There are dark clouds on the horizon of the battleground state of Florida. New laws and tales of voter suppression efforts already have many voters nervous and confused. Florida, which was recently named “the most hostile state in the nation to new voters” by three national voting-rights groups, has significantly tightened voter identification laws and made it easier for voter’s rights to be challenged.
Two news laws passed by the Republican controlled legislature have many Democrats already crying foul. The first is the so-called “No match, no vote” law, which requires a match between a voter’s driver’s license or Social Security number and a government database- records which many say are full of errors. A second law allows citizens to challenge the legitimacy of fellow voters without proving their accusations. Instead, the challenged voter has two days to “justify his right to cast a ballot.”
Add this to a concerted effort to confuse many voters about their registration, as well as spread dangerous misinformation about the new laws, and there is a disaster brewing in Florida.
Much more, including a mailer sent out by McCain to democratic voters, after the jump…
hekebolos at DailyKos suggests that it’s about what the emergency contraception that rape kits contain (from a May 2000 article on a law that passed that year specifically in response to the Palin administration’s refusal to pay for these kits):
The new bill would also make law enforcement agencies that are investigating a sexual assault responsible for the costs of testing victims for sexually transmitted diseases and emergency contraception.
There are excellent developments to a story we posted last week on Republican-lead efforts to deny voting rights to homeowners facing foreclosures in Michigan. The story has gone national. The Barack Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee and several Macomb County voters filed a lawsuit in federal court in Detroit to prevent the practice.
The injunction [would] prohibit the Macomb County GOP, the Michigan Republican Party, the Republican National Committee or anyone connected with them from challenging Michigan voters whose homes are on foreclosure lists.
Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer said during a conference call with reporters that the “lose your home, lose your vote” strategy, even if the challenges are unsuccessful, “creates an atmosphere of intimidation that could drive voters from the polls” because even people who aren’t challenged may leave without voting because polling gets bogged down.
Even better news: The despicable Republican foreclosure strategy is now becoming a campaign issue because “Obama was joined by running mate Joe Biden and a dozen other Democratic U.S. senators in calling on Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to ensure that voters facing foreclosure aren’t harassed or intimidated at polling places.”
But wait there’s more. Macomb County Republican Party Chairman James Carabelli claims he did not say the state party would challenge voters whose homes are on foreclosure lists. The party boss claims he will sue MichiganMessenger.com for libel if they do not retract the story. ‘Cause, you know, the Republican Party never challenges or suppresses voters and they can prove that. Not.
Voting rights are a bedrock of the Democartic Party and it’s freakin’ fantastic the Obama campaign will challenge Republicans in Michigan over this sacred right. After weeks of lackluster campaigning and being off-message, it’s downright orgasmic to hear Obama will adopt this issue. As we said last week, this is a winning issue in Michigan for the Obama campaign.
By Richard J. Rosendall
First published September 11, 2008 in Bay Windows
I’m sick of the phony reasons some gay people give for opposing Barack Obama. I am not talking about my friends in Log Cabin Republicans, who prefer John McCain for broader ideological reasons. I am talking about angry Hillary Clinton supporters.
For example, Sirius OutQ talk-radio host Larry Flick, still upset that Clinton had not won the Democratic nomination, slammed Obama on Aug. 28 for opposing same-sex marriage. Yet Clinton holds the same position on marriage — except that she would only repeal Article 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, whereas Obama favors total repeal.
Flick challenged Sirius Left host Mark Thompson, an African American minister and activist with whom I’ve worked for years, on his support for Obama. Flick expressed outrage that Obama accepted help from “blatant, aggressive homophobes” Donnie McClurkin and Illinois state Sen. James Meeks. Yet Clinton enjoyed support from homophobic Bishop Eddie Long of Lithonia, Ga., and from former D.C. City Council member Vincent Orange, who as a mayoral candidate in 2006 called his opponents morally unfit for supporting marriage equality.
UPDATE: It’s hard to keep up with the lies. Additions are below the fold. Jeebus H. Christ, from the man who needs his wife to surf the Internets, this breathtaking boast from a spokesbot:
Move over, Al Gore. You may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain helped create the BlackBerry. At least that’s the contention of a top McCain policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant and citing McCain’s work as a senator, he told reporters Tuesday, “You’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create.” McCain has acknowledged that he doesn’t know how to use a computer and can’t send e-mail, one of the BlackBerry’s prime functions.
Within the hour, [Obama] chief spokesperson Bill Burton released a statement putting the falsehood in context: “If John McCain hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week.” Now let’s briefly correct this latest McCain campaign whopper.
McCain did not “help create” the “miracle” of the BlackBerry — he does not even know how to use email or a computer. The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee was not even pivotal: the BlackBerry was invented by a Canadian company, Research In Motion. So this claim is false and absurd, obviously, and it may seem like a distraction from the current debate over the candidates’ economic agendas.
According to a McCain campaign pool report, senior aide Matt McDonald said that McCain “laughed” when he was told about Holtz-Eakin’s comment. “He would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry. This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer,” McDonald said.
Elizabeth Birch, longtime LGBT activists and former Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign talks about the stark differences between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain on LGBT issues.
I don’t know why I’m continuously amazed at the sheer chutzpah of the Republican ticket. While the dastardly duo has clearly sunk to the lowest possible depths in an attempt to keep control of the country, the lengths they are willing to go still shocks me.
This latest news that Sarah Palin is refusing to cooperate with the bipartisan investigation into her alleged improper use of the Governor’s office to demand her ex-brother-in-law’s termination from the state troopers. When her public safety commissioner refused to fire the trooper, she canned him instead.
She’s claiming that the investigation has been “tainted and run by partisan individuals” because state senator Hollis French, the Democratic lawmaker managing the investigation is an Obama supporter. Keep in mind that the legislature deliberately made the investigation non-partisan, Palin supported the investigation originally (while suddenly finding evidence that her office just might have tried to influence the termination), and the person investigating her is an independent counsel.
The Minnesota Independent is reporting that the McCain camp directly tapped right-wing fundie Gary Bauer, the president of American Values (a non-profit organization committed to “defending life, traditional marriage, and equipping children with conservative values”) to consult on the campaign’s behalf on what many are touting as “the most socially conservative platform in the party’s history.” Bauer appeared on the Focus on the Family radio show and explained his involvement, saying:
I was immediately amazed, surprised and happy to hear them say, “Look, we think it’s a great platform already, it’s pro-life, but we know people might want to strengthen it and we’re open to that.”
When the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove says you are going too far in your campaign and being dishonest, you know you have a problem.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Rove slams the McCain Campaign:
McCain has gone in some of his ads — similarly gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the ‘100 percent truth’ test. …They ought to — there ought to be an adult who says, ‘Do we really need to go that far in this ad’?
I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I agree with Karl Rove. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little…
More – including the new hard-hitting Obama ad – after the jump.
