Today, it's been a year since Riverbend last updated Baghdad Burning.

Cross your fingers, she and her family are alive and well.



h/t: DBK

I was literally on my way out the door, and I just heard Mika Brzezinski say on Morning Horseshit on MSNBC that "by way of balance, we should point out that what Barack Obama spends on a suit is some family's mortgage payment."

She's talking about the $150,000 in Republican National Committee funds that went to outfit Sarah Palin in designer clothing from Saks and Neiman-Marcus.

This is the $400 haircut all over again, and an even more idiotic attempt at "balance." What Barack Obama spends on his suits is his own business, AND HIS OWN MONEY. Outfitting Sarah Palin in designer duds is about the contributions of people donating money for the campaign, and instead finding themselves outfitting this woman who has already shown herself to be a greedy grubber of the money of the very Joe Sixpacks she claims to represent.

Why is it that a Republican who lives high off the hog on government expense and then presents herself as a working-class Mom is perfectly OK, but a Democrat who has the money to buy nice clothes but never forgot what he comes from and advocates policies that will help people like his late mother is somehow a hypocrite?

Labels: hack journalism, hypocrisy, just another outrage

Remember in 2004, when Denny Hastert said that Al Qaeda wanted John Kerry to be president:

At a campaign rally Saturday in his Illinois district with Vice President Dick Cheney, Hastert said al Qaeda "would like to influence this election" with an attack similar to the train bombings in Madrid days before the Spanish national election in March.

When a reporter asked Hastert if he thought al Qaeda would operate with more comfort if Kerry were elected, the speaker said, "That's my opinion, yes."

I wonder what Denny Hastert (and his party) thinks of this:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

SITE Intelligence Group, based in Bethesda, Md., monitors the Web site and translated the message.

"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

I wish I could say it was insulting that the person who wrote this thinks that Americans are so stupid that they would rally behind the candidate of the party that allowed Al Qaeda to commit not one but two attacks on American soil -- and did nothing to retaliate against those who actually committed the first one; that they would not be able to put two and two together and see the ineptitude of the Republican approach to terrorism.

But then I think about McCain/Palin voters and realize that while it might be insulting to me, it describes all too many Americans.

Labels: 2008 election, al-Qaeda, John McCain

If an effective campaign ad is one with simple images and words, than this is awesome:


(h/t)

Labels: 2008 election

A reader from New Zealand tipped me off to this insane screed by Ralph Peters from the New York Post. You'd have to love a paper where the subtitle of an op-ed is "US RISKS TURMOIL UNDER PREZ O" were the stakes not so incredibly high this year.

After all, look at some of the comments on this piece by someone posting under the name "T-Pain":

Kiwibloke is the only one who speaks the truth. New Zealanders do not want Americans to know that their country is a sleeping giant. A sleeping giant that will wake when B. Hussein Obama is elected and destroy our great, beautiful, brave, freedom-loving country.

Their prime minister's middle name is Al Qaeda. She has Kim Jong Il on speed dial. And they are ready and waiting to connect the greatest force of terror ever imaginable.

NZ Mike and "New Zealand" are trying to fool you. But they do not know that Americans are not easily fooled.

New Zealand will destroy us. If Obama gets in. Don't let that happen America. We are a proud peace-loving people. NZ is full of hate for our incredible, wonderful, democracy spreading country.

God Condemn NZ. Vote McCain and vote for peace.

************

You've never been to New Zealand. I have. I've lived there. It is definitely a Muslim country. And it wants war with the US. New Zealanders hate Americans. They will invade if McCain gets in. They're ready and waiting and they have nuclear weapons.

Vote McCain - Save The World God Condemn New Zealand.

*************

Seriously, New Zealand WILL invade if Obama gets in. Their troops are ready. They're just waiting.

God Bless America. God Condemn New Zealand.

*************

My head is not in the sand! Vote McCain he is the only one who can save us from the savage New Zealanders!

You know, I think that T-Pain's warning should be taken seriously -- as a reason to vote for Obama. After all, it's the Republicans who have closed their eyes over the last eight years to the growing threat from Saruman and his Orcs as the forces of darkness gather in New Zealand. /snark

Labels: wingnuttia

Today's honoree: Ta-Nehisi Coates. No money quote. Just go read it. Right now. Bring kleenex.

Labels: Barack Obama, bloggers

John Cole passes on a helpful door sign created by August J. Pollack. Since I live in a solidly Republican town, I'm going to post it on my door on Halloween.

Labels: Sarah Palin

But when you are a professional sucker at the public teat and grubber of free stuff like Sarah Palin, as well as being a lunatic, it costs more to make you look like something resembling a sane human being:

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.

Gee. I attended a company training session today and the only free swag I got was a refrigerator magnet with a clip on it and a pen.

I'm sure all those Mrs. Joe Sixpacks that Palin claims to speak for can relate to her spending sprees at luxury department stores, all paid for by the Republican Party. Because in Sarah Palin's America, letting the state pay for your kids' vacations in luxury hotels and taking free designer clothing makes you a regular person, but buying a dress off the rack at White House Black Market makes you an elitist.

Labels: greed, icepick meet forehead, Sarah Palin

The hypocrisy of this woman knows no bounds:

Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.

As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor's schedule.

But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by the governor to allow the children to attend.

Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her children.

"She said any event she can take her kids to is an event she tries to attend," said Jennifer McCarthy, who helped organize the June 2007 Family Day Celebration picnic in Ketchikan that Piper attended with her parents.

I don't care whether the organizers agreed to the children attending. This woman is running on a platform of "small government" and "accountability to the taxpayers" -- but she made Alaska's taxpayers pay for free vacations for her children.

That this election is even going to be close is a testament to the idiocy of at least 40% of Americans -- or a testament to how many Republican men vote with the "little head" instead of the one in their craniums.

Labels: hypocrisy, Sarah Palin

Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois senator Barack Obama has announced through his campaign that he is leaving the campaign trail for a few days to visit his suddenly gravely ill 85 year-old grandmother. Madelyn Payne Dunham, who was just released from the hospital, broke a hip and may not live to see the results of the November fourth election. Sen. Obama, with no fanfare, abruptly left the campaign trail to tend to his ailing grandmother in Hawaii.


In a related news item, Republican presidential candidate and Arizona senator John McCain has also left the campaign trail to tend to his 95 year-old mother, stating through McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds, "Whatever whatsisname can do, I can do better." Stating through Mr. Bounds that there are some things that are more important than politics, Mr. McCain rushed to his mother's side even though Mrs. McCain was not reported to be gravely ill.

"Look," Mr. Bounds said in an email to conservative journalists, "Mrs. McCain is one of the ten or twelve people in the country who can actually make Senator McCain feel and look younger. There is no truth to the rumor that the senator's mother is in good health."

As proof, a spokesman for Mrs. McCain said that an envelope containing white powder was mailed to her house, Jeff Gilooly and Tonya Harding tried kneecapping her with a lead pipe and instead of her regular Senior Center ride to the doctor, Karl Rove sent Senator Ted Kennedy to pick her up.

In one of the most disingenuous articles ever to appear in the New York Times, the hack-o-riffic Jim Rutenberg writes today about how "hate groups are mostly quiet this year":

“Right now,” said Mr. White, the head of the American National Socialist Workers Party, “we’re facing the potential of a half-black candidate financed by Jewish money going up against a white candidate financed by Jewish money, who are both advocating the same policy. So you’ve got two terrible choices.”

On Friday, about three weeks after that interview, Mr. White was jailed on suspicion of making threats against a juror who was on a panel in 2004 that convicted a white supremacist of plotting to kill a federal judge.

So stands the state of organized racism in 2008, paralyzed and at a crossroads in what would presumably be a pressing moment of action — the possibility that Senator Barack Obama will become the first black president — but has so far not been.

There have been sporadic reports throughout the country of Obama signs vandalized with swastikas, windows smashed at local Obama campaign offices and racist pamphlets dropped on doorsteps. Overt and thinly veiled racist comments about Mr. Obama have been caught on camera at rallies, and a Republican women’s group in California — the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated — has made headlines for a flier that showed Mr. Obama’s face on a faux food stamp that also included watermelon and fried chicken.

But party officials and organizations that monitor hate groups, always concerned about the specter of violence, report far less activity from the more traditional sources of open racism late in the race than they had expected.

“What we really haven’t seen is white supremacists really rallying over an Obama presidency,” said Mark Potok, the director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. “Hate groups are in a more or less stunned position right now; they haven’t been able to figure out how to proceed just yet.”

Bullshit, sayeth I. They aren't stunned, it's just that they don't have to put out the effort or spend the money, when there are so many supporters of the McCain Palin ticket who are only to happy to do their work for them, spreading their poison around the country.

Labels: right-wing hatemongers

Though I couldn't go to the debate personally today due to a bad virus that has laid me low, I have seen video of some of it and have been looking at alot of other video of the previous debates. Currently Himes is ahead by 3 points, within the margin of error, and I believe that these close numbers are due to the bullshit facade that Chris Shays projects as a very connected insider who is hand in hand with Joe Lieberman in belief and attitude that they, (as Bush followers and true believers,) know whats best for us.

Shays is a seemingly mild mannered liberal republican who hides a sharp temper and a belief in the neocon vision. Actually, according to a UConn/Hearst Newspaper poll, Himes is way ahead in the cities of Bridgeport and Stamford...way ahead, like, 54-35%...and an incumbent like Shays should not be that far behind in any polls at this point. There is still the matter of all of the undecideds in the surrounding towns, because Shays is so influential and has been around forever....but according to the CT Post:

The poll found that 86 percent of voters believe the country is on the wrong track. Seventy-five percent of them disapprove of the job President Bush is doing. Seventy-two percent disapprove of Congress while only 22 percent approve. Fifty-five percent said they would prefer Democratic control of Congress, while 34 said power should revert to the GOP.
...snip...
The poll found a 54-percent support for Obama and 34 percent for Republican standard-bearer John McCain, making it even harder for Shays to hold off Himes' challenge Nov. 4. Shays will need voters to split their tickets to win re-election.

The facts are so clear and the differences between these two are so stark that its a wonder, really, that there is a question as to which one should win this seat....except for the fact that this is a very, very rich area and the citizens here like those tax cuts. What is really pathetic is that people who really won't be hurting without those tax cuts will vote based on them even if the rest of the policy throws their children and the rest of their city and country under the bus.
Is that greed or laziness or what?




I'll have more on this in the weeks to come, but its clear that Shays can no longer slide by as New England's only Republican Congressman on the sheer power of his bullshit liberal act. He is not a liberal and he has been a big supporter of George Bush and his war of lies. The last minute apology act has been done before; its getting to be a pattern with this guy, and I can see that people are fed up with him.

There are many close races across the country and its very important now to step up and do some calling, contributing, and legwork. Close races abound with the specifics spelled out in races such as Minnesota's Coleman v. Franken sporting the same statistical spread that Shays v. Himes does. Senate races here show some predictable spreads in firmly red or blue states, but there is much more wiggle room than I would have expected in places like Colorado, Kentucky, and even Texas. A Franken worker told me on the phone tonite that it is imperative that they get additional funds to put television spots on in the more remote areas of a state like Minnesota because people there don't get much more than the news and paper, and one of the few ways to reach out is vis the TV. Think of how different the world would be if the Fairness Doctrine were in place right now and people got an array of opinions on radio and TV. I think that with the kind of filth that Limbaugh, Savage and O'Reilly are spewing, this must be an issue for every blue politician running for a seat anywhere in the country; how do we fight the constant onslaught of lies and degrading accusations coming from these hate-casters?...so send your pennies to whichever one is your's or strikes you as needy...act blue on one of the blogs..whatever. Franken's worker told me that in this economy, no amount is too small.

Closehouse races abound with close races from NJ to Texas. I'm not one to wholeheartedly believe polling numbers, especially in such an unusual and historical time, but I have a feeling that we are gonna see a blue avalanche, if for no other reason than because people just want to vote for something different. There is also the racial issue and how likely people are to be honest if there is a racial feeling involved in their preference; if people will even be honest with themselves about their feelings and fears.

For some interesting nonpartisan commentary and explanation on this, check out Polltrack. They currently have a great interactive presidential race map that projects ahead to tomorrow and even election day. Senate and House graphics are in the works there as well. Its the blog that is interesting because it explains whats going on in very plain terms without projecting too much into the drama of why.

I hope to be looking more closely at these numbers and the races behind them...but mostly I hope to be watching the blue numbers tip the scales more and more every day until we have a working majority that we can expect to fully represent the American people rather than big business, and to make some real lasting changes.

c/p RIPCoco

Labels: chris shays, Congress, Debate, jim Himes

What if John McCain and his mindless, grinning pit bull manage to pull this thing out? Just suppose that their racism and their fearmongering and their pitting citizen against citizen and playing to the darkest fears of the American reptilian brain work. Suppose that enough canvassers are beaten, and enough college kids and elderly women and young aspiring urban hip-hop artists are removed from the voter rolls, and enough voting machines have their smartcards switched to change every "n"th vote for Barack Obama to a vote for John McCain.

What kind of a country will the campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin have left us with?

It will be a country that has told millions of young Americans whose future is being squandered by Republican greed and abetted by Democratic cowardice that no, there is no hope. There is no future for you. No, we can't. There is no change you can believe in, because the dice are loaded and the game is fixed and the cigar-chomping fat guys in the pinstripe suits in the darkened room above the playing field want it all for themselves, and they Will Not Let You Have Any Of It.

It will be a country in which millions of black children who dared to believe that yes, it was possible for someone who looks like them to become president and therefore it might be possible for THEM to become president, will know that no, it is not possible. They will know that in the eyes of a bunch of frightened, mean-spirited white people, all they are and all they ever will be are just niggers -- that terrible word that no one dare say, so instead they, led by John McCain and Sarah Palin, talked about "Arab" and "terrorist" and tried to refight the 1960's culture wars on the backs and hopes and dreams of Americans a century and a half removed from the Civil War who STILL can't get a chance to grab for the brass ring.

It will be a country in which hate has become legitimate; a country in which Rush Limbaugh can spend the next four years alternately gloating that "his side won" and screaming about how killer negroes are coming to get you and liberals want to take all your money -- because Rush Limbaugh makes millions of dollars a year whipping white people being robbed by other white people into a frenzy of blame against those who have less. That's how he earns his living. That's what he gets paid to do.

It will be a country in which the wealthy get tax cuts and children get deprived of health care and education. It will be a country whose leaders talk about the sanctity of human life and then feed America's youth into a meatgrinder in the Middle East because we will have yet another president with issues about his more successful father and a Vice President whose insane religious fanaticism requires that millions of people die horribly so that her religious fantasy of death and fire and horror can come true. It will be a country that gives lip service to freedom but sets loose private military contractors to squelch uprisings in a population that finally will know that America is dead -- murdered by John McCain and Sarah Palin and all those who worked on this disgraceful, inhuman campaign of theirs; people who simply cannot control their baser natures and therefore can't believe that anyone else possibly could either -- and so they insist on a nation in which authority is all-powerful and people are kept frightened so they can be controlled -- frightened of Arabs. Frightened of black people. Frightened of poverty. Frightened of women. Frightened by sex.

How on earth can any sane person want to live in that country? And why on earth would anyone actively vote to create it?

A side note: Our thoughts tonight are with Barack Obama, who has gone to Hawaii to be at the bedside of his ailing grandmother. Madelyn Dunham will be 86 years old on Saturday and her condition is deteriorating. I hope that Sen. Obama knows that the thoughts and prayers of millions of Americans are with him and his family at what must be a terribly difficult time for him. I also hope that the Usual Suspects on the right will have the decency to shut the hell up. But somehow, I'm not optimistic.

UPDATE: Yup. Right on cue.

Labels: John McCain, right-wing hatemongers, Sarah Palin

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the last spittle-flecked gasp of the homemade grassroots neocons who support their man John McCain.

When I say that I cannot get into the mindset and gain some valuable insight into the conservative mind, I'm not fooling. So please don't ask me for insight when some guy sets up shop near a McCain appearance and starts handing out Obama bumper stickers saying "Obama For Change" and using a Soviet-era sickle for the "C" and a Muslim crescent while railing about Obama's still-alleged Muslim roots.

Maybe I fell asleep in high school history class but when did the Muslims ever control the Soviet Union and how, in their Bizarro World algebraic thinking, did Obama get mixed up in this Xtreme whiteboarding of history?

Well, along comes into the mix a Muslim McCain campaign staffer, a Mr. Daniel Zubairi, to decry this man's snake oil salesmanship, saying that the McCain campaign doesn't condone this kind of conduct. Many moderate McCain supporters, Christian and Muslim alike, rallied around him and united to hound bumper sticker guy out of the area (he refused to give out his name when asked).

The Muslim McCain staffer? The campaign's not letting Mr. Zubairi talk to CNN to tell his side of the story. That's gratitude for you not to mention an incredibly stupid choice to pass up a golden opportunity to get back some of the Muslim votes that this unnamed assclown had already chased away.

Add to this an Obama canvasser, a woman, fer crissakes, getting punched in the face by a guy who's suddenly passionate about ACORN and an Obama supporter's tires getting slashed and you're getting just a tiny picture of the thuggery we liberals and progressives are up against. Don't think for a minute that when Obama gets in the White House these maniacs will lick their wounds and hide in their dog houses for the rest of their lives.

McCain's dead just before the finish line. And when meat turns rotten, it will inevitably attract maggots.

Our great friend Brad of Brad Blog was able to break this story live on Fox News last night in the midst of an appearance with scary John Fund, punditizing for the left on a segment that was purported to be about voter disenfranchisement/fraud through home foreclosures. These things usually devolve into a tit for tat of "well, no one made the borrowers take the loans" versus "well, no one made the banks loan the money," with the likes of Fund saying "poor banks were forced by Freddie/Fannie..." and that the unscrupulous borrowers should have known better...whatever; used to be that the lender did a thorough check as to whether a borrower could afford a loan. So, enter our hero, stage left, with a real breaking story about real, immediate, lawbreaking on the GOP side, and gasp!!! ...Fox led with the breaking story at the top of the news hour, and Fund is probably still bristling.

This is a great example of real news reporting meeting Faux News and the real stuff winning out.... Because when faced with stark truth, even in the face of the angry Fund types trying to spin it, this kind of thing can't get a footing even at Fox. They have to leave it with a "well, if this is true we will run it," statement...and then, they sorta have to run it...

Imagine what would happen if each outlet had to be fair and balanced, and if it was a matter of national regulation rather than corporate interest ...imagine what would happen if Americans had the actual information breaking from wherever the news was, without the spin, and were tasked with coming to their own conclusions...it sounds quaint and old fashioned, but here it is; reporting like it used to be....


Thanks, as always, to Brad for working tirelessly to get the truth out about making our votes count and be counted! This is probably the one most important issue leading to this election, and we all need to be aware of what is going on. Visit Brad often for the constantly breaking news and let your representatives know that you are watching this situation and that you expect to be protected and to have your vote counted.

c/p RIP Coco

Labels: Fox News, liars, vote suppression

Wingnut thug attacks Obama canvasser in Wisconsin:

Police in Caledonia are investigating the assault of a campaign volunteer as she was canvassing for Senator Barack Obama Saturday afternoon.

In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner.

“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.”

The man eventually stopped and the Caledonia police were called. Takehara was asked if she needed medical assistance, but she was not seriously injured. Instead, she says she was shaken up by the homeowner’s reaction.

Tim at Balloon Juice:

The violence will not be anything that the National Guard can suppress. It will be big Republican guys beating middle aged volunteers, vandalism, potshots in the night. Like they did in the 90’s super-patriots will wall themselves off in little clans. If they feel the need to act, they will follow McVeigh and Rudolph’s example and bomb something.

You cannot ‘put down’ festering bitterness like this. It will become a part of life like bad weather and dog crap on the sidewalk. It’s pretty easy to avoid, but we’re past that point now. John McCain decided to lose ugly. The party, always captive to the whims of the top of the ticket in the best of times, eagerly followed suit. Clever people at the top of the party are saying things that can only lead to violence if simpler folks in the ‘base’ take it seriously.

In the future, the notion of "selling your soul to the devil" will be associated with John McCain instead of Robert Johnson. Assuming Barack Obama is elected, these people will not stop. And every person injured as the result of John McCainn playing with matches should be on McCain's conscience.

Labels: John McCain, right-wing hatemongers

As a rule, I try to avoid garage and yard sales. Having had one myself earlier this year to get rid of some of the effluvia that had accumulated in this house, I'm loath to restock by buying up other people's crap.

But as I turned the corner on Saturday near my house, navigating a multi-family yard sale on three of four corners of an intersection, I saw something that made me turn the corner and park the car.

I didn't even haggle because the price was great.

And now, the hosta-rimmed shady area by the side of my house where two hemlocks died from a fungal infection eight years ago and a K-Mart rhododendron finally gave up the ghost after five years of struggling earlier this year, where nothing seems to want to grow except the tiger lilies I rescued from a neighbor's purge last year and the relentless English ivy that permeates the yard, is occupied by this:



I feel calmer already.

In case anyone other than the two Tarheels whom I know read this blog hasn't heard about this: Apparently in North Carolina, you cannot vote for Barack Obama by choosing a straight Democratic party line vote; you MUST make your presidential selection separately. This is not a vote suppression issue, it's just appallingly bad design and policy, passed in 1967.

More details here. Please pass the word on to your friends and relatives in North Carolina.

Labels: 2008 election

Brad Friedman was on Faux Noise yesterday breaking the news that the head of the Republican voter registration group, Young Political Majors that was coercing people into registering as Republicans in order to sign a petition, has himself been arrested for voter registration fraud.

From the California Secretary of State's press release (posted at Bradblog):

Mark Anthony Jacoby, who owns the firm known as Young Political Majors (YPM), was arrested after allegedly registering himself to vote, once in 2006 and again in 2007, at an address where did not live. An investigation by the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit revealed that Jacoby twice registered to vote at the address of a childhood home in Los Angeles although he no longer lived there.

The Secretary of State’s fraud unit and the Ontario Police Department arrested Jacoby near an Ontario hotel just before midnight Saturday. An arraignment date has not been scheduled yet.

“Voter registration fraud is a serious issue, which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud,” said Secretary Bowen, California’s chief elections officer. “Where there’s a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution.”

For his business, Jacoby traveled California and a number of other states collecting petition signatures and registering voters. Under state law, signature-gatherers must sign a declaration stating that they are either registered to vote in California or that they are eligible to do so. Jacoby allegedly registered to vote at his childhood address to meet this legal requirement.

Under California law, it is a felony punishable by up to three years in prison to register yourself when you are not entitled to vote and it is perjury to provide false information on a voter registration card.

On October 3, the Public Integrity Unit of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office charged Jacoby with four felonies: two counts of voter registration fraud and two counts of perjury. A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $50,000.

It's important to note that the Republicans are clearly embarking on a two-prong approach of stealing the election if they can through massive voter caging lists, voter intimidation at the polls, and rigged voting machines; and attempting to delegitimize Barack Obama if he is elected by blaming ACORN, which has done nothing other than hire unreliable people and then flag registrations gathered by these people that are likely to be fraudulent before passing them on AS REQUIRED BY LAW. On the other hand, we have Republican front groups doing the electoral equivalent of long-distance slamming, combined with deliberate registration fraud.

ACORN is required to submit all voter registration forms it receives to eliminate the possibility that voters might think they are registered when they are not. It is not unheard of for the trashing of voter registration forms to be used as a disenfranchisement tactic. In 2004, Voter Outreach of America was alleged to have thrown out registration forms decleared as Democratic because it was paid by the RNC to only sign up Democratic voters. Registration scams run by Christian Coalition goon Nathan Sproul were rampant during the last presidential election cycle. Funny how there was no Republican outrage over voter registration fraud when it's actually done by Republicans, instead of being done by employed individuals whose fraudulent activity is flagged by the organization that hires them as part of that organization's compliance with the law.

It's time to face the fact that Republicans do not want Democrats to vote. Period. I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that the Obama campaign seems to at least have a clue about what's going on, and is putting together an apparatus to try to deal with it. The problem is that once voters are denied the opportunity to vote on November 4, it's too late to re-enfranchisement them. And they only have to disenfranchise enough people to gain enough electoral votes to win.

Labels: disenfranchisement, Republicans, vote suppression

Tomorrow at 6 PM there is a rally prior to the final debate between Chris Shays (R-CT,)and his democratic challenger, Jim Himes in their battle for Connecticut's congressional seat. The debate .,takes place at the Holiday Inn Select at 700 Main St., in downtown Stamford, and should be really interesting. The rally is at 6PM with the debate at 7PM and open to the public. The official subject is foreign affairs and this should be great considering Shays support of the war and other sundry freedom spreading missions. I always like a good Shays debate because of his two faced lies that not even his old time supporters are buying anymore…not to mention how great old Chris thinks the economy is….

Shays is a hard nut to crack because he poses as a “liberal republican” even as few of his positions have been any less than neocon, and he has been a huge supporter, along with BFF Joe Lieberman, of the war in Iraq, traveling there some-teen times and only rethinking his position when an election was imminent. Shay’s manner is that of a soft spoken liberal, but behind that facade is a nasty temper protecting a true neo conservative ideology. I never got the idea that he knew what he was talking about regarding heath care when he jumped on board Medicare reform even as he set up forums to try to help his elderly constituents sort through the maze, and lied about the efficacy of Husky for his youthful constituents, many of whom cannot find doctors to take the very state insurance that Shays prides himself on. I have been at meetings where Shays was pro Bush as our fearless leader, and I subsequently had a conversation with him where he tried to divorce himself from his previous positions on Bush and the war. Shays may regret it now, but he drank the Bush Kool-aid and it’s a little disingenuous to suddenly, just weeks before an election where he had a strong challenge from Diane Farrell, begin the backpedaling….and now he continues his backpedaling because he sees the very strong possibility that the days of CT cronyism might be coming to a close. Shays lies when he claims to be a liberal. Just take a look at his voting record and its clear.



Jim Himes is a supporter of cutting taxes for the middle class, who are hurting horribly in this area of haves and have not’s. He is someone who comes from a background of public service and who has benefitted personally from a public education and so sees the importance of strengthening our education system. He is also someone who has extensive experience in business and the markets from his years as a businessman before going into the non profit sector full time. His experience in community service involved working on poverty initiatives to provide business advice, housing, and help with financial services. The work he did in building affordable housing involved green technology and energy efficiency. He is all about energy independence…and he seems to have some great ideas that are off the beaten path of the old crony network of which Shays is an integral part.

We are hoping for a big turnout in support of Himes in this close race, so please pass this information on to anyone who might be interested in attending or blogging about this.
Note that there is also a 10:30 AM debate at 400 Atlantic St; information here
Check Jim Himes out…this is one close race that is worth working for and writing about…if for nothing else than to take away Joe Lieberman’s best buddy and Iraq War traveling and disinformation partner.

c/p RIPCoco

Labels: chris shays, Debate, jim Himes

Yes, Senator McCain and Governor Palin -- this is what you have wrought. This is your campaign. This is your leadership at work. The man who did this is one of YOUR people. YOU have to answer for him. And if any of these nutballs is inspired to harm a hair on Barack Obama's head because YOUR campaign tactics are leading him to believe it would be OK, his blood will be on YOUR hands.

Oh, and the rest of you 43 or so percent who plan to vote for John McCain? This is what you're voting for. Just thought you should know.

(h/t)

Labels: John McCain, racism, right-wing hatemongers, Sarah Palin

The Naples (Florida) Daily News:

There are different ways to look at the choice for president of the United States.

We can look at the record of Republican John McCain and see there is a long story of duty — from Vietnam through Congress.

We can look at the shorter story of Democrat Barack Obama and see youth’s great potential alongside questions of his early influences and concerns about his approach to spending.

We see the historical contexts, including race and this being the most trying of times — so trying that they may shape the presidency rather than vice versa. We size up the outgoing presidential administration and find both candidates running against it.

In McCain and Obama we have candidates who say they are ready to make a change.

Obama, we believe, is the right candidate for true change, a clean break from the current administration. To be sure, most change has to go through Congress, but the tone is set at the White House.

[snip]

Southwest Florida is accustomed to the role of leader or observer of the American economy. Now we are a part of it and share the pain.

We also share a sense of optimism and a belief in the strength of America’s greatest assets, its people — who now long for something different. It will not be government solving all of our problems and fears through spending and growing and removing liberties. It will be individual Americans making decisions to improve their families and communities and their country, with good government an as ally.

Then we look at the vice presidential nominees. While Senate veteran Joe Biden disappoints those who push Obama for change at every opportunity, McCain chose Sarah Palin to preside a heartbeat away.

A selection made by a maverick?

That, with McCain vowing “a new direction,” was akin to praise for FEMA for a job well done on Hurricane Katrina.

That is our tipping point in this race. Forget what candidates say they will do if elected. The choice for vice president was their first clear indicator of how they will lead.

We can do better.

It is instructive to look back to Sept. 11, 2001. One of our darkest days. But our nation was together and the world was with us.

Now look: Seemingly never-ending wars and energy and health-care policies short of where they need to be. An economy of distrust.

Which brings us back to the various ways of looking at this contest. There are intense, loyal partisans who could never, ever vote for the other party’s candidate. We respect that and thank goodness for presidential elections, this one more so than some others, stirring that passion.

All of them want what’s best for America.

To the undecideds, we say we believe what’s best for America is a president who is bright, can listen, learn from mistakes of the past and lead us toward the change we need to make at home and abroad.

We believe the candidate to do that is Barack Obama.

I don't think I've ever seen the kind of eloquence in newspaper endorsements that I've seen this year, as paper after paper endorses Barack Obama. Sometimes it's grudgingly, as in the Washington Post endorsement. Sometimes it's less an endorsement of Obama than a smackdown of the reprehensible and cynical campaign of John McCain. And sometimes it's a genuine endorsement, sometimes tinged with wonder, as if the editorial board can't quite believe it's actually doing this.

Naples is about as rock-solid Republican a place as you're going to find. It's a moneyed town, with miles of four-lane highways rapidly becoming six-lane higheways, populated by golf course and other gated communities, upscale shopping centers, and luxury car dealerships. Its beachfront is lined with highrise condominiums with 1950's houses being torn down and replaced with McMansions just a few blocks away. The Ritz-Carlton has not one but two properties in Naples. The teachers and municipal workers and the maids, waiters, and pool boys at the luxury hotels can't efford to live there. And the local paper just endorsed the black guy for president.

Awesome.

Labels: Barack Obama, endorsements

The priorities of the Bush Administration: no probes of the financial meltdown, but plenty of the vast resources of the United States Justice Department to turn loose on ACORN because some of its $8/hour workers falsified voter registrations, which ACORN then flagged as dubious before sending them along AS REQUIRED BY LAW:

The FBI, after years spent focusing on national security, is struggling to find agents and resources to investigate wrongdoing tied to the country's economic crisis, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing current and former FBI officials, the Times said cutbacks in its criminal investigative workforce following the September 11 attacks left the FBI weaker in areas like white collar crime.

The cutbacks were the result of a shift in focus to terrorism and intelligence matters. More than 1,800 agents, or nearly one-third of all those in criminal programs, moved into those areas, the Times said.

"Clearly, we have felt the effects of moving resources from criminal investigations to national security," the newspaper quoted FBI Assistant Director John Miller as saying. "In white collar crime, while we initiated fewer cases over all, we targeted the areas where we could have the biggest impact. We focused on multimillion-dollar corporate fraud, where we could make arrests but also recover money for the fraud victims."

While the FBI plans to double the number of agents working on financial crimes, people within and outside the Justice Department question where the agents will come from and whether that will suffice, the Times said.

Records and interviews show that FBI officials have warned of a looming mortgage threat since 2004, and asked the Bush administration to fund such nonterrorism investigations, but the requests were denied and no new agents were approved for financial criminal investigation work, the newspaper said.

Internal FBI data shows the cutbacks were especially sharp in areas of white collar crime like mortgage fraud, with more than 600 agents lost, or more than one-third of 2001 levels.

According to Justice Department data, fraud prosecutions directed at financial institutions dropped by nearly one-half from 2000 to 2007, insurance fraud cases fell 75 percent and securities fraud decreased by 17 percent, the Times said.

Labels: Bush Administration, Republic Party, vote suppression

I don't know why Colin Powell has any credibility left among anyone. Here is a man who was regarded as honest, a general of integrity, who sold it all to lie to the United Nations and the world for George W. Bush. When Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on the Bush years is written, the downfall of both Colin Powell and (I hope) John McCain will be attributed to their placing their loyalty to this small, venal president over doing the right thing.

But there are those for whom Powell is still a respected figure, and I guess that for them, the fact that Powell is endorsing Barack Obama is a Big Deal:


Props to Powell for slamming McCain on the Ayers flap and on his appalling lack of judgment in choosing the even more appalling Sarah Palin as his running mage. Props to Powell for pointing out the bigotry inherent in the "He's a Muslim" meme and why it shouldn't matter even if Obama was.

But shame on Tom Brokaw, however, for his shameless shilling for John McCain in this interview. Shame on him for using the "some will say..." device, popularized by the likes of Katie Couric and Matt Lauer to bring the worst crap from Drudge into the mainstream, for saying that this man, who sold his soul to Republicans for years, is only supporting Barack Obama because Obama is black. Perhaps the McCain campaign really did demand a lapdog from NBC in return for access. But NBC already has one in the person of Joe Scarborough. To embed Brokaw's nose firmly into McCain's anus and then give him the Meet the Press anchor spot is unconscionable.

Labels: Colin Powell, hack journalism, Tom Brokaw

It's clear this is going to have to become a series. It's also clear that I'm going to be linking to Bradblog a lot over the next two weeks.

Today's Republican Electoral Shenanigans: Votes are being switched from Democratic to Republican on touch screens in West Virginia.

From the linked article at the Gazette Mail:

At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.

Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk's office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.

"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain," said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.

When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge "responded that everything was all right. It was just that the screen was sensitive and I was touching the screen too hard. She instructed me to use only my fingernail."

Even after she began using her fingernail, Matheney said, the problem persisted.

When she tried to vote for candidates running for two open seats on the Supreme Court, the electronic machine canceled her second vote twice.

On her third try, Matheney managed to cast votes for both Menis Ketchum and Margaret Workman, Democratic candidates for the two open seats.

Calvin Thomas, 81, who retired from Kaiser Aluminum in Ravenswood in 1983 and now lives in Ripley, experienced the same problem.

"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.

"The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican," Thomas said.

"When I hollered about that, the girl who worked there said, 'Push it again.' I pushed Obama again and it stayed there. Then, the machine did the same thing for other candidates.

There is absolutely no way in hell this is accidental.

It is important for all of us to understand the machines on which we vote. Here in my neck of the woods, we vote on the Sequoia Advantage machines that have been shown to be vulnerable to hacking. The only thing we can do, since we have no paper trail, is to look at the LCD window that's next to the vote casting button and see if it matches what we pressed on the keypad. But the bottom line is that no matter where you vote, your vote is vulnerable to tampering. And while John McCain and Sarah Palin are whipping their frothing minions into a hate-filled frenzy about "voter fraud" because people being paid a few bucks by ACORN are slackers, there is active vote-switching, almost all of it from Democratic to Republican, going on in early voting.

Labels: electronic voting machines, vote suppression

I've got to admit that during this campaign I haven't been as taken with Obama as some people have. I find myself too disappointed in the process as its been to believe in promises anymore. Maybe its age but these days I hang back with my heart until I see it all in motion. I'm not a true believer in a system being played as if any pure theory of government works without some overlap. The truth of political campaigns is that they are full of empty promises and ideas until its clear that the bodies are all in place and the votes are there to support a promised agenda. Even then, these plans, in the best case scenario, go into working mode with, hopefully, enough representation from the other side to balance, but not enough to stop progress. Somewhere along the line the spinners have convinced the American people that there isn't tremendous room for shaping the ideas that are set forth in these lofty speeches.


c/p RIPCoco

Labels: Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, John McCain, trust, truth

These are people waiting to get into a Sarah Palin rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, October 11, 2008:


I'm ashamed that these people live in my country. I'm ashamed that generations of American young people have died fighting for the United States and the American Dream and this is into what the country they fought for and which we love has degenerated -- a place full of frightened, angry, hate-filled lunatics. I'd say animals, except that for the most part, animals only kill for food and don't know hate.

This is what you have wrought, John McCain. This is what you have brought upon our country with your win-at-all-costs lust for the presidency. This is what you have unleashed. And it won't go away if you are elected -- or if your froth-mouthed minions succeed in beating the crap out of enough black people and college students that they deliver you the White House for which you so obviously lust for so insatiably. You used to be a human being, Senator McCain. Go look in the mirror. Do you like what you see?

Labels: right-wing hatemongers

In case you aren't a regular reader of this blog, or if you are, if you've been on the planet Neptune for the last month, you may not know that our own highly flawed comedic patron saint, Marc Maron, is traveling around the country with the U.K. Guardian, chronicling the American condition in advance of the November 4 election. From bikers in Nevada to truck stops and pawnshops in Arizona, Maron is giving us a glimpse of pre-election America that you won't get on CNN. You can catch this Iggy Pop Charles Kuralt at Maron v. Seder at 3:00 PM Eastern Time every weekday, or past shows here Or you can follow the Guardian's excellent election coverage, which also features the incomparable James Ridgeway, at its On the Road to the White House blog.

Labels: comedy, Marc Maron

CNN's investigative reporter Drew Griffin says that if there is any fraud involved with ACORN's voter registration efforts, it's fraud committed AGAINST ACORN by people who copied names out of the phone book or made them up.


Kudos to Griffin for pointing out that there was NO fraud on the part of ACORN to try to swing an election; that the fraud was from people who didn't want to do the job for which they were paid. Kudos also to Griffin for pointing out that there's a long road from false voter names to false votes and there is virtually no evidence that one leads to another. I only wish Griffin had pointed out that instead of accusing ACORN of sloppiness, he had noted that ACORN also flagged those registrations it believed to be false when turning them in BECAUSE BY LAW THEY WERE REQUIRED TO TURN THEM IN. REAL voter registration fraud is doing things like coercing people into changing their registrations to sign a petition, as Republicans have done, or throwing registrations away so that people who think they have registered to vote find on Election Day that they haven't.

With all their outrage about so-called "voter fraud", Republicans care not one bit about voting machines that switch votes and thugs being recruited to intimidate voters. The snippet from Sarah Palin simply points out that her party believes it's better that millions of Democratic voters be denied their right of franchise than to have even a miniscule possibility that a few dozen people, out of tens of millions of eligible voters, might show up to vote.

Labels: 2008 election, vote suppression

I can never decide whether I find Cindy McCain appalling or pathetic. On the rare occasions when she's opened her mouth during this campaign, it's been to say something nasty about her opponents. On the other hand, when I see her up there with her husband and Sarahcuda, with that little rictus of a stiff smile, I wonder what she thinks of her husband traveling around the country with this year's conservative pinup girl, especially given his past as a womanizer with a wandering eye.

I also wonder what's happened to her sense of style. I remember back in 2000, when her face was mobile, she used to dress in those smart tailored suits so favored by Republican women. Her hair was short, frosted, and pixieish, and her face was animated. Now she wears her hair unflatteringly long, it looks dried out, and the little puffy sleeved dresses she seems to favor these days all too often don't flatter a woman in her fifties, even an attractive one with good facial bone structure.

Cindy McCain always seems unhappy to me; a woman playing a role she really doesn't like. On the whole, though, she seems far less sanctimonious than most Republican political wives and aside from the quarter of a million dollars in bling she wore to the Republican National Convention, doesn't seem to flaunt her wealth.

Yes, she had her little problem with painkillers and her charity, but I don't see her running all over the country demanding stiffer sentences for drug users either. And when all's said and done, she may be married to one of the most venal political hacks in the country, but she is a woman who at least tries through philanthropy to do some good in the world.

I'd much rather see Michelle Obama greeting the dignitaries at state dinners, but Cindy McCain usually makes me feel more pity than outrage.

It is in that context that I say that I really don't understand, other than the fact that this is typical Jodi Kantor territory, why this article in today's New York Times was even necessary. It doesn't shed any light on Cindy McCain that we haven't already seen, and it feels like as much of a hatchet job as Kantor pieces on Chelsea Clinton, Barack Obama's religious journey, and Michelle Obama have been. Kantor's articles tend to tread on territory many times already trod, and add nothing new to the political dialogue.

Glenn Greenwald raises the point that there no longer seem to be any journalistic standards about what in a public figure's private life is off-limits anymore. Perhaps in a world of TMZ and OK! and Perez Hilton, there aren't any limits anymore. But Greenwald is right that this article about Cindy McCain, with its innuendo about the state of the McCains' marriage that echoes Patrick Healy's earlier Times piece on the Clintons' marriage, uses the same loose standards that have resulted in a kind of journalistic One Percent Doctrine, in which if there is a one percent chance that a story, or a rumor, or gossip, might be true, journalists proceed as if it were 100 percent true, and what's more, as if it were relevant. This is how the e-mails about Barack Obama being a secret Muslim, or not born in the U.S., or a terrorist sympathizer, came to be accepted as fact -- because if Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson reports them, even as rumors, they are given credibility.

Sarah Palin's personal life is fair game because she has set herself, and her family, up as paragons of the Real American Christian Family Ideal. Sara Robinson, who probably wishes her name was anything else these days, wrote about the pattern of family problems in the Palin family, from the son who went into the military to avoid a coke dealing rap, to the pregnant teenaged daughter, to a younger daughter who isn't always the cutie-pie we've been shown on television, to a special needs baby whose mother and father never even look at him in public, instead shunting him off to the pregnant teen as a kind of scarlet letter. Sarah Palin jetting around the country running for office when her children are so clearly screaming for help and attention IS valid for questioning. Cindy McCain's problems of a decade ago aren't, particularly when for all that I dislike the McCains, their kids seem to have turned out relatively OK, son Andrew's failed bank notwithstanding.

There are enough real reasons to oppose the election of John McCain. The points brought up by this article aren't among them.

Labels: Cindy McCain, gossip, rant, sleaze

That's because neither John McCain nor his mindless, grinning pit bull draw crowds like This crowd that turned out for Barack Obama in St. Louis in [formerly] red Missouri today:

It comes down to values – in America, do we simply value wealth, or do we value the work that creates it? For eight years, we’ve seen what happens when we put the extremely wealthy and well-connected ahead of working people. Now, John McCain thinks that the way to rebuild this economy is to double down on George Bush’s policy of giving more and more tax breaks to those at the very top in the false hope that it will all trickle down. I think it’s time to rebuild the middle class in this country, and that is the choice in this election.

Senator McCain wants to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut but absolutely nothing at all to over 100 million Americans. I want to cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 percent of all workers. And under my plan, if you make less than $250,000 a year – which includes 98 percent of small business owners – you won’t see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes – nothing. It’s time to give the middle class a break, and that’s what I’ll do as President of the United States.

Lately, Senator McCain has been attacking my middle class tax cut. He actually said it goes to, “those who don’t pay taxes,” even though it only goes to working people who are already getting taxed on their paycheck. That’s right, Missouri – John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people “welfare.”

The only “welfare” in this campaign is John McCain’s plan to give another $200 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations in America – including $4 billion in tax breaks to big oil companies that ran up record profits under George Bush. That’s who John McCain is fighting for. But we can’t afford four more years like the last eight. George Bush and John McCain are out of ideas, they are out of touch, and if you stand with me in 17 days they will be out of time.

THAT, my friends (heh) is what 100,000 people looks like. I guess Missouri no longer counts as part of Sarah Palin's "real America" anymore either.

UPDATE: More astounding photos here.

Labels: Barack Obama

They've all but flat-out admitted it.

They're going to steal the election again.

They're going to do it through disenfranchisement, through rigged voting machines, through plants at Fox News calling states before the votes are in.

What else do you think the "narrow victory scenario" means? It means winning by just a hair, just enough to take the White House, leaving stunned Democrats once again wondering how it all went wrong.

Here's how they're doing it:

1) They're duping voters into changing their registrations to Republican by telling them they're not allowed to sign a petition against child molesters unless they are registered Republicans. (Where's the Justice Department on this one, eh?)

2) They're inciting the same thugs that have been screaming at McCain/Palin rallies advocating the murder of Barack Obama to vandalize ACORN offices and threaten the lives of activists trying to register voters.

3) They're embarking on a nationwide quest to systematically disenfranchise Democrats -- and ONLY Democrats.

4) They're going to rely on people's trust in the voting apparatus when, four years after Wally O'Dell of Diebold said he would do whatever is necessary to deliver Ohio's electoral voters to George W. Bush, people in 34 states, including New Jersey, are going to vote on machines that are easily rigged. Let's not say "hacked", because "hacked" conjures up images of bored smart teenagers. Let's call it what it is -- vote-rigging and often vote-switching.

5) The lapdogs of the corporate media are still talking in one way or another about the so-called "Bradley Effect", in which white voters lie to pollsters, thus overstating support for the black candidate. And just to cover all the bases, Faux Noise has decided that there is a REVERSE "Bradley Effect" to try to rile up the Republican base.

"The Bradley effect." "The narrow victory scenario." It's all falling into place.
Oh, and by the way? They also have the apparatus in place to clamp down on anyone who dares to protest the results.

Yes, the Supreme Court put a roadblock in the path of Republicans to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of new voters in Ohio yesterday. But that's just a flesh wound. There are 49 other states to play with.

So there is not going to be a single minute to exhale. Not now, not on November 5 if their efforts fail, and not for the next eight fucking years. Because every damn last one of us has to get out there on November 4 and vote. No excuses. No "he doesn't need my vote." No "My state is blue anyway and I really need to cut up vegetables for stir-fry." No "I've been sitting in a 10-mile backup on the Parkway because there's an accident on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD and everyone wants a show." I don't care if you've been mauled by a pack of wild dogs. Barack Obama is going to need every vote he can get. He needs every vote because he has to have enough votes that not even the Republicans can steal this election. He needs every vote because Bush Republicanism must be shown, even to Chris Matthews, to be completely discredited. He needs every vote because part of this attempt to steal the election is the contingency plan to try to delegitimize a President Obama. Because if you think for one minute that they won't try to turn Tony Rezko into Jim McDougal, that they won't go on wild goosechases finding phony birth certificates to try to "prove" that Obama is "not American" and is therefore not eligible for the presidency, that they won't try to take a shot at him if they have to, guess again.

If ever a presidential candidate needed us to have his back, it's this one. He is up against the foul forces of racism, of fear, of loathing, of white privilege, of mean-spirited little people who wish it was still 1954. We can be satisfied with nothing less than a landslide.

Labels: 2008 election, disenfranchisement, electronic voting machines, vote suppression

I do tend to pick on Christianity a lot here at my little bloggerroo. My own spiritual leanings lie somewhere between Bill Maher and the millions of other lapsed Jews who find something meaningful by putting together a hodepodge of elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I currently work in a highly diverse environment, in which there are Hindus, Jews, lapsed and observant Catholics, various flavors of Christians, and even Muslims, who can still get together in a team building outing and participate in a Conga line. When you spend as much time steeped in contemporary politics as I do, this is a good thing. It reminds me that most people really ARE just looking to get through this level of reality as best they can and don't think it has anything to do with politics.

In my less angry moments, when I realize just how badly the Christofascist Zombie Brigades, whose current spokesmodel is one Sarah Heath Palin, have hijacked a religious figure who is still taken seriously by millions of people who don't think Christian doctrine is about keeping Republicans in power, I find myself seeking out people who are willing to take that guy back. Every now and then I come across people like Fran I Am, who manages to be a Christian and still recognize her messiah's roots as a community organizer and caregiver to the poor.

Today I add another one to the blogroll in the person of Sherry from A Feather Adrift. So I hope you'll join me in welcoming Sherry by visiting her blog and embracing her as one of the sane people who can help show people like me that WE don't have to become religious bigots of another stripe in order to thrive in Pastor Muthee's world.

Labels: bloggers, religion

I'm really getting tired of writing obituaries, but I guess as time goes on, you're either writing them or reading them. And that's if you're lucky enough to live another day without having one written about you.

I don't know when it was that I realized I liked Motown. I think it started when first heard Elvis Costello's cover of Betty Everett's "Gettin' Mighty Crowded", never having heard the original. Or maybe it was when I saw The Blues Brothers and realized that what my ten-year-old ears had heard back in the 1960's as shrieking when Aretha Franklin sang "Think" came from a much deeper place:


Or maybe it was those Sunday mornings when I'd find myself watching Singsation because even though I was never a Christian and didn't want to be, there was something about the joyful place with the slight undercurrent of over a century of hardship and oppression that suffused the music. Or maybe it was when I'd catch snippets of WBGO's Rhythm Revue on Saturday mornings and hear the pre-Motown R&B; tracks that Cousin Brucie didn't used to play to death. All I know is that at some point when I became an adult, Motown started sounding really, really good to me.

But even though I never appreciated Aretha Franklin when I was a kid, I always liked the Four Tops. I don't know why. Maybe it was because the beat was, as Jerry Garcia used to say, down where even white people could find it. Maybe it was that the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team was for the Motown label what the Brill Building was for white artists of that time. Or maybe it was just that even as a ten-year-old white Jewish kid from the suburbs, there was something about the voice of Levi Stubbs that transcended race and age and everything else. Because in addition to having the most soulful name in contemporary music history, Stubbs' voice was the perfect confluence of joy and grief. It was a voice that made your heart sing, but that also had a pervasive mournful undertown that was like the bitterest of weeping.



This song sounded great to me in 1966. It sounds great to me today. And three weeks ago, when I was listening to Rhythm Revue and Felix Hernandez played a version of the song that the Four Tops recorded in Italian because it seems Berry Gordy had his artists record in many languages since the Motown sound was big all over the world, I called in a pledge donation because where else are you going to hear the Four Tops singing in Italian? Certainly not on Uncle Floyd's Italian-American Serenade.

We hadn't heard much from Stubbs in recent years as his health deteriorated, first from cancer and then from a stroke. But even if you don't live in the New York area, you can stream the Rhythm Revue at WBGO's web site. I recommend tuning in at 10:00 AM Eastern Time tomorrow. I'm sure Felix Hernandez will do a nice tribute.

Side note: Last week I posted the video of a Maron v. Seder VODcast in which Marc Maron played a clip of an old gospel song in which the similarly soaring voice of Jackie Wilson breaks in and turns a conventional gospel number into something sublime. Turns out that Levi Stubbs and Jackie Wilson were cousins.

Another side note: I'm quite certain that Lower Manhattanite is going to write something about Stubbs that's so good I'll wonder why I even bothered. I'll link it up once he does.

Labels: music, obituaries

At this point, Obama's widening up such a big lead over the massively unpopular McCain that nothing short of he, Jeremiah Wright and Willie Horton gang-raping Nancy Reagan and refracturing her pelvis on the floor of the NYSE at the height of the trading day could lose this election for him. Therefore, knowing the tide was surely turning to his campaign, Obama should've unloaded on McCain with both barrels, spikes high, hammers and tongs. So this is the closing statement at the end of the third and final debate that I and I'm sure many liberals would've wet their pants upon hearing. Play Senator Obama's voice in your mind's ear as you follow the narration.

---

Bob Schieffer: Senator Obama, you won the coin toss. You first.

Barack Obama: Thank you, Bob, and again allow me to thank Hofstra University and the fine city of Hempstead, New York for hosting this fruitful and vigorous debate.

Now, my Senate colleague and worthy opponent Senator John McCain has been putting a lot of stuff out there and not all of it is true. For the longest time, at more vulnerable moments in my campaign, I've been forced to play house nigger and to avoid looking like the "angry black man" for the white psychopaths who seem to comprise a larger percentage of John's base than he'd like to admit. Tonight, I'm pulling out all the stops.

First of all, I notice Joe Lieberman hasn't been around very much after you chose that glassy-eyed stewardess to be your running mate. I almost didn't recognize you, John, without Lieberman's withered hand up your fat, pasty ass and working your mouth during the debates like the Republican sock puppet that you are.

And while we're once again on the subject of running mates, it ought to be noted on national television that Gov. Sarah Palin has less foreign policy experience than Joe Biden's cock and I can prove it. Because at least my colleague's cock, along with the rest of him, sat in on countless hearings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If by dint of sheer proximity to Canada and Russia Sarah Palin can absorb foreign policy experience, so can my running mate's phallus.

Now, John, you're sitting there idiotically smiling at no one in particular like a bloated, latter day Uncle Fester who can't stop farting at the dinner table. People accuse me of pandering to the right wing but you know what? If I am, then I learned from the best watching you these past two years because you, Senator McCain, are the prince of panderers.

Your campaign has more lobbyists than a federal prison and K Street combined. You pander to right wing snake-charming zealots starting with some sawed-off Jerry Falwell wannabe in Thomas Muthee. You pander to the most vicious element of the right wing even when they say vile crap like "Kill him!" and call me names like "Terrorist."

By the way, that reminds me of a joke: What are the first three words a McCain supporter's child learns? "Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers..."

You've benefited from fundraisers held by pus-sucking scumbags like Ralph Reed and G. Gordon Liddy, a man who probably puts red hot safety pins through the head of his penis every night just for shits and giggles.

If Hermann Goering, Jack the Ripper and Vlad the Impaler offered to host a fundraiser for you, you'd pull a muscle in your ancient artifact of a body getting there if they guaranteed big money and they promised to mash up your dinner for you.

You keep saying that I'm "unfit to serve" as President because I was never in the military but you know what? Neither did that champagne flight, coke-snorting psychopath with whom you voted, by your own admission, 90% of the time. And if I did serve in our nation's armed forces, I damned sure wouldn't sully that service by trying to claim 100 times a day that I'm fit to serve as our Commander in Chief simply because I got my ass shot down over Hanoi and was too crippled to escape.

I salute your service to our country, Senator but you know what else? According to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and the rest of the psychological sideshow that is the Bush administration, you were never actually tortured. You never suffered organ failure and you certainly aren't, at least technically, dead. So stop whining about being tortured and get over it.

In summation, Senator, you have run the vilest, filthiest, most below-the-belt campaign in recent memory. You have not publicly denounced people who would sooner see me dead than assume residency in a building that was built by slave labor because you cannot find it in your truffle of a heart to alienate anyone from whom you can squeeze out one single vote.

You, Sarah Palin. Tucker Bounds and the rest of your campaign can suck my eleven inch-long black dick. Yes, it's that big. Ask Cindy if you don't believe me, cuckold bait.

Bob Schieffer: Senator Obama, it's Senator McCain's turn...

Barack Obama: Thank you.

What does it say about a country in which the most cogent political coverage is being done by stand-up and sketch comics and talk show hosts?

Here's David Letterman pointing out the hypocrisy of McCranky being associated with G. Gordon Liddy while obsessing about Barack Obama having served on a board with William Ayers at one time, and holding Sarah Palin's feet to the fire about her remarks about "palling around with terrorists":

Labels: comedy, real journalism

I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with younger people from Gen-X to Millennials who insist that baby boomers had all the good drugs and all the good sex and then became greedy scumbag Reagan Republicans by 1980. I know that's a nice, convenient thing to believe, sort of like the notion that Barack Obama will "give the blacks all the power in the country" and "illegal immigrants are using up all the health care", but it's just not true, as a survey conducted for TVLand reveals:

Fifty percent of American adults age 40-59 – The Baby Boomers – feel that the government is doing too much to solve Wall Street’s problems, according to a new poll by TV Land. Twenty-five percent feel that the government is not doing enough about the Wall Street crisis and 25% don’t know if there should be more or less government involvement. This is just one of the findings in a new poll conducted by OTX on behalf of TV Land, a division of Viacom Inc.'s (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B) MTV Networks, as part of TV Land’s overall commitment to superserve this 40- and 50-something demographic.

The TV Land poll also shows 94% of Boomers – the country’s largest generation – plan to go to the polls next month, with 82% of those polled saying they are extremely likely to vote. The impact of this finding is enormous as this generation had the highest turnout of voters in the 2004 Presidential election. Obama voters are more determined to make their voices heard as 89% of his supporters say they are extremely likely to vote compared to 82% of McCain supporters and 58% of undecideds. The survey also shows that regardless of whom they are voting for, the majority of people in this demographic (54%) believe that Barack Obama will win the 2008 Presidential election this November. Twenty-five percent believe John McCain will win and 20% are unsure of the outcome of the November vote. The poll also found that if the election were held today, the country’s largest generation would elect Barack Obama to office capturing 48% of the vote. John McCain would get 40% of the Boomer vote and 12% of Boomers are either unsure or voting for someone else.

...

Although the candidates declined to criticize the readiness of their opposing Vice Presidential candidates in last night’s Presidential debate, when asked about the Vice President candidates, nearly two-thirds of people in their 40s and 50s (64%) say Joe Biden is prepared for the job of Vice President of the United States. Thirty-four percent feel Palin is prepared. Contrastingly, Sarah Palin is seen by 47% of the demo as not prepared for the job versus the 13% who think Biden isn’t prepared. The majority of Boomers (51%) say that Biden helped Obama’s chances of being elected and 45% say Palin helped McCain. Nearly one-fifth (18%) say Biden hurt Obama’s chances, while 34% say Palin hurt MCain.

While both candidates have a “change” platform, 48% of Boomer voters find Barack Obama more believable when he talks about “change” while 21% say John McCain is more believable. Nine percent say both candidates are believable when they talk about “change” and 18% say neither candidate. Only 4% of this generation doesn’t know which candidate is more believable. Nearly nine in ten Boomer voters (86%) say that things in this country are heading on the wrong track. Among Barack Obama supporters, that number jumps to 92% who say the country is on the wrong track. Twenty-three percent of McCain supporters say the country is on the right track, compared to only 8% of Obama supporters.

I would say that this distribution, with about half of baby boomers leaning left, slightly less leaning right, and the rest either inattentive or unsure, is probably representative of the way it's always been. The Greg Marmalards never got the press that the counterculture kids got, but they were always there. It's just that their Izod Lacoste shirts and plaid pants weren't as interesting to the media as a bunch of kids dancing around naked.

Labels: baby boomers, voters

Perhaps if Sarah Palin doesn't want to be regarded as greedy trash and as a corrupt Republican hack, she should stop acting like it:

Sarah Palin's office has discovered a renewable resource to bring millions of dollars into Alaska's economy: the governor's e-mails.

The office of the Republican vice-presidential nominee has quoted prices as high as $15 million for copies of state e-mails requested by news organizations and citizens. No matter what the price, most of the e-mails of Palin, her senior staff and other state employees won't be made public until at least several weeks after the Nov. 4 presidential election, her office told msnbc.com on Thursday.

How did the cost reach $15 million? Let's look at a typical request. When the Associated Press asked for all state e-mails sent to the governor's husband, Todd Palin, her office said it would take up to six hours of a programmer's time to assemble the e-mail of just a single state employee, then another two hours for "security" checks, and finally five hours to search the e-mail for whatever word or topic the requestor is seeking. At $73.87 an hour, that's $960.31 for a single e-mail account. And there are 16,000 full-time state employees. The cost quoted to the AP: $15,364,960.

First of all, why do they need a "programmer" to assemble e-mail? An Outlook or Lotus Notes administrator, maybe. And if we're talking about Palin's Yahoo mail account, there's really nothing that anyone they could hire could do about deleted mail on Yahoo's servers.

This is nothing other than a cynical attempt to use people's ignorance about technology as an excuse to extort money from the press for the Palins' personal coffers.

Of course if the State of Alaska uses AT&T; as its internet provider, it should be easy to just ask the NSA for the records, since AT&T; did their dirty work in sweeping up all its customers internet activity.

Labels: corruption, Sarah Palin

This is the part of the "Joe the Plumber" guys whom John McCain has adopted as his unpaid campaign mascots that the American media won't let you see:


You know...."morons".

(h/t)

Labels: bigotry, idiocy, John McCain, racism, Republicans, Sarah Palin

Just the way illegal immigrants were the new Muslim terrorists and Muslim terrorists were the new Scary Negroes™. ACORN's voter registration drive plays right into the Republican "voter fraud" meme that Republicans are already using to try to justify their mass vote caging schemes in as many states as they can get away with it and the fact that the voting machines in many states are still not counting votes, and in some cases, switching votes from that which the voter intended. Funny, too, how the states with the biggest potential problems are also potential toss-up states.

But in a move that smacks of the continuing partisanship of the Bush Justice Department, the FBI has been sent to investigate ACORN's voter registration drives, even though not one registrant named "Mickey Mouse" has dared show up at the polls. Of course it's not about preventing "Mickey Mouse" from showing up at the polls, it's about preventing "Tyrone Jackson" and "Goldie Berkowitz" and "Juan Hernandez" and others who might commit the crime of voting for a Black Democrat for president from exercising their right to vote.

David Iglesias, one of the U.S. Attorneys fired by this very same Bush Justice Department for refusing to falsely prosecute Democrats for voter fraud, has seen this before, and calls it "a disgrace":

"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again. Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic."

Who's that speaking? And what's he talking about?

That's fired US Attorney David Iglesias talking about the news leaked today that the DOJ and FBI are opening a nationwide investigation into allegations that the community organization ACORN is somehow working to undermine the November election through fraud. For more from Iglesias and his fellow fired US Attorney Bud Cummins, don't miss TPMMuckraker's Zack Roth's interview post from earlier this evening.

Iglesias got fired not long after the 2006 midterm election because he wouldn't get off the dime and bring bogus vote fraud indictments against Democrats or time other indictments of Democrats to sway the 2006 election. In other words, he got canned for not doing what a number of his former colleagues at the DOJ are happily doing this very day.

Nor was Iglesias simpy a respected attorney with solid enough connections to swing a US Attorney appointment. He was a rising start in the New Mexico Republican party. Iglesias was the Republican nominee for Attorney General in 1998. (Not that it's immediately relevant to this question, but Iglesias was the Navy JAG lawyer on whom Tom Cruise's character in A Few Good Men was based.) This was that reassuring case where a political person's partisan attachments butted up against his integrity and the latter won the day hands down. This is someone who knows this scam from the inside and whose testimony -- literal and figurative -- comes not in line with partisan attachments but in spite of them. Everyone should listen.

This is not for one minute about sustaining the integrity of the voting system. These people who are registering under phony names are not going to show up at the polls. This is about selective prosecution of an organization that was once supported by John McCain when it was convenient and advantageous for him, because it is encouraging people to exercise their right to vote.

If the Republican Party does not feel Americans have the right to vote, then perhaps it ought to just say so -- and let the voters decide.

Labels: disenfranchisement, immigration, racism, Republic Party, selective prosecution

This guy is certifiable:

Labels: anger management, John McCain

I'm up at this ridiculous hour so that I can get in for a 7 AM conference call. I just watched some of last night's debate, and for all the yelling I've done at the television set over the last eight years, I'm not sure I've yelled as loudly as I did when John McCain made "air quotes" around the word HEALTH as applied to women and late-term abortion.

In my former job, I had a wall of á propos comic strips and such; one of which depicted two vendors -- one a vendor of salads whose cart was labeled HEALTH and the other a hot dog vendor whose cart was labeled SCHMELTH. That's what I was reminded of by John McCain's appallingly condescending wrapping of the word "health" in quotes when applied to women.

For all that I wish Barack Obama were better able to articulate the truth that's so hard for wingnuts to believe -- that there isn't a woman in the world who gets her eight-months-pregnant self out of bed, has a cup of coffee, and says "I think I'll go get a mani/pedi, then get my hair done, and then abort this baby" -- I think he answered Bob Schieffer's inflammatory question as best he could, given the world as it exists today. I wish he had referred to not just education but education about and availability of contraception as the answer to reducing the number of abortions. And I wish to high heaven he didn't believe that mental distress was a legitimate reason for late-term abortion. I wonder what kind of support systems he has in mind for an emotionally distraught woman who is given an anencephalic baby to take home.

But however mushy Barack Obama's answer, there is absolutely no excuse for John McCain's arrogant, condescending answer about "quote-health-end quote" in regard to late term D&E; abortions.

Who the hell is John McCain to decide what constitutes necessity for health? Is he a medical professional? He'd already disqualified himself from talking about health when he mentioned "gold-plated insurance policies that cover plastic surgery." Does your health insurance cover cosmetic surgery? Mine doesn't. And I've never had one that does. Perhaps McCain's government-paid plan does, though if it does I wonder why he hasn't had that homunculus on his cheek taken care of.

Ask Gretchen Voss whether she blithely and carelessly and cavalierly made the decision to abort her late-term fetus who was already hopelessly damaged from hydrocephalus and spina bifida. Ask any of the ONE FIFTH OF ONE PERCENT of women who have this type of abortion. Ask Lynda, who had a late-term abortion of an anencephalic fetus. Ask Karen Dugdale.

The question of late-term abortion had no place in this debate. Such abortions are a small fraction of the number of abortions that take place every year. They certainly are not the issue at the forefront of the lives of most Americans who are concerned about their mortgages, their jobs, their retirement savings, their sons and daughters in the military, and their children's crumbling schools. It's like flag-burning -- a distraction issue that's used in debates for the sole purpose of trying to turning a wizened old man like John McCain, who wants to feed America's young people into a meatgrinder in Iraq forever because he wants to win the Vietnam War, into some kind of Crusader for Life.

Barack Obama is partially right about how to reduce abortions: Get sex out from under the carpet, admit that people have it, and give them the tools they need, i.e. effective, safe, easy-to-use contraception, to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

But of course then John McCain wouldn't be able to set himself up as the patron saint of patriarchy.

Labels: abortion, John McCain, just another outrage