Month: October 2008

Hot Potato

by digby

The Supremes wisely (and unanimously) refused to get burned by Republican election fraud shennanigans before the election. (No guarantees about after…)

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in favor of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, overturning a lower-court order that she provide to county elections boards by today details of discrepancies discovered with new voter registrations. The court ruled 9-0 that the Ohio Republican Party, which sued Brunner for the information, was unlikely to succeed in its arguments that Brunner legally could be sued on this issue and that the courts had the authority to issue the order. But the court expressed no opinion about whether federal law was being followed properly. At issue is what should be done when personal information from newly registered voters doesn’t match state motor vehicle and federal Social Security records after an automatic computer check is done. The ruling settles for now a dispute that had worked its way through the lower federal courts in recent days, with district and appellate judges taking different sides on the issue.

I love the theory of this conspiracy. People are registering voters with names, addresses, ages, drivers’ license numbers or last four digits of their Social Security numbers, which are very close to real voter’s information. (So close they appear to be data entry typos.) And then these 200,000 fraudulent voters, all of whom are in on the secret plan, vote under their own names and later come back and vote again under the closely matched phony information. (Either that or they all have an elaborate second identity which includes phony ID and social security numbers.)

If the Democrats can pull this off, I think it’s clear they should win the election just for their supernatural ability to get hundreds of thousands of people to keep such a secret.

Obama vs. McCain On Science And Innovation

by tristero

As this NY Times guide makes clear, there are points of agreement between Obama and McCain when it comes to the government’s role in science and innovation issues. But the differences are stark and for anyone who cares about America’s role in advancing science and technology, the choice is a no brainer. Let me not keep you in suspense. Obama’s positions are far superior to his opponent’s.

In the area of “research spending” for example, McCain is full of stunts. One of them is just plain stupid political nonsense: McCain would “freeze research spending for at least a year.” Now, this “idea” is not something reasonable people discuss. No. Reasonable people laugh uproariously and change the subject. Why? Because if you discuss this crackpot notion and earnestly try to debunk it, you fall into the exact same trap that was set by the proposal to invade Iraq. You elevate its status and make it appear plausible when it is simply as batshit crazy as proposing a space mission to rendezvous with the alien spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.

Slightly less screwy is McCain’s proposal for a $300 million prize for battery technology innovation. Sure, why not? I suppose it can’t hurt and the publicity stunt will focus the public’s attention on an important issue in the development of the electric car and other new gadgets. But that is essentially all it is: A publicity stunt.

Finally, McCain resorts to those cure-all tonics Republicans swear by: tax cuts and deregulation. That’s not a program that engages the US government in serious research. That’s a program that elevates neglect, corruption, and mismanagement to official government policy. With an attitude like that, McCain will create precisely the kind of government he and his party claim to despise.

Obama on the other hand will “double spending on basic research over 10 years.” Since there is no hoo-hah from Obama on deregulation, we can assume that he expects to provide appropriate oversight. (Needless to say, those who are close to the specific issues will need to make sure this actually happens.) That is smart. In numerous sciences, from computing to physics to biology, technological advances are proceeding at an accelerated pace. By doubling the money available (and naturally, spending it wisely), Obama will help prevent a brain drain to other countries. This does have the potential to significantly advance America’s lead in innovative science and technology.

Obama would go further, creating ” a public-private network of business incubators and establish a fund to advance manufacturing technology.” These are specific policy proposals, not publicity stunts. Sure, a fund to “advance manufacturing technology” could create a prize for battery innovation, but Obama, quite rightly, doesn’t insist upon a mere publicity stunt. Rather he insists upon finding, and funding, programs that have a chance to work.

With Obama, you find a seriousness of purpose in erecting a framework to spend government money responsibly. With McCain, you find gimmicks and total nonsense. If you go through the guide, this pattern repeats itself. Both candidates address stem cell research. Obama, relying upon the authority of the scientists who actually work with stem cells, simply supports “federal financing for research on human embryonic stem cells.” This is a support based not on ideology, but knowledge gleaned from experts. McCain, the guide notes, “has supported federal financing for embryonic stem cell research; lately has suggested that other kinds of stem cells may make the use of embryonic cells unncessary.” In other words, under pressure from the lunatic right, which puts ideology above competence, McCain is prepared to waste money pursuing esoterica if his rightwing backers think it is politically correct to do so. This is kind of like funding abstinence-only education. Yes, I’m aware that potential alternatives to embryonic stem cells have been developed. But, from what I can tell, they all have problems that embryonic stem cells don’t. McCain, in the interest of ideological purity, is prepared, apparently, to bet taxpayer’s money merely on the hope that these alternatives may work out rather than follow the advice of experts.

And finally, we get to space exploration. Obama’s approach is a conservative response to the conventional wisdom of experts in the field. But note the nod towards a utilitarian purpose for exploring space: it could actually yield some important insights into “addressing global challenges like climate change.” McCain wants more star wars coupled with wildly expensive and dangerous flyboy-style publicity stunts that reflect “national power and pride.” As for economic development, he is surely joking.

In short, one candidate – Obama – has put forth a proposal for a sensible role for the US government to play in 21st Century scientific innovation. The other – McCain – has proposed, with very few differences, a continuation of George W. Bush’s ignorant, ideologically stained strategy. Obama has been serious, McCain frivolous.

While I am no scientist, simply an outside observer with an intense interest in it, I suspect that no rational scientist can, in all seriousness, support McCain’s proposals for government’s role in science over Obama’s.

The Voices Of Bryan And Taft

by tristero

If you have the slightest interest in American history, then this is incredibly cool. A CD company, Archeophone Records has released Debate ’08. That’s 1908, dear friends, the master debaters being Williams Jennings Bryan, Democrat, and William Howard Taft, Republican.

But this actually isn’t a debate in any sense of the word. Essentially, both guys made 2 minute long records that were sold for the whopping price of $ .35 (about eight bucks today). Bryan made ten recordings, Taft twelve. Taft won, duh. Whether these recordings had anything to do with that win is…debatable.

These are fascinating documents. William Jennings Bryan, of course, was an early bete noire for anyone who cares about science. He was the celebrity lawyer for the prosecution in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, the most iconic trial regarding the teaching of evolution.* (I would argue, however, that the Dover Panda Trial was far more decisive and just as enjoyable a story.)

What is less well known – and hard to square with modern intellectual/political alliances – is that Bryan also had a reputation as a populist and liberal. The recordings available at the first link bear that out. Bryan makes the case against imperialism and for guaranties of bank deposits. Taft, on the other hand, favors keeping troops in the Philippines and believes that “enforced insurance of bank deposits” will crash the American economic system and is deeply unfair. To bankers, of course. Even then, people, even then.

Also extremely interesting are the voices of the two men. They are speaking in a modified version of what must have been their crowd voices, a strident tone necessary so that they could be heard using no, or extremely primitive, amplification. This sound, combined with the monotonic inflection with which both men read their texts, is rarely heard today. But it provides some insight into how early orators sounded in the pre-phonograph era (oh, what I would give to hear Lincoln read the Second Inaugural!).

Even more interesting to my ear are the accents, which are different from any modern American one I know. I detected a very unusual “o” sound and a subtly different inflection of the “r” from contemporary speech, for example. Your mileage may vary, but I don’t think these accents exist anymore. Even my father, born 1909 and about to celebrate his centennial, sounds quite different.

Great stuff. I ordered my copy, and some early women blues. Take a listen and you may, too.

h/t, Alex Ross.

*Despite the fact that parts of it were broadcast quite widely (perhaps nationwide), I don’t believe recordings of the Scopes Monkey Trial exist. If that is not the case, PLEASE let me know immediately!

UPDATE: Voices of the presidents going back to Harrison can be heard here. Thanks to Michael in comments.

Thanks Josh

by digby

This is one guy who has some credibility to talk about this.

From TPM:

David Iglesias says he’s shocked by the news, leaked today to the Associated Press, that the FBI is pursuing a voter-fraud investigation into ACORN just weeks before the election. “I’m astounded that this issue is being trotted out again,” Iglesias told TPMmuckraker. “Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it’s a scare tactic.” In 2006, Iglesias was fired as U.S. attorney thanks partly to his reluctance to pursue voter-fraud cases as aggressively as DOJ wanted — one of several U.S. attorneys fired for inappropriate political reasons, according to a recently released report by DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General. Iglesias, who has been the most outspoken of the fired U.S. attorneys, went on to say that the FBI’s investigation seemed designed to inappropriately create a “boogeyman” out of voter fraud. And he added that it “stands to reason” that the investigation was launched in response to GOP complaints. In recent weeks, national Republican figures — including John McCain at last night’s debate — have sought to make an issue out of ACORN’s voter-registration activities. As we noted earlier, last year, Sen. Diane Feinstein publicly highlighted changes made to DOJ’s election crimes manual, which lowered the bar for voter-fraud prosecutions, and made it easier to bring vote-fraud cases close to the election. Speaking today to TPMmuckraker, Iglesias called such changes “extremely problematic.” The way in which the news was revealed today — Associated Press sourced its report to two “senior law enforcement officials” who “spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election” — is also raising eyebrows. Both Iglesias and Bud Cummins — another of the U.S. attorneys who, according to the IG report, was also fired for political reasons — told TPMmuckraker that DOJ guidelines do allow US attorneys to speak publicly about an investigation, even before bringing an indictment, if it’s to allay public concern over an issue. But that certainly wouldn’t cover anonymous leaks. “If you can’t say it with your name on it, it’s fair to say you should not be saying it,” Cummins told TPMmuckraker. Earlier this afternoon, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) released a letter he sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and FBI director Robert Mueller, which connected today’s news to the U.S. attorney firings, and to recent GOP efforts to stoke fears over voter fraud.

It’s way past time for the mainstream media to start connecting some dots here. The US Attorney scandals and this ACORN nonsense are pieces of the same story.

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Bagdad Pups

by digby

Like a lot of people, I’m feeling a lot of anxiety these days. And while I’m happy and relieved at the idea that the Republicans are going to be out of office for a while, the mess they’ve left is so huge and nearly unmanageable that it’s hard to get excited about it.

So, I take good stories where I can find them. This one, from the SPCA, warmed my heart:

Operation Baghdad Pups began with an email received on September 11, 2007. The desperate words of the U.S. soldier serving in Iraq told of his desire to get the dog, Charlie, he and his regiment had befriended out of the Middle East before their tour of duty ended. Because it is against regulations for troops to befriend an animal or transport one on a military flight, the likelihood of the determined soldiers succeeding alone seemed doubtful.
Members of this Army regiment discovered the dog earlier that summer while patrolling a dangerous neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad. The malnourished and flea covered puppy, no bigger than a baked potato, was scooped up by a soldier who felt sorry for the pitiful orphan. Hidden in a tattered blanket, the puppy was snuck onto the Coalition Outpost. As the soldiers took turns secretly caring for the puppy the strong bond between man and dog grew.

“Taking care of Charlie gave me something to look forward to everyday,” one soldier explained. “When all the guys got to playing with him we forgot where we were, the horrible things we had seen, and what we still had to go through. Charlie definitely made our time in Iraq more bearable. He was like a welcomed piece of home right here in the midst of Baghdad.”
Abandoning Charlie in this war ravaged country, consumed in hatred and destruction, would have meant certain death for him. “We all made him a promise that we would not give up. We’d find a way somehow to get him to a better life in the states,” the soldier wrote in that first email.
How could SPCA International not intervene?

Operation Baghdad Pups has now successfully rescued Charlie and other dogs befriended by our troops, out of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the logistics of moving animals from a war zone to a new home are extremely complicated and expensive. To learn more about these complicated hurdles each Baghdad Pup must overcome, visit the efforts page.
…

An email we received from one soldier says it all, “I have sacrificed a lot to serve my country. All that I ask in return is to be allowed to bring home the incredible dog that wandered into my life here in Iraq and prevented me from becoming terribly callous towards life.”

I have no idea what it’s like to be a soldier. But I do know that the love of a furry creature is one of the most profoundly humanizing relationships you can have. If these soldiers needed to take care of those dogs then I fully support these efforts to bring them back to the states even though we all know there are many homeless dogs and cats right here. This is about these soldiers and their grip on their own humanity.

I recall that John Burns, the long time middle east reporter for the NY Times wrote about his relationship with his Bagdad cats and how he went to the extreme trouble of having them brought back to England with him. I think this must be a common reaction among those who spent time in a war zone. There’s something about caring for an innocent, defenseless animal that probably keeps you a little bit more sane and you are afraid if you let that go, you’ll lose it altogether.

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The Big Issues

by digby

I just heard a bunch of GOP bozos on various networks saying that Obama was out of line when he said that Bill Ayres has become the centerpiece of the McCain campaign. I’m sorry, but the truth hurts. Here’s the latest robocall from the Republican National Committee:

Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National
Committee at 202-863-8500.

Of course it’s the centerpiece of the campaign. It’s the only thing they have going for them.

Well, not the only thing. Yesterday, I wrote about the lovely California Republicans who want to “waterboard Obama.” Pam Spaulding reports on yet another special mailing from some of my fellow Californians:

How about some Obama ribs ‘n chicken…plus a nice slice of watermelon for the darkie? I’m sick of this sh*t:

The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women’s group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles. The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of “Obama Bucks” — a phony $10 bill featuring Obama’s face on a donkey’s body, labeled “United States Food Stamps.”

And par for the course, the “explanation” for this is just as transparently ignorant as the initial act:

The group’s president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club’s meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.” “It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don’t want to go into it any further,” Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn’t my attempt.”

I’m sure this woman doesn’t even know she’s a racist. That’s why you can’t depend upon people self-reporting their tolerance for all their dark hued brothers and sisters. They truly do believe they are tolerant. And then they do something like this.

And again, this isn’t Alabama. This is California, the bluest state in the nation. They live among us all.

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Joe the 285 Million Other People Who Can’t Buy A Plumbing Business

by dday

If you want to know why Barack Obama is poised to win this election, it’s because of circumstances like this:

To monitor the multiple sclerosis attacking Ann Pietrangelo’s central nervous system, her doctor recommends an annual MRI. Last year, the 49-year-old Winchester, Va., woman had to pay a $3,000 co-payment to get the imaging done.

This year, she’s skipping the test. Even with insurance, it’s more than her budget can tolerate, especially with the roller coaster on Wall Street devouring her retirement savings.

“I’m doing everything I can to avoid going to the doctor,” she said.

From Park Avenue dental offices to the Arlington Free Clinic, the global economic crunch is forcing a growing number of Americans to scale back on medical care. Consumers are attempting their own form of triage, pushing off seemingly less-urgent services in the hope that their financial health will improve. But the danger, say physicians, is that the short-term savings may translate into more severe long-term health implications […]

Nationwide, the number of consumers who went without a prescription, tapped into retirement savings to pay for health care or skipped a doctor visit for themselves or a child has risen since last year, according to a survey released this summer by the Rockefeller Foundation and Time magazine. One-quarter of the 2,000 respondents, for example, said they had decided not to see a doctor because of cost in 2008, up from 18 percent the year before. Ten percent said they did not take a child to the doctor for the same reason.

This is about more than just the subject of health care, which even the head of the Congressional Budget Office agrees must be dealt with as soon as possible or it’ll threaten the entire federal budget and make the financial bailout look like the give-a-penny take-a-penny tray. But indeed you could have chosen any topic that the vast majority of Americans interface with. Their wages haven’t gone up, their gas prices are still twice as much as they were before, their food costs are higher, the student loans for their children are a crushing burden, the jobs are scarce and aren’t much more promising than service-sector McJobs, their credit cards are full, their home prices (if they’re lucky enough to own one) are falling and they owe more on their houses and cars than they’re worth, and their quality of life, between commutes, carrying two or three jobs to get by, etc., is, to put it mildly, in the crapper. They aren’t making it. The American dream that’s been sold to them for decades is dead. And it’s been that way for a while.

And yet our profoundly stupid political discourse continues to focus on the aspirational class and small businessmen and the methods to trickle wealth down. And they use these insane shibboleths, icons that stand in for human beings who have actual struggles, to make it seem like there’s any respect left for the common man. The common man has been kicked. He’s been punched. He’s laying on the side of the road. And he doesn’t give a damn about someone screeching about a $900 tax increase.

Joe the Plumber, or whoever the fuck he is, means nothing. Neither does the media conception of white working-class voters. They are absurd caricatures, disconnected from any truth and really just pawns in the depressing reality show that has become politics. The more we look at some sideshow, the more muzzled the truly voiceless in this society become. For all the faults of the Democratic Party, there is finally a recognition this year that people vote, not pastiches or sketches but hundreds of millions of people, and maybe, just this once, we ought to pay attention to what the hell they are going through.

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Again And Again

by digby

This is now completely out of hand.

The FBI is investigating whether the community activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.

A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The Associated Press. A second senior law enforcement official says the FBI was looking at results of inquiries in several states, including a raid on ACORN’s office in Las Vegas, for any evidence of a coordinated national effort.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.

Two spokesmen for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, on Thursday said the FBI has not contacted the group.

It’s hard to believe they are doing this again, but they are. You’ll recall that this was done back in 2004 as well. And one of our heroes in the US Attorney’s scandal, David Iglesias, was still on the team then giving juicy quotes to the media:

Voter Probes Raise Partisan Suspicions
Democrats, Allies See Politics Affecting Justice Department’s Anti-Fraud Efforts

By Jo Becker and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 20, 2004; Page A05

Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in New Mexico launched a statewide criminal task force to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the upcoming presidential election. The probe came after a sheriff who co-chairs President Bush’s campaign in the state’s largest county complained about thousands of questionable registrations turned in by Democratic-leaning groups.

“It appears that mischief is afoot and questions are lurking in the shadows,” Iglesias told local reporters.

But Democratic Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, named to the task force to allay concerns that the probe was politically motivated, said the investigation is unnecessary.

“This is just an attempt to let people know that Big Brother is watching,” Vigil-Giron, New Mexico’s chief electionsofficial, said in an interview. “It may well be aimed at trying to keep people away from the polls.”

The probe is one of several criminal inquiries into alleged voter fraud launched in recent weeks in key presidential battlegrounds, including Ohio and West Virginia, as part of a broader initiative by U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft targeting bogus registrations and other election crimes. The Justice Department has asked U.S. attorneys across the country to meet with local elections officials and launch publicity campaigns aimed at getting people to report irregularities.

But that wasn’t good enough. In January, right after the election Iglesias said:

Most of the complaints were completely without basis. At the end of the day we decided we did not have any cases we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt … we cannot prosecute rumor and innuendo.

Rove was not happy about that and it got Iglesias on the hit list. He could have avoided that if he’d played ball like the Milwaukee US Attorney:

The exterior facts are these. We know that Steven Biskupic, the U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee, was initially put on a list of those to be fired by Karl Rove’s office. Then suddenly Mr. Biskupic got deeply engaged in a series of truly dubious cases, all of which had a distinctly Rovian political flavor. First, Biskupic became one of the nation’s most enthusiastic participants in the “voting fraud” fraud. He brought an array of insane cases, including one against a grandmother, which were detailed by The New York Times in an acid review of Biskupic’s mercenary political style. These cases generally involved voters who made honest mistakes about registration, but were prosecuted anyway (with many convicted). The targets were always Democrats who were from the major threat communities publicly identified by Rove—minority groups from the inner city. And the prosecutions were transparently pursued for purposes of voter suppression (i.e., an arguably criminal agenda).

I suspect they were trying to build a Justice Department case that there was a massive voter fraud conspiracy by bringing a bunch of cases against individuals in order to establish a “pattern.” Unfortunately there just aren’t very many cases of legitimate voter fraud by individuals or anyone else.

(Iglesias’ explanation in his book for his original words is somewhat unsatisfying, but in the end he didn’t follow through. And his treatment by the Bush administration, after being a good soldier, but not corrupt enough to illegally indict people, ended up radicalizing him.)

I don’t actually blame the Bush administration for continuing their voter fraud fraud and calling in the FBI in the month before an election. Why shouldn’t they? Nothing really happened as a result of their corrupt practices before, so what could possibly happen to them now that they are lame ducks? And I’m sure they feel pretty confident that the Obama administration isn’t going to want to keep this controversy on the front burner by investigating why the FBI decided to engage in partisan politics in October of 2008. The Obama administration will have its hands full trying to deal with the mess Bush has left and is unlikely, in any case, to want to feed the meme.

The only problem is that this is going to become a rallying cry on the right. Obama and his terrorist friends “ACORN” (which I guess is now kind of like S.P.E.C.T.R.E. or C.H.A.O.S)stole the election. they will use every argument we used against Bush’s installation over the past eight years and will twist us into pretzels explaining why it isn’t the same at all. It will keep the character assassins well employed, with underground DVDs, books and talk radio shows. And it will give justification to the neanderthal base of the Republican party to go completely insane — and keep the pressure on the Republicans to obstruct with everything they’ve got.

You would have thought after a bogus impeachment and dubious elections in both 2000 and 2004 the Democratic party would have stopped ignoring this ongoing (and increasingly successful) propaganda campaign against non-existent voter fraud and its vote suppression effects. It’s not like the Republicans have been afraid to use whatever means they have at their disposal to seize power or cripple the other side with phony scandals and character assasination. Obama may win big and he should have a mandate. But this meme could cost him some much needed credibility when he needs it the most. The press is swallowing this story in big huge gulps and the pushback is inadequate.

Some folks are stepping up with the right message:

People for the American Way (PFAW) will take out a full-page ad (PDF link) in The New York Times charging the right wing with misleading the public in the ACORN voter registration controversy. The ad also challenges the press for failing to examine the fabrications made against the voter registration group and turning a blind-eye toward the right wing’s ongoing effort to disenfranchise voters. The media’s frenzy surrounding the situation has now reached a fever pitch and enabled John McCain’s outrageous and baseless comments in last night’s presidential debate accusing ACORN of “maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” “What’s really threatening to destroy the fabric of our democracy are right-wing efforts to suppress millions of newly registered voters, both Democrats and Republicans around the country,” said Kathryn Kolbert, President of People for the American Way. “ACORN should be commended for registering 1.3 million Democrats and Republicans to vote in this historic upcoming Presidential election,” said Kolbert. “Instead, CNN and other typically independent news outlets have focused on sensationalistic stories about a few bad apples instead of investigating the systematic voter disenfranchisement that the right wing has engaged.”

Oh and if you wonder if the Republicans are actually engaged in intimidation and vote suppression, here’s the latest from Milwaukee:

The Wisconsin Republican Party has issued a call for volunteer poll watchers for Election Day, and the criteria is a little specific, seeking especially folks made of sterner stuff. Jonathan Waclawski, the party’s election day operations, wrote in a Sept. 8 e-mail that he needed contact information for people “who would potentially be willing to volunteer … at inner city (more intimidating) polling places. Particularly, I am interested in names of Milwaukee area veterans, policemen, security personnel, firefighters etc. … If you have any connections with such organizations, please pass that information on.” The e-mail fell into the hands of an Obama supporter, who passed it to the Obama campaign, who released it today after a news conference with its campaign director and general counsel, who discussed voter registration, voter education and voter protection. The Obama team pointed to Waclawski’s e-mail as ground-level tactics that could create concerns among voters. “This is much ado about nothing. I don’t see anything wrong with this,” said Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman with the Wisconsin GOP. “Intimidating was referring to the polling places, not to poll watchers who would be intimidating,” she said. “The way I read this we are looking for people to go to intimidating places.

They aren’t even trying to cover their tracks.

Update: for a nice primer on the DOJ rules about investigating “voter fruad” in the days before an election, here’s Paul Kiel at TPM. More here at TPM about today’s action.

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Attention American Ex-Pats!

by tristero

HI, Americans living overseas! Chances are that if you read this site, you are already registered and know how to absentee vote. But just in case… I was talking to an American friend of mine, LS, in Germany earlier and the subject got around to voting and I asked her to send some information I could post about registering, voting, etc for ex-pats. Here it is. Hope this helps. Now, vote!:

good to talk. here the link to the simplest non-partisan voter registration site:

Overseas Vote Foundation

I’ve tried it out and filled out the forms for a couple of friends. It’s very clear and quite fool-proof. Different states have different deadlines – widely different deadlines. A new “service” this year (“concession”?) is that if your ballot does not arrive in time, you may download a WRITE-IN ballot and mail it in to your polling place. everything is explained on the site in print and video.

the government’s site is: www.fvap.gov

the Obama site directs you to: www.voteforchange.com which will also help you apply for your absentee ballot or tell you where your polling place is located. It is sponsored by the Obama campaign.

No Guts No Glory

by digby

It’s clear that Obama won the debate last night (and would have even if he’d never opened his mouth) because the man sitting opposite of him made a complete ass of himself, as he usually does.

But there was one thing Obama said that quite bothered me — he gave credit to McCain over the issue of torture. He isn’t the only one. I was watching the Frontline broadcast about the two candidates the other night and it too gave McCain big kudos for his position against torture, segueing directly into the story of McCain’s captivity in Vietnam.

This is fundamentally incorrect. McCain was supposed to be the stalwart opponent of torture and he failed. He was the shiny pink lipgloss on the pig called the Military Commissions Act, and it was actually the lowest, most dishonorable betrayal of principle I’ve ever seen a politician make. To give him credit for being against torture when he sold his reputation as a POW to the Bush administration to help them legalize it is just mind-boggling.

Here is what happened:

After first insisting that federal law clearly and unambiguously outlaw “torture,” McCain suddenly caved to White House pressure on the MCA, allowing the Administration to insert into the law a clause that effectively allows (and, indeed, legally buttresses the efforts of) the executive branch to implement torture as a means of interrogation.

Without McCain’s pander, there would have been no bad law for the Court to strike down last week. Without McCain’s grandiloquent appeal to Democrats and moderates during that lame-duck session, there quite possibly might have been a better law that just might have passed its constitutional test this term.

McCain’s sell-out on the torture language is not the reason the Justices declared the MCA unconstitutional. It is not the reason why the detainees now have more access to federal courts than they did before. But it is emblematic of the larger and much more destructive, seven-year-long sell-out of the legislative branch in the legal fight against terrorism.

And that emblem, thanks to the Supreme Court, now has John McCain’s face on it just in time for the run-up to the general election.

Unfortunately, everyone seems to have forgotten what McCain did and insist on giving him credit rather than the condemnation he so richly deserves.

McCain then went on to vote against the legislation that would have required the CIA to follow the Army Field manual, which would have explicitly banned the agency’s use of torture. And this week, we found out even more about the cover-up of these activities which the administration had already approved. McCain has not stepped up to condemn this as far as I know.

Here’s how John Weaver, his former close advisor, described the fearless maverick’s “negotiations” with the Bush administration on the Military Commissions Act in a Frontline interview:

And then 9/11, the torture amendment — torture is an issue that John McCain, of course, feels very personally.

That struck, I think, the rawest nerve with him of any issue that I saw in my 12 years of being associated with John in an intimate manner.

But it was a very tough fight. The White House was unyielding. McCain had the moral high ground. But we had to work like hell, like hell, to move that through the Senate. And the negotiations with the White House ranged from the bizarre to angry. And it was a tough situation.

And when [Vice President Dick] Cheney comes in [with] his full-court press, is this John McCain at his finest?

You could say that. You could say that about maybe the immigration issue. But certainly he rose to the occasion, and he took the vice president on, who at that point was at the peak of his power at the White House and with the Republicans in the Senate. I think McCain called negotiating with Cheney akin to negotiating banking reform with Bonnie and Clyde — just not something that’s really doable. Ultimately, the president saw that and then moved to, oddly enough, make [White House Counsel] Harriet Miers the negotiator, and that didn’t work, and then it moved to the national security director.

You could also say that John McCain folding in the face of pressure on an issue of fundamental principle was because he is either cowardly, craven or naive. If this was his finest, I’d hate to see his worst.

Then there’s the victory, and there’s a famous shot of Bush and McCain shaking hands in the Oval Office. But then the signing statement surfaces. How does he take that?

He did not take that well, on multiple grounds. Again, getting back to honor, it’s not an honorable thing to negotiate an agreement in an intense way, to have a very public coming together as the president and John did in the Oval Office, and then for the president to sign the bill in a very public ceremony, and then to issue a statement or a letter that undercut much of the bill. I think it got to the core thing about McCain, which is honor. Congress doesn’t like to be treated that way, and that was part of it, but it really had to do about honor.

There’s one other practical side of it, though, the much-talked-about CIA loophole. Where does that come from?

When you’re trying to pass something, the perfect can be the enemy of the good. And I think at the end of the day, they did the best they could on that issue. And I think that’s how he sees it. I mean, he worked very hard with [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] and with Colin Powell. And I can assure you that if he’s president, that will be fixed immediately.

Some honor. That is all utter bullshit. The signing statement wasn’t the problem, although it was odious. The MCA itself, the one that McCain allegedly negotiated, said that that detainees had no right to judicial review, thus removing any chance that anyone would ever know if they’d been tortured or if the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit torture, had been violated. Here’s Jack Balkin:

Any CIA official who acts in good faith will probably conclude that waterboarding, hypothermia, stress positions, and related techniques violate one or more of these features of American law.

What the new Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) did, however, was to make these legal norms effectively unenforceable. That is why Rickard’s op-ed is a bit misleading. The McCain Amendment does not provide an individual remedy for violations, the MCA states that individuals cannot enforce their rights under the Geneva Conventions in judicial proceedings, including applications for habeas corpus.

The bottom line is simple: The MCA preserves rights against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, but it severs these rights from any practical remedy.

No thanks to John McCain (and his faithful hound Huckleberry Graham who actually went so far as to defraud the Court in these matters) the Supremes reinstated the write of habeas corpus in Boumadiene. (They don’t like being told they are irrelevant.)

The fact is that McCain and Warner and Huckleberry Graham allowed their reputations as “mavericks” and “statemen” to be used as cover for the Bush administration’s torture policies. Whether it’s because they rolled over and presented their underbellies to Dick Cheney like he was the alpha dog from hell or they conspired with the administration to cleverly outlaw torture while removing any way to prosecute those who broke that law, is irrelevant. The result was that John McCain lost what was left of his reputation the day he put it on the line for that piece of garbage.

I never liked McCain, obviously. He’s a conservative and a jerk. But I did think he had some core principles until he sold his soul on this issue. It’s true that you can’t let “the perfect be the enemy of the good” but when it comes to torture, it’s not about “perfect or good.” It’s simply about “right and wrong.” If McCain had stood up against this bill, it wouldn’t have passed. The nation would have preserved some semblance of its tattered honor. Instead, he basked in the glow of his president’s approval and later went on to enable the CIA to torture even further. He deserves nothing but contempt for that craven and disreputable act.

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