Two weeks ago I did a preliminary assessment of Colorado voters, trying to assess the impact of the state's evangelical voters. I began with the 2004 presidential results. There were 2.1 million voters and Bush won by 100,000 votes. We have 9 electoral votes.

The Colorado Secretary of State has these voter registration numbers (pdf) by county, current as of September 2. There are 3 million registered voters in the state.

The LA Times has an excellent report on the thousands of Iraqis detainees languishing in Iraqi prisons.

A new U.S.-funded legal clinic in Baghdad attempts to review the cases of those who have been held without charge or trial, but the task is daunting and hurdles numerous.

Many of the detainees are Sunnis. [More...]

Via Alaskan radio host Shannyn Moore, here are the top ten reasons TrooperGate is a fair investigation:

1. It began with a 12-0 vote of eight Republicans and four Democrats.

2. The President of the Senate, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

3. The Speaker of the House, a Republican, voted in favor of the investigation.

4. The investigation began in July, well before Governor Palin was placed on the national ticket.

More...

Bump and Update: On a conference call today, McCain's campaign said the ad described below will air nationally and in the battleground states.

Steve Schmidt, a top McCain strategist, said the TV ad was a “real buy” that would air nationally and “will air across the depth and breadth of the battleground states.” Schmidt also belittled the media for not providing a “symmetry” to their probing of Obama’s background compared to the scrubbing that the team of McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has received.

Original Post: 9: 52 a.m.

McCain Ad Attacks Obama and Chicago Machine

Displaying his customary lack of self-awareness, John McCain has released an ad about Obama and the Chicago machine on the first day of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens trial.

I read the ad and substitute Gov. Sarah Palin for Barack Obama -- and Ted Stevens and his cronies, including a lobbying firm with close ties to Stevens, for those named from Chicago. [More...]

The ACLU scored a victory today in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

A federal court today ordered the Department of Defense to release photographs depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government's appeal of a 2006 order directing the Defense Department to release the photos. Today's decision comes as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas.

The ACLU says these photos demonstrate that the abuse was not limited to Abu Ghraib and not an occasional aberration. [More...]

University of Colorado campus police seized two ounces of marijuana from student Edward Nicholson's dorm room. As a result, he was charged with possession of marijuana and suspended by C.U.

It turns out, Nicholson had a caregiver's medical marijuana card, allowing him to distribute to medical marijuana patients, even though he himself wasn't a medical marijuana patient.

His criminal charges for possession of marijuana were dismissed and his suspension by C.U. has been reversed. Now, Nicholson wants his pot back and his lawyer says he believes that will happen. [Update: the local news tonight showed Nicholson leaving the police department with his pot. They gave it back.][ More...]

So the NYTimes reports that President Bush, of the record low approval rating and horrific track record on well, everything, is "urg[ing] lawmakers to act quickly on the bailout legislation [and] resist the temptation to add provisions that, he said, “would undermine the effectiveness of the plan.”

As if Bush has a clue about the what would undermine the "effectiveness" of the plan, or even what the idea of the plan even is. Let's face it, Bush has no effing clue. This is Paulsen's plan. But I have a ready made response for Democrats to President Bush:

Dem Lawmakers Urge Bush and GOP To Pass Dem Bailout Plan

I think they should say that "Bush and the Republicans are jeopardizing the economy by trying to make changes that would undermine the effectiveness of the Democratic plan."

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Demonstrating what how foolish he can be, Mark Halperin gives last week to McCain.

A few more "winning" weeks like that, and McCain will be in McGovern territory.

This is an Open Thread.

Apparently, Senator Dodd was speaking softly on the Sunday shows while wielding a big legislative stick. Here is the proposed legislation.. Krugman likes the Dodd proposal.

In the end, Atrios gets to the crux of the issue:

[N]o proposal matters as long as the plan is to surrender when Mr. 24% stamps his feet.

Let's hope that is not the plan.

Speaking for me only

As I've written many times over the past 18 months, Sen. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are not my cup of tea on criminal justice issues. Neither are particularly progressive. Today I received an invitation to a conference call with Joe Biden.

Today, the Obama-Biden campaign is holding a conference call with Senator Joe Biden to proudly announce the endorsement of the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO). NAPO President Tom Nee will join Senator Biden on the call and the two will talk about Senator Obama’s strong track record on law enforcement issues, support for law enforcement officers and commitment to keeping our communities safe.

NAPO represents more than 2,000 police unions and associations, 238,000 sworn law enforcement officers, 11,000 retired officers and more than 100,000 citizens who share a common dedication to fair and effective crime control and law enforcement.

More...

The one thing John McCain is not in short supply of is chutzpah. Last week McCain was lying about former Freddie Mac CEO Franklin Raines advising Obama, both in his ads and on the stump. Just this morning, McCain spokesman Nicole Wallace repeated the lie on Morning Joe (and of course Scarborough did not challenge the lie.)

McCain's chutzpah is evidenced by the fact that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis made millions of dollars lobbying for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. . . . “The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month.

(Emphasis supplied.) Lying about Obama's advisors while doing that he claims to criticize. That is John McCain in a nutshell - a lying, unprincipled, incompetent ideologue. McCain is a disgrace.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

I have friends who are far more financially savvy than I am, and they say they are very frustrated with this bailout procedure. They say no one is asking the government what percentage of the dollar they are going to pay for these non performing assets? Is it 100%.....or 20 %? what is it? They say this is very important.

Does anyone know the answer?

One more thing: The AP reports:

"The government could contract with private companies to manage the assets it purchased under the rescue" The proposal does not require that the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets. But it would allow the Treasury Department to designate financial institutions as "agents of the government," and mandate that they perform any "reasonable duties" that might entail.

The bailout, as we've mentioned before, would be sheltered from court review. There's something wrong with this picture. Care to fill in what it is?