Got Democratic (or at the very least, non-crazy) friends and family members who say they're not gonna vote this November because they're disappointed with Congress or Obama or something? Make 'em watch this.

In the down-ballot races, you find the real damage done to American government and culture when sane, rational people fail to vote. I can't think of a better example than the Texas State Board of Education. At Netroots Nation this year, I met two women, Judy Jennings and Rebecca Bell-Metereau, who aim to take that institution back this cycle. More after the jump...

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"Why I'm a tea partier"

Open thread below...

If Republican Mo Brooks wins Tuesday's contest for Alabama's fifth Congressional district, it will be for two reasons: (1) retail politics (2) Glenn Beck. I found two men at the Republican headquarters in Lauderdale County last Thursday. One of them was kind enough to speak on camera. Thoughts on my interview with them, and the House race I reported on here eleven days ago, are below the fold.

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Credit: Bluegal

Al Franken, retelling the President's car in the ditch story with a bit more accuracy:

When the President took office, not only had the car gone into a ditch, the car had flipped over and was rolling down a steep embankment. We, the American people, were in the back seat, and the Bush Administration had removed all the seat belts, so we were all flying around the interior of this car as it was rolling and flipping and careening down this steep embankment, headed to a 2,000 foot cliff. And at the bottom of that cliff were jagged rocks. And alligators.

Now, at noon on January 20th, 2009, as the car was careening toward the cliff, George W. Bush jumped out of the car.

President Obama somehow managed to dive in through the window, take the wheel and get control of the thing just inches before it went over the precipice. Then, he and Congress starting pushing this wreck back up the embankment. Now you can’t push a car up an embankment as fast as it careens down the embankment, especially if some people are trying to push against you. But we got it going in the right direction. And slowly we’ve gotten ourselves up the embankment, out of the ditch and onto the shoulder of the road.

There. That’s what happened.

His point? This:

Well, they may have the powerful corporations on their side. But we’ve got you.

If I sound like a broken record, it's because I cannot bear the idea of Joe Lieberman as Senate power broker. So please, go vote.

I touch wood everytime I say or write that it now looks as nearly certain as it can be that Obama will be the next President of the United States. But, of course, Obama is correct that all the polling in the world is meaningless if people decide that they can stay home on Election Day because Obama is going to win anyway. So get out there.

And while you're at it, make sure you know your rights and be on the look out for vote supression tricks. The Obama campaign has a new video on the GOP's voter supression campaign - because the lower the vote the better it is for Republicans. They thrive in a climate of disenfranchisement.

Despite all their accusations, even the McCain campaign admit they can't make the voter fraud claim stick:

For weeks, Republican leaders have warned that widely reported problems with fake voter registrations could result in a flood of phony votes in pivotal states.

But Ronald Michaelson, a veteran election administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, said in an interview that he could not name a single instance in which this had occurred.

“Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can’t cite one, chapter and verse,” he said.

Which makes their accusations a form of fraud in its own right, doesn't it? One that's been falsely used to fuel "Republicans’ invocation of legal power to scrutinize voters, demands for U.S. Justice Department intervention and court orders, and criminal investigations."

But make no mistake - if the Republican's can't steal the election through voter suppression and voting irregularities they'll use that failure as an excuse to accuse Democrats of stealing it. The McCain campaign and Republicans have already trotted out dozens of excuses but there's only one reason McCain will lose - Obama is the better man for the job.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's two year, $1.4 million dollar investigation into what he claims is "an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas" to justify his support for voter ID laws, resulted in just 26 cases. It will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following C&L's ongoing coverage of this issue that all of the cases were "against Democrats, and almost all involving blacks or Hispanics." What's more, of the 26, only 8 were actually cases of fraud. "In 18 of the 26 cases, the voters were eligible, votes were properly cast and no vote was changed – but the people who collected the ballots for mailing were prosecuted," yet Abbott refused to investigate a serious case of apparent ballot-box stuffing of "more than 100 ballots – potentially more than in all of Mr. Abbott's other vote-fraud prosecutions combined" - "in Highland Park, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country with hundreds of million-dollar homes and where both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney once lived."

In more than 2/3 of the cases in Greg Abbott's epidemic, he actually charged volunteers who merely helped elderly and disabled people to be able to vote because they didn't add their name to the envelope to show that they carried the sealed envelope to a mailbox for them - a crime Abbott saw fit to spend an average of more than $53,000 each to pursue of a Federal Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant that is supposed to go to enforce state and local laws with an "emphasis on violent crime and serious offenders." Serious indeed.

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Defense Tech: The Pentagon has entered the political fray by setting up what amounts to an RNC talking points website to refute criticisms of the Iraq war effort. Your tax dollars at work...for Bush, Cheney, and Rummy

Vagabond Scholar: Batocchio on attack ads...the RNC dirty tricks continue around the country, whether they're legal or not. In NM, a judge injoined GOP to stop calls to non-Republican Voters

Confined Space: Here's the reality in the U.S. today: Negligent homcide gets 'a walk.' Workers can be killed due to employer negligence and the employer will get away with a slap on the wrist.

uggabugga: Neocons ar "combatting anti-Americanism in the United States"...go read

The Aristocrats: Ted Haggard's Travel Tips...and some Diet Tips, too-

The Left Coaster: Election 2006: GOTV