MoveOn member,

We're down to the final stretch, the ninth inning, the fourth quarter--there's no more time to waste.

From my perch over at Daily Kos, a vibrant, online community of liberal-minded bloggers, I see A LOT of polls.

I read A LOT of news and analysis.

And frankly, I've been around long enough to have witnessed A LOT of close elections.

Let me be clear: This isn't a wave election—for either party. It's a 50-50 race and the victor will be the team that works the hardest to win.

That's why when my campaigns team said we needed to join a high-impact get-out-the-vote effort like MoveOn's Voters Rising campaign, I didn't need any convincing—and neither did the thousands of Daily Kos community members who've been calling voters this month.

Now we're down to the final stretch, the ninth inning, the fourth quarter—and every other sports metaphor you can think of. My point: there's no more time to waste.

If you've been waiting till the last minute—it's here. And I'm asking you not to let it go by without signing up right now to call voters and help save the Senate.

Yes, there have been highs and lows, but this election is a total toss-up.

That's why I've been saying for months that any liberal or progressive whose main message to you is that we're "doomed" is off their rocker.

Not only are they wrong—but they're probably making it less likely that good people like you will sign up to volunteer.

Because really, who wants to join a team that's already lost?

Well the good news is that we aren't doomed—and we won't be if we leave everything on the table between now and Election Day.

Democratic candidates in Michigan and Oregon looked vulnerable once upon a time—now they're pulling ahead. Races in South Dakota and Kentucky had looked unwinnable for us—but today they're well within reach.

Our ability to get out the vote will make all the difference this election, plain and simple.

That's why I'm asking you today to volunteer for the Voters Rising campaign.

Sign up to call the voters who we need to show up on Election Day, and get them to make a pledge to vote for our candidates.

Remember: A Republican takeover of the Senate would be devastating. It would empower Speaker John Boehner and his Tea Party majority to act even crazier, and it would grind President Obama's executive and judicial nominations to a halt.

We can't let this happen!

Keep fighting,

Markos Moulitsas
Founder and Publisher, Daily Kos

WE ARE NOT THE 1%!

******

WE ARE THE MIDDLE CLASS!

NOV. 4th

VOTE YOUR

BEST INTEREST!

******

VOTE

DEMOCRATIC!

********************************************
GRAND TOTAL: $25,022,300,000

That's how much freaken money these phucks pissed away on Benghazi?! How would you have spent it??

********************************************

Yes, this is from Forbes!

The disconnect between voter ID laws and voter fraud

By Philip Bump

Almost no one shows up at the polls pretending to be someone else in an effort to throw an election.

Almost no one acts as a poll worker on Election Day to try to cast illegal votes for a candidate.

And almost no general election race in recent history has been close enough to have been thrown by the largest example of in-person voter fraud on record.

That said, there have been examples of fraud, including fraud perpetrated through the use of absentee ballots severe enough to force new elections at the state level. 

But the slew of new laws passed over the past few years meant to address voter fraud have overwhelmingly focused on the virtually non-existent/unproven type of voter fraud, and not the still-not-common-but-not-non-existent abuse of absentee voting.

In August, Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University Law School, detailed for Wonkblog 31 instances of documented, in-person voter fraud that would have been prevented by stricter rules around identification at the polling place. 

The most severe instance Levitt outlined involved as many as 24 voters in Brooklyn who tried to vote under assumed names.

There are almost no elections in which 24 votes makes a significant difference, particularly at the federal level.

The graph below compares the vote total and the margin of victory for every race with less than  a million votes in general elections since 2006.

AltaVista, as an Overture company, seems to use a very similar algorithm and spidering process as Yahoo.

However, there are a few ways in which AltaVista sets itself apart.

AltaVista provides the most obvious advantage to those conducting specific multimedia searches.

Directly above the search field are a number of tabs (Images, MP3/Audio, Video, etc.) that allow the user to search for files as well as webpages.

If one were to create a site that targets all the different kind of searches that users of AltaVista conduct, one would need to break all the usual rules of search engine optimization.

That is, while the majority of search engines reward sites with higher textual content and less fancy coding, images, multimedia, in theory AltaVista would reward the opposite.

Of course, there is no reason to change your overall site strategy to cater to AltaVista.

If your site requires a lot of multimedia, the reward will come naturally.

If not, it would not be worth it to artificially populate your site with multimedia files to grab AltaVista searches.

Chances are, you would have more to lose than gain from such a strategy.

Another perk of AltaVista is automated page translation.

If the search engine perceives the site to be in a language other than English (not always accurate) a link will appear beside the URL reading “Translate this page.”

AltaVista uses Babelfish to read out a “translated” version of the site.

In our experience, the translations are surprisingly accurate, considering that they are being done by a computer program, but usually not enough to convey complex ideas.

However, it is almost always better than nothing.

***TRY IT!*** 
   ***YOU'LL LIKE IT!***

Fact-Checked Promises President Obama Has Kept

Conservatives are always going on and on about how President Obama has done nothing, which could not be further from the truth.

This list has all been fact-checked and, in fact, is an abbreviated version of the list of promises that President Obama has kept from  http://www.politifact.com/.

1. Add another Space Shuttle flight
2. Allocate Homeland Security funding according to risk
3. Appoint a special adviser to the president on violence against women
4. Appoint a White House Coordinator for Nuclear Security
5. Appoint an American Indian policy adviser
6. Appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy
7. Appoint at least one Republican to the cabinet
8. Appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer
9. Ask people and businesses to conserve electricity
10. Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as ‘must-pass’ legislation
11. Attract more students to science and math
12. Ban lobbyist gifts to executive employees
13. Bolster the military’s ability to speak different languages
14. Centralize ethics and lobbying information for voters
15. Champion the importance of arts education
16. Change standards for determining broadband access
17. Close the “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription drug plan
18. Conduct robust research and development on future space missions
19. Consider “smart growth” in transportation funding
20. Create a best practices list for private businesses in accommodating workers with disabilities
21. Create a community college partnership program
22. Create a consumer-friendly credit card rating system
23. Create a ‘Green Vet Initiative’ to promote environmental jobs for veterans
24. Create a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit (HOME) score for mortgage comparisons
25. Create a military families advisory board
26. Create a national declassification center
27. Create a rapid response fund for emerging democracies
28. Create a real National Infrastructure Protection Plan
29. Create a Social Investment Fund Network
30. Create a White House Office on Urban Policy
31. Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes
32. Create an artist corps for schools
33. Create an international tax haven watch list
34. Create job training programs for clean technologies
35. Create new criminal penalties for mortgage fraud
36. Create new financial regulations
37. Create White House performance team and chief performance officer
38. Create youth service corps
39. Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq
40. Double federal spending for research on clean fuels
41. Eliminate the higher subsidies to Medicare Advantage plans
42. Enact tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars
43. Encourage farmers to use more renewable energy and be more energy efficient
44. Encourage water-conservation efforts in the West
45. End the “Stop-loss” program of forcing troops to stay in service beyond their expected commitments
46. End the abuse of supplemental budgets for war
47. End the use of torture
48. Enhance earth mapping
49. Equalize tax breaks for driving and public transit
50. Establish a credit card bill of rights
51. Establish an Energy Partnership for the Americas
52. Establish an independent health institute to provide accurate and objective information
53. Establish program to convert manufacturing centers into clean technology leaders
54. Establish ‘Promise Neighborhoods’ for areas of concentrated poverty
55. Establish school programs to highlight space and science achievements
56. Establish special crime programs for the New Orleans area
57. Expand access to places to hunt and fish
58. Expand eligibility for Medicaid
59. Expand eligibility for State Children’s Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP)
60. Expand federal bioforensics program for tracking biological weapons
61. Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners
62. Expand housing vouchers program for homeless veterans
63. Expand loan programs for small businesses
64. Expand Pell grants for low-income students
65. Expand public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations
66. Expand teacher mentoring programs and provide incentives for more planning time
67. Expand the Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothers
68. Expand the Senior Corps volunteer program
69. Expand the Veterans Administration’s number of “centers of excellence” in specialty care
70. Expand Veterans Centers in rural areas
71. Explore whether International Space Station can operate after 2016
72. Extend and index the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch
73. Extend child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes
74. Extend monitoring and verification provisions of the START I Treaty
75. Extend unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspend taxes on these benefits
76. Fully fund federal contribution to the preservation of the Everglades
77. Fully fund the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
78. Fully fund the Veterans Administration
79. Fully fund the Violence Against Women Act
80. Fund a major expansion of AmeriCorps
81. Give a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration
82. Give tax credits to those who need help to pay health premiums
83. Grant Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba
84. Help states and localities address sprawl
85. If you don’t have insurance, or don’t like the insurance you have, you’ll be able to choose a new plan on a health insurance exchange
86. Implement “Women Owned Business” contracting program
87. Implement and fund proven health intervention programs
88. Improve climate change data records
89. Improve relations with Turkey, and its relations with Iraqi Kurds
90. Improve water quality
91. In non-competitive markets, force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care
92. Increase efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy
93. Increase funding for land-grant colleges
94. Increase funding for local emergency planning
95. Increase funding for national parks and forests
96. Increase funding for programs that conserve lands and habitat for select species such as the Osceola turkey
97. Increase funding for the Environmental Protection Agency
98. Increase funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund
99. Increase funding to expand community based prevention programs
100. Increase minority access to capital
101. Increase non-military aid to Afghanistan by $1 billion
102. Increase special operations forces and civil affairs
103. Increase spending to prepare for longer space missions
104. Increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps
105. Increase the Veterans Administration budget to recruit and retain more mental health professionals
106. Initiate a grant and training program for law enforcement to deter cyber crime
107. Invest in all types of alternative energy
108. Invest in public transportation
109. Launch a supportive services-housing program for veterans to prevent homelessness
110. Launch an international Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA)
111. Launch educational initiative for employers on tax benefits of hiring employees with disabilities
112. Make greater investment in advanced military air technology
113. Make military deployments predictable for troops and families
114. Make National Guard leader a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
115. Make U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on anti-terror efforts
116. More controlled burns to reduce wildfires
117. No permanent bases in Iraq
118. Open “America Houses” in Islamic cities around the globe
119. Open new consulates “in the tough and hopeless corners of the world”
120. Organize successful Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in 2010
121. Partner to enhance the potential of the International Space Station
122. Promote cultural diplomacy
123. Promote innovative ways to reward good teachers
124. Promote more pre-school education
125. Protect American intellectual property abroad
126. Provide $30 billion over 10 years to Israel
127. Provide affordable, high-quality child care
128. Provide grants to early-career researchers
129. Provide grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes
130. Pursue a wildfire management plan
131. Push for a college football playoff system
132. Push for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors
133. Raise fuel economy standards
134. Raise the small business investment expense limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009
135. Rebuild schools in New Orleans
136. Recruit math and science degree graduates to the teaching profession
137. Reduce subsidies to private student lenders and protect student borrowers
138. Reform mandatory minimum sentences
139. Reform No Child Left Behind
140. Reform the patent system
141. Reinstate executive order to hire an additional 100,000 federal employees with disabilities within five years.
142. Release oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve
143. Release presidential records
144. Remove more brush, small trees and vegetation that fuel wildfires
145. Repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy
146. Reproductive health care will be “at the heart” of health care reform.
147. Require 10 percent renewable energy by 2012
148. Require Cabinet officials to host Internet town hall meetings
149. Require children to have health insurance coverage
150. Require economic justification for tax changes
151. Require health plans to disclose how much of the premium goes to patient care
152. Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions
153. Require large employers to contribute to a national health plan
154. Require more energy-efficient appliances
155. Require new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions.
156. Require states to provide incentives for utilities to reduce energy consumption
157. Restore funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program
158. Restore funding to the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
159. Reverse restrictions on stem cell research
160. Seek verifiable reductions in nuclear stockpiles
161. Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan
162. Set goals and timetables for implementing Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act
163. Share environmental technology with other countries
164. Sign a “universal” health care bill
165. Stand down nuclear forces to be reduced under the Moscow Treaty
166. Stop the development of new nuclear weapons
167. Strengthen and expand military exchange programs with other countries
168. Strengthen antitrust enforcement
169. Strengthen the levees in New Orleans
170. Support airline service in small towns
171. Support commercial access to space
172. Support funding and reform for Amtrak
173. Support high-speed rail
174. Support increased funding for the NEA
175. Support network neutrality on the Internet
176. Support regional innovation clusters
177. Use the International Space Station for fundamental biological and physical research
178. Use the private sector to improve spaceflight
179. Vigorously pursue hate crimes and civil rights abuses
180. We will kill bin Laden

The Disconnect Between Voter ID Laws And Voter Fraud

By Philip Bump

Almost no one shows up at the polls pretending to be someone else in an effort to throw an election.

Almost no one acts as a poll worker on Election Day to try to cast illegal votes for a candidate.

And almost no general election race in recent history has been close enough to have been thrown by the largest example of in-person voter fraud on record.

That said, there have been examples of fraud, including fraud perpetrated through the use of absentee ballots severe enough to force new elections at the state level.

But the slew of new laws passed over the past few years meant to address voter fraud have overwhelmingly focused on the virtually non-existent/unproven type of voter fraud, and not the still-not-common-but-not-non-existent abuse of absentee voting.

In August, Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University Law School, detailed for Wonkblog 31 instances of documented, in-person voter fraud that would have been prevented by stricter rules around identification at the polling place.

The most severe instance Levitt outlined involved as many as 24 voters in Brooklyn who tried to vote under assumed names.

There are almost no elections in which 24 votes makes a significant difference, particularly at the federal level.

The graph below compares the vote total and the margin of victory for every race with less than  a million votes in general elections since 2006.