Voter suppression -- racial minorities

People for the American Way 2004 report on voter suppression of racial minorities: Long Shadow of Jim Crow"

Electronic machines misfire

Early voting, same old problems with electronic voting machines.

Suprressing the Student Vote?

Misinformation and disinformation that could discourage student voting.

Rachel Maddow's take on it.

Anger over press questions

This interview of Biden has made this Florida TV host a hero on Fox News. Obama/Biden campaign reacted angrily (threatened to deny station further access) -- leading to criticism of Obama campaign.

Here is Sen. McCain reacting angrily to a reporter BEFORE she asks her question.

Rev. Wright after 9/11

"I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost."

"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

"We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

"We bombed Qaddafi's home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children's head against the rock.

"We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they'd never get back home.

"We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don't have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

GOPer denies saying "liberals hate real Americans..."

Tip of the hat to Alyssa Z. Politcian denies saying: "Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God." Serious reporting proves he said it.

Couric asks questions of Obama & McCain

"Each week until Election Day, the CBS Evening News is planning to show you the answers to questions of politics and character that CBS News anchor Katie Couric posed to the two men vying to be the next Commander in Chief."

Clever get-out-the-vote video

Viral video from pro-Obama netroots powerhouse MoveOn.org offers creative, personalized take on your vote matters with email subject line "You're in this video"

Defending feminism

On CNN's Crossfire debate show a dozen years ago, a once-famous male TV pundit defends feminism in discussion with conservative Robert Novak.

Hillary Clinton's cleavage

This image drove some in mainstream media, beginning with Washington Post, to fits of analysis.
Video from Fox News.

Limbaugh charges "sexism"

Rush Limbaugh has scoffed at charges of sexism for decades, but has finally found a genuine victim: Sarah Palin.

McCain supporters challenge bigotry

This video cuts against the image of McCain/Palin supporters as intolerant. Inspiring McCain campaign staffer confronts Muslim-basher.

Colin Powell on Muslim-baiting in campaign

At 4:35 (to 6:05) Powell clearly confronts Muslim-baiting against Obama -- more clearly than Obama campaign ever has.

ACORN "Destorying Fabric of Democracy"

Michael Winship, chief writer for Bill Moyers' Journal, questions the charges against ACORN in "A Mighty Hoax from ACORN Grows."

Vivid TV Report -- Palin Supporters on Obama

This is the kind of network TV report that gets viewers talking -- based on interviews with Palin supporters after a rally in Ohio. Unfortunately, it didn't run on a US TV network. Just Al Jazeera.

"Who Is the Real Barack Obama?"

Brave New Films video short accuses McCain/Palin campaign of stirring up hatred.

Is Obama/Osama "a guy of the street"?

Prominent McCain supporter urges Obama to admit that he "was a guy of the street."

Chair of Virginia Republican Party, with a Time magazine reporter present, compares Obama to Osama (bin Laden):

He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama's controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it's Hawaii.

ACORN Responds to Vote Fraud Charges

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) issues a response to charges it is seeking to commit vote fraud.

"The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama"

That's the headline of Sunday's Frank Rich column in the New York Times.

At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

And more from Rich column.

Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies...

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

TV Ads: "Harold, Call Me" & Obama/Britney/Paris

Republican National Committee ad attacking African American Harold Ford, the '06 Democratic candidate for US senate from Tennessee.

McCain ad comparing (linking?) Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton

Drudge Undermines Hillary Clinton

According to Politico, Drudge "almost single-handedly elevated" Hillary Clinton's RFK assassination reference "into a campaign crisis." The comment -- made in a taped interview with an Iowa newspaper -- was pounced on by the Obama campaign, Obama-friendly websites, and MSM.

Journalists and Bias

Due to conventions of reporting -- professionalism, objectivity, reliance on expert sources, etc -- the private political leanings of journalists may not impart partisan bias into the actual coverage.

FAIR's 1998 survey of the Washington press corps -- a rare survey focusing on journalists' private views on economic issues -- found the press corps to be more conservative than the public on economics, not more liberal.

Two great web resources

For "following the money" behind candidates: Center for Reponsive Politics, aka OpenSecrets.org

For factual disputes: Annenberg Political Fact Check, akaFactCheck.org

Worst Debate Ever

Two veteran mainstream reporters in Politico, John Harris and Jim Vandehei, declare last night's Obama/McCain debate the Worst Ever and long for a Ross Perot or independent to be on the stage. But they seem clueless about the main culprit: the BI-partisan (not "non-partisan," as mainstream outlets call it) Commission on Presidential Debates. They write:

The problem is the commission that has been invested with pseudo-constitutional status to run the debates but, in fact, weakly defers to candidates and clings to antiquated formats. No serious candidate would skip a debate. So the commission should use its leverage to insist that the debates are interesting to voters, rather than safe for candidates.

This misses the point. No one except the TV networks and mainstream media vests the CPD with "pseudo-constitutional status to run the debates." As I pointed out in 2000, the commission was set up by the two major parties to make the debates "safe for candidates" of the two major parties. The League of Women Voters and other truly nonpartisan groups or college campuses would be happy to sponsor debates but the TV nets are wedded to the CPD.

Email & Fox News Warn of Obama's Radical Muslim Upbringing

Brilliant hosts of Fox News morning show discuss Obama and Madrassa.

Jon Stewart ridicules tabloid-oriented TV news for warning public about Internet hoaxes.

Are Conservatives Working the Ref?

Gwen Ifill, tonight's debate moderator, has a book coming out in January on black politicians, with Obama in the title. If Obama wins, the book -- even if it's a totally neutral account -- is more relevant and will get higher sales. The existence of the book has been known about for a couple months. Only in the last two days have GOP supporters raised a fuss in blogs, talk radio and Fox News. Apparently the McCain campaign itself is not making a fuss. Are these folks working the ref, hoping to get softer treatment for Palin tonight, or tougher treatment of Biden?

Ifill has long been known as a totally neutral -- even bland and non-aggressive --interviewer. But the choice doesn't reflect well on the process or the secretive Commission on Presidential Debates.

A piece from CJR on the topic.

"John McCain is Aware of the Internet"

At Personal Democracy Forum in June, a gathering of folks across the spectrum who use new communications technology in politics, a disagreement erupted on one panel between the deputy inernet director of the John McCain campaign (young man toward left of screen) and his counterpart on the John Edwards campaign (young woman toward right of screen.) It stemmed from the fact that McCain does not use a computer.

Bill Clinton Caught on Tape.

Citizen-journalist Mayhill Fowler, in rope line unidentified as a reporter, elicits choice words from Bill Clinton on a "sleazy" and "slimy" and "dishonest" reporter in particular -- and general "bias of the media for Obama."