Sunday, November 14, 2004

More Draft

On CNN King said
"But, again, I say, if the military shows they cannot get what they need, then we should certainly consider the draft, absolutely. I just don't see it happening right now.

I guess King is either not paying attention or not counting former military members who served their time being forced to return.

Frederick Pistorius got a grand suprise when he was informed that not only was he being ordered back to duty but he has been considered a deserter since July. Mr. Pistorius recieved a letter from the army that said "On 12 July 2004 you were involuntarily mobilized to active duty in the United States Army... To date you have not reported to your mobilization station as required by your orders."
What is this all about? The Individual Ready Reserve which are former military members are being used to fill in where the various branches find themselves short of troops.
For more read this story (via DailyKos) from the Pittburgh Post-GazetteThe Army's long arm.




Wednesday, November 10, 2004

King by the Numbers

So King is back for another two years unless the rumors (probably false) of him running against Tom Suozzi for Nassau County Executive. King has floated other trial baloons for other runs against Schumer and those baloons popped pretty quickly.

The 3rd CD is a republican-heavy district if all you go by is party registration. Clinton and Gore did very well in the 3rd CD and so did Kerry. Voter registration is slowly tilting towards Democrats but King is safe with just the Republican party-line voters.

King has been scoring above 60% for the past elections even garnering 72% in 2002 against Stu Finz.

Where does Kings future lie? Possible re-election in 2006 unless his
opponent can
In an off-year election (meaning non-presidential) King does better with 65% in 1998 and 2002 with 72%. When there is a president on the ballot, King's numbers are lower... 60% in 2000 and 63% in 2004.
This year while King got 3% more and added to his total vote total by , his opponent got 7000 more voters than 2000.
The numbers are really all over the place for both King and his Democratic opponents....
From Presidential years 2000 to 2004 King gained 31,680 votes while his opponent gained 7244. This is only for 2000 and 2004 changes.
From year to year 2000 to 2002 King lost 18,397 and his opponent lost 46,001
From 2000-2004 King gained 50,077 votes but his opponent gained 53,245 votes.
In all, King has gained less since 2000 than his Democratic opponent.

What does this all mean? The Democrats are making strong gains and if they can make gains in voter registration in the next two years, raise the candidates profile and expose King's dismal record King can lose. Incumbents always have a huge advantage and as long as they haven't been caught with a dead hooker, they start with 60% and the numbers go up or down from there.





Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Great stuff from the Mailbag!

Big thanks to the reader who sent along a clip from the Alexandra Pelosi HBO documentary "Diary of a Political Tourist."
Here is the transcript...... (Note: I don't know the date this was filmed but it seems to be early fall.)
The set-up: Bush and King hanging around the White House lawn being interviewed by Pelosi

Bush: The panhandle.....
(unintelligible)
Bush: She's a panhandler
King: It's over..... The election's over. We won.
Pelsosi: How do you know that?
King: It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting.

What was that? Oh, "... we'll take care of the counting."

Yes, it does look like someone "took care" of the counting.

Here is a little from Keith Olberman on MSNBC who seems to be the only journalist interested.
From today: "There, 52 counties tallied their votes using paper ballots that were then optically scanned by machines produced by Diebold, Sequoia, or Election Systems and Software. 29 of those Florida counties had large Democratic majorities among registered voters (as high a ratio as Liberty County— Bristol, Florida and environs— where it’s 88 percent Democrats, 8 percent Republicans) but produced landslides for President Bush. On Countdown, we cited the five biggest surprises (Liberty ended Bush: 1,927; Kerry: 1,070), but did not mention the other 24."

In Ohio, Cuyahoga County has 93,000 MORE votes than registered voters. In Gahana, Ohio one district registered Bush getting 4,258 out of 638 cast. That is 667% of the vote. What an incredible Get Out the Vote effort! And that is only one district that was scrutinized. How many more are there?

So when Warren O'Dell the CEO of Diebold the company that makes most of the electronic voting machines says he is "...committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year, " King says non-chalantly "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting" and this really huge number of irregularities pop up, it looks like there is a there there.

As John Edwards said "John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that, with this election, every vote would count and every vote would be counted,"... "Tonight, we are keeping our word and we will fight for every vote. You deserve no less."

Here is the link to the video clip again. Click Here.




Sunday, November 07, 2004

Say it Loud, Say it Proud

Bumper Stickers, T-Shirts and More






Saturday, November 06, 2004

It's getting Drafty

King had this to say about Rep. Charlie Rangels military draft bill "I think it should be a military decision, not just -- not the philosophical decision Charlie wants it to make. If it's in the best interests of our armed force to have a volunteer Army, we should keep a volunteer Army. If we need a draft to have sufficient forces, then we should certainly consider a draft. I think it should be on the table.But I'm just saying I think Charlie is bringing it up in the context of Iraq. We could have brought it up in the context of Haiti or Bosnia or Kosovo. And we didn't."

"I think we should put more incentives in to get voluntary Army -- more volunteers. But, again, I say, if the military shows they cannot get what they need, then we should certainly consider the draft, absolutely. I just don't see it happening right now."

Here is a great incentive for an all-volunteer army; take a vet who left the service after the Gulf War in 1991 after over 10 years in, did his reserve time and is now being ordered to report for duty. That's a back-door draft of vets. But this brave vet isn't taking this sitting down. David Miyasato is suing.

From The Honolulu Advertiser
"David M. Miyasato enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1987, served three years of active duty during the first Gulf War and received an honorable discharge in 1991. He remained on inactive status for five more years, until 1996. Since then, the Kaua'i resident has married, started an auto window tinting business and this year, he and his wife had their first child.

But in September, Miyasato received a letter from the Army recalling him to active duty and directing him to report to a military facility in South Carolina on Tuesday."


"I fulfilled my contract," he said. "I just want to move on from this, and I'm optimistic that I'll be successful."

Hmmm.... wasn't King in the National Guard during the Vietnam War? MAybe King would like to "volunteer" his services. The Penatgon is calling up all ages for the Bush-Iraq War. 4,119 soldiers called up for Iraq and Afghanistan are 50 or older. King says Iraq is doing great so maybe he'd like to serve there.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Dear Peter, Up Yours

On October 28th, King expanded his "New Axis of Evil." Before it was the UN, the NYTimes and Dan Rather. On Hannity and Colmes, King added John Kerry to the list.

"KING: He's not being held accountable because the media is in collusion with him. I mean, this whole idea of it going from the U.N. to "The New York Times" to CBS to John Kerry, this is to me -- this is another axis of evil. It really is."

"COLMES: Congressman Smith -- you want to blame the media. Congressman King here said the media is the axis of evil?

KING: No. Not the media, the media, U.N. and John Kerry. Absolutely"

King will go to any length to lower the discourse in politics. It's just sad. And this man is still our representative in congress.





Thursday, November 04, 2004

Election 2004

More news to about election 2004.

Peter King by the numbers:

1998
King ..... 65%
Langberg ..... 35%

2000
King ..... 135,328.... 60%
Lamagna ..... 90,290.... 40%

2002
King..... 116,931....72%
Finz ..... 44,289 .... 27%


2004
King ..... 167,008 .... 63%
Mathies ..... 97,534 .... 37%

A breakdown of the numbers up next.


Nassau County is
Kerry Country.
JOHN F KERRY-JOHN EDWARDS........ 312,388
GEORGE W BUSH-DICK CHENEY........ 278,727

And it ain't over till it's over.

Voter irregularities being reported and verified in Ohio and Flordia.
An Ohio precinct with 638 people voting showed 260 votes for Kerry and 4258 for Bush!!! How many more precincts did this happen to?

And Warren O'Dell CEO of Diebold the company that built the electronic voting machines said he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.''
Hmmmm......

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

King wins but loses ground

In 2002 King beat Finz with 72% of the vote. This year King won again but he lost 7%. 65-35 isn't great but for an unknown from the sliver of the district in Suffolk he did very well.

Soooo.. King Watch stays alive for two more years.

Regular updates start again tomorrow with some election wrap-up and other items we didn't get to.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

King margin smaller than 2002

with 20% of precincts:


King....... 26,014....66%
Mathies...13,361....34%

Zogby's results

Right-leaning Zogby - the only pollster who did cell phone polling is calling teh election 311-213 EV for Kerry.
It's still early so we have to wait.

Guam goes for Bush.

AZ, VA and AR are in play. All "safe" Bush states that look to be tipping.

Early VNS exit polls

From MyDD:
AZ CO LA PA OH FL MI NM MN WI IA NH
Kerry 45 48 42 60 52 51 51 50 58 52 49 57
Bush 55 51 57 40 48 48 47 48 40 43 49 41

Take with a grain of salt but add in the huge early voting turn-out for Kerry and the numbers mean more in FL and OH.

The missing King

Last night there was a rally at Republic Airport in Farmingdale for republican candidates. The event was "hosted" by George Pataki. There was Garner, there was Mills, there was Manger and there WASN'T King.
Where was King?
King was on Crossfire on CNN. King was at the new Time-Warner building at Columbus Circle.
King was in no rush to leave the studios at 5pm when the show was over. He stopped to chat with former Sec. Def. William Cohen's security detail outside on 58th street and then he and his photographer strolled over the the parking garage across the street and took a leisurely drive out of the city.
Time from Midtown Manhattan to Farmingdale without rush-hour traffic? 50minutes. With rush-hour traffic? a couple of hours.

King cares so little about his supporters he chose CNN over a rally.

Election Day

6am polls opened. At 6:20 there was a steady stream at local polling places. No lines out the door like in Florida but it is still early.
People at Massapequa, Mass park and Seaford train stations headed to work and hopefully voting when they get home.
No politicians patrolling stations yet but they will probably be there soon.

Monday, November 01, 2004

VOTE!

Polls open in a few hours. Get out the Vote and get Peter King out of the congress. Vote Blair Mathies.

Vote John Kerry!
Vote Chuck Schumer!
Vote Bill Funk!

More King on Crossfire Monday Night

A few choice comments:

"KING: ... yes, I believe that we should continue the war against terrorism. And President Bush realizes it is not just a single war or just against bin Laden or just against this group. It's a war against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. And that is why Iraq is part of the war against terrorism."

The fact is that Iraq was NOT a Isalmic fundamentalist nation. Osama bin Laden was opposed to secular leaders like Saddam Hussein.

"KING: We did win the war. How did we win the war? Because the Taliban has been disposed and bin Laden is running. There's absolutely no real evidence at all that they knew for certain he was in Tora Bora. He won that war in Afghanistan in six weeks. The Russians took 10 years and lost tens of thousands of troops. There was no outsourcing of that."

Yes, the Taliban was defeated but Osama bin Laden did escape and he was at Tora Bora. King wants to deny it but Knight-Ridder has reports from four journalists who were on the ground in Afghanistan who say that Gen. Tommy Franks ignored intelligence reports about bin laden. The Taliban might not be in control anymore but neither is the new Afghan government in Kabul. Local warlords still control most of the country and heroin production is at a record high. Oh and the Taliban is trying a come-back.
The simple fact is Bush's mistakes let the mass-murdered bin laden escape.

"KING: No, 75 percent of the armed forces are supporting President Bush; 75 percent of the American armed forced are supporting President Bush."

We'd LOVE to see the source behind that....

"KING: Charlie, I was in Iraq last week. The armed forces are supporting President Bush."

Oh.. King interviewed all 140,000 soldiers in Iraq. I see.
Wait a minute.. he didn't meet all of teh soldiers in Iraq. Maybe King should visit Operation Truth to find out what the soldiers really think.

"KING: No, we should keep going in the same direction. We have created 1.9 million jobs in the last year. Bill Clinton lost half a million manufacturing jobs in his last year and a half. We've gained more in manufacturing in the last year than in 20 years."

President Clinton left office with a 4.2% unemployment rate. Bush is leaving with a 5.6%. manufacturing jobs are still way down, the deficit is at record levels and is increasing and consumer confidence has tanked. Hurray for the same direction. More of the same direction means DEPRESSION.

"KING: He inherited a recession from Bill Clinton."

Well actually the recession began in March of 2001.. that would be after Clinton left office.

"KING: No. What we're saying is that the Democratic policies are weak. Democratic policies are weak and they would invite attack. But, hopefully -- no one wants us to be attacked."

When did Osama bin Laden attack and who was in charge? That would be republican George W. Bush. The same Bush who ignored repeated warnings and was about to have his attorney general cut FBI anti-terrorism funding.



Blogging the election

Tomorrow night Pete King Watch will be going live with election results and commentary. Stop by all night for updates.

Check out these other blogs for great election news:

Daily Kos
Atrios
Talking Points Memo
America Blog
Oliver Willis
Corrente
MyDD
TAPPED

King is a reprehensible bastard

Yup. He is. King was on Crossfire tonight and came across as across uninformed SOB... as usual. He takes the cake though with his statement "KING: There's a new axis of evil. There's a new axis of evil, U.N. bureaucrats, "The New York Times" and Dan Rather. That is the axis of evil that we're up against in this country."
So King is saying that an American newspaper the New York Times and an Amercian citizen Dan Rather are "evil." King might not like what the Times and Rather report but to call them evil is just disgusting. But that of course is a very republican thing to do. Bush and his minions do their best to link Kerry and the Democrats to terrorists. A draft-dodger republican Saxby Chambliss compared war hero Max Cleland to Osama bin laden and Saddam Hussein to win the senate seat in Georgia two years ago.
Our local Young Republicans got into the disgusting act on their website



Peter King and his party have done everything they can to lower the discourse in politics.