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Even Republicans Fear Traitor, Liar, Fraud, Coward, War-Criminal & Asshole Bush

10.31.04 (6:03 pm) [edit]

The most divisive election campaign in recent American history has not merely split the nation along party lines, it has split the Grand Old Party itself. Unfortunately, most Americans are wholly unaware of the loud dissents against Bush that has begun to be heard in Republican circles.

If the United States had major media that covered politics, as opposed to the political spin generated by the Bush White House and the official campaigns of both the Republican president and his Democratic challenger, one of the most fascinating, and significant, stories of the 2004 election season would be the abandonment of the Bush reelection effort by senior Republicans. But this is a story that, for the most part, has gone untold. Scant attention was paid to the revelation that one Republican member of the U.S. Senate, Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, will refrain from voting for his party's president -- despite the fact that Chafee offered a far more thoughtful critique of George W. Bush's presidency than "Zig-Zag" Zell Miller, the frothing, Democrat-hating Democrat did when he condemned his party's nominee. Beyond the minimal attention to Chafee, most media has neglected the powerful, and often poignant, condemnations of Bush by prominent Republicans.

Former Republican members of the U.S. Senate and House, governors, ambassadors, aides to GOP Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush have explicitly endorsed the campaign of Democrat John Kerry. For many of these lifelong Republicans, their vote for Kerry will be a first Democratic vote. But, in most cases, it will not be a hesitant one.

Angered by the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq, record deficits, assaults on the environment and secrecy, the renegade partisans tend to echo the words of former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, who says that, "Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on November 2."

Many of the Republicans who are abandoning Bush express sorrow at what the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies in Congress have done to their party: "The fact is that today's 'Republican' Party is one that I am totally unfamiliar with," writes John Eisenhower. But the deeper motivation is summed up by former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican, who explained in a recent article for the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper that, "For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction. If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution. I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path."

In the end, of course, the vast majority of Republicans will cast their ballots for George w. Bush on Tuesday, just as the vast majority of Democrats will vote for John Kerry. But the Republicans who plan to cross the partisan divide and vote for Kerry have articulated a unique and politically potent indictment of the Bush administration.

Here are a dozen examples of what Republicans are saying about George W. Bush -- and John Kerry -- as the November 2 election approaches:

"[i]As son of a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry[/i]."

-- Ambassador John Eisenhower, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece published in The Manchester Union Leader, September 28, 2004.

"[i]The two 'Say No to Bush' signs in my yard say it all. The present Republican president has led us into an unjustified war -- based on misguided and blatantly false misrepresentations of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The terror seat was Afghanistan. Iraq had no connection to these acts of terror and was not a serious threat to the United States, as this president claimed, and there was no relation, it's now obvious, to any serious weaponry. Although Saddam Hussein is a frightful tyrant, he posed no threat to the United States when we entered the war. George W. Bush's arrogant actions to jump into Iraq when he had no plan how to get out have alienated the United States from our most trusted allies and weakened us immeasurably around the world... This imperialistic, stubborn adherence to wrongful policies and known untruths by the Cheney-Bush administration -- and that's the accurate order -- has simply become more than I can stand[/i]."

-- Former Minnesota Governor Elmer Andersen, a Republican, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 13, 2004. Andersen argued in the piece that, "[i]I am more fearful for the state of this nation than I have ever been -- because this country is in the hands of an evil man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the country, not George W. Bush[/i]."

"[i]The Bush George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naive belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American enemies -- a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft[/i]."

-- Scott McConnell, executive editor, The American Conservative, endorsing Kerry in the November 8, 2004 issue.

"[i]I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep the secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court[/i]."

-- Former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook, Republican from Kentucky, endorsing Kerry in an opinion piece that appeared in The Louisville Courier-Journal, October 20, 2004.

"[i]My Republican Party is the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who fought to preserve our natural resources and environment. This president has pursued policies that will cause irreparable damage to our environmental laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink and the public lands we share with future generations[/i]."

-- Former Michigan Governor William Milliken, from a statement published in the Traverse City Record Eagle, October 17, 2004.

"[i]As an environmentalist who served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I know that this administration has turned environmental policy over to lobbyists for the oil, gas and mining interests. On the other hand, I know first-hand of your commitment to a more balanced approach to environmental policy -- one where we can have both jobs and profit for industry as well as clean air and water. There is no stronger evidence of this than your outstanding leadership and support in the restoration of the Florida Everglades. John, for each of these reasons I believe President Bush has failed our country and my party. Accordingly, I want you to know that when I go into the booth next Tuesday I am going to cast my vote for you.[/i]"

-- Former U.S. Senator Bob Smith, Republican from New Hampshire, from an endorsement letter sent to John Kerry, October 28, 2004.

"[i]Nixon was a prince compared to these guys[/i]."

-- Former U.S. Representative Pete McCloskey, R-California, from an article in the Palo Alto Weekly, September 8, 2004. McCloskey, who is active with Republicans for Kerry, says of members of the Bush administration, "[i]These people believe God has told them what to do. They've high jacked the Republican Party we once knew[/i]."

"[i]The war is just a misbegotten thing that's spiraling down. It's a matter of conscience for me. After 9/11, the whole world was behind us. That's all gone now. That's been squandered. Now we've made the entire Muslim world hate us. And for what? For what[/i]?"

-- Former State Senator Al Meiklejohn, Republican from Colorado and World War II combat veteran, explaining his decision to support John Kerry in an interview with The Denver Post, September 19, 2004.

"[i]We need a leader who is really dedicated to creating millions of high-paying jobs all across the country[/i]."

-- Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca, who campaigned for George W. Bush in 2000 and appeared in television advertisements for the Republican Party of Michigan that year. Iacocca, who complains that under Bush deficit spending is "getting out of hand," endorsing Kerry on June 24, 2004.

"[i]In a dangerous epoch -- made more so by a president who sees the world in stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites -- John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place at the right time to lead our country[/i]."

-- Tim Ashby, who served during the Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush administrations as director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean for the U.S. Commerce Department and acting deputy assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Western Hemisphere, endorsing Kerry in a Seattle Times, October 14, 2004.

"[i] I have always been, and I still am, a registered Republican, but I shall enthusiastically vote for John Kerry for president on November 2... If the Bush administration stays in power four more years, it will pack the Supreme Court with neocons who reject the idea that the Constitution is a living document designed to protect the freedom of the citizens[/i]."

-- Anne Morton Kimberly, widow of former Republican National Committee chair Rogers C.B. Morton, Secretary of the Interior during the Nixon administration and Secretary of Commerce during the Ford administration, endorsing Kerry in a an opinion piece that appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal, October 14, 2004.

"[i]Mainstream Republicans believe in fiscal responsibility, internationalism, environmental protection, the rights of women, and putting middle-class families ahead of big business lobbyists. Moderate Republicans should not be asked to swallow the right-wing policies of George W. Bush[/i]."

-- Clay Myers, who was Oregon's Republican Secretary of State for 10 years and the state's Treasure, endorsing Kerry at a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004.

"[i]The current administration has run the largest deficits in U.S. history, incurring massive debts that our children and grandchildren will have to pay. Two and a half million people have lost their jobs; trillions have been wiped out of savings and retirement accounts. The income of Americans has declined two years in a row, the first time since the IRS began keeping records. George W. Bush will be the first president since Hoover to have a net job loss under his watch... President Bush wanted to be judged as the CEO president, it is time to say, 'you have failed, and you're fired[/i]."

-- William Rutherford, former State Treasurer of Oregon, endorsing Kerry as a press conference for Oregon Republicans for Kerry, September 1, 2004.

"[i]I served 20 years in the Ohio General Assembly as Republican. People have asked me why I oppose George w. Bush for president. My first response is, 'He is incompetent.' His behavior, his bad judgment, his record, all demonstrate a failure as president. He certainly misled the country into a no-win war in Iraq. Following his preemptive invasion, he totally misjudged the consequences of his action. He made a bad situation worse, fomenting widespread terrorism, all done with a frightful loss of lives and money[/i]."

-- Former Ohio State Representative John Galbraith, a Republican legislator for 20 years, endorsing Kerry in a letter to The Toledo Blade, September 28, 2004.

"[i] Before the current campaign, it might have been argued that at least in affirming the importance of faith and respecting those who profess it the administration had embraced traditional conservative views. But in the wake of the Swift Boat ads attacking John Kerry, even this argument can no longer be maintained. As an elder of the Presbyterian Church, I found that those ads were not at all in the Christian tradition. John McCain rightly condemned them as dishonest and dishonorable. The president should have, too. That he did not undermines his credibility on questions of faith.

Some say it's just politics. But that's the whole point. More is expected of people of faith than "just politics."

The fact is that the Bush administration might better be called radical or romantic or adventurist than conservative. And that's why real conservatives are leaning toward Kerry[/i]."

-- Clyde Prestowitz, counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration and an elder of the Presbyterian Church, from "The Conservative Case for Kerry," published in the Providence Journal and other newspapers, October 15, 2004. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

Caroline Kennedy to Coward A'W'OL Bush: How Dare You Invoke the Name of JFK?!

10.31.04 (5:58 pm) [edit]

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of the late Democratic president John Kennedy, urged Republican President George W. Bush not to invoke her father's name in his campaigning against Democratic rival John Kerry. It's hard for me to listen to President Bush invoking my fathers memory to attack John Kerry. Senator Kerry has demonstrated his courage and commitment to a stronger America throughout his entire career," she said. "President Kennedy inspired and united the country and so will John Kerry. "President Bush is doing just the opposite. All of us who revere the strength and resolve of President Kennedy will be supporting John Kerry on Election Day," Kennedy Schlossberg said in a statement."

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://news.yahoo.com/news?tm...

Bush/Cheney Inc. Say "Fuck-Yourself" To Working People As Economy Worsens!!!

10.31.04 (5:55 pm) [edit]

[b]Jobless Claims Up 20,000 Last Week to 350,000[/b]

Rueters: "The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose 20,000 last week, the government said on Thursday... First-time claims for state unemployment insurance aid rose to 350,000 in the week ended Oct. 23 from an upwardly revised 330,000 in the prior week, "The claims report shows that we are still not growing jobs like we should, given the (economic) recovery that we are in," said Brian Taylor of Manufacturers and Traders Bank... The rise in claims was larger than Wall Street economists' expectations for a rise to 338,000 from the prior week's original measure of 329,000... Total benefit rolls rose by 38,000 to reach 2.82 million in the week ended Oct. 16." Want more jobs? Vote Democrat, Vote John Kerry!

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://reuters.com/newsArticl...

The Liar, Traitor & War Criminal "Pet Goat" Bush Sucks Osama bin Laden's Cock!!!

10.31.04 (5:51 pm) [edit]

[b]WHAT AN [i]EASY MARK [/i]DIM-WITTED A'W'OL BUSH [i]IS[/i] FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN ... GEORGEY-BOY ([i]MY PET GOAT[/i]) BUSH WAS "GONNA' GET OSAMA 'DEAD OR ALIVE'" AND THEN LET HIM 'OFF-THE-HOOK' ... OSAMA IS LAUGHING HIS HEAD OFF!!! ...[/b]

Bush Junta Suppressing Last Chapter of the 911 Commission Report

10.31.04 (5:45 pm) [edit]

NYT: "One last chapter of the 911 commission report completed in Aug., has not yet been made public by the Justice Dept., officials say it is unlikely to be released before the election... Drawing from this part of the inquiry, the commission quietly asked the inspectors general at the DoD and Transportation to review what were broadly inaccurate accounts provided by several civil & military officials about efforts to track and chase the hijacked aircraft on 911... David Barnes, spokesman with DoT, said yesterday that if reviews found wrongdoing, the inspector general could recommend administrative penalties or ask federal prosecutors to begin a criminal investigation. 'The investigation is ongoing,' Mr. Barnes said, 'and we don't know when it will be done.'... officials had described quick response that narrowly missed intercepting some of the planes, but the investigators later determined from evidence that none of the military planes were anywhere near the airliners."

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://nytimes.com/2004/10/30...

IMPEACH BUSH: More Voter Fraud And Disenfranchisement!!!

10.31.04 (5:38 pm) [edit]

[b]Here's a sampling of what we face nationwide.

In West Virginia -- it was bad enough the first time http://www.whag.com/news/defa... .[/b]

In a letter, Berkeley County clerk John Smalls cites calls from a cell phone were made to Eastern Panhandle democrats telling them that they were not registered to vote. The letter also said the calls informed democrats in some cases they wouldn`t be able to vote on Election Day [...]

It`s considered an improper act because when upset citizens called the voter registration office to make sure they were registered to vote, indeed they were. So, who made these misleading calls? The Berkeley County Clerk`s Office traced the number voters gave as the source back to the Eastern Panhandle Republican Headquarters.

[b]Bad enough the first time, as I said. Problem is, despite their "slap on the wrist" (or because of it), local Republicans are still up to the same dirty tricks. From an email statement today:[/b]

Democratic leaders in one of the nation's most hotly-contested battleground states are receiving reports of voter suppression activities that can be traced back to the Republican Party. The suppression activities have continued despite warnings from officials in Berkeley and Jefferson Counties.

Hopefully these WV Republicans face the same fate as those in Ohio who tried to challenge 35,000 new voters for no reason other than disenfranchisement. After hundreds of hearings found [b]zero[/b] illegal registrations, the entire lot of challenges was thrown out http://www.dailykos.com/story... and the Republican masterminds now face criminal charges.

[b]Speaking of Ohio, I got this from a Toledo volunteer:[/b]

I worked all day yesterday at the largest Toledo area Kerry GOTV phone bank at Gallon and Takacs law offices, 3516 Granite, Sylvania. Out of the 8 phone banks that we had here in the Toledo area yesterday, ours produced one third of all of the contacts made.

Both the local phone company and our phone systems provider have confirmed to us that phone relay point into the building was purposely severed. Many volunteers were rerouted to other locations and several also had to rely on cell phones when we found our lines down this morning. We thought it was a coincidence until the phone company verified to us that the lines were intentionally cut.

[b]More Republican dirty tactics[/b].

And more Ohio, check out this letter supposedly sent from the Lake County (Painesville) Board of Election to newly registered Democrats:

[b]Check-it-out [/b] http://www.dailykos.com/story...

For God's Sake, Vote Amoral Bush Out For Causing the Decline of America ...

10.31.04 (4:43 pm) [edit]

There are two proportionate reasons for rejecting President Bush's bid for re-election. Both the United States and the world are a mess. Mr. Bush is responsible for both messes. The first president ever to claim de facto infallibility, Mr. Bush tells us that he follows his instincts in decision-making after praying over the decision and talking to God. He admits no mistakes -- how could anyone who has a direct link to God make a mistake! In his next administration he will receive more divine inspirations which will make both the country and the world even more messy.

Consider the American economy. He has turned the biggest budget surplus in history into the biggest deficit because he wanted to give more money to the "haves and have mores" as he called them. He has presided over the largest job losses since the Great Depression. He has stood idly by while hundreds of thousands of American jobs have been flown overseas. His reform of health care has made it more expensive and more difficult for the elderly. He declines to rein in the greed of the drug companies and thus drives many Americans to Canada -- of all places -- to buy the medicines needed to stay alive. He has cast doubt on the future of Social Security. He has been on the bridge during the current absurd panic over flu vaccine; the deaths of those elderly and children who are not able to obtain flu shots are on his hands. What if one of those who die is your parent or spouse or child? He has not lifted a finger to help the many Americans whose pensions are being eaten up by greedy employers. Oil prices are climbing rapidly and the stock market is tanking.

We want four more years of this stuff?

Fecklessly he started the ill-advised and ill-prepared war in Iraq in which some Americans have to come close to mutiny to protect them from orders to bring contaminated fuel in badly equipped trucks to units that won't accept it. He misled the American people about the weapons in Iraq and the involvement of Iraq in the World Trade Center attack. He is disgusted, he tells us, by the kidnappings and the beheadings, the car bombs and roadside bombs, the ambushes and murder of civilians, but the bad decisions he and his cabinet made were mandated by God and could not have been mistakes. Pat Robertson tells us, however, that Mr. Bush told him that God had disclosed that the casualties in Iraq would be light. Maybe that was God's mistake!

Do we want him to continue with these god-driven policies for four more years? Eleven hundred dead Americans already. How many more thousands will have to die before God will tell Mr. Bush to get out of Iraq? How many tens of thousands more Iraqis will have to die?

The world is a mess because the United States is the natural leader of the free world and the American president the natural president of the free world. He blew the capital of support and sympathy that flowed to the United States after the World Trade Center attack by his "Bush Doctrine" that turned him into the bully of the free world. Next year the Poles will leave Iraq because the Polish people don't like the war. The Poles -- our strongest allies in Mr. Rumsfeld's "New Europe" -- are fed up with us! Four more years of divine inspiration and what will be left of America's power and prestige? We will still be a giant but like Gulliver a tattered giant chained to the ground by our president's madcap inspirations.

The pope is infallible only in certain limited circumstances and on specific matters. Unlike the pope, Mr. Bush apparently sets no limits on the policy decisions that will be made by conversations with God. We want four more years of those decisions?

The president, like every human, is entitled to his own relationship with God. He is entitled to use that relationship to make decisions, to justify them later, and to stick to them no matter what happens. Many Americans will accept such decisions because they believe he is a "godly" man. Not everyone else has to tolerate four more years of his divine right to govern.

Even if the election is close, Mr. Bush will win it. His lawyers are ready to go back into court and the supine Supreme Court will give the country four more years of divine right rule.

Do we really want that? - http://www.commondreams.org/v...

Revealed: Blair's Secret Mission to Woo Kerry ...

10.31.04 (4:38 pm) [edit]

Tony Blair has sent one of his closest advisers on a secret peace mission to mend relations with John Kerry, the United States presidential challenger, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

News of the confidential meeting comes as the campaign enters its final 48 hours, with the candidates running neck and neck. Mr. Blair is concerned that he will appear isolated if George Bush loses in Tuesday's poll, because of his support for the Iraq war.

The Prime Minister authorized Philip Gould, his polling guru, to seek a meeting with Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager. Lord Gould, a co-founder of New Labour, is one of Mr. Blair's closest confidants who keeps him in constantly in touch with floating voters.

Ms Cahill is tipped to be chief of staff in a Kerry administration. The meeting, which took place 10 days ago in Washington, is being seen by aides to the Kerry campaign as an olive branch by Mr. Blair.

There has been considerable anger in the Democrat camp at the lack of support from the Prime Minister. Lord Gould, who helped Bill Clinton win his 1992 election, has until now been conspicuous by his absence from the Democrat campaign.

A source close to Mr. Blair said that it was "valid" to report Mr. Gould's visit but stressed that he is not employed by the Government.

Further apparent evidence of some distance opening up between the Bush and Blair camps has come with reports that the Prime Minister's wife criticized Washington's policies on terrorist prisoners and gay rights. In a speech in Harvard, she praised the Supreme Court's decision to give legal protection to Britons detained at Guantánamo Bay, and condemned the arrest of a gay couple in Texas.

In America yesterday, the spectre of Osama bin Laden haunted the campaign as Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry reacted to the al-Qa'ida leader's dramatic intervention in their contest by trying to outbid each other on who best could deal with the terror threat.

As Bin Laden's extraordinary video message sent shockwaves across the American heartlands, and with polls showing the two candidates tied only two days before the vote, the presidential hopefuls placed the threat of terrorism and the spectre of 9/11 at the center of their appeals to undecided voters.

As they did so, news was coming in from Iraq of the bloodiest attack on US troops for seven months. Eight US marines were killed, prompting speculation that the long-awaited assault on Fallujah was imminent. The day also saw a bomb attack on the al-Arabiya television station offices in Baghdad, which left seven dead. More than 25 other deaths were reported elsewhere in Iraq yesterday.

In Michigan, Mr. Bush told supporters: "The person that sits in the Oval Office will determine the outcome of the war on terror and the economy." Meanwhile in Appleton, Wisconsin, Mr. Kerry vowed to "lead the world in fighting a smarter, more effective, tougher, more strategic war on terror". He said: "We will make America safer." The issue of national security and the so-called "war on terror" has always been at the heart of this election. But it is the virtual presence of Bin Laden on the campaign trail that most threatens to tilt the outcome of Tuesday's vote one way or another.

It is impossible to know which candidate will benefit. Analysts said yesterday that while the 18-minute video, only sections of which were broadcast, was an uncomfortable reminder that Mr. Bush had failed in his vow to take Bin Laden "dead or alive". But the al-Qa'ida leader's presence and the perceived threat he represents may cause voters to rally round the commander-in-chief.

Mr. Bush certainly hopes so. He sharply attacked Mr. Kerry yesterday, saying he was not equipped to protect America. "The terrorists who killed thousands of innocent people are still dangerous and they are determined," he told a crowd of 17,000. "The outcome of this election will set the direction of the war against terror. Senator Kerry has chosen the path of weakness and inaction."

The barbed nature of Mr. Bush's attack underscored the neck-and-neck nature of the campaign and the reality that, at this stage, any slight shift in the perceptions of voters could prove crucial.

But the challenger held his ground. "As Americans we are absolutely united, all of us - there are no Democrats, there are no Republicans - as Americans, we are united in our determination to destroy, capture, kill Osama bin Laden and all the terrorists," Mr. Kerry said yesterday. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...