He may have resigned, but he’s still the AG. Take a look at what he said to the Federalist Society, the gist of which is, basically, “judges ought not rule against the President.”

Of course, his replacement has famously described the Geneva Conventions as “quaint,” so it’s not like we’re going to be any better off.

So we got pissed off and went on hiatus. But that doesn’t mean you get a free pass; here’s some choice ranting about the state of the Union:

• In case you thought this jackass had a mandate — what with the endless chatter in the media — MediaMatters can set you straight.
• Fafblog has the only response to the phrase “Attorney General Gonzalez” that doesn’t make us want to hurl.
• So you can keep score at home these next four years, here’s 14 Signs of Fascism.
• Of course, creeping fascism isn’t limited to us; maybe Doug Adams was right about these people.
• Also, Kerry voters are smarter.

I’m too disgusted to do this anymore. I leave you with a few choice words, some mine, some from others.

Tom Tomorrow quotes Tbogg in full rant mode, which is angry, sad, and mostly accurate:

Four more years of American soldiers being used as cannon fodder. Four more years of scientific decisions being made by people who believe in a ghost in the clouds. Four more years of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off. Four more years of racists and lunatics for judicial appointments Four more years of looting the treasury and squandering it on corporate cronies. Four more years of making enemies faster than we can kill them. Four more years of fear and darkness and racism and hatred and stupidity and guns and bad country music. I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I’ve been locked in a room with the slow learners. We have become the country that pulls a dry cleaning bag over its head to play astronaut.

And Lessig quotes one of his commenters:

I’m going to spend time these next few days looking for the America in my heart. It may be a while before I see it anywhere else.

Billmon points us to HST in his prime:

This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
November 1972

And this:

The amazing thing to me about this race was that Bush could be as divisive as he wanted to be, but it never penalized him. The most important things in the world were responded to with infantile answers or complete ignorance. Where he stood was clear. Simplicity wins. Oliver Willis

Someone commented, a bit ago, that I should take comfort in it being a democracy, and that he was just as pissed off and certain of doom under Clinton, but see how it worked out?

I wish I could share that optimism, but I just can’t.

As for Clinton, I ask you this: What policies cost thousands of lives under Clinton? The British journal The Lancet estimates 100,000 Iraqi dead now, to say nothing of our own wounded and dead soldiers. What huge debts did he run up, to be paid by our children and grandchildren? What allies did he alienate in a rush to war against a country that wasn’t threatening us? What enemies did he ignore to do so? What CIA operatives did his administration “out” as political payback? When did he claim he could arrest anyone he wanted, declare them an “enemy combatant,” and be free of judicial oversight? When did his party actively campaign to amend the Constitution to LIMIT rights?

Near as I can tell, the worst thing he did was lie about a blow job in the midst of a political witch hunt. He wasn’t a great president, but he wasn’t a disaster like this guy, either.

Bush and his people have lied when the truth would do better for four years, but half the electorate doesn’t seem to care. He campaigned as a “uniter,” but cruised to office on a 5 to 4 vote and proceded to govern from the hard, hard right. His GOP is openly pandering to the nutball religious right and corporate interests, and in doing so is weakening even our last line of defense (the courts). A Bush-packed SCOTUS will be hostile to the vital decisions supporting, among other things, our right to privacy, and I’m kind of attached to it. (Remember, Griswold wasn’t about abortion; it was about the right to buy birth control.)

Add to all this the open hostility to accepted science, his endless saber-rattling while failing utterly to pursue Osama effectively, our growing quagmire in Iraq (which, contrary to Cheney, is getting worse, not better — check the stats), and frankly I don’t see much to be hopeful about. I doubt you can point to a similar list of events attributable to Clinton.

The trouble is, it wouldn’t be much better had Kerry won decisively. Under Clinton — the last president we can say really WON in the traditional sense — you saw how the GOP acted. They pursued him with a vigor and relish that defies belief for no other reason than he beat them in the election. They were gunning for him before he took office, for Christ’s sake, and they didn’t stop until they’d spent nearly a hundred million bucks and caught him in a lie about a blow job — when they were, ostensibly, investigating real estate in Arkansas. The GOP doesn’t want to govern; they want to rule, and their actions since Whitewater make that clear. There is no bipartisanship with Bush. There will be less now. They’re in power, and they’re willing to do anything it takes, pander to any divisive cause, and abandon any nominally American principle to do it. They don’t care what else happens.

Yes, it is a democracy. But you’ll never go broke pandering to the baser desires of the American populace (c.f. Fox). The GOP understands, and therefore appeals to the very worst of the soul of America. And they’re winning.

For now, I’m done. I have to figure out how to live in a country whose apparent values are hostile to tolerance, to complex solutions to complex problems, to truth, to accountability, and to critical thought.

There’s nothing like the realization that, by and large, more than half your countrymen are willing to vote for a party of greed, fear, bigotry, and war despite just having four years of precisely that.

That John Kerry did not win in a walk is disgusting. It sickens me. Bush and his cronies have lied and been caught at it dozens of times, and on issues far more important than a fucking extramarital blow job, but no one cares. He has taken us to war in Iraq for no good reason (though he cited several candidates over time), and now has us stuck in an ever-worsening quagmire while Osama is still at large. He’s presided over the worst jobs record since Hoover. He’s spending us into oblivion. His organization funds and supports groups like Swift Boat Vets, whose members have no compunction about saying whatever they think will hurt Bush’s challenger. His party wants to institutionalize bigotry in the form of an anti-gay marriage amendment, and is openly hostile to the right to privacy enshrined in Griswold and Roe. I could go on and on here. It’s that bad.

And yet, at last count, 58,000,000 people voted for this goatfucker, and I’m not very proud to share a country with them. Frankly, if the GOP keeps moving us in this direction, I think there’s a very good chance that, eventually, I won’t. They’ve made it abundantly clear they will do whatever it takes to win, no matter what that implies. Given how they fought Clinton — for no reason other than he beat them at the polls — can you imagine a gracious loss in this case, should Ohio’s provisional ballots go Kerry’s way? Last time the SCOTUS gave Bush the election; this time he may well have generated enough hate and fear to win in outright (but barely), and that doesn’t bode well for this country.

My home state has joined eight others in approving a gay marriage ban. In Mississippi, the margin was 85%.

Reading this site, you might get the impression that we’re foursquare against the whole notion of electronic voting. That’s not quite right; information technology COULD play a valuable role in the electoral process, and could, if done correctly and carefully, actually lower the margin of error.

However, that’s unlikely to happen with proprietary systems like Diebold’s. And that’s why we support the Open Voting Consortium, a group dedicated to creating an open source voting system. With open source, it would be easy to verify that the code was good, that the tallying methods were unbiased, and that the best algorithms and practices were used. We’ll never have that with Diebold. OVC is a small group, but it’s a promising idea, and one much more likely to preserve our votes than black boxes from Diebold.

(Thanks, Eric!)

BoingBoing points out the perils of e-voting.

This site documents voter fraud, voter supression, and voter intimidation today. Watch carefully, especially now that the appeals court has said the Ohio thugs can challenge away.

Bev Harris has uncovered evidence that Diebold voting machines may be hacked through their modems during an election.

Josh Marshall details a story from ABC on the whole Kerry-shirts-at-Bush-rallies thing. Basically, they got folks to wear the other guy’s shirts at campaign events, and then documented the results. No surprises here: Dems were polite, but tried to surround the Bush shirts so they wouldn’t be on camera; the GOP threw them out.

Vote.

They’re now pledging allegience to Bush. Billmon over at Whiskey Bar has a bit more.

The GOP’s Justice Department is arguing that only they, not individual voters, may sue to enforce the voting rights portions of the Help American Vote act.

Veteran voting-rights lawyers expressed surprise at the government’s action, saying that closing the courthouse door to aspiring voters would reverse decades of precedent. Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote, often with the support of groups such as the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters or the state parties. And until now, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court had taken the view that individual voters could sue to enforce federal election law.

Remember, if you vote for Bush, you’re voting for shit like this.

Atrios has a bit about bigoted administrators at a Missouri school. Nice.

Either that, or they’re becoming increasingly desperate. A GOP mailout in Pennsylvania includes images of the burning WTC in an attempt, we suppose, to suggest that Kerry won’t protect us.

The degree to which the Bush team “protected” us on 9/11 is left as an exercise to the reader.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ, do these people have no shame whatsoever?

When Catherine Herold received mail from the Ohio Republican Party earlier this year, she refused it. The longtime Barberton Democrat wanted no part of the mailing and figured that by refusing it, the GOP would have to pay the return postage. What she didn’t count on was the returned mail being used to challenge the validity of her voter registration.

The GOP is unapologetic:

The angry voters had the Republicans on the defensive. “Why’d you do it?” one challenged voter shouted out at [Howard] Calhoun [one of the four challengers]. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked. “What the hell do you care?” replied Calhoun, an attorney. After the hearing, Calhoun said he felt the challenges were legitimate.

If you think that reducing voter turnout helps your cause, you’ve got a problem. If you try to quash legitimate voter registrations, you’re just about as far from the ideals this country is supposed to be about as you can be, and I wouldn’t cross the street to piss on you if you were on fire, you evil goatfucking jackasses.

The Economist and American Conservative have both endorsed John Kerry.

The Medium Lobster endorses George Bush:

When it comes to the war on terror, America cannot afford to have the wrong man at the helm. The leader of the free world must understand that this clash of civilizations is, above all things, a war of concepts, and he must have the strength and the purity to embrace the boldest possible vision. Now more than ever, America needs a man of ideas in the Oval Office. George W. Bush is that man. For his administration had not only embraced ideas, it exists, in a sense, only as an idea. It has so rapidly and so readily embraced the boldest of ideas that it has transcended the need for real actions, real plans, real accomplishments, and reality itself. Any leader could have made the war on terror into a tedious, ongoing struggle to unearth and uproot a multi-tentacled terrorist organization while attempting to heal the rifts between the Muslim world and the West. But George Bush didn’t just see the task: he saw the grand idea behind the task, and better still, the vague abstractions behind the grand idea. And he was willing to fight those vague abstractions. Terror, weapons of mass destruction – they may not have been really in Iraq, but the idea of them most certainly was. And that was an idea the world’s only superpower had to confront with real troops.

Giblets, of course, endorses Giblets.

One candidate is taking Giblets – and the threat of Giblets – seriously. One candidate knows that if Giblets’s rivals are elected president he could transform into a pack of ravenous wolves and eat your children. And that candidate is Giblets.

Fafnir, though, endorses a gila monster, but not without real deliberation:

It is a confusin an frightenin time to be America. Because a 9/11 an these Times Of Change. “Oh no!” says America. “I’m so confused who do I voooote for!” You need steady leadership in times a change America. The steady leadership of a big ol dog. Some other candidates say they are steady but are they really? Or are they just suspiciously french an ketchupy? “Sacre bleu, vive le France,” say some other candidates. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” Well always know where a big ol dog stands on hard issues like terror!” “HRARRGL HRAARRGL GRRRAAARRRGL,” says a big ol dog bitin an spittin an growlin at terror. The dog is also tough on other dogs, postal workers, small children, plants an stuff that looks like plants.

Well, actually, it’s Atrios quoting Wesley calling attention to what George said, but it’s still pretty fucking fine:

Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that ÒÉa political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief. President Bush couldnÕt be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad. By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.

Amnesty International’s more than a little disturbed about our human rights record of late:

LONDON (Reuters) – The United States has failed to guard against torture and inhuman behavior since launching its “war on terror” after Sept. 11, 2001, Amnesty International said Wednesday in a report just days before the U.S. election. The rights group called on President Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry to promise to take prompt action to address the issue head on if elected on Nov. 2. It condemned Bush’s response to the 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, saying it had resulted in an “iconography of torture, cruelty and degradation.” Amnesty’s report accused Washington of stepping onto a “well-trodden path of violating basic rights in the name of national security or ‘military necessity’.” “The war mentality the government has adopted has not been matched with a commitment to the laws of war and it has discarded fundamental human rights principles along the way,” it said. At best, Washington was guilty of setting conditions for torture and cruel treatment by lowering safeguards and failing to respond adequately to allegations of abuse, it said. At worst, it had authorized interrogation techniques which flouted its international obligation to reject torture and ill-treatment under any circumstances.

Say, how about that “shining city on a hill” thing again?

Relative to population, it turns out our votes in Texas are only worth about 0.8 votes, while folks in tiny states like Wyoming are worth better than 3. Check out this analysis of the Electoral College system for more. It’s interesting — and a bit disturbing, particularly if you think in terms of “one man, one vote” — no matter what your politics.

Have a look at his video for Mosh. (Big Quicktime file, but worth it.)

Thomas Schaller believes in our president. Here’s a sample:

I believe in President George W. Bush. I’ve always believed him. I believe the president invaded Iraq to secure liberty and democracy for the Iraqi people. I believe he had compelling evidence that Iraq was a significant threat to America and the world, and presented that evidence in a complete and balanced manner. Like 42 percent of Americans — and 62 percent of Republicans — I believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks. I believe we have enough troops on the ground in Iraq to ensure stability. I believe the rising American fatality rates, the rising casualty rates, and the rising American share of those coalition fatalities and casualties testify to the undeniable progress we’re making there. I believe it is inappropriate and traitorous, however, for the media to broadcast pictures of American flag-draped caskets returning from Iraq. I believed then-candidate Bush when he said during the 2000 campaign that America should not nation-build, and believe him now when he says our nation was divinely chosen for this task. I believe, as the president claims, that “free societies are peaceful societies,” but that the political and civil rights in oppressive, undemocratic countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are exempt from this standard. I believe Iraqis view Americans as liberators, and that once this swift, cheap war concludes the world will be more stable, our allies more cooperative, and our enemies fewer and less threatening.

There’s more. Enjoy.

There’s apparently a plan to keep blacks from voting in some heavily Democratic districts in Florida. Lovely. The BBC has more, lest ye think it’s just Kos whining again.

MNFTIU weighs on on the missing explosives.

George Bush appeared at a Wisconsin high school today. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry items — buttons, t-shirts, whatever — or they would be expelled.

Foreign Policy magazine has the answer: 21. In handy chart form, too!

From this NYT story:

Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots. Party officials say their effort is necessary to guard against fraud arising from aggressive moves by the Democrats to register tens of thousands of new voters in Ohio, seen as one of the most pivotal battlegrounds in the Nov. 2 elections. Election officials in other swing states, from Arizona to Wisconsin and Florida, say they are bracing for similar efforts by Republicans to challenge new voters at polling places, reflecting months of disputes over voting procedures and the anticipation of an election as close as the one in 2000. Ohio election officials said they had never seen so large a drive to prepare for Election Day challenges. They said they were scrambling yesterday to be ready for disruptions in the voting process as well as alarm and complaints among voters. Some officials said they worried that the challenges could discourage or even frighten others waiting to vote.

What’s perhaps most disturbing is the assumption that the GOP needs to defend itself against more people voting.

Republican? Horny? Lonely? We’ve got just the thing.