On Monday, something will happen that will likely not have any effect on Super Tuesday, but could have a far-reaching impact on our lives and the future of this country.

The Senate has agreed to a straight up or down vote on all the amendments to FISA.  All of them.  That includes stripping immunity.  That includes Feingold's amendment requiring warrants for eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and residents.  And here's the thing.  People have agreed to this only because they think they have the votes to stick it to the ACLU.  Today, they are probably right.  That's where you come in.  We all know who the usual suspects are.  Our opponents are counting on activists being distracted by Super Tuesday and getting out the vote so that they will not be able to reach out to these people.  Prove to them that you can multitask.

UPDATE:  After some pretty quick resistance from the Progressive Caucus, Hoyer's press conference has been postponed.  Don't get complacent, though.  They won't rest until they get what they want or until they are publicly shamed.

That stuff about "fixing" FISA?  Incorrect.  Via Matt Stoller at Open Left, we learn that once again, Steny Hoyer plans a press conference this afternoon at 1:30 to announce a new bill to amend FISA, presumably even worse than the one before, and this time containing retroactive immunity for the good Germans who gave up personal information to a gang of two bit thugs without a fight.  Like the previous bill passed by the usual gang of idiots before slinking out of town on vacation, this one was drafted without any consultation with the ACLU or civil liberties groups.  Although specifics of the bill are not yet known due to the secrecy with which it is being launched, one can safely assume that this is another sellout being marketed as "protection for the Freshmen."  

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Democrats she was just playing along when the Worst President Ever suggested in a public speech that the Senator give him the ability to spy on American citizens within the United States because she was intimidated, according to a taped statement and other documents released Tuesday.

Feinstein has already denied any wrongdoing, but the recordings and documents offered new details about what happened on August 3 inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

"I certainly wasn't there to subvert the Constitution and certainly wasn't there to exchange money for it," said Feinstein, D(?!)-CA, who was not arrested on charges of prostitution.

"This was a pretty intimidating Republican, and there was nothing but other Republicans around in the Capitol," Feinstein, who purports to be a Democrat, told the press in a taped statement after people noticed the gaping hole in the Constitution where the Fourth Amendment used to be. "Twenty-eight percent of the people still support him, and Karl Rove might have said mean things about me.  And it was just so damned hot."  Feinstein said she feared she "was about to be a statistic" and would have said anything just to get away from D.C. and on to her scheduled vacation.

No, not that word.  This ain't 1988.

And not that other word.  This isn't pay TV.

But it is Showtime.  Time to draw clear distinctions between the two parties.  Time to take a stand.  Time to be willing to lose for a just cause, because it won't be a loss with the people on your side.

Time to call liars, liars.

Chuck Schumer's response to the Fielding "offer" was disgraceful in its lack of moral outrage.

"It's sort of giving us the opportunity to talk to them but not giving us the opportunity to figure out what really happened here," he told reporters.

The Orwellian administration that brought you the Clean Skies Initiative and No Child Left Behind is at it again.  Bush administration lawyers have just filed a Civil Rights Act lawsuit in Mississippi.  The naive might view this as a good sign, given that the last Civil Rights Act was filed in 2001 before Bush had a chance to fire all the ethical lawyers - er, I mean, introduce new blood.  Not to fear, though.  Ever creative, the Bush administration is using the 1965 law to protect the rights of white voters in Mississippi.  I'm sure James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are glad to have given their lives in the defense of this long-oppressed group.  <Malkin = off>

Last week I had the opportunity to visit New Orleans for a few days on business.  One evening a number of us went out with some New Orleanians to see some of the areas hardest hit by Katrina.  Courtesy of Canadian Reader's similar, recent diary, I see that someone else shot video in the Lower Ninth Ward a few weeks ago.  The utter destruction shown in that video is truly horrifying, but I also saw much more subtle injuries that, in their own way, were far more chilling.
Those who showed me these scenes did so in order to bring the devastation home to the rest of the country, and this is as fine a soapbox as any.

Some of you may rememember some of the earlier diaries about the "religious" right attacking the popular American Girl brand and its parent company, Mattell.

This fight is not over.  A Catholic school in Wisconsin is cancelling an American Girl fashion show, again because of support American Girl has given to Girls, Inc.

From MoveOn e-mail

Many will have seen this, but not all, and I'm sure they won't mind me reprinting the e-mail (in extended copy).

Direct link to hotlines here:
http://cdn.moveonpac.org/content/pdfs/ep_card.pdf

Take this to your polling place, along with the phone number, fax number, and e-mail of your county elections officials and local media.

John Kerry has finally built up a head of steam going into his second debate. Millions of voters are beginning to get their first look at him, after hundreds of millions of dollars were spent over several months in a failed attempt to demonize him.  Last Thursday, over 60 million people (roughly the same amount of people who watched Richard Hatch win the first season of Survivor) saw an unfiltered John Kerry and an unfiltered George Bush.  They like John Kerry.

Now is the time to build on that momentum.  Yes, Bush will lie on Friday night, and there will be fact checking to do, freeping efforts to counter, etc., etc.  But if you, like me, live in or near a state currently tracked by Zogby (or CO, AZ, VA, or LA), your time is best spent talking to voters face to face, sharing your enthusiasm, and starting the national water cooler conversation even before Monday morning.

Visit the John Kerry web site for more information on a canvass near you.
https:/volunteer.johnkerry.com
Do it now.  Then come back and take the poll in extended copy.

First, let me say Godwin's law can't possibly apply to this discussion, because you can't talk about Nazis without talking about them.

Yesterday, there was a rally at which the father of Nick Berg made a plea for peace and said that he had resisted the urge to slip into anger.

Also holding a rally on the same day, with a counter demonstration, were the American Nazis.

It's often said that today's media would have given equal time to the Nazis in the 1930s.  That is no longer hypothetical, because they gave them equal time today.  They gave lots of air time to some old cracker with a ZZTop beard who said that the Nazis are "not nonviolent," and are "prepared to use violence when the time comes."  He said that the group had achieved their goals for the rally already: "Look at how much money the State spent and look at how much coverage we are getting from the Jew media."

Then cut to coverage of the Berg rally, with no mention of Berg's position against the Iraq war.  Wouldn't want to undermine those shots of the brave Nazis in their pretty uniforms, or make a value judgment about their ideas.  That wouldn't be professional.

According to a mid-August poll, Kerry is within 5 points of Bush in Maricopa County.  (News coverage here)

This is significant because Bush had been holding a 12-point lead in Maricopa County.  Southern and Western Arizona traditionally vote Democratic.  This means that Kerry is cutting into Bush's soft support.

Arizona is, unfortunately, getting "balanced" coverage.

We spend a lot of time looking at the things in the Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times, and USA Today.

Most of the voters in crucial swing states, however, get a subscription to local papers for sports and news about their high schools.  This diary looks at what the local papers are reporting in a few swing states.  Please feel free to add others in the comments.

Sorry.

Part I: Weak Elephants
Part II: New Elephants
Part III: Elephants on the Run
Part IV: Sleeping With the Elephants

This diary looks at swing districts that Democrats frequently pass on because the Republican incumbent is "not like the others."  That kind of sentimentality should be over.  Every single Republican voted for anti-marriage court stripping legislation.  "But, but, Chris Shays and Nancy Johnson didn't, and I think some others . . . " Yes, they did.  They voted to put people like Delay and Hastert in charge, and they'll keep doing it as long as they keep going back.  Moreover, as demonstrated by the Progressive Punch ranking system, the most progressive Republican still votes more conservatively than the most conservative Democrat in the House.  One argument sometimes raised to excuse voting for these individuals is that "we need to have somebody rational to deal with on the other side."  Hooey.  The fewer people the Republicans have to trot out to camouflage their ugliness, the better.
It's time to take as many of these people down as we can.

Fortunately, many of these individuals are also among the most vulnerable Republicans, for a few reasons.

1.  Republicans don't generally vote against their party because they are principled people of conscience.  They do it because they'd get their livers handed to them in a sack on election day if they consistently voted against the preferences of their constituents.  A few token "maverick" votes here and there and a lot of constituent service goes a long way.  However, this means that there are many things about Republican policy in general that their constituents just don't like.
2.  Republican leadership HATES the Arlen Specters of the world.  Showing his true cowardly colors, Specter is now tacking right as fast as he can in response to a primary challenge from Toomey (and, probably, an awareness that if his party has to make tough choices in October, he's not currently one of the people who will get scarce resources).  It's much harder to do that in a Congressional district, which has its own unique demographics, preferences, etc.
3.  They're losing the fire in their bellies.  It's not fun anymore being the party in power when your leader is a corrupt, sociopathic dolt and there's no one with whom you can commiserate.  Put them out of their misery.

Hey, if Bush can joke about it, so can I.

Part I (Weak Elephants)
Part II (New Elephants)
Part III (Elephants on the Run)

Part V (Pink Elephants)

In Part IV of this series, I look at districts in which voters preferred Al Gore over George Bush in 2000, but nonetheless voted Republican in the 2002 Congressional races.  That these districts weren't on board with the George Bush experience from the start suggests that they were also among the first to begin losing faith in him. At a minimum, Democrats should win the few open seats in this group.

Part I: Weak Elephants
Part II: New Elephants

Part IV: Sleeping With the Elephants

Part V (Pink Elephants)

In parts I and II of this continuing series, I looked at weak elephants (Republican incuments who won in 2002 by 10 points or fewer) and new elephants (Republican incumbents whose first general elections were in 2002), based on the assumption that 2002 was a "Republican year" and that those two factors would tend to identify seats that could potentially be picked off.  Those historical facts will not change before the 2004 elections.  
In this diary, I look at districts currently held by Republicans (whether or not the incumbents are running for re-election) in which a Democratic challenger has raised at least 25% of the Republican incumbent/replacement's receipts this cycle, with a minimum of $100,000 raised by the Democrat.  Cold blooded and clinical?  Sure.  But nothing succeeds like success, and with few other objective criteria on which to rely, fund raising is going to be the yardstick by which these nascent campaigns are going to be judged for the foreseeable future.  Except as otherwise noted, totals are as of the end of the second quarter (6/30/04) (Obviously, we will need to do better than 25% by the fall, but that's still an indication of early momentum.  With the built-in advantages that incumbents have, 25% early in the game is not shabby.)

These are the districts in which Democrats have thus far been most successful in mobilizing support.  The campaigns of John Salazar, Jon Jennings, Charlie Melancon, Joe Driscoll, Don Barbieri, and Alex Alben have already overtaken their Republican rivals.

Legacy war chests can be donated in their entirety to the national party, donated in smaller increments to other candidates, used to set up a charitable (non-lobbying) organization (from which the retiring candidate cannot draw funds), used to retire any existing campaign debt, and/or returned to donors.

Greenwood can't give the whole amount to Fitzgerald (or whomever the new Republican nominee is).  However, he can give as much as he wants to the RNC, which can then turn around and use that money in any number of contested races.  He can also use it as seed money for a new lobbying career, as long as he doesn't exceed the normal individual contribution limits for each candidate.

This is another reason to challenge every seat, every cycle.  Incumbents who never have to use their war chests can become sugar daddies upon retirement.

Here's the deal.  I want to adopt one of the local House races as my own.  One is a true swing district that leans Republican, the other is supposedly a strong Republican district, but in which no credible challenger has opposed the Republican incumbent to my knowledge.  I'd like to get some input from other Kosmonauts who may be working on one or both of the campaigns, or who have any other additional information.
The two candidates are dKos 8 member Lois Murphy, running in PA-6, and Lois Herr, running in PA-16.

Part I: Weak Elephants
Part III: Elephants on the Run
Part IV: Sleeping With the Elephants
Part V (Pink Elephants)

Part Two of a continuing saga and the sequel to "Weak Elephants"
http://delrpcv.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/8/0528/56292
The following are districts in which Republicans were elected for the first time during the 2002 Saxby Chambliss Goodwill Tour.  Historically, incumbents are most likely to lose in the first attempt at being re-elected.  There should be a number of pick up opportunities here; however, not every first-termer is necessarily weak.
Not suprisingly, there is a great deal of overlap between this list and the list of districts in which Republican incumbents won by ten points or less (Weak Elephants). Update: Many have questioned whether some of these districts "should be" on the list because they are not true swing districts. The short answer is that some of them are not true swing districts. However, one of the reasons for creating lists based on objective criteria is to make sure that perceptions of which seats are "safe" are based on more than conventional wisdom and spin.