Bush's Brain will do what Republicans have successfully done for the past decade or so. They will try and win by the most devious means, that failing, they will do their best to steal it.
We all know what the issues are or should be. The war, total imcompetence, cumpusive lying, curtailing domestic spending while increasing total expenditures by 50%. Tax cuts for the rich at a time of the worlds all time largest deficit. Outsourcing jobs while importing labor (both skilled and non-skilled) The largest trade deficit of all time. Downsizing veterans hospitals just as the shell-shocked and maimed veterans start to return home. Domestic spying by Choicepoint which has now become an intrical part of Bushco.
The hell with the issues. Rove will bring up his own issues designed to inflame the rednecks against all others. They are called "wedge" or social issues. They are not real issues, effect no one, but tend to gets peoples blood boiling, You had best be on the right side of them or the so called "socially conscious" wings of both parties will never give you a vote. Privicy, education, torture, homelessness, etc. get eased out of the equation.
A constitution ammendment making it illegal to burn the flag.
A constitution ammendment making English the National language.
A constitution ammendment prohibiting gay marraige.
The issues of Immigration amd illegal aliens have them confused. Bush is very happy with illegal labor, amnesty, a "guest worker" program and H1B as a present to his corporate friends, but the backlash against this will cause the house to jump ship. If no bill is passed we could always inforce the existing laws.
Stealing the election. In 2000 a company named Choicepoint removed 100,000 name from the Dade County voting list. People with no reasons to have their names removed. This same company illegally sold 145,000 social secutity numbers and other information to a band of theives. They are now in charge of the data obtained illegally by the NSA.
The other partner in voter theft, Diebolt, has come out with a new voting machine making tampering easier.
Here is some stuff on the players:
The super-secretive NSA, which has generally been barred from domestic spying except in narrow circumstances involving foreign nationals, has monitored the e-mail, telephone calls and other communications of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people under the program, the New York Times disclosed last night.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.
WASHINGTON — The nation's giant in personal-information collection, which announced recently that it had unwittingly handed at least 145,000 Americans' Social Security numbers and other private records to a ring of crooks, is also a major government contractor, providing the tools in sophisticated homeland security screening and law enforcement surveillance efforts.
ChoicePoint
The ChoicePoint fiasco has been news for over a week now, and there are only a few things I can add. For those who haven't been following along, ChoicePoint mistakenly sold personal credit reports for about 145,000 Americans to criminals.
This story would have never been made public if it were not for SB 1386, a California law requiring companies to notify California residents if any of a specific set of personal information is leaked.
ChoicePoint's behavior is a textbook example of how to be a bad corporate citizen. The information leakage occurred in October, and it didn't tell any victims until February. First, ChoicePoint notified 30,000 Californians and said that it would not notify anyone who lived outside California (since the law didn't require it). Finally, after public outcry, it announced that it would notify everyone affected.
They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But Choice Point can collect if for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then buy the info from Choice Point.
Last week, the voting watchdog organization Black Box Voting published a report detailing how Diebold's TS6 and TSx touch-pad voting machines could be compromised by taking advantage of "backdoor" features designed to allow new software to be installed on the systems.
Finnish security researcher Harri Hursti discovered backdoors in the systems boot loader software, in the OS, and in the Ballot Station software that it runs to tabulate votes.
