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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Pam's House Blend - Front Page's LiveJournal:
- McCain skips a vote on a bill to create energy independence. Which he just promised to achieve in his Nomination Acceptance speech. McCain's vote would have been decisive as the measure failed cloture 59-40. But McCain hates partisanship. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skipped the vote on cloture for the economic stimulus package. Cloture failed 58-41. If McCain had voted yea, Reid would also have and cloture would be invoked. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skipped the vote on cloture for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Cloture failed 56-42. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skipped the vote on the Medicare Improvements Act. Cloture failed again 58-40, with McCain's potential "yea" being decisive. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skipped the vote on the bill to increase the minimum wage. It failed cloture 54-43. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for a sense of the Senate on Iraq. It fails 49-47. I thought McCain had strong opinions on Iraq? Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips another vote on cloture for a sense of the Senate on Iraq. Cloture fails 56-34. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for a bill to fund the Iraq war and compel redeployment. It fails 53-45. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on an energy conservation bill. No opinion on the energy crisis I guess. Cloture fails 50-44. Obama missed this one.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for an energy bill. Fortunately energy is not an issue the American people care about. It fails 57-36. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on another Energy cloture vote. It fails 53-42. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for the Intelligence Authorization spending bill. Fails 50-45. Obama missed this one.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for a bill to allow the government to negotiate over drug prices. Cloture fails 55-42. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for the motion of non-confidence in AG Gonzales. It fails 53-38. Obama missed this one.
- McCain skips a vote on the Farm bill. Cloture fails 55-42. McCain, looking out for farmers. Obama voted yea.
- McCain skips a vote on cloture for an Immigration reform bill. I'm sure the nativist base is glad to know McCain didn't have their back. Luckily 44 of his colleagues were able to block the Hispanic Horde. Obama voted yea.
- McCain voted no on cloture to block the Employee Free Choice act. Cloture failed 51-48.
- McCain voted no on cloture for a bill to guarantee soldiers a minimum amount of time between deployments. Him and 40 other Republicans succeeded in thwarting the will of 56 senators who voted aye.
- McCain voted no on cloture for a bill to redploy forces from Iraq. Cloture failed 52-47.
- McCain voted no on cloture for a bill to give the District of Columbia a vote in Congress. Only 57 Senators in a bi-partisan majority supported this one, so luckily the 42 who voted no were able to block this, or more citizens might have a voice in government. Whew.
- McCain voted no on cloture to a bill to restore Habeas Corpus to detainees. Cloture failed 56-43.
| Sunday, September 7th, 2008 | |
| 4:09 am | Rabid Man-on-Dog unleashed Mike Signorile has his interview with former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum up now. Click over to listen to it.
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| 2:57 am | Westmoreland stands by 'uppity' remark about Obama   You good residents down there in Georgia -- send some the Klan robes over to Rep. Lynn Westmoreland's office. On Thursday, it was reported that he said this:"Just from what little I've seen of her [Michelle] and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said. Asked to clarify that he used the word "uppity," Westmoreland said, "Uppity, yeah.Now with a couple of days under his belt to reconsider the wisdom of hurling out the plain and simply bigoted term, he regrets nothing -- and if you can believe this, the native Southerner claims he didn't know there was a racial connotation to the term. "He stands by that characterization and thinks it accurately describes the Democratic nominee," said Brian Robinson, Westmoreland's spokesman. "He was unaware that the word had racial overtones and he had absolutely no intention of using a word that can be considered offensive."This man is a liar. Westmoreland knew exactly what he said; and it isn't surprising coming from a man who opposed renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The WaPo's Jonathan Weisman is more polite, but agrees: Having grown up in Atlanta, very near where Rep. Lynn Westmoreland grew up, I can say pretty unequivocally that there is no way a native Georgian could not have known the racial context of that word. Georgia in the 60s and 70s was a study in black and white (it's much more diverse now), and racial subtexts were everywhere. I do not buy his defense. |
| 2:44 am | John McCain - missing in action in the Senate We can mull over Sarah Palin's slim pickins of experience, but let's get back to the man at the top of the ticket. In a slam-dunk post of over at Open Left, Daniel de Groot points to the missing-in-action record of John McCain in the Senate. He has skipped 63.8% of votes in the 110th Congress.
Daniel notes that it's even more egregious that McCain did show up to vote "nay" on many cloture votes -- thus not facilitating working across the aisle in a bipartisan manner -- the Arizona Senator reveled in blocking legislation. More below the fold. How about these nay votes... Mr. Straight Talk Maverick, in a clear attempt to avoid any votes of consequence to defend because he was running for president, has abdicated his responsibility to represent the residents of Arizona. It's particularly outrageous because both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton managed to get back to the Hill to be present and vote on legislation. If this is any indication of how he will govern, McCain is simply going to kick back, put his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office and let the business of the people slide further down into the abyss. |
| Saturday, September 6th, 2008 | |
| 11:24 pm | Banning Books...Amazing that this is still a threat in the 21st Century [UPDATE]: This post has been rewritten, post-comment 27 or so...Julien It is common knowledge that Sarah Palin inquired about about how to censor books in the Wasilla Public Library. As has been pointed out in major media outlets, when she was unsuccessful in her attempt, she then tried to have the librarian fired. I wonder what she wanted banned? Below the fold please see a list of some of the most-often censored books in the United States. Who knows what was on Palin's list (or if she even had a specific list), but these books have been on the Fundie target for a good few centuries. Sometimes I can't believe that our nation started from people wanting to escape oppression, and yet we have evolved into a nation with a scarily-high proportion of folks who would like to oppress a whole lotta other folks. (Interestingly, the Living Bible was on the banned list. I guess there is some Fundie rule about what version of the stories is allowed?) Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Blubber by Judy Blume Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Bridge to Terabithida by Katherine Paterson Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Carrie by Stephen King Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Christine by Stephen King Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Cujo by Stephen King Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Decameron by Boccaccio Eastof Eden by John Steinbeck Fallen Angels by Walter Myers Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes Forever by Judy Blume Grendel by John Champlin Gardner Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling Have to Go by Robert Munsch Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Impressions edited by Jack Booth In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Lord of the Flies by William Golding Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein Lysistrata by Aristophanes More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier My House by Nikki Giovanni My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara Night Chills by Dean Koontz Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn One Flew Over The= Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Ordinary People by Judith Guest Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz Separate Peace by John Knowles Silas Marner by George Eliot Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain The Bastard by John Jakes The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier The Color Purple by Alice Walker The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks The Living Bible by William C. Bower The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman The Pigman by Paul Zindel The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders The Shining by Stephen King The Witches by Roald Dahl The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth |
| 8:00 pm | Fundies adrift over Pacific Gas & Electric's donation to No on 8 When San Francisco based Pacific Gas & Electric made a donation of $250K to fight the passage of Prop 8, it made the fundies hopping mad, because the usual tactic of screaming "boycott" presented some, er, difficulties for them. In the California Catholic Daily, take a look at the gyrations these folks are going through: After San Francisco based Pacific Gas & Electric made the large donation to the No on 8 campaign, thousands of the company's frustrated customers expressed their outrage in the form of emails, letters and comments on various blogs. But a California public interest law firm that fights for conservative causes put its legal researchers to work and found another way for pro-marriage customers of PG&E to fight back: cancel natural gas service from the company.The comments are hilarious. They will give it the old college try: Posted Friday, September 05, 2008 9:16 AM By Linda |
| 4:30 pm | GOP: Palin's not ready, but will be soon; McCain moves to quash 'Troopergate' Republicans, who insisted that Sarah Palin, with her "executive experience" is ready on day one to step in as POTUS if McCain kicks it, are now actually saying she's not ready and is cramming up in Alaska to be able to answer questions from the press. I have a hard time with the term "GOP strategist" when advice like this is supposed to represent smart thinking by experts. Todd Harris, GOP strategist:
The Jed Report nails it: This has got to be one of the craziest messaging decisions ever: Harris is conceding that Palin's not even ready to be a vice presidential candidate, let alone be president.And in a development on the Troopergate scandal, McCain's peeps are now moving in to quash the probe into Palin's role. If you can't vet, the cover it up, right Mr. Straight Talk Express? (Newsweek): Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.This is a nice reminder of the kind of change McCain wants to bring to Washington. No change. For your entertainment, Sarah's fans -- McCain/Palin's America, interviewed by Samantha Bee of The Daily Show at the RNC. It's below the fold.
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| 3:00 pm | 'Milk' looks incredible (There's a Q of the day at the end.) I can't wait to see Milk. Sean Penn, who plays the first openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, looks like he's delivered another Oscar-worthy performance. Milk, who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978, by fellow Supervisor Dan White, paved the way for civil equality gains with his life. His election wasn't just about progress in San Francisco -- he was, as John Cloud's "Time 100" profile of Milk, "the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet." On 27th November 1978, Dan White went to City Hall with a loaded .38 revolver. In order to avoid the metal detectors he entered through a basement window that had been negligently left open for ventilation. He proceeded to the Mayor's office where the two men began arguing until Moscone suggested going to a more private room so that they couldn't be heard. Once there, Moscone refused to re-appoint him and White shot the Mayor twice in the chest and twice in the head.The assassination of Harvey Milk is a reminder that hate crimes legislation is long overdue -- White received a sentence of voluntary manslaughter, instead of premeditated murder, and received a sentence of seven years. White later committed suicide after his release from prison. While we have made earth shattering civil equality gains since that time, in towns and cities large and small, what hasn't changed is the mindset of people like the unstable White, whose homophobia was so deeply embedded that he had to commit violence to express it. Gus Van Sant directs the film, which will be released on on November 27, the anniversary of Milk's murder. You can view the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, here. Question - how do you think this film will be received by the general public, and by the right wing? |
| 12:00 pm | Oh joy! James Hartline calls me a 'twisted lesbian sister' Ahhhhhh...another endorsement from the man who "confronts the powers of darkness in the homosexual stronghold of San Diego, California." And this! The critical comments of homosexual activists don't even remotely get under my skin. After successfully fighting a long term battle with AIDS, overcoming 30 years of homosexuality to become free from that sin, leaving behind a deadly drug addiction ten years ago and gaining liberty a decade ago from nineteen years of imprisonment, the comments of a few embittered lesbians is hardly a gnat on my radar of life's difficulties. |
| 2:43 am | Bush & McCain's 'strong' economy keeps rolling along Think we've seen the bottom of this ugly pit? Think again. The federal government is taking the wholly unprecedented step of seizing control of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to be taken over by the government as soon as this weekend in a bold move designed to protect the mortgage market from the risk the companies could fail, a person briefed on the matter said Friday night. Nothing to see here folks! Move along! This is all according to plan! Well I guess it's been long enough since the S&L crisis that we needed another catastrophe caused by a healthy dose of Republican deregulation. Both mortgage giants have taken huge hits so far this year, and we know the cause--sub-prime loans gone bad. That confirmed what investors saw in Fannie and Freddie's recent financial results: trouble in the mortgage market has shifted to homeowners who had solid credit but took out exotic loans with little or no proof of their income and assets. The two federally backed financial giants hold or guarantee almost half of the nation's total mortgage debt--a whopping $5 trillion. This could get very ugly, very quick. |
| 7:43 am | Hanna's made landfall in NC...  Saturday, 3:40 AM: Tropical Storm Hanna has made landfall, and here in the Triangle area of NC (I'm in Durham, we're in the middle of the state), we're feeling the effects right now, which is under a flash flood warning with tornadoes likely. It's close to Hurricane 1 status at this point, with top winds of 70 mph. Here we will experience 35 mph gusts and a 3-5 inches of rain. That's enough to take out old trees and ones with shallow root systems. During Hurrican Fran (Cat 3) in 1996, there was a lot of devastation this far inland because the storm was so large. Since a lot of the area has above-ground power lines, some of the grids may lose power this time around; we'll see. In our neighborhood, electrical is underground, but part of the grid isn't, so it's possible I'll have no juice later in the day. The sustained storm conditions are expected to go on all day, until around 4PM. Out at Atlantic Beach, NC, we're graced with the presence of Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel covering the storm. |
| 12:30 am | Sam Brownback lets his hair down with Mike Signorile Next week should be fun on Mike's show. It has been a parade of wingnuttery marching past the Sirius OutQ booth at the GOP convention as he's nabbed interviews with the theocrats, fetus fantasists and homo-obsessives you've come to know on the Blend -- Eagle Forum doyenne-with a self-loathing gay son Phyllis Schlafly, Rick Santorum, Bob Barr, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, and failed Ohio gubernatorial candidate (and spot of color at the convention) Ken Blackwell. He'll air more interviews next week. Get a load of this encounter with Kansas Senator and failed presidential candidate Sam Brownback. Sam is truly off the charts batsh*t insane: Last night I got a chance to interview Kansas Senator Sam "Snowflake Baby" Brownback, a man obsessed with embryos and women's uteruses, not to mention homosexuality. As someone who ran for the nomination he of course hoped he'd be up there last night giving his acceptance speech, but nonetheless it helped him to highlight his issues and shape the party platform. He told me, ominously, that even if ten more states legalize marriage for gays and lesbians over the next 10 or 15 years and millions of gays and lesbians get married, he and Christian conservatives will work to ultimately turn that around and take away the rights of those millions.How crazed are these people on the fringe right that they fixate on a right that has zero impact on their marriages? It's particularly distasteful given the outlandish number of closet cases and serial adulterers in his party. |
| Friday, September 5th, 2008 | |
| 10:30 pm | Blooperville: McCain backdrop not Walter Reed Med Center - it's Walter Reed Middle School  I was wondering why John McCain, during his epic boring speech last night, was standing in front of a green screen that made him look pasty. When the camera showed it from another angle, it was actually a large building that looked like a mansion. I thought, man, why would you want to emphasize something like that?So much for the stagers who put together the whole McCain Project Runway event. The photo was supposed to be of Walter Reed Army Medical Center (!?), as if the audience should instantly recognize it, but that wasn't even right. It turned out to be a shot of in North Hollywood, CA. Josh Marshall at TPM said what I was thinking: 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.The hilarious Stonehenge incompetence moment from Spinal Tap is below the fold. Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell |
| 11:00 pm | The Blend picks up "Best LGBT Blog" at Black Weblog Awards  Just heard the news...Popular Vote: Pam's House Blend In 2005, the Black Weblog Awards were created to recognize the best black bloggers in the industry and to serve as a platform for supporting and uplifting those shaping the minds of the black community through the use of online technology and communication. The Black Weblog Awards' mission is to empower and encourage black bloggers to continue creating more original content, open dialogue, unique story telling and diverse views. "Our lives, our stories and our voices matter.You can see the full winner's list here. Congratulations to Jack & Jill Politics, which won a Best Group Blog Award and Blog of the Year, and The Field Negro, honored as Best Political/News Blog. |
| 9:00 pm | More of McSame: Palin's foreign policy and security tutors are Bushies Now how is this a selling point for McCain's new theme of bringing change to Washington? The McCain team has hastily assembled a team of former Bush White House aides to tutor the vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on foreign-policy issues, to write her speeches and to begin preparing her for her all-important Oct. 2 debate against Sen. Joe Biden.Fellow blogger and brilliant policy wonk Steve Clemons sounds the warning bell: One administration critic, Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation, said today that while he personally liked Biegun and viewed him as "extremely competent," his retention as Palin's foreign-policy tutor could have unpleasant consequences. Describing Biegun-a Russia expert who once served as staff director for Sen. Jesse Helms at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee-as a "big gun" in conservative foreign-policy circles, Clemens said "he will turn her into an advocate of Cheneyism and Cheney's view of national-security issues." |
| 8:13 pm | Self-Evasion of the Mind Revisited Let me start by saying that I'm going to give the Log Cabin Republicans the benefit of the doubt that they choose their party and their candidate based on their political philosophy and not just their positions on LGBT issues. I said as much in a comment on a post at Independent Gay Forum that, to me, didn't seem to extend the same courtesy to those of us at the other side of the political spectrum.
As I said in my comment, I'll make a deal with the LCR and gay conservatives: I won't characterize you guys as self-loathing if you don't characterize LGBT Democrats and progressives as mindless, one-issue voters. After all, none of the people I know or talked to in Denver are supporting Obama/Biden soley on the basis of their positions on LGBT issues, but because we think that McCain/Palin is worse (or even dangerously worse) for the country on a whole range of issues from the economy to health care and foreign policy. It just happens that one candidate/party is better on LGBT issues than the other Which brings me, belatedly, to LCR's endorsement of the McCain/Palin ticket.
Of course the "core philosophy of Republicans" he was addressing was federalism, not equality. The press release on the endorsement itself reads in part:
Fine. They acknowledge their differences with McCain on "a number of gay rights issues," and make it clear that part of the reason for their endorsement is access in a McCain White House. (The group declined to endorse Bush in 2004, after the meeting of 12 gay Republicans with Bush in 2000 yielded pretty much nothing. A participant in that meeting later told me that his words to Bush were that we - gays, I guess - just wanted to be left alone. Near as I can tell, we didn't even get that.) There may be something to that, given that a top McCain advisor paid a visit to LCR during the convention.
For what it's worth, here's the video. |
| 4:45 pm | How To Keep People From Voting: Make The System As Complicated As Possible Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters. Weekly Voting Rights News Update By Erin Ferns While many see voting as an implicit right in a representative democracy, decisions in America about who can vote and how are actually controlled by the states and vary greatly from state-to-state, even from county-to-county. Misinformation and misinterpretation of each state's particular laws—not only by voters, but also by state officials—has the potential to influence the outcome of the election, a problem seen recently as two of the country’s most disenfranchised groups – youth and former felons –have encountered procedural roadblocks to electoral participation. Large voter registration drives are underway in Virginia, but the Roanoke Times has recently reported on problems that may hinder the participation of Virginia students. According to Kevin Litten of the Roanoke Times on Saturday, allegations of voter intimidation came out of Virginia Tech last week, when Montgomery County Registrar Randy Wertz issued a news release warning students that registering using their college addresses would be changing their permanent addresses. This, according to Wertz, could “affect student’s scholarships or tax filings, and would obligate them to change car registrations and their driver's licenses.” Litten reports that officials from the Obama campaign, which has been conducting voter registration activities in Virginia, countered that “they had never heard of students' dependency status on their parents' tax forms affected by their voter registration,” and that the “other laws mentioned in the release are rarely enforced or subject to interpretation.” The officials worried that the statements could have a “chilling effect” on voter registration efforts, but Wertz denied that intimidating students was his intention, insisting that “his focus is making sure elections run smoothly and fairly.” Fair and smooth elections become even more difficult when more voters are involved and the state is ill prepared. Wednesday's Roanoke Times expressed concerns that the influx of newly registered students—assigned to what is already the county's most populated precinct—could create long lines and transportation problems on Election Day. The precinct, E-1, already has 3,600 active voters; the state is required to split precincts when they exceed 5,000 voters, but officials say it is too late to obtain Justice Department approval for the split if E-1 exceeds capacity before November. To at least help alleviate the waiting period to vote, officials say they are making efforts to hire extra officials to run the polls. But, to make matters worse, the polling place assigned for the precinct is located four miles from campus without connecting public transportation – a potential problem for students without cars. Whereas young people are subject to roadblocks and intimidation due to unclear regulations and ill-equipped precincts, many former felons remain unaware of their right to vote period. “A lot of people, especially women, don't know they still count when they come home...they need to know that they can vote and maybe things will change,” said Willeta Hughes in the Michigan Citizen. Hughes “was told in 1998 that she couldn’t go to law school or vote as a result of a concealed weapons charge that led to a felony conviction.” Hughes is part of a Michigan pilot program to help engage former felons in the voting process and ultimately in their communities. The program, Unlock the Vote, was started by Neila Johnson to help combat misinformation “disseminated from inside the Corrections Department itself” that told many felons, including Johnson's sister, that they had permanently lost their voting rights. Before 2007, Florida had one of the toughest felon-disenfranchisement laws, which permanently revoked voting rights of all felons unless individually restored by the Clemency Board. Nearly one million ex-felons were not allowed to vote in the last presidential election, according to the Sentencing Project. Last year Governor Charlie Crist changed Florida law to automatically restore the voting rights of nonviolent criminals after release. “Thousands of ex-convicts have had their rights restored but don't know it, or don't realize they are eligible to register as voters. The state has been unable to notify them because it has lost track of them,” Kaczor wrote. Only 9,000 of those former felons were registered by the end of July, according to an August 27 Orlando Sentinel report. Last week Crist issued an executive order requiring officials to provide voter registration cards and the ability to track voter registration status online for certain former felons. According to Bill Kaczor of the Associated Press, this long-awaited effort to help former felons restore their civil rights is being seen by many as “a lost opportunity,” as only five weeks remain to register before the Nov. 4 election. More than 5.3 million felons across the nation are prohibited from voting, and less than one quarter of eligible young voters turned out to vote in the 2006 midterm election. These untapped voting blocs are often silenced thanks to poorly managed state control of election administration, which puts the burden on voters to seek registration. One way to resolve some of these issues is to continue to inform voters of their rights and have outside parties help them register to vote. However, as state variance in election administration has shown, these steps alone are not enough to address the bias in the electorate and promote full participation in elections. Another approach, as noted by the Advancement Project in the Washington Daily News this week, would be to make voting a federal, constitutional right. Citing numerous disenfranchisement instances since 2000 due to “bizarre and erratic state customs” - including 12 elderly nuns without voter ID in Indiana, and thousands of rejected voter applicants who didn't check a box on the application in Florida – the group said “it is time to rectify this patchwork of bizarre and erratic state customs. We need to put the right to vote in the Constitution.” Quick Links: “In Pursuit of an Affirmative Right to Vote.” Advancement Project. July 2008. In Other News: Some New York officials worry about voting access - Associated Press ALBANY, N.Y.-Cliff Perez is legally blind and would like to vote without help this fall. Instead, he will have to count on his wife's assistance with New York's ancient pull lever machines, rather than use brand new $12,000 voting devices designed to give independence to the disabled. Early absentee voting changes campaign strategies in Montana - Missoulian [Mont.] HELENA - For nearly 200,000 voters in Montana this fall, Election Day may come early, via absentee ballots - and campaigns are adjusting to this new reality. Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote’s Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD). |
| 6:30 pm | New Palin scandal - charges of extramarital affair, Troopergate dodging  Oh, lord, not another one. The National Enquirer, no matter what you think about the tabloid, is usually not wrong when it starts sniffing around a story. Just ask John Edwards. Well it looks like Palin is on its radar. From CBS, a couple of days ago:John McCain's campaign threatened legal action against the National Enquirer today for running a story about McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, allegedly having an affair with her husband's business partner.In fact the NE responded to the McCain camp's hypocrisy (you'll recall that the Republcians were happily panty-sniffing over the Edwards scandal): "The National Enquirer's coverage of a vicious war within Sarah Palin's extended family includes several newsworthy revelations, including the resulting incredible charge of an affair plus details of family strife when the Governor's daughter revealed her pregnancy. Following our John Edwards' exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign's vetting process. Despite the McCain camp's attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum."Ouch. The latest bit of news about this is that Todd Palin's former business partner filed an emergency appeal to have his divorce records sealed. Oops -- it looks like the appeal was denied. And right about now, as Julien wondered when we might see some interviews with Palin. Guess what - she's flying far, far, away from the MSM. Via Mudflats: Chuck Todd dropped a little bombshell this afternoon.And the bloodletting continues on Troopergate as well. Head over to Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis for some serious details: Alaskan loyalty...and fear of retribution: Why Palin stories didn't break before the nomination. For a veep nom that the country needs to meet and learn about who she is, you have to wonder how long they can keep her under wraps as the ship starts taking on more and more water. After all, the media can hop on a plane too. |
| 5:30 pm | Are you ready for the Values Voter Summit? Hot PR release in my inbox -- Sean Hannity will be there with the luminaries of the political right, and the flat earth, homo-obsessed bible-beating crowd, including special guest Stephen Baldwin! Today, FRC Action announced that Sean Hannity, co-host of Fox News "Hannity & Colmes" and host of "Hannity's America," will address the third annual Values Voter Summit on Saturday, September 13th. Hannity's radio show, "The Sean Hannity Show" is broadcast on more than 500 stations nationwide, and reaches more than 12 million listeners each day. He is the author of the best-selling books Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism and Deliver us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism.Fat chance Obama's going to waste his time in front of that group of hypocrites. |
| 4:47 pm | Convention Wrap-Up -- Obama Comes Out on Top Kennedy, Clinton, Clinton, Biden, Obama, Gustav, Giuliani, Palin, and McCain: the American people have now been introduced to the latest cast of characters who will populate this year's most watched reality program, the 2008 Presidential Election. The storylines have been laid out: will Kennedy survive to see the first African-American President? Will Hillary fall on her sword? Will Bill Clinton get out of Obama's way? Will Biden's penchant for verbal gaffes prove a liability to the Obama campaign? Will Obama connect with Middle America? Will Gustav (or another act of God) change the dynamics of the race? Will Giuliani's sarcasm rally the GOP base? Will Palin's unvetted political history prove a distraction? Will John McCain's experience as a POW prove enough of a motivating force to elect him President? These are the questions that burn men's souls in 2008. Looking back over the past two weeks what have we seen? What have we learned? What can we expect moving forward? First of all let us go back to Denver, where the Democrats hosted a flawless, four day extravaganza culminating in the shocking sight of 84,000 Americans gathered to hear Barack Obama accept his party's nomination for President of the United States. The goal of the DNC this year was three-fold. One, put to rest talk of divisions with the party. To this end Hillary Clinton graciously fell on her sword and endorsed Obama by telling party activists "Barack Obama is my candidate". Two, rally the base. The sheer numbers out of Denver address this point. Beyond just those 84,000 Americans who watched the speech live from Invesco Field, 40,000,000 Americans (give or take a few hundred thousand) watched the speech on TV. Lastly, the Obama campaign needed to lay out the themes of the general election. This Obama accomplished by seamlessly weaving into his acceptance speech specific policy initiatives, including: cuts in capital gains, and energy independence. But he went further than just policy, he challenged status quo politics by urging Americans to place the bitter wedge issues of the past 16 years (guns, gays and abortion) behind them. In the end the newly minted Obama/Biden ticket left Denver, "fired up, ready to go." The Republicans met this week in St. Paul and got off to a rocky start. As hurricane Gustav roared toward the Gulf Coast, residents of New Orleans were sent packing. The nation prepared itself for a rerun of three years ago when Katrina buried the Ninth Ward. Disaster was averted, but the Republican convention was scaled back during the first two days of its scheduled run. Gutav's near miss was a reminder that this election is very susceptible to a game changing "act of God" such as a natural disaster, a flare in violence in Iraq or Afghanistan, or another terrorist attack on Americans. Finally, on day two of their scheduled convention the GOP began to regain its equilibrium and stage its show. The men who would be President each took turns gracing the stage in St. Paul. Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani each took the stage endorsing John McCain - some more successfully than others. Then came Gov. Sarah Palin. The announcement of her selection last week had taken Americans (and more than a few Republicans) by surprise, and early attention was spent publically vetting the newest star in the political firmament. Her teen daughter is pregnant, her office is implicated in an abuse of power scandal, her husband once belonged to the separatist Alaskan Independence Party. Palin took the stage Wednesday and delivered a well received, albeit sarcastic, speech endearing her to the GOP faithful but raising questions about her vitriol and veracity. Palin was watched by 37 million viewers on television. Then, last night, came the top of the GOP ticket, Senator John McCain. The speech, which called for political temperance but also set out a specific policy position on the issue of business taxes, relied heavily on Republican bromides mixed with a heavy dose of his experience as a POW in Vietnam. The delivery itself was strained, and the attendees in the hall seemed to receive his exhortations with a mix of bemusement and disinterest. The McCain/Palin ticket leaves St. Paul to the refrain of "Drill Baby Drill." So what can we say about these past two weeks? One, the Obama campaign seems to have (for the most part) brushed aside questions of party unity and turned his attention to attracting general election voters (conservative Dems, Independents, and Moderate Republicans). The campaign will focus on domestic issues while hammering home McCain's relationship with the unpopular Bush administration. Biden will serve as consigliore on foreign affairs issues and attempt to build support for Obama amongst white, rural/suburban, Roman Catholics. The McCain campaign on the other hand will focus heavily on narrative issues (his POW experience, her hockey mom appeal) while hammering the Obama campaign as soft on defense. Palin will act as attack dog while McCain parades his POW credentials. The campaign will focus on turning out its base supporters while at the same time trying to reach the same "Scranton voters" that Obama is looking to attract. In the final analysis, the GOP has more work to do. There are fewer republicans in America today than four years ago. Their base, while enraptured with the Alaskan Governor, is still cool to McCain. Much time, work and money will be spent trying to turn these voters out. The Democrats have the advantage of beginning September with a larger, more unified base of support thus allowing greater resources to be spent attracting general election voters. Words of caution to each party. Obama must be careful not to become too wonkish....his policy positions need to be buttressed with "real life" and even "personal" examples, which will humanize his ideas and ingratiate himself to Americans. McCain must be careful not to lose his message to the nostalgia of his narrative while at the same time not loosing general election voters who are turned off by Palin's appeals to the GOP base. Coming out of the conventions, the tables favor a President Obama. |
| 11:01 am | The phantom VP candidate - when will the Repubs allow interviews? [Update from Julien: Looks like you're going to get your glimpses of Palin only with scripted talking points.]
I note with some interest that there have been exactly zero interviews of Palin since she was introduced.
This Sunday, Meet the Press is interviewing Biden.
Here's a quick poll - when will the campaign allow her to be interviewed? |
On a number of occasions -- those who do not deal with the reality of the real world outside of the self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto make extremely faulty conclusions about the number of citizens who are involved with the James Hartline Report.