Yasser Arafat has died. (Fox News Television)

Focus on the Family, a radical right group from Colorado Springs founded by uber-evangelical James Dobson, is already making demands on Alberto Gonzales. In a press release issued today, the Group stated:

"It will now be Mr. Gonzalez's duty to defend the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act against the federal court challenges that have blocked its implementation -- a duty handled admirably by Attorney General Ashcroft. American families will also look to Mr. Gonzalez to aggressively prosecute obscenity cases against pornographers who continue to flout federal law.

"We expect these issues and other policy priorities of the president will be carried out by Mr. Gonzalez with excellence."

Dobson was one of those pushing out the evangelical vote for Bush.

Just days before one of the closest and most contentious presidential elections in history, Dr. James Dobson will call on every pro-family American to cast his or her vote on Nov. 2. This call to Christian duty will air in two special broadcasts on his nationally-syndicated "Focus on the Family" radio program on Oct. 25 and 26..... "Do you know that in the year 2000," he said, "four million evangelicals did not go to the polls? Do you know that more than 25 million Christians of various stripes – Catholics, mainline, other perspectives – did not register and did not vote? That is an outrage. And it must not happen again."

If you really want to lose your lunch, check out his "must read election message."

Welcome to the theocracy.

Ohio is still counting provisional ballots. It would be virtually impossible, experts say, for their tally to make a difference.

But what about the absentee ballots that never arrived? The TL kid's roomate received his Ohio absentee ballot in New York today...November 10....it was postmarked Columbus October 3.

The TL kid received his absentee ballot November 3. As John Kerry was conceding on tv. So he didn't get to vote either. He had called Colorado's election office for weeks complaining his ballot hadn't arrived. They just kept telling him it had been mailed.

They have many friends who also didn't receive absentee ballots in time to vote. Is there any counting being done of the number of these disenfranchised absentee voters (as opposed to provisional voters)?

Maybe it wouldn't make a difference, but whatever happened to everyone gets a vote and every vote counts?

Sorry Everybody -- great photos, just scroll.

Thanks to all the TalkLeft readers who contributed to our "pledge drive" the past two days. There were about 30 of you, who contributed in amounts from $1.00 to $50.00. Just as great were all the notes of encouragement and appreciation that accompanied the donations.

There's so much work ahead of us the next four years. I really do believe that bloggers can make a difference. We get the word out, shore up support and provide a place to vent. As frustration over this Administration's policies and choices mount, it's nice to have a place to call home, and the left-leaning blogosphere is now home to hundreds of thousands of readers. We'll carry on. Thank you for your support.

Congrats to Noah Shachtman whose excellent blog Defense Tech was just bought by Military.com. If you're not familiar with Defense Tech, it's a blog about how technology is changing "how wars are fought, crooks are caught, borders are protected, and individual rights are defined."

Good luck, Noah, and thanks for including me in your list of site thank yous. I'll be reading you over there regularly.

In the truth is stranger than fiction department, read this letter in today's Daily Pennsylvanian:

Why was the alleged Republican kicker working as an election official?

On Tuesday morning, like many of us, I went to vote. My polling place, the one for ward 27, district 11, was 3609 Chestnut St., a cozy-looking rehabilitation care center next to the Divine Tracy Hotel. When I got to the voter registration desk, I became a witness to a confrontation between an election official and a Democratic poll watcher whose name unfortunately escapes me. The election official was behaving very aggressively, and telling the poll watcher that, among other things, she must not speak to any of the voters, or to him, and if she did, he would call the police.

What were they thinking?

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location. Uploaded here is video from the event.

[Hat tip Daily Kos diary, the video is here.]

Cat Stevens is the new recipient of a prestigious peace prize:

Yusuf Islam was awarded the "Man for Peace" prize in Rome at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. He last made headlines in September, when he turned up on Washington's no-fly list for having suspected ties to terrorists - a claim he has strongly denied. The "Peace Train" singer, who largely gave up music after converting to Islam in the late 1970s, mused about the strangeness of being barred from one country while being honored in another.

by TChris

Some residents of Los Angeles sent a message to the Los Angeles Police Department by voting against a proposed sales tax increase that would have funded the hiring of additional officers. The message: if you want our money, treat us with respect.

[Edward] Lindsey said he would have voted for the measure if police "were doing what they should do instead of messing with everybody." A few weeks ago, the former GM plant worker said, he was pulled over by police who told him he looked like a suspected gang member. "How the hell can I look like a gangbanger?" Lindsey said. "I'm 74 years old. I'm retired!"

Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas supported the measure, but understands that "a string of police abuse cases dating from before the 1991 Rodney King beating through this year's flashlight beating of Stanley Miller in Compton did not help the cause."

"An agenda that argues exclusively for more cops is not likely to get the response of something that calls for more prevention and more reform," he added. "I think the electorate would respond more favorably to a more holistic look at crime."

I just received this from a former very high-ranking official of the Justice Department (under Clinton) (and TalkLeft reader), whose opinion I hold in especially high regard:

The apparent nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General is a mixed blessing for progressives. It is fair to say that Gonzales is not nearly as bad as we might have expected. He is by no means a hard core ideologue, and he would not be likely to aggressively pursue a far right agenda. on his own By temperament he is a moderate, even if his views are far more conservative than we would wish. His record as a judge, while conservative, was not outrageous; indeed, it's commonly believed that he may not have been acceptable to the far right as a Supreme Court nominee. And what little leaks out of this Administration suggests that Gonzales was not a moving force behind most of the Administration's most outrageous legal positions.

by TChris

TalkLeft has frequently argued (examples here and here) that felons, like every other citizen, have a stake in society and should have the right to vote -- particularly after they've paid for their crime by serving their time. Some who comment here scoff at the notion of rehabilitation and smugly assert that liberals want ex-offenders to have voting rights because ex-offenders are likely to vote for Democrats. Tell that to John Barcyk, who voted by absentee ballot for President Bush. Barcyk is serving 35 years for a double murder.

Barcyk is incarcerated in Maine, one of two states that allow prisoners to vote. Is it fair that he can vote from prison when felons in states like Iowa don't have voting rights restored automatically after they've been released from prison? This commentator in the Des Moines Register argues that a parent who works, pays taxes, and sends her kid to school should have a say in how her taxes are spent and who serves on the school board.

Stephanie Fawkes-Lee, president of the Metro Des Moines League of Women Voters, says it's a danger to democracy not to restore voting rights. Yet she says public opposition to doing so comes from both Democrats and Republicans. She calls it a "lack of forgiveness."

[Marty] Ryan is blunter. "Some people think that we need to hate them forever," he says.