Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[So far, the democrats are refusing to cave in to Bush-Rove demands they concede. Besides Ohio, New Mexico (5 electoral votes) and Iowa (7 electoral votes) are still uncertain. All hang on counts of large numbers of absentee and provisional ballots. In Ohio, these votes could take at least 11 days to count, unless the procedure is accelerated or Kerry decides to concede.-NY Transfer] Rediff.com - Nov 3, 2004 http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/nov/03us23.htm Bush not to address faithful today by Prem Panicker in New York Here's why President George W Bush waited an inordinate amount of time, before finally deciding not to make a victory speech on Wednesday night: the outcome of Ohio hangs in the air. At the time of writing this, President George Bush has 254 Electoral College votes; John Kerry has 252. If Kerry wins Ohio, he moves to 272 - two votes more than he needs to become president. And so the incumbent does not feel confident enough to claim victory as his. In Ohio, 11,473 precincts out of 11,477 have reported. Bush has 2,791,912 votes to Kerry's 2,653,046 votes - a lead of 138,866 votes for the incumbent that, on the face of it, seems decisive. The catch is absentee ballots and provisional ballots, estimated to be anywhere between 75,000-250,000. Though conservative estimates put the number of absentee and provisional ballots under 100,000 - that is, well inside the lead Bush enjoys. Democrats however claim that the figure is closer to 250,000, and that when those ballots are counted, their candidate could well edge the president out of the race. Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, in whom the authority of overseeing the electoral process in the state and announcing the result vests, has said that as per state law, absentee ballots will not be counted for the next ten days. The rules in the state stipulate that an absentee ballot posted on election day, and bearing that day's postmark, is valid. Thus, Blackwell argues that time has to be given for those ballots posted today to arrive in the mail; all mailed in ballots have to then be collated, validated, and counted. Thus, according to existing rules, Ohio can hang in the balance for the next 11 days. Republicans however are challenging this at several levels. Legal challenges have been mounted, seeking to get the courts to force Blackwell to count the votes earlier than the stipulated 11-day deadline. A more insidious challenge came at 5.45 am ET, when President Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card appeared before a crowd of Republicans at Reagan House, near the White House, and told the party faithful that the GOP's internal projections indicate that President Bush has won Ohio, that he has won more popular votes than any president in history (at the time of writing this report, Bush has won 57,347,286 votes to Kerry's 53,692,218); and that the GOP has retained control of both the House and the Senate with an enhanced majority. The only reason Bush has not made his victory speech today, Card indicated, was because he wanted to give his opponent the courtesy of 'time to reflect on the outcome of this election'. By projecting the outcome as a fait accompli, Card was playing to a tried and tested GOP playbook. In 2000, when Florida hung in the balance, the Republicans proclaimed victory, and then pointed to every objection, every challenge, as an attempt to subvert the verdict. Here again, Card is obviously playing the same game - he has now announced victory, he has said Bush hasn't officially claimed victory only out of courtesy. The obvious, if unstated, subtext, is that it is now up to his opponent to match that courtesy, and to accept his defeat and acknowledge Bush the winner. Any delay in doing so will, going by precedent, be pointed to as discourtesy on the part of Kerry. The Kerry camp has not made any statement beyond a brief speech by vice presidential candidate John Edwards, in course of which he said that he and Kerry would live up to their promise that 'Every vote will count, and every vote will be counted'. Though Edwards hinted that the Democrats will make their stand clear one way or other some time on Wednesday, the option of insisting that the outstanding ballots in Ohio be counted, and the final tally be officially declared, before the Kerry-Edwards ticket acknowledges defeat. Ifs. buts. maybes. and no final resolution in sight for the next 8-10 hours at least. *** New Mexico, Iowa results on hold http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/nov/03us21.htm by Prem Panicker in New York New Mexico and Iowa have, effectively, been placed in suspended animation until sometime mid-morning Wednesday. At the time of writing this report, 1480 out of 1495 precincts have reported in New Mexico. President George W Bush has polled 333,525 votes to John Kerry's 322,571 votes - a lead, for the president, of 10,054. Which would on paper be enough - except for a little spanner in the electoral works that goes by the name of 'provisional ballots'. When a voter attempts to cast his vote and election officials find his identity insufficient, or are unable to trace his name on the rolls, they issue a provisional ballot to the voter. This lets the voter exercise his franchise - with the proviso that the vote will be validated only after his identity, and the legitimacy of his claim to vote, have been investigated. In New Mexico, election officials indicate there are over 20,000 provisional ballots that need to be validated and counted - almost double the amount of votes Bush is leading by. New Mexico, thus, has suspended counting, and will declare only sometime on Wednesday after the provisional ballots are scrutinized, validated, and counted. In Iowa, 2069 precincts out of 2079 have reported. Bush has polled 738,394 votes to Kerry's 723,760 - a lead, for the incumbent, of 14,634 votes. However, an estimated 60,000-plus absentee ballots (essentially votes sent in by people registered in Iowa but currently living elsewhere) remain to be counted. Again, given the number of absentee ballots is way more than the lead Bush now enjoys, an official declaration will not be possible until those votes are validated and counted. Election officials in the state have thus suspended operations, arguing that counting officials are fatigued and will resume work on Wednesday morning. Compounding the confusion is a breakdown of voting machines in Green County, which leaves several thousand votes from that area uncounted. The manufacturers are expected to furnish new machines by late afternoon-early evening Wednesday, at which the county will finish counting its votes. New Mexico has 5 Electoral College votes, and Iowa has 7. While indications are Bush will take both states, there is an outside possibility of a late reversal. For those looking for straws in the wind, there is this: a record 18,800 absentee ballots, cast in statehouse races favoured Democrats by a 2-1 margin, allowing the party to carry two fiercely contested races for the state assembly and two of three open seats on the Black Hawk County's board of supervisors. In any case, with these two states suspending operations and Ohio put on hold for an unspecified duration, there will be no official declaration of the final outcome for at least the next 10 hours - that is, till mid to late afternoon Wednesday - at the earliest. To subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr *** >From Marilyn Katz, in Chicago, sent after midnight. On this less than stellar night, I wanted to write a note of congratulations to all of you in CAWI and Peace and Justice Voters and likeminded folks throughout the nation. Whatever the fate of Kerry (whenever that will be determined) your efforts clearly had an impact - a 77% turnout and decisive anti-Bush vote in Chicago and more than 80% in the suburbs. With few resources outside of your energy and passion, you have managed to create an unprecedented level of organization and activity..... Too bad we did not have a candidate opposing Bush who expressed that same passion. I do not know why Bush was not defeated...whether it was the lack of a candidate with a clear alternative vision, whether it was an over-reliance on media and not enough on organization, whether it was the missed opportuntiies to harness the energies of millions of anti-war activists and the million women who marched on washington in May or whether we just live in a country of people who are mesmerized by the Sinclairs and Rush Limbaugh's of the world. I do know however that in Chicago, New York, California, and points in-between, millions of like minded people have gathered and worked together to oust one of the most hideous presidents in history. So is there a silver lining in this dark cloud.....perhaps two. Perhaps this will be the death knewll for those who have led the Democratic prrty to defeat each and every year since 1980 and more important we have the basis to create a popular organization in Illinois (and perhaps across the region, if not the nation) that might form a new basis for politics -- electoral and otherwise. Step one will be to share our analyses and plan next steps. We'll meet at my home next Tuesday to assess the past and plan the future.... join us/. Tuesday, November 9 2622 north hampden. park in the lot across from the back of thehouse on the west side of the alley. REmember " Don't mourn organize *** The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out...The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, chapter six, at a time just before he invaded Poland. *** General 2004 :: Link & Discuss (409 comments) Final thoughts (for now) by kos Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 05:20:30 GMT The networks have essentially called this one for Bush. There are still votes to be counted, and Kerry better not get it in his head to concede before all of them are counted. The networks won't decide this election as they did in 2000. Once the votes are counted, and the final result is determined, then we can talk about what we need to do. I've always said today was merely a battle in a long war. The GOP built its electoral dominance over 40 years by building a massive, well-funded message, training, and media machine. We started putting ours together last year. You all have much to be proud of. But please don't think your job is done, or that your hard work was all for naught. It's not, and it wasn't. This is just the beginning, not the end. Regardless of who takes that oath next January we still have a war to wage. We won't wage it with violence, but by building a solid foundation for a new progressive movement. Update: The margin in Ohio is now under 100,000 votes. This one is not over. Kerry campaign statement: "The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio." Lawyers are heading out to Ohio to demand a fair count. General 2004 :: Link & Discuss (520 comments) 269-269 by kos Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 04:05:18 GMT So far, no big surprises. Like I wrote below, we need surprises to win the presidency. Ohio is not out of contention, not as long as the urban areas (like Cuyahoga county) fail to report in. My brother, who has been crunching numbers all night (he likes math), makes a persuassive case that Bush will have a 20K lead in Ohio without absentees after all urban precincts report. The absentees would decide the race. Florida won't be called tonight, not without so many absentee ballots outstanding (1 million). I don't feel good about Florida, but those absentees are mostly from Dem areas according to MSNBC. It's not over. NH looks ready to go to Kerry. And early Nevada results look good. Same with the rest of the Gore states except for New Mexico. If we hold the Gore states, which is quite a reasonable assumption, and flip Nevada and New Hampshire, then we have the dreaded 269-269 results. But Ohio would be the big prize. Update: Nevermind Florida. It's been called for Bush. Let's hope it's been called prematurely. General 2004 :: Link & Discuss (346 comments) Youth did not vote by kos Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 02:57:19 GMT MSNBC exit poll indicates that the youth did not vote. The 18-29 bracket voted the same this year as in 2000, while 30-44 group was down. That's what's killing us. *** Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The Scotsman - 2 November 2004 http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1263662004 Neo-conservatives determined to pull strings for four more years By Kirsty Milne THE thoughts of a second-term president turn naturally to his place in history. If re-elected, George Bush will spend the next four years in mellower mode, spurning wars and giving his attention to the folks at home. Foreign-policy zealots in the White House and the Pentagon, chastened by Iraq, will retreat to think-tanks to ponder their mistakes. This theory of a kinder, gentler second term is surprisingly common and probably wrong. While Mr Bush may well be interested in posterity and concerned about politics at home, it is fanciful to presume, as the Economist recently declared, that the neo-conservatives are "no longer in vogue". Without the terrible catalyst of 9/11, they may be less vocal; without the momentum for war in Iraq, they may be less active. But "the ideologues", as Tony Blair calls them in private, are unabashed and planning for four more years. "It is inconceivable that the neo-cons would not have a prominent role in the next administration," says Jacob Heilbrunn of the Los Angeles Times, maintaining that they still make the intellectual weather in the White House. Iran is destined to be the neo-conservatives' initial focus if Mr Bush returns to office. Although the president said in the first debate that he would "work with the world to persuade the mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions", right-wing think-tanks are openly discussing the prospect of a strike on Iranian nuclear installations - not by the United States, but by Israel, with tacit or explicit US support. Another second-term hotspot will be Russia. Neo-con intellectuals are divided. Some praise Vladimir Putin as an ally and fellow-sufferer in "the war on terror", others denounce his creeping authoritarianism, following the neo-con tenet that foreign policy must promote US-style democracy. Iraq will be the neo-cons' second-term albatross, although they treat it as a badge of pride. Here, too, opinion is split between those who would like to pull US troops out as soon as possible after elections can be held, and those who believe in staying for the long haul. Donald Rumsfeld is in the first camp; William Kristol, the editor of the Murdoch-owned journal the Weekly Standard, in the second. Yet, while UK ministers queue to apologise for faulty intelligence on Iraq, the US neo-cons take the view that the ends justified the means. They are displacing the blame for the current chaos on to Paul Bremer, former head of the coalition authority, who retaliated by saying there were not enough troops at the time of the invasion. Mr Bush will want to keep Iraq recriminations behind the scenes and focus on politics at home. Here, neo-conservatives are harder to distinguish from regular conservatives - there is nothing especially "neo" about tax cuts, social security reform, or appointing anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court. The neo-conservatives' influence does extend to the domestic agenda, but their success has been defensive rather than offensive. They have worked to promote a particular kind of US conservatism. Grover Norquist, the right-wing activist who runs Americans for Tax Reform, calls it "the limited-government, pro-free trade, immigrant-friendly Reagan coalition". For Mr Norquist, George Bush is Ronald Reagan's ideological heir. He has successfully beaten off the protectionist, anti-immigrant challenge, represented by Pat Buchanan, and the "American Gaullist" challenge of John McCain. The neo-conservative network came to life under Mr Reagan, when Dick Cheney ran the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz was at the State Department and Donald Rumsfeld flitted in from the private sector to rehearse how government would run in a national emergency. To have protected Mr Reagan's legacy would count as a neo-con achievement. As Mr Heilbrunn points out, however, there was a world of difference between Mr Reagan's two terms. The anti-communist crusader of the first term gave way to the pro-Gorbachev treaty-signer of the second. While such a transformation seems improbable if Mr Bush re-enters the White House, the neo-cons will be on their guard To subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr *** 4. Cherie Blair lambasts Bush over human rights NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN Scotsman.com Sun 31 Oct 2004 CHERIE Blair has criticised the policies of the US President George W Bush, attacking his stance on terrorist prisoners and gay rights. The Prime Minister's wife was condemned by supporters of the US President, after a speech to Harvard law students which contained a stinging rebuke to Bush, while on a lecture tour of the United States. She attacked the manner in which the White House has dealt with the human rights of UK citizens detained at the US-run Camp X-Ray prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Blair said the decision by the US Supreme Court, fiercely opposed by Bush's government, to give legal protection to two of the Britons detained at the camp was "profoundly important" and a "significant victory for human rights and the international rule of law". She took a sideswipe at Bush's record on gay rights, condemning the arrest of a homosexual couple in the President's home state of Texas, for defying a ban on gay sex. The US Supreme Court's decision to throw out the law, which had been backed by Bush, was a "model of judicial reasoning". Blair also called the US legal code an "outdated grandfather clock". The controversial speech was seen as flying in the face of long-held tradition that British political figures, and those close to them, do not criticise other countries during foreign visits. Doing so just days before the US elections makes the intervention all the more embarrassing for Prime Minister Tony Blair as well as Bush. A Downing Street spokesman said: "These were not political opinions but, as an international human rights lawyer, she was expressing a view about the use of the Supreme Court in the American judicial system." http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1259162004 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/7gSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
