G asked me last night how Al Franken is doing and I had to look it up. It’s a really close race. Hopefully he’ll win this election and we’ll be rid of Norm Coleman. Anyone interested in watching a debate can view it here.

Two new Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute polls find the state’s U.S. Senate race is tightening.

Democratic challenger Al Franken went from 9 percentage points behind to 4 points ahead of Republican incumbent Norm Coleman after congressional approval of the Wall Street bailout plan.

The poll surveyed 346 likely voters three days before last Thursday’s vice presidential debate.

A second survey of 418 likely voters was conducted three days after last Thursday’s debate and after Congress approved the $700 billion bailout package.

More at the Star Tribune

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who stated she had no time before the upcoming election for a debate, obviously found some time to let Annette Taddeo kick her ass. I sure hope Taddeo wins this race. Down With Tyranny has a long post up about this debate, and the latest scandals involving the corrupt Diaz-Balart Brothers. Time to clean house in South Florida!!

I’m bumping this up. I thought yesterday 10/05 was the deadline in Florida, but it is today. Just as a side not, I was watching WGN news on cable the other day. (Chicago girl has to keep up with what’s up in Chicago) They stated that 10,000 people in Chicago registered to vote in a two day period last week. Just thought I’d share that with ya wink wink gosh darn it!

I’m not sure about the other states, but I know the deadline to register to vote in Florida is today. It’s not too late. You can register online. Please, share this information with your friends, family, neighbors….. it’s not too late and it’s very easy to do online. You can actually register for any state at this site. Also, I think no matter what state you live in, it’s going to be important to try and make sure your voter registration information match up with your ID. Click on the image to register to vote today at Vote For Change.

What will they think of next?

Sue Nace thought election volunteers were joking when they told her she would have to remove her T-shirt to vote in the presidential primary last spring.

But it was no laughing matter to the poll workers-turned-fashion police, who said Nace’s Obama shirt was inappropriate electioneering — and made her cover the writing before casting a ballot.

Now, a political fight over what voters can wear to the polls is headed to court in Pennsylvania — with the Republican Party favoring a dress code and Democrats opposed.

More at Yahoo News

Video: CBS did a report on voter purging across the country. Everyone who intends on voting needs to make sure they are actually registered to vote. In Florida, make sure your voter registration address matches your ID address. I’ll post more on this later.

There’s much GOP voter suppression efforts going on around the country. You can call 866-OUR-VOTE hotline for any problems or questions about voting or registering to vote. The hotline is ran by Election Protection coalition (866OURVOTE.org), and is the largest voter protection effort ever launched

FLORIDA: NO MATCH / NO VOTE

MICHIGAN: FORECLOSURE BLACKLIST

WISCONSIN: GOP AG LAWSUIT TO REVIEW VOTER LIST

OHIO: BLOCKING ONE-DAY REGISTRATION AND VOTING WINDOW

INDIANA: DISCRIMINATORY ID REQUIREMENT

INDIANA: BLOCKING SATELLITE VOTING SITE AT BALL STATE

VIRGINIA: THREATENING LOSS OF FINANCIAL AID TO OUT OF STATE STUDENT VOTERS

ARIZONA: PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP REQUIREMENT AIMED AT MINORITIES

Again, you can call 866-OUR-VOTE hotline for any problems or questions about voting or registering to vote. The hotline is ran by Election Protection coalition (866OURVOTE.org), and is the largest voter protection effort ever launched.

I was was watching the local news on Channel 10 a bit earlier and they reported that they had contacted the following candidates to set up a debate between now and the election. All three democrats stated absolutely they would be there. Ileana Ros=Lehtinen said she has no time for a debate any time between now and the election. The Diaz-Balart brothers wouldn’t commit. This says alot about how much they care aout their constituents and how afraid they are to debate Democratic candidates who have a good shot at beating them. Disgusting. If you can afford to help these great candidates out, do it! Oh, and isn’t it funny that on Wikipedia the 18th isn’t listed. Taddeo is a great candidate….looks like Ros-lehtinen is skerrrrred!

Florida’s 21st congressional district: Incumbent Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R) has faced nothing more than token opposition since his first election. But this year, he could face a very tough race. Former Hialeah Mayor Raul L. Martinez (D) is running and he is very well-known in the area and could be a formidable challenger.[53] Bush won 57% of the vote here in 2004 (CPVI=R+4).

Florida’s 18th congressional district: Incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen faces a challenge from Annette Taddeo.

Florida’s 25th congressional district: Incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart (R) faces a challenge from the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party chairman, Joe Garcia, a former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation

I posted a video of Pfotenhauer getting tore up on CNN here. I’m sure you’ve seen her on the talking head shows if you’ve been paying attention. I’ve been wondering about this woman since I saw her that day. Maybe because I think she looks like a creature from Star Trek. Maybe because I always wonder who McCain surrounds himself with. Reader Wyatt (thank you so much Wyatt) sent me an email with all kinds of links and information on a myriad of things, and included in that email was some information about Pfotenhauer and her background. Anyone who believes that a guy who surrounds himself with the likes of Phil Gramm and Pfotenhauer is a reformer ……..well, I gotta bridge to sell you.

Here’s some info on Pfotenhauer and why Drill Baby Drill sounds real good to her:

Nancy Pfotenhauer: McCain’s Dirty Energy Spokesperson

More on Pfotenhauer and Koch here and her associations here.

Her husband Kurt: As the chief lobbyist for the MBA, Pfotenhauer oversees policy
formation and implementation of legislative and regulatory advocacy on
Capitol Hill in addition to managing the association’s relationships
with industry allies, consumer groups, the GSE’s and policymakers. He
was named one of the top association lobbyists by The Hill magazine
for the last two consecutive years, specifically credited with
building a high quality team of professional lobbyists at MBA.

Yah, that John McCain, he’s gonna clean it up baby! Rigggghhhtttt!

McCain: Mayors and Governors can’t handle national security

Looks like the GOP is gearing up to fuck up the vote anywhere they can.

A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general Wednesday has the potential to slow down voting lines in what promises to be a staggering turnout for the Nov. 4 election, local voting officials said.

In Wisconsin, the attorney general, Republican J.B. Van Hollen filed a lawsuit that has the potential to slow voting lines down and discourage people from voting. In Michigan, Republican have confirmed that they plan to challenge the right to vote for people on a list of recent foreclosures. No house, no vote.

In Florida… A controversial state law passed by the Republican controlled legislature in 2005, known as the “no match, no vote” law, requires an exact match between the information on a voter’s identification card and the information in the state’s voter registration database. If there is any discrepancy between the voter database and the voter’s ID, the voter will be given a provisional ballot and then have two days to come to the county registrar’s office to prove his/her identity.

This is going to be an ugly ugly election.

Matt Damon speaks out on the absurdity of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency. “It’s like a bad disney movie”

H/T Bat

Two things. This is not a parody. And Too Much Information!

Conservatives generally aren’t good at comedy, but they often excel at unintentional self-parody. Who exactly is Marilyn Musgrave, you ask? Well, in Rolling Stone’s 2006 exposé, “Inside the Worst Congress Ever,” Musgrave came in at #10 of their 10 worst congressmen. Here’s their profile of “The Christian Soldier”:

Musgrave has made regulating the bedroom behavior of her fellow Americans the focus of her entire career. An evangelical Christian who married her Bible-camp sweetheart, Musgrave does not believe in the separation of church and state. She entered politics in 1990, running for her local school board on a crusade to end sex education as part of the curriculum. By the time her tenure was over, the schools taught “abstinence only” — and offending passages in health textbooks had been blacked out. During her eight years in the Colorado legislature, Musgrave continued her moralizing, overcoming two vetoes by the governor to pass a state ban on gay marriage.
Read more »

From McClatchy:

Throw the flag against: The Republican National Committee and the McCain-Palin campaign.

Call: Offsides.

What happened: A new 60-second television ad from the RNC and John McCain’s campaign that’s running in a dozen swing states misstates the facts about opponent Barack Obama’s stands on issues.

“Obama and his liberal allies promise higher taxes on your income, life savings, your electric bill. They oppose offshore drilling,” the ad says.

Why that’s wrong: Obama isn’t promising higher taxes on everyone’s income. He’d rescind the 2001 and 2003 income-tax cuts for individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year or families earning more than $250,000 but would give tax breaks to almost everyone else.

According to a study by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, “the Obama plan would reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income families, but raise them significantly for high-bracket taxpayers.

“By 2012, middle-income taxpayers would see their after-tax income rise by about 5 percent, or nearly $2,200 annually. Those in the top 1 percent would face a $19,000 average tax increase — a 1.5 percent reduction in after-tax income.”

In addition, while Obama opposed offshore drilling earlier in the campaign, he said Aug. 2 that he supported a bipartisan Senate plan to permit drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico within 50 miles of Florida’s beaches and off the coasts of Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. States could veto the plan.

The proposal is part of a compromise being pushed by 10 senators — five from each party — that also would end many tax breaks for oil companies and would invest billions in researching and developing alternative energy sources. Obama said he could accept offshore drilling as part of a comprehensive plan.

Penalty: Set the McCain campaign’s progress back 5 yards.

“War hero” McCain voted against healthcare funding for veterans in 2003, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06 and ‘07. Now veterans are confronting him on his record.

When retired Army First Sergeant Wes Davey arrived, in uniform, at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul to deliver a letter to fellow veteran John McCain, it didn’t take long for him to be turned away. “They wouldn’t even meet me,” he said later, standing on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, on what was to be day one of the Republican National Convention. Instead, the 28-year veteran of the Army Reserve and former St. Paul police officer was escorted off the premises.

Davey had come to the site of the RNC along with 60 fellow members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who marched in formation, chanting cadences and leading hundreds of peaceful fellow protesters, including members of Veterans for Peace, Gold Star Families for Peace, and others who came to stand in solidarity with the veterans. Unlike IVAW’s action in Denver a few days earlier, in which they scored a conversation with Obama’s national veterans liaison, Phil Carter, who promised to try to set up a meeting with the campaign to discuss their goals of immediate withdrawal, benefits for veterans, and reparations for the Iraqi people, IVAW’s objectives when it came to McCain were slightly more modest. “We actually chose not to pressure him on the issue of withdrawal,” T.J. Buonomo, one of IVAW’s Philadelphia-based organizers said. “There’s nothing that’s very controversial about the things we were asking. There’s nothing that’s very controversial in asking that people get the discharge they deserve, that people with PTSD not have it held against them.”

More at Alternet

This short video is from The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. It’s very graphic, so don’t watch it if you don’t think you can handle it. Sarah Palin likes to hunt from airplanes. I’m tellin ya, Cheney has nothing on this chick.