We do too much "heroification" in America, according to James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (a book that ought to be on everybody's shelf).  Like me, he thinks the word hero has been cheapened, ending up more often a description for football quarterbacks who throw perfect last-minute passes than for, say, the passerby who risks her own life to pull a child from a flooding river.

Heroification describes what textbooks, too many teachers,  and the likes of Lynne Cheney have done to historical figures such as the deeply racist Woodrow Wilson and a multitude of other notable Americans. The process of heroification not only turns the notorious into role models but many people who actually deserve the praise pressed upon them into one-dimensional stereotypes without flaws. As if we couldn't stand to see our heroes as human beings who don't always get things right, who, in fact, sometimes behave deplorably and hypocritically.

Despite his flaws, my number one personal hero is - and has been since I was 14 - Frederick Douglass, the runaway slave whose persistent eloquence was one of the leading factors persuading Abraham Lincoln to bring black soldiers into the Union Army. Without them, it is uncertain that the Union would have survived. As historian Eric Foner wrote a few years back:

At an Independence Day meeting sponsored by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in 1852, the former slave Frederick Douglass delivered one of the nineteenth century's greatest orations. His theme was the contradiction between American slavery and American freedom.

Douglass did not mince words. He spoke of a government that mouthed the language of liberty yet committed "crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages"; of patriotism reduced to "swelling vanity"; of hypocrisy destroying the country's "moral power abroad." Although slavery is gone, Douglass's critique remains as relevant as in 1852. But so too does his optimism that the days of empire are over, and that in the modern world abuses cannot permanently be hidden from the light of day. Douglass, not the leaders of a slave-holding republic, was the genuine patriot, who called on his listeners to reclaim the "great principles" of the Declaration from those who had defiled and betrayed them. That is a truly patriotic goal for our own Fourth of July.

Here is what Douglass said 156 years ago, with obvious resonance for our own time.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that the dumb might eloquently speak and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn that it is dangerous to copy the example of nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorry this day, "may my right hand cleave to the roof of my mouth"! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate, I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, shall not confess to be right and just....

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not as astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, and secretaries, having among us lawyers doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; and that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!...

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply....

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms- of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

While this is a message intended for Alaskans, it makes sense for the entire West, not to mention the country.

The Begich plan includes:

• Standing Up Against Government Interference - including warrantless wiretapping, the assault on habeas corpus, the pursuit of Real ID cards, and retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that illegally helped the federal government spy on Americans.
• No Surveillance on Law-Abiding Americans – Begich opposes efforts since 9/11 to take advantage of public fears, bypassing the courts and Congress to eavesdrop on Americans.
• Repeal the Patriot Act – Begich believes national security resources should be built on human intelligence and Special Forces that will identify and respond to real threats of terrorism, not monitoring what books Americans read.
• Restore Habeas Corpus – Begich called the Military Commissions Act, passed in 2006, the lowest point in our country’s response to the threat of terrorism. The Act suspends habeas corpus for millions of Americans, and that right needs to be restored.

That Begich is implementing civil liberties as a core element of his campaign shows how important these issues are to Western voters. It's a message that resonates particularly well out here in the Western part of the country. That's why Jon Tester wasn't hurt but was helped when he said that he didn't want to see the PATRIOT Act weakened, he wanted to see it repealed. It's why Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been able to lead a successful revolt among governors against the the Real ID act. It's why Gary Trauner is standing so strong against FISA in his red state of Wyoming.

If Democrats are really serious about turning the purple mountains majesty blue, particularly in this election, they should be paying attention to the messages successful Democratic candidates out here are sending: privacy matters, civil liberties matter to Western voters.

Hopefully, Mark Begich will be able to join his fellow Western Senator Tester on the floor next year, leading the charge to repeal the PATRIOT Act, restore habeas, and maybe even try to undo some of the damage the Senate is set to do on FISA next week.

Race tracker wiki: AL-Sen

This is a flood of delicious news. A flood.

Here are the Cook Political Report's latest race ranking changes.  

From "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican":

AL-03, Mike Rogers
CA-46, Dana Rohrabacher
FL-09, Gus Bilirakis
FL-18, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
ID-01, Bill Sali
IN-03, Mark Souder
IA-04, Tom Latham
KY-02, Ron Lewis (open seat)
MN-02, John Kline
NE-02, Lee Terry
NV-02, Dean Heller
NJ-05, Scott Garrett
NC-10, Patrick McHenry
OH-07, Dave Hobson (open seat)
PA-05, John Peterson (open seat
PA-15, Charlie Dent
TX-07, John Culberson
TX-10, Michael McCaul
VA-05, Virgil Goode
VA-10, Frank Wolf
WY-AL, Barbara Cubin (open seat)

From Likely Republican to Lean Republican:

FL-08, Ric Keller
FL-21, Lincoln Diaz-Balart
PA-03, Phil English
WV-02, Shelley Moore Capito

From Toss Up to Lean Democratic:

NY-13, Vito Fossella (open seat)
NY-25, Jim Walsh (open seat)

From Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic:

PA-11, Paul Kanjorski

Wow.

That's an astonishing number of changes, first of all, but I'm equally amazed by the particular districts on this list. Most of the rating changes involve long-shot flanking races, the kind of races that would never be competitive in normal years, but happen to have unusually strong Democrats running this year, in an unusually favorable climate for Democrats. Some of these districts - like ID-01, IN-03, KY-02, NC-10, and TX-07 - are just wildly Republican, and many of them didn't even feature competitive races in 2006.

Many of those races added to the "Likely Republican" category won't be especially competitive this fall. But some of them will, and a few might even be Democratic pickups.

Even if it's just for this cycle, in the perfect storm of 2008, Democrats are making inroads into areas they have written off for years. The world is grown so good, it seems, that we are making prey where angels have long feared to tread.

So my plans for the Fourth fell through when gas prices killed the journey of houseguests to my abode. Let me live vicariously through your plans.... What do you guys have on deck for the holiday?

And guess what? He's not beside himself with fear that disagreement with his position will cost him the election.

Here's the key part for me:

Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I'm happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples' attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true -- not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.

I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I'm not exempt from that. I'm certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country.

To no one's surprise, Obama doesn't appear to be in need of defending. He's quite at ease with the fact that there will be disagreements within the family, and doesn't feel compelled to tell anyone to sit in a corner. In other words, he can handle it just fine. Just as his most ardent defenders doubtless knew in their hearts that he could, though they felt moved by the strength of their support to do so, anyway.

Could it be that he in fact does feel the pain very deeply, but dare not let on, for political reasons? Certainly possible. But that would leave us in a very awkward situation, having to consider why our nominee simply can't be straight with us. I prefer to think he's just got a considerably thicker skin than people who don't run for President of the United States, and really means it. Don't you?

On the substance, I continue to disagree with the gloss of the exclusivity provisions. But it should be noted that if a president intends to ignore the law, there's really no way to draft such a provision sufficiently, so it's not a matter of tweaking it or improving it. You either recognize that exclusivity is just so many words so long as we've got a president who is willing to believe he has the "inherent power" to trump any law, or you don't.

I'm also unimpressed by the promise of the report of the Inspectors General, largely because I've been unimpressed with the response of the Congress to all previous such reports, not to mention their inability to actually enforce their own subpoenas.

I'd also note that the promise to conduct a thorough review of all surveillance programs once sworn in is very welcome, though that's not the same thing as saying there will be criminal prosecutions, as some have insisted would be the case. Indeed it might be rather foolish for him to commit to such an investigation before taking office and having the opportunity to review the evidence and the circumstances from the inside. It'd be satisfying as all hell, but I don't think we're going to see that kind of a pledge. As such, future arguments over this issue should probably not turn on promises or even vague hints that such prosecutions are in the offing. They're not, at this point, and though we'd all love to see them, holding out the possibility that they might come through should not be taken as a substitute for a substantive position in favor of the bill. It's a last resort, if anything, and a long shot on top of that. You can't consider your argument won if you're clinging to that sort of a distant possibility.

It was good of Senator Obama to address the subject, and to take notice of the fact that the group of supporters asking him to consider a different position on the upcoming FISA bill had quickly become the single largest group organized on his web site to date. He's not a United States Senator and the Democratic nominee for President for nothing. And neither are the organizers' efforts undeserving of attention.

The substantive differences remain largely unresolved, and likely will remain so. But if Obama wasn't OK with that, he probably wouldn't have run for president. And if you weren't OK with it, you probably wouldn't be participating on blogs.

Issued here, where there is an ongoing discussion with policy advisors taking place:

I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.

This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That's why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.

But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I've said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The (PDF)recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.

The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I'm persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe -- particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer.  Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention -- once I’m sworn in as President -- to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.

   Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I'm happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples' attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true -- not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.

   I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I'm not exempt from that. I'm certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country. That is why we have built the largest grassroots campaign in the history of presidential politics, and that is the kind of White House that I intend to run as President of the United States -- a White House that takes the Constitution seriously, conducts the peoples' business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country’s destiny.

   Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok.  But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.

   So I appreciate the feedback through my.barackobama.com, and I look forward to continuing the conversation in the months and years to come. Together, we have a lot of work to do.

I've gotten a million media requests lately to talk about Obama's "move to the center". Exhibit A for that conventional wisdom is Obama's capitulation on FISA.

As I've made clear to those reporters, there's nothing "centrist" about the FISA vote. There's nothing liberal or conservative about protecting the constitution. And given libertarians and liberals are both for keeping the Constitution out of the shredder, it's hard to pretend the issue sits on the simplistic left-right axis.

Bottom line is that Obama wants to cave on FISA not because of "moving to the center" concerns, but because they are afraid of television ads claiming Obama is inviting terrorists over for BBQ. It's the same crappy-style ads that failed miserably in the IL-14 special election (and Foster went on to vote against the FISA capitulation) and have gotten little traction this year. But the Obama campaign thinks that by capitulating, it'll "take the issue off the table", as if Republicans need any excuse to accuse Democrats of being weak on terror.

"Taking the issue off the table" led Democrats to vote for Bush's disastrous tax cuts, and most still lost that year (like Jean Carnahan and Max Cleland). It led them to vote for Bush's disastrous war, yet that didn't stop Republicans from morphing Cleland into Osama Bin Laden. And of course, no matter how they vote on FISA, Republicans will still accuse Democrats of being weak on terror. It's pretty much the only thing they've got left in their toolbox, no matter how ineffective it has become.

But in any case, Obama's FISA capitulation has nothing to do with "moving to the center", and everything with being afraid of the ads Republicans will run.

But don't expect the media to care. Their media narrative has been set. It ain't going anywhere.

Karl Rove:

Mr. Obama may be overreaching by running ads in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota – states Republicans won by comfortable margins in recent years. It would require a shift of between one-sixth and over one-quarter of the vote to win any of them. Shifts that large rarely happen.

Big shifts do occur – witness West Virginia in 2000, which swung more than 20 points between 1996 (when Bill Clinton carried the state) and 2000 (when George W. Bush did) – but these require sharp contrasts on big issues, not just money. Money may be the mother's milk of politics, in Jesse Unruh's famous phrase, but when running for president, money alone can't buy a candidate love. Cash matters, but being a good candidate and right on the issues matters even more.

Hey Karl, meet your "big shift":

Rasmussen. 7/1. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (4/6 results)

There still aren't enough polls in Montana to generate a Pollster.com composite score, but it's tight. Montana is a changing state, and with a popular Democratic governor who will romp to re-election, a state legislative body that has been adding Democrats, and two Democratic senators, including one who will also romp to reelection this year, this isn't the crimson Red state of Karl Rove's dreams. Perhaps that's why Obama will actually spend 4th of July in the state.

Butte, MT: THE OBAMA FAMILY ATTENDS FREEDOM FEST INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE IN BUTTE

Reason's Dave Weigel speculates as to why Montana is suddenly in play:

Montana's libertarian streak makes it, I think, rocky territory for McCain. This is a state that elected a Democratic senator in 2006 who told voters "I want to repeal the PATRIOT Act." This is a state whose governor gave Homeland Security Michael Chertoff a rhetorical kick in the teeth when he opted out of REAL ID. This is, finally, a state whose Republicans gave Ron Paul a quarter of their primary and caucus votes, and where the balance of power in the state House is held by the Constitution Party. Voila: Another state falls off the Republican map, and McCain will have to scramble and spend money to save it.

And there you have Rove's "sharp contrasts on big issues". Few issues are bigger than freedom, and Democrats are (mostly, when not cowering from fear and capitulating) on the right side of the issue of "freedom".

MN-Sen: So, Norm Coleman is having a mini-scandal, apparently, involving a sweetheart deal he supposedly got on his Washington apartment.

Long story short: Coleman rents a basement apartment from a friend and Republican operative, Jeff Larson, who owns a townhouse on Capitol Hill, just four short blocks from the Capitol Building. The two of them have a longstanding relationship: Larson's wife works in Coleman's St. Paul office, and Larson's company has done a great deal of work on Coleman's Senate campaigns (earning more than $1.6 million in fees and expenses).

Coleman pays $600 a month in rent, which appears to be almost a nominal agreement. On one occasion, he missed rent payments for two successive months until reporters asked him about it. On another occasion, Larson failed to cash his rent check for three months until reporters asked him about it. Now, this appears to be quite a nice apartment; not only is it a stone's throw from the Capitol, but it's described as being quite lovely inside:

Downstairs, a huge English basement with a media center, office space, gorgeous custom marble and oak bar, plus an airy guest bedroom and bath. (A C of O allows you the flexibility of an income unit).

Simply divine!

Coleman's people claim he is paying market value for the apartment. The Minnesota DFL, however, has looked into the issues, and disagrees.

They note that similar apartments in the neighborhood can rent for nearly three times as much (see here).

English-basement apartments and studios on Capitol Hill comparable to
Coleman's for rent at amounts far in excess of $600 per month. In
addition to the research that it released last Monday, the DFL Party
today released more research showing that rentals of English basements
and small apartments comparable in location, safety and amenity to
Coleman's run from $1,100 to $1,800 per month. One Capitol Hill
one-bedroom English basement is nearly identical to Coleman's in
location and safety, for $1,700; another at $1,475 per month sits on a
block with five times the number of crimes committed in the last year,
including 12 times the number of violent crimes; and another at $1,350 a
month is a mere 625 square feet in size.

As a result, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed an ethics complaint against Coleman:

CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan stated, "Few Americans have landlords who sometimes fail to cash their rent checks, ignore unpaid rent, or accept furniture in lieu of rent. That Sen. Coleman has just such a landlord, who also happens to financially benefit from his relationship with the senator creates exactly the sort of appearance of impropriety that undermines the public’s faith in government." Sloan continued, "Senators must abide by the ethics rules at all times, not just when they get caught flouting them."

AK-Sen: Ted Stevens really is losing it. His latest nugget of wisdom: "Chuck Schumer runs the Alaska Democratic Party".

I am not making this up.

The fellow is getting a mite paranoid, methinks.

ID-Sen: Polling for Idaho Senate candidate Larry LaRocco shows his Republican opponent, former Governor and current Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch, under 50% in a matchup against LaRocco and indie Rex Rammell.

Not a terrific poll for LaRocco, but not that bad, either. The poll also indicates that when given basic background information about the candidates on the issues, LaRocco rated a slight edge:

But LaRocco took the lead when respondents heard about Risch and LaRocco's stances the issues and were asked to vote again: LaRocco had 40%, Risch 37%, Rammell 5%, Other 5% and Undecideds dropped to 13%.

I'm unsure LaRocco will actually have the resources to get his message out, but one never knows.

ME-Sen: I'm a native New Englander, and as such, I love nothing so much as eating food from the ocean. So this DSCC Road to Victory video about the plight of Maine lobstermen (due to astronomical fuel prices) makes me cry.

NH-Sen: I wrote yesterday about how medical associations were targeting John Sununu for his vote on the Medicare bill. Well, it seems that one of his staffers actually informed doctors that Sununu would support the bill:

Dr. James Fieseher, a primary care physician in Portsmouth, traveled to Washington, D.C., in May to personally lobby Sununu and Sen. Judd Gregg for support to stop the cut and said a staff member for Sununu said he would support the bill.

"I'm concerned and disappointed," said Fieseher, who added that as Medicare providers keep getting squeezed, it's likely that fewer younger doctors will be able to afford to become primary care physicians like him. "We (doctors) are being hurt really bad by this. ... Our profit margins are already narrow. It won't do anyone any good if we are run out of business."

Also, Sununu was one of those shiny happy people who repeated the GOP myth about Big Bad China drilling off the coast of Florida. Thing is, someone bothered to tell him it was a myth.

So now, Sununu has neatly changed Big Bad China to Big Bad Cuba, and is back to spreading the Great White Lie:

Sigh. Sigh. Double sigh.

House Races

AK-AL: As a 36-year incumbent and former chair of the House Transportation Committee, Don Young has built quite a network of power - and a formidable campaign warchest - over the years.

This is very fortunate, as his legal troubles - and those of his cronies - are mounting, to the point where he is not only forced to lawyer up, but to obtain legal representation for his campaign manager as well. More on this later.

Somewhat fortunately for Young, he picked up the endorsements of the NRA and Mike Huckabee today. In other news, it appears that his primary opponent, Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, has his own problems to worry about. Parnell has been criticized for not issuing a public release on the Supreme Court's Exxon Valdez decision, and it's been murmured that this may be because his firm, Patton Boggs, defended Exxon in the proceedings.

When the Supreme Court’s decision on the Exxon Valdez litigation came out last week—slashing Exxon’s punitive damages to a tenth of the original $5 billion ruling—Alaskan pols were ultra-swift with their press releases condemning the court’s decision. Reporters’ email inboxes were flooded with indignant missives (Mayor Begich’s was titled, "Begich Angered by Exxon Valdez Ruling") from sitting officials, including Alaska’s entire congressional delegation, the governor, and also from the aspiring candidates who are in the thick of their respective campaigns.

The candidates for Alaska’s U.S. House seat were particularly vocal: Democrats Diane Benson and Ethan Berkowitz and Republican Gabrielle LeDoux (as well as Don Young, as part of the delegation’s statement) all denounced the decision (a compilation of the statements is available online at the Daily News’s website at http://community.adn.com/... Conspicuously absent from our inboxes, though, was any sort of message from Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, also running for the House seat.

Not that Parnell didn’t rebuke the decision as well, but his statement only appeared on his website (www.parnellforcongress.com), and there were subsequent whispers that Parnell was keeping his opinion on the Exxon decision on the down low, since in 2005 and 2006 Parnell was a partner at Patton Boggs, the international law firm that was representing Exxon in the litigation.

NE-02: I wrote recently on New Nebraska Network's investigation into Lee Terry's record of accomplishing nothing in Congress.

Well, it appears that the pro-Terry folks resemble their remarks, so they've been scrambling to find something, anything, constructive which Lee Terry has done in his time in Congress, and sending it all along to NNN, hoping that someone will buy it. Fortunately, the New Nebraska Network folks aren't suckers. Responding to their claim that

Under legislation introduced by Terry (HR 3117), all such centers must have at least one E85 fuel pump.

NNN does their due diligence, and reports

Terry did not "conceptualize" or "take the lead" on this issue.

The original idea was introduced in the Senate in 2006.

He did not submit it in a committee hearing as an amendment. Rather, Rep's Stupak and Inslee did that in the bill the committee submitted.

The same language was used in bills in the House and Senate, with the language eventually being pulled from a bill introduced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the House Rules Committee.

And Terry fought the legislation the entire way.

Ouch.

More bad news for Lee Terry: the Cook Political Report downgraded his race from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican".

Hooray for Democrat Jim Esch!

VA-05: While Democrat Tom Perriello has been doing excellent work in the fundraising race, incumbent Republican Virgil Goode has been spreading the Great White Lie.

You remember..."China, Florida, drilling, Cuba, Communists, stupid Democrats won't let us drill offshore".

Sadly, it doesn't appear to be helping him: Cook moved his race to "Likely Republican", too.

• Another blurb for Taking on the System, now available for pre-order at Amazon and other online retailers.

  A guerrilla manual for political insurgency, a motivational guide to personal action, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s Taking on the System lays out the map on how to transform social networks into a power grid and send the funeral directors of our archaic institutions packing. Written with the high-velocity enthusiasm for a healthy shellacking that has made Daily Kos the Battlestar Galactica of the blogosphere, Taking on the System, studded with practical tips and inspirational tales, teaches and preaches how to turn your voice into a force-multiplier without losing your soul in the process. This is a book that conservatives could learn from too, if they could tear themselves away from Rush Limbaugh long enough to take a jab at something new.

  --James Wolcott, Vanity Fair columnist and author of Attack Poodles (Miramax)

  Pre-orders help build buzz, so your help is hugely appreciated!

• A coalition of California groups are suing the State of California to throw this fall's anti-gay marriage hate initiative off the ballot.

  * "The proposed initiative is invalid because it is a proposed constitutional revision, not a proposed constitutional amendment and, as such, the California Constitution provides that it may not be enacted by initiative"

  * "The description of the proposed initiative in the petitions that were circulated for signature was materially misleading and materially misstated the effect of the proposed initiative to the electors signing the petitions to qualify the measure for the ballot.

  UTBriancl explains in the diary that the case is a long-shot. We'll likely have to defeat this hate initiative at the ballot box.

• WALL-E is easily the best animated flick ever, in both story, "acting", and animation quality. Interestingly, the biggest challenge for the movie's animators was to make the movie less perfect.

  Stanton adds that the new virtual camera system was set up to make both the robots and the environments look more believable. "Life is nothing but imperfection and the computer likes perfection, so we spent probably 90% of our time putting in all of the imperfections, whether it's in the design of something or just the unconscious stuff. How the camera lens works in [a real] housing is never perfect, and we tried to put those imperfections [into the virtual camera] so that everything looks like you're in familiar [live-action] territory."

  The movie is stunning, through and through.

• What's funny about the crazy Republican in the Montana Senate race is that he thinks Baucus is paying any attention to himat all. Still, the dude spills his family's secrets anyway.

  As a 23-year-old man, Kelleher was a friar in a Carmelite monastery 18 months away from ordination into the priesthood. He dropped out, Kelleher said, because he couldn't handle the vow of chastity.

  He has been married and divorced three times. He has seven children and regrets the impact his absence had on their lives. Kelleher said he particularly regrets the way he walked out on his first wife, Gerry, mother to his six oldest children and to whom he was long married.

  “I wanted to have fun,” he said, but his fun hurt his children and his wife, whom he described as “wonderful.”

  Umm. Okay...

• Sonics leave Seattle for Oklahoma. Seattle gets to keep the name and team's history. Lawsuits abound.
• Why is no one polling South North Dakota? Obama is visiting today, and it's clearly looking in play. Yet we get lots of silly polls like Massachusetts and New York.
• Speaking of South North Dakota, the Fargo Forum, which endorsed Bush in 2004, is flirting with Obama.

  It’s a rare presidential election year when a candidate of any political party visits North Dakota more than once. In some elections, even once is a big deal. So Sen. Barack Obama’s stop in Fargo today could be a hint of what’s to come, not only from the Obama camp, but also from Sen. John McCain, the Republican standard-bearer.

  Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton packed ’em in during back-to-back campaign rallies in April in Grand Forks. The 1,000 available tickets for Obama’s visit today were hot commodities. If there were space at Fargo’s Yunker Farm, he could attract 10,000 or more. McCain supporters should pay attention [...]

  No one should conclude that Obama has a lock on North Dakota. He certainly does not. But given the surprises in this year’s presidential campaign, it would be unwise to assume McCain has the lock. That’s the dynamic the Obama campaign senses, and that’s one reason he’s in North Dakota today.

• Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is purchasing ad time in Virginia. Homeboy will be playing a lot of defense this year.

There was talk about Dems shortening the convention to three days, but now, talk is about doing "something different" on the last night. Could it be this?

What better place to accept the nomination for the most powerful job in the world? Invesco Field at Mile High, the home of the Denver Broncos, can seat 75,000 people. It's just a short walk under I-25 from the Pepsi Center and would be a part of the rumored one-mile square radius security zone.

DenConWatch has heard rumors to this effect as far back as March 2006.

Denver's bid would put most of the convention action at the Pepsi Center, with the final night at Invesco Field.

I am very suprised by that last one. Having the convention in two separate places makes the logistics much harder. You have to build all the infrastructure twice: podium, floor seating, and media facilities. I can't imagine the media will be happy about having to pay for two sets of anchorbooths, wiring, etc. Security is also a nightmare. You have to setup the whole security infrastructure in two separate places. Not to mention the security checkpoint system gets used and worked out the first 2 days, before the big days of Wednesday and Thursday. If you have the final night in a completely new place, it seems to me you're asking for trouble.

And:

However, a source has told me that Dean has been dropping hints that he would like some sort of "public event" to close the convention week, which could, logically, be the nominee acceptance speech. (It could also just be a big rally the next day).

In 2004, I learned about a little trick apparently done at all conventions -- a group would walk in, a single person would collect all their passes, go outside, and bring a new group of people. Lather, rinse, repeat. There were likely three times as many people inside the convention hall for Kerry's speech than at any other time.

So why restrict Obama's historic acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of MLK's "I have a dream" speech to the convention delegates and whoever they can smuggle in? Open that puppy up.

Rasmussen recently polled on wiretapping, finding that "Voters appear satisfied that a proper balance has been struck between individual rights and national security."

The vast majority--75%--also think that they never would be the target of a government phone wiretap. Of course, the problem with the Bush/Cheney administration's warrantless surveillance program is that there's apparently no real targeting, either of collected phone calls swept up, or other private data they've been collecting. That means just about anybody can get caught up in the massive vacuuming of data.

Consider the case of Stephen Sprouse and Kristin Douglas, highlighted last year in an episode of Frontline:

HEDRICK SMITH, Correspondent: [voice-over] Las Vegas. It was the week before New Year's 2004 when Stephen Sprouse and Kristin Douglas flew in from Kansas City to get married.

KRISTIN DOUGLAS, Las Vegas Tourist: Stephen always wanted to get married in Vegas. I mean, that was sort of a joke.

HEDRICK SMITH: Stephen and Kristin exchanged vows in front of friends, family-

"ELVIS": Ladies and gentlemen, it is show time!

HEDRICK SMITH: -and Elvis.

STEPHEN SPROUSE, Las Vegas Tourist: You come in and you're thinking, "OK, I'm going to get married." And you know, Elvis comes down the aisle. Then you're kind of up there, and all of a sudden, you're thinking, "Wow, I'm really getting married." Then they're doing the vows, and you're, like, "Oh, this is for real."

WEDDING OFFICIAL: You may kiss your bride.

KRISTIN DOUGLAS: And then you're singing "Viva Las Vegas."

STEPHEN SPROUSE: And then you're singing "Viva Las Vegas."

HEDRICK SMITH: But in fact, things in Vegas weren't looking so good. There was disturbing news.

BILL YOUNG, Fmr. Sheriff, Clark County, Nevada: Tom Ridge was on national TV, and you know, he said, "Hey, there's three cities that," you know, "we got to really pay attention to- Washington, D.C., New York and Las Vegas." And whew! You know, when that happens, then the whole eyes of the world come on you.
....
STEPHEN SPROUSE: When you were out there, that's when you kind of notice that you don't see any of the planes flying and you see helicopters off in the distance, kind of circling around. That's when it kind of seemed a little weird, a little odd.

KRISTIN DOUGLAS: Yeah. It was a little creepy.

STEPHEN SPROUSE: Yeah.

HEDRICK SMITH: [voice-over] The clock was ticking, just 11 days until New Year's. They needed to act fast.
....
HEDRICK SMITH: [voice-over] Long after the celebrations were over, Stephen Sprouse and Kristin Douglas received the disquieting news that they had been swept up in that FBI data dragnet.

[on camera] You found out afterwards that all the hotel records were collected. What went through your head when you heard that?

KRISTIN DOUGLAS: They have no reason to be looking at me. I don't think that I've done anything to raise any suspicion. So I mean, just being in Las Vegas on New Year's shouldn't be enough for them to say, "Well, you know, she might be a terrorist."

ELLEN KNOWLTON, FBI Chief, Las Vegas, 2002-06: I just tell people that we made every effort to safeguard the privacy of everyone whose records were accessed. There was no breach. The information was closely safeguarded.

HEDRICK SMITH: [voice-over] The FBI says it held all the data from Vegas for more than two years but has now destroyed it all.

STEPHEN SPROUSE: I work with data. I mean, you know, if it's on the computer, it's not really ever gone. It's on a tape. It's on a back-up. It's on a drive somewhere.

HEDRICK SMITH: A more fundamental question confronts all of us. The 4th Amendment protects us against unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause. So does the strategy of prevention collide with the Constitution?

[on camera] When the government is doing this kind of data mining, has it moved from individualized suspicion, getting an individual warrant, to generalized suspicion, to check everybody to find out who are the bad guys?

PETER SWIRE, White House Privacy Counsel, 1999-01: Yeah. Check everybody. Everybody's a suspect. Everybody's phone records, everybody's email is subject to government scrutiny. And if you're good, we won't bother you, and if you look a little strange, then you might get on a watch list.

HEDRICK SMITH: Isn't that a huge change in Anglo-Saxon law? I mean, Anglo-Saxon law is based on "Get a warrant." The 4th Amendment is based on individual suspicion.

PETER SWIRE: Right. General warrants was part of the reason for the American Revolution. It was that the king's agent could go in and search a house everywhere, search a whole neighborhood with one warrant. And the Boston people said, "We don't like that. We'll have a tea party. We'll fight you." We said no.

"We said no."

Say no now. Blue America has set up two great tools for you to use to do just that. The first is a "Whip Count" tool that  

allows you to directly contact Senators to tell them to stand up for the rule of law and vote in favor of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment.  (That's S.A.5064 to H.R. 6304 which will come up for a vote on July 8th, 2008.)  Not only will this tool help you phone your Senators -- including connecting your call -- but it also gives us the ability to track positions on FISA given your input on what you ascertain during your conversations.

The second will help you find out where your Senators are during this recess, so that you can use it to find out if they're near you to set up a meeting or attend a public event. Talk to your Senators. Ask them to read the bill, and use the Blue America tools to track responses and events.

Celebrate the 4th of July in a manner that would make our founders proud.

We set out yesterday to raise $150,000 for Darcy Burner, taking pressure off her fundraising efforts so she and her family can rebuild their lives. In 24 hours, the netroots have moved past the halfway mark, with $85,000 raised (we started at the $250,000 mark). That's 17 days she can focus on rebuilding rather than fundraising. As Goldy says:

This is more than just money, it is a gift of time and an outpouring of affection that has buoyed Darcy’s spirits just as the full impact of her loss finally started to sink in. The campaign tells me she has canceled her schedule at least through the end of the week and will reevaluate day by day after that.

I'm glad she has cancelled her schedule for at least this week. Let's help give her more time to put the pieces back together.

Race tracker wiki: WA-08

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/30-7/2. Likely voters. MoE 4% (3/31-4/2 results)

Independents disapprove of George Bush 14/86, so that has a clear effect on Lieberman's approval ratings. He is even less popular with Democrats while more Independents now disapprove of his performance than approve. While Lieberman's approval ratings continue to fall, the matchups with Lamont were largely unaffected compared to a couple of months ago.

Other findings from the poll -- Obama crushes McCain 57-35 in Connecticut, and Lieberman would actually hurt McCain on the ticket in the state. Let's hope McCain picks him.

My biggest fear is that Lieberman retires in 2012. I want him defeated at the ballot box. And until then, this poll, along with yesterday's Q-poll, should go a long way toward dispelling the notion that Lieberman is popular. His loving embrace of Bush and McCain, along with his rabid warmongering, have definitely killed his support at home.

Full crosstabs can be found below the fold.

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

Back in March, I wrote a story laying out the rationale for drawing out a FISA fight that everyone expected us eventually to lose. ("We don't have the votes!") The basic premise:

Every time Congressional Dems actually slow down and take stock of the situation -- from Senator Chris Dodd's brave (and lonely and seemingly futile) stand, to the cautious maneuvering of House Dems today -- new revelations arise that should make all Americans who value our freedoms glad they did.

Well, the House stopped slowing down recently, and have handed an all-too-willing Senate (which has all along been more willing than the House, it must be noted) a bill that puts retroactive immunity for the pay-for-play telecom spies back on the table. Now it's back in the Senate's lap, with a few brave souls preparing to do what they can to keep the train wreck in slow motion.

Is that worth doing? Sure. And for all the same reasons, which perhaps deserve mention again as Senators prepare to vote on this mess when they come back to work next week. And it couldn't hurt for you to be armed with this list if you see your Senators or Representatives at your local Fourth of July festivities.

So, over the years since we first learned of the Bush domestic spying scheme, and in the six month reprieve that the extended FISA fight has given us, what have we learned about the security and surveillance practices of the "administration" that we supposedly should trust with these new powers?

• We learned that:

  A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance

• We learned that they resurrected and hid Total Information Awareness:

  Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

  But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.

• We learned that all the lines are being erased, with the national security apparatus monitoring domestic data traffic and the FBI becoming a foreign intelligence outfit.

• We've learned that the FBI has committed massive abuses of its powers::

  The Justice Department's inspector general told a committee of angry House members yesterday that the FBI may have violated the law or government policies as many as 3,000 times since 2003 as agents secretly collected the telephone, bank and credit card records of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing here.

• We've learned that the FBI still gets it wrong pretty often, too:

  A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.

• And of course, we've not forgotten the good, old "No-Fly List"

  The Transportation Security Administration's secret no-fly list includes some very unlikely terror suspects -- Bolivian President Evo Morales, 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers, and every single person named "Robert Johnson."

• We learned that the argument still frequently made that foreign-to-foreign phone calls that pass through the U.S. can't be monitored without the PAA and the new FISA changes, and which are constantly pointed to as the proximate cause of the deaths of American soldiers was... a lie:

  The fight in Congress and the big push for expanded wiretapping powers has nothing to do with intercepting foreign-to-foreign phone calls inside the United States without a court order. In fact, it turns out that the nation's secret wiretapping court is fine with that.

• We learned that the "administration" believes the AUMF rendered the fourth amendment a nullity:

  ... our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations. See Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and William J. Haynes, II, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, Re: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States at 25 (Oct 23, 2001).

• We learned that that might not even matter, since the head of the NSA is dead certain there's no probable cause standard in the fourth amendment, anyway:

• We learned that the DOJ may be using your cell phone to track your physical movements without a warrant, or any court oversight.

• We learned that the "administration" says it can read your mail without a warrant:

  President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant.

  Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.

  A White House spokeswoman disputed claims that the move gives Bush any new powers, saying the Constitution allows such searches.

• We learned that racial profiling is back at the FBI, and this time, it's a-ok:

  Nearly 40 years ago, the FBI was roundly criticized for investigating Americans without evidence they had broken any laws. Now, critics fear the FBI may be gearing up to do it again.

  Tentative Justice Department guidelines, to be released later this summer, would let agents investigate people whose backgrounds — and potentially their race or ethnicity — match the traits of terrorists.

  Such profiling faintly echoes the FBI's now-defunct COINTELPRO, an operation under Director J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s and 1960s to monitor and disrupt groups with communist and socialist ties.

  Before it was shut down in 1971, the domestic spying operation — formally known as Counterintelligence Programs — had expanded to include civil rights groups, anti-war activists, the Ku Klux Klan, state legislators and journalists.

  Among the FBI's targets were Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and John Lennon, along with members of black extremist groups, Fidel Castro sympathizers and student protesters.

And of course, all of these unchecked expansions of executive spying power are occurring in a context in which the Congress has found itself almost completely without power to compel any compliance at all with its most serious oversight responsibilities. Despite the assurances they're scrambling to give that all will be well and closely-watched, the reality is that this Congress has been unwilling and/or unable to exercise any serious control over the executive in the way it interprets or implements these powers, even when such implementation is clearly outside the law. In fact, it is precisely because the implementation was outside the law that we're even having this debate, and incredibly, it's a debate about retroactively legalizing it.

In the face of all of these absurdities, rely on the Washington Post to tell us that opposition to this bill at this time -- in the hands of this president, too -- is inherently unreasonable:

Reasonable people can differ on the issue of immunity, but the FISA debate hasn't been overpopulated by reasonable people. As a result, the immunity issue has assumed a significance in the legislative process that far exceeds its underlying importance. We understand the heartfelt arguments of those who believe that closing the courthouse door to Americans who claim the warrantless wiretapping invaded their privacy rights represents "an abandonment of the rule of law," as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said last month.

The editorial actually has passages in it that are considerably worse, and some which are outright false. For example, the assertion that "no one can claim with certainty that his or her communications were monitored." Untrue, as the parties in the Al-Haramain case (as well as that class of people in possession of eyeballs used for reading) well know, but the Washington Post apparently does not.

But if it's true, as the editorial whines, that immunity "is the least -- not the most -- important aspect of the complex FISA debate," you couldn't tell from the traditional media coverage of that debate. Crocodile tears from the Post editorial board are no substitute for the media's missed opportunity to discuss those "most important" aspects of the complex FISA debate. But they've been AWOL on those issues, and it took bloggers latching onto the most politically explosive of the issues to even slow the runaway train long enough for the more important issues -- and I agree there are plenty of them -- to even get a second look.

The Post, of course, would have you flush that opportunity down the toilet in the mad rush to inscribe the mistakes being made on those more important issues on the books. How "reasonable," indeed.

Unchecked expansion of spying powers. A complete lack of enforceability of Congressional oversight. A lapdog press that actually can't wait to cheerlead for the collapse of all controls.

Has there been any point in our history when it's made less sense for the Congress to cede even broader powers to the executive?

In one last, great irony, you and your representatives in Congress are given one last chance to think this over: the Independence Day holiday. I urge you to think more deeply and seriously about it than the Washington Post has.

CNN:

With the dust having finally settled after the prolonged Democratic presidential primary, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama locked in a statistical dead heat in the race for the White House.

With just over four months remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, the new survey out Tuesday indicates Obama holds a narrow 5-point advantage among registered voters nationwide over the Arizona senator, 50 percent to 45 percent. That represents little change from a similar poll one month ago, when the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee held a 46-43 percent edge over McCain.

Nate links us to a primer by the National Council on Public Polls that tells us how media should report on polls:

Certainly, if the gap between the two candidates is less than the sampling error margin, you should not say that one candidate is ahead of the other. You can say the race is "close," the race is "roughly even," or there is "little difference between the candidates." But it should not be called a "dead heat" unless the candidates are tied with the same percentages. And it certainly is not a “statistical tie” unless both candidates have the same exact percentages [...]

When the gap between the two candidates is more than the error margin but less than twice the error margin, you should say that Candidate A "is ahead," "has an advantage" or "holds an edge." The story should mention that there is a small possibility that Candidate B is ahead of Candidate A.

Obama is ahead in this poll. There is a chance the poll is wrong, given the 3.5% margin of error, but when the poll says Obama is ahead by five points, it means something, and it's not the same as if the poll was 45-45.

Furthermore, the Pollster.com national poll composite currently has Obama leading 48.5 - 43.9, just shy of the 5-point margin in the latest CNN poll. In other words, chances are that its results are not an outlier.

Of course, CNN desperately wants their dead heat. It's good for ratings.

Your one stop pundit shop.

Karl Rove says Barack Obama may be overreaching by spending money in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota, which means that Karl Rove is worried about losing North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota.

Doug Feith, once described as the "stupidest guy on the face of the earth," gives five reasons why we went to war with Iraq...and three of them involve 9/11.  

David Broder decided to use his Washington Post real estate to tell about a report from a conservative think tank that concludes:

When it comes to the treatment of immigrants, the Bradley team sees a real threat in such things as multilingual ballots and bilingual classes. Such accommodations to the growing diversity of the population could lead to "many Americas, or even no America at all," they maintain. "Historical ignorance, civic neglect and social fragmentation might achieve what a foreign invader could not."

Broder doesn’t agree but apparently thought his readers should know that some people think brown people are scary.

Gail Collins talks about "Wesleygate," and the yawns that now greet calls for someone to be fired, saying that:

We yearn for the good old days when people saved proposals of employment termination for larger errors, like, say, mismanaging an entire war, or subverting the Constitution.

Ed Feulner says that yeah, things aren’t going well; gas prices are soaring along with foreclosures, the dollar is tanking, our treasury is teetering towards bankruptcy and we’re in the middle of a war. But there’s no reason to be pessimistic.  

Henry Miller wants us to stop demonizing those victims of government bureaucracy...the pharmaceutical industry.

Yesterday Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California issued an opinion in Al Haramain v. Bush, one of the cases challenging the NSA warrantless wiretapping program. EFF has the decision, which is a clear a repudiation of what the Democratic Congress of the United States is doing with the FISA Amendments Act as any post any left blogger has written.

First, the court's holding, as described by EFF:

The good news is that the Court held that "FISA preempts the state secrets privilege in connection with electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes and would appear to displace the state secrets privilege for purposes of plaintiffs’ claims." The Court rejected the expansive view of executive power promoted by the government, holding that the President's authorities under Article II of the Constitution do not give him the power to overrule FISA.

The bad news is that "FISA nonetheless does not appear to provide plaintiffs a viable remedy unless they can show that they are 'aggrieved persons' within the meaning of FISA." The Court ultimately found that Al Haramain had not provided a sufficient showing that they were "aggrieved," but gave permission to re-file the complaint with more information.

The state secrets privilege is the Catch-22 of these cases--how can an aggrieved person prove that they are aggrieved if the necessary documents are unavailable because they are classified? On the other hand, how can the telcos defend themselves if the information they require to exonerate them is also classified? This decision, in part, addresses that.

How does this effect FISA in the short term? EFF argues:

[S]o long as the telecom plaintiffs have unclassified evidence tending to establish that they were surveilled--which exists, for example, in Hepting v. AT&T, via AT&T documents provided by whistleblower Mark Klein--FISA's procedures kick into effect and the Bush Administration cannot unilaterally get rid of the telecom cases pursuant to the state secret privilege.

Moreover, this ruling would allow the telecoms to present their defenses. A major talking point for telecom apologists is that the the telcos were unfairly prevented from mounting a defense by the state secret privilege. By holding that FISA's existing evidence security procedures preempt the state secrets privilege, the decision belies telecom immunity proponents' claims that the litigation was unfair because the privilege prevented the telecoms from defending themselves. It also refutes claims that the lawsuits against the telecoms weren't going to go anywhere anyway.

At the very least, this ruling should compel our Senate to take the step of passing the Bingaman amendment to the FAA to push this mess of into the next Congress under a different president.

But, almost more importantly, this opinion should shame a Democratic Congress which has been absolutely negligent in its duty of oversight over the executive.

Walker has a masterful discussion of the legislative history of FISA, settling the question once and for all that the intent of the Church Commission, the intent of the SSCI in developing this legislation, and the intent of the Congress which passed it was to establish FISA as the exclusive means of lawful surveillance, as well as the separation of powers and limits of executive power in domestic surveillance.

Of special relevance to the court’s present inquiry, Congress included in the FISA bill a declaration that the FISA regime, together with the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 codified at chapter 119 of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 USC §§ 2510-22 ("Title III"), were to be the "exclusive means" by which domestic electronic surveillance for national security purposes could be conducted:

procedures in this chapter or chapter 121 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.

18 USC § 2511(2)(f). This provision and its legislative history left no doubt that Congress intended to displace entirely the various warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs undertaken by the executive branch and to leave no room for the president to undertake warrantless surveillance in the domestic sphere in the future.

The Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence stated that the FISA bill’s "exclusive means" statement "puts to rest the notion that Congress recognizes an inherent Presidential power to conduct such surveillances in the United States outside of the procedures contained in chapters 119 and 120."

The argument put forth by Democrats--particularly Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi--who are supporting this bill that it is so important because of its exclusivity provisions are only blowing so much smoke. That part of the bill is meaningless, and any slim good it might do is completely superseded by the expansion of executive power it allows.

Frank Church took care of exclusivity 30 years ago, and for good reason. Church and his Congress, unlike this Congress, understood the danger of an unchecked executive and to reestablish the checks and balances supposed to be inherent in the Constitution. Judge Walker:

In the case of FISA, Congress attempted not only to put a stop to warrantless wiretapping by the executive branch but also to establish checks and balances involving other branches of government in anticipation of efforts by future administrations to undertake warrantless surveillance in some other manner:

In the past several years, abuses of domestic national security surveillances have been disclosed. This evidence alone should demonstrate the inappropriateness of relying solely on executive branch discretion to safeguard civil liberties.  This committee is well aware of the substantial safeguards respecting foreign intelligence electronic surveillance currently embodied in classified Attorney General procedures, but this committee is also aware that over the past thirty years there have been significant changes in internal executive branch procedures, and there is ample precedent for later administrations or even the same administration loosening previous standards.

H R Rep No 95-1283(I) at 21. Given the possibility that the executive branch might again engage in warrantless surveillance and then assert national security secrecy in order to mask its conduct, Congress intended for the executive branch to relinquish its near- total control over whether the fact of unlawful surveillance could be protected as a secret. [emphasis mine]

Finally,

The impetus for the enactment of FISA was Congressional concern about warrantless wiretapping of United States citizens conducted under a justification of inherent presidential authority under Article II. Congress squarely challenged and explicitly sought to prohibit warrantless wiretapping by the executive branch by means of FISA, as FISA’s legislative history amply documented.

In contrast, the impetus for the enactment of the FISA Amendments Act by this Congress appears to be to enable the Bush administration's efforts to hide its unlawful surveillance by granting amnesty to the telecommunication companies and thus foreclosing perhaps the only avenue open to us to finding out what has been done by this administration in our name--the existing civil cases against the telcos.

The supporters of this bill endorse that unlawful surveillance and its cover up. The supporters of this bill endorse the codification of that illegal activity, the expansion of those executive powers rejected by a more forceful and principled Congress of thirty years ago. They would do well to remember that no man is bigger than our Constitution. No political party. No political issue. No election.