i wrote multiple times in my post the other day that I still want Christine O’Donnell to win the Delaware Primary, and I do.

See for example this line:

“I wish Christine O?Donnell the best. I?d rather her than Castle.”

and this line:

“I want Christine O?Donnell to win.”

Nonetheless, many people read my prior post as a decision to support Castle, which I made absolutely clear it was not. In light of recent events, I want to add a few more thoughts.

The Wall Street Journal, my favorite newspaper, wants tea party activists to compromise in Delaware in favor of Mike Castle. The last time this newspaper wanted conservatives to compromise, it was to pass TARP. ‘Nuff said.

I would rather 50 seats without Mike Castle than 51 seats with Mike Castle. The push to support Mike Castle by “conservative” groups, pundits, and others says more about the selling out of the conservative movement to the GOP than anything else. It happened in the Bush years and many conservatives were so thoroughly co-opted by the GOP Establishment they might as well be cut off from the conservative movement permanently.

Conservatism is not Republicanism. For all the people saying conservatives should compromise and support Castle, I dare say the conservatives who take them up on that offer will be more willing to compromise their principles than a Senator Castle.

Good for the Tea Party Express supporting O’Donnell. Good for Sean Hannity having O’Donnell on his show yesterday too.

That said, I stand by my prior post.

Every campaign has three limited elements: time, talent, and treasure.

In the conservative campaign to move the Senate right, I do not see how we wisely spend the resources on Christine O’Donnell’s bid when we could help Ovide LaMontagne in New Hampshire, some of the conservatives still running in the New York primaries, or Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, Rand Paul, etc. and get those people through the general election.

Yes, I do believe that a candidate who is down ten points can win. Heck, Rubio was down thirty points when I went all in with him. But there was time.

There are just over sixty days left in Delaware.

Likewise, were Christine O’Donnell to win the primary, and again, I hope she does, I do not believe she is surrounded with people fully capable of firing on all the necessary cylinders in the general election. This is not, by and large, her fault. The GOP establishment and paid political class abandoned her for pro-abort leftist she’s running against.

But with limited time and limited talent and already limited treasure, I cannot in my mind justify encouraging conservatives to cast their lot in Delaware.

It may be crass to say, but in the battle between midgets and tigers, the midgets can win, but only if a few of them get eaten. In the battle between conservatives and the establishment, conservatives can win, but only if a few of them get eaten.

Thats what Delaware looks like to me. I want O’Donnell to win, but I lack the faith in her campaign’s ability to pull it off that I had in Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ken Buck, Maro Rubio, Pat Toomey, and others.

Now, it is very possible I’m wrong about all this. I’d love to be wrong. I’d love to see O’Donnell in the Senate. But the probability that I am wrong is ridiculously small.

Your mileage may vary.

RedState Morning Briefing
For September 8, 2010

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

———————————————————————-

Ultra right-winger Glenn Greenwald teed this particular story up with this masterful piece last Friday on MSNBC?s embarrassing and sycophantic coverage of the ?end of combat? farce perpetrated by Obama and his administration. With thanks to the greatest sock puppeteer in history, I excerpt a lengthy portion of it here because Greenwalds make an important point.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

i wrote multiple times in my post the other day that I still want Christine O?Donnell to win the Delaware Primary, and I do.

Nonetheless, many people read my prior post as a decision to support Castle, which I made absolutely clear it was not. In light of recent events, I want to add a few more thoughts.

The Wall Street Journal, my favorite newspaper, wants tea party activists to compromise in Delaware in favor of Mike Castle. The last time this newspaper wanted conservatives to compromise, it was to pass TARP. ?Nuff said.

I would rather 50 seats without Mike Castle than 51 seats with Mike Castle. The push to support Mike Castle by ?conservative? groups, pundits, and others says more about the selling out of the conservative movement to the GOP than anything else. It happened in the Bush years and many conservatives were so thoroughly co-opted by the GOP Establishment they might as well be cut off from the conservative movement permanently.

Conservatism is not Republicanism. For all the people saying conservatives should compromise and support Castle, I dare say the conservatives who take them up on that offer will be more willing to compromise their principles than a Senator Castle.

Good for the Tea Party Express supporting O?Donnell. Good for Sean Hannity having O?Donnell on his show yesterday too.

That said, I stand by my prior post.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

Let?s not abandon Carly Fiorina, but lest you be under some impression that she?ll be solidly and forthrightly with us in the Senate, understand what you are getting.

The moment the great lurch left began came this past Wednesday, September 1st, in the televised debate between Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer.

In the debate, which was dominated ? as I told you repeatedly during the primary that it would be ? by Boxer going on offense over Fiorina?s time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina let loose three bombshells on conservatives.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

I have a confession to make: I think the Right is still bogged down on the technology front in a way the Left is not. I also think the reason is simple. If you look at the major players on the right, they have little interest in working with each other when they could be seeking competitive advantages against each other as well as major contracts with campaigns and businesses.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

At Colorlines, Michelle Chen writes, State Lawmakers Harden the Colorline in Reproductive Health:

Leading the charge are a slew of proposed bans on abortion coverage in private insurance exchanges under the health care reform program. As of mid-July, five states (Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee) had enacted bans. Proposed bans in Florida and Oklahoma were narrowly thwarted by a governor's veto.

Remember that various federal medical programs already contain abortion restrictions-which the White House may soon quietly but dramatically expand as the health care reform plan is implemented. But advocates point out that some of the recent state-level proposals would go much further, not only by targeting the private insurance market but also banning abortion entirely, without federal law's explicit exemptions for rape and incest.

While such policy proposals impact all women, it's almost a given that they'll fall especially hard on those who are poor, of color, or immigrants. It's no wonder that anti-choice politics have found a home in Mississippi, where legal abortions among Black women are extraordinarily prevalent. Anti-abortion policies are also predictably virulent in Arizona, where Latina immigrants have been demonized as criminal breeders who are "dropping anchor babies" like landmines.

Oddly, Latinas, as political images, are simultaneously victims of a rollback on reproductive rights as well as targets of paranoid delusions about allegedly excessive fertility. Politicians seem bent on both denying them the dignity of motherhood and robbing them of control over their sexual and reproductive lives.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2007:

Well, here's a sampling from just this week of things that we used to assume would never happen -- least of all to what used to be our most cherished civil liberties -- but happened anyway, and for which there's really no particular punishment, and for which the current political climate promises no particular remedy

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals today released its long-awaited decision on whether the law and the Constitution require a warrant based on probable cause (rather than a court order issued under a lesser standard) when the Government wants cell phone providers to turn over data showing the location of the cell phone. Wired gets the import right: Court OKs Warrantless Cell-Site Tracking."

The Third Circuit is the first appeals court in the country to address the issue. The decision is here. EFF and the ACLU submitted Amicus Briefs. Disappointingly, the Obama Administration argued probable cause and a warrant are not needed for historical CSLI, and refused to say it wouldn't go the same route when seeking prospective (real-time) data.

The Court's decision is very disappointing. The ACLU and EFF are trying to spin it into a win, but it's clearly not. [More...]

The Court said judges can require a warrant if they want to, but they don't have to. Considering these requests are made by the Government ex parte, meaning there's no one present to argue against granting the request, how many judges are likely to refuse on their own when a higher court has said they don't have to?

More background on the case and the issues is here.

It should be a no-brainer that when the Government seeks information about your location from your cell phone, they need a warrant based on probable cause, not some boiler-plate statement to the judge that the information is relevant to an ongoing investigation.

In my view, cell-site locator information, whether historical or prospective, intrudes upon users’ reasonable expectations of privacy. It turns the cell phone into a tracking device, and under the Fourth Amendment, a warrant is required. As law professor Susan Friewald wrote in her Amicus brief in the case:

As the Magistrate Judge persuasively presented [opinion here], CSLI may disclose to law enforcement agents that a cell phone user has attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, sought AIDS treatment, or visited an abortion clinic. See Lenihan Order, 534 F. Supp. 2d at 586 & n.6. CSLI may divulge when and where a user gave confession, viewed an X-rated movie, or protested at a political rally. Knowledge that the government could keep track of such information could easily inhibit valuable and constitutionally protected activities.

The Magistrate Judge got it right when ruling:

An Electronic Device That Is Able and Used to Provide the Government With Movement/Location Information is a "Tracking Device", Communications From Which are (i) Expressly Excluded from the Definition of "Electronic Communications" Under the SCA and (ii) Not Pertaining to the Subscriber of an Electronic Communications Service Under the SCA

and

[T]his Court concludes that CSLI is a ommunication from an electronic device that permits the tracking of the movement of a person, is therefore expressly placed outside the scope of the electronic communications legislation of the SCA, and is not appropriately brought back into the scope of information which the Government may seek to obtain thereunder by any reasonable reading of §2703©. The Court emphasizes that the foregoing analysis rejects a distinction between historic and prospective CSLI for purposes of § 2703©.

...nothing in the language of § 2703(d) indicates that information requested by the Government is obtainable as a matter of course upon a showing of reasonable relevance to a criminal investigation. To the contrary, § 2703(d) provides that an Order for disclosure shall issue "only if" the Government shows that the information sough is relevant. It does not provide that such an Order shall issue "if" or "whenever" such a showing is made. Thus, under the plain language of the SCA, a showing of reasonable relevance is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition for issuance of an Order.

Also:

This Court concludes, as a matter of statutory interpretation, that nothing in the provisions of the electronic communications legislation authorizes it to order a CSP's covert disclosure of CSLI absent a showing of probable cause under Rule 41. And this interpretation is abundantly confirmed by consideration of the Constitutional principles at issue. For reading the statutes in the manner advocated by the Government would, as to at least a substantial portion of the information at issue, violate Americans' reasonable expectation of privacy in any cell-phone-derived information/records as to the physical movements/locations by authorizing ex parte disclosure of that information with no judicial review of the probable cause. It appears to this Court, from its review of current Fourth Amendment case law and Constitutional principles, that this information is entitled to the judicial-review protections afforded by a probable cause warrant and historically applied to movement/location information derived from a tracking device.

On the reasonable expectation of cell phone users, the lower court correctly observed:

[T]he Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and, accordingly, the Government must generally demonstrate probable cause and obtain a warrant prior thereto. To trigger the Fourth Amendment's protections, the individual must have a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of the Government's search, and it must be one which society accepts as objectively reasonable.

The Court believes, based on common experience within the community: First, that Americans do not generally know that a record of their whereabouts is being created whenever they travel about with their cell phones, or that such record is likely maintained by their cell phone providers and is potentially subject to review by interested Government officials. And second, that most Americans would be appalled by the notion that the Government could obtain such a record without at least a neutral, judicial determination of probable cause.

The Third Circuit today:

In sum, we hold that CSLI from cell phone calls is obtainable under a § 2703(d) order and that such an order does not require the traditional probable cause determination. Instead, the standard is governed by the text of § 2703(d), i.e., “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.” 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d). The MJ erred in allowing her impressions of the general expectation of privacy of citizens to transform that standard into anything else. We also conclude that this standard is a lesser one than probable cause, a conclusion that, as discussed below, is supported by the legislative history.

On different occasions in the MJ’s opinion, the MJ referred to her understanding that the “relevant legislative history indicates that Congress did not intend its electronic communications legislation to be read to require, on its authority, disclosure of an individual’s location information . . . .” MJOp., 534 F. Supp. 2d at 610. We also have reviewed the legislative history of the SCA and find no support for this conclusion.

...Because we conclude that the SCA does not contain any language that requires the Government to show probable cause as a predicate for a court order under § 2703(d) and because we are satisfied that the legislative history does not compel such a result, we are unable to affirm the MJ’s order on the basis set forth in the MJ’s decision.

The Third Circuit ends up saying a warrant is optional:

Because the statute as presently written gives the MJ the option to require a warrant showing probable cause, we are unwilling to remove that option although it is an option to be used sparingly because Congress also included the option of a §2703(d) order.

...We again note that although the Government argues that it need not offer more than “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the . . .information sought . . . [is] relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation, ” 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d), the MJ never analyzed whether the Government made such a showing. We leave that issue for the MJ on remand.

I also think the Third Circuit's approach of leaving it up to the individual Magistrate Judge whether to require a warrant based on probable cause invites judge shopping. In many districts, Magistrate Judges have "duty weeks" where they handle the new criminal cases and requests for warrants. The Government, once it knows which Magistrate Judges don't think a warrant is necessary, can just wait to file the request, using the lower standard and without making a probable cause showing, until those judges are on "duty week."

At least the Third Circuit called on Congress to clarify the statute with respect to cell site locator and GPS data. But don't get your hopes up. Nor do I think it matters much which party controls Congress. The Dems are just as lax now in restricting wiretaps as they were in 1996, and conservative Republicans, while slightly better on the issue, would probably draft a bill requiring a warrant -- except in drug cases and excluding suppression as a remedy unless the Government acted in bad faith. Pick your poison.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Purple Priestess, Alfonso Nevarez, dadanation, vcmvo2, grog, and ItsJessMe, who also edited.

Please let the rescued diarists know that you appreciated their efforts by recommending, tipping or commenting. Tonight's rescued diaries are:

Think of the Children!

Portland Goes Back to School, Better Lunches Await? JayinPortland breaks down the menu, and the short answer is yum. (Alfonso Nevarez)

"Come and play, everything's A-ok!" tbrucegodfrey tells us what it would be like If Wingnuts Produced Sesame Street. (ItsJessMe)

A Fool and His Money...

Marie describes beading and selling with her sister in A Note on Wealth Creation. (ItsJessMe)

AustinCynic describes how solar panels have saved his job and the economic ripples that caused in One Person's Boondoggle... (grog)

Frank Palmer explains the Need and creation of money. (grog)

jotter delivers another superb High Impact Diaries: September 6, 2010.

brillig has Top Comments - Sesquicentennial Edition.

Please use this open thread to promote your own diaries or your favorites of the day.

(For more information on this series, please see our reintroduction diary from last week.)

Write that diary!
It has always been challenging to raise the profile of a Daily Kos diary with a narrow focus, and as such it's often difficult to get even a good diary noticed. This can be particularly troublesome during election season, when those relating to specific candidates for a House, Senate or local race in particular fall by the wayside, as they may connect with only a limited audience and thus receive few recommends.

That's why, during the 2006 Election cycle, Markos was kind enough to front page a modest effort to raise the profile of those races by "rescuing" them daily. Through the Election Diary Rescue, we were able to help keep so many diaries on those races in view and, perhaps, help just a little in what turned out to be several very close races. We repeated the effort in 2008 and are now proud to present the Election Diary Rescue 2010 (v. 3.0).

While Steve Singiser's outstanding daily roundup highlights many of those races, it is you - the Daily Kos community - who can be on the ground to provide the insight and information to help our candidates at every level. The Election Diary Rescue is back, and now we need you to write those diaries.

First installment and more, below............

enlargeCredit: Driftglass

Mayor Daley will not run again for Mayor of Chicago. If there were a viable Republican Party in Chicago, this might actually be interesting. As-is, don't expect Sister Sarah to come to town pimping some 3rd tier teabagger's "common sense freedom solutions" anytime soon.

Open thread below...

The current coolness-by-decree (dubious or not) folks at Pitchfork counted down the top 200 songs of the 90s last week, and while there's plenty to shake one's fists at, the short essays accompanying each song are great reads. They declare Pulp's "Common People" to be the 2nd best song of that decade:

"Common People" may be centered around a specific encounter between Cocker's impoverished protagonist and his art-school-slummer of a date, but its ascendant, accelerated structure elevates it from personal anecdote to universal anthem, and transforms its spiteful invective into a celebration of the character-building fortitude one acquires when living hand-to-mouth-- something the have-nots will always have over the haves.

Sure, why not!

If you missed it in our recent open thread, be sure to check out the William Shatner version, which is far better than it should be.

When I went along with calling what the Democrats are doing in the House ‘triage.’ Triage implies a situation where an overwhelming number of people have been injured and absolutely must be sorted out by severity of injury, in order to save as many as possible.  What we have here instead is a situation where “sick” individuals are being sorted out not by the severity of their (political) illnesses, but by a combination of the absolute cost of the patient’s treatment, cost-effectiveness of that treatment, and the perceived overall value of the patients themselves.  Those that make the cut get treated; those who don’t, get a palliative.

In other words, House Democrats have set up their own personal death panel.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to MoeLane.

In the 12 months that ended in June, the rate of nationwide union membership as a part of the work force fell from 12.4 percent to 12.1 percent, according to a new report from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, The State of the Unions in 2010: A Profile of Union Membership in Los Angeles, California and the Nation. For California, membership dropped from 18.3 percent to 17.6 percent over that year. In the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan area, unionization fell by a full point, from 17.5 percent to 16.5 percent.

California accounts for about 16 percent of the nation’s nearly 15 million union members. But the rate of unionization is higher in nine other states (New York, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, New Jersey, Michigan, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Connecticut).

Earlier in the recession, jobs were lost in great numbers, but these were mostly not union jobs. That dynamic has changed, according to Lauren Appelbaum, the report's lead author.

The report also noted another change:

Despite consistently lower unionization rates in the private sector than in the public sector, the much larger size of the private sector workforce has meant that there have traditionally been a larger number of union workers in the private sector.  This has now changed.  For the first time ever, the number of union members in the public sector is greater than the number of private sector union members.

Unions  are under attack from Republicans and other right wingers just as they have been since before they got the legal right to organize and bargain collectively 75 years ago. But public unions, particularly teachers unions, are getting punched hardest. And as election day nears, it worsens. For instance, Republican Meg Whitman, running for California governor against Democrat Jerry Brown, whom she says was "bought" by "big labor," has pledged to lay off 40,000 public-sector workers if she wins the election.

The big complaint: union workers get better pay, better benefits, better job protection and health coverage.  Nationwide, union workers made $4.30 an hour more than non-union workers during the year covered by the report. Well, duh. It's practically criminal, ain't it? If these damned unions weren't around everybody could be paid less, live without benefits and get fired for no reason without anybody putting up a fuss.

The report came as no surprise to members of the Service Employees International Union, who gathered Monday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to celebrate a Labor Day Mass.

Marta Escobar, a single mother of four, was one of 16 janitors who lost their jobs last month cleaning two office towers owned by JPMorgan Chase in Century City. She said she spent years cleaning homes and is particularly concerned about losing the benefits that come with a union job, including healthcare for her younger children.

"The job is really important for me because it means I can offer my kids a future," Escobar said. "Nothing extravagant, but a future."

While the unionization of janitors was a major success story for SEIU, such workers have not been typical of union membership in California or elsewhere for several decades:

For the country as a whole, unionization rates go up with the amount of formal education and at 14.1%, the unionization rate is highest for workers with a college degree.  In California and Los Angeles, workers with some college as well as those with a college degree have higher unionization rates than those with less education. About one-fifth of workers with some college or a college degree are unionized in both California and Los Angeles.  Whereas decades ago the archetypal union member was a blue collar worker with limited education, today mid-level professionals are much more likely to be unionized than anyone else, especially in sectors like educational services and public administration.  However, even highly educated workers have been affected by the recession and unionization rates for college educated workers have decreased compared to last year.  

Among the report's other findings:

• Nationwide, men are unionized at a 1.7 percent higher rate than women. But in California, women are unionized at 18.1 percent and men at 17.1 percent.

• African Americans are more unionized than whites, with Asian Americans and Latinos and the least unionized. Part of that is because the latter two groups are more likely to be foreign-born, a major factor in whether a person joins a union or not.

• There is a huge difference in the percentage of workers who are unionized in California and nationwide. Whites: 19.4 percent/12.3 percent. Blacks: 24.9 percent/13.8. Asians: 16.6 percent/11.8 percent. Latinos: 14.3 percent/9.8 percent.

In the latest issue of New Yorker, Peter J. Boyer delivers a fascinating portrait of The Fellowship, the secretive religious group behind the C Street house. Among the interesting nuggets in Boyer's piece are some new details about Tom Coburn's role in ending John Ensign's affair with the wife of Ensign's former top aide.

As you may recall, both Coburn and Ensign were residents of the C Street house during the affair. Ensign publicly admitted to the affair in June, 2009 after the husband of Ensign's former mistress told Fox News about the senator's indiscretions. (Ensign's office said he had learned that Hampton had contacted FNC before Ensign's public admission. Nonetheless, despite learning about the affair before any other cable news channel, Fox waited until Ensign's public confession to report the story. In fact, Fox was the last cable news channel to report on it.)

Boyer's new article doesn't deal with the financial question, but the story he tells does challenge several of Coburn's claims about his knowledge and role (claims that never added up in the first place). Here's a summary of the instances in which Boyer's narrative contradicts or questions Coburn's public claims:

Ultimately, what's important here probably isn't so much that Coburn hasn't come clean about all the embarrassing details of Ensign's flawed personal life -- it's that we still don't have a full and accurate account of what Coburn knew about Ensign's attempts to use his power as a public official to secure hush money for the family of his former mistress. Sex might provide the sizzle, but at it's heart, what matters most here is the real possibility that Ensign engaged in an act of public corruption to cover up his private failure. That's why the FBI is investigating Ensign and that's why he could be indicted. And that's the real reason why Coburn's misleading and false statements are so troubling.

Okay, I'll admit that my headline was over-the-top. But still, given the overwhelming coverage of the GOP's 10-point lead two weeks ago, shouldn't the fact that Gallup now shows the generic ballot tied at 46% be a Really Seriously Huge Story? After all, if the GOP's 10-point lead was the the biggest Republican lead ever, wouldn't that make this tie the GOP's biggest collapse ever?

Could it possibly be that faced with the prospect of Republicans retaking the majority and returning to Bush-era economic policies that the country is having second thoughts?

Update: Fixed link.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced today he won't seek re-election.

Rahm Emanuel, Compromiser-in-Chief, has said he's interested in the job. He doesn't see eye-to-eye with Obama's inner circle of advisers and it's long been rumored he only planned to stay with Obama through the mid-term elections anyway.

Run, Rahm, Run. Obama needs a new Chief of Staff -- one who's more concerned with a bill's details than capitulating on principles to get it passed. From the New York Times March, 2010 profile on Rahm:

Emanuel is far less concerned about the details of a bill than the ability to get it passed.

Please, Chicago, take him off our hands.

Andrew Napolitano smeared the Obama administration as being "in tight" with the New Black Panther Party, citing the myth that the Obama Justice Department would not prosecute a party member for "[i]ntimidating voters with a weapon." In fact, the decision to not pursue criminal charges was made by the Bush DOJ, and the Obama administration won an injunction against the party member who carried a weapon.

Napolitano: "Why wouldn't the federal government prosecute" NBPP? During the September 7 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Napolitano played a video clip of New Black Panther Party members at a Philadelphia polling station in 2008 while saying:

So, intimidating voters is obviously is a crime. Intimidating voters with a weapon is even more of a crime. Intimidating voters with a weapon because of the color of their skin is obviously a federal crime. You saw that tape. Why wouldn't the federal government prosecute those? What other radical groups are in tight with this administration?

Bush DOJ, not Obama, made decision not to pursue criminal charges. Before President Bush left office, the Department of Justice filed a civil complaint asking for an injunction against the New Black Panther Party and some of its members. In May 14 testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez explained that the Bush administration's Justice Department "determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes" but did "file a civil action on January 7th, 2009." From Perez's testimony:

PEREZ: Moving to the matter at hand, the events occurred on November 4th, 2008. The Department became aware of these events on Election Day and decided to conduct further inquiry.

After reviewing the matter, the Civil Rights Division determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes. The Department did, however, file a civil action on January 7th, 2009, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief under 11(b) against four defendants.

May 2009: DOJ obtained default judgment against Shabazz for carrying weapon outside polling station. On May 18, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania entered default judgment against King Samir Shabazz. Perez stated in his May 14 testimony that the Justice Department had obtained "sufficient evidence to sustain the charge" of voter intimidation against Shabazz, identified by Perez as "the defendant who had the nightstick," and that "the default judgment was sought and obtained as it related to him." Perez also testified:

PEREZ: Based on the careful review of the evidence, the Department concluded that the evidence collected supported the allegations in the complaint against Minister King Samir Shabazz. The Department, therefore, obtained an injunction against defendant King Samir Shabazz, prohibiting him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of an open polling place on any Election Day in the City of Philadelphia or from otherwise violating Section 11(b).

The Department considers this injunction to be tailored appropriately to the scope of the violation and the constitutional requirements and will fully enforce the injunction's terms.

The New York Times published a story this weekend on the opportunities teabagger extremism has provided Democrats.

With the economy still working against Democrats, they say they are hoping to benefit from concerns about Tea Party extremism.

Allen West, for example, the Republican nominee in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, has become a Tea Party sensation. He has raised more money than any other House challenger — and his opponent — collecting donations from people across the country who have followed him on YouTube as he thunders against the “tyranny” of the federal government.

But to Democrats, he is an opposition researcher’s dream, captured on video rallying his audiences to “get your musket, fix your bayonet,” questioning whether Mr. Obama is a citizen and urging his supporters to make his opponent “scared to come out of his house.”

Democrats said they were trying to make the same case against Tea Party candidates who are the Republican nominees in Senate races: Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. (The candidates the Tea Party helped nominate in Utah, Mike Lee, and Alaska, Joe Miller, are considered all but certain to win — even in a year when uncertainty is the rule.)

The Democrats are playing up the candidates’ support for things that are standard Tea Party positions, but unpopular among most Americans: getting rid of the Departments of Energy, Commerce and Education; phasing out Social Security and Medicare; and instituting a 23 percent national sales tax to replace the income tax.

What the Times missed, however, are all of the races in which the Tea Party has created real fissures in the Republican party. Think Progress had a good rundown of the disunity:

AZ-SEN: Sen. John McCain soundly trumped former Rep. J.D. Hayworth in the August 24 primary. Afterward, McCain never received a congratulatory phone call and Hayworth, who has not endorsed McCain, never received an invitation to a GOP unity event.

WA-SEN: Sarah Palin-endorsed Tea Partier Clint Didier was trounced by establishment candidate Dino Rossi on August 17. Didier has since withheld his endorsement until certain policy demands are met; Rossi isn’t budging. Didier’s spokeswoman responded, “So is Dino saying, ‘F*** you’ to those people [who supported Didier]? ‘F*** you,’ I don’t need your votes?”

MO-SEN: On August 3, Rep. Roy Blunt secured the GOP nomination over Tea Party candidate Chuck Purgason. Four weeks later, Purgason still has not officially endorsed Blunt.

FL-GOV: Rick Scott defeated Bill McCollum on August 24 in one of the most bitter primaries of the year. McCollum has since refused to endorse Scott, saying instead that “I still have serious questions…about issues with his character, his integrity, his honesty.”

CA-GOV: The bad blood didn’t end after Meg Whitman trounced Steve Poizner on June 8. Whitman continued to attack Poizner on the radio, leading the latter to declare that Whitman “apparently hasn’t gotten the memo that the primary is over” because she is “still misrepresenting my track record.”

NV-GOV: Brian Sandoval toppled Gov. Jim Gibbons on June 8. Sandoval spokesman Mary Sarah confirmed to ThinkProgress that Gibbons has not endorsed Sandoval following the primary.

IA-GOV: Bob Vander Plaats lost a contentious campaign to former Gov. Terry Branstad on June 8. Then, after Vander Plaat’s supporters fell just short of usurping the lieutenant governor slot against Branstad’s wishes, Vander Plaat himself said that he will not endorse Branstad for governor.

SC-GOV: After Nikki Haley secured the GOP nomination on June 22, one of her primary opponents, Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, pointedly refused to show up for a unity rally.

NY-23: After Doug Hoffman drove RNC-endorsed Dede Scozzafava out of the 2009 special election because she wasn’t sufficiently conservative. Scozzafava proceeded not only to withhold an endorsement from Hoffman, but went even further and threw her support instead to Democrat Bill Owens.

SC-04: On June 22, Tea Party challenger Trey Gowdy defeated Rep. Bob Inglis 71 percent to 29 percent. Price Atkinson, a spokesman for Inglis, confirmed to ThinkProgress that Inglis has not endorsed Gowdy following the primary.

WA-03: Establishment candidate Jaime Herrera topped Tea Party candidate David Castillo on August 17. Afterward, Castillo would not endorse Herrera in the general election.

PA-04: On May 18, Tea Partier Keith Rothfus beat out GOP favorite Mary Beth Buchanan. ThinkProgress called Rothfus’s campaign, where a press contact who declined to give her name confirmed that Buchanan has not given an official endorsement.

IN-04: Todd Rokita defeated Brandt Hershman on May 4. Since then, Zach Zagar from the Rokita campaign confirmed to ThinkProgress that they “haven’t had any contact with Mr. Hershman’s campaign since the primary.”

KS-04: Mike Pompeo emerged out of a crowded field on August 3 but embittered himself with his primary rivals in the process. None of his three GOP opponents have endorsed his campaign.

FL-08: Daniel Webster emerged from a crowded GOP field on August 24. However, one of his top primary opponents, Kurt Kelly, was conspicuously absent at last night’s unity rally.

In the Washington Senate race, defeated Tea Party candidate still won't endorse Rossi, weeks after the primary, unless Rossi commits political suicide in this progressive state by declaring his allegiance to some very unpopular ideas in this state. In Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski still hasn't endorsed the primary winner, Joe Miller. Then there's the increasingly entertaining governor's race in Colorado, in which both the regular Republicans AND the Tea Party have abandoned the teabagger candidate Dan Maes.

None of which is to say that Dems aren't facing an extremely tough election. They are. But the disarray in American politics is definitely shared, and the Republicans have the scarier share of it. And if you think the primaries have been ugly on their side, wait until they're in power to see the real "brawls."

President Obama will reportedly announce tomorrow that he won't accept the extension of Bush-era cuts for top-rate taxpayers. From NYT:

It is not clear that Mr. Obama can prevail given his own diminished popularity, the tepid economic recovery and the divisions within his party. But by proposing to extend the rates for the 98 percent of households with income below $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals — and insisting that federal income tax rates in 2011 go back to their pre-2001 levels for income above those cutoffs — he intends to cast the issue as a choice between supporting the middle class or giving breaks to the wealthy.

In a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday, Mr. Obama will also make a case for the package of roughly $180 billion in expanded business tax cuts and infrastructure spending disclosed by the White House in bits and pieces over the past few days. He would offset the cost by closing other tax breaks for multinational corporations, oil and gas companies and others.

Tonight’s Senate snapshot shows Democrats gaining one seat from last Friday, rising from 50 to 51.

Notably, Democrats also dropped a seat in the non-Rasmussen Snapshot since the last time it was updated. This means that tonight, for the first time ever, the Rasmussen and non-Rasmussen snapshots have converged.

There are still some slight differences between the two snapshots, as you can see below. Still, the close similarities between the two snapshots serves as a warning to those who take comfort in dismissing some polls or polling firms, while embracing others. More often than not, rather than arguing with polls, the most accurate snapshot of where a campaign stands comes from just averaging all polls. (Although, admittedly, even I leave out some polls, such as the Columbus Dispatch poll, because it is conducted by mail.)

Senate Snapshot, September 7th
(With Rasmussen)

(Without Rasmussen)

Until the divergence between the Rasmussen and non-Rasmussen Snapshots reappears, I will only be producing and publishing the Snapshot with Rasmussen polling.

Now, to answer some of your questions.

Q. ShirleyG asks:

"Is "enthusiasm gap" included in polling snapshot?"

A. The answer is "mostly." The "enthusiasm gap" is more easily understood as the difference in a party’s performance between polls with registered voters, and polls with likely voters. At this point, roughly three-quarters of the polls used to produce the above averages are likely voter polls. So, while the entirety of the enthusiasm gap is not yet included in the snapshot, most of it already is.

Q. jj32 asks:

Why the difference in polling averages between Pollster.com and Real Clear Politics? For example, RCP for California Senate shows Boxer up by 4.3%. Yet Pollster shows Fiorina by 0.7, if I'm reading that correctly."

A. The answer is that Real Clear Politics only includes one poll, per polling firm, in their averages. Everyone else, including Pollster.com, fivethirtyeight, and myself, include multiple polls from the same polling firm when applicable. Personally, I think RCP is making a mistake by only including one poll per polling firm, and 2008 results back me up.

Q. thetadelta asks:

What specifically is the goal of the post - to get people off their couch and volunteer - or donate?

A. The goal of the Snapshot is to present as accurate a picture of where the 2010 Senate picture stands, as of the evening it is posted. That’s it. I believe that the best activism comes when you have the most accurate information possible.

Speaking of which, make sure to contribute to Jack Conway's moneybomb now. We are close to hitting 1,000 donors, more than twice our original goal. That is exactly the kind of energy we need to help gain ground, and play some offense in Kentucky.

Notes
--This is a snapshot, not a forecast. All of the odds presented here are based on if the election were held today. It is not a prediction of future trends.

--If a campaign isn't listed here, then it is not currently as close as any of the campaigns listed here.

--A * indicates that the candidate has a primary challenger, but is the favorite to win the nomination.

--All polls used in the averages are taken from Pollster.com.

--A complete description of the methodology behind this snapshot, along with all the research and a FAQ, can be found here.

Why, I wonder what's the matter with Republicans? Aren't they all confident and all, considering the current narrative that they're on track to win back the Congress and shut down the government? I can't imagine why Republican Steve May thinks he has to recruit homeless folks for the Green Party ticket in order to pull Democratic votes away, can you?

That's not all. Last week there was the Houston, Texas voter suppression schemes. This week it turns out True the Vote is building their case with doctored photos.

Compare and contrast:
enlargeOriginal photo
enlargeTrue the Vote's version, after alterations

If Republicans think they are the party with better ideas, why doctor photos to suppress voters? Let their ideas be tested fairly, or not at all. Yes, that was sarcasm. This is classic Republican behavior. Suppress the vote, put up fake candidates to siphon votes, whatever works. They will stop at nothing to subvert and corrupt democracy for their own ends.

Many e-mails from Chicago conservatives, falling into roughly three camps. 1) Yes, the conservatives you met with in Chicago were right: Daley has been a very good mayor: solid, sensible, reliable. We’ll miss him when he’s gone. 2) The conservatives you met must be on crack: Daley has been a terrible mayor: a massive overspender, a friend of corruption, a patsy for the unions. Good riddance. 3) Daley has been a flawed mayor -- nothing like we conservatives would order, if we could order one. But he’s as good as it gets -- as good as it gets in this town, in that position.

Thank you for your e-mails, spirited and opinionated (and well-informed) Chicagoans! Good luck with Rahm (if it’ll be Rahm). I hope he’ll be as tough on street criminals and bureaucratic crooks as he is on Republicans.

P.S. Would Chicago elect a Jewish mayor? As President Obama helpfully pointed out in the press recently, Emanuel’s middle name is “Israel.”

P.P.S. Hasn’t been a Republican mayor of Chicago since Hoover was president. But Bernie Epton came very close. Remember?

P.P.P.S. His son, Jeff Epton, was a leftist city councilman in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. (Have I been redundant? Are all Ann Arbor councilmen leftist? Don’t think so -- not quite sure.)

P.P.P.P.S. Jimmy Walker said, “I’d rather be a lamppost in New York than mayor of Chicago.” (Note to Chicagoans: It was him, not me! I’m from Michigan, remember -- closer to you. I like towns that toddle.)

According to CNN, two American soldiers apparently fell on some bullets today in Iraq. I say “fell on some bullets” because it’s not possible that the bullets which killed them were shot out of a gun at them on purpose, because that would indicate they died in combat. And as we all know, combat in Iraq is over because Obama said so. As CNN clearly indicates in their story, “More than 4,400 troops died in Iraq during the war[,]” which is clearly now a thing of the past.

I don’t want to really upset anybody, but the Iraq war has never been especially high on my list of issues, pro or con. I know that seems strange, but there it is. Also, I am smart enough to know that I know absolutely nothing about military strategy whatsoever.  Accordingly, I have no firm opinions about whether the war should be over, whether the drawdown is a good idea, whether current troop levels are adequate, or even whether we should have been in Iraq in the first place.

However, I do know bovine fecal matter when I step in it, which apparently places me two steps ahead of CNN when it comes to covering Barack Obama. I respectfully submit that if you believe combat operations are over in Iraq despite the continued presence of 50,000 American combat troops who are still, you know, involved in combat, you lack the discernment necessary to disinfect bowling shoes for a living, much less cover world news.  I have to give them credit; only the Obama administration would be so bold as to peddle such transparent propaganda. And only the American media would be so pliant as to mindlessly parrot it. And if you think CNN looks like a sucker in this article, wait until you see how embarrassed MSNBC should be below the fold.

Ultra right-winger Glenn Greenwald teed this particular story up with this masterful piece last Friday on MSNBC’s embarrassing and sycophantic coverage of the “end of combat” farce perpetrated by Obama and his administration. With thanks to the greatest sock puppeteer in history, I excerpt a lengthy portion of it here because Greenwalds make an important point:

It’s not difficult to understand why NBC and MSNBC hyped the event the way they did.  The reason they had what Olbermann touted as a “worldwide exclusive” is because — in response to NBC embed requests — the Pentagon contacted them and offered exclusivity, knowing that the arrangement would incentivize NBC to treat the event as something of monumental historic importance.  By selecting NBC as the only broadcast network to be told in advance, swearing them to secrecy, but arranging for them to cover it exclusively with video, it became their story, and they thus, predictably, were eager to tout its importance.  That’s the natural inclination when someone is given exclusive access by the Government.

** snip **

By offering it exclusively to both NBC and MSNBC, the Pentagon ensured that this narrative would be given the Seriousness imprimatur from NBC, and would produce base-pleasing, Obama-favorable praise from MSNBC personalities.  Having Engel embedded in a Stryker vehicles as it “rolled out” of Iraq, and Maddow stationed in the Green Zone, added to the historic tone of the evening.  As The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter reported:  ”David Verdi, an NBC News vice president, added, ‘The military had said, ‘You are the ones who are going to broadcast it first’.”  About that, Mediaite’s Steve Kraukauer wrote:  ”That?s a stunning admission, and shows a degree of coziness between both sides here.”  With this cooperative venture, the White House got exactly the coverage it wanted:  the repeatedly hyped claim that under Barack Obama, “American combat forces are leaving Iraq,” as Olbermann intoned at the start.

One of the few sour notes in this coverage came when Olbermann briefly interviewed McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay, and asked him what the 50,000 remaining soldiers would be doing.  Landay explained:

This is the great irony for me, Keith. The fact is that under the delusional plans that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had approved for the invasion of Iraq, they had intended to come down to 50,000 troops within three or four months of that invasion. . . . .That, for me, is the ultimate irony, is the fact that more than seven years later, we?ve now gotten down to the 50,000 troops that they thought they could get down to within three months of the invasion. . . . . [T]hose 50,000 men and women include special forces who will be going out on counter-terrorism missions with Iraqi forces. That, to me, is combat.  They’re armed. They’re going into combat.  There will be American, quote/unquote, advisers going out with Iraqi forces on regular patrols. That to me opens the door to combat.

So I don?t think we?re going to see the end of — we are not going to see the end of combat for American forces I don?t think in Iraq.

The 50,000 troops staying in Iraq were noted several times by the various MSNBC commentators, especially Maddow, but, other than the Landay interview, it did not detract from the repetitious claim that — to use Brian Williams’ formulation — “U.S. combat troops have pulled out of Iraq.”  This, of course, was the same message touted in Barack Obama’s Oval Office address to the nation on Wednesday night:  

So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.

Yea, verily. Obama promised the most sycophantic “news” network in history exclusive access to a facially farcical news event and, as expected, the dupes delivered exactly the story he wanted. Exactly how did it not occur to someone - anyone - at the brain trust over there to ask, “Wait a minute. How is this the end of combat if 50,000 combat troops are still there engaged in combat?”

The question seems to have at least occurred to someone at CNN today when they were forced to cover the fact that American soldiers are still mysteriously dying in Iraq. They voluntarily offered President Obama a fig leaf, pointing out that “SEE? He told us this was coming. No reason to be alarmed.”

President Barack Obama said last week that “violence will not end with our combat mission.”

“Extremists will continue to set off bombs, attack Iraqi civilians and try to spark sectarian strife. But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals,” he said in a speech from the Oval Office on August 31.

Well, there you go. No reason to think Obama was overpromising, right?

Hey, you remember that “Mission Accomplished” speech that Bush gave on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln? The one that was repeatedly and immediately pillioried by the American media as being a staged event built on a false promise? Just for kicks and giggles, let’s see if Bush said anything similar to what Obama said in his speech:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. . . We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. . . Our mission continues. Al-Qaida is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we.

Huh. Seems Bush was plenty clear that the violence wasn’t over after all. Of course, you’d never know that from listening to the American media, who immediately rushed out to claim that Bush had falsely promised sunshine and roses from this day forward in Iraq.  Obama makes a much larger (and more manifestly false) claim hedged by less clear statements, and the media’s incredulity meter barely registers a tick.

However, in a sign that even the friendliest of audiences have a limit to the amount of offal they are willing to swallow, Greenwald notes that the AP (the AP!!) has flat-out refused to recapitulate the “end of combat” propaganda being sold by the Administration:

Whatever the subject, we should be correct and consistent in our description of what the situation in Iraq is. This guidance summarizes the situation and suggests wording to use and avoid.

To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and al-Qaida insurgents.  . . . .

As for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in the conflict in Iraq is over. President Obama said Monday night that “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.”

However, 50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on.

In addition, although administration spokesmen say we are now at the tail end of American involvement and all troops will be gone by the end of 2011, there is no guarantee that this will be the case.

Our stories about Iraq should make clear that U.S. troops remain involved in combat operations alongside Iraqi forces, although U.S. officials say the American combat mission has formally ended. We can also say the United States has ended its major combat role in Iraq, or that it has transferred military authority to Iraqi forces. We can add that beyond U.S. boots on the ground, Iraq is expected to need U.S. air power and other military support for years to control its own air space and to deter possible attack from abroad.

Fellow travelers, we should not underestimate the significance of this event. A major legacy news organization has issued an internal memorandum that Obama’s lies are not to be treated with more dignity than they deserve. Clearly, MSNBC will be content to play Mouth of Sauron until the day Obama leaves office, but this point - the point at which, less than two years into his presidency, the American media began to turn on a Democrat President - may spell the beginning of the end for Obama, even more than his sagging poll numbers have heretofore indicated.

I waded into the debate a couple of days ago.

New Colorado polling gives incumbent Dem Sen. Michael Bennet a slim lead over Ken Buck.

A new poll [pdf] from Public Opinion Strategies and FM3 Research shows Democrat Michael Bennet slightly ahead of Republican challenger Ken Buck 43-40.

The poll, which was conducted August 28 - September 1, showed widespread discontent with both political parties, with the Libertarian candidate garnering an unusually high 5% of the vote.

The poll also found a significant gender gap. Bennet led among women by 15 points, while Buck was leading by 9 points among men.

That gender gap couldn't have anything to do with Buck's sense of "humor" and the "joke" he made about why Republicans should pick him over primary opponent Jane Norton, now could it? Buck's got that, and a lot more, that he's desperately running away from. First he ditched his good friend Dan Maes when Maes's truth deficiency over his resume appeared. Now HuffPo has discovered that he's scrubbing his Web site, a la Sharon Angle, to tone down the crazy on issues from Afghanistan to abortion to immigration.

So he no longer wants a Constitutional amendment to ban abortion, but he's still opposed to it in every case except the life of the mother (yes, that includes no abortion in the case of rape or incest). And he's stopped calling for "sealing our borders to illegal traffic, both north and south and at our ports," and now talks about "making sure immigrants aren't 'forced into the shadows of our society.'" In other words, a kind, gentler brand of wingnut.

Given the tight timeframe for getting anything accomplished in the Senate between now and November 2, as well as determined Republican opposition, a recess appointment for Elizabeth Warren makes good sense.

Highlighting the progressive angst about Obama's general unwillingness to exercise his recess appointment power are new website ads, produced by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, pressuring him to give Elizabeth Warren the top slot at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

PCCC has partnered with Credo mobile to petition the White House to let Warren head the CFPB.

Warren is the most high-profile candidate for a recess appointment, but Obama has a much broader problem: he's nominated scores of people to important positions in the government who have languished for weeks or months -- either because the Senate calendar too full or because the GOP is recalcitrant to allow them to be confirmed (or both).

All of the pending appointments that Republicans are blocking are important, but this is a key one. It would not only energize the progressive base, but it would also help the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau get off the ground quickly to have strong leadership at the helm immediately.

Click here to view this media

Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself saying... thank you Ali Velshi! He's absolutely correct here and the working class and the unemployed in America are not a "special interest group" as RNC Communications Director Doug Heye called them earlier in this segment on CNN's Rick List, following President Obama's barn burner of a speech he gave for Labor Day. He also did a nice job of knocking back his talking points on small businesses feeling "squeezed" by Obama's policies and not hiring because of "unpredictability" on government policy.

SANCHEZ: Ali, what did you see? And, you know, you look at the economic side of this. There are some new numbers out today that seem to show that more and more Americans are taking jobs that they don't necessarily want, but you know what? Any port in a storm, buddy.

ALI VELSHI: That is exactly right.

SANCHEZ: Sometimes you don't get the job you want. You get the job you can get at the time.

So, the president is pushing on special interests, seeming to be blaming corporatists for keeping Americans from those jobs. That's what I heard. Is he right?

VELSHI: Let me just give you a little perspective.

Doug said something that I think needs to be challenged here. There are special interests in this group. There's no question. And everybody caters to them. Working men and women of America and those 14 million who are not working who would like to be, they are not a special interest group.

You want GDP to go up? People have to have jobs. You want to stop foreclosing on homes? People have to have jobs. So to say that the president talking to working people is pandering to a special interest is quite remarkable to me.

Now, back to the point, the fact is you're right. This was a campaign -- this was a president on fire. This was a president who was back into campaign mode. But the reality is there is an anger out there that we have seen in our polling that indicates that people feel that not enough is being done and this is an urgent situation in the economy. And I think it is better that we all treat it that way and that's the kind of conversation we're going to have.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Hey, Ali, you mind -- since you kind of challenged Doug there a little bit, you mind if we bring Doug in to let him respond?

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Absolutely. I would be happy to. I think he makes a lot of sense on a lot of things, but we do not call workers in this country -- we do not call workers in this country special interests, Doug. You need to learn that.

DOUG HEYE: Well, no. Absolutely. People who work, who drive the economy -- small business is the engine that drives this economy.

VELSHI: Absolutely right.

HEYE: That's why it was interesting to say that "The Washington Post" today had a story that said small businesses feel squeezed by Obama policies.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Small businesses are squeezed because they can't get loans from private banks.

HEYE: But loans have not driven jobs yet.

Look, I was the former -- I'm former press secretary to the Small Business Administration. I know how important our 7(a) loan program is. I know how important contracts and access to capital is. These are critical for business, no question about it.

So is predictability. So are low tax rates. So are fiscal policies that don't squeeze our credit.

VELSHI: Doug, how many businesses do you know that don't make decisions to hire people because they're concerned about government policy? That is a big business problem. It's not a mom and pop shop problem. They want credit.

HEYE: No. You can talk to small businesses throughout this country...

VELSHI: I do, Doug.

HEYE: ... that have laid off people because of the health care bill that the president and this Congress has passed.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: But that's not unpredictable, Doug.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: ... predictable. We have a bill. We know what it is. That's not unpredictable at all. There is one thing that is very predictable. We have health care in this country now.

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: Well, and we did predict that.

And look, you want to find out really where this country is going? You don't have to listen to Republicans. You listen to Democrats like Joe Donnelly, who is running ads against President Obama. Mike McIntyre from my home state of North Carolina, he is running ads against Obama.

Bobby Bright in Alabama, another Democrat, suggested that Nancy Pelosi might die. OK, we want to talk about personal politics? They're coming from Democrats. They're aimed at President Obama because they don't want him campaigning for them.

It's probably why you saw Russ Feingold not stand with the president today.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Doug, before we finish this conversation, explain to us, because you have used this word very personal several times now. Do you believe that this speech that the president gave today was over the top?

HEYE: Well, it was exactly what we expect. So I don't know that it would be over the top. It's obviously unfortunate language...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Well, but you said he was too personal.

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: ... and shows exactly how desperate the Democrats are.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: OK. Was it too personal? Was this president unfair to Republicans during this speech? Was he too personal in the way he conveyed his message?

HEYE: Well, I think the veiled references to John Boehner were certainly beneath the office of the presidency.

But, look, the important thing is that we build jobs and create this economy. This administration has not shown that it has any clue how to do so. And that's what voters are going to be voting on in November. That's really what's important. It's why you're seeing so many Democrats fleeing from this president.

SANCHEZ: Good stuff.

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: And, again, if the president wants to talk about what Republicans are doing, he should talk about what Democrats in his own party are doing.

SANCHEZ: Thanks, Doug. Good stuff.

Ali, thanks so much for joining him.

VELSHI: Thank you.

The Washington Times lead editorial today is about the Justice Department enabling voter fraud -- just in time for the November elections. This is due to the Department’s refusal to enforce the part of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act that requires states to remove ineligible voters from their registration rolls -- people who have died or moved away, and felons who have not yet had their voting rights restored. The longer such names remain on a registration list, the greater the chances that a fraudulent vote will be cast in their names.

I reported in 2009 that the Obama administration had dismissed without explanation a lawsuit filed against Missouri Democratic secretary of state Robin Carnahan during the Bush administration over her failure to comply with this provision of the NVRA. This happened only a month after Carnahan announced she was running for the Senate. Besides the obvious political motivations, I know from sources inside the Civil Rights Division that the Obama political appointees have no intention of enforcing this provision. Former Voting Section lawyer Christian Adams confirmed this when he testified this summer before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Julie Fernandes told Voting Section staffers that the administration had “no interest in enforcing this provision of the law.”

Now that he is back in private practice, Adams has sent a series of warning letters to 16 states in obvious violation of the law. Justice should be suing them, but since they will not, Adams is taking advantage of the fact that there is a private right of action under the NVRA.

Adams’s letters are based in part on a report filed with Congress by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in June 2009 on the impact of the NVRA. It includes voter-registration statistics from the states for 2006–2008. This data shows some amazing results. For example, Adams says, there must be a fountain of youth in states such as Maryland, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Tennessee: None of them removed a single dead voter during that two-year reporting period. Many counties in states such as Alabama and Rhode Island also show a similar miracle -- no voters were removed from their voter rolls for having died. If you have any ailing family members, these are obviously the states they should move to quickly. There are also several states -- South Dakota, Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, and Indiana among them -- with more registered voters than (according to the Census) people of voting age.

When I was in the Civil Rights Division, we actually investigated this problem and filed lawsuits against several states to enforce this provision of the NVRA  For trying to enforce federal law, we were labeled as “vote suppressors.” No, we just wanted to fairly enforce the law that Congress had passed, something the Clinton administration had failed to do. It did not file a single lawsuit in eight years to enforce this provision.

Hopefully, Adams will succeed in forcing these states to comply with federal law. It’s too bad that a private citizen has to carry out the responsibility of the Justice Department because it has failed to do so and, in fact, refuses to do so for ideological and political reasons that have nothing to do with the impartial administration of justice.

From AFSCME, a $1.5 million television, radio and web ad campaign:

IT’S PRETTY SIMPLE.

WHILE DEMOCRATS PUSHED THROUGH A JOBS BILL THAT KEPT THE DOORS OPEN AT LOCAL SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS AND SENIOR CENTERS, REPUBLICANS VOTED TO LAY OFF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS.

WHILE DEMOCRATS LOOKED OUT FOR US, PAYING FOR THIS BILL BY ELIMINATING CORPORATE LOOPHOLES, REPUBLICANS LOOKED OUT FOR CEOs WHO SHIPPED JOBS OVERSEAS.

IT’S A CLEAR CHOICE THIS NOVEMBER. EITHER WE OPEN DOORS TO A BETTER FUTURE, OR WE SLAM THE DOOR IN ITS FACE.

Former budget director Peter Orszag thinks the Bush tax cuts should be extended for two more years. I think he should pound sand.

Here's an excerpt (PDF) from President Obama's campaign literature in 2007-2008:

Restore Fiscal Discipline to Washington

[...]
Reverse Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy: Obama will protect tax cuts for poor and middle class families, but he will reverse most of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers.

Nowhere in that literature does it say anything about extending tax cuts because Republicans aren't playing nice and are sticking their back ends in the President's face. Nowhere. Up till now, Obama has kept the majority of his campaign promises, even if they do not look exactly like we thought they should.

So along comes Peter Orszag, former White House budget director, with this little bomb:

In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.

Not so much. This is the difference between how an accountant looks at things and how people look at them. I would gladly give up whatever piece of tax cuts would be coming to me to see the wealthy folks taxed at a reasonable rate.

Orszag can come up with all the reasonable arguments that accountants and economists make routinely, but nothing will change the fact that there was a promise made in 2007-2008. We all know Republicans won't make a whit of difference in the end anyway, since they have made it clear they won't play on any field at any time no matter how much is extended their way.

Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt. And since financial markets don?t seem at the moment to view the budget deficit as a problem ? take a look at the remarkably low 10-year Treasury bond yield ? there is little reason not to extend the tax cuts temporarily.

Yes, there's a real big reason not to; namely, it would be a broken promise that would appear to me to be nothing more than giving into the schoolyard bullies. Perhaps we could hand over our lunch money, too, and while we're at it, would we also like to let them raise the Social Security retirement age to 75 and let oil companies sit at the right hand of the President?

This is not a cut-and-dried issue. This is emotional. From my perspective, what the Bush tax cuts got me was no economic growth for the last decade and multiple threats to my future security. I see absolutely no reason to budge on this. None.

Fortunately, Mr. Orszag is no longer the White House budget director. I hope that means he and the President don't see eye to eye on this particular question and he's looking for a pickup by one of those rich dudes who don't pay much in taxes.