Proof positive the Iran election was stolen

if you're going to steal an election, best do it in such a way as to make it at least somewhat believable...

juan cole cites the chatham house study (pdf) and sums it up this way...

The numbers do not add up. You can't have more voters than there are people. You can't have a complete liberal and pragmatic-conservative swing behind hard liners who make their lives miserable.

The election was stolen. It is there in black and white. Those of us who know Iran, could see it plain as the nose on our faces, even if we could not quantify our reasons as elegantly as Chatham House.

would that when our presidential election was stolen in 2000 and 2004, we would have had the stones to kick up a fuss the way the iranians are doing...

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Moyers: "Democracy in America ... all bets are off"

all bets were off the day the supreme court handed down the decision of 12 december 2000...

The following is an excerpt from Bill Moyers' new book, "Moyers on Democracy" (Doubleday, 2008).

Democracy in America is a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck. The reigning presumption about the American experience, as the historian Lawrence Goodwyn has written, is grounded in the idea of progress, the conviction that the present is "better" than the past and the future will bring even more improvement. For all of its shortcomings, we keep telling ourselves, "The system works."

Now all bets are off. We have fallen under the spell of money, faction, and fear, and the great American experience in creating a different future together has been subjugated to individual cunning in the pursuit of wealth and power -and to the claims of empire, with its ravenous demands and stuporous distractions. A sense of political impotence pervades the country -- a mass resignation defined by Goodwyn as "believing the dogma of 'democracy' on a superficial public level but not believing it privately." We hold elections, knowing they are unlikely to bring the corporate state under popular control. There is considerable vigor at local levels, but it has not been translated into new vistas of social possibility or the political will to address our most intractable challenges. Hope no longer seems the operative dynamic of America, and without hope we lose the talent and drive to cooperate in the shaping of our destiny.

i repeatedly said that i have very, very few personal heroes... bill moyers is one of them...

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Time for a re-post on Mark Penn, HRC's Karl Rove

as hrc seems to be taking a hard turn toward the nasty, now hurling both ridicule and accusation - mostly in obama's direction - i think it's time to repost the item i put up back at the end of this past april that provides a wee bit of detailed background on the man i increasingly think of as hrc's karl rove, mark penn...

from the wapo...

In the four months since Clinton officially became a candidate, [Mark J. Penn] has consolidated his power, according to advisers close to the campaign, taking increasing control of the operation. Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.

If Clinton seems cautious, it may be because Penn has made caution a science, repeatedly testing issues to determine which ones are safe and widely agreed upon (he was part of the team that encouraged Clinton's husband to run on the issue of school uniforms in 1996).

If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm, where he personally hones Microsoft's image in Washington.

And if some opponents see Clinton as arrogant, her campaign a coronation rather than a grass-roots movement, it may be because of the numbers wizard guiding her campaign and the PowerPoint presentations he likes to give on the inevitability of his candidate.

markos, atrios, david sirota, and many other bloggers working feverishly for the grassroots/netroots/unwashed masses have cited case after case of the stupendously arrogant, elitist, inside-the-beltway, dlc-anointed, democratic campaign consultants that are so pathetically out of touch with the real democratic/progressive base... today's wapo offers up the quintessential profile of one of those very folks, and then tries to make it look like hillary is passively acquiescent while he calls all the shots... i say bullshit... he's there because she wants him there... the first part of the article talks about how gore fired him from his 2000 campaign for all of the same reasons hillary apparently wants him...

fine, hillary,,, you're the candidate... you're the one that wants to be president... you choose the campaign staff you want... just don't come calling on me to vote for you...

p.s. penn's firm, penn, schoen & burland, is owned by burson-marsteller, and guess who's burson's ceo...? and guess what's featured on burson's home page...?

Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn discusses the Internet's affect on U.S. campaign politics on Council of PR Firms' podcast [mp3]

from penn's burson-marsteller bio...

Mark Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland. As CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Mr. Penn oversees a global network of 94 offices and 1600 employees that brings world-class public relations to companies around the world. As President of PSB, a position he has held since 1975 when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, Mr. Penn focuses on providing research-based communications strategy to political figures, corporations and crisis situations.

Mr. Penn has been called "Master of the Message" by Time Magazine; "The king of polls" by the London Times; and an "incandescent intellect" by the New York Times. On his wall are notes saying "you were brilliant" from Tony Blair after his historic third win and "thanks" from Bill Clinton after his impeachment acquittal along with photos of Penn working with CEOs including Bill Gates and Bill Ford, Jr. The Washington Post, in "Politics and Policy by the Numbers" summed up his influence in the White House and the corporate boardroom as a "unique vantage point: adviser to the preeminent innovator of the past decade in the realm of politics, Bill Clinton, and the preeminent innovator in the realm of business and technology, Bill Gates."

just the kind of guy to be advising hillary about how to relate to the electorate in the 2008 campaign, the most critical presidential election in the history of the united states...

hrc sold her soul a very long time ago... whether mark penn holds the marker is immaterial... she has a person like mark penn working for her because she's that kind of person herself... period...

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“Why won’t you submit to the personal unpleasantness of another presidential campaign so you can lead the fight to save the planet?”

the post title is a question posed by robert parry yesterday on his news site, consortium news, a question rendered even more poignant by this...

Former vice president Al Gore and a United Nations panel that monitors climate change were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as "the single individual who has done most" to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and poses a grave threat. Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

parry continues...

Gore would seem to have both a practical incentive – and a moral imperative – to enter the Democratic presidential campaign. At minimum, he could force the global-warming issue to the forefront of the debate.

Plus, if he were to win the nomination, he could make Election 2008 a referendum on whether the United States will confront real dangers to the nation’s future – from global warming to the Bush-era assault on reason – or continue to fret about exaggerated threats from al-Qaeda and to accept the erosion of constitutional liberties.

On a moral level, a Gore candidacy would be putting his body where his mouth is. Metaphorically at least, he would be throwing himself in front of the bulldozers. He would be taking the personal risks that he wants the young people to take. He would be providing real leadership, not just words.

Al Gore may have plenty of excuses for not running for President again. But he must recognize that he has some very compelling reasons to do so.

i am not al gore's biggest fan... but, that said, on the overall scale of relativity, i am closer to being an al gore fan than i am to being a fan of any other potential presidential candidate... and, i do agree with parry, i believe gore should either put up or shut up... besides, he's got some redemption to do, both for himself and for his fellow citizens, for not more forcefully challenging the criminality that deprived us of a principled man instead of an outlaw for a president...

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Kill Fidel

quentin tarantino needs to step up to this one...

Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro accused US President George W. Bush of ordering him killed even before moving into the White House, in an article published in the newspaper Granma Tuesday.

"The issue of the accusation related to his plan to kill me comes from before he used fraud to steal the victory from another candidate," the convalescing Castro, 80, said of Bush.

ya know what...? i don't doubt it for a minute...

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Too bad impeachment is so inconvenient, Al, you coulda been a contender

You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in
On The Waterfront

i'm crossing off Al Gore... evidently, impeachment would be too "inconvenient..."

i'm not necessarily looking for somebody to step forward and lead an impeachment effort, but i am damn sure looking for somebody to step forward and be willing to label the current situation in the united states for what it is, the most serious constitutional crisis in the nation's history...

Former US vice president Al Gore, a staunch critic of George W Bush, has said he doesn't agree with calls for impeaching the president due to lack of "time" and "consensus."

Many democrats feel that Bush should be impeached for allegedly misleading the country deliberately in the lead up to the war in Iraq.

"With a year and a half to go in his term and with no consensus in the nation as a whole to support such a proposition, any realistic analysis of that as a policy option would lead one to question the allocation of time and resources," Gore said during an interview with PBS.

Pressed on whether he believed that impeachment is a good use of time, Gore replied, "I don't think it is. I don't think it would be successful."

i don't really care whether or not he supports actual impeachment... what i do care a great deal about is that someone who purports to be a serious leader on the national level, whether or not he ends up running for president, can stand before the citizens of this country and call a spade a spade... al obviously isn't going to do that... furthermore, in the same interview, when he was given a SECOND opportunity to label what has taken place since the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, he said this...

On being asked whether he threw the towel in too soon in the 2000 presidential elections, where he narrowly lost to Bush, Gore said he had taken the fight as far as he could, and the only other option left was a "violent revolution".

"I took it all the way to a final Supreme Court decision. And in our system, there is no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. So, at that point, having taken it as far as one could, then the question becomes, are we going to be a nation of laws and not people?" Gore replied.

"Do I support the rule of law, even though I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision? I did disagree with it, and I think that those of us who disagreed with it will have the better of the argument in history," he added.

let me ask you, al... if you were standing in shit up to your eyeballs, would you call it shit or would you call it "inconvenient...?"

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Mark Penn, the behind-the-scenes, DLC, Washington insider that runs Hillary 2008

read this and then guess yet ANOTHER reason why i wouldn't vote for her...

In the four months since Clinton officially became a candidate, [Mark J. Penn] has consolidated his power, according to advisers close to the campaign, taking increasing control of the operation. Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.

If Clinton seems cautious, it may be because Penn has made caution a science, repeatedly testing issues to determine which ones are safe and widely agreed upon (he was part of the team that encouraged Clinton's husband to run on the issue of school uniforms in 1996).

If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm, where he personally hones Microsoft's image in Washington.

And if some opponents see Clinton as arrogant, her campaign a coronation rather than a grass-roots movement, it may be because of the numbers wizard guiding her campaign and the PowerPoint presentations he likes to give on the inevitability of his candidate.

markos, atrios, david sirota, and many other bloggers working feverishly for the grassroots/netroots/unwashed masses have cited case after case of the stupendously arrogant, elitist, inside-the-beltway, dlc-anointed, democratic campaign consultants that are so pathetically out of touch with the real democratic/progressive base... today's wapo offers up the quintessential profile of one of those very folks, and then tries to make it look like hillary is passively acquiescent while he calls all the shots... i say bullshit... he's there because she wants him there... the first part of the article talks about how gore fired him from his 2000 campaign for all of the same reasons hillary apparently wants him...

fine, hillary,,, you're the candidate... you're the one that wants to be president... you choose the campaign staff you want... just don't come calling on me to vote for you...

p.s. penn's firm, penn, schoen & burland, is owned by burson-marsteller, and guess who's burson's ceo...? and guess what's featured on burson's home page...?

Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn discusses the Internet's affect on U.S. campaign politics on Council of PR Firms' podcast [mp3]

from penn's burson-marsteller bio...

Mark Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland. As CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Mr. Penn oversees a global network of 94 offices and 1600 employees that brings world-class public relations to companies around the world. As President of PSB, a position he has held since 1975 when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, Mr. Penn focuses on providing research-based communications strategy to political figures, corporations and crisis situations.

Mr. Penn has been called "Master of the Message" by Time Magazine; "The king of polls" by the London Times; and an "incandescent intellect" by the New York Times. On his wall are notes saying "you were brilliant" from Tony Blair after his historic third win and "thanks" from Bill Clinton after his impeachment acquittal along with photos of Penn working with CEOs including Bill Gates and Bill Ford, Jr. The Washington Post, in "Politics and Policy by the Numbers" summed up his influence in the White House and the corporate boardroom as a "unique vantage point: adviser to the preeminent innovator of the past decade in the realm of politics, Bill Clinton, and the preeminent innovator in the realm of business and technology, Bill Gates."

just the kind of guy to be advising hillary about how to relate to the electorate in the 2008 campaign, the most critical presidential election in the history of the united states...

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I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation

...George W. Bush, December 13, 2000, accepting the Presidency of the United States, in a speech in Austin, Texas

a truly and tragically historic bush whopper...

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