[Cross-posted at Dailykos]

The Democrats may have gotten a temporary win against Bush's social security privatization plan, but it is almost inevitable that with their current approach, they will lose the battle eventually. Why?

Let me explain with an analogy. Consider a man living with his family (wife and kid) in a desert that is about a 100 miles from the nearest perennial river (water source). He blows his minimal savings and maxes out his credit card buying expensive high-definition televisions and home entertainment systems - neglecting to fix faulty electrical wiring that he set up. The faulty wiring, not unexpectedly, results in a fire and threatens to raze his house to the floor. In response, he demands that his wife turn over the small sum she had secretly saved so that he can purchase flood insurance with it. (You read that correctly - flood insurance).

[Continued below the fold!]

Over the last week or so I've been watching the JeffJames GannonGuckert scandal unfold thanks to the excellent work of SusanG and her fellow Kossacks at Dailykos, John Aravosis at Americablog, Atrios at Eschaton, World O'Crap and others.

In the middle of all the debate about who Gannon is, how and why he got access to the White House, why his (and Talon News') stenography on behalf of the Republican Party and the Bush White House continued for so long without it being discovered, etc., interesting questions of a more general nature have arisen. Namely, what qualifies one to be a "journalist" and what qualifications are required for the said "journalist" to be admitted into the White House (or more generally to Government or Political events or press conferences). Tonight, I noticed that David Corn decided to review Gannongate on his blog in an attempt to ask whether there is any "there" there.

Corn's post is a thoughtful one, but unfortunately he plays right into the hands of the usual right-wing frauds by asking the wrong question, in a post titled "Problems with Gannongate".

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Given the significant number of websites that have started publishing about the Bush administration's  attempt to gut social security using their usual campaign of mass deception, I thought it would be useful to collect all (or most of) the relevant facts in one place and make it easy for people to find the rebuttals and talking points in one location.

That's what I've done at my website here [which is updated periodically as new information emerges]:
http://www.eriposte.com/policy/socialsecurity.htm

I've broken up the coverage into a few sections (and sub-sections) for convenience...

[More in Extended Entry...]

A couple of days ago I saw this story about 1500 voter registration forms in Leon County Florida that had been fraudulently altered to claim the students were Republican. At the time I thought...here we go again...and I posted that in my Vote Fraud clearinghouse site Vote Watch 2004.

Today, I noticed Chris' earlier post on how the RNC is apparently accusing a group called ACORN of somehow indulging in voter fraud and trying to link them to the DNC (weakly). Then as I was browsing Digby's site I found Digby had the same article I had posted earlier about Leon County - 1500 students - Republicans - etc. and mentioned...yes, ACORN. That's when it registered (pardon the pun) in my head that there is a little more to left-leaning ACORN than the RNC would like us to believe...

In other words, the group the RNC is criticizing - ACORN - is actually involved in at least one incident where the group's workers registered 1500 students falsely as Republican, not Democrat or ... An extract from the FL story is below the fold and is cross posted here.

[Indeed, as Digby says: "If I were a suspicious person, I might think that some enterprising GOP dirty tricksters were infiltrating liberal voter registration groups"]

Cross posted at Vote Watch 2004:

Via Informed Public and Mark Kleiman, we have this NBC story:

Local republicans get a slap on the wrist after they are accused of trying to persuade democrats not to vote.
Most polls show that the race between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry is still very close in West Virginia, and each camp is going the distance to clench a victory for their candidate.

But now, election officials believe some in the Eastern Panhandle are going too far.

In a letter, Berkeley County clerk John Smalls cites calls from a cell phone were made to Eastern Panhandle democrats telling them that they were not registered to vote. The letter also said the calls informed democrats in some cases they wouldn`t be able to vote on Election Day.

John Ott is the top election official in Jefferson County. "This is an improper act and they should notify the proper authorities," he said.

It`s considered an improper act because when upset citizens called the voter registration office to make sure they were registered to vote, indeed they were. So, who made these misleading calls? The Berkeley County Clerk`s Office traced the number voters gave as the source back to the Eastern Panhandle Republican Headquarters.

"Whenever you give misinformation to encourage voters to stay home, we all suffer as a result," said John Fink with the Berkeley County democratic executive committee.

John Fink, who is with the Kerry Campaign, is concerned more about the effect of the calls than the callers.

"They really muddy the water with information or misinformation in this case that they`re putting out about the election process. There still is a large number of people we need to get into the fold. Now we`re democrats and republicans, but after the election we`re all Americans," said Fink.

Republican spokesperson Mary Diamond said the calls may have been an unfortunate part of a larger goal.

"The purpose of the calls is to make sure everyone is registered to vote. If they are, then great. That`s exactly what we need. The point is to make sure they are registered. Everyone needs to be registered to vote in this election, it`s as simple as that," said Diamond.

[PREFACE: This is my first diary. I just joined as a user/participant in MyDD - a site that I like very much - especially for the excellent analysis of polls. I appreciate the opportunity to add notes/comments here.]

As of yesterday I kicked off a new website dedicated to tracking voting irregularities, vote suppression, vote fraud, voter intimidation, etc. during Election 2004.
http://vote2004.eriposte.com/

My goal is to be Vote Watch central in the remaining few weeks. Please take a minute to visit and note the fairly large number of irregularities/fraud/suppression incidents reported already in different states - PA, OR, NV, CO, FL, GA, SD and OH.

If there are other incidents that are not covered there, please bring them to my attention if you can (my email address is listed on the website above).

Incidentally, I also have useful links to debunk/refute smears against Kerry, especially Swift Vet related.