More Poll Shenanigans

Now we find out that Gallup is basing those ridiculous double digit leads for Bush on faulty data. The left coaster blog looks behind Gallup's numbers & finds they are basing their numbers on a sample that contains a higher percentage of GOP voters than Democratic voters -- even though in both the 2000 & 1996 elections a higher percentage of Democrats voted than Republicans.

Yup, if you ask more Republicans than Democrats how they will vote, Bush does have a double digit lead.

The polls are crap. But of course the SCLM can't go 1 inch behind the polls themselves, that would be reporting & they don't do that anymore.

Polls Are WRONG

Jimmy Breslin sets me straight. I KNEW there was something wrong with these crazy polls showing Bush doing so well, & here's why: They don't call CELL PHONES!

Anybody who believes these national political polls are giving you facts is a gullible fool.

Any editors of newspapers or television news shows who use poll results as a story are beyond gullible. On behalf of the public they profess to serve, they are indolent salesmen of falsehoods.

This is because these political polls are done by telephone. Land-line telephones, as your house phone is called.

The telephone polls do not include cellular phones. There are almost 169 million cell phones being used in America today - 168,900,019 as of Sept. 15, according to the cell phone institute in Washington.

There is no way to poll cell phone users, so it isn't done.

Beware the Fanatic

So I hit the "Next Blog" button at the top of Blogger a few times, & here's where I ended up:

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Remember the reason for this anniversary: Followers of an ungodly religion followed it faithfully. All faithful followers of Islam, or any other religion with similar tenets, are enemies of our nation as well as of our God. Death is their just reward.

All fanatics are dangerous. Religious fanatics are the worst.

Are You There?

If you're reading this blog & have an opinion on it, leave me a comment, won't you?

Keep Your Sawx On

Yet another reason to root for the Old Towne Team & hate the Yankees:

Baseball's Owners Go To Bat For Bush

More than a dozen current and former owners and family members are among the president’s top re-election fund-raisers, an Associated Press review found. Seven are Bush “Rangers,” each raising at least $200,000, and six are “Pioneers” who have brought in $100,000 or more.

The Bush campaign has also received direct contributions from owners and executives of more than half of the sport’s 30 teams, the AP analysis of Federal Election Commission reports found.

Those include $2,000 contributions from owners George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees, Fred Wilpon of the New York Mets, Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins, Peter Magowan of the San Francisco Giants and Michael Ilitch of the Detroit Tigers.

When you go to the actual article on MSNBCCNBCSB, it gets worse:

For example, FEC reports show, Bush received $2,000 contributions from Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro, who played for the Rangers when Bush was an owner, and from New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid player in the game.

I guess since Rodriguez is a millionaire, he's not just a "have", he's part of Bush's base.

So, the only decent baseball team to root for is the Sawx. (Sawx owner Tom Werner is one of the few baseball owners to have given money to Kerry.)

YANKEES SUCK! And they got no pitching, either.

Osama Bin Forgotten

C.I.A. Unit on bin Laden Is Understaffed, a Senior Official Tells Lawmakers

Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency has fewer experienced case officers assigned to its headquarters unit dealing with Osama bin Laden than it did at the time of the attacks, despite repeated pleas from the unit's leaders for reinforcements, a senior C.I.A. officer with extensive counterterrorism experience has told Congress.

The bin Laden unit is stretched so thin that it relies on inexperienced officers rotated in and out every 60 to 90 days, and they leave before they know enough to be able to perform any meaningful work, according to a letter the C.I.A. officer has written to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

The Bush Administration: We used Sept. 11th for our convention, and you really thought we cared? Suckers.


Addendum: I had forgotten this:

The revelation comes months after the Associated Press reported the Bush Treasury Department "has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's financial infrastructure. It also comes after USA Today reported that the President shifted "resources from the bin Laden hunt to the war in Iraq" in 2002.

Kerry Led, Bush Fled

Kerry Bled, Bush Fled

I prefer my version: Kerry Led, Bush Fled

Between the two, that about summarizes the candidates positions on Vietnam.

Tip o' the hat to Democratic Veteran.

SCLM Strikes Again

Kerry Drops Ball With Packers Fans

MILWAUKEE, Sept. 14 -- Forget soccer moms and NASCAR dads. The most important demographic in these parts transcends gender and geography -- it's Green Bay Packers fans.

Both candidates are targeting them with the ferocity of a Brett Favre bullet, but only John F. Kerry has fumbled the name of the hallowed grounds on which the Packers play, the frozen tundra of Curly Lambeau Field.


PHOTO CAPTION: John Kerry stumbled in Wisconsin by botching the name of the Packers' field. (Laura Rauch -- AP)


At a campaign event last month, the Democratic presidential nominee called it Lambert Field -- a slip of the tongue carried on television, in papers throughout the state and on ESPN's Web site.

That's akin to calling the Yankees the Yankers or the Chicago Bulls the Bells. This is a place where Packers jackets often outnumber sports coats in church and thousands of fans wear a big chunk of yellow foam cheese atop their head with the pride of a new parent. President Bush's warning to terrorists is apropos to the passions of Packers fans -- you are either with 'em or against 'em.

"I got some advice for him," Bush told Wisconsinites a few days after the Lambert gaffe. "If someone offers you a cheesehead, don't say you want some wine, just put it on your head and take a seat at Lambeau Field." Vice President Cheney made the obligatory pilgrimage to Green Bay last week to pile on. "I thought after John Kerry's visit here I'd visit Lambert Field," Cheney told a crowd at a Republican fundraising dinner Thursday night. Then he went in for the kill. "The next thing is he'll be convinced Vince Lombardi is a foreign leader."

Yes, this article in all of its inanity is currently on the front page of the Washington Post's website. In the print Post, it's on Page A9. But on the web, front page news.

And given the SCLM's penchant for "this, and on the other hand, that" coverage, do they give us the obligatory paragraph about a) Bush's misstatements on the campaign trail, or b) The fact that this is NOT AN ISSUE, and since the Bushies can't win on the issues they are flogging the trivial & the nonsense for all they're worth. OF COURSE NOT! It's the Washington Post & they don't have to play fair.

Faux Journalism at its lowest.

Drug-Addled Bush

Why Bush Left Texas

Read this excellent article in The Nation about why Bush stopped flying in the Tex-ass Air National Guard. He was already flying without wings:

Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet.

A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing. His failure to complete a physical exam became the official reason for his subsequent suspension from flying status.

*****************

Even more significantly, in a July interview, Linda Allison, the widow of Jimmy Allison, the Alabama campaign manager and a close friend of Bush's father, revealed to me for the first time that Bush had come to Alabama not because the job had appeal or because his presence was required but because he needed to get out of Texas. "Well, you have to know Georgie," Allison said. "He really was a totally irresponsible person. Big George [George H.W. Bush] called Jimmy, and said, he's killing us in Houston, take him down there and let him work on that campaign.... The tenor of that was, Georgie is in and out of trouble seven days a week down here, and would you take him up there with you."

Allison said that the younger Bush's drinking problem was apparent. She also said that her husband, a circumspect man who did not gossip and held his cards closely, indicated to her that some use of drugs was involved. "I had the impression that he knew that Georgie was using pot, certainly, and perhaps cocaine," she said.

When will Bush tell the truth about why he cut & run on his National Guard obligation? When will the SCLM media call him on this?

Pete McCloskey (Republican) Endorses Kerry

Pete McCloskey has endorsed Kerry.

Although I'm a lifelong Republican, I will vote for John Kerry on Nov. 2. The choice seems simple under traditional principles of the Republican Party.

**************

The primary issue in November will be who can best lead us in the bitter struggle against the Islamic fundamentalists who perpetrated 9/11 and are willing to die to kill Americans throughout the world. The Iraq occupation has caused thousands of new suicide bombers to join the jihad against us; with Kerry as president, the nation will properly refocus the battle away from Iraq and against the true enemy, Al-Qaida.

As Kerry has stated, we desperately need the cooperation of every country in the world, friend and enemy, where terrorist cells can germinate and operate.

We need to be more humble in asking for this assistance. A return to the ``speak softly but carry a big stick'' philosophy of Teddy Roosevelt should be far more effective than the bluster, bravado and ``shock and awe'' firepower of the neocon advisers who have commandeered White House foreign policy.

*******************

In truth, John Kerry and John Edwards come far closer to the Republicanism of Teddy Roosevelt, Earl Warren, Barry Goldwater, George Bush the elder and, yes, even Richard Nixon, than does the present incumbent.

Ending secrecy and bringing truth and honesty back to the White House are reasons enough to elect Kerry and Edwards.

Jersey Girls Endorse Kerry

Kristen Breitweiser & the three other Jersey Girls are endorsing John Kerry.

The Jersey Girls, as they have come to be known, are four widows of men who died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. They lobbied for the 9/11 Commission & for the truth to be told.

They know more about 9/11 than anyone & they know, the guy who didn't react to "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S.", the guy who read "The Pet Goat" after learning "Our country is under attack", that guy does not deserve to be President again.

Update: Read "Fairly Unbalanced" for a savage account of Judy Woodruff's SCLM interview with Kristen Breitweiser.

Bush Had At Least 36 Warnings About Al-Qaeda Prior to 9/11

I don't know how I missed this, but in Elizabeth Drew's review of the 9/11 Report in the New York Times, she says the 8/6 PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S." was the 36th PDB in 2001 regarding bin Laden & al-Qaeda. The 36th! In 8 months, that's a PDB per week about al-Qaeda.

The CIA analysts told the commissioners that they put all the relevant information they could into the PDB in order to get the President's attention. The report tells us that this was the thirty-sixth Presidential Daily Brief so far that year related to bin Laden and al-Qaeda—though the first to warn of a possible attack on the United States itself.

After the alarming PDB was presented to the President, nothing happened. The commission reports dryly,

We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States.

Dumbest President ever.

Thanks to Atrios for linking to Drew's review, again.

George W. Bush, Liar

US News & World Report, that liberal bastion (that's a joke, people) has a devastating article outlining how George W. Bush didn't deserve his honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard, & has been lying about it ever since.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

George Bush is a Coward

Girlie Man

When your country is under attack, you move. You do something. Even if you are an idiot.