill Bennett, the ultimate issues here involve the question of Freedom and the Human Condition.

The one thing I found a striking admission was Bennett's statement that..."When you start to define it out... and say anyone who loves each other can be married, you can have serious problems".

But seriously, what is wrong with a marriage being Based on Love? And exactly who is to define which pair of persons love is legitimate or not?

Stewart makes the point that the natural progression of America, is towards freedom. He generalizes, but specificaly there was a point in time when marriage between people of different races was prohibited by law. They were called the anti-miscegenation laws.

In the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, many American states passed anti-miscegenation laws, often based on controversed interpretations of the Bible, particularly the story of Phinehas. Typically a felony, these laws prohibited the solemnization of weddings between persons of different ethnic groups and prohibited the officiating of such ceremonies. Sometimes the individuals attempting to marry would not be held guilty of miscegenation itself, but felony charges of adultery or fornication would brought against them instead; Vermont was the only state to never introduce such legislation. The constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1883 case Pace v. Alabama. In 1965, Virginia trial court judge Leon Bazile sentenced to jail an interethnic couple who got married in Washington, D.C., writing:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

In all honesty, is this arguement all that different from what's recently been said on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Republicans?

This decision was eventually overturned in 1967, 84 years after Pace v. Alabama, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Loving v. Virginia that

Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.

Just as the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that all persons within jurisdiction of the states will be afforded the equal protection of the law was eventually extended to including the rights of Women and Black, so too will it eventually include the rights of gays to love who they will, and indeed to consecrate that love via marriage and the creation of that essential value that Republicans and Conservatives claim to treasure most -- Family.

Vyan

O'Reilly reverts back to Bully with Maines

Newshounds has the details.

Apparently Bill O'Reilly was intimidated into faux politeness at the TIME Magazine fete where he met Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks face to face. He rescinded his gracious remarks and returned to his low-class ways of mocking the singer in his Talking Points Memo tonight 5/22/06.

O'Reilly claims he made a mistake the other day, trying to have a civil conversation with Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, "a committed member of the far-left." He should have known better, he claims, but he felt sorry for her because of the death threats she has received. He gets that stuff and knows how disturbing it is.

Contiued ...

So, O'Reilly says, when he saw her at the TIME Magazine event he complimented her on her performance that evening and they "chatted" for a minute or two. Yesterday, Natalie's version of that conversation appeared in the New York Times . (At this point the edited quote appears and O'Reilly reads it. Edited out, among other things, is that O'Reilly said he liked the new song. Perhaps he was not being truthful with Maines, or he doesn't want his followers to be encouraged in any way to hear for themselves.)

"It's like, 'Just want to say that was great!' O'Reilly says, 'We really respect what you did. And we really respect that you stand up for yourself and blah blah blah.' "

O'Reilly continues, "Apparently Miss Maines also called me despicable. So much for polite discourse."

Having blamed her for "starting it" he tells her off, impolitely and publicly, hiding behind his desk:

"Let me put it in words even Natalie Maines can understand because I don't think she'll be holding a geo-political seminar anytime soon. (Comment: he learned that word from Jeremy Glick.) It's like, Natalie, I said I respected your right to say what you want, not, like, I respect what you said. That would be impossible, because no one has any idea why you dislike [Bush] or what your view of the world, like, really is. Whatever.

Truth be told, I'm as dense as Miss Maines. After I complimented George Clooney on his movie last October, he also trashed me in the press. Did I learn my lesson? Like, no."

This contemptuous rant was in the greater context of warning Democrats running for office with whom and what they should avoid associating: "far-left smear sites", namely Media Matters and Think Progress, and "far-left fanatics, who are not looking out for you (points at camera) or anyone else who doesn't share their foolish view of the world."

O'Reilly also panned students at the "ultra-liberal" New School in NYC for voicing dissent at John McCain's commencement speech there. O'Reilly childishly oversimplified the issue for his viewers: " These students apparently believe the Senator is a bad person while they are good, so they tried to demean him . The result was shame upon the New School, as "most" Americans understand that these students have done little or nothing for their country, and their actions are deplorable. Yet this exposition is standard procedure for the far left, which tolerates no dissent."

Speaking of not learning lessons, O'Reilly has yet to fess up and apologize for his repeated smearing of American Soldiers who were massacred Nazi SS at Malmedy, Belgium during WWII - mistaken claiming they the U.S. soldiers commited a "War Crime". This in addition to the fact that he has attempted to use Malmedy as a way to excuse and justify both Abu Ghraib and Haditha.

With that in mind it's not that surprising that he would be nice to Maines, only to turn around and immediately attack her again for not buying into his bull-crap.

O'Leilly is a classic bully, one who'll bash anyone when he thinks he can get away with it, but will curl up in a ball and cry "uncle" as soon as anyone with clout and integrity actually bother to respond to his smears.

Just like the Mark of the Coulter, he think's he has an absolute right to speak, and insult and defame, but no one else has a right too if they happen to disagree with him. They should just "Shut Up".

Too bad for you they're not going to anytime soon Billy.

Vyan

Stewart v Bennet on Marriage and the Human Condition

Jon Stewart takes on Former Reagan Education Secretary and Right-Wing Radio Host Bill Bennet - a man who think pulitzer prize winning journalists should go to jail - From Crooks and Liars.

I shouldn't be surprised anymore when I see Jon Stewart take a conservative ideologue to the woodshed because he does it every time when he tries. Bill Bennett is the latest one to get played by Stewart. The topic is gay marriage and once again Jon gets the better of a conservative pundit.

Video-WMP Video-QT (not the whole segment)

(rough transcript)

Stewart: So why not encourage gay people to join in in that family arrangement if that is what provides stability to a society?

Bennett: Well I think if gay..gay people are already members of families...

Stewart: What? (almost spitting out his drink)

Bennett: They're sons and they're daughters..

Stewart: So that's where the buck stops, that's the gay ceiling.

Bennett Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a women.

<>Stewart:I disagree, I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish.

Jon does such a good job of handling Mr. "Abort Every Black Baby" his head on a pike, I don't have much too add.

Vyan

Mark of the Coulter on the Today Show

Yesterday (on Mark of the Beast Day 6.6.06), right-wing pundit Ann Coulter - wearing a lovely early-morning black cocktail dress - was out to pump her new book on the Today Show and had a bit of a kurfuffle with Matt Lauer over the 9-11 Widows, Jack Murtha, Cindy Sheehan and Joe Wilson.

"I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much." Video-WMP Video-QT (low res)

LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration:

" These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing bush was part of the closure process."

And this part is the part I really need to talk to you about:

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much."

Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: To speak out using the fact they are widows. This is the left's doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to> No-No-No. We always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die--

LAUER: But aren't they in the middle of the story?...

COULTER: ...Because then if we respond, oh you are questioning their authenticity. No, the story is...

LAUER: So grieve but grieve quietly?

LAUER: What I’m saying is I don’t think they have ever told you, you can't respond.

COULTER: Look, you are getting testy with me.

LAUER: So if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?

COULTER: No, but don't use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for being able to talk about, while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point. Let Bill Clinton make the point. Don't put up someone I am not allowed to respond to without questioning the authenticity of their grief.

LAUER: Well apparently you are allowed to respond to them.

COULTER: Yeah, I did.

LAUER: So, in other words.

COULTER: That is the point of liberal infallibility. Of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows, of putting out Joe Wilson. No, no, no. You can't respond. It's their doctrine of infallibility. Have someone else make the argument then.

LAUER: What I'm saying is I don't think they have ever told you, you can't respond.

COULTER: Look, you are getting testy with me.

LAUER: No. I think it's a dramatic statement. "These broads are millionaires stalked by stalked by grief-parazzies"? "I have never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much"?

COULTER: Yes, they are all over the news.

To this the 9-11 Widows have responded to Coulter.

We did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001. The attack, which tore our families apart and destroyed our former lives, caused us to ask some serious questions regarding the systems that our country has in place to protect its citizens. Through our constant research, we came to learn how the protocols were supposed to have worked. Thus, we asked for an independent commission to investigate the loopholes which obviously existed and allowed us to be so utterly vulnerable to terrorists. Our only motivation ever was to make our Nation safer. Could we learn from this tragedy so that it would not be repeated?

We are forced to respond to Ms. Coulter's accusations to set the record straight because we have been slandered.

Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day...

And you know you've acted like an idiot in public when Kathy Griffin comes after you.

Comedian Kathy Griffin comments on Coulter's appearance on the TODAY Show.

Video-QT

(rough transcript)

Kathy: I'd like to go after Ann Coulter, I saw that nut-bag on the show earlier. What's she doing wearing a cocktail dress at seven in the morning. She got home from the party last night. Doesn't she just make stuff up Al? Who fact checks? You can't just let Ann Coulter...

What I find most galling is the blatant hypocrisy of Coulter's position, never mind it's crass and basic meanness to the 9-11 widows.

According to her Jack Murtha should shut the hell up about wars and military matters because as a 30 plus year Marine vet he knows what he's talking about - therefore we should only have uninterested and uninformed third parties do the talking. (Like herself) It's not fair because no one can criticize Murtha - cuz, y'know- like no one in their right mind has ever tried.

Similarly no one could possibly criticize someone like Cindy Sheehan for her views on the war. Whenever she speaks on the subject, everyone else just gets quiet. They wouldn't ever do anything like arrest her for standing outside of a government building, or for wearing an anti-war T-Shirt.

And it's not like the reich-wing has any "unassailable" spokespersons that they've trotted out at the drop of a hat, like say any veteran, soldier or one of their family members who continues to supports the war. Or, like y'know, John O'Neill and the Smearboat Vets, who Coulter's good friend (with benefits) Sean Hannity constantly defends and will insult anyone who even suggests that these "fine men" just might be a bunch of fucking L.I.A.R.S.

Naw, nothing like that ever happens.

Vyan

The Impeach Team - Winograd (CA-36), McClosky (CA-29) & Coleman (CA-28)

For months the RNC has been claiming that Democrats have an "Impeachment Agenda", meanwhile even John Conyers has been backing slowly away from the idea. We had the Feingold Censure Motion which, as expected, died quietly on the committee vine.

Now it appears that we just might have some Democrats who appear to take the crimes of George W Bush seriously.

The Impeach Team. Who are they?

We are Bob McCloskey (D-CA), 29th C.D., and Marcy Winograd (D-CA), 36th C.D. and Charles Coleman, Jr. (D-CA), 28th C.D. We are candidates for the U.S. House, and founders of the Impeach Team. But we're not just waiting to get elected, we are standing up for you right now.

From Impeach Team.com

Please join us in calling for the IMMEDIATE impeachment of both president George W. Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney. What is this talk about waiting until November? Why are our current representatives not demanding immediate accountability? Every day that passes brings revelations of more egregious abuses of power and more outrageous lies told to the American people.

The FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) law is very clear in that the executive branch must get a warrant in order to spy on Americans on American soil. George W. Bush has repeatedly confessed to violating this law. Therefore, it is the duty of members of the House of Representatives to impeach Bush. Add to that the lies about Iraq, the treason of outing a critical CIA operative, the torture and abuse scandals, and there are enough high crimes and misdemeanors to impeach a half a dozen presidents and vice-presidents.

It really is that simple. We often hear the argument from Democrats that it is better to wait until after the November elections. Why??? There is no assurance that Democrats will take back the Congress in November. Indeed, it is only by taking a strong stand NOW on the issues, and impeachment is the mother of them all, that it will ever happen.

From the Impeach Team.com homepage you can send a message to all of your representatives (in the House and senate) stating that you support the Immediate Impeachment of George W. Bush.

Today is a the first day where we can make our voices heard and stand up to the entrenched long-term Democratic insiders like Ranking House Intelligence Commitee, and "Gang of Eight" member Jane Harmon (who holds the seat that Marcy Winograd is vying for), and let them know exactly where true Democrats stand on the issue of the Rule of Law and ensuring that our Constitutional protections remain strong.

Democrats in Congress don't yet have an "Impeachment Agenda", but they will - or else, right?

(I myself will be working at the polls all day today!)

Vyan

Salon gets it Wrong - The Fitrakis Smackdown of Manjoo

Today we have a new entry in the Manjoo Wars, after the other days interesting and highly debated diary by our own Malcolm. Bob Fitrakis has jumped into the fray with both feet first.

Posted in it's entirety on Democratic Underground First Fitrakis sets the stage:

In Farhad Manjoo's "Was the 2004 Election Stolen? No" he claims Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s article in Rolling Stone contains "numerous errors of interpretation and his deliberate omission of key bits of data." As an Election Protection legal observer in Columbus and one of the four attorneys who challenged the Ohio election results, I was struck by Manjoo's own numerous errors of fact and deliberate omissions of widely-known studies and data.

And now with the bona fides out of the way - he gets to the meat.

In his first arguement Fitrakis starts where Malcolm left off. Where Malcolm essentially conceeded the point to Manjoo regarding votes being switched in rural counties - Fitrakis goes the other direction.

In his first claim that the Ellen Connally anomaly, where an under-funded retired municipal judge from Cleveland ran ahead of Kerry in rural southwestern counties fails to indicate vote-shifting from Kerry to Bush, Manjoo deliberately omits several well-known facts. The obvious fact on record is that Democratic nominee Al Gore pulled his campaign out of the state six weeks prior to the 2000 election while Kerry and his 527 organization supporters spent the largest amount of money in Ohio history. So to compare the non-Gore campaign in 2000 to the massive Democratic effort in 2004 seems disingenuous. Moreover, Manjoo conveniently ignores the fact that sample ballots were everywhere in the state of Ohio and voters in these rural counties were repeatedly mailed and handed both party's sample ballots. There were large and active campaigns in the key counties in question - Butler, Clermont, and Warren - passing out Republican and Democratic sample ballots. This is a major omission. Also, Manjoo might actually want to do some research on the amount of money Eric Fingerhut spent vs. John Kerry. Fingerhut's major effort was walking across the state of Ohio because he didn't have any funds. Hardly Kerry's problem.

Just how easy is it to switch votes around using punched cards (or "inka-vote" for that matter)? Pretty darn easy.

By the way, it is easy to shift votes on punchcard machines due to the ballot rotation law in Ohio. For instance, the hole to punch for Kerry would be "4" in one precinct and the hole to punch for Bush would be "4" in the next precinct. Public records reveal that in key southwest Ohio counties, ballots were counted at the county level, not the precinct level, to save money on counting machines. Thus, all one has to do is shift Kerry cards to a Bush tabulating machine to get a shift. There was more than enough time to do this, when votes came in during the wee hours of the morning. In fact, when we finally got to look at the ballots from four precincts in Warren County, we were surprised to discover that two the pink "header" cards used to separate precinct ballots had holes punched for Bush.

On Kos the discussion of Ohio election law grew quite heated - and Fitrakis seems to feel that Manjoo was quite lacking in this area.

It appears Manjoo knows very little about Ohio election law. As a licensed attorney in the state and involved in the practice of election law, I'm stunned by the obvious errors that Manjoo makes. The purges in
Ohio were, in fact, deliberate, and they occurred in Democratic strongholds. Cuyahoga County records indicate 24.93% of all voters in Cleveland were purged between the 2000 and 2004 election. Census data indicates that most of the people who move in urban areas move within the county, which would make them still eligible to vote under Ohio law, and not be purged. What Manjoo leaves out is the standard practice by counties, which would have moved these individuals to "inactive" status before purging them. Additionally, numerous surveys as well as reports by the Toledo Blade and other newspapers reveal that many of these people had voted in local elections or had contacted their county board of elections, which under voting directives indicates activity. This activity would prevent them from being purged.

This also addresses a question that came to my mind as a poll worker for the last several elections - some of the purges in Democratic districts appear to have been borderline legal un the "inactive voter" rules -- but where similar purges also done in non-Democratic areas? The end result of these purges, legal or not, wouldn't have been that someone couldn't vote it would cause them to vote provisionally, and for their vote to possibly be counted if it could be verified that they didn't try to vote twice, and they were a legitimate voter. With Democratic districts specifically targeted for purging this additional provision ballot step, which also tends to slow down the entire voting process and contribute to longer lines, wouldn't have been required as frequently in rural/Republican areas. Democrats who hadn't moved out of the county, were wrongly purged without first being placed in "Inactive" status or who had voted in the last four years but hadn't been removed from "Inactive" status would have been lost votes both to unverified provisional ballots and to increased wait time in those precincts.

But again, we return to the question - were Democratic areas targeted for purging while Republican areas were ignored?

Yes, there was the deliberate purging in the Democratic strongholds indeed. The Toledo Blade reports 28,000 voters purged from the Democratic stronghold of Toledo in late August 2004. Perhaps Manjoo should make it a practice to do a Lexus Nexus search prior to attacking people for omitting data. The key here is that it is standard for counties to purge in odd-number years, 2001, 2003, etc. Manjoo also ignores the fact that 95.12% of all the provisional voters in Hamilton County came from the Democratic city of Cincinnati, where only 32% of the county's voters resided. Less than 5% of the provisional ballots were handed out in the lily-white suburbs. Perhaps Manjoo has a hard time imagining a man of Karl Rove's high standards targeting black and poor voters.

For those of you keeping score - more provisional ballots mean more people who tried to vote, but weren't listed in the official roster. Me thinks we've found validation for the problem, and the deliberate targeting of Democrats.

Speaking of the long lines...

Manjoo's claim that the missing voting machines did not impact the African American communities is bizarre and laughable. As an election observer who witnessed lines at 9 inner-city African American precincts, I counted an average of 80 voters leaving per hour without voting in precinct after precinct. I have my logs from that day, if Manjoo would care to see them. I find Manjoo's comments both preposterous and possibly racist. The reality is, Franklin County needed 5000 machines. They went into the election with 2886, but they only put out 2741 on Election Day. I have in my possession a document that shows 125 machines that had been previously allocated, but were blackout out and held back on Election Day - all 125 from the Democratic stronghold of Columbus. Forty-two percent of the African American wards had machines held back at the last second. This constitutes 74% of all the majority African American wards in Franklin County.

It's at this point that Bob start to the serious smack-down.

Perhaps if Manjoo had actually called and asked for the documents, he may have had a better perspective. Mark Crispin Miller, Rolling Stone and Bobby Kennedy all verified their facts before they wrote their pieces. Election Protection volunteers, attorneys and eyewitnesses have yet to hear from Mr. Manjoo. Perhaps this is a new style of investigative reporting. As an award-winning investigative reporter, I'm also quite interested in how salon.com fact checks their writers.

And lastly, on the issue of whether the Democratic and African-American Chair of the Franklin County Election Board is at fault for the failure to allocate the proper amount of voting machines.

While Manjoo's errors are legion and will clearly pass into infamy, one of his most absurd is pretending that Bill Anthony, the Franklin County Board of Elections Chair, had anything to do with the actual allocation of the machines. The allocation of voting machines was drawn up by Matt Damschroder, the Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. Manjoo actually, in a major error, refers to Damschroder, as the Chair of the Election Board. Manjoo incorrectly cites both Anthony and Damschroder as chairs of the Franklin County Board of Elections. Under Ohio law, there's only one Chair and Damschroder has never been chair. I'm surprised that Manjoo would make an error of this magnitude. Anthony is the Chair. The Board he chairs deals with general policy matters. Damschroder is the Director who deals with the nuts and bolts of Election Day activity.

Oops...

Vyan