Judge Lays Out Expedited Schedule For Stevens
Trial

From The Hill:

A U.S district court judge said Thursday that Sen. Ted Stevens's (R-Alaska) criminal case could be wrapped up before the end of October while announcing an expedited schedule for jury selection.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan indicated that 150 potential jurors could be contacted as early as this week and that jury selection would begin Sept. 23. That process could last two days, but the trial could begin as soon as Sept. 24.

"What we don't have is a lot of time between now and the commencement of the trial," Sullivan said, adding that the case would take "approximately four weeks."

Under that scenario, a jury might have enough time to offer a verdict before Election Day, when Stevens is seeking his seventh full Senate term. The longest-serving Republican senator has pleaded not guilty to charges of allegedly concealing more than $250,000 worth of gifts from an oil-services company.

Stevens missed Thursday's procedural hearing at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, campaigning instead in Alaska, where he faces six primary challengers on Aug. 26. If he wins, the 84-year-old Stevens would face 46-year-old Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich in the general election.

The judge is expected to rule on Stevens' motion to hold the trial in Alaska rather than Washington at an August 20 hearing.

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ed_schedule.php

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Invesco ticket request phone numbers favor swing
states

If you look at all of the phone numbers on the DNCC's Community Credentials page for Invesco Field you may notice something odd. Some states have local numbers while others have the number (720) 362-2500 which is a Denver DNCC number.

Now if you look closer at who has local numbers and who has the DNCC number you'll quickly see a pattern.



Here are all of the states that have their own local or toll-free number:
Colorado
Alaska
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Mexico
Nevada
North Dakota
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin

You don't have to be a political junkie to see what's going on. All of these states are either swing states or have a slim chance to flip from Republican to Democratic in this year's election.

States like California, Maryland, Illinois, New York and Massachusetts have to dial (720) 362-2500. Likewise solidly red states outside of the Mountain West area like Mississippi, South Carolina and Oklahoma also dial the (720) 362-2500 number. Hawaii strangely enough is the only solidly Democratic state that has its own local number.

DNCC CEO Leah Daughtry did say yesterday that 1/2 of the tickets will go to Colorado and 2/3 will go to Mountain West States (including Colorado). Are a certain number of tickets being given to individual states?

Thanks to Brilliant Politics for pointing out that most Northeast states dial the same number.

Here's a press release that just came out from the Obama Campaign:

The Colorado Campaign for Change announced this afternoon that more than 60,000 Coloradans from across the Rocky Mountain state have requested community credentials to take part in the historic final night of the Democratic National Convention at Invesco Field.

?This incredible response and excitement shows that there is a huge appetite for change in Colorado,? said Anne Filipic, the General Election Director for the Campaign for Change.

Due to demand, which has exceeded community seating capacity, the campaign will now place Coloradans who request community credentials on a waitlist. Coloradans can request to be placed on the waitlist online at co.barackobama.com/invesco or by stopping by a Campaign for Change office.

Barack Obama?s Campaign for Change is building a large grassroots organization in Colorado. With thousands of new supporters, Obama?s Campaign for Change continues to grow and reach out to Coloradans in every county across the state.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.demconwatchblog.com/2008/08/invesco-ticket-request-numbers-favor.html

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McCain's lobbyists -- there are lots of them and
they're a shady bunch

Meet McCain's lobbyists.

Has anyone seen Vicky Iseman lately?

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/358814957/mccains-lobbyists-there-a
re-lots-of.html

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NY Times repeated falsehood about why Casey was
denied speaking slot at 1992 Dem convention

In an August 7New York Times article,reporter John M. Broder echoed the oft-repeated myth that late PennsylvaniaGov. Bob Casey Sr. was forbidden to speak at the 1992 Democratic conventionbecause he opposed abortion rights. Broder wrote: "Sixteen years ago, theDemocratic Party refused to allow Robert P. Casey Sr., then the governor of Pennsylvania, to speakat its national convention because his anti-abortion views, stemming from hisRoman Catholic faith, clashed with the party's platform and[...]

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http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/358575426/200808070002

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TIGHTER

Remember the roughly $300,000 that Hess oil execs dumped into the RNC-McCain campaign coffers around the time of his flip on offshore drilling?Turns out two high-ranking McCain campaign officials were paid lobbyists for Hess oil for years, and one still[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/jjq5_Ru7Scg/207493.php

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Eugene V. Debs and the Idea of Socialism

Eugene V. Debs
and the Idea of Socialism

by Howard Zinn

The Progressive magazine, January 1999

We are always in need of radicals who are also lovable, and so we would do well to remember Eugene Victor Debs. Ninety years ago, at the time The Progressive was born, Debs was nationally famous as leader of the Socialist Party, and the poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote of him:

"As warm a heart as ever beat

Betwixt here and the Judgment Seat."

Debs was what every socialist or anarchist or radical should be: fierce in his convictions, kind and compassionate in his personal relations. Sam Moore, a fellow inmate of the Atlanta penitentiary, where Debs was imprisoned for opposing the First World War, remembered how he felt as Debs was about to be released on Christmas Day, 1921: "As miserable as I was, I would defy fate with all its cruelty as long as Debs held my hand, and I was the most miserably happiest man on Earth when I knew he was going home Christmas."

Debs had won the hearts of his fellow prisoners in Atlanta. He had fought for them in a hundred ways and refused any special privileges for himself. On the day of his release, the warden ignored prison regulations and opened every cell-block to allow more than 2,000 inmates to gather in front of the main jail building to say good-bye to Eugene Debs. As he started down the walkway from the prison, a roar went up and he turned, tears streaming down his face, and stretched out his arms to the other prisoners.

This was not his first prison experience. In 1894, not yet a socialist but an organizer for the American Railway Union, he had led a nationwide boycott of the railroads in support of the striking workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company. They tied up the railroad system, burned hundreds of railway cars, and were met with the full force of the capitalist state: Attorney General Richard Olney, a former railroad lawyer, got a court injunction to prohibit blocking trains. President Cleveland called out the army, which used bayonets and rifle fire on a crowd of 5,000 strike sympathizers in Chicago. Seven hundred were arrested. Thirteen were shot to death.

Debs was jailed for violating an injunction prohibiting him from doing or saying anything to carry on the strike. In court, he denied he was a socialist, but during his six months in prison he read socialist literature, and the events of the strike took on a deeper meaning. He wrote later: "I was to be baptized in socialism in the roar of conflict.... In the gleam of every bayonet and the flash of every rifle the class struggle was revealed."

From then on, Debs devoted his life to the cause of working people and the dream of a socialist society. He stood on the platform with Mother Jones and Big Bill Haywood in 1905 at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. He was a magnificent speaker, his long body leaning forward from the podium, his arm raised dramatically. Thousands came to hear him talk all over the country.

With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 and the build-up of war fever against Germany, some socialists succumbed to the talk of "preparedness," but Debs was adamantly opposed. When President Wilson and Congress brought the nation into the war in 1917, speech was no longer free. The Espionage Act made it a crime to say anything that would discourage enlistment in the armed forces.

Soon, close to 1,000 people were in prison for protesting the war. The producer of a movie called The Spirit of '76, about the American revolution, was sentenced to ten years in prison for promoting anti-British feeling at a time when England and the United States were allies. The case was officially labeled The US. v. The Spirit of '76.

Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio, in support of the men and women in jail for opposing the war. He told his listeners: "Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.... And that is war, in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles." He was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in prison by a judge who denounced those "who would strike the sword from the hand of this nation while she is engaged in defending herself against a foreign and brutal power."

In court, Debs refused to call any witnesses, declaring: "I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. I abhor war. I would oppose war if I stood alone." Before sentencing, Debs spoke to judge and jury, uttering perhaps his most famous words. I was in his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana, recently, among 200 people gathered to honor his memory, and we began the evening by reciting those words-words that moved me deeply when I first read them and move me deeply still: "While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

The "liberal" Oliver Wendell Holmes, speaking for a unanimous Supreme Court, upheld the verdict, on the ground that Debs's speech was intended to obstruct military recruiting. When the war was over, the "liberal" Woodrow Wilson turned down his Attorney General's recommendation that Debs be released, even though he was sixty-five and in poor health. Debs was in prison for thirty-two months. Finally, in 1921, the Republican Warren Harding ordered him freed on Christmas Day.

Today, when capitalism, "the free market," and "private enterprise" are being hailed as triumphant in the world, it is a good time to remember Debs and to rekindle the idea of socialism.

To see the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a sign of the failure of socialism is to mistake the monstrous tyranny created by Stalin for the vision of an egalitarian and democratic society that has inspired enormous numbers of people all over the world. Indeed, the removal of the Soviet Union as the false surrogate for the idea of socialism creates a great opportunity. We can now reintroduce genuine socialism to a world feeling the sickness of capitalism- its nationalist hatreds, its perpetual warfare, riches for a small number of people in a small number of countries, and hunger, homelessness, insecurity for everyone else.

Here in the United States we should recall that enthusiasm for socialism-production for use instead of profit, economic and social equality, solidarity with our brothers and sisters all over the world- was at its height before the Soviet Union came into being.

In the era of Debs, the first seventeen years of the twentieth century-until war created an opportunity to crush the movement-millions of Americans declared their adherence to the principles of socialism. Those were years of bitter labor struggles, the great walkouts of women garment workers in New York, the victorious multiethnic strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the unbelievable courage of coal miners in Colorado, defying the power and wealth of the Rockefellers. The I.W.W. was born-revolutionary, militant, demanding "one big union" for everyone, skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women, native-born and foreign-born.

More than a million people read Appeal to Reason and other socialist newspapers. In proportion to population, it would be as if today more than three million Americans read a socialist press. The party had 100,000 members, and 1,200 office-holders in 340 municipalities. Socialism was especially strong in the Southwest, among tenant farmers, railroad workers, coal miners, lumberjacks. Oklahoma had 12,000 dues-paying members in 1914 and more than 100 socialists in local offices. It was the home of the fiery Kate Richards O'Hare. Jailed for opposing the war, she once hurled a book through a skylight to bring fresh air into the foul-smelling jail block, bringing cheers from her fellow inmates.

The point of recalling all this is to remind us of the powerful appeal of the socialist idea to people alienated from the political system and aware of the growing stark disparities in income and wealth-as so many Americans are today. The word itself-"socialism"-may still carry the distortions of recent experience in bad places usurping the name. But anyone who goes around the country, or reads carefully the public opinion surveys over the past decade, can see that huge numbers of Americans agree on what should be the fundamental elements of a decent society: guaranteed food, housing, medical care for everyone; bread and butter as better guarantees of "national security" than guns and bombs; democratic control of corporate power; equal rights for all races, genders, and sexual orientations; a recognition of the rights of immigrants as the unrecognized counterparts of our parents and grandparents; the rejection of war and violence as solutions for tyranny and injustice.

There are people fearful of the word, all along the political spectrum. What is important, I think, is not the word, but a determination to hold up before a troubled public those ideas that are both bold and inviting-the more bold, the more inviting. That's what remembering Debs and the socialist idea can do for use.

Read The Full Article:
http://thumbjig.blogspot.com/2008/08/eugene-v-debs-and-idea-of-socialism.html

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Promises Broken: McCain is our GOP Hypocrite of
the Week (Again)

August 7, 2008

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

Welcome back to the Buzzflash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

Bookmark/Search this post with: buzzflash | delicious | digg | technorati Technorati Tags: BuzzFlash Honors gop hypocrite of the week john mccain campaign finance lies negative campaigning bundling harry sargeant promises

read more

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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/honors/068

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Anthrax II

AnthraxThe FBI's emerging, leaking case against IvinsGlenn GreenwaldTuesday Aug. 5, 2008 06:54 EDT...Within less than 24 hours, we went from "a New Jersey mailbox used to send the anthrax was less than 100 yards away from a sorority for which Ivins[...]

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Bruce Ivins-Anthrax Scientist/FBI Story is a
joke. Investigation needed of the FBI

This whole story concocted by the FBI smells really, really bad. Are we supposed to believe this yarn? I’ll try to do a bunch of posts on this because it is a completely insane story. Did it really take seven years for the FBI to finally catch Bruce Ivins, a scientist who was working with [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/07/bruce-ivins-anthrax-scientistfbi-story-i
s-a-joke-investigation-needed-of-the-fbi/

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McCain: The negativity is Obama's fault. He
wouldn't give me town hall meetings.

McCain has had the gall to suggest that the negative tone of the election is all down to Barack Obama.

"I'm very sorry about it," McCain said in a Saturday interview at his Arlington headquarters. "I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings" together, as he had suggested, during the summer months.

You're no doubt wondering how he makes that link between those two unrelated matters.

"When you have to stand on a stage with your opponent, as I've done in other campaigns, you obviously have a tendency to improve the relationship. . . . When you have to spend time with somebody, I think it changes the equation."

So, it's Obama's fault that McCain has employed Karl Rove surrogates and that the Republican party have started indulging in the Rovian tactics which has been their speciality since Nixon was against busing and segregation. It's Obama's fault that the Republicans are playing dog whistle politics that Southerners recognise as code that he is uppity and "should know his place."

Obama pointed out to the journalist who appeared to be accepting the thrust of McCain's bizarre defence:

"I think the notion that somehow as a consequence of not having joint appearances, Senator McCain felt obliged to suggest that I'd rather lose a war to win a campaign doesn't automatically follow. I think we each have control over ourselves and our campaigns, and we have to take responsibility for that."

And therein lies the rub. McCain has no-one to blame for the shocking low road his campaign has taken other than himself. It's HIS campaign. And the man who promised us a clean one about the issues has lied and distorted and played disgraceful dog whistle politics of the most disgusting kind.

The notion that he wouldn't have done so had Obama agreed to town hall meetings is simply ludicrous. There is one truism in elections, the guy demanding more debates is always the guy who's behind in the polls. We witnessed this with Hillary during the election for the Democratic presidential nominee. It's one of the ways they might reverse that trend, hoping that their opponent might trip.

So, the real reason McCain went negative is because it works and he was behind in the polls.

At that point he flip flopped yet again and decided, as all Republican candidates do, to say anything (true or false) and to avoid the issues as if they are kryptonite and attack the "character" of your opponent.

So now we hear that Obama's energy plan is to keep your tyres fully inflated and that he would "rather lose a war than lose a campaign", a comment which even Joe Klein thought was the worst he had ever heard major party candidate make.

McCain is in the gutter because he chooses to be.

Click title for source.

Tags: John McCain, Barack Obama, US election 2008

Read The Full Article:
http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/2008/08/mccain-negativity-is-obamas-fault-
he.html

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