Tonight's Rescue Rangers are claude, Yashua, ezdidit, smokeymonkey, Got a Grip, and srkp23 with vcmvo2 as editor.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing ~Macbeth by Shakespeare~

The diaries up for rescue this evening are:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

• In A Project: Putting a Human Face on the Issues, Lovo reports on how Senator Bernie Sanders asked his constituents for their stories on how the economic policies of the last eight years have adversely affected them. Now it's time for all of us to "tell" our stories to our Senators, Representatives and Obama, about how most people have not thrived under Bush's policies. Let the change begin now!
• With facts and stats that are not well-known, Morus asks, Are UK Catholics abandoning the Left? (ezdidit)
• Deep Harm examines the ramifications of BushCo's vast invasion of personal information that many people don't seem to grasp in How domestic surveillance affects you and me. (Got a Grip)

All our yesterdays

• For an issue you really won't hear about from the TradMed, check out this concise history lesson from Lrios as she reports about Puerto Rico taking dispute to the United Nations. (claude)
• kavips brings us a laundry list of Bush policies and puts them in a historical context in Bush/Cheney as Seen by Thomas Jefferson. (Yashua)

Full of sound and fury

• With a personal report from the trench warfare of extended-family holiday-gathering politics, a Caringthinkingperson exclaims Whew Laudy, What a Fourth! (claude)

Tales (of Hope)

• I love (and Hope thrives on) anecdotal reports from intrepid Kossacks like second-time diarist mcronan who is Deep in the Heart of Texas. (claude)
• First time diarist sonrisa shares personal insight and experience and presents The Merits of Pre-college International Service Trips. (claude)
• janis shares great news about the Obama campaign in her county and tells of The Trials of Registering Voters in Red, Red VA on July 4th. (srkp23)
• iampunha celebrates Althea Gibson, two-time Wimbledon champion, in July 6, 1957: holding court. (srkp23)

Tales (of idiots)

• In a story that scares the heck out of me, Chris Rodda provides an update on one battle against the takeover of our military by right-wing religious revisionists: The DoD's Entirely Unsatisfactory Response to MRFF's Letter Regarding TBN 4th of July Special. (smokeymonkey)
• Avenging Angel illustrates for us why George W. Bush has sunk so low in the public's esteem, and why that is unlikely to change in Bush's Future Civics Lesson: "Replenish the Ol' Coffers". (smokeymonkey)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 5, 2008.

jotter also has the Week's High Impact Diaries: June 28 - July 4, 2008.

sardonyx has Top Comments: Meteor Blades on Daily Kos, part 1.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

If you enjoy Diary Rescue, please consider joining the Rescue Rangers. It's a great way to become more involved with the Daily Kos community. Did we mention it's rewarding and fun? To volunteer or learn more, please contact us (don't forget to tell us your screen name) at: dkos.rescuerangers@gmail.com

::

What makes a political era?  In trying to understand any particular political era, it's necessary to understand the previous era, its duration, its characteristics, what brought it in to being, what stresses led to its demise.  In trying to figure out our politics since the late sixties, and definitely since the early eighties, few books have been as helpful to me as a collection of essays published in 1989 by Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order: 1930-1980.  In their introductory essay, Fraser and Gerstle laid out the premise underlying their investigation of a political order:

Our notion of "political order" draws its conceptual inspiration from the notion of "electoral system" and "party system" developed by political scientists and the "new political historians" in recent years.  These scholar have depicted American political history since 1800 in terms of relatively long periods of electoral stability punctuated by brief but intense political upheavals and electoral realignments.  In each of the five periods of electoral stability (1800-1820's, 1820's-1850's, 1850's-1890's, 1890's-1930's, 1930's-1970's), the major parties had a fixed relationship to an electoral coalition; the size of the parties' respective coalitions, in turn, determined the relationship that prevailed between the two parties—in particular, whether one dominated or whether the two struggled on a relatively equal footing...

This approach diminishes the importance of particular political actors—presidents, senators, and others—as well as of the normal two-, four-, and six-year electoral cycles.  It elevates, by contrast, importance of economic events and social trends.  Fundamental changes in political life—those which produce a change in party systems—are seen as issuing from crises in the nation's economy, social structure, and political structure...

[...]

In probing why such fundamental historical events are required to change party systems, the new political historians have generally offered "ethnocultural" explanations.  American voters, at least from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, they have argued, viewed political parties as the protectors of their most treasured beliefs and vital interests: their religions, their ethnic traditions, their families and their neighborhoods.  Voters thus developed profound emotional loyalties to parties; these loyalties, in turn, influenced individual electoral behavior far more than rational reflections on a party's platform or short-term, instrumental calculations of the likely return on casting a ballot for one party or another.  Such loyalties were not easily forsaken.  Only major economic and social crises triggered broad shifts in loyalty from one party to another.

The New Deal voting coalition was anchored by Southern white protestants and Northern Catholics and Jews.  Membership in labor unions, then as now, made one far more likely to vote Democratic.  Unlike now, however, where the percentage of workers represented by a union is barely over 10%, by the mid-1950's union members were almost 35% of the workforce.  Within a short time Black voters, previously loyal to the party of Lincoln, shifted allegiance to the Democrats (although they were disenfranchised in the Jim Crow South).  

After the economic and social devastation of the Great Depression—which lasted throughout the thirties, and didn't fully lift until the country mobilized for war starting in about 1940—Roosevelt, Truman and the New Dealers in Congress used tax policy to largely ameliorate the worst in wealth and income disparities.  Increased unionization led to wage pattern bargaining, where union contracts raised wages for all workers in that particular sector.  In his book The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman calls the 20 year period of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, when the ultra-wealthy became the merely wealthy and the middle class expanded to include the majority of Americans—even if it included few minorities—the Great Compression.  

The US didn't follow the path of almost every industrialized nation and create a social democratic welfare state.  But after the Kennedy assassination and the huge 1964 Democratic landslide, the Johnson administration pushed through the Great Society initiatives, including Medicare, to go with New Deal and post-WWII measures like Social Security, the G.I. Bill and FHA loans to further expand and extend the partial welfare state.  

Johnson also, of course, finally brought the government to grant full franchise and citizenship to Black Americans by passing the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts.  These ended the Jim Crow system in the South.  But providing paths for African Americans to join the mainstream of American society, according to Fraser and Gerstle, contributed to the stresses that led to the end of the New Deal order:  

The state's rhetorical commitment to distributing civil rights and economic abundance to all its citizens inevitably pushed race to the very center of national politics; the nation's growing military obligations diminished the economic resources necessary to solve or at least mitigate the brewing racial crisis; and the importance attached (by purveyors of mass culture and ideologues of a modernist domestiticity) to achieving a full and expressive personal life predictably resulted in an insatiable hunger for "authenticity" and autonomy in all social spheres...The New Deal order's unabashedly modernist character intensified these tensions and was bound, sooner or later, to provoke the moral outrage of traditionalists.  A second source of tension resulted from the failure of the Democratic party and organized labor, in the 1930's and 1940's, to transform, through wage legislation and unionization, the South's social structure.  Such failures...meant than an extraordinary kind of judicial fiat—itself, though cloaked in constitutional language, a kind of violence—would be necessary to integrate southerners (and especially blacks) into the New Deal order.

As suggested in the previous paragraph, the era of the New Deal was a period of great change in American family relationships.  From the extended families of agrarian America that prevailed until roughly the end of WWI, through the ascendancy of the nuclear family as the American norm, to the burgeoning of feminism and the increased integration of women in to the workforce, and therefore the end of the stay-at-home mom as the American norm, many mores and beliefs about family and gender profoundly changed.  As with any profound social change, it created political tensions and divides.  Much of the conflict in American politics from the late 1960's nearly up to the present has been over social and cultural issues, most rooted in the changes wrought by feminism and racial integration.  

Johnson predicted that signing the Civil Rights Act would mean that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation.  In presidential politics, he was correct, and below the Presidential level, what had been the "solid south" became the geographic base of the Republican party.  In the North, where the frontiers of racial integration and accommodation were populated by African-Americans and mostly ethnic Catholics in the urban areas and inner-ring suburbs, issues like school busing and the riots of the late sixties were used deftly by Republicans to pry apart the New Deal coalition and create "Reagan Democrats."  Crime and welfare, associated as they were with African-Americans in the minds of many of these voters, became proxies for race.  

On cultural issues, probably nothing cut through the New Deal coalition more traumatically than abortion.  But it wasn't just abortion, or more fringe issues like prayer in schools.  The Democratic Party itself became tarred with the charge of elitism, which was, since Wallace, associated with pointed-headed intellectuals, judges and bureaucrats telling people—especially men—what they could and couldn't do.  Many of the cultural issues became proxy battles over feminism, and liberals and the Democratic party became associated with traits generally thought to be effete, or to take the root word further, feminine.  

Reagan came along and put a sunny sheen over the anger of the right.  The working class, since the oil shocks of the 1970's and the destruction of core industries like mining, textiles, heavy manufacturing and basic steel, had been pummeled economically.  But the damage had been mitigated by the relatively untouched New Deal social welfare system, just recently expanded by Johnson.  Reagan fought Carter through a close election, and by convincing enough voters that he wasn't crazy, surged to a ten point win.  

Once in office, Reagan commenced a counter-revolution against the New Deal, but the visible attacks tended to be mostly in the context of welfare and the like, which for most voters elicited notions of race rather than hostility toward regulation of the economy or government intervention to mitigate the harshness of unfettered and unregulated markets.  Attacks on regulation and the welfare state that weren't seen as disproportionately benefiting African-Americans largely went underground.  Through the Reagan era, even up through George W. Bush's campaign in 2004, the Republicans stuck mostly to social and cultural issues, or to taxes.  Taxes were another proxy for race, as many swing voters felt their taxes were too high, and felt their tax dollars were being squandered on welfare payments to people who refused to work or on supposedly exorbitant foreign aid to people overseas.  But publicly the Republicans largely avoided frontal assaults on the New Deal.  

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the opening up of China, fears of war faded from the consciousness of voters.  This lessened red-baiting, but it also removed the last inhibition preventing what in the 90's became known as the politics of personal destruction.  Led by Newt Gingrich, the notion that politics stops at the ocean's shore ended, and everything, including previous off-limits aspects of a politician's personal life, was grounds for attack.  

By 2000, most Americans were deeply disillusioned with this petty and nasty politics, but times were generally good.  After the huge Republican win in 1994, Republican lost seats in Congress the next three elections.  Other than a two-year period during the Eisenhower administration—an administration at peace with the New Deal—Democrats had held the presidency or at least one chamber of Congress for seventy years.  The ineptness, hostility toward sound governance and corruption of the GOP had not been fully exposed to the American public; only the Gingrich-led government shutdown of 1995 hinted to casual observers the true intentions of the new mainstream of the radicalized  Republican party.  Much of Johnson's Great Society had been gutted, but the main legislative pillars of the New Deal, such as social security, after the scares 1981-1983 and 1995, had been left mostly intact.  And as often happens when things are good, frivolities like how many times one of the candidates sighed during the debate became a big issue.  

Al Gore, his sighs and his supposed exaggerations were savaged in the media.  Nevertheless, he won the popular vote, almost certainly won the electoral vote, and was kept out of the White House only by the intervention of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.   And Democrats won several upsets in the Senate, leading to a tie broken only by the vote of VP Dick Cheney.  

As I've previously argued (here, here and here), I believe we are on the verge of a transforming election.  But just as one can argue whether the end of a political era ended in 1968 or was interrupted until 1980 because of Watergate, one could argue that the end of the Reagan era began in 2000 but was interrupted the next year by the terrorist attacks on 9-11.  Ruy Texeira and John Judis were already refining their argument for The Emerging Democratic Majority, showing that demographic changes and long-term voting patterns presaged an end to the Reagan era.  But 9-11 and the environment of fear exploited by the Republicans prevented GOP losses in 2002.  Even then, however, the GOP Congressional gains in 2002 and 2004 (after Texas redistricting) were consistent with the changes in apportionment, with more districts drawn to be pro-Republican accounting for the GOP gains.  

Then in 2005 George Bush and the GOP were exposed.  Bush tried to mount an overt assault on Social Security, precipitating the decline in his standing that continues today.  The disastrous response to Katrina shamed most Americans.  And the war in Iraq finally was seen as another disaster made by Bush and the GOP.  Democrats went on in 2006 to big wins, and all indications are that we could be on the verge of more big wins this November.  

Now many Americans, including many who grew up in families lifted in to the middle class by the New Deal, feel intense economic pain.  By historical standards unemployment is not particularly high.  But other than a few years in the late 1990's, earnings adjusted for inflation have fallen steadily since 1973.  Some of that loss in earnings and wealth was made up for with low and easy credit and skyrocketing home values, and home owners spent against their increased equity.  But now, as people's home values plummet, foreclosures mount, credit is unavailable, and wages continue to decline, there's nothing to soften the economic blows to working families, even including many which in the past would have been considered comfortably in the upper middle class.  

As the wage and wealth hits accumulate, Americans' economic health is being attacked from other directions.  Secure pensions are no longer a given, and 401K accounts have been devastated by the recent crash in the stock market.  Health care costs continue to rise faster than inflation, and the number of uninsured Americans continues to grow.  And the costs of going to college or having children are too great to bear for many younger Americans.  

The long period of doing nothing to address Americans' addiction to gas guzzlers, combined with instability (and most likely price manipulation) in the petroleum markets, has created yet another economic stress on Americans.  As in the 1930's, when everything in politics was dominated by the effort to subdue the depression, in coming years, almost all the major policy problems faced by America—our foreign policy, the price and availability of food in the US and the food demands in developing countries, our declining manufacturing base, our balance of payments to foreign nations, wage and income inequality, environmental and climate changes, construction, the "financialization" of the American economy—will be connected to energy and climate change.  

Finally, there's a sense with many Americans that there's something seriously wrong in America.  All the polls show it.  The young have been voting Democratic for the last three elections, and young voters appear ready to vote in much higher numbers this November than in any election since the vote was extended to 18 year olds in 1972, maybe in higher numbers than ever seen.  Black voters, driven by the candidacy of Barack Obama, appear ready to vote in record numbers.  Latinos continue to grow as a percentage of the vote, and continue to become more solidly Democratic.  But the greatest movement may be among working class and middle class voters no longer motivated to vote on issues of race, social change or cultural issues, but instead motivated by the inequities of wealth that have reopened during the Reagan era.  

According to NYT Reporter Steven Greenhouse, author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker,

the top 1 percent of households, averaging $1.1 million in annual income, received nearly 22 percent of all reported income in 2005, up from 9 percent in 1980. That income shift helped create the greatest level of inequality since the Roaring Twenties.

Lawrence Summers, the former Harvard president and Treasury Secretary, found that were it not for this increased inequality the bottom 80 percent of Americans would be doing considerably better. If the distribution of income today were the same as in 1979, Summers said, assuming the same level of economic growth since then, income of the bottom 80 percent of Americans would be about $670 billion more a year--or about $8,000 per family. For many households in the bottom half, this would mean a welcome 20 to 30 percent increase in income, perhaps the boost needed to avoid foreclosure.

[...]

One can see the economic divide widen in another way. The average income for the top 1 percent of households was ten times that for the middle fifth in 1979. By 2005, those in the top 1 percent earned 21 times as much as those in the middle. Income for the top 1 percent of households averaged 70 times that of households in the bottom fifth, the greatest gap on record, up from 23 times as much in 1979.

At the pinnacle of the inequality pyramid are the nation's CEOs. American corporations may be tightfisted about raises for most workers, but they paid their chief executives $10.5 million on average in 2005, including salary, bonuses and stock options. That was quadruple their pay a dozen years earlier. This means the typical CEO earns 369 times as much as the average worker, up from 131 times in 1993 and 36 times in 1976.

We have reached the point where we have unsustainable energy policy, and unsustainable foreign and military policy, an unsustainable fiscal policy, and, as many Americans now feel personally, economic inequities that aren't sustainable if we wish to maintain the broad middle class created by the New Deal order.  We've reached the end of the Reagan era, and are on the cusp of something new, hopefully better, and characterized by a bold, vigorous, creative Democratic party with which people bond as they did with the Democratic party of the New Deal era.  

A large part of McCain's YouTube problem is that all the old stories McCain wishes would never see the light of day are popping up online. Like this admission by McCain:

I believe there have been times where I have probably been influenced because the big donor had - buys access to my office, and we know that access is influence. And honestly, that taints us all. It taints me.

As a twenty-something political junkie, perhaps I am hypersensitive to charges that my generation is somehow not meeting the "activism" standard of previous generations.

Last year, Thomas Friedman labeled us "Generation Q", charging that we were too plugged into our laptops, too "quiet," and not active enough in the real world. The most recent jab at Millenials comes from Sally Kohn. Kohn is the Director of the Movement Vision Lab @ the Center for Community Change. She recently penned a piece in the Christian Science Monitor, "REAL CHANGE HAPPENS OFF-LINE: Millennials need to be activists face to face" (also crossposted on the site here). Both Friedman’s piece and Kohn’s latest lament that Millenials are not meeting their potential to create large-scale change. And what’s holding us back? That damn internet:

[I]nternet activism is individualistic. It's great for a sense of interconnectedness, but the Internet does not bind individuals in shared struggle the same as the face-to-face activism of the 1960s and '70s did. It allows us to channel our individual power for good, but it stops there.

Kohn does recognize that the internet has allowed a new generation of Americans to not only become more informed about national and world issues, but to also connect with others on a national and international scale. But this is not enough, she writes:

This is great for signing a petition to Congress or donating to a cause. But the real challenges in our society – the growing gap between rich and poor, the intransigence of racism and discrimination, the abuses from Iraq to Burma (Myanmar) – won't politely go away with a few clicks of a mouse. Or even a million.

I must have missed the memo that said that the burden of solving the world's greatest problems, from class warfare to racism to illegal wards, falls upon internet-loving high schoolers and college kids, and not also upon the millions of other Americans who also have an interest in solving these moral issues. And indeed, perhaps this is what I find most infuriating about pieces that call out Millenials for their perceived inaction -- that there is no corresponding chastisement of the Baby Boomers or the millions of other Americans who also have the ability to engage in "real world" activism. No, the slap on the wrist is reserved only for Millenials, who Kohn and others believe are too focused on the self and not focused enough on collective action:

The lone cowboy story was a myth. Our greatest accomplishments, as individuals and as a nation, have almost always come from hitching our wagons to others and working together, not just in going it alone.

To avoid eroding the values Millennials so appreciate, and to truly influence the world around them, they must transform their online activism into off-line communities and build an effective movement for change. From church basements to campus meetings to voters' doors, Millennials need to add face-to-face action to their innate sense of community.

The idea that any person—or any generation, for that matter—is advocating "going it alone" is a convenient strawman, for as the explosion of activism online has demonstrated, Millenials are not "going it alone," but are reaching out to strangers and friends alike to fight for change. The notion that Millenials don't appreciate the need for corresponding offline action is also ludicrous. One need only glace at Barack Obama's "events" page to see how active Millienials are offline.

These pieces feed nicely into the myth that Millennials are failing to meet some "activism" standard set by previous generations, or that by being tethered to our computers, we are isolating ourselves from a real world aching for change.

Yes, it is certainly true, our generation has generally avoided protests and sit-ins, the twin hallmarks of traditional activism. But it must also be recognized that unlike activists in the past, we do not have the draft nipping at our heels, a factor that unquestionably led so many in the 1960s to leap into action. In other words, politics decades ago were intensely personal – from civil rights struggles to being drafted - and there is no greater incentive for action than policies which have a direct and palpable effect on the individual. In this sense, although Kohn claims it is our "hyperindividualism" that shackles us, it is the closer connection between politics and the individual in the decades past that prompted youth to take action.

More critically, however, it is a fallacy to urge us to use tools from the 1960s activist toolbox in this digital age.

• See if you can tell the difference between John McCain and George Bush as they offer their thoughts on the economy.
• Via John Cole:

  Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, responding to John Kerry stating that McCain has completely changes his position on a large number of issues:

  "Are you attacking John McCain’s integrity?"

  Once again, McCain’s base comes through, ignoring McCain’s changing positions on torture, tax cuts, immigration, offshore drilling...

• Good news from the chairman of the NRSC:

  The outlook for the GOP is so grim that party leaders have readily conceded there is no chance they can regain control of the Senate in 2008, even though Democrats' current majority is slim, 51-49.

  "If you have an R in front of your name, you better run scared," said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who says the party will do well if it holds its losses to three or four seats.

• Howard Dean calls the New York Times hit job on the planning and organization of the Democratic National Convention a load of crap (okay, he doesn’t use the word "crap").
• Vets for Freedom, the 527 that pretends they aren’t supporting any particular presidential candidate even though Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham were on their advisory board, and despite the fact that their messages have often mirrored those of the McCain campaign, has a new set of  stay the course "finish the job" in Iraq ads coming out. The ads will be running in Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, but a spokesman assures us that those states weren’t chosen because they are crucial ones for John McCain, but because of "the heightened interest in the election in those states will give it a larger audience."   Uh huh.
• And finally, in case you missed it, here's George Bush expressing his concern about skyrocketing gas prices:

  Q You must be the most excellent expert on oil business.

  THE PRESIDENT: Yes. (Laughter.) Look where our price is. (Laughter.)

  Q Well, actually, I'm suffering high gas prices.

  THE PRESIDENT: You are?

There are places in America worth saving for future generations for their pure, stunning beauty alone. One of those most magical places started deep in the earth's crust, in fact some future components were laid down in ancient seas half a billion years ago. The layers were taken down, eventually passing near the grinding fiery boundary of two, long vanished tectonic plates. Over incomprehensible stretches of time and under unimaginable pressure, dollops of granite and other minerals were baked out of the mix and accumulated in growing, city-sized lumps soft as taffy. They would begin a journey so long that single human lifetimes would barely rate as a spark in comparison. Far above, on the surface of a changing planet, the dinosaurs would rise from the ashes of a devastating extinction event, reign uncontested for tens of millions of years, before they would perish. Through it all the patient plutons rose, bobbing elegantly up through denser rock like grand waxen blobs in a lava lamp, each solidifying in its own unique way.

As chance would have it, when the massive chunks were still creeping higher through the cooling rock around them, a large swath of underlying earth the size of a small state recoiled and bunched up, thrusting them ever closer to the light. Still pressed under miles of overlaying rock, each chunk began to assume it’s final rigid shape. Fierce erosion consumed the weighty burden above and the blocks lurched upward. As the pressure dramatically lessoned and the stone cooled for the last time, they were each fractured and shattered by huge branching cracks taller than mountains. By ten million-years ago, all that lay between them and the surface was a relatively thin layer of gravel and soil. Water and ice would take over, two of nature's most prolific sculptors, but even for nature, the pieces being forged here were built for giants.

Over geological time, a cluster of  a dozen or so colossal blocks burst out of the ground and were alternately cut with torrents of running water and carved by rivers of ice. One after another grinding glaciers wound through and around the monuments, enormous sheets of solid igneous rock were sliced away from their original block, pulverized into sand and pebbles, and transported out of the growing valley. When the ice last melted, the towering angular faces left behind had been buffed and polishing to a glossy granite sheen.

       
Left: uplift beginning 10mya increases the rate of erosion of a large region, rivers and creeks flow faster and begin to cut deeply around the hills creating a rugged, hilly valley. Center: Ice Ages come and go, each one filling the valley anew with relentless rivers of ice and rock. Right: The last glaciar begins to melt and the polished plutons are revealed. (Click image to enlarge. Source)

The first humans to venture into the region some 10,000 years ago were greeted by a breathtaking vista. They found a lush green carpet of giant redwoods, black oak, ponderosa pine populated by browsing megafauna, nestled between monumental spires and rippling walls reaching nearly three thousand feet above the valley floor. Along the both rims, smaller hanging valleys end abruptly fifty stores above the ground. Water pours out of the passes in between the rocks into space and falls for hundreds of feet, splashing noisily into pools shrouded in mist and highlighted by rainbows come to earth. One of the last inhabiting groups of Native Americans, the Miwok, called it Awoonie, because the valley walls resembled a "gaping bear’s mouth". But today we call it by another local name: Yosemite.

I defy anyone to adequately describe in mere words the scale and beauty of this place. Two massive formations that immediately draw the eye stand eternal guard over the Valley: Half Dome and El Capitan. Both these majestic sentries are exfoliation domes. Like their smaller brethren nearby, they started out as individual plutons millions of years in the making, formed under immense pressure miles beneath the earth. In the comparatively new low pressure conditions of the surface, they formations slowly inflate, shrugging off megaton sized veneers of solid rock along onion layer like fault lines which are then lazily eroded by wind and water. The process often leaves a pile of jumbled debris near the base called talus. What we see, when we stand transfixed by an illusory frozen, monumental glory, is but a snapshot of an active, evolving rocky exterior driven in part by a creaking, at times shrieking, interior as pockets of stony pressure are violently relieved.

El Capitan juts out of the steep valley rim like a massive fist of granite. Like the entire valley, El Cap beckons seductively to the explorer in us all, our inner hunter-gatherer, our ancestral trekker. Of course a number of people get hurt every year following that inner voice, but it's easy to see why! It's just a hypnotic, delightful place, as though nature had constructed a cornucopia of rugged winding trails littered on all sides with rocky jungle gyms built with derived, bipedal primates in mind. What climbers and hikers call "The Nose" of El Cap follows that sweeping leaning edge for three-thousand exhilarating feet above the valley floor.

Last week a two man climbing team reclaimed their speed climbing record for the Nose with a time of two hours, forty-three minutes, and thirty-three seconds:

NYT -- Florine and Yuji Hirayama on Wednesday morning set a speed record on the Nose, the most famous route on the most famous wall in the world’s rock-climbing Mecca. Their ascent shaved 2 minutes 12 seconds off the previous record set in October by the German brothers Thomas and Alexander Huber.

Which means they were ascending the three thousand feet of steep to dead vertical to slightly overhanging rock at an average rate of almost twenty feet a minute. You can see what it looks like staring straight down into the emerald abyss near the top of the Nose in the thumbnail right. The hand, beaten and grimy from thousands of feet of climbing is mine; except it took my two partners and I almost three full days to complete the same route. It's easy to get gripped when you're up there, but there are also moments when the view surpasses spectacular in more ways than I can articulate. And while I’ve described mostly the summer Yosemite, I’m told that Yosemite in Winter, dressed in soft white snow and gleaming icy lace, can bring tears to the eyes no matter where you look.

That's a big part of what make places like Yosemite so worth preserving. Anyone who has explored them from a hiking trail, through the lens of a camera or the eye of an artist, or from a hawk's perch on the side of the wall thousands of feet off the valley floor will agree; they are in their own way more spectacular than any manmade firework show and some are as impressive a display of our national heritage as any Revolutionary Battlefield. From all the members at Daily Kos, to all our allies here in the US and across to the world, we hope your summer weekend is going great no matter if you're enjoying our nation’s scenic parks or unique historical sites.

Remember Freakonomics, the book co-authored by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt?  The central argument of the book is that people respond to incentives, and are willing to cheat if the incentives to do so outweigh the consequences.  A lot of attention has been given to the book's controversial contention that crime dropped in the 1990s because many would-be criminals were aborted post Roe v Wade.  Less attention has been given the reasons that the book cites as cause of increased crime previous to that point: a push for rights of the accused, concern that punishments being handed out were being too tough on blacks and Hispanics, and the "liberal ethos" of the time.  

Naturally, a book that makes such statements is in for an argument... from the right. This Chicago School tome has been singled out as being too liberal, and denying the righteous power of the free markets.

The response is Freedomnomics, by former University of Chicago economist John R. Lott, jr. If Lott's name sounds familiar, it may be because his theory about why crime dropped is explicitly mentioned -- and dismissed -- in the pages of Freakonomics.  Lott, the author of More Guns, Less Crime cited statistics that purported to show that where there were more concealed weapons, crime fell. This book was very important to the debate on that issue. It helped kick start drives that had been stalled at that point, and gave those in favor of carry laws a big academic stick, filled with graphs and charts, with which to beat their opponents. It also secured Lott a spot with the American Enterprise Institute.

Unfortunately, Lott's thesis had two problems:  

1. Other people were unable to find the results he cited when looking at the same numbers, leaving many people to believe that he had gotten to his conclusions through the application of a great deal of fudge.

2. John Lott -- professor and author -- was vigorously defended by Mary Rosh, a young female student who had attended most of Lott's classes and loved his work.  The trouble was Mary Rosh was a sockpuppet.  

Lott created the Rosh character to provide lots of virtual praise.

I have to say he was the best professor that I ever had," s/he wrote.  "You wouldn't know that he was a 'right-wing' ideologue from the class... There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors more to be exposed to other ways of teaching graduate material."

Mary was also a staunch defender of Lott's thesis that crime had been reduced through the application of shootin' irons. As a wee-little female who drew the unwanted attention of dastardly men, she championed his cause.

"Do you really think that most women can out run your typical criminal?...Even if I am not wearing heels, I don’t think that there are many men that I could outrun.

As a woman, who weighs 114 lbs, what am I supposed to do if I am confronted by a 200 lbs. man?"

Mary Rosh continued to blast Lott's opponents, and praise his work, showing up seemingly every time his name was mentioned.  Mary's postings went on for three years. Only after investigation revealed that there had never been any such student, did Lott finally confess.

At the same time Lott's sockpuppetry was being revealed, his research was also under attack.  The editor of Science called him simply, "a fraud," and the National Academy of Sciences launched a review.

This story may sound amusing, but there's an aspect of it that's simply amazing: through all of this, as Lott's lying and exaggeration was revealed, his post at the American Enterprise Institute was never in doubt.  Regnery Publishing, Inc -- which had no problem publishing such bits of tripe as The Secret Life of Bill Clinton and Unfit for Command despite their lack of facts -- was only too happy to publish his book. If you think there is a level to which AEI, Regnery, and their ilk will not sink, you haven't been paying attention.

John R. Lott, jr. is the poster child from the "conservative intellectual," a man who is a demonstrated serial liar, but who is still given voice and money by the right. Neither truth, nor any sort of moral code, are allowed to get in the way of propagating conservative talking points.

And what are those talking points in Freedomnomics? They are (and I'm not joking about this)

• The expansion of the federal and state governments, along with increases in both taxes and regulation, can be traced, not to war or economic turmoil, but to giving women the right to vote.


• Abortion caused an increase in crime -- including a rise in murder as much as 7% (the real culprit is sexual freedom).


• Problems of corruption, such as Enron, occur because there is too much government regulation.


• Another factor in the rise of crime is affirmative action, which has ruined our nation's police forces.


• Price gouging during a disaster is good for the economy.

Suffrage as the cause of government debt and high taxes. I wonder what Mary would think of that? Actually, I suppose Lott's attribution of a more oppressive government to the idea that women seem more motivated by fear than they are by hope, is perfectly fitting with his perpetually frightened alter-ego, running from dirty men in her heels.

Come to think of it, Freedomnomics has some reviews online that are pretty glowing.  

As far as what positions struck me as being the strongest, I'd have to say that his link between women's suffrage and the swelling of government was ironclad.

As far as the politics goes, Dr. Lott is obviously a man of the right but the book is not a partisan affair. It is a sincere attempt to demystify the innerworkings of economics.

Lott takes on very politically incorrect topics that the mainstream media would never touch such as how affirmative action influences police effectiveness and how giving women the right to vote has influenced the size of the government.

I wonder how many of these Lott wrote?

(Note: Yes, the book came out a year ago, but the weekend of the Fourth seemed like a good time to drag out a book with a red, white and blue cover decorated with a slice of apple pie, and to point out the silliness that pervades the right.)

What have the Olympics, oil and commodity prices, and supply and demand have to do with either pandemic preparedness or health reform? And what do either have to do with politics?

Pandemic preparedness is still an issue; pandemics are inevitable, and we are not yet prepared for one (follow the links for more, and go here to learn how to prepare). Health reform, which can mean either expanded access and coverage or cost control (it's both, actually along with rebuilding public health infrastructure and improving quality of care) is also obviously an issue. Yet, one problem seemingly separate from another problem quickly runs together to induce a major headache for the world, and one that is going to to be a major headache for the next President.

Here's an illustration of how that works: take the example of latex examining gloves. It's a staple of personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers for infection control, and a much needed barrier to protect against the spread of influenza (both seasonal and pandemic). One company, Medline, with 30% of the market share, is a big player. So this announcement raised eyebrows when it was released this week:

Hong Ray Enterprises of Shijiazhuang, China, the world's largest manufacturer of vinyl exam gloves and a major manufacturer of nitrile gloves, has notified Medline Industries, Inc., and other U.S. customers that they are facing "force majeure conditions" and that they will be unable to meet their normal agreements to customers. Hong Ray is Medline's largest exam glove supplier.

Force majeure means that large scale circumstances beyond control free the company for liability and obligation. In this case:

In its letter to Medline and its other U.S. customers, Hong Ray cited a long list of events and government actions that have led to its inability to fulfill its contracts. These include a fire at a major raw material manufacturer, dramatic changes in government policy impacting labor, taxes and credit and pollution-control measures associated with the Beijing Olympics.

According to Amdur, Hong Ray's situation is by no means unique.

"All of our suppliers are facing enormous and unexpected obstacles in fulfilling their contract obligations," said Amdur. "While Hong Ray is the first factory to formally declare 'force majeure,' other factories, including those that manufacture latex gloves, face similar circumstances. In Malaysia, for example, the government recently declared a change in pricing for natural gas, almost tripling the price overnight."

So, much needed medical supplies will either be absent or raise your medical bills just as surely as rising oil prices impact the airline industry.

"We are moving quickly to secure adequate supply for our customers through alternative factories, at ultimately a much higher cost. It is crucial that we act fast for exam gloves, however, because it's a high demand item that can spike in times of crisis situations such as SARS and the pandemic flu."

And with that background, look at the numbers from a previous post in March:

Those with insurance are satisfied with their own health care coverage (83% to 93% depending on the question), but fear paying more for care (41%) or losing coverage altogether (29%). That >80% satisfaction is a key finding, because people satisfied with what they have a) don't want to give it up and b) are less likely to push for change. And when asked to rank health care along with other important issues facing Americans, Democrats tend to rate health care as more important than either independents or Republicans, so the push for health reform is not unanimous by any means.

Another important difference is that Republicans are more worried about cost-containment and Democrats more interested in expanding coverage. This leads to the following caveat; while much of the public agrees with the goal of  increased coverage, there is no agreement about the best solution to get there.

The slides are from kaiser.edu, which is a great resource on health care information. In conjunction with the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut, a list of recent health care polling can be found and put to good use. For example, from a Feb 08 AP/Ipsos poll:

(People have suggested various ways that the government could act to try to fix the economy. How much do you think each of the following would help fix the country's economic programs: a great deal, some, only a little, or no help at all?)...Increasing spending on domestic programs like health care, education, and housing

43%  A great deal
27   Some
16   Only a little
14   No help at all

Does that mean that increasing dollars for increasing price of gloves, oil, etc is what people had in mind? Not likely, any more than donors to colleges want their dollars to pay for electricity and heating oil when what they wanted was increased scholarships or educational programs.

But the reality of rising commodity prices (including food), international supply chains and a just-in-time economy put us at risk for key shortages that will, if not a sexy headline-grabbing issue, nonetheless need to be dealt with both in enacting health reform and preparing for pandemics.

The only way to approach this is with a sober, reality-based approach, and it's going to require the next President to understand the science behind the politics. That's why the public prefers the next President to know something about science, and why the 14 Science Questions the Next President Should Answer include

6. Pandemics and Biosecurity. Some estimates suggest that if H5N1 Avian Flu becomes a pandemic it could kill more than 300 million people. In an era of constant and rapid international travel, what steps should the United States take to protect our population from global pandemics or deliberate biological attacks?

14. Health.  Americans are increasingly concerned with the cost, quality and availability of health care.  How do you see science, research and technology contributing to improved health and quality of life?

in addition to questions about innovation, energy, national security and research. There's no way this approach is going to to be simple or easy. But whether it's the all-at-once or sequential approach, there's no question that a science-based and evidence-based approach to health care policy and politics is the right way to go. And those kinds of approaches will recognize that cost is a factor in the direction health reform goes, and will need to account for it, even as universal care remains the goal. Start with children if you want consensus

As you may know, President (George W.) Bush vetoed a bill passed by Congress that would create a program to spend 35 billion dollars to provide health insurance to some children in middle-income families. Do you think Congress should vote to create that program by overriding Bush's veto, or do you think Congress should vote to block that program by sustaining Bush's veto?    

Congress should override veto 61
Congress should sustain veto 35
No opinion 4

and get everyone to where they need to be. But in this environment, cost and complexity and going to need to be accounted for, one way or another.

This week, the media continued to bend over backwards to repeat whatever narrative McCain wants them to.  He even refurnished his airplane with a VIP section for the most obedient reporters.

Top McCain aide Mark Salter said "‘only the good reporters’ would get to sit in the specially-configured section for interviews. ‘You’ll have to earn it,’ he said." So how can these reporters "earn" a seat? Never challenge the Senator,

Full Lineup and lots of other goodies below...

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are jlms qkw, Shayera, Got a Grip, dadanation, srkp23, joyful and vcmvo2 as editor.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just~ Abraham Lincoln~

The diaries up for rescue this evening are:

Probability of failure

• gjohnsit discusses the personal impact of our financial system in Wall Street's Haute Con Job. (jlms qkw)
• In just ten minutes' time, the length of the embedded video in the diary, mconvente's Guardian (UK) video shows Mugabe's vote rigging, makes real the corruption of Robert Mugabe, and showcases what real journalism looks like. (dadanation)
• Using charts, graphs, and tables Migeru fills us in on the finger-pointing going on within OPEC as to why they think oil prices are so high in OPEC blames speculation. (Got a Grip)

the struggle

• DAMMIT! The Lobbyist "Express" Rolls Along, and StuHunter rolls with it to bring us the long list of McCain advisors you'll recognize as Bush/Rove cronies. (joyful)
• iampunha fills in the gaps in a piece of well-known history you only thought you knew in July 5, 1905: Horton helped the Whos be heard. (Got a Grip)
• The Republican presidential candidate spent July 4th not in this country, but schmoozing down in Colombia and Mexico. murrayewv brings us the details in John McCain's Excellent Latin American Adventure! (joyful)
• With the death of Jesse Helms yesterday, the revisionism machine is working overtime. Thankfully, Maaarrrk's Understanding the Far Right by Studying Senator "NO" puts the Helms legacy into a proper context, while Avenging Angel contrasts Bush's remarks about Helms' passing with those Bush gave regarding the death of Senator Paul Wellstone in Helms, Wellstone and the Partisan Eulogies of George W. Bush. Thus reminding us of how disrespectful partisan politics can sound. (dadanation)

support of a cause

• Morus informs us that the USA is not the only country where liberty versus security is a battle in "Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?!" (jlms qkw), while Mentarch examines how Democracy is faring across the pond and finds it wanting in Democracies In Trouble. (Got a Grip)
• gmoke takes us on a well-narrated photo tour of Old Solar: 1980 Barnraised Solar Air Heater. (srkp23)
• Lib Dem FoP celebrates the life of a universal health care program in A Grand 60th Birthday. (jlms qkw)

what we believe

• jimstaro asks us to join him in viewing the stories of some of our veterans and their lives in "In Their Boots"-Premiere-Episode 1- Video. (Got a Grip)
• First-time diarist The Dave relates how he is dealing with his shock now that A friend of mine has come out. (vcmvo2)
• DeanDemocrat has an unwelcome encounter with an old acquaintance and realizes why it was he never really liked the guy in the first place in Ed. (Got a Grip)
• Tchrldy shares the heart-filling reason why we do what we do in "I Never Felt Like a Citizen Till Now". (jlms qkw)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 4, 2008.

monkeybiz has Top Comments 7. 5 . 08 : Nobody Home But Us Chickens.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

If you enjoy Diary Rescue, please consider joining the Rescue Rangers. It's a great way to become more involved with the Daily Kos community. Did we mention it's rewarding and fun? To volunteer or learn more, please contact us (don't forget to tell us your screen name) at: dkos.rescuerangers@gmail.com

::

For those not frequent readers of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, not every item that appears there is actually fiction -- though sometimes we may wish it were. This month's column by Robert Silverberg focuses on the depletion of resources that don't get as much press as oil.

The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany’s University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet’s stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc.

If some of these elements seem rather exotic, odds are you're looking at them right this moment. Both gallium and indium are used in the making of flat-screen displays (along with other electronics). If there's one name on that list that should stand out, it's zinc.  Zinc is not particularly rare, but we're consuming it at a rate that's far faster than we're finding new sources. That's also true of our old friend copper, which is why construction sites the world over are often plagued with thieves who ransack locations for copper plumbing and wiring.  

But the sobering truth is that we still have millions of years to go before our own extinction date, or so we hope, and at our present rate of consumption we are likely to deplete most of the natural resources this planet has handed us. We have set up breeding and conservation programs to guard the few remaining whooping cranes, Indian rhinoceroses, and Siberian tigers. But we can’t exactly set up a reservation somewhere where the supply of gallium and hafnium can quietly replenish itself. And once the scientists have started talking about our chances of running out of copper, we know that the future is rapidly moving in on us and big changes lie ahead.

Of course, we're not really consuming these metals, not in the way we do oil or coal.  They're not actually gone, merely spread out in forms that are extremely difficult to recover. Even with our best efforts at recycling electronics, it's likely that we're years, not decades, away from making do without some of these rare earth elements. In the last twenty years alone, we've consumed about one third of available resources.  Want to make a guess as to how long this can continue?

A 2007 study published in the journal New Scientist, looked at of the elements used in producing electronics and came to the same conclusion. Indium is gone within a decade. Zinc and tantalum in about twice that. The increasing scarcity of some metals is reflected in their prices.

He estimates that we have, at best, 10 years before we run out of indium. Its impending scarcity could already be reflected in its price: in January 2003 the metal sold for around $60 per kilogram; by August 2006 the price had shot up to over $1000 per kilogram.

This report also highlights a similarity between oil and rare earth elements used in electronics -- the vast majority are imported, often from politically unstable countries.  

In fact, these elements can contribute directly to that instability.  For some of the elements, like gallium, there's simply no good source of high quality ore.  Oddly enough, that's one aspect of this story that might be a good thing.  Those elements that are both extremely rare and isolated to a few high quality sources are a spark for corruption, murder, and environmental destruction. We may be currently engaged in a war for oil, but corporate proxies are also taking brutal actions in a war for tantalum, better known these days by the name of it's principle ore, coltan.  

There are steps we can take, including rethinking ordnances that require copper pipes and making it easier to recycle electronics (which is similar to broadband in that it's simple in many municipalities, while rural areas often lack access).  Those are good steps, and the sooner we act, the easier it will be to avoid fighting wars over copper, zinc, and their rarer cousins.

There are also those who suggest mining of landfills, and undoubtedly this is going to be tempting in the next few decades.  After all, rare elements may be found at a higher concentration in some landfills than can be located in any source of ore.  They're also a domestic source.  However, metals trapped in consumer goods are often soundly locked in stable, complex compounds.  Mining them, and freeing these elements for reuse could mean all the same disruptions to the water table, toxic chemicals used in extraction, and smelting familiar in traditional metals mining.  Anyone cheering for broad application of landfill mining as a solution to our shortage of rare metals needs first to look at the pits remaining from copper mines in the west -- then think about how many of these you want next to your home town.

The President
The White House
July 11, 2008*:

Today, I have signed into law H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The Act authorizes critical intelligence gathering activities designed to defend the United States and its interests at home and abroad and provides much-needed flexibility to manage effectively the personnel and taxpayer resources devoted to the national defense.

Section 301(b) of the Act purports to place require the Inspectors General of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, and any other element of the intelligence community that participated in the President's Surveillance Program, to complete a comprehensive review of all of the facts necessary to describe the establishment, implementation, product, and use of the product of the Program; access to legal reviews of the Program and access to information about the Program; communications with, and participation of, individuals and entities in the private sector related to the Program; interaction with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and transition to court orders related to the Program; and any other matters identified by any such Inspector General that would enable that Inspector General to complete a review of the Program, with respect to such Department or element.

The executive branch shall construe the requirements on the Inspectors General in section 301(b) as advisory in nature, so that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and to supervise the unitary executive branch.

What then?

*What you're looking at is an adaptation of one of Bush's oft-used signing statements. Since the "administration" claims that the AUMF and the president's "inherent powers" under the Constitution authorize his domestic spying as a "military" operation, a signing statement simply rejecting the obligation of the Inspectors General (a part of the "unitary executive") to produce these reports would be entirely consistent with everything the White House has argued to date, on this and other related subjects.

So, shorter version without legalese: The people supporting this FISA bill say it has accountability built right into it, because it requires the Inspectors General to conduct inquiries and produce reports on what happened.

What if Bush says, "Yeah, but I'm not going to do it"?

The Democratic establishment is out in full force now, providing justification for the crappy FISA Amendments Act that's about to become law. While they haven't learned how to fight like Republicans (who have redefined "compromise" to mean "capitulation") they've learned how to lie like them.

Case in point, Nancy Soderburg, who was Clinton's deputy national security advisor and an ambassador to the UN. She pens a truly deplorable op-ed in today's LA Times, in which she tries to rewrite not only the history of the Bush administration's lawlessness, but also this law.

I can't write a better take down of this nonsense than Glenn, so be sure to read his whole piece. But here's this part that's particularly salient:

It's notable because the political establishment is not only about to pass a patently corrupt bill, but worse, are spouting -- on a very bipartisan basis -- completely deceitful claims to obscure what they're really doing. This is what Soderberg says is what happened:

The Senate is dragging its feet because the compromise bill's opponents -- mostly Democrats -- want also to punish the telecommunications companies that answered President Bush's order for help with his illegal, warrantless wiretapping program. That is the wrong target.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the White House directed telecommunications carriers to cooperate with its efforts to bolster intelligence gathering and surveillance -- the administration's effort to do a better job of "connecting the dots" to prevent terrorist attacks. In its review of the effort, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the administration's written requests and directives indicated that such assistance "had been authorized by the president" and that the "activities had been determined to be lawful."

We now know that they were not lawful. But the companies that followed those directives are not the ones to blame for that abuse of presidential power.

I would really like to know where people like Soderberg get the idea that the U.S. President has the power to "order" private citizens to do anything, let alone to break the law, as even she admits happened here. I'm asking this literally: how did this warped and distinctly un-American mentality get implanted into our public discourse -- that the President can give "orders" to private citizens that must be complied with? Soderberg views the President as a monarch -- someone who can issue "orders" that must be obeyed, even when, as she acknowledges, the "orders" are illegal.

That just isn't how our country works and it never was. We don't have a King who can order people to break the law. I have no doubt that people like Nancy Soderberg are spending the July 4 weekend paying shallow homage to the Founding, all the while being completely ignorant of or indifferent to the principles they pretend to celebrate.

This line of thinking is not only patently false, it's absolutely dangerous. Political expediency has been put ahead of principle, which happens all the time in politics. Politicians are always going to be politicians and they are always going to be basing their actions on the next election.

In this case, it wasn't even smart strategy. There are basically three groups who care about this legislation--us, The Villagers, and the Bush/Cheney cabal. Voters aren't clamoring for the Democrats to cave--Bill Foster's win proves that. So in a valiant effort to appease The Villagers, they piss off the activist base. As usual.

But this time is different. This time it's the Constitution we're talking about, the core principles of our founding--separation of powers, rule of law, all those "quaint" phrases that have kept this country going for 218 years.

Now the phrase we get is "it's good enough." Literally, Nancy Soderburg says this bill is "good enough." Sorry, but some of us have slightly higher standards. One of the reasons the Republican establishment is about to be thrown out by the American people is because we're sick of being lied to. Dems should take that as a cautionary tale, and realize that we're just not that stupid.

That goes for our soon to be President, as well. We have a much better chance of continuing this battle, repealing this legislation, and having the information related to this program declassified with a President Obama than we do a President McCain, and I relish the opportunity to do just that.

That's why I'm supporting Obama fully in this election. He's got my vote. But truthy talking points are not going to fool us--we will not sit by while Dem leaders lie to us about what this bill does and and watch them confer the king-like powers on the office we hope he takes.

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ....

• georgia10 will explore the new face of activism and what it looks like for the millennial generation.
• DemFromCT will review recent polling on health care as it relates to the 2008 campaign, and the chances for health reform after the election.
• DevilsTower will take a look back at Freedomnomics, sockpuppetry and misleading economics.
• Think the Cold War ended? Think again. Plutonium Page will take us on a tour of one of the most contaminated nuclear sites on Earth... right here in the United States.
• DarkSyde will give a lyrical salute to one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Due to the holiday yesterday (and the resultant slow news day), we did not do a roundup on Friday, instead saving the news for today. House and Senate Roundup will be returning to its regularly scheduled...uh, schedule, on Monday - brownsox

Senate Races

MS-Sen: MSNBC reports on the Mississippi race between Republican Senator Roger Wicker and former Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrove, noting that it will be the first competitive Senate race in the state for decades.

But the fact that a Democrat is able to seriously challenge a Magnolia state Republican in a GOP stronghold for a seat in the Senate is almost heresy in Mississippi, which hasn't had a close Senate race in two decades. It could bode ill for Republicans all around the South and maybe the nation.

"We're concerned in the South. We've lost some Republican seats and that can't help but worry all of us who are interested in keeping good Republicans in office," said Lucedale Mayor and town doctor Dayton Whites, who perched Wicker atop a fire engine in front of Town Hall for a campaign appearance.

Wicker is fairly well-liked in the areas where he is known, though as a recently appointed Senator, he still has somewhat less name recognition than Musgrove does, leading to humorous anecdotes like this one:

After finishing a 13-mile bike ride through the Civil War battlefield where Union forces laid siege to Vicksburg, 70-year-old Alan Lessem continually calls Wicker "Sen. Licker" before being corrected by a reporter.

I'll be very interested to see how Musgrove's fundraising went in the second quarter.

TX-Sen: Rick Noriega raised $930,000 in Q2. The good news is that this is Noriega's best haul yet. Nearly half of that -  $454,000 - came via ActBlue, a testament to the netroots' commitment to this race and the Texas blogosphere's effectiveness.

The bad news is, well, the same thing. Texas is the most expensive state this cycle in which to advertise, and Noriega's total haul is a patch on Cornyn's take (Big Bad John, sad to say, is a top-notch fundraiser).

We don't know what Cornyn raised last quarter, but he was sitting on $8.7 million previously to Noriega's $328K on hand. Adding %930,000 to that five months before the election is a disappointing take, I'm afraid.

NC-Sen: Elizabeth Dole wants to drill for oil off the coast of North Carolina.

But she also wants to protect North Carolina's coral reefs from the kind of damage that could ensue from drilling for oil off the coast of North Carolina.

Color me confused.

Elizabeth Dole’s campaign this week touted the letter she sent to President Bush asking him to protect the deep sea coral wilderness off the coast of North Carolina, designating it as a marine monument. Dole wrote that the corals may contain "new biomedical breakthroughs" urging its protection because it "cannot be replaced once disturbed and damaged."

Last week, Elizabeth Dole’s campaign touted the bill she cosponsored which would allow drilling off the coast of states, including North Carolina, where part of the deep sea coral wilderness is located.

Today, the Charlotte Observer’s Bruce Henderson wrote that the corals off of North Carolina’s coast, "could potentially be damaged by offshore drilling and deep-sea trawling."

"You can’t have it both ways," said Hagan Campaign Communications Director Colleen Flanagan. "Elizabeth Dole wants President Bush to protect the same coral reefs she wants to drill into for more oil – that is completely hypocritical. Dole wants us to believe she’s in favor of protecting North Carolina’s coral reefs but what she’s really in favor of is protecting Big Oil and Gas’ bottom line. Offshore drilling continues to pad their profits while doing nothing to help middle class North Carolinians, and nothing to help us invest in renewable energy on the path to true energy independence."

House Races

AZ-08: Well, this is embarrassing for one of the GOP's top recruits, Arizona Senate President Tim Bee.

The district's former Rep, moderate Republican Jim Kolbe, has pulled his support for Bee's campaign, as Bee seeks to unseat freshman Democrat Gabrielle Giffords.

"I will not be actively campaigning for Bee," the former Republican congressman said during a telephone interview with the Herald/Review on Thursday. Kolbe, whose district included Cochise County and whose seat in Congress is now held by Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, hosted a fundraiser recently for fellow Republican Bee at his Washington, D.C., home.

Kolbe's spokesman cited "personal reasons" for Kolbe's decision. He declined to elaborate, but the Sierra Daily Herald speculates that it may have something to do with Bee's support of a constitutional marriage amendment in Arizona (Kolbe is openly gay).

When asked if Bee’s vote in support of putting a potential gay marriage ban in Arizona on the ballot had anything to do with the issue, Dunn also refused to cite what Kolbe’s personal reasons were.

Kolbe has been openly gay since the early 1990s.

Last Friday, the Arizona Senate placed a constitutional marriage amendment on the November ballot.

Whatever the reason for Kolbe's decision, it certainly doesn't make Bee look like a moderate in Kolbe's mold, an image he needs to cultivate to unseat Giffords this year.

VA-01: We weren't running very hard here anyway, but still, this is disappointing; the lone Democrat in the race to face freshman Republican Rob Wittman has suspended his campaign.

Dr. Keith Hummel, a Democrat from Montross, has suspended his campaign for the 1st District congressional seat, leaving the Democratic Party potentially without a candidate to run against first-year Republican Rep. Robert J. Wittman.

Hummel said discussions about past financial difficulties have become a "distraction from the real issues at stake in this election." Those difficulties include a bankruptcy, campaign manager Stephen Pierce said.

Hummel, an emergency room doctor, said he had made no secret of his financial problems.

"I have always said that I am an imperfect candidate," Hummel said. "Unfortunately, our elections today revolve around narrow and simplistic assessments of viability."

Well, I do think that it's rather critical to be a decent fundraiser in a district which gave Bush 60% of the vote, and where the last Democratic candidate (Phil Forgit) actually underperformed Kerry in his December special-election bid. So perhaps Hummel was not the ideal candidate, anyway.

The First District Democratic Party will be able to pick a successor, if they want to, should Hummel officially drop out.

FL-21, FL-25: The Florida Democratic Party has sent out a press release noting that Miami-area foreclosures have more than doubled in the second quarter of 2008, in the face of action by the Diaz-Balart brothers. The New York Times reported on the Miami housing crisis in March:

But as Congress returns from a two-week recess on Monday for a furious debate over whether to help homeowners on the brink of default, Mr. Diaz-Balart is caught in a crunch of his own.

On one side, Democrats emboldened by the Federal Reserve’s intervention in the collapse of Bear Stearns are demanding help for "everyday Americans." On the other, Republicans including Senator John McCain, the party’s presumptive nominee, are urging restraint, reluctant to commit taxpayer funds to what they say is simply a bailout for greedy lenders and reckless buyers.

On the ground, Miami residents appear to be angry:

For constituents like Mr. Carpio, that is not enough. "I’m very lukewarm about him nowadays," said Mr. Carpio, who like his congressman is a lifelong Republican of Cuban heritage.

Others were less subtle. "He says a lot of about foreign policy, mainly toward Cuba, which makes no difference here," said David Carbonell, a former computer programmer and gas station manager now on disability with a heart ailment. "You have people living here at the edge of poverty and he has done nothing to bring anything back to Hialeah or Miami Lakes. He is a party hack. He will vote the way his party votes."

Ouch. I can't imagine that after the apparent second-quarter fiasco, things are any better for the Diaz-Balarts at home.