The media uniformly had Obama's Electoral College vote at 207 at 8 pm PST.

The networks just called it, because polls hadn't closed in the West, particularly here on the West Coast.

But there's little question Obama is going to win the 73 votes in California, Oregon, and Washington alone. Now that the polls have closed, we can say that.

That puts his total at 280, ten more than the 270 needed. And there will be more now that the West Coast polls have closed.

You can start celebrating now.

Miss USA, Rima Fakih, the first Arab-American to hold the title, competes in the Miss Universe pageant tonight. Her, ahem, costume, which (the LA times reports) does nothing for world hunger, is a tribute to President Obama's peace initiatives. The President is scheduled to watch a Sox game tonight.

UPDATE: John Amato

The new site design is up. There are plenty of new features that we'll explain a little bit later, but in a few weeks we'll be introducing our own C&L "Diary" section to the site. That means C&L readers will be able to upload your own embeddable videos and write your own posts. It should be quite entertaining and informative. Anyway....enjoy.

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What do you get when you mix the mushy-headedness of libertarianism with the nuttiness of right-wing extremism, all juiced up in the right-wing populism of the Tea Party movement?

Well, one of the outcomes is the rise in "sovereign citizens" -- those folks who believe in tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories about the government, including the notion that all you have to do is magically sign some documents an voila! You're no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the federal government and its laws!

Indeed, as you may recall, this even allows you to move into mansions that are in foreclosure and proclaim them your very own. And as we saw in the case of Jerry and Joe Kane, there is a dark, violent side to this as well.

This was why, last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a study on sovereign citizens reporting a sharp increase in the numbers of people who were claiming sovereign citizenship:

As many as 300,000 people identify as sovereign citizens, the Southern Poverty Law Center found in a study to be published Thursday that was obtained by The Associated Press. Hate group monitors say their numbers have increased thanks to the recession, the foreclosure crisis, the growth of the Internet and the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

Adherents expect the current American system of government to end one way or another.

"I'm the Patrick Henry of the 21st century. I'm here to regain our freedom," James McBride said in a jailhouse interview. "I'm going to, or die trying."

At the heart of their belief system: The government creates a secret identity for each citizen at birth, a "straw man," that controls an account at the U.S. Treasury used as collateral for foreign debt. File enough documents at the right offices and the money in those accounts can be used to pay off debt or make purchases worth thousands of dollars.

Continue reading »

Eugene Robinson and Michael Gerson take on the debate over whether Barack Obama's Presidency is succeeding or failing.

Both make interesting points, though I admit that it frustrates me to see a conservative writer quote Lawrence Lessig in support of his thesis that the Obama presidency is a failure.

I have problems with both of their arguments. Eugene Robinson cites Obama's swim in the Gulf as evidence that the oil spill was handled well and is now behind us. I disagree with him, and it weakens his other arguments to use it.

Michael Gerson wants to hang the fact that the tone in Washington hasn't changed on Obama, and supposes "all that is left is to attack Republicans." Of course, he ignores the larger truth, which is that the toxic tone in DC is a direct result of Republicans' obstruction and intentional obfuscation of the very real issues confronting this country. That's intellectually dishonest, and assumes Republicans shouldn't be attacked or that they don't deserve the criticism that comes their way. They deserve more criticism, not less.

As many here have noted in comments, Obama reached across the aisle early and often, to the dismay, anger and disappointment of liberals who wanted more forceful rhetoric and action with a near-majority near super-majority in the Senate and a clear majority in the House.

It's an interesting point-counterpoint nevertheless, and certainly mirrors the same debate I've seen here and elsewhere.

Politico's idea of news: John McCain, Twitter genius. Because it's pure genius to tweet stuff like this:

But they don't stop there.

But it’s not just McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, who’s the GOP standard-bearer for social media. In a social media game mastered by the campaign of Barack Obama, the study found Republicans have “struck back,” with GOP senators averaging more than 5.5 IQ points higher than their Democratic counterparts.

Of the seven senators who scored “genius” social media rankings, four were Republicans: McCain — the top tweeter, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and John Cornyn of Texas.

DeMint is a tea party force, and Brown rode significant grass-roots tea party support to upset Martha Coakley for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat last winter. Cornyn is the head of the Senate GOP campaign organization.

Wow. A Tea Party force. And a Twitter genius. Evidently the authors of the official academic study of Senators' Twitter use didn't take the gaming aspect into account when they came up with this study. Nor did they particularly care what the content was.

But hey -- props to the staffer behind the McCain account, who at least knows enough about trolling to get Politico's attention, eh? They don't really think John McCain tweets from his iPhone do they? He barely understands his Blackberry.

I have such mixed feelings about this. If people's fears about going in the water were ungrounded, I'd be applauding this as the kind of leadership you want to see. But with a million gallons of toxic chemical dispersant in that water, there's no way I'd put my kid in it. How do you feel about it?

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — Whether or not he would wade into the water became the question hanging over President Barack Obama’s overnight stay on the Gulf Coast.

Obama answered it within hours of his arrival in Panama City Beach, when he took his daughter Sasha, 9, out for a dip to prove to the nation’s skeptics that the Gulf of Mexico is safe and clean despite the millions of gallons of oil that flowed into it over the past four months.

It’s exactly the image Florida officials wanted: the president and his daughter in the water. The two of them swam at Alligator Point Beach, an area near the restaurant where they ate lunch.

Unfortunately for the reporters traveling with the president, the White House took control of the photograph of the outing.

A staff photographer snapped the image, and the White House released it online while photographers with the news organizations traveling with the president were holed up inside a banquet room in his hotel.

(image h/t Bluegal)

When Clarence Thomas denies an appeal, it should be a signal that bizarro world isn't quite bizarro enough to legitimize birtherbot Orly Taitz. But no, Justice Alito decided Orly should be given the courtesy of more than a curt dismissal. Not only did he decide that, he did it despite the fact that she didn't even make the right request!

Miami Herald:

A request to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito by "birther" attorney Orly Taitz asking that $20,000 in sanctions against her be reversed was referred on Tuesday to the entire court.

U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land imposed the sanctions last year after he warned her and then gave her a time limit to explain why he shouldn't fine her in the September 2009 case of Capt. Connie Rhodes, who questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency.

Taitz appealed the sanctions to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. That court upheld the sanctions in March, and Taitz sent an application for stay to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on July 8. Thomas denied it a week later.

Taitz then refiled it with Alito on Aug. 4. That request was referred on Tuesday to the entire nine-member court, the Supreme Court's website states.

Got that? Taitz chose the two most conservative teabagging justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. One declined; one accepted, at least to the extent of passing it around to the rest of them.

It's not like we didn't already know Alito was a reactionary hater, but this goes far beyond the pale. Orly Taitz is a half-wit publicity-seeking nutcase who has just been granted a piece of the Supreme Court's attention. I think we can safely assume Alito shares Taitz' agenda to delegitimize the President of the United States.

Oh, and poor Orly is having a problem because she's facing a lien on her property:

On Monday, a lien was filed on all of Taitz’s real property. Taitz said she wouldn’t give the government the satisfaction of taking her property or potentially her law license, adding she would pay the fine.

As of Wednesday, Taitz said on her website that she had raised $1,740 in donations.

Mason theorized that if the entire court dismisses the application for stay, it would be dismissed without consideration if she were to again refile it with another justice.

Mason is a little off on the analysis, in my opinion. Alito could have denied it summarily, too. Assuming he did so, did she expect Kennedy or Roberts to hear it?

It makes me want to go hunt down the standards for impeachment of United States Supreme Court justices. Alito may go down in history as the worst legacy of the Bush administration, even exceeding Iraq and Afghanistan.

David and I just got back from our Bay Area trip and boy, is my nerve damage balking--hence my lack of posts lately. It turned out to be a great trip with many more people coming to the events than I had expected. More and more people are also reviewing the book too. Katie Schneider writes a very positive review of our new book Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane.

Oregon Live:

The most frightening book of the summer isn't by Stephen King. It doesn't feature vampires or werewolves or terrorists plotting in some far-off land. "Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane" is a chilling portrait of hate-mongers right here in the United States. Authors John Amato and David Neiwert present a snapshot of a society lapping up vitriol, hyperbole and disinformation in the wake of the election of the first African American president.

For many Americans, Amato and Neiwert assert, Barack Obama's election was a triumph. For others, it was merely a disappointment. For a certain subset of the population, however, "it went well beyond the usual despair," the authors write. "For them, November 5, 2008, was the end of the world. Or at least, the end of America as they knew it."

It's no wonder anger boiled over into violence. Racist tactics fueled the campaign. Rumors were peddled as fact. Obama was a foreigner, Obama was a Muslim terrorist. Obama was anti-American and poised to take down the country from within. After the election, the response was to crank up the rhetoric even harder.

Republicans, right-wing pundits declared, didn't lose because of the issues. They lost because they weren't conservative enough. CNN's Lou Dobbs went after Obama because he supposedly didn't have a birth certificate (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary). Rush Limbaugh went on record with his hope that Obama would fail as a president.

Amato and Neiwert offer a cogent analysis of the rise of the tea party movement and any number of fake controversies, pushed by Fox News and its pundits. The frightening part is how little those controversies are based in reality. Right-wing populism relies on "scapegoating, smears, conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and unhinging rhetoric, all of which inevitably unleash violent, extremist rage," the authors write.

Please support liberal authors everywhere since we don't have the same type of infrastructure like the right to sell books (or buy them en masse), so pick up a copy here.

Other options to grab a copy are listed here. Of course, we always recommend ordering it from your local bookstore if you can.

So this is what had the Wikileaks founder so jumpy. No wonder the government wanted to keep this under wraps:

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Timesand the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and over 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US navy sailors captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

From Steve Hynd over at Newshoggers:

The newspapers admit they kept some secrets too sensitive for publication buried and the details in the document dump seem to be of the kind well known already to wonks who have followed Afghanistan reporting over the years, but the manner and volume of the War Log's release will doubtless crystallize the opinions of many who were only casual readers of news from the West's occupation there. With public opinion against that occupation running at some 60% in the U.S. and over 70% in the UK and Germany, these leaks will put further pressure on Western governments to find an exit sooner rather than later.

Among the stories on which new light has been shed:

-- Pakistan and to a far lesser extent Iran have been offering funding and other direct aid to Taliban groups for years. Pakistan's ISI is reported to have been behind many Taliban targeting decisions, including on U.S. and coalition troops, despite it being an ostensible ally.

-- The U.S. has been using an undisclosed "black" unit of special forces, Task Force 373, to hunt down targets for death or detention without trial. This team has been responsible for the deaths of Afghan policemen and civilians, including children but authorities seem to have been more concerned with keeping its operations secret than curtailing its zeal.

-- There have been over 50 incidents of "Green on Green" fire - where Afghan police or soldiers opened fire on their fellow uniformed countrymen, many begun by drug use, corruption or indiscipline.

-- There are reports of hundreds of border clashes between Pakistani troops and their Afghan or American opposite numbers - far more than previously reported.

-- The 140 reports of incidents involving the shooting and blowing up of civilians by Coalition troops reveal a casual disregard for human life, including "nearly 100 occasions by jumpy troops at checkpoints, near bases or on convoys...'warning shots' often seem to cause death or injury, generally ascribed to ricochets."

The reason why governments don't want us to see war too closely is that they see how little point there is to the whole bloody mess. Why are we still there? Why are we destroying all these lives?

There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this shocker. But then, considering how many things BP has misrepresented to regulators and the media, perhaps not so much. I have to say, between this and reports that BP is not paying its cleanup contractors, I wonder if this is a company that's planning to file for bankruptcy:

BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. -- Ken Feinberg said today he hasn't been able to start writing claims checks because BP PLC has not yet deposited any money into the $20 billion escrow fund it promised to create.

Feinberg, who was appointed last month to administer individual and business claims stemming from the oil spill, held an early morning town hall meeting in Bayou La Batre on Saturday before meeting with the Press-Register editorial board in downtown Mobile.

Feinberg said he is leaning toward giving partial payments to companies and people who are indirectly impacted by the spill -- an outlet store in Foley hurt by the decline in beach traffic, for example.

He also said he would do something for real estate owners to cover a decrease in property value.

BP officials and President Barack Obama agreed last month that the oil company would put $5 billion a year over the next four years into an account to pay for spill-related costs, such as claims, environmental restoration and cleanup costs.