U.S.A. = third-world country?

Here's what Republican rule comes down to; We're in need of election monitors.
Our political system have been so corrupted by the Right-wing that even the most basic element of democracy is endangered.

Foreign Observers Ready to Monitor US Elections

On Thursday, short-term observers from the OSCE arrive in the United States. For the first time ever, a foreign organization will be officially monitoring a US presidential vote. [ full article ]

Bush's Steal and Spend Policy

In the old Popeye cartoons, Wimpy always said "I'll gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today".

To all Republicans/Conservatives/Ditto-Heads/freepers:
If you felt that Democrats "tax and spend" policies were taking money straight out of your wallet, then you should realize that the new "neo-con+religious-right" Republican spending policies are credit card theft. You might still have a couple bucks in your pocket, but your credit-line is maxed out and the bill WILL be coming due.

[ More details coming soon ]

Bush/Cheney + Halliburton = Cronyism

Will the facts get through to voters before the election? Bush/Cheney are crooks! The signs have been there all along, now the evidence is coming to light.
Tell everyone you know!

Oct 25, 2:52 AM EDT
Army Faces Probe on No-Bid Deals With KBR
By WILLIAM C. MANN Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's internal watchdog is looking into claims by a top Army contracting official that a Halliburton Co. subsidiary unfairly won no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars for support services in Iraq and the Balkans.

The complaint alleges that the award of contracts without competition to restore Iraq's oil industry and to supply and feed U.S. troops in the Balkans puts at risk "the integrity of the federal contracting program as it relates to a major defense contractor. ....
[ Full Article ]

Election day fear factor

More evidence that the Bush Administration is trying to frighten citizens into unquestioning obedience. Bush and Cheney travel the country telling us to be afraid, very afraid. Time after time the Terror Level was raised as a distraction from bad news, bad news for the Administration that is. But underlying the distractions, are the tactics of control by fear; modeled on practices of Hitler and the Nazi's.

Little Evidence of Qaeda Plot Timed to Vote
By DAVID JOHNSTON and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: October 24, 2004

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 - In early July,
the Homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, declared that credible intelligence showed Al Qaeda intended to launch a "large-scale attack" inside the United States to "disrupt our democratic process." More than three months later, counterterrorism officials in the United States and overseas say they are still concerned, but have uncovered little specific evidence of a plot timed to the election......

..."I've seen some analytical pieces from the bureau and the agency," said one senior American counterintelligence official, referring to election threat reports by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. "On a scale of one to a hundred, I'd give it about a two." .....
[ Full Article ]

Air America Radio lands here Monday

Happy News for the Puget Sound!

By Mark Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter

Country-music fans tuning in to 1090-AM next week are in for a radical change. As of 12:01 a.m. Monday, KYCW will be KPTK, Seattle's new home for the liberal Air America Radio.

The New York-based network, home of Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo and other left-wing talkers, made the announcement yesterday. Before adding the Seattle station, Air America's Web site listed 36 local affiliates and XM and Sirius satellite radio, which carry its programming along with its Internet broadcast....
[ full article ]

Levin Releases Report on Pre-War Intelligence

It's Taken far to long to document what most of us in the Reality-Based Community have known since before the invasion of Iraq. Bush and Co. Lied!

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released a report today of an inquiry he initiated on June 27, 2003 and conducted by the SASC Minority Staff. The report focuses on 1) the establishment of a non-Intelligence Community source of intelligence analysis in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and 2) the extent to which policy makers utilized that alternative source rather than the analyses produced by the Intelligence Community with regard to the issue of any relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda before the Iraq war.
The report demonstrates how intelligence relating to the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship was exaggerated by high ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the Administration’s decision to invade Iraq when the intelligence assessments of the Intelligence Community did not make a sufficiently compelling case. The Intelligence Community’s analysis of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship as a relatively weak one was as definitive as reliable reporting would permit, and their conclusions were subsequently supported by the 9/11 Commission and the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq.

Senator Levin believes that the professional objectivity and independence required in the assessment of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship were compromised to support the policy goal of removing Saddam Hussein. He hopes that this report will help to bring about corrective legislation, including better Congressional oversight of intelligence assessments, which was strongly recommended by the 9/11 Commission and is a pending issue in the Intelligence reform bills before Congress.