Yay!!! We did it! Everyone rejoice in having the nagging over with. For  now.

Excellent work making our monetary goal. But I still want to get us over the 450 donations hump. We need 450 donations--one for every $1,000 of his own money Raimondo has put into this race.

Now part of this is personal. See, Tony Raimondo, Scott's DINO (and I really mean DINO--he changed his party registration specifically to run in this primary) is on the board of trustees for the National Association of Manufacturers. This organization, for no immediately apparent reason, has been committed to making sure AT&T and the other telcos get amnesty for their lawbreaking.

And the NAM has this blog that they call the "Shop Floor." (Stay with me here.) So on this blog, in support of the lawbreaking telcos, they've said some not so nice things about the bloggers (specifically me) working on the side of the Constitution. I admit it, I'm not above seeking revenge.

Reject the NAM, reject the corporate hijacking of our public policy. Do it with $5 or $10 to Scott. Show them what people power can do.

On the Web:
Kleeb for Senate
Daily Kos for Scott Kleeb ActBlue page

Race tracker wiki: NE-Sen

• Convicted New Hampshire phone jammer has high hopes of selling his story to Hollywood.  - SusanG
• We've got hope. What do they have? Corruption and more of the McSame.  

  PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

  On Sunday, BarbinMD will be taking a comprehensive look at McCain's record in the Senate of pushing highly profitable deals for his biggest campaign donors and lobbyists pals.

• Dick Cheney continues to live in his own fantasy world.  

  In Northeast Philadelphia Thursday morning, Vice President Dick Cheney said that America's economy "remains the envy of the world," and that a recent economic "slowdown" could have been much worse without President Bush's economic policies.

  Cheney said that because of those policies, particularly tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, "the slowdown that did come was a fairly mild one."

  "For the better part of six years now, this nation's economy grew without pause," Cheney said.

• A Fox News Assistant was fired for stopping John McCain on the red carpet at the Time 100 Gala and blurting out - on camera - I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win.

  Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win."

  McCain was overheard saying to her, "You're not supposed to reveal that." Locke apparently continued to explain that she is the daughter of Vietnam veteran.

  Insiders who were at the event were surprised and shocked to hear the disclosure, which was recorded on videotape. A Fox News insider called it "journalistically unacceptable." An FNC spokesperson would not comment on the personnel matter but did confirm Locke is no longer with the company, where she'd worked for a couple of years.

  Too bad a 24 year old assistant gets fired while their blatantly biased reporting continues unabated.

• Nelson Mandella has discovered that he is on the US terrorist watch list. To her credit, Condoleezza Rice called the situation, "embarrassing."
• The number of soldiers kept in uniform involuntarily by the Army's stop-loss program has nearly doubled in the last year since the Pentagon extended combat tours. - smintheus
• Once again, after denouncing Iran for being behind smuggling of arms into Iraq, the Pentagon has quietly backed off the charge and produced no weapons made in Iran. On Wednesday a briefing by M. Gen. Kevin Bergner about hundreds of weapons seized in Basra and Karbala didn't even try to link any of them to Iran. The Pentagon's policy has been to accuse Iran first, look for actual evidence second.

  A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran...When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

  - smintheus

• The Arizona Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill prohibiting the state from implementing Real ID. The AZ House has passed a weaker version of the bill, so the pressure is now on Gov. Janet Napolitano to sign the measure into law. It would make Arizona the 9th state to join the anti-Real-ID rebellion. - smintheus
• Send your mom a Mothers' Day card from you and John McCain (so she can know that John McCain thinks she doesn't have a right to fair pay) -DHinMI
• China is so determined to suppress opposition to its rule in Tibet that it has instituted a law regulating reincarnation. It's now illegal for Tibetan lamas to be reincarnated without first having applied for and received authorization from the Chinese government. - smintheus

Twenty days ago, David Barstow broke his story in The New York Times about the Pentagon’s use of network and cable military analysts to reinforce its talking points and present a favorable picture of happenings in Iraq. Ever since, the print and television media have delved into the scandal, prying out new details in interviews and document searches, and discussing the implications for democracy when the Department of Defense shapes the debate with the help of triple-dipping former employees who present themselves as objective observers of U.S. policy.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. In some parallel dimension.

In our dimension, what we’ve got isn’t a flurry of follow-up reports but rather one of the key elements of propaganda: killing a story by ignoring it.

The media typically employ their pervasive power to reinforce the dominant ideology through repeated exposure to every element of their biased agenda. But silence should not be underrated. It provides a marvelous tool of control when accompanied by the never-ending distractions and distortions of infotainment.

No surprise whatsoever that the network and cable stations who hired these ex-military analysts without disclosing to audiences their conflicts of interest or other biases have been – let us be generous – reluctant to acknowledge their role in passing along exaggerations and outright lies to Americans in the run-up to the war and its bloody, treasury-sucking aftermath. They have a big stake in silence.

On the other hand, it might be thought that editorialists of major print outlets which didn't pay for the free-lance "expertise" of the Pentagon’s domestic propaganda brigade would be eager to write something excoriating. Or that print reporters would be digging into the documents on the subject that the Pentagon has dumped at this Web site. Alas, such modest aggressiveness is also confined to that other dimension.

Just how silent the media have been has been examined by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (TV News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits) and the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism (Media Passes on Times Pentagon Piece). In the first week after Barstow’s story appeared, Pew found two stories about it in other media, both of them on PBS. Since then, there have been a handful of others.

Only in wwwLand and among a few in Congress has the story been given any significant attention. Senator John Kerry urged a "thorough investigation" by the Government Accountability Office, as he noted here at Daily Kos in Investigate the Pentagon Pundit Program. Senator Russ Feingold also wrote the GAO. Michigan Senator Carl Levin has written to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote to news executives at the broadcast and cable networks asking them to explain what criteria they use for hiring military analysts. Only ABC and CNN responded. She and 40 other congresspersons have asked the Pentagon’s Inspector General to conduct a probe. She joined with Michigan Rep. John Dingell and others requesting the Federal Communications Commission look into the matter:

"While we deem the DoD’s policy unethical and perhaps illegal, we also question whether the analysts and the networks are potentially equally culpable pursuant to the sponsorship identification requirements in the Communications Act of 1934 and the rules of the Federal Communications Commission," the letter stated.

"When seemingly objective television commentators are in fact highly motivated to promote the agenda of a government agency, a gross violation of the public trust occurs," it continued. "The American people should never be subject to a covert propaganda campaign but rather should be clearly notified of who is sponsoring what they are watching."

About all this too, megamedia silence.

It’s not as if there hasn’t been anything fresh to report. Media Matters, which has followed the story since it broke, actually spent some time perusing those documents the Pentagon posted. For those who claim there was nothing nefarious about the domestic propaganda program, that it was merely a program of courtesy briefings to ensure that the military analysts were up to speed on what was really happening with regards to Iraq, Media Matters found this audio-taped exchange of ass-kissing and subversion from an April 18, 2006, Pentagon meeting with several analysts, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and General Peter Pace, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

UNIDENTIFIED 1: I'm an old intel guy, and I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. And that is "psyops." Now, most people, when they hear that, they think, "Oh my God --

RUMSFELD: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: -- "they're trying to brainwash [inaudible]."

RUMSFELD: "What are you, some kind of nut? You don't believe in the Constitution?"

UNIDENTIFIED 2: Well, he is.
[laughter]

UNIDENTIFIED 1: Some have characterized [inaudible]. But I would also disagree with you, sir, respectfully. You are absolutely brilliant in front of the camera. And anybody --

RUMSFELD: It's by acting. Because I don't spend any time --

UNIDENTIFIED 1: It doesn't matter. The point is that you are. And I think most of us would agree with that. And --

RUMSFELD: But I -- but -- but --

UNIDENTIFIED 1: -- to take the offensive is -- because many of us go on every day. We don't agree with everything the administration does, maybe with some of your decisions and -- but we get beat up on television sometimes when we go on and we are debating, and then we take the -- and we're all thick-skinned, or we wouldn't continue to do this.

RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm.

UNIDENTIFIED 1: But we would love -- I would personally love -- and I think I speak for most of the gentlemen here at the table -- for you to take the offensive, to just go out there and just crush these people so that when we go on, we're -- forgive me -- we're parroting, but it's what has to be said. It's what we believe in, or we would not be saying it.
[crosstalk]

UNIDENTIFIED 1: And we'd love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy.

The Pentagon wouldn’t say who those unidentifieds were, but it gave Media Matters a list of confirmed participants at the meeting. Among them were Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, military analyst for Fox News who recently suggested using terrorism against Iran.

On Wednesday at its Web site, Media Matters asked the media: "Have you hosted on air the person who told Rumsfeld at the  meeting with military analysts: 'You are the leader. You are our guy'?

In that other dimension, they might have gotten an answer. But in that dimension, they wouldn't have had to ask the question.

+ + +

^{Glenn Greenwald has written an excellent piece based on the documents on the Pentagon Web site.}

We're getting close, guys. We've made all the arguments: about how is opponent is a rich Republican trying to buy this seat, about Scott's commitment to grassroots politics, about what he can do for Nebraska and for the nation if we send him, instead of another DINO, to D.C.

The first hurdle is Tuesday's primary. The last little bit you give today might mean a last minute radio spot that otherwise wouldn't go up, a last tank of gas to get volunteers out on primary day to knock on doors (and it takes a lot of driving to campaign in Nebraska).

Our goal: $20,000 and 450 donations (one donation for every $1,000 of Raimondo's personal loan of $450K to his own campaign) by the end of today. Send the message that people power can compete with big money by contributing to Scott's campaign.

To sweeten the deal, when we get up to 400 donations, I'll post a picture.

On the Web:
Kleeb for Senate
Daily Kos for Scott Kleeb ActBlue page

Update: Just three more donations, people! For the picture that is. We're so close to our goal!

Update 2: Yay!!!!

Race tracker wiki: NE-Sen

It's hard to say which perception McCain fears worst: being seen as yesterday's man -- a man of the last century -- or being seen as a shameless toady who sold his "maverick" soul for a bloated, stinking elephant carcass:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Republican John McCain was "losing his bearings" for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic terrorist group Hamas preferred Obama for president.

. . .

"This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing, because John McCain always says, 'Well, I'm not going to run that kind of politics,'" Obama said. "And then to engage in that kind of smear, I think, is unfortunate, particularly since my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his."

The Illinois senator added: "For him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don't need name-calling in this debate."

McCain's campaign issued an angry response that accused Obama of trying to divert attention from a legitimate question by raising McCain's age.

"He used the words 'losing his bearings' intentionally, a not-particularly-clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue," McCain adviser Mark Salter said.

Really?  Seems that the McCain campaign is stuck between a rock and a hard place here.  

See, my first reaction on reading Obama's comments was to think of how McCain had sacrificed his "maverick" image -- an entirely phony persona, but a powerful one -- to win the booby prize that is the 2008 GOP nomination.  Obama was observing that McCain has been "losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination," in the sense that he's lost his steely, maverick moral compass.  Now, Obama understands just as well as you and I that the "maverick" myth was the gossamer creation of a Michael Lewis mancrush, but he also understands that there's great value in developing a semi-tragic narrative in which the flawed hero McCain trades his virtue for a final shot at power.  You can't disabuse the majority of the public of the idea that McCain was at one point a good guy, but you can certainly show them just how irrevocably corrupted he's become in pursuit of the poisoned chalice.

And I think that McCain, and his campaign, get exactly what Obama is doing here.  They are deathly afraid of losing the aura of straight-shooting independence that differentiates their candidate from the depraved, cancerous body of lepers that passes for the Bush/DeLay/Fossella/Craig Republican Party.  They know that McCain cannot win as a "Republican nominee" -- his only hope is to run as an independent.  In short, McCain's greatest weakness is the prospect that he might be exposed as Just Another Sleazy Republican Hack.  And Obama's comments, in just a few words, did a marvelous job of setting that narrative in motion in the public eye.  So McCain and his minions pivoted, and attempted to divert the attention away from their greatest weakness.

Problem is, they diverted the attention onto their second greatest weakness -- the fact that John McCain is yesterday's man, a bedraggled lion decidedly incapable of prevailing over the course of six months of toe-to-toe combat with an acutely aware and prepared Obama.  McCain shouldn't ever remind people of his age, of his inability to keep Sunni and Shi'a straight in his mind, of his tired demeanor.  Yet when confronted with Obama's observation that McCain has abandoned his integrity in a last-ditch attempt to win the White House, McCain was so terrified that he preferred to treat the comments as an insinuation about his age.  And in so doing, he raised the age issue himself -- leaving the public to consider whether McCain's problem is that he's past his time, or that he's a chameleon who'll do anything to get elected.  That's the last question that McCain wants anyone pondering.

Maybe he should have just left this one alone.  Because by responding as he did, McCain showed that Obama had hit home.  And Obama is way too good not to sense blood in the water.

And yet another nail in the coffin of Hillary Clinton's failed bid for the Democratic nomination:

Rasmussen Reports has been tracking the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination daily for nineteen months...

However, while Senator Clinton has remained close and competitive in every meaningful measure, she is a close second and the race is over. It has become clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.  [...]

With this in mind, Rasmussen Reports will soon end our daily tracking of the Democratic race and focus exclusively on the general election competition between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

[h/t to spiderstumbled22]

Normally, you'd think Senators facing tough reelection battles would want the highest-profile help their party had to offer. You'd think that for Republicans that would be the incumbent president -- but of course, Bush has the worst disapproval rating since they started measuring that.

So in this, as in so many things, McCain will be standing in for Bush, going on the road for New Hampshire's John Sununu, Maine's Susan Collins, Oregon's Gordon Smith, and Minnesota's Norm Coleman. Because, as the Cook Report's Jennifer Duffy says:

"The interesting thing about McCain is that he may not help anybody, but he's not a drag on anybody," she said.

Yet. He's not a drag on anybody yet. Because he hasn't yet faced a settled Democratic nominee. Because the traditional media has given him a free ride, rarely pointing out that on the votes that matter, McCain's no maverick. When  the Republican party and George W. Bush need him, John McCain is reliably there for them.

How alike are McCain and Bush? MoveOn puts you to the (f'ing difficult) test -- a test a lot of reporters could stand to take before they write their next stories squeeing over all the awesome straight-talking maverickness. If they start writing the story of the John McCain who actually stands in front of them instead of the one in their heads, by November he'll be as much of a drag on Sununu, Collins, Coleman, and Smith as Bush is today.

Race tracker wiki: NH-Sen ME-Sen OR-Sen MN-Sen

Via Jake Tapper:

Sen. Barack Obama moved into the lead today in the last category that Sen. Hillary Clinton had claimed to have an edge -- support among the Democratic Party's superdelegates.

The Illinois Democrat grabbed the superdelegate lead thanks to a switch by New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne and an endorsement from previously uncommitted Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon.

Those two votes gave Obama a 267-266 lead over Clinton. That is a huge shift since the days when Clinton boasted about a 60-plus vote lead among the party's pros back on Super Tuesday.

Yet another Clinton talking point falls ....

[Erik W also has a diary going on the topic.]

Update: As Markos has explained, the superdelegate count at the top of our page is based on the numbers provided by the excellent Democratic Convention Watch, which is keeping track of the count using tight criteria that goes beyond news stories or campaign press releases. They insist on verification. Once they change their numbers, we will update the count at the top of our page.

Today the New York Times weighs in on Hillary Clinton continuing her campaign, saying that while she has the right to to do so:

...we believe just as strongly that Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones. We believe it would also be a terrible mistake if she launches a fight over the disqualified delegations from Florida and Michigan.

The United States needs a clean break from eight catastrophic years of George W. Bush. And so far, Senator John McCain is shaping up as Bush the Sequel — neverending war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles, courts packed with right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas.  [...]

We endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and we know that she has a major contribution to make. But instead of discussing her strong ideas, Mrs. Clinton claimed in an interview with USA Today that she would be the better nominee because a recent poll showed that "Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." She added: "There’s a pattern emerging here."

Yes, there is a pattern — a familiar and unpleasant one. It is up to Mrs. Clinton to change it if she hopes to have any shot at winning the nomination or preserving her integrity and her influence if she loses.

Meanwhile, Obama has picked up three more superdelegates and the endorsement of the American Federation of Government Employees union.

Tom Levenson writing at the Inverse Square Blog identifies several ways the Bush administration has effectively reversed progress in US science policy using official denialism, direct pressure on scientists and scientific organizations, and by nurturing public contempt. He then goes on to analyze how science might fare under McCain and points out several dismal realities including:

To deliver on his commitments on taxes, defense and fiscal responsibility, John McCain would have to eliminate all discretionary spending — including the few tens of billions spent on science R & D. ... McCain’s priorities are very clear — trillions for defense; trillions more for tax cuts.

I may a have short, somewhat tangentially related post tomorrow on the Saturday Open Science Thread with some, err.., breaking bloggy news.

A century and a half ago in Internet time, during the first flowering of political blogging, I found myself devouring a lot of outstanding writers and thinkers. Some have now burned out, or departed the scene for sadder reasons, but many have continued, growing in stature and skill. At the top of my list from the beginning was (and is) digby. Clever, original, provocative, refreshingly unclichéd, and progressive to the marrow, she has epitomized the benefits of this new form of media and offered a moral center. Even when I disagree with her take on some subject - not all that often - I've been able to count on her to spur me think, to look at an issue or person or political history in a new way.

Most of all, she makes me - everyone who regularly reads her, I believe - ponder the big picture. No matter which presidential candidate you support (she and I disagree on this), or what your specific point of view is on a particular imbroglio, or where you stand on any one of the panoply of issues progressives have been talking about for the past several decades, digby has a record for hitting the bullseye more often than anybody in wwwLand. She resonates.

Her Hear Ye, Hear Ye piece Wednesday morning provides a perfect example. I'm going to break the rules and quote her at length:

So I hear that Village High Commissioner Tim Russert declared that we have a Democratic nominee. The Town Crier, Drudge, immediately followed with an official announcement The real leadership of our nation --- the punditocricy -- have handed down their decision. Hallelujah! ...

Look, I have the same analysis of the outcome of the elections in Indiana and North Carolina that most people have this morning. Clinton's best argument --- which was essentially that the voters were taking a second look at Obama and showing some buyers remorse --- didn't pan out last night. And there's nothing wrong with political junkies sitting around the virtual pot-bellied stove and saying the race is "over" or exhorting her to drop out. We're citizens and, in some cases, political players. There is, however, something unbelievably distasteful about a handful of powerful, millionaire, celebrity pundits "declaring" such a thing and having the paper of record breathlessly report it as if it was decisive and meaningful.

Who the fuck anointed Tim Russert as the final arbiter of anything? His job is to analyze the political landscape not declare the decision as if he were some kind of Roman Emperor giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It's bad enough that these gasbags put those thumbs on the scale as hard as they do, but actually taking the initiative to say when the race is over is even worse. To coin a favorite Village phrase, "it's not their place." ...

But if it is the end, as I think many of us suspect, it's for Senator Clinton to be the one to declare it, not Tim Russert or any other fatuous overpaid Village gasbag who is no more insightful or informed than any of you.

The idea floating around, even in the blogosphere, that once Tim Russert "says it" it's true is so galling that I can hardly keep from projectile vomiting. Giving him that power will come back to bite us hard down the road. ...

I think we all see the writing on the wall. Obama has plenty of money and there is no great problem if this thing goes on for a couple of weeks. I think everyone should relax about the campaign and start regrouping around the ideas that brought us here --- one of which is the fact that the mainstream media are tools, that Drudge is a Republican pimp and that our nation is not well served by a bunch of corporate whores who all sit around sipping mojitos on Nantucket playing with our politics like they are a rousing game of cribbage.

Indeed. Political blogging has come a long way in the past half decade. Some people have gotten famous for it. Quit their day jobs. And some already-famous folks - journalists and pundits and others - have become become bloggers, at least as supplements to their regular gigs.

But this transformation and legitimization ought not to obscure progressive bloggers from our roots.

We emerged because the megamedia - the oligopress, the pundithugs, the corporatist whoredom of propaganda - were lying to us, and when they weren't lying, they were omitting the truth. Not that there weren't and aren't a few truthseekers embedded in the megamedia, folks who actually take their role as reporters and investigators seriously and behave accordingly. But, as a whole, the megamedia were and continue to be conduits for ideological reinforcement. In short, brainwashers. Doing the job prescribed to them by the powers-that-be, even if they think they are doing something else. Not every pawn realizes it is one. The writings of Antonio Gramsci are relevant in this regard, but save that for another time.

Keep what digby says in mind. Even when they agree with us, smile at us, quote us, invite us on their shows, the megamedia moguls are not our friends nor the friend of the politics we espouse. They never will be. We ignore this at our peril.

+ + +

The Overnight News Digest is posted.

This evening's Rescue Rangers are Unitary Moonbat, watercarrier4diogenes, jennyjem, YatPundit, TruthOfAngels, and joyful with vcmvo2 as editor.

The Diaries up for rescue tonight are:

The Use & Abuse of Information

• daytonpundit examines the curious amount of hard-drive scrubbing - and violations of the Presidential Records Act of 1978 - that seems to be taking place these days in White House War Emails 'MIA'. (Unitary Moonbat)
• In McCain Voting Record Contradicts Maverick Myth dkos diarist, Avenging Angel reports that the Senator's home state newspaper has begun to unravel the Senator's "maverick" myth. Will the rest of the MSM pay attention? (vcmvo2)
• What do you do with a problem like McCain's pastor? If you're dogemperor, you write a brilliant diary detailing just who John Hagee is - and what he's all about. (joyful)
• If you remember the inherent inequity of ye olde Bell Curve, you'll quickly see sgoya's point in "Good" Schools Need "Bad" Schools. (watercarrier4diogenes)
• David Kroning wants hate-speech in the media investigated, but first he'd like to know who is on the Commission. His post, Investigating our US Commission on Civil Rights explains this community effort. (jennyjem)

Our World

• First-time diarist zawmoo discusses the latest natural disaster and suggests a Possibly better way to help Burma's cyclone victims. (YatPundit)
• Mentarch writes that the billions of dollars spent and the precious lives lost in Afghanistan: All For Absolutely Nothing. (joyful)
• deepfish shares some lovely thoughts on the importance of Hope while Dreaming of Better Days writes lyrically on the prospect of Going Home - The Changing Tides. (joyful)

Politics & Environmental Policy

• A Siegel suggests that the Lieberman-Warner Coal Subsidy Act now has as much support in Congress as does a feeble One hand clapping ... (joyful)
• Blue America '08's Dennis Shulman for Congress tells us why The Ramapough Reinforce My Decision to Run for Congress.  He's engaged in a tough fight against corporate polluters and their hack Rethuglican stooge. (watercarrier4diogenes)

The Power of Snark

• DCLaw's opening line says it all: Can the mighty-but-aging Newtman face down this political plague, led by the venal, shadowy Dr. Baracko? Find out in Republican Superfriends, Go! (Unitary Moonbat)
• Kodiak54 has a modest suggestion (and perhaps a hint of snark) for your vice-presidential consideration: Obama/Kodiak54 '08. (Unitary Moonbat)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - May 7, 2008.

sardonyx has Top Comments: Steve Soto on Daily Kos, part 1.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

::

Guys, I'm heading out with Eli to El Salvador tonight to bid my final farewells to my ailing grandmother. With some luck, we'll get there in time for her to see her 18th great-grandchild, who she still hasn't met.

I should be back early next week, but well see. You'll be in good hands with Susan and the gang running the joint. If I have the chance, I might even check in with some West Virginia predictions, though perhaps I should quit those while I'm ahead. And really, right now I don't give a shit about that anyway.

See you soon.

To: U.S. Representative Steny H. Hoyer
     U.S. Senator John D. Rockefeller

Honorable Gentlemen --

I see from the news that the telecom industry efforts to receive blanket immunity for violation of this nation's domestic surveillance laws are still quite active. Their campaign to place pressure on the Congress via the placement of industry funded, faux-grassroots ads, their willingness to draft proposals for how, exactly, their own immunity should be phrased, the continuing refusal to actually describe what it is they are asking immunity for -- all impressive efforts. And they have what can only be described as a true champion in the Bush Administration, which has acted nobly to protect the interests of these fine companies. So it seems only natural that right-thinking legislators such as yourselves would want to go along, so as to not rock the boat.

It seems, then, we are at a bit of an impasse. You want to provide the industry immunity for still-unknown years of illegal surveillance, immunity the industry is adamantly demanding. But at the moment, you cannot rouse sufficient support for the act because it would make you all look like cheap, easily bought corporatophiles in the pocket of some of the highest paid lobbyists in the land -- mere legislative hacks who can be bought off with trinkets, or threatened with bullying advertisements, or who believe laws are negotiable things, depending on how much money you have or how powerful your friends are. This is because the public, against all expectations, is actually paying attention.

Fear not: I have a bargain to strike. I would like to announce that we, the slovenly and ignorant public, would be willing to drop our unreasonable outrage over corporations in this nation being given blanket retroactive immunity for violating both federal law and our own personal privacy... for a price of our own. A quid pro quo, if you will -- and certainly, I expect you are well familiar with such arrangements. We simply want a little payback, in order to make sure that you in Congress are asked to live according to the same rules as the rest of us.

Here is my proposal. We, the public, should be allowed to spy on you, and all those you come in contact with, with similar promisees of amnesty.

For each member of Congress, I propose we set up a collective internet site. This site will allow interested members of the public to, in realtime, monitor your every activity to assure ourselves that none of you are committing illegal or terrorist-enabling acts at any given moment of the day.

The primary feature will be the ability to listen in to any conversation you may be having, whether it be on your work phone, your home phone, your cell phone, text messages, email -- whatever. These conversations will be streamed to the internet, so that they may be monitored by responsible members of the public. The contact information of whoever it is you are talking to at that moment at time will also be displayed and tracked -- whether it be your wife or husband, child, doctor, secret mistress, whoever -- so that we can monitor them as well. You know, just to be safe.

You can trust us, as members of the public, to be discreet. We will only listen and watch, and will not abuse the information. After all, what could any of you possibly have to hide? Only someone intent on criminal acts objects to being monitored proactively. On the contrary, you should be grateful to us: by listening to your every phone call and reading your every communication, we can only help you to prove that you have nothing to hide. I am unfamiliar with the vagaries of American law these days, but my understanding is that this ongoing surveillance will make you even more innocent than you were before. Perhaps you will even be twice as innocent as before, or four times as innocent -- what patriot could resist?

This, though, is still not quite the proper balance between your privacy and our needs as citizens. We need more of a total information awareness into your doings -- you know, just to be sure you are not terrorists, or at the very least secretly drug dealers or ethnic or something. You will therefore have all your personal bills posted to the same website: credit card bills, mortgage statements, monthly electricity usage, bank statements, etc. You need not worry, of course, about doing this yourself: there are companies already tracking all of this information, and government projects dedicated to sweeping it up to look for suspicious patterns.

Again, there is nothing you could possibly have to hide... unless, perhaps, you have taken any trips abroad lately? That could cause some problems. Or if you have eaten at the same restaurants as other people being investigated... or have an unusual pattern of travel within the country... or have moved, recently. Oh -- or have bought more than one bottle of cough syrup in the last few months, or have acquaintances with suspicious-sounding names, or own your own business. Aside from that, you should be in the clear.

I admit, this at first sounds intrusive. Consider this, though: what if one of your fellow Congressmen turned out to be -- and I pause, here, for dramatic effect -- a terrorist sympathizer? Sure, you consider the possibility unlikely, but if there was even the slightest, slightest chance that someone surrounding you was a secret Jihadist, would you not be willing to give up any amount of privacy, in order to prove your own innocence and help the authorities (in this case, we watchful members of the public) narrow down the list of subjects by conducting surveillance upon each of you, one by one, to ensure you are not planning something criminal?

There is, of course, one small detail that ruins all of this. Surveillance of American citizens without due process or cause is, sadly, illegal. In order for us to do it, then, you will have to grant us, your own constituents, the same immunities that you have been struggling so valiantly to provide to the telecommunications industry. I am sorry to report we have no lobbyists. We have few people willing to type up the laws for you, in order to deliver them onto your desks. We do, however, have the advantage of being voters -- one of the few remaining perks of being a citizen of this nation that is not yet shared by corporations -- and so one can certainly presume that we would look favorably upon any grant of immunity for our own illegal acts, come your next election. And I cannot help but point out that while the Bush administration and telecommunications companies conspired to do something illegal, then demand immunity after the fact, we mere citizens are following a much more responsible path of asking you up front to let us do the deed. Surely, that shows far more respect for the laws of this great nation than either Bush or his compatriots have deigned, does it not?

So, what say you? Can we citizens be granted these extra-legal powers that the telecommunications companies have been demanding, lest they have to face civil suits for violating the laws of the nation? Can we be granted the same illegal powers of espionage that the Bush administration has squeezed from you with barely a squeak, on your parts? Can we violate your privacy with abandon, ignore the laws and the courts, listen in on your most personal phone calls, thumb through your monthly purchases, follow your movements, spy on those that contact you, and if ever caught doing anything that does violate existing law, simply receive immunity from all unfortunate laws that might apply?

You are looking for a deal to be struck in order to condone the violation our privacy and make the illegal legal. Fine; these are our terms. Unless you are terrorists, I think you will find our requests not only fair, but truly patriotic.

There is another matter that needs addressing, which is that it may be necessary at some point to torture one or two of you, just to make very, very certain that you do not know something about terrorists that you perhaps might be hiding. No need to worry about that now; we can address that in separate legislation.

   Your humble citizen,
   Hunter

Time has come up with a list of the top five strategic mistakes Hillary Clinton made during her unsuccessful bid for the White House, and while in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter why she went from inevitable to also-ran, there is one point in the article that deserves some attention:

As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all.

It should be noted that Penn denies the story, so we'll just have to take him at his word that he isn't that stupid.  But if it's true it does raise the question, was this the stupidest thing said or done by a Clinton surrogate over the course of her campaign?   Because Penn had some stiff competition.  Who could forget:

• Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Obama has an unfair advantage because he was black.
• Bob Kerrey's happiness that Barack Hussein Obama attended a madrassa and had all that experience with Muslims.
• Billy Shaheen's concern over Obama's use of drugs and possible questions on whether he was ever a drug dealer.
• Andrew Cuoma saying that "You can't shuck and jive," in reference to Obama.
• And of course the First Surrogate, Bill Clinton, comparing Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson's wins in the 1980's, and then being shocked at the suggestion that he was trying to paint Obama as "the black candidate."

Let's throw Mark Penn a lifeline here and prove that he wasn't the worst of the Clinton surrogates. Share your favorite (for lack of a better word) "worst surrogate moment," of the campaign.    

After my previous diary on the Women's Voices Women Vote robocall/voter confusion issues in which spokesperson Sarah Johnson responded to a series of questions, I was invited earlier this week to submit additional questions to WVWV President Page Gardner.

Ms. Gardner was able to answer some of my questions, but not all of them.  As a lawyer myself, I am loath to draw any inference from any non-answers.  Given the ongoing NC Attorney General investigation (PDF) and NAACP complaint, WVWV has every right to be cautious in what it says until it is confident it has determined what happened (among other reasons for restraint).  So while I'll note the non-answers below, I'm going to confine my commentary afterwards to the substantive responses.
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1. Your latest press release states that "We do not believe that people who are in fact registered to vote jump to the conclusion that they can't vote simply because they are offered another opportunity to register." Given that there were published news reports and statements from elections officials in multiple states that already-registered voters were in fact confused by hearing phone calls and receiving new registration applications which suggested that without filling out new forms they couldn't vote, what was the basis for that belief?

Every state's Department of Motor Vehicles is tasked under the so-called "Motor Voter" law with providing registration for anyone coming in for a driver's license or other DMV service. They do that every day they are open for business. They don't have a voter file there to look up whether or not you are registered when they offer you the opportunity to register and they offer the opportunity to everyone that comes in. We do not believe this confuses people that are already registered to vote. Moreover, this occurs whether the primary is more than 25 days away or less than 25 days away. Similarly, when people are approached at a shopping center and offered the opportunity to register, they are offered the opportunity whether they are already registered or not, and the groups conducting these registration efforts are not generally accused of confusing those people that are already registered to vote.

2. After Virginia, WVWV promised to stop placing robocalls anonymously and didn't.  Your spokesperson said this was a "mistake".  How did this mistake occur?

[No response.]

3.  When was the Board made aware of the complaints as to voter confusion and the anonymity of your robocalls?

[No response.]

4. How did you arrive at your list of target states?  What criteria were used?  And on what dates were voters in each state called?

Target states were arrived at using criteria that included the number of unmarried women in a state that were not registered to vote or were registered to vote and had not voted compared to the same criteria for married women. In other words, what was the marriage gap in electoral participation between married and unmarried women in the state. We also wanted states from every region of the country, as well as states that have same day registration and states that do not. We also wanted some states with women elected officials at high levels (governor, US Senator) and states without. All of the pre-calls drawing people's attention to our mail and its voter registration form were delivered on the same two days, Thursday and Friday, April 24 and 25.

[According to her 5/5 diary these states were Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.]
5.  Your April 24 letter to Gary Bartlett (NC Board of Elections) speaks exclusively of your work with unmarried women, not men.  Why is that?

[No response.]

6.  After the NC situation became public, what steps did WVWV take to inform NC voters (a) that if they were already registered, they could vote without a problem and (b) if they were not registered, they could still register and vote in person via the one-stop process?  If no such steps were taken, why not?

[No response.  However, in her May 5 diary, Gardner stated, "WVWV offered to make corrective follow-up calls, but upon further consideration and consultation with individuals in the state, concluded that additional calls should not be made."]

7.  Are African American males the only group covered by the Voter Participation Center not already covered by WVWV?  In what states has VPC (or WVWV) attempted to register male voters?

The Voter Particpation Center attempts to register under-represented demographics including African American men, African American married women and married Latinas so these are the other targets for our voter registration other than all unmarried women regardless of ethnic or racial background.

The Voter Participation Center attempts to register these under-represented demographics in every state that WVWV operates, so in the most recent mailing that meant 24 states from coast to coast.

8. For how long has VPC been involved in registering male voters? Are there print materials, or materials sent to (potential) contributors, reflecting this?

The Voter Participation Center was created as a project of WVWV by the Board of Directors in 2007 following the testing of using our direct marketing techniques to register other under-represented demographics in 2006.

9. How is VPC funded?

As a project of WVWV, the VPC is not separately funded. It is funded out of WVWV funds.

10.  Was your husband's company involved as a vendor for these projects?  If yes, through what kind of process was this contract awarded, and was the Board made aware of the potential conflict of interest and involved in approving such contracts?

[No response.]

WVWV also released a statement this week offering an account what what has transpired.
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Reaction: I have tried to extend to WVWV the benefit of every doubt, but I have trouble accepting its answer to the first question.  There's a difference between making registration available to people at public sites, versus anonymously contacting them in their homes and suggesting that they've been specifically identified as folks who need to take additional steps in order to register to vote.  

This is especially the case with regards to the "Lamont Williams" calls to African American male voters.  Unlike the VPC calls to married women which stated "Hi, just a reminder: your voter registration form is in the mail and on its way to you. Your voice counts, and your vote makes them listen. Sign it, date it, and send it in. Thanks," the calls to these men was much more insistent on the need to take action with phrases like "need to do" and "then you will be able": "All you need to do is fill it out, sign it, date and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard."  Then, as in you can't yet.

Moreover, of course, WVWV was on actual notice that voters found the calls to be confusing, via the complaints and media articles in previous states.  So on the whole I just don't find this explanation plausible.

Here's a story I would find plausible, though I must stress that this is only my conjecture, based on what we know publicly and my private conversations with voter targeting professionals:  suppose WVWV's primary goal was not to register as many new voters as possible, but the slightly different goals of (a) reaching out to as many targets as possible and (b) generating as many voter registration forms being filed as possible.

Both goals would generate impressive-seeming statistics which can be used to impress funders as well as the board of directors, both of which are crucial as to the group's overall viability.  Assume it's true, as others have claimed, that you can generate a lot of responses from a call for registrations post-deadline, pre-primary.  But if that's the case, what WVWV was also generating was a number of false positives -- registered voters being contacted who don't need to re-register, but who will do so anyway because now they believe they have to.  Making robocalls and sending materials that looked official, that did not clearly disclose their source as non-governmental (certainly not the calls), and which did not make clear that already-registered-voters need do nothing ... well, that ends up furthering the goals -- if "boosting the number of forms sent in" supersedes voter confusion as a priority, and especially if boosting those numbers generates higher revenues to WVWV vendors with significant ties to the Board and leadership team.

In other words, voter confusion may have become a recognized, but undisclosed cost, accepted as necessary to maximize certain overall metrics  -- and to be fair, we have no idea just how extensively voters were confused here.  It could end up being a very small number -- or one which WVWV underestimated -- and we can certainly debate how much confusion might be an acceptable cost based on the number of successful new voter registrations generated.

I want to be clear about two things: (1) that's only a theory, so please don't treat it as proven; and (2) voter registration is hard, unglamorous and difficult-to-fundraise-for work.  Regardless of what may have happened this year, WVWV's past successes are undeniable, and it is incumbent upon all of us to support those groups like Project Vote and Rock the Vote which do this necessary work on the ground level.  This is especially true in the wake of the onerous voter ID laws now approved by the Supreme Court (with immediate dire, bizarre consequences).  I hope that Women's Voices Women Vote again gives me the confidence to include them again on such a list of righteous organizations, but they've got a lot of work to do first.