John Kerry's campaign sent a letter to Bush-Cheney today asking for various documents, among them (verbatim from the letter):

● Halliburton: All correspondence between the Defense Department and the White House regarding the no-bid contracts that have gone to the Vice-President’s former company. Some material has already been made public. Why not take a campaign issue off the table by making all of these materials public so the voters can see how Halliburton has benefited from Mr. Cheney serving as Vice-President?

● The Cheney Energy Task Force: For an Administration that claims to hate lawsuits, it’s ironic that the Bush White House is taking up the Courts’ time to keep the fact that Ken Lay and Enron wrote its energy policy in secret behind closed doors. Please release the documents so that the country can learn what lobbyists and special interests wrote the White House energy policy.

● Prison Abuse Documents: A few weeks ago, the White House released a selected number of documents regarding the White House’s involvement in laying the legal foundation for the interrogation methods that were used in Iraq. Please release the remaining documents.

We doubt they will comply with any of the requests, but the letter does serve to remind the public of the extent to which the Bush administration operates in secrecy.

Just finished watching John Kerry and John Edwards, and their wives, on '60 Minutes.' Despite Leslie Stahl's repeated and annoying attempts to rile them and her exaggerated facial expressions of disbelief, they were great. Their answers made her questions look like cheap, conniving tricks. It's obvious there's a huge honeymoon going on between the Kerrys and the Edwards--and it's just what we need.

The Kerry-Edwards team radiates ability as well as good cheer and optimism. Bush-Cheney is a downer. It's time for a change and it's coming. We feel it in the air. We felt it in the interview.

Do your part. Get excited. Volunteer. Contribute. We need this team. We need this change.

by TChris

Tom Ridge says terrorists may try to disrupt the presidential election -- a claim based on old information, according to Rep. Jane Harman, a member of the House Intelligence Committee -- and now the Bush administration would like the authority to delay the election if it believes such an attack has occurred.

Newsweek cited unnamed sources who told it that the Department of Homeland Security asked the Justice Department last week to review what legal steps would be needed to delay the vote if an attack occurred on the day before or on election day.

Update: The Newsweek article is here.

by TChris

A NY Times editorial calls attention to the need to reform laws that bar people from voting after being convicted of a felony -- laws that disenfranchise nearly five million potential voters.

Denying the vote to ex-offenders is antidemocratic, and undermines the nation's commitment to rehabilitating people who have paid their debt to society. Felon disenfranchisement laws also have a sizable racial impact: 13 percent of black men have had their votes taken away, seven times the national average. But even if it were acceptable as policy, denying felons the vote has been a disaster because of the chaotic and partisan way it has been carried out.

As TalkLeft discussed yesterday, Florida exemplifies the political nature of felon disenfranchisement. But 35 states "prohibit at least some people from voting after they have been released from prison." The varying rules "are often highly technical, and little effort is made to explain them to election officials or to the people affected."

The treatment of former felons in the electoral system cries out for reform. The cleanest and fairest approach would be simply to remove the prohibitions on felon voting. In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush announced a new national commitment to helping prisoners re-enter society. Denying them the right to vote belies this commitment.

Professor Donald Abelson, writing in the Toronto Star, explains why John Edwards will be a boost for Kerry. As to Kerry vs. Bush, he says,

Americans don't have to see Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 to figure out that Bush is in trouble. Even Bush knows he's in trouble. The president is counting on voters acknowledging what he was able to do for the nation after the tragic events of Sept. 11 and the leadership he has shown in trying to make the U.S. a safer place. This election is not about Kerry's liberalism, Edwards' populism or Bush's and Dick Cheney's steadfast commitment to rid the world of terrorists and the states that harbor them.

It is about the economic prosperity of the United States and its responsibility to restore world order. When all the votes are counted, let's hope that Americans, not the U.S. Supreme Court, decide who will occupy the Oval Office.

We'll agree that this year the voters should get the final say. But we think Professor Adelson gives too much credit to Bush and Cheney. By election day, if not months before, we predict the majority of American voters will be of the opinion that the only steadfast commitment Bush has is to justifying his unjustifiable war in Iraq. Between the 1,000 deaths of American soldiers, the holding of prisoners for two years without charges or access to lawyers, the Patriot Act and the failure of the Administration to find Osama or bring any real terrorists to justice (as oppposed to the flunky wannabes and persons in the wrong place at the wrong time)--as we've said before-- Bush is toast.

The pendulum has started swinging the other way. Choosing John Edwards as his running mate was the smartest decision John Kerry has made to date. They will win the election in November. They will save our Supreme Court, get rid of Ashcroft and restore our belief that the United States is a democracy providing equal justice for all. That's our position and we're sticking to it.

by TChris

Efforts to find payroll records that could confirm whether President Bush actually reported for his Air National Guard service in Alabama have been futile, and now it appears that the records may never be produced, as the Pentagon claims they were "inadvertently destroyed."

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

A paper trail will be required in Washington for electonic voting....by 2006. As SKBubba says, too bad it wont happen in time for November's election.

The New York Times profiles Elizabeth Edwards. We like her already.

by TChris

The President and his fellow country-bangers don't like trial lawyers, and they figure voters don't like them much either.

And few politicians have been as adept at exploiting that hostility as President Bush, who, at the urging of his political adviser Karl Rove, has made attacks on trial lawyers a central part of his political strategy ever since his first run for Texas governor a decade ago.

So John Kerry gave the President a great bashing opportunity by picking a trial lawyer as a VP candidate, didn't he? Not according to a CNN poll:

The poll showed that 67 percent of voters surveyed said his work as a trial lawyer was a strength, while only 27 percent viewed it as a weakness.

According to the president of the National Association of Manufacturers, trial lawyers are "the pariahs of the business community, which is more frightened by them than terrorists, China or higher energy prices." Maybe, but those with less self-interest have trouble thinking the person they rely on to protect their rights is engaged in an evil vocation.

We're not alone in our belief that the greatest impact the 2004 President will have is in picking Supreme Court Justices. The Boston Globe reports that the new President will select up to four new Justices.

Few believe the present court can hold together for another four years, pointing to seats held by two liberals, a conservative, and a frequent swing voter. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 71, has battled cancer since 1999. Justice John Paul Stevens is 84. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 79, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 74, are said to have eyed retirement for several years. Because this court reaches many decisions by 5-to-4 or 6-to-3 votes, the next president may be able to transform its delicate balance into a solid ideological majority that will control American law for the next generation.

It is imperative to us that Bush be replaced so that his attempts to pack the federal courts with right-wing ideologues and judicial activists be stopped. And so that he can't wreak further havoc by putting unacceptable replacements on the Supreme Court.

At the liberal People for the American Way, executive director Ralph Neas argues that a court majority with that perspective would overturn 75 years of jurisprudence, gutting environmental regulations, abortion rights, and a host of civil rights.

As we wrote in December, 2002, this will be a horrible legacy to leave our children:

A few weeks ago we wrote about how the GOP was behind a push to get Nader on the ballot in Oregon. Joe Conasen reports today on how the Republicans are trying to recussitate Nader:

Yet although the prospects for Mr. Nader are quickly shrinking, his would-be rescuers are already revealing themselves. The new Naderites include the strange Manhattan therapy cult that now dominates the Reform Party, which will provide ballot access in some states after endorsing him in a teleconference call last May. He can also count on at least one group of activists who are absolutely determined to see him succeed: right-wing Republicans.

Tens of thousands of dollars from major Bush donors are pouring into Mr. Nader’s coffers, and he is using that money to pay for petition signatures that will get him on the ballot in swing states. The American Prospect reports that earlier this year, Mr. Nader’s aides solicited a California company that usually performs such tasks for Republican candidates.

Now that the Dems have an exciting ticket with Kerry-Edwards, will Bush drop Cheney? In May, when the 9/11 victims' family members took Guliani to task, we said we were afraid Bush would drop Cheney for Guliani.

Guliani is no hero to us. Never has been. We'd like to see word of this criticism of him spread as we have a nagging fear that if Cheney is dropped from the Bush ticket, Bush would pick Guliani to replace him.

Instapundit thinks Bush may drop Cheney too. Writing for his MSNBC weblog today, he says:

One prediction of mine: Bush will drop Cheney from the ticket, and replace him with someone more exciting, and with less baggage -- think John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, or, my favorite, Condi Rice.

John McCain could be a problem. We doubt Colin Powell would accept. Condi Rice presents cold and is no more exciting than Cheney. Rudy? Our worst nightmare. Ashcroft times ten. Plus he attracts money. More from our earlier post: