God Love Daily Caller

A facebook friend posted a bit from The Daily Caller about the evil Obama spending way too much of our tax money on "official travel" blah blah blah.

And guess what popped up in the comments?

It was up for a good 15 minutes before somebody probably flagged it and it got taken down; and I don't presume to know that it wasn't conveniently "planted" by some dirty rotten Democrat just to make the noble TeaBaggers look bad.  And I suppose the 14 'Likes' could've been the result of an email tree (or whatever) so a bunch of other dirty rotten Dems could rush over and hit the 'Like' button to make it seem like there's a lot of racist assholes posting comments at The Daily Caller.  Yeah, OK.  But y'know, sometimes it is what it looks like.

Today's Pix

Dear facebook friends...

Grandma doesn't get lei'd much anymore

The Vote

From Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, about the myth of voter fraud:

At this point, you may be wondering if there's really anything wrong with all this. What's the problem with cracking down on voter fraud? And why shouldn't voters be required to show photo ID? If you need ID to cash a check or buy a six-pack, why not to vote?

The answer—surprising to many—is straightforward: Not everyone has, or can easily get, a photo ID. If you don't drive, you don't have a driver's license. If you're poor, you probably don't have a credit card. And if you're unbanked and don't need ID to buy liquor, you probably don't have much need for photo ID at all.

Once that sinks in, the electoral significance becomes obvious. In 2007, shortly before the Crawford decision was handed down, the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race released a study of Indiana voters showing that among whites, the middle-aged, and the middle class, about 90 percent possessed photo ID. Among blacks, the young, and the poor—all of whom vote for Democrats at high rates—the rate was about 80 percent. Overall, 91 percent of registered Republicans had some form of photo ID, compared to only 83 percent of registered Democrats.

--and--

Still, Republicans argue, anyone can obtain a photo ID with a modest amount of effort if they really want to vote. And isn't this small amount of inconvenience worth it in order to crack down on fraud?

Sure—but first there needs to be some actual fraud to crack down on. And that turns out to be remarkably elusive.

 --and--

Statistics tell part of this story: According to a survey by the Brennan Center, 8 percent of voting-age whites lack a photo ID, compared to 25 percent of blacks. Getting an ID card from the state usually requires you to produce a birth certificate, and Barbara Zia of the South Carolina League of Women Voters recently explained what this means in her state: "Many South Carolinians, especially citizens of color, were born at home and lack birth certificates, and so to obtain those birth certificates is a very costly endeavor and also an administrative nightmare."

In St. Louis, where our story opened, Kit Bond's outrage about dogs and dead people has a long pedigree. It is, a local official told the American Prospect's Art Levine, "code for black people." This kind of racial dog whistling, which relentlessly paints ethnic minorities as corrupt and dishonest, is corrosive not just to our political discourse, but to democracy itself.

--and--

The scandal of the photo ID laws, then, isn't so much that they give one party an advantage, or even that they affect minorities disproportionately. The scandal is that they knowingly target minorities. So even if the real-life effects of these laws are small, they're impairing civil rights that African Americans and others have spent decades fighting, and sometimes dying, for. This in turn means that something most of us thought was finally taboo—active suppression of minority votes—isn't really taboo after all.

Gettin' It Done - 40

Today's installment on what Obama's accomplished.

40. Expanded Hate Crimes Protections: Signed Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), which expands existing hate crime protections to include crimes based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability, in addition to race, color, religion, or national origin.

Not crazy about this one.  I don't like the idea that we're creating categories of Thought Crimes.  If you commit a crime, what matters to me is that you're held to account for it, and your deep-seated motives are a matter for the prison psychologist to figure out.  If we learn something from it, then great; maybe the info is useful in preventing more of the same.  I just don't think having some sinister motive makes the crime worse, even tho' I do think having really good reasons for committing certain crimes can make a difference in what happens when you're being processed thru the justice system.

Gilligan And The Stench

Wasn't it about this time in 2008 that things started to fall apart for McCain and Palin?

“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, told The New York Times on Sunday.

(more at Politico)

Everybody used to moan and wail about the impending death of the Democratic Party - now it's the GOP's turn.  How does any democratic organization fix itself?  What was the process that pulled the Dems up out of the abyss in the early 90s?  Much thinking and learning of new things are required here.

And with the recent news of how all the big money has shifted away from Obama and toward Willard, what am I supposed to conclude if Obama pulls it off and wins in spite of what looks like a concerted effort at a Corporate Takeover?

Today's Pic

via Democratic Underground

Oh, Sweet Jesus

I feel something like human compassion towards Joe Scarborough - or actually I would feel it if he wasn't such a partisan dick most of the time.

Yikes

I just hope nobody gets cocky.  This is exactly what certain bad guys wanna see because it makes good pretext for pulling some electoral shit.  ie: "See?  The librul media was in the tank for Obama all along, but the noble conservatives showed 'em what's what."

(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

Mike O'Brien ‏@mpoindc 

Oof. RT @Chris_Moody: New CBS/NYT poll finds Obama leading 53% to 43% in Ohio and 53% to 44% in Florida. 


Josh Marshall ‏@joshtpm 

This mornings new NYT/CBS polls devastating 4 Romney. Obama by 10 in Ohio, 9 in FLA, 12 in PA. http://polltracker.talkingpointsmemo.com/pollsters/quinnipiac-cbs-nyt … 


Chris Geidner ‏@chrisgeidner 

NYT: "Mr. Obama is leading Mr. Romney 53 percent to 43 percent" in OH. Bigger in PA, nearly that in FL.http://nyti.ms/Ql07CG 


National Journal ‏@nationaljournal 

Obama has six-point lead in new Bloomberg national poll. http://njour.nl/Sl5qhu 


Michael Tackett ‏@tackettdc 

New Bloomberg national poll +6 Obama. Romney dragged by negative perceptions @juliehdavishttp://bloom.bg/S4c8Jg 



POLITICO 2012 ‏@POLITICO2012 

Quinnipiac's jaw-dropping, eyebrow-raising swing-state numbers http://politi.co/SlxRAh by @aburnspolitico 


Josh Marshall ‏@joshtpm 

Must Read article on how early voting may mean Mitts goose is already half cookedhttp://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/early-voting-swing-states.php … via @TPM

Favorite comment:

Tough Crowd

The blue-hairs are all up in his grill an' shit.



I know - it's Daily Kos and all, and it's chopped neatly into little bite-sized chunks, but the guy got a pretty bad reaction from people whose votes he has to get if he wants to be Romney's veep.

I suppose it's possible he was sent in there to lay the groundwork for a "speak the painful truth" kind of message - I just can't help thinking these guys are so deep in the bubble that they don't believe any of the terribly bad shit that keeps happening to them is really real(?)

Gettin' It Done - 41

Obama's done some things.

41. Avoided Scandal: As of November 2011, served longer than any president in decades without a scandal, as measured by the appearance of the word “scandal” (or lack thereof) on the front page of the Washington Post.