Discourse.net

At the Watchdog Blog (asst proprietor, Dan Froomkin), Saul Friedman has a great suggestion: Assign a Police Reporter to the White House.

CBS, Fliers Complain About X-Rated Security Screenings

out of 2 billion passengers screened nationwide since 9-11, there have been only 110,000 abuse complaints.

Only?

Let’s see. 110,000 complaints per 2bn passengers. 110 per 2m. 1.1 for every 20,000, or one per 18,181. What’s that per day, per airport?

MIA runs 2.8m passengers per month. If it has average TSA staff, that would generate about five complaints of abuse every day at MIA alone. Doesn’t sound like “only” to me!

According to a Washington Post blog, The Fix, House Democratic Campaign Arm Broadens TV Buy, the DCC is buying $1.4 million in local ads to boost the chances of Joe Garcia, Raul Martinez, and Annette Taddeo.

This is what comes of overturning the GOP’s traditional edge in fundraising. And AFAIK these are genuinely uncoordinated expenditures (as the law requires) because (at least in my presence) le tout of Democratic political South Florida has been on tenterhooks wondering if, when, if, the DCCC would make a local move.

Paul Verkuil, Professor (and former Dean) at Cardozo, will be the Interim Dean at UM for a one-year period. Here’s the official bio from Cardozo:

Professor Verkuil was dean of Cardozo from 1997 to 2001. After practice at two leading law firms in New York, he served on the law faculty of University of North Carolina, as dean of Tulane Law School, and as president of the College of William and Mary. From 1992 to 1995 he was president and CEO of the American Automobile Association. Professor Verkuil was a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and served as Special Master in the case of New Jersey v. New York involving the sovereignty of Ellis Island. He is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation and of the American Law Institute. Professor Verkuil is coauthor of Administrative Law and Process (4th ed. 2004) and Regulation and Deregulation (2nd ed. 2004). He is a leading scholar of law and regulation and has published more than 60 articles in this field

Dean Verkuil’s tenure will start officially on August 1, coincidentally the day I’ll be getting back to Miami from a trip starting tomorrow.

This may epitomize zealous advocacy: Covington Partner Demonstrates Treatment of Detainees.

These are not normal times, and they call for unusual responses.

Is it just coincidence that Glenn Greenwald, one of our most clear-eyed observers of the political scene, lives and posts from very far outside the Beltway?

Brazil, in fact.

Speaker Pelosi came and faced the angry netroots — after we were given a strong lecture by the moderator that if we weren’t nice to her, we’d be escorted out of the hall and have our credentials taken.

Pelosi was a mix of good ol’ fashioned Democrat — we’d like some good programs, more investment, help veterans etc. and infuriating good ol’ fashioned Democrat — prevarications at best, falsehoods more likely. [Update: I’ve decided that was a little harsh. I think she believes the stuff about FISA. The mystery is why.]

Pelosi tried to suggest that the House had done all it could to stop the war, which she in effect defined as one bill without war funding. That was pretty unconvincing.

Worse was the line on FISA in which (hiding behind a column by Mort Halperin) the Speaker told us that we had a better chance of getting the truth about illegal wiretapping from the telcos by relying on the Bush administration Inspector Generals in a post-immunity world than we would have from discovery in court.

At the receiving line after the talk, I shouted out that we couldn’t rely in the IG’s. Pelosi made a face and said, “then we’ll have to force the issue.”

But that wasn’t the big story of the event.

The big story was the “surprise guest”: Vice President Al Gore. He gave a superb speech. Look for it on YouTube: Al Gore at Netroots Nation 2008, Part 1; Al Gore at Netroots Nation 2008, Part 2.

He was great. She was good enough to come, and I still have my credentials.

The McCain electoral strategy is coming into focus: they figure their only hope is to get American to think that a dark-skinned Democrat must be a terrorist. Why else highlight letters that spell out something like “Al-Qaeda Commentary” over a picture of Sen. Obama? (The full video is the McCain site under “Obama on Iraq”.

Subliminal ads are nothing new for the GOP (see for example Subliminal Seduction, GOP Style). And the guy making McCain’s commercials? He’s the guy who did the famous “RATS” commercial for Bush. (For details see here and here.)

Annette Taddeo was just on a panel at Netroots Nation, being showcased as one of four ‘Future Leaders’.

Watching her and her staff work the conference, I’ve been impressed by the organization and discipline (and advance preparation) of her campaign.

Really, the only thing that worries me about Ms. Taddeo is that left to herself, she comes across as really nice. She’s great at showing how deeply she cares about the terrible things that the GOP has been doing to us. And she presents as very smart too. Given her personal history as a successful businessperson, and the well-oiled campaign organization she’s building, there’s undoubtedly a lot of steel magnolia in there, and I think to win against an entrenched incumbent we may need to see a bit more of it, more consistently. (The problem with Rep. Ros-Lehtinen is more than “a lack of leadership”.)

Interestingly, the sharpness comes up more in the Q&A then when she does her set-pieces. Then she not only presents as well-informed, but can toss off the sharp soundbite.

My favorite was when she was asked if she’s helped by having Obama on the ticket. Ms. Taddeo responded that “I’m a non-Cuban Hispanic Jewish American” and suggested that having her on the ticket she helped Obama with turnout in key groups too — in a region where he has to win big if he wants to carry the state of Florida. “I can be really helpful to Obama, and wish that some of the donors would see that and be helpful to me.”

Another great zinger was when Ms. Taddeo noted that her opponent voted for DOMA (the so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Act’) which prevents the federal government from recognizing a state’s gay marriage, or from allowing gay couples to enjoy married couple’s benefits such as in social security. Voters in Florida think their representative supports gay rights, Taddeo said, but in fact she doesn’t.

And it got better — Taddeo noted that her opponent spoke eloquently against torture when it was done to Cubans but accepts it now. And then better - Taddeo did a great riff on how Ros-Lehtinen loves to try to look like a Democrat and — now that she has a real opponent — has even been forced to vote with Democrats a couple times.

I came away thinking, “You know, she’s getting good at this.”

PS. The other three candidates on the panel were genuinely impressive too, but I especially liked Jim Himes from CT-04, who I hadn’t seen before.

Joe Garcia has been hanging out at Netroots Nation and talking to bloggers.

He’s also being interviewed by bloggers and traditional media. Here he is being interviewed by MTV:

I wish I could say this shows he has the media at his feet, but it’s not quite as good as that.

Eye on Miami, increasingly the hot local government blog in Miami, offers us a big dream in, Humanity’s last innings:

In Miami, politicians like the green Mayor of Miami Manny Diaz have circled their wagons around a $3 billion plan to build more attractions, including a professional baseball stadium at terms that guarantee a financial windfall for the private owners of The Florida Marlins.

I wish our coral reef were a baseball stadium.

It really is amazing that with all the things Miami needs — paying for better schools, paying for cleaner water & waste disposal, that the big project being pushed by the Mayor is a new baseball stadium and a tunnel to the port. Unfortunately, the lawsuit seeking a referendum on the the $3billion project rushed through city government at the speed of lightening seems to be running out of steam. I would have liked to see at least a referendum on this project, which while it may have some good parts seems dubious over-all.

I think McCain’s ‘tell’ — the sign he is prevaricating — is when he blinks a lot. Just watch any video on YouTube and judge for yourself. (Hmm. Turns out I’m not the only one to notice this. See, for example, Matthew Yglesias.)

This hypothesis should be easy to test: Kos, there are just so many falsehoods to pick from.

OK, onwards with this weeks ridiculously long list of quality McCain bashing:

• Carpetbagger, McCain, his personal life, and statements ‘that conflict with the public record’
• Think Progress, After Voting Against Equal Pay Legislation, McCain Claims He’s ‘Committed To Equal Pay For Equal Work’
• Another issue that could hurt McCain with women: apparently, polling shows John McCain’s votes against insurance coverage for birth control have tremendous resonance with women, including independents and Republicans. Thus, this ad from Planned Parenthood:
  
  
• Carpetbagger, McCain unsure of ‘the progress,’ ‘the nature,’ and ‘the significance’ of the Iranian threat
• Kos, McCain camp flashing the greenbacks
• TaxProf Blog, Why Hasn’t McCain Reported His Gambling Gains and Losses on His Tax Returns?
• Robert Gordon and James Kvaal, The New Republic, McContradiction
• Kos, The McMyth; similarly, Crooks & Liars, McCain, his personal life, and statements ‘that conflict with the public record’
• Delong, McCain: Phil Gramm and Fred Malek
• Crooks & Liars, McCain Campaign (NOT Secret Service) Had “Bush=McCain” Protestor Removed
• NY Times, Editorial, There He Goes Again (“Mr. McCain and his advisers must know that his numbers do not add up. But adding up is not their point. Their point is to perpetuate the fantasy that Americans can have ever bigger tax cuts and a balanced federal budget. They cannot.”)
• Dale Carpenter of the Volokh Conspiracy says McCain’s latest stance on adoption by gay parents is Thoughtless. Worse than that, it has created, McCain’s Perez Hilton Problem (per HuffPo)
• Crooks & Liars, Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) goes blank trying to find differences between McCain and Bush’s economic policies.
• HuffPo, McCain Aide Calls For Fully Funded No Child Left Behind, Which McCain Voted Against
• Crooks & Liars, Introducing Wrong-Way McCain
• Kos, John McCain’s Immigration Flip-Flop
• Carpetbagger, So much for the ‘respectful campaign’ (“McCain’s campaign has said Obama should not be “taken at his word,” and his “word cannot be trusted.” McCain was asked directly whether he questioned Obama’s patriotism, and McCain wouldn’t give a straight answer. Today, it seems as if the McCain campaign has kicked things up a notch, arguing that Obama and Democrats want to see the U.S. fail in Iraq in order to benefit politically.”) Cf. Talking Points Memo, McCain Camp: Obama Wants U.S. to Lose in Iraq
• Carpetbagger, Note to McCain: Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist anymore
• McCain Starts Stomping in Home State — because polls show he can’t count on carrying Arizona!
• MyDD, John McCain’s DREAM Act Flip: first he was for it, then he was against it, now he’s for it again — it depends on the audience? See also Democrats.org, McCain versus McCain on the DREAM Act and Carpetbagger, Will the ‘Dream Act’ be a nightmare for McCain?
• Firedoglake, Bush & McCain On The Economy, Gas Prices: Psychic Friends
• Another sure-fire vote getter with women: Crooks & Liars, Did you hear John McCain’s Woman/Rape/Gorilla Joke? & ThinkProgress,Flashback: McCain joked about how much women love to be raped. OK, it was in 1986 — but didn’t you know better than that in 1986? And, in Beaten Senseless, Atrios notes just how horrible it all is:

  The thing about the McCain rape joke is that it isn’t just horrible because it’s a a joke about a woman liking rape, it’s about a woman who is explicitly beaten senseless until she becomes unconscious and raped and she enjoyed the experience.

• Does John McCain’s sick sense of humor matter?
• While we’re doing ancient history, how about Crooks & Liars, Flashback: McCain Admits He’s Dumber Than Bush? The serious point here isn’t that McCain was a feckless privileged youth, but rather than all these years later he still likes to glory in his anti-intellectualism. Wouldn’t it be nice to have another President who thought brains (and facts!) were a good thing?
• Talking Points Memo, McCain Now Playing Catch-Up On Afghanistan
• Carpetbagger, McCain still sees success in ’surge’
• Mark Kleiman, “McCain says: “Slash Social Security benefits”
• He may think Social Security is “a disgrace”. He may be married to a multi-millionaire, but John McCain, 72, is receiving Social Security benefits
• Mark Kleiman again, Al Hunt hammers McCain
• Huffpo, Reporters Spar With McCain Press Aides Nicolle Wallace, Brooke Buchanan (VIDEO). Now, this is a pretty trivial event, except for two things: first, the journalists who got mad about the McCain campaign’s attempt to totally control them were from a FOX affiliate—if even FOX is getting bolshie with a Republican, well, you’re doing something odd. Second, these guys were local, experienced, journalists. What odds will you give that the national guys are tamer poodles?
• Crooks & Liars has an example of the MSM doing its job: ABC reports Absentee Senator: McCain Attended ZERO Afghanistan Hearings Over Past 2 Years
• And finally, for laughs, Lee Stranahan, Awakening Your Inner Elephant:
  

Gen. Clark is warming up the crowd for Howard Dean here at Netroots Nation. He’s a lot better at this stuff than he used to be.

But he says we’re not on the internet because we’re here listening to him.

Humph.

PS. You can follow along on Second Life.

You meet all sorts of interesting people at conferences. Here Obama Girl gets to meet David.

Open Left:: Obama Blows Out the Pundits with a 50M Quarter. I especially like this part:

At any rate, the whining from DC pundits about how the left was undermining Obama’s chances at winning was absolutely wrong. His small dollar donor army wants him in that White House, and they are going to pay to put him there. While it’s often impossible for consultants in DC to keep multiple thoughts in their head, it is possible for most of us normal bluggers and blug readers to get that we don’t like his vote on FISA but we want him to win the White House desperately anyway.

Posted from the back of the room in the Open Left caucus at Netroot Nations.

Note: Darcy Burner is in the room and got a big, big round of applause.

Update: Joe Garcia dropped by - and got a very warm round of applause too. Matt Stoller asked him how the energy issue is playing in FL-25. Joe said, first, Bush always sets up the issue as a Hobbsean choice - only bad options: they’ve set up a crisis and forced you to make a crisis decision. … Why haven’t home energy bills gone up as fast as gas prices? Because of long-range planning. … Why hasn’t the department of Energy done planning? … Bush has been stripping alternative energy from energy bills… They [create a crisis] to give oil companies even more leases. … We have to explore alternatives … wind, coal, solar, including nuclear …

With the price of oil at this level, all those alternative energies are viable…

XKCD is a great online comic strip.

This guy from Kansas has appropriated the XKCD style to power his campaign for State Representative. It’s cute. See Running for Office: It’s Like A Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner.

I wonder if XKCD approves?

Once upon a time, I used to do a lot of local politics. I worked as a young intern in the McGovern campaign (not the world’s most organized organization). In high school, I volunteered for the late, great Mo Udall, the best President we never had. In college I was one member of a small committee that set up a state office for the primaries for an underfunded Presidential candidate in Connecticut — without his approval (they eventually sent an actual staffer to take over). Just after I graduated from college, I was the press secretary for the Ira Lechner for Congress (VA-10) campaign (we got clobbered by Frank Wolf in the Reagan landslide). Later, while a first-year law student busy not crossing picket lines at Yale, I ran phone banks for Bruce Morrison for Congress (CT-3); he got re-elected, making it one of my few winning campaigns.

Then I lived abroad for long enough to lose many of my local political ties; when I came back to the US it was to a new and strange place, South Florida, where serious politics seemed to happen in Spanish. And I had other things to worry about: hurricanes, children, tenure, life. So I didn’t do much beyond the armchair.

George Bush has (re?)radicalized me. And once again, I’m doing a little activism. This time, I’m helping out one of our wonderful local Congressional candidates, Joe Garcia (FL-25). (Our other great local candidate is Annette Taddeo (FL-18), but we’ve got that covered too, in a different way: my older son, age 14, has been interning at the Taddeo campaign office, and he’s coming too to help Annette and her staff.)

When I called Joe to volunteer, he first asked me to look over his web presence and see if anything needed improving. That wasn’t hard, it was pretty good already. Then, when Joe came over to breakfast to get my report, I asked him what else I could do for him.

I figured he’d ask for money, and was even braced to do a fundraiser, although it’s really really not my style. But he surprised me: Joe asked me to go with him to Netroots Nations and introduce him around to the other bloggers. I tried to convince him that I don’t actually know most of them, except by email, but he seemed to think that would do.

So Thursday, I’m going to Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos), to act as a sort of advance man for Joe Garcia. Perhaps I’ll see you there? If so, there’s this great candidate you might like to meet…

(Poster from Miami & Beyond.)

If you won’t be in Austin for the conference, you can follow along online in Second Life. See NNinSL.org for details. All the main events will be streamed and they also promise inworld parties and special events. And, unlike the meatspace version, this one is free.