Strange Bedfellows

There... that title ought to be good for a lot of hits I never intended to draw. But I'm talking about politics. Specifically, I'm talking about the Fxck the South post (FtS for short), how alliances are formed, how far they extend and what breaks them.

Ginger Stampley of Perverse Access Memory, an excellent blogger whom I discovered through Kuffner and a former long-time Texas resident, explains quite well how liberals who live in "red" states feel about that infamous post:

     ...

One of the things you learn from growing up in the South is that everyone is bigoted in some way; some are just more obvious about it than others. Hearing the sort of speech that many of us would complain about if it came out of the mouths of our Jim Crow-era elders directed at us from the mouths and keyboards of our nominal political allies is disheartening, especially when it’s coming from people who pride themselves on their tolerance      ...

I’m not willing to play house Southerner to make people feel better about themselves. There is many a mote in the eye of the South, but I’m seeing some distinct beams in the eyes of people who are gleefully slinging mud in the direction of folks who don’t all deserve it.

     ...

I hope you will read the entire post; it is a good distillation, in a relatively small amount of prose, of just what bugs me about the general attitude of regional hostility and the particularly strident expression of it in the FtS document. If those of you in blue states care at all about how the FtS document affects your compatriots in red states, you really should read Ginger's post. If you actually approve of the FtS sentiment, you may need some sort of therapy. And if you actually linked the FtS document approvingly from your own site... well, I'll be polite: please take down your link, or rethink your approval.

One more thing: the FtS mudslinging is the last thing liberals need right now. Therefore, I believe it is possible the FtS document was posted by, or at the direction of, Karl Rove. After all, as I'm sure Rove knows, it's never too early to start the next campaign.

Steve
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Theft Or Not - Bush Wins

There has been much discussion in the left blogosphere, including this site, of possible fraud in the presidential election. I welcome the discussion, but I don't want people's hopes to be unreasonably elevated.

One thing I have come to understand is that nothing... nothing... will overturn the results of this presidential election. Cheney could be discovered with his briefs full of marked ballots (now that would be a "secure underclothes location"), and it still would not effect a change in the result. Even if cold, hard, incontrovertible proof comes to light at some point, the White House will not change hands. It's done. Note that I am most certainly not saying, "Get over it." But it is done. Clean election or outright fraud, we're stuck with the nutjobs for four years.

Why? For one thing, the American public believes Bush was legitimately elected (whether it is true or not), and believes the people's will was done. It's almost impossible to go against that. Of course we should continue to pursue what really happened, but we already know that the American people can, indeed, be fooled en masse (consider Saddam's mythical WMD), and that many of them become very attached to their mistaken notions.

I am sure there was fraud here and there; there is probably no presidential election completely free of taint. But the issue we should be discussing is whether systematic fraud was perpetrated, by design (by conspiracy, if you will), and with a realistic chance of affecting the outcome... and whether such fraud can be prevented in future elections by improvements in the process.

The best arguments I've seen for systematic election fraud, e.g., Thom Hartmann's column posted on Common Dreams, have been statistical; i.e., based on exit polls and percentage party registrations, some counties had outcomes for Bush that were improbable beyond belief. But there's no way one can overturn an election on a statistical argument... even if there really is an underlying fraud.

Nonetheless, we need to know exactly what happened, and how it happened, if we are ever to fix our egregiously broken electoral system. That... rather than any reasonable hope of reversing this presidential election... is my motive for pursuing the matter.

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(First posted in an abbreviated form as a comment on Collective Sigh.)

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(Aside: thanks to frequent commenter ellroon for the Frodo/Gandalf quote in the masthead.)

Steve
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UU Understanding

And while we're on the subject of religion and politics, here's a word from my denomination. Via BlondeSense, we have last Sunday's sermon, Living Under Fascism, by Davidson Loehr, minister at the First UU Church of Austin. Loehr lists characteristics of fascism (just in case you didn't already think we're headed for it), speculates on how it came to pass in this country, and ends with a message of hope... a hope that I honestly don't feel at the moment, but at least UU's, as a matter of principle, agree to disagree among themselves, so that's no problem. Here is the conclusion of Loehr's sermon:

I don’t know the next step. I’m not a political activist; I’m only a preacher. But whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we can remember some very basic things that I think of as eternally true. One is that the vast majority of people are good decent people who mean and do as well as they know how. Very few people are evil, though some are. But we all live in families where some of our blood relatives support things we hate. I believe they mean well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us.

Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs in an ideology designed to transfer power, possibility and hope to a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do, individually and collectively. It will not be either easy or quick.

But we will do it. We will go forward in hope and in courage. Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take it -- step, by step, by step.

Just watch where you step: at the moment, there's a lot of stuff on the ground, and not all of it came directly from the bull.

Steve
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Take Hart

Many of my Christian friends may appreciate this op-ed by Gary Hart, former Senator from Colorado, as much as I did. It is called When the Personal Shouldn't Be Political, and deals with the way in which religion is being integrated into our public life. After establishing his credentials as a Christian believer... he actually studied to be a minister... Hart reminds us of the tradition of Thomas Jefferson:

As a candidate for public office, I chose not to place my beliefs in the center of my appeal for support because I am also a Jeffersonian; that is to say, I believe that one's religious beliefs - though they will and should affect one's outlook on public policy and life - are personal and that America is a secular, not a theocratic, republic. Because of this, it should concern us that declarations of "faith" are quickly becoming a condition for seeking public office.

That seems, to me, a timely reminder. My religious affiliation does not resemble Sen. Hart's in the least, but we coexist quite well politically for reasons independent of our respective faiths.

Hart goes on to outline the dangers of direct religious appeals by political leaders:

Declarations of "faith" are abstractions that permit both voters and candidates to fill in the blanks with their own religious beliefs. There are two dangers here. One is the merging of church and state. The other is rank hypocrisy. Having claimed moral authority to achieve political victory, religious conservatives should be very careful, in their administration of the public trust, to live up to the standards they have claimed for themselves. They should also be called upon to address the teachings of Jesus and the prophets concerning care for the poor, the barriers that wealth presents to entering heaven, the blessings on the peacemakers, and the belief that no person should be left behind.

I can't really address the Christian aspect of what he says, other than to note that, based on what I have read of Jesus, in the Bible and elsewhere, my personal admiration for the man is based on his advocacy of peace and social justice, not on some later Calvinist gloss that depicts God as choosing an elect and a damned. (For the record, as a matter of history, my religion denies the existence of a Hell. Today, it allows its practitioners to believe any damned thing... or blessed thing... they want to.) But from Jesus' advocacy of social justice, and from Jerry Falwell's simple wrongness in proclaiming that God is pro-war, I conclude that right-wing Christians such as George W. Bush are simply not legitimately entitled to claim the mantle of Jesus... unless they wish to make the changes Hart suggests, and actually make peace rather than pretending to do so, actually offer government assistance to the ill and impoverished and elderly and small children, rather than merely pretending to do so. From my perspective, outside Christianity, I'm afraid the label "hypocrite" fits Bush and his administration rather well.

America has had its periods of religiosity (not merely religiousness) before, and has survived them. Hart rightly points to one of the things that are materially different this time around:

The religions of Abraham all teach a sense of personal and collective humility. It was a note briefly struck very early by Mr. Bush and largely abandoned thereafter. It would be well for those in the second Bush term to ponder that attribute. Whether Bush supporters care or not, people around the world now see America as arrogant, self-righteous and superior. These are not qualities of any traditional faith I am aware of.

Indeed they are not. I have seen not one aspect of the first four years of the Bush administration that evidences the tiniest bit of humility. It simply isn't there. And the arrogance that displaces it drives them to commit acts in the name of America that are horrifying to behold.

At some later point, I may address the similarity of Bush's religious extremism to that of, say, Osama bin Laden. But "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and I'll leave that for another post.

Troll prophylactic: here is what Hart has to say about himself:

... I will seek to pre-empt the ad hominem disqualifiers. I am a sinner. I only ask for the same degree of forgiveness from my many critics that they were willing to grant George W. Bush for his transgressions.

Exactly so.

Steve
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Ashcroft Resigns

Spirit of Justice celebrates, bares breasts.

Statement from Calico Cats Club reported imminent...

Steve
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Vo Victory

The closely watched recount is complete, and Hubert Vo (D-Houston) has won State Rep. Dist. 149 by a margin of 31 votes, out of something more than 40,000 votes cast. Vo, a businessman and community leader in the Alief area, defeated Talmadge Heflin, who according to the Houston Chronicle has held the seat for 22 years. This is the first net gain Dems have had in the Texas House in several decades (though we have retained some seats).

Heflin is much disliked for two recent actions, one political, one not: he was very involved in Tom DeLay's re-redistricting grab that changed the partisan makeup of the Texas congressional map, and he attempted to wrest legal custody of a Ugandan child who stayed at his house from the child's mother, with no basis other than that he thought he could give the child a better life.

But if you think the contest is over, think again. Republicans have brought in Andy Taylor, noted "fixer," as Heflin's lawyer, and will attempt to overturn the result. Never mind that the recount was done by our very Republican county clerk, Beverly Kauffman. Let me revise that to "very partisan Republican county clerk." The count was done under the watchful eye of several observers each from both of the parties involved. In other words, the count was as fair as one could make it. Vo won. Heflin lost.

But these are Texas Republicans we are talking about. You've all had recent experience with Texas Republicans. To them, this is a war, and there are no Geneva Conventions. Expect Heflin to seek in the courtroom what he clearly did not win at the ballot box. I wouldn't bet money against Heflin.

Steve
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Twos Complement

32,765... 32,766... 32,767... MINUS 32,768... MINUS 32,767...

OK, all you byteheads out there. You don't need any explanation of that sequence. You've probably seen it yourself, sometime in your career: the count of something-or-other gets bigger than the biggest positive number you can fit in a signed twos-complement 16-bit integer.

The problem is called overflow. It can be detected explicitly by a program at the time it happens, or one can simply use a 32-bit (or larger) integer to contain the counter. I usually opt for the latter: use a counter so big you don't even have to think about it. I don't remember the exact number at which a 32-bit signed integer overflows (some reader will undoubtedly tell me), but it's something over two billion. Counting the whole nation? two billion not big enough for you? use a 64-bit integer.

It's not funny when that (or something similar) happens in vote-counting equipment.

In Broward County, Florida.

In Election 2004.

My understanding is that the problem was in precinct totals, but it's a bit hard to tell the details from the linked article. It describes the vote count as going "backward"; my best guess is that the display was small enough that the minus sign didn't show, or perhaps the formatting code was such that it showed the absolute value of the count. In either case, the count really would appear to the eye to be counting backward.

This was a bug, not outright fraud. But the problem was first detected in 2002. Not fixing it... by 2004... now that might be construed as fraud.

(Minor changes made for clarity after initial post.)

UPDATE: apparently, the actual totals ultimately verified for the election itself do not depend on these displayed intermediate totals. Supposedly, then, no votes were harmed in the making of this movie. But it makes you wonder what else they didn't test, and what other kinds of problems slipped past them. Remember, in a democracy, confidence in the accuracy of the vote count is as important as accuracy itself.

Steve
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Global Warning

Sic. Global warming, too:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists say changes in the earth's climate from human influences are occurring particularly intensely in the Arctic region, evidenced by widespread melting of glaciers, thinning sea ice and rising permafrost temperatures.

A study released Monday said the annual average amount of sea ice in the Arctic has decreased by about 8 percent in the past 30 years, resulting in the loss of 386,100 square miles of sea ice - an area bigger than Texas and Arizona combined.

"The polar regions are essentially the earth's air conditioner," Michael McCracken, president of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences, told a news conference Monday. "Imagine the earth having a less efficient air conditioner."

Susan Joy Hassol, the report's lead author, said the Arctic probably would warm twice as much as the Earth. A region of extreme light and temperature changes, the Arctic's surfaces of ice, ocean water, vegetation and soil are important in reflecting the sun's heat.

Pointing to the report as a clear signal that global warming is real, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Monday the "dire consequences" of warming in the Arctic underscore the need for their proposal to require U.S. cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases. President Bush has rejected that approach.

     ...

The study projects that in the next 100 years the yearly average temperatures will increase by 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit over land and 13 to 18 degrees over the ocean, mainly because the water absorbs more heat.

     ...

In that scenario, the study projects "a virtually complete melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet," which would contribute as much as 23 feet to the world's sea level rise.

Twenty-three feet. I do not have the credentials to offer a scientific assessment of exactly what that means for various centers of human civilization. But back in elementary school, they taught me that Houston's elevation above sea level was 30 feet; I don't know the current figure, but it can't be much different. In the scenario above, I suppose the City of Galveston would become our very own Texan Atlantis. And if I owned property here (which I don't), my heirs might find themselves with a beachfront home. Of course, with all the loss of habitat for various species on land and in the ocean, they might find it a bit difficult to feed themselves.

This does not have to happen. But if Bush continues his current course, it seems likely it will happen. I suppose his worshippers assume Bush will protect them, or maybe they believe (as they do regarding evolution) that it will never happen, because God made everything, once and for all, static. Or maybe they're expecting an ark to float along and carry them to safety. As you can see, I'm not very good at speculating on what goes through the mind of a nut-case, whether religious or political or, in this case, both.

I own some property about 100 miles inland. I was going to sell it, but I think I just changed my mind. Actually, all of this may not happen within my lifetime. And I honestly hate adopting a mindset that even remotely resembles that of a survivalist. But somehow the thought is very discouraging that it doesn't have to happen at all, that it is probably within humanity's grasp to avoid this catastrophe of its own making, but that one radical fringe group, seizing power unconstitutionally in 2000 and securing it by whatever means (legal or illegal; it has yet to be determined with certainty) in 2004, may bring about their very own end-of-the-world.

Somebody... please tell me I am wrong about this. I could use some good news, and in this case I don't mean the religious sort.

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Aside: I'll still be working much of today; I'm just avoiding doing so as much as I can.

Steve
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Bark Bark Woof Woof

Mustang Bobby, of Bark Bark Woof Woof, celebrates his first blogiversary (yes, TalkLeft created the term). BBWW is one of the truly indispensable liberal blogs in the 'sphere, and is certainly one of the best-written. Please give Bobby a visit and wish him well!

Steve
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Optical Illusion?

Have we been looking for election fraud in the wrong place? While results from electronic voting systems were carefully monitored for anomalies in the results compared to exit polls in battleground states, optical scanning equipment for paper ballots was generally assumed to produce valid results. However, via The Left Coaster's Steve Soto, we learn that in Florida, and possibly other states, the election returns differ from the exit polls when compared to the local party registration percentages most strongly in places where optical scanning equipment is in use. That's right: results appear to have been consistently unexpected in places where optical scanning equipment, not direct recording electronic (DRE, e.g., Diebold) equipment, was in use. Soto points us to a column by Thom Hartmann:

     ...

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida's counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.

     ... (2 examples given here)

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the touch-screen counties, where investigators may have been more vigorously looking for such anomalies, high percentages of registered Democrats generally equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry. (I had earlier reported that county size was a variable – this turns out not to be the case. Just the use of touch-screens versus optical scanners.)

     ...

Please read all the source material yourself. I am by no means prepared to make a claim of fraud based on these statistics. But they do suggest a very suspicious pattern.

Hartmann, like Palast (see my post upstream), is himself prepared to cry foul. He does examine alternative explanations, e.g., the so-called Dixiecrat theory... please see his column for that story. But to his credit, he compares Florida with another state, Pennsylvania, which Kerry won, in which there are similar diversities of voting equipment... but no similar pattern of differences between exit polls and election results as compared to party registration distribution. Something... whether or not it is fraud... is going on.

Apparently, at one point during Election Day, Karen Hughes talked to Bush, preparing him for the likelihood that he would lose the election by a large margin:

Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.

Soto confirms this independently from personal knowledge; see his post (linked above).

Hartmann offers a lengthy description of a TV show in which Howard Dean interviews Bev Harris of Black Box Voting. Hartmann's assumption is that the back end of some optical scanning systems is Diebold's election supervisor software running under its GEMS software, apparently a sort of operating system of its own, or at least a layer atop Windows, from what I have read. But the Diebold election database is, from other reports, a plain Microsoft Access database, and can be easily manipulated by running Windows and then MS Access on the vote-tabulating computer. I don't doubt that, having read Avi Rubin's paper beginning to end myself. But I urge caution about Hartmann's description: he obviously doesn't understand a number of technical terms, and there may be other things he does not understand. If I recall, Hartmann is a lawyer, not a computer geek. Still, the basic notion that a Diebold database containing votes can be manipulated externally to the election software that Diebold provides is a well-demonstrated concept.

So... was the election stolen by manipulating the aggregation of votes in battleground states in counties using optical scan equipment? The answer is a definite "maybe." As far as I can see, there's no way to prove it. The stats are awfully suspicious, but you can't overturn an election based on comparisons of actual outcomes with exit polls. You'll have to read both Hartmann's column and Soto's post, and decide for yourself what is most likely. To me, the only "new news" in these posts is that there is reasonable suspicion directed at votes collected using optical scanning equipment... and that is, indeed, a surprise.

My point is not to suggest that the election was necessarily fraudulently decided, but rather that we cannot have confidence in the results. And that is beyond horrible in a nation that prides itself on choosing its leaders by a democratic process (however flawed the process).

In most past elections before 2000, one could reasonably assume that, while there was local fraud here and there, e.g., vote-shaving by manual counters, partisan tampering by election officials, voting the graveyard, etc., it was not merely minimal but strongly disapproved of by large majorities of election officials, poll workers and party leadership in both major parties.

Regrettably, since 2000, that assumption cannot confidently be made. Why? Not only was the presidential election in 2000 demonstrably deliberately stolen by the GOP, but the Republican Party organized an effort in 2004 that had the capacity to steal the election, through a combination of voter suppression, purges of voter rolls, issuance of provisional ballots, and possibly but not demonstrably direct tampering, whether or not it actually did so. Moreover, it appears to me... and this is much less certain than the effort they made to be able to steal the election if they desired... that the GOP planned to depict itself as victim of a large-scale scam by Democrats, a scam for which I see no credible evidence at all.

God, I hate this sort of stuff. I'd rather lose, honestly and fairly, and deal with the consequences of having lost, confident that I really had lost, than have to contemplate the possibility that elections have been grossly manipulated, not once but twice, by my opponents. Confidence is essential to democracy. And at present, we have no basis for such confidence. Damn!

Steve
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Sofarsogoo Returns!

Carl, a.k.a. Sofarsogoo, of Unpopular Ideas, is back, and with a significant post, as always! Please go welcome him back to the 'sphere.

Steve
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Michael Moore

Michael Moore has made a list of reasons not to despair. It's a good list, though I may have some quibbles here and there. Bark Bark Woof Woof publishes the whole list. Here are a few of my favorite items:

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

     ...

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one. [Note: I'm confident they'll do their job, at least on those votes. Remember, Moore is not a Democrat. - SB]

     ...

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly golden and you will be well cared for in your old age. [Note: many regions, e.g., Texas, are much closer to white minority status than that. - SB]

     ...

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008.

Well, I don't know that Kerry is an out-and-out liberal, but Moore's point is well taken: we're baaaaaack.

Steve
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Chin Up - David Rees

Via NTodd, we discovered David Rees's most excellent rant. If Rees had permalinks, I wouldn't copy his rant here, but his statement is much too significant to lose in the mists of blog archives past (and besides, he doesn't appear to have archives):

CHIN UP.
We're smarter than those motherfuckers.
We can learn more quickly than those motherfuckers.
We can be more ruthless than those motherfuckers.
We can be some six-million-dollar motherfuckers ourselves.

Chin up.
We're more American than those motherfuckers.
We're more responsible than those motherfuckers.
We're more compassionate than those motherfuckers.
Hell, our atheists are more Christian than their Bible-thumpin' motherfuckers.

There's an election in two years.
There's nothing we can't do.

Chin up.
Because it's on, motherfuckers.
It is on.

Wow. "Our atheists are more Christian..." ain't it the truth!

Rees has links to other inspiring posts. And he creates the inimitable and ironically named "Get Your War On" cartoons. Beyond even that, he has lots of stuff about land mines. As an Amnesty International member, I can tell you that land mines inflict consequences among the cruelest in all of modern warfare. Rees has photos... but they're not for the faint of heart.

Rees also has stuff you can buy... several books, T-shirts, etc. After his gift of an inspiring screed like that, I plan to do so as soon as my budget reasonably permits.

And don't forget... "it's on, motherfuckers. It is on."

Steve
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The Vision Thing

Andrei Cherney, Kerry's director of speechwriting until April, offers a constructive examination of the election, not a compilation of details, but an assessment of why we have emphatically become, as he reminds us, the minority party in every sense. The short version, from the middle of the column:

Democrats have a collection of policy positions that are sensible and right. John Kerry made this very clear. What we don't have, and what we sorely need, is what President George H. W. Bush so famously derided as "the vision thing" - a worldview that makes a thematic argument about where America is headed and where we want to take it.

Are we more than just a collection of valid and socially righteous policy positions? Is there an overarching vision that can once again make the Democratic Party the vehicle by which liberal policies are woven into the fabric of government? (God, what a mixed metaphor.) I invite your thoughts in the comment thread.

Steve
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Out Of The Woodwork

In the middle of the night, I entered my bathroom and confronted a giant cockroach... water-bug, tree roach, use your favorite name for it. This was not a total surprise; such things are native to south Texas. But we have laid down such a quantity of insecticide over the past half century or so (well, I haven't, but our society has, and my apartment management has) that it is relatively rare to see a large, many-legged critter indoors. (Apologies, archy; I know you must write indoors.)

I did not step on the poor beast. For one thing, I dislike killing anything, and have come to look the other way as often as possible when wild creatures make their way into my abode, and to help them make an exit when possible. (Mosquitos are, of course, an exception.) But more than that, that cockroach was far from the most   disgusting   thing I saw crawling out of the woodwork this week after the election.

The reality of what we face... rather, who we face... is starting to sink in.

Steve
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Hallmark Of The Election

Riverbend, the young Iraqi woman whose blog has so often informed and moved us, offers not only her assessment of the American presidential election... and yes, she has as great a stake in the outcome as any American... but also some Hallmark greeting card style rhymes:

I'm thinking of offering up the idea of "Election Condolences" to Hallmark or Yahoo Greetings. The cards can have those silly little poems inside of them, like:

Condolences and heartfelt tears-
You get Bush for four more years!

From there, River's rhymes become even more incisive. And her conclusion is understandably bitter:

I guess justice was too much to ask for.

Yes, I guess it was.

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UPDATE: speaking of poetry, Nurse Ratched gives us Dylan Thomas and Don Henley on the same page... both works just right for the occasion.

Steve
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Three-And-Two

That's what I used to think of when anyone spoke the words "full count." But Greg Palast says that a full count of Ohio's votes, which apparently is underway, if done fairly, will reveal that Kerry won Ohio. Palast also claims New Mexico for Kerry. And in Ohio, the problems are the provisional ballots and our old friend, hanging chads. Yep. Hanging chads. (Links via Holden on First Draft.)

I have my doubts. But if it turns out Palast is right, I'll have to inform Stella by telephone. She is already furious at Kerry for conceding so early, and I don't want to be present when her head explodes.

Steve
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We Are Still Here

I was inspired by a post on Bark Bark Woof Woof this morning, in which Mustang Bobby wrote,

My suggestion is that we remain vigilant, remain calm, and take our stands with the firm belief that losing by two points is not a disaster for the Democrats or the progressive cause. It will not be easy, but nothing ever worth having was easily obtained.

That's an important reminder. This was not a right-wing blowout... I've seen some right-wing blowouts in the past, and this is not one of them.

Yes, Bush and Cheney will govern as if they received a mandate. That doesn't make it a mandate. If this election had been 65/35 in the popular vote, I might think of looking for a place to hide. But with 51/49? No way!

It's going to be a very rough four years. Some of us... and I literally mean some of us who blog liberally or protest loudly... may find our rights severely infringed. Even if we don't, we may observe as others have their rights curtailed, possibly brutally. I do not mean to minimize the perils ahead; they are real enough.

But some of us have lived through Nixon, Reagan and Bush 41, and we're still here. Not all of that 49 percent who voted for Kerry are liberal, but many of them share what may be reasonably called liberal values. And those of us who are committed to those values are not going away. To turn a popular phrase just a bit...

We're here. We're liberal. Get used to it.

Steve
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Why It Happened

Ruy Teixeira has some insights well worth reading.

Steve
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Night Train Of Thought

A few random thoughts, mostly fine whines...

• tristero is retiring from the arena to spend time with his family and writing music, which is his career. I shall miss him a great deal. Damn, he did fine work!
• Several blog posts today have been titled "Post Mortem." That choice of title bothers me a lot. People are dying for real in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hundred other troubled locations around the world. Meanwhile, neither America, nor the Democratic Party, nor most certainly the liberal principles many of us espouse, are dead. We lost an election, yes, a very important one, but the sun rose this morning, and all of us writing and reading blog posts are alive. Please find another phrase.
• While I'm complaining about choice of language, I'd really like to see everyone who regularly uses the phrase "circular firing squad" form a, um, well, a circular firing squad. There will inevitably be heated exchanges as we determine how to proceed (and I will surely be one of the heat exchangers). Cut every lefty a bit of slack, please.
• For the moment, I'm replacing my Kerry/Edwards graphic in the right column with a link to the DNC. This is not to be considered an endorsement of the current leadership of the Democratic Party, which in my opinion could use a shake-up. I just wanted a generic DP link destination.
• oyster's 7-month-old daughter has the best quote of the day on the election outcome. Read and laugh!

I may add to these this evening, or I may just collapse asleep. Sleep sounds good...

Steve
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Kerry Concedes

It's over. Kerry will formally concede at 1:00pm Eastern time. Bush will speak after that. God help America.

Steve
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Balkin On Ohio

Jack Balkin of Balkinization tells you What You Need to Know About Ohio. As I've often reminded you, I am not a lawyer, but Balkin most certainly is, and a highfalutin' lawyer at that, a genuine expert on the Constitution. This one is definitely worth reading.

Steve
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Symbols

Today, I hung my John Kerry T-shirt in the closet, in there with my Gore 2000 shirt, my Killer D's shirt, etc., etc. I know, I know; it's not officially over. But the officials who will make it official do not have my unreserved trust, and I'm pretty sure how this one will play out.

Casting about for a T-shirt to wear... working mostly at home does have its advantages... I came upon an old one I bought in Berkeley (yes, that Berkeley) bearing a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. In it, Hobbes inquires, "Do you believe in God?" Calvin, looking rather pensive, replies, "Well somebody's out to get me!"

I dipped into my supply of really good coffee this morning. I have an old cup with the caption "Democrats"; it also bears about twenty quotations about and by Democrats. I was given the cup on Election Day 1980 by a local shop dealing in good coffee; I presume their Republican customers received a similar cup with more distasteful sayings on it. This cup has no special properties I know of: it isn't a "lucky" cup (good God, look who was elected on the day I received it), and I regard it as a daily-use mug.

I did not choose that cup this morning.

Instead, I chose one with a group of devils on it, playing an assortment of instruments in front of raging flames. I bought it originally for its "hot jazz" theme. The lead singer/guitarist, obviously wailing some incredible solo, has an expression on his face that epitomizes agony. It's the perfect cup for days when I feel like hell. Today certainly qualifies.

Steve
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Here We Go Again -- UPDATED

The subject is borrowed from this morning's Houston Chronicle headline; I doubt I could capture the sense of the situation any better. Following the network calls by way of Media Matters, I find things looking slightly less bleak than they were in the wee hours. But not by much. The current count, Bush 254 - Kerry 242, does not comfort me at all. Whoever takes Florida... oops, I mean Ohio... wins the election. Here we go again.

UPDATE: As if that were not bad enough, AMERICAblog has found evidence of possible Republican vote fraud involving the transfer of ballots from more than 40 precincts into mysterious and clearly Bush partisan hands.

I still hope against hope that Kerry succeeds in becoming our next president, for many reasons. But whoever becomes president will have an asterisk beside his name, just as Bush did in 2000. One way or the other, there will be a sense that one man lawyered his way into office. Never mind that, so far, everyone appears to be pursuing the required process, as best it can be determined. The Bush camp is screaming bloody murder that Kerry didn't just cave, but that's just too bad. No, the problem is that we Americans don't really believe in our own electoral processes. Republicans apparently believe only in winning, and the rest of us have learned to be as intolerant of that attitude as possible under extremely adverse circumstances.

Some of you have heard me say... and I may even have said it on this site... that if the race this year was close enough to steal, the Bushies would steal it. I still believe that. And it is emphatically close enough to steal. Get ready for a really unpleasant day, or week, or month.

Steve
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Little Hope

As I retire for the night, it doesn't look good for the home team. Depending on which network(s) you believe, Ohio may go for Bush, effectively assuring his win (or at worst a tie). Apparently, the polls were simply wrong.

And Josh Marshall says the much-ballyhooed youth vote simply didn't show up; the percentage of the total vote was apparently about the same as in 2000. More's the pity; it is quite literally their loss: in some cases, if the draft is reinstituted, they may lose their lives. America appears to have voted for more war. God help us all.

There's also the precedent of America's having now elected someone who illegally and unconstitutionally usurped power four years ago. If that isn't a step toward fascism, I don't know what is. There is precedent for this sort of thing; you know where and when it occurred, and I don't want to talk about it right now.

I can't begin to address the consequences of this result, especially in my current frame of mind. But I think that saying we've lost America and what it used to stand for, possibly for the rest of my life, is not an overstatement. If I were to live exactly as long as my father did, it's going to be a long 19 years. My condolences to those of you for whom that span is much greater.

America has voted its fears, not its hopes and dreams. God help us all. And now, as the old English ballad puts it, "Good claret is my mistress now." Off to my bottle of cognac. Yeah, it's French; wanna make something of it?

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UPDATE: In the wee hours, Stella urged me to turn the TV on again. I did, and matters are not nearly so clear-cut as they were before. I still do not have a good feeling about this, and I'm certain the SCLM will report a Bush victory when I awaken later this morning. John Edwards is right to issue a non-concession. Let Ohio be resolved first. If Bush legitimately wins this, I will acknowledge that fact. If he wins it and also has the benefit of a Republican congress, I shall grieve for our nation.

Steve
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Some Last Thoughts

Stella and I are about to head out for dinner with a Democratic friend whose birthday is today. We hope for the best present possible, and I am cautiously optimistic she will get it. After that, we'll either drop by the local Democratic Party party (appropriately enough, near the party's second headquarters, in a mall, in the food court, so that Democrats can afford to eat) or go to a neighbor's apartment; we're not sure yet.

For what it's worth, Zogby has called it for Kerry. Zogby predicts an overwhelming electoral vote victory but a very tiny popular vote loss for Kerry. Wouldn't that be ironic! Personally, I still think Kerry will win both the electoral and the popular vote. I do wish it were not so nail-bitingly close, though.

After brief or sometimes extended outages today, all the "majors" ... Kos, Atrios, TPM, TalkLeft, MyDD, etc. (see the blogroll on the left) ... are back up and running, as is that old Electoral Vote Predictor, well-known computer wizard Andrew Tanenbaum. I leave you in their capable hands.

On to victory!

Steve
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Krugman

Faith in America. Krugman has it. So do I. Democracy is, indeed, beautiful; let's act to make it a reality.

Steve
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November March -- DOGGEREL!

I have no idea how this will turn out. I'm anxiously, cautiously optimistic, but who the hell knows. Meanwhile, it never hurts to rhyme a bit, especially in a good cause, and this work rhymes so obsessively it really qualifies as doggerel in the original sense of the word. Revived from 1998 and 2002, with a couple of changes, here's my...

November March

Vote... vote... vote... vote... If Donkey or Elephant, monkey or stoat, If eagle or pigeon, but not My Pet Goat, Go vote... vote... vote... vote! Vote... vote... vote... vote... Ignore the commercial with five-second quote And shades of Karl Rove as he's crossing the moat, And vote... vote... vote... vote! Vote... vote... vote... vote... If not, your opinion is not worth a groat, You'll have no control of who's bless'd and who's smote, So vote... vote... vote... vote! Vote... vote... vote... vote... Just think of the children on whom you do dote, Or of your opponents, obscure or of note, The beam's in their eye, and in yours but a mote, You're useless unless you are rocking the boat, Stay home and your policies never will float, Get out of your house or your hovel or cote, Go winnow the grain while you're feeling your oat, Rely on your brain, or a list you may tote, Use mind or use heart, or just do it by rote, Just  vote...   vote...    vote...     vote...      vote...       vote...        VOTE! (And this year, be sure to vote for Kerry and Edwards!)

Steve Bates

Steve
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Well, Hell...

The Ohio Supreme Court, packed with Republicans, of course, reverses the lower court decision, allowing blatant Republican poll-harassment. I hope they rot in hell.

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UPDATE: apparently there's still discussion of which federal or state court ruling applies. See this comment thread on The Left Coaster.

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UPDATE: (Tues. 7:30am) the above-linked comment thread has gotten rather out-of-hand since last night, but commenter Brian Bell linked this Ohio News Now/AP story containing the following excerpt:

Also Monday, the Ohio Supreme Court clarified that political parties are allowed one challenger apiece for each precinct. That decision will affect polls Tuesday only if the 6th Circuit allows challengers at the polling places.

I haven't heard of any further changes to the 6th Circuit's ruling, so perhaps this is all a non-issue. If anyone hears more, feel free to post it here. Or we can just wait and see what happens.

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UPDATE: apparently it's on again:

CINCINNATI - Giving a pre-dawn Election Day boost to the GOP, a federal appeals court early Tuesday cleared the way for political parties to send in people to challenge voters' eligibility at Ohio polling places. The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) declined to step in.

Overturning the orders of two federal judges, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) ruled 2-1 early Tuesday that the presence of Election Day challengers was allowed under state law. It granted emergency stays that will allow Republicans and Democrats one challenger per precinct each.

Plaintiffs' appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court were unsuccessful. Early Tuesday, Justice John Paul Stevens (news - web sites), who handles appeals from Ohio, refused a request to stay the 6th Circuit decision.

     ...

Well, hell, once again...

Steve
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The Guitar And The Hamster

You've already read my pitch for John Kerry's excellent qualifications to be President of the United States, based on his well-documented governing skills, political sensitivity (yes, sensitivity), willingness to fight when necessary, tenacity in the face of mean-spirited opposition, flexibility when appropriate, and knowledge of international relations from an American perspective.

I've also overwhelmed you with all the reasons why George W. Bush must cease to occupy the office of President. There have been too many reasons to name, let alone discuss in detail, and far too many posts on this site to link to them here.

Let me offer a couple of more personal reasons to vote for Sen. Kerry tomorrow (Tuesday): his guitar and his daughters' hamster.

Regular readers know that I have been a professional musician in the past. (See the note below.) Nothing in my life has moved me more... nothing goes more directly to my soul, in whatever sense you choose to take that word... than making music. It is my humble opinion that people who choose to create art, whether their artform is visual or performing, are inevitably more attuned to their surroundings. It doesn't matter if you are a pro. It doesn't matter if you're any good. What matters is the desire, the attempt, to create something that moves other people in ways that transcend easy explanation. Sen. Kerry has that desire. When I read that he plays his guitar to relax during breaks in the campaign schedule, I know that there is something in him... something very positive... with which I can identify directly. Kerry is certainly no virtuoso and no superstar; if he needs a superstar, he's got The Boss along with him. But Kerry is a musician. And that counts with me.

Then there's that hamster that Kerry saved. Most people wouldn't have bothered; the Bush twins made it clear that their family is outright contemptuous of Kerry's act of kindness. That's their loss, and not just of a small animal. But it's about more than saving the small animal. Sen. Kerry is a hunter, something I as an ovo-lacto-sprouteater cannot identify with at all, so he's hardly an animal rights activist in the usual sense of the phrase. But the fact that Kerry loves his daughters so much that he would take extreme measures to save a creature they loved speaks volumes about the man. Compare that one act with Poppy Bush's dryly delivered, "Message: I care." Compare it also with the latter's son who occupies the office now, and his willingness to bring about the deaths of possibly a hundred thousand humans... and who knows how many other creatures that have no philosophical stake in the outcome of humanity's wars. Kerry didn't save the hamster because he wanted the meat; he saved it because his loved ones loved it. And Bush doesn't kill humans and animals for any legitimate reason, but because he arrogantly believes people should die at his command. You cannot tell me that doesn't make a difference in their respective qualifications to be president.

Well, there I've gone and done it: I've gotten all touchy-feely-squishy on you. So be it. I've offered you a couple of years of my political reasons for choosing any Democrat over Dubya, and a few months of my reasons why John Kerry will be an excellent president. Now you also know why my heart tells me what my brain already knew. Deal with it!

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An aside: I rarely perform anymore, but I will be playing harpsichord at the Holiday Lights festival in Hermann Park on Dec. 23, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm, accompanying my longtime colleague, oboist and group leader Julitta Jacobs. It's free to the public, and the lights along the paths and on the paddle-boats on the pond are beautiful.

Steve
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Wide Awake

Nightmare's over... if you want it. It's your choice Tuesday. Do it.

John Kerry and John Edwards

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

My predictions:

• Kerry wins, by a very small margin in both the popular and electoral votes.
• A ferocious legal battle ensues.
• Bush ultimately goes home to Crawford.

Vote. Bring a friend or ten.

Steve
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Your Worst Nightmare

Steve
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