I wish American Presidential races provided voters with a real shot at electing someone other than the lesser of two evils. Choosing between two pieces of chit sucks.


Normally, I dont enter the fray here, becasue I dont want to suffer the consequences.
However, I must say this.

I absolutely F*cking hate Bush, and his entire cabinet's track record over the last 4 years, but I cannot vote for Kerry.
I just think Kerry's approach, although genuine and constructive in nature, will be too disruptive to the current state of international affairs. I wish the Demo party had done better.

This is the America you are voting for.

sleep tight

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/10/far04036.html

October 25, 2004

Attention Fence Sitters: 101 Points to Ponder Before Taking to the Polls

by Maureen Farrell

(Each point has links embedded to further reading on that point. Click
on the address above and go to the site to read them.)

"Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he
stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against
the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him." – Hunter S.
Thompson

Though the country is more polarized than it's been since the Vietnam
War, a palpable sense of "we're in it togetherness" exists below the
rancor and angst. Because of this, the question, "Are you better off
than you were four years ago?" has been replaced with the broader, "Is
the country better off"?

At this particular fork in the road, we have to imagine where each
path might lead. Where will we be five years from now? Twenty years
from now? Should we "stay the course," even though the course is
headed into a ravine?

Of course, the Bush campaign has been trying to scare Americans with
images of wolves, suggesting that this administration will keep danger
at bay. But George Bush has made us decidedly less safe by driving us
deeper into the forrest. Should we reward the man who's steered the
country into a ditch by giving him the keys to the company car?

One week from now, our collective futures will be decided. If you're
still undecided, I beg you to consider the following:

The last presidential election

["George Bush's presidency was] signed, sealed and delivered months
before anyone entered a voting booth." – Investigative reporter Greg
Palast

1. Scrubbed voter rolls.

2. Disappearing votes.

3. Thugs on Enron planes.

4. Another debacle in the making.

Incompetence prior to 9/11

"I don't believe any longer that it's a matter of connecting the dots.
I think they had a veritable blueprint, and we want to know why they
didn't act on it." — Sen. Arlen Specter

5. In addition to the Aug. 6, 2001 PDB entitled 'Bin Laden Determined
To Strike in US,' the president saw a string of reports, including
ones entitled: 'Bin Laden planning multiple operations,' 'Bin Laden
network's plans advancing' and 'Bin Laden threats are real.'"

6 "Bush acknowledged that bin Laden was not his focus or that of his
national security team. `I was not on point,' the president said [to
Bob Woodward in Bush at War]. `I didn't feel a sense of urgency.'
Well, how can you not feel a sense of urgency when George Tenet is
telling you in daily briefings, day after day, that a major al Qaeda
attack is coming?"

7. "'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's
going to happen soon," Richard Clarke told White House staffers in
July 2001. "For six weeks. . . the U.S. government was at its highest
possible state of readiness. . . By the time Bush received his
briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had
begun to stand down from the alert."

8. FBI officials complained after Bush took office, intelligence
agencies were instructed to "'back off' from investigations involving
other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible
Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan."

9. Former Sen. Gary Hart says he warned Condoleezza Rice "about an
imminent terror attack on two occasions before 9/11."

10. Senator: "incompetence. . . a contributing factor toward Sept. 11."

Incompetence on 9/11

"For more than two hours after the Federal Aviation Administration
became aware that the first plane had been violently overtaken by
Middle Eastern men, the man whose job it was to order air cover over
Washington did not show up in the Pentagon's command center. It took
him almost two hours to 'gain situational awareness'. . . "-- Gail
Sheehy, the Los Angeles Times

11. Bush's Pet Goat.

12. "How much in command was the commander in chief?"

13. John Dean: "It seems very probable that those in the White House
knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their
failure to take action."

14. "Why don't we have answers to these 9/11 questions?"

15. "FBI rewarding incompetence?"

16. "The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until
after the election, and this one names names."

Incompetence in Iraq

"Iraq is a terrible mess because of the criminal incompetence of the
Bush national security team, and we are more alone in the world than
ever."—Thomas Friedman, the New York Times

17. Zinni: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I
saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility,
at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."

18. "As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers
increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake
months before the start of the war by stopping the military from
attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country." (Shades
of bin Laden's escape?)

19 The Bush administration failed to guard Iraq's military and nuclear
sites and, as a result, explosives

and nuclear materials have been pilfered. As one writer put it, "your
chances of getting nuked in your jammies have gone way up."

20. Career CIA officer: "America is losing the war on terror, in part
because of the invasion of Iraq."

21. "Iraq war 'helped al-Qaeda recruit.' and "succeeded only in
stimulating terrorism."

22. Brigadier General: "If we continue to proceed the way we are
proceeding with the current strategy, there's going to become a point
in time where the draft could be very necessary."

23. "If Bush is re-elected there are only two possible outcomes in
Iraq" – and neither is good for America.

Bush Administration Secrecy

"This White House. . . is the most secretive ever to run the United
States." – Former Nixon counsel John Dean

24. "I believe a veil of secrecy has descended around the
administration and I think that's unseemly," Republican Congressman
Dan Burton remarked, after Bush signed an Executive Order restricting
access to Presidential records.

25. Cheney's Energy Task force forced the question, "What are they
hiding?"

26. As of Feb. 2003, there were more than 300 rollbacks of the Freedom
of Information Act.

27. 9/11 family members said the White House "smothered every attempt
to get to the bottom of the outrageous intelligence failures that took
place on its watch."

28. 'What is your government not telling you'?

Deception

"Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a
bodyguard of lies." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paraphrasing
Winston Churchill

29. Even while publicly making mushroom cloud claims, hawks in the
U.S. government privately admitted that Iraq was not a threat to the
United States.

30. Early on, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell both publicly asserted
that Saddam was not capable of attacking America.

31. The Pentagon constructed its own "lie factory" to justify a
pre-planned war.

32. Paul Wolfowitz skirted the human and monetary costs of the war in
Iraq, causing one lawmaker to note: "I think you're deliberately
keeping us in the dark."

33. The Bush administration relied on "misrepresentation [and]
manipulation" to make its case for Iraq.

34. As of Oct. 25, 2004, the White House Web site still contained a
list of Iraq-related whoppers.

Trickery

"President Bush may not be dumb, but he sure does think the rest of us
are." – Molly Ivins

35. "The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, struck a deal
with the US not to seize Bin Laden after the Afghan war for fear of
inciting trouble in his own country."

36. "The White House withheld information about North Korea's nuclear
weapons program until after Congress passed its resolution authorizing
war with Iraq."

37. The White House instructed Rep Dick Armey to insert a provision
blocking lawsuits against vaccine makers into homeland security
legislation. "Why would anyone want to save Eli Lilly on our
children's backs?" one mother asked.

38. The Bush administration knew that claims about aluminum tubes and
"uranium from Africa" were not true, but "cooked information" made its
way into President's speeches anyway.

39. 'The quickest way home is through Baghdad', they told us. So we
took the city, and here we are still," one staff sergeant complained,
long before troops were forced to stay in the military.

Weirdness

"First it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to
pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries
provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks.. . . Was this
inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being
ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have
been deliberately stood down on September 11?" -- Former British
environmental minister Michael Meacher

40. "On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon
officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning,
apparently because of security concerns."

41. Former FBI translator: "I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida
would attack cities with airplanes."

42. In 2000, the U.S. military conducted exercises to see how many
would perish if a plane flew into the Pentagon and on Sept. 11, 2001
the CIA ran a similar simulation.

43. Days after the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden family members were flown
out of the country.

44. "Judicial Watch is aggressively pursuing the disclosure of the
facts and the decision for White House staff, and President Bush as
well, to begin taking Cipro nearly a month before anthrax was detected
on Capitol Hill."

45. Bush knew.

Threats to Civil Liberties

"It's bombs away for Iraq and on our civil liberties if Bush and his
cronies get their way." – Helen Thomas

46. `Bush gets "f" on Civil Rights.'

47. "Patriot Act sequel worse than original"

48. School teachers threatened with arrest and tossed out of a Bush
rally for wearing T-shirts that read `Protect our civil liberties.'

49. Mother of a slain solider arrested for interrupting Laura Bush.

50. Solider tossed out of a Bush rally for befriending a Democrat.

51. John Ashcroft's camps.

52. `Uncle Sam will soon want your kids.'

Threats to Democracy

"It's not an overstatement to say that on Nov. 2, the fate of
traditional American democracy will hang in the balance." – Neal
Gabler, the Los Angeles Times

53. "On the issue of war and peace, the United States is no longer a
democracy."

54. `Threats to Democracy at Code Red.'

55. Former Reagan official bemoans the "Brownshirting of America."

56. Bush-Connected Clear Channel raises questions about censorship and
the merger of government and the media.

57. `Dirty Tricks return to the sunshine state'

58. "So even before most of the country votes on November 2, it is
likely that John Kerry will have been denied thousands upon thousands
of votes, well in excess of one or two hundred thousand possibly, due
to a national GOP strategy of voter suppression, intimidation and
dirty tricks, using multiple strategies."

59. 'U.S. spies on chat rooms.'

60. Congress kept in dark about Bush's Shadow Government

61. `The end of Democracy.'

Threats to Core Values

"Give us back the America we loved, and your friends will be waiting
for you." – John Le Carre, the Los Angeles Times

62. "Unilateral preventive war is neither legitimate nor moral. It is
illegitimate and immoral. For more than 200 years we have not been
that kind of country."

63. Bush "will go down in history as the first president to try to
write bias back into the Constitution."

64. "[Bush's] international policies have been based on the hopelessly
naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by
American armies -- a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of
global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His
immigration policies -- temporarily put on hold while he runs for
re-election -- are just as extreme."

65. "Bush has shown an ideological commitment to the literalist
Christian tradition at the expense of the broader view of the larger
religious community. He is the first president not to meet with the
leadership of mainline Christian traditions since George Washington."

66. "The nation's founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties
of Europe's state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall
between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that
seems like a long time ago. George W. Bush -- both captive and creator
of this moment -- has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself.
He has created the faith-based presidency."

67. "How did eight or nine neoconservatives who believed that a war in
Iraq was the answer to international terrorism get their way? How did
they redirect the government and rearrange long-standing American
priorities and policies with so much ease? How did they overcome the
bureaucracy, intimidate the press, mislead the Congress, and dominate
the military? Is our democracy that fragile?"

Threats to America's Worldwide Reputation

"Never before have so many climbed into the underbelly of U.S. foreign
policy and left holding their noses." -- The Toronto Star

68. 'America's reputation as land of the free looking increasingly
tarnished.'

69. "[In] eight out of 10 nations, those polled said - often in
landslide proportions - that they hoped to see Democrat John Kerry
beat President Bush in next month's election."

70. Brits lobby to get rid of George W. Bush.

71. Germany has signaled that if Kerry wins, they'd reconsider sending
troops to Iraq.

72. "Probably no American president in history has been so universally
hated abroad as Bush."

War Profiteering

"Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans
come to understand how four generations of the current president's
family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA
connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and
personal financial links." -- Kevin Phillips, the Los Angeles Times

73. `Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya his former business
partner'?

74. `The Bush Crony Act'

75. "`Bush ally set to profit on war on terror."

76. `Bush and the Saudis Sitten' in a tree'.

77. "Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, sat on the board of a
company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to
North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil. . . "

78. "Nowhere is the revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel more evident than
within President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers,
starting with the president's father, George H.W. Bush."

79. "Bush Family Values."

80. "Cheney claimed that he supported the U.S. sanctions on Iraq, but
the Financial Times of London reported that through foreign
subsidiaries and affiliates, Halliburton became the biggest oil
contractor for Iraq, selling more than $73 million in goods and
services to Saddam Hussein's regime."

81. "A U.S. grand jury issued a subpoena to Halliburton Co. seeking
information about its Cayman Islands unit's work in Iran, where it is
illegal for U.S. companies to operate. . . "

Non-Presidential Behavior

"The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised
to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to
those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the
president to explain his positions." – Ron Suskind, the New York Times

82. The reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

83. "A blind man in a room full of deaf people."

84. A "shot across the bow."

85. Has Bush lost his reason?

Human Rights Abuses

"[A] secret U.S. military unit has been `disappearing' people since
December 2001, and America has no idea how irreparably its torture of
Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison has damaged its image in the Middle East."
– Summary of Seymour Hersh speech

86. 'Bush Administration lawyers greenlight torture.'

87. The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu
Ghraib prison.

88. Rumsfeld knew of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes as early
as 2002, but did nothing to stop it.

The Religious Right

"The outcome [of this election] threatens to transform the U.S. into
an ironfisted theocracy." – Neal Gabler, the Los Angeles Times

89. `Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power: US
Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy.'

90 "The Rev. Jerry Falwell said yesterday that evangelical Christians,
after nearly 25 years of increasing political activism, now control
the Republican Party and the fate of President Bush in the November
election."

91. "It is one of the saddest ironies of our time that as America
tries to calm the fires of theocracy abroad, it should be stoking
milder versions of the same at home."

92. When former Council for National Policy member Pat Robertson
resigned as head of the Christian Coalition, some saw it as a sign. "I
think Robertson stepped down because the position has already been
filled," Gary Bauer said, referring to President Bush's role as head
of the Religious Right.

93. "The only way Americans will have a presidency in which
neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the
reins of power is if Kerry is elected."

The Home Front

"Voters should reject the notion that the current administration
`inherited' a bad economy or was the victim on 9/11 of previous White
House policies. The state in which this nation finds itself can be
traced to a single misfortune: four years of the Bush administration."
-- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

94. "Nearly 2.7 million manufacturing and 1 million
professional-services and information-technology jobs have been lost
since President Bush took office."

95. "Mr. Bush's foreign policy. . . has undoubtedly boosted the cost
of gas and fuel oil to all Americans."

96. "The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3
million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4
million, the Census Bureau reported. . ."

97. "The Bush Social Security plan poses a major threat to the
economic security of future generations of older Americans. And it
also poses major risks for current beneficiaries."

Weird Science

98. "The administration's stem-cell stand is just one of many
examples, from climate change to abstinence-only sex-education
programs, in which the White House has made policies that defy widely
accepted scientific opinion."

99. "George W. Bush will go down as the worst environmental president
in our nation's history."

100. "Under Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates
appears to have reversed."

And finally. . .

"If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush
Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United
States and the world." -- The Nation

101. '100 Facts and 1 opinion'

I for one much appreciates Sky-Guy's opinion instead of some cut and past garbage!
I much prefer hearing the opinions of other fishermen than from those who can spend the most time cruising the net to find others to best make their argument for them!

Peace! Just MHO! It will all be over soon enough!

Thank God!

Good Job Sky Guy.

A vote for Bush or a vote for Nader are the only intelligent choices.

I always appreciate honesty Sky-guy. But I'm just curious. If your worried about disruption in foreign affairs, it seems that Kerry and Bush's plans are similar in what has been shared to this point. What disruption are you concerned about? You indicated that you wish the Democrats had done better. Who would have been a better choice?

Whoever wins tomorrow (even if it's Kerry), I hope it's decisive and we know who the winner by the end of the night.

I don't want to see the country (and the election process) go through a long drawn out Al Gore inspired 'Sore Loserman' legal battle........I'm not holding my breath though.

Nixon was told to legally challenge the Kennedy win in 1960. We now know about all the democratic voting BS (vote early and often) that went on in Chicago (by Kennedy's dad's friends in the MOB) and that if he had challenged it he may have been declared the winner. Nixon put the nation before his own ego and self interests and accepted the results and decided not to put the country through an election result roller coaster.

I agree with Rory. Aunty perfectly explains the damage done by Al Gore. Lets look at the facts one more time shall we. Bush won the Florida vote. He won the Florida recount. He won the Florida re-recount. Bush won every recount including the one where democratic districts/workers attempted to ascertain the "intent" of the voter. Bush won the recount the New York Times did. Bush won the recount that the Washington Post did. Bush won the recount that the Miami Herald did. Reality sinking in here anybody? The Supreme Court stopped the recount because that is the law of the land! States must cast their Electerol Collage votes by a givin time as stated in the US Consitution (Article II section 1). Gore and his lawyers knew this and dragged things on to hurt this Country. It was shamefull and the past four years of bickering prove this. Gore won both Oregon and New Mexico by less votes than Bush won Florida. I don't hear anybody saying Gore stole those two states!!!

I hope the loser concedes in a timely matter so we Americans can stop doing this to each other and concentrate on doing more of this to our common enemies!!!

KK,

Gettin' a little surly there KK--Do I sense a little election anxiety?

Hearing people of an advanced age pontificate their 'enlightened' liberal opinions reminds me of a famous quote:

"If a person isn't liberal at 20, he has no heart, and if he isn't conservative by the time he's 40, he has no brain" - Winston Churchill

What's liberal about being right, Rory? You posted BS, got called on it, so you throw down a Churchill quote mocking liberals as your response?

Very Bush Administration.

KK,

All though it's a rewarding and constructive hobby, you should step away from the fly tying table now and then.

I think all the fumes from the epoxy head cement glue are taking a toll.

Fish and be well my friend
------------------------------------------------------------

BTW--Which of the 3 facts I listed about the 1960 election do you believe were BS?

1.) Nixon was told/advised to legally challenge the election results.

2.) We have learned that Kennedy's family and their 'friends' in organized crime helped to ensure a 'favorable' result in Chicago.

3.) Nixon chose not to challenge the results

No matter who wins. We should try, whenever possible, to support our president. If we get through this with a clear winner we will once again show the world how democracy works. Sure its got some problems, but we still get to select our leader. That's not the case in many parts of the world.

While I fervently hope to Bush gos, I klnow we can get along just fine with him. I hope the Bush supporters will also try their best to support Kerry if he wins.

We still have a good system of checks and balances to keep either one from going off the deep end.

Well said Dave. I however did not see alot of people supporting Bush the last 4 years. I would like to see an amendment to the constitution that the congress shall automatically be controlled by the opposite party of the president. I think that had that happened with Bush the support may have been stronger.

TK: Sometimes it scares me when we agree.

As long as we are changeing the constitution I would like to see the electoral college done away with or the senate redistributed some other way.

I read today thet 17% of the population controls 50 of the senate. To me that does not seem right. Why should South Dakota have the same influence as New York state?

I am a really smart phuker Dave, You must be also

Very good suggestions Dave, now if we could only get the attention of those that hold political office and get them behind those suggestions.

In a sense it does make sense as to why South Dakota does have the same influence as New York state, as what is good for New York state is not necessarily good for South Dakota, Washington or any other state. That is the reason why our founding fathers set our legilative system up in the manor they did so that no particular part of the country can dictate or mandate their wishes upon another like here in Washington where the I-5 Corridor dictates the direction this state is headed. What is good for King/Snohomish/Pierce Counties is not necessarily good for Jefferson, Clallum, Adams,Spokane or other counties in the State.

A good case in point is in the Sixties I was a Financial Analyist with THe Florida National Group of Banks, which at that time was the largest Banking Group in Florida. As a result I would get phone calls from NYC Financial Institutions developing Credit Information on our Customers and it was a common practice of the Northern Institutions to talk down to not only me but others in my department like we where some Dumb SOB working in some little bank in Hicksville USA.