'Round the Bend

For the time being, I'm going to do all my posting at MBATR, as I just can't keep up 2 blogs at once. I'll come back to this one next year, as the mayoral race heats up.

Feel free to drop by the Ranch, and don't forget to enjoy your belongings. Apparently, it's only a matter of time until the Gubna pawns them off.

From the non-partisan Cook political report:

All Monday there was considerable talk that the national picture had suddenly changed and that there was a significant tightening in the election. This was based in part on two national polls that showed the generic congressional ballot test having tightened to four (Pew) and six (ABC/Wash Post) points.

Seven national polls have been conducted since Wednesday, November 1. They give Democrats an average lead of 11.6 percentage points, larger than any party has had going into an Election Day in memory. Even if you knock five points off of it, it's 6.6 percentage points, bigger than the advantage that Republicans had going into 1994.

Furthermore, there is no evidence of a trend in the generic ballot test. In chronological order of interviewing (using the midpoint of field dates), the margins were: 15 points (Time 11/1-3), 6 points (ABC/Wash Post), 4 points (Pew), 7 points (Gallup), 16 points (Newsweek), 20 points (CNN) and 13 points (Fox).

In individual races, some Republican pollsters see some movement, voters "coming home," in their direction, and/or some increase in intensity among GOP voters. All seem to think that it was too little, too late to significantly change the outcome. However, it might be enough to save a few candidates. None think it is a major change in the dynamics of races, and most remain somewhere between fairly and extremely pessimistic about tomorrow's outcome.

Gawd I hate our media. Hey, did you know that the states where Bush isn't popular hate religion? That's what Chris Matthews told me. Funny, you'd think Jesus would be more popular in the 46 states where Bush has a net negative approval rating, ya know, places like Texas and North Carolina and Indiana and Alabama.

But you would be wrong, apparently.

I'd like to thank Brian Williams of NBC News for spending half of his f&%king show dishing on John Kerry's botched joke (without actually saying what the intended line was until the very end: "If you don't study hard and you're intellectually lazy, you get US stuck in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."), yet never getting around to mentioning this little side story, c/o Andrew Sullivan:

The commander-in-chief has abandoned an American soldier to the tender mercies of a Shiite militia. Yes, there are nuances here, and the NYT fleshes out the story today. But the essential fact is clear. In a showdown for control of Baghdad, the Iraqi prime minister took orders from Moqtada al-Sadr, and instructed the U.S. military to withdraw from Sadr City. The American forces were trying both to stabilize the city but also to find a missing American serviceman. He is still missing.

As Sullivan notes, the silence on this story shows not only the mind-boggling myopia of the press and puts the lie to Bush's faux indignation on the troops' behalf, but it also exposes John McCain for the fake that he is. Where art thou, O Straightest of Straight Talkers? Do you have anything at all to say about the president leaving a soldier to the whims of terrorists? Anything?

I didn't think so.

[crossposted at MBATR]

Before you make any snap judgments on the New Jersey gay marriage decision, please read this post from actual, for-real constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald. Before you make any judgment on any court case, please read said post from actual, for-real constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald. Before you listen to any talking head or pundit say anything about any case ever, please read said post from actual, for-real constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald.

It is probably the best discussion I've ever read about the concept of "judicial activism," what it actually means, and how one does and does not go about deciding if a particular case was decided with sufficient restraint. I can't summarize his point, or highlight the better parts because you just have to read it all. It's not too long, and I really believe the country would be a better place if everyone had to read it.

A side point that Greenwald makes that I want to highlight is the very counterproductive role of the pundit class in all this. We have a journalistic system in America that, for various reasons, is broken, and perhaps its most completely broken part is its punditry. Many of these guys, especially the ones who have backgrounds mainly in "think tanks," are not trotted out on the basis of their expertise, but merely on the fact that they're good at talking in front of the cameras and will take a reliably partisan view of the issue. Think tanks, in fact, along with the demonization of the media via the "liberal media" meme, have been a main avenue of media infiltration by what we can only call "professional conservatives." These are guys who don't actually have much expertise in anything, who went straight from their College Republicans chapter to some rightwing think tank that gives them experty-sounding cred straight to your TV screen (sometimes, but not often, working briefly in journalism along the way), but who are brought on solely to represent the conservative viewpoint. Their job is not to use their expertise to provide genuine perspective (because, again, they have no expertise), but solely to push the debate rightward. They are typically brought in to "balance" an actual expert on subject X, and unlike the expert who may or may not (but let's face it, usually does) end up taking a liberal tack on the subject, they are reliably partisan and always run to the right of the other pundit. Among our professional conservatives are such personalities as William Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Lopez, John Hinderaker, David Brooks, Bill O'Reilly, and all the bloggers and talk radio wankers that make up the rightwing spin machine.

Am I not being sufficiently bipartisan in my smearing? Well, you tell me: how many "professional liberals" can you name, especially ones that actually get interviewed regularly on CNN and FOX? How many liberal "think tanks" do you know of?

These are the guys who get on TV and rail about judical activism, the guys Greenwald takes to task. Anytime you see these wankers, it is extremely important to remember: these people don't know shit. Nothing at all. They just read what you read in the newspapers, thought up a talking point to convince everyone that sounds good when you don't have time to actually think about it, and then got on TV and starting spewing their bullshit for the camera. It's all just a game and the refs are routing for the wingers.

Another milestone passed on this road to perdition: since my last reminder, the number of coalition troops killed in Iraq surpassed the number of people killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. All the attacks. We have now paid a greater cost in blood in Iraq than we suffered in the atrocity that served as its pretense. And as I'm sure you've all heard, this month is already the bloodiest in Iraq since January 2005.

And for the sake of...what? We dismantled a regime that was a bitter enemy of both Iran and Al Qaeda, and the best we can hope for is the creation of a regime that will be a close ally of the former, and perhaps even on friendly terms with the latter?! In what alternate universe would that ever be worth 3,047 of our own and 1/2 a million of theirs?

One congressional candidate supports this, one does not. Is any other information necessary at this point?

Number of coalition troops killed in Iraq: 3047
Number of US troops wounded in Iraq: 9603
Total number of dead in September 11 terrorist attacks: 3030
Estimated number of Iraqi deaths: 44,736-49,692 (iraqbodycount.org, only includes deaths reported by media)
650,000 (new Lancet study, total number of excess Iraqi deaths compared to period prior to invasion)

Time since US conflict in Iraq began: 1317 days
time since Osama bin Laden-coordinated 9/11 attacks: 1871 days
total time Osama bin Laden has spent in captivity: 0 days

percent of the time Chris Chocola votes with George W. Bush: 94%

time until Election Day: 12 days (Tuesday, November 7th)

Easily the best ad in our district this cycle.

I know, I know, culture of life, when does life begin, blah blah blah. Look, the issue is over whether we should:

a) take all the blastocysts used in in vitro fertilization and toss them in the garbage, or
b) take their stem cells and determine whether they can be used to cure Parkinson's, paralysis, and a bunch of other incurable ailments. Like, miraculously cure.

I really don't think the question of "when life begins" even matters here. To choose option A is just loco, but to force everyone else to choose option A is something else entirely.

I can understand dying for your beliefs, that's perfectly admirable, but forcing other people to die for your beliefs?

[crossposted on MBATR]

Most of you have probably already heard about the Michael J. Fox ad on stem cells that's being run for Claire McCaskill in Missouri. It's now being recut for use elsewhere in the country because it's proven so hard-hitting. Of course, Rush Limbaugh bashed Fox for making the commercial, even mockingly imitating his Parkinson's-induced swaying on his TV broadcast.

But then again, is there anyone out there still in the dark over whether Rush Limbaugh is the biggest douchebag in America?

As Atrios mentioned yesterday, you remember last cycle when all the talking heads freaked out over Fox supporting Arlen Specter (R-PA)?

Yeah, neither do I.


UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has a segment from Olbermann last night that shows that Michael J. Fox didn't just support Arlen Specter, he actually cut a commercial for him. Oxy-moron's hypocrisy continues unabated.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to MC for catching that Arlen Specter is, in fact, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, not Virginia. I swear I knew that, I just thought one thing and typed another.

Number of coalition troops killed in Iraq: 3024
Number of US troops wounded in Iraq: 9543
Total number of dead in September 11 terrorist attacks: 3030
Estimated number of Iraqi deaths: 43,937-48,783 (iraqbodycount.org)
650,000 (new Lancet study)

Time since US conflict in Iraq began: 1310 days
time since Osama bin Laden-coordinated 9/11 attacks: 1864 days
total time Osama bin Laden has spent in captivity: 0 days

percent of the time Chris Chocola votes with George W. Bush: 94%

time until Election Day: 19 days (Tuesday, November 7th)

New poll to report today, this one from WSBT, the South Bend Tribune (10/16-17, 400 likely voters, 9/18 results in parentheses):

Chocola (R) 45% (42)
Donnelly (D) 50% (50)

Joe's lead is definitely thinning, but the good news is he's not dropping in the polls. It's still ours to lose, but lose we will if we don't pull out all the stops. Defeating incumbents is extremely difficult, especially when they have more money than you (and Chocola has more money than just about anybody). In fact, the retention rate for incumbents with cash is generally well over 90%.

Now stop reading this crap and go volunteer for Joe!

From TPM Muckraker:

House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is under federal investigation for possible improprieties in how he oversaw Congress' spending of $900 billion annually. Yesterday, we reported that Lewis had dropped nearly $800,000 in legal fees to defend himself against the probe.

This evening, Congressional Quarterly reports (sub. req.) that in a round of calls Monday evening, Lewis fired 60 investigators who had worked for his committee rooting out fraud, waste and abuse, effective immediately. As in, don't bother coming in on Tuesday.

Those 60 investigators had to be contracted to help investigate the tremendous amount of corruption in Hastert's House of Representatives. This is how the GOP runs the government.

Had enough?

A sad milestone has passed since your last daily reminder, and one that no one in the media that I've seen even bothered to report: the 3000th dead coalition soldier. We are now only 21 deaths away from losing as many troops in Iraq as the total number of deaths in the event that set us upon this awful course: the September 11th terrorist attacks.

That means we should surpass that number at least before Thanksgiving, and possibly before the election.

There's nothing I can say that wasn't expressed decades ago, by the favorite poet of generation now ruling our government, talking about another ill-begotten war and another callous president:

"How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
How many years must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?"
--Bob Dylan, "Blowing in the Wind"

Number of coalition troops killed in Iraq: 3009
Number of US troops wounded in Iraq: 9432
Total number of dead in September 11 terrorist attacks: 3030
Estimated number of Iraqi deaths: 43,937-48,783 (iraqbodycount.org)
650,000 (new Lancet study)

Time since US conflict in Iraq began: 1306 days
time since Osama bin Laden-coordinated 9/11 attacks: 1860 days
total time Osama bin Laden has spent in captivity: 0 days

percent of the time Chris Chocola votes with George W. Bush: 94%

time until Election Day: 22 days (Tuesday, November 7th)

From the New York Times:

The group, Americans for Honesty on Issues, is spending more than $1 million on the advertisements, which accuse Democratic candidates of carpetbagging, coddling illegal immigrants, being soft on crime and advocating cutting off money for troops in Iraq.
...
The leader of Americans for Honesty on Issues is Sue Walden, a close ally of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who left Congress amid questions on ethics and fund-raising. Ms. Walden has also raised money for President Bush and served as an adviser to Kenneth L. Lay, the former chief executive of Enron who died in July.

She referred a call seeking comment to Glenn M. Willard, a lawyer with Patton Boggs in Washington, who drew up the papers establishing the organization. Mr. Willard confirmed that Ms. Walden was the nominal head of the committee, but he declined to identify the group’s donors or say how much it planned to spend."

Many of you may recognize that sublimely Orwellian name, as that 527's now running commercials attacking Joe Donnelly on tax issues (ironically, many of the charges in the commercial are, in fact, dishonest).

So now that Chocola's in trouble and desperate, we get to see who his truest friends are, the ones that come to his aid when in need. And wouldn't ya know, they're also the bosom buddies of indicted Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay and convicted felon/Enron CEO Ken Lay, the very faces of political and corporate corruption in this most mucky of periods in American political history.

And dare we forget, of course, that this isn't the first time the Count's campaign has relied on shysters to snipe at Joe. Remember those ads by the Economic Freedom Fund? Well...:

Among the most active Republican 527 groups is the Economic Freedom Fund, which was formed this year and received a $5 million contribution from Bob J. Perry, a major Bush donor and an underwriter of the Swift boat veterans group in 2004.

Would you trust a man with friends like these?

I'm not even going to pretend like I have the training to prognosticate on the study, but Majikthise has a great rundown of the methodology, and it appears that she (or whomever she quotes) ultimately accepts the study, and thus the number. It is definitely worth mentioning that, though it does seem high, the only serious qualm that anyone, even the Bushistas, can muster is just that... that "it sounds too high."

Plus, the more you think about it, the more reasonable the number sounds. Remember, this is only gauging the number of excess deaths in Iraq since the invasion began, compared to the pre-invasion death rate. So not only were civilians included who died in airstrikes or gunfire, but also all the policemen and Iraqi security forces who've died, all the people killed by other Iraqi forces, all the people who've contracted diseases in places without adequate medical facilities, everyone who got sick from contaminated water, heart disease-related deaths due to extra stress and/or air pollution from smoke and jet/hummer fuel... The list of extra hazards and dangers one would face in a failed state with essentially no infrastructure whatsoever would be enormous.

Furthermore, you have to remember that the media is only able to report the relatively small percentage of deaths that happen in areas where it's safe for said media to travel, and in the relatively few instances when they're allowed into places like morgues. The morgues don't allow them in except in special cases, and the authorities are less than forthright with casualty stats even when they know about all of them.

Adding up all these possibilities, it's not that hard to see how it can all add up to 4 million pints of Iraqi blood on our hands.

From CQ Politics:

The rugged national political environment for Republicans in general — and a well-funded attack campaign from Democratic and liberal groups — are the chief reasons why two-term Republican Rep. Chris Chocola of Indiana’s 2nd District faces a tougher race in his rematch with Democratic lawyer Joe Donnelly than he did in their first faceoff two years ago.

CQPolitics.com has moved its rating on the Indiana 2 race to No Clear Favorite from Leans Republican.

So how many times did Donnelly have to clean Chocola's clock in the polls before these national groups started considering Donnelly to be a genuine threat? 4? 5?

The article is a little problematic in places. At one point, CQ says that Donnelly's position is greatly helped by liberal interest groups, as if every conservative astroturf group in the country isn't lining up to cut ads for the Count.

This is, however, maybe the first article I've read this cycle that's actually willing to blame some of Chocola's woes on... Joe Donnelly. Everyone wants to blame G-dubs, the economy, Major Mismoves, evil liberals, or voter dissatisfaction, but no one seems to remember that Donnelly's building off of the serious effort he put in last cycle, and has been pounding the pavement since long before the election season traditionally begins. Furthermore, he's quite simply a great fit for this area: he reflects its demographics, its economic populism and what can only be called its "social Catholicism" (emphasis on both the social safety net and culture of life issues). He's a moderate Democrat of the very ilk most of these people have been voting for forever.

Interestingly, though, there is one thing other than Donnelly that no one, including the candidates themselves, seem to be focusing on that's making a huge difference in this race for Joe: Iraq.

IRAQ IRAQ IRAQ.

Every poll backs me up on this: people here care about Iraq in a big way, they hate it, they want us out, and they're made as HELL at the Count for supporting it. Iraq is a deal-breaker for a huge section of the voting public, your truly included.

And they will vote him out of office for it.

From Majority Watch (10/8-10. 989 respondents. MoE 3.07%. 9/8-10 in parentheses):

Chocola 46 (38)
Donnelly 50 (52)

From Kos:

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) for the DCCC. 10/4-5. Likely voters. MoE 4.6% (No trend lines)
Chocola (R) 36
Donnelly (D) 52

Mercury Public Affairs (R) for the Chocola campaign. 10/9. MoE 5.65% (!) (No trend lines)
Chocola (R) 44
Donnelly (D) 44.7

No wonder everyone (including the NRCC) has pulled out
of this race and left Chocola to the wolves. Even his
own crappy internal polling shows him behind.

Wow, if Chocola's own pollsters couldn't push him above Donnelly even with a 5 1/2 point margin of error, he's in big trouble. Still, it's all about the ground game at this point.

You want the right guy to win? You gotta do something about it. Support Joe Donnelly.

My God. From the Washington Post:

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.
...
The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war."

That comes out to about 500 deaths a day around the country due to the war.