Hold onto your hats, here it comes: The Kerry Republican attack dogs are about to launch ads reminiscent of their Willie Horton attack on Michael Dukakis. The name of the group responsible for the ads is MoveonforAmerica.org.

MoveOnForAmerica.org was created due to the Bush campaign’s largely timid ads against Mr. Kerry, and will air this first ad starting Tuesday Sept. 7th in the Washington D.C. market and in key swing states beginning Monday September 13th. Since the organization is a “non-connected” committee, the ads will run non-stop until Election Day, and are not subject to the McCain-Feingold ban during the campaign’s final 60 days.

MoveOnForAmerica.Org is a group of citizens created by its president, DC-based GOP political consultant Stephen Marks. Specializing in opposition research and media, Mr. Marks has consulted dozens of candidates at all levels from presidential to congressional, including consulting for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Republican Governors Association. Mr. Marks has also been a press secretary in GOP campaigns [including Jeb Bush’s bid for governor in 1994], as well as an investigative journalist for such publications as Penthouse and New York Newsday. Mr. Marks also currently hosts The Stephen Marks Show heard weekly on KFNX Radio in Phoenix.

Update: The Pentagon's acceptance of Judicial Watch's complaint, as opposed to merely its acknowledgment of receipt of it, has yet to be credited by mainstream media. See the many comments. See also the Sept. 3 Chicago Sun Times article which says no action on the complaint has been taken.

Update: Time Magazine reported on June 22, 1998 that Richard Mellon Scaife, the "premier sugar daddy of the American right" gave Judicial Watch $550,000. in 1997. (available on lexis.com) The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported last week that Scaife continues to give annually to Judicial Watch through his Carthage Foundation, and details another complaint Judicial Watch has filed questioning donations to Kerry's senate campaign.

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Your tax dollars at work. The Pentagon is going to investigate John Kerry's receipt of five Vietnam war medals.

The highly unusual inquiry is to be carried out by the Inspector-General's Office of the US Navy. Senator Kerry served as a Swift boat captain for four months in 1968, serving two tours of duty in Vietnam. He was wounded in action and awarded three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.

It should come as no surprise who's behind the ridiculous move. Judicial Watch, which is anything but bipartisan, in my constitutionally protected opinion.

...the navy has agreed to a request by Judicial Watch, a bipartisan lobby group, for a full inquiry. Judicial Watch wants the navy to report before the elections, but navy officials are so far refusing to give a timetable for the inquiry.

Response from the Kerry campaign:

In an angry statement from Kerry campaign headquarters, senior Kerry adviser Michael Meehan condemned the navy inquiry as an expensive waste of Pentagon resources. "The facts are clear," Mr Meehan said. "The navy awarded John Kerry the Silver Star, a Bronze Star . . . and three Purple Hearts. This is a waste of taxpayers' dollars and the Pentagon's time, especially during wartime."

Mark Gisleson at Norwegianity has an even better response.

Other examples of Judicial Watch's lawsuits:

From the "pants on fire" department: In his convention speech, Bush touted his Administrations' passage of sweeping Medicare reforms. So why are Medicare prices rising an unprecedented 17%?.

Update: Kerry rips Bush over his false convention promise to make Medicare stronger.

Update: I received an email purportedly identifying the protester and forwarded it to Jen Maxfield, the reporter in the WABC video. Hopefully, the email will reach her. I will leave it to their investigative reporting staff to determine if its accurate.

Update: Jen Maxfield replied. She is in Florida covering the hurricane. Again, I'm not publishing the name since I don't know if it's the right person. If a media outlet or recognized journalist contacts me, I will provide them with the email I received.

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Watch this ABC news video of a young Republican supporter kicking a female protester inside Madison Square Garden as she was lying on the ground being held by three secret service agents. The protesters were arrested. The young Republican was not. A search is on for his identity. Have you seen him?

If so, reply here.

[comments now closed, there are 175 of them.]

Is there more than a casual connection between al Qaeda and the Chechen separatist rebels who took 1,000 hostages at a school in Beslan, Russia this week, killing 338 of them, including 156 children? Russian officials think so and point out that 10 of the 32 attackers were Arab. All but two were killed.

Chechens have been affiliated with the al Qaeda terror network, and an Arab connection suggests a further link between the Chechen rebel movement and international terrorism. Chechen rebels have been fighting Russian troops for a decade, seeking independence. Itar-Tass quoted an unidentified intelligence official as saying the school assault was financed by Abu Omar As-Seyf, an Arab who allegedly represents al Qaeda in Chechnya, and directed by Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, The Associated Press reported.

Valery Andreyev, local head of the FSB security service, was quoted by Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy as saying the militants may have received help from local police, possibly because they were coerced, Reuters reported.

The cable news networks are wall-to-wall hurricane coverage. If you want the news on other issues, check the blogs:

Skippy on why the Time/Newsweek Bush Bounce polls are not to be trusted.

SK Bubba, Avedon Carol at Sideshow and Natasha at Pacific Views have great roundups of blog political coverage. SK Bubba also recounts his thoughts on Bush's convention speech.

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly comments approvingly on military analyst William Arkin's oped in the LA Times listing five mistakes Bush has made in the War on Terror. He also debunks a new Time Magazine article on Bush's plans for a second term that suggests Bush may give up preemptive strikes for less militaristic options like supporting opposition movements:

In other words, anyone who thinks they won't find excuses for further military action in a second term just isn't paying attention. A vote for Bush is a vote for more wars, and with this crew in charge it's unlikely they'll turn out any better than Iraq has.

Conservative Andrew Sullivan won't vote for Bush in November because contrary to Bush's protestations, he's not truly in support of freedom. Bush wants to deny freedom and dignity to gays. Sullivan lists a few other reasons that true conservatives cannot support Bush:

...the only difference between Republicans and Democrats now is that the Bush Republicans believe in Big Insolvent Government and the Kerry Democrats believe in Big Solvent Government. By any measure, that makes Kerry - especially as he has endorsed the critical pay-as-you-go rule on domestic spending - easily the choice for fiscal conservatives. It was also jaw-dropping to hear this president speak about tax reform. Bush? He has done more to lard up the tax code with special breaks and new loopholes than any recent president. On this issue - on which I couldn't agree more - I have to say I don't believe him. Tax reform goes against the grain of everything this president has done so far. Why would he change now?

The AP reports that a government response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for Bush's National Guard records show that documents are missing--five types of documents that should have been created are not in the file.

Records of Bush's service have significant gaps, starting in 1972. Bush has said he left Texas that year to work on the unsuccessful Senate campaign in Alabama of family friend Winton Blount. The five kinds of missing files are (direct quote from article):

• A report from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing. The government has released copies of those DD Form 44 documents for Bush for 1971 and earlier years but not for 1972 or 1973. Records from Bush's draft board in Houston do not show his draft status changed after he joined the guard in 1968. The AP obtained the draft board records Aug. 27 under the Freedom of Information Act.

• Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status. When Bush skipped his 1972 physical, regulations required his Texas commanders to ``direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination,'' according to the Air Force manual at the time. An investigative report was supposed to be forwarded ``with the command recommendation'' to Air Force officials ``for final determination.''

With the conventions over, Bush and Kerry have crystallized their campaign themes.

Bush will define himself as commander in chief, while Republicans try to mobilize a vast ground campaign to get out their own votes. Kerry will sharpen his defense to blunt GOP attacks on his leadership capacity, coupling this with an assault on what the GOP convention revealed is Bush's soft underbelly: the economy and domestic policy.

The fight will be taken to the wavering states that neither side can afford to lose -- places like Florida, Ohio, Oregon and New Mexico -- and where, despite months of campaigning, tens of millions of dollars of advertising and two conventions, both sides remain statistically neck and neck. Few states are more pivotal than Pennsylvania.

Good move by Kerry in picking former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart as his chief spokesman.

The GOP convention showed, Lockhart said, that Bush has no new ideas on domestic policy and "doesn't seem to get that millions of Americans are struggling out there, or even to be open to changing any of the policies he's pursued over the years." Indeed, any tour of Madison Square Garden frequently revealed that the economy is not the GOP's strong suit. Speakers largely glossed over it, though delegates from Midwestern manufacturing states readily admitted that jobs are a big issue there, and GOP operatives confirmed that their own polling showed as much.

Bush's speech showed his weakness on economic issues:

The Rocky Mountain News has some praise for convention bloggers in an editorial today marking the 35th birthday of the Internet.

The Internet is changing politics for the better, with both major U.S. parties for the first time credentialing people who host online journals called web logs, or blogs. Denver attorney Jeralyn Merritt, of www.talkleft.com was at the Republican National Convention offering a perspective quite unlike those found in either newspapers or on television.

And a big thanks to conservative blogger John Cole at Balloon Juice who writes:

BTW- In case you missed a lot of the coverage of the protests, Jeralyn Merritt was there, and despite the fact that I disagree with damn near anything she says, she clearly had the best of the lefty blog coverage.

I think all the liberal convention bloggers at the RNC did a terrific job--we covered the protests, the speeches, the shortcomings of the Bush Administration and more with personalized observations and reactions. A huge thanks is due the Tank for hosting us.

Please read all the Tank bloggers' coverage, accessible here. TalkLeft's complete coverage is here.

Where do we go from here? Maybe the DNCC or the Kerry campaign will grant bloggers press credentials to blog live on election day from campaign headquarters. Maybe the mainstream media will sponsor bloggers to live blog the election along side its political reporters. If you have other ideas how to expand the voice of bloggers for the election, let's hear them.

Iraqi officials report that Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, a top aide to Saddam, has been captured:

Iraqi and U.S. forces arrested a man believed to be the most wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in a bloody raid in which 70 of his supporters were killed and 80 were captured, Iraqi officials said on Sunday.
Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, who was sixth on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and had a $10 million price on his head, was captured in Tikrit, Saddam's former powerbase north of Baghdad, the Defense Ministry said.

Our ever-forthcoming military responds:

The U.S. military said Ibrahim was not in its custody, and it had no information on whether he was being held by Iraqis.

DNA testing is underway. How much of a current threat is Ibrahim? Apparently, not much.

Iraq's defense ministry said on Sunday that Ibrahim, Saddam's number two for decades and now seriously ill with leukemia, was captured in a Tikrit clinic not far from his home village al-Dour, where Saddam was caught in December.

A State Department official today said the U.S. is close to capturing Osama bin Laden.

The United States and its allies have moved closer to capturing Osama bin Laden in the last two months, a top U.S. counterterrorism official said in a television interview broadcast Saturday. "If he has a watch, he should be looking at it because the clock is ticking. He will be caught," Joseph Cofer Black, the U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, told private Geo television network.

As many, including us, have said a few times, it will be no surprise when Bush pulls Osama out of a hat before the election. And foreign newspapers have claimed a few times we've already captured him. See here and here.

Take another look at Osama bin Lotto. And at this Doublethink discussion .

Update: And Iddybud.

New York Magazine has a photologue up of the New York's Republican Class of 2004. Some of them are priceless. My favorite:

Lucianne Goldberg, Internet guru, agent provocateur

Gawker says:

Apparently, some feel New York didn't use the most flattering pictures of GOPers in the magazine's special convention issue....why doesn't anyone realize that the Republicans are ugly no matter how you present them?

[commenters are repeating themselves, enough. comments closed on this post. Submit any further comments to New York Magazine or Gawker, which published and commented on the Republican photos, links above.]