It looks like the Republican dirty tricks machine has been in full force over the weekend sending fraudulent robocalls to voters in multiple states. Here's the details from Talking Points Memo (who's actively tracking the story) :
What we're talking about is something a bit different. What we're seeing is an apparent coordinated effort from the NRCC -- the House GOP committee -- to place calls that appear to be from the local Democratic candidate and then automatically call the same number back as many as seven or eight times each time the caller hang-ups. If the caller listens to the whole message it goes on to bash the Democratic candidate. But if the caller hangs up prematurely, the computer calls right back. Hang-ups are the achilles heal of robo-calls. So this seems to be an attempt to cover for that weakness by making those who hang up think the Democratic candidate is basically harassing them with phone calls. The GOP wins either way.
What is there to do about it. As described, the calls appear to be in violation of federal regulations which mandate that these calls clearly identify their origin. The repetitive call back may also be a violation in different states. The New Hampshire AG apparently just intervened to force the NRCC to stop the calls in that state. But frankly, none of that matters. Because the folks placing the calls factor in the price of whatever fines might be meted out after the election when the damage is already done.
This is exactly the sort of thing we should expect from the party of big business. Our nation's laws mean nothing to these creeps. To them, the fines they'll probably end up paying for this criminal activity are nothing more than another line item on the campaign's expense report. Dispensing a few grand to pay the fines for committing electoral fraud won't phase them any more than paying campaign staff or buying ad time would. Thousands of dollars in legal fees and fines will be money well spent if they get to keep controlling the government.
This sickening disregard for our laws is indicative of everything these scumbags stand for. With the Abramoff scandal, the GOP was embroiled in a patronage and bribery operation that has tentacles into almost every facet of the right wing machine. For the Bush Administration, American birthrights like habeas corpus, due process, and checks and balances have been thrown aside in an attempt to consolidate power. And now these latest Republican dirty tricks which echo their earlier attempts to hijack democracy such as the New Hampshire phone jamming case, Tom Delay laundering corporate campaign money through his political action committee, and voter suppression efforts aimed at minorities in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere. These robocalls aren't an isolated incident, they're the instinctual behavior of a party that will break any law that stands between them and their lust for power and money.
This disgusting attempt by the NRCC to subvert our democratic process should disgust all voters. This isn't just unethical, it's un-American. That our nation's predominant political party would lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power should stun and sadden every citizen. As a democracy that strives towards an open and honest debate of ideas, the fraud and deception of the Republican party is antithetical to our core values. The GOP should be ashamed of themselves. We all deserve better.
Since the election is mere hours away, I suppose I should join my fellow bloggers in offering my predictions. Forgive me for being more pessimistic than my fellow poll-watchers, but I don't see a Democratic "sweep" happening. I think they'll take the House by a slight margin, but still remain the minority in the Senate by a seat or two. If we're lucky, we'll get Congressional deadlock for the next two years and the Bush Administration's reign of imbecility will grind to a halt, but knowing the cowards and fools in the Democratic leadership, I expect the reaction to their electoral "mandate" will be to reach across the aisle and rule from the center. Yuck.
One of my most vivid election night memories is from 1992. As an idealistic high school student, I was excited by the prospect of a liberal president putting the final nail in the coffin of the Reagan years. Along with my friends Brian and Garrett, I sneaked into the Democratic watch party as state after state was called for Bill Clinton. When the networks finally called the election, balloons fell from the ceiling, "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac blared from the speakers, and everyone was ecstatic. After a few years of free trade, "don't ask, don't tell", and general mediocrity, I felt like a fool for ever entertaining the notion that a Democratic win was worth anything more than slowing down the Republican agenda. I desperately hope the Democrats win big on Tuesday, but I'm not going to make the same mistakes I made 14 year ago.
Saddam's gonna hang. If that's the big pre-election surprise that's supposed to deliver a Republican victory, then they're even more incompetent than I thought. By handing over the trial of Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi government, the Bush Administration naively thought that it would be a perfect way to provide closure to the Iraqi people and unite them behind their still in its infancy government. Needless to say, the actual response makes the Bush predictions look as fanciful as the "greeted as liberators" boast :
The future of Iraq may depend little on whether Saddam Hussein hangs. The Sunni insurgency is so deeply entrenched and sectarian bloodlust so strong that Iraq seems set to continue spiraling into violence _ regardless of its former president's fate.
. . .
But in the end, Saddam's fate is not what's driving the violence in Iraq now. Instead, religious, nationalistic and sectarian passions have taken over and are tearing the country apart.
Even if it causes a spasm of violence, Saddam's verdict is just a symbol of the deeper, underlying problems. Sunnis are alarmed at the prospect of Shiite domination. Shiites are fed up with attacks by Sunni extremists.
Without an effective government to protect them, both communities have become locked in a murderous cycle of reprisal killings that looks set to continue.
Despite what the GOP might way about the impending death of Saddam Hussein, Iraq isn't going to get better any time soon. If anything, this will just divide the Iraqi people further.
Hilarious! Ted Haggard's confession is almost like a "greatest hits" of ludicrous excuses :
Evangelist Ted Haggard admitted Friday that he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a gay prostitute who claims he was paid for drug-fueled trysts by the outspoken gay marriage opponent.
Haggard resigned Thursday as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and stepped down as leader of his Colorado megachurch while the two groups investigate the allegations.
Talking to reporters outside his house Friday, Haggard denied the sex allegations but said that he did buy meth from the man because he was curious.
"I bought it for myself but never used it," he said. "I was tempted, but I never used it."
So Teddy Boy made a drug deal, but didn't do drugs? I seem to remember Bill Clinton being a laughingstock for trying to make a similar argument. And the "only received a massage" excuse is the exact same one that former Senator Chuck Robb used when caught having an affair. If there's a hidden camera video of Haggard saying "bitch set me up", then we've hit the trifecta, folks.
Wow. Yet another gay conservative has been outed, this time one of the most powerful leaders of the Religious Right :
Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and founder and leader of the Colorado Springs-based New Life Church, stepped down Thursday following allegations that he has had a three-year homosexual affair with a male prostitute.
Haggard resigned as president of the national association and placed himself on administrative leave from his church.
Mike Jones, a self-professed male escort, claimed publicly on Wednesday to have had a three-year affair with Haggard, during which Haggard allegedly ingested methamphetamine. Haggard denied the affair Wednesday night to KUSA Channel 9News.
But today, Haggard stated he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations made on Denver talk radio..."
The sad thing about this is that Ted Haggard seems to be, relatively speaking, one of the good guys (at least, as close to "good" as you're likely to find in the evangelical movement). Here's a choice bit from a profile on Haggard from Christianity Today :
"Evangelical does not mean any particular political ideology," Haggard continues. "The African American [evangelical] community has an honorable concern for social justice, and that affects their politics. That concern comes from the Scripture. The Anglo community has a different history, so different Scriptures stand out to them. To the Anglo [evangelical] community, most of their sermons are theological. It's salvation by grace through faith, and other theological points, so social-justice issues don't have the same compelling justification."
. . .
Haggard is a loyal member of the Religious Right who dials in for a White House conference call every Monday. Yet he embraces ecological concerns and says the Supreme Court made a good decision in the Lawrence v. Texas case, ordering the government out of the private lives of homosexuals.
Haggard thinks churches should keep their doctrinal distinctives to themselves, but he broadcasts political stands that some NAE members find objectionable. (When he produced a memo last spring listing "judicial restraint" at the top of the NAE's priorities and "care for creation" at the bottom, the NAE board made clear they didn't share his priorities.) Talking with Haggard, it isn't entirely clear why politics should be argued in public, but doctrine shouldn't.
It's nice to see that Haggard takes a more moderate stand one some social issues (like breaking ranks with his fellow fundies over civil unions), but the impression I keep getting from Haggard is that he is, like so many of his peers in the evangelical leadership, a politician first and a man of god second. The CT profile even calls him on it :
Haggard isn't searching for perfect consistency. He is attracted to what works. For him, everything seems to work these days. He loves to drop names of the politicians and journalists who have called. But he's not stuck on politics. Should the political scene change and his influence wane, he would move on to the next thing.
. . .
But personality-driven and media-centric organizations don't necessarily develop strong institutional foundations. Politicians are notoriously fickle. Today's darlings are tomorrow's has-beens.
And as the Bible amply warns, success is seductive. Haggard's optimistic evangelicalism could become self-congratulatory religion-lite, baptizing the American way. It could turn evangelicalism into the church wing of the Republican Party. It could wrap free-market individualism around the Cross, confusing material wealth and personal happiness with spiritual riches. It could neglect the Cross altogether. The new evangelicalism that Haggard represents suffers such temptations, most obviously in the prosperity gospel.
While Haggard's rhetoric doesn't perfectly mirror the hate-mongering that defines the politicians of the "religious" right, his political activism is getting him in trouble. Though Haggard is, to a degree, a moderating force within the evangelical community, his accuser has come forward because of Haggards hypocrisy on gay marriage and Colorado's upcoming homophobic ballot initiative.
Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, made his allegations on the Peter Boyles show on KHOW 630 AM, saying he was compelled to come forward because he believes Haggard, an opponent of same-sex unions, is being hypocritical.
"After sitting back and contemplating this issue, the biggest reason is being a gay man all my life, I have experience with my friends, some great sadness of people that were in a relationship through the years," and were not able to enjoy the same rights and privileges as a married man and woman, Jones told Boyles on air.
"I felt it was my responsibility to my fellow brothers and sisters, that I had to take a stand, and I cannot sit back anymore and hear (what) to me is an anti-gay message."
Let this be a warning to the religious hypocrites who exploit their own faith for political gain. Matthew 26:52
"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
Then again, whenever these self-appointed arbiters of moral purity turn out to be hypocrites, my reaction is more like that other religious J.C...Jack Chick :
If Ted Haggard wasn't the leader in a religious and political movement whose modus operandi was the demonizing of homosexuals, he'd probably still have a job. HAW HAW HAW
UPDATE : Check out Haggard's soon-to-be-legendary appearance in the documentary Jesus Camp (via Americablog) :
Ya know, I'm willing to admit that, while I think I'm somewhat funny, I write down every single idea I have just in case I might need to be "spontaneously" funny at a party. Even the best improv guys have an arsenal of jokes they store up for later use, to give the appearance of a quick wit, because even if your last name is Coward, it pays to be prepared. Hell, Oscar Wilde himself wouldn't have half his reputation had he not spent spent hours alone, crafting the famous bon mots that built his slice-and-dice-you-like-a-literary-ninja public image. So let me ask a not-so-rhetorical question: Does John Kerry think he's better than Oscar Wilde? Then isn't it the least he could do to Practice. his. Flipping. Material. before leaving the house and speaking before television cameras?
We know the "joke" he tried to tell, so I won't bother to repeat it here. But is it funny? Hell nah, and even worse, it's not even well told. If I've learned anything in my life, it's that if you're going to say something, you should own it. Make it yours. Kerry seems to think the only thing that matters in telling a joke is that you read it verbatim. Have you seen the footage? He drops the joke like he's trying to tell someone he might have given them herpes and hopes they'll be nice about dumping him for it. It's embarassing, an embarassment made all the worse because he didn't even get the text of the joke right. He is now claiming (only somewhat convincingly,) that he forgot to add the word "us".
Yes, I do think that's possible. The word "Us" added to the joke makes it clear that we're being dragged and stranded to Iraq by an uneducated incompetant named George W. Bush. No Shit Sherlock, but doesn't this man have some handlers? People who actually understand Senator "Kick me's" rhetorical and charismatic limitations? People smart enough to know that he should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to improv, ever?
No matter how you read his statements they come off sounding elitist and condescending, and worse (IMHO the single worst part about them, besides the patent unfunniness) they play right into the smears lobbed against him in '04. Kerry now looks like the pompous, smug, "limosine liberal" (whatever that is) who secretly considers the masses (to whom he purports to dedicate his life) to be beneath him, that Republicans claimed he was when he ran for president. Hell, I almost agree with them. Aside from the absent "us" that should-have-darn-well-been-there-if-he-meant-it-to-be, his words really do convict him. To be sure, it's not neccesarily a just conviction but when you give your enemies rope with which to hang you, don't act surprised later when you're swinging from a tree.
And now he's gone on record comparing this little hubbub to swift boating. You know how I know he isn't being swift boated? Because he's actually speaking out against it in public.
Back in 2004 when he actually was being swift boated, he was too much of a fancy gentleman* to actually stand up for himself and fight back. He didn't even have the decency and thoughtfulness to disseminate useful information and talking points to his supporters, who I might add, could have used a few useful counter arguments when discussing the swift boat claims with, say, hostile family members. Unlike in wishful-thinking literature and 1970s after school specials, ignoring a bully doesn't make them go away, it only makes them more merciless and Kerry ended up, by his lack of action, practically begging them to ruin his rep. Today, the people smearing him don't even have to use bullshit, lies and obfuscations in order to do it, they need only use his actual words, words I might add that, even with the missing pronoun are at best an unfunny comedic cliche.
Smooth move dickweed.
As the rest of us know, it's impossible to make conservatives like you and no matter what you say, your words will be used against you. So choose your words well and for the love of god, don't cock up things even college freshmen figure out within weeks. Like delivery, timing and knowing never, unless absolutely neccesary, never to agree with your opponents. (Though getting them to agree with you is a different matter entirely.)
And for the love of god, don't take risks when you don't have to. Kerry isn't running for reelection, so there wasn't any need for him to polish up his hipster cred with the young'uns with lame attempts at sardonic humor. All he needed to do was come out, support the good guys, then go back to his comfy, safe-for-life senate seat. Instead, Senator Pansy from Foot-in-Mouth, Mass. has managed to do with one horribly delivered joke what 4 years of republican propaganda hasn't quite managed - He may damn well have neutralized, a week before a crucial election, one of the most enduring and useful rhetorical weapons we've had against Bush and the war - that it's a war without sacrifices of any kind being asked of America's elites or middle classes, and that the people running it and supporting it similarly never served when they had the chance.
Charitably, I'm going to assume that either he's secretly an alcoholic, or that generations of East Coast Blue Blood inbreeding has produced a level of privileged incompetance surpassed only by his similarly privileged and incredibly inbred former opponent, Dubya, because it certainly looks like Kerry hasn't woken-the-flying-fig-up and he seems to genuinely have no idea that he is a famous person. Hell, I'm even going to assume that he us oblivious to the fact that, after letting the swift boats have their way with him, he is a political voodoo doll for democrats everywhere. I am going to assume this because otherwise, he's a jerk who doesn't actually give a damn his words are going to twisted and used against him, no matter what they are, so he better get them right.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the dozens of far more horrible things that have come out of Dubya's mouth, and out of the gobs of right wing commentators and politicians during the last decade and a half. What they've said is far worse and far, far more indicative of a dispassionate cruelty and utter lack of education, introspection of intelligence. And you might notice also that they're almost never forced to apologize for it. Thus, we must assume, the Republicans are faking their outrage. They don't care what Kerry, or anyone else with a D after their name thinks of the troops. Truth be told, they don't even care about the troops, but they know a good plan of attack when they see one and that's why they're going along with their little Kabuki display of outrage.
Kerry is in a tough position. If he sits on his hands and doesn't help campaign for Dems in the midterms, he'll be criticized for it. He should be stumping, and to his credit, he is. And it appears, by the number of cancellations today, he had an aggressive schedule planned. Good for him. He is after all the party's past-Presidential candidate. That said, he needs to be smart, and safe in what he does. Standing alongside another candidate actually IS the time for carefully planned and calculated comments—something he was criticized for in his own campaign. Instead, he tried to get cute, and it blew up on him and everyone else. When you're a fucking stiff, stick to the script. And keep the script simple.
The best thing Kerry can do now is take some of his now-free time and get out there and attempt to "catapult the propaganda" He should make the rounds on tv and issue his mea culpa, briefly explain exactly what he meant to say, and finish with "I hope that makes perfectly clear that I never meant any insult to our brave troops, and I never would insult them, nor would I make a joke at their expense. End of story. Anybody who continues to insinuate that from this point going forward, is a liar."
True that, but I'll go further: Kerry, aside from showing up and doing the right thing when he's told, must be made, as soon as possible, to STFU about anything unrelated to his own senate seat until the statute of limitations passes on his presidential run. And considering how George McGovern is still (despite his having done nothing to merit such terrible treatment,) an albatross around the neck of anyone to the left of Nixon, methinks Kerry's mouth will be S-ing TFU for a long, long time.
In the meantime, I've said it to anyone who will listen and I'll say it here: Every Democrat who's been in politics during the last 15 years ought to be ashamed if they can't anticipate the right wing attack machine and the faithful media lapdogs who will repeat and spread the attacks, and prepare for it. Until the party breaks its pavlonian response to these attacks, they're unfit to lead us and we'll continue to lose.
*and as the king of effete, fancy gentlemen, I ought to know.
Jeez, this Republican crybaby crap over John Kerry's comments is just pathetic. It's amazing to me that the GOP has a reputation for toughness when they throw temper tantrums over meaningless shit. Watching the President of the United States use his bully pulpit to shed crocodile tears is just embarrassing. Maybe the Democrats should just go silent in this last week before the election, lest we bruise the feelings of those delicate little flowers in the Republican party.
As far as the substance of Kerry's remarks, I don't give a damn what he said. The only reason this is getting any play at all is because the media and right-wing are desperate to turn Democratic momentum on its head. If the GOP can get people to spend the last week of the election obsessing over the smug jerk from Taxachussets, then they might change a few independent minds. Moreover, the media love, love, love the "Democrats are a house divided" storyline and will jump on any Democrat who says something like "I disagree with Sen. Kerry's remarks".
We've seen this exact same scenario unfold countless times in response to similarly "controversial" remarks by Howard Dean, Al Gore, and others. If Republicans were so concerned about civility, why would they support racist ads like the ones accusing Democrats of wanting to murder black babies? The GOP sickening and deliberate attempts to distract voters from the real issues in this race shows how little respect they have for voters. The American people aren't stupid. They're tired of the GOP's manufactured outrage machine.
Over the weekend I was walking around Forest Lawn Memorial Park and stumbled upon the Court of Liberty. It was a pretty standard tribute to the Founding Fathers, but on one side of a rather lage mosaic was this quote that seems more true now than ever before :
So true. Our freedoms haven't been taken away, they were given away by a populace that has been crippled by fear. With each "accountability moment" that has passed, the American people have agreed to allow the "gradual and silent encroachments" of our freedom to continue. With an election just one week away, here's hoping that we can finally heed the words of the father of our Constitution and reclaim our liberty from powerful elites who see the Bill of Rights as little more than a technicality.
