• Of, by and for:

  But five years after Congress passed the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, more of the tax-free benefits have gone to the state’s powerful oil industry than to development in hard-hit areas. New Orleans has so far received a total of $55 million in bonds shared between eight projects—or less than 1 percent of the more than $5.9 billion issued statewide. None of the bonds issued for New Orleans projects went to development in hard-hit and still-struggling areas like the Lower Ninth Ward.

  Instead, the federal largesse has been poured into oil companies operating far from New Orleans. Since Congress’s unanimous approval of the GO Zone Act, Louisiana officials have issued nearly $1.7 billion in tax-free bonds—about one third of the total issued—for projects that contribute to the production of oil. Preliminary approval has been secured to tap millions more.

  The money issued for oil infrastructure includes $1 billion for the expansion of a Marathon Oil refinery in an area that wasn’t severely damaged by the 2005 storms; $120 million for an offshore tank storage facility; and $75 million in bonds issued for improvements to an existing ExxonMobil refinery and chemical plant in Baton Rouge, according to Louisiana Bond Commission records. And on Sept. 15—exactly five years after Bush stood in a storm-battered Jackson Square and explained how the GO Zone bonds would help New Orleans—the state commission is slated to issue ExxonMobil another $300 million in untaxed loan money. The cash will pay for further improvements on the oil giant’s Baton Rouge facility.

• And more fun ways for your tax dollars to be misspent:

  President Barack Obama has declared that a group of moderate Muslims have the right to build a community center in lower Manhattan, two blocks from the site once occupied by the World Trade Center towers. Yet representatives of a wholly US government-funded outfit have joined the vociferous opposition to the Park51 or Cordoba House project that critics have dubbed the "Ground Zero Mosque." A leader of this group—which receives $4.3 million a year from the government—has even proclaimed that the community center could be a front for Islamic terrorism. That's not all: the same agency, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), has been the subject of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint for allegedly discriminating against Muslim employees.

• McClatchy:

  The company formerly known as Blackwater violated U.S. export control laws nearly 300 times, ranging from attempts to do business in Sudan while that country was under U.S. sanctions to training an Afghan border patrol official who was a native of Iran, the State Department said Monday.

  The alleged violations were spelled out in documents released Monday by the State Department as part of a $42 million settlement with Blackwater that will allow the company, now known as Xe Services LLC, to continue receiving U.S. government contracts.

  The agreement appears to spell the end of a three-and-a-half-year, multi-agency federal probe into Xe Services' unauthorized exports of defense technologies and services. While elements of the case were presented to a federal grand jury, the company and its currently serving officers have avoided criminal prosecution.

  And Blackwater founder Erik Prince is moving to Abu Dhabi because he "needs a break from America".

• At its best, HuffPo is a great site for political analysis; among others, Sam Stein, David Froomkin, and Ryan Grim call it home. But at its worst, it's not just tabloidy fluff, it's simply embarrassingly irresponsible. PZ Myers pulls no punches.
• Profoundly sorry is a profoundly sorry way of apologizing.
• Next time you're stuck in traffic, try to take comfort in knowing it could be worse.
• Hilarious.
• You might not have known it, but August 24 was an important anniversary.

  Tuesday marks the 1,600th anniversary of one of the turning points of European history - the first sack of Imperial Rome by an army of Visigoths, northern European barbarian tribesmen, led by a general called Alaric.

  It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had been successfully invaded. The event had reverberations around the Mediterranean.

  The Western Roman capital long before had been moved to what is now Milan, and with Alaric threatening, the Emperor Honorius had moved it to Ravenna, which remains one of the jewels of early medieval art. But Alaric already had sacked Athens, and it was his threat to Constantinople that had led the Romans to withdraw legions from Gaul, thus opening the floodgates for Burgundians, Vandals, Suevi, and Alans to pour over the Rhine. The Western Empire was collapsing, and the remaining Byzantine Empire in the east no longer was Roman.

• Despite this, you can be certain that the NRA won't support President Obama's re-election.
• China Railway may build South Africa's high-speed rail line. Yet another example of how our being behind the curve on newer, cleaner technologies keeps us behind the curve economically.
• Lindsay Beyerstein on U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lambert's ruling that all federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells is illegal:

  Lambert's ruling takes Christianist pretzel logic to its ultimate conclusion: Not only does sacred human life begin at fertilization, it also continues after death--that is, unless you're a patient with Parkinson's disease who was hoping to start an experimental treatment, in which you are cordially invited to fuck off and die. Non-existent embryos have more rights than you. At least we all know where we stand.

• What Krugman said.

As the creator of the Polling and Political Wrap at DK five nights a week, obviously numbers are a particular interest of mine. A few months ago, at the behest of several readers, I moved all polling by Rasmussen into what Crisitunity (writing for the Swing State Project) deemed the "containment pool" at the end of the Wrap.

This was not, as some other folks have written, meant to be a disrespectful shot at the pollster. It was done for a very practical and simple reason. It had grown difficult (barring extensive use of a thesaurus) to write five different paragraphs a day that were variations on the same theme: "Rasmussen has new numbers in the [insert race here], and they show Republicans doing exceedingly well."

In short, it was a nod both to their tendency to be very amenable to the chances of Republican candidates and a nod to their exceptional volume of contributions to the 2010 election cycle.

Was the move justified? You decide:

Let's look first at the conservative bias issue. Whenever the House of Ras is confronted with this charge, they retreat into the mode of insisting that they are an independent pollster, and decrying those on the left (like me) for shooting the messenger. This was their counter when the charges of bias intensified at the start of the year, as reported by Politico's Alex Isenstadt.

But, c'mon...let's be serious. If you want to play yourself off as an unbiased pollster, maybe you don't sign up to be one of the star attractions on a right-wing celebrity cruise sponsored by the National Review. Maybe you don't frame issue questions with language that looks like it came straight from the GOP headquarters.

And, of course, maybe you don't take almost six figures to work for the RNC and George W. Bush as a "consultant", as the House of Ras did in 2003 and 2004.

So, if the rest of the traditional media is unwilling to acknowledge that Rasmussen's outfit has a Republican bias, can we at least stipulate that they have a strong rooting interest in the outcome?

With that stipulated, let's move on to the issue of volume of data, because that's where this story gets really interesting.

One of my summer projects was to pore over three critical sources (Swing State Project, DC's Political Report, and the Wrap) and catalog every general election poll released in 2010.

There are a couple of ground rules that I employed: 1) General election polls only; 2) Polls were removed from the database when the nominees were known (so, no McCollum-Sink polls now exist in the database); 3) As a result of Markos' disassociation with Research 2000, and the rationale for doing so, I excluded their polls from the database, as well.

When all was said and tabulated, there were a total of 953 polls in the database. While I would never presume to say that this represents every poll made available for consumption during 2010 (I used three sources, but it doesn't mean I didn't miss one here and there), I would suspect that this is a pretty thorough cross-section of data.

How prolific has Rasmussen been in this cycle? Rasmussen was responsible for 407 of the polls in the database. Put another way: nearly 43% of all of the polls made available in 2010 have come from a single source.

Add another factor to this Rasmussen polling hegemony. Given the desire to set narratives, Republican pollsters in races from coast-to-coast have flooded the zone with internal polling. As I noted in a Sunday Kos piece in late June, there have been far more Republican-sponsored polls released in 2010 than Democratic ones.

At the time, I estimated the ratio at somewhere between 3-to-1 and 4-to-1. As it turns out, that was dead-on. There have been 142 Republican polls to just 47 Democratic polls.

What this means, though, is that when you add the polls from Rasmussen to the GOP internal polls that have hit the media, the majority of data made available for public consumption (57.7%) have come from sources with a rooting interest that leans precipitously to the right.

By way of contrast, in 2008, Rasmussen accounted for just 20.8% of the polls in my database (a much larger database--2729 polls!--because of the presidential race). Adding GOP internals in, right-leaning data accounted for just 27% of the total, less than half of the proportion of data culled from those types of sources this cycle.

The danger in that is that it is hard to fathom a way in which this does not color the analysis of the 2010 elections. The presumption that Democratic incumbents Earl Pomeroy (ND) and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD) are in grave danger comes solely from Rasmussen polling, because no one else has polled those races this year.

The disparity of Republican vs. Democratic internal polls was covered in depth in that Sunday Kos piece I alluded to earlier. In itself, of course, it could be a sign of a lousy climate.

The conventional wisdom, which in this circumstance might be accurate, is that Democrats are sitting on their numbers because they aren't so hot. To be end, we have seen a number of Dem poll releases that were mystifying, because the toplines were pretty damned pessimistic for the candidate releasing the data.

Rasmussen's hegemony, however, is a different matter. They do not fund their operation like most pollsters. Most pollsters contract with a media outlet or a campaign, and the information gets released through those means. Rasmussen had a relationship with Fox News in 2008, but short of that, they do not appear to be contract pollsters. They make money through subscriptions and advertising.

What this means, in a less-than-amenable economy, is that they can keep plugging along while news bureaus pare back their polling. Rasmussen was still the most prolific pollster in 2008, but there were a number of outfits not far behind. This year, however, they are miles ahead of everyone else in their output.

Which means that they have had a unique opportunity to set the 2010 electoral narrative. While few people are willing to argue that the Republican gains this year will be minimal (and I am not one of those willing to make that argument), it is hard not to conclude that Rasmussen's megaphone in the world of electoral data has allowed the narrative of the ascendant GOP to accelerate further and faster than it ever would have otherwise.

Worse yet, electoral narratives have a nasty tendency to become self-fulfilling prophecies. And that, on top of everything else that has them nervous this cycle, has to put Democrats extremely ill at ease.

This isn’t the column I thought it was going to be.

I wanted to write about three women I can't stand, children of political celebrities, who use their last names for profit, fame, or just outright evil.

Next month, Bristol Palin will give a speech at a fundraiser for The Lifehouse, a "Christ-centered" maternity home. Why Bristol?  

The Lifehouse Maternity home says they're bringing the daughter of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to town because she represents the story of many teenage mothers.  

Because so many teenage mothers get paid $14,000 for talking about how to not get pregnant. And what teenage mother doesn't own a three-bedroom townhouse from money they make for giving speeches, posing for magazines, and appearing on television shows?  

Bristol's happy to raise money for her cause -- telling girls to abstain from sex so they don't wind up like her -- as long as she gets paid.

And every time I see Meghan McCain's name in the news, I shake my head and wonder who, exactly, takes her insipid babbling seriously. Recently, for example, she complained that when President Obama appeared on The View -– a show on which she has appeared and even co-hosted several times -- he did not speak on substantive issues. Despite her desire to distinguish herself as a hip, new kind of Republican, following her father’s primary win last Tuesday, she applauded his victory at The Daily Beast, writing:

At the end of the day, no matter how Arizona and Arizonans have been misrepresented in the media, they chose my father because of his reputation, commitment to his country, and record of outweighing the mudslinging and fearmongering. Arizona is facing serious challenges and I have more faith than ever that if reelected in November, he will be the man to help solve those problems.

So much for Meghan's campaign to encourage fresh, new ideas in the Republican Party.

And then there is Liz Cheney, the most rancid of the political progeny, using her name to promote her father's extremist ideology of war and torture, and to defend her father against accusations of criminal activities, as if her insistence that her daddy is innocent should be sufficient “evidence” for him to be acquitted in the public eye.

And then there's this:

Meanwhile, there’s the professional right, with Liz Cheney, daughter of Vice President Cheney, stoking the passions of 9/11 through the group she runs, Keep America Safe (and scared), with a two-minute YouTube video titled We Remember.

Unlike Bristol and Meghan, Liz has a résumé to her name, but can anyone think of any other former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For Near Eastern Affairs whose opinion is so critical? Can anyone even name any other former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For Near Eastern Affairs? Probably not.

Each of these women offends me -– not only for their positions and for the cynical way in which they use their famous last names to promote their agendas, as if they have uniquely insightful opinions to offer, but because there seems to be a collective, unspoken consensus that their last names give their opinions particular legitimacy.

But I’ve realized something: they are not to blame.

The problem is not their willingness to exploit their names. The problem is a cultural willingness to offer them such an opportunity, to take interest in what they have to say because of who their parents are.

Such willingness is certainly not limited to Republicans. Caroline Kennedy very nearly got herself appointed to the Senate in 2009, not because of her extensive experience as much as for the Camelot of old that her name represents.

Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., has made a name for herself by using the King name to lend an air of legitimacy to political positions that seem, on their face, quite contrary to her uncle's politics. For example, this weekend, she is participating in Glenn Beck’s hatefest at the Lincoln Memorial, 47 years to the day after MLK stood in the same spot to give his “I have a dream” speech. And when she was criticized for hijacking her uncle’s legacy, she responded:

It is absolutely ludicrous that abortion supporters would accuse a blood relative of Dr. King of hijacking the King legacy. Uncle Martin and my father, Rev. A. D. King were blood brothers. How can I hijack something that belongs to me? I am an heir to the King Family legacy.

At a recent rally against gay-marriage, she even dismissed her uncle’s widow, Coretta Scott King, saying, “She was married to him. I've got his DNA. She doesn't.”

Clearly, for Alveda King, her uncle’s blood and DNA grant her authority to speak on any political issue she chooses, from gay rights to reproductive rights to, apparently, the crazy rantings of Glenn Beck.

This is hardly a new phenomenon. Political nepotism has existed since long before our Warholian celebrity culture. And we do love our celebrity culture. Bernard Goldberg wrote an entire book on the 100 people he says are screwing up America, and he lists several celebrities among them, including Barbra Streisand, who is apparently destroying the country because she occasionally weighs in on political issues instead of just sticking to overwrought ballads. (Markos Moulitsas is number 52 on the list.)

It’s hardly original to point a finger at the many failings of our culture and the way we elevate celebrities, giving their opinions greater credence because they are famous. But there is something deeply unsettling about the automatic credibility granted to the adult (or almost-adult) children of political celebrities.

Whether their message is good or bad, should we be listening to these messengers? And do these messengers not have a right to participate in political discourse? Do we punish them for the accident of their birth? Do we somehow set a higher bar for them, an expectation that anyone who comes from a famous family must demonstrate their credentials? It's hard to argue that anyone who comes from a famous family is automatically disqualified from participating in the public sphere.  

We’ve had political monarchies and celebrities for a long time. We’ve had media that will give a platform to anyone who will drive up ratings. Joe Sam the Plumber Tax Cheat did not have a famous name, but he was rocketed to stardom and, for the duration of his allotted 15 minutes, given the opportunity to speak on issues that were clearly beyond his area of knowledge.

Is there a solution to the problem of a culture that gives such credence to someone like Joe -- or Bristol or Meghan or Liz?

Here is the truth: I don’t have the answer. Yes, our media is flawed. Yes, our culture places disproportionate emphasis on celebrity. Yes, we are guilty of creating and allowing political dynasties in this country, in both political parties, and that seems unlikely to change. How do we stop it? Do we even try?

I don’t know. At the end of this seemingly futile exercise, though, I know this: When it comes to Liz and Meghan and Bristol -- and really, to anyone whose primary credential is their last name -- I just don't see why anyone should listen to what they have to say.

In the first months of 1811, a secret army drilled on the chilly moors outside Nottingham, England. Under the shadow of darkness, these men gathered to learn guerrilla tactics -- how to move as a team, how to avoid detection, how to break through locks and barriers, and how to escape when their task was complete. Only this army was not made up of soldiers.  They were stocking makers.

By the spring of the next year, nearly 200 of the mechanical "stocking frames" at local factories had been destroyed. In this following months, the destruction would spread to cloth works in Yorkshire and Leicestershire, to Lancashire cotton mills, and eventually into the factories of London. By then the army was not so secret. Handbills had arrived for months warning factory owners of their fate. Many of these were signed by the supposed leader of this rebellion -- General Ned Ludd. It from from this name that the movement gained it's popular moniker: the Luddites.

The Luddite movement would fade only after rising to widespread violence that took the lives of workers, hired guards, and a few mill owners. This was followed by a swift reaction from government to imprison or hang many of those suspected of being Luddites. The breaking of machinery was itself made a capital crime, and by 1812 several men had been executed for the offense of damaging automatic looms. 

When we hear the term "Luddite" today, our reaction is to think of a brutish lout frightened by any sign of progress. A Luddite is someone who can't understand their computer, hates the Internet, and thinks that there hasn't been a worthwhile invention since the well-chipped stone. But that doesn't really describe the men (and women) who were involved in that original movement. They were not anti-technology. They were reacting to a change that was seeing many of them either lose jobs or face a sharp decrease in pay.

The Luddites were not rural loonies frightened of smokestacks. These men were the skilled craftsmen, master tailors and experienced crofters (those skilled at turning the rough product of looms into smooth cloth), who saw the automation of English factories not as a distant threat, but as the immediate reason that their lives and careers were bring disrupted.

Economics has long held that the Luddite's concerns were actually based on a fallacy. Studies over the decades have shown that the automation of factories does not tend to decrease the overall number of jobs. However, the nature of the jobs certainly does change. The original Luddites acted in response to a sharp drop in wages and working conditions as positions that had taken years of training were replaced by roles that could be (and in many cases were) done by children.  The change in relationship between craftsmen and those they worked for was tremendous.

There is a trade off for this, one that can best be seen in looking at the oldest of commodities.  In a hunter-gather society, collection of food occupies enough time and resources that there's little left for other occupations and severe limits on the total population. At each stage, as food production has become more efficient, it has supported a larger population, and less and less of that population has been involved in food production. When the Luddites were burning looms in Nottinghamshire, over 80% of people in the United States worked in agriculture. Two centuries later, that number is around 1%. The same forces that allowed mechanization of cloth production took people out of the fields and into the factories.

This is a cycle that's repeated frequently over time. New technology reduces the employment demand in existing areas, but provides opportunities for both basic workers in new areas and for entirely new positions, some of which have the potential to grow into the new generation of "master craft" positions. Crofters were replaced not only by low skilled factory workers, but by machinists. Which isn't to say this was good for the crofters. It wasn't. The movement toward increasing mechanization that we now see as the start of the Industrial Age was incredibly messy, difficult, and disruptive on every level from individuals to nations.

Each advance in efficiency, each new "age" has increased the total population than can be supported and employed. It's also increased the total range of opportunities available. In general it's brought on a better life. But it's also brought on an ever increasing disparity. We continue to track "worker efficiency" as one of our economic measurements, and treat it as if it's a gauge of the nation's health, but every tick of that increasing efficiency is a mark of the devaluing of the workers, a widening of the gap between rich and poor.

Once upon a time we dreamed of gleaming futures in which robots did all the work. But it seemed that no one ever stopped to ask a simple question -- if robots are making everything, how are you going to pay for what they make?  We like to think that we have left the industrial age behind and entered the information age, but we've not completed our journey across that boundary any more than those Nottingham craftsmen. We have by no means faced the disorientation and dislocation that will occur as we trek further into the new age. We haven't answered that eternal question: what are we all going to do when we grow up?

One thing is sure, mechanization and automation reduced the percentage of the population involved in agriculture to a tiny fraction of what it had been. No matter how many trendy organic local farms are built, that change will not be reversed. Likewise, increasing automation has drained away the jobs of our fathers that worked in the modern analogs of those English mills. Like agriculture, manufacturing's day as the primary employer of the population is done. Not only are those jobs not coming back, more jobs will continue to be lost. At this point, about 20% of Americans work in manufacturing, about half the percentage of a generation ago. We shouldn't be surprised to see that number cut down dramatically over the next two decades.

An astounding 79% of Americans now work in "service" jobs (that's pretty much everyone who works in an office, not just those saying "do you want fries with that"). Now for the scary part. if you want the real reason why the current level of high unemployment has been so persistant, here it is: the largest gains in efficiency over the last two decades haven't been in the fields or the factories, it's been in the office.  That's where productivity has skyrocketed more in the last few years than over the previous century. No one who's been in the office environment over that period should be shocked. When I started working as a geologist, I had a secretary who worked on a humming IBM Selectric, I had access to a mainframe computer that could store and retrieve data, and for making maps I had a fine selection of Rapidographs, Zip-o-Tone sheets, and colored pencils.  Making a single map meant days or weeks of careful drafting, and lots of fine work with rulers and calculator to determine the fall of contour lines. By the time I left that job a decade later, I could produce a dozen colored maps in an hour from computer driven plotters and software that calculated those contour lines for me. The secretary was gone. After all, by then we had word processors on our desktops.

That kind of gain has gone on everywhere. In almost every industry. This boom in productivity has made modern corporations the wealthiest institutions that have ever existed. It has also meant that both goods and services are available at prices that are historically low. The world may not be flat, but it certainly is cheap.

But make no mistake, right now we are all crofters. What we do for a living in that 79% service sector, is for the most part exactly the kind of work that will be replaced by the next generation of automation.  In another two decades, those areas will employ no more people than manufacturing does today.

This doesn't mean we should gather in the fields by night and practice smashing server farms. Standing in the way of technological advance is a good way to get run over, especially since -- as the Luddites discovered -- there are tremendous forces that will work in favor of disruptive technology precisely because it fuels those on the good end of massive disparity. But there are some things that we can do that will position us for the transition into the real information age, an age that's still ahead of us.

1. Education. Why did America become so dominant in the midst of the Industrial Age? There are few factors that contribute as much as the emphasis on public education that was put in place in the mid-19th century. We still have the world's best system of universities (also a legacy of the education-emphasis of previous eras). Investment now in education at all levels is needed to compete in a world where increasingly the lowest rung is still quite high.

2. Taxation. While goverments have been miserable at halting technological advance (and we really shouldn't hope they get better), one thing they can do is implement tax policies that try to smash the massive surge in disparity that's generated by increasing productivity. The United States did this successfully at the height of the industrial period, putting in tax rates up to 90%. Those that argue that when you tax people at that rate they have little incentive to make more are exactly right -- and experience shows that nothing else has worked as well for getting those at the top to contribute more to their workers.

3. Flexibility. There's nothing more deadly to a nation facing such a transition than hide-bound commitment to "the way our fore fathers did it." Society and its institutions are directly shaped by changes in the level of mechanization and automation. It's not a coincidence that both democracies and modern corporations date to the same period as the start of the Industrial Age. Our existing institutions will turn out to have conflicts at every level with real Information Age conditions. It may be that we must surrender or reform some of our most cherish ideals to fit a new age.

In a period that may be surprisingly short, all of what we consider traditional "service" work may tumble down into the single digit land of agriculture. 80% of us will be doing... something else.

Whatever that something is, just remember: don't kill the mill owners. That won't help anybody.  Just tax the hell out of them.

Peter S. Goodman:

This is where the Great Recession has taken the world’s largest economy, to a Great Ambiguity over what lies ahead, and what can be done now. Economists debate the benefits of previous policy prescriptions, but in the political realm a rare consensus has emerged: The future is now so colored in red ink that running up the debt seems politically risky in the months before the Congressional elections, even in the name of creating jobs and generating economic growth. The result is that Democrats and Republicans have foresworn virtually any course that involves spending serious money.

This is what the mushy middle of bipartisan consensus brings you - timidity and paralysis. You know what's politically risky? Doing nothing.

Greg Dworkin (that's me):

Therein lies the Republican dilemma: you can’t have your tax cuts and deficit reduction at the same time (the public prefers spending on jobs over deficit reduction by 57-37, and what’s highlighted here is true in other polls, including blaming Bush for the economy).

While Democrats will be blamed for not doing enough on the economy, Republicans are disliked and mistrusted, and the public fears having them in charge again, with good reason: they drove us into this ditch in the first place. Expect that to be highlighted from now until November (and it's political malpractice if it’s not).

Frank Rich:

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the "death panel" warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

Stephen Flynn:

Five years later, one might think that Washington has realized the importance of preparing adequately for the next major hurricane on the Gulf Coast. Not so. Yes, the levees have been strengthened, the evacuation plans have been improved, and many of the logistical kinks surrounding emergency food, water and shelter have been worked out. But this isn't enough. Much of the heaviest lifting ultimately involves helping people go home again and pick up the pieces; to be effective, planning for reentry and recovery must begin before a storm ever strikes. Barring urgent action, if the gulf region is hit by another big hurricane this fall, its communities will be knocked down -- and this time, many will not be able to get back up.

No one likes reading about disaster prepearation pre-disasters. "Alarmist!" "You're crying wolf!" Then disaster hits, and the cries are "why weren't we ready?"

CSM:

But five years after a hurricane that ranks as one of the worst natural disasters in American history, the storm seems less like an aberration and more like a prelude to themes that have continued to shake our national life far from the shores of the Gulf Coast.

Overnight, Katrina left thousands of homeowners with property that was worth much less than they owed on it. Back in 2005, the thought of such a phenomenon seemed surreal, a stark blemish in an otherwise booming real estate market across the country.

But in the wake of a subsequent global recession – and a meltdown in the housing sector – homeowners throughout the United States have felt an eerily similar reversal of circumstances.

Jonathan Alter:

Our maddening times demand that the truth be forthrightly stated at the outset, and not just that the president has nothing in common with the führer beyond the possession of a dog. The outlandish stories about Barack Hussein Obama are simply false: he wasn’t born outside the United States (the tabloid "proof" has been debunked as a crude forgery); he has never been a Muslim (he was raised by an atheist and became a practicing Christian in his 20s); his policies are not "socialist" (he explicitly rejected advice to nationalize the banks and wants the government out of General Motors and Chrysler as quickly as possible); he is not a "warmonger" (he promised in 2008 to withdraw from Iraq and escalate in Afghanistan and has done so); he is neither a coddler of terrorists (he has already ordered the killing of more "high value" Qaeda targets in 18 months than his predecessor did in eight years), nor a coddler of Wall Street (his financial-reform package, while watered down, was the most vigorous since the New Deal), nor an enemy of American business (he and the Chamber of Commerce favor tax credits for small business that were stymied by the GOP to deprive him of a victory). And that’s just the short list of lies.

Tens of thousands of millions of teabaggers descended on Washington, DC today for Glenn Beck's big "I Have a Scheme" rally.

Some arrived by bus (courtesy of grassroots organizations such as FreedomWorks); others by subway (though presumably not the Green or Yellow lines); and yet others by Rascal scooter.

While their modes of transportation varied, they all shared one thing in common — a desire to restore honor and integrity to this once great nation of ours theirs.

MLK, Jr. would surely be proud.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are dadanation, watercarrier4diogenes, jlms qkw, mem from somerville, Got a Grip and grog.

• For those out there struggling to find meaningful employment, dkmich offers up some Career Help: 5 cents. (Got a Grip)
• At eight years old, RedPencil had An Awakening, the result of which was an insight into the power of a mob. (grog)
• Edger points out that there is More Than One Truth when it comes to analysing our current leadership and deciding why we should or shouldn't vote. (watercarrier4diogenes)
• Avenging Angel shines light on the plans (and the stunning hypocrisy) to be unleashed if November goes badly in Everybody Expects the Republican Inquisition. (mem from somerville)
• TheFatLadySings and Representative Lujan have a busy week in Furthermore - A Turn-Off-Fox-News Letter to the Editor. (jlms qkw)
• leftyparent explores the pervasive influences of economic philosophies on education and parenting with Five Themes of American Conventional Wisdom Part 4: Capitalism. (mem from somerville)
• Dbug sorts out and otherwise analyzes the data in The 2010 Legislative Elections in Washington State. (jlms qkw)
• Frederick Clarkson documents another disturbing, militant and potentially powerful facet of community organizing by the religious extremists in the United States in When Politics Means the End of the World (as we know it). (dadanation)

jotter gives us the day's High Impact Diaries: August 27, 2010.

carolita has Top Comments 8-28-10 – Anniversaries Edition.

Shamelessly self promote your diary or pimp for a friend in this Open Thread!

On the last weekend of summer for a number of schoolchildren here on the West Coast (although mine get an additional one-week reprieve), we interrupt your back-to-school shopping to present the weekend edition of the Wrap...

THE U.S. SENATE

AK-Sen: Statistical analysis says absentees don't favor incumbent
Most of the attention in Alaska in the past 24 hours has been on the pie fight between Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski over the whole prostitute tweet thing. However, lost in the shuffle was a marvelous bit of analysis by Jeffmd over at the Swing State Project. Looking back to voting patterns in 2008, he suggests that the absentee ballots are exceedingly unlikely to make up the margin for the incumbent.

AZ-Sen: Wait by your phone, Senator McCain
The backstory of what went on Tuesday night in Arizona is coming out, and it is simply priceless. Apparently, the aides for both Senator John McCain and former Congressman J.D. Hayworth exchanged contact numbers pre-primary, and team Hayworth even dialed the number on Monday to make sure it worked. As you might recall, it took only about an hour after the polls closed before the AP declared McCain the winner. So team McCain waited for the call. It never came. Indeed, days later, it still hasn't come. Anyone who has followed the history of J.D. Hayworth, however, will not be all that surprised. After all, he did the same thing to Democrat Harry Mitchell when he lost his race for Congress in 2006.

LA-Sen: Primary day on the Bayou
Louisiana's voters headed to the polls today, as the state is one of a small handful (Hawaii is another) that holds their primary elections on a Saturday, as opposed to the traditional Tuesday election day. Early voting turnout was pretty minimal (around 26,000 votes cast), leading Secretary of State Jay Dardenne to forecast a minimal turnout for this election. One of the reasons for the light turnout: zero competition at the top of the ballot. Both incumbent GOP Senator David Vitter and Democratic Senate candidate Charlie Melancon are supposed to sail through today's primaries, and in early returns both have wide leads.

NV-Sen: Reid clings to a small lead in (GOP tilting?) M-D poll
Jed Lewison offered awesome analysis of it yesterday, but for those that missed it: a new Mason Dixon poll has incumbent Democratic Senator Harry Reid up by a single point over Republican challenger Sharron Angle. Equally interesting, however, was a tweet on Friday from the hugely respected Nevada political journalist, Jon Ralston:

Based on what I am picking up from insiders, even GOPers think Mason-Dixon is off by a few points in GOP favor. Angle down more, Rory less.

(We'll get to Rory Reid's status in the M-D poll later. Suffice to say, he had better HOPE he is down by less)

WV-Sen: Another primary day (with a foregone conclusion)
A lot of casual political fans forgot that were actually two states heading to the polls today. They can be somewhat forgiven, however, since in this case, the trip to the ballot box was unscheduled. Voters in West Virginia picked their nominees for the special U.S. Senate election which will determine the successor to the late Democratic Senate icon, Robert Byrd. Turnout was fairly light, since as in Louisiana, the nominees are pretty well locked in. Governor Joe Manchin has won the primary for the Democrats, garnering 73% of the vote at last check. Meanwhile, businessman John Raese has locked down the GOP nomination, snagging 71% of the vote.

THE U.S. HOUSE

AR-03: GOP seat should stay GOP, according to Talk Business Poll
Talk Business (partnering with Hendrix College) had both Democratic open seats in Arkansas heading to the GOP. How about the sole GOP open seat, being vacated by Senate nominee (and, in all likelihood, future U.S. Senator) John Boozman? That one also shows a a double-digit lead for the Republicans, according to their latest poll. Republican Steve Womack, the mayor of Rogers, has a 24-point lead over Fayetteville Democrat David Whitaker (55-31).

CO-07: Magellan claims GOP lead against Dem incumbent
This one has a pair of caveats: Magellan is a Republican pollster, and they also use the questionable technique (PDF) of burying their trial heat question late in the survey (something the NCPP says can potentially bias results). That said, they claim that Republican challenger Ryan Frazier has a one-point lead over Democratic incumbent Ed Perlmutter (40-39).

LA-02/LA-03: Two competitive House primaries on tap today
While the Senate results might have seemed preordained, there are actually two House primaries in the Pelican State worth keeping an eye on tonight. One of the Democrats' most lucrative targets in 2010 is the heavily African-American 2nd district, where state legislators Cedric Richmond and Juan LaFonta lead a field of four Democratic candidates vying to make Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao a one-term oddity in this Democratic district. Meanwhile, to the South in the 3rd district, Charlie Melancon's Senate bid has opened up a very vulnerable open seat that the Democrats will have to defend. Ravi Sangisetty will be the Democratic standard bearer, while the GOP will pick today from a pair of legit candidates in former House Speaker Hunt Downer and wealthy attorney Jeff Landry.

MI-01/MI-03/MI-07: GOP pollster sees two pickups in Michigan
The prolific Republican pollsters at We Ask America are back at it again, this time in the Midwest. They polled three districts in Michigan, and see a pair of pickups for the GOP. One caveat that even they (to their credit) point out: these polls were conducted earlier in the month, one day after the Michigan primaries. Since all three Republicans had competitive primaries, while all three Democrats did not, that could easily bias the numbers a bit. At any rate, the pollster has Republicans taking the 1st district long held by Democrat Bart Stupak. They have Republican Don Benishek at 45%, with Democrat Gary McDowell at 29%. In the GOP-leaning 3rd district opened up by the retirement of veteran GOP Congressman Vern Ehlers, young GOP state legislator Justin Amash has a 51-30 lead over Democrat Pat Miles. Lastly, in the 7th district, the pollsters have incumbent Democrat Mark Schauer trailing the man he beat to win the seat (former GOP congressman Tim Walberg) by eight points (45-37).

MI-08: Stalemate over--Dems will get replacement candidate
Kudos to DK community member Brainwrap, who has been relentless in telling the story of the Democratic plight in the potentially competitive 8th district in Michigan. The Democratic nominee, Kande Ngalamulume, left the state shortly after winning the nomination. The GOP Secretary of State refused to take him off the ballot, despite the fact that his campaign was quite clearly deceased, because she had not received adequate proof that he had left the state. With that evidence in hand and a bit of pressure applied, the SoS office finally relented, removing Ngalamulume from the ballot. This paves the way for the Democrats to name a replacement candidate, which will most likely be former teacher Lance Enderle.

OH-17: Jim....Traficant....LIVES!
Don't call it a comeback, he's been here for years...it now looks like former Congressman (and guest of the government) Jim Traficant has successfully petitioned his way onto the ballot for the Fall. He met the signature standard, according to preliminary calculations, by just seven signatures. Traficant, given his long prison stint, is unlikely to win, and unlikely to even be much of a drain on incumbent Democrat Tim Ryan in this heavily Democratic district.

SC-05: GOP pollster claims a tie for longtime Dem incumbent
Another day, another internal poll claiming that a longtime Democratic Congressman is in deep trouble for November. In this case, it is South Carolinian John Spratt, who it must be said does have to defend a pretty tough patch of territory in the Palmetto State. His GOP opponent, Mick Mulvaney, released a slightly dusty (late July) poll showing him dead even at 46% with Spratt.

SD-AL: GOP nominee believes in rule of law...just not rules of road
Ouch. Here's hoping that GOP House nominee Kristi Noem wasn't going for the law and order vote. An investigation by KELO-TV found that Noem has accumulated twenty speeding tickets as well as five other minor traffic violations. In addition, she has been cited a total of six times for failing to appear in court to answer for her charges. She has also been served two arrest warrants for failure to pay traffic fines. I don't know how big the NASCAR vote is in the state of South Dakota, but one has to suspect that Noem has that demographic locked down at this point.

RACE FOR THE HOUSE: DCCC hits the road while Beck bloviates in DC
The media bestowed all of their attention (and probably infinitely more reverence than is deserved) to the rantings of one Fox News host in DC today, but the DCCC took this day and put in some serious work. The committee is launching a major offensive today, going into a total of 75 competitive districts and will focus on both volunteer recruitment and voter contact. The DCCC is anticipating that by the close of business tonight, they will have knocked on close to a quarter million doors.

THE GUBERNATORIAL RACES

MI-Gov: Is Tea Party the key to derailing Snyder?
Amid gruesome new polling numbers from EPIC-MRA (which has Republican Rick Snyder leading Democrat Virg Bernero by a 51-29 margin), a little Michigan-based GOP civil war might be the path to resurrection for the Dems. Despite the fact that GOP nominee Snyder has already indicated that he wants state legislator Brian Calley to be his running mate, the local tea party activists are going to nominate one of their own at this weekend's state convention. The Tea Party is pushing Bill Cooper, a businessman who recently was an also-ran in the GOP primary in the 2nd Congressional District, to be the nominee instead of Calley. While their efforts wound up being for naught (Cooper eventually pulled back and threw his support to Calley), it shows that there are still fault lines in the state. Virg Bernero also named his choice for running mate, giving the nod to Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence.

NV-Gov: Sandoval has huge lead over Reid, according to M-D
A day after their Senate numbers were released, Mason-Dixon's gubernatorial poll hit the news today, and the news was not pretty for Democratic contender Rory Reid. The pollster has Republican Brian Sandoval leading Reid by twenty-two points (53-31). While I did note that Ralston tweet from earlier (that this might be a GOP-friendly poll), one has to presume that Sandoval is very much in the driver's seat in the Silver State.

TX-Gov: Debates will go on, with or without Perry
With Texas Governor Rick Perry still in mid-tantrum and refusing to participate in debate (he is insisting Democrat Bill White release decade-old tax returns before he'll debate), it is refreshing to see the response from area newspapers. They announced yesterday that they will still hold the debates, with or without the participation of Perry. Admittedly, there'd be something quite appropriate about White debating an empty seat, since that would be a perfect representation of one of America's laziest Governors.

UT-Gov: Herbert joins the ranks of the Dred Scott Republicans
Add Utah's relatively new Republican Governor, Gary Herbert, to the ranks of the Dred Scott Republicans (or, as one commenter noted, the Roger Taney Republicans). At the close of the week, Herbert declared that he would have no qualms with rewriting the 14th Amendment to wipe out the notion of birthright citizenship.

VT-Gov: Racine calls for recount as Shumlin's lead made official
The official results in Vermont's ridiculously close Democratic gubernatorial primary came in ahead of schedule, and they confirmed that state senator Peter Shumlin has won the primary. Given the razor-thin margin (197 votes), runner-up Doug Racine immediately requested a recount. Shumlin, perpetuating what he been a battle that has been as civil as it has been closely contested, said that he totally understood Racine's call for a recount.

THE RAS-A-POLL-OOZA

Lots of new gubernatorial numbers for the House of Ras, which has two gubernatorial races getting a little closer for Democrats (Oklahoma and Wisconsin), while another one gets a little further away (South Carolina). They also hit Arizona for the Senate race, and find...well, y'all know the punchline by now.

AZ-Sen: Sen. John McCain (R) 53%, Rodney Glassman (D) 31%
OK-Gov: Mary Fallin (R) 52%, Jari Askins (D) 37%
SC-Gov: Nikki Haley (R) 52%, Vincent Sheheen (D) 36%
SC-Sen: Sen. Jim DeMint (R) 63%, Alvin Greene (D) 19%
WI-Gov: Mark Neumann (R) 48%, Tom Barrett (D) 44%
WI-Gov: Scott Walker (R) 47%, Tom Barrett (D) 44%

It's been six months since we started having a regular book review on Saturday evenings.

That first week focused on science fiction and that's the genre that's gotten more attention than any other in this slot (after all, SEGO does stand for "Saturday Evening Geek Out"), but we've also had nights devoted to fantasy, military, sea stories, westerns, horror, mysteries, and romance.  

We've been fortunate to have the participation of many of the Daily Kos editors. If you look back through the weeks, you'll see that the highest level of participation has often been for "issues" that I didn't write. I'm not surprised by that. Far too many of my entries boil down to some literary figure who has crossed my path by happenstance (hey did you know that I've shared a meal with John Crowley, gone to a party with Neil Gaiman, shouted across a table with Harlan Ellison, sat for two hours next to Ray Bradbury, and terrified Peter Straub in an elevator? -- it's likely that you do, because by now I've bored you with those stories in some edition of Saturday Evening Filler Material).  Not only has the bulk of these pieces too often been filled with my miscellany remembrances, the selection of books for the evening has been as haphazard as something that happened to be lying within twenty feet of my desk, for which I could quickly gen up a framing tale. And really, you deserve better than that.

So, now that we have a few dozen of these things behind us, it's time to get a bit more professional about them. (I'd say "starting now," but this evening is clearly excluded from "professional").

Book Reviews
Rather than just dredging up a few of my favorites, I'm going to be looking for new books -- books that you'll likely to be able to find on your local shelves without overturning dusty piles at a used book store. I'm hoping to rope others into continuing their contributions, so the number of reviews should stay fixed at around the number it has been -- around four books a week.

I'm also looking to all our Kossacks for ideas of books deserving of review. Either in comments or via email, tell me those books that you think deserve wider attention. Mystery or mainstream, best seller or sadly obscure, young adult or triple X, all genres accepted equally. There's only one rule -- try to avoid political nonfiction. Those books are likely to get their coverage in other areas. Preference in this time slot goes to novels and short story collections (though books of poetry will also be looked over -- and the themes of them completely missed, as I really am the dullest clod on Earth).

Film Reviews
Back when I actually thought I could make a living writing, the first thing I did was indulge myself in a year of film school (don't worry, I didn't meet anyone at all whose name you'd recognize) and I'd very much like to see more regular reviews of films. We've done a few of these, but only a few. Expect that to change in the future as I'm asking you to note films you've enjoyed, both those in the theaters and being distributed for home viewing.

Book Club
This is a biggee -- once a month we're going to all read a book together. This may be a new book, or one that's been around for awhile (though if you're making suggestions, it should be one that's readily available in both libraries and book stores). And one Saturday evening each month we'll focus discussion on that book.

I realize that there are already some groups doing book clubs on Daily Kos. I'll make a deal with you -- if you'll read my selection, I'll read yours and participate in your discussion when it comes around. Good enough?

The selection for the Daily Kos Saturday Evening Book Club is...

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

Into the Wild tells the story of Christopher McCandless, who disappeared only weeks after his graduation from college. A few months later, McCandless' body was found in Alaska. On first blush, the story of Chris McCandless appeared to be nothing but an eye-rolling example of a greenhorn who wandered into the woods unprepared. But Krakauer's examination of McCandless' papers reveals a moving portrait of someone searching to reconnect with themselves, and with others, by seeking out challenge and solitude.

If you haven't read this book you'll have no trouble locating a copy. If you have, I'm expecting you to brush up on it before we meet back here in four weeks time.

Okay, that's it. Better reviews of more recent books, more frequent film reviews, and a once-a-month book club. That's my thought on where we should go from here. I'd very much like to hear yours.

One other thing: I think everyone is aware that DK4 is in the home stretch, and soon we'll all be "living" in a platform that has some surprising new capabilities. When that time comes, I expect all these things -- book reviews, film reviews, and book club -- to go on as their own features, backed up by their own crews of editors (you'll have to see the new system to understand). I'm looking forward to that day, but until then let's lay a good foundation for those features starting next Saturday.

So what do you want me to read this week?

Republican Senate Candidate Ken Buck has tried really to convince Colorado that he really isn't an extremist. He walked back that whole repealing the 17th amendment business that he used to support. He also now supposedly no longer wants to abolish the Department of Education. He even used a tea party rally to try to turn back that extremist label.

Too bad for Buck that there's that thing called video.

In the ad, the announcer shows video of various right-wing statements that Buck has made, such as when he said of Social Security, "I don't know whether it is constitutional or not. It is certainly a horrible policy." Buck is also shown stating his position on abortion: "I am pro-life and I'll answer the next question, I don't believe in the exception of rape or incest."

"Ken Buck asked the right question," the announcer says, cutting to video of Buck asking defiantly at a rally: "I'm an extremist? I'm an extremist?"

Of course, in the crowd Buck runs in, that's all pretty mainstream.

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ....

• DarkSyde will "pre-game" a new science program airing on the Discovery Channel this weekend, and watching it just may save your life!
• If you think that every other poll released this year has been either a Rasmussen poll or a Republican poll, you’re awfully close to being right. Steve Singiser has catalogued nearly a thousand polls, and thinks the saturation of GOP-friendly sources could be skewing analysis of the 2010 cycle.
• Mark Sumner talks about the end of the Industrial Age, the beginning of the Information Age, and why we shouldn't delude ourselves that

  we've made the transition.

• In a departure from her usual appeal to give women more of a voice in political discourse, Kaili Joy Gray talks about a few women from whom we need to hear less. Or not at all.
• Dante Atkins takes a look at the small minds and unintended consequences of the renewed anti-Islam fervor in the conservative movement.
• It could be about international or national affairs. It could be about tensions within the Democratic Party. It could be about site meta. It could be just for fun. Laurence Lewis recounts an ancient tale of Nasrudin.

As noted by Jed Lewison, the Republican agenda, should they retake the House, distills down to this:

1. Extend Bush tax cuts for wealthy.

2. Pledge to veto EFCA or energy reform legislation passed by Congress after the November election but before the new Congress.

3. Tell Democrats to support the GOP's effort to repeal a provision of the health care law that Boehner claims would require businesses to itemize all expenditures over $600. (Note that Republicans actually blocked a vote to repeal the mandate in House and the small jobs bill in the Senate, currently being blocked by the GOP, is also a vehicle for repeal.)

4. Submit a massive spending reduction package to Congress.

5. (Tell the president to) (f)ire his entire economic team.

As Jed summarized:

The thing about that list is that there isn't a single thing about what Republicans would actually do. It's just a list of demands on President Obama and except for the first one -- in which Boehner demands Obama extend Bush tax cuts for the wealthy -- they are purely rhetorical in nature.

Unsurprisingly, the Party of No wants to do, essentially, nothing. Of course, Republicans tried to kill health care reform and banking reform, and they're continuing to try to kill energy reform and climate legislation. And because they stand for nothing, and have nothing to offer the voters, they're falling back on their usual electoral strategy of exploiting and exacerbating bigotry. But just to be fair, it does deserve mention that the Republicans do intend to take action on one front, and their intention has been clear for months: they want to try to impeach President Obama.

Glenn Thrush at Politico understands:

Republicans are planning a wave of committee investigations targeting the White House and Democratic allies if they win back the majority.

Politico being Politico, Thrush refers to GOP staffers' claims that there won't be any "self-destructive witch hunts," but he doesn't mention if he bothered to ask if any of the staffers think impeaching President Clinton over a personal matter was a witch hunt.

"I actually think it will be even worse than what happened to Bill Clinton because of the animosity they already feel for President Obama," says Lanny Davis, a deputy White House counsel who lived through Clinton’s trials.

And Thrush lists some of the possible investigations, most of which already have been thoroughly explored and dismissed as non-issues.

"If Republicans go on an investigative witch hunt when and if they gain power in November, then their power will be very short lived," said Mark McKinnon, a former George W. Bush adviser sympathetic to Obama. "The American public wants Congress to work together, not to investigate each other."

Of course, a witch hunt is in the eye of the beholder. And it would be interesting to know if McKinnon can point to any evidence of the GOP genuinely trying to work with Democrats on anything. On issue after issue, every attempt the president and the Democrats made to reach across the aisle resulted in stalling, obfuscating, misrepresenting what the Democrats were doing, and then no Republican support. But Politico being Politico, Thrush also offers this as a very ripe target for GOP investigations:

No investigation poses a more significant political danger to Obama than a no-holds-barred GOP probe into TARP, the AIG bailout, the Freddie-Fannie sinkhole and the administration’s de facto takeover of GM and Chrysler.

Except, of course, that TARP was signed by Bush, the AIG bailout happened under Bush, and the conservatorship of Freddie and Fannie happened under Bush. But investigating the "de facto takeover" of GM and Chrysler could actually be interesting, given that GM didn't go under, and thousands of jobs were saved (with great sacrifice by the autoworkers) and Chrysler was successfully reorganized under new ownership after declaring bankruptcy. In other words, the most significant dangers from GOP investigations of President Obama might be to members of the Bush administration. Except, of course, that Thrush omits to mention one other possible avenue of investigation. But then, maybe he hopes to go along for the ride, when the GOP sends a fact-finding mission on a junket to Kenya to search for the birth certificate.

A whole new slew of individuals and organizations have joined Paul Krugman, Sen. Bernie Sander, Rep. Peter DeFazio, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the National Council of Women's Organizations, National Organization of Women and Jack Conway in calling for Simpson to either resign or for President Obama to fire him from his position on the deficit commission.

• Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Lynn Woolsey, via e-mail:

  “Former Senator Alan Simpson’s latest attack on Social Security demonstrates that he is too biased to serve as co-chair of  the  National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which will likely recommend changes to the Social Security program....

  “Simpson portrays Social Security as some sort of welfare for the elderly who don’t need or deserve it rather than a self-funded financial security program recipients paid into throughout their working lives.

  “Social Security should not even be on the table in deficit-reduction talks because it has not contributed a dime to that deficit, which has been caused largely by endless wars, reckless tax cuts and the recession....

  “But Simpson seems more intent on targeting Social Security and those who receive it.

  “Simpson’s apology is not enough. He should resign.”

</p<p>
• Alan Grayson, in an e-mail to supporters:

  Deficit Commission Republican Co-Chair Alan Simpson just called Social Security a “milk cow with 310 million tits.”

  Simpson seems to know a lot about farm animals. Which isn’t surprising, because only a swine would use such words to describe a program that we rely on to pay for food, medicine, and rent. Simpson is known for calling Social Security recipients ‘greedy geezers’, even while living on a generous government pension.

  Enough of this nonsense. Fire this guy. And stop the Commission’s goal of cutting Social Security.

</p<p>
• Senate candidate Elaine Marshall (D-NC):

  "Alan Simpson's remarks were disrespectful to women and to Social Security recipients. He should resign or the president should fire him," Marshall said, speaking at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, according to her campaign.

  "The fact that he thinks this way shows that he can't do his job with an open mind. We should be doing everything in our power to strengthen and protect Social Security, not attacking the recipients who depend on it."

• The Alliance for Retired Americans President Barbara Easterling and Executive Director Edward F. Coyle "urged the president to demand Simpson’s resignation. They wrote that his remarks are:

  conduct unbecoming a person named to co-chair a presidential panel. Moreover, it is the latest in a series of derisive and inappropriate comments Mr. Simpson has made about our nation’s seniors and the Social Security benefits they have earned and rely upon to make ends meet.

• The Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of 125 labor, progressive, women's rights and elderly groups.

  "While I appreciate that Alan Simpson has apologized, he still must go," said Nancy Altman, co-chair of Strengthen Social Security. "This is not the first time that Alan Simpson has shown he neither understands nor appreciates Social Security. His disdain for Social Security and the hard working Americans who count on it make him unfit to be anywhere near discussions about its future. Social Security should have no part in deficit discussions and Alan Simpson should have no part in the deficit commission. Social Security is too important to leave in Mr. Simpson's hands or, for that matter, in the hands of budget cutters who fail to recognize that Social Security contributes not one penny to the deficit."

• MoveOn, in an e-mail to members:

  It's time for Alan Simpson to resign.

  When President Obama appointed former Sen. Simpson co-chair of the deficit commission, he said Sen. Simpson would lead the commission in building "a bipartisan consensus to put America on the path toward fiscal reform and responsibility."

  But instead, Sen. Simpson has made clear, again and again, that he has contempt for people who rely on Social Security, and will use his position to rant at anyone who doesn't agree with his plans to cut benefits....

• CREDO:

  The point of the commission was to have a bipartisan panel that could work through difficult areas and search for solutions to our problems in what President Obama called a “serious and thoughtful way.” So it’s hard to think of a worse co-chair than someone like Alan Simpson, who once again demonstrated that he has neither the temperament nor the objectivity needed to delve into such an important issue.

• Campaign for America's Future:

  Social Security has worked for 75 years and does not contribute one penny to the national debt. It has no business being part of the White House debt commission’s deliberations.

  Yet debt commission co-chair Alan Simpson has used his position to repeat lie after lie about Social Security, clearly signaling his intention to support unnecessary benefit cuts that would undermine our nation’s retirement security.

  Click here to tell the White House: Take Simpson Off The Commission. Take Social Security Off The Table.

This thread also has a dream...about seeing Glenn Beck become nothing more than a punch line. To the links

• The LA County Democratic Party comes out swinging against Meg Whitman's attempt to buy the Governorship of California.
• A middle school in Nettleton, Mississippi, based its rules for who got to be class president on race. Seriously. In 2010. Eight of the twelve positions, including Class President for all three grades, were designated for white students only. The best part? The policy was supposedly designed thirty years ago to guarantee minority representation in student body leadership.
• Via Balloon Juice, here's some conservative thinking at its finest from the National Review (I go there so you don't have to). Super-wealthy Americans don't care about the United States and will leave it for lower tax rates in Dubai and Doha if we don't keep marginal tax rates low:

  The U.S. is a country rich in amenities that Dubai, Doha, and Singapore can’t really match. So many of the ultrarich will pay a premium to live here, just as wealthy individuals pay a premium to live in California or Paris. But how big a premium will they pay? And how long will our edge in amenities last?

  It’s useful to assume that the answer is not that big and not that long. Because if we’re wrong, a trickle of adventure-seeking emigrants could become a cascade of our best and brightest.

  I wonder if by "best and brightest" he was thinking about Blackwater CEO Erik Prince. And how exactly were the best and brightest supposed to become the best and brightest without a well-funded education system?

• Via Digby: more conservative jackassery, this time from Erick Erickson--who apparently has a mancrush on Vladimir Putin because he's such a tough, manly man who rides on horses half-naked and like to shoot guns. Erickson posted a side-by-side photo montage demonstrating first how tough Putin is, contrasted with how much of a weakling Obama is because he golfs, eats ice cream, rides bikes and goes swimming. Note that the original image depicted playing with one's daughter as a weak, unmanly thing to do before Erick's edit--apparently, a lot of conservatives think that fatherhood isn't a family value if it doesn't involve teaching boys how to shoot automatic weapons.

  I always knew it. George W. Bush is...a...total...pansy.

Today's hate comes from New Hampshire, as I wrap up a brief family vacation, and head back home tonight.

My takeaway? Binnie signs everywhere. Maybe the teabaggers will help us out here in the Granite State as well and overthrow the establishment's choice, Kelly Ayotte. I want nothing more than for the teabaggers to cost Republicans Senate seats in Alaska, Kentucky, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and maybe New Hampshire and Delaware.

If the crazies cost the GOP their Senate majority, the post-election fireworks will truly be something to behold. And if that happens, the quality of this hate mail would ratchet up to the stratosphere. And whatever the Democrats may or may not have done the last couple of years, a full-blown civil war within the GOP would be worth the price of admission.

Some of you may have met Scott McAdams, the Alaska Democrat running for U.S. Senate this year, at Netroots Nation. For those who didn't, here's a good introduction from his speech Wednesday at the state Democrats' Unity Dinner (the Dems actually have unity) recorded by blogger Steve at the local blog What do I know?:

For those who don't want to spend 10 minutes watching, Real Clear Politics (via James L at Swing State) has some highlights:

"I see Joe Miller align behind a Hummer with armed guards march through a family parade in Eagle River," McAdams said, alluding to video that was posted online of Miller supporters carrying assault weapons during a parade. "I see Joe Miller talk about the abolishment of the Department of Education and the diminishment of public schools in general, but the good news is that we as Democrats are for the fair and adequate public election [sic, should be education] of every kid in this state."

....

"Attorney Joe Miller is an extreme politician who wants to end Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits for Alaskans," DSCC National Press Secretary Deirdre Murphy said in a preview of what is to come over the next couple of months. "His strict social doctrine will only please his tea party backers, not the hardworking people of Alaska."

As McAdams also demonstrated on Wednesday, he will also seize upon the very platform that appealed so much to Miller's fiscally conservative to libertarian primary voters. After all, it won't be easy for a candidate who vows to fight government largess to win a general election in Alaska-the state that has long benefited more than any other from federal pork projects.

"I hear him talk about the end of federal investment in Alaska," McAdams said on Wednesday, eliciting uproarious laughter from the crowd of Democrats in attendance.

"There's a vote getter!" an anonymous voice in the crowd shouted, causing another eruption from the crowd.

McAdams continued to hammer home the point. "But the good news is that we as Democrats stand up for working people," he said. "We believe in job creation. We believe that Alaska as a young state deserves to be developed like every other western state in the history of the United States."

McAdams is particularly strong talking about Alaska, its economy, and its values. That's likely to be an advantage in this race, running against a pretty extreme character who wasn't born and raised in Alaska, assuming Miller wins the Republican primary. To find out more about McAdams, check out the three-part interview he did with Mudflats.