The Thorn Papers

Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T08:32:00.001-06:00

Just for posterity's sake. In roughly two and a half hours, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

And here in Oxpatch, snow - SNOW! - is falling. It absolutely never snows here.

Beautiful.

Roger Wicker Endorses Obama!

2008-11-03T19:06:00.001-06:00

Well, either that or he's playing despicable Republican games, trying to deceive the electorate.

Something's Happening Here

2008-10-24T15:03:00.001-05:00

This is shaping up to be a 1980-style map reshaping. Strange bedfellows and wide-ranging coalitions are the order of the day. Via HuffPost:

I spotted the large Obama sign in front of the confederate flag on my way to U.S. Representative Rick Boucher's luncheon in Pearisburg, Virginia, Saturday. As a longtime resident of Giles County, I am accustomed to seeing confederate signs dotting the countryside. One store has confederate flag pillows prominently displayed outside every summer. But, I must admit I was surprised to see the Obama sign with a confederate flag behind it so I stopped to ask about it.

Obama/Biden sign with Confederate flag behind it.

Pete Martin, Obama Supporter

"Well, it's about time for a change, don't you think?" asked Pete Martin, the owner of the store where the sign was prominently displayed. Pete sells produce, camouflage clothing, and of course, confederate flags. I answered "Yes, it is" while I inquired about the apples for sale, $7 for a bushel! I purchased my apples and drove into Pearisburg for the luncheon.

When I arrived, I encountered Willi Dean, a local African-American, who asked if I could get more large Obama/Biden signs. I have been ferrying carloads of these signs, just like the one in front of Pete's store, for several weeks for people to put up all around the county. Willi had been delivering them to African-American families but some were afraid to put up the large signs. "We don't want no trouble" Willi said. But, now, it seemed it was alright since many large signs were sprouting up all over the county.

Obama's On Xbox

2008-10-14T11:12:00.001-05:00

Very interesting. Obama is advertising inside of an Xbox360 racing game:

Tommy's On the Hunt

2008-10-14T11:10:00.001-05:00

And something's smelling a bit fishy in Roger Wicker Land.

Bernstein on Liddy-McCain

2008-10-14T09:16:00.001-05:00

I'd written about this several months ago, but am glad to see it getting more visibility. Carl Bernstein returns to the disturbing relationship between John McCain and G. Gordon Liddy, and the former's admiration for the latter's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." As Carl asks:

Which of Liddy's "principles and philosophies" was McCain referring to? Liddy's advocacy of break-ins? Firebombings? Assassinations? Kidnappings? Taking target practice with figures nicknamed Bill and Hillary?

During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.

Re: Liddy's "continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great:" Did McCain mean to include Liddy's instructions to listeners of his radio show in 1994 (around the time Ayres and Obama were on a board together discussing education programs and other plots) on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents (aim for the head)?

Seriously. How about some uproar and outrage over McCain's refusal to be candid with the American people about his relationship with a convicted felon and unrepentant terrorist? One whose support, we should remember, Sen. McCain actively sought.

In any case, if you were looking for some sort of objective understanding of John McCain's cowardice in not bringing up the mud slung at his rallies when face to face with the man he's smearing, this should help. It's probably not a subject he wants to get backed up against the wall on by Obama. Not with tens of millions of Americans watching.

And oh yeah, he's neither courageous enough nor principled enough to do so, even if it wouldn't blow up in his face.

WTF?

2008-10-10T14:03:00.001-05:00

This is funny.

Two Great Ads

2008-10-06T16:10:00.001-05:00

Meant to cut the legs out of Angry McNasty's new shift to an all-negative, all-the-time campaign strategy. And they're both effective. First, Obama's:

And then this one, the better of the two, actually, from the DNC:

Dow Down Nearly 750

2008-09-29T15:08:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: Make that 777. Yeesh a mighty.

And McCain wants the credit. From Politico:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

The rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Senator Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs-up.

John. Please. For the love of God. Stop now.

Holy Crap

2008-09-29T15:04:00.001-05:00

I'd imagine some very serious drinking is about to commence at the Killarney Rose.

Horror Movies

2008-09-28T14:08:00.001-05:00

I've been spending a lot of time lately revisiting the horror movies which gave me the willies in my youth (that's one of the benefits of being a father of a young son) and I'm sad, but not surprised, to say that most don't hold up, and the chilling nature I remembered as a boy is no where to be found. For what it's worth, my son's a tougher critic than I, and we've yet to find one that's actually scared him.

But today, I saw something that absolutely chilled me, to the bone. Hell, to the marrow. Icy, aching marrow.

That scares the ever loving shit out of me.

Stream the New Dylan Free

2008-09-26T14:35:00.001-05:00

Y'all know I have an affinity for Bob Dylan. Well, imagine my happy surprise to learn that he'll be releasing his new album one week early and streaming it for free during that week on NPR. Fun begins at 12:01 AM EST on Tuesday. I'll update with a link when I find it.

We Know He's Coming

2008-09-25T19:11:00.002-05:00

Letterman Cold Cocks McCain

2008-09-24T17:48:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: Here's video.

And rightfully so, I'd say. By way of Politico (who got it from Sludge, to whom I won't link):

David Letterman tells audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy.

Then in the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"

Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sarah Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

Indeed. McCain can't focus on more than one thing at once, hardly the quality we'd want for the man who would have arguably one of the most demanding and complex jobs on the planet.

And I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until his pasty face is sweating under the Ford Center lights, there is no more important time for the American public see these two candidates debate. The topic should obviously shift to the most pressing issue at hand, and it would be good that the two have been preparing for a foreign policy discussion. They'd have to think on their feet, and speak note from rote memorization, but from a thorough understanding of the issues. I have no doubt that Obama would excel in that situation, as I have little doubt McCain would flounder.

Hunter hits the nail on the head:

The debate simply is going to have to address on the economy, at least in part.

So fine -- let's change the focus of the debate to the economy. It would be a fine opportunity to see what the candidates can do without weeks of advance preparation with surrogates, talking points, and the like -- what better test of candidates then to simply ask them about these issues, and let them talk. Such a debate would be exactly what many of us have been waiting for, including, purportedly, John McCain himself -- a chance for a true spontaneous debate between the two candidates.

I don't think it should require much to just switch the topic of the debate and be done with it. John McCain has been in the Senate for 26 years. If he's not ready to talk about the economy now, he isn't ever going to be.

First Poll of Reaction to Latest McCain Stunt

2008-09-24T16:58:00.001-05:00

SurveyUSA is out with a flash poll conducted immediately after McCain chickened out:

America's First Reaction: Friday's McCain-Obama Debate Should Still Be Held On Friday, But Perhaps with New Focus

Immediately after John McCain's announcement 3 pm ET today, Wednesday 09/24/08, that he was suspending his campaign and seeking to postpone Friday's schedule presidential debate, SurveyUSA interviewed 1,000 adults nationwide. Key findings:

A majority of Americans say the debate should be held. Just 10% say the debate should be postponed. A sizable percentage of Americans, 36%, think the focus of the debate should be modified to focus more on the economy. 3 of 4 Americans say the presidential campaign should continue. Just 14% say the presidential campaign should be suspended. If Friday's debate does not take place 46%, of Americans say that would be bad for America.

Demand the Debate

2008-09-24T16:52:00.001-05:00

Don't let McCain get away with his cowardly political stunt. The American people deserve to hear from the candidates at such a crucial moment in American history.

Sign the petition.

Jack's With Me

2008-09-24T16:18:00.001-05:00

I like the way that Cafferty thinks.

Un-Friggin Believable!!

2008-09-24T14:03:00.001-05:00

Breaking news just now: John McCain is trying to postpone Friday night's debate under the pretense of wanting to focus on the economic crisis.

Unbelievable. more as it develops.

From MSNBC:

Republican John McCain says he's directing his staff to work with Barack Obama's campaign and the debate commission to delay Friday's debate because of the economic crisis.

In a statement, McCain says he will stop campaigning after addressing former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative session on Thursday and return to Washington to focus on the nation's financial problems.

Nice attempt at some bold political theater there bucko, but I think that putting country first might be better demonstrated - and the public far better served - by having the debate as scheduled and focusing on the economy. Think of it, a real-deal political debate in the midst of - and focusing on - a real deal crisis.

I think the fate of humanity itself could spare the super-human patriotism of St. John McCain for a few hours on Friday night.

Never mind the $6 million Ole Miss has sunk into this thing at this point.

An Invitation to Oxford from Obama

2008-09-24T13:37:00.001-05:00

Just received this info:

Show your support for Barack this Friday, September 26th, at an Obama for America visibility event before the first presidential debate at The University of Mississippi.

Here are the details:

Rock the Debate
Visibility and Watch Party

The Grove
University of Mississippi
Oxford, MS

Friday, September 26th
Program Begins: 12:00 p.m.

RSVP

http://ms.barackobama.com/RockTheDebate

Daily Journal Catches Up With folo

2008-09-24T09:08:00.001-05:00

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Wednesday September 24th:

JACKSON - Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann based his recent argument for placing the special U.S. Senate race at the bottom of the ballot on precedent, but his office's research overlooked the last such race, which was at the top of the 1947 general election ballot.

Hosemann, the state's chief elections official, said this week he was unaware that the 1947 election in which John Stennis was elected to the U.S. Senate was a special election at the top of the ballot.

folo, Sunday, September 21st:

I almost headed this post “The Secretary of State forgot John Stennis.”

Recall that on Friday I posted the ballot for the state-wide election in 1947, in which there were both the state election and the special election for United States Senate, occuring after Bilbo’s death. John Stennis won that race. The ballot for the 1947 special election had the special election for Senate at the top, above the race for governor. Here’s the 1947 official ballot. I noted that the only other special election for Senate was in 1941.

In the court filings for the special election ballot case, Secretary of State Hosemann filed an affidavit that said he’d researched special elections from the past. It also said:
Mississippi has not had Special Election for a United States Senator since 1941. The Special Election on September 23, 1941 was not held during the General Election. Therefore, no precedent for the last sixty years exists. …
A few minutes with Wikipedia would have prevented this misunderstanding for anyone who remembered that John Stennis once occupied the seat currently in contest.

Nice work Tommy.

MS Dems Press Conference on the Oxford Square

2008-09-24T08:53:00.000-05:00

For all the media in town, and for all the locals who want to show their support for a progressive future for America (which is our only hope at this point, honestly), thought I'd pass along the following item.

OXFORD (Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008) – Mississippi Democrats will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, to highlight how Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s stand on the Iraq war has cost us at home.

The news conference will be on the east side of the Oxford Square next to Oxford City Hall, 107 Courthouse Square.

Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Jamie Franks will lead the news conference and talk about how McCain’s policies threaten to further harm an economy already in turmoil. Other Democratic Party leaders are expected to attend.

Please do show up. With all of the lowlife tactics being used in the run-up to the debate (specifically, trying to eliminate any visible sign of the - quite substantial, I should add - support for Obama that exists here in Oxford as the national media descends upon the town), it sure would be helpful to have every Obama supporter in town show up and show the world they're here.

For Our Debate Visitors

2008-09-24T08:20:00.001-05:00

I can see from our web stats that we're getting a lot of traffic from folks who are searching for the Oxford Town post about the localized historical nature of Obama's presence here as a candidate for President. As the NY Times has gone into the same subject (more or less), and the town is filling with visitors for the Ole Miss Presidential Debate, I thought I'd re-post the following from back in June:

About a month and a half or so ago, my family, the dog and I were out walking on the Ole Miss campus, and I saw, for the first time, the signs advertising the upcoming presidential debate the University wil be hosting in September. Of course, I'd known the debate was scheduled for some time, recognizing it as the coup it was for the town, the school and the state. It's the first debate of the general, and even then - despite the rancor of the primary season - I knew it was going to be a match up between Obama and McCain.

But on seeing the signs, with that understanding in my mind, I was struck with overwhelming emotion. "Are you crying, Daddy?" my littlest one asked. And yeah, sap I am, I was. The historical significance just bowled me over. I kept hearing Bob Dylan in the back of my head, singing his ode to our fair town, back in the day, when it was far less fair:

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town

He went down to Oxford Town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford Town

Oxford Town around the bend
He come in to the door, he couldn't get in
All because of the color of his skin
What do you think about that, my frien'?

Me and my gal, my gal's son
We got met with a tear gas bomb
I don't even know why we come
Goin' back where we come from

Oxford Town in the afternoon
Ev'rybody singin' a sorrowful tune
Two men died 'neath the Mississippi moon
Somebody better investigate soon

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev'rybody's got their heads bowed down
The sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford Town
For the historically challenged, the song speaks to the chaos and hatred that accompanied James Meredith's enrollment at Ole Miss in 1962. It was, as a friend who runs historical tours reminded me just yesterday, the second time in less than a hundred years that Oxford was under US military occupation, the first having been in 1864 during the Civil War.

From the Wikipedia entry on the tune:
On September 20, 1962, an African American student named James Meredith became the first minority student enrolled in the University of Mississippi. His enrollment, ensured by the protection of the US Marshalls under direct order from then-President John F. Kennedy, sparked rioting on the campus of the university. During the ensuing violence, countless students were injured and two were killed. The song Oxford Town is concerned with the events surrounding the campus riots and the enrollment of James Meredith. In a larger scope, the song deals with the American Civil Rights Movement.
A black mark on Oxford and the University, for sure, and a moment in history that still reverberates here today. A couple of years back, after 44 years, the University erected a statue of Meredith approaching a portal to commemorate his struggle:

Well deserved and then some, considering what he'd gone through both here in '62 and beyond. Many of you might remember this iconic photo:

Civil rights activist James Meredith grimaces in pain as he pulls himself across Highway 51 in Hernando, Miss. after being shot during a voting rights march, June 6, 1966. Meredith, who defied segregation to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, completed the march from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss., after treatment of his wounds.

In any case, back to the future. Or the recent past, as the case may be. I stood there, looking up at the signs, not far from the gunfire and teargas of 1962, with tears rolling down my face, hearing Dylan's song somewhere off in the distance. And when I learned yesterday that Dylan himself had endorsed Obama, it all came back.

There's a thousand and one reasons that I support Barack Obama; his progressive vision, his brilliance, his palpable sincere compassion and conviction, his willingness to fight, the list goes on and on. But I've never wanted to see him president simply because he's an African-American. Not that I didn't see his candidacy in that historic light, it's just never been a defining reason for my support.

But that morning, realizing that he would be coming here, to Oxford Town, the first black man with a real shot at the presidency (and that shot's getting stronger and stronger as the days go on), to this University whose buildings are still pockmarked with 46 year old bullet holes from the Meredith riots....well, it knocked me for one hell of a loop. It's almost beyond my ability to put into words.

This man, this great man, will be coming here to close that circle once and for all.

And beyond the incredible joy and pride that we'll all feel as Democrats and Americans, we should also see this in the light of history. It will be an amazing moment for Mississippi and America. And I'll be here, and my kids - who, in their blissful colorblindness, thank God, don't even understand yet why this is so astoundingly significant - will be here too.

And it just brought tears to my eyes.

"Yes, baby, Daddy's crying. But it's only because I'm happy."

Tuesday Morning Oddities

2008-09-23T11:19:00.001-05:00

Well, seems as though Oxford's been invaded by an army of Segway scooters. Looks like the police and (strangely enough) the campus ROTC folks will be on two wheeled futuristic patrol. I've seen about a dozen so far.

Cowards Move Under Cover of Darkness

2008-09-22T22:56:00.001-05:00

In advance of Friday's debate, there's been a rash of thefts and destruction of Obama yard signs throughout the town of Oxford. Sometime in the last hour, some useless, no count sack of shit took mine.

Kevin Smith

2008-09-22T18:04:00.001-05:00

If you didn't catch Bill Moyers on Friday, you should definitely take the time to watch this discussion with Kevin Smith.

John McCain, Serial Liar

2008-09-22T16:55:00.001-05:00

Great find by Jed. McCain in March of this year, explaining his feelings on the housing crisis and the financial sector:

Yeah, that's the ticket. Why, I'm sure that even less regulation would have nipped this here "precipice of a Depression" situation right in the bud.

What?

You don't think so?

But...but.....POW POW POW!!!!

Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses

2008-09-21T18:03:00.000-05:00

And you, the American stooge, you get to foot the bill. How you like them apples? Not so much? Didn't think so. To quote a very well respected idiot, "Suck. On. This."

image courtesy of patriotboy

Justice Department Called Upon in MS Electoral Shenanigan-gate

2008-09-16T19:41:00.001-05:00

But given the utterly despicable politicization of Justice during the Bush administration, I don't place much hope in American justice any longer. But anyway, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has asked the Justice Department to block Haley from breaking the law with his rigged ballot:

A top congressional Democrat asked the Justice Department Tuesday to block Mississippi's Republican governor from putting a special election for Trent Lott's old Senate seat near the bottom of the November ballot.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said it was a "blatant violation" of the Voting Rights Act for Gov. Haley Barbour to separate the special election from other federal races, including a regular election for Mississippi's other U.S. Senate seat.

"The Mississippi governor does not get to change the rules when the race is not going his way," Conyers, of Michigan, said in a news release...

The Justice Department will consider Conyers' request after the Mississippi Supreme Court rules on a Democratic lawsuit challenging the ballot, spokeswoman Jamie Hais said.

Because of Mississippi's history of racial discrimination, the department must clear any election changes to protect minorities' voting rights. Conyers contends putting the special election at the bottom of the ballot is such a change...

...Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green on Friday ordered Barbour to move the race higher. Barbour's appeal to the state Supreme Court was pending Tuesday.

Barbour — a former Republican National Committee chairman — moved Wicker from north Mississippi's U.S. House seat to temporarily fill Lott's Senate seat until the special election. One of the governor's nephews is managing Wicker's campaign. Musgrove is a former governor who lost his re-election race to Barbour in 2003.

Good New Musgrove Ad

2008-09-16T16:48:00.001-05:00

Pretty powerful. He needs more of this positivity on air, and less tearing down Wicker. Let the GOP play that game. By way of the fellas at SSP.

Latest polling has Musgrove within striking distance. This will be one to watch in November.

Foreshadowing the Threat of a Possible McCain Presidency

2008-09-15T14:43:00.001-05:00

Don't be fooled, America.

Without a Stitch of Honor Left to His Name

2008-09-15T14:03:00.001-05:00

A SIgn of the Apocalypse

2008-09-15T13:47:00.001-05:00

Fox News calling out McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds on his bullshit? I do believe I'll need to retire to the fainting couch. I seem to have come down with a case the vapors. Oh my stars and garters...

Obviously, the narrative is shifting here, if even Fox is forced to confront the pathological lying of the McCain campaign.

Tell Us How You Really Feel

2008-09-13T15:52:00.001-05:00

McCain's Connection to Drill-Baby-Drill-Me-Gate

2008-09-12T16:38:00.001-05:00

From TPM Election Central comes word that a couple of high-ranking McCain campaign officials are linked to the companies involved in the emerging sex-for-oil scandal at the Department of the Interior:

It turns out that McCain's national finance co-chair, Wayne Berman, is a paid lobbyist, and has been one for years, for two of the oil companies that are at the center of the sex, drugs and oil scandal enveloping the Interior Department.

One of McCain's high-ranking campaign officials also lobbied for the companies for years -- during time periods when the scandal has unfolded -- up until he joined the McCain campaign in the spring...

...The short version is as follows: Employees at a number of leading energy companies allegedly gave improper gifts -- including sports tickets, ski trips, illegal drugs and even sexual relations -- to federal officials in charge of a program that oversees a program by which the companies can pay for use of public lands with free energy instead of cash, saving them money.

The office of the Interior Department's inspector General launched a probe in 2006, and this week, it released a report finding that energy company officials serially and flagrantly violated gift rules and went so far as to give drugs and sex to government officials, and the government officials in turn gave contracts to favored companies.

According to Senate lobbying disclosure forms, Ogilvy -- represented by Berman and Green -- lobbied for Chevron and Hess from 2005 to the present, and was paid a total of $2.36 million by the companies. They had enlisted Ogilvy's help in order to influence Congress on such issues as comprehensive energy reform, energy price-gouging, and other issues related to liquefied natural gas.

Both Berman and Green lobbied for the companies for about three years, continuing when the scandals were already public knowledge, and Berman is still lobbying for them.

Now, it's not to suggest that either one of these men is directly tied to the sex-for-oil scandal, but it does show how when you lie down with dogs, you're sure to come up with fleas....and when your national finance co-chair continues to lobby for the flea-bitten dog (who actually looks as though he might be suffering from mange...and perversion) while you're pretending to be a maverick reformer headed to clean up Warshington, well, let's just call that problematic.

Friday Funny

2008-09-12T15:20:00.001-05:00

And yes, I know for many of you, this was actually a Thursday (or even Wednesday) funny, but nevertheless, Gina Gershon as Sarah Palin. Enjoy.

One Heartbeat Away

2008-09-12T14:36:00.001-05:00

From (former Bush counter-terrorism official) Rand Beers' National Security Network comes just the sort of issues-ad Dem-leaning 527s would be running had Obama not reigned them in.

Whether you agree with Obama's decision on that matter or not, the easy and widespread access to video production capabilities and the distribution power of the Internet are opening up the option regardless.

Lies and the Lying Liar Who Approved Them

2008-09-12T14:22:00.001-05:00

The sheer volume of out and out lies coming from the McCain campaign has been staggering. Thankfully, the media narrative does now seem to be turning its focus on the serial lying itself as opposed to fraudulent dummy issues with which the McCain campaign has been largely successful in hijacking the news cycle. Remember, every day of faux outrage over lipsticked pigs is a day not spent discussing the issues of importance - grave importance - to the American people.

This helps. Spread it around as much as you can.

Judge Green's Order on Illegal MS Ballot

2008-09-12T11:26:00.001-05:00

A copy of Judge Green's Declaratory Judgment and Order is available here.

I'll leave it to my good friends at folo to suss out what this means for all of us, since I am neither a lawyer nor do I even play one on TV. What does seem clear, however, is that Judge Green has ruled the election needs to be placed on the ballot according to Mississippi law, and not Barbour, Hosemann and the GOP's whims.

Strategy For Winning What Should Be an Unwinnable Election

2008-09-12T08:55:00.001-05:00

What do you do when your party is responsible for the ills of the country, and you're facing a voter backlash unlike anything your party has seen in decades? How do you even hope to retain the White House?

Simple. You pull out Rove's old 50% +1 strategy and try to shave the electorate into a more manageable and manipulable number.

Tar and slander your opponent at every opportunity; be merciless. You'll turn off a good chunk of the electorate, but hopefully (and historically), they'll express this disgust by withdrawing from the process. Relentless negative campaigning works very well as a means to depress turnout.
Ensure it will not be an election on the issues, but on personalities. Say as much.
Energize the most radical and activist components of your base. You know you can count on them to show up, and to act as unofficial foot soldiers on the street. Having secured that percentage of the electorate, and dissuaded enough to turn their heads in disgust from the whole thing (aided and abetted by the new journalistic definition of "objectivity" in which lies and truth, fiction and reality are given equal standing and left for the voter to decide between), the battleground shrinks to an almost manageable size.
Hijack the news cycle at every opportunity to divert the conversation and media narrative away from issues of substance and toward mindless hysterical diversions. Every day you escape having to confront the reality you're running against, the better it is for you.
To ensure a razor thin percentage of the electorate will decide the election (your only hope, really, and the strategic goal informing all of the above), you begin active voter suppression efforts.

To wit:

MADISON, Wis. - A lawsuit demanding Wisconsin election officials verify voters' identity before the November election could lead to frustration at the polls and exhausted clerks in a hotly contested state in the presidential race.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's lawsuit, filed Wednesday, demands that the state Government Accountability Board order election clerks to confirm the identities of potentially tens of thousands of voters — and possibly many more — who have registered since Jan. 1, 2006.

The work would have to be done by Election Day, Nov. 4. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi has scheduled a Sept. 19 hearing in the case.

A leader of local election clerks on Thursday predicted huge problems if the judge sides with Van Hollen.

"This is going to be a nightmare," said Nancy Zastrow, city clerk in Milton and president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association. "It's going to make voters frustrated. Poll workers are getting frustrated." [...]

...Van Hollen, a Republican and co-chair of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain's Wisconsin campaign, argues in his lawsuit the board should do the checks retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006, since that's when the federal mandate took effect. He wants the board to determine who is ineligible and remove them from the registration rolls.

It's unclear just how many registrants that might entail.

According to Government Accountability Board estimates, about 1 million people have registered to vote since Jan. 1, 2006. Election clerks say they would have to check each one, although Justice Department spokesman Kevin St. John has said they would have to check only people who registered by mail, which amounts to about 240,000 between Jan. 1, 2006, and this Aug. 6.

The problem is the software is still unreliable. It's been red-flagging hundreds of registrants, mostly because their names don't match how they're entered in other databases.

I'd venture a guess to say this will not be the only such case we'll see in the coming weeks of a Republican/McCain operative doing whatever they can to remove as many people from the process as possible.

War With Russia?

2008-09-11T17:50:00.001-05:00

She's out of her blooming mind. You and whose army, Sarah? In case you've forgotten, your running mate plans on ours being tied up in Iraq for, oh... maybe the next hundred years or so.

No wonder Chafee called you what he did (though this is far from the only evidence of his assessment).

NY Times on MS Ballot Shenanigans

2008-09-11T13:29:00.001-05:00

Saw this in print over coffee earlier this morning. Seems it's been online since last night.

Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour, and its secretary of state have come up with a particularly cynical dirty trick for the November election. Let’s call it: “Where’s the Senate race?”

Defying state law, they have decided to hide a hard-fought race for the United States Senate at the bottom of the ballot, where they clearly are hoping some voters will overlook it. Their proposed design is not only illegal. It shows a deep contempt for Mississippi’s voters...

...Mississippi election law clearly states that federal elections must go at the top of ballots. And the secretary of state, Delbert Hosemann, plans to list the state’s other Senate race — incumbent Thad Cochran is running far ahead of his Democratic challenger, Erik Fleming — where it belongs, right below the presidential contest.

But Mr. Hosemann argues that because the Wicker-Musgrove race is a special election to fill the remainder of Mr. Lott’s term, he is free to place it at the bottom, below state and county races.

Mr. Hosemann is insisting on that placement even after the state attorney general’s office notified him that his ballot design violates state law.

Mr. Hosemann’s ballot also violates the Voting Rights Act, which requires that changes in election procedures that could make it harder for people to vote — and this certainly fits that bill — be cleared in advance with the Justice Department...

...The case is likely to wind up, on appeal, in Mississippi’s Supreme Court. Voting rights advocates are worried that the Republican-leaning court will decide the case on partisan lines, rather than on the law.

If the state courts do not provide relief, supporters of fair elections should take the case to federal court. They will need to move quickly since time to prepare ballots is fast running out. Mississippi’s voters have a right to a ballot that conforms with the law — and that is not designed to win a Senate seat by trickery.

Foreign Policy's Got Some Questions

2008-09-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

And since the McCain camp is doing everything in their power to keep Sarah Palin from being questioned by journalists less friendly than Charles Gibson, they've decided to post them online as suggestions to Gibson (who will instead, I'm almost certain, provide the sort of soft-focus face to face the McCain campaign is banking on):

We've put together a list of suggested questions for Gibson that we think will reveal how aware Palin is of the issues awaiting her in Washington as well as offer a glimpse of the potential world leader that lies beneath the lipstick-wearing hockey mom. Feel free to suggest some of your own.

1. In a broad and long-term sense, would you have responded differently to the attacks of 9/11?
2. Is Iraq a democracy?
3. What’s the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?
4. What is your preferred plan for peace between Israel and Palestine? A two state solution? What about Jerusalem?
5. How do you feel about French President Nicolas Sarkozy's recent visit to Syria? Do you believe the United States should negotiate with leaders like President Bashar al-Assad?
6. Nearly 40 percent of the world's population lives in China and India. Who are those countries' leaders?
7. Do you support the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, which would lift restrictions on sales of nuclear technology and fuel to India, a country which hasn’t signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty?
8. Other than more drilling, what steps do you suggest the U.S. take in order to move toward energy independence? Do you believe more investment is needed in alternative energy research? If so, how would you recommend this funding be allocated?
9. How would you balance concerns over human rights and freedom in China with the United States' growing economic interdependence with that country?
10. What's more important: securing Russia's cooperation on nuclear proliferation and Iran, or supporting Georgia's NATO bid? If Vladimir Putin called you on the phone and said, "It's one or the other," what would you tell him?
11. Critique the foreign policy of the last administration. Name its single greatest success, and its most critical failure.
12. What do you think will be the most defining foreign-policy issue in the next five years?
13. What role should the United States play in the global effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS? Should it support contraception, or abstinence only?
14. You've said that the federal government spends too much money. What, in your view, is the appropriate level of spending as a percentage of GDP?
15. You're an advocate of reducing environmental restrictions on drilling. How much oil needs to be found in the United States before the country achieves energy independence?
16. What are your picks for the three most enlightening books written on foreign policy in the last five years?
17. Who among the world's leaders can be listed as the top three friends of the United States and why?
18. In your opinion, which U.S. president was the most successful world leader and why?
19. Which U.S. political thinkers, writers, and politicians would you enlist to advise you on matters of foreign policy and why?
20. Who is the first world leader you'd like to meet with and why?

So, whataya say, Charlie? Sarah? Bueller?

Obama on Letterman

2008-09-11T13:09:00.001-05:00

Did y'all see Barack Obama on David Letterman last night? If not, you should. It was a great interview, and much more detailed and issues-oriented than most of the news coverage lately. Very much worth your while, whether you support the man or not.

Palin: Reprehensible

2008-09-11T12:49:00.000-05:00

So we learn that as Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin forced rape victims to pay for their own exams. Nice. Very compassionate. And, as Scout Finch notes at dKos, the entire cost savings was less than what, as Governor, Palin charged the taxpayers of Alaska for her to stay at her own home.

I know it's horribly sexist for me to mention this, but still.

Judge Green's TRO

2008-09-09T19:24:00.001-05:00

For those who'd requested, a copy of the Temporary Restraining Order issued today by Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green, as images.

Page 1

Page 2

Update on Illegal MS Ballot

2008-09-09T16:04:00.001-05:00

Not so fast there, GOP pardner....

From the C-L

A judge has temporarily blocked a state ballot that places the U.S. Senate race between Ronnie Musgrove and Roger Wicker near the bottom of the ballot.

Earlier today, the state Election Commission approved placing the Musgrove-Wicker race in the special election section that comes after regular election contests on Nov. 4.

But Pike County Election Commissioner Trudy Berger filed a lawsuit in Hinds County Circuit Court only hours after the commission meeting.

“My client's responsibilities are to the voters and the law is clear. Elections for federal office should be at the top of the ballot. The proposed ballot buries the most prominent election in the state and will cause confusion on Election Day,” said Jackson Attorney Sam Begley, who is representing Berger.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green issued a temporary restraining order barring the ballots from being sent out until a hearing can be conducted on the matter.

Mississippi SoS Presents Illegal Ballot

2008-09-09T11:25:00.001-05:00

Seems that MS Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann has decided to his part as a loyal Republican foot soldier and bury the Senate race at the bottom of the ballot in defiance of Mississippi election law. And Haley approves. A statement just released by the Musgrove campaign notes that:

Hosemann could cite no statute supporting his decision to move the race from the top of the ballot. However, Attorney General Jim Hood did cite election law requiring federal races be placed at the top of the ballot...

...The unlawful ballot is expected to cause confusion for voters expecting to find the Musgrove-Wicker race with other federal elections where it belongs. The most prominent election in the state will be one of the hardest races to find on Election Day.

Mississippi election law, code 23-15-367, clearly states federal races, like the Musgrove-Wicker race, belong on the top of the ballot.

UPDATE: I should have posted the text of the code first time around, instead of just a link:

SEC. 23-15-367. Arrangement of names of candidates, order of titles of offices, and printing of official ballot generally; order in which titles of various offices are to be listed on the ballot; furnishing of sample of official ballot; alphabetical arrangement in primary elections.

(1) Except as otherwise provided by Sections 23-15-974 through 23-15-985 and subsection (2) of this section, the arrangement of the names of the candidates, and the order in which the titles of the various offices shall be printed, and the size, print and quality of paper of the official ballot is left to the discretion of the officer charged with printing the official ballot; but the arrangement need not be uniform.

(2) The titles for the various offices shall be listed in the following order:

(a) Candidates for national office;

(b) Candidates for statewide office; [etc.]

What is This "Change" They Speak Of?

2008-09-08T16:11:00.001-05:00

Obama in Flint, Michigan today:

We Been Hyp-Mo-Tized!

2008-09-08T15:42:00.001-05:00

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

2008-09-08T13:02:00.001-05:00

...and not a drop to drink. Or something like that.

Anyway, seems Kos is jumping into the deep end of the polling pool, adding a new daily presidential tracking poll (along with a whole slew of other targeted races) through election day. I welcome this news particularly for the transparency he provides into the cross-tabs and other granular details (which many organizations do not).

Looking forward to the imminent release of new Mississippi numbers this week.....

Chilling

2008-09-07T12:19:00.001-05:00

John McCain doesn't even realize what he's being used for, does he?

If It Walks Like a Duck...

2008-09-06T08:05:00.001-05:00

....and quacks like a duck, it's obstruction of justice.

Nice.

My Sincere Condolences, Jack

2008-09-05T18:30:00.001-05:00

Very sad. Jack Cafferty lost his wife today. The man has been a constant presence on my television (with the exception of not many years) since I was just a kid in New York, and I really feel for him right now, and his loss.

Blitzer put it this way this afternoon:

Jack Cafferty isn't here today for "The Cafferty File" because of some tragic news. His wife of 35 years, Carol, passed away unexpectedly this morning.

Carol was everything to Jack. The dedication of his book reads, "For Carol, my wife, my life."

Jack wrote about how she was the inspiration for him to get sober and straighten up his life. And I'm quoting now, "In all the years that we've been married, she has always brought to the table her unshakable grounding in something a lot more real than being on television or being recognized in the corner drugstore. She has been my rock, having done a magnificent job of keeping me from getting full of helium and drifting off the surface of the earth."

"She was all the incentive I needed to make painful but transforming changes to get sober and stop smoking. I knew that I'd lose her if I didn't. She's an amazing woman who simply wasn't worth losing." That's a quote from his book.

One story Jack loves to tell is how he and Carol met when he was a local news anchor in Kansas City. They started to meet regularly for a quick meal between his shows and became very good friends. Whenever Jack had to leave, his exit line would always be, "We better wrap this up, got to get back to the station."

One night Carol finally asked, "What kind of gas station do you work at? You're always wearing a tie." Jack explained it was a television station.

He loved the fact that she had no clue and couldn't care less that he had been on air there in Kansas City every night for four years. He later described that as one of his life's 24-carat moments that made his heart soar.

He said to himself then that he might marry her because "... it can't get any more honest and pure than that." Those are Jacks words.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Jack and their two daughters, Leslie and Lee (ph). Our thoughts also are with Jack's other two daughters, Julie and Jill Ann (ph), his grandchildren.

Carol, by the way, was an animal lover. If you would like to make a donation in her memory, the family asks that you give to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. You can contribute at aspca.org

So sorry for your loss, Jack.

Amy Goodman Speaks

2008-09-05T16:36:00.001-05:00

Y'all may remember my post from Monday that Amy Goodman, respected journalist and host of Democracy Now! had been arrested outside the RNC convention this week as part of the St. Paul police's heavy-handed crackdown on dissent and media creators.

Well, Goodman's written her own account of the arrest, and it is, as the kids say, "a must read." An excerpt (emphasis my own):

Outside the fences, they [political conventions] have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements—for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Behind all the patriotic hyperbole that accompanies the conventions, and the thousands of journalists and media workers who arrive to cover the staged events, there are serious violations of the basic right of freedom of the press. Here on the streets of St. Paul, the press is free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who have come to petition their government, to protest.

It was Labor Day, and there was an anti-war march, with a huge turnout, with local families, students, veterans and people from around the country gathered to oppose the war. The protesters greatly outnumbered the Republican delegates.

There was a positive, festive feeling, coupled with a growing anxiety about the course that Hurricane Gustav was taking, and whether New Orleans would be devastated anew. Later in the day, there was a splinter march. The police—clad in full body armor, with helmets, face shields, batons and canisters of pepper spray—charged. They forced marchers, onlookers and working journalists into a nearby parking lot, then surrounded the people and began handcuffing them.

Nicole was videotaping. Her tape of her own violent arrest is chilling. Police in riot gear charged her, yelling, “Get down on your face.” You hear her voice, clearly and repeatedly announcing “Press! Press! Where are we supposed to go?” She was trapped between parked cars. The camera drops to the pavement amidst Nicole’s screams of pain. Her face was smashed into the pavement, and she was bleeding from the nose, with the heavy officer with a boot or knee on her back. Another officer was pulling on her leg. Sharif was thrown up against the wall and kicked in the chest, and he was bleeding from his arm.

I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates. I had just made it to the Minnesota delegation when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif and Nicole were being bloody arrested, in every sense. Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. Out of breath, we arrived at the parking lot. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists.

Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists. I saw Sharif, his arm bloody, his credentials hanging from his neck. I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck. I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges.

The attack on and arrest of me and the “Democracy Now!” producers was not an isolated event. A video group called I-Witness Video was raided two days earlier. Another video documentary group, the Glass Bead Collective, was detained, with its computers and video cameras confiscated. On Wednesday, I-Witness Video was again raided, forced out of its office location. When I asked St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington how reporters are to operate in this atmosphere, he suggested, “By embedding reporters in our mobile field force.”

I do hope they plan on releasing Nicole's video of the incident. I think it would be very telling.

Palin Fits, Like A Fist in an Iron Glove

2008-09-05T15:10:00.001-05:00

We all know that Sarah Palin has denied repeatedly that she had anything to do with efforts to have her former brother-in-law fired by the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner, who was in turn fired when he refused to do so. This report from ABC News, though, seems to very strongly suggest otherwise.

If so, that would mean she's not only accustomed to using the power of her position to pursue personal family vendettas (and there's evidence she's done much the same against purely political opponents who, assumedly, were never married to her sister) but that she's a stone cold liar as well. A perfect fit for the third term of the Bush administration, don't you think?

The Brilliance of Samantha Bee

2008-09-05T13:26:00.001-05:00

For any of y'all who missed this bit on the Daily Show last night, it's really must see TV:

Hysterical

2008-09-05T10:49:00.001-05:00

One of many unintentionally humorous elements of last night's GOP extravaganza. From TPM:

A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.
Well, several readers have written in to tell me that the building is actually the main building on the campus of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. And sure enough, this page on the school's website makes it pretty clear that they're correct.
You can compare below ...

So it's not a mansion, but a middle school. But that still doesn't answer the question of why they picked this picture to have him standing in front of -- when I would imagine that 99.9% of the US population would have no idea what they were looking at.
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Readers JR and EK for cluing us in.)
Late Update: I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

Sort of like all those folks on the Terrorist Watch List. Same name, different game.

You almost feel bad for them. Throwing so many resources into defending and propping up the Palin pick that nearly everything else has been pushed toward the wayside. Including their nominee's speech and even simple stock photo searches. But really, would we expect the GOP staffers to even know what Walter Reed Army Medical Center looks like? Please.

Biden, Biting

2008-09-04T15:53:00.001-05:00

Speaking of Rick Davis letting everyone know the McCain campaign has decided this is not an election about issues (since, y'know, there's really not that much going on in the country.....and the world today), I missed this yesterday, but First Read had a choice bit from Joe Biden on that:

“Well, let me tell you, that means to them this election is not about you being able to scrape up the tuition money to send your kid off to college,” he said. “It's not about whether or not you're going to fill up your gas tank. … That to me is an issue. It's an issue to me and to Barack Obama.”

Exactly. But Biden went further, and if I were Joe Lieberman, I'd watch my back in the Senate:

“My friend -- and when I see him I’m going to ask him to go down to the gym with me, Joe Lieberman -- talked about surrender,” Biden said. “They use phrases like that, about surrender and putting country first.” He then noted that the Bush administration is about to enter into an agreement to remove U.S. forces on a timetable, something Obama had called for earlier and Republicans attacked.

“So, if Barack Obama is the agent of surrender, George Bush is the one signing the surrender papers,” he said.

Take him down to the gym. Heh.

What We're Not Hearing

2008-09-04T15:37:00.001-05:00

Obama in York, PA, speaking on what he's heard, and not heard, during the RNC convention. (h/t to dKos diarist peace voter)

Transcript:

You wouldn't know that this is such a critical election by watching the convention last night. I know we had our week. And the Republicans deserve theirs. But it's been amazing for me to watch over the last two nights. If you sit there, and you watch it. You're hearing a lot about John McCain, and he's got a compelling biography as a P.O.W.

You're hearing an awful lot about me. Much of which is not true.

What you're not hearing is a lot about you.

You haven't heard one word about how they're going to make the health system work - so that when a union is negotiating with a company it's not all just a discussion about higher premiums and you guys can actually start talking about higher wages and benefits.

You haven't heard one word about how we're gonna create more apprenticeship programs like the ones we have here. Or give other people a chance to train in new trades.

You haven't heard one word about getting serious about green and alternative energy. The kind of work that is resulting in all the expansion and hiring here.

You haven't heard one word about how we're going to strengthen unions so that working people get a decent stake.

You haven't heard one word about how we're going to improve math and science education so that we can hire more engineers to create more products in green technology.

You haven't heard one word about how we're going to deal with any aspect of the economy that is affecting you and your pocket day to day.

Haven't heard one word about it. Literally. Two nights. They have not said a word about it. They have not said a word about it. They've had a lot to say about me. But they haven't had anything to say about you.

And the thing that I'm insisting on in this election is that we can't keep playing the same political games we always play.

Then again, as McCain campaign manager Rick Davis let us all know earlier in the week, This election is not about issues.

That's It. If I've Lost Noonan....

2008-09-03T17:37:00.001-05:00

...I've lost. I know this is everywhere already, but it's so deliciously truthful that I thought everywhere and then some was in order.

Transcript via TPM:

CHUCK TODD: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job. Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

PEGGY NOONAN: Yeah.

MIKE MURPHY: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PEGGY NOONAN: It's over.

MIKE MURPHY: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CHUCK TODD: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PEGGY NOONAN: Saw Kay this morning.

CHUCK TODD: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MIKE MURPHY: They're all bummed out.

CHUCK TODD: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PEGGY NOONAN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CHUCK TODD: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MIKE MURPHY: I totally agree.

PEGGY NOONAN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MIKE MURPHY: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CHUCK TODD: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MIKE MURPHY: Yeah.

Lord love the hot mic.

UPDATE: The story's hopped the pond and gone international.

The Palin Bump

2008-09-02T12:46:00.001-05:00

I'm with Atrios on this one. This seems to be a reflection of the Palin revelations more than the convention. And like Palin bumps are wont to do, I imagine it will only continue to swell over the coming months.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, finds Barack Obama leading the race for president with his highest share of support to date. Fully half of national registered voters now favor Obama for president, while 42% back John McCain.
Prior to now, no more than 49% of registered voters supported Obama for president in Gallup Poll Daily tracking. Still, Obama's eight percentage point lead over McCain in the new poll falls one point shy of the lead he attained in late July after returning from a well-publicized trip to Europe and parts of the Middle East. At that time, Obama led by nine points, 49% to 40%.
McCain's 42% support is well below his 48% top support level, recorded in late April/early May. It is just slightly better than the 40% he received at several points in July, and the 41% favoring him just last week while the Democratic National Convention was underway. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
At 8%, the percentage of undecided voters is slightly lower than the 9% to 11% figures seen for most of August, and this is the lowest this figure has been since early June. This, in part, reflects movement of voters toward Obama over the course of the Democratic National Convention, a lead which has been sustained in subsequent days.
The field period for today's results includes Monday (Labor Day), when the scaled down Republican National Convention received limited media attention while most news coverage either focused on the hurricane hitting parts of the Gulf Coast or Monday's surprise announcement that the 17-year-old daughter of the soon to be Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is pregnant. The Republicans hope to start up a more traditional convention schedule today in St. Paul, with the goal of capturing the same kind of media and public attention the Democrats did last week in Denver.

Note that the pregnancy of her daughter is the very least of the issue. Every day that passes reveals more and more uncomfortable information about McCain's VP pick, and more importantly, about McCain's decision making abilities.

This is What Democracy Looks Like, RNC Style

2008-09-01T20:37:00.001-05:00

Out of control.

I'd been reading with disgust about the pre-convention raids that have been going on in St. Paul the last couple of days, but this is getting out of hand. Amy Goodman and two Democracy Now! producers have been arrested on suspicion of rioting. Come on now.

From the Democracy Now! release:

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time.

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation's leading independent news outlet.

It's worth noting that during the various raids and crackdowns, the police have been repeatedly seizing computers and recording devices. Now they've arrested a respected American journalist. It's almost as though they don't want there to be a record of what's going on. And it's only Monday.

Happy Labor Day

2008-09-01T13:25:00.001-05:00

Surely hope you're not working.

Three Years On

2008-08-29T10:29:00.001-05:00

Where Were You in 2004?

2008-08-28T09:20:00.001-05:00

Last night was great, but in particular, Sen. John Kerry kicked much ass. If he'd had this kind of fire in his belly four years ago, things might well have turned out much differently (Ohio shenanigans notwithstanding).

In a Nutshell

2008-08-27T14:53:00.001-05:00

Great video from Campaign for America's Future.

C-SPAN, Baby

2008-08-27T13:19:00.001-05:00

I'm in total agreement with the Boston Globe on this one. If you want to see the Democratic convention, get thee to the C-SPAN channel. Absent all of the mindless, meaningless commentary of the talking heads, you actually get a pretty clear picture of what the Democrats are proposing, the stark contrast between them and the GOP, and the vision Obama has for this country.

The best way to watch a political convention is on C-Span. That way Americans can make their own judgments unfiltered, without being told what to think by the nattering nabobs of TV commentary. The latest "narrative" making its way around the Democratic convention here is that the Obama campaign hasn't learned the lesson of John Kerry's 2004 convention, in which the nominee failed to directly attack President Bush. CNN commentator Soledad O'Brien even asked late Monday night whether Michelle Obama's introductory speech shouldn't have been tougher on the Republicans.

Of course, if the early days of the convention had presented a more negative tone, the talking heads would be complaining that the Democrats can only say what they are against, not what they are for.

Had the commentators not been so busy filling airspace and paid closer attention to what was happening on the podium, they might have had a different take.

Indeed. And Politico reports that Obama had the same realization:

Obama grabbed a remote control to switch from MSNBC which had the camera on former President Clinton sitting in the Denver audience to CSPAN which was carrying Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's speech live.

Schweitzer's speech was fantastic, and ignored by MSBC and given light coverage by CNN. If you want to really know what's being said and proposed, as opposed to knowing what the traditional media deems it important for you to know, do yourself a favor and watch the unfiltered C-SPAN coverage. At least you'll see the speeches. And there have been a lot of good speeches given (but not broadcast by the traditional news organizations) in just the first couple of days. Anyone watching them wouldn't be accusing the Democrats of holding their fire. Hardly.

In fact, if you'd like to see what the Democrats "holding their fire on McCain" looks like, I'd suggest checking out this diary over at DKos (with helpful links to video of the actual speeches). It's pretty impressive.

And a Left, And a Right

2008-08-22T14:06:00.001-05:00

Another Obama ad, seizing the moment and driving home the point that incredibly wealthy men (even those who "earned" their fortune by leaving their stricken wives and marrying incredibly wealthy heiresses) govern with an eye toward other, incredibly wealthy men:

Back (Yet Again) to the Well

2008-08-21T14:08:00.001-05:00

What you gonna do when your well runs dry?
--Peter Tosh

In responding to the rightful attention McCain's getting for having so many houses he can't remember their exact number (and underestimates by half, at least), McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers, in addition to stomping his feet and throwing around schoolyard quality retorts, defends the Senator this way:

"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

You have got to be shitting me, Brian. Really?

If Mr. Rogers' erudite commentary can serves as any kind of an example, it seems the McCain strategy moving forward is somewhere along the lines of "Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, poopypants! No, you are!"

Anywhere You Hang Your Hat

2008-08-21T11:07:00.001-05:00

Obama takes McCain's confusion over how many houses he owns and runs with it:

Ole Miss Debate Switch-Up?

2008-08-21T09:04:00.001-05:00

I had been under the impression for months that the presidential debate in Oxford, the first of the four (including the VP debate) agreed to by the two campaigns, would focus on matters of domestic policy and the economy. Today's joint statement from the Obama and McCain camps switches it up, though:

Summary of McCain-Obama Debate Agreement

The two campaigns agreed today on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are:

First Presidential Debate:
Date: September 26
Site: University of Mississippi
Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security
Moderator: Jim Lehrer
Staging: Podium debate
Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment

Well, at least that means the snaking hurricane fencing that's been going up over the last month or so, gradually encircling the debate grounds (and a pretty sizable buffer zone too), will match the content of the discussion.

The Rich Are Different From You and Me

2008-08-21T08:54:00.001-05:00

Politico:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties...

...McCain’s comments came four days after he initially told Pastor Rick Warren during a faith forum on Sunday his threshold for considering someone rich is $5 million — a careless comment he quickly corrected.

In the interview, McCain did not offer an alternate number, but had a new answer ready.

“I define rich in other ways besides income,” he said. “Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they’re billionaires.”

McCain, by anyone's measure, is well-off, if you account for his wife's fortune. Cindy McCain inherited control of her father’s beer distributorship, the largest in Arizona, and has an estimated worth of more than $100 million.

I've heard, variously, that the McCains own somewhere between 8 and 10 homes. That's got to be some kind of weird, not being able to remember how many friggin' homes you own. I know, I know, I'm a big old elitist for mentioning it, but still.

In light of this interesting development, might I suggest you all take the four minutes necessary to watch this video, McCain's Mansions from Brave New Films? It's worth the time, just to help put McCain's foggy real estate memory in the proper context.

Brilliant

2008-08-21T08:31:00.001-05:00

Judgment Call

2008-08-21T07:03:00.001-05:00

McCain in 2001, calling Cheney and Rumsfeld the strongest national security team this country's ever had, and how he'd have wanted Cheney to be his VP. From Jed:

Now, just to be clear: I am not questioning the Senator's patriotism....I'm questioning his judgment. Which was pretty spectacularly awful.

Right Wing Gunning for Schumer

2008-08-20T19:27:00.001-05:00

Y'all may recall the dust-up over the IndyMac failure, when the OTS laid the blame at Chuck Schumer's feet for writing a letter warning that, without intervention, IndyMac would...well....fail.

Well, now it seems fifty-one former employees of the failed bank want California Attorney General Jerry Brown to officially investigate whether or not Schumer was to blame. Well, fifty-one former employees and a PR firm with some very particular ties:

The FDIC took control of IndyMac on July 11 after depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion over 11 days. It was the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history. At the time, OTS Director John Reich blamed Schumer's letter for causing the run on the bank.

In a letter to Attorney General Jerry Brown last week, 51 former IndyMac workers wrote: "From the day (Schumer's) letter was made public on June 26 until the closure of the bank, a run on the bank took place and the failure became inevitable." [...]

...Copies of the employee letter were distributed to the press by CRC Public Relations whose clients include the National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee.

CRC, based in Alexandria, Virginia, was also linked to a company that published a book questioning 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service on a swift boat.

Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon questioned the motivation behind the letter.

"It certainly raises eyebrows that the firm promoting this letter is the same outfit that fueled the Swift Boat attacks and does work for the RNC," Fallon said.

Well, my eyebrows are most definitely raised. In fact, I'd say this looks like a blatant attempt to use the justice system, the media, and the court of public opinion as weapon of partisan attack. And then, when Jerry Brown finds no fault with Chuck Schumer, all the players will quickly reorganize to attack him for that.

Bush Administration Says McCain "Not Tortured" in Vietnam

2008-08-20T13:17:00.001-05:00

By way of Andrew Sullivan comes this shocking accusation by the Bush administration that, contrary to all of McCain's many (repeated, again and again, ad infinitum) claims otherwise, the Senator from Arizona was in fact, not tortured during his time as a POW. Multiple administration officials have repeatedly claimed that McCain was not tortured. People like Dick Cheney, John Yoo, Don Rumsfeld, David Addington and George Tenet. All calling the presumptive Republican presidential nominee a liar. That's cold.

Why, I'd expect this to be all over the news already, or at least to hear a reporter ask McCain how he feels, knowing that the current administration calls bullshit on his claims of torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese:

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

The cross-in-the-dirt story - although deeply fishy to any fair observer - is in the realm of the unprovable. But the actual techniques used on McCain, and the lies they were designed to legitimize, are a matter of historical record. And the government of the United States now practices the very same techniques that the Communist government of North Vietnam once proudly used against American soldiers. When they are used against future John McCains, the victims will know, in a way McCain didn't, that their own government has no moral standing to complain.

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture. Someone somewhere cried out in pain for the same reasons McCain once did. And McCain let it continue.

You know, I'd never even thought of this. Thanks Andrew.

So, not only is the Bush administration calling McCain a liar (or a crybaby), but McCain in turn actually endorsed the same "enhanced interrogation" techniques used against him by the North Vietnamese, condemning other human beings in US custody to suffer the same fate he did, including all of the lingering physical and (as becomes more and more apparent) mental effects. Nice. No wonder one of his fellow POWs spoke out against him:

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

You know what? I don't want to hear you go to that well to defend yourself anymore, Senator. Okay?

UPDATE: For those who are having trouble understanding and for clarity's sake in general: I, for one, firmly believe that the treatment McCain suffered (and which we now employ on others) was most definitely torture. The point of this (as well as Sullivan’s original) post is simply that by the Bush administration’s redefinition, they’re claiming that what McCain suffered wasn’t torture at all. I wholeheartedly disagree with their assessment, as well as their own use of the very same techniques used to torture McCain.

No one is suggesting that - here in the reality based community, at least - McCain is actually lying about what he suffered, or that he was not in fact tortured. The ugly point about his hypocrisy with regard to the MCA, on the other hand, can be taken without salt.

Roubini's Round-Up

2008-08-20T10:16:00.001-05:00

The other day, I posted a link to and excerpt from the NY Times Sunday Magazine's profile on economist Nouriel Roubini. I thought that profile would drive a lot of folks who may never have heard of Roubini to seek out his writings. Mr. Roubini obviously realized the same, and has posted the following round-up on his blog (free registration req.), with the uplifting title: "The worst economic and financial crisis in decades." It is, as the kids say, a must read, chock full of links to other posts and supplementary analysis. It begins this way:

Regular readers of this blog are familiar with my views. But here below is a detailed summary of the reasons for my views – as presented in this blog in the last few months - that this will turn out to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the worst US recession in decades (hyperlinks to my relevant recent writings are provided for each argument):
This is by far the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, not as severe as the Great Depression but second only to it.

At the end of the day this financial crisis will imply credit losses of at least $1 trillion and more likely $2 trillion. The financial and banking crisis will be severe and last several years leading to a severe and persistent liquidity and credit crunch.

This is not just a subprime mortgage crisis; this is the crisis of an entire subprime financial system: losses are spreading from subprime to near prime and prime mortgages including hundreds of billions of dollars of home equity loans that are worth little; to commercial real estate; to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans); to leveraged loans that financed reckless debt-laden LBOs; to muni bonds that will go bust as hundred of municipalities will go bust; to industrial and commercial loans; to corporate bonds whose default rate will jump from close to 0% to over 10%; to CDSs where $62 trillion of nominal protection sits on top an outstanding stock of only $6 trillion of bonds and where counterparty risk – and the collapse of many counterparties – will lead to a systemic collapse of this market.

Hundreds of small banks with massive exposure to real estate (the average small bank has 67% of its assets in real estate) will go bust.

Dozens of large regional/national banks (a’ la IndyMac) are also effectively insolvent given their extreme exposure to real estate and will also eventually go bust. Most of these regional banks – starting with Wachovia and Washington Mutual – look like walking zombies in the same way IndyMac was.

Even some major money center banks are also semi-insolvent and while they are deemed too big to fail their rescue with FDIC money will be extremely costly....

In a few years time there will be no major independent broker dealers as their business model (securitization, slice & dice and transfer of toxic credit risk and piling fees upon fees rather than earning income from holding credit risk) is bust and the risk of a bank-like run on their very short term liquid liabilities is a fundamental flaw in their structure (i.e. the four remaining U.S. big brokers dealers will either go bust or will have to be merged with traditional commercial banks). Firms that borrow liquid and short, highly leverage themselves and lend in longer term and illiquid ways (i.e. most of the shadow banking system) cannot survive without formal deposit insurance and formal permanent lender of last resort support from the central bank.

The FDIC will for sure run out of money as hundreds of banks will go bust and their depositors will have to be made whole given deposit insurance. With funds of only $53 billion, already up to 15% of such funds will be used to rescue the depositors of IndyMac alone. Thus, the FDIC is already requesting to Congress that the deposit insurance premia should be raised to compensate for this shortfall of funding....

Fannie and Freddie are insolvent and the Treasury bailout plan (the mother of all moral hazard bailout) is socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall Street; it is the continuation of a corrupt system where profits are privatized and losses are socialized. Instead of wiping out shareholders of the two GSEs, replacing corrupt and incompetent managers and forcing a haircut on the claims of the creditors/bondholders such a plan bails out shareholders, managers and creditors at a massive cost to U.S. taxpayers....

There's a lot more at the link above. I'd suggest y'all take a few minutes with Prof. Roubini, register for his site (his blog is a must for keeping an informed eye on the US and global economy), and read through his commentary. You won't be sorry. Well, given the subject matter, maybe you will be, but at least the scales might fall from your eyes.

Slow Blogging Week

2008-08-19T10:19:00.001-05:00

Busy, busy, busy.

Perennial Doomsayer, Profiled

2008-08-18T08:49:00.001-05:00

Those who read this blog with any regularity will know that I often refer, and defer, to the opinion of Nouriel Roubini when discussing matters of the economy. Whenever I'm tagged as being overly pessimistic in my assessment, I point to Roubini's analysis which often informs, if not forms, the basis for my views.

I've been reading Roubini's reports for years now, ever since I saw in his analysis someone who understood what was going on, and to where it would lead. I'd paid an inordinant amount of attention to the inner workings of the mortgage industry since the beginning of this decade, and it was clear to me that there were forces at work which would come back to bite us all. Roubini saw the same thing, only backed with an extremely skilled and experienced economic worldview. He has been absolutely spot on for the last three years in predicting exactly the economic crisis that we, and the world, now face. In the beginning he was widely dismissed, but as prediction after prediction has come to pass, more people have been paying attention.

This Sunday, the NY Times Magazine ran a really good profile piece on Roubini, one which I highly encourage y'all to read. It begins this way:

On Sept. 7, 2006, Nouriel Roubini, an economics professor at New York University, stood before an audience of economists at the International Monetary Fund and announced that a crisis was brewing. In the coming months and years, he warned, the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence and, ultimately, a deep recession. He laid out a bleak sequence of events: homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt. These developments, he went on, could cripple or destroy hedge funds, investment banks and other major financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The audience seemed skeptical, even dismissive. As Roubini stepped down from the lectern after his talk, the moderator of the event quipped, “I think perhaps we will need a stiff drink after that.” People laughed — and not without reason. At the time, unemployment and inflation remained low, and the economy, while weak, was still growing, despite rising oil prices and a softening housing market. And then there was the espouser of doom himself: Roubini was known to be a perpetual pessimist, what economists call a “permabear.” When the economist Anirvan Banerji delivered his response to Roubini’s talk, he noted that Roubini’s predictions did not make use of mathematical models and dismissed his hunches as those of a career naysayer.

But Roubini was soon vindicated. In the year that followed, subprime lenders began entering bankruptcy, hedge funds began going under and the stock market plunged. There was declining employment, a deteriorating dollar, ever-increasing evidence of a huge housing bust and a growing air of panic in financial markets as the credit crisis deepened. By late summer, the Federal Reserve was rushing to the rescue, making the first of many unorthodox interventions in the economy, including cutting the lending rate by 50 basis points and buying up tens of billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities. When Roubini returned to the I.M.F. last September, he delivered a second talk, predicting a growing crisis of solvency that would infect every sector of the financial system. This time, no one laughed. “He sounded like a madman in 2006,” recalls the I.M.F. economist Prakash Loungani, who invited Roubini on both occasions. “He was a prophet when he returned in 2007.”

Over the past year, whenever optimists have declared the worst of the economic crisis behind us, Roubini has countered with steadfast pessimism. In February, when the conventional wisdom held that the venerable investment firms of Wall Street would weather the crisis, Roubini warned that one or more of them would go “belly up” — and six weeks later, Bear Stearns collapsed. Following the Fed’s further extraordinary actions in the spring — including making lines of credit available to selected investment banks and brokerage houses — many economists made note of the ensuing economic rally and proclaimed the credit crisis over and a recession averted. Roubini, who dismissed the rally as nothing more than a “delusional complacency” encouraged by a “bunch of self-serving spinmasters,” stuck to his script of “nightmare” events: waves of corporate bankrupticies, collapses in markets like commercial real estate and municipal bonds and, most alarming, the possible bankruptcy of a large regional or national bank that would trigger a panic by depositors. Not all of these developments have come to pass (and perhaps never will), but the demise last month of the California bank IndyMac — one of the largest such failures in U.S. history — drew only more attention to Roubini’s seeming prescience.

And ends this way:

For months Roubini has been arguing that the true cost of the housing crisis will not be a mere $300 billion — the amount allowed for by the housing legislation sponsored by Representative Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd — but something between a trillion and a trillion and a half dollars. But most important, in Roubini’s opinion, is to realize that the problem is deeper than the housing crisis. “Reckless people have deluded themselves that this was a subprime crisis,” he told me. “But we have problems with credit-card debt, student-loan debt, auto loans, commercial real estate loans, home-equity loans, corporate debt and loans that financed leveraged buyouts.” All of these forms of debt, he argues, suffer from some or all of the same traits that first surfaced in the housing market: shoddy underwriting, securitization, negligence on the part of the credit-rating agencies and lax government oversight. “We have a subprime financial system,” he said, “not a subprime mortgage market.”

Roubini argues that most of the losses from this bad debt have yet to be written off, and the toll from bad commercial real estate loans alone may help send hundreds of local banks into the arms of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. “A good third of the regional banks won’t make it,” he predicted. In turn, these bailouts will add hundreds of billions of dollars to an already gargantuan federal debt, and someone, somewhere, is going to have to finance that debt, along with all the other debt accumulated by consumers and corporations. “Our biggest financiers are China, Russia and the gulf states,” Roubini noted. “These are rivals, not allies.”

The United States, Roubini went on, will likely muddle through the crisis but will emerge from it a different nation, with a different place in the world. “Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers,” he said, pausing to let out a resigned sigh. “This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.”

From madman to prophet in twelve short months. Go read.

UPDATE: There's much more on Roubini's outlook here.

DIY Political Advertising

2008-08-15T15:37:00.001-05:00

This is the first election where an individual, lacking financial backing, can create, distribute, and promote their own political ads. I think that's a phenomenal development in American political discourse, and a welcome one in my humble opionion.

Jed's been doing a lot of great work in this regard, and now there's this one too.

118,000 views and counting, in two days. And all without spending a dime on a media buy. And it's effective, to boot. What do y'all think?

If It Works For ABBA...

2008-08-15T14:57:00.001-05:00

...then surely it will work for defending the misogynistic degradation of your wife in public, right? And, oh, by the way, did I mention he was shot down, and that's how he became a POW? From TPM Election Central:

The McCain campaign has offered a novel defense against critics who hit him for offering up his wife Cindy as a contestant at a topless biker beauty pageant: He was a POW!

This whole mess started when Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, who is heading up an independent group of pro-Obama pastors -- and, by the way, officiated at Jenna Bush's wedding -- criticized McCain's remarks at the Sturgis rally: "My personal opinion, and based on my opinion of the Christian faith, that's not the type of expression a presidential candidate or anyone following the Christian faith ought to make."

The Wall St. Journal reports that McCain spokesman Brian Rogers fired back by saying that Americans "know that John McCain's faith and character were tested and forged in ways few can fathom."

Never miss an opportunity to pimp your brand.

It's toasted!

Never Misses an Opportunity

2008-08-15T09:03:00.001-05:00

Mr. Presumptuousness himself, in defending his taste in music, saw opportunity in the moment to remind American voters of what he considers to be one of his primary qualifications to be president:

Speaking to Walter Isaacson at the Aspen Institute in Colorado on Thursday, McCain found himself explaining a recent interview with Blender Magazine in which he selected ABBA’s 1976 track “Dancing Queen” as his favorite song.

“What were you thinking?,” Isaacson asked him, looking incredulous.

“If there is anything I am lacking in, I’ve got to tell you, it is taste in music and art and other great things in life,” McCain joked. “I’ve got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again.”

Really? You were shot down? You don't say.

The Troops' Support

2008-08-14T11:18:00.001-05:00

One thing that gets lost in all the right-wing hammer swinging over "supporting the troops" by keeping them in a war that should never have been fought in the first place, asking no questions and cottoning no dissent from Dear Leader's directives, is who the troops themselves support. Well, if you take all that nonsense at face value (and they're counting on you to do so), according to the folks at Open Secrets (which tracks political donations), you might be a little surprised by reality:

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin....

..."That's shocking. The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it's about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one" in Democrats' favor, said Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military. "That represents a tremendous shift from 2000, when the military vote almost certainly was decisive in Florida and elsewhere, and leaned heavily towards the Republicans."

In 2000, Republican George W. Bush outraised Democrat Al Gore among military personnel almost 2 to 1. In 2004, with the Iraq war underway, John Kerry closed the gap with President Bush, but Bush still raised $1.50 from the military for every $1 his Democratic opponent collected.

Six to one. That is astounding.

Chowderhead on a Powderkeg

2008-08-14T11:07:00.001-05:00

As Russia's foreign minister declares that the world can just "forget about" Georgia's territorial integrity, and the crisis ratchets up on all sides (including John McCain and his freelance foreign policy....for which he has no jurisdiction nor power to suggest), Brent Budowsky's post at The Hill takes on a new level of import:

John McCain needs to calm down, stop telling the world he speaks for the American people, stop escalating his warlike rhetoric almost by the hour, and stop the phony tough talk that makes a bad situation worse and would only heighten the danger at a dangerous enough moment.

McCain takes too much advice from a lobbyist who makes money paid for by Georgia. He takes too much bandwidth making threats that neither he nor President Bush nor any American president can back up without creating even more damage to American security and more danger to world security.

John McCain should stop talking as though he is the president, and Americans should and I predict will take note of the dangers he would bring, if he ever is the president.

This is true: The Georgians overreached and may have been misled, deliberately by misjudgment or accidentally by mistake, by George Bush and John McCain, into believing that the American military would support them, whatever they did.

This, too, is true: Vladimir Putin is a dangerous man indeed who wants to reconstitute as much of the Soviet empire as he can. We should have no illusions about the dangers caused by this former henchman of the KGB who has adopted repressive tactics at home and launched cruel actions and threats against democratically elected governments in what he believes should be Russia's sphere of influence and control.

This, too, is true: The Bush and McCain obsession with Iraq and Iran has not only done grave damage to our military force structures and deterrent, they have warped our international policy, endangered our national security and created a crisis of inattention from Pakistan to Russia that makes the world a far more dangerous place.

John McCain increasingly sounds like a right-wing blogger. His arrogance in claiming that he speaks for the American people during a dangerous crisis demonstrates greater hubris than anything he will accuse Obama of doing.

McCain's belligerence, bellicosity and bluster on Iraq and Iran and now Russia demonstrate clearly the dangers he would pose as commander in chief when his right-wing blog-like rhetoric could become American military policy in a dangerous world...

Lord but I do wish we had intelligent, thoughtful and reality-based leadership at a time like this. Unfortunately, there's still quite a lot of time for the Bush/McCain forces to throw the world even further in the chaos with their perpetual campaign mindset, which puts satying in power over all else, and damn the real world implications.

Jesus

2008-08-13T13:32:00.001-05:00

Prayers are with the man and his family. Let's hold off on deducing motives until more is known:

A gunman entered the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday and shot the party chairman, who was hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said.
The gunman asked to speak to the pary chairman, Bill Gwatney , and fired three shots.

"He came in and went into this office and started shooting," police Lt. Terry Hastings told reporters near the party headquarters.

Gwatney, a former legislator, was in critical condition, Hastings said.

The suspect was chased into Grant County, south of Little Rock, and apprehended after being shot, the police spokesman said. The suspect's condition was not known.

Sarah Lee, a sales clerk at a flower shop across street from the party headquarters, said that around noon Gwatney's secretary ran into the shop and asked someone to call 911. She said a man had come into the party and shot Gwatney multiple times.

Lee said the secretary told her the man had come into the party's office and asked to speak with Gwatney. When the secretary said she wouldn't allow him to meet with Gwatney, the man went into his office and shot him, Lee said.

She said the secretary described the man as in his 40s and white and drove off in a blue truck.

SAD UPDATE: God rest his soul.

Police say the 49-year-old chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party has died hours after being shot by a gunman who burst into the state party headquarters in Little Rock. Police say Chairman Bill Gwatney died four hours after the shooting near the state Capitol.

The suspect was shot dead after shooting at police officers following a 30-mile police chase.

Police say they don't have a motive for Gwatney's killing.

Give a Man a Gas Can

2008-08-13T12:24:00.001-05:00

And he can set the world on fire:

President Bush said Wednesday that the Pentagon had begun a “vigorous and ongoing” humanitarian mission to ease the suffering in Georgia, and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to France and then to Georgia to work for a settlement of the crisis.

The president, speaking at the White House with Ms. Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, criticized Russia and called on it to “keep its word and act to end this crisis.”

Mr. Bush said that a transport plane with medical supplies was already on its way to Georgia, and that American air and naval forces would carry out the aid mission. And he said pointedly that Russia must not interfere with aid arriving in Georgia by air, land or water.

But while Mr. Bush said the United States “stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that its sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected,” his remarks contained no hint of an American military role in Georgia, other than providing humanitarian assistance.

However, minutes after Mr. Bush’s comments, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia characterized the import of the American aid as “definitely an American military presence” and called it a “turning point.”

In a telephone interview, he said of Mr. Bush’s statement: “We were unhappy with the initial actions of the American officials, because they were perceived by the Russians as green lines basically. But this one was very strong.”

“What I expected specifically from America was to secure our airport and to secure our seaports,” he went on, concluding that the American presence would do so. “The main thing now is that the Georgian Tbilisi airport will be permanently under control.”

Permanently under control you say?

Ready-Made Wars

2008-08-13T11:30:00.001-05:00

More from truthdig, this time it's William Pfaff writing about the rules of war and the NATO carrot in front of Georgia's (and the Ukraine's) nose:

British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery was the man who said the first three rules of warfare are “Do not invade Russia,” repeated three times. A footnote to that rule would be that while the disputed Georgian districts of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not parts of Russia today, they were yesterday, and probably will again be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Most of their present populations carry Russian passports, and there are Russian troops in both provinces.

The fourth rule of war might be, “Do not let anyone trick you into invading Russia.” Apologists for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili have claimed that the Russians prepared their riposte to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia before it happened last Friday, but misled Saakashvili into thinking an attempt to seize the disputed territory would go unopposed. However, The New York Times quotes “a senior American official” as saying, “It doesn’t look as if this was premeditated. Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role.”

The Russian version of the betrayal theme is that Saakashvili “was forced to start this war by Dick Cheney to support the campaign of John McCain. The only possibility for John McCain to win is to have some kind of war.”

That is the view of Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies in Moscow, and undoubtedly it is an opinion widely held in Russia. It is at least logical. If true, it would mean that Cheney should be charged with malfeasance in public office. (But that has been proposed before.) The U.S. vice president’s actual statement after the Russian counterattack was perfectly presidential. He said the Russian attack “must not go unanswered,” and if continued would have serious consequences for Russian-American relations. This said everything and nothing at the same time.

The fifth rule ought also to be precautionary: “Don’t let your friends in Washington democracy-promoting institutes or neoconservative think tanks, or who are important American newspaper columnists or television talking heads, convince you that if you attack Russia the United States and NATO will rescue you.”

Thus a sixth rule of conduct is one of political realism, and explains rule five. It was expressed by Henry Kissinger: “Great powers do not commit suicide for allies.” (Least of all small and unimportant allies.)

Nowhere in what I have read of the comment on this small but important war has it been explained why neither Georgia nor Ukraine should belong to NATO. They carry with them ready-made wars that NATO neither can nor should be expected to deal with. They are both ethnically and culturally divided nations whose histories are of struggle between or among their component parts...

..Thus the seventh rule, also one of political realism, is: “Don’t give guarantees or make threats you cannot carry out.” John McCain said, “Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgia territory.” That is ultimatum talk. But if McCain were president today, just what would he have done if Russia defied him?

Barack Obama said, “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war.” This was called “weak” by the McCain camp, but it was presidential talk. It said what the two sides should do, without committing the United States to do anything, whatever happened. It maintained a free hand for the United States.

McCain's Georgian August Surprise?

2008-08-13T11:11:00.001-05:00

Robert Scheer raises a very interesting question over at truthdig, namely whether Georgian lobbyist and McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann had any role in stoking the current crisis in a misguided (one can hope) attempt to boost McCain's hawkish stature by giving him the opportunity to bluster against the good old Russian Bear.

I know the media narrative has been dutifully doing its part, framing this as a conflict between the freedom and democracy loving Grorgian people and the aggressive power-hungry Russia of Vladimir Putin. While there's some truth to that portrayal of Russia's interests, it totally misses the nature of the Georgian-Western (particularly American) relationship. It also raises some questions right off the bat.

Consider the many people who are scratching their heads and wondering why in the world the Georgian army would march on South Ossetia, knowing there were Russian peacekeepers based there and knowing also what Russia's response would be. Why would they provoke such a fight, one they were all but sure to lose? Unless, of course, they were under the impression they'd have back-up should they do so.

And there were also those who puzzled over McCain's reaction ("I know I speak for every American when I say to him (President Mikheil Saakashvili), ‘Today we are all Georgians.'"), seeing a knee-jerk bellicose reaction to a situation calling for a thoughtful, reasoned approach. But jerk his knees most definitely did.

Consider also the tactic (used with nearly immeasurable success by bin Laden and al Qaeda against the Bush administration, not to mention our own long, but shadowy, history in this regard) of provoking a desired response from the enemy in order to further your own long-term strategic goals. The more we learn about the interconnecting points of the McCain campaign, the neoconservative machine, and the Georgian government, the more possible, if not likely, such a scenario seems to be, with more than enough reason to wonder if it was coordinated in order to influence the American elections:

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.

In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin

Yes, it sounds diabolical, but that may be the most accurate way to assess the designs of the McCain campaign in matters of war and peace. There is every indication that the candidate’s demonization of Russian leader Putin is an even grander plan than the previous use of Saddam to fuel American militarism with the fearsome enemy that it desperately needs.

McCain gets to look tough with a new Cold War to fight while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, scrambling to make sense of a more measured foreign policy posture, will seem weak in comparison. Meanwhile, the dire consequences of the Bush legacy that McCain has inherited, from the disaster of Iraq to the economic meltdown, conveniently will be ignored. But the military-industrial complex, which has helped bankroll the neoconservatives, will be provided with an excuse for ramping up a military budget that is already bigger than that of the rest of the world combined.

What is at work here is a neoconservative, self-fulfilling prophecy in which Russia is turned into an enemy that expands its largely reduced military, and Putin is cast as the new Josef Stalin bogeyman, evoking images of the old Soviet Union. McCain has condemned a “revanchist Russia” that should once again be contained. Although Putin has been the enormously popular elected leader of post-Communist Russia, it is assumed that imperialism is always lurking, not only in his DNA but in that of the Russian people.

How convenient to forget that Stalin was a Georgian, and indeed if Russian troops had occupied the threatened Georgian town of Gori they would have found a museum still honoring the local boy, who made good by seizing control of the Russian revolution. Indeed five Russian bombs were allegedly dropped on Gori’s Stalin Square on Tuesday.

This certainly does seemed to be feeding into John McCain's angry old warmonger strategy, and we all know the GOP would give their eyeteeth to have the Soviets back to rail against (Now that was a moneymaker!). Of course, getting the American public to see this in a wider light would require a functioning and active press. Most folks only get there news in bite sized chunks, pre-chewed for easy digestion (wee little birds are we).

No, getting the American public engaged on this matter would require an honest and objective look at the situation, one which would take into account the deliberately provocative moves of the Georgian government and the web which connects this event to so many other ill-founded foreign policy ploys by the very same players. And that won't sell soap.

Russian President Calls for Attack on Georgia to Stop

2008-08-12T07:32:00.001-05:00

But, according to the Guardian, word hasn't reached the army just yet:

Local residents pass by a damaged building in Gori, Georgia. Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP
Russian forces are reported to be continuing to attack the Georgian central town of Gori today, despite Moscow's claim to have ordered its troops to halt the military offensive.
Explosions in the strategically important town killed at least five civilians, although the Russian general staff denied it was being targeted.
Reports from the scene suggest the explosions may have been caused by mortar fire and not by bombs dropped by jets, as witnesses first thought.
Georgia said it remained "prepared for everything" until there was more evidence of a halt to operations.
Georgia's prime minister Lado Gurgenidze, speaking to Reuters news agency, said, "We will need more evidence, everyone in this situation needs a binding agreement. Until that happens, we are mobilised, we are prepared for everything." Despite the Russian gesture he said "there has been more damage to infrastructure and civilian casualties today".
The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who had ordered an end to the fighting, said a full settlement of the conflict could only be reached if Georgian troops returned to their initial positions, were "partly demilitarised", and there was "a binding agreement on the non-use of force".

Speaking of Wes Clark

2008-08-11T16:42:00.001-05:00

From his PAC Website:

A little over a month ago, following my appearance on Face the Nation, the right wing freak machine took me out of context, attacked me, and just wanted me to "hit the road."

Well, I'm here to tell you: I'm not going away.

We simply have too much to do in these final three months. We have to elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States. And we have to give him a working majority in Congress. So let's give the right wing what they asked for. I'm ready to "hit the road" and help Democrats across the country

Right wing freak machine? Did he just say that? Dang, son. Them's fighting words. Gotta love it.

NPR, Right Now

2008-08-11T15:34:00.001-05:00

NPR is rerunning a Fresh Air with Isaac Hayes from 1994 right now. If you're in the MPB broadcast range, flip it on now and catch the last half. If not, or if you want to hear it from the beginning, you can always listen online. Good stuff.

Reading the Bones

2008-08-11T15:25:00.001-05:00

I can't tell you how happy this would make me if it turned out to be the case.

A) it would, to some degree, immediately castrate the right-wing's ability to feign outrage and drum folks out of the process. By putting Clark on the ticket, Obama would be effectively saying, "We don't care about your game plan. We've got our own," and that would be a welcome "up yours" to a political machine that does everything it can to gin up outrage and steer the media narrative.

It would also underscore the point Wes Clark made for which he was pilloried by the right and a compliant press, which was simply that John McCain's specific military service is not on its own a particular qualification for the much wider role a president must play. It's not even the "ace in the hole" from a Commander in Chief perspective that so many seem to think it is.

B) Obama-Clark would be one hell of a ticket. Not to mention how valuable General Clark's specific experience will be now, what with Russia flexing its muscles in the Caucasus regions (and we should all be realistic: current events in Georgia are probably only the beginning, rather than the sum total, of that exercise) and the implications this will have for other nations, and the independence of Kosovo in particular.

The whole extended region is suddenly a tinderbox, and sparks are flying all over the damn place. Wes Clark brings to the table his very keen and unique insight on the region; its conflicts, its geopolitical sensitivities and importance (as opposed to McCain's lobbyist-informed view), and a strategic understanding of military actions in that neck of the woods, along with many other fine, strong qualities we'd want in a VP candidate.

Anyway, Seth Colter Walls over at the Huffington Post writes of some possible "tells" in the Democrats' veterans-focused convention theme for the third night, when Obama's VP choice will be speaking:

My colleague Sam Stein reported earlier today that Barack Obama's VP choice will speak on the veteran-themed third night of the Democratic convention. As he noted, top Obama officials immediately poured water on any speculation that this coincidence necessarily signals a VP with military experience.
But here's one more interesting connection that hints ever-so-slightly toward the selection of a veteran veep, submitted by a sharp reader.
According to USA Today, the theme for Wednesday, Aug. 27 is "Securing America's Future," which just also happens to be the name of Gen. Wesley Clark's political action committee. (The URL for its website is simply "SecuringAmerica.com," but FEC filings list the full name.)
For what it's worth, an aide to Gen. Clark could not restrain near-riotous laughter when asked if there was anything behind the connection.
"I don't think it's anything more than an interesting coincidence," the aide said in between convulsions. "It's just because his PAC was named so well!"
Still, it's not as though the party is randomly naming each day of the convention. The theme for Thursday, when Obama will speak, is the familiar-sounding "Change You Can Believe In."

Our Vanquished Moral Authority

2008-08-11T13:52:00.001-05:00

Thank you Mr. Bush:

The United States suggested on Sunday that Russia was interested in "regime change" in Georgia after Moscow rejected Tbilisi's offer of a cease-fire in the separatist enclave of South Ossetia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili "must go," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the Security Council.

Khalilzad then looked straight at Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and asked if Moscow was looking for "regime change."

"Is the goal of the Russian Federation to change the leadership of Georgia?" he said.

Churkin did not directly address the question but said there are leaders who "become an obstacle."

"Sometimes those leaders need to contemplate how useful they have become to their people," he told reporters later.

"Regime change is purely an American invention," he said. "We're all for democracy in Georgia."...

...Khalilzad told reporters the telephone call between Rice and Lavrov was "disturbing," adding that the days of overthrowing European governments by force were over...

... Khalilzad said Russia was waging "terror" in Georgia.

"We must condemn Russia's military assault on the sovereign state of Georgia ... including the targeting of civilians and the campaign of terror against the Georgian population," he said.

Khalilzad also accused Russia of preventing the withdrawal of Georgian forces from South Ossetia to prolong the conflict and prevent Georgia from laying down its arms.

"Since Russia is impeding Georgian forces from withdrawing, rejecting a cease-fire and continuing to carry out military attacks against civilian centers, its claims of a humanitarian purpose clearly are not credible," Khalilzad said.

Churkin was furious that Khalilzad used the word "terror."

"This statement, ambassador, is completely unacceptable, particularly from the lips of the permanent representative of a country whose actions we are aware of, including with regard to the civilian populations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Serbia," Churkin told the council.

Dereliction of Duty

2008-08-11T12:49:00.001-05:00

On the Democratic side. Unconscionable, you ask me.

Video Judo

2008-08-11T12:16:00.001-05:00

Good new Obama ad which flips McCain's celebrity attack right back at him:

Use the enemy's own weight and aggression against him. Judo 101.

Reminds me of a headline I saw a couple of weeks back on Firedoglake: "McCain Orders Up an Acme Self-Hoisting Petard"

Man, I just laughed and laughed when I saw that headline, for a good while before even actually reading the post itself. Brilliant, Swopa.

The Airlift

2008-08-11T11:38:00.001-05:00

Found this dispatch referencing the US airlift of Georgian troops Putin's criticized, and I've got to say that it troubles me that our military is taking this active a role in the conflict:

A US military aircraft on Monday delivered Georgian soldiers home from Iraq as reinforcements in the Ossetia war.

The air force C5 cargo plane carried elements of Georgia's 13th Infantry Battalion, accounted by its desert combat experience and US training to be Georgia's most effective combat force.

Georgian media offered contradictory reports as to whether one or more US cargo planes had arrived at Tbilisi International airport.

A Deutsche Presse-Agentur reporter in central Tbilisi saw a single C5 Galaxy cargo jet departing the vicinity at a high angle normally used to avoid possible missile fire.

Russian bombers over the last three days have struck a military airfield next to Tbilisi's civilian airport, once when a US cargo plane was on the ground roughly a kilometre distant.

It was unclear what portion of the Georgian infantry brigade in Iraq had returned to Georgia. Georgia prior to the airlift had some 2,000 men stationed in Iraq.

The rated capacity of a C5 is some 120 tons.

Greg Davis Resurfaces

2008-08-11T11:03:00.001-05:00

After we noted his conspicuous absence last week, the GOP's candidate for the MS-01 seat comes out of hiding, with a mea culpa and a new "underdog" vibe and everything:

He's reorganizing his staff, apologizing for the tone of previous campaigns and hoping a higher turnout boosts the GOP's chances of reclaiming northeast Mississippi's 1st Congressional District in November.

But political analysts say it'll be a challenge for Southaven Mayor Greg Davis to topple Travis Childers, the former Prentiss County chancery clerk whose victory in a May runoff re-energized Democrats on the state and national level.

"We'll be outspent," said Davis, who reported $53,916 in cash on hand as of June 30 compared to Childers' $160,976. "We will not be outworked. We're moving full steam ahead."

Analysts say there are other issues working against Davis, including lukewarm support from the GOP and a past campaign viewed as too negative. The National Republican Congressional Committee poured money into the runoff, but a NRCC spokesman said the group is not currently involved and would not say whether that will change.

Davis, 42, "must overcome the disappointment a lot of Republicans had in the nature of his last race ... there's a sense of 'Been there, done that, we'll run a better candidate two years from now,' " said John Bruce, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi.

Brad White, the state's incoming Republican party chairman, said the party will help push voters to the polls for Davis and other GOP candidates.

"I'm not betting my house on it, but I believe it's extremely doable," he said of Davis' chances...

...But supporters of Childers don't seem overly worried. Childers, 50, has not intensified his campaign since winning the right to serve the final months of a term vacated by Roger Wicker, a Republican appointed to replace Trent Lott in the Senate. The November election will determine who replaces Wicker in January for a full two-year term. The seat had been held by a Republican for 14 years before Childers' win.

Wicker faces former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, in November to determine who will serve the last four years of a six-year term Lott began in January 2007.

Brad Morris, Childers' chief of staff, said Childers is "focused on doing the job he was elected to do. There are still votes ahead in Congress in September. When his work is done, he'll turn his attention to the campaign." [...]

...Voter turnout was mixed in the district that also includes Oxford, Booneville, Tupelo, Columbus, Bruce and Iuka. Davis said according to his campaign's post-election analysis, many Republicans didn't vote.

A higher turnout could help him in November, he said. But Bruce said higher turnout probably will help Childers more.

"The higher turnout will likely be Obama supporters," Bruce said, referring to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Analysts predict his popularity among African Americans will help down-ticket races in Mississippi, because more than half of Democratic voters in the state are African American.

Davis, who tried to link his opponent with Obama before, said he's apologizing to voters for "the mud."

Some say his attacks against GOP opponent Glenn McCullough in the race's primary turned off Republicans.

"We promise our campaign will be based on votes and issues and the differences between us," he said

So he's going to campaign on issues? What is he, some kind of godless, commie pinko liberal?

Enough With These Idiots

2008-08-11T09:45:00.001-05:00

To sort of give the insane counterpart to Asmus & Holbrooke's reasoned look at the Georgia-Russia conflict, we get this round-up from Think Progress on what the fools advise (the same fools, we should remember, who thought an Iraqi invasion would be just peachy, thank you very much). Guess what their informed council calls for?

Russia’s increasing aggression is putting a spark into American neoconservatives. Today on the Times op-ed page, one of their leaders, William Kristol, claims the U.S. must “defend” Georgia’s sovereignty as a reward for its participation in Iraq, while the conservative Washington Times is calling for “maximum pressure” on Russia:
Bill Kristol: [Georgia] has had the third-largest military presence — about 2,000 troops — fighting along with U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq. For this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty. Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation.
Washington Times: It is in America’s interest to exert maximum pressure on Russia to withdraw its troops and halt the interference in Georgian territory. This latest act shows the need for greater resolve in establishing a European security system that can be an effective check on Russian power
Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III:
Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama. […]
The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the “shameful Versailles diktat” imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back.
Like a good neoconservative, Kagan also links the Western response to the conflict and its wider policy towards Russia as “appeasement.”
Matthew Yglesias asks of Kagan’s World War II analogy: “If we launch a war with Russia — which would seem to be the point of busting out the analogy — then how are we going to find the time to launch wars with Iran and China?”

Airlifting Troops?

2008-08-11T09:40:00.001-05:00

Has anyone heard anything else about the claim Putin is making in this AP report?

President Bush, who has encouraged Georgia's efforts to join NATO, said he spoke with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Russian president.

"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia," Bush said in an interview with NBC Sports.

In turn, Putin criticized the United States for airlifting Georgian troops back home from Iraq on Sunday at Georgia's request.

"It's a pity that some of our partners instead of helping are in fact trying to get in the way," Putin said at a Cabinet meeting. "I mean among other things the United States airlifting Georgia's military contingent from Iraq effectively into the conflict zone."

A two-front battlefield would be a major escalation in the conflict, which blew up Friday after a Georgian offensive to regain control of separatist South Ossetia.

Most Georgian troops are near South Ossetia, in the center of the country along its northern border with Russia, which would make it difficult for Georgia to repel an offensive from Abkhazia, in the west along the Black Sea.

Two Minds, Two Paths

2008-08-11T09:26:00.001-05:00

Transcript 's still pending, but in the meantime, you should listen to this NPR segment from this morning and dig on the differences in approach the two presidential candidates are taking in their reaction to the crisis in Georgia.