Wednesday, October 27, 2004

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/27/04 17:12 | link | comments

Sunday, October 24, 2004

The Case That Kerry Cracked

By Lucy Komisar, AlterNet.

One gets an eerie sense of déjà vu watching John Kerry battle the Bush clan. He’s done it once before, against the old man, President Bush’s father, though many voters have probably forgotten. That battle involved the first Bush administration’s attempt to put the lid on an investigation that connected a worldwide criminal bank to narco-traffickers, terrorists, and to Middle East money men who helped the Bush family make piles of cash. Those links connect to people now on the U.S. post-9/11 terrorist list.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kerry fought to expose an international criminal bank, BCCI — the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The bank was run by a Pakistani, working with Persian Gulf managers who operated through a network of secret offshore centers to hide their operations from the world’s bank examiners. They weren’t, however, hidden from the CIA, which not only knew what the bank was doing, but used the bank to funnel cash through its Islamabad and other Pakistani branches to CIA client Osama bin Laden, part of the $2 billion Washington sent to the Afghani mujahideen. The operation gave bin Laden an education in black finance. CIA director William Casey himself met with BCCI founder Agha Hasan Abedi. The CIA also paid its own agents through the bank and used BCCI to fund black ops all over the world. [Read More]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/24/04 15:37 | link | comments

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Nightmare Scenario

posted by durani, 10/21/04 13:49 | link | comments

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/20/04 17:24 | link | comments

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Florida 2000: The Sequel
Five ways the election could end up in court, again.
By Richard L. Hasen

Nightmare Scenario No. 1: Litigation Following Voting Glitch

Nightmare Scenario No. 2: Litigation Over Whose Vote Counts

Nightmare Scenario No. 3: Litigation Over Colorado's Amendment 36

Nightmare Scenario No. 4: Electoral College Woes in Congress

Nightmare Scenario No. 5: Terrorist Attack That Disrupts Voting

Read the article HERE

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/19/04 17:41 | link | comments

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/19/04 13:43 | link | comments (1)

Feeling the Draft

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit - but those who looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts suggest that he will.

There were two reasons some of us never believed Mr. Bush's budget promises. First, his claims that his tax cuts were affordable rested on patently unrealistic budget projections. Second, his broader policy goals, including the partial privatization of Social Security - which is clearly on his agenda for a second term - would involve large costs that were not included even in those unrealistic projections. This led to the justified suspicion that his election-year promises notwithstanding, Mr. Bush would preside over a return to budget deficits.

It's exactly the same when it comes to the draft. [Read More]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/19/04 13:29 | link | comments

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Check this out, a blog by a similar title…

http://www.nakedandalive.co.uk/

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/17/04 10:39 | link | comments (1)

Thursday, October 14, 2004

This is the crap I've been dealing with at work...can't wait until November 3rd...

"If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle."
-- Michigan State Rep. John Pappageorge, quoted in the Detroit Free Press, July 16, 2004

In July it was Michigan.
Last week it was Ohio.¹
Today it's Milwaukee! ²

We must protect democracy wherever forces attempt to suppress and disenfranchise voters.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker today denied Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's request for additional ballots for use on November 2.

After receiving only 679,000 ballots -- less than the city was given in 2000 and 2002 -- Milwaukee's mayor, expecting major turnout in this election, asked the County Executive for more ballots. "No way," said the county, telling the Associated Press that election-fraud "'chaos' could occur at understaffed polling places where voters could grab ballots."

We cannot allow the County Executive to deny Milwaukee voters their right to cast a ballot on Election Day.

¹http://www.electionprotection2004.org/archives/2004_09_29.html#000033

² http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/266144.asp

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/14/04 18:43 | link | comments (1)

Bush and the Draft is a campaign launched to help prevent a new generation from falling victim to a preventable draft.

President Bush tells us we're making progress in Iraq, yet his own advisers say the situation is growing worse each day. He said we could secure the peace with less than 140,000 troops, yet with 90% of active duty troops deployed overseas, the mission remains unaccomplished.

Now George Bush says there won't be a draft. Is it any wonder that many Americans aren't so sure? [Read More]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/14/04 09:49 | link | comments

Sunday, October 10, 2004

posted by durani, 10/10/04 03:39 | link | comments

Friday, October 08, 2004

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/08/04 17:52 | link | comments

Ignorance Isn't Strength

By PAUL KRUGMAN

I first used the word "Orwellian" to describe the Bush team in October 2000. Even then it was obvious that George W. Bush surrounds himself with people who insist that up is down, and ignorance is strength. But the full costs of his denial of reality are only now becoming clear.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have an unparalleled ability to insulate themselves from inconvenient facts. They lead a party that controls all three branches of government, and face news media that in some cases are partisan supporters, and in other cases are reluctant to state plainly that officials aren't telling the truth. They also still enjoy the residue of the faith placed in them after 9/11.

This has allowed them to engage in what Orwell called "reality control." In the world according to the Bush administration, our leaders are infallible, and their policies always succeed. If the facts don't fit that assumption, they just deny the facts.

As a political strategy, reality control has worked very well. But as a strategy for governing, it has led to predictable disaster. When leaders live in an invented reality, they do a bad job of dealing with real reality. [Read More]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/08/04 17:13 | link | comments

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Back in June, Bob Deans of Cox Newspapers asked President Bush to explain to the American people what had happened to the weapons of mass destruction that he had held out as the central rationale for going to war in Iraq.

"Bob, it's a good question," Bush said, according to the transcript of the news conference. "I don't know -- I haven't reached a final conclusion yet because the inspectors -- inspection teams aren't back yet. I do know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to make weapons. I do know he's a dangerous person. I know he used weapons against his own people and against the neighborhood. But we'll wait until Charlie gets back with the final report, and then I'll be glad to report."

Yesterday, Charlie got back. [Read More]

Bush Defends Iraq War Despite Report Finding No Illicit Arms [Read Here]

Cheney Says Report Finding No Illicit Arms in Iraq Justifies War [Read Here]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/07/04 14:52 | link | comments

Billionaires For Bush

posted by durani, 10/07/04 05:53 | link | comments (1)

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Does Dick Cheney know that he told voters watching the vice presidential debate to go to GeorgeSoros.com?

In response to a series of attacks from John Edwards on Cheney's tenure as CEO of Halliburton, the vice president said that Kerry and Edwards "know the charges are false. They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton." One problem with Cheney's rebuttal: He misspoke. He meant to say "factcheck.org," rather than ".com." [Read More]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/06/04 16:14 | link | comments (1)

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/06/04 16:10 | link | comments

Monday, October 04, 2004

What do these countries have in common?

-         Angola

-         Azerbaijan

-         Brunei

-         East Timor

-         Oman

-         Russia

-         Spain

-         United States

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/04/04 23:27 | link | comments (2)

The Global Test
It's called reality.
By William Saletan

We've just reached the crux of the presidential campaign—the moment in which one candidate, purporting to expose the other's fatal flaw, has instead exposed his own.

Saturday morning, President Bush attacked John Kerry for a comment Kerry made in Thursday night's debate. Here's how Bush described Kerry's remark:

He said that America has to pass a global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. That's what he said. Think about this. Sen. Kerry's approach to foreign policy would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions. I have a different view. When our country is in danger, the president's job is not to take an international poll. The president's job is to defend America. I'll continue to work every day with our friends and allies for the sake of freedom and peace. But our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals.

This description, which Bush continues to repeat at campaign stops and in television ads, is plainly false. In his first answer of the debate, Kerry said, "I'll never give a veto to any country over our security." But if that isn't what Kerry meant by a "global test," what did he mean? Let's go back and look at Kerry's words.

No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you've got to do in a way that passes the test—that passes the global test—where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

Here we have our own secretary of state who's had to apologize to the world for the presentation he made to the United Nations. I mean, we can remember when President Kennedy, in the Cuban missile crisis, sent his secretary of state to Paris to meet with [French President Charles] de Gaulle, and in the middle of the discussion to tell them about the missiles in Cuba, [the secretary of state] said, "Here, let me show you the photos." And de Gaulle waved them off, and said, "No, no, no, no. The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me." How many leaders in the world today would respond to us, as a result of what we've done, in that way? [Read More]

 

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/04/04 09:56 | link | comments (1)

Sunday, October 03, 2004

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/03/04 11:37 | link | comments

Iraq: Politics or Policy?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

We're in trouble in Iraq.

I don't know what is salvageable there anymore. I hope it is something decent and I am certain we have to try our best to bring about elections and rebuild the Iraqi Army to give every chance for decency to emerge there. But here is the cold, hard truth: This war has been hugely mismanaged by this administration, in the face of clear advice to the contrary at every stage, and as a result the range of decent outcomes in Iraq has been narrowed and the tools we have to bring even those about are more limited than ever.[Read More]

posted by NAKEDandALIVE, 10/03/04 10:56 | link | comments