Are you represented by a Highway Hypocrite?

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---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jen O'Malley Dillon, Democrats.org

mailto:democraticparty@democrats.org Date: Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 6:14 PM Subject: Are you represented by a Highway Hypocrite? Are you represented in Congress by a Highway Hypocrite? Highway Hypocrites voted against the Recovery Act and spent the last year attacking it -- while praising it in letters requesting funds and press releases touting projects in their districts. We've identified 118 Republican senators and representatives guilty of highway hypocrisy. But we know there are more. Click here to find out if you're represented by a Highway Hypocrite -- and help us expose others.

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• 200,000 To Lose Unemployment Benefits This Week (huffingtonpost.com)
• Like His Friends In Congress, GOP House Candidate In Tennessee Also Guilty Of Stimulus Hypocrisy (thinkprogress.org)
• Santorum to GOP: Stimulus hypocrisy 'does undermine your credibility.' (thinkprogress.org)

And the Horse Brown Rode in On. Part 1

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I am sick and tired. I've been uninsured and uninsurable for twenty-five years. The faintest hope of healthcare reform has, at times, been all that stood between pain and insanity. It is the slim piton from which I've clung to life, like a climber clings to a rockface when all other anchors have failed.

I deeply resent the glee the mainstream media seems to feel. Apparantly, they think this is entertainment, so they're covering it like a season of some contact sport, some kind of hybrid of football, debate, WWE and ultimate fighting.

I lost my savings. I don't even have the mrmory of what a`pain free life is like   But, I have a condition , which most people from, if treated in the first few years. Unfortunately, it took over ten years to get a diagnosis. Waking, it burns. Sleeping, my jaw muscles clench so tight that I often wake up wit broken teeth. What about a mouth guard? Remember no insurance. Did you know, in many places even the Medicaid eligible aren't covered for dentistry? Where you are covered, you have to jump through hoops. Ever tried jumping through hoops when you're in so much pain tou ca;t see straight?

People who are trying to kill reform, whatever their reasons, are in fact trying to kill me. Every day without reform shortens my life and diminishes the quality of the life I have remaining. Bad teeth become inflammatipn become heart disease. Causalgia, burning pain, sustained  long enough can chane low blood pressure to high as if you flipped a switch. Inadequetely treated, these will kill. Without reform, tratment is a matter of luck.

But when people dig pits in the trail and camoflage them after lining the sides with punji sticks. They're trying to guarantee bad luck. That/s assault at best. At worst it's murder.

Maybe, I should have title this "And the Elephant Brown Rode in On."

Five Senators Vote Against Public Need

Five Senators Vote Against Public Need:

"Besides Mr. Baucus, two Democrats, Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, voted against both public option proposals. Two other Democrats, Senators Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Bill Nelson of Florida, voted against the first amendment, but supported the second.
Mr. Carper said he liked Mr. Schumer’s proposal because it “would establish a level playing field” for competition between private insurers and the government plan.
The votes on Tuesday set the stage for a compromise under which the public plan could be offered in states where people could not find affordable private coverage, Mr. Carper said. He and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, have proposed such a compromise."

Is fear what determines their votes? Right now the bill that came out of the Finance Committee could be titled the Insurance Industry Windfall Mandate because everyone is reqired to get insured, but insurance doesn't have to be affordable and the taxpayer will pay the difference in any case.
Where are the cost controls? Where is any pressure on the Insurance industry to lower their costs or even cut their overhead. Co-ops aren't going to do it because they are too small, by political intent. They're designed to look like an alternative without actually being one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/health/policy/30health.html?th&emc=th

Joe Lies! (Obama Heckled by GOP During Speech to Congress)

This isn't politics.

This isn't policy.

This is the spouse that lost custody accusing the winner of child molestaation, while planning to kidnap the child and go into hiding.

The Truth Ain't Funny If You're a Dittohead

But for tht rest of us…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

What Makes Justice Scalia A Really Bad Judge

What Makes Justice Scalia A Really Bad Judge “This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments that seemingly may have questioned the need for more protection of private information, Reidenberg assigned the same project. Except this time Scalia was the subject, the prof explains to the ABA Journal in a telephone interview.

His class turned in a 15-page dossier that included not only Scalia's home address, home phone number and home value, but his food and movie preferences, his wife's personal e-mail address and photos of his grandchildren, reports Above the Law.

And, as Scalia himself made clear in a statement to Above the Law, he isn't happy about the invasion of his privacy:”

But, like other bad jurists, Scalia is unwilling to admit to a constitutional right of privacy because it doesn't mention the word. The philosophy of strict constructionism blinds him to the implication forcefully set out in the fourth and fifth amendments that make no rational sense without the concept of privacy. Also, the same philosophy requires him to ignore the fact that the constitution set forth rules regulating slavery, and how slaves were to be counted for purpose of congressional representation, without ever using the words slave or slavery.

Slaves and slavery existed. The constitution regulated them by implication. Yet Justice Scalia can't admitthat implication makes privacy a constitutional right. The philosophy that sees the law as something divorced from human practice and behavior probably explains some pof the bizarre opinions he's written as much as his briliant ones. Unfortunately, brilliant philosophy cab give you phlogiston instead of thermodynamics, epicycles instead of orbits, wonderful explication of things that never were, and a rage to with brilliant wit disprove and therefor silence simple self-evident truths.

The brilliantly wrong are the worst people possible to place in positionss of authority. The brilliant, bold but badly mistaken Justice Scalia is in position for life.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/05/googling_justic.html

Restoring the Palimpsest until March 26, 2009

We share some bad habits of medieval monks. We decide a record isn't sll thst importsnt, scrub the parchment clean, then write our current, comforting interpretation on the page we insist is not just blank now, but has always been a tabula rasa.

Luckily, there are means of examination that reveal the original record and scholars like Dr. John Hope Franklin who patiently uncover the real past and set us on the path to our true destiny.

Dr. Franklin taught us to look and the looking expanded the scope of history to people who were written out and abandoned to the margins even when they were major players. He enabled us to see how far we've actually come and how far we yet must go.

He will be missed, because he cannot be replaced.

Alfred C. Ingram
Conceptual Design & Imaging
773 530-1554

Bail? Bailout? Jail?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor Joke of the Day

GRIT TV

Starting this week TheNation.com is live streaming GRIT TV with Laura Flanders daily, Monday to Thursday. Hosted by longtime Nation contributor Laura Flanders, GRIT TV is a daily public affairs and news program featuring discussions of politics, media, news and culture, often with Nation contributors as guests. GRIT airs from 2:00 to 4:00pm EST Mondays through Thursdays.  In today's episode, Nation contributor Robert Pollin discusses the economic recovery bill, while healthcare expert Trudy Lieberman explores the prospects for heath care reform in the wake of the Daschle dustup

Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama

People don’t eat in the long run. They eat every day

Editorial Observer - Republicans’ Latest Talking Point - The New Deal Failed - NYTimes.com:

"Congressional Republicans say Mr. Obama’s stimulus will cost too much, and that over time the economy will cure itself. When critics raised the same objections to F.D.R.’s programs, his relief administrator, Harry Hopkins, had a ready answer: “People don’t eat in the long run. They eat every day.”"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12mon4.html?ref=opinion

The Yale Book of Quotations - Shapiro, Fred R.; Epstein, Joseph - Yale University Press - Sent Using Google Toolbar

The Yale Book of Quotations - Shapiro, Fred R.; Epstein, Joseph - Yale University Press

Author Fred R. Shapiro's
Most Notable Quotations of 2008

1. "I can see Russia from my house!" — Sarah Palin on her foreign-policy credentials, as satirized by Tina Fey, NBC "Saturday Night Live" broadcast, Sept. 13, 2008

2. "All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years." — Sarah Palin responding to Katie Couric's asking her to specifically name newspapers or magazines she reads, CBS News interview, Oct. 1, 2008

3. "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." — Phil Gramm on Americans concerned about the economy, quoted in Washington Times, July 10, 2008

4. "It's not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number." — Treasury spokeswoman explaining how the $700 billion number was chosen for the initial bailout, quoted on Forbes.com, Sept. 23, 2008

5. "The fundamentals of America's economy are strong." — John McCain, interview with Peter Cook on Bloomberg TV, Apr. 17, 2008

6. "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." — Department of the Treasury's proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Sept. 2008

7. "Maybe 100." — John McCain on how many years U.S. troops could remain in Iraq, response at town hall meeting, Derry, N.H., Jan. 3, 2008

8. "I'll see you at the debates, bitches." — Paris Hilton, video responding to John McCain ad attacking Barack Obama as a celebrity, Aug. 2008

9. "At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he [Barack Obama] says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have." — Barney Frank, remark to consumer advocates, Dec. 4, 2008

10. (tie) "Cash for trash." — Paul Krugman on the financial bailout, New York Times, Sept. 22, 2008

10. (tie) "There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises." — Paul Krugman, interview by Bill Maher on HBO's "Real Time" broadcast, Sept. 19, 2008

Illinois' Reporters Need Courage And An Old Pair of Shoes

In an attempt borrowed from Blazing Saddle's governor Pettimaine to save his "phoney-baloney job," Rod Blagojevich has chosen former Illinois Atty. General Roland Burris to be his Sherriff Bart.

“Gov. Rod Blagojevich is expected today to name former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. The action comes despite warnings by Democratic Senate leaders that they would not seat anyone appointed by the disgraced governor who faces criminal charges of trying to sell the post, sources familiar with the decision said. Shortly after Obama's Nov. 4 victory, Burris made known his interest in an appointment to the Senate but was never seriously considered, according to Blagojevich insiders. But in the days following Blagojevich's arrest, and despite questions over the taint of a Senate appointment, Burris stepped up his efforts to win the governor's support. Though he is 71, Burris has said that Obama's replacement should be able to win re-election and he has noted that despite a string of primary losses in races ranging from Chicago mayor to governor and U.S. senator, he's never lost to a Republican. Blagojevich, who has sole authority to name a replacement senator, scheduled a 2 p.m. news conference at his downtown Chicago office. Blagojevich's criminal defense attorney Ed Genson had said Blagojevich would not name a Senate successor to Obama. The governor had indicated he agreed with other Illinois politicians that the best option might be a special election to fill Obama's seat. But state lawmakers have not taken up the necessary legislation. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada previously warned Blagojevich, following the governor's Dec. 9 arrest, that Senate Democrats would not seat any appointment the two-term Democratic governor made. Reid's warning was contained in a letter signed by all 50 sitting Democratic senators, including the No. 2 Democrat in Senate leadership, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. Federal authorities, citing secret wiretap recordings, allege Blagojevich sought a Cabinet position, an ambassadorship or a high-paying job from the incoming Obama administration in exchange for naming a candidate favored by the president-elect to the vacancy. An internal report by the Obama transition team found no offers of any quid pro quo in conversations held by incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Blagojevich and the governor's staff regarding the seat.” From the New York Times “As recently as ten days ago, his lawyer, Edward Genson, said he would not attempt to make an appointment, since Senate leaders had indicated they would not accept anyone whom the beleaguered Mr. Blagojevich had appointed. The Democratic leaders of the Senate repeated that view on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying it was “truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Governor Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety.” The statement continued, ‘We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris’s ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.’” In an attempt borrowed from Blazing Saddle's governor Pettimaine to save his "phoney-baloney job," Rod Blagojevich has chosen former Illinois Atty. General Roland Burris to be his Sherriff Bart. This is a blatant attempt to peel away African American support for his impeachment.

Candy bars are nice to have, but if one comes into contact with a pile of dog crap it's no longer worth having.

He accomplioshed his objective. He spread the shame around. My congressman Bobby Rush has fallen for it. He has the mistaken belief that Barack's seat belongs to black America instead of Illinois. This has blinded him to the pitfall ahead. He is even going to attempt to drag the Congressional Black Caucus into the pit with him. I'm a afraid that there's nothing but a pile of Blagojevich at the pit's bottom, not gold, silver or any other precious thing. The one useful lesson to learn from our embattled governor, is that those who try to mine political positions for personal gain end up the proud owners of backed up latrines, unfit for the high position they think themselves entitled to hold, or polite company. Unfortunately, our culture doesn't throw shoes at these idiots. Perhaps it's time to change that.

ResourceShelf » Blog Archive » Resource of the Week: Change Is Good

ResourceShelf » Blog Archive » Resource of the Week: Change Is Good

Resource of the Week: Change Is Good
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Here in the U.S., at long last, we have a new President-Elect. And, for the first time, this means a new presidential transition website. Simple but elegant and still under construction — Change.gov. At the top left, you'll see a countdown, in days, till the January 20, 2009 inauguration.

"The Newsroom" is basically a blog of press releases from the new administration that sits front and center on the site. You'll also find biographies of Barack Obama, the President-Elect, and Joe Biden, the Vice President-Elect. You can watch Obama's election victory speech in Grant Park, in Chicago.

There are a variety of links at the bottom of the page under the headings Newsroom, Learn, American Moment, America Serves, and About This Site. There's also a link you can click to apply for a job in the new administration. Fill out the brief online form and you'll receive, via e-mail, a link to a more extensive online form. (Note: These are non-career positions, not civil service.)

Among the links at the bottom of the page — and also along the right side — you'll find a link to something called the GSA Transition Directory:

The Presidential Transition Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-293) authorizes the General Services Administration (GSA) to develop a transition directory in consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The Act provides that the transition directory "shall be a compilation of Federal publications and materials with supplementary materials developed by the Administrator that provides information on the officers, organization, and statutory and administrative authorities, functions, duties, responsibilities, and mission of each department and agency." Senate Report 106-348 clarifies that the directory is intended to "assist in navigating the many responsibilities that fall on a new administration" that is "confronted by an overwhelming amount of material."

Obviously, there's not much information here yet, but if you click around, you will find some interesting governmental odds and ends:

• A Survivor's Guide for Presidential Nominees, from The Brookings Institution.
• Links to relevant sections of the U.S. Government Manual (2008-09 Edition).
• A link to the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009
• A link to An Overview of the Executive Branch Ethics Program, from the United States Office of Government Ethics
• A link to a PDF document: Preparing Presidential Appointees for Leadership: A History (PDF; 157 KB)
• What will the Federal government pay to relocate a new Appointee and his/her family? Look here.
• Information about Freedom of Information

And the new administration wants to hear from you:

Tell us your story and the issues that matter most to you. Share with us your concerns and hopes – the policies you want to see carried out in the next four years.

The White House Transition Project is an interesting resource:

Since 1997, the White House Transition Project has combined the efforts of scholars, universities, and policy institutions to smooth out the American presidential transition. WHTP bridges the gaps between the partisan forces engaged in settling elections and the decision processes essential to governing by providing non-partisan information about the challenges of the American presidential transition and the strategies for overcoming those challenges. It provides these and other resources to presidential campaigns, to the president-elect, and to the new administration. These resources include three separate report series providing a White House institutional memory, perspectives on past transitions, and advanced research covering special aspects of transitions and governing. The WHTP also provides unique analysis of the appointments process and a clearinghouse on other transition resources.

Lots of historical stuff here, including photo archives. A couple items of note:
+ Presidential Power in National Security: A Guide to the President-Elect (PDF; 500 KB), from the Law Library of Congress
+ White House Transition Project Expert Registry (PDF; 211 KB)

Other transition resources, governmental and otherwise:
+ Hearing — "Passing the Baton: Preparing for the Presidential Transition"

On Wednesday, September 24, 2008, at 2:00 p.m., in room 2247 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the Subcommittee held a hearing titled, "Passing the Baton: Preparing for the Presidential Transition."

This hearing continued the Subcommittee's oversight of the ongoing preparations for the upcoming presidential transition. With only 77 days between the November election and the January inauguration, the transition teams of the executive branch and the incoming administration will have much work to do to ensure that the incoming Administration can begin its work immediately. The hearing reviewed the steps that GSA is taking to fulfill its responsibility to assist members of the incoming and outgoing administrations. The hearing also reviewed expert research on federal executive management challenges surrounding the transition.

Testimonies and other documents in PDF.

+ General Services Administration: Presidential Transition

The transfer of power from one administration to the next marks a significant moment in U.S. history. The Presidential Transition Acts of 1963 and 2000 give the General Services Administration (GSA) a prominent role in this process. They authorize the Administrator of GSA to provide the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect the services and facilities needed to assume their official duties.

+ Government Accountability Office: 2009 Congressional and Presidential Transition

Following each presidential election, GAO serves as a resource to assist with the transition to a new Congress and administration. On this Web site, using its institutional knowledge and broad-based, nonpartisan work on matters across the government spectrum, GAO provides insight into, and recommendations for addressing, the nation's major issues, risks and challenges. Also located throughout the site are key reports for further research, as well as contact information for and video messages from GAO experts.

+ Council for Excellence in Government: Presidential Transition
Offers links to various news articles and reports. One hot item that will show up here soon — The Prune Book Online:

PrunesOnline is a must-have tool for prospective Presidential appointees, the Presidential Personnel Office looking for the best and brightest, members of Congress, journalists, advocacy groups, and regular citizens who want to know more about the people working for them. It's your guide to the presidential appointment process and the people involved.

This, of course, follows from the infamous "Plum Book" — United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions — the new version of which is due out this week.

Published by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform alternately after each Presidential election, the Plum Book lists over 7,000 Federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment, nationwide. Data covers positions such as agency heads and their immediate subordinates, policy executives and advisors, and aides who report to these officials. The duties of many such positions may involve advocacy of Administration policies and programs and the incumbents usually have a close and confidential working relationship with the agency or other key officials.

+ IBM Center for the Business of Government: The Presidential Transition

The next President will face a wide range of challenges - economic, political, and social. He will need to be able to lead an effective government that can address these challenges. The IBM Center for The Business of Government is committed to helping identify and bring best practices from research to practice to help address these issues.

There's a blog here, addressing "management challenges for the next president," as well as various guides, reports, and issue briefs.

+ 1105 Government Information Group: Government Transition 2009 Wiki

This public service Wiki site seeks to be a repository of those ideas and recommendations from knowledgeable organizations and experts–and provide a forum for elaboration and discussion. In particular, this site will focus on transition ideas pertaining to Program Execution, Performance Management, Procurement and Acquisition, the use of Information Technology, and the management of Human Capital in government.

This non-partisan site is being made available as a public service by 1105 Government Information Group. [The lead collaborators of the site currently include 1105 Government Information Group chief editors Wyatt Kash (Government Computer News), John Monroe (Federal Computer Week) and Nick Wakeman (Washington Technology) along with other government transition experts, including: John Kamensky, of the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

Of special note: the "Key Players" page, which seeks to "catalogue think tanks, government agencies, academic institutions and other thought leaders following and generating assessments about transition issues related to government management."

+ Congresspedia: Presidential transition resources
A fine collection of relevant laws, Congressional Research Service reports, discussions/hearings, media coverage, supporting documents and other materials. ("Congresspedia is part of SourceWatch, a similarly collaborative, wiki-based website documenting the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda.")

+ Finally, our friends at the Free Government Information blog have assembled a collection of special interest resources "relevant to government information and technology policies during this transition period" — The Transition: Information, Technology, and Information-Technology.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:14 am and is filed under Government Documents and Political Information, Resource of the Week, Source File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

http://www.resourceshelf.com/2008/11/10/resource-of-the-week-change-is-good/

'Block the Vote' Tactics Go Online This Election - Desktop Security News Analysis - Dark Reading - Sent Using Google Toolbar

'Block the Vote' Tactics Go Online This Election - Desktop Security News Analysis - Dark Reading

OCTOBER 22, 2008 Voter suppression and deception tactics could go online in the final days or hours of this hotly contested Presidential election season -- including spoofing voting and campaign Websites, fake voice-call blasts via VOIP, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks on legitimate polling Websites -- according to a new report released this week.

There already have been online attempts to disrupt the election activity of specific blocks of voters, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center's (EPIC) E-Deceptive Campaign Practices Report. Phony emails were sent to Florida voters stating that they would be unable to vote if their ID didn't match a state database; robo-calls went to women voters in North Carolina with false information about their voter registration status; and fake emails were sent to voters in Maryland saying they would be barred from voting if their home was under foreclosure.

Voter suppression campaigns traditionally have used misleading telephone calls, direct mail, and mass literature drops designed to confuse or inhibit voters from casting their ballots. Typical tricks include spreading phony information or rumors about polling times, the election date, voter-identification rules, or voter eligibility. But with voters using the Internet more for researching and supporting their voting decisions and logistics, the threat of online deception campaigns against voters has become very real this year -- using email, instant messaging, VOIP, and cell phones in an attempt to rapidly and widely spread misinformation to voters and to disrupt the election process, according to the EPIC report.

Worries over voter suppression have intensified as voter registration numbers have hit near-record marks for this election. And online deceptive tactics will be tougher to identify and stop than traditional ground-game methods. "Prevention of electronic deceptive practices will be as difficult, or more so, than attempts to prevent those launched by deceptive land-line telephone calls, direct mail, or knock and drop campaign efforts," the report says. "The challenge of stopping electronic deceptive campaign practices are difficult because the source of the attack can be from any location around the globe, the launch of an attack can be timed to begin within hours of an election; and tracing the source of the attack can be time consuming and not yield actionable results."

Unscrupulous people can easily "profile" voters using widely available information on the Internet and use that in their targeted attacks, the report says. "In the context of deceptive election practices 'spoofing,' 'phishing,' 'pharming,' 'denial of service,' and 'social engineering' are tactics that can be used to deceive voters. In addition, 'rumor mongering' can also impact voter participation," the report says. Bruce Schneier, a co-contributor to the report, says he doesn't expect election officials to do much about these threats because they are still relatively new on the election scene, and there's not much they can do about them in some cases, anyway.

"Basically, the moral is that dropping the cost of communication down to free means that both good and bad communication is much cheaper. We know this is true for commercial email: spam. This is also true for deceptive voting suppression practices," says Schneier, who is chief security technology officer at BT.

Here's a look at the types of unsavory tactics that could be deployed online: A state election board's Website could be spoofed, for instance, with purposely deceptive information on polling-place locations, times, and voter registration rules.

Phishing emails could be pushed out to voters, offering phony information on polling sites, voter records, voter registration, and voter registration status in an effort to confuse or scare away voters, for instance.

Pharming emails could use hijacked domain names such as "Get Out the Vote," according to the report, as a way to redirect voters to fraudulent sites.

DOS attacks could be launched on voter information sites or voter help hotlines in order to disrupt the process.

"Rumor-mongering" efforts could be launched that seed fake stories through blogs about election delays or cancellations "due to an emergency." Poll workers could be targeted by social engineering tactics that result in delays in poll-location openings or other disruptions

A "Google bomb" could be set to boost a Web page ranking with phony links.

The EPIC report also provides recommendations for election officials and voters in how to look out for these scams and prevent themselves from falling victim to them. The report was issued in conjunction with a legal and policy report on these online voter suppression threats that EPIC co-authored with Common Cause and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=166495&f_src=drweekly

New Videos From BarackObama Via YouTube

New Videos from BarackObamadotcom

• Presidential Debate: The Right Judgment in Iraq
• Blueprint for Change: Foreign Policy
• Joe Biden speaks with Firefighters in Cudahy, WI
• Drive for Change Virginia
• Joe Biden gives a community gathering in Greensburg, PA.
• Faith Forum with Don Miller
• Barack Obama: Washington, DC Press Avail
• Barack on Clean Coal in Virginia
• Next Generation Veterans for Obama
• FightTheSmears.com: Fight Back with the Truth!
• A Message from Maya
• Joe Biden discusses the McCain/Palin Healthcare Tax
• "A Stronger Economy"
• VoteForChange.com: Alicia Keys
• Gov. Kathleen Sebelius in Virginia
• Virginia Veterans for Obama
• Obama: Debate is 'More Important Than Ever'
• Joe Biden speaks on the Economic Crisis in Jeffersonville, IN
• Volunteers in Florida
• Barack Obama: Press Avail in Clearwater, Florida

Constitution Day Resources - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

Constitution Day Resources - THOMAS (Library of Congress):
"On September 17, 1787, the final draft of the Constitution was signed by 39 delegates. The document was then sent to the states for ratification, and went into effect on June 21, 1788 when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution.
In celebration of Constitution Day, the Library of Congress has compiled a variety of materials from across its collections. Explore these rich resources and features to learn more about one of America’s most important documents.
Primary Source Documents Related to the United States Constitution

• Articles of Confederation
  
• Constitution
  
• Federalist Papers
  
• Bill of Rights
  
• 13th Amendment
  
• 14th Amendment
  
• 15th Amendment "

http://thomas.loc.gov/teachers/constitution.html

John McCain Can't Count to Seven, A Senior Moment? Or Just Lipstick on a Higgs Boson

Obama Counts McCain's Houses - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

The Republican nominees consider truth to be insidious personal attacks, but insit their insidious lying personal attacks are the truth. So here's another look at the first squeal of outrage. Without any lipstick involved at all.



August 21, 2008, 12:10 pm

Obama Counts McCain's Houses

By Katharine Q. Seelye AND Kitty Bennett

Updated CHESTER, Va. — If John McCain had tried to play into Barack Obama's strategy of sounding out of touch with ordinary people, he could not have done better than to say in an interview that he didn't know how many houses he had.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," Mr. McCain told reporters for The Politico in an interview in New Mexico on Wednesday. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

Mr. Obama seized on the remark at his first event here today to bolster his case that Mr. McCain is too rich to understand what's going on with the economy and had recently said that it was "fundamentally strong."

Here's what Mr. Obama said next:

"This puzzled me. I was confused as to what he meant. Then there was another interview, where somebody asked John McCain, 'How many houses do you have?' He said, 'I'm not sure I'll have to check with my staff.' True quote! 'I'm not sure, I'll have to check with my staff.' So they asked his staff and he said, 'at least four.' 'At least four.'

Now think about that. I guess if you think that being rich means you've got to make $5 million, and if you don't know how many houses you have, then it's not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you're like me, and you got one house, or you were like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have a different perspective.

By the way, the answer is, John McCain has seven homes. There's just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain's world and what people are going through every single day here in America. You don't have to be a Nobel Prize-laureate economist, you just have to have a little bit of a sense of what ordinary people are going through to understand that we can't afford eight more years or four more years or one more year of the failed economic policies that George Bush has put in place."

For the record, Mr. Obama paid $1.65 million for his Chicago home and an adjacent parcel in 2005.

Mr. Obama was speaking to a group of perhaps 150 people at an outdoors town-hall meeting, under the shade of tall pines here at John Tyler Community College.

Mr. Obama returned to the subject later in an answer to a woman who asked him what he would do for poor people. He said that among other things he would expand the mortgage deduction beyond people who itemize their taxes.

"John McCain, with those homes, they get a mortgage deduction, up to $1 million," he said. (The Obama plan would give a 10 percent tax credit on up to $8,000 of mortgage interest payments to households who take the standard deduction. The campaign estimates that 10 million homeowners would benefit from this proposal.)

The McCain campaign quickly fired back at Mr. Obama's remarks, calling them a "personal attack."

 Brian Rogers, a spokesman, issued this statement: "Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people "cling" to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who's in touch with regular Americans?

"The reality is that Barack Obama's plans to raise taxes and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he's completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans."

For its part, the Republican National Committee also is turning this controversy on its head, under the header "Flip That House," by listing many news articles about how Tony Rezko's family helped the Obamas on the house deal.

Campaigning with Mr. Obama today is Gov. Tim Kaine, who also hit the theme of Mr. McCain's houses early this morning on CNN.

"I understand that Senator McCain was asked yesterday this question, 'How many houses do you own?,' and he couldn't answer that question," Mr. Kaine said. "He couldn't count high enough, apparently, to even know how many houses he owns."

The Obama campaign also quickly cobbled together a TV ad for a national cable buy about the McCain homes, juxtaposed with residents dealing with foreclosure. It estimates that Mr. McCain owns seven homes, with a total worth of $13 million.

And, in another sign of how the Obama campaign has seized on Mr. McCain's not remembering how many homes he owns, campaign workers have fanned out in various battleground states to ask voters if they remember how many homes they own. Among the states are Pennsylvania and Florida.

Now, two major labor organizations and Brave New Films teamed up earlier this week to produce a Web film that intersperses shots of some of those properties with the tale of a woman who lost her home in a mortgage foreclosure.

Mr. McCain's Senate financial disclosures do not list these properties among his assets, because, according to public records, the homes and condominiums are in the name of a corporation trust listing his wife Cindy, the heiress to a beer distributorship whose worth is estimated to be anywhere from $35 million to $100 million.

Among those properties:

*Their ranch in Sedona, Ariz., where Mr. McCain is spending some down time this weekend, and its guest house and parcels, is valued at $1,766,440. (An earlier version of this post mistakenly referred to a piece in the Architectural Digest, which was not about Sedona.)

*In Phoenix, two adjacent condos with a price tag of $4.7 million in 2006.

*In Coronado, Calif., a condominium owned by Mrs. McCain's "Dream Catcher Family" corporation is valued, according to recent tax assessments, at $2.7 million. And records show another condo there as well.

In La Jolla, Calif., Mrs. McCain's trust owns another condo.

The couple also have a home in Arlington, Va., another condominium valued at $847,800 this year, according to public records.

pa68 : Message: RE: [pa68] Political: I despair

pa68 : Message: RE: [pa68] Political: I despair: "As evidence of the media’s rock star adoration of Palin (gee- wasn’t that the Republicans’ complaint about Obama he got all the international attention?), I offer all the twisted logic in the form of that new language, which I will call Palinese, that they conveniently are overlooking for fear of getting attacked by the Republican propaganda machine while she’s so “hot”: If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a 'token hire.' If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates, you're a 'game changer.' Black teen pregnancies? A 'crisis' in black America. White teen pregnancies? A 'blessed event.' If you grow up in Hawaii you're 'exotic.' Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential 'American story.' Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're 'unpatriotic.' Name your kid Track, you're 'colorful.' If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're 'reckless.' A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a 'maverick.' If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African-American voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend" The credit for this belongs to Duncan Andrews Phillips Academy class of 1968 by his permission

Citizens, Fighting Over Second-Place

Op-Ed Contributor - Second-Place Citizens - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com:

Clinton supporters speak over and over of feeling heartbroken and disillusioned, of being cheated and betrayed.

In their minds, Barack couldn't possibly have won fair and square. It was supposed to be Hillary's. She was inevitable. All of the men running against her were inferior. The most junior among them defeated the most invinvible. Therefore, he must have cheated.

“I see this nation differently than I did 10 months ago,” reads a typical posting on a Web site devoted to Clintonista discontent. “That this travesty was committed by the Democratic Party has forever changed my approach to politics.” In scores of Internet forums and the conclaves of protest groups, those sentiments are echoed, as Clinton supporters speak over and over of feeling heartbroken and disillusioned, of being cheated and betrayed.

"In one poll, 40 percent of Mrs. Clinton’s constituency expressed dissatisfaction; in another, more than a quarter favored the clear insanity of voicing their feminist protest by voting for John McCain. “This is not the usual reaction to an election loss,” said Diane Mantouvalos, the founder of JustSayNoDeal.com, a clearinghouse for the pro-Clinton organizations. “I know that is the way it is being spun, but it’s not prototypical. Anyone who doesn’t take time to analyze it will do so at their own peril.”

The despondency of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters — or their “vitriolic” and “rabid” wrath, as the punditry prefers to put it — has been the subject of perplexed and often irritable news media speculation. Why don’t these dead-enders get over it already and exit stage right?

Shouldn’t they be celebrating, not protesting? After all, Hillary Clinton’s campaign made unprecedented strides. She garnered 18 million-plus votes, and proved by her solid showing that a woman could indeed be a viable candidate for the nation’s highest office. She didn’t get the gold, but in this case isn’t a silver a significant triumtriumph?

Many Clinton supporters say no, and to understand their gloom, one has to take into account the legacy of American women’s political struggle, in which long yearned for transformational change always gives way before a chorus of “not now” and “wait your turn,” and in which every victory turns out to be partial or pyrrhic. Indeed, the greatest example of this is the victory being celebrated tonight: the passage of women’s suffrage. The 1920 benchmark commemorated as women’s hour of glory was experienced in its era as something more complex, and darker.

Suffrage was, like Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, not merely a cause in itself, but a symbolic rallying point, a color guard for a regiment of other ideas. But while the color guard was ushered into the palace of American law, its retinue was turned away. "

The struggle for women's rights and civi rights for African Americans have been closely tied, and periodically in conflict, since the days of the Abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War. Frederick Douglass, one of the best known and most articulate free black spokesmen during the antebellum years, was born a slave ca. 1817. After he ran away, Douglass tirelessly fought for emancipation and full citizenship for African Americans and women. Douglass founded the North Star newspaper in December 1847. The masthead contained the motto: "Right is of no sex; truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all--and all are brethren." He died, returning home from a rally for women's suffrage.

When the constitution was amended to give black men the vote, many perhaps most of the wonen who would become Suffragettes, felt betrayed. In fact, they were the backbone of the abolitionist movement, had sacrificed reputations, risked life and limb to be repaid by being left out of full citizenship. Voiceless, in the halls of government, Nevertheless, they were persuaded to support black male suffrage as achievable then, persuaded, that insisting on women's suffrage too, would result in continued suffrage for white males only.

Many of those women, in the prime of life, died of old age before women got the right to vote.

So there's always been this tension about whose turn it is. There's always been suspicion about who benefits most from rules that supposedly benefit all. The close losses always hurt more than the blowouts. Especially, when you expect your team to runaway with the score.

Then there's the other side of this coin. Why is it that playing by the rules isn't enough? Why isn't recognizing that the primary season was about delegates, organizing around the rules, competing for and winning the delegates, cause for celebration instead of protestation? Why, from colonial times to the 21st century, is black achievement seen as impudent under slavery, uppity under jim crow, and some form of affirmative action cheating in this post civil unrest era?

Can we stop playing this zero sum game? Will anger beget anger until we're stuck with four more years of self destruction masquerasing as public policy? Are we going to get mad, get even or get ahead? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/opinion/26faludi.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=all