Even-Handed Campaigns and Coverage

Lying about Fact-Check.org like they're not going to call you on it is... an interesting strategy, guys!

A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama's attacks on Palin "absolutely false" and "misleading." That's what we said, but it wasn't about Obama.

We don't object to people reprinting our articles. In fact, our copyright policy encourages it. But we've also asked that "the editorial integrity of the article be preserved" and told those who use our items that "you should not edit the original in such a way as to alter the message."

With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said "completely false" attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin.

I'm getting really tired of these assertions that both sides are running dirty campaigns, both candidates are dirty greedy lying criminals, and there's just no point in reading anything about politics, or heaven forbid voting, because it's all lies anyway.

House did say everybody lies. He also said, "I lied when I said that."

Look. Saying "there've been smears on both sides, politics is just like that" is untrue. I'll stop short of saying anyone who claims it is a liar, because perhaps it's cynicism or simple ignorance talking. It's much more fair to say there are stupid rumors about both tickets' candidates, but that only one campaign is actively encouraging these nonsensical smears.

For example, there've been wild accusations online that Palin is a witch because of the names of her kids (because two of them happen to match the names of two TV witches whose shows aired after the kids were born). Not only did Obama state that people need to leave her family out of this, his campaign didn't bring those attacks to the fore with a supporting ad from the campaign.

Contrast this with McCain, who saw crazy conspiracy theories online about Obama being the anti-Christ (google "Obama Nicolae Carpathia" and you'll see what I mean), and instead of denouncing or ignoring them McCain's campaign aired that dog-whistle ad calling Obama "The One." There is a big difference in the level and type of attacks on the Dems and Repubs sides here, so treating this election like it's everybody smearing equally is inaccurate and deceptive.

Wild and stupid rumors are spreading on both ends of the political spectrum, but only one candidate is encouraging them: McCain. Grouping Obama's campaign in with McCain's is either a startling display of ignorance about what these campaigns are really doing, or it's a deliberately deceptive attempt to drag Obama down to McCain's level in the minds of people who aren't paying enough attention to know the difference.

Steve Benen has a good essay over at Political Animal called "Thinking like a Republican."

The Washington Post's E. J. Dionne Jr. had a column four years ago this month that's always stuck with me. He noted, in the midst of the last presidential campaign, that Republicans are not above lying, but Democrats just can't bring themselves to do the same thing. "A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats," Dionne wrote at the time. "If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too."

I thought about the column when I was chatting this morning with a friend who works in Democratic campaign politics. We commiserated over the fact that Obama has become efficient in responding to the constant barrage of deceptive attacks from the McCain campaign, but doesn't launch deceptive attacks of his own against the McCain campaign.

My friend asked me what Atwater/Rove/Schmidt would do if they worked for Obama. What kind of attacks would they make against McCain? It got me thinking.

You should go check out the rest. The comments don't really answer Benen's challenge for the most part, but some of them do. It's just for fun of course, since there's no way that Republican tactics would work for Democrats this election cycle, but it's interesting to see what the campaign would look like if both sides really were running smear campaigns. And yes, it's very different.

Most people spend the comments bringing up things that are true, which totally spoils the fun of playing Karl Rove for an evening.

John McCain says he has a plan to catch Osama bin laden -- but he isn't telling President Bush. That leaves all Americans vulnerable to a terrorist attack from Enemy #1.

Why won't John McCain help us get bin Laden, so America can be free of that terrorist threat? -MarkH

The hell! That's just pointing out that he's got a foolproof plan to protect our country and hasn't shared it with anyone with the power to put it into practice. We're not here to point things out. We're here to make them up! Gawd!

McCain denounced his country during time of war. At the time, he said that he did so under torture.

Nowadays, he agrees with Bush that the things done to him were NOT torture, just ways to get the truth in an interrogation.

So, McCain denounced his country without ever being tortured. -John

See what I mean? It's clever, but it's totally off-topic, by dint of it being merely unflattering. All that's doing is pointing out McCain being inconsistent and fucking himself over. Pointing out hypocrisy is not what we're here to do, people! We're here to lie our asses off and see if we can think of anything to match Benen's earmark slam. Come on, guys! What's all this reflexive honesty bullshit?!

Yes, I realize that we can completely destroy McCain's credibility on nearly all domestic and foreign issues using actual verifiable truths, and so does Steve Benen. The point here is not to encourage people to talk about McCain cutting off support for Israel, but to make people realize that the reason we're not hearing the same trash from Obama that we hear from McCain is not that McCain has no weaknesses to exploit. It's not that Obama can't. It's that he doesn't.

One guy posted an interesting little quote in a comment, and I'll leave you with it.

"If the Republicans stop telling lies about us, we will stop telling the truth about them."
--Adlai Stevenson

Even-Handed Campaigns and Coverage

Lying about Fact-Check.org like they're not going to call you on it is... an interesting strategy, guys!

A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama's attacks on Palin "absolutely false" and "misleading." That's what we said, but it wasn't about Obama.

We don't object to people reprinting our articles. In fact, our copyright policy encourages it. But we've also asked that "the editorial integrity of the article be preserved" and told those who use our items that "you should not edit the original in such a way as to alter the message."

With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said "completely false" attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin.

I'm getting really tired of these assertions that both sides are running dirty campaigns, both candidates are dirty greedy lying criminals, and there's just no point in reading anything about politics, or heaven forbid voting, because it's all lies anyway.

House did say everybody lies. He also said, "I lied when I said that."

Look. Saying "there've been smears on both sides, politics is just like that" is untrue. I'll stop short of saying anyone who claims it is a liar, because perhaps it's cynicism or simple ignorance talking. It's much more fair to say there are stupid rumors about both tickets' candidates, but that only one campaign is actively encouraging these nonsensical smears.

For example, there've been wild accusations online that Palin is a witch because of the names of her kids (because two of them happen to match the names of two TV witches whose shows aired after the kids were born). Not only did Obama state that people need to leave her family out of this, his campaign didn't bring those attacks to the fore with a supporting ad from the campaign.

Contrast this with McCain, who saw crazy conspiracy theories online about Obama being the anti-Christ (google "Obama Nicolae Carpathia" and you'll see what I mean), and instead of denouncing or ignoring them McCain's campaign aired that dog-whistle ad calling Obama "The One." There is a big difference in the level and type of attacks on the Dems and Repubs sides here, so treating this election like it's everybody smearing equally is inaccurate and deceptive.

Wild and stupid rumors are spreading on both ends of the political spectrum, but only one candidate is encouraging them: McCain. Grouping Obama's campaign in with McCain's is either a startling display of ignorance about what these campaigns are really doing, or it's a deliberately deceptive attempt to drag Obama down to McCain's level in the minds of people who aren't paying enough attention to know the difference.

Steve Benen has a good essay over at Political Animal called "Thinking like a Republican."

The Washington Post's E. J. Dionne Jr. had a column four years ago this month that's always stuck with me. He noted, in the midst of the last presidential campaign, that Republicans are not above lying, but Democrats just can't bring themselves to do the same thing. "A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats," Dionne wrote at the time. "If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too."

I thought about the column when I was chatting this morning with a friend who works in Democratic campaign politics. We commiserated over the fact that Obama has become efficient in responding to the constant barrage of deceptive attacks from the McCain campaign, but doesn't launch deceptive attacks of his own against the McCain campaign.

My friend asked me what Atwater/Rove/Schmidt would do if they worked for Obama. What kind of attacks would they make against McCain? It got me thinking.

You should go check out the rest. The comments don't really answer Benen's challenge for the most part, but some of them do. It's just for fun of course, since there's no way that Republican tactics would work for Democrats this election cycle, but it's interesting to see what the campaign would look like if both sides really were running smear campaigns. And yes, it's very different.

Most people spend the comments bringing up things that are true, which totally spoils the fun of playing Karl Rove for an evening.

John McCain says he has a plan to catch Osama bin laden -- but he isn't telling President Bush. That leaves all Americans vulnerable to a terrorist attack from Enemy #1.

Why won't John McCain help us get bin Laden, so America can be free of that terrorist threat? -MarkH

The hell! That's just pointing out that he's got a foolproof plan to protect our country and hasn't shared it with anyone with the power to put it into practice. We're not here to point things out. We're here to make them up! Gawd!

McCain denounced his country during time of war. At the time, he said that he did so under torture.

Nowadays, he agrees with Bush that the things done to him were NOT torture, just ways to get the truth in an interrogation.

So, McCain denounced his country without ever being tortured. -John

See what I mean? It's clever, but it's totally off-topic, by dint of it being merely unflattering. All that's doing is pointing out McCain being inconsistent and fucking himself over. Pointing out hypocrisy is not what we're here to do, people! We're here to lie our asses off and see if we can think of anything to match Benen's earmark slam. Come on, guys! What's all this reflexive honesty bullshit?!

Yes, I realize that we can completely destroy McCain's credibility on nearly all domestic and foreign issues using actual verifiable truths, and so does Steve Benen. The point here is not to encourage people to talk about McCain cutting off support for Israel, but to make people realize that the reason we're not hearing the same trash from Obama that we hear from McCain is not that McCain has no weaknesses to exploit. It's not that Obama can't. It's that he doesn't.

One guy posted an interesting little quote in a comment, and I'll leave you with it.

"If the Republicans stop telling lies about us, we will stop telling the truth about them."
--Adlai Stevenson

Even-Handed Campaigns and Coverage

Lying about Fact-Check.org like they're not going to call you on it is... an interesting strategy, guys!

A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama's attacks on Palin "absolutely false" and "misleading." That's what we said, but it wasn't about Obama.

We don't object to people reprinting our articles. In fact, our copyright policy encourages it. But we've also asked that "the editorial integrity of the article be preserved" and told those who use our items that "you should not edit the original in such a way as to alter the message."

With its latest ad, released Sept. 10, the McCain-Palin campaign has altered our message in a fashion we consider less than honest. The ad strives to convey the message that FactCheck.org said "completely false" attacks on Gov. Sarah Palin had come from Sen. Barack Obama. We said no such thing. We have yet to dispute any claim from the Obama campaign about Palin.

I'm getting really tired of these assertions that both sides are running dirty campaigns, both candidates are dirty greedy lying criminals, and there's just no point in reading anything about politics, or heaven forbid voting, because it's all lies anyway.

House did say everybody lies. He also said, "I lied when I said that."

Look. Saying "there've been smears on both sides, politics is just like that" is untrue. I'll stop short of saying anyone who claims it is a liar, because perhaps it's cynicism or simple ignorance talking. It's much more fair to say there are stupid rumors about both tickets' candidates, but that only one campaign is actively encouraging these nonsensical smears.

For example, there've been wild accusations online that Palin is a witch because of the names of her kids (because two of them happen to match the names of two TV witches whose shows aired after the kids were born). Not only did Obama state that people need to leave her family out of this, his campaign didn't bring those attacks to the fore with a supporting ad from the campaign.

Contrast this with McCain, who saw crazy conspiracy theories online about Obama being the anti-Christ (google "Obama Nicolae Carpathia" and you'll see what I mean), and instead of denouncing or ignoring them McCain's campaign aired that dog-whistle ad calling Obama "The One." There is a big difference in the level and type of attacks on the Dems and Repubs sides here, so treating this election like it's everybody smearing equally is inaccurate and deceptive.

Wild and stupid rumors are spreading on both ends of the political spectrum, but only one candidate is encouraging them: McCain. Grouping Obama's campaign in with McCain's is either a startling display of ignorance about what these campaigns are really doing, or it's a deliberately deceptive attempt to drag Obama down to McCain's level in the minds of people who aren't paying enough attention to know the difference.

Steve Benen has a good essay over at Political Animal called "Thinking like a Republican."

The Washington Post's E. J. Dionne Jr. had a column four years ago this month that's always stuck with me. He noted, in the midst of the last presidential campaign, that Republicans are not above lying, but Democrats just can't bring themselves to do the same thing. "A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats," Dionne wrote at the time. "If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too."

I thought about the column when I was chatting this morning with a friend who works in Democratic campaign politics. We commiserated over the fact that Obama has become efficient in responding to the constant barrage of deceptive attacks from the McCain campaign, but doesn't launch deceptive attacks of his own against the McCain campaign.

My friend asked me what Atwater/Rove/Schmidt would do if they worked for Obama. What kind of attacks would they make against McCain? It got me thinking.

You should go check out the rest. The comments don't really answer Benen's challenge for the most part, but some of them do. It's just for fun of course, since there's no way that Republican tactics would work for Democrats this election cycle, but it's interesting to see what the campaign would look like if both sides really were running smear campaigns. And yes, it's very different.

Most people spend the comments bringing up things that are true, which totally spoils the fun of playing Karl Rove for an evening.

John McCain says he has a plan to catch Osama bin laden -- but he isn't telling President Bush. That leaves all Americans vulnerable to a terrorist attack from Enemy #1.

Why won't John McCain help us get bin Laden, so America can be free of that terrorist threat? -MarkH

The hell! That's just pointing out that he's got a foolproof plan to protect our country and hasn't shared it with anyone with the power to put it into practice. We're not here to point things out. We're here to make them up! Gawd!

McCain denounced his country during time of war. At the time, he said that he did so under torture.

Nowadays, he agrees with Bush that the things done to him were NOT torture, just ways to get the truth in an interrogation.

So, McCain denounced his country without ever being tortured. -John

See what I mean? It's clever, but it's totally off-topic, by dint of it being merely unflattering. All that's doing is pointing out McCain being inconsistent and fucking himself over. Pointing out hypocrisy is not what we're here to do, people! We're here to lie our asses off and see if we can think of anything to match Benen's earmark slam. Come on, guys! What's all this reflexive honesty bullshit?!

Yes, I realize that we can completely destroy McCain's credibility on nearly all domestic and foreign issues using actual verifiable truths, and so does Steve Benen. The point here is not to encourage people to talk about McCain cutting off support for Israel, but to make people realize that the reason we're not hearing the same trash from Obama that we hear from McCain is not that McCain has no weaknesses to exploit. It's not that Obama can't. It's that he doesn't.

One guy posted an interesting little quote in a comment, and I'll leave you with it.

"If the Republicans stop telling lies about us, we will stop telling the truth about them."
--Adlai Stevenson

Meme!

From archmage_brian, who undoubtedly got it somewhere else:

I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Meme!

From archmage_brian, who undoubtedly got it somewhere else:

I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Meme!

From archmage_brian, who undoubtedly got it somewhere else:

I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Damn, Gloria.

Gloria Steinem. You and I, we've had our differences. We have, really. There've been times when the phrase "calm the fuck down this isn't about vaginas" crossed my mind, and times when it came right out my mouth before I could stop it.

But you definitely nailed it this time. Thanks to kaiserbrown for linking this. I went ahead and linked to sources so that no one can claim Steinem's talking out her ass.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does."

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Damn, Gloria. 

Damn, Gloria.

Gloria Steinem. You and I, we've had our differences. We have, really. There've been times when the phrase "calm the fuck down this isn't about vaginas" crossed my mind, and times when it came right out my mouth before I could stop it.

But you definitely nailed it this time. Thanks to kaiserbrown for linking this. I went ahead and linked to sources so that no one can claim Steinem's talking out her ass.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does."

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Damn, Gloria. 

Damn, Gloria.

Gloria Steinem. You and I, we've had our differences. We have, really. There've been times when the phrase "calm the fuck down this isn't about vaginas" crossed my mind, and times when it came right out my mouth before I could stop it.

But you definitely nailed it this time. Thanks to kaiserbrown for linking this. I went ahead and linked to sources so that no one can claim Steinem's talking out her ass.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does."

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Damn, Gloria. 

Home foreclosing? Michigan doesn't want you voting.

Voter Suppression in Michigan?
They "will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” according to party chairman James Carabelli.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

The hell, people. If it weren't bad enough that lots and lots of people are losing their homes because of the mismanagement of our economy, now the same party responsible for tanking things so badly wants their victims to stay away from the polls as well.

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

The article takes a while to come right out and call this vote suppression, but eventually they do.

“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” he said. “Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.

“When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote,” Hebert went on, “your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others,” who see a long line and realize they can’t afford to stay and wait.

This is yet another reason to doublecheck your voter registration. You can register to vote online now, and if you're already registered, you really need to use this site's tool to doublecheck that your registration is still valid. This isn't just for people in Michigan. Vote suppression is a big problem. VA hospitals aren't allowed to have voter registration drives. Stricter ID laws don't actually really help with voter fraud (since it's not really common for people to try and vote a billion times under different names--it's hard enough to get people to vote once), but they do keep people who don't have the money to keep around certain forms of ID from voting (for example, naturalized citizen papers for legal migrants, or passports for the rest of us).

It's one thing to make sure that everybody voting brings a valid ID so that you can check to make sure they should be there. It's quite another to have coordinated, concerted efforts to keep as many people as possible from voting. I question any party that needs to do that to win. Hell, I question any party that wants to do this to win, since it says a lot about how much they really care about representing their constituents.

And before someone says, "This isn't McCain's fault! These are just locals being assholes, and you can't pin that on the actual official campaign," I want you to check this part out as well.

The party is creating a spreadsheet of election challenger volunteers and expects to coordinate a training with the regional McCain campaign, Graves said in an interview with Michigan Messenger.

When asked for further details on how Republicans are compiling challenge lists, he said, “I would rather not tell you all the things we are doing.”

Go check your registration. Michigan's not the only state with a history of this nonsense. It's not uncommon, which means you guys need to be careful you don't get screwed over. We call this an ownership election! If your vote is invalidated because you're not the kind of person they want in the polls, you're on your own. You need to stay up on this to make sure that you can vote in a party that *gasp* wants you to vote.

Home foreclosing? Michigan doesn't want you voting.

Voter Suppression in Michigan?
They "will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” according to party chairman James Carabelli.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

The hell, people. If it weren't bad enough that lots and lots of people are losing their homes because of the mismanagement of our economy, now the same party responsible for tanking things so badly wants their victims to stay away from the polls as well.

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

The article takes a while to come right out and call this vote suppression, but eventually they do.

“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” he said. “Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.

“When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote,” Hebert went on, “your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others,” who see a long line and realize they can’t afford to stay and wait.

This is yet another reason to doublecheck your voter registration. You can register to vote online now, and if you're already registered, you really need to use this site's tool to doublecheck that your registration is still valid. This isn't just for people in Michigan. Vote suppression is a big problem. VA hospitals aren't allowed to have voter registration drives. Stricter ID laws don't actually really help with voter fraud (since it's not really common for people to try and vote a billion times under different names--it's hard enough to get people to vote once), but they do keep people who don't have the money to keep around certain forms of ID from voting (for example, naturalized citizen papers for legal migrants, or passports for the rest of us).

It's one thing to make sure that everybody voting brings a valid ID so that you can check to make sure they should be there. It's quite another to have coordinated, concerted efforts to keep as many people as possible from voting. I question any party that needs to do that to win. Hell, I question any party that wants to do this to win, since it says a lot about how much they really care about representing their constituents.

And before someone says, "This isn't McCain's fault! These are just locals being assholes, and you can't pin that on the actual official campaign," I want you to check this part out as well.

The party is creating a spreadsheet of election challenger volunteers and expects to coordinate a training with the regional McCain campaign, Graves said in an interview with Michigan Messenger.

When asked for further details on how Republicans are compiling challenge lists, he said, “I would rather not tell you all the things we are doing.”

Go check your registration. Michigan's not the only state with a history of this nonsense. It's not uncommon, which means you guys need to be careful you don't get screwed over. We call this an ownership election! If your vote is invalidated because you're not the kind of person they want in the polls, you're on your own. You need to stay up on this to make sure that you can vote in a party that *gasp* wants you to vote.

Home foreclosing? Michigan doesn't want you voting.

Voter Suppression in Michigan?
They "will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” according to party chairman James Carabelli.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

The hell, people. If it weren't bad enough that lots and lots of people are losing their homes because of the mismanagement of our economy, now the same party responsible for tanking things so badly wants their victims to stay away from the polls as well.

One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

The article takes a while to come right out and call this vote suppression, but eventually they do.

“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” he said. “Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.

“When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote,” Hebert went on, “your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others,” who see a long line and realize they can’t afford to stay and wait.

This is yet another reason to doublecheck your voter registration. You can register to vote online now, and if you're already registered, you really need to use this site's tool to doublecheck that your registration is still valid. This isn't just for people in Michigan. Vote suppression is a big problem. VA hospitals aren't allowed to have voter registration drives. Stricter ID laws don't actually really help with voter fraud (since it's not really common for people to try and vote a billion times under different names--it's hard enough to get people to vote once), but they do keep people who don't have the money to keep around certain forms of ID from voting (for example, naturalized citizen papers for legal migrants, or passports for the rest of us).

It's one thing to make sure that everybody voting brings a valid ID so that you can check to make sure they should be there. It's quite another to have coordinated, concerted efforts to keep as many people as possible from voting. I question any party that needs to do that to win. Hell, I question any party that wants to do this to win, since it says a lot about how much they really care about representing their constituents.

And before someone says, "This isn't McCain's fault! These are just locals being assholes, and you can't pin that on the actual official campaign," I want you to check this part out as well.

The party is creating a spreadsheet of election challenger volunteers and expects to coordinate a training with the regional McCain campaign, Graves said in an interview with Michigan Messenger.

When asked for further details on how Republicans are compiling challenge lists, he said, “I would rather not tell you all the things we are doing.”

Go check your registration. Michigan's not the only state with a history of this nonsense. It's not uncommon, which means you guys need to be careful you don't get screwed over. We call this an ownership election! If your vote is invalidated because you're not the kind of person they want in the polls, you're on your own. You need to stay up on this to make sure that you can vote in a party that *gasp* wants you to vote.

Commemorating the dead.... Or are we?

Here's what I believe. This is a religious belief, but one that a reading of The Funeral Casino by Alan Klima has suggested to me. When you invoke the dead, you owe them. When you use the dead for your own benefit, you must pay them back. This is a pseudo-religious, semi-philosophical entry of untrammeled rambling, so I ask you to bear with me while I ramble about stuff I'm sure I'm explaining poorly.


The examples used in The Funeral Casino: Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand are Thai revolutions. It's frighteningly common in Thailand for protesters (even unarmed students still in uniform) to simply be gunned down by existing government military. Of course this causes an uproar, and a new government arises by climbing up on top of the bodies of those dead students. Unfortunately, these governments don't actually make any of the changes the students cared about (and in fact they paint the students as rabblerousers or simply forget them as soon as possible), they become the kind of government the students were trying to change, and pretty soon you've got another bloody mess on your hands.

The Thai Buddhist angle on this (at least according to Klima) is that you cannot invoke the dead without owing them something. You had best be strictly and carefully commemorating them, or else you'll be profiting from their deaths and suffering. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but at that point you've gotten something and you need to give something, or you're going to get screwed badly. It may come from a seemingly unrelated situation, but Klima's assertion is that from the Thai perspective death imagery holds power.

Across the field of Sanam Luang is another construction from the days of the regicide: the lag muang, the city pillar, built as the magical pole around which a sorcerous power to protect the city would circulate. ... I have been told rumors that before they laid the foundation for the city pillar in stone, they dug trenches in the ground, brought young, pregnant slaves to the site, and there slashed their throats with swords and cast the corpses with their dying fetuses into the earth. It was believed, or so I am told, that the collective force of their murdered spirits would empower the pillar" (Klima 2002: 80).

( Cut for length )

Commemorating the dead.... Or are we?

Here's what I believe. This is a religious belief, but one that a reading of The Funeral Casino by Alan Klima has suggested to me. When you invoke the dead, you owe them. When you use the dead for your own benefit, you must pay them back. This is a pseudo-religious, semi-philosophical entry of untrammeled rambling, so I ask you to bear with me while I ramble about stuff I'm sure I'm explaining poorly.


The examples used in The Funeral Casino: Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand are Thai revolutions. It's frighteningly common in Thailand for protesters (even unarmed students still in uniform) to simply be gunned down by existing government military. Of course this causes an uproar, and a new government arises by climbing up on top of the bodies of those dead students. Unfortunately, these governments don't actually make any of the changes the students cared about (and in fact they paint the students as rabblerousers or simply forget them as soon as possible), they become the kind of government the students were trying to change, and pretty soon you've got another bloody mess on your hands.

The Thai Buddhist angle on this (at least according to Klima) is that you cannot invoke the dead without owing them something. You had best be strictly and carefully commemorating them, or else you'll be profiting from their deaths and suffering. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but at that point you've gotten something and you need to give something, or you're going to get screwed badly. It may come from a seemingly unrelated situation, but Klima's assertion is that from the Thai perspective death imagery holds power.

Across the field of Sanam Luang is another construction from the days of the regicide: the lag muang, the city pillar, built as the magical pole around which a sorcerous power to protect the city would circulate. ... I have been told rumors that before they laid the foundation for the city pillar in stone, they dug trenches in the ground, brought young, pregnant slaves to the site, and there slashed their throats with swords and cast the corpses with their dying fetuses into the earth. It was believed, or so I am told, that the collective force of their murdered spirits would empower the pillar" (Klima 2002: 80).

( Cut for length )

Commemorating the dead.... Or are we?

Here's what I believe. This is a religious belief, but one that a reading of The Funeral Casino by Alan Klima has suggested to me. When you invoke the dead, you owe them. When you use the dead for your own benefit, you must pay them back. This is a pseudo-religious, semi-philosophical entry of untrammeled rambling, so I ask you to bear with me while I ramble about stuff I'm sure I'm explaining poorly.


The examples used in The Funeral Casino: Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand are Thai revolutions. It's frighteningly common in Thailand for protesters (even unarmed students still in uniform) to simply be gunned down by existing government military. Of course this causes an uproar, and a new government arises by climbing up on top of the bodies of those dead students. Unfortunately, these governments don't actually make any of the changes the students cared about (and in fact they paint the students as rabblerousers or simply forget them as soon as possible), they become the kind of government the students were trying to change, and pretty soon you've got another bloody mess on your hands.

The Thai Buddhist angle on this (at least according to Klima) is that you cannot invoke the dead without owing them something. You had best be strictly and carefully commemorating them, or else you'll be profiting from their deaths and suffering. This isn't a bad thing in itself, but at that point you've gotten something and you need to give something, or you're going to get screwed badly. It may come from a seemingly unrelated situation, but Klima's assertion is that from the Thai perspective death imagery holds power.

Across the field of Sanam Luang is another construction from the days of the regicide: the lag muang, the city pillar, built as the magical pole around which a sorcerous power to protect the city would circulate. ... I have been told rumors that before they laid the foundation for the city pillar in stone, they dug trenches in the ground, brought young, pregnant slaves to the site, and there slashed their throats with swords and cast the corpses with their dying fetuses into the earth. It was believed, or so I am told, that the collective force of their murdered spirits would empower the pillar" (Klima 2002: 80).

( Cut for length )