Dean breaks Clinton's fundraising record

According to ABC News, Howard Dean is on-track to come close to the quarter-million mark in fundraising so far, and has already beat Clinton’s fundraising record.

Dean, raising millions on the Internet, will probably take in \$13 million to \$16 million this quarter, a campaign insider said. That would lift him to at least \$23.5 million for the race so far and probably make him the Democratic money leader for the year.

Democratic strategists say Dean could raise at least double what his party’s other top hopefuls will collect during the three-month fund-raising period. The former Vermont governor has already passed the Democratic record set by President Clinton, who took in \$10.3 million over three months in 1995 for his re-election.

While it wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the article, I thought the attached photo was interesting — a shot of Dean receiving a framed picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. from labor leader Dennis Rivera.

Rivera, head of one of New York’s most politically powerful labor unions, Local 1199 of Service Employees International, put his fund-raising muscle behind the former Vermont governor.

While I don’t know whether this was an official endorsement from Local 1199, or whether any other labor unions have officially backed Dean, there has been a fair number of mentions of support and good words from various labor unions concerning Dean. From what I understand, this could be a major, major boost to Dean’s campaign — and blow to Bush’s — if he can pick up endorsements from some of the country’s largest unions. While most of the media talk lately has been about Clark’s entry to the Democratic field, Dean’s momentum certainly hasn’t seemed to slip any. Good to see.

(via Mathew Gross)

Good news!

George W. Bush is in the worst political trouble of his presidency, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday night. Bush’s approval rating now stands at 49 percent, the lowest point of his tenure.

[…]

In other questions from the poll released Wednesday night, 52 percent disapproved of Bush’s handling of the economy, his highest disapproval rating ever and the first time it has been above 50 percent.

About damn time, too.

(via Kos)

Diebold's voting machines

There’s a good article on Salon looking at the issues with Diebold’s electronic voting machines, which are being used to replace troublesome punch-card voting machines after the 2000 voting debacle. It doesn’t look like our votes are any safer under the new system.

…according to Bev Harris, a writer who has spent more than a year investigating the shadowy world of the elections equipment industry, the replacement technologies the court cited may be worse — much worse — than the zany punch-card systems it finds so abhorrent. Specifically, Harris’ research into Diebold, one of the largest providers of the new touch-screen systems, ought to give elections officials pause about mandating an all-electronic vote.

Harris has found critical flaws in Diebold’s voting software, and she’s uncovered internal Diebold memos in which employees seem to suggest that the vulnerabilities are no big deal. The memos appear to be authentic — Diebold even sent Harris a notice warning her that by posting the documents on the Web, she was infringing upon the company’s intellectual property. Diebold did not return several calls for comment.

Not only has Diebold refused to comment, they’ve gone so far as to force Bev Harris to take down her site exposing the vulnerabilities.

Due to a dispute with Diebold, Incorporated, and its wholly owned subsidiary Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (collectively “Diebold”), which is claiming links to certain materials that do not reside on the blackboxvoting.org website constitute  copyright infringement, blackboxvoting.org has been temporarily disabled.

Congressman Rush Holt has sponsored a bill that would require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail — this measure should definitely be supported.

(via Kos, [Kos [again]], Chris)

Other reactions to Bush's UN speech

  • Slate: Bush to World: Drop Dead! The president lays an egg at the U.N.

    Has an American president ever delivered such a bafflingly impertinent speech before the General Assembly as the one George W. Bush gave this morning?

  • Star Tribune: Strib’s view of the speech Editorial: Bush at the U.N. / For good reason, he lacks credibility

    During the 2000 campaign, Bush famously spoke of the need for the United States to be a strong but humble nation. In action, his foreign policy has been predicated on being strong and arrogant. The president gives good speeches. Too bad that they can’t be believed.

  • Washington Post: A Vague Pitch Leaves Mostly Puzzlement

    In his speech today to the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush tried to walk a fine line between defending a war deeply unpopular in much of the world and looking for help from reluctant countries to rebuild Iraq. The result left diplomats and lawmakers puzzled about his ultimate intentions.

(via Atrios and Joe Rospars)

Bush's U.N. address

Bits and pieces from yesterday’s address to the U.N. by President Bush:

The Taliban was a sponsor and servant of terrorism. When confronted, that regime chose defiance, and that regime is no more.

The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world. The Security Council was right to be alarmed. The Security Council was right to demand that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so. The Security Council was right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply. And because there were consequences, because a coalition of nations acted to defend the peace, and the credibility of the United Nations, Iraq is free, and today we are joined by representatives of a liberated country.

Do I even need to link to anything? We’ve found no evidence of nuclear or biological weapons. The rationale for war has shifted over the months from “Saddam has WMDs” to “Saddam’s making WMDs” to “Saddam was planning to make WMDs” to “We’re liberating the people of Iraq (because all our other justifications haven’t panned out [and oh yeah, just ignore the fact that the country’s in worse shape than when it started])”. And yet Bush still hauls out that excuse for his actions. It’s almost laughable, except for what has been done in the name of those nonexistant WMDs.

The Iraqi people are meeting hardships and challenges, like every nation that has set out on the path of democracy.

Hardships and challenges that include losing valuable contracts to rebuild their own nation to American Bush-backed companies that charge ludicrously inflated prices.

Across the Middle East, people are safer because an unstable aggressor has been removed from power. Across the world, nations are more secure because an ally of terror has fallen.

That “unstable aggressor” may be removed from power, but do we know where he is? Or where Osama bin Laden, the man that we believe was actually behind the 9-11 attacks is? They’re both loose, and while the U.S. occupies Iraq, more and more people in the middle east see us as an occupying force creating a police state. In other words, the bad guys. I certainly don’t feel any safer now knowing that every day more and more people, sick of what the U.S. is doing in Iraq, may be searching out other people loyal to Saddam or bin Laden and planning ways to take their revenge on the U.S.

Our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were supported by many governments, and America is grateful to each one.

Of course, many of those governments were as bad as or worse than Iraq. Such fine company we keep.

Our international coalition in Iraq is meeting it responsibilities. We are conducting precision raids against terrorists and holdouts of the former regime.

And they’re conducting less-precise, but equally effective, raids against U.S. and U.N. forces in Iraq.

Our coalition has made sure that Iraq’s former dictator will never again use weapons of mass destruction.

Considering that he’s on the loose and we don’t know where he is, I’d almost expect that he’d be more likely to find WMDs now if he is free to travel around and make good contacts on the black market than when he was busy holding the reins on a country that wasn’t able to work on a WMD program due to international supervision.

We’re training Iraqi police and border guards and a new army, so the Iraqi people can assume full responsibility for their own security.

Of course, it’ll be easier for them to do their jobs if we’d stop accidentally shooting them.

The old regime built palaces while letting schools decay, so we are rebuilding more than a thousand schools. The old regime starved hospitals of resources, so we have helped to supply and reopen hospitals across Iraq. The old regime built up armies and weapons, while allowing the nation’s infrastructure to crumble, so we are rehabilitating power plants, water and sanitation facilities, bridges and airports.

Now wouldn’t it be nice if someone would flip this around and do the same for the U.S.?

That’s enough. I’m only about halfway through his address, but something tells me it doesn’t get any better from there, and I’ve got to get ready for work. You get the point, I’m sure.

The King is a fink.

(via Kos)

Surprise deportations

More happy government news (is there any other kind?), this time courtesy of TalkLeft. It appears that immigrants in the process of becoming citizens are being sent letters asking them to report to the INS for paperwork reasons. When they go down to the office, expecting to fill out forms, process some paperwork, or pick up their green card, they are instead suddenly handcuffed, detained, and deported.

JUAN JIMENEZ, who came to the US when he was 13, visited Federal Plaza several times to complete the paperwork, get the fingerprints, and pass the test required for U.S. citizenship. But earlier this month — days after his 19th birthday — agents shackled him. The next day at sunrise, he called home from JFK to say, “They’re sending me to the Dominican Republic.”

Weeks before, HOWARD FACEY, married to a U.S. citizen and the father of 4 American-born children, received a government notice to come to Federal Plaza. When he reported for what he thought was a visit to pick up his greencard, he was detained and swiftly deported to Jamaica.

These aren’t terrorists trying to sneak around. They’re not even illegal immigrants trying to duck the INS in order to stay in the country. These are people who are doing their best to navigate the webs of red tape in order to live and work here in the US, and as they try to follow the rules, they are suddenly whisked away.

Let’s hope that there’s more to what’s going on than what’s being reported so far (or that it’s a mistake or even a hoax), but I have to admit, stories like this don’t really surprise me much anymore. Unnerve, upset, and scare me, yes — but surprise me? Nope.

(via Tina and Atrios)

JetBlue and CAPPS II

I don’t know anything about what area of the country they serve, as I’ve never heard of them before, but it seems like the JetBlue airline is going to be the testbed for the blatantly invasive CAPPS II program.

In a secret, off-the-record meeting held recently at TSA headquarters, TSA chief James M. Loy informed an elite audience of conservative opinion-makers that JetBlue Airways is replacing Delta Airlines as the “testing platform” for the CAPPS II internal border control system.  The meeting was attended by former US Representative Bob Barr as well as leaders from several conservative public policy groups.

Don’t fly JetBlue.

(via Kottke)

Just another day of lies

The Powers That Be that run this country (into the ground, apparently) don’t seem to be physically or psychologically capable of telling the truth anymore. The Nation’s David Corn takes a look at “The Latest Bush Gang Whoppers” today, including this from our Dear Leader…

September is back-to-school time, and Bush hit the road to promote his education policies. During a speech at a Nashville elementary school, he hailed his education record by noting that “the budget for next year boosts funding for elementary and secondary education to \$53.1 billion. That’s a 26-percent increase since I took office. In other words, we understand that resources need to flow to help solve the problems.” A few things were untrue in these remarks. Bush’s proposed elementary and secondary education budget for next year is \$34.9 billion, not \$53.1 billion, according to his own Department of Education. It’s his total proposed education budget that is \$53.1 billion. More importantly, there is no next-year “boost” in this budget. Elementary and secondary education received \$35.8 billion in 2003. Bush’s 2004 budget cuts that back nearly a billion dollars, and the overall education spending in his budget is the same as the 2003 level. Instead of a “boost,” there is the opposite–a decrease. Perhaps like Rumsfeld–and Cheney and Wolfowitz–the president merely was overstating.

(via Tom Tomorrow)

Twenty Questions

Why don’t we have answers to these 9/11 questions?

  1. What did National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice tell President Bush about al Qaeda threats against the United States in a still-secret briefing on Aug. 6, 2001?
  2. Why did Attorney General John Ashcroft and some Pentagon officials cancel commercial-airline trips before Sept. 11?
  3. Who made a small fortune “shorting” airline and insurance stocks before Sept. 11?
  4. Are all 19 people identified by the government as participants in the Sept. 11 attacks really the hijackers?
  5. Did any of the hijackers smuggle guns on board as reported in calls from both Flight 11 and Flight 93?
  6. Why did the NORAD air defense network fail to intercept the four hijacked jets?
  7. Why did President Bush continue reading a story to Florida grade-schoolers for nearly a half-hour during the worst attack on America in its history?
  8. How did Flight 93 crash in western Pennsylvania?
  9. Was Zacarias Moussaoui really “the 20th hijacker”?
  10. Where are the planes’ “black boxes”?
  11. Why were Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials so quick to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks?
  12. Why did 7 World Trade Center collapse?
  13. Why did the Bush administration lie about dangerously high levels of toxins and hazardous particles after the WTC collapse?
  14. Where is Dick Cheney’s undisclosed location?
  15. What happened to the more than \$1 billion that Americans donated after the attack?
  16. What was the role of Pakistan’s spy agency in the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl?
  17. Who killed five Americans with anthrax?
  18. What happened to the probe into C-4 explosives found in a Philadelphia bus terminal in fall 2001?
  19. What is in the 28 blacked-out pages of the congressional Sept. 11 report?
  20. Where is Osama bin Laden?

(via MeFi)

Hu's on first?

Seeing as how something tells me this is a good day for a little levity, and I keep getting laughs out of these, I’m continuing on a theme here. Hopefully nobody minds too terribly much! I actually had this posted on another blog a while ago, but here it is again.

Hu’s on first?

We take you now to the Oval Office…

George: Condi! Nice to see you. What’s happening?

Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.

George: Great. Lay it on me.

Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.

George: That’s what I want to know.

Condi: That’s what I’m telling you.

George: That’s what I’m asking you. Who is the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes.

George: I mean the fellow’s name.

Condi: Hu.

George: The guy in China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The new leader of China.

Condi: Hu.

George: The Chinaman!

Condi: Hu is leading China.

George: Now whaddya’ asking me for?

Condi: I’m telling you Hu is leading China.

George: Well, I’m asking you. Who is leading China?

Condi: That’s the man’s name.

George: That’s whose name?

Condi: Yes.

George: Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.

Condi: That’s correct.

George: Then who is in China?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir is in China?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Then who is?

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Yassir?

Condi: No, sir.

George: Look, Condi. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.

Condi: Kofi?

George: No, thanks.

Condi: You want Kofi?

George: No.

Condi: You don’t want Kofi.

George: No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi?

George: Milk! Will you please make the call?

Condi: And call who?

George: Who is the guy at the U.N?

Condi: Hu is the guy in China.

George: Will you stay out of China?!

Condi: Yes, sir.

George: And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.

Condi: Kofi.

George: All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.

(Condi picks up the phone.)

Condi: Rice, here.

George: Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you get Chinese food in the Middle East?

— by James Sherman