113 Things to Say...

You know, there are few feelings more satisfying than to find out that your job has been done for you.

I've just spent the last hour and a half or so gathering factoids and snippets about the current administration to answer, unequivocally, why I am against Bush in today's election. I figured I would publish a list of 50 or so reasons, complete with links to news stories and sources, to answer any and all questions about my allegiance in the race.

Then wouldn't you know it, I come across an article that not only has brilliantly already done such a thing, but increased my quotient by a factor of two.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=facts

Go ahead. Read it now. I'll wait right here.

All done? Cool.

And now, just so my efforts aren't in vein, I'll add 13 more to the tally:

1. Senator Tom Harkin: "If Bush is re-elected, he will have to restart the draft."
http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2004/10/29/10950

2. "Republican Logic." http://members.cox.net/cowicide/bushrather.jpg

3. Disgustingly dirty campaign tactics, even within his own party - "push polling" during the Republican primaries in 2000 created suspicion to steal the nomination from war hero John McCain. (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, p. 152)

4. Among his first acts as president: cut funding to Planned Parenthood overseas, passed a $1.6 trillion tax cut which went, primarily, to the rich, withdrew the U.S. from the Kyoto protocol, and delayed rules that would reduce "acceptable levels of arsenic in the drinking water". ("The Al Franken Show," 10/29/04, Lies, p. 164)

5. While no one was looking, there was yet another tax cut - $136 billion for businesses. (BTW, this makes Bush the only president in history to cut taxes at a time of war. And we WONDER how the deficit happened?) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=703&e=6&u=/ap/20041024/ap_on_go_pr_wh/corporate_taxes

6. I'm hardly the one to make comments about tasteless jokes, but what the heck was he thinking talking about "the trifecta?" http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/103104L.shtml

7. The only president to preside over a massive, foreign attack on U.S. civilian soil? The man whose campaign commercials paint as the only man who can protect America. ("The Al Franken Show," 10/29/04)

8. Bush said he was "not concerned" about Osama Bin Laden in a 2002 press conference, and then tried to say he didn't say that during the debates. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20041014/ts_latimes/bushnotconcernedaboutbinladenin02

9. Speaking of whom, where the heck is Osama, and why the heck haven't we caught the b@stard yet? http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Oct/20041031News025.asp

10. Even Eminem is against him. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=grahamfelsen

11. Bush has opposed stem cell research, impeding the search for a cure for diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, and Lou Gehrig's disease - this despite campaigning by Nancy Reagan on behalf of the cause, and the fact that all the embryonic stem cells used in such research are ALREADY BEING DESTROYED because they're the unused unfertilized embryos leftover from (perfectly legal) artificial insemination. (Lies, p. 290, "The Al Franken Show," 11/1/04)

12. BTW, the war's gonna cost us another $75 billion dollars in '05, according to the new budget. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595101126,00.html

13. "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief," Bush, to a campaign rally. (Well, far be it from me to argue with the President on THAT one.)

Hey, you know what? One way or another, I don't think we can lose. Kerry wins, the country (thankfully) moves in a new direction, away from the trend these 113 facts seem to indicate. Bush wins, we get another four years of political humor so easy it's like shooting fish in a barrel. This truly is a great time to be alive.

So, folks, go and vote. I just really hope you'll keep 113 things on your mind when you do.