Yesterday, Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party for conspiring to prevent him from running for president in 2004. The lawsuit alleges that defendants used “groundless and abusive litigation” to bankrupt Ralph Nader’s campaign and force him off the ballot in 18 states, and names as co-defendants the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, private law firms, and organizations like the Ballot Project and America Coming Together that were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of the Democratic ticket. According to attorney Carl Mayer from the team that filed the suit, interviewed this morning by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, "what this lawsuit will do, and the importance of it is, is to set a precedent so that the two-party monopoly system that shuts out minor parties in a way that other Western democracies never do, that this will set a precedent to prevent this type of intimidation and harassment."
posted on Oct 31, 2007 - View this thread

Media outraced by Bloggers, Kerry appeal to netroots galvanizes suprise drive against Alito On Google News, you'll read how US Democratic Senators Obama and Biden are against a filibuster. Old news. They've agreed to support it. Encouraged by direct appeals by Senators. Kerry and Kennedy to internet activists, a blizzard of calls, emails, and faxes, organized via the Daily Kos and other blogs - with tactical direction from Kennedy - have helped flip the positions of several Democratic senators, and as of Saturday some claimed the push was already within 2 votes of forcing continued Senate debate on the Alito nomination. In fact, the pro-filibuster bloc might have started with 37 votes Meanwhile, today, Morning Edition, which declined to run the filibuster push as a top story and failed to mention the internet effort, asked Senator Kennedy on Senator Hillary Clinton's opposition to the filibuster: actually, she joined the effort last Friday [ see main link ] : D'oh !
posted on Jan 30, 2006 - View this thread

Operation Barbarella - from the London Review of Books, a review of Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Anti-war Icon by Mary Hershberger.
So, what is the story behind Jane Fonda? You will find few people so reviled among macho warrior types. Back in the Depressingly Christian Private School (DCPS) that I went to, to hear some of the things she had been accused of you'd have thought she was the Whore of Babylon herself.
The truly interesting thing about this article isn't the discussion of the reality of Fonda's anti-war protesting measured against the myth, but as an illustration of the kind of pass-it-along info, whose truth is a matter of almost-scriptural faith, that serves as the conventional wisdom concerning the Left in the ill-educated backwaters that compose so much of our nation. This kind of thing is the political equivilent of the story of the midget who hanged himself on the set of The Wizard of Oz.
Additional reading: the Snopes page on Jane Fonda.
Via Linkfilter.
posted on Nov 13, 2005 - View this thread

The family trees of American politicians - There are those with very long blue blood pedigrees, and there are those with very short and unknown pedigrees. There are also some surprises, like a certain Democratic senator and possible '08 Veep pick being somewhat closely related to the current Veep, or that certain ex-mayors have family trees that were apparently a bit inbred back in the old country. Other fun tidbits: Newt Gingrich's father was illegitimate, John Kerry is related to the rabbi who created the Golem of Prague, Pat Buchanan is related to both FDR and Marilyn Manson, Wesley Clark's father was a Kohan, Martin Luther King was born Michael Louis King, and Gary Hart was born Gary Hartpence, which was in turn derived from an ancestor named James Eberhart Pence. (more non-politicians here)
posted on Oct 3, 2005 - View this thread

The Rumors On the Internets Are True! "Our goal is to present you with these clips to help you make an informed choice next Tuesday." Your one-stop-shop for documentary clips related to Kerry and Bush, presented by the Internets Vets for Truth.
posted on Oct 28, 2004 - View this thread

Endorsement: Kerry for President Ok. The NY Times endorsed Kerry. And now the Washington Post. But now the Orlando-Sentinel, a paper that has not endorsed a Demcorat in the past 40 years! "Four years ago, the Orlando Sentinel endorsed Republican George W. Bush for president based on our trust in him to unite America. We expected him to forge bipartisan solutions to problems while keeping this nation secure and fiscally sound. This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations. We turn now to his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, with the belief that he is more likely to meet the hopes we once held for Mr. Bush. Our choice was not dictated by partisanship. Already this election season, the Sentinel has endorsed Republican Mel Martinez for the U.S. Senate and four U.S. House Republicans. In 2002, we backed Republican Gov. Jeb Bush for re-election, repeating our endorsement of four years earlier. Indeed, it has been 40 years since the Sentinel endorsed a Democrat -- Lyndon Johnson -- for president...."
posted on Oct 24, 2004 - View this thread

Two weeks from today, John Kerry will win the popular vote by "23% or more" over George W. Bush, according to 5 Star Psychic Advice. See if you can do better than the spirit world by predicting the electoral and popular vote totals in the second quadrennial MetaFilter Presidential Contest ...
posted on Oct 19, 2004 - View this thread

Why this election is so disappointing... Opposite today's New York Times' 30-column-inch endorsement of John Kerry, Thomas Friedman makes a good case that several of the most important issues are not being talked about by either candidate in any serious way.
posted on Oct 17, 2004 - View this thread

The best political photo essay i've ever seen. A cheeky look at Bush's flip flops in the form of a shoe catalogue.
posted on Oct 8, 2004 - View this thread

More than rhetoric... As the campaign gets more divisive and time grows short incidents of violence are breaking out more and more often. Shots have been fired on more than one occasion, swastikas burned, intimidation and just plain kicking. Hopefully it gets better from here, but somehow I don't think so.
posted on Oct 7, 2004 - View this thread

Coward-in-Chief. George Bush has announced that he will give a major national speech on Wednesday, in which he will respond to John Kerry's criticisms of the president. This appears to be the first time any president has tried to hold a major televised speech during the election season for such a purpose. During his term in office, Mr. Bush has given the fewest press conferences of any president in the televised era. John Kerry had previously offered Bush weekly debates... and George Bush refused. Is it fair to say that he'd rather use his power of office to dictate to us instead?
posted on Oct 5, 2004 - View this thread

The amazing debate spotter text analysis tool is a fun way to look at the words our leaders use. Bush had a lot of obvious ones: hard work, wrong time, wrong place, he forgot poland. Kerry name dropped Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden quite a bit and had the highest kill ratio. Here's Cameron's post about how it came to be and how it works. Politics in the age of the internet are certainly an interesting time.
posted on Oct 1, 2004 - View this thread

An excellent WashPost primer on the lies each candidate is currently telling about the other, and how they hold up to reality. Also, enjoy the many euphemisms employed to avoid the "L" word: (Misleading. Inaccurate. Oversimplified. Exaggerated. Carefully selected. Unfair. etc etc) Who will be the first mainstream media outlet to state plainly that a politician has told a lie? Login: shutyomouf@hotmail.com - pw:shaftbaby)
posted on Sep 30, 2004 - View this thread

Kerry Haters For Kerry Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though you find him unpleasant, annoying, arrogant, waffling, misguided or just generally unappealing in some profound way? Then you've come to the right place! We're Kerry Haters for Kerry -- perhaps his largest constituency! No need to hide in the Kerry-hating closet anymore while you pretend to everyone that he'll be a great president. Here you are among friends. You can speak freely and honestly. You can admit: 'He's awful! And I'm for him!' via Wonkette
posted on Sep 30, 2004 - View this thread

Al Gore on tomorrow's Bush-Kerry duel: The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''
posted on Sep 29, 2004 - View this thread

klingons for kerry
posted on Sep 28, 2004 - View this thread

"Any day in which Bush's Nat'l Guard service is the dominant news story is a lost day for the Kerry campaign." As another round of media yadayada (see below) is about to emerge over President Bush's National Guard service or lack thereof, Noam Scheiber explains why this is probably very bad news for ... Kerry. We know who Bush is. The election is about the future, not the past. Scheiber's point may have been made in the MeFi thread referenced above, but I'm afraid I lost consciousness after a screen or so.
posted on Sep 8, 2004 - View this thread

Bush and Kerry Hit Road, Trade Blows on Jobs I can only guess that someone at Reuters has a sense of humor.
posted on Sep 3, 2004 - View this thread

According to multiple recent nationwide polls, the presidential race is a dead heat, with the spread within the margin of error. Some have Bush by a couple points, some say Kerry by a couple. But take a look at the way the race is represented by www.electoral-vote.com, which tracks polls state-by-state and takes electoral votes into account. Suddenly, the tally is Kerry 332, Bush 195.
posted on Jul 23, 2004 - View this thread

Clinton’s Former Aide Drops Windfall in the Lap of Bush Campaign "...Presidential challenger Kerry will have to think twice before attacking Bush on national security issues lest he lay himself open to reminders that a former Clinton aide and his own adviser was caught red-handed misappropriating classified materials that revealed how a Democratic president mishandled the threat of terror...."
posted on Jul 20, 2004 - View this thread

This Land is Your Land (with apologies to Woody Guthrie). Belated non-partisan Friday Flash Fun. (Saturday Sarcastic Silliness?)
posted on Jul 17, 2004 - View this thread

Yet another political flash cartoon! Anyone else getting tired of hearing the same bland crap about the upcoming election? This flash cartoon somehow manages to be funny anyway, even though its subject has been done to death. It's brilliant, and definitely worth a look.
posted on Jul 12, 2004 - View this thread

Veepfilter: The well-kept secret about Kerry's running mate might just have broken... on an aviation message board, of all places.
posted on Jul 5, 2004 - View this thread

Will John Kerry reach higher market share then Steve Jobs? I love Errol Morris' documentaries, but is an art house film director and Apple pitch man really the right person to craft political ads aimed at persuading undecided voters?
posted on Jul 3, 2004 - View this thread

The intern accused of having an affair with Kerry does some investigative reporting of her own.

And so my education had taken me pretty much as far as it could. I started out as an ambitious young woman inspired by politics and the media. I’ve ended up disenchanted with both. If I had been an ambitious young man, this story would not have happened. I’m never going to know exactly what happened, but that matters less to me now. I lost a good friend and learned a few lessons. I am struck by the pitiful state of political reporting, which is dominated by the unholy alliance of opposition research and its latest tool, the Internet. Even the Wall Street Journal’s Website ran Drudge’s story, with only a brief disclaimer that his stories weren’t always accurate.

It was important for me to set the record straight. I don’t mean to dredge up old news by writing this, and I’m not trying to create any now, though I’m not unaware of the irony that I am adding to the ink spilled on this story. I don’t intend to discuss it again in public either. But for me, this painful experience will be hard to forget. It may be only a minor footnote to the campaign, but it has changed my life completely.
posted on Jun 2, 2004 - View this thread

GLOBE REPORTER CLAIMS TAPE RECORDED KERRY 'MORE' LEADERS NOT 'FOREIGN' LEADERS; TRANSCRIPTION 'SCREW-UP' A BOSTON GLOBE reporter at the center of a growing controversy over comments made by John Kerry last week in Florida now claims he "screwed-up" -- and John Kerry never bragged how "foreign leaders" privately backed his presidential bid!
posted on Mar 15, 2004 - View this thread

New poll: Bush sinking, Kerry surging Overall, 52 percent of those polled by NEWSWEEK say they would not like to see Bush serve a second term, compared to 44 percent who want to see him win again...
posted on Jan 24, 2004 - View this thread

Howard Dean is closing in on the lead in New Hampshire, with 16% to Kerry's 17%. Dean is appealing to voters by being outspoken in an environment in which many of his fellow democrats are submissive to Bush's approval rating, and due to anticipation of his universal health care plan, which he is soon to unveil. Already established as the most net-savvy candidate, Dean has hundreds of real-life meetups planned for today.
posted on Jun 4, 2003 - View this thread

Democrats finally speaking out? "Today the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives announced that -- and I quote -- 'Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.' Let me make this clear: Never in its history has the United States passed a big tax cut in a time of war. We have always believed in shared sacrifice. " Sen. John Kerry's speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner April 3 in Georgia. (Salon article, click the free day pass to view)
posted on Apr 6, 2003 - View this thread