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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

A new poll for the DSCC by the Democratic firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates shows incumbent Dem Senator Patty Murray with a five point lead over Republican Dino Rossi, 50-45.

The significant factors:

The Survey also found the three-term Senator with impressive job approval and favorable numbers: 53 percent of those surveyed approved of the job she is doing in the Senate, while 55 percent held a favorable opinion of her. That's higher than the 47 percent that see Rossi in a favorable light.

Rossi is well known and not well liked in the state. That's not going to change so there isn't going to be much opportunity for the undecideds to be swayed his way. Moderates don't like him, and he still hasn't consolidated Republicans, with tea party candiate Clint Didier still refusing to endorse unless Rossi goes hard right. It's going to be all about turnout in this one, and Murray is going to have to keep reminding the Democratic base that there's a reason to turn out to beat Dino Rossi a third time.

This is really not acceptable.

As the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) battles to keep ahead of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), a handful of Democrats who are either in solidly safe seats or retiring have yet to pay their dues to the House fundraising arm -- funds that would go toward boosting the election chances of their vulnerable colleagues.

The Huffington Post obtained the dues sheets for several of these House members. In total, they owe $2,134,509 in unpaid dues to the DCCC. All members, except Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), have enough cash on hand to cover the balance. Individually, they owe anywhere between $45,000 and $250,000.

For the majority of these guys (and most of them are men) it's not an issue of not having the cash on hand. Most of them have at least enough to pay a portion of their dues. Some of them might have valid opposition:

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told the Huffington Post's Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney earlier this year that strong progressives don't always get enough backing from the party committees. "When I give my dues to the DCCC, or when you contribute to it, you have no distinction as to where your money is going to go," he said. "And it goes to front-liners and usually Blue Dogs, and [they] usually vote against our issues. And that's a real frustration. And usually, if there's a progressive running, it's the last consideration in terms of support."

That's where the netroots can help. We can give to individual progressive candidates, rather than to the DCCC. And on the topic of giving to the DCCC, why should individual donors give if actual Dem Members won't? These guys need to pony up. After all, they've got jobs--they can afford it.

Click here to view this media

As predicted by Steve Benen, here's the AC360 panel discussing the midterm elections, and one David Gergen claiming that President Obama isn't going to be able to get his "liberal agenda" passed now and that he's going to have to "come to the middle" if the Republicans take back the Congress. Sorry David, but President Obama already "came to the middle", in fact he unfortunately started there with way too many of the bills he either got passed or attempted to get passed and all he got in return was Republican obstruction.

Apparently Gergen and thinks that "coming to the middle" means passing a Republican agenda.

COOPER: Ed and David, you both have seen in White Houses, you know, a president who, going into midterm elections, faced a tough battle. And different presidents react differently: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton. How do you think -- if the House goes back to Republican -- David, let's start with you -- how do you think that affects President Obama? How -- what changes?

GERGEN: Well, in the first place, he's not going to be able to get his liberal agenda through. That's just -- that's going to be finished.

And -- but the question is whether he's going to come to the middle and whether Republicans will do that, and we can actually get some real progress, not only on jobs, but on the deficits. I think it could be -- it could be serious gridlock, or we could go the other way. I don't think we know the answer to that yet.

I do think, if he demonizes John Boehner, to go back to the point just made, I think it could become harder to work with him.

I'd love for David Gergen to explain how John Boehner could be any harder to work with than he has been already. The President needs to do more of and not less of what he did during his Labor Day speech with calling out the GOP for their obstruction, no matter what the talking heads like the ones on this panel had to say. And John Ridley, you should be ashamed of yourself for saying you'd like to give the Republicans a chance to show what they stand for, like you don't know already. What ought to be nerve-wracking for you is what happens to our economy if the Republicans are allowed to put any fixes on hold for the next two years.

Full transcript via CNN below the fold.

COOPER: Well, continuing our political conversation, you have heard the phrase pick your poison. Well, new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation polling shows that 49 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Democrats, and 49 percent have the same view of Republicans.

Yet, when it comes to actually voting, that same polling suggests that people are choosing between the two, and choosing Republican. By a seven-point margin, 52 percent to 45 percent, Americans say they prefer a Republican to a Democrat in their congressional district. The Republican margin is bigger, nearly 2-1, among independents.

Back with our panel, John King, David Gergen, John Ridley, and Ed Rollins.

John Ridley, a lot of Democrats have said, you know, that some of the Tea Party candidates the GOP has nominated this year are going to put a lot of races Democrats back in play for the Democrats, but is that just wishful thinking on their part?

JOHN RIDLEY, FILM DIRECTOR/ACTOR/WRITER: I think it will put some back in play.

You can certainly see in Nevada, where Harry Reid and Sharron Angle -- you know, Harry Reid was dead, buried and gone. And now he has got an opportunity. I -- I don't think that the Democrats can assume that every one of these races is going to be able to be put on: Look, they're the extreme, and -- and you can't vote for these individuals.

Clearly, the numbers you -- you read, Anderson, people are frustrated, and people are angry. They don't like either party. They have tried the Democrats for a while. They're going back to the Republicans, which is actually the problem with a two-party system. You don't have much of a place to go.

COOPER: John King, I mean, the president is on this now big push all this week about jobs. He spoke today. We're going to play some of that in just a moment.

But, you know, one CNN poll, people seem to blame Republicans over Democrats for our current economic problems, but, despite that, there's this seven-point Republicans have in congressional races. KING: Well, that's because the Democrats are in charge. And, when you're frustrated, you take it out on the party in power. And the president's power almost always historically suffers in the midterm election, especially the first one.

The president is a Democrat right now. The Democrats have run Congress for the past few years, so they're in charge. And you're right. The number blaming the Republicans, the percentage, has gone up a little bit, which would suggest that all those Democratic ads around the country that people are starting to see and the president's message might be breaking through a little bit.

But the troubling news for the Democrats, Anderson, is the Democratic number for blame has gone up some, too. It's pretty clear the American people blame both parties for the economic mess, maybe the Republicans a little bit more, but there are a lot more Democratic incumbents on the ballot in eight weeks. And history tells you the party in power gets punished.

COOPER: You know, David, it's interesting. You look back, Democrats are in even worse shape politically now than they were at the beginning of the summer. Were -- were -- do you think things were always going to be this bad, given the economy, or were there missed opportunities, politically speaking, for -- for Democrats?

GERGEN: It's -- it's -- it's odd, Anderson. In the last two summers, the Democrats have lost control of the national message over the summer.

They did it last year with the -- with the town halls in the health care debate. And now this year, they have lost control of the -- of the -- of the argument over the economy. And that's why you see Democrats now starting to localize races, instead of making national arguments, in many of these races, while the Republicans want to nationalize this.

But I think that, overall, the Democrats have lost ground over the last 60 days. You take -- you -- you go back to the Tea Party, Rand Paul in West Virginia, you know, we thought at one time that maybe he would be in trouble. He's opened up a double-digit lead there as a Tea Party candidate.

COOPER: And that's another great example of not talking. After he gave that, you know, controversial interview, I think, to Rachel Maddow, he kind of -- there was suddenly radio silence from him.

ROLLINS: Well, he -- he learned. And every one of these Tea Party candidates have basically taken a lead. The only one that's in a real race is -- is Angle. And she was the flakiest of them all, she's basically almost dead-even with Reid.

The bottom line here is whose side turns out. And I know the issue, that the Democrats have pushed the health care, they pushed an $850 billion deficit. Both of those are very unpopular. And people don't think they have worked. So, if you have got a choice between someone who you are not sure of and someone who you are sure is going to basically make your situation worse for you and your kids and going to raise your taxes, then you're going to vote for the Republican.

COOPER: I just want to play something that President Obama said today in a speech targeting or talking about John Boehner. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the Republican who -- who thinks he's going to take over as speaker...

(LAUGHTER)

(BOOING)

OBAMA: I'm just saying, that's his opinion.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: He's entitled to his opinion, as -- but -- but -- but, when he was asked about this, he dismissed those jobs as government jobs that weren't worth saving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: John King, does it make sense for President Obama to be talking about John Boehner?

KING: It makes sense for President Obama to be talking about John Boehner if he sees evidence -- and he has plenty of it, Anderson -- that his side is not motivated, his side is not energized.

So, he's trying to raise the stakes for those union workers right behind him. I was looking at some polling data tonight that says 33 percent, one-third, of union households plan to vote Republican for Congress this year.

If that happens, that's recreating -- ask Ed Rollins about the old Reagan Democrats. Those are blue-collar workers in the 1980s who decided their party had become too liberal. It was wasting their tax dollars through spending too much money.

If that happens to this president this year, if 33 percent of union households vote Republican for Congress, then John Boehner will be the next speaker of the House.

ROLLINS: John Boehner is not known by the country. So the president raises and elevates him and tries to make him a bogeyman. And what the president has done basically was going to be above partisanship, has become the ultimate partisan. And I promise you over the next eight weeks, his own negatives are going to get higher, and he will diminish himself and diminish his party.

COOPER: Ed and David, you both have seen in White Houses, you know, a president who, going into midterm elections, faced a tough battle. And different presidents react differently: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton. How do you think -- if the House goes back to Republican -- David, let's start with you -- how do you think that affects President Obama? How -- what changes?

GERGEN: Well, in the first place, he's not going to be able to get his liberal agenda through. That's just -- that's going to be finished.

And -- but the question is whether he's going to come to the middle and whether Republicans will do that, and we can actually get some real progress, not only on jobs, but on the deficits. I think it could be -- it could be serious gridlock, or we could go the other way. I don't think we know the answer to that yet.

I do think, if he demonizes John Boehner, to go back to the point just made, I think it could become harder to work with him.

COOPER: John Ridley, you had said before that this -- I mean, it could make President Obama kind of go back to the center?

RIDLEY: Well, I think it has to make him go back to center. I agree with David on that. And I also agree that, look, there's a possibility there's going to be a real narrow margin, a real even split between the House and Senate, post- midterm. I can't see anything but gridlock going on. I mean, these are groups that don't get along. They've been fighting. There's a lot of fight ahead about what to do with this economy.

And quite frankly, I'd almost rather see more of a Republican majority, to give them an opportunity to do what they're going to do, make President Obama the arbitrator with the veto, and see where the country goes. But a narrow majority, that's a little nerve-wracking for me, personally.

COOPER: All right. We've got to leave it there, actually.

Ed, I'm sorry.

John King, David Gergen, Ed Rollins, thank you. John Ridley, as well. We'll obviously continue this as our political coverage continues all the way through to the midterms.

This is what resistance to the Catfood Commission should look like.

There have been repeated government efforts in the past to slash French workers' pensions.  They have repeatedly been defeated with mass mobilizations playing a key role.  Now, the finance-induced Great Recession is being used to back the most serious effort ever to roll back French workers' benefits.  Workers are not taking it lying down.

Businessweek reports:

French Unions Strike as Sarkozy Pension Debate Starts
September 07, 2010, 12:17 PM EDT
By Gregory Viscusi

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- French unions struck nationwide as lawmakers began debating President Nicolas Sarkozy's bill to raise the retirement age.

Transport workers walked off the job last night, and most schools, post offices and government offices were closed today. A total of 1.12 million people marched in protests in 137 cities across the country, the Interior Ministry said, while the CFDT union put the number at 2.5 million.

Sarkozy has vowed not to compromise on the key plank of his pension proposals, which would lift the retirement age to 62 from 60. The bid to shore up the retirement system may calm bond investors and rating services in the wake of Europe's sovereign debt crisis....

Under the bill parliament is considering, the age at which full benefits can be tapped will rise to 67 from 65. The government has said it's willing to negotiate over allowing earlier retirement for some hardship jobs and for people who began their careers as teenagers. Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement has a 101-seat majority in the 577-member lower house....

Taxes Sought

Unions and the Socialists say taxes on capital and on high earners should be increased.

"Sarkozy cannot force people to work longer, making them pay more, while having a tax policy that favors the well-off," said Jean-Luc Combe, a 55-year-old civil servant in a Paris suburb, marching in the capital. "If the pensions system needs more funds, he cannot only force workers to pay more. It's unfair, he should also tax capital. He did not negotiate this, he imposed it."

On June 24, the last strike against the pension reforms, unions estimated 2 million protesters while the police said they counted 800,000.

The scope of the strike was impressive, particularly its impact on the transportation sector:


'Biggest Mobilization'

"This is the biggest mobilization in years and Sarkozy must take note of it," Francois Chereque, the head of Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail union, said in an interview with i-Tele television during the Paris march.

The Paris metro said one of 14 lines ran normally and eight had at least one in two trains operating, with the remaining five lines running one train out of three. On the RER commuter network, line "A" had one train in two, while line "B," which connects the airports to downtown, was virtually shut.

Just under half of the high-speed trains between Paris and provincial cities ran, the state rail network said. Eurostar to London and Thalys to Brussels ran normally. Two out of five trains to Frankfurt operated, while Geneva runs were at half service. There was no service to Italy and Spain, and night trains in France tonight were cancelled.

Trains, Planes

The SNCF, the state railroad system, said 43 percent of its workers were on strike as of 11 a.m.

France's civil aviation authority, the DGAC, ordered airlines to cut flights in and out of the two main Paris airports by 25 percent.
Air France, the country's largest airline, said all its long-haul flights operated, along with and 90 percent of the short-and medium-haul flights from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport and 50 percent from Orly, according to its website.

The Labor Ministry said in a statement that 27 percent of civil servants struck. Among teachers, strikers totalled 28 percent.

I'll say it again: This is what resistance to the Catfood Commission should look like.

"People always underestimate Alaska," says Sen. Mark Begich.

Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) didn't need to be asked -- when it was clear Joe Miller would be the Republican Senate nominee, he picked up the phone and started raising money for Scott McAdams. While Democratic staffers are heading to Alaska, the national party hasn't paid McAdams much attention -- yet....

When Begich jumped into the race to unseat a longtime senator in 2008, the line from national Democrats was, "Alaska? Good luck with that," Begich told TPM in an interview. In fact, all signs pointed to him losing on election night two years ago. "The establishment always says it's a state that can't be won, and when I lost election night we were written off," Begich said. But after all the votes were counted, Begich was the next senator from Alaska....

"McAdams is authentic and as a former mayor, well, with all due respect to my friends in the Senate, we don't need any more lawyers in the Senate," Begich said. Miller is a lawyer who has never held public office.

McAdams definitely has work to do to get his campaign fully up to steam after his opponent's surprise primary win over incumbent Lisa Murkowski. He had a rough interview with RealClearPolitics in which he was hesitant to jump in to some policy issues.

On the other hand, you've got Joe Miller who should maybe be showing a bit of hesitation before spouting off his extreme positions: that Obama is leading America into socialism, that all power has to be returned to the states, that Social Security should be abolished, just for starting positions. Makes McAdams' reticence to spout off uninformed policy positions look downright professional.

enlargeMegan Wright committed suicide after an alleged gang rape.

I really wish that more media outlets stressed the biggest risk factor behind many college rapes: Alcohol. Students away from home for the first time, pushing alcohol consumption far beyond safe limits (an ER nurse at the University of Penn's ER told me students are regularly dumped at the front door with acute alcohol poisoning) are impairing their own judgment -- and trusting in other people whose judgment is also impaired.

That's why college rapes are such a big problem:

As college students gear up once again to taste the sweet freedom of the college campus, there's one thing they're not likely not focusing on: the probability that one out of four female college students will be raped before receiving a diploma.

A recent study from the Department of Justice estimated that 25 percent of college women will be victims of rape or attempted rape before they graduate within a four-year college period, and that women between the ages of 16 to 24 will experience rape at a rate that's four times higher than the assault rate of all women.

Such was seemingly the case of Megan Wright, a 19-year-old from New Jersey. Wright was wrapping up her freshman year in May 2006 at Dominican College, a small Catholic school in Orangeburg, N.Y., about an hour away from New York City, when she was allegedly gang raped on its campus. She committed suicide before the year ended.

Her mother, Cindy McGrath, is suing Dominican, claiming that the college failed to conduct a proper investigation into her daughter's assault, and thereby violated Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which guarantees equal access to education.

The lawsuit also alleges that Dominican violated the law by not accurately disclosing the number of sexual assaults reported on its campus.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who has represented parties in several high-profile discrimination cases, is representing McGrath.

"A victim who reports a sexual assault to a college, which is receiving federal funds, has a right to expect, under the law, that that college will conduct a fair, thorough investigation," Allred said. "We take very seriously a college's duty, and we want it enforced, and when they violate it there are real consequences."

A good start at preventing these crimes would be to crack down on the underage drinking.

But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

Of course, Rauf is one of the most prominent clerics who has denounced Islam being used in the name of violence and tried to foster tolerance and understanding. If anything, he's one of the Western clerics Al Qaeda can't stand. But that doesn't matter to Peretz, since "these people" smacks of Ross Perot's "you people" at the 1992 NAACP Convention and many other broad-brush characterizations that leads to intolerance and prejudice. And what really gets me about comments like this, as Into The Woods notes, is that they feed into the perception that the U.S. is waging a war on Islam itself. This morning I saw that Gen. Petraeus urged members of a Florida church not to go forward with plans to burn copies of the Koran, arguing it would endanger U.S. troops, as did the White House:

"It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems," Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

The White House also condemned the Florida church's plan, with press secretary Robert Gibbs reiterating Petraeus's contention that U.S. forces could be put in harm's way as a result. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the proposed demonstration "un-American" and said it was "inconsistent with the values of religious tolerance and religious freedom."

Peretz's prejudice is along those same lines, and gets to what I always thought is the strongest argument against opposition to Park51- the perception it creates, that we in the United States are beholden to prejudice.

But then, this is the same Peretz who admitted to prejudice earlier this year:

Frankly, I couldn't quite imagine any venture requiring trust with Arabs turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

You have probably heard by now that Democrats are doomed--DOOOOMED!--in the upcoming midterm elections. Our best move is probably to surrender to our new tea party overlords, who might just show some mercy if we bow down low enough. In fact, if we kowtow today, maybe we will even get to keep a constitutional amendment or two!

To put it bluntly, f*ck that. Instead of cowering, we are going to attack.

We are going to make Republicans defend their Senate seat in Kentucky, where Orange to Blue candidate Jack Conway is competitive with tea party favorite Rand Paul. Today, Conway is holding a moneybomb, and Daily Kos is helping out by looking for 500 members of the community to contribute $10 to his campaign.

You can join in by contributing $10, and making the tea party play some defense for once.

We are better off on the attack. Every dollar we force Republicans to spend playing defense is a dollar they won’t be able to spend trying to defeat incumbent Democrats. Further, every tea party candidate we defeat is a blow to the media narrative that the far right is taking over. And if Conway can win this race, in Kentucky, in a tough year for Democrats, it'll send a message that voters want a government that works for them.

Kentucky is one of a small number of states where Democrats have a legitimate shot at picking up a Republican held seat. We need to hit seats like these as hard as we can in order to keep Republicans on the defensive. So play some offense today, and contribute $10 to Jack Conway. It will feel a lot better than just playing defense all the time.

This is true:

The 2012 presidential race will begin Nov. 3, the day after this fall's congressional election.

For the Dems:

The other, predictable question about Democratic strategy in 2012 is whether the president will dump his vice president from the ticket—in this case, dropping Joe Biden in favor of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But this is a recurring parlor game, and usually turns out to be a silly one.

First, I'm not 100% convinced that Obama will run again in 2012. If '10 happens like we now think, having a Republican-controlled Congress would open that question in his mind. Second, Clinton isn't who he would want there. Someone like Bloomberg makes much more sense as VP (not saying it doesn't have baggage just that its who he'd want). Third, the idea that somone is going to challenge Obama is still quite far-fetched.

For the GOP. Here's how I would rank the current GOP (with an eye toward Iowa):

Romney-- Frontrunner, but healthcare in MA is going to put him on the defensive too much. He should skip Iowa. Could be like Kerry in '04 and McCain in '08, and fade away alot only to resurface.

Gignrich-- Gonna get a lot of flirtation from voters. Big potential for leading in early polls. But not seen as electable. Fades in the end.

Palin-- Most likely to pull a Cuomo and not run, teasing it out, until the end.

Huckabee-- Not building anything, not the darkhorse, no momentum. All translates into not running.

Pawlenty-- Darkhorse status, good midwestern.Very good odds to win Iowa if Romney skips and Huckabee doesn't run.

Santorum-- I cannot believe this is possible. I guess if Huckabee, Beck and Palin don't run, Theocons have to have somewhere to go in Iowa.

Thune-- He voted for TARP. That's going to be an achilles heel if he starts out.

Daniels-- When I saw Daniels referred to as "diminutive" in the article above, it brought to mind the early criticism of Dean. In the small settings of Iowa caucuses, Daniels is going to do very well.

Johnson-- Not mentioned in the article, but if Ron Paul doesn't win, then Johnson has the anti-war, pro-pot, libertarian voters as a base; plus a lot of potential soft Dem/Indy crossover appeal in caucuses.

Mr Millionaire-- They've dropped in quite successfully in a number of GOP primaries this cycle. Businessman not part of the political establishment. I would look for someone to do this in Iowa and could be pretty successful in getting wildfire-like support.

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I thought Fox News was bad until I had the unfortunate circumstance of turning on the Fox Business Channel this Labor Day weekend and catching some of Eric Bolling's Money Rocks show on that network. Apparently the highly trained investigative reporters working for his show managed to find three union workers sleeping on the job working for the New York MTA and they're really not happy that some of them made too much overtime for the year.

I would argue that maybe if some of them weren't working that much overtime, and they hired enough workers to fill those positions and cover all the shifts, maybe those evil union workers would not be falling asleep on the job since they would not be dead tired. Given the numbers they laid out here, I'm surprised it is only three of them they found falling asleep.

And since when is it the worker's fault that they are under staffed and they have the need to be paying that much overtime in the first place? Yeah, it's the evil union worker's fault for accepting the overtime, not the fault of the department that is offering it in the first place. Look at all the money they're making! The horror! Give me a break. I wonder if any of these people have ever worked a job where there was overtime required in their life and understand what kind of toll that takes on your health and your family life. Those workers are putting a whole lot of hours for a whole lot of days during the year to be making that much in overtime. Do these "pundits", and that's about the nicest thing I can think of to call most of them think they should be working all of those extra hours for straight time, or volunteering their lives away out of the goodness of their hearts?

I don't know about anyone else but this show reminded me of a cross between an NFL Sunday show and an episode of the Sopranos with bad actors replacing the regulars.

Perils of Dominance is the first completely new interpretation of how and why the United States went to war in Vietnam. It provides an authoritative challenge to the prevailing explanation that U.S. officials adhered blindly to a Cold War doctrine that loss of Vietnam would cause a "domino effect" leading to communist domination of the area. Gareth Porter presents compelling evidence that U.S. policy decisions on Vietnam from 1954 to mid-1965 were shaped by an overwhelming imbalance of military power favoring the United States over the Soviet Union and China. He demonstrates how the slide into war in Vietnam is relevant to understanding why the United States went to war in Iraq, and why such wars are likely as long as U.S. military power is overwhelmingly dominant in the world.

Challenging conventional wisdom about the origins of the war, Porter argues that the main impetus for military intervention in Vietnam came not from presidents Kennedy and Johnson but from high-ranking national security officials in their administrations who were heavily influenced by U.S. dominance over its Cold War foes.

It should be noted that US military dominance was an overwhelming fact, even though a frightened US public was constantly mislead about it, and while it's certainly true that Porter's perspective is influenced by the time he is writing in, and the concerns of the present, this was no loess true of earlier historians who failed to pay attention to US dominance.  With this in mind, let's turn to Porter's diary:

In an interview on the PBS NewsHour last Wednesday, Joe Biden was unwilling to contradict the official narrative of the Iraq War that Gen. David Petraeus and the Bush surge had ?turned Iraq into a good war after all.? That interview serves as a reminder of just how completely the Democratic Party foreign policy elite has adopted that narrative.

The Iraq War story line crafted by the Petraeus and the new counterinsurgency elite in Washington assures the public that U.S. military power in Iraq brought about the cooperation of the Sunnis in Anbar Province, ended sectarian violence in Baghdad and defeated Iranian-backed Shi'a insurgents.

In reality, of course, that's not what happened at all. It's time to review the relevant history and deconstruct the Petraeus narrative which the Obama administration now appears to have adopted.

The Sunni decision to cooperate in the suppression of al Qaeda in Iraq had nothing to do with the surge.? The main Sunni armed resistance groups had actually turned against al Qaeda in 2005, when they began trying to make a deal with the United States to end the war.

Porter goes into details on the Sunni side, and then does the same on the Shia side, particularly explaining the dynamics of how Iran's interests were served.  What Porter describes is not new--simply a very succinct and timely summary of what's already known to those not distracted by blizzards of official obfuscation.  Particularly important is the fact that Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army were not subservient to Iran, and needed to be nuetralized once they'd played their role in crushing Sunni power:
The Iranian interest was to ensure that the Shi'a-dominated government of Iraq consolidated its power.? Iran's "supreme leader" Ali Khamenei told al-Maliki in August 2007 that Iran would support his taking control of Sadr's strongholds. ?Later that same month, al-Maliki went to Karbala and gave the local police chief "carte blanche" to attack the Sadrists there.? After two days of violence, Sadr declared a six-month "freeze" on Mahdi Army military operations August 27, 2007.

By late 2007, contrary to the official Iraq legend, the al-Maliki government and the Bush administration were both publicly crediting Iran with pressuring Sadr to agree to the unilateral ceasefire - to the chagrin of Petraeus.

Al-Maliki launched the attack on Mahdi Army forces in Basrah in March 2008 in the knowledge that Iran would back him against Sadr.? And when it went badly, he turned to Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard official in charge of day-to-day Iraq policy, to force a ceasefire on Sadr. ?Soleimani told Iraqi President Talibani that Iran supported al-Maliki's efforts to "dismantle all militias", and Sadr agreed to a ceasefire within 24 hours of Iran's intervention.

So it was Iran's restraint - not Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy - that effectively ended the Shi'a insurgent threat....

But Biden doesn't want to know this and other historical facts that contradict the official narrative on Iraq.? For the Democratic foreign policy elite, staying ignorant of the real history of the Iraq War allows them to believe that deploying U.S. military forces in Muslim countries can be an effective instrument of U.S. power.

That, in a nutshell, is how the Obama Administration has been snookered into believing the "surge worked" hoax, thereby buying into an ever-so-slightly more refined version of the neo-con BushCo "Long War" fantasy.

Why would John Bolton want to run for President?  Obama's already implementing his main foreign policy objectives, while drawing far less heat in the process.

Congrats to the Boise State Broncos who won a heartstopper last night in DC over the Virginia Tech Hokies, 33-30.

If I had a vote, the Broncs are #1 AND Kellen Moore is the Heisman Trophy winner. But that's this week. A long way to go yet.

Open Thread.

Mark Schmitt, November 17, 2008:

Fast forward to September 7, 2010, Steve Benen complaining about the WaPo:

Noonecouldhaveknown it would work out this way.

Speaking for me only

That's the title the Politico gives it:

New data make it clear that Democrats could lose bigger on Nov. 2 than they did in the Republican revolution of 1994:

--WSJ's Gerald F. Seib, on an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out at dawn - “Get Ready for an Anti-Incumbent Wave”: “[A]mong those who appear most likely to vote, … the Republicans own a dramatic 49% to 40% advantage [on whether respondents prefer that November's vote produce a Congress controlled by Democrats or by Republicans]. If that kind of lead holds, Republicans would almost certainly take back control of the House.”

--Stuart Rothenberg moves 20 House races toward Republicans -- “Wave builds for GOP in the House”: “National and local polls continue to show further deterioration in Democratic prospects. Given that, we are increasing our target of likely Republican gains from 28-33 seats to 37-42 seats, with the caveat that substantially larger GOP gains in the 45-55 seat range are quite possible. The next few weeks will be crucial, as Democratic incumbents seek to drive up Republican challengers' negatives and strengthen their standing in ballot tests.” http://bit.ly/bNxOUN

--At this weekend's annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, three of the five forecasts predicted that Republicans would gain majority control of the House of Representatives, Huffington Post reported. http://huff.to/b1FIcG

The major driver:

--NBC/WSJ finds that “Recovery Summer” was a bust: In May, 40 percent of respondents said the economy would get better in the next 12 months. Now, that figure is 26 percent.

One part of me wants to say that the GOP is peaking too early; but then I look back and realize that the landscape has been locked since late last Fall. At that point, it was easy to tell what looked on the horizon. Of course, to point it out back then and meant going into the headwind of a lot of denial, and hopey-change belief-- that the economy would turn the corner.

The only argument for saying its too early a peak is that there are 7 weeks to go. This is a good tough ad in battleground states by AFSCME. It could do more to call out Republicans even more, but it does offer a contrast:

Sharron Angle thinks the media has taken her out of context -- what a shocker!

When CNN caught up with Angle at one of her Las Vegas campaign stops, she complained some of her more controversial statements had been taken out of context. "As you speak, as we're conversationally speaking, sometimes when you pick out words, they're not the best words you could have used," she told CNN in a rare one-on-one interview. "When taken out of context, you can make anybody look like they don't know what they're talking about," she elaborated.

Harry Reid disagrees.

"It's a little hard to take out of context when they say they want to phase out Social Security," Reid responded to CNN. "Her words are what she is. My words are what I am. So I don't think you can run from what you say and what you do."

There's an epidemic of contextual errors these days, it seems. Is Angle saying that she didn't mean it when she talked about "second amendment remedies" with regard to the Obama administration? Or did I misunderstand the context of her reference to "domestic enemies" inside this Administration? What part of "eliminate the Department of Education" did they get out of context? Perhaps Angle can supply some much needed context to her remarks about the unemployed being spoiled, lazy, or 13-15 year old rape victims making the best of a 'bad situation'.

Not to worry, my friends. Sharron Angle promises she'll be a "mainstream Senator". Or did the media get the context wrong on that, too? The only way Sharron Angle would be mainstream is if the river ran right through the Republic of Crazy.

Basically conservatives refreshed a dubious data point about the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election and ran with it for 50 years.  I'm surprised Armey low-balled it so much; you'd think he'd get into double digits.

In addition to the Slate article by David Greenberg that D-Day points to, I did an interview with Greenberg for Alternet at the time, and I contributed information about it as well to the somewhat widely circulated fact sheet, "13 Myths About The Results Of The 2000 Election."  

There were all sorts of twists and turns to the real story of what went on after the polls closed in 1960, but two really pertinent pointa stand out for me.  First is that The GOP effort in Illinois eventually collapsed, in part because the downstate GOP's hands weren't exactly clean.  Greenberg told me a bit about this in our interview that I didn't use.  But the Cook County Reps remained adament to the end--despite turning up nothing in the way of an organized effort.  As Greenberg wrote for Slate:

National GOP officials plunged in. Thruston Morton flew to Chicago to confer with Illinois Republican leaders on strategy, while party Treasurer Meade Alcorn announced Nixon would win the state. With Nixon distancing himself from the effort, the Cook County state's attorney, Benjamin Adamowski, stepped forward to lead the challenge. A Daley antagonist and potential rival for the mayoralty, Adamowski had lost his job to a Democrat by 25,000 votes. The closeness of his defeat entitled him to a recount, which began Nov. 29.

Completed Dec. 9, the recount of 863 precincts showed that the original tally had undercounted Nixon's (and Adamowski's) votes, but only by 943, far from the 4,500 needed to alter the results. In fact, in 40 percent of the rechecked precincts, Nixon's vote was overcounted. Displeased, the Republicans took the case to federal court, only to have a judge dismiss the suits. Still undeterred, they turned to the State Board of Elections, which was composed of four Republicans, including the governor, and one Democrat. Yet the state board, too, unanimously rejected the petition, citing the GOP's failure to provide even a single affidavit on its behalf. The national party finally backed off after Dec. 19, when the nation's Electoral College certified Kennedy as the new president--but even then local Republicans wouldn't accept the Illinois results.

So, not even close to the cloud that Nixon was able to create--even in the minds of a lot of progressives today.

Second pertinent point: There was also an attempt to steal the election in the electoral college as Greenberg explained in my interview:

Q: There's been a lot of media talk about a "constitutional crisis," something they never bother to define. But in 1960, there really was the possibility of a constitutional crisis due to Southern efforts to block Kennedy's election. Tell us about this side of the story.

DG: There were a lot of Southern Democrats who were steadfastly opposed to Kennedy taking the White House. Ross Barnett, the segregationist Governor of Mississippi, talked about getting these electors who were not faithful to Kennedy to join together in an effort to deprive Kennedy of the White House. This was also advocated by two daily papers published by the Mobile Press-Register, so both in Alabama and Mississippi you had this groundswell against Kennedy because of opposition to Civil Rights for blacks.

In the end, the effort failed, because most Southern electors didn't go along, but there was serious talk about organizing them to vote for Senator Byrd instead. In the end Byrd got roughly half of the Alabama electors and all of Mississippi's. But for several weeks there were all sorts of ideas bandied about that maybe if you overturned Illinois and could unify all the Southern segregationist electors you might keep Kennedy out of the White House.

Q: I recall that Nixon was once asked if he thought that history would be kind to him and he replied that it would because he intended to write it.

DG: There's another thing Nixon said, I'm just paraphrasing here, history may not repeat himself but historians tend to repeat each other. That's generally a legitimate, even a necessary practice, but it can lead to error. And error can be very difficult to correct.

These things just never change.

These things just never die.

Wipeout:

The economy is why.

Speaking for me only

Today Blue America is helping Kentucky Attorney General and Senate candidate Jack Conway kick Rand Paul's ass from Ashland to Hickman, Covington to Harlan. Today? Yes, today is Jack's money-bomb and we want to make sure he beats the $246,000 the uncertified Texas eye doctor so... here's the place. Yesterday he told us about his plans to help Congressman Mike Capuano get his Shareholder Protection Act through the Senate next year. Capuano's bill, H.R. 4790, requires a shareholder vote on a corporation?s proposed political budget, giving shareholders the opportunity to weigh in on the use of these funds. January?s Supreme Court decision on Citizens United v. FEC established that corporations cannot be prohibited from spending general treasury funds on political campaigns because it would violate their free speech rights. Capuano's legislation gives shareholders the ability to exercise their free speech rights by voting to approve or reject these expenditures. The Supreme Court decision effectively increases the influence of money in politics and diminishes the voice of the voter. Conway, like Capuano, thinks we should be working to limit outside influence on elections, not giving corporations a louder voice. The legislation is a simple and direct way to ensure that corporate political expenditures reflect the will of the shareholders, since the money in question belongs to the shareholders.

Jack told us he's been sickened by the way the Citizens United decision "opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to spend millions of dollars attacking candidates in pursuit of their own agendas."

However, this bill requires a shareholder vote on a corporation?s proposed political budget and would give shareholders a say in how the funds are spent. It also makes the corporation report how it spent its political dollars, after the fact, so the real owners of the company-- the shareholders-- know where their money went.

Last week, a corporate-funded group led by George W. Bush?s chief strategist Karl Rove launched a second attack ad against me in as many weeks. Rove's special interest attack group, American Crossroads, has pledged to spend 49 million corporate dollars attacking Democrats this fall and boosting people like Rand Paul.

I need your help fighting back against Rove and Rand Paul. Paul said he opposes provisions of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and federal student financial aid, such as college loans. I disagree. These laws and initiatives reflect core American values like equal rights and opportunity. We should be standing up for these values, not tearing them down.

Jack's going to be joining us at 11am (PT) below in the comments forum for a free-ranging question and answer session. We'll do our best to hold the Ron Paul shills at bay but please join in-- and please consider donating to Jack's effort at our Blue America Senate page.