Reading list

Some things I read this last week...

Firedoglake : Republican Operative: “I don’t want everyone to vote”

"...Republicans are brazen. They conduct their voter suppression campaigns in the open. Voter roll purges. Phone calls into minority neighborhoods on election day giving inaccurate polling locations. Armed thugs hired to play police or border patrol agents at the polls. Black people harassed by the cops on their way to vote.

Paul Weyrich, one of the acknowledged architects of the right wing ascendancy, said bluntly (in the video above), "I don't want everybody to vote...our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Well, that's about as undemocratic a sentiment as can be heard in a democracy."

TPM - Poll: Obama Winning Over Groups Once Reluctant To Back Him

"...Meanwhile, McCain's favorability rating has dropped six points to 51%. And 59% say Obama shares their values, versus only 47% for McCain. So McCain's efforts to paint Obama as culturally out of touch, allied with shadowy figures, including terrorists, and different from you and me in a vaguely sinister way just may be proving to be a bust."

TPM : TROOPER-GATE REPORT: PALIN ABUSED POWER

On a 12-0 vote, the Alaska legislative panel investigating Trooper-Gate released its report late Friday, despite week's of effort by the McCain campaign to head off the probe. Among the findings: Palin abused her power as governor and fired public safety commissioner Walt Monegan in part because he refused to terminate Palin's ex-brother-in-law.