The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.

Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies.

Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan.

Executives at Sinclair did not return calls seeking comment, but the Kerry campaign accused the company of pressuring its stations to influence the political process.

"It's not the American way for powerful corporations to strong-arm local broadcasters to air lies promoting a political agenda," said David Wade, a spokesman for the Democratic nominee's campaign. "It's beyond yellow journalism; it's a smear bankrolled by Republican money, and I don't think Americans will stand for it."

Sinclair stations are spread throughout the country, in major markets that include Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas; its only California station is in Sacramento. Fourteen of the 62 stations the company either owns or programs are in the key political swing states of Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the presidential election is being closely fought.

Station and network sources said they have been told the Sinclair stations — which include affiliates of Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as WB and UPN — will be preempting regular programming for one hour between Oct. 21 and Oct. 24, depending on the city. The airing of "Stolen Honor" will be followed by a panel discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the sources said.

Kerry campaign officials said they had been unaware of Sinclair's plans to air the film, and said Kerry had not received an invitation to appear.

Broadcasting official charged in sex stakeout
Sinclair president, woman arrested in company car

Published on: August 15, 1996
Edition: FINAL
Section: NEWS
Page: 2B
Byline: SUN STAFFPeter Hermann

372

The president of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which owns the local Fox television affiliate, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes, city police said.

David Deniston Smith, 45, of the 800 block of Hillstead Drive in Timonium, who also is Sinclair's chief executive, was arrested in an undercover sting at Read and St. Paul streets, a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes, Baltimore police said yesterday.

Smith and Mary DiPaulo, 31, were charged with committing unnatural and perverted sex act. Smith was held overnight at the Central Booking and Intake Center and released on personal recognizance at 2 p.m. yesterday. DiPaulo's bail status was not available.

Officials at WBFF-TV (Fox 45) and Sinclair, one of the fastest-growing broadcasting companies in the nation with 28 television and 34 radio stations, would not comment yesterday. The company had $126 million in sales in the first half of this year.

President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)

In New Attacks, Bush Pushes Limit on the Facts

...the scathing indictment that Mr. Bush offered of Mr. Kerry over the past two days - on the eve of the second presidential debate and with polls showing the race tightening - took these attacks to a blistering new level. In the process, several analysts say, Mr. Bush pushed the limits of subjective interpretation and offered exaggerated or what some Democrats said were distorted accounts of Mr. Kerry's positions on health care, tax cuts, the Iraq war and foreign policy.

Presidential Palm Pilot 10-8
(from Air America Radio, Morning Sedition, 10/8/04)

4 a.m. Debate Day. Wake Up in St. Louis in a cold sweat. NOTE: Must score coke, must score coke, must score coke. Call Ramon.

4:30 a.m. Call Ramon again NOTE: Where the hell is he? How are people supposed to score coke in the Midwest? How long would it take Air Force One to go to Miami?

6 a.m. Dangle Kerry debate dummy off balcony. Need confidence builder.

7 a.m. Wake economic advisor. See if it’s too late to buy every voter a car.

8 a.m. Ramon finally comes. Thank you, Jesus.

9 a.m. Party!!!!. NOTE: What do I am I have to worry about? I’m the greatest president of all time!!! Everyone loves me. Thank you Ramon!!! Who-hoooo!!!!! Hail to the Chief!!!!

11 a.m. Curl up in a corner. Weep. NOTE: I can’t do this, I got nothing, there’s no WMD’s, the polls are down, I screwed up the last one, Kerry is a much better debater than I am, Cheney won’t take my calls, everyone knows about the earpiece, I’m SCREWED, SCREWED, SCREWED, SCREWED!!!!!

12-7 p.m. Stare out the hotel window at nothing. NOTE: What does it all mean? No one knows the real me. I just wanted to run a baseball team. I never wanted this. Dad wanted this. It’s always about making Dad happy. Let Jeb do it…

7:30 p.m. Meeting with Cheney. HIS ADVICE: Pull yourself together you stupid hick!!! We didn’t waste billions on you so you could bail out now. Remember, we could take you out anytime, and I don’t mean the race!!! So get dressed, you stupid blow monkey!

9 p.m. Debate. Be prepared to go to “Aide-hands-me-a-piece-of-paper-and-I have-to-go-now scenario. National security. Can’t talk about it. Gotta run. Gotta go do something presidential.”

11 p.m. Bedtime. NOTE: Well, I’ve still got one friend left. Hello, Ramon?

After undergoing his annual medical check-up in August 2001, 2002 and 2003, US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) has put the procedure off this year until after the November 2 election, his spokesman said.

Bush, locked in a neck-and-neck race for the White House with Democratic Senator John Kerry (news - web sites), is in "great health" and got the green light for the decision from his doctors, spokesman Scott McClellan told AFP.

"This has been a busier travel period for the president than the previous three years," the spokesman said.

Bush, 58, is known as an avid physical fitness buff who switched from running to mountain biking earlier this year after hurting his knee.

"The president, like other Americans, talked with his doctors about when to have his physical. They felt it was perfectly fine to do it later this year," said McClellan. "The president is an active person who is physically fit and in great health."

Stress can do a lot to someone's face and posture and W's got it bigtime. Here's what I imagine is running through his mind: "If I'm wrong about WMD, then I could be wrong about invading. If I was wrong about invading, I could be wrong about what the 'War on Terror'. If I'm wrong about that then I could be wrong about my faith. If I'm wrong in my faith, I need a drink. If I need a drink, then I need more faith. We got to find that WMD. AAAARRRGGGG"

WASHINGTON - The Education Department has advised school leaders nationwide to watch for people spying on their buildings or buses to help detect any possibility of terrorism like the deadly school siege in Russia.

The warning follows an analysis by the FBI (news - web sites) and the Homeland Security Department of the siege that killed nearly 340 people, many of them students, in the city of Beslan last month.

"The horror of this attack may have created significant anxiety in our own country among parents, students, faculty staff and other community members," Deputy Education Secretary Eugene Hickok said in a letter to schools and education groups.

The safety advice is based on lessons learned from the Russia incident. But there is "no specific information indicating that there is a terrorist threat to any schools or universities in the United States," Hickok said.

Federal law enforcement officials also have encouraged local police to stay in contact with school officials and have encouraged reporting of suspicious activities, the letter says.

In particular, schools were told to watch for activities that may be legitimate on their own — but may suggest a heightened terrorist threat if many of them occur.

The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.

"The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped."

"They wanted everything to do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the United States of America, to leave them alone in peace, and they practiced the art of survival by siding with whichever military force was present at a particular time, be it Viet Cong, North Vietnamese or American."

"We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them. We saw America lose her sense of morality as she accepted very coolly a My Lai, and refused to give up the image of American soldiers who hand out chocolate bars and chewing gum."

"Each day, to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam, someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say that we have made a mistake."

French officials were prepared to provide as many as 15,000 troops for an invasion of Iraq before relations soured between the Bush administration and the French government over the timing of an attack, according to a new book published in France this week.

The book, "Chirac Contre Bush: L'Autre Guerre" ("Chirac vs. Bush: The Other War"), reports that a French general, Jean Patrick Gaviard, visited the Pentagon to meet with Central Command staff on Dec. 16, 2002 -- three months before the war began -- to discuss a French contribution of 10,000 to 15,000 troops and to negotiate landing and docking rights for French jets and ships.

French military officials were especially interested in joining in an attack, because they felt that not participating with the United States in a major war would leave French forces unprepared for future conflicts, according to Thomas Cantaloube, one of the authors. But the negotiations did not progress far before French President Jacques Chirac decided that the Americans were pushing too fast to short-circuit inspections by U.N. weapons inspectors.

Ralph Nader Accepts Campaign Contributions from Funders of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Funders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a right wing PAC, have made thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Ralph Nader, United Progressives for Victory (UP for Victory) announced today. In addition to accepting contributions from donors of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Nader has also taken money from conservative PAC donors who have given to the Club for Growth, along with legal representation and ballot help from Republican consultants, lawyers, major donors, and state parties.

According to Federal Election Committee records, five major donors who have given $13,500 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to air its attack ads on John Kerry’s military service have also given Nader $7,500.

Specifically, Travis Anderson (NJ), Brian Pilcher (CA) and Donald Burns (FL), are three of Nader’s largest donors and each has given him $2,000 (the maximum allowable contribution), while also contributing to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Charles Eckert (CA) and Oliver Grace (NY) have also given to both Nader’s PAC and the swift boat PAC.

Nader has condemned the ads run by this PAC, saying, “It's pretty deplorable that Bush through his proxies is doing this smear,” Nader said. (8/27/2004, A.P., in speech at Tulane University)

Robert Brandon, a former Nader associate, public interest attorney and co-founder of UP for Victory said, “Now we learn that Bush, through his proxies, is funding Nader’s campaign. If Nader wishes to have any credibility left with progressives, he must give back all right wing money and finally acknowledge that his campaign is being used by the Bush/Cheney re-election team.”

Altogether, UP for Victory research has documented over $100,000 in cash and known in-kind contributions to Nader by GOP donors and consultants. This does not count the unreported in-kind contributions made by the GOP in circulating his ballot petitions in many states.

"Undercutting the Bush's administration's rationale for invading Iraq, the final report of the chief U.S. arms inspector concludes that Saddam Hussein did not vigorously pursue a program to develop weapons of mass destruction when international inspectors left Baghdad in 1998, an administration official said Wednesday."

"Charles Duelfer concluded that Saddam's Iraq had no stockpiles of the banned weapons but said he found signs of idle programs that Saddam could have revived once international attention waned."

"'It appears that he did not vigorously pursue those programs after the inspectors left,' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in advance of the report's release."

"White House spokesman Scott McClellan continued to maintain that Duelfer's report will support the White House's view on Iraq's prewar threat."

Dear Mr. President:

As professors of economics and business, we are concerned that U.S. economic policy has taken a dangerous turn under your stewardship. Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office in January 2001. Real GDP growth during your term is the lowest of any presidential term in recent memory. Total non-farm employment has contracted and the unemployment rate has increased. Bankruptcies are up sharply, as is our dependence on foreign capital to finance an exploding current account deficit. All three major stock indexes are lower now than at the time of your inauguration. The percentage of Americans in poverty has increased, real median income has declined, and income inequality has grown.

The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The federal budget surplus of over $200 billion that we enjoyed in the year 2000 has disappeared, and we are now facing a massive annual deficit of over $400 billion. In fact, if transfers from the Social Security trust fund are excluded, the federal deficit is even worse – well in excess of a half a trillion dollars this year alone. Although some members of your administration have suggested that the mountain of new debt accumulated on your watch is mainly the consequence of 9-11 and the war on terror, budget experts know that this is simply false. Your economic policies have played a significant role in driving this fiscal collapse. And the economic proposals you have suggested for a potential second term – from diverting Social Security contributions into private accounts to making the recent tax cuts permanent – only promise to exacerbate the crisis by further narrowing the federal revenue base.

These sorts of deficits crowd out private investment and are politically addictive. They also place a heavy burden on monetary policy – and create additional pressure for higher interest rates – by stoking inflationary expectations. If your economic advisers are telling you that these deficits can be defeated through further reductions in tax rates, then you need new advisers. More robust economic growth could certainly help, but nearly every one of your administration’s economic forecasts – both before and after 9-11 – has proved overly optimistic. Expenditure cuts could be part of the answer, but your record so far has been one of increasing expenditures, not reducing them.

What is called for, we believe, is a dramatic reorientation of fiscal policy, including substantial reversals of your tax policy. Running a budget deficit in response to a short bout of recession is one thing. But running large structural deficits over a long period is something else entirely. We therefore urge you to consider the fiscal realities we now face and the substantial burden they are placing on our economy.

JOHN EDWARDS IS WRONG: There aren't "two Americas." There are three.

There's sane, rational, informed and normal America, which overwhelmingly supports John Kerry.

There's crazed, nutty, off their rocker wingnut America, which overwhelmingly supports George W. Bush and/or Ralph Nader.

Then there's ignorant dumbass America, which, sadly, supports Bush by a majority at the moment.

These are the folks who think Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.

These are the folks Jay Leno embarrasses on national television when they can't name their own state's Governor.

The biggest problem John Kerry and the Democrats face is that George W. Bush is practically the patron saint of Dumbass America.

There are nearly 108,000 registered Republicans in the 5th Congressional District, plus 62,000 registered Democrats, 214,000 undeclared voters, and 1,400 registered independents.

There are no registered idiots.

Someone forgot to mention this to Rep. Scott Garrett, whose excuse for not committing to debate Democrat Anne Wolfe in Bergen County or Passaic County - which account for only a measly 69 percent of the district's population - would be accepted only by an idiot. Chief among Garrett's excuses is that, darn it, he just hasn't been able to find the time.

He has, however, found time for partisan visits. But debate the issues? No.

Garrett is the freshman Republican from Wantage who is after his second term in the House. It would be a mark of delectable political candor if he simply were to imitate the outlaw in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and say through a sneer: "Debate? With those registration numbers? I don't need no stinkin' debate."

But he doesn't say that.

Instead, in seeming to chicken out of a scheduled Oct. 21 meet-

ing at Ramapo College in Mahwah, Garrett had his campaign manager, Matthew Barnes, tell The Record: "Given Congressman Garrett's congressional responsibilities and often-changing congressional schedule, we cannot commit to the debate at this time."

It sounds high-minded. But when you read it again, you find it's not Garrett's fault that he probably won't meet Wolfe or the minor party candidates to discuss such piddling matters as war and peace, homeland security, terrorism, gay marriage, the environment, abortion, health care, Social Security or education.

It's the fault of Congress itself, Barnes complained, noting that the leadership is holding the House in session. He made it sound as though House members would be free to leave Washington sometime in the next ice age.

In fact, the House is scheduled to adjourn on Friday, maybe Saturday.

So does Garrett actually want to debate? "Congressman Garrett is eager to share his record of accomplishment with the voters of the 5th District," Barnes said.

Yes, but does he want to debate? "He can't commit at this time," Barnes said.

On Garrett's Oct. 29 schedule, Barnes said, is a joint radio appearance with Wolfe on Oldies 1510 in Hackettstown in Warren County, four days before the election. Wolfe says she'll be there. But unless you live within a 20-mile radius of Hackettstown, don't bother tuning in. You're not likely to pick up Oldies 1510's signal, which is too weak to reach Ringwood, let alone Allendale or Norwood, said Norman Worth, the general manager.

It should be noted that Warren County, the home base of Oldies 1510, contains a grand total of 15 percent of the 5th District's population, about the same proportion as West Milford, Bergenfield, Mahwah and Paramus alone.

Bearing in mind that it was as long ago as August when Wolfe challenged Garrett to debate, precisely what is it about Garrett's congressional schedule that prevents him from doing what Dick Cheney and John Edwards did last night and what George W. Bush and John Kerry have done once and will do twice more?

Garrett is a member of the House Budget Committee, which has a hearing scheduled for 10 this morning. He's also on the Financial Services Committee, which has no business this week. There could be general House business this week, such as some roll call votes.

Bush, meanwhile, is reported to hate debating. His responsibilities outweigh Garrett's by about a billion to one. Now, he may have thought about it, but at no time did he shove his press secretary, Scott McClellan, out to a bunch of reporters to utter something like: "Given President Bush's presidential responsibilities and often-changing presidential schedule, we cannot commit to the debate at this time."

With an adjournment set for Saturday at the latest, you'd expect Garrett and all other House members standing for reelection to head home to their districts to make their cases to the voters. Even after just one term in office, Garrett should know that there's more to the 5th District than the cow-mooing countryside of Warren County.

On Saturday, even though he was weighed down by the tonnage of his congressional responsibilities and his often-changing congressional schedule, Scott Garrett managed to travel to Ramsey to smile and shake hands with Rudolph Giuliani, who was stumping for Bush in Bergen County.

Tonight Garrett is the scheduled guest speaker at the Glen Rock Republican Club's dinner meeting.

Hey Garrett, it's time to talk to the voters, not just the party.

On the last day voters could sign up for the Nov. 2 presidential election, Leon County's elections chief said he received up to 1,500 photocopied registration forms and asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to find out what happened to the originals.

"The overwhelming majority of them were for African-Americans, and also the majority of them were Republicans," Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho said Monday. "That was one of the things that made us want to start contacting the registrants."

Most of the questionable registrations came from Florida A&M University and precincts around FAMU. Sancho said his office is trying to get in touch with all the voters to find out whether they registered on originals and copies were sent in by accident, whether they registered on photocopies - or whether it was fraud.

US is said to intensify probe of senator's fund-raising
FBI claims proof of improper acts
By Larry Margasak, Associated Press | October 6, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's Justice Department is trying to secure the cooperation of an indicted businessman as it pursues Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign for possible fund-raising violations, according to interviews and documents.

The government's most definitive account of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or have concrete plans to develop them, US officials said yesterday.

The officials said the 1,000-page report by Charles Duelfer, chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speeches that Iraq had posed ''a gathering threat."

The officials said Duelfer, an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, found that the state of Hussein's weapons development programs and knowledge base was less in 2003, when the war began, than it was in 1998, when international inspectors left Iraq.

[Stephen] LaTourette, a member of the Republican class of 1994, a cadre in Newt Gingrich's "revolution," is now running for a sixth term in Congress in Ohio's 14th District, a suburban, mostly working-class area outside Cleveland. A former prosecutor, LaTourette has used conservative social issues to turn the once Democratic district into a marginally Republican one. He is a favorite of the National Rifle Association.

[snip]

LaTourette's affair with a Washington lobbyist was exposed by the Hill newspaper in 2003. The father of four and husband of 21 years voted for President Clinton's impeachment, but he has also joined moderate Republicans on a number of issues, including support for hate crimes legislation. He was blending into the woodwork as a Republican Party regular -- not as extreme as some of his more partisan colleagues but acceptably conservative (the Christian Coalition recently rated his voting record 84 percent favorable) -- when the revelation of his affair made him a poster boy for Republican "family values" hypocrisy.

The Washington lobbyist and her background have gone unmentioned in previous published accounts of the affair. But two sources close to Susan LaTourette, the congressman's wife, have told Salon that the lobbyist is Steven LaTourette's former chief of staff, Jennifer Laptook, whose work as a vice president for the firm Van Scoyoc Associates consists of pushing the interests of various Ohio-based clients before the staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on which LaTourette sits. He is also chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.

The affair began when Laptook was on LaTourette's staff. Immediately upon leaving his office in March 2003, she was hired for the lucrative business of influencing LaTourette's committee. Touting her qualifications, the Van Scoyoc Web site states: "As chief of staff, Laptook was responsible for advising on all legislative issues, particularly those that came before the committees on which Congressman LaTourette serves. Laptook worked intimately with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee staff, on which the congressman is a senior member."

[snip]

Laptook is able to do business as she does because of a loophole in the law. Because she lobbies only the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and not her former boss's congressional office directly, she was able to evade the ban on "direct lobbying" for one year after leaving LaTourette's employ.

This unreconstructed Bull Moose will run with the donkey in November.

I am an independent McCainiac who hopes to revive the Bull Moose tradition of Theodore Roosevelt, and I support the Kerry-Edwards agenda. Don't get me wrong -- this Bull Moose is not completely in agreement with the Democratic donkey. But the Bush administration has betrayed the effort to create a new politics of national greatness in the aftermath of 9/11.

If John Kerry wins, it remains to be seen whether his administration will be more willing to break with its ideological base than a Bush team that has been slavishly loyal to its corporate paymasters. But there is no remaining shred of doubt that another four years of a Bush presidency would have a toxic effect on American politics. If George W. Bush is re-elected, unlimited corporate power, cynicism, and division will ride high in the saddle.

[snip]

When McCain threatened Bush in the 2000 primaries, we got the first real glimpse behind the curtain of Bush World -- with its vicious and ferocious assault on McCain's patriotism and character. What the Bushies used against McCain was an unholy coalition of the two primary wings of the Republican Party -- the Corporate Warriors and the Prayer Warriors. These unlikely allies united against McCain despite the fact that he had a strong pro-life record and a conservative congressional record.

The alliance of Mammon and the religious right was consummated in opposition to McCain's support for campaign finance reform. The embodiment of this coalition was a key operative who implemented the anti-McCain assault in South Carolina -- former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, a Karl Rove crony who was also on the payroll of Enron. Reed had been my boss when I worked as legislative director of the Christian Coalition. Before the primaries, Reed warned me that he would implement an under-the-radar slime assault on McCain if he posed a threat to Bush -- just what happened in South Carolina after Bush's loss to McCain in the New Hampshire primary.

Anyone who was involved in the 2000 McCain campaign, as I was, knows exactly who is responsible for the "Swift boat" slime attack on Senator Kerry -- in Bush World, all low roads lead to Rove.

When I was at the Christian Coalition, I witnessed first-hand the alliance of the deregulation, no-tax crowd with the religious conservatives. Ironically, the rank and file of the religious right are hardly the country club set. They are largely middle-class Americans who don't rely on trust funds or dividend checks for their livelihoods. But the leaders of the religious right have betrayed their constituents by failing to champion such economic issues as family leave or access to health insurance, which would relieve the stresses on many working families. The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment. The religious right has consistently provided the ground troops, while the big-money men have gotten the goodies.

The realization that the religious right had essentially become a front for the money men of the Republican Party was a primary source of my disenchantment with that movement. And without a doubt, the GOP has merely become a vehicle for unbridled corporate power. Such a party cannot provide a home for a movement that strives for national greatness.

Benigni To Shoot Iraq Comedy

Acclaimed Italian director and actor Roberto Benigni is about to begin work on a comedy movie set against the backdrop of war-torn Iraq. The Oscar-winning star hopes La Tigre E La Neve will do for the war in Iraq what his Life Is Beautiful did for the Holocaust. In the film Benigni will take the lead role of a poet who gets caught up in events in Iraq in March 2003 when the US launched its attack on Saddam Hussein's regime. He tells Italian radio. "War naturally is the background of the film and my character is directly involved in it after this poet ends up in Iraq by pure chance. What is extraordinary is his vision of the world. This is one person representing all the people in the world." Benigni also makes a veiled attack on the West's role in Iraq: "Westerners are running the show, all of those doing these things have studied in the West, it is not the Easterners. We know how many dreams the East gives, and how grateful we are to the East and love all its beautiful things."

If, at tonight's "debate", when Edwards is asked, "How do you believe your career as a trial lawyer affects your approach to government?", he doesn't answer, "What the fuck kind of question is that, Gwen? What the fuck are you implying? Holy fuck, have you even looked at the cases I've tried? Doesn't the press do any actual goddamn research on, say, Lexis-Nexis or even fuckin' Google? Or maybe my fuckin' book? My legal career was based on helping individuals dicked over by the very kind of corporate and government culture this evil motherfucker across this stupid ass table has fostered. And don't you fuckin' gimme that stroke victim smirk, Dick, or I'll come across and start shovin' aluminum tubes up your ass, all 60,000 of 'em, one anodized tube at a goddamn time. Then, with all those tubes up your ass, you can tell me, tell all of us, if they feel like centrifuge tubes or just plain ol' rocket tubes. And then I'll shove yellow cake uranium from Niger up your ass. Then I'll shove the bones and blood of over 1000 Americans up your ass. And the bodies of tens of thousands of Iraqis, right up the motherfuckin' asshole, Dick, right on up. We'll follow that up with Energy Task Force documents, reams of 'em, get it, Dick? Gettin' reamed with reams? Then I'll shove Halliburton up your ass. I'll shove Kellog, shove Brown, shove Root, right up into your dessicated colon. I'll shove no-bid contracts and deferred compensation in there until your sphincter is aching and bloody. That's right, Dick, it's all goin' up there. Bribes to Nigeria and business with Iran. We're packin' it in, bitch. And let's go back, Gwen, let's get old school on this man whose heart is so small it needs a machine to make it pump, this vile, depraved political attack dog, this insider who massages the system to the benefit of his bastard cronies like a Korean hooker at a Japanese spa. Let's shove South African apartheid up Dick's ass. Let's shove water pollution, air pollution and other environmental degradation up Cheney's ass. Let's shove the bodies of women who will die of botched abortions if he gets his way up Cheney's ass. Let's shove the Project for a New American Century up Cheney's ass, along with Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle, and all the motherfuckin' neocons, pack 'em in, into Cheney's ass, alongside draft deferments, Lynne, SDI, and more. And when Cheney's cryin', yellin' that it hurts, his ass hurts, when he's weepin' and wonderin', 'Why? Why are you shoving all this up my ass?' I'll say, 'Because you've been shovin' it all up our asses for years, you vicious, soulless bastard. Now, stay bent over, 'cause, trust me, there's tons more shovin' to do and then I'm gonna fuck you Deliverance style, you corporate pig, so start practicin' your squealin'.' Does that answer your question, Gwen?", then the debate will be worthless.

In a classroom in Japan, the middle-schoolers learning English kept asking their American teacher about the election in Florida.

What really happened four years ago? they asked, and was she voting this year?

When Pamela Morse's overseas ballot arrived last week, she wondered if it was a joke.

A letter said Morse would get a second "official" ballot later and told her to mail both.

"I really hate to be paranoid," Morse wrote in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times, "but we who have received these ballots are questioning if this is some sort of trick to discount our votes?" Call it the Nader Effect.

It's the lastest example of election confusion in Florida, where the presidency could hang in the balance.

Around the globe, some 32,000 Floridians living abroad are getting similar absentee ballots in the mail. And they are confused.

"Normally, when you vote, you don't get a second chance," said Bonnie Good, a U.S. citizen living in Canada. "Why am I filling out a preliminary ballot?"

In the past, elections supervisors did not mail ballots in time for overseas voters to send them back. So the Legislature, acting under orders from the federal government, passed a law requiring that overseas ballots go out 45 days before the election.

This year, election supervisors didn't know whether Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader would be on the presidential ballot until the last moment. The Florida Democratic Party tried to keep Nader off the ballot, and the Florida Supreme Court did not rule in Nader's favor until Sept. 17, the day before the deadline.

In counties such as Pinellas, supervisors worked through the night to photocopy ballots with Nader's name on it and send them overseas.

If a voter such as Morse mailed the first ballot, it would count. If she follows instructions and mails the second official ballot, the first ballot will be set aside and the second ballot will be counted.

To Morse, the ballot she received looked like the real thing. It had all the right candidates, including Nader. But a letter with the ballot said another "regular" ballot would be mailed "as soon as the ballots are printed."

Morse didn't get it.

"The ballot I received was printed, so that instruction made no sense," she said.

Actually, the ballot was a photocopy. The second ballot will be printed on thicker paper so that it can be read electronically.

This year, election supervisors didn't know whether Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader would be on the presidential ballot until the last moment. The Florida Democratic Party tried to keep Nader off the ballot, and the Florida Supreme Court did not rule in Nader's favor until Sept. 17, the day before the deadline.

Election supervisors could not estimate the cost of two rounds of ballots. Many said they were just following the law, which requires them to both meet the deadline and send all voters an "official" ballot printed on the right kind of paper.

Most overseas voters understand the process and mail both back, said Pasco Supervisor of Elections Kurt Browning.

Supervisors around the state said they hadn't heard many complaints.

Good, the voter in Canada, e-mailed and got a prompt explanation about the two ballots from Clark's office, she said.

Secretary of State Glenda Hood said individual supervisors decided to mail two ballots.

"We told supervisors, "You might want to hold back on mailing out anything,' " Hood said.

Supervisors in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties are sending two ballots.

At least one county election supervisor got the official ballots printed on time.

"We ordered two ballots," said Debra Garrambone, chief deputy supervisor in Seminole County. "Other people waited for the last moment."

"As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander-in-chief acts. I....I...uh...lemme finish...the intelligence I looked at was the same intelligency my opponent looked at."

The heart and soul of the controversy over the Killian memos was the question of typewriter technology in 1972. Throughout the media, false claims were promulgated regarding the existence of certain type faces, the capability of typewriters to produce “proportionately spaced” documents, and declarations that the Texas Air National Guard would not have had typewriters that could have produced the Killian memos. The latter claim was given broad exposure because an examination of the documents released by the White House in February---a release that the White House claimed represented “all the documents”—showed that not a single Texas Air National Guard document was produced on a typewriter using proportionate spacing.

"I find the timing of the release of this proportionally spaced document to be very curious. The CBS documents were attacked for similar spacing because of an argument that typewriters did not have that capability more than 30 years ago. But this new document clearly proves that to be wrong. And if the White House had already released it in February with the rest of the file, critics might have arrived at different conclusions about the CBS documents. This proves they were potentially real. Karl Rove thinks of everything."

"My suspicions about Rove's involvement in the CBS document controversy arose after the well-coordinated attack on the memos. Critics were ready with their analysis almost before CBS got off the air. And they knew precisely the forensic arguments to make. This didn't happen through simple due diligence. They were tipped in advance. And that was only possible if Rove was involved in the creation and leaking of the documents or if he got them in advance and set up his attack machine. Admittedly, this is a five cushion political bank shot, but if anybody can pull those off, it's Rove."

With each day that passes, it becomes clearer that either the “Killian memos” are copies of true originals, or were retyped by someone whose purpose was to destroy the credibility of Bill Burkett. Burkett’s credentials as a source of confidential information were well established by USA Today in the late 1990’s, when he was the source for that paper’s series on “ghost soldiers” in the National Guard. Burkett provided USA Today with the proof that the Texas National Guard was receiving federal funding for the training of Guardmen who were not showing up for training, but were being signed in on rosters as if they had attended that training. Burkett subsequently disclosed (and was backed up by numerous witnesses) that he had observed Bush campaign officials in the act of purging Bush’s Texas Air National Guard files, and until the Killian memo controversy, Burkett’s account was considered highly credible.

The questions over the authenticity of the Killian memos has made Bush’s National Guard record a “non-story” for most major media organizations, despite the fact that the documents that have been released under a court order prove that the White House has been lying about what happened during Bush’s last two years in the Armed Forces. Evidence found in Bush’s flight records (when examined against evidence in the payroll records) indicate that he was ordered to perform four days of active duty training in March 1972 with an experienced co-pilot in a “general purpose” training jet (the T033). Either Bush was ordered to perform remedial flight training, or was attempting to qualify for another jet, and had failed to do so. (There is no mention of this training in Bush’s annual “Training Report” that covered this period.)

And evidence found in the “Historical Record of the 147th gives the lie to the White House’s contention that Bush did not resume flying when he returned to Texas after the November 1972 election because the F102 was being phased out and there were not enough jets to go around. The “history” shows that the 147th had a combined total of 18 F102s and TF102s (the training version of the F102) in 1968, and 21 such jets in February 1973. And, in 1973, the 147th had three more T033s in 1973 than it had in 1968 (5 in 1968, 8 in 1973) and that by 1973 the 147th had acquired eight of the F101s---the jet which would eventually replace the 147th’s F102s. Considering that the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron had only 30 pilot slots, there was clearly no shortage of F102s for Bush to fly when he returned to Texas.

Yet these facts have received virtually no attention from the major media which had engaged in a complete feeding frenzy with concern to the “Killian memos”, a “feeding frenzy” that was driven by the questions regarding typewriter technologies in the early 1970s---and which, had the White House not withheld the “proportionately spaced” memo of February 19, 1971 would never have been an issue.

The evidence that literally every major media organization in the United States has been duped is sitting on a Department of Defense website, yet not one of those networks or newspapers has seen fit to report the fact that the White House withheld a key document which disproves the falsehoods that these media outlets promulgated for weeks. CBS has acknowledged that it failed to thoroughly authenticate the Killian memos, yet the same media organizations that have criticized CBS so thoroughly have not owned up to their own reporting of flat out, and now indisputable, lies on the Killian memo story.

Nor has one of these outlets questioned the White House to determine why the “promotion memo” was withheld in February, and why the White House lied about releasing “all the documents” at that time. It is clear that the major media thinks that when CBS makes a mistake, it is a far more important story that the deliberate withholding of documents by the Bush Administration, and lies concerning Bush’s military records being told by the White House.