Mark Neumann Website Is Up, It's Good

The Mark Neumann for Governor committee filed its GAB-1 Campaign Registration Statement with the Government Accountability Board last week.

But a modern campaign is a campaign only when it gets its website up. Mark Neumann's site is up and it is not too shabby, though it's still in development.

Good colors, not text-heavy, and easy-to-find information.

Constructive suggestions, Mr. Neumann.

The upper-right and bottom quadrants of a given web page (in green in the above graphic) should be comprised of low-priority information. EyeTrack studies show readers’ eyes don't see these quadrants well. so whatever info you put on these spots ought to be low-priority. Your upper-right is a high-priority “Donate” button. Move this over to the left an inch or so.

Also, an industry standard is that hyperlinks should maintain the page a reader is using and open to a new, seperate page.

So your linked headline, for example, "Press Release: Mark Neumann Enters 2010 Gubernatorial Race," should open to a new window; it does not now. Easy fix. The current code for the linked headline is (in part):

-- a href="http://markforgov.com/pg/blog/MarkNeumann/read/53/press-release-mark-neumann-enters-2010-gubernatorial-race"> Press Release: Mark Neumann Enters 2010 Gubernatorial Race --

Simply place the following code target="_blank" between the " and > charactersin the code (that are bolded in above graf and in red) and the reader will open up a new window.

Like as follows (try it and hit this following link): Press Release: Mark Neumann Enters 2010 Gubernatorial Race. ... Whallah, a new window.

Mr. Neumann, I want you to win the GOP nomination for governor and then I sincerely want the best man to win the general election. I disagree with you on much policy; but you are an earnest man and such men don't grow on trees.

Lots of more ideas. Contact me if you are interested on my working on your primary as a consultant at: maleon@charter.net.

Mark Neumann Is Ready, Wisconsin Is Not

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann announces today that he is running for the Republican nomination for governor.

Neumann will face Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker in a contentious and likely divisive GOP primary campaign.

Though Neumann will run on a saccharin high taxes and wasteful spending platform, Neumann in his own words and deeds is a hard-right ideologue packing the same anti-gay, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic ideology as former state senator Tom Reynolds.

Daily newspapers and television news won't feature this aspect of Neumann though he makes it clear that his religious ethics and morals guide his politics and public behavior.

But the doctrines of Neumann's über-rightwing church, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), are mean-spirited and exclusionary and will become an issue.

The media campaigns of 2009-10 are not like those of 1998, the year Neumann last ran for statewide office.

And the result will be a focus on Neumann's rightwing ideology that is contrary to the views of the majority of Wisconsin citizens, but may prove an asset in the race for the Republican nomination. The new media will be an important part of Neumann's downfall.

See also:
Mark Neumann in His Own Words
Mark Neumann: The Mean Machine
Mark Neumann for Gov. - Please Jesus, Yes!
Mark Neumann's Church: An Unfair Topic?

From a past column, some examples of meanness and bigotry from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS):

- We recognize the Pope as the Anti-Christ by his false teachings and by his matching the traits of the Anti-Christ as revealed in Scripture, not by the alleged symbolism of something he wears or carries.

- (Luther) had hoped that the Reformation with its clear preaching of the pure gospel would convert the Jews. Luther himself provides examples from the Talmud in 'On the Jews and Their Lies' (Luther's Works 47:226-228): 'Their Talmud and their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to to break his oath to a Gentile. ... '

- Christians must take care during their lifetimes not to regularly associate with any group or organization [like the Catholic Church] that would take their focus off Christ alone as their salvation.

- We must warn the impenitent that homosexuality, like all sins, excludes people from eternal life (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). The church, therefore, must not, bless same-sex marriages or unions, since these are contrary to the will of God. The church must not place into nor retain in the public ministry of the Word people who defend, condone, or persist in words or actions that are contrary to God’s law.

From a purely political perspective, this yuckiness does not work in Wisconsin. Where is Catholic League president Bill Donohue?

Dan Balz: National GOP Rancid - Echoed in Wisconsin

On graphic display in the Wisconsin Assembly budget debate last week is the Republican demographic demise. GOP failings in Wisconsin echo those nationally.

Says Dan Balz today in his For Republicans, the Forces Aren't With Them in the Washington Post.

The American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution convened a stellar cast on Friday to review what has been learned since November. The panel included Robert Lang of Virginia Tech; Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress; William Frey of the Brookings Institution; Bill Bishop, a Texas writer and author of ‘The Big Sort’; Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center; and Ronald Brownstein of Atlantic Media. They presented a wealth of data about what happened in 2008 and offered conclusions that would alarm any Republican hopeful of a quick turnaround in the party's fortunes.

Wisconsin mirrors the nation in setting off Republican political alarms.

Wisconsin is a political anthology of the demographic trend Balz discusses as the GOP problem with blacks and Latinos persists with the GOP still behaving in an overtly hostile manner towards these communities that comprise fast-growing segments of the electorate, with “black women [having] the highest voter turnout rate in November's election -- a first". [See Dissecting the 2008 Electorate: Most Diverse in U.S. History.]

Says Balz:

In the last election, there were more than 2 million additional African American voters, about 2 million more Hispanic voters and about a million more Asian American voters. All are groups in which Obama increased the Democratic share of the vote over 2004. Frey estimated that minority voters in nine states made the difference in Obama's victory margin.

Republicans can't reverse the demographic trends; their only solution is to increase their share of the minority vote. Opposing Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's Supreme Court nominee, because of her pride in being a Latina won't help solve that problem.

So what is the response of Wisconsin Republicans like Mike Nichols, Patrick McIlheran and other GOP talking heads?

Mocking and scapegoating, for example, obnoxious and unanimous Wisconsin GOP opposition to Democratic initiatives on immigrant driver licenses and collecting racial profiling data.

The GOP message to African American and Hispanic voters veers from we don’t like you to you don’t belong here to you’re on your own.

As Balz implies, this isn’t a winning political strategy anymore, never mind its fetid taste.

During the budget debate, Jim Doyle, Tamara Grigsby and Pedro Colón have been the collective punching bag of the GOP looking to stir up white resentment on the economy and to place the blame for the last eight years of national economic catastrophe on one Wisconsin governor and minority constituencies—this has been the GOP playbook since the Southern Strategy.

But Doyle, Grigsby and Colón appear quietly confident that this old divisive tactic is not working.

The future looks bright for a political message based on unity, civil rights and inclusion, geared especially to younger voters who are diverse demographically, less religious, culturally liberal, and less susceptible to GOP racist appeals.

GOP Lies and Lies

Update: See Bruce Murphy's piece that argues GOP is desperate against Doyle, mocking the silly notion that Doyle is doomed.

But lying is the Republican way.

Faced with the hollowed-out economy executed by the Bush-Cheney administration, 47 states this year face ballooning budget deficits, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

State legislatures and governors from California to Maine are fighting to clean up the fiscal carnage.

So the over-heated GOP shills in Wisconsin snipe and gripe, screaming about the state budget addressing the $6 billion deficit: The worst ever, sure to draw the wrath of the people.

Yes, the state budget not yet approved is the cause of economic misery and generates outrage across the state. Right.

And Jim Doyle is sure to feel this wrath and outrage. Milwaukee talk radio and GOP shills are never wrong.

Where were these fiscal Republican geniuses the last eights years that saw the Bush administration applaud and actually brag about economic progress as 1,000,000s of jobs were outsourced? Smirking no doubt.

Where were these geniuses the last eight years that saw in 2001 the projected elimination of all public debt [and states arguing about what to do with their surpluses] morph into Bush bequeathing $10 trillion debt to the new administration and the 50 states in fiscal crises? That's easy, they were applauding King George's leadership and courage.

Remember the "deficits don't matter" assurance infamously voiced by our intrepid former vice-president.

As the GOP scolds, do yourself a favor and don't buy their snake oil.

Their public record and commitment to honest commentary ain't the best as the omission of inconvenient facts make clear.

If we could get a honest policy discussion from Republicans, our country and our fellow states would not be in this mess.

Mark Neumann's Church: An Unfair Topic?

A Madison politico (a columnist for Isthmus magazine now) some 10 years ago objected to a piece I had written for In Step newspaper, a civil rights LGBT paper that was published out of Milwaukee [issue pictured above].

His objection was that the piece explores the extremism of then U.S. Senate candidate Mark Neumann and Neumann's church, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) that instructs its members in explicitly anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic and anti-gay teachings.

And to this politico, a politician's church is off-limits. He's wrong.

A reader brings to our attention more insight on Neumann's political decision-making process that is in Neumann's own words directly guided by his religion that micromanages its members' lives.

Heartland Hollar has a piece out this week, Neumann the One, linking to an interview with Christian Life Resources, a religious organization that "subjects itself to the doctrine and practice of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod."

And as the Christian Life Resources interview and another interview, Faith in the Political Arena, make clear, it is Neumann who makes his religion the public basis upon which he seeks and holds public office, specifically citing scripture text as interpreted by his church. So we're supposed to ignore it?

That said, Neumann is smart, driven, well-spoken and has the money to knock the socks off any GOP opponent, and though his religion is a political problem [what Catholic wants to hear that a U.S. Senate candidate thinks the Pope is the anti-Christ), look for Neumann to put up one hell of a fight for the GOP nomination

---

Christian Life Resources Interview
- Clearly Caring Magazine, Sept/Oct 2008, Vol. 28, No. 5

Will you run for office again?

The words of James 4:13-17 are useful tools in planning my life. If it is the Lord's will I would consider it a privilege to run for office again and serve the people if elected.

Was there any portion of God's Word that you leaned on while serving in public office?

The most worn page of my Bible referenced Matthew 6:25-34 where Jesus tells us not to worry. James 1:2-7 also reminded me that trials lead to maturity and that wisdom will be provided to those who do not doubt.

---

Asked how he made his decisions in Congress in an interview with the WELS Communication Services Director, Neumann replied, "What we did in our office, and Sue (wife) helped me a lot with this, we established a checklist, so to speak, on any bill that would come before us. And we'd ask ourselves first, 'Is there a moral or ethical reason to a cast a vote in any particular way.' And if there was, it didn't' matter what anybody else said to me, we were going with the morals and ethics first."

See also:

Mark Neumann in His Own Words

Mark Neumann: The Mean Machine

Mark Neumann for Gov. - Please Jesus, Yes!

Mark Neumann in His Own Words

As other bloggers and we have pointed out the anti-Catholic (and anti-Semitic and anti-gay) virulence of his church, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), Mark Neumann deserves to be heard.

Neumann is the first to say that his faith informs his decision-making in elected office.

Neumann served in the U.S. Congress (1995 -1999), and has indicated he will seek the governor's office in 2010.

WELS Communication Services Director, Joel Hochmuth, has a conversation up with Neumann recorded in November 2007 about Neumann living his faith as he served in Congress (podcast in right column entitled "Inspiration").

Nuemann comes across as amicable, well-spoken and earnest in talking with Hochmuth about his faith and his life, seemingly devoted to his family.

"What matters most in life is our faith, and being true to our faith and to our family," said Neumann.

He recounts being inspired by a trip to Washington D.C. and recalls later butting horns with Newt Gingrich for whom he later voted present in the election for Speaker in 1997, instead of voting for Gingrich.

Asked how he made his decisions in Congress, Neumann replied, "What we did in our office, and Sue (wife) helped me a lot with this, we established a checklist, so to speak, on any bill that would come before us. And we'd ask ourselves first, 'Is there a moral or ethical reason to a cast a vote in any particular way.' And if there was, it didn't' matter what anybody else said to me, we were going with the morals and ethics first."

Seems like a principled-enough guy, but if you happen to be Catholic, Jewish, gay or pluralistic, Neumann's extreme beliefs are worrying at best and deserve a hearing.

See, for example, his church's apparent blood feud with Roman Catholics:

Christians must take care during their lifetimes not to regularly associate with any group or organization that would take their focus off Christ alone as their salvation.

Mark Neumann: The Mean Machine

Update: See Bruce Murphy's Can Neumann Beat Walker in Milwaukee Magazine.

Why do political operatives think Mark Neumann is the best candidate for the GOP nomination for governor?

Neumann is running for statewide office with the same rigid anti-gay, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic ideology that sent state senator Tom Reynolds packing a few years back.

For those who don't recall Neumann's last statewide run (1998), it was unrelentingly negative against heavily-outspent Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton).

Neumann has the money and drive to win the Republican nomination against Scott Walker. And apparently believes he can target rightwing constituencies sufficiently well to put up winning numbers in the general election.

But the Neumann "church" work that James Klauser cites as a qualification comes from a highly politicized rightwing, Pope-is-the-anti-Christ church that is in a word: Mean.

Just yuck. See for yourself.

Go to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) and use Roman Catholic as a search term (upper-right search engine), or gay or Jew. It gets very yucky very fast.

Neumann's rightwing ideology and intolerance is pervasive in his politics.

Some examples from Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS):

- We recognize the Pope as the Anti-Christ by his false teachings and by his matching the traits of the Anti-Christ as revealed in Scripture, not by the alleged symbolism of something he wears or carries.

- (Luther) had hoped that the Reformation with its clear preaching of the pure gospel would convert the Jews. Luther himself provides examples from the Talmud in 'On the Jews and Their Lies' (Luther's Works 47:226-228): 'Their Talmud and their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to to break his oath to a Gentile. ... '

- Christians must take care during their lifetimes not to regularly associate with any group or organization that would take their focus off Christ alone as their salvation.

- We must warn the impenitent that homosexuality, like all sins, excludes people from eternal life (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). The church, therefore, must not, bless same-sex marriages or unions, since these are contrary to the will of God. The church must not place into nor retain in the public ministry of the Word people who defend, condone, or persist in words or actions that are contrary to God’s law.

From a purely political perspective, this yuckiness does not work in Wisconsin.

Where is Catholic League president Bill Donohue?

Madison's Isthmus: Terminator of the GOP

Current gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann sounded whiny after he lost a close race to first-term incumbent Senator Russ Feingold (D-Middleton) in 1998.

Appearing petulant for a politician on election night, Neumann singled out "one county" - Dane County - and blamed the voters there for costing him the election to which he appeared to see himself entitled after a hard-fought campaign.

Never complain Mr. Neumann, a safe bet that this 2010 candidate won't make that mistake again.

Of course Neumann neglected to mention that Waukesha County, where Neumann now resides, gave him a similar winning margin as Dane County gave Feingold in '98.

More importantly, Neumann might have noted that votes by folks in Dane County municipalities like Sun Prairie, Middleton, Fitchburg and Madison count just as much as anywhere else in a democracy.

But Neumann had a valid point.

In the same energetic election year that saw Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) first win her seat to Congress in a historic campaign 10 years ago, polling sites all over Madison (including the undergraduate dormitory wards of UW-Madison) ran out of ballots and City poll workers frantically scrambled, sometimes asking voters to come back when more ballots became available.

The Isthmus

And nowhere as much as in the densely populated and high-turnout Isthmus wards did Mark Neumann meet electoral defeat.

The Isthmus wards supplied 15-to-one victory margins for Feingold and Baldwin, as is typical, and campaign volunteers' addresses often indicated Isthmus residency.

The people who live and work on the Isthmus are self-conscious about their electoral power and are proud of it. They take the notion of a classical liberal democracy seriously, so don't look for Neumann or Walker to knock it.

Read one homemade sign on an East Dayton Street house in the heart of the Isthmus in the spring 1999, "one neighborhood" beat Mark Neumann. That's about right.

In the 1992 presidential general election, a UW-Madison law student working for a national exit-polling organization, was stationed outside of a polling site on Williamson Street. But the law student had to repeatedly confirm the results to her uninformed, national contact who could not believe that people were voting 20-to-one Democratic in this ward.

Of all of Dane County and Madison, the Isthmus wards have become the single most effective killing machine of GOP politicians running for county and statewide office. The stories are legion and the stuff of oral political history, and the power has only grown the last 10 years.

The GOP doesn't dare try its voter suppression tricks in the Isthmus; better not to irritate the electoral equivalent of a perpetually pissed-off badger.

This spring as Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk actually lost Dane County outside of Madison by running a heavy-handed campaign that saw many small town taverns sporting huge anti-Falk signs, the late-reporting Isthmus wards came in and saved the day, granting the Democrat Falk the usual winning margins and a countywide electoral blowout.

It doesn't hurt that the get-out-the-vote infrastructure in Madison is a well-oiled machine. But when GOP strategists plan their statewide campaigns, they have to contend with and plan for the 1,000s-vote Isthmus deficit that is as predictable as Mark Neumann not kissing another man on the lips in a TV spot.

Bohemian, hyper-educated, young, old, pro-jobs, pro-health care, anti-war and hyper-politicized, the Madison Isthmus traces its cultural and political history as far back as the progressive movement identified with Robert M. La Follette.

The country has trended more politicized and progressive after eight years of Bush-Cheney, and the Madison Isthmus is blazing the path to the future as the GOP holds staged tea parties and the tried-and-false politics of division, hate and corruption.

Now the Obama administration works into the first 100 days, and it seems the GOP is on precisely the wrong side of history and of the Isthmus that will be an electoral hell for Mark Neumann or Scott Walker in November 2010.

Hey Wisconsin, Remember the Fear of Zero National Debt

As Gov. Doyle grapples with the giant budget deficits, it's worth recalling a time when zero national debt was feared and states argued about how much fiscal revenue they should shave off their budgets.

In 2001 Fed Chair Alan Greenspan testified before the Senate Budget Committee on the potential dangers of having no federal debt [we're at $11 trillion now], a fiscal legacy of the Clinton administration that Bush, Cheney and his rightwing ideologues were desperate to avoid.

It was an ambiguous and wide-ranging testimony, recounted by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil in The Price of Loyalty, that included Greenspan's "fear that large surpluses would create a drag on the economy," among other expressed cautions and concerns about the then-proposed Bush tax cuts (O'Neil p. 63).

But the damage was done and Greenspan gave political cover (then and in later statements) to the reckless Bush tax cuts for the super-rich.

Said Greenspan in his subsequent testimony before the House Committee on the Budget (March 2, 2001):

At zero debt, the continuing unified budget surpluses now projected under current law imply a major accumulation of private assets by the federal government. Such an accumulation would make the federal government a significant factor in our nation's capital markets and would risk significant distortion in the allocation of capital to its most productive uses.

A significant distortion?

The GOP commitment to make a fiscal mess of things is long-standing, notes Joe Conason in Salon today, and "and Republicans who are complaining about Barack Obama's spending are hypocrites," and avoid even addressing the arguments for stimulus spending (see Krugman, Dec. 1, 2008). Writes Conason

In our time, the Republican Party has compiled an impressive history of talking about fiscal responsibility while running up unrivaled deficits and debt. Of the roughly $11 trillion in federal debt accumulated to date, more than 90 percent can be attributed to the tenure of three presidents: Ronald Reagan, who used to complain constantly about runaway spending; George Herbert Walker Bush, reputed to be one of those old-fashioned green-eyeshade Republicans; and his spendthrift son George "Dubya" Bush, whose trillion-dollar war and irresponsible tax cuts accounted for nearly half the entire burden. Only Bill Clinton temporarily reversed the trend with surpluses and started to pay down the debt (by raising rates on the wealthiest taxpayers).

As is clear among honest observers, among the pathological programs pursued by the Bush administration was its enterprise to turn the national debt from prospects that were made in 2001 of the debt being completely paid off in 10 years to upping the debt to $10 trillion when it left office.

The wish list that the rightwingers, like Grover Norquist, desired from the future administrations dealing with the massive debt: Eliminating those awful programs like Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare which they hoped would become unsustainable because of the debt purposefully piled up by Bush and Cheney.

Bush bequeathed more than that: Millions of jobs shipped overseas, $trillions of unregulated financial products that may yet cost the dollar its role as reserve currency, states' deficits like Wisconsin's and on and on.

Obama has been scrupulously careful not to put the blame on the GOP; it's the wrong message for the guy sent in to clean up the mess. But Conason, Krugman and others should continue to further an understanding of the political-economic commitments of the GOP.

- See also Krugman: Large fiscal expansion needed (Dec. 1, 2008)

Doyle on Right Track on Early Release

Update: Wisconsin budget: Prisoner proposal defended

"They hate us for our freedom," George W. Bush used to bellow, except for that one-in-100 people in jail thing.

Gov. Jim Doyle is calling for a cost-effective and sensible initiative in his state budget that would cut the sentences of non-violent and low-risk Wisconsin inmates, a modest proposal that is bound to draw Republican howls. (see Mark Pitsch, WSJ)

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau is calling the proposal "alarming".

Writes Adam Liptak in a NYT piece last year:

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences. ... (T)he United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Gov. Doyle should be commended for this first step towards sanity in finding alternatives to the jailing of our fellow citizens.

Let's hope state policy follows the direction that Doyle has set and not the direction of increased criminalization and bashing of civil rights that Dane County Exec Kathleen Falk is proposing in her War on Drinking Culture.

No "Reagan Day," Say Some Guvs

Great piece in the Capital Times (Madison, WI) on the refusal of Gov. Jim Doyle (D-WI) and others to proclaim Feb. 6 (last Friday) as "Ronald Reagan Day."

Reagan was a fool whose utter lack of comprehension of the polices enacted were on display each time Reagan held a press conference.

Compare that with what we will see tonight as Pres. Obama holds his first prime-time news conference expected to be dominated by questions on the economy as today's news reveals that the "International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the world's advanced economies -- the U.S., Western Europe and Japan -- are 'already in depression.'"

The best that can be said of Reagan is that he was not George W. Bush, but he tried.

Some highlights from the lightweight's two terms as president:

- Huge expansion of the deficit and debt
- Declaring the country of Nicaragua such a threat to the United States' national security that Reagan proclaimed a state of "national emergency"
- Iran-Contra Gate

One can go on.

Reagan commissar Grover Norquist is quoted in the piece. Norquist is the intense Reagan cheerleader who wants more statutes, buildings, holidays and pictures of Reagan installed throughout the U.S. than Stalin ever had in the Soviet Union.

From the Capital Times' feel-good piece on Doyle's refusal to budge on Reagan:

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle was one of only a handful of governors to deny recognition of the late president, according to the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project based in Washington, D.C.

'By refusing to honor President Reagan, Gov. Jim Doyle has put pusillanimous petty partisanship above patriotism,' said Grover Norquist, chairman of the group, in a press release. 'Ronald Reagan was a man loved by the American people and citizens abroad. Ignoring his legacy of leadership ignores the strength and value of freedom and democracy. Gov. Jim Doyle should be ashamed.'

Fifteen governors (14 Democrats and one Republican) refused to issue a proclamation. Five did not respond to the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project's request.

Thank you Gov. Doyle! Always said that you were a good man.

Friedman Rips Apart ACORN Voter Fraud Hoax

Update: See A Dose of Reality on the ACORN Hysteria.

Brad Friedman eviscerates the GOP voter fraud lie aimed at the group ACORN, the Association for Community Organisations for Reform Now.

The crimes of ACORN are as Friedman writes in The Guardian:

... that Acorn managed to register some 1.3 (million) low-income (read: Democratic-leaning) voters over the past two years. The rest is, pretty much, just made up. ... Despite the screaming wall-to-wall coverage of 'Democratic voter fraud in 11 swing states' as seen on Fox News and even the once-respectable CNN, none of it's true

The fact that the GOP is simply engaging in another political lie (that shouted loudly and often enough may get to be heard) is known, but the media feels obligated to repeat GOP propaganda. Writes Friedman:

Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic('fraudulent', 'incomplete', et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming 'Acorn is committing fraud' know all of the above but don't bother to share those facts with the media they've run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it's voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.

The GOP has its marching orders and that is to scream fraud. Well, fraud is what we expect from that Muslim-city-slicking-Arab-black man's people.

Concludes Friedman:

And where (the GOP) can, they'll parlay it all into new photo ID restrictions at the polls (knowing full well that some 20 million, largely Democratic-leaning voters don't own the type of ID they'd need to jump over that next Republican hurdle.)

Wisconsin has seen this effort up close and personal.

Fortunately, Republican REAL ID legislative attempts have been knocked down by Gov. Doyle who vetoed REAL ID legislation, J.B. Van Hollen's suppression suit looks doomed, so all the GOP can do now is scream and try to smear Obama as $trillions in Americans' retirement savings go up in smoke.

For a comprehensive knockdowns of the voter fraud lie see the Brennan Center.

McCain Taking His Hits Now

Clinton: 'No way. No how. No McCain.'

"No way, no how, no McCain"

This is what we tuned in to see. The speakers are staying away from making the conversation about national security (such discussions rarely elicit rational discourse in the American political culture), but McCain is being defined now as what he is.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow: "Anybody who could be persuaded would be persuaded by (Hillary's) speech...She nailed it."


As for Wisconsin's people, Doyle and Baldwin draw raves as an inspirational Baldwin goes wonkish, and a wonkish Doyle gets inspirational.