USA Today has published a revision and partial retraction to their May 11 story that the National Security Agency (NSA) compiled a massive database of phone records with the cooperation of telecommunications giants. There is an article, as well as a "Note to Readers" sidebar, revising their earlier reporting and retracting charges that BellSouth and Verizon turned over phone records. (I was alerted via http://mediabistro.com ) UPDATED

The more confident I become that Kerry will win the election, the more aware I become of the many ways a vote can count, from the mathematically obvious to the revolutionary.

I'm so optimistic that I want to highlight one potential effect that hasn't been discussed much, and yet another reason why every vote matters. We all know this election is a referendum on the current leadership. But that means we can do more than just beat these guys: we can take them down and change the political landscape for a long time to come.

I tuned in to CNN's Headline News Channel at 9:00 this morning and while the top story was Osama's tape, it quickly segued into "The Politics of Osama", during which I was treated to: Bush responding to the Osama tape, Bush at a rally criticising Kerry, Arnold introducing Bush at a rally, Bush at a rally not talking about Osama but talking about terrorism, footage of Bush at yet another campaign stop; then about 15 seconds of Kerry comprised of a partial statement and an extra shot; then a quote from senior Bush advisors about the tape's positive impact for Bush because he is seen as "tougher" on terrorism.

You'd hardly guess that Bush has a challenger in Tuesday's election.

Oh yes, sports news: Sox celebrating, Schilling's endorsement of Bush. Even bad news for Bush's campaign--having to stop using a song penned by a Kerry supporter--was an excuse to show ten more seconds of Bush rally, accompanied by the song.

Another segment on economic indicators as predictor of elections was more subtly skewed toward Bush.

Kerry did get more screen time in the second half hour, but nowhere near as much.

Bias?

Late last year, former Secretary of State James Baker was appointed by President Bush, despite serious conflicts of interest, to a strange mission to convince Iraq's creditors to forgive Iraq's massive national debt. I say "strange" because it seemed to me at the time that many of Iraq's creditors had already telegraphed their intent to do just that, and a special envoy seemed superfluous, let alone one whose law firm, Baker Botts, represented Iraq's biggest creditor, Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps not content with its smaller share of conflict of interest, James Baker's investment firm, the Carlyle Group apparently cooked up a plan to profit directly from Baker's mission. Naomi Klein, reporting in both The Nation and The Guardian, uncovers this secret proposal, which sought to use James Baker's mission to pressure Kuwait into investing billions in a risky gambit to protect Kuwait's share of Iraq's debt from Baker's "noble mission".