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Credit: Driftglass

Mayor Daley will not run again for Mayor of Chicago. If there were a viable Republican Party in Chicago, this might actually be interesting. As-is, don't expect Sister Sarah to come to town pimping some 3rd tier teabagger's "common sense freedom solutions" anytime soon.

Open thread below...

The current coolness-by-decree (dubious or not) folks at Pitchfork counted down the top 200 songs of the 90s last week, and while there's plenty to shake one's fists at, the short essays accompanying each song are great reads. They declare Pulp's "Common People" to be the 2nd best song of that decade:

"Common People" may be centered around a specific encounter between Cocker's impoverished protagonist and his art-school-slummer of a date, but its ascendant, accelerated structure elevates it from personal anecdote to universal anthem, and transforms its spiteful invective into a celebration of the character-building fortitude one acquires when living hand-to-mouth-- something the have-nots will always have over the haves.

Sure, why not!

If you missed it in our recent open thread, be sure to check out the William Shatner version, which is far better than it should be.

Different Class
	Artist: Pulp Price: $7.31 (As of 09/07/10 09:33 am details)

Why, I wonder what's the matter with Republicans? Aren't they all confident and all, considering the current narrative that they're on track to win back the Congress and shut down the government? I can't imagine why Republican Steve May thinks he has to recruit homeless folks for the Green Party ticket in order to pull Democratic votes away, can you?

That's not all. Last week there was the Houston, Texas voter suppression schemes. This week it turns out True the Vote is building their case with doctored photos.

Compare and contrast:

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Original photo

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True the Vote's version, after alterations

If Republicans think they are the party with better ideas, why doctor photos to suppress voters? Let their ideas be tested fairly, or not at all. Yes, that was sarcasm. This is classic Republican behavior. Suppress the vote, put up fake candidates to siphon votes, whatever works. They will stop at nothing to subvert and corrupt democracy for their own ends.

Click here to view this media

Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself saying... thank you Ali Velshi! He's absolutely correct here and the working class and the unemployed in America are not a "special interest group" as RNC Communications Director Doug Heye called them earlier in this segment on CNN's Rick List, following President Obama's barn burner of a speech he gave for Labor Day. He also did a nice job of knocking back his talking points on small businesses feeling "squeezed" by Obama's policies and not hiring because of "unpredictability" on government policy.

SANCHEZ: Ali, what did you see? And, you know, you look at the economic side of this. There are some new numbers out today that seem to show that more and more Americans are taking jobs that they don't necessarily want, but you know what? Any port in a storm, buddy.

ALI VELSHI: That is exactly right.

SANCHEZ: Sometimes you don't get the job you want. You get the job you can get at the time.

So, the president is pushing on special interests, seeming to be blaming corporatists for keeping Americans from those jobs. That's what I heard. Is he right?

VELSHI: Let me just give you a little perspective.

Doug said something that I think needs to be challenged here. There are special interests in this group. There's no question. And everybody caters to them. Working men and women of America and those 14 million who are not working who would like to be, they are not a special interest group.

You want GDP to go up? People have to have jobs. You want to stop foreclosing on homes? People have to have jobs. So to say that the president talking to working people is pandering to a special interest is quite remarkable to me.

Now, back to the point, the fact is you're right. This was a campaign -- this was a president on fire. This was a president who was back into campaign mode. But the reality is there is an anger out there that we have seen in our polling that indicates that people feel that not enough is being done and this is an urgent situation in the economy. And I think it is better that we all treat it that way and that's the kind of conversation we're going to have.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Hey, Ali, you mind -- since you kind of challenged Doug there a little bit, you mind if we bring Doug in to let him respond?

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Absolutely. I would be happy to. I think he makes a lot of sense on a lot of things, but we do not call workers in this country -- we do not call workers in this country special interests, Doug. You need to learn that.

DOUG HEYE: Well, no. Absolutely. People who work, who drive the economy -- small business is the engine that drives this economy.

VELSHI: Absolutely right.

HEYE: That's why it was interesting to say that "The Washington Post" today had a story that said small businesses feel squeezed by Obama policies.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Small businesses are squeezed because they can't get loans from private banks.

HEYE: But loans have not driven jobs yet.

Look, I was the former -- I'm former press secretary to the Small Business Administration. I know how important our 7(a) loan program is. I know how important contracts and access to capital is. These are critical for business, no question about it.

So is predictability. So are low tax rates. So are fiscal policies that don't squeeze our credit.

VELSHI: Doug, how many businesses do you know that don't make decisions to hire people because they're concerned about government policy? That is a big business problem. It's not a mom and pop shop problem. They want credit.

HEYE: No. You can talk to small businesses throughout this country...

VELSHI: I do, Doug.

HEYE: ... that have laid off people because of the health care bill that the president and this Congress has passed.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: But that's not unpredictable, Doug.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: ... predictable. We have a bill. We know what it is. That's not unpredictable at all. There is one thing that is very predictable. We have health care in this country now.

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: Well, and we did predict that.

And look, you want to find out really where this country is going? You don't have to listen to Republicans. You listen to Democrats like Joe Donnelly, who is running ads against President Obama. Mike McIntyre from my home state of North Carolina, he is running ads against Obama.

Bobby Bright in Alabama, another Democrat, suggested that Nancy Pelosi might die. OK, we want to talk about personal politics? They're coming from Democrats. They're aimed at President Obama because they don't want him campaigning for them.

It's probably why you saw Russ Feingold not stand with the president today.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Doug, before we finish this conversation, explain to us, because you have used this word very personal several times now. Do you believe that this speech that the president gave today was over the top?

HEYE: Well, it was exactly what we expect. So I don't know that it would be over the top. It's obviously unfortunate language...

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Well, but you said he was too personal.

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: ... and shows exactly how desperate the Democrats are.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: OK. Was it too personal? Was this president unfair to Republicans during this speech? Was he too personal in the way he conveyed his message?

HEYE: Well, I think the veiled references to John Boehner were certainly beneath the office of the presidency.

But, look, the important thing is that we build jobs and create this economy. This administration has not shown that it has any clue how to do so. And that's what voters are going to be voting on in November. That's really what's important. It's why you're seeing so many Democrats fleeing from this president.

SANCHEZ: Good stuff.

(CROSSTALK)

HEYE: And, again, if the president wants to talk about what Republicans are doing, he should talk about what Democrats in his own party are doing.

SANCHEZ: Thanks, Doug. Good stuff.

Ali, thanks so much for joining him.

VELSHI: Thank you.

Former budget director Peter Orszag thinks the Bush tax cuts should be extended for two more years. I think he should pound sand.

Here's an excerpt (PDF) from President Obama's campaign literature in 2007-2008:

Restore Fiscal Discipline to Washington

[...]
Reverse Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy: Obama will protect tax cuts for poor and middle class families, but he will reverse most of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers.

Nowhere in that literature does it say anything about extending tax cuts because Republicans aren't playing nice and are sticking their back ends in the President's face. Nowhere. Up till now, Obama has kept the majority of his campaign promises, even if they do not look exactly like we thought they should.

So along comes Peter Orszag, former White House budget director, with this little bomb:

In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.

Not so much. This is the difference between how an accountant looks at things and how people look at them. I would gladly give up whatever piece of tax cuts would be coming to me to see the wealthy folks taxed at a reasonable rate.

Orszag can come up with all the reasonable arguments that accountants and economists make routinely, but nothing will change the fact that there was a promise made in 2007-2008. We all know Republicans won't make a whit of difference in the end anyway, since they have made it clear they won't play on any field at any time no matter how much is extended their way.

Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt. And since financial markets don?t seem at the moment to view the budget deficit as a problem ? take a look at the remarkably low 10-year Treasury bond yield ? there is little reason not to extend the tax cuts temporarily.

Yes, there's a real big reason not to; namely, it would be a broken promise that would appear to me to be nothing more than giving into the schoolyard bullies. Perhaps we could hand over our lunch money, too, and while we're at it, would we also like to let them raise the Social Security retirement age to 75 and let oil companies sit at the right hand of the President?

This is not a cut-and-dried issue. This is emotional. From my perspective, what the Bush tax cuts got me was no economic growth for the last decade and multiple threats to my future security. I see absolutely no reason to budge on this. None.

Fortunately, Mr. Orszag is no longer the White House budget director. I hope that means he and the President don't see eye to eye on this particular question and he's looking for a pickup by one of those rich dudes who don't pay much in taxes.

This post originally appeared on Campus Progress. Last week was a busy one for the Obama administration?s Department of Justice. On Tuesday, following the announcement of a temporary injunction on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, the agency responded by issuing an appeal. “The great potential for significant additional medical breakthroughs [...]

Tuesday was the official first day of the political season, with Labor Day finally behind us, and I woke up to this screaming headline in Politico's Playbook: "New wave of polls points to Nov. blowout - Stu Rothenberg moves 20 House races toward GOP." Cable TV was dominated by similar apocalyptic reports from the future, mainly based on two new polls with bad news for Democrats.

Nick Carr, hypertext and delinkification

Everyone laughed when CNN announced that disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Pulitzer-winning mediocre opinion columnist Kathleen Parker would host a show together. But now this thing is actually happening, for real. (Poor Rick Sanchez is peeved. But he is the dumbest man in the world, so he will probably forget he even had an 8 p.m. hour on CNN in a week or two.)

The fall issue of Foreign Policy magazine features Fred Kaplan's "The Transformer," an article-cum-interview with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It received a flurry of attention because Gates indicated he might leave his post "sometime in 2011."  The most significant two lines in the piece, however, were so ordinary that the usual pundits thought them not worth pondering. Part of a Kaplan summary of Gates's views, they read: "He favors substantial increases in the military budget... He opposes any slacking off in America's global military presence."

A LaRouchie anti-Obama protester was wrestled to the ground on Aug. 26 at the Alaska State Fair as he screamed about his free speech rights. The scene, captured on camera by a fair-goer, makes for one of the most compelling -- and disturbing -- videos of the year.

Babies born to mothers with HIV have a much smaller risk of getting the virus themselves if medical personnel administer preventive drugs, such as nevirapine, at birth to the moms and their newborns. Nevertheless, a small percentage of those infants will end up getting the disease anyway. And without treatment, some 62 percent of HIV-positive children die before the age of two. [More]

Patients with advanced melanoma rarely live for more than a year after their diagnosis--a prognosis that has not improved for more than 30 years. [More]

Editor's Note: Students from Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering are working in Tanzania to help improve sanitation and energy technologies in local villages. The student-led group , known as Humanitarian Engineering Leadership Projects (HELP), will file dispatches from the field during their trip. This is their eighth blog post for Scientific American. [More]

More than a fifth of Africa's freshwater species are threatened with extinction , and their disappearance could threaten livelihoods across the continent, according to a new study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The study, conducted for the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species, assessed 5,167 African freshwater species over a five-year period. Two hundred scientists contributed to the report, which covers fish, mollusks, crabs, aquatic plants and aquatic insects such as dragonflies and damselflies.

NEW YORK--When convincing someone to trade in a commodity that cannot be seen or touched, it's best to hold their hand--even if only by telephone. Standing while talking helps, too, at least for broker Lenny Hochschild, who specializes in convincing everyone from agribusiness to electric utilities to buy and sell in a market that doesn't exist yet--a U.S. market for the right to emit carbon dioxide, the most ubiquitous greenhouse gas changing the global climate.

This is possibly the newest market in the world, a would-be global attempt to create a trade in the greenhouse gas emissions from any nation's fleet of cars, household refrigerators, electric power plants, factories, even farms. It's an attempt to peel back the smothering blanket of global warming by giving people a financial incentive to reduce emissions under an economic concept known as cap and trade.

Ruling Affirms Privacy Rights Of Innocent Americans, Says ACLU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

PHILADELPHIA – A federal appeals court in Pennsylvania today held that judges can require the government to show probable cause and obtain a warrant before accessing individuals' historical cell phone location records.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, which was before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, charging that federal law grants judges the discretion to require the government to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before accessing historical cell phone records, and that cell phone users do not give up their expectation of privacy just because third party cell phone companies have access to their location information. The court agreed with those views set forth in the brief.

The following can be attributed to Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project:

"Today's ruling sends a message that merely carrying a cell phone should not make people more susceptible to government surveillance. Innocent Americans should not be made to feel the government is following them wherever they go – including in their own home. While there's no question that law enforcement agents should have the tools they need to stop crimes, such tools must be used in a manner that upholds the Constitution and personal privacy."

The friend-of-the-court brief is available online at: www.aclu.org/files/assets/FiledCellTrackingBrief.pdf

(Updated 9/7/2010)

ACLU Says Government Must Have Reasonable Suspicion Before Looking Through Contents Of Travelers' Electronic Devices

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org 

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) today filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) policy permitting border agents to search, copy and detain travelers' electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion. DHS asserts the right to look though the contents of a traveler's electronic devices – including laptops, cameras and cell phones – and to keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing. 

"These days, almost everybody carries a cell phone or laptop when traveling, and almost everyone stores information they wouldn't want to share with government officials – from financial records to love letters to family photos," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "Innocent Americans should not be made to feel like the personal information they store on their laptops and cell phones is vulnerable to searches by government officials any time they travel out of the country."

Today's lawsuit was filed on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), whose members include television and still photographers, editors, students and representatives of the photojournalism industry; NACDL, which is a plaintiff as well as counsel on the case; and Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old dual French-American citizen who had his laptop searched and confiscated at the Canadian border.

Abidor was travelling from Montreal to New York on an Amtrak train in May when he had his laptop searched and confiscated by Custom and Border Patrol officers. Abidor, an Islamic Studies Ph.D. student, was questioned, handcuffed, taken off the train and kept in a holding cell for several hours before being released without charge. When his laptop was returned 11 days later, there was evidence that many of his personal files, including research, photos and chats with his girlfriend, had been searched.

"As an American, I've always been taught that the Constitution protects me against unreasonable searches and seizures. But having my laptop searched and then confiscated for no reason at all made me question how much privacy we actually have," said Abidor. "This has had an extreme chilling effect on my work, studies and private life – now I will have to go to untenable lengths to assure that my academic sources remain confidential and my personal dignity is maintained when I travel."

Members of both NACDL and NPPA have also been subjected to the DHS search policy, which interferes with their ability to do their work. NPPA members regularly travel abroad with cameras, laptops and media storage devices to cover global news stories, including wars, protests and foreign elections, and rely on the ability to communicate confidentially with sources. Many NACDL members travel abroad with laptops, blackberries and cell phones as part of their vigorous representation of their clients, and have an ethical duty to safeguard the confidentiality of their clients' information.

"Unchecked government fishing expeditions into the constitutionally protected materials on an innocent traveler's laptop or cell phone interfere with the ability of many Americans to do their jobs and do nothing to make us safer," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "Americans do not surrender their privacy and free speech rights when they travel abroad."

Documents obtained by the ACLU in response to a separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records related to the DHS policy reveal that more than 6,600 travelers, nearly half of whom are American citizens, were subjected to electronic device searches at the border between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010.

The ACLU, NYCLU and NACDL filed today's complaint against Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin and Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement John T. Morton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Attorneys on the case are Crump and Goodman of the ACLU, Christopher Dunn and Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU and Michael Price of NACDL.

Materials related to the lawsuit, including the complaint and a video featuring ACLU lawyer Catherine Crump and client Pascal Abidor talking about the case, is online at: www.aclu.org/bordersearches

The documents released in the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit are available online at: www.aclu.org/national-security/government-data-about-searches-international-travelers-laptops-and-personal-electr.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court late yesterday to review a case concerning an elections system that dilutes the American Indian vote in the city of Martin, South Dakota.

In the petition, the ACLU argues that a redistricting plan, adopted by the city in 2002, prevents American Indian voters from having an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

In May 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a divided 7-4 opinion issued by the full panel of judges, declined to block the city's elections system, prompting today's petition.

American Indians make up approximately 45 percent of the city of Martin’s population but the redistricting plan ensures that white voters control all three city council districts.

The following can be attributed to Bryan Sells, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Voting Rights Project:

"Everyone deserves an equal voice in the selection of city officials, but under the city of Martin’s redistricting plan, American Indian voters who make up almost half of the city's voting population effectively have no voice in their government. We hope that our nation’s highest court will rectify the discriminatory elections system so that a remedial plan that promotes fairness and a more democratic city government can be put in place."

Attorneys on the case include Sells, Laughlin McDonald and Steven R. Shapiro of the ACLU and Patrick K. Duffy of Rapid City, South Dakota.

A copy of the petition is available online at: www.aclu.org/voting-rights/cottier-v-city-martin-et-al-petition-writ-certiorari

ACLU And CCR Charge That Practice Violates The Constitution And International Law

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CONTACT: (212) 549-2689; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out “targeted killings” of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.

The authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow, the groups charge. Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military “kill lists” through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.

“The United States cannot simply execute people, including its own citizens, anywhere in the world based on its own say-so,” said Vince Warren, Executive Director of CCR. “The law prohibits the government from killing without trial or conviction other than in the face of an imminent threat that leaves no time for deliberation or due process. That the government adds people to kill lists after a bureaucratic process and leaves them on the lists for months at a time flies in the face of the Constitution and international law.”

The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged – without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists – also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable.

According to today’s legal complaint, the government has not disclosed the standards it uses for authorizing the premeditated and deliberate killing of U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield. The groups argue that the American people are entitled to know the standards being used for these life and death decisions.

“A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “We don’t sentence people to prison on the basis of secret criteria, and we certainly shouldn’t sentence them to death that way. It is not enough for the executive branch to say ‘trust us’ – we have seen that backfire in the past and we should learn from those mistakes.”

CCR and the ACLU were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi, whom the CIA and Defense Department have targeted for death. The complaint asks a court to rule that using lethal force far from any battlefield and without judicial process is illegal in all but the narrowest circumstances and to prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings except in compliance with these standards. It also asks the court to order the government to disclose the standards it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.

Today’s lawsuit was filed against the CIA, Defense Department and the president in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Attorneys on the case are Jameel Jaffer, Ben Wizner and Jonathan Manes of the ACLU; Pardiss Kebriaei, Maria LaHood and Bill Quigley of CCR; and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the Nation's Capital. Co-counsel in Yemen is Mohammed Allawo of the Allawo Law Firm and the National Organization for Defending Human Rights (HOOD).

For more information on the case, including fact sheets and legal papers, visit: www.aclu.org/targetedkillings and www.ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org.

The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Visit www.aclu.org.

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CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The revelation that the Obama administration is not planning to prosecute Guantánamo detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri any time soon underscores the inherent unfairness of the military commissions, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. The disclosure that the prosecution of al-Nashiri has stalled came in a court filing earlier this week and was first reported in the Washington Post.

Earlier this week, defense attorney Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen C. Reyes requested the appointment of a mitigation specialist to assist him in preparing a defense in anticipation of a capital military commission trial against al-Nashiri. Bruce MacDonald, the Convening Authority for the military commissions, denied the request because “at this time, charges have not been sworn against Mr. al Nashiri.”

However, the Defense Department issued a statement on Thursday saying that military prosecutors are “actively investigating the case against Mr. al-Nashiri and are developing charges against him.”

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU:

“The current state of the al-Nashiri trial underscores the fact that the military commissions system is designed to get convictions – not to provide fair trials that result in real justice. In the military commissions, the prosecution has all the power and the money, while the defense remains severely under-resourced. While the prosecution is getting paid to perfect its case against al-Nashiri, his lone defense attorney has been denied much-needed resources and all but blocked from preparing a defense. This is one more reason the military commissions should be shut down for good, and terrorism suspects should be tried in federal courts that guarantee the right to a robust defense and uphold the rule of law.”