larger version here.

Vanity Fair has a parody of the New Yorker's awful cartoon featuring Sen. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

I think the VF cartoon is much gentler and less offensive than the New Yorker cartoon.

Also, the McCain cartoon has more truths: John McCain is old, Cindy McCain did have a love affair with pills (even though in the cartoon the pills she is holding are for her husband) and McCain does admire George Bush.

What would you have added to the McCain cartoon to clearly represent the "politics of fear"?

Given the Republican aversion to business regulation that has dominated government for so many years, it has become increasingly unusual to see civil penalties assessed against businesses that manufacture unsafe products, that install those products in an unsafe manner, or that provide an unsafe working environment for their employees. It is extraordinarily unusual to see criminal prosecutions of businesses when negligence leads to death. That's what makes the prosecution of David Lionetti both newsworthy and troublesome.

David Lionetti was arrested yesterday on a manslaughter charge in the death of Zachary Cohn. Six-year-old Cohn drowned last summer after becoming trapped by the suction of a drain in his family's pool in Greenwich, Conn. The pool had been installed by Lionetti's company Shoreline Pools. ... In issuing the warrant for Lionetti's arrest, law enforcement officials state that he failed to have his company install mandated safety devices in the Cohn family pool. As a result Zachary Cohn was able to remove the cover and was caught in the suction power of the drain. His parents were unable to free him before he drowned.

If the alleged facts are true, Lionetti's company was clearly negligent and civilly liable for damages. But if Lionetti is criminally responsible for negligence, why not also arrest the actual installers who failed to install the required safety devices? And why not arrest the parents who failed to supervise their child as he removed the drain cover? Should every act of negligence be treated as a crime? [more ...]

Glenn Greenwald debates Cass Sunstein on FISA, on Amy Goodman's program, Democracy Now. It is the second segment after headlines, starting at the 33 minute mark. Glenn also speaks about the ATT sponsorship of the Democratic National Convention about 15 minutes earlier. I have not listened to it yet and will update this post with my thoughts afterwords.

Sunstein - we peons have "widely misunderstood" what Obama did. Oy. Greenwald - to say this was not a flip flop by Obama is "insultingly false." Sunstein is a condescending ass - "I appreciate the vehemence." What a creep (speaking for me only.) Listen to it because Sunstein proves he has no idea what he is talking about. It is hard to explain what a disingenuous appearance Sunstein makes here. Today, he says he does not agree with the Bush inherent authority argument. But in in 2002 (on military tribunals) and in 2004 (on warrantless surveillance) he DID agree with the Bush Administration's outrageous legal claims. Sunstein can not be trusted (speaking for me only.)

This is truly an amazing statement from the Bush Administration:

"We don't think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal," [White House Press Secretary Dana] Perino said after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was quoted in a magazine article supporting the 16-month troop withdrawal timeline proposed by Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate. "However, we understand that they're a sovereign country and they'll be able to do that," Perino said. "We're just not going to do it on our end."

(Emphasis supplied.) If you understand Iraq is a sovereign country, then you should understand that they should not have to have leverage at all in telling the United States to leave. The United States has no right to have troops in Iraq. Indeed, the ostensible purpose of the troop presence in Iraq is to assist the Iraqi government. Suppose the US, in good faith, disagrees with the Iraqi government's assessment of the situation. So what? If they ask you to leave, then you leave.

But of course the most amazing part of this is that the American People as well as the Iraqi government wants the United States to leave Iraq, but for the Bush Administration and John McCain, it does not matter what the people want.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Good for the ACLU (again):

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Alabama elections officials Monday over what it says is an overly expansive policy disenfranchising felons, amid concern from voting rights groups nationwide that voting lists are being culled with too great alacrity by many states.

Alabama bars felons from voting only if they've been convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude." According to the ACLU, the state legislature limited that fuzzy phrase to specific crimes: "murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, incest, sexual torture and nine other crimes mainly involving pornography and abuses against children." Alabama's attorney general, Troy King, has expanded the legislature's list to include about a dozen more (mostly nonviolent) crimes, including the distribution of marijuana. The ACLU takes the sensible position that it's the responsibility of the legislature, not the attorney general, to make the law. [more ...]

The military commission trial of Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, got underway today.

The Judge barred the prosecution from introducing statements Hamdan made while detained at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan because they were the product of overly coercive techniques.

The judge said the prosecution cannot use a series of interrogations at the Bagram air base and Panshir, Afghanistan, because of the "highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made."

At Bagram, the judge found Hamdan was kept in isolation 24 hours a day with his hands and feet restrained, and armed soldiers prompted him to talk by kneeing him in the back. His captors at Panshir repeatedly tied him up, put a bag over his head and knocked him the ground.

Other rulings: [More...]

I still haven't gotten my iPhone. Apple stores have been sold out since Friday and I got mad at AT&T when it didn't come through with my phone 7 days after I paid for it so I canceled the order. The current shortage may last a month:

Apple stores are reporting serious shortages of the device, an inventory slip-up that might last for a month, Computerworld reported. Barely a quarter of Apple's retail stores have iPhones to sell, but only nine stores have all three versions available. Only 18 stores currently have the 16 gigabit black model in stock and 26 stores have the white model with the same storage capacity. AT&T is also reporting a severe shortage with all 1,200 retail stores nearly out of the iPhone altogether.

But, I did get a gift of a brand new iPod touch. It's the latest iPod and has a much bigger video screen, wifi, internet and e-mail and all the calendar, contacts, etc features. The only thing it doesn't have is the phone. (And, you need to be able to connect to a wi-fi network.) [More...]

A federal appeals court today overturned the FCC's fine on CBS resulting from Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in which her breast was exposed during her Superbowl halftime appearance.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said the Federal Communications Commission had "arbitrarily and capriciously departed from its prior policy" that exempted fleeting broadcast material from actionable indecency violations.

Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing. But it cannot change a well- established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure," Chief Judge Anthony Scirica wrote for the three-judge panel that heard the case.

CBS says it hopes the FCC will now revert to its past policy of "restrained indecency enforcement." [More...]

Here is her post at Huffington Post (also at Reality Check) on it:

The daily movements in a tracking poll are pretty meaningless but since a whole new group of McCain fans have shown up, I write this post for them. Gallup sez Obama by 6:

These results are based on July 18-20 polling, including two days since Obama began his much publicized overseas trip to visit the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Europe. It is unclear at this point whether the trip will boost Obama's poll standing, but his performance in Sunday interviewing was one of his stronger in Gallup Poll Daily tracking, and his current six percentage point lead is among the largest he has held over McCain to date. Tuesday's Gallup Poll Daily tracking report will be the first in which all interviews were conducted since Obama began his trip abroad.

By Big Tent Democrat

In a speech today (text here), Attorney General Michael Mukasey called on Congress, rather than federal judges, to make the rules for detainees filing habeas challenges.

The Center for Constitutional Rights responds:

“What Mukasey is doing is a shocking attempt to drag us into years of further legal challenges and delays. The Supreme Court has definitively spoken, and there is no need for congressional intervention. The Supreme Court explicitly said in Boumediene that the two prior attempts by Congress to intervene to prevent detainees from having access to the courts were unconstitutional.

“For six and a half years, Congress and the Bush Administration have done their level best to prevent the courts from reviewing the legality of the detention of the men in Guantanamo. Congress should be a part of the solution this time by letting the courts do their job.

More...

So is getting shot down in a fighter plane a qualification for being President? Apparently John McCain thinks so:

He disparaged Obama as "someone who has no military experience whatsoever." "When you win wars, troops come home," McCain said. "He's been completely wrong on the issue. ... I have been steadfast in my position."

For those wondering, John McCain has never won a war. He has no strategic experience and his judgment on urging the United States attack Iraq proved him capable of a strategic blunder of epic proportions. The Iraq Debacle completely undermined our efforts in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Qaida.

John McCain is not an incompetent on foreign policy because he served in the military. But he is not competent because he did serve in the military.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only