P-G Endorses Casey

Read it here.

I don't think it's too too suprising. And I am sure the folks over at SantorumHQ aren't surprised either. I can almost hear the cries of "typical liberal media outlet response" right now. Anyway, here are some snippets of the editorial outlining the P-G's reasoning.

Point one:

There was a time when conservatives ran against Washington, D.C., but Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, in fighting the challenge by state Treasurer Bob Casey this year, has a problem doing that. He is Washington, D.C.

More precisely, the 12-year incumbent is the sort of calculating politician who has made the 109th Congress the out-of-touch and ethics-challenged institution that has added to the store of public cynicism.

Point two:

For all his talk of being just "an Italian kid from a steel town," Mr. Santorum, 48, was entirely in character when he was playing happy host every week to well-heeled corporate lobbyists of K Street seeking to shape the public's business in ways denied to ordinary people. That is what he has become.

And so on. They save the big stuff for the end:

Sen. Santorum has a bigger problem. This self-described fighter has a black belt in hypocrisy. The issue of his non-residence in Pennsylvania is rooted in his slamming of Rep. Doug Walgren 16 years ago for moving to Washington, D.C. The hypocrisy got worse when Mr. Santorum, the alleged champion of taxpayers, stuck the public for the bill to educate his children in a cyber school when his residence in Penn Hills is just a legal fiction.

There you have it. Out-of-touch, ethics-challenged, happy host to K Street corporate lobbyists who stuck the public for the bill to education his children.

Rick Santorum - A Blackbelt in hypocrisy

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEKEND...and beyond

Lots of canvassing/phonebanking going on today, tomorrow...and beyond!

SATURDAY

1. Richard Meritzer (of DfP, Gertrude Stein Club, etc.) will lead a canvass of the 10th ward. Meet at 225 Ross St., 10 AM Sat.

2. League of Young Voters
GOTV Door-Knocking, Saturday, October 21th 10 AM- 1 PM.
Meet at the Kiva Han at the Corner of Craig and Forbes, Oakland

3. Sierra Club
Canvass: SATURDAY, October 21, 10:00-1:00 Allison Park
Meet at the Panera's, 4960 Rt. 8 in Allison Park, or meet at the Sierra Club office, 3109 Forbes Ave. in Oakland at 9:30 to carpool.

4. America Votes
Saturday election action day / canvass
(meet at 9 AM, Saturday, 401 N. Highland Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15206)

5. Matt Smith Campaign
Canvass: Saturday (October 21)
Meet at 271 Colonial Drive in Mt. Lebanon at 10:30am. RSVP Michelle at elle.watts@gmail.com or call 412.561.3490
____________________________________________________________

SUNDAY

1. Sierra Club
SUNDAY, October 22, 10:00-1:00 South Hills
Canvass: Meet at the Bethel Park Community Center, 5151 Park Ave. at 10:00, or meet at the Sierra Club office, 3109 Forbes Ave. in Oakland at 9:30 to carpool.

Sign up, more info & full walk schedule: Randy.francisco@sierraclub.org or 412-802-6161

2. Matt Smith Campaign
Canvass: Sunday at 11:30
Meet at the tennis courts in Scott Park. RSVP to Michelle at elle.watts@gmail.com or call 412.561.3490.

_____________________________________________________________

NEXT WEEK

1. Sierra Club
Monday and Tuesday Nights
Make phone calls to infrequent voters, eat free pizza, and make a difference. Training, script, and information provided. Enjoy a beeror glass of wine on us at our Tuesday Election Action Night. Sign upor more info: rebecca.glenn@sierraclub.org or call 412-802-6161

2. America Votes
Election Action Nights (phone banks) Oct. 22, 23, 24 (with Sierra Club), 25, and 26 (one at Clean Water Action, 100 5th Avenue, #1108 Pittsburgh, PA 15222, one at Sierra Club) and ongoing.

See https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/253/mtglist.asp?newloc=1&formid=meet&loccity=Pittsburgh

Call in advance (412.661.0847) for possible daytime canvass / phone bank hours

3. Matt Smith Campaign
Phonebanking: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6-8pm at Campaign headquarters.
Contact Michelle for details at 412.561.3490. http://www.mattsmith2006.com/index.html

4. Rendell for Governor Campaign
Phonebanking: Monday through Thursday 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Rendell for Governor, 225 Ross St.Pittsburgh, PA 15219, (412) 201-9024

_____________________________________________________________

ANYTIME

MoveOn.org Call for Change

MoveOn is making it possible for you to help and never leave your home.

Phone volunteers are the backbone of Call for Change. As a phone volunteer, you'll start right away phoning progressive voters in targeted congressional districts. They'll tell you who to call and what to say. Your calling can be from home (whenever it fits your schedule) and at neighborhood calling parties. You commit to calling:

one hour a week between now and November (talking to ~10 voters/wk.)

one hour a day for the last four days before the election, and

two hours on Election Day, November 7th.

SIGN UP HERE

1 Political Junkie on KDKA Radio Tonight!

2 Political Junkie's own David DeAngelo will be appearing tonight on John McIntire's The Flip Side Friday Night Free For All at 9:00 PM.

You can live stream it at http://www.kdkaradio.com or tune your radio dial to 1020 AM.

You can see McIntire perform live today at Politics Is Funny: Comedy Show at 3:00 PM, IBEW, 5 Hot Metal Street, Pittsburgh PA 15203 on the fabulous South Side. (Damn! It's only a few blocks from me and I have to work! How will I ever know if Mayor Opie can be intentionally funny?)

And, you can catch McIntire anytime at http://macyapper.com

Bush's True Character Shows

George W. Bush declared this week as "National Character Counts Week." Then he went to help raise funds for a Republican Congressman from our very own Pennsylvania who choked his mistress (and settled out of court) and Sen. George "Macaca" Allen (R-VA) who uses racist language and tried to hide his Jewish heritage.

Just a typical week for one of the ugliest and most corrupt administrations in our country's history.

Bush praised Rep. Don "I banged her but I didn't choke her" Sherwood (R-PA) as "the right man to represent" his district and later praised Allen as a "man of strong principles."

Yes, I do believe that Bush spoke the truth here. Both Sherwood and Allen have strong REPUBLICAN principles and are exactly the RIGHT kind of men to represent the Republican Party.

If you haven't seen it yet, here's Sherwood's campaign commercial where he admits that he "made a mistake" but says "the allegation of abuse was never true."

(And, here's where you can make a contribution to Chris Carney, Sherwood's Democratic challenger.)

Can the Republicans possibly get any more pathetic?

No habla "democracy"

This letter was sent out to approximately 14,000 Latino Democratic voters in Orange County, CA:



In case you can't read Spanish, Think Progress has a full translation available here. The relevant part is as follows:

Be advised that if your residence in the United States is illegal or if you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that can result in incarceration, and possible deportation for voting without the right to do so

. …Not like in Mexico, here there is no benefit to voting. In the United States there is no registration card to vote. Therefore, it is useless and dangerous to vote in any election if you are not a citizen of the United States.

Do not pay attention to a politician who may try to tell you otherwise. They only care about their own interests.

Immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can, of course, legally vote so the letter is extremely deceptive.

It's been verified that the letter came from the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen, a Republican challenger to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA).

It is illegal to try to intimidate voters according to Voting Rights Act.

Ironically, Nguyen is himself an immigrant to this country from Vietnam.

No at all ironic is the fact that Nguyen is a Republican.

Rick Santorum Moves the Goal Posts

At the last debate between Bob Casey and Rick Santorum, there was a brief discussion over tax returns. Casey said he'd release his and asked Rick to do the same.

Rick agreed, then added something about how embarrassing it would be because he has so little money. Or something like that.

Well, check out James O'Toole's piece in today's P-G. Rick's moved the goal posts - but he didn't get the move right. Take a look:

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's re-election campaign said the incumbent Republican would release his tax returns only if his opponent, Democratic state Treasurer Bob Casey, agreed to release his public schedule for the past year.[emphasis added]

But...

At their debate in Philadelphia Monday, Mr. Casey challenged Mr. Santorum to release the tax data. Mr. Santorum immediately agreed. He noted that it might take some time to assemble the paperwork but placed no conditions on the promised disclosure at the time.[emphasis added]

But maybe someone's misquoting or misconstruing. But check out what it says over at the Santorum blog, it says this:

Question seven, Casey asks Santorum: I’m going to release five years of my tax returns tomorrow, will you?

Santorum says, yes I will release them, if that’s what you want. [bold text in original]

To be fair, the Santorum Blog describes itself as:

...a grassroots site dedicated to keeping Santorum supporters and political nerds up-to-date with the latest breaking Senate race news. The Santorum Blog is not affiliated with or authorized by the Santorum for Senate Campaign. [bold text in original]

So it's not official - but I think we can safely assume that if anyone Rick's friends at the grassroots would be the ones to quote him clearly.

But take a look at this from his campaign:

[Santorum's] campaign press secretary, Virginia Davis, said yesterday that the tax returns were now ready for release. She offered to allow reporters to examine them privately, but insisted that the tax data would not be released for publication until Mr. Casey agreed to disclose his public schedule for the last year.

So they're ready to be released, but they won't be until Casey releases to the public something that's already public. Does this look to anyone else that Rick's playing for time?

"As to our public schedule, he can read the newspapers,'' [Casey's Press Secretary Larry] Smar added. "By definition, public schedule is public."

I guess not.

The next paragraph might lead to a few scratched heads. But it opens up a whole big can of worms for Rick.

Mr. Smar also took the opportunity to revisit the Casey campaign's previous criticism of Mr. Santorum for failing to release records of a charity that he formed, which at times employed members of his campaign staff.

Luckily, I wrote about Rick's "charity" some time ago. Seems that Senator Man-on-Dog's been using his charity, Operation Good Neighbor, to shuttle some $$$ to staffers. I quoted the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Sen. Rick Santorum's charity donated about 40 percent of the $1.25 million it spent during a four-year period - well below Better Business Bureau standards - paying out the rest for overhead, including several hundred thousand dollars to campaign aides on the charity payroll, records show.

The charity, Operation Good Neighbor, provides grants to small nonprofit groups, many of them religious.

The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance says charitable organizations should spend at least 65 percent of their total expenses on program activities.

And, if that weren't enough, the treasurer of Rick's "charity" was at one time a woman named Barbara Bonfiglio - who in turn was the treasurer for Santorum's PAC, called "America's Foundation." I quoted the American Prospect:

According to one expert, Santorum appears to reap personal benefits from America’s Foundation, the so-called leadership PAC controlled by Santorum, which has raised some $5 million from wealthy donors and business PACs over the last five years. The stated purpose of America’s Foundation is to support other GOP candidates, but the Prospect found that the committee spends considerably less on direct candidate aid than comparable PACs, and considerably more on operating expenses -- declaring hundreds of small- to medium-sized meals and purchases by Santorum or his political staff to be “campaign-related.”

And then there's something I just found at American Prospect. As of March of this past year,

...the foundation is not registered with the Pennsylvania Department of State. A spokeswoman for the state agency said that any charity that solicits and raises more than $25,000 in Pennsylvania is required by law to register. Records included on the foundation’s 2002 tax filing list $94,000 in donations from sources in the state. State law says that violators of the registration law run the risk of civil penalties and possible legal action by the state.

The piece ends with this:

Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability Project, a good-government group, questioned why Operation Good Neighbor would hire lobbyists and political operatives instead of charity professionals. “It looks like another pocket to fill,” Ruskin said, adding: “Senator Santorum is obviously a man with many pockets.”

So when will we be seeing Rick Santorum's tax returns?

Rick Santorum - a man with many pockets

Must Watch TV

When: Saturday, November 4th, 5:30 (Rebroadcast Sunday, November 5th, 1 p.m.)
What: WQED, LifeQuest with host Eleanor Schano
Why: Run Baby Run organizer (and frequent commenter on this blog) Gloria Forouzan will appear with state Senator Jane Orie (R).

Gloria, don't let Jane mesmerize you with her X-RAY eyes!

ACTION ITEMS!

1. MAKE THIS CALL!

Mike Doyle is unchallenged in his re-election bid, and is sitting on $280,000 in cash right now. Call him at 412-244-9101 to encourage him to transfer some of this cash to the DCCC so it can be sent to more competive races such as PA-4 (Jason Altmire)

UPDATE: CONGRESSMAN DOYLE RESPONDS HERE (OK, we're assuming this is actually posted by Doyle/someone from his office).

2. STILL NOT HOOKED UP TO HELP? WELL, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

HELP WANTED: DEMOCRATIC VICTORY JUST THREE WEEKS AWAY
America Votes needs your help!

Pennsylvania is one of the – if not the – most hotly contested states in a nationwide Democratic revolution. Unfortunately, Allegheny County could be 95,000 votes short of success – that is, unless you help them get out every single Democratic voter. And, they're not just going out for Democratic votes. They're talking to Libertarians, Independents, even Republicans who they think might be willing to cross the aisle in order to take this state in the right direction this November. They are doing the work that will give Matt Smith, Shawn Flaherty, Frank Dermody, and other progressive candidates for state house tremendous wins on November 7.

America Votes Pennsylvania's ( www.americavotes.org/pa ) SouthwesternPA team needs your help. Join their effort to recruit a 750 member victory team between now and the election. In just four nights this week, their volunteers made 3,000 phone calls – that's double the amount they expected, but a fraction of the amount they need.

HOW CAN YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR NEIGHBORS, AND YOUR FAMILIES STAY INVOLVED TO ENSURE VICTORY?

Head out to the field with them on Saturdays to knock on doors. They meet in East Liberty at 9 and are out all day. Of course, any time you can spare they'll accommodate. There are only three weekends left!

Come to their Highland Ave office (401 N Highland Avenue, across from Home Depot) to phone infrequent and swing voters any Sunday through Thursday. Their official phonebanking hours are 4:30 – 8:30

Come by any day Monday through Friday you have a few minutes to call seniors during the day. Please give them a call in advance (412.661.0847) if you plan to come there during the day.

Join them for the final push leading up to and on election day! Saturday, November 4th through Tuesday, November 7th are their official Get Out The Vote days. If you are absolutely swamped for the next three weeks, they really need you for the home stretch.

QUESTIONS?
CONTACT ABBY WILSON, REGIONAL FIELD ORGANIZER, AMERICA VOTES PENNSYLVANIA – 412 609 5456 (cell) - awilson@americavotes.org (email)

www.americavotes.org/pa

MORE EVENTS

From The League's The HOT Sheet:

Anti-Santorum Visibility, Friday, October 20th, 5PM-6 PM
Corner of Forbes and Craig, Oakland
We're making up for missing our visibility in Oakland last week. Join the League for the second of four visibility sessions on corners around the City. We'll bring the signs and the lit.

Politics Is Funny: Comedy Show
Friday, October 20th, 3 PM
IBEW, 5 Hot Metal Street, Southside
More HERE.

GOTV Door-Knocking
Saturday, October 21th, 10 AM- 1 PM
Meet at the Kiva Han at the Corner of Craig and Forbes, Oakland
Don't wake up on November 8th and ask yourself why you didn't get more involved in the election this year. Get your ass outta bed to door-knock unlikely and undecided voters in targetted precincts citywide.

Progress Pittsburgh: Election Warm-ups!
Tuesday, October 24th, 6 Pm-8 PM
5151 Penn Ave, Garfield
We're tabling at this event. Come get some info about the issues and candidates up for election this Nov. 7th.

Public Hearing: Oakhill
Tuesday, October 24th, 6 PM
Central Baptist Church, Hill District
City officials agreed to expand Oakhill, a low-income housing complex, during the Murhpy administration. Now Pitt wants to buy the land to build new soccer fields. There is an ongoing discussion between city officials and current residents about whether the City of Pittsburgh should honor the housing agreement. Come voice your concerns at this public hearing.

To subscribe, go to: http://indyvoter.org/join

Dr. Bill O'Reilly, OB-GYN

OK, I vomited a little in my mouth just writing that headline. Same reason for no funny graphic -- some things are too sick for even me to contemplate.

The story from Media Matters:

O'Reilly falsely claimed that a pregnant woman's life could "never" be "in danger" from pregnancy complication

Summary: On his radio show, Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that it "is never the case" that a "mother's life is in danger" during pregnancy because "you can always have a C-section and do those kinds of things." In fact, several potential pregnancy complications, such as an ectopic pregnancy, which is "the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in the first trimester" or preeclampsia, which "affect[s] up to one in seven pregnant women" can threaten the life of a pregnant woman.

You can view the video of Doctor O'Lielly at Media Matters (if you have the stomach for it).

POLITICS IS PHUNNY

FREE COMEDY SHOW AND GOTV RALLY!

When: TODAY! Friday, October 20, 3 p.m.
Where: IBEW HALL, 5 HOT METAL STREET, SOUTH SIDE

Featuring:

POLITICAL HUMORIST WILL DURST

AND

COMEDIAN BOB SOMERBY (AKA THE DAILY HOWLER)

With honorary stand-up performances by

MAYOR LUKE RAVENSTAHL
Direct from “Late Night with David Letterman” (That's what the invitation says, folks)

ALLEGHENY COUNTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE DAN ONORATO
Direct from Grant Street

CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL F. DOYLE
Direct from the Halls of Congress

AND FROM THE GREAT STATE OF MONTANA:
GOVERNOR BRIAN SCHWEITZER

AND

JOHN McINTIRE
Direct from KDKA and http://macyapper.com

PLUS PITTSBURGH COMEDIAN GAB BONESSO

The Colbert Report Explains Lil Ricky "Lord of the Rings" Santorum

making me lose my mind

"I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind...But it wasn't because I didn't know enough. I just knew too much."

- "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley

We've recently blogged about Bush signing a bill that shreds the Geneva Conventions, pisses on the Bill of Rights, and terminates the 800 year-old right of habeas corpus, and now I've read a post by Major Danby at Daily Kos that Bush has gutted Posse Comitatus and grabbed the National Guard.

This was done three weeks ago when 'The Department of Defense Appropriation Act 2007' was passed by the U.S. Congress and then was signed into law by Bush on September 29, 2006.

As noted at Kos, this bill:

". . . gives the President -- this President -- the power, in the event of any "disaster, accident, or catastrophe" that he deems to require it, to:

- involuntarily take National Guard troops from State A and
- require them to work in State B for up to a year,
- in law enforcement rather than just traditional areas like disaster relief,
- over the objection of both state's governors"

Remember when Bush and Gov. Blanco had their little "spat" about who was in control during the response to Katrina? That was no little "spat," that was Bush's first attempt to grab this power -- the power to have the entire military - National Guard, Army, Navy, etc. -- act as a civilian police force under federal command.

Further down the thread in the comments section of his post Major Danby reminds us why it's significant to be able to bring in National Guard members from other states to act as a police force:

In Tienanmen Square the Communist Party brought in troops from the provinces who were unaware of what the argument was about in Beijing to shoot down the rioters. They knew that people would be more willing to shoot at those unlike them. The insight that this ploy is possible is part of what led the Founding Fathers to avoid a national police force. Can we trust a President who already acts like he aspires to be a member of the Chinese Community Party, who puts power above all else, with such power? Can we wait to find out? This is a story that should spread through the middle of the country to every shore. The states still mean something. Except, perhaps, to the likes of George W. Bush. The phrase you're grasping for is "martial law." It just got easier to impose.

My apologies to students who took my U.S. Government class in the 90s: evidently the Constitution doesn't limit Presidential power after all. Who knew?

But the most chilling and accurate summation of all we've given up is provided by BriVT:

Just to be clear

The President can now, in perfect legality, grab a state's National Guard, send it to another state to round up any group he declares "enemy combatants" under the broad powers given him, have that entire group taken by that army unit to a military camp, held indefinitely without access to lawyers, subjected to torture and then tried and convicted on the evidence gleaned from that torture. At no point can any outside group or entity challenge the designation of "enemy combatant," nor can they petition for a release under habeas corpus.

There is truly nothing illegal about any part of that scenario. ALL OF IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL UNDER THE LAWS PASSED BY CONGRESS.

Where is the daylight between that and a true authoritarian government?

When are we going to stand up say that we refuse to give the President -- any President -- the powers of an emperor?

We are letting our republic end without a bang...without even a whimper.

How is it possible that we have succumbed to this madness?

How can we call ourselves Americans?

"My heroes had the heart to live their lives out on a limb. And all I remember is thinkin' I wanna be like them."

- "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley

Altmire/Hart on Talkingpointsmemo's radar

Take a look.

Did the NRCC tip their hand? The NRCC dropped $163,000 into the PA 4 race -- Hart (R) v. Altmire (D) -- after spending a little under $11,000 on a poll. It sounds like they didn't like what they heard from that poll.

Just a few days ago, the Altmire campaign released its own poll that had him trailing Hart by a mere four points -- Hart (48%), Altmire (44%). It sounds like the NRCC poll wasn't much better. Maybe not even as good.

Based on this CQ has bumped the race from Republican Favored to Leans Republican. So Hart is still favored. But it's a real race.

If I were Altmire's folks I'd certainly want to make the point that DeLay and Hastert put Hart on the Ethics Committee after they purged it of non-loyalists. They knew she would be a rubber stamp vote for DeLay and other House GOPers who got into trouble. That's telling.

Uh, I wrote about this a full 8 days ago! Nice to see I'm more than a week ahead of Josh Micah Marshall!

Eye of Mordor?

Poor, Rick Santorum. He can't seem to get anything right. Yesterday, this hit the news:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

Let me say upfront that I never read any of the Tolkien books. I knew some guys in High School (25 years ago) who inhaled that stuff but it never really snagged me. Back then I wanted to be Chet Baker without the nasty heroin addiction.

In any case, the Tolkein fans the world over over at have begun to analyse Rick's literary reference. From Mother Jones:

Really, Santorum should have known better. By invoking LOTR, he was inviting the scrutiny of hordes of Tolkien fans, who, sure enough, are unleashing their fantasy-lit fury on him. First off, Santorum called it the Eye of Mordor, when it's really the Eye of Sauron.

And this was one of Rick's favorite books?

Proof they're getting nervous in the Hart Camp

From CQ magazine:

Eastern Pennsylvania is recognized as a key battleground in this year’s campaign for House control. There are three highly competitive races in suburban Philadelphia and one in northeastern Pennsylvania. The populous, Democratic-leaning Philadelphia area is key to Democrats’ hopes of electing Edward G. Rendell to a second term as governor and state Treasurer Bob Casey to the Senate over Republican incumbent Rick Santorum.

But western Pennsylvania, or at least the Pittsburgh-area 4th District, is getting into the act as well. The contest between three-term Republican Rep. Melissa A. Hart and Democrat Jason Altmire, a former hospital association executive and congressional aide, now appears sufficiently competitive to merit a change to CQPolitics.com’s rating of the race, to Leans Republican from Republican Favored.

While the “Leans” rating means Hart still maintains an edge in the race, it also means that Altmire is waging a tougher fight than earlier expected and that an upset is a more plausible possibility. The previous “Favored” rating suggested that Altmire was a more distinct underdog.

Interesting. Looks like it's a real race. Here's the important part:

According to a filing with the Federal Election Commission, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) on Tuesday reported spending $163,000 to produce and air a television ad opposing Altmire — one day after the House GOP campaign committee reported spending $10,569 to poll the district. (Altmire recently released a poll taken for his campaign that showed him trailing Hart by just 48 percent to 44 percent).

That's almost $175,000 for a "safe" seat? It puts a lie to any utterance coming from the Republicans about how they're "double digit" ahead of Altmire, doncha think?

CQ does some ad-analysis as well. It's fun to watch the rhetoric. Here's an example about a recent TV ad:

Echoing a theme used by numerous Democratic candidates nationwide, Altmire accuses the incumbent of voting in near-unanimity with Bush, whose popularity has sharply declined nationally and statewide in the two years since he was re-elected as president.

To which the Hart camp's response is described this way:

As for the charge that Hart is too closely tied to Bush, Myslinski said: “Jason Altmire can make whatever claims he wants about Melissa voting with George Bush. But the truth is, she votes with Pennsylvania’s 4th District 100 percent of the time. And that’s why she’ll be back in Congress.”

Notice Luke didn't deny the "near-unanimity" of Hart's voting record - instead he does what every politician does when faced with an uncomfortable reality. He simply changes the subject. "she votes with Pennsylvania’s 4th district 100 percent of the time"?? Or this one:

Altmire’s ad goes on to accuse Hart of supporting cuts in veterans programs, citing her April 2005 vote in favor of a budget resolution that was backed by most Republicans and opposed by all Democrats. It also claims Hart voted to cut student loan programs by $14 billion, citing the congresswoman’s support in November 2005 for another GOP-drafted budget bill.

It's "answered" by:

Hart campaign manager Luke Myslinski rejected Altmire’s accusations, stating that veterans’ spending has increased by $1,200 per veteran since 2000, the year Hart was elected. He also pointed to a Hart-sponsored amendment, attached to an overhaul of pension laws that was signed into law by Bush, that allows deposits to college savings plans to remain permanently tax-free.

In case you missed it, he changed the subject. Again. Whether Veteran's spending has increased in the last 6 years has little if anything to do with the April 2005 resolution, does it?

And if some kid doesn't have the cash to go to college, telling him or her that all the money he or she puts away into a savings plan is "tax free" is of little comfort. If there's no money for college, then how much money is going to be saved for college?

They must be shaking in their boots over there in Hart-Ville.

Good Night, folks.

Technorati Tags: "Jason Altmire", "Melissa Hart"

My lunch with Delano

A year and a half ago, KDKA political analyst Jon Delano and I sat at the Pittsburgh Hilton for a chat on politics and the blogosphere.

During it, he said that the blogosphere was, in a word, developing and he was quite skeptical of the validity of material flowing through it. Here's what I wrote:

The main problem inherent in the system is due to the fact that bloggers are free to write whatever they want – that there’s no test for truth. In mainstream journalism, however, assertions need to be checked and double checked for accuracy. A journalist, he said, would say, “I want to know it to be true.”

Today he and I had lunch at the cafeteria at Gateway center. For him it was the chili (with crackers) and for me the egg salad. I'm hoping the chili was as nice as my egg salad (so good you could plotz). Anyway, he's changed his views somewhat on the blogosphere. He's even got his own.

His views changed mostly because of the Lamont/Lieberman primary race in Connecticut. That race made him at least less skeptical of the power and role of the blogosphere in contemporary politics.

The main role of the blogs up in that race was to give credibility to Lamont as a challenger. Once he was seen as a credible challenger, then the more traditional news media began to pay attention. He said that blogs can identify races early on - that's one of their strengths.

It's obvious from what he said that there's still some room to go - while blogs do have more power than traditional news media wants to admit, they're not yet at the point where, for example, TV news producers read them regularly.

For the record, he frequently reads Drudge, the daily kos and (ahem) us.

He did say that it remains to be seen whether the local blogs will have an impact on the local races. So much of that plays on the perception of credibility that's created by TV news coverage. If a TV news producer can't be convinced that there's an actual race, then there's little or no coverage. What's required is evidence (number of TV ads, lots of yard signs, etc) to convince a news outlet to cover a race.

He did have a few questions about the blogosphere overall. Who's reading which blogs? Is it just liberals reading liberal blogs and conservatives conservative blogs? Are all those people just speaking to themselves?

He did have a word or two on the recent Casey/Santorum debates. He said that if anything they showed that while Casey tried to go on the attack, he just couldn't compete with Santorum in terms of fiery debate rhetoric. He couldn't match Rick's "anger." The more passionate Anti-Santorum folks, Delano said, tend to cringe when they hear Casey speak - they want him to be the "democratic Rick Santorum" with a little more sound and fury.

The ironic thing, he said, is that if Casey wins it'll be precisely because he's not Rick Santorum.

It was a good lunch, egg salad and all

Jon Delano

The Death of Habeas Corpus - Keith Olbermann

Here's the whole thing presented without comment (as if any were necessary).

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before led here—by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

Keith Olbermann - American Hero. How long will it take for them to drag him away?

Why Are These Men Smiling?

They're smiling because Bush is signing a bill that shreds the Geneva Conventions, pisses on the Bill of Rights, and terminates the 800 year-old right of habeas corpus.

You're looking at the happy face of authoritarianism -- a smiley face sticker on the toe of the boot on your neck.

Have a nice day! :-)

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How much does a pitchfork cost these days anyway?

J.D. Prose on the Altmire/Hart Race

If you haven't already read it, go take a look. It's generally favorable to Altmire - and if anything it should be sending a message to the campaign team up there in Hartville. Here's how Prose starts:

Democrat Jason Altmire's campaign is attracting the help of comedian Al Franken and former presidential candidates U.S. Sen. John Kerry and Howard Dean.

Altmire claims to have raised more money than any challenger to a U.S. House incumbent in western Pennsylvania history.

And, at least one political Web site, Nationaljournal.com, has listed the race as one of the 50 House districts that might change parties next month, albeit it's only in at No. 45.

All this in a district that was supposed to be easy sailing for the Republicans. Prose does point out the huge advantage Hart has - the $840,000 difference in campaign contributions.

"It's certainly reassuring to see the great deal of support out there for the congresswoman," Hart campaign manager Luke Myslinski said in what might be the understatement of the political season.

Hmm - I wondered this morning how he defines "out there" so I took a look at the data at opensecrets.org. Very interesting.

The numbers are a little different from Prose's, probably owing to the fact that that opensecrets' data is based on the FEC filing documents - there's always a time lapse there.

If I am reading the page correctly, Hart received a majority (about 54%) of her contributions not from local individual contributors, but from Political Action Committees (PACs). And large majority of those PACs (about 86%) were business PACs.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. But when the Hart campaign is saying "out there" to illustrate where she's getting her funding, you have to realize that for them, a large chunk (in this case about 46%) of "out there" means business PACs.

Jason Altmire, on the other hand, has raised a majority (72%) of his campaign funds from individual people - not PACs. Take a look.

Anyway, back to the article.

Altmire's second television ad has started to run, and he vowed that he would compete with Hart on the all-important airwaves for the next four weeks. "We're going to be able to go TV all the way through" Nov. 7, he said.

Hart, meanwhile, has been running several ads simultaneously - her latest goes after Altmire's "lies" - and even went door-to-door in Beaver County Monday. Hart and her campaign staff have insisted she's leading Altmire by double digits, but they've refused to release any poll results.

I still gotta wonder why they've refused to release the poll numbers - what is she hiding? I mean wouldn't you want everyone to know that you're double digits ahead? Why not release the data for everyone to see?

Here's Prose's ending:

Political analyst G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, said the 4th District race, like many races, is more about voters' attitudes on the Iraq war, President Bush and the Republican Party than any one candidate.

Incumbents "are running hard and running scared if they're Republicans," he said.

"It would have to be a seismic eruption for that seat to shift," Madonna said of the 4th District. "This would truly be one of those (upsets) if (Altmire) wins."

Altmire, however, said he's more confident than ever. Hart, he said, "should be worried if she's not." [emphasis added]

So can we assume Hart's running scared? She won't release the data that "shows" she's in a double digit lead. And tell me again when is that debate between Altmire and Hart? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Congresswoman Melissa Hart - Jason Altmire. Who has momentum and who's running scared? I'm just asking.