Noriega-Cornyn just like Obama-McCain

The old balding white-haired pasty dude continuously leveled cheap shots and personal attacks, while the calm brown guy destroyed by simply laying out the record of the incumbent (party).

Where does a Washington insider find the gall to run his re-election campaign as a Washington outsider? How does a 95% lapdog for Bush Inc. claim with a straight face that he can fix all the problems he's helped make worse?

It's some kind of parallel universe the senator is living in. That, or he's smoking rocks.

Update: You thought I was kidding? He's sharing the crack with his wife ...

Let me tell you, the only person debate night is tougher on than the candidate is the candidate's spouse! It isn't easy to see your best friend of 30 years savagely attacked by his opponent, but my uneasiness quickly turned to pride when I watched John answer the questions calmly and with dignity. I may be biased, but it seems clear that John won the debate hands down last night!

Although tempted, I am not going to dignify the ludicrous statements of John's opponent last night with a response. How anyone could say some of that stuff and look themselves in the mirror is beyond me....

Unfortunately, John's opponent isn't going to let the truth get in the way of slinging mud these last 25 days, and that is why we need you more than ever.

Simply. Nucking. Futz.

And from the "You Can't Make This Shit Up" Department: Yvonne Schick is a Libertarian Scientologist who looks like Sarah Palin's not-as-cute older sister, and she thinks terrorists are like fire ants ("you don't treat your neighbor's yard, you treat your yard"). I believe that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how fire ants have spread throughout the United States, not to mention how terrorism has spread throughout the world.

Excuse me now, I'm off to the Home Depot for a bag of Anti-al-Qaeda Diazinon.

Voter suppression in the news

Our local counter-voter suppression task force completed its final strategy session Tuesday evening, but not without revealing one of the latest attempts to reduce Barack Obama's tally in Harris County. I'll let Gerry Birnberg take over:

There is a FALSE rumor going around by e-mail telling people that if they vote Straight Democratic Party, they must also cast a vote specifically for Barack Obama in order to have an Obama vote registered. THIS IS FALSE INFORMATION probably initiated by Republican dirty tricksters, but now being spread by well-meaning Barack Obama supporters.

The truth is that if you cast a Straight Democratic Party vote, you will be voting for Barack Obama and your Straight Democratic vote will count as a vote for Obama. But if you then go down and “vote” for Obama, you may actually be cancelling your Obama vote.

Don’t be fooled: Just cast a Straight Democratic Party vote and that will get Obama and all the Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

If you vote on a Hart InterCivic e-Slate DRE (which you will in most all of our beloved Deep-In-The-Hearta) and emphasize your vote for a particular candidate after having clicked the "straight ticket" box, you have deselected that candidate. As in un-voting for him/her. And that's not a bug, it's a feature.

It takes a bit of devious thinking just to come up with a rumor like this to spread. And why would anybody want to go to the trouble of trying to fool people into not voting for Obama in Houston? They don't seriously believe he has a shot at winning Texas, do they?

This is just mischief-making, but it should be the least of anybody's worries. Don't believe me?

Despite bustling registration drives, population growth and excitement about the candidates, Harris County may head into the Nov. 4 election with the about same number of registered voters as in the 2004 presidential contest.

Ahead of Monday's registration deadline, about 1,912,000 citizens were on the voter roll as of Friday, county officials said. The number will grow as registrations continue through the weekend and mail postmarked by Monday arrives next week.

But the county must add 30,000 new eligible voters just to reach the 2004 level, and Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, the county voter registrar, acknowledged a strong chance that the sign-ups will go no higher than the figure from four years ago.

Why is that, Paul? Houston Votes added somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 registrations alone. Yet with at least 100,000 registrations from all sources -- yes, Republicans too -- the county is still 30,000 short of 2004? What gives?

But unlike in past elections years, Bettencourt said, registration efforts are producing an exceptionally high number of voters who are re-registering to update their address and a relatively low number of people who have never registered before.

"The excitement we're seeing is among people already registered to vote," he said. He pointed to the record-high total turnout in the March primaries, in which 98 percent of the participants already had been registered here before this year. ...

Dee Young of the registration group Houston Votes said the county's refusal to seek an extension of the registration deadline while Ike victims got back on their feet ran against the public interest.

"After all of the frustration I have dealt with, with the county, I don't trust their numbers," she said of Bettencourt's latest projections. ...

The secretary of state's methods of maintaining the Texas voter roll may have helped put a lid on the Harris County numbers. Applying new federal and state laws for the first time, the state immediately removes from the Harris County rolls the registration of those who have registered this year in other counties, Bettencourt said. In comparison, the 2004 list may have contained many inactive registrations.

Purging voter rolls by removing voters who have moved within Texas, or because they have not voted in one of the last two federal elections, could be a violation of federal law. But that's exactly what has been happening in several states (the Lone Star isn't named as one), coincidentally all of them identified as "swing states" in the 2008 presidential election now three-and-one-half weeks away. The New York Times elaborates (without placing blame on nefarious intent, I would add):

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.

Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately. The screening or trimming of voter registration lists in the six states — Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina — could also result in problems at the polls on Election Day: people who have been removed from the rolls are likely to show up only to be challenged by political party officials or election workers, resulting in confusion, long lines and heated tempers.

Just go read the whole thing. There's more in the AP's summary of the Times' investigative report:

The six states seem to have violated federal law in two ways. Some are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.

And some of the states are improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters, the newspaper reported.

More on 2008 voter suppression across the United States. Still more from Amy Goodman, Greg Palast, and Robert Kennedy Jr.

Coming back home ...

I have no idea how Paul Bettencourt manages the database of Harris County voter registrations. There's very little voluntary transparency and FOI requests by media and Democratic party officials are often slow-walked and counter-offered (questions regarding Hart's electronic processing of votes are often met with the "proprietary information" block, for example).

I further have no idea how much Harris County voter suppression can be allocated to malicious intent, garden-variety incompetence, or simple and somewhat blameless human error on the part of the registree, the volunteer registrar, or the assistant clerk processing it.

More than likely the determination of this sort of thing will rest with legal discovery after the fact of an epic fail.

Update: Oh yeah, almost forgot ...

Voter Suppression Wiki

Election Protection Wiki

Stocks, McCain plummet

After six consecutive days of huge losses -- the DJIA has lost nearly 35% of its value since hitting its high of 14,000 a year ago, and 10% just this week -- the markets actually look a little better this morning. But not even a half-point drop in the Fed's rate was enough to stop the bleeding yesterday as the two-hundred point loss added insult to portfolio injury. Update (4:30 pm): Oops. A 678-point crash in the final hour, due to the gloomy prospects of General Motors and the rest of the auto industry, leaves us at a 40% loss for 2008.

I'm so old I can remember when either a 50-basis-point rate cut or a 200-point decline was enough to be big financial news all by themselves.

If you have a 401K, your losses are all on paper -- like Warren Buffet's, or Boone Pickens'. Don't sell now and turn it into a real one. I'm not licensed to dispense financial advice, so don't take my words to the bank (... ugh).

If you were planning on retiring at the end of the year and cashing out ... well, you're screwed worse than anybody I can think of. You ought to rethink that.

But while the markets will eventually make a comeback, we can't say the same for John McNasty's presidential aspirations:

Three weeks of historic economic upheaval has done more than just tilt a handful of once-reliably Republican states in Barack Obama’s direction. Democratic strategists are now optimistic that the ongoing crisis could lead to a landslide Obama victory.

Four large states McCain once seemed well-positioned to win—Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida—have in recent weeks shifted toward Obama. If Obama were to win those four states—a scenario that would represent a remarkable turn of events—he would likely surpass 350 electoral votes.

Under almost any feasible scenario, McCain cannot win the presidency if he loses any of those four states. And if Obama actually captured all four states, it would almost certainly signal a strong electoral tide that would likely sweep the Southwestern swing states—Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada—not to mention battlegrounds from New Hampshire to Iowa to Missouri.

If I were to post my weekly EV projection early it would show Obama having captured Ohio, Florida and Nevada for a total of 338 electoral votes. But hey, I'm conservative.

(You won't see that phrase typed here very often, so mark the date.)

If this current scenario holds then the focus would turn to lengthening Obama's coattails to help Democrats down the ballot. As in everywhere across the country. But despite the good polling news and the favorable trends, Texas apparently will still not benefit, at least according to the senator responsible for getting more Democratic senators elected ...

Sen. Charles Schumer, (D-NY) head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spoke to reporters this morning about his party's prospects for increasing their numbers this cycle. He seemed ready to count his chickens before they've hatched when he said, "The wind is more strongly at our backs than ever before."

For the record, Schumer declared Texas out of reach, as "too expensive. That's the problem."

Despite that, Schumer and the Democrats have added other previous-cycle crimson states to their target list: Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's seat in Kentucky. He went so far as to call Georgia and Kentucky "even-steven races." The DSCC put up their first ad in Kentucky today.

Adding to those states, he sees Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon and Virginia as likely pick ups.

Last night, Schumer walked that statement back, saying through a spokesperson that they are "in no way writing Texas off, and it doesn't mean that he (Noriega) won'tget some money in the future".

Tonight is the debate watch party at Noriega HQ for Rick's face-off with Big Bland John Cornyn. Noriega is closing the gap fast, and the conservatives comprising Cornyn's online mouthpieces are still seething over his yes vote on the bailout bill. Despite what Rob Jesmer thinks, Noriega is charging like Seabiscuit and is now poised to nip Corndog at the wire despite his $$$ advantage.

Senator Box Turtle is sinking. Let's throw him an anvil.

Grumpy Old Man, Part II

Those "hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn " jokes don't seem so funny this morning. I'm starting to feel sorry for poor old McGrouchy. I know I shouldn't...

I wasn't even aware of the outrage over "That One" until I got home and checked in online. I heard him say it but my reaction was that it was just more of the same nasty attitude he has demonstrated through two nights and three tortuous hours of "debate". I didn't see it as anything worse than everything else he has said and done to disrespect Obama. But Mrs. Diddie saw '50's-vintage racism laced within the retort.

Others also took offense, but I just don't think it was a racist remark, even subliminally by a guy who has a record of bigoted remarks.

No, McCain is just a mean old bastard. He left the hall quickly with his trophy wife following the debate, while Obama stayed long after and worked the crowd. Remember, this face-off was held in Nashville Tennessee, as red a state as they come. And during the "town hall" McCain touched the shoulder and shook the hand of a former chief petty officer who asked a question, so rapport with the audience -- even if it was superficial -- shouldn't have been his problem.

McCain is ornery, quick to judgment and self-righteous -- in other words, a classic conservative. Some would say "Maverickey".

And contrary to what he thinks about himself, I don't believe John McCain's hand is steady enough for the tiller.

Your Bingo card for tonight's debate

More here.

Update: What Obama should say tonight if the words 'Ayers' or 'Wright' fall out of McLame's mouth ...

John, your campaign has already said it intends to spend the last four weeks of this campaign mostly attacking me. And with the William Ayers thing, we have some idea of what kind of attacks to expect. But you folks at home, if you go to CNN's website -- and this is a bit of free advertising, I guess -- they have a thing called Campaign Fact Check. If you go there, and look up William Ayers, you'll see that they've called that attack FALSE, and you'll see exactly WHY it's false. And that's not my campaign saying that -- that's CNN! They're saying it's false.

That's why if it were just the two of us, if it were just Barack Obama and John McCain involved, and if there were nothing else at stake, I'd have no problem at all turning this election into a mudslinging battle. I've got plenty of mud for you, believe me.

But it's not just the two of us. The American people are also part of this, and if you drag this election down to that level, they're the ones who are gonna lose.

So for their sake, John, I'm asking you to join me in a pledge -- and I don't have any paper to sign, we'll just do it on a handshake if you agree. I'm asking you to join me in a pledge, for the last four weeks of this election, to get rid of the character assassinations, to get rid of the smears, and to run honorable campaigns that talk about the issues -- the economy, health care, Iraq, education, jobs, gas prices -- that the American people actually care about. That's the kind of campaign they deserve.

So John, will you come over here and shake my hand?

The Big Dog and Chris Bell; Richardson and Hoyer for Skelly

In exchange for his support for Hillary in the primary, Chris Bell gets a big ol' bone thrown his way:

Bill Clinton will come to Houston on Monday, Oct. 13 to headline a fundraising event for Chris Bell, candidate in the special election for State Senate District 17.

"I am honored to have President Clinton come to Houston to help my campaign,” said Chris Bell. “It’s unusual to have a former President of the United States of America help raise money for a state legislative race, but he knows that this is an incredible opportunity to make real progress for the people of Texas.”

Ambassador Arthur Schechter will host the fundraiser at his home Monday evening. Democratic Party stalwart Bernard Rapoport will serve as “Honorary Chair” of the event. Details on getting tickets will be posted on ChrisBell.com.

This race is almost out of reach for the GOP. From the same press release:

A poll conducted by Cooper and Secrest in August showed that Chris Bell has a 34-point lead over the Republican candidates who remain clustered in a statistical tie for second place. The initial trial heat, asked of 400 likely special election voters Aug. 14-18, had Chris Bell at 42%, with Republicans Joan Huffman at 8%, Austen Furse at 5%, and Grant Harpold at 4%. A poll subsequently released by Mrs. Huffman’s own campaign confirmed Chris Bell’s standing as a frontrunner and the rest of the field’s statistical proximity to single digits.

In May, an independent poll conducted for Texans for Insurance Reform found that Chris Bell has higher name identification in SD 17 than U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. The pollster, Jeff Smith of Opinion Analysts, labeled Mr. Bell the “front-runner in a very winnable contest.”

Fifty-percent-plus-one eliminates a runoff. This race will be at the top of every ballot in the five Southeast Texas counties that get to vote on it.

In other heavyweight news flashes (pun intended, Governor Richardson), this missive from SDEC member Ron Rea contains the following announcement of events to benefit the campaign of CD-07 Democratic challenger Michael Skelly:

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will be here for a luncheon on Thursday, October 16, at a location to be announced soon.

Steny Hoyer, Member of Congress and House Whip for the Democratic Party, will be here for a breakfast event in downtown Houston on Wednesday, October 22.

A political contribution for each event is $100 per plate.

More to come on these, but worth noting is that Skelly has pulled within striking distance of incumbent John Culberson, who last Friday hosted a shooting event with John Boehner at a west side gun club.

(I mean, really; could the differences be any more stark?)

The domestic terrorists pallin' around with Palin

When you and your husband spend a lot of time hanging out with a radical secessionist fringe third-party whose founder died in a plastic explosives deal gone bad, you probably shouldn't fling your conservative howler monkey poop at other people:



And if a radical fundamentalist evangelical preacher makes a prayer over you to keep away the witchcraft, then you probably shouldn't attempt to cast aspersions about someone else's minister. That horse, of course, was beaten to death before the summer began, but whipping up BS seems to be the only thing this woman is any good at.

We already knew you were stupid, Sarah. It's just too bad you don't have even the sense to shut up and stop proving it.

John McCain, his tangled involvement in the S&L scandal of the '80's that resulted in his charter membership in the Keating Five, not to mention its foretelling implications on the current economic disaster he so fervently desires to put aside, aside ...

Sarah Palin is nothing but a dumbass bitch who has no business whatsoever in politics above the level of Wasilla, Alaska. Thirty more days of this woman's nonsense and then we won't have to think about her again for at least four more years.

Update:

Palin, unleashed and unhinged, whips a Florida crowd into a racist frenzy ...

In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy." ...

... Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Gee, I wonder where the Secret Service was when the death threats against a presidential candidate were being shouted out.

And Joe Klein, with "Embarracuda":

I'm of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign's further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to analyze the putresence in a way that conveys a sense of balance: "Well, it is bull-pucky, but the splatter pattern is interesting..." which, of course, only serves to get your perverse message out. I really don't want to be a part of that. But...every so often, we journalists have a duty to remind readers just how dingy the McCain campaign, and its right-wing acolytes in the media (I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity) have become--especially in their efforts to divert public attention from the economic crisis we're facing. And so inept at it: other campaigns have decided that their only shot is going negative, but usually they don't announce it, as several McCain aides have in recent days -- there's no way we can win on the economy, so we're going to go sludge-diving.

But since we are dealing with manure here, I'll put the rest of this post below the fold.

You can't make shit like this up. And it's going to get worse. For the next month. And some people are going to decide to vote for the Republicans because of it.

How fucked up is that?

The original pitbulls with lipstick

From an e-mail from my mom:

Dear Daughter and Friends, I saw some of these same pictures in the WWI Museum in Kansas City last May with my sister, Kelly, including the one about Woodrow Wilson ordering the suffragette to be force fed ... amazing! Less than 100 yrs ago in THIS country!! These were truly the first pitbulls with lipstick! Please pass on to remind others how far we have come and how important it is not to go back, no matter what your political leanings are ...

This is the story of our mothers and grandmothers (and some great-grandmothers); they lived only 90 years ago.



Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.



The women were were jailed for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the right to vote.



And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women charged with 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.' They beat Lucy Burns (above), chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping.



They hurled Dora Lewis (above) into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food -- all of it colorless slop -- was infested with worms.



When one of the leaders, Alice Paul (above), embarked on a hunger strike they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?



(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)

Last week I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could step into the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.



(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York )

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.



(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw 'Iron Jawed Angels', too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was -- with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote had become valuable to her "all over again."

I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.



(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at National Woman's Party headquarters, Jackson Place, Washington D.C. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right)

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote Democratic, Republican or independent party -- remember to vote.



(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.")

History is waiting to be made.

The Weekly Wrangle (Voter reg deadline is TODAY, people)

Thirty days to go to Election Day, but you must be registered to vote, and today is the deadline. Make sure you're ready to vote by clicking here (scroll down a little, on the right side) to register or verify your registration. Early voting begins in just two weeks. And the blogs of the Texas Progressive Alliance had a lot to say about candidates on the ballot from top to bottom; here's the roundup of the best posts from last week ...

John Cornyn is bleeding support from the conservative wingnut base as a result of his 'yes' vote on the Wall Street bailout. Click on the links in PDiddie's "Bailout Burger, extra bacon, cut the taxes" post at Brains and Eggs.

Keep hanging onto your wallets, CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme warns. Texas is taking it in the shorts over the Bush bailout.

Off the Kuff takes a shot at projecting November turnout.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the on the connections between county elected officials and the ethically challenged 3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law in Broken Law and the criminality of what is legal.

In the midst of all the brouhaha about bailouts and golden parachutes, McBlogger tells a Real Life Tale of Trying To Buy Something in a store.

The Republican economic policies have caused the loss of 2.2 million jobs in the United States in the last 12 months. jobsanger tells us that the job losses are still growing, and finds a picture that accurately expresses how many Americans feel about Wall Street.

The Texas Cloverleaf recommends voting Yes on the Denton County bond proposal this November.

North Texas Liberal analyzes last week's vice-presidential debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden.

nytexan at Bluebloggin takes a good look at a presidential candidate's relationship with a terrorist. As Sarah Palin tries to connect the imaginary dots of terror between Bill Ayres and Barack Obama, she should take a closer look at John McCain's Dear Friend, American Terrorist G. Gordon Liddy. People in igloos shouldn't throw fireballs.

Neil at Texas Liberal says it's crazy that Houston school kids will not be asked to make up days missed because of Hurricane Ike.

Burnt Orange Report rounds up the reasons why Rick Noriega is back in the Texas Senate race with newfound momentum.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is amazed how the Mainstream Media brings attention to nonsense while ignoring how North Korea, Russia, Iran, Myanmar Nukes and US Elections are connected to our future.

In light of its history of endorsement against farmers and agribusiness, Vince at Capitol Annex asks whether Farm Bureau's AGFUND is still relevant.

Over at TexasKaos, Txsharon tells us that Sarah Palin put out a whopper in her one-on-one with Joe Biden. Natural gas is NOT the clean alternative Palin claimed.

Lastly, Julie Pippert at MOMocrats interviewed experts about the economic crisis and discovered that women hit disproportionately hard by economic crisis don't receive adequate help in current bailout, experts say. She'll also be appearing on FOX News Radio, XM Sirius, and Blog Talk Radio on Monday.

More toons (Bailin' and Palin)

EV 10/5: Obama still gaining states

With state polling in the wake of the first presidential and the only vice-presidential debate, New Hampshire and Virginia are blue this week, and Indiana is a tossup.

The next debate between Obama and McCain is scheduled for Tuesday October 7, at Belmont University in Nashville, and moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw.

<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 (McInsane in the Membrane edition)

Rich Lowery needs a date

Or at the very least he must stop publicly fantasizing about Sarah Palin:

A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

We'll leave the ridicule to the professionals. Keith Olbermann:

"We don't care if you masturbated during the debate, just don't tell America about it."

Bill Maher:

"This dude needs to get laid."

James Wolcott:

Good thing Palin didn't blow a kiss at the camera or Lowry might have fucking fainted. I'm not a licensed psychotherapist but when you think the people on TV are addressing you personally and directly it's often a sign of incipient dementia.

(h/t to Markos)

Choice excerpts

A pair of wish-I-had-said-thats ...

How Sarah Palin blew it:

Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas Thursday night. Actually, that's unfair to Joe Biden; he was trying to talk to everyone. I can say for certain, though, that Sarah Palin was talking to -- and winking at -- her own private Idaho, and for long stretches of the debate, it was an unnerving experience....

But the pit bull in lipstick was back. After her disarming "Hey, can I call you Joe?" Palin was vicious, with a winning smile. After a passionate Biden plea to "walk with me in my neighborhood," in Delaware and Scranton, where "the middle class has gotten the short end," she ridiculed him: "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again! Pointing backwards again!"

There were two key moments for me when Sarah Palin blew it badly. One was substantive, one was symbolic. The substantive was her bizarre statement about being happy that Dick Cheney had expanded the powers of the vice-presidency, and wanting to expand the powers more. I think that's what she said, it was one of many moments I didn't entirely understand her point, but I got her overall meaning. Biden came back with a decisive: "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president in American history," and he defended the existing limits on vice-presidential power. Point: Biden. Big time.

The symbolic moment Palin flubbed was subjective, of course. But I instant-messaged a friend that she lost the debate when Biden choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured -- and she went straight back into "John McCain is a maverick." I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that's just me. ...

I thought Biden and Palin tied for the first third of the debate, that Palin actually won the second third on moxie and charisma, not policy (Biden looked visibly angry at a few points, and that's never good), but Biden cleaned her clock in the last third. He quoted his dad telling him, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up!" -- and he listened to his father. Biden got up, and he won the debate.

And ...

Why would a smart guy like Hank Paulson advance such a dumb, shady plan?

... Let us count the reasons:

No. 1: It delays our national reckoning until after the presidential election.

Paulson first floated a bailout Sept. 18, at the very hour when shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley looked like they might go into a death spiral. It's not so much a bailout, as it is a timeout. He had to follow up with something, anything, to stop the freefall from resuming. It didn't have to make sense.

So it doesn't. The plan is about creating the illusion of stronger financial institutions, not strengthening them.

The banks know this. Otherwise, they would have stopped charging each other near-record rates for three-month loans by now. The reason they haven't is because they're still afraid their customers -- other banks -- might go broke.

No. 2: The reckoning will be worse than you can imagine.

If Paulson were serious about recapitalizing rickety U.S. banks, he would infuse them with hundreds of billions of dollars of fresh government money, in exchange for ownership stakes. And if he wanted to create market liquidity for all those troubled assets on their books, he would be ordering banks to disclose everything there is to know about them, so Mr. Market could figure out their present value.

He can't let that happen. Not now. If everyone could see how much the toxic waste is worth, the writedowns would be so huge that many banks would have to be declared insolvent.

Better to let the next administration deal with the clean- up. The trouble is, the longer the government waits to address the banks' lack of capital, the worse it gets, barring a miracle.

No. 3: He's helping his friends.

Is there any doubt? Let's see.

As of yesterday, Morgan Stanley Chief Executive John Mack owned 2.75 million shares of his company's stock, valued at about $67 million. If Mack can get Morgan Stanley to trade reams of sketchy paper for billions of dollars of our Treasury's cash, without diluting any of his stake in the company, who benefits?

Paulson would have us believe it's you.

No. 4: There's an excellent chance the Congress will pass it. Leave someone else to figure out the costs another day.

Palindrone

Palindrome n. Words or phrases so recited and generic in nature, they can be read in either direction without changing meaning or impact.

Josephine Six-Pack didn't fall down, so she won! Kinda. Gosh.

And hey you third-graders, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Seriously, I thought the governor started off quite well, had a few actually good moments, got confused once or twice, studied her note cards for the most part, hurt my ears with "nukular", hurt my eyes with all that winky flirty stuff, threw some red meat to the conservative base and generally spoke in mostly complete sentences.

Biden as expected was erudite, on target, and finished the last fifteen minutes strongest with his emotional response, the smackdown of McMaverick, and his solid close.

So yeah, I suppose Ms. Moosechunks stopped the hemorrhaging for the Republican ticket, but as with vice-presidential debates past the result won't ultimately affect the final outcome (think Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle, though this one was never that lopsided).

More debate toons

Tonight's debate is must-see teevee

"It used to be you'd ask your buddy, 'Where are you watching the game?' " said Armando Walle, Democratic state representative candidate in District 140. "Now it's, 'Where are you going to watch the debate?' " ...

(Last) Friday, an estimated 52.4 million Americans tuned in to watch the McCain-Obama debate — and Thursday night's crowd could be larger.

Traditionally, Thursday is a good night to watch TV; Friday is not. Besides, last week, nobody but McCain knew if he was even going to show up. Also, there's the allure of seeing a potential train wreck.

Ah yes. Train wreck or smackdown. Possibly both, and potentially for either player.

It may be the ugly side of human nature, but regular Americans, political pundits and academics who make their living dissecting just such media events can hardly wait.

"There was some underestimation of how much this election will become the mini-series of the season," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's been the most exciting TV on, from the beginning of year till now."

He figures Palin will try to get through the debate by memorizing eight or nine mini-speeches. If she can do that successfully, he said, the 90 minutes will be as boring as some people deemed last Friday's debate. "The only chance for anything interesting is if the moderator, Gwen Ifill, can ask her questions that can't be answered with a push of the button and recitation," Thompson said.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he's heard Palin's debate preparations haven't gone so well.

"It's asking a tremendous amount from a former mayor of Wasilla and a governor of less than two years to get up to speed on foreign and domestic policies," Jillson said. "Even if she is really talented."

Thompson will be glued to his TV set, but with low expectations.

"Is Palin even competent to run for this office?" he asked. "She is making (former vice president) Dan Quayle sound like a Rhodes scholar."

The only thing that reverses the slide and gets the GOP back in the game is a gaffe-free Palin and a gaffe-filled Biden. What are the odds of that occurence?

And what do our locals have to say?

City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck will be rooting for Palin.

"I think she's terrific, and I'm real excited about her," Clutterbuck said. "She's been involved and successful in local government, and I recognize the dedication and hard work that goes into that. ... You don't have to be in Washington all your career to be a competent leader."

Peggy Hamric, a former GOP state representative, will be rooting for Palin, too.

"She's just a breath of fresh air," Hamric said. "Palin's a typical American woman. She's Main Street."

Political scientists doubt Democratic women, even disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters, will cross party lines to vote for Palin.

While Clutterbuck and Hamric hope they're wrong, Sissy Farenthold, a lifelong feminist, says she won't be voting her gender. She thinks not only that Palin has poor judgment, but that McCain exhibited poor judgment in selecting her as his VP. "He wanted to invigorate the conservative base, and he thought he might appeal to women," Farenthold said. "All I can believe is that he's not thinking about governance, he's not thinking about the issues. The whole thing is just amazing to me."

We're going out to watch it with a large group of people somewhere. I like to gauge the reaction of others, even those with whom I am simpatico. Last week I was increasingly incensed as Obama played nice to McLame's nasty, complimenting him, saying "Senator McCain is exactly right about ..." about four times too many, and generally not doing what I thought he should do, which was bust the old man in the mouth. He threw a few elbows and a couple of left jabs, yeah, but not nearly enough counter-punching to suit me. Turns out I was mistaken about how that would be perceived by the majority, however.

Biden cannot do anything aggressive at all toward his overmatched counterpart. He must be direct, deferential, keep the focus on the Republican standard-bearer's shortcomings, and when Ms. Palin trips and falls, stand quietly. Hell, maybe he should even help her up.

I just hope there aren't too many cringe-worthy moments. For either person.

Bailout Burger, extra bacon, cut the taxes

The new bill, which is over 400 pages, is full of random tax cuts (e.g., property tax deductions for people who don't itemize), which is sure to please some conservative House Republicans and infuriate Democrats who think cutting taxes without cutting spending is irresponsible. It is also full of pork designed to please both Democrats (requiring insurance companies to cover mental health) and Republicans ($3 billion for rural schools). It is likely that the number of Republicans gained in the House vote will exceed the number of Democrats lost by more than 13 and the bill will probably pass the House tomorrow. Everybody was too busy adding pork to question the basic premise of whether giving former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson $250 billion immediately to help out his friends on Wall St. as he sees fit is a good idea.

So with public sentiment running so strongly against it, will tenuous Republican Senators on the ballot next month -- like John Cornhole, Saxby Chambliss, Norm Coleman, Ted Stevens and John Sununu -- pay a price for their support of the bill?

Update: Indeed he is losing the wingnuts. More at the LST here and here (read the comments).

What 2 Watch 4 in Da House: how many Blue Dogs jump off the bus. Pay particularly close attention to those in tight races, like Nick Lampson for example. And if endangered GOP Congresscritters like John Cumbersome vote for the bill, I say that would be the final nail in his coffin. (He won't.)

Update II: The Blue Dogs get the shaft. Ha ha.

Congress chats, markets take off

Not the credit markets, though.

On Monday, the Dow Jones index plunged 778 points but yesterday it soared 485 points even though nothing changed. One of the fundamental concepts of economic theory is that markets accurately reflect the actual value of the item being traded. But it is hard to believe that the true value of companies as solid as Boeing, Disney, Pfizer, and Wal-Mart can change by nearly 10% in a few hours.

The Senate is likely to vote on a revised bailout bill today. It will probably have sweeteners for various groups, such as an expanded FDIC limit to protect depositors and make them less likely to cause a run on a bank. Such a bill, however, may draw new opposition in the House. Didn't Abraham Lincoln say something like: "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time"? This bill is definitely not going to please all of the people. It is being microscopically crafted to please 51 senators (or 50 senators plus Dick Cheney) and 218 representatives. But other plans are being circulated. For example, billionaire George Soros is floating a plan in which the treasury would recapitalize the failing banks by having them issue new stock that the government would buy at the market price. This scheme means that the stockholders of failing banks would have their stock watered down but the stockholders in banks that don't need assistance would be unaffected. Various alternative plans are also being suggested and opposition to it is still strong among conservatives.

A pretty fair assessment by The Votemaster there. While Congress dithers, the economy burns. Here's an observation from one sector, automobile sales: people with good credit scores are being offered car loans at 9 and 10 percent, while nearly no one else is getting financed at all:

“It frankly has become a nightmare for dealers and consumers who need a vehicle,” said Art Spinella, CNW’s president. “This is the worst we have seen it since we’ve been tracking it since 1984.” ...

But Mark LaNeve, head of North American sales for General Motors, estimates that G.M. is losing 10,000 to 12,000 sales a month because of tighter lending practices.

“It’s a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gas,” said James Press, a Chrysler vice chairman. “We have buyers coming in, but they can’t get a loan.”

Detroit is bracing for particularly bad sales numbers for September. According to estimates from Edmunds.com, Chrysler sales may be down as much as 36 percent, G.M.’s may drop 23 percent, and Ford Motor Company sales could be down 25 percent.

Even Japanese automakers, which specialize in fuel-efficient smaller cars, are expected to record a rough month, with Toyota projected to be down by 17 percent and Nissan by 11 percent.

Last week the largest association of Chevrolet dealers in the country, Bill Heard Enterprises, shuttered its dealerships including its 7th-largest-in-the-nation Landmark Chevrolet in Houston.

And we all look forward to what October -- one of the historically worst months for the markets, and business overall -- will bring.

Reality intrudes

So much to blog, so little time to do so.

I met Mother and Brother in College Station on Sunday for lunch, Nephew's Aggie band concert, and the return drive to Orange County (Mother evacuated from Ike to Fort Worth and hasn't been back home since). Yesterday I got busy cleaning up her yard -- a few limbs and a couple of significant-size treetops down, nothing too large or serious -- and the neighbors pitched in with me, wheelbarrows and chainsaws and tractors large and small. I took a break at 11, cleaned up, went to lunch and the grocer's, and then finally got back in touch with the world about 2 p.m. yesterday afternoon to find it falling apart.

As I worked the phones the rest of the day and into the evening, calling to reassure clients and get reassurance myself from my vendors, mostly insurance companies, I found myself craving a return to the morning's manual labor.

(I should also note here that while we were in Aggieland and with a couple of hours to spare we went through the GHWB library. Vigorously exercising both gag reflex and self-restraint on Sunday turned out to be good preparation for Monday.)

I was thinking the bailout would pass, but I underestimated both the outcry from "Main Street" and the attention paid to said outcry by nervous Congresscritters in both parties. We're in for a few more bumpy days ahead as we ride this financial roller coaster through the High Holy Days.

As for Casa Diddie, well, my agency business looks cooked and the wife was quickly laid off, so I suppose we'll pop a little corn and watch the Blame Game, or maybe Dancing with The Stooges. Meanwhile there's some really good posts on what's going on from Tom Kirkendall here, the Socratic Gadfly here, and this analysis in the Chronic from the McClatchy team is spot on.

The Black Monday afternoon teevee coverage was remarkable in reporting the farce, from John Boehner attributing the bill's failure to the pussification of House Republicans, to David Gregory interviewing John Culberson and Sheila Jackson-Lee side side by side (both voted 'no'), to Keith Olbermann's and Rachel Maddow's careful and calm-inducing explanations. Suze Orman told viewers to stop going out to dinner every night, paying with a credit card and then paying the monthly minimum on that card. I don't think that's what Ma and Pa Mainstreet want to hear or heed.

And if anyone you know happens to be hiring financial experts, I know two people in the job market. Contact me care of this blog.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance had another great week discussing the politics of Texas and the nation. Here are some of the best of those posts:

The Texas Cloverleaf has the new Palin plan for foreign experience: sitting pretty with puppets.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says welcome to the United States of Corporate Greed.

Dembones at Eye On Williamson posts on the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) and their status quo endorsements for the November election, TAR needs to be tarred and feathered.

The past week has been one filled with brilliant people trying desperately to accomplish what is extremely difficult (namely, keeping the US out of a depression) and some exceptionally (some might say BREATHTAKINGLY) stupid people who are narrowly focused on the last shreds of a failed ideology. And their own egos. We at McBlogger have done our best to keep up with all the ups. And downs. First up are the always cretinous folks from the American Enterprise Institute who decided to blame the wrong people for the failures of their own plans. Then there was Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-unfortunately from Texas) who decided his supercharged ego and underpowered little rat-brain had something useful to add. He found out pretty quickly that wasn't the case.

Off the Kuff projects what the Houston Chronicle endorsements for November will look like.

A majority of voters thought Obama won the first debate, but all the media pundits could talk about was what a great job McCain did. jobsanger wonders what debate the "Talking Heads" were watching.

NorthTexas Liberal led an interesting discussion on John McCain's brief campaign suspension.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has refused to answer whether or not the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts should be subject to the Texas Public Information Act and discusses why that was a really stupid move.

Neil at Texas Liberal did not allow the dent in his car to be fixed by the guy who solicited him for the work in a parking lot. That's just the type of post-hurricane scam people are being warned about.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News does not like Bush and McCain's response to the Wall Street crisis. He has some items he wants included in a bailout bill and not bags of money thrown at the problem.

EV 9/27: Momentum shifts back to Obama

Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are back to blue. Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina are no longer red. All of this polling was completed prior to Friday night's debate.

<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

Paul Newman 1925 - 2008

With his strong, classically handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Newman was a heartthrob just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. "I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

They had a famously durable marriage. Newman spoke about their relationship by noting how they decided to act in the comedy "A New Kind of Love" (1963).

He told Time magazine: "Joanne read it and said, 'Hey this could be fun to do together. Read it.' And I read it and said, 'Joanne, it's just a bunch of one-liners.'

"And she said, 'You [expletive], I've been carting your children around, taking care of them, taking care of you and your house.' And I said, 'That is what I said. It's a terrific script. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.' This is what is known as a reciprocal trade agreement."

Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon's "enemies list," one of the actor's proudest achievements, he liked to say.

Belligerent and condescending

Which didn't win over many independent voters. Nor many others.

The party was a blast -- SRO inside the Cotton Exchange, and our little group included Councilman Peter Brown, Rep. Al Edwards, Jim Sharp, and Alexandra Smoots-Hogan, among many others. Had that fabulous piece of fish at Cabo in the late night afterwards (the plantain crusted mahi-mahi).

Why didn't McNasty make eye contact with Obama one single time during the entire evening? And did you hear him mutter "horseshit"? Twice?!

Rockin' the debate tonight

Leaving shortly for the party, which means you'll have to look elsewhere for a live-blog. We're going to be drinking every time McLame says "bailout", "crisis", and since it's supposed to be a debate about foreign policy, "9/11", "mushroom cloud", and "Ackmabinehandjob" or something that sounds similar.

Which means we'll all be unconscious before 9:30.

WaMu gets Chased into history

WooHoo:

JPMorgan Chase became the biggest U.S. bank by deposits, acquiring Washington Mutual's branch network for $1.9 billion after the thrift was seized in the largest U.S. bank failure in history.

Customers of WaMu withdrew $16.7 billion from accounts since Sept. 16, leaving the Seattle-based bank "unsound," the Office of Thrift Supervision said late Thursday. WaMu's branches will open today and depositors will have full access to all their accounts, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said on a conference call.

Well, there go WaMu's socially liberal policies. I had what some may consider a lot of money (and some would think a mere pittance) in WaMu, but never worried about it, even when I learned that the FDIC itself was undercapitalized. I knew the feds would never let them go belly-up, and I knew that before they began rescuing mortgage companies and insurance companies.

WaMu turned down offers of $8 a share earlier this year and $4 a share just a few weeks ago. Today...

... WaMu, down 95 percent in the past year, dropped to 45 cents in extended trading following the announcement, which came after the close of regular trading.

David Bonderman's TPG Inc., which led a $7 billion capital infusion for WaMu earlier this year, lost most of its initial $2 billion investment. TPG, based in Forth Worth, Texas, said in a statement Thursday it was "dissatisfied with the loss" and that the WaMu investment was a "small part of assets."

New York-based JPMorgan, which separately announced plans to raise $8 billion by selling common stock, had its outlook lowered to negative by Moody's Investors Service. Moody's left its Aa2 rating on JPMorgan unchanged.

JPMorgan won't acquire WaMu's liabilities, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders, the FDIC said. JPMorgan paid $10 a share for Bear Stearns in March as the New York-based securities firm teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

"This is one of the reasons I own JPMorgan: They're going to win from all this," said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors Corp. in Rochester, New York. "They're taking on credit risk, but they're not taking on any debt obligations."

JPMChase has bought Bear Stearns and WaMu in the past two months; Bank of America owns Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. The last remaining independent brokerage houses in the US, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs (Henry Paulson's former employer), have been OK'd to become banks themselves. But the Chinese are turning off the spigot, so who knows where it goes from here, especially if John McInsane and the House Republicans succeed in derailing Bush's bailout.

And in other news, the stock market is rocketing downward again this morning. Update (at market closing): A nice finish to a wild day.

Putin rears his head and comes into the air space

I'll bet he can see Sarah's house from there ...


Every single time that poor ditz opens her mouth it's a field day.

Harris County election details

Kuffner beat me to it, but I have some information he doesn't (it comes from time spent at the logic and accuracy testing for Hart InterCivic's e-Slates, which took place last week at Beverly Kaufman's office) ...

-- There will be 874 voting precincts in the nation's third-largest county. Some precincts will be combined in polling places, being determined by your respective county commissioner even now.

-- There are 263 ballot versions in the general election, and more than a hundred others for "limited" voting (for example, someone from out-of-state voting just a presidential and/or federal candidate ballot).

-- There are thirteen different election entities, which split precincts in some cases (such as school districts and MUDs).

-- The special election for SD-17 (79 precincts in Harris, but also on ballots in Jefferson, Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Galveston counties) will be at the very top of the ballot, above the presidential candidates and even the straight-party button. Alan Berstein explains:

The contest will appear before the "straight ticket" option that allows voters, with a single physical motion, to vote for all candidates of a particular party, from president to justice of the peace. But, since there are multiple Democrats and Republicans in the SD 17 race, the straight ticket vote would not apply to it anyway. Voters in the district can mark their choice in that race and then get on with the businesses of voting "straight ticket" or cherrypicking their way down the ballot.

Chris Bell will appear first on the ballot in Fort Bend, Galveston and Jefferson counties, in the third position in Brazoria County, and in Harris County Bell's name appears as the last one listed in the SD-17 contest. As I have previously noted -- and despite what you may have read elsewhere, like in Al's post above -- he is the one true Democrat in the race.

-- Here's a sample ballot, listing all of the races. You will obviously get to vote for a single Congressional and statehouse candidate to represent your area, but all of the judicial candidates and all of the Harris County executive races will appear on your ballot (if you're voting in Harris, of course).

-- The deadline for voter registration is October 6. Register, verify your registration, or learn which candidates represent you through the various links listed here. Early voting begins October 20. Here are the EV locations, hours, and more useful information.

-- Harris County election officials project that 1.2 million votes will be cast here. If that holds historically accurate it would represent about 20% of the statewide tally, which works out to six million Texas votes.

-- Finally, Harris County will be parallel-testing its voting machines for the first time ...

Parallel testing, also known as election-day testing, involves selecting voting machines at random and testing them as realistically as possible during the period that votes are being cast. The fundamental question addressed by such tests arise from the fact that pre-election testing is almost always done using a special test mode in the voting system, and corrupt software could potentially arrange to perform honestly while in test mode while performing dishonestly during a real election.

And I will be present as they do.

Update: Kuff points out in the comments that I have significantly understimated the statewide turnout.