Republican officials delayed the start of the Republican Convention in Tampa on Saturday as Florida braced for Tropical Storm Isaac.

Republican convention officials reiterated their concern for the safety of convention delegates on Saturday on a last-minute conference call with reporters. The delegates would have been bused into downtown Tampa on Monday for a procedural roll call vote.

Bridges linking places like Clearwater and St. Petersburg to downtown Tampa are expected to flood if heavy rains hit the city, making passage extremely dangerous. Officials said the roll call vote would be moved to Tuesday, at approximately the same time.

Despite the severe weather threat, a party for delegates scheduled for Sunday night will go on as planned, and officials confirmed that they have not yet received any cancellations from state delegations.

Organizers of a veterans benefit concert Sunday also confirmed to HuffPost that Lynyrd Skynyrd is still set to lead the musical lineup. The iconic Southern rockers will headline the event, dubbed "Citizens Helping Heroes Presents Southern Tribute IV Honoring America's Heroes." The last time the band played a Republican convention was 2000, when the party nominated George W. Bush.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus issued the following statement on the decision:

Due to the severe weather reports for the Tampa Bay area, the Republican National Convention will convene on Monday August 27th and immediately recess until Tuesday afternoon, August 28th, exact time to follow.

Our first priority is ensuring the safety of delegates, alternates, guests, members of the media attending the Republican National Convention, and citizens of the Tampa Bay area. RNC Convention officials and the Romney campaign are working closely with state, local and federal officials, as well as the Secret Service, to monitor Tropical Storm Isaac and preserve Florida's emergency management resources. Officials have predicted participants may encounter severe transportation difficulties due to sustained wind and rain.

The Republican National Convention will take place and officially nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and the Party has other necessary business it must address. We also are remaining in constant contact with state and federal officials and may make additional schedule alterations as needed.

The Convention staff is working around-the-clock to ensure the delegations housed in storm-impacted areas have alternative housing if needed. The Committee on Arrangements will provide additional information to delegates and alternate delegates who are affected by Isaac by Sunday morning. We will also provide guidance to those delegates and alternate delegates who may encounter travel difficulties due to the storm.

We will begin issuing revised convention programming as early as Sunday.

We have an experienced team that will ensure changes are operationally smooth and create as little disruption as possible. The most important concern is safety, but our Convention program will proceed.

UPDATE (1:25 a.m. ET):

The Lynyrd Skynyrd concert originally intended to kick off the Republican National Convention Sunday night in Tampa has been cancelled due to the threat from Isaac, organizers told HuffPost early Sunday morning.

In a statement, Lynyrd Skynyrd lead singer Johnny Van Zandt said: "We were excited to be participating in the Republican National Convention and the Liberty Plaza concert. With the weather conditions unknown and for the safety of our fans and friends, it is best to cancel the show and not put anyone in harm's way."

The news follows an earlier decision by the RNC to cancel Monday convention events. Isaac is expected to pass by Florida's West Coast on Monday, bringing tropical storm force winds that are likely to produce widespread flooding.

As of Sunday morning, concert organizers said scheduled performances by Trace Adkins on Tuesday, Kid Rock on Wednesday, and Journey on Thursday are moving forward as planned.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post mistakenly identified St. Cloud as the city mentioned in the call that could be affected by the storm.

Steven Greenhut, Reason
During recent travels to Madison and Milwaukee for some research about reform-minded Gov. Scott Walker's survival of a union-backed recall, I found little residual anger among the friendly folks there, despite seemingly endless pitched political battles that divided families and led to angry water-cooler discussions.Perhaps the central issue"”Walker's Act 10 plan that rolled back collective-bargaining excesses"”has been resolved, or perhaps Wisconsinites simply got tired of two historic recall elections, legislators who bolted the state to avoid...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker told Democratic county chairs that he is considering a run for New Jersey governor in 2013, the New York Observer's PolitickerNJ reported Thursday.

Booker has reportedly been taking meetings with party chairs in the weeks ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which begins on September 3 in Charlotte, N.C. During these meetings, Booker and adviser Mark Matzen have expressed interest in challenging Gov. Chris Christie (R) next year.

PolitickerNJ reports:

By virtue of his fundraising ability, charisma and potential to transcend a fragmented state party, others see him, at the very least, as the preferred nominee.

“He’s the most viable candidate who comes to mind at this moment,” said Charlotte DeFilippo, chair of the Union County Democratic Committee.

Booker, who many consider to be a rising star in the Democratic Party, has previously hinted at his willingness to run for higher office. Last month, he told a group in Fair Lawn, N.J. that he was "strongly considering the options" for when his term ends in 2014, indicating that he might run for governor or U.S. Senate.

However, Booker's bipartisan alliance with Christie has led some to doubt that the Newark mayor would challenge the popular Republican governor. The unlikely duo even teamed up for a Seinfeld-esque video earlier this summer, playing up their friendly rivalry.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post
Last week, Judge Robert Simpson of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania refused to halt a discriminatory new state law requiring voters to show photo identification. It was the judicial equivalent of giving democracy the bird. 

Ron Hart, Orange County Register
"He just isn't bright" – Rudi Giuliani on Joe BidenThe current administration is "Intellectually exhausted," as Mitt Romney points out, and is now in "rope-a-dope" mode, trying as best it can to avoid answering any substantive questions on its record.As Rush Limbaugh has championed, this is "the Kardashian president." He is long on charisma, short on substance and out of his depth on what to do with the economy other than tax and spend. Obama did sheepishly admit at another swing state campaign stop that the economy has slowed. Indeed,...

E.J. Dionne, The New Republic
BOSTON -- Elizabeth Warren is the kind of person Massachusetts has always liked to send to the U.S. Senate.She would instantly become a national leader, which appeals in a state that has sent to Washington Democrats such as John and Edward Kennedy and Republicans such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Edward Brooke. The Harvard Law School professor who warned of abuses in the financial system long before the economic crisis should draw suburban liberals who admire her seriousness as well as lunch-bucket Democrats who appreciate her populism.

As we approach the "convention season" in the race for the presidency, it behooves us to take another look at how the electoral math currently stands. Mitt Romney chose to announce his running mate rather early, which is just beginning to be reflected in the polling. But, starting next week, each party will likely get a noticeable "convention bump" in the polls. Because the two conventions are happening right after one another, this should stir the big data pot well into September. Which is why now is a good time to look at the state of the race, to establish a baseline to measure all this expected frenzied movement.

We only have time for a short column today, so we're only going to look at two charts this time around, and then quickly wrap up with my picks. I promise next time around we'll take a deeper look at what is going on. Let's begin with Mitt Romney's chart (click on either of these charts to see a bigger copy):

[Definition of terms: Strong means 10% or better in the polls, Weak means 5% or better, and Barely is under five percent.]

The last time we took a look at the math was two weeks ago (the vertical lines in the charts show the dates of these columns). In that time period, Romney showed some positive movement, which was dampened by some weakening. How much of this was due to the selection of Paul Ryan is anyone's guess, really.

Romney gained two pickups this time around, Iowa and Florida. This put his overall total an impressive 35 Electoral Votes ("EV") higher, but Romney also saw Missouri weaken from "Weak" to "Barely" during this period. Importantly, this was before the Missouri Republican candidate for Senate caused such a ruckus a few days ago, meaning Romney's hold on Missouri was already heading in the wrong direction before the news broke.

Because Florida is so large, this all means Romney rose from a total of 206 EV to a whopping 241. That's a pretty big jump for two weeks. The critical "Strong Plus Weak" line on that chart, however, moved downwards from 191 EV to only 181 EV, while his "Strong" number held steady at 139 EV. So far, at least, Romney's choice of Ryan has not hurt him in Florida, at least yet. Florida is crucial for Romney's chances to win, so this is good news for him.

Let's take a look at Barack Obama's chart:

The news for Obama was mostly bad this time around. Again, this could be the bump from Romney naming his vice presidential pick, or it could be unrelated. The good news for Obama is that he managed to move Colorado back from being a tie into Barely, and New Hampshire improved from Barely to Weak. Virginia started off with bad news, moving to a tie, but then migrated back to Barely Obama again, for no net gain or loss. The worst news for Obama was losing Florida, but Florida can be expected to bounce back and forth during the whole election, and not really in either candidate's column as of yet. The loss of Iowa to Romney hurt Obama as well. Obama weakened his hold on two states, Wisconsin and Ohio, although they still are in the Barely column for him at this point. Wisconsin could become a much bigger fight than the Obama team was likely expecting, now that they've got a "favorite son" on the Republican ticket. It will be very interesting to watch the polling coming out of the state over the next month.

Obama's numbers fell overall, with the loss of Florida's 29 EV leading the trend. Obama started two weeks ago with a total of 332 EV, fell to 284 EV until Virginia firmed back up to leave him at the end with 297 EV overall. This was a net loss of the same 35 EV that Romney picked up. More importantly, while Obama's Strong number held steady at 172 EV, his Strong Plus Weak line went up slightly to 277 EV at the start, but then headed down to 247 -- which translated into a net loss of 20 EV.

While both candidates' Strong Plus Weak numbers fell this time around, Obama's lead over Romney in this category has fallen from a 76 EV margin down to 66 EV -- which is still a healthy lead, at this point in the race. However, Obama has to hope that the Democratic convention will turn the trendline around for him in some key states.

 

My Picks

This is the part where I toss darts at the wall and try to classify states on more of a gut feeling than just raw poll numbers. To do this, I use different labels to avoid confusion. At the end of this article are full lists of states for each category (with their EV numbers), as well as a list of states which haven't been polling in a long time (so you can see which polling data is getting stale).

First we look at "Likely" states for each candidate, broken down into "Safe" and "Probable" for each. Then we get to the "Tossup" states, which are divided into "Leaning" for each candidate and then a "Too Close To Call" category, before adding it all up in conclusion.

 

Likely States -- Obama

Safe Obama (14 states, 179 EV)
I'm moving Oregon up to Safe Obama, just because I really don't think Romney's got a chance to win the state. The polling data isn't very recent, but my gut tells me this state is pretty safely in the Obama column.

Probable Obama (7 states, 68 EV)
Oregon moves up from Probable to Safe for Obama, and New Hampshire moves in to take its place. Now, New Hampshire may wind up being closer than I now think, but as of now it seems to be getting pretty solidly behind Obama. Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, to put it another way. If New Hampshire shows signs of weakening, then I'll move it back down, but for now my gut tells me it's at least Probable Obama.

 

Likely States -- Romney

Safe Romney (18 states, 148 EV)
Romney's Safe states showed no change this time around. He can rest assured that these 18 states will be showing up in red on election night.

Probable Romney (4 states, 33 EV)
Romney does lose one state here downwards, as Missouri heads into a storm of uncertainty. Missouri has been, demographically, getting redder and redder over time, so it really should be an easy state for Romney to claim, but it is showing signs of weakness already -- which happened before the Todd Akin "legitimate rape" comment controversy. Now that this has become the hot-button issue of the week, Romney's standing in Missouri could be affected by the fallout (especially since Akin appears to be staying in the race, at least for now). Either way, the state can't even be seen as Probable Romney at this point.

 

Tossup States

Lean Obama (2 states, 27 EV)
Obama loses three states here, one of which was good news (as New Hampshire moved up), and two of which were bad news. Both Iowa and Wisconsin have to be seen as Too Close to Call at this point, at least until Obama gets some better polling in each. In the last of these columns I wrote, I moved Iowa up to Lean Obama because I thought it was firming up for Obama, but I was wrong as it moved all the way to Romney's column this time around. Wisconsin is going to need some polling to see what effect putting Ryan on the Republican ticket is going to have. Colorado and Ohio are the only states which remain Lean Obama this time around, for a total of 27 EV.

Lean Romney (2 states, 25 EV)
North Carolina stayed in the Lean Romney column, but Missouri moved down here as Romney's numbers weakened. I almost moved the state into Too Close To Call, but will give Romney the benefit of the doubt here, at least until I see polling which indicates otherwise. Even if Akin stays on the ticket through November, it may not harm Romney's chances in Missouri. We'll see. Taken together, these two states add up to 25 EV.

Too Close To Call (4 states, 58 EV)
Florida and Virginia both remain Too Close To Call, and at least Florida may stay in this category until the very end of the race. Two states moved down to Too Close To Call this week, both bad news for Obama. Iowa and Wisconsin join the battlegroundiest of the battleground states, for a grand total of 58 EV in the category.

 

Final Tally

Counting up all my picks without any leaning or tossup states, Barack Obama improved by 4 EV this time around, with the addition of New Hampshire, for a total of 247 EV that seem safe for him. Mitt Romney dropped 10 EV with the loss of Missouri to close the period with just 181 EV safely in the bag for him. This widened the gap between the two to a rather impressive 66 EV lead for Obama. Obama needs 23 EV out of the remaining tossup states, whereas Romney needs to win 89 EV -- which would count as "running the table," since there are only 110 EV in the category. Romney would have to win Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, Iowa, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- and then he'd still have to take away either Colorado or Ohio from Obama in order to get over the finish line. Obama, at this point, could win his safe states plus just Colorado and Ohio and still win the race.

Of course, this could all change quite drastically in the next two weeks. It's hard for political wonks to realize, at times, but most of America simply doesn't pay much attention to political news. This begins to change during convention season. More and more of the public will start paying attention, and polling numbers can often swing wildly when this does happen. So while Obama looks in pretty good shape at this point, in two weeks he could be in a very different spot indeed. We'll be able to look back, after the conventions, and see how much has changed from today's baseline.

 

[Electoral Vote Data:]
(State electoral votes are in parenthesis following each state's name. Washington D.C. is counted as a state)

Barack Obama Likely Easy Wins -- 21 States -- 247 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 14 States -- 179 Electoral Votes
California (55), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington D.C. (3), Washington (12)

Probable States -- 7 States -- 68 Electoral Votes
Connecticut (7), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), New Mexico (5), Pennsylvania (20)

 

Mitt Romney Likely Easy Wins -- 22 States -- 181 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 18 States -- 148 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 4 States -- 33 Electoral Votes
Georgia (16), Indiana (11), Montana (3), South Dakota (3)

 

Tossup States -- 8 States -- 110 Electoral Votes:

Tossup States Leaning Obama -- 2 States -- 27 Electoral Votes
Colorado (9), Ohio (18)

Tossup States Leaning Romney -- 2 States -- 25 Electoral Votes
Missouri (10), North Carolina (15)

Too Close To Call -- 4 States -- 58 Electoral Votes
Florida (29), Iowa (6), Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10)

 

Polled, but no polling data since the primaries:
(States which have not been polled since the beginning of June, with the dates of their last poll)

Maryland (5/21), Nebraska (5/16), Rhode Island (2/22), South Carolina (1/13), Tennessee (5/9), Texas (5/13), Vermont (2/22), and West Virginia (4/28).

No polling data at all, yet:
(States which have not been polled so far this year):

Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Washington D.C., Wyoming

 

Electoral Math Column Series Archive:

[Aug 8] [Jul 18] [Jun 25]

 

Chris Weigant blogs at:

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Become a fan of Chris on The Huffington Post

 

By TAMARA LUSH AND CHRISTINE ARMARIO, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TAMPA, Fla. — All Isaac needs to do is come close to Tampa to bring a lot of problems to the Republican National Convention. Even during an average summer thunderstorm in this area, major roads can flood.

When a tropical storm raked the Tampa Bay area in June, thousands of homes and businesses lost power, tornadoes spun off and streets and bridges were closed as the storm was blamed for seven deaths statewide. It's still too early to say where Isaac will end up, but officials are closely watching the storm and say they're ready to make any decisions, if needed, about evacuations or cancellations as 70,000 delegates, journalists and protesters descend on the city.

"Public safety will always trump politics," Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said. "And so my job, and our job, if we move into that mode, is to make sure we get people out of harm's way. I don't care whether they're anarchists or they're delegates."

The current forecast has Isaac strengthening into a hurricane Thursday night and heading toward South Florida, arriving around Monday, the opening day of the convention and nearly a week of parties, speeches and other events culminating with the coronation of Mitt Romney.

The storm was still hundreds of miles from the tip of Florida on Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph. Forecasters warned there was still a great deal of uncertainty with Isaac, and it could miss the state altogether.

"The storm is so far away at this point, the cone of error from this point out is tremendous," said Florida Emergency Management Director Bryan Koon, who has been in constant contact with RNC officials about the storm threat.

Koon has been coordinating security and convention planning with party officials for more than a year. He said there was no reason out-of-state visitors should cancel their plans, and RNC officials were so far echoing that advice.

Nebraska GOP Executive Director Jordan McGrain said there was no consternation from any of the delegates or guests prepared to head south. After all, he said Nebraskans are used to dealing with severe weather and tornadoes every spring.

"We can deal with extremes of every kind. I'm sure most of us would welcome a tropical storm as a new experience," McGrain said. "We're ready to ride it out."

Pat Rogers, a committeeman in New Mexico who is already in Tampa for early meetings, said most delegates from his state would arrive Saturday before the storm.

"Clearly they are a little concerned," he said, before joking "that we have seen more rain in one day than we get in a year."

It has been rainy in Tampa recently. A flood watch was in effect Wednesday and part of a major interstate was underwater a day earlier after a downpour.

Officials were preparing for the worst-case scenario, a hurricane in the Gulf, making landfall just north of Tampa, pushing even more water and wind into the Tampa Bay area, said Alex Sosnowski, a meteorologist from AccuWeather. Because a storm can often affect areas 100 miles from its center, people were told to pay attention.

The city's geography has posed logistical challenges from the outset, including how people would get around a downtown that is only about 571 acres – or less than 1 square-mile – and is bordered by interstates and rivers, and punctuated with restaurants, cafes and offices. As many as 400 air-conditioned buses are expected to shuttle delegates and other visitors from their hotels on both sides of the bay to the Tampa Bay Times Forum, the downtown hockey arena hosting the festivities.

Any evacuation orders for the arena, where Romney will give his acceptance speech, would depend on a variety of factors, and would most likely not be made simply because a Category 1 storm, with winds of 74 mph, was approaching, officials said. Some visitors may not even be staying in would-be evacuation zones. Hotels have been booked 20 miles or more from downtown Tampa.

Debra Sue Warshefski, spokeswoman for Tampa Fire Rescue, said the city will provide buses for people to get to shelters and she hoped protesters, especially those who are camping, would take advantage of any offers of help.

"If we call for an evacuation, are we going to require an evacuation and arrest them? No we're going to offer the opportunity for their safety," she said.

The last hurricane to strike Tampa was Hurricane Jeanne in 2004. The Category 1 storm moved across the state toward Tampa, weakening along the way. It still knocked down trees and power lines, and damaged buildings. Three people were killed, but none in the Tampa Bay area.

Director of meteorology at Weather Underground, Jeff Masters, said based off the latest forecasts and computer models, there was a 3 percent chance of needing to evacuate the arena hosting the convention. There was 9 percent chance of Tampa experiencing tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph when the convention begins.

"Those odds are probably going to rise," he said.

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday that her decision to deny benefits to undocumented immigrants was justified, claiming that federal law is at fault in the immigration debate.

"I think everybody in Arizona [and] across the country has compassion for those children that have been brought here illegally by their parents," Brewer said. "But it is not our responsibility. It is their parents' responsibility. They need to follow the law."

Last week, Brewer signed an executive order denying state and local benefits to undocumented immigrants applying under President Obama's new deferred action program. Brewer's order also barred immigrants from applying for driver's licenses and state-issued identification cards.

Brewer's order, signed on the same day that the federal deferred action program went into effect, was immediately met with massive backlash. DREAM Act supporters organized protests at Brewer's office, while organizations like the ACLU blasted the governor for "distorting federal law." However, she was unfazed by the criticism, instead doubling down on her crusade against undocumented immigration.

"It's an unfortunate situation, but certainly something that needs to be addressed, and I believe it's the federal government that needs to address that, and they need to do it by changing the law, and they need to work through the Congress and do what they need to do in order to rectify what has taken place," Brewer said.

She continued: "I believe people ought to be here legally and they ought to be here with a lawful presence."

The deferred action program, which Obama announced during a June 15 press conference, allows the children of undocumented immigrants to apply for work authorization and reprieve from deportation. About 1.7 million individuals are estimated to be eligible for the program.

One of the ways I'm working against this amendment is by facilitating, weekly, a training called "Conversations with People You Know." It's a chance for folks to think about their realm of influence and the people they might hold sway with in gentle conversations over time: family, friends, neighbors, coworkers. It's just the kind of grassroots activism I love.

My co-facilitator and I are a good team, both longtime activists. The workshop itself is well-designed, and leading these has felt like a good use of myself. The only trouble is attendance. It's been dismal, not only at our sessions (so I don't personalize this) but at other trainings, phone banks, and events. Though I tell myself it's August in Minnesota and many people are "at the lake," it's kind of freaking me out.

We do two kinds of role play in the training. One involves what we call an "Un," someone who might be undecided or unsupportive, or whose opinion is unknown. In this role play we emphasize active listening, remaining openhearted, not getting triggered, not lecturing or ranting, and all the other things you'd expect. All of us, trainers included, stumble through these a bit, trying to find an authentic voice with which to speak from the heart about why the ballot initiative is hurtful to us. Every week people's stories brings tears to my eyes. People cry. Folks are very nervous about having these conversations, afraid of losing or fracturing relationships, afraid of being hurt by people they love. Most of the attendees are heterosexual allies; they are talking about their brother or best friend or grandchild when they share how this will hurt them. It is always moving.

The other kind of conversation we role play is one involving a known supporter, someone you know is going to vote against amending the constitution. In these conversations, you try to crank up their involvement a bit and move them from conviction about their own vote to committing to doing more to fight the amendment. Most workshop participants report much less anxiety about these conversations.

But in fact, for me, as the weeks go by, talking to inactive supporters is starting to trigger me more than talking to people who are going to vote against me. If I hear one more person (who isn't doing a thing about it) say, "Oh, don't worry, we're going to defeat this thing...," if I see one more person roll their eyes in annoyance that I think they should put their money where their values are, if one more person tells me how he or she is simply too busy to help out, I might scream.

In the training, we teach not to guilt, pressure, or get triggered in these conversations, as well. But I don't know how to say this calmly, so rant warning is now on Code Red! Here's my rant:

I'm old. This hurts me, but it doesn't surprise me. I'll move on. But I have a 16-year-old kid who is giving her entire summer to fight this thing because she is so upset about what it will mean for her state's constitution to proclaim baldly that her family is not a family, who says matter-of-factly (and I know just how stubborn this child is) that if the ballot initiative passes, she will leave Minnesota after high school and never look back. "You can come and see me," she tells me.

I know that our wonderful state has brought us not only Paul Wellstone and Al Franken (barely) but also Tim Pawlentey and Michele Bachmann. I know that not a single poll, yet, has put "no" voters in the majority, and that people lie in polls anyway, because they don't want to seem homophobic. So I really don't want to hear about how we're sure to win from people who are going their merry way and not doing anything to make it so!

Rant over. Please, my Minnesota friends, think about how you might give your best to this effort, so that you can wake up the day after the election knowing you did what you could, knowing that you can look kids like mine in the eye and say, "We gave it our best shot." As for me, I've committed at least five hours a week between now and the election to fighting this thing. I'd like to do more, but this is what I can shoehorn in and still sleep at night.

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES, Aug 17 (Reuters) - A medical marijuana trade group and 11 patients sued the city of Los Angeles on Friday, seeking to block enforcement of an ordinance that would shut down most of the city's storefront pot dispensaries in three weeks.

The lawsuit, which says users are protected by California's 1996 legalization of medical marijuana and the U.S. Constitution, seeks an immediate injunction to keep Los Angeles officials from shuttering dispensaries starting on Sept. 6.

The plaintiffs also hope to ultimately overturn the ban in Los Angeles, home to more pot shops than any other U.S. city, in litigation that marks the latest battle in a chaotic fight over medical marijuana that has sometimes pitted federal, state and local officials against each other.

"The medical marijuana center of the globe is L.A. just as much as the movie capital of the globe is L.A.," said Marc O'Hara, executive director of Patient Care Alliance, which filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court. "There are more dispensaries here than in the rest of the country."

City officials estimate there are some 750 registered dispensaries in Los Angeles and as many as 200 more without proper registration.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-0 in July to close down storefront medical marijuana shops in what Councilman Jose Huizar, who introduced the measure, called a "gentle ban" because it allowed for the drug to be cultivated and shared by groups of three patients or caregivers.

"Relief is coming in the form of having a more focused and intense crackdown on these dispensaries that cause problems in our neighborhoods," Huizar said at the time. Earlier this month authorities sent letters to store owners telling them to close by Sept. 6 or face fines and jail time.

State rules governing the distribution of medical marijuana remain fuzzy and judges and appeals courts have issued sometimes conflicting rulings on municipal attempts at regulation.

Huizar said in response to the lawsuit that a recent California appeals court decision had sided with Los Angeles over its efforts to rein in pot shops and was confident the "gentle ban" provided sufficient access to medical marijuana.

Patient Care attorney Arthur Hodge said the Los Angeles' ordinance amounted to an outright ban because it was impractical for groups of three people or less to cultivate medical-grade marijuana.

California became the first U.S. state to decriminalize medical marijuana in 1996 and was followed by 16 other states and the District of Columbia.

The law has caused friction with the federal government, which classifies cannabis as an illegal narcotic and makes no exemption for medicinal uses. Federal authorities under the Obama administration have sought to crack down on dispensaries in California and elsewhere in the U.S. West.

Hodge said he hoped for more clarity on the issue from the California Supreme Court, which he believes may take up the issue early next year.

"I hope that the Supreme Court comes down on our side and we can return to a compassionate approach," he said. "There shouldn't be a collective on every corner. I'm the first to say that. But this is an overreaction. It's throwing the baby out with the bath water." (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Dan Grebler, Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)

Erin McPike, RealClearPolitics
Nevada has the highest unemployment rate -- by far -- of any state in the country: an eye-popping 12 percent, according to new data released Friday.The Silver State has another dubious distinction: the country's highest housing foreclosure rate. According to a June report on CNBC, one out of every 115 Nevada households was in foreclosure.These numbers, combined with a population that is 5.6 percent Mormon, help explain why the Romney campaign believes it has a chance to eke out a narrow victory there in November. And yet, despite these staggering statistics, even Nevada-based Republicans...

Michael Warren, Weekly Standard
Hot Topics: Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you.Manassas, Va.NewscomAugust 11 had been a long day. By about 5 p.m., when the Romney for President bus reached this Washington suburb, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had traveled over 200 miles throughout Virginia. The new Republican ticket had held big rallies in Norfolk and Ashland, north of Richmond, ensuring plenty of coverage in the state's three largest media markets. For the final rally, Ryan walked onstage to big cheers and took the microphone. His shoulders slumped a little. His voice was hoarse. He stumbled...

As promised members of the Rochester 912 Project, Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC and other groups staged a rally and march to voice their opposition to President Barack Obama before his arrival at Rochester Commons.

WASHINGTON -- Four years ago, on the Sunday before Election Day 2008, members of predominantly African American congregations in Cleveland went straight from celebrating God to rejoicing in their right to vote.

"We had buses at every church that Sunday," recalled the Rev. Emmitt Theophilus Caviness, the 83-year-old pastor of Cleveland's Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church. "As soon as we left church, we got on the bus and went down to vote."

At the board of elections office, Caviness told HuffPost, "you would have seen long lines wrapped around corners. People were enthusiastic. They were having fun."

It was a first in so many ways. But one of the most important of those ways was the new Ohio law that allowed voting on a Sunday. "It never would have happened had we not had early voting -- the opportunity on the last weekend to participate in democracy," Caviness said.

Four year earlier, the November election in Ohio was a debacle. Shortages of voting machines in some minority neighborhoods led to thousands of voters giving up their franchise rather than waiting for as long as 10 hours for their turn. Other votes went uncounted.

In response, Ohio's legislature established early in-person voting, supplementing traditional Election Day voting and mail-in absentee ballots. Voters would now have 35 days before the election to cast ballots, including that final weekend. In 2008, some 93,000 Ohioans -- including the members of the Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church -- cast votes during those last three days before the election.

But early voting was apparently too much of a success for some people. In Ohio and four other states -- Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia -- Republican-led legislatures have dramatically reduced early voting in 2012 as part of what can only be explained as a concerted effort to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning voters. Other parts of that effort include voter ID bils, intimidation of voter registration groups and the purges of voter rolls.

In Ohio and Florida, two of the most critical swing states in this year's presidential election, the GOP early voting rollback specifically included a ban on voting on the Sunday before Election Day.

Early voting started off a wildly popular, bipartisan element of voting reform. Indeed, of all the voting reforms this country has seen over the last decades, early voting is easily the most unassailable. It makes voting more convenient for the public and makes Election Day easier for election officials. Because it generally happens at board of elections offices, it takes notoriously unreliable volunteer poll workers out of the picture.

But Republican leaders cooled on the idea after 2008. "It just so happened that this was the first time that early voting had been used in large numbers to mobilize African American and Latino voters," said Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

After the GOP won control of many statehouses in 2010, rolling back early voting became a top legislative priority. That meant reducing the period for early in-person voting in Florida from 14 to 8 days, and in Ohio, from 35 to 11. And no voting on Sunday before the election.

"I try to be an objective observer," said professor Paul Gronke, who runs the nonpartisan Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Oregon. "But the objective facts indicate there seem to be partisan motivations behind the ratcheting back of early in-person voting."

Research by an Ohio voter advocacy group found that blacks made up more than half the early in-person voters in 2008, compared with about a quarter of people who vote on Election Day or by mail.

Research by political scientists at Dartmouth College and the University of Florida concluded that "Democratic, African American, Hispanic, younger, and first-time voters were disproportionately likely to vote early in 2008 and in particular on weekends, including the final Sunday of early voting."

"We should be increasing access to vote, not taking it away," said Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a Cleveland Democrat. "You got a lot of working people, working-class folks, some people have to piece together three to four jobs, why wouldn't we have extended hours and extended days?"

The question ultimately answers itself. "For me, this is Jim Crow in the 21st century," Turner said. "Jim Crow has been resurrected. This is by design. It's not by accident."

Republican explanations for rolling back early voting include unsupported suggestions of voter fraud. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, said in a newspaper op-ed that his goal "has been to balance access and accuracy," and that he was simply trying to establish "a uniform system across the state" with the early voting rules.

But Pastor Caviness said he thinks Republicans were intimidated by seeing all those African-American churchgoers headed to vote -- "Souls to Polls" is what the black churches called it. "That seems to be the tenor and tune of where they're coming from," Caviness said. "Otherwise, why would you deny people the basic right to participate in democracy?"

In Ohio's heavily Democratic cities -- Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo -- early voting will be limited to working hours on weekdays in 2012. But, as the Cincinnati Inquirer reported recently, attempts to add extended hours at the local election boards have been blocked by Republicans in urban counties, "even as extended hours will be available in some smaller counties with a strong Republican slant."

The reason, as Ari Berman explained in the Nation, is that county boards of election in Ohio have two members from each party. Ties are broken by the secretary of state.

In solidly Republican counties, GOP election commissioners have approved expanded early voting hours -- because why not? But in Democratic counties, they've balked. And Husted, the man who said he supports the law because it will bring uniformity to the state, has backed them up.

The early voting changes in both Florida and Ohio face legal challenges. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the reduction, which she argued is discriminatory.

And President Barack Obama's campaign sued Husted last month, asking a federal court to restore voting during the last three days before the election on the grounds that the law grants unequal treatment to military families, who are allowed later polling access than other Ohio voters.

The Romney campaign tried to cast Obama's action as an attack on military voting rights. That claim, which a member of the New York Times editorial board termed "an extraordinary lie" -- was initially accepted stenographically by some political journalists, and spread like wildfire on social networks, before crumbling under the weight of its own mendacity.

Matt McClellan, Husted's press secretary, denied there was any partisan motivation behind the restriction in early voting. "The boards of election had requested that to have more opportunity to prepare for Election Day," McClellan told the Huffington Post. The Ohio Association of Election Officials "asked for it."

But Llyn McCoy, president of the election officials' group, disagreed: "I wouldn't say that we came out and started this," she said.

The election officials' group was asked to weigh in on the idea, McCoy said -- and it did end up voting in favor of reducing early voting days. But it was hardly unanimous. "It was a close vote," she said.

The biggest split was between officials from rural counties, who didn't feel the need for extended hours, and those from urban counties, who felt it strongly.

McCoy, deputy director of the board of elections in Greene County, a mostly Republican county outside Dayton, was nevertheless among the officials who argued in favor of voting during that final weekend.

"By and large, election officials, it's our job to make it easier for people to vote, not harder," she said. "That's where a lot of us came down."

People who follow the history of voting rights are amazed at the sudden turnaround in what had seemed irreversible momentum toward greater access to the ballot.

"We haven't seen a period of constricting the franchise like this since Jim Crow," Weiser said. "It really runs contrary to the American narrative."

Turner, the state senator from Cleveland, called it "pure racism."

"It's racist, it's sexist and it's classist," Turner said. "It's just flat-out un-American."

GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan took a swipe at President Barack Obama on Thursday for failing to rescue a General Motors factory in his Wisconsin congressional district, calling it "one more broken promise" on the Democratic administration's record.

"I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he'll keep that plant open," Ryan said during a campaign stop. "One of the reasons that plant got shut down was $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president's terrible energy policies are costing us jobs."

The attack has already received a fair amount of ridicule because the Janesville, Wis., plant actually closed during the last year of George W. Bush's presidency. What hasn't really been emphasized is whether Ryan clearly knew this and made the charge nonetheless.

According to a rudimentary LexisNexis search, Ryan made multiple public pleas to GM, including op-eds in his home state newspaper, to keep the plant open. He and fellow Wisconsin lawmakers went to the automobile company's headquarters to present plans to extend the plant's life. When the Bush administration itself called the decision to close the plant evidence that the auto industry was trimming fat and improving its bottom line, Ryan called the news "gut-wrenching."

And as it became clear in early-fall 2008 that GM wouldn't relent, Ryan publicly touted the federal tax money he secured to help displaced workers -- a use of funds that would seem at odds with his limited-government, fiscal conservative image.

The timeline is worth recounting now that it has popped up in Ryan's stump speech.

In April 29, 2008, it was announced that 750 workers at the GM plant in Janesville would lose their jobs. Ryan, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said he would "work closely with those in Janesville facing uncertainty in the months ahead and do all that I can to ensure that they get the assistance they need."

On May 1, 2008, then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), along with Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Ryan, sent a letter to Rick Wagoner, then GM CEO, urging the company to join government, community organizations and employers to help the affected workers.

"We ask that you give every consideration to maintaining GM's presence in Janesville, as well as taking future steps to ensure the continued success of the Janesville plant, including considering the assignment of new production models at the plant," the lawmakers wrote.

On May 4, 2008, Ryan wrote an op-ed in the Journal Sentinel calling for a comprehensive energy plan in light of the news that the GM plant was firing 750 people.

"As a fifth-generation native of Janesville, I grew up learning the old saying, "As GM goes, so goes Janesville,'" Ryan wrote.

It was announced in early June that GM would indeed close the Janesville plant and three others. Ryan said it was "gut wrenching."

Later, he joined Feingold and Kohl in writing another letter to Wagoner. "On May 1 of this year, we wrote to you asking that GM take future steps to ensure the continued success of the Janesville plant, including considering the assignment of new production models at the plant. We renew that request now," the letter read.

On June 4, the Bush administration framed GM's decision as evidence the troubled automaker was getting its finances in order.

The Bush White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said it was "a sign that Detroit continues to adapt and evolve and address the change in consumer tastes and attitudes. ... They're adapting well and they'll make these changes and hopefully be able to pull themselves up out of what has been a rough several years."

Then-Sen. Obama, who had visited the Janesville plant in February, issued a statement.

"My heart goes out to the workers and families affected by the closing of these GM plants," he said. "Today's news is a painful reminder not only of the challenges America faces in our global economy, but of George Bush's failed economic policies." He finished by pledging to help domestic automakers "with the funding they need to retool their factories and make fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel cars. And we'll invest in efforts to make sure that the cars of the future are made where they always have been -- in the United States."

Ryan was quoted in a Detroit News article that day. "Growing up and living in Janesville, this is something we've always feared," the congressman said, calling the closure "a big psychological and economic blow to our community and our state; but Janesville will survive this, because we simply have to survive this."

By September of 2008, Ryan, who supported the auto bailout so long as the funds didn't come from the financial sector bailout, was still working aggressively to get GM to change its mind. He, along with Feingold and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), met with company officials in Detroit and "made clear what a tremendous asset the people of Janesville's GM plant are to GM, and how important GM jobs are to the Janesville community." On Sept. 13, the Herald Times Reporter said Ryan and then-Gov. Jim Doyle (D) had presented an "aggressive incentive plan" to GM leaders.

But by then, GM's shutdown plans were set. On Oct. 11, 2008, the Journal Sentinel reported that GM would announce it would close the Janesville plant around Christmas, "at least a year earlier than the company had initially projected."

Less than a month earlier, Ryan was making preparations to help the displaced workers and using federal funds to pick up the tab. On Sept. 18, his office put out a statement that it had joined forces with the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Agency to secure a $450,000 grant to support economic initiatives for the Janesville area.

"This has been a gut-wrenching summer for southern Wisconsin," Ryan said, "and today's announcement provides our community with much-needed support. I remain firmly optimistic that Janesville's best days are ahead."

On Oct. 2, Ryan announced that the U.S. Department of Labor had awarded a $1.6 million national emergency grant to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. The money would help "dislocated workers in Rock County's automotive industry, including workers at General Motors, Lear Corporation, Logistics Services Inc., and United Industries."

Pussy Riot: the name of a Russian activist punk music collective has become a symbol of protest and defiance worldwide, even more so after the convictions today of 3 Pussy Riot members in a Russian court for "hooliganism." New of Pussy Riot's verdict has gone global, but one thing is conspicuously missing from the American media's reporting on the women: the band's name.

Sure, we Americans have always been a bit puritanical about provocative language on our airwaves, but the irony of our First-Amendment-defending media censoring Pussy Riot's name is unavoidable. If even Russian state television can say "Pussy Riot," why can't we?

Jay Cost, Weekly Standard
The conventional wisdom on the state of the 2012 presidential race is that, thanks to his endorsement of the House GOP Budget and his selection of Paul Ryan to be his running mate, Mitt Romney has opened himself up to one of the Democrats' favorite attacks -- fear-mongering over Medicare, or "Mediscare."This consensus is wrong; instead, the Democrats are much more vulnerable on this issue in 2012.Why is that?

Our nation’s democracy is in a crisis. We are facing the biggest challenge to our nation since its inception. No, there is not an armed rebellion going on, but, oh, is there a war -- a silent, insidious, invidious, nefarious, absolutely downright ugly war. And the war is on the right to vote for American citizens.

-- Barbara Arnwine, July 2012

At the Children's Defense Fund’s recent national conference Barbara Arnwine, the Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a leader of Election Protection, the nation's largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition, issued an urgent call to action. Right now assaults on voting rights across the country in advance of the 2012 elections are keeping her very busy.

Arwine said 25 million Americans who had voted in 2008 did not vote in the 2010 midterm elections, and when new state legislators came into power after those elections, their first priority was figuring out how to keep those 25 million people from returning to the polls. Legislators in 35 states quickly drafted bills making it harder for people to vote: “everything from photo ID laws, to laws restricting early voting, to laws making it harder for third-party registration groups to register people to vote, to laws making it harder for people to vote on Sundays because in many states that’s when Latinos and African-Americans voted the heaviest, to laws restricting student voting.” Arnwine said the lawmakers behind these bills were counting on the targeted voters not noticing what was happening until it was too late.

But, she said, “they forgot that we stand on the shoulders of giants who we will never let down ... we get up in the morning and we say that we cannot negate the legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer; that we will never forget the legacy of Cesar Chavez; that we never will negate the legacy of Mr. Korematsu; that we never can sit back and let rights be stolen.” Arnwine then shared her Map of Shame: Voter Suppression Legislation by State, that shows all of us who are ready to fight back exactly where the battlegrounds are.

The map’s original title was the Map of Voter Suppression in the United States, but one day as Arnwine was studying an early version she heard her late father’s voice in her head saying what he always did when he saw something wrong: “That’s a sin and a shame.” It’s a sin and a shame that in 2012 we are still fighting the same battles for voting rights that have been going on since the nation was founded and facing some of the same Jim Crow-era voter suppression tactics we hoped were dead and buried after the Civil Rights Movement. But as Frederick Douglass taught us, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” So the first step for every one of us is to become familiar with the Map of Shame, especially the current and proposed voting laws in our own states.

Then we each need a plan. Arnwine and her colleagues are doing their part by suing states whose proposed laws violate the Voting Rights Act. But Arnwine stressed that every person can do something to fight in this war on the right to vote, and we each need to decide now how we will execute our roles. Begin by using traditional networks and social networks to make sure every single person you know is a “V.I.P.”: they have verified their voter registration status; they have the right identification for their state; and they know their precinct.

The last is important, Arnwine said, “because the biggest devilment that goes on in these elections are what we call deceptive practices -- people are going to get robocalls, and they’re going to get fliers that claim they’re from the NAACP and everything, telling people to go to the wrong polling place . . . if they're in the wrong polling places, in most states their vote will not count.” Securing “V.I.P.” status is critical to making sure people will not be disenfranchised on Election Day.

Next, Arnwine said, we need to counter the organized groups who are already planning to send “poll watchers” to African-American, Latino, and student voting places to intimidate and harass voters, and we need to “get [our] friends to become poll workers, official poll workers, because that’s what they’re doing -- they’re putting them inside of the polling places also, so they can challenge people on the inside and nobody will know what they’re doing. So we need good people sitting next to them, making sure that people have access to the ballot.” Now is the time to sign up for these roles.

We can also volunteer at Election Protection Coalition Command Centers to help watch out for local problems. Finally, on Election Day every one of us must do the basic job of helping other people get to the polls -- as Arnwine says even “if you’re bedridden get up in the morning and call everybody you know: ‘Are you going to vote today?’”

Arnwine summed up this way: “There is a role for everybody. Don’t forget. If you forget everything that I said today, if you remember nothing, just remember this one thing: that we can only win this fight if you fight.” We cannot stand by and let the right to vote be taken away again on our watch. Every one of us must decide what we can do in the fight to protect voting rights today. There’s no time to waste.

This article comes to us courtesy of SF Weekly's The Snitch.

By Chris Roberts

There isn't much agreement over who uses medical marijuana, and why. There's dispute over even the nomenclature: cannabis users refer to themselves as "patients," as do some state and local laws; some in law enforcement and in the August halls of government, officials dole out far less-accommodating terms.

We remember well the captain of a certain Bay Area police force tell us, on record, that he had no issue with old and dying folks using marijuana "if it's the law." However, the only people he saw outside the town's lone dispensary, long since shut-down, fit a very different demographic.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO)

"They're all young and healthy," he complained, going further to say that they fit the appearance more of the crime-prone urban male than a "seriously ill Californian," for whom Proposition 215 allows the legal use of marijuana. Indeed, most medical marijuana users are youngish, employed, and white, according to a study conducted by a University of California Santa Cruz professor last year.

Harborside Health Center CEO Stephen DeAngelo disagrees. The people who will be forced to try and find pot on the street if the federal government is forced to shut down are folks you'd see on an evening BART ride home from work -- if the BART ride is mostly older men and women, half of whom are of color.

Take a look at their video they use as evidence (story continues below):

"I'm 64," one says. "I'm 61," says another. Not quite young healthy blunt-rollers.

A study in Colorado, where medical marijuana users must register with the state and must also declare their condition, revealed that most cannabis use relieves people of chronic pain. Here, the patients' illnesses run the gamut: arthritis, lung cancer, pain.

This is typical of the patient crowd in Harborside Health Center at any given day, DeAngelo told SF Weekly on Wednesday. About 20 percent of Harborside's 108,000 patients are seniors, he said, and racially, it's about one would expect at any kind of East Bay establishment. "Some have evident medical conditions, some have not so evident medical conditions," said DeAngelo, who noted that younger Harborside customers volunteered to be in the video, too, but failed to show up for the taping (the jokes, they write themselves).

Harborside, recall, is the latest and biggest target of U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag's war on state-legal medical marijuana; the feds have shut down over a dozen dispensaries in the Bay Area since Oct. 7, 2011. The nation's biggest dispensary, which has locations in Oakland as well as San Jose, is under federal pressure to close because of its size, Haag said last month.

The oft-repeated warning is that if state-legal, city-licensed, taxpaying dispensaries shut down, those in need of the drug will go to the streets, lining the pockets of gang and cartel members rather than the city general fund (HHC is Oakland's second-biggest taxpayer).

But if Harborside closes, the situation is even worse, DeAngelo said: Folks like the grandparents in the video will simply go without. People as young as five years old and as old as 90 visit these dispensaries because of the wide variety of medicine available. Not simply different tasting or smelling strains, but a topical rub that's non psychoactive, or a cannabis-based sleep aid.

Even if these people did try to buy pot on the street -- which is itself unlikely, DeAngelo said --- there's no way a street dealer or even five or so patients growing pot together can provide that kind of care.

"The crazy allegation is that because of our size, we're doing something wrong," DeAngelo said. "It's crazy because by virtue of our size, we're able to do things like develop special formulations. Nobody on the street can replicate that -- most other dispensaries can't replicate that."

WASHINGTON -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that the press is too focused on "a joke" that President Barack Obama made Tuesday about Mitt Romney's late dog.

During a campaign event in Iowa, Obama criticized Romney for saying in March, "You can't drive a car with a windmill on it." Obama's speech was largely centered on the state's potential for creating jobs via wind energy, but he found a way to work in a reference to the dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus.

"You can’t drive a car with a windmill on it," Obama said. “I don’t know if [Romney] actually tried that. I know he’s had other things on his car."

Obama was referring to a Romney family trip to Canada in 1983, during which Seamus rode in a crate on top of the car for the 12-hour drive. The family told the Boston Globe in 2007 that Romney had planned only to stop for gas, but when Seamus suffered a bout of diarrhea that streamed down the car windows, Romney had to pull over to hose off the car and dog. Then he kept driving.

Carney said Obama's reference to the dog was just "a joke," and pointed out that the president had only alluded to Seamus once amid three different speeches that day.

"Just like the Romney campaign and others have joked about the fact that, in the president's memoir, he talked about as a boy eating dog meat in Indonesia because that is something that's done there," he said. "I think a little levity is a lot different from the kind of ridiculous charges that are being made" on the campaign trail.

Carney went on to chide reporters for writing about the president's Seamus reference when the focus of his speech was the "substantive policy issue" that is renewable energy.

"One joke as an aside should not become the focus of the campaign or the coverage of the campaign," he said. "Maybe I am naive to think that a one-line joke about a dog would not have been the principal focus of the coverage of the president for the day."

Byron York, Examiner
While the Obama Justice Department, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, uses its authority to block some state voter ID laws (Texas), and investigate others (Pennsylvania), a newly-released poll shows overwhelming public support for laws requiring voters to present identification before casting a ballot.  That support crosses party lines, racial lines, economic lines, educational lines, and just about every other line in the electorate at large.In the survey, the Washington Post asked, "In your view, should voters in the United States be required to show official, government-issued...

Mitt Romney's selection of running mate Paul Ryan has launched the Wisconsin congressman's controversial budget plan to the forefront of political contests across the country -- sometimes to the chagrin of more moderate Republican candidates.

The latest example: In New York's 27th district, House hopeful Chris Collins declined Tuesday to say whether he supports the Medicare overhaul proposed by his party's presumptive vice presidential nominee.

Collins is challenging Rep. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) in what had been one of that state's most conservative districts until Hochul's unexpected election two years ago.

"I'm saying I'm going to be part of one of 435 members of the Congress that's going to debate the next budget that's going to be put forth by President Romney," Collins told a WGRZ reporter who pressed him about whether he would support significant changes to Medicare.

Under Ryan's Medicare outline, the program would offer a fixed amount of money to senior citizens in the future, an approach that the Congressional Budget Office says will hike out-of-pocket contributions from those same recipients down the road.

Collins' reluctance to embrace Ryan's budget plan is not without political foresight.

In 2010, Hochul pulled off an upset victory over Republican opponent Jane Corwin after attacking Corwin for her support of the Ryan plan.

The surprising outcome of the special election was widely viewed as a warning sign that Ryan's Medicare proposals could be more of a political liability than an asset heading into the next round of congressional races in 2012.

Democrats have not been shy about their intention to make Medicare a central issue of this year's contests, especially with Ryan on the ticket. On Tuesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced that it will begin calling up the constituents of 50 GOP lawmakers who voted for the Ryan budget.

10 more election stories from beyond the presidential field:

U.S. House Candidate Announces Plan To Ensure FEMA Funding [Vermont Public Radio]

Republican Candidates Push For Term Limits In Washington [GoLocalProv]

Gay Candidate Wins Democratic Primary In Wis. Congressional Bid [Washington Blade]

Angus King Vows To Help New Balance By Halting Talks To Eliminate Duties On Imported Shoes [Kennebec Journal]

Kaine Uses Ryan To Attack Allen On Entitlements [Washington Examiner]

McAleer Hails Dem Stance On Gay Marriage [Salt Lake Tribune]

Candidate Smith Stands With Gatsas On Civil Rights Issue [Union Leader]

Gregg Releases Campaign's First TV Commercial [Statehouse File]

Eric Stewart Creates Website Calling For 4th District Debate [Nooga.com]

Tarkanian Seeks Court Help In Fight Against $17 Million Judgment [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

Last week, Florida's former Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer appeared on my TV show, Politics Nation on MSNBC, and candidly discussed how the GOP in his state systematically pushed for harsh new voter ID laws in order to suppress the vote -- specifically that of African Americans and young people. Blowing the lid off of insider meetings, Greer said his party gave up on courting minority voters and instead began seeking methods to disenfranchise and purge as many of them from participating as possible. He confirmed what some of us have long argued, and he provided a backdrop into what is transpiring all across the country in advance of the upcoming presidential election. Well today, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a judge ruled in favor of upholding the draconian Republican-supported voter ID law. This outrageous ruling is a slap in the face to democracy, and a slap in the face to all those who sacrificed so dearly in order to secure our liberties.

In what can only be described as a shocking and appalling ruling, Commonwealth Judge Robert Simpson has sided with those who would seek to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of otherwise eligible voters just a few months before Election Day. While Simpson said he was disturbed by statements made by Pennsylvania state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (who openly said voter ID laws would allow Gov. Romney to win Pennsylvania), he believed that state officials would be able to enforce these laws in a "nonpartisan, even-handed manner." But when the entire premise of a law is partisan to begin with, the idea of fairness is preposterous and insulting at best.

The Pennsylvania Transportation Department estimates that approximately 9 perent of registered voters -- or 750,000 people -- lack state-issued photo IDs in the state and will not be able to cast a ballot this November. And it should come as no surprise that a majority of these folks are the poor, the elderly, people of color, the disabled and young folks. In other words, they represent a massive voting block of the Democratic Party and came out in unprecedented numbers for the 2008 election. Judge Simpson, a Republican, stated that he was 'skeptical' of the 9 percent figure and that opponents of these voter ID laws failed to make a case of voter suppression. But what Simpson should have focused on instead was the inability of proponents of these laws to prove that voter fraud exists in the first place. Once again unable to provide valid proof that voter fraud is an actual threat, these Republican lawmakers have argued a solution looking for a problem. And the truly unfortunate part is that they have thus far succeeded in the state of Pennsylvania.

For the past few weeks, I have traveled to key areas like Ohio, Georgia, Alabama and Florida as part of my Voter Engagement Tour. Because these new voter ID laws range from an elimination of early/absentee voting to new photo ID requirements and more, citizens must be educated as to what tactics are in play in their respective state. They then must organize to get as many voters the appropriate IDs or other documents in order to counteract the repressive measures that will impact them this election. My organization, National Action Network, and I will now be sure to visit Pennsylvania in the immediate future. We will rally folks, and assist churches and civil rights groups with getting their congregants/members registered and helping them to obtain photo IDs.

While there may be time for people to appeal Judge Simpson's ruling, we will not take the chance. Many of those impacted by these laws cannot afford to take time off from work or cannot make it to a state agency that can administer the IDs. Many are elderly who may not even possess a birth certificate, let alone a vehicle to get to the polls. And many just need clarity as to what will now be required. We will do our part to prepare people as much as possible, and get as many eligible souls to the polls, but all of us need to take action.

Today's unfortunate ruling is a clear upholding of voter suppression, but it is not the first time we've witnessed systematic methods of blocking the vote in this nation. It was a broad coalition of activists, religious leaders, lawmakers and citizens from diverse backgrounds that fought disenfranchisement in the past. During that time, some even gave their lives. If we've survived church bombings, brute force and more, we should at least be able to empower and assist the less fortunate among us to combat those who simply cannot win based on their own Party's platform alone. We must take action; no excuses. The ones who are attempting to block us aren't hesitating, and neither should we.