Oakland Tribune Online - Local & Regional News: "The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated Press. He said an investigation is warranted.....'Seven professors later, nobody's been able to poke a hole in our model,' Mangels said. 'Our results still hold up.'"

Surprising Florida Presidential Election Results: "Pinpointing Precincts with Vote-Counting Errors"

Outsourcing the Pentagon - The Center for Public Integrity

U.S. ELECTION: Democracy in Question

UC DATA Home Page Working Paper: The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections

Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / Media accused of ignoring election irregularities

Landscape After Battle

VotersUnite!
Summaries of voting problems nationwide, with links. 327 entries so far.

Attack on Fallujah can't be justified

White House Orders Purge of CIA 'Liberals,' Sources Say Ignorance is strength

Consortiumnews.com "Contrary to assertions in the flawed Post article, the most surprising numbers actually don’t come from small rural counties in [Florida], but rather from large counties, including Orange county (mentioned above), Hillsborough (Tampa), Brevard (Cape Canaveral), Duval (Jacksonville), Polk (next to Orange county), and heavily Democratic Leon (Tallahassee) and Alachua (Gainesville)."

ExxonSecrets Organizations: "Documenting Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change skeptics"

Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Marketing Focus :: Does a Bush Win Mean U.S. Brands Lose?: "'This is undoubtedly the worst thing that could have happened,' Anholt says of the president's reelection. 'Bush has presided over a period of unparalleled decline in the popularity of the United States. Global disapproval of U.S. foreign policy has become so intense that it is spilling over and contaminating the image of U.S. brands and culture.' "

CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter" Voter Intimidation in Tampa
Dispatches from the Gound

Columns: The man behind all the bad decisions

FindLaw's Writ - Dean: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's Texas Execution Memos

David Swanson: Media Black Out on Vote Fraud Allegations

AlterNet: The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket: "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward"

KR Washington Bureau | 10/18/2004 | As election approaches, U.S. troops experience difficulties voting: "U.S. service members based in Iraq and across the globe can't be confident that their votes will be counted in this year's presidential election"

In Court Clerks' Breach, a Provocative Precedent (washingtonpost.com): "The Vanity Fair sources do not deny the importance of in-chambers confidentiality, a lifetime obligation spelled out in the written code of conduct that all law clerks pledge to uphold when they come to the court. They simply felt bound by a higher duty.

'We feel that something illegitimate was done with the Court's power [in Bush v Gore], and such an extraordinary situation justifies breaking an obligation we'd otherwise honor,' one clerk told the magazine. 'Our secrecy was helping to shield some of those actions.'"

t r u t h o u t - GOP Faces 'Civil War' over Bush's Faith-Based Rule: "And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. 'You think he's an idiot, don't you?' I said, no, I didn't. 'No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!' In this instance, the final 'you,' of course, meant the entire reality-based community."

Hiding Behind the Skirts of the Very People He Betrays, Insulting the Intelligence of America

Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?: "Here is a small sample of who has been getting 'reparation' awards from Iraq: Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m), Nestl� ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton ($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449). In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they 'lost profits' or, in the case of American Express, experienced a 'decline in business' because of the invasion and occupation of Kuwait."

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "The important point to realize is that these abuses aren't aberrations"

toledoblade.com: "They didn't take the box of petty cash or other computers. They bypassed portable radios, a television, and a microwave.
And a pop machine, illuminating an otherwise dark room in what would seem to be a beacon to any ordinary burglar, remained untouched.
Instead, what overnight thieves took from Lucas County Democratic Headquarters were financial data, volunteer rolls, Election Day strategy, and other sensitive information just three weeks before voters head to the polls"

Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House "[A]n environmental engineer and 30-year EPA veteran in Denver, last week sought whistle-blower protection in an 18-page statement sent to the agency's inspector general and members of Congress. The statement alleges that the study's findings were premature, may endanger public health and were approved by an industry-dominated review panel that included a current Halliburton employee."

BBC NEWS Business BBC lifts the lid on secret BAE slush fund £60m slush fund used by the UK's leading arms maker, BAE Systems, to grease the wheels of the biggest arms deals in British history

New investigation uncovers more racism, voter intimidation and faulty poll machines - [Sunday Herald]

Capitol Hill Blue: Politically-Timed Terror Alerts: The Real Terror Threat: Some believe the most potent weapon in the Bush campaign arsenal isn't an advertising nest egg the size of a Third World nation's gross national product, but the fear card. If the race tightens between now and Nov. 2, they say, another "high" alert might be forthcoming.

News: "The Republicans, naturally, deny the investigations are politically motivated. But even they acknowledge that a chill has spread through Orlando's overwhelmingly Democratic black voting community after a flurry of unannounced visits by armed state police to at least 52 homes whose mostly elderly residents had signed up for an absentee ballot with Mr Thomas's help.
The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men have done wrong. The media has aired official allegations ranging from vote fraud to campaign finance irregularities to racketeering, but no charges have been brought, despite exhaustive investigations. A grand jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters' union concluded that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing the case."

Insiders Worked Both Sides of Gaming Issue (washingtonpost.com): "Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and public relations consultant Michael Scanlon quietly worked with conservative religious activist Ralph Reed to help the state of Texas shut down an Indian tribe's casino in 2002, then the two quickly persuaded the tribe to pay $4.2 million to try to get Congress to reopen it."
...then exploit the financial crisis they were helping to create for the tribe by securing both the multimillion-dollar fee and $300,000 in federal political contributions, which the tribe paid.

KR Washington Bureau | 09/25/2004 | Iraqi civilian casualties mounting

Bush acceptance speech marked by anticipation:This one from the RNC slipped under the radar: Senator George Voinovich said that we were now "engaged in the fourth world war."
Is he admitting that the US's dozens of proxy wars against socialist and populist nations and movements in the '60s, '70s and '80s were, in fact, a unified World War III? Or what?

Followed by a goon shadow

White House Guide to Understanding the Terror Alert Colors

Close race means more voters registering - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com: "The number of new voters has spiked significantly in Perry County, too, said Janie Dailey, director of the board of elections there. 'We've registered 1,500 new voters since the beginning of the year.'"

As of the 2000 census, the population of Perry County aged 18 and over was 24,494.

Demonstration of 5 voting system hacks using real software Black Box Voting Will a chimp steal the election? (Includes video of chimp)

MSNBC - Political Humor

MSNBC - The Story That Didn't Run: CBS plays for the Bush team.
"In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush's National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same "60 Minutes" broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger."

Peer News: "EPA ISSUES PRE-ELECTION GAG ORDER TO STAFF"

Why Americans Back the War: "To the mounting horror of the world, the United States of America is relentlessly bringing about the systematic destruction of a small, unthreatening nation for no good reason. Why has this not gripped the conscience of this country?
The answer goes beyond Bush to the 60-year history of an accidental readiness to destroy the earth, a legacy with which we Americans have yet to reckon. The punitive terror bombing that marked the end of World War II hardly registered with us. Then we passively accepted our government's mad embrace of thermonuclear weapons. While we demonized our Soviet enemy, we hardly noticed that almost every major escalation of the arms race was initiated by our side "

Pentagon Restricts Overseas Voters

Paul Craig Roberts: Attention Deficit America: "Speaking of Phony Documents..."

Insuring Controversy (washingtonpost.com): "While the costs of running a practice, including insurance premiums, have risen in recent years, physicians incomes do not appear to have dropped." That's the word from Page 3 of this story about how primary care doctors are asking their patients (whose health insurance premiums and co-payments aren't even mentioned in the story) for "donations" on top of their medical bills.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Scamming the Media, Parlock Style

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Eclipsed in Iraq

Tami Longaberger speaks out about state of company - zanesvilletimesrecorder.com: "'We continue to right-size the business,' she said," after announcing an additional 215 layoffs, a week after 784 workers were laid off.

And you thought "downsizing" was a euphemism.

t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | When the Rabbits Get a Gun Osama bin Laden went to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, home of the holiest sites of Islam. The royal family was not to be found anywhere on bin Laden's list of friends at the time. A shrewd observer of local politics, bin Laden knew that the Saudi government enjoyed having the Palestinians living in squalor, bereft of homeland and hope, because it distracted the fundamentalists within Saudi Arabia from focusing on the inequities within their own country. With the crooking of a single oil-rich finger, the Saudi royals could solve the Palestinian problem. Their refusal to do so fed bin Laden's rage, for in his mind, they were aiding and abetting what he saw as an intolerable Israeli apartheid.

17,000 GIs Not Listed as Casualties: "17,000 GIs Not Listed As Casualties "

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam: "Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale "

No justice for Hicks in flawed trial: QC: "One member [of the tribunal] admitted during the hearing he had previously said the inmates at Guantanamo Bay were all terrorists."

U.S. Plans to Divert Iraq Money (washingtonpost.com)

The Daily Telegraph | Journalists 'get terror tip-offs'

Robert Novak Believes in Revealing Confidential Sources, After All:
"'HUNT: Robert Novak, you're saying CBS should reveal its source?
NOVAK: Yes.
HUNT: You do? You think reporters ought to reveal sources?
NOVAK: No, no. Wait a minute.
HUNT: I'm just asking.
NOVAK: I'm just saying in that case.'"

Yahoo! News - U.N. Agency to Study Environment in Iraq: "The British government has given the agency detailed information on locations where it used 1.9 tonnes of depleted uranium in the south of Iraq, but the U.S. government hasn't come forward with the same information despite requests from the United Nations."

Guardian | Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row: "Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq."

USNews.com: A review of President Bush's National Guard years raises issues about the time he served (9/20/04): Left-wing whackos at US News & World Report? "The White House has said that Bush's service should be calculated using 12-month periods beginning on his induction date in May 1968. Using this time frame, however, Bush still fails the Air Force obligation standard."

CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter" In This Election Reality is Off the Table

Yahoo! News - Pat Oliphant

Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Be very afraid

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "The Dishonesty Thing"

Foreign Policy In Focus Special Report: A Secure America in a Secure World

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: Return to parallel earth

Boston.com / News / Politics / Presidential candidates / George W. Bush / 'CYA' memo

Invoking 9/11 May Temper Views on Iraq War (washingtonpost.com): "'I think the administration is testing the theory that you can fool all of the people some of time,' said Richard C. Holbrooke, a senior foreign policy adviser."

TIME.com: A Web Of Intrigue -- Sep. 13, 2004: "U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials insist that U.S. intercepts of Iranian communications prove that secrets about U.S. code-breaking were gravely breached"

TIME.com: A Web Of Intrigue -- Sep. 13, 2004

TheStar.com - Why would Israel need a spy in Pentagon?

AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Bush Crusade: "Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script."

Conyers Calls for Hearings on Spy Case: "U.S.district attorney in charge of the probe, Paul McNulty, has ordered the FBI not to move forward with arrests that they were prepared to make last Friday "
....Mr. McNulty was only assigned the case by Attorney General Ashcroft last Friday when federal agents came to Aipac’s offices in Washington to request files and hard drives. “Ashcroft wanted to make sure this case was being handled properly,” the source familiar with the probe said. “I would not expect any action on this for at least three weeks.” This source added that a grand jury is now being selected, but it was likely the charges,initially reported as espionage, would be scaled back to the mishandling of classified information.

TimesDispatch.com | Lawyers ask judge for access to papers McNulty is leading the pentagon investigation.

AlterNet: Unmitigated Gall

George Jr Sent Out of Texas by Father as a 'Drunken Liability'

Change at CDC Draws Protest (washingtonpost.com): "the move has drawn protests from virtually every occupational health and safety organization in the country, including some representing labor and others more aligned with corporate management -- groups that usually are at policy loggerheads but that have shared interests in good science."

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page: "For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was 'Mission Accomplished' - followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam - followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress - a fantasy exploded by the guns of August."

Boston.com / News / Nation / 2d probe at the Pentagon examines actions on Iraq Besides Iraq, Feith & co. wanted war with Iran & Syria. Who would have guessed?

Politics News Article | Reuters.com: "Former Aide to N.J. Governor Will Not File Lawsuit" Anyone surprised?

Still We Rise

Light Up The Sky

Republicans successfully isolate delegates from protests: "After touring the city, we returned to our hotel, and I flipped on the TV. With surprise, I watched protesters and marches that had taken place. It seemed as if I were in a different city."

"Iran-Contra II?" by Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris

KR Washington Bureau | 08/28/2004 | FBI espionage probe goes beyond Israeli allegations, sources say The Feith-based initiative comes under FBI scrutiny.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Editorials: "'I think I understand,' I said. 'The founding fathers were liberal in that they changed the form of government under which they were living.'

'A common misperception,' said my caller. 'The Fathers were actually very, very conservative. They were a land-owning, educated minority. Most of the population were illiterate and owned little.'

Confused, I asked if President Bush is a liberal since he had changed an established tax policy to help the more wealthy and spent billions on a war, or was he a conservative because he owned lots of land and is educated.

'Not exactly,' said my caller."

The Lie Factory: "the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq"

DC Indymedia: feature/104306 Israel's Mole Inside the Pentagon

Map & Graph: Countries by Military: Expenditures: dollar figure (per capita)

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | A cliche gone mad: "Since the concept of PC is mainly rightwing doublespeak anyway, you can make some reliable predictions about those instances where it is held to have gone mad."

Sum of a Glitch: Evidence shows that machines might be the real swing voters this November -- In These Times

Hoodwinked - Why is Florida's voting system so corrupt? By Ann Louise-Bardach

The Village Voice: Features: The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York by Wayne Barrett, special reporting by Daniel Magliocco

Yahoo! News - Poverty rate climbs in US President Bush along with Treasury Secretary John Snow announced their new campaign: "Poverty Is Good For America!"

"With 35% of Americans living in poverty and 45 million without health insurance, we're turning the corner!" Bush said on a campaign stop attended by wealthy Republicans enjoying their tax cuts by paying $10,000 each to wipe their asses with the US Constitution.

The Great American Shout Out | An Al Franken, Air America Radio Project

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: The undecided voter

Winslow T. Wheeler: Don't Mind If I Do: "Porkbarrel and the War on Terror"

Gary Leupp: "We Want Them to Go Away"

Seriously: Kerry on Comedy Central (washingtonpost.com)

GOP Delegates Met With Anti-Bush Signs

SI.com - Writers - Wahl: Iraqi soccer players upset about Bush campaign ads - Thursday August 19, 2004 5:03PM: "'Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,' Sadir told SI.com through a translator, speaking calmly and directly. 'He can find another way to advertise himself.'
Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder on Wednesday, had an even stronger response when asked about Bush's TV advertisement. 'How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?' Manajid told me. 'He has committed so many crimes.'"

Vietnam Issue Cuts Both Ways (washingtonpost.com) said one GOP strategist, who declined to be identified because of concerns about retribution from Bush's advisers.

Yahoo! News - Ted Rall