A new John Kerry ad is being released in conjunction with Thursday's first debate. You can view it here. It begins with the narrator saying:

“Why did George Bush go to war in Iraq? The reason keeps changing. First, it was weapons of mass destruction. [Not true] Later, Iraq's links to al Queda. [Not true] One reason after another-a new one offered every time the facts crumble. Now Americans are being kidnapped, held hostage, even beheaded. Over 1,000 U.S. soldiers have died. Maybe George Bush can't tell us why he went to Iraq... But it’s time he tells us how he's going to fix it.”

George Soros is a wealthy man. The 24th richest person in the U.S., he has spent $18 million of his own money so far to see that Bush is defeated in November. Why? Here's a portion of the speech he gave Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington criticizing President Bush's policies on Iraq and the war on terror. (received via e-mail.)

President Bush inadvertently played right into the hands of bin Laden. The invasion of Afghanistan was justified: that was where bin Laden lived and al Qaeda had its training camps. The invasion of Iraq was not similarly justified. It was President Bush's unintended gift to bin Laden.

War and occupation create innocent victims. We count the body bags of American soldiers; there have been more than 1000 in Iraq. The rest of the world also looks at the Iraqis who get killed daily. There have been 20 times more. Some were trying to kill our soldiers; far too many were totally innocent, including many women and children. Every innocent death helps the terrorists' cause by stirring anger against America and bringing them potential recruits.

Mr. Soros is not stopping there. He is now embarking on a multi-city tour and investing in a website and ads designed to elicit debate on Iraq and the War on Terror in his continued effort to see that Bush is defeated in November. Joining him for the campaign kick-off is General Wesley Clark.

Jann Wenner interviews Bruce Springsteen in the new Rolling Stone on Bruce's emergence as a rocker with political clout with voters. Among the topics: John Kerry.

I think that Senator Kerry has long played it close to the vest, and that's his style. However, the presidency is like the heavyweight championship: They don't give it to you, you have to take it. He has a slow, deliberate style that may not make for an electrifying campaigner, but it may make for a very good president. But, of course, you have to get there.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this election is that the machinery for taking something that is a lie and making it feel true, or taking something that is true and making it feel like a lie -- the selling machinery has become very powerful. Senator Kerry has to make people pay attention to the man behind the curtain. He has to take the risk and rip the veil off the administration's deceptions. They are a hall of mirrors and a house of cards.

For Senator Kerry, the good news is he has the facts on his side. The bad news is that often in the current climate it can feel like that doesn't matter, and he has to make it matter.

By the way, happy birthday to the Boss, who turned 55 this week. How time flies.

If you're doing a research project on Bush and you need some ammunition, check out The Paperless Archives:

George W. Bush Presidential Papers
George W. Bush Administration Papers & Reports

17,361 pages of President George Bush and Bush Administration papers.

bq. Material released through Freedom of Information Act Request releases and public information releases. Composed of internal White House documents, Public financial disclosures of President Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, and other members of the Bush Cabinet, George Bush military service records, Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority documents, George Bush and Richard Cheney tax records, 2000 Presidential election dispute court documents and reports, Government Accountability Office reports, Executive Orders issued by President George Bush, transcripts of President George W. Bush public papers, and government reports on issues related to the Bush Administration.

Mark Green, in conjunction with Air America is sponsoring a contest: What will be Bush's October Surprise?

The goal is to anticipate particular 'surprises' in the hope, however small, that Bushies may shy away from what's widely anticipated because it reeks of a political ploy. Is this contest cynical? No, just realistic. A governing elite which seems to embody Mark Twain's axiom that "a lie gets halfway around the world before truth puts on her boots" should be presumed capable of saying or doing almost anything to hold onto power."

We will catalog the responses and post the results on our site -- and periodically go on Air America and other networks and stations to give progress reports. Further, we will award the winning entry (or entries) with a free book and a chance to be a guest on a Air America broadcast.

Mark Green isco-author, with Eric Alterman,of The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America. He was New York City's elected public advocate (1994-2002) and Democratic candidate for mayor in 2001. He is the president of the New Democracy Project .

So what do you think? Will Osama miraculously appear in chains? Will he be found dead?

If you're an Eagles fan, or a Don Henley, Glenn Frey or Timothy B. Schmidt fan, or a Big Head Todd and the Monsters fan, or even a Leo Kottke fan, the place to be Tuesday night is a benefit for Democratic senate candidate Ken Salazar in Denver. It's at the Fillmore, tickets are $100 each, no assigned seating (actually it's stand-up except for a few mega-donors who are paying $1,000 a ticket.)

I just picked up my tickets, there are still some left. There were some massive trucks the size of houses outside the Fillmore with shiny, new red cabs attached that were imprinted with the name of a theatrical lighting and equipment company in Chicago. It's a fun venue and probably one of the smallest they've played recently.

Here's an interview with Don Henley from Sunday's Denver Post on why he's doing the fundraiser for Salazar.

Les Payne writes a mean-spirited column in Newsday charging that George Bush has become a national joke. As much as I've been bashing Bush all weekend, I think that's a stretch, but there is a snippet worth reprinting, about how he was regarded by his buddies at Yale--even though the source is Kitty Kelly's book:

It was, however, Bush's towering lack of intellect that defined him. "That (Bush) coasted on his family name was understandable," said Yale frat brother Tom Wilner. "Lots of guys do that. But Georgie, as we called him then, has absolutely no intellectual curiosity about anything. He wasn't interested in ideas or books or causes. He didn't travel; he didn't read the newspapers; he didn't watch the news ... How he got out of Yale without developing some interest in the world besides booze and sports stuns me."

Chasing down bogus war records and irrelevant cocaine tips, the media have missed the boat on the background of the gloating "war president." It was Wilner who loosed the most salient line in Kelley's book: "Hell, it's not George's substance abuse that bothers me as much as his lack of substance."

Only a true Bush-hater will love this column. I'm not at that point yet...I just don't want him as my President.

Freeway Blogger has issued a challenge to those of us in Arizona, News Mexico and Colorado:

Here's My Offer: I'll match every sign you put up in your state with three of my own. If Arizona sends me pictures of 25 signs, I'll go there and put up 75. Same for you New Mexico. You too Colorado. This offer valid for hand-painted signs only.

As citizens of swing states, please bear in mind that the point here is to win people over, not put them off, so let's try and soft pedal the "Bush = Hitler" stuff, okay? (There'll be plenty of time for that after he cancels the election and declares martial law.)
Remember, the only difference between me and the rest of you is cardboard, paint, and a willingness to use them, and I think we can all agree that that's not very much of a difference. This offer expires October 15th.

Link via Colorado Luis who replies:

Joe Conason today:

Serial slanderers like Dennis Hastert say terrorists want John Kerry to win. The facts say George W. Bush is al-Qaida's best recruitment tool.

Kevin Drum weighs in on Bush's press conference yesterday:

And Thursday's press conference was just scary. It's no longer clear if George Bush is merely a cynical, calculating politician — which would be bad enough — or if he actually believes all the happy talk about Iraq that his speechwriters produce for him. Increasingly, though, it seems like the latter: he genuinely doesn't have a clue about what's going on. What's more, his staff is keeping him in a sort of Nixonian bubble, afraid to tell him the truth and afraid to take any positive action for fear that it might affect the election.

So things will just get worse, since no one is willing to admit the truth and no one is willing to propose serious action to keep things from deteriorating further — at least not until after November 2nd. But by then it will be too late. And when the Iraqi elections fail, what happens then? What's Plan E?

This woman is the best. She speaks what we are thinking. And she has the where-with-all to tell anyone who doesn't like it where to go.

Wednesday night in Phoenix, Theresa Heinz-Kerry raised a cool mil for Arizona Democrats. And in the process, she surmised aloud:

In regard to the hunt for terror leader Osama Bin Laden, Heinz Kerry said she could see the al-Qaida chief being caught before the November election. "I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in the next month," said Heinz Kerry, alluding to a possible capture by United States and allied forces before election day.

Two new studies show that felon disenfranchisement laws have prevented large numbers of black men from exercising their right to vote.

As many as one of every seven black men in Atlanta who have been convicted of a felony, and one of every four in Providence, R.I., cannot vote in this year's election, according to a pair of studies released yesterday. The studies, the first to look at felon disenfranchisement laws' effect on voting in individual cities, add to a growing body of evidence that those laws have a disproportionate effect on African-Americans because the percentage of black men with felony convictions is much larger than their share of the general population. The study in Atlanta concluded that two-thirds of the gap in voter registration between black males and other ethnic and gender groups was attributable to Georgia's felon disenfranchisement law.

How to read this?

"We have the conventional wisdom that African-American males register to vote at lower rates because of political apathy," said the study's author, Ryan King of the Sentencing Project, a research and prisoners' rights group based in Washington. But the new data clearly indicate that "their registration is artificially suppressed by the disproportionate effect of their disenfranchisement."

How important is the felon vote?

Interest in the effect of felon disenfranchisement laws has increased since the presidential election of 2000, when George W. Bush won Florida by only 537 votes; an estimated 600,000 people in the state, most black, were barred from voting because of felony convictions.

This is our third post on this topic in two days...see here and here...because it's that important.

The studies are available to read or download. The Vanishing Black Electorate: Felony Disenfranchisement In Atlanta, Georgia PDF Sentencing Project. 09/2004; Political Punishment: The Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement for Rhode Island Communities PDF Rhode Island Family Life Center. 09/2004

In January, 2003, we wrote about draft proposals pending in Congress. This was after Charlie Rangel and John Conyers, both Democrats, came out for a draft, apparently under the assumption that if the kids of rich congresspersons and senators had to serve, Congress would vote against any war. (Of course, who knew back then that Bush would decide on his own to declare war against Iraq?) Following Rangel and Conyers, Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) introduced a companion version of their bill in the Senate. In April, 2004, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel endorsed a reinstatement of the military draft.

In checking on Thomas, the Federal Legislation Server back then, it's clear that members of both parties have sponsored or co-sponsored bills or resolutions opposing the draft---just as members of both parties have introduced bills to reinstate it. It doesn't seem to be strictly a Republican/Democratic or Conservative/Liberal issue. (For more history on this, read Objector.Org's position paper on rumors of a 2005 draft.)

It may not be a party issue, but it is a candidate issue. Despite his statements to the contrary, Bush may reinstate the draft. This is supported not only by his "stop-loss" orders extending soldiers' duties in Iraq and the acknowledgement that there is a shortage of soldiers for a prolonged war, which seems to be what we're in for with Bush at the helm, but also by actions of the Selective Service System,(more here), whose directors and members serve under the direction of his Administration.

On the other hand, John Kerry and John Edwards have stated unequivocally there will be no draft if they are elected.