Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Think about the following when you VOTE today

Iraq
Iraq
Iraq
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo
Unwarranted Phone Taps
Unprecedented Powers
Unmatched Incompetence
Unparalleled Corruption
Governor Bob Taft
Representative Tom Delay
Representative Roy Blunt
Representative Ken Calvert
Representative John Dolittle
Representative Tom Feeney
Representative Katherine Harris
Representative Jerry Lewis
Representative Gary Miller
Representative Marilyn Musgrave
Representative Richard Pombo
Representative Rick Renzi
Representative John Sweeney
Representative Charles Taylor
Representative Curt Weldon
Representative J.D. Hayworth
Representative Don Sherwood
Representative Bob Ney
Representative Duke Cunningham
Representative Tom Reynolds
Representative Chris Cannon
Jeff Gannon
Representative Mark Foley
Representative Dennis Hastert
Senator George Allen
Senator Bill Frist
Senator Conrad Burns
Senator Rick Santorum
David Safavian
The Vice Presidential Energy Task Force
Three bucks a gallon
Record oil company profits
Anwar Pipeline
Anbar Province
Adelphia
Merck
Halliburton
Arthur Anderson
Qwest
Tyco
WorldCom
Global Crossing
Global Warming
Global Boiling
Exxon
Enron
Abramoff
Adam Kidan
Timothy Flanigan
Ralph Reed
Rita
Katrina
Fema
Terri
Condi
Harriet Miers
The Supreme Court
Diebold
John Bolton
Florida, 2000
Ohio, 2004
North Korea
Iran
Darfur
Stem Cell Research
Scooter Libby
Valerie Plame
Golden Parachutes
Shrunken Pensions
Bernie Kerik
Eminent Domain
Social Security
Habeas Corpus
Ahmad Chalabi
The Baghdad Museum
Tora Bora
Taliban Resurgence
Iraqi Insurgents
General Eric Shinsecki
General Anthony Zinni
Mission Accomplished
Illegal Immigration
Intelligent Design
Kenneth Tomlinson
Claude Allen
Swift Boat Hit Squads
Ari Fleischer
Scott McClellan
Tony Snow
Ann Coulter
Expiration of Assault Weapons Ban
John Ashcroft
Alberto Gonzales
George Tenet
Paul Bremer
Paul Wolfowitz
Richard Perle
Kissinger Redux
Duck Cheney
Donald Henry Rumsfeld

And finally, the Uniter-Decider-Reader of Camus, Shakespeare and “My Pet Goat,” who describes the party that successfully prosecuted two world wars as people who “cut and run”.

GOP_propaganda004

Originally uploaded by zakur.

…no wonder Bush didn’t bother to catch this guy.

Thanks to the Ohio Republican Party for this latest example of campaign sleaze.

Doolittle mailer – front

Originally uploaded by A Fighting Faith.


If your stomach can take it, he posted more from this flyer: another sample.

Apparently Democratic candidate Charlie Brown is a “proud” member of the ACLU, who hopes to bring pedophile rape and murder to your town.

Yet another deceptive campaign mailer

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

This one’s from New York.

Fear and Smear

Originally uploaded by Maia C.


Thanks to MaiaC for posting this Michigan flyer!

Dear Bill and Ri–

Well–the national GOP has apparently switched tactics this year–in 2004, the windshields of cars outside St. Joe’s Cathedral in Manchester had 3 separate GOP flyers on pre-Election Sunday! 

This year, NH GOP true-believers can’t even fill up a meeting with Laura Bush but the national party is rolling in money–so this year’s last-minute stunt is 300,000 deceptive robo-calls coming in from Virginia.

The call starts off on an upbeat note–“I’m calling with some information about Paul Hodes….”, giving the impression that the Hodes campaign is sending out robo-calls, three or four in a day to the same household, some coming as early as 5 o’clock in the morning. Irate letters to the Concord Monitor say, “I’m voting for Bass because Hodes is making these robo-calls.” 

Only Hodes isn’t making those robo-calls–the National Republican Congressional Committee is.  If you listen all the way to the end of the robocall, which nobody does because we’re all sick of them–well, read the Concord Monitor story for more: 
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061105/REPOSITORY/611050397

Still, I had a wonderful time today, up in NH, despite the naked windshields of churchgoers’ cars. There was frost in the morning, sunshine at noon, and takeout burritos from my favorite restaurant (Shorty’s in Manchester) to take home to Frank. I visited Manchester, Concord, and Nashua–met lots of energetic and pumped-up Democrats of many ages, saw two Republican headquarters closed up and shuttered. 

But no windshield flyers, so I just hope that the many kind people who went out to look on my behalf had as many other consolations as I did. Now let’s get big media onto  those 300,000 deceptive robocalls!

xxxx
Betsy

Why didn’t I guess–this year’s last-minute deception is illegal phone-calls with a new twist on deception. Says Eric Moskowitz of the Concord Monitor: A letter-writer to the Monitor said she had been “bombarded by recorded election messages from [Democratic candidate] Paul Hodes.” Marilyn Jewell of Concord wrote that she would be sure to vote for [his Republican opponent Charlie] Bass, in part because “he doesn’t pester me to death.” What’s wrong with this picture? Hodes isn’t pummeling voters with repeated robocalls–Republicans are.

But it sure does sound that way, for the first ten seconds (“Hello, I’m calling with information about Paul Hodes…”) Hang up the phone? That’s fine with the robocallers, because they’ll call you back, again and again and again.

And NH isn’t the only place where this is happening.

• Here’s a recording from Illinois of three robocalls to the same answering machine: “Hello, I’m calling with information about Tammy Duckworth…”
• In Connecticut, these phone calls start coming as early as 5 a.m.
• At DailyKos, SB Woodside, tracking the national story, lists 15 races where this is going on.
• Also tracking the story, Talking Points Memo links to another robocall recording, this one from New York.

So where is our national media on this national story?

Too slow to catch up with this brand-new voter suppression tactic, at least until well after Tuesday’s election.

“The calls are designed to make you hang up right after the words ‘Paul Hodes,”‘ says Hodes campaign spokesman Reid Cherlin.

* OK, it’s a nasty trick, but is it illegal? Well, shouldn’t it be? FCC regulations provide that all prerecorded messages must “at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call.” [47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(b)]

Hello, “real media”–could you please cover this story?

p.s. Many thanks to Dave Winer, David Weinberger, Jeff Jarvis, Frank Paynter, and Elaine of Kalilily for your support on the the last-minute-deception story!

Update: I just got recordings of two NH robocalls.

Last-minute mailer from NH Republicans Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

Today is Sunday. On Sunday, millions of Americans gather in churches to celebrate their sense of wonder at the universe, their allegiance to tradition, and their hope for a future more just than the world around them. On the last Sunday before Election Day, Republican operatives go out in force with a last-minute message to stick under windshield wipers. And mainstream media is too slow, too divided, to report on what people are being told. But those “secret messages” won’t be secret if you and I take the time to make them public. I’m headed to spend my morning in church parking lots, photographing those last-minute leafletters and their leaflets. And whatever I find, I’ll put up on Flickr and tag it “Election2006” so that others can see it too. Please join me–email me your photos if you don’t have a way to post them yourself–we have a voice now, so let’s use it–join me!

p.s. That picture is a last-minute mailer from the NH Republican State Committee. Thanks to D Fowle of the NH Gazette for posting that photo and inspiring my quest!

p.p.s. I’m up in NH — photos when I get home. The news here is that real NH Republican voters are too turned off to turn out for leafletting church parking lots–yay, NH! I knew people in my state had a lot of sense.

In the absence of actual volunteers, anyone willing to go door-to-door with GOP leaflets are allegedly getting $100 bucks for their troubles. And, in the absence of actual volunteers, the National Republican Congressional Committee has turned to 300,000 robocalls to NH, hitting some voters three or four times a day with calls that sound as if the Democrats made them.

Democrats have protested to the US Attorney that these calls are targetting even people on the national don’t call list–that’s illegal in NH. The NRCC says that calls will continue because NH law “does not apply” to calls made form out of state.

You’ve just got to love those Republican family values.

Peaceful freedom on a field of blue

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

Look at that peaceful bird, riding his tropical breeze toward the island of home.

Dear reader, I thank you for your patience with the occasional outages here at this blog. I pledge to keep bringing you stuff that I think you’ll enjoy–sometimes wonderful wonders, like this chance image from the Galapagos when I went swimming with seals.

And other times, political stuff like the truly ugly photo I’m about to post next, so please forgive me!