Via the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first African-American woman to represent Ohio in Congress, has died after suffering a brain aneurysm, said sources familiar with the situation.

She was removed from life support at 12:19 p.m. at Huron Road Hospital, the sources said.

Tubbs Jones, 58, served as a Cuyahoga County judge and prosecutor before succeeding U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes. She has served five terms in Congress and was expected to easily win her sixth in November.

Our hearts go out to her family and friends.

Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent point.

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Crazy, huh?

Sad news:

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, is reported to have suffered an aneurysm and is not expected to recover, according to CBS affiliate WOIO in Cleveland.

WOIO also reported that the congresswoman is on life support at this time.

The station reported today that she was transported overnight to Huron Hospital in Cleveland after police found her in her car last evening.

There's an ongoing discussion in ClevelandEgghead's recommended diary as well.

The Daily Kos community extends best wishes to her family, friends and constituents during this difficult time.

So over at the post announcing the launch of my book, I saw a couple of people freaking out -- freaking out!!!! -- that McCain has the lead in some national polls.

So I sauntered over to Pollster.com to see what all the hoopla was about, and clicked through to their national polls page.  Then I rolled my eyes when I saw that the poll causing such aneurysms was ....

A Zogby poll.

Some people are frackin' hopeless. Really. At the same time, a new Q-poll has Obama up five, Gallup has him up three (after being tied a couple of days ago), Ras has him up two, as does Bloomberg/Times.

Look, the race is tightening at the national level, but it's much less tight when you look at the state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency. So while it's not exactly a cakewalk, freaking out over single polls from shitty, discredited pollsters like Zogby is pretty pathetic.

We've got the veep announcements and the conventions to get through, and then the race will start in earnest. Be zen. Freaking out over crappy pollsters is just lame. Keep your eye on the composite -- Obama still leads that by 1.4 percent -- and maintain perspective -- McCain has never crossed the 45 percent threshold while Obama bobs between 45 and 50.

I'll be officially worried when McCain shows the ability to break that barrier of support. If he suddenly starts hovering in the upper 40s, then we might have trouble. But ultimately, this is a state-by-state battle. And in the electoral college fight, Obama still has a solid lead -- without even taking into account the ground machine Obama is building (pollsters aren't).

These days you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an article speculating about potential vice presidential running mates for Barack Obama or John McCain. But today's entry from the New York Times does include one line that's worth noting, when the concerns of social conservatives about the possibility of McCain choosing the pro-choice Tom Ridge is dismissed by other conservatives who said:

...that Mr. McCain’s recent public flirtation with Tom Ridge, a former Pennsylvania governor who supports abortion rights, was as much to give the appearance that Mr. McCain had an open mind on the issue as it was an embrace of Mr. Ridge.

So, these anonymous conservatives cheerfully admit that McCain willingly misled people about a possible running mate to "give the appearance" of an open mind. There's some straight talk for you.

What better way to mark the launch of Taking on the System than this great review by Al Giordano?

Kos dedicates Taking on the System to his wife and kids and also “for Saul Alinsky... The tactics may change, but the soul of the radical endures.”

The work also begins with an Alinsky quotation: “Conflict is the essential core of a free and open society.”

The book, purposefully and transparently, is a 21st century update of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971, Random House). Where Alinsky summarized community organizing techniques in phrases quick enough to fit on a bumpersticker (“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules,” and, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon”), so does Moulitsas (“Bypass the gatekeepers,” “Raise an army,” “Target your villain,” “Craft your hero,” etcetera).

Moulitsas’ distaste for those he calls “gatekeepers” is what got him into the battle:

“I started the site for a simple reason – I felt ill-served by the undemocratic gatekeeping mentality so prevalent in our society. And, at that time, we seemed to be on an inexorable march toward war with no avenue for dissent. There was an assumption by the powers that be that the rest of the citizen body couldn’t think for ourselves. That we needed self-appointed and so-called experts to tell us what to think, what to do, and what we should – or should not – know. For far too long, these gatekeepers controlled the national conversation.”

Kos expands his anti-gatekeeper view of politics to other key sectors of society: the media, the music industry, and Hollywood among them. Don’t presume that this is a book about Democratic Party politics: It is only marginally so. It’s about organizing in any and every field where creative individuals and communities must learn to bypass or to crush the self-appointed wardens (what, a dozen years ago, when confronting the problem in my own profession of journalism, I called “the middlemen”) [...]

There are a couple of things I'm glad Al focused on -- 1) this isn't a book about blogging. It's a book about organizing for change. And 2) this isn't necessarily a book about politics. Sure, the majority of my examples come from the political realm, but I also use non-political examples to make clear that the lessons to be learned are universal. So while my day-to-day writing may be focused on electoral matters, I took advantage of the book format to move beyond that niche. The netroots doesn't have a monopoly

Al's bottom line?

This is the most coherent guide to political organizing – on or off the Internet – penned in a generation.

That is a truly humbling sentence coming from a long-time activist like Al, and one who has previously wrestled with these issues. As I've said before, I am really proud of this book, and I'm glad people are finding it so useful. And not just my (friendly) colleagues in the movement, but non-interested outsiders as well.

And so it begins. Via Ben Smith:

Scott McClellan advises Obama, in an interview with my colleague Daniel Libit, not to investigate the Bush administration — because it would, McClellan says, damage Obama's image. (Not that former Bushies have anything at stake in that choice.) [...]

[W]hen asked what advice he would give to a President Barack Obama or Democratic Congress on the matter of handling former Bush officials, McClellan speaks now of the perils of probing the past.

“If Obama were to win,” he said last week, “that would be an issue his administration would have to face early ... because he’s pledging to be a uniter, not a divider — without saying those exact words we campaigned on in 2000. He’s pledging to change the way Washington works, and if Congress were to pursue that, it would be very divisive.”

He continued: “That could be very problematic for his presidency right off the start.”

Investigations would be "divisive." Good Lord. I'd praise myself for predicting that exact sentiment weeks ago, but it's just too damn obvious.

I have no doubt that every pundit in America will be echoing that line come January. No doubt whatsoever. The Bush administration is over, let's just forget all about that stuff and get on with our lives.... screw torture and DOJ scandal, the Democrats have to rise above such divisiveness and petty thoughts of, you know, accountability for illegal acts. Blah blah fucking blah.

Accountability is for little people. That's the be-all, end-all message of the Bush administration. From Enron to Plame to FISA to the DOJ to torture, there is no larger philosophy at work. I'm in charge, so fuck you. And the odds are that the Dems will go along, Obama included, because that's the easier path.

Am I the only one here who's been slowly devolving into the feeling that this whole "trying to make government better" thing has been a useless exercise, at this point? Nothing like repeatedly being told by the press, the pundits, the government, the political opposition and your supposed political allies that any talk of good government, or rational decision making, or even, fuck it, consequences for illegal acts is just cruel partisanship and/or pie-in-the-sky dreaming.

I expect members of the Bush administration, McClellan included, to make frequent and urgent-sounding arguments that members of the Bush administration shouldn't be investigated after they've left office. But I almost can't wait to see how many of the usual "serious" hacks and lifelong politicos go along with it. You know, just to make sure it's not "divisive."

Netroots Nation San Francisco
Join us to celebrate the release of Markos Moulitsas' new book: Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 7–9 P.M.
HOUSE OF SHIELDS
39 NEW MONTGOMERY STREET
SAN FRANCISCO

Liberal eats+drinks. Stimulating conversation. Progressive camaraderie.

TICKETS
$40 general, $125 host committee*
RSVP at nnsf08.eventbrite.com

The book is out today. I'm so excited! If you're in the Bay Area, hope to see you tonight, everyone else, I hope you pick up a copy of the book and share your thoughts on it.

Wednesday's a good day to abbreviate.

Thomas Friedman:

If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal for rank short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams.

So, basically, everyone was wrong except me. What did we expect?

Michael Gerson: I agree with Tom about the first two, but we did everything right. I never criticize my former boss, anyway. That's not why the WaPo gave me this column.

David Ignatius:

McCain likes zingers. We've all seen that mischievous look -- just before he shot a quip or sarcastic one-liner at GOP rivals such as former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. It's one of his appealing qualities, but in this case it worries me. Zingers don't make good foreign policy. They embolden friends and provoke adversaries -- and in the Georgia crisis, that has proved to be a deadly combination.

Maureen Dowd: What if Clinton and McCain each, for their own reasons, wanted Obama to lose? How clever of me to think of that all by myself.

Kathleen Parker: I agree with the mainstream Daily Kos; that church venue should never have happened. Thomas Jefferson's rolling over in his grave.

Ruth Marcus:

It's not that Obama has a problem with female voters. To the contrary, he does significantly better among women than among men. It sounds paradoxical, but the campaign, lagging badly among white men, may have its biggest growth potential among female voters. Women, especially women without a college education, tend to make up their minds later. Recent polls show twice as many women as men are undecided.

John Stossel:

The Idiocy of Energy Independence

It's amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good.

It's amazing how pundits with shit for brains become popular merely because they get column space.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Breakfast...served up by Jack Cafferty on a silver platter (See also czardingus's diary. And then remind me again why Obama's surrogates rarely speak this plainly.)

Start with a juicy melon wedge:

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries.

Some toast with jam (blueberry's my favorite):

Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?

Eggs Benedict:

He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question -- his wife is worth a reported $100 million -- he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich. One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has---virtually none.

Home fries:

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost.

And a fresh cup of coffee:

Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been. I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

Urp! When's lunch?

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Almost every Tuesday is primary day somewhere, it seems, and today Wyoming and Washington state get the honors.

The most hotly contested primary race of interest is the Republican race in Wyoming's at-large U.S. House district, where Republican Barbara Cubin's retirement has created an exciting open-seat race.

Orange to Blue Democrat Gary Trauner is the Democratic nominee, while four Republicans (two of them serious candidates) squared off for the nomination.

The GOP nomination, which was contested primarily between wealthy rancher Mark Gordon and Wyoming State Treasurer Cynthia Lummis, has apparently gone Lummis' way. She won by 9 points, 46% to 37%.

That's just fine for Trauner, as he won't have to face Gordon's self-funding capabilities ($1 million of his $1.2 million raised was out of pocket), nor his favorable profile (seems to be a good fit for Wyoming, as a rancher).

Lummis has won statewide office before, it is true. But she also has a longstanding feud with popular Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal, which may spur the Governor to campaign harder for Trauner this cycle than he did during Trauner's narrow 2006 loss.

As mcjoan noted earlier, this was an exceptionally ugly primary, and there may well be bad blood between Lummis' supporters, and Gordon's, for several months. Also, both GOP candidates have dumped their financial resources into this race, while Trauner, running unopposed, sits on a nice nest egg of $660,000.

Meanwhile, it is also primary day in Washington State, and the inaugural primary for their "top two" system. This is somewhat similar to Louisiana's old "jungle primary" in that the top two finishers advance to the general, regardless of party. However, unlike the jungle primary, you can't win the whole thing by getting 50% on election day; it is a real primary election.

There are no real competitive primaries at the federal level in Washington state this time out, so this is essentially a beauty contest for general-election candidates. Turnout is expected to be high for a primary in Washington, due to their mail-in ballot system. As such, some were touting the Washington primaries as a preview of the general election matchups between Governor Christine Gregoire and her Republican opponent Dino Rossi, and between Republican Rep. Dave Reichert and his opponent, Orange to Blue Democrat Darcy Burner.

If they are previews of the general, however, we haven't learned anything we didn't know before; both election are going to be very close.

Gregoire is currently edging Rossi, 48% to 46%. She will likely finish the night with a slim lead as well.

Meanwhile, Burner trails Reichert, 47% to 44%, as of last note. However, the total Democratic vote in WA-08 currently exceeds 50%, which is good news.

Given the vagaries of the mail-in system, it's unlikely that results will be official until tomorrow or even Thursday. So good night to you all; we will post the percentages for WA-Gov and WA-08 as soon as we can.

Update: It's now 9 AM Eastern, and well under 50% of precincts are in, both statewide and in WA-08. This may take a while.

On the web:
Darcy Burner for Congress
Gary Trauner for Congress
Orange to Blue ActBlue Page

Tonight's Rescue Ranger streetcar riders are yashua, vcmvo2, jennyjem, dopper0189, dadanation, and jlms qkw, with YatPundit at the motorman's controls of the 1923-vintage Perley A. Thomas Editmobile.

• wecouldbefamous ominously notes how the education reconstruction plan for New Orleans ends up permanently "shrinking" the footprint of the city itself in Neoliberalism Amok In Plan For New Orleans Schools. (vcmvo2)
• ThatPoshGirl analyzes how the crashing economy is affecting college financial aid in Student loan system in crisis: Can we save it? (vcmvo2)
• kameraDSM discusses the implications of some rather grim statistics in If moral greatness were a medal count, America would not be No. 1. (jlms qkw)
• In a victory for equality, Dirk McQuigley writes about a recent court decision ruling that a doctor has to treat gay people the same way as straight people.Cal Supreme Ct rules MD violated rights of gay patient. Nondiscrimination--what a novel concept! (dopper0189)
• webuyitgreen concludes this five-part series on the difference between buying, and thus supporting, Fair Trade, Direct Trade, and Starbucks coffee in Fair Trade, Direct Trade, and Starbucks: Who Serves the Best Cup of Clear Conscience? (vcmvo2)
• Look no further -- Justin Alexander's Why Voodoo Economics Don't Work - The Quick and Dirty Version lays bare the truth behind the myth of "supply side economics." (dadanation)
• fbihop shares on-the-ground reporting and photography in New Mexico: My weekend with the Dem candidates. (jlms qkw)
• Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse illustrates that McCain is not telling the truth about his "support" for renewable energy sources in McCain's Wind Energy Double-Talk Express. (vcmvo2)
• Avenging Angel spells out step-by-step how the republican candidate is not like you and me in The Haves, the Have Mores and John McCain. (jlms qkw)
• Paul Anderson details a more appropriate (and frightening) frame of reference for the Republican Party's presumptive presidential candidate in McBush? What about McNixon?. (dadanation)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: August 18, 2008.

brillig has Top Comments: 8/19/08 Spare Change Edition.

As always, please feel free to join the Diary Rescue team by posting your picks in this Open Thread.

Announcing a running mate via text messages is only the latest indication that the Obama campaign is really the first 21st century campaign in American politics. Not only is it an absolutely brilliant way to have active voters volunteer what is probably their most reliable contact info (you can gloss over an email, ignore a call via caller ID, but text messages cry out to be read), but it also provides the campaign with an immediate way of contacting (read: mobilizing) thousands of voters in an instant.  

That said, using a new medium to make the announcement raises questions. A friend writes via email:

So what do you all think the text message will be? Will it be quick and easy: "Biden" or text-hip: "BO <3 Kaine" or more formal: "Barack chooses Sen. Evan Bayh (IN) as VP"</p>

Will it include an appeal for $?

Thoughts?  How do you think The Message will read?

As we stand on the eve of the real election season, two new national polls today (LA Times/Bloomberg and Q-poll) along with the daily trackers (Rasmussen and Gallup) continue to show a tight race with a small Obama lead.

LA Times/Bloomberg
Registered Voters (June) MoE +/- 3
Obama  45 (49)
McCain 43 (37)

This poll shows the most movement, with the last polling in June.

The latest Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows that Obama, the first black major-party nominee, may have defused the issue of race, particularly among independents who will form a crucial voting bloc in the November election...

The deteriorating economy and rising energy costs "have been major issues for so long and voters blame the Republicans and George Bush for the problems," says Susan Pinkus, the Los Angeles Times polling director. Still, Pinkus says, McCain has benefited from voters' concerns about Obama's experience and ability to handle an international crisis.

Note that when this poll had Obama up by 12 in June, it was dismissed as an outlier along with the equally volatile Newsweek poll. Today's numbers are consistent what other polls show (see rest of post.) According to the news article, Obama still benefits from increased D enthusiasm. The LA Times version speculates on McCain negative attacks because Obama's fav/unfav now resemble McCain's. OTOH,

The poll found that McCain, long an unpopular figure among conservatives, has had more success than Obama in rallying his party's base. Nine out of 10 Republicans favor McCain, while just under 8 in 10 Democrats support Obama.

But independents, who could wind up deciding the election, favor Obama, 47% to 36%.

And Obama's backers are more enthusiastic than McCain's, suggesting that the Democrat holds greater potential for a strong turnout of supporters. The poll found that 78% of Obama's supporters were enthusiastic about his candidacy; 61% of McCain's backers felt that way.

Bottom line is that, like in other polls, the GOP base has consolidated while the Dem base, while more enthusiastic, has not. Obama has room to move up, but it'll take work to get there. And then there are the conventions, which, based on these numbers, come at the right time for Obama. How much upward room there is for McCain remains unclear, based on what is a poor showing amongst indies (Obama favored by 11) and the stated 9 in 10 GOP voters picking McCain. In all the polls, base support is a major difference between the candidates, though I haven't seen the cross-tabs or the exact figures (or the party ID numbers, for that matter.) But if indies favor Obama by that much, he's in decent shape.

Quinnipiac
Likely Voters  (July) MoE +/- 2.5

Obama   47  (50)
McCain  42  (37)

Notes:

In the presidential matchup, McCain leads 46 - 41 percent among men, up from 47 - 44 percent July 15, and 48 - 40 percent among white voters, compared to 49 - 42 percent last month. He also leads 65 - 25 percent among white Evangelical Christians, up from 61 - 29 percent.

But Obama leads 53 - 39 percent among women, compared to 55 - 36 percent last month, and 94 - 4 percent among black voters. The Democrat leads 55 - 36 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old, compared to 63 - 31 percent last month. Obama's strength among voters 35 to 54 is up from 48 - 44 percent to 49 - 41 percent. McCain leads 47 - 40 percent among voters over 55, compared to a 45 - 44 percent split July 15.

Independent voters shift from a 44 - 44 percent split to a 45 - 39 percent Democratic tilt.

"The poll underlines Sen. Barack Obama's strengths and weaknesses. Strengths: He leads overall and he's strong with women, even stronger among young folks and astronomically strong with blacks. Weaknesses: Sen. John McCain beats him among white voters, men, older folks and white Catholics," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Also, theGallup tracker has Obama 45 and McCain 44 (RV) while Rasmussen has Obama 47, McCain 45 (LV, with leaners).

With the VP choices and conventions about to start, the polls reflect the state of the race as of now. As of now, Obama as a tightening but small lead. And as of now is about to change. Maybe McCain will figure out how to get above 44% (or, for a change, lead.) Maybe Obama will finish consolidating wavering Dems and shore up his standing with the senior set.

We shall see in the next two weeks. Since polling over Labor Day is tough, the first helpful polls will be right after that. But if you want to look at historical VP bounces while you await the VP choices, try this recent post by Mark Blumenthal.

Netroots Nation San Francisco
Join us to celebrate the release of Markos Moulitsas' new book: Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 7–9 P.M.
HOUSE OF SHIELDS
39 NEW MONTGOMERY STREET
SAN FRANCISCO

Liberal eats+drinks. Stimulating conversation. Progressive camaraderie.

TICKETS
$40 general, $125 host committee*
RSVP at nnsf08.eventbrite.com

That's tomorrow!

Via MyDD, Biden announces it himself:

Hey guys, I'm not the guy. See ya.

He and Richardson can now fight over secretary of state.

So who's left? Assuming slotted speakers at the DNC are not the Veep, then Kaine is out. He's speaking Thursday night before Gore and Obama. Kerry is speaking Wednesday.

Who's that leave? Daschle, Sebelius, and "dark horse".

Of course, slotted speakers can always be rescheduled...

Having once been the happy owner of a 13.75% mortgage -- obtained through a state program for first time home buyers at a time when the bank was advertising 18% -- the inflation rate of the early 1980s is not something for which I'm nostalgic. But for those longing to bring back the days of Ronald Reagan, this should warm those cockles.

U.S. wholesale prices took another unexpectedly steep jump in July and shot up at the fastest year-on-year rate in 27 years, according to a government report on Tuesday that was certain to fan fears about a potential surge in inflation. ... The Labor Department's Producer Price Index, which measures prices at the factory door, climbed 1.2 percent after a 1.8 percent gain in June.

"Core" inflation, for those people who don't use energy or eat food, was also up sharply, while home building took another plunge. The decline in gas prices next month will probably cool things down a bit, which is good, because if we continued at an average of the last two months we'd be looking at an 18% annual rate.

But be of good cheer! So far wages aren't coming close to keeping up with this new round of inflation, so that traditional "price-wage-price" spiral is only "price-price-price." That's better, right?

I'll never understand why this took so damn long.

Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host –- and one-time general manager of the network — Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.

The moves, which were confirmed by MSNBC executives Tuesday, are expected to be finalized by Wednesday, with Mr. Abrams’s last program on Thursday. After MSNBC’s extensive coverage of the two political conventions during the next two weeks, Ms. Maddow will begin her program on Sept. 8.

Her show will follow Olbermann's, and a HUGE congratulations to one of the smartest voices on cable land. The Olbermann-Maddow 1-2 punch will be potent. Now, if we could get a decent lead-in for Olbermann, we'd have a serious block of programming on our hands.