So, whatever happened to all those terror alerts that Homeland Security was issuing prior to the Presidential election? As I recall, we were going Code Orange about 3 times a week. I guess Karl Rove decided that the alerts have outlived their political utility....

Thinking about the nomination of the odious John Bolton to be our Ambassador to the UN, it occurs to me that there is a cost, in both national security terms and in real dollars, associated with the Bush policy of dismissiveness toward other nations. It might be an interesting project for a think tank to enumerate and analyze the various ways that we lose when we alienate foreign governments. At the moment there are probably not a handful of countries in the world who would be willing to join us on another military adventure in the Middle East; thus, we would bear the $$ costs almost exclusively, and would suffer most of all of the casualties as well. And, I would think a good case can be made that trade with the rest of the world will be on less favorable terms if we are regarded as a pariah.

Quantifying the cost of the BushCo foreign policy in real terms that Wall St. can understand might be very useful.

I do not know if the Republicans stole the 2004 election, but I think that it was a huge mistake for Kerry to concede so quickly. His concession does not have legal weight, but it has the effect of legitimizing a Bush victory in the eyes of the public. The concession has allowed the GOP and the media whores to start spinning the narrative about a clear and strong mandate for Bush. Kerry could have issued a statement that in view of the numerous irregularities in both Florida and Ohio, he was witholding his concession until the results were thoroughly vetted and certified by officials in those states. Had he taken this approach, the public perception would be that the election is "still too close to call," and even if Bush were ultimately the winner, his victory would be diminished significantly. At the moment, 99% of Americans believe that it's over, that Bush won. If Kerry had refused to concede, the whole nation and the media would be focused on the process of reviewing vote tallies from Florida and Ohio; there would be incredible scrutiny of the numbers, and the inadequacy of our voting system would be exposed for the mess that it is. Now that Bush has been declared the winner, it will be exceedingly difficult to undo what is done, even if conclusive evidence shows that the election was rigged. Kerry rolled over too quickly, and has done a disservice to the 56 million voters who supported him.

Apparently Karl Rove has not read "The Emerging Democratic Majority" by Ruy Teixeira and John Judis. The GOP's devious vote-suppression tactics are certain to further alienate minority citizens, whose numbers are rapidly increasing relative to the populus at large. The GOP is likely to both lose this election AND insure that they will lose that critical voting bloc forever. Dumb asses.

Viusalize Winning -

http://www.needlenose.com/win04/vote.htm

This is really cool- Make sure to have your sound turned up.... !

Sinclair Broadcasting has fired Jon Lieberman, its Washington Bureau Chief. He had spoken out against the company's decision to run "Stolen Honor", a rightwing hit piece on John Kerry's military service. A link to the story is provided below.

Bravo, Jon Lieberman! I expect the job offers are already flooding in....

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1131&slug=Kerry%20Film%20Reporter

Sinclair Broadcasting (SBGI) has ordered all 62 of their TV stations to air a slime piece on John Kerry entitled "Stolen Honor." There is a powerhouse citizen's movement afoot to confront Sinclair by driving the company's stock down, and persuading their advertisers to pull out. There will also be legal challenges to Sinclair's FCC licenses. Sinclair stock took a nosedive today and ended at $6.49, down .55 cents a share, on a huge volume of 1,147,658 shares (that's triple their average daily volume.) The stock lost 7.81% of its value today.

Here are a couple of links to Sinclair-related sites:

http://www.sinclairwatch.org/

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#Advertiser_Responses

Wonder how the Republicans are enjoying the wonders of their beloved free market in action?

Q: Cheney, Bush, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld are in a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean. The boat springs a leak. Who gets saved?



A: We do.

I'd really like to see some polling data on a demographic that isn't getting enough attention; Republicans who plan to vote for Kerry, or are so disgusted with Bush that they will just stay home on Nov. 2. Perhaps Zogby and the other polling firms could design a survey that samples this segment of the electorate. My instinct tells me that this might be the Mother of All Internal Polling Numbers.

I think it's time for the Democrats to start spending a lot of their energy on insuring that the votes are actually going to be counted properly. At this stage of the game, that may be a more effective expenditure of financial and human resources than continuing to market the Kerry/Edwards ticket. The Democrats have a stronger and more appealing ticket, a better GOTV operation, most of the significant newspaper endorsements, a fiercely committed constituency, and they won all four debates. My calculation is that in large measure the game has already been won; we just need to make sure the score is reported accurately.