EV 10/19: Blue Mizzou

Missouri looks like it's going for Obama, noted in the recent polling as well as the 100,000 people who showed up for an Obama rally in St. Louis and 75,000 in Kansas City yesterday. As Greg notes, that last happened in 2004 in Madison, WI and The Boss was involved. There's also some evidence that North Dakota and West Virginia are very close, but I simply cannot believe that either state has a legitimate chance to go Democratic.

Two weeks to go and it appears this election is coming in for a landing.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

Sunday Funnies

Texas SOS, Harris registrar fall behind in processing voter registrations

But I'm sure there will be plenty of provisional ballots available:

Thousands of Texans who registered to vote a few weeks ago likely will find their names missing from official voter lists when early voting starts Monday for the Nov. 4 election, officials said.

The voters will be allowed to cast ballots but may have to fill out special forms at polling stations or wait a few days before voting, according to state and Houston-area election administrators.

Officials blame a deadline-beating rush of registration applications before Oct. 6, and maintenance to a computer database of Social Security numbers, for the fact that many registrations won't be processed in time for the early voting kickoff.

But praise be, tax assessor-collector/voter registrar Paul Bettencourt indicates that only 7000 Houston-area voters may be affected:

In Houston, about 70 employees in the voter registrar's office will work through the weekend to clear most of a backlog of about 30,000 applications, Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said Friday. Some will turn out to be valid, others duplicates or address changes for voters on the rolls.

But, he said, perhaps 7,000 applications from Harris County residents will require extra verification and probably won't be cleared before Monday, the first of 12 days of early voting at 36 county locations.

The Secretary of State's Office in Austin must also verify the applications, using driver's license and partial Social Security numbers, before voters are added to lists in each county of qualified voters. But as the state agency works through the weekend to handle applications submitted by counties, it will take about 24 hours to approve each new voter.

"We were keeping up very well with the increased load, but we started to run a little behind when the Social Security Administration closed their (computer program) down for maintenance last weekend," said Ashley Burton, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Hope Andrade. "Since the start of October there has been a huge increase in the number of new voter records that the counties have submitted for verification."

No information was available on the database outage, a Social Security spokeswoman in Dallas said Friday. Nor were statistics available from the state on what Burton called applications from "large amounts of new voters" outside Harris County.

So as the conservatives continue to drive themselves nuts over ACORN, the voter suppression efforts contine to be the real story locally. Bettencourt says that ten thousand people missed the deadline to vote in this election (note also the statistics I bolded below for future reference):

Many Harris County residents may not realize, until they try to vote, that their registrations were submitted or mailed too late for the Oct. 6 deadline.

About 10,000 such registrations will be added to the rolls for future elections, Bettencourt said, but those voters will be unqualified to vote in the Nov. 4 election for president, Congress, county officers and other government positions.

About 1.94 million voters will be eligible to cast ballots this year in Harris County, roughly the same number for the last presidential election. The statewide voter roll has edged up to 13.4 million, about 300,000 more than last time.

The Harris County election administrator, County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, said 300 or so staffers at early voting locations are prepared to assist residents who want to vote even though they may be missing from registration records.

For voters who present a voter registration card or other identification — no photo ID is needed — but whose name is absent from the voter rolls, election workers first will call Bettencourt's office to see if their registrations have been approved, Kaufman said. In many cases, voters will immediately be cleared to vote.

Voters whose names are not on the lists may also vote immediately after swearing, in a written provisional ballot form, that they registered. But their votes will be separated from the main ballot record, Kaufman said, and will be counted after Nov. 4, if their registration is verified.

Or perhaps they won't be counted at all. Seriously.

I'm going to do a little shouting now.

If your name does not appear on the voter roll when you go to vote, PLEASE DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT. Leave the polling place and call this number: 1-866-OUR VOTE (687-8683).

This is also why you should vote early; so that if there are "issues" with your registration, they can be cleared up -- hopefully -- in time for you to cast a ballot that counts (with at least as much faith as we are able to place in electronic voting systems, anyway). You don't want to be experiencing this circumstance at 6:45 p.m. on Election Day.

And remember when you do vote that Bettencourt's Democratic challenger is Dr. Diane Trautman.

Update: Charles Kuffner has more on why this is a problem in the very first place. Shorter version: it's all about the Bettencourt.

Michele Bachman contributes $100K to her Democratic challenger

A little over twelve hours ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Freakshit, Minn.) appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and declared that the media should investigate the anti-Americans in the US Congress, a delirium furthered as part of the delusion the McLame campaign has suffered from: the one that variously questions Barack Obama's patriotism.

As a result of Bachmann's grinning McCarthy-like hate-filled spew, we "goonbats in the liberal blogosphere" began publicizing her wingnut asshattery. Which resulted in online contributions to Bachmann's Democratic opponent, the one and only Elwyn Tinklenberg, of nearly $100,000 as of this posting. See update below.

What this says about the infrastructure of the modern progressive movement is nothing short of amazing to me.

A scant four years ago, John Kerry was paralyzed as this same line of Swift Boats attacked his honor. The media did not effectively push back against the lies, and there certainly was no coordinated response from Kerry's supporters, online or off.

To be certain, Kerry himself should have fought back harder. But Barack Obama and his campaign has had nothing to do with the Bachmann matter; this has been an instant reaction to the rantings of lunatic Republican in favor of her obscure Democratic challenger in the form of cold, hard cash from the netroots.

Matthews challenged Bachmann's ludicrous assertions straight away; Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow followed up on their subsequent MSNBC programs, and Daily Kos advanced the response by picking up the YouTubes of Bachmann's playing kissyface with Bush, then denouncing him more recently as his popularity withered. The left's leading blog also found and posted Tinklenberg's site and publicly called for donations. The rest of us spread the message on Democratic Underground and elsewhere around the blogosphere.

If you went out to dinner last night, you missed the whole thing. On Friday, October 17, the twenty-first century progressive movement hit fifth gear, and trust me, it is zooming like a Porsche.

Update (10/19): $488,000 in 24 hours, with almost 250K of that coming online.

500,000 early voters in Harris County

That's more than several states will have for the entire election cycle:

An unprecedented half-million Harris County voters are expected to cast early ballots for the presidential race and other offices during the two-week early voting period, an increase sparked in part by political parties and candidates urging supporters to vote before Election Day.

In response to the forecast of a record-high early vote that starts Monday in Texas, county officials have added extra polling stations and voting booths and new auxiliary equipment to keep waiting lines as short as possible.

Also, Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman has published figures on average hourly voter traffic at each polling station in the 2004 presidential election, so citizens can see which centers are likely to have the shortest lines this time. And she plans to conduct daily news briefings about early voting at five locations next week, from Humble to far southwest Houston.

Previously I noted that Kaufman's office projects 1.2 million total votes in the greater Houston area's county will be cast in November's election, and that's a figure that could portend as many as nine million votes in Texas (though I believe the final figure will be closer to eight).

There are several reasons for the anticipated increase in early voting.

The percentage of votes cast early has climbed with every past election, and the trend is expected to continue as voters become more comfortable with the idea of getting voting out of the way before Election Day.

In 2004, almost 40 percent of the Harris County vote was banked by the end of October. The total county vote then was 1.08 million, a 58 percent turnout of all registered voters.

With the participation rate expected to climb along with the use of the early voting options, experts say at least half of the Harris County votes — a half-million or more — will be cast before Nov. 4.

And both parties are gearing up their GOTV efforts ...

The local Republican Party will distribute at least 150,000 "door-hanger" campaign cards in some of its stronghold neighborhoods to get voters to the polls early, chairman Jared Woodfill said.

The Harris County Democratic Party on its Web site urged voters to cast early ballots, explaining: "It allows us to focus on voters who have yet to vote and getting them to the polls."

Some campaign strategists keep meticulous computerized records of voters who have voted early in past elections and will direct some of their limited telephone and mail resources at those voters, Republican consultant Allen Blakemore said.

Many candidates who have been hoarding money for a late deluge of TV, radio and Internet ads will join the onslaught of political messages next week.

The local GOP has also concentrated on sending mail-in ballots to identifiable suburban seniors who reliably vote Republican, and have been bragging that their mail-in ballots will bear significant fruit this time.

Meanwhile the good guys are going to have a bit more fun with it:

Featured speakers include Rick Noriega and Ron Kirk. There won't be a candidate or a band or one of your friends there that you will want to miss. And if for some inexplicable reason you still need to be reminded about why you need to vote Democratic in this election ...



Update: "Turning Houston Blue", from Dave Mann at the Texas Observer (disregard his negative subhead):

... Houston is essentially its own swing state within Texas. Harris County, which encompasses the city and its suburbs, is home to 3.9 million people, outnumbering the populations of 23 states, and is roughly the same population as Oregon. Now consider that Harris County—in theory, at least—is already Democratic. Surveys and polls repeatedly show that more of its eligible voters identify with Democrats. It’s just that many of those people don’t vote. Moreover, the area is growing. Subdivisions are sprouting at the city’s edge like weeds. The people moving in are mostly Democrats. Harris County is undergoing a demographic shift that will soon put Anglos in the minority.

Practically speaking, a Democrat can’t win a statewide race in Texas without carrying Harris County. If the party can increase its turnout just enough in this presidential year to turn Harris County blue, Democrats will control five of the state’s largest counties and could become competitive again in races for governor, lieutenant governor, and U.S. Senate. Democrats are feeling the urgency to capture a statewide race and at least one chamber of the Texas Legislature by 2010 to gain a say in the next round of legislative and congressional redistricting.

But Houston’s size and shifting demographics have local Democrats dreaming well beyond the Governor’s Mansion. They talk of a day when Houston could be for Texas what Philadelphia has been for Pennsylvania—a metro area that votes so overwhelmingly Democratic it provides a large enough advantage to deliver the state almost by itself. (In the 2004 election, Philadelphia handed Democrats a 400,000-vote edge in the state’s largest population center—a margin Republican areas of Pennsylvania couldn’t surmount.)

Harris County Democratic Party Chair Gerry Birnberg points out that if big margins in Houston could help a Democratic presidential candidate capture Texas, the Electoral College map would shift decisively. He says New York and California likely will vote Democratic for a generation. “If you can start a presidential cycle with California, New York and Texas already in your column, there is not an electoral map you can draw that a Republican candidate can win,” Birnberg says. “Harris County is ground zero. We don’t get there without Harris County.”

Noriega-Cornyn II reaction

None from here; I fell asleep. Those damned 7:30 a.m. dental appointments make for a day too long for this intrepid reporter. Here's what others had -- pre- and post-debate ...

--Did Burka really ask any of these questions?

-- R. G. Ratcliffe live-blogged; his conclusion is here. It looks like he could have written that before the debate. The preceding posts are a better account of the issues and answers; it sounds like John Corndog took the McNasty approach.

-- Our partisans also had the blow-by-blow; theirs too.

-- Socratic Gadfly has his usual caustic take (that's a good thing) and a better live-blog.

-- Prairie Fire Journal is a little irritated.

-- Victoria reminds us that there have been better faceoffs in history.

Noriega-Cornyn II tonight on PBS

Houston PBS affiliate KUHT-8 had last week's first round, and the six Texas Supreme Court justices and challengers all debated last Sunday evening in a joint appearance at South Texas College of Law, and tonight features the last of the two debates between the contestants for the United States Senate (apparently Yvonne Schick, the Libertarian, isn't going to be included in this one).

Here are the Texas PBS affiliates broadcasting it (it will also be live on C-SPAN 2):

Amarillo KACV-TV (PBS) - Channel 2
(delayed - will air at 9 p.m.)

Houston KUHT-TV (PBS) - Channel 8
KRIV-TV (FOX) - Channel 26 (delayed - will air at 10:30 p.m.)

Austin KLRU-TV (PBS) - Channel 18

Killeen KNCT-TV (PBS) - Channel 46
(delayed - will air at 9 p.m.)

Beaumont KBMT-TV (ABC) - Channel 12
(delayed - will air at 10:30 p.m.)

Lubbock KTXT-TV (PBS) - Channel 5
KJTV-CA (FOX) - Channel 32

College Station KAMU-TV (PBS) - Channel 15

Lufkin/Nacogdoches KTRE-TV (ABC) - Channel 9
(delayed - will air at 11:05 p.m.)

Corpus Christi
KEDT-TV (PBS) - Channel 16
KDF-TV (Ind.) - Channel 47

Odessa KPBT-TV (PBS) - Channel 36

Dallas/Fort Worth KERA-TV (PBS) - Channel 13
KUVN-TV (Univisión) - Channel 23 - en Español (delayed - will air Sat, Oct. 18 at 10 a.m.)

San Antonio KLRN-TV (PBS) - Channel 9

Tyler/Longview/Jacksonville KLTV-TV (ABC) - Channel 7 (delayed - will air at 11:05 p.m.)

El Paso KCOS-TV (PBS) - Channel 13 (will air live at 7 p.m. MT)

Waco KWBU-TV (PBS) - Channel 34

Harlingen/Weslaco/Brownsville/McAllen
KMBH-TV (PBS) - Channel 60
KGBT-TV (CBS) - Channel 4
(delayed - will air at 12:30 a.m.)

Wichita Falls KSWO-DT (ABC) - Channel 11.3
(will air live, with replay on Fri., Oct. 17 at 7 p.m.)

Central Texas
(Austin, Fredericksburg, Killeen, Temple, Waco) Time Warner Cable News 8 (will air live; replays on 10/16 at 10:30 p.m. and 10/17 at noon; also available on News 8; On Demand - TWC Channel 1408)

And if you can only catch it on the radio there are listings at the link.

Don't you feel just a little bit sorry for the old guy?

Yes, he's been a mean, nasty, sorry old bastard, but then again something just isn't right with him...




And then there's this one.



It's not been PhotoShopped.


I know what this is all about -- at the conclusion of the debate, after Obama shook Bob Scheiffer's hand, McCain was going to go around the desk in the same direction to do so as well. But Scheiffer moved to his right, towards McCain's side of the table, and McCain had to change direction and come back to his side. He made a goofy face and a little back-and-forth dance when he did so, and this photo is that moment.

When people talk about Obama being poised, calm, collected -- that kind of ridiculous Obama Cool thing, where absolutely nothing gets to the guy -- it has to be considered in the context of John McCain's ... lack thereof.

There's no point in talking about anything the two men said when the images will be all that anyone remembers. Well, that and Joe the Plumber dude. He's going to be so rich he's going to have a huge tax increase next year.

Update: After the revelations that Joe isn't actually a plumber, that he owes back taxes, and that he is related round-about to Charles Keating ... I'm convinced that Joe the Plumber is actually Jeff Gannon in his latest (failed) incarnation.

"Understanding Poverty", at DiverseWorks

"Parents left me in a motel room at age eight. Put cigarette butts out on my face. Tore my hair out. Left never to return again. I remember lying in that motel bed with the cartoons going and thinking, 'Mommy will be back soon.' I'm 37 years old; Mommy still hasn't come back." -- Judy Pruitt

On December 22, 1991, the Houston Chronicle published a story about a 21-year-old street kid known as "Snow." The moniker had been tattooed on her right arm, permanently stained under the "pure as the driven snow" fair skin from which she took her street name. Snow's story chronicled her street life in Montrose, raised by a household of transvestite prostitutes after being abandoned by her abusive parents. She begged, tricked and stole to survive, had run-ins with the law and delivered three children (each by a different father). One baby was adopted; two were taken by Child Protective Services.

Not only was the story an example of a kind of journalism that is steadily disappearing from mainstream newspapers (gritty, in-depth, real), but it also contained a stunning photojournalism element, which is the main subject of the current DiverseWorks exhibit "Understanding Poverty."

Ben Tecumseh DeSoto was a staff photographer at the Houston Chronicle for 25 years (1981-2006). On assignment in 1988, DeSoto met Snow, whose real name is Judy Pruitt, and the meeting kicked off a relationship — and a kind of collaboration — that continues to today. The photos on display convey narratives that delve into the traumatized psychology of poverty and reveal hard truths about the broken-down system that perpetuates it.

More from Troy Schulze of the Houston Press about the exhibit.

More from DeSoto about his exhibit, including this:

"As a community, we’re not doing enough to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves,” says DeSoto. “You have Jesus saying, ‘The poor you’ll have with you always.’ Well, that brings up the question, what are we gonna do with them? You can look at things from the attitude that people who fall behind, get left behind. But do we really want to live like that? If you fall behind, you get to live on the streets until the cops tell you to move on. Do we really want a society like that? I think we can do better."

*This post is part of my contribution to Blog Action Day.

None dare call it socialism

When the federal government uses 250 billion dollars of taxpayer money and buys the stock of the nine largest US banks, that's called 'nationalizing the banking system'. Or in other words, socialism. However our media specifically avoided using those words to describe what was happening until today. Last Friday:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Friday that the U.S. government was working on a plan to buy stock in financial institutions by using part of the $700 billion authorized by Congress to stabilize the financial system.

"We are working to develop a standardized program that is open to a broad array of financial institutions," Paulson said.

"Such a program would be designed to encourage the raising of new private capital to complement public capital," he said following a meeting of G-7 finance ministers and central bankers.

Positively Orwellian, Mr. Paulson. On Sunday some truth slipped through, though ...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told international leaders on Sunday that isolationism and protectionism could worsen the spreading financial crisis. With a new trading week dawning, U.S. lawmakers urged quick action by the Bush administration on measures to make direct purchases of bank stock to help unlock lending.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said an administration proposal to inject federal money directly into certain banks, in effect partially nationalizing the banking system, “is gaining steam.”

“I am hopeful that tomorrow, the Treasury will announce that they’re doing it. And they have to do it quickly ... markets are waiting,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

And then yesterday ...

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. outlined the plan to nine of the nation’s leading bankers at an afternoon meeting, officials said. He essentially told the participants that they would have to accept government investment for the good of the American financial system.

Of the $250 billion, which will come from the $700 billion bailout approved by Congress, half is to be injected into nine big banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, officials said. The other half is to go to smaller banks and thrifts. The investments will be structured so that the government can benefit from a rebound in the banks’ fortunes.

Well at least the stock market liked the idea (those damned Social Fascists):

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 936 points, or 11 percent, the largest single-day gain in the American stock market since the 1930s. The surge stretched around the globe: in Paris and Frankfurt, stocks had their biggest one-day gains ever, responding to news of similar multibillion-dollar rescue packages by the French and German governments.

See, the genuine banking experts -- the ones in Europe -- told the U.S. (as in 'us') that we had to do this, because they couldn't stand to watch Henry Paulson and George W Bush screw up the bailout, too:

First you mess up the world's financial system. Then you blow the rescue of it. Now let's show you how to do it properly.

That, in a nutshell, is the less-than-flattering message European governments are sending to the U.S. as they mount their own gigantic bank bailout. The plans, announced Monday after two weeks of dithering, involve Britain, Germany, France and some others recapitalizing national banks that require help, and providing state guarantees and other measures to kick-start the stalled credit market. The details are strikingly different from the U.S. approach adopted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and the Federal Reserve Board. And there's a big reason for that: The Europeans think Paulson got it badly wrong, and have watched aghast as he failed to restore confidence in the world's financial system.

Doesn't anybody besides me think that Hugo Chavez has the more sensible approach to nationalizing industry within Venezuela? He just takes it over, he doesn't pay anything for it or assume any of its debt.

Barack Obama could never be the socialist that George W Bush has proven himself to be. Not even if he successfully nationalizes health care (something the American people actually want to see happen).

So to review, two things happened yesterday that hadn't happened since the 1930s: the government took over the banks, and the stock market promptly went up nearly a thousand points.

Woo Hoo! We have staved off a depression recession. And if you buy that, I've got some newspaper companies and automobile manufacturers for sale real cheap, too.

Kansas vs. Darwin At the River Oaks Theater

Kansas vs. Darwin
with director Jeff Tamblyn
A free documentary film screening followed by a conversation with director Jeff Tamblyn

Tuesday, October 14
7:00 p.m.

River Oaks Theater
2009 West Gray

In May of 2005, a three-member subcommittee of the Kansas State Board of Education held hearings to determine whether Darwin's long-held Theory of Evolution should be challenged in public school science classes. At stake was, in effect, the definition of science for Kansas schoolchildren.

Kansas vs. Darwin takes you inside the hearings to meet the characters who captured the world's attention: school board members who believe their literal interpretation of the Bible trumps modern scientific evidence, and members of the "Intelligent Design" network who believe mainstream science is conspiring to suppress evidence that would overturn evolution. You'll also get face to face with an organization of Kansas scientists, educators, and citizens that mobilizes a worldwide response to put an end to what they see as a kangaroo court run by religious extremists.

You may be aware that we're having our own little creationism-as-science moment here in Texas. Reminding ourselves of what happens when you elect religious zealots to the school board is good practice for casting the right vote in a few weeks.

The Weekly Wrangle

One week before early voting in Texas begins, and the Texas Progressive Alliance blog round-up is full of posts you should read before you cast your ballot. This week's round-up was compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme agrees with Webb County elections commissioner Patricia Barrera and Webb County voters: electronic voting machines need a voter verifiable paper trail.

jobsanger thinks the Texas Legislature should rescind the Texas Driver Responsibility Program, which has one million Texas drivers owing $815 in fines, and wonders if a Denver mural is artwork or a political sign.

Justin at AAA-Fund Blog makes note of nearly violent anti-Iraqi racism at Texas A&M.

Captain Kroc at McBlogger has some advice for evangelicals narrowly focused on abortion.

Voter suppression by Republicans in Harris County is carefully distinguished from the "voter fraud" the conservatives continually whine about, but PDiddie's favorite (indeed his only) conservative commenter studiously doesn't get it. At Brains and Eggs.

nytexan of BlueBloggin points out that once again Bush lied and Congress went along with NSA Eavesdropping On Americans And Bush’s BS War On Terror. Americans now have the pleasure of knowing that NSA has listened to US citizens. Happy now!

Off the Kuff takes a look at the 30-day finance reports for Harris County candidates.

Mail in ballots returned for postage? It has already happened in Denton County. The Texas Cloverleaf has more.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News posted videos that explain why Obama is leading in North Carolina to the new GOP base and other stuff in one of his rambles around the web.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is saddened how some Americans cannot progress beyond old thinking. I’d Rather Not Say It's About RACE is an expose showing how Republican politics exploits "old thinking" to control voters.

If you live in Bellaire, Sugarland, Galveston, or another part of the oddly gerrymandered SD 17, you may have gotten a "push poll" from folks trying to whittle down Democratic candidate Chris Bell's lead in the state Senate race. George at The Texas Blue points out some dirty tricks in Texas' 17th Senate district.

Vince at Capitol Annex -- freshly back from a six-day hiatus after moving servers -- has ranked "Hot" Texas House races in anticipation of the 2008 elections.