The major races in the 2010 election cycle are now in the record books (save for Joe Miller's tilting at windmills in Alaska), as the duo of remaining recalcitrant Republicans agreed on the same day to make long-awaited concessions to their Democratic rivals.

Take Rick Scott, for instance. "He's a criminal—a criminal!" sputtered one staffer standing near the bar, raging against Florida's governor-elect, whose former health care firm was forced to pay out the largest Medicare fraud settlement in US history. "He defrauded all these people of their money, and they turn around and vote for him anyway." The staffer had spent nearly a month on the campaign trail to vouch for his boss, but voters' faces just went blank when he tried to persuade them to keep an incumbent Democrat in office. A colleague of his nodded in sympathy, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all: "Obama wasn't progressive enough—so I'm voting for the tea partiers!"

Southern GOP Congressman Blames Not Taking
The Senate On Ex-Alaska Governor

Be sure to take a look at the page...it's quite funny. lol

Of the 88 co-sponsors of HR 676, the Medicare for All bill in the 103rd 111th Congress, 81 ran for another term in Congress. One ran for Governor of Hawaii. 79 of the 81 were re-elected to Congress by large margins. The candidate for Governor also won. Hawaii and Vermont now have Governors who support single payer health care.

I corrected their typo where 103rd should have been 111th. McSpocky

Europeans are puzzled by the success of the populist Tea Party movement, which seemingly wants to roll back the last two years and return to how things were at the end of the Bush-Cheney years. Even conservatives in Europe are scratching their heads over their transatlantic allies -- "Americans don't want health care??? How can these Tea Party people say 'Get government out of my Medicare -- don't they know Medicare IS a government program???"

"did anyone else have to swear on a bible that their address was correct before they were able to vote? just wondering, because i did," Philadelphia voter Lindsay Granger wrote on her blog after voting in last Tuesday's mid-term election. "i had to lay my palm on the good book and state my name and address before i was allowed to sign my name in the voting log and enter the booth. they called it an affirmation. i call it creepy… and a little offensive…"

Democratic operatives took pictures Tuesday of Lawrence Moretti near a polling place at 848 N. Mill Road in Addison wearing a black jacket and a blue cap with bright yellow letters emblazoned with the letters "ICE," the logo of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

"First of all, that polling place is located in a heavily Hispanic area," said DuPage Democratic Party Chairman Bob Peickert. "He had choices between hats that he could have put on his head and he chose one that could lead someone to conclude he was a law enforcement officer. What motivates him to stand out in front of that place if for no other reason than to intimidate?"

No worries. The election officials in Stark County, OH say the Diebold touch-screen vote-flipping, as captured on iPhone video by voter and University of Akron freshman Ian Sanderson on Election Day last week, was just "an isolated incident"...

In a further sign that Republican candidate Tom Emmer is going to put up a serious fight in the Minnesota gubernatorial recount, the state GOP has announced the hiring of a very important name for his legal team: Former state Supreme Court Justice Eric Magnuson, who previously served on the state Canvassing Board in the 2008 Senate recount, and will now serve in the role of chief litigator on Team Emmer.

Sean Bielat ran a tough race against Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), earning serious national attention, but coming up short by 10 points and 24,510 votes. He has not, however, conceded, because he was offended by the tone of Frank's victory speech. Here's that speech:

There's another disadvantage to media sexism. The attention pile-on focused on wacky candidates like the "Mama Grizzlies"--most of whom lost their races--makes it look like women who run tend to lose. But many women in under-the-radar races who were running on solid records didn't get the attention or money they actually deserve, like Representative Betsy Markey, who only served two years in congress before being defeated.

Bennett added that beyond fighting and containing sexism, the political establishment and the media need to focus on competent, experienced female candidates, not just those who have interesting personal backgrounds (here's looking at you, Christine O'Donnell). "Women are recruited to run and then not given support to keep those seats," she said.

I did not realize until this election how much people base their votes on 30 second sound bites rather than actual facts. It was all too obvious this election with an almost unlimited money supply coming into Republican campaigns from corporations and special interests.

The glaring example in Idaho was in the campaign of Raul Labrador (R) against incumbent Walt Minnick (D) for Idaho's 1st Congressional District.

Besides all the usual right wing lies being thrown around this campaign season, like Walt Minnick not stopping Obama from raising taxes on Idaho families (when, in fact, 98% of Idahoans saw tax cuts), and at least 2 or 3 additional lies in each ad; Labrador also presented ludicrous reasons not to vote for Minnick, such as Minnick would not commit to repealing health care reform. (Even though health care in Idaho is not good, and NEEDS reformed badly.)

Labrador even had some original misinformation. One example was when Minnick said that Labrador voted against a speciality license place for Veterans of War. Labrador accused Minnick of lying and distorting the facts, then stated he DID vote against the license plate, but had “expressed that while they were committed to not supporting any more specialty plates, they wanted to express their respect and support for veterans”, and that he had voted for another one in 2007. Walt Minnick didn't lie. Raul Labrador just made excuses!

In another ad where Labrador was responding to an ad by the Minnick campaign, Labrador basically said what he did was not illegal, no charges had been filed against him. The point wasn't that what Labrador did was not legal, but that it was unethical, which it was.

In my opinion, Walt Minnick wasn't the greatest Representative there was, since his political stance was more that of a Republican than a Democrat. However, he was much more truthful in his campaigning than Tea Party endorsed Raul Labrador.

Did blatant lies help Teapublicans win elections in your state?

There were a number of things the "public" knew as we headed into the 2010 election that were just FALSE. People elected leaders based on false information, and they will soon learn that those people will not be what the voters expect or need.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

Barely an hour after President Barack Obama invited congressional Republicans to post-election talks to work together on major issues, the Senate's GOP leader had a blunt message: His party's main goal is denying Obama re-election.

It's my choice to be a Stupid Voter!

Alan Grayson, the defeated Democratic congressman of "die quickly" fame, went on the offensive Thursday, telling reporters that the Democrats' "appeasement" of Republicans cost them the election.

In an appearance on MSNBC and an interview with Salon.com, Grayson argued that the "enthusiasm gap" that prompted millions of liberal voters to stay home Tuesday happened because the Obama administration and congressional Democrats did not fight hard enough for progressive values.

"Our strategy for two years has been appeasement, and look where it got us," Grayson told MSNBC.

As I said in my last article, there was a plethora of dirty tricks played by the Teapublicans this campaign season. Some were legal, although dirty, and with some others the legality was questionable.

Regardless, people need to take a look at these happenings and come up with solutions to prevent them from happening again. In the future we need to be to have an honest election decided by the people of our country, not just the corporations, or American billionaires.

I have compiled a list of links to articles documenting many of the dirty tricks used by the Teapublicans this election cycle. If you have links to other Teapublican dirty tricks from this election, please add them in your comments. Once we are informed about the dirty tricks used by the Teapublicans, we can talk about the solutions to preventing them from happening again, or at the least ways of warning the public about what is going on.

In no particular order: (These are only the ones I have collected from October 10, 2010 on...)

Voter Intimidation In Kansas

Republican Violence Caught On Tape --- Again

8 Nasty Conservative Lies Being Used In Campaigning

The Supreme Court Sold Out Our Democracy

Baseless Claims of Voter Fraud whip Tea Partiers Into a Paranoid Frenzy

‘Kill Some Crackers’: GOP Group Pays Fox Affiliates To Influence Election With Anti-Obama Propaganda

Tea Party Brutes Smell Like "Brown Shirts"

Fear, Loathing, and Faith-Based Politics

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s "Army" To Threaten Latino Voters

Meet the Right-Wing Election Ringleader Who's Behind the Flood of Corporate Cash in the Election (Video)

How Tea Party Candidates Like Joe Miller and Rand Paul Benefit From Armed, Right-Wing Militia Groups

A Ground's Eye View of How Millions of Shady Corporate Political Dollars Are Hijacking This Election

'Operation Alaska Chaos': Right-Wingers Pushed Flood Of AK-SEN Write-In Candidates

Murdoch's WSJ whitewashes the Tea Party movement

Voter Intimidation At McDonald's

Campaign Cash: Sen. Jim DeMint’s Making a Mint with Corporate Cash

The Hater Party: How Right-Wing Candidates Have Turned Hate Into Political Currency

Kentucky Millionaire Spends Big Bucks to Defeat DA Who Investigated Sexual Abuse at His Shady Nursing Home

The genius of the teabagger brigades

Steve King Says Children Will Be Raised In "Warehouses" If Conservatives Don’t "Defend Marriage"

Fake Group Hands Out Fliers Meant To Mislead Black Voters In Texas (VIDEO)

A Secret Tea Party Donor Revealed

Campaign Cash: Harry Reid Under Seige By Swift Boat Billionaire Bob Perry

Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tries to Buy the Election for Republicans

Rand Paul Headstomper Just the Latest Violent Right-Winger: 17 More Instances of Recent Violence by Conservatives

Koch Footprints Lead to Political Powder Keg: Exposing the Far Right's Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive

Astroturfing The Airwaves: Anonymous Donor Groups Drive Total Right-Wing TV Ads Above 100,000 Since Aug. 1

"What kind of help do you need?" Glenn Beck turns his Fox News show over to GOP

Al Reynolds, Tea Party Candidate For Illinois Senate, Says Black Men Prefer Drug Dealing To Education

Joe Miller: 'I Lied' About Accessing Computers For Political Purposes

GOP Candidate Doesn't Rule Out Violent Overthrow of Government

Fox News reports as fact a blogger's made-up attack on Mi Familia Vota

Pro-Republican Groups Prepare Big Push at End of Races

Republicans reap rewards from bailed out companies

More Karl Rove-y goodness from Face the Nation:

The conservative definition of civil rights

Campaign Cash: How Citizens United Will Change Elections Forever (SCOTUS Decision)

Report: Rove slush funds have aired 27,683 ads since August 1

Right-Wing ‘Journalists’ At Secret Koch Meeting Make A Living Defending Unlimited Corporate Political Money

Rove's "concern" over "billionaires who write the checks" short-lived

AK-SEN: Desperate Murkowski lies to poach Dem votes

Dem repeatedly attacked for being of Arab descent

I thought there wasn't an American Taliban!

Big Gifts to G.O.P. Groups Push Donor to New Level

Smug future-Chinese will own us, attack ad claims

AZ-07: White powder sent to Grijalva’s office

AK-Sen: Joe Miller wasn't kidding about admiring East German police

Whoever is funding the Chamber's ads is funding lies

Republicans running ads in Nevada asking Latino voters simply not to vote

Gingrich scam continues, even as presidential rumors float

Justices Scalia And Thomas’s Attendance At Koch Event Sparks Judicial Ethics Debate

Top Corporations Aid U.S. Chamber of Commerce Campaign

Sharron Angle: The Rest Of the $$ Story

Alaska Dispatch editor detained at Miller event [updated]

ANGLE PLAYS NEVADANS FOR FOOLS....

Another News Corp. shareholder calls for donation transparency

Glenn Beck and the Tea Party re-write American history to serve their agenda

Top 20 most influential people in the Tea Party movement

Serial health care misinformer McCaughey now misleading about stimulus

Palin Doubles Down on "Death Panels"

Video proof David Koch, the polluting billionaire, pulls the strings of the Tea Party extremists

Video Disputes Billionaire Koch's Claim that he is not involved in Tea Party

US right wing battles "a nation of slackers"

2010 Election, Dirtiest Election By Republicans Yet?

Sen. Michael Bennet narrowly defeated tea party Republican Ken Buck on Wednesday, allowing Democrats to hold onto a Senate seat once viewed as a prime opportunity for the GOP to make gains.

On the positive side, the Teapublicans were only able to flush our country half way down the toilet.

On the negative side, they should have never been able to do even that much.

What went wrong?

There were a plethora of dirty tricks played by the Teapublicans this campaign season. Everything from asking Latinos to not vote in Nevada, to voter intimidation by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his followers 1 2 , to a massive misinformation campaign 1 2 , to campaigns of hate and fear mongering, and don't forget the decision by the Supreme Court to sell out our democracy to big corporations, which led to almost unlimited corporate contributions to Republican campaigns. When you are funded by the likes of the billionaire Koch brothers 1 2 3 , and others of the wealthiest Americans, your opponents don't have much of a chance. Basically corporations have bought the House for the Teapublicans.

Polls showed that registered voters were in favor of Democrats by a 5 percent margin. However, likely voters were in favor of Republicans by a 4 percent margin. What this means is that there wasn't enough Democratic voters who got up off their duffs and voted!

Because there were too many Democratic voters who were either too lazy or too uninspired to vote, our country can look forward to two years of gridlock and massive partisan politics. You thought Republican obstructionism in the Senate was bad over the last two years, with their massive record number of filibusters? You haven't seen anything yet.

Now with the House controlled by Teapublicans, compromise is likely to be thrown out the window. Boehner, the likely new Speaker of the House, has already stated that they will refuse to compromise with Democrats. The only thing we can do now is try to get through the next two years with the hand we have dealt ourselves, then wake up and get our act together in 2012. We will have one more chance to put a stop to the Teapublican takeover of our government, or we can sit back and watch the rest of out country go down the toilet.

It is Election Day, and every voter needs to have a concrete plan to vote! Will you vote this afternoon? After work? There is a new Google app that helps you find your up-to-date polling place quickly and easily. Click here to see your up-to-date voting location. Then, help your less-political friends vote!

Click here to share a "Vote Sanity Today!" logo on Facebook -- and here to share on Twitter. (When your friends click, they'll also see the voting location app.)

Need a reason to get up off the couch and vote? Take a look at this seed!

When registered voters were recently polled, they favored Democrats by 5 percentage points. When likely voters were polled, they preferred Republicans by 4 percentage points. The difference in this election will depend entirely upon how many Democrats get up off their butts and vote. If you sit at home and don't vote, you can't blame anyone but yourself if Republicans take over Congress.

And for any of your friends who believe nasty conservative lies about the Democrats and Obama, here is the information you need to refute those lies.

Now see you at the polls!

What you do not do is gang up on a woman and stomp on her head (go to jail). And you do not do what Daniel Webster's friend and supporter, Bruce O'Donoghue, did. O'Donoghue stormed up to an Alan Grayson supporter at a Daniel Webster rally, and lost all sensibility nearly assaulting him and ripping his Grayson sign out of his hands. All right in front of a film crew.

Also, please look at this:
"What the Election Comes Down To Is Your "Tuchus" Getting Off the Couch"

On her show last night, Rachel Maddow looked at a Washington Post/ABC poll that shows registered voters prefer Democrats to Republicans by 5+. Dems score better on the economy, "values", and "fixing the nation's problems." When the poll flips to likely voters though -- the registered voters most inclined to make it to the polls -- Republicans surge ahead.

Maddow has a fairly straightforward solution to the "enthusiasm gap" that threatens sweeping wins for Republicans on election day:

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

Election 2010 is being fought on a wave of campaign dollars unleashed on the American people by the Supreme Court in its Citizens United v. FEC decision. The court, led by a majority of staunch right-wingers, struck down limits on third-party "electioneering" ads based on a tortured interpretation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

Thomas Mann, a Brookings Institution scholar, wrote that the decision "will likely go down in history as one of the Supreme Court's most egregious exercises of judicial activism."

While things aren't looking too good for New York State gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino on election day, he decided to party it up nonetheless, capping off a reprehensible campaign season with yet another decidedly gross show of character. On Saturday night, while his opponent Andrew Cuomo remained dogged on the campaign trail, Palladino was busy boozing it up at his favorite bar in Buffalo, Potter's Field. While there's technically nothing wrong with getting a little lubed up on a holiday (though alcohol is more dangerous than heroin), Paladino was snapped in photos with a constituent wearing blackface costume.

Forty-eight percent of Americans approve of how President Barack Obama is handling his job as president, while 45 percent disapprove of his job performance, according to a CNN Poll of Polls compiled and released on Friday.

This Election Day, thousands of predominantly white and head-stompingly angry Tea Partiers will travel to polling places in minority communities and near colleges to engage in classic voter intimidation tactics: get in the faces of potential voters, photograph them as they wait in line, and challenge their eligibility to cast ballots.

The simple truth about America's marijuana prohibition: any law that allows the easy incarceration of any citizen any time those in power want to do it is the ultimate enemy of democracy. With 800,000 annual arrests over an herb used by tens of millions of Americans, it is the cornerstone of a police state.

...those who hoped to hear from Stewart and his colleague, Stephen Colbert, an outright condemnation of the Tea Party movement, at whom his call for "sanity" appeared to be aimed, were destined for disappointment.

Andrew Breitbart is a liar and race-baiter with a long history of pushing false stories to achieve his political ends. He was most recently exposed as a fraud after promoting selectively-edited video in an attempt to paint the USDA's Shirley Sherrod as a racist, smear the NAACP, and accuse the Obama administration of reverse racism.

After receiving heavy criticism, ABC released a statement Saturday purporting to "explain what Mr. Breitbart's role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event" [emphasis added]. According to the ABC statement, "Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage" and will instead "engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate."

But on Sunday night, Breitbart insisted that wasn't the original deal. Breitbart wrote, "I can state with absolute certainty that the verbal pitch to me to participate was punctuated by the opportunity to appear as part of ABC News' broadcast television for the night. I was also aware that the majority of my participation -- seven long hours -- would be online."

From spitting on black Congresspersons, to stomping helpless women, the Tea Party, promoters of wealthy white rage, has forged an image of itself as a bunch of neo-brown-shirt thugs. This is what passes for populism on the right wing in the USA.

The brown shirts, or the SA (Sturmabteilung, storm division), were the street thugs of the German Nazi Party, and in the 1930's, these were Hitler's stormtroops, who engaged opponents in violent street fights, and who were the initial muscle enforcing the Nazi dream of ethnically cleansing Germany of Jews and other 'undesirables'.

These days, in the USA, similarly radical ideology is promoted by Republicans and their Tea Party front, and increasingly Tea Partiers rely upon violence instead of debate to insure their point is made and protected from counterarguments or demonstrations.

Last week, Miller's security handcuffed and attempted to arrest a reporter for the Alaska Dispatch. The Miller campaign was unapologetic and called the reporter an "irrational blogger."

On Monday, two of Paul's supporters pushed a MoveOn.org activist to the ground and stomped on her head. The victim, Lauren Valle, received a concussion and sprains from the altercation.

We have Tea Party people speaking about how they view the nation (substitute Nazi for Tea#. How they view fellow citizens as outsiders. We have Tea Party #Nazi/Tea) rallies where people speak openly about challenging the will of the Republic (the vote) with armed insurrection.

there's lots more...

Nazi Party/Tea Party correlations.

The Tea Party is a front for a takeover of the government by conservative radicals who are stoking public discontent. Like the Nazis, the GOP conservative radical movement today has been shown to be bankrupt---all about power over nation---and even over ideology, when it comes to keeping power.

I tells ya, you gotta give it up for the brilliant strategist that thought this was the winning campaign to put the GOP over the edge in the mid-terms. Perhaps miffed over Franken's call for an FEC investigation into campaign cash from the US Chamber of Commerce, the GOP has launched NoMoreFrankens.com. And I quote:

It is not as simple and harmless as Iott paints it. Nor does it make him a Nazi, but his effort to minimize and cover it is telling, in my opinion, particularly since any reference to his participation was scrubbed from the Wiking website. He also claims he gave it up three years ago when his son lost interest. Was it because of that, or because he planned to have a higher profile in the coming years, or because his business interests might not have been well-served had word spread that he played the role of a Nazi SS officer?

If Republican Mo Brooks wins Tuesday's contest for Alabama's fifth Congressional district, it will be for two reasons: (1) retail politics (2) Glenn Beck. I found two men at the Republican headquarters in Lauderdale County last Thursday. One of them was kind enough to speak on camera. Thoughts on my interview with them, and the House race I reported on here eleven days ago, are below the fold.

Bogus accusations of "illegal voters" crop up every election, and every election they are proven false. What's truly frightening is that, this year, Arpaio is recruiting an "army" to block people from voting in the name of "fraud prevention."

However, you can send a message to the Justice Department demanding that they send election monitors to Arizona immediately. These are the people who are supposed to protecting our right to vote, not suppressing it.

Hey you twenty-something independent who voted for Obama but is now too bummed to show up. Who worked on the campaign and then felt dropped like a hot rock. I hear you. Lots of us do. But Tuesday is vital. This time you will be voting for control of the first branch of government -- Congress. Congress is all of us -- the peoples' house. Today it is the battleground between the past and the future. The terrain is open. You will be the soldiers, the field commanders and the generals of this inevitable revolution. The stakes are huge: How will we go forward as a nation in the world? How will technology improve our democracy? More immediately, how will we respond to the frustrations embodied by the Tea Party movement?

The election is getting closer, and the money keeps on flowing. Watch Harry Hanbury's 2nd installment from his series, Loaded Chamber, featured on GritTV. In this episode: Tom DeLay's former lawyer, Brian McGahn -- who is now the right-wing's ringleader at the Federal Elections Commission -- is one of the main reasons why the U.S. Chamber and other groups have been able to flood this election with secret corporate cash. He may also be why the Chamber's head, Tom Donohue, isn't behind bars.

Throughout the election, members of Alaska's Citizen Militia have rallied behind Tea Party-backed GOP nominee Joe Miller. They've shown up at his town hall meetings, and posted "Vote for Miller" signs around town. Norm Olson, a prominent Michigan militia leader in the '90s who now commands Alaska's militia, explains they have to walk a tightrope. "If we put on uniforms and do a parade, it might look like 1936 Germany," Olson told AlterNet. They avoid "stomping around in uniform" under their militia banner.

Others don't hold back. In a recent parade, Miller supporters marched behind the candidates' Hummer with assault rifles on their shoulders and handguns strapped to their legs.

The New York Times estimated that AFF has spent at least $574,000 on ads attacking the Democrat this cycle, but Braley communications director Caitlin Legacki told AlterNet the figure was closer to $1.8 million, including spending that isn't strictly counted as "electioneering." Lange's also enjoyed another quarter-million worth of attack ads from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, neither group is required to disclose its donors.

Local rally gets in on the national desire to "Restore Sanity." Hundreds crowd the steps of Boise City Hall.

An estimated crowd of more than 500 people showed up on the steps of Boise City Hall to hear a diverse bunch of speakers

Business groups shelling out dough to protect their interests are also affecting crucial social issues like abortion.

Some of the most prolific, unrelenting and negative ads that have swamped the airwaves this election season have been aimed at prominent pro-choice candidates, writes Sharon Johnson at Women's eNews — particularly those ads attacking California Senator Barbara Boxer's, a stalwart champion of women's rights in Washington:

For the second time in a month, Republican congressional candidate Tom Ganley, running in Ohio's 13th district, has been accused of sexual harassment.

In late September, a married mother of four filed a civil suit against Ganley, in which she accused him of attempted rape and sexual assault. Ganley's attorney called the charges "baseless allegations."

Now, a woman named Dianne Hill has filed a report with the Cleveland police, over an alleged incident that occurred in 2005, at Ganley's Chevy dealership in Cleveland.

The flood of write-in candidates in the Alaska Senate race was pushed by Big Government's Dan Riehl and the conservative group Conservatives 4 Palin in an attempt to hurt Sen. Lisa Murkowski's own write-in campaign and give Republican nominee (and tea party favorite) Joe Miller a boost.

"But if you want to be one of 100 U.S. Senators that are going to be deciding on war powers and on ratifying treaties, which is what a Senator has to do, you have to answer these questions."

"Well, certainly," said Angle. "And I'll answer those questions when I'm the Senator."

There may be something rotten at McDonald's -- and it's not a year-old Happy Meal.

The owner of a franchise in Canton, Ohio enclosed a handbill in employees' paychecks that threatened lower wages and benefits if Republicans don't win on Tuesday.

Todd Lally, who is running for congress in Kentucky, claims that because he's never seen gender discrimination, it's really not an issue. It's a particularly shameful position given the dismal position of women's health and well-being in the state. His first foot-in-mouth moment came during a debate when he was asked about Kentucky's women.

On November 2nd California voters can take the first historic step toward reversing a 70-year-old mistake. Ending the war on marijuana is more than just an opportunity -- it is a civic responsibility. As a clinical psychiatrist, I see the social ills and psychological devastation that can result from all manner of substance abuse. But given marijuana's potential risks compared to those of alcohol, tobacco and harder drugs, and the failure of our drug policies, my conscience compels me to strongly support Proposition 19.

Corporate cash does funny things to people. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) got into office by pledging to fight "special interests," but just a decade or so later, he's running one of the biggest special interest shows in Washington. It's easy to see the appeal. As the fancy funding backing the Tea Party demonstrates, big money buys big things—from elections to populist outrage.

The running theme for campaigns supported by the Tea Party and other GOPers is hate: hate for us poor mamas, poor people of color, poor families and immigrants.

it will be a eye-feast of hundreds of thousands of good-humored, well-behaved Americans, there to answer the cynicism of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, at which the notion that the election of a black president somehow sullied the nation's dignity was dressed in sanctimony and a display of patriotism so bombastic that it was almost camp.

But the Fox News audience is not Stewart's target: it's the millions of Americans who don't watch Fox. A show of strength on their part should give mainstream media pause before endlessly repeating right-wing memes about the Restoring Sanity gathering. Whatever liberals do or don't do, Fox News will find a way to distort either their actions or inaction. Yes, we need to be strategically smart, but hiding is not an option.

Republicans have worked hard to sow fear and anger this election season, and if recent events in the Washington Senate race are any indication, their rhetorical hyperbole is having an unsurprising effect. On October 14, a man was arrested for threatening Patty Murray supporters with a meat cleaver outside a debate in Spokane. Four days later, a man was arrested outside Walla Walla County Republican headquarters for assaulting a young woman who was protesting Dino Rossi, hitting her with "force." And just a few days ago, a man was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for threatening to kill Sen. Murray.

This crowd of illiterates don't know why they're angry, they just know that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh told them to be angry, generated a few boogeymen on which to focus that anger, and that's good enough.

Your modern conservative movement is built on ignorance.

The Democratic candidates, led by New Hampshire House hopeful Ann Kuster, have launched netneutralityprotectors.com, an online petition and fundraising effort that pledges to stand up "against any attempt by big corporations to control the Internet and eliminate the Internet's level playing field." The candidates are running for House and Senate positions in 34 states.

Of course, by the end of the Longworth era we were in the middle of the Great Depression. And it took FDR and the New Deal to put America back on its feet. So forgive me Mr. Boehner if I don't want to see my country go back to the way things were done in the 1920s.

Delaware Republican Christine O'Donnell has parted ways with yet another campaign treasurer and appointed her campaign manager as her fifth treasurer since launching her bid for Senate last year.

Campaign finance experts say the turnover is unusual and could raise questions at the Federal Election Commission about her financial reporting. O'Donnell began with relatively small donations but has been taking in nearly $1 million a week after winning the GOP primary last month.

Old, white Republican Al Reynolds rips the lid off African-Americans who sell drugs rather than go to college Video

In an interview with The 700 Club airing tomorrow, O'Donnell reveals that she actually died once but then rose from the dead when God wanted her to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate. "If I didn't believe that there were [sic] a cause greater than myself worth fighting for, if I didn't believe that it takes a complete dying of self to make things right in this election cycle, I would not be running, and when you die to yourself, you rely on a power greater than yourself," she said, referring to the power of emerging out of a funeral cave as a zombie-Jesus Senate candidate.

If tea party leaders jet around the country in a plane donated by a big GOP contributor, are they still "grassroots" activists? It's a question some local tea partiers would like to put to the leaders of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the nation's largest tea party umbrella groups, which claims to represent 15 million people. Over the past week, national coordinators Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin have been "flying for freedom" and "landing for liberty" across the country in a private jet they've dubbed "Patriot One" to help rally the tea party troops before the election.

Predictably, the anti-pot forces have brought everything they have — mostly hyperbole, in other words — to the battle. To hear them tell it, California's very future is at stake, and not only that but perhaps the fate of civilization as well. It'd be a lot easier to smile about it if these folks weren't completely serious — as serious as they were a couple years ago in their successful campaign to make Prop 8 the law of the land in California, banning gay marriages.

And yes, one of the biggest anti-Prop 19 groups has pretty much the same people as ran one of the pro-Prop 8 groups that stunk up the election last time with their innuendoes, anti-gay bias and snidely ignorant talking points. This time pot's the demon, instead of gay couples.

Remember that horrible 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad that helped derail John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid? Well, Bob Perry, the billionaire tycoon who financed that smear campaign is back, and he's underwriting a barrage of dirty ads that target politicians he doesn't like.

And this time around, the Supreme Court gave Perry cover in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which allows big donors to fund attacks anonymously.

Now, the corporate Right has public sector workers in its cross-hairs. A viral email making the rounds in Tea Party circles sums up the charge, describing a dark conspiracy among "stinking, filthy libs" to use masses of sallow government bureaucrats to undermine America's "capitalistic, independent, rugged individualists and entrepreneurs":

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has poured an unprecedented amount of money into attack ads against Democratic congressional candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections. As the New York Times reported last week, a few of the Chamber's largest members are the key drivers behind this year's partisan blitz and exert outsized influence over the organization. But the U.S. Chamber's rabidly partisan tone and top-down control are turning off some local chambers.

What we do know for sure is that the far right has assembled a $6 billion interlinked machine of think-tanks, lobbyists, PACs, astroturf front groups, media sycophants, endowed professorships, state-based political fronts and now even their own centralized headhunter; all to throw us off the scent that the real threat to the poor and middle class in America is corporate domination.

David Plouffe gives a final campaign update as volunteers prepare for election weekend. Share this with all the Democrats, and like minded voters you know! Important!

With the busiest week for political advertising still to come, the ten biggest right-wing ad groups have aired 99,773 TV ads since August 1, according to ad data reviewed by Political Correction. The groups have spent $95.5 million that we know about in that time, and probably millions more that escape the FEC's disclosure requirements (click to enlarge):

Tonight, Beck finally dropped the pretense, turning his Fox News show into an hour-long telethon and GOTV drive for Republican congressmen Bachmann, Chaffetz, and DeMint.

Not even trying to mask his intentions, Beck at on point turned to DeMint and asked, "What kind of help do you need?" DeMint promptly directed Beck's viewers to a GOP fundraising website.

Indeed, Fox News has been giving the "kind of help" the GOP needs throughout this election cycle. Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, famously bragged to her supporters that appearances on a "friendly press outlet" like Fox News can be quite profitable. GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell reportedly boasted that she had "Sean Hannity in my back pocket."

Amid a political firestorm of controversy surrounding Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller's ethics violations while working as a government attorney in 2008, new details emerged on Tuesday night revealing that the Republican hopeful himself admitted to lying about his complicity in the matter.

Tonight, was it a call to arms? A candidate says the founders had a remedy if the ballot box doesn't work - revolution. So was he calling for one next month, or was he taken out of context?

Don't have a good enough reason to go out and vote for the Democrats? Watch this video, then you WILL!

One of Fox News' purportedly objective news programs reported the false claim that Mi Familia Vota submitted 3,000 "shady" voter registrations at the "last minute" in Arizona to benefit the Democratic Party. The fake story originated from an Arizona blogger who has a history of making questionable statements, and was denounced as false by the Yuma County Recorder's Office.

Former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson and Jersey Shore star "The Situation" announced their plans to tie the knot on November 2nd. The ceremony will be officiated by Snooki and televised on MTV, and may play a spoiler role in the mid-term elections. When asked if they'd be voting in the election or watching the nuptials, 78% of Americans responded "election?"

Be sure to watch this very important video. You'll be very glad you did!

Finally there is a TV ad promoting the legalization of marijuana. It's the first TV ad either side in the Prop 19 battle has produced. Rolls Tuesday in L.A.

San Jose Police Chief (ret.) Joseph McNamara explains why he, and other law enforcement officers in California, will be voting Yes on 19.

Let's be honest: The war against marijuana has failed.

I know from 35 years in law enforcement.

Today, it's easier for a teenager to buy pot than beer.

Proposition 19 will tax and control marijuana just like alcohol.

It will generate billions of dollars for local communities, allow police to focus on violent crimes, and put drug cartels out of business.

Join me and many others in law enforcement.

Vote YES on Proposition 19!

Companies that received federal bailout money, including some that still owe money to the government, are giving to political candidates with vigor. Among companies with PACs, the 23 that received $1 billion or more in federal money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program gave a total of $1.4 million to candidates in September, up from $466,000 the month before.

Most of those donations are going to Republican candidates, although the TARP program was approved primarily with Democratic support.

and lives a modest lifestyle. And it's the kind of person that Ame-- Americans should be proud to have.

I'm sure that's true, to the extent that you can live a modest lifestyle while owning a 13,000 square foot home.

Undue corporate influence over U.S. elections has been a serious problem in American politics for decades, but this year's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission made things worse. Worst of all, we may never know the extent of the damage.

Citizens United freed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money backing specific political candidates, and without congressional action, those expenditures can be completely anonymous. Major corporations are already capitalizing on the new legal landscape by the millions, and the public doesn't really know who is buying what influence or why.

Every day it seems that more and more seemingly normal American people have suddenly been transformed into mere mental husks of themselves.

Like the pod people in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," some strange force has wrested control of their brains and turned them into "sheeple." "Body Snatchers" is just entertainment, and there's a bit more at stake in the real world.

On one side is "Obama's America." The president has sought to invigorate national unity across ethnic boundaries. Obama's America centers on a unifying civic nationalism that embraces citizens of every background. From his recognition of the slaves who helped build the White House, to his defense of the right of Muslims to build a mosque in lower Manhattan, to his reference to families with two dads in his Father's Day Address, to his acknowledgment of religious non-believers in his Inaugural Address, to his belief that every American deserves access to health care, Obama places inclusiveness at the core of his vision of Americanness. This is the basis of much anti-Obama sentiment.

Another American nationalism is out there, one that is ethnic rather than civic. Its advocates see Obama's America as an existential threat to their exclusionary understanding of Americanness. Many on the right play on cultural, religious, and ethnic grievances to divide Americans from one another.

With less than 10 days remaining before Entropical Storm Sarah is expected to make landfall, desecrating this once great nation of ours, emergency preparations are well underway.

All signs point to Democratic losses ranging from the House to the Senate, despite the President's best efforts to shore up the base.

Given this, rather than worrying about voters staying home on November 2nd, Democrats should be focusing on their own survival.

We already know that Murkowski is lying to try to poach enough Dem voters to give her unlikely bid for re-election half a chance. But what Alaska Dems need to remember is: a) the party is united behind the actual Democrat in the race--Scott McAdams; and b) Murkowski is not going to turn into a progressive or even and independent if she somehow pulls out a miracle win. She's already proven it by saying she'll caucus with the Republicans again if she goes back.

Attention, voters of Wisconsin! However pissed you might be about the state of the economy, or the state of the nation, I have a new reason for you to not vote for Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson.

It's not his abhorrent issue positions (which he has kept purposefully mum for the past several months#. Nor is it the amenable qualities of Johnson's Democratic opponent, Senator Russ Feingold #though he certainly has them).

It is the simple fact that his campaign is the biggest insult to the intelligence of the American voter in my memory. Ron Johnson wants you to elect him on spec, without giving you any indication of how he will use the office to which he wants you to entrust him.

It doesn't get much more clear-cut than this: a longtime Democratic congressman of Lebanese Christian descent is being repeatedly attacked on air for the offense of being Arab.

In the past month, three attack ads that gratuitously draw attention to the ethnic background of Rep. Nick Rahall have aired in the West Virginia district that he has represented since 1977. Two of the ads come from his opponent, former judge Spike Maynard, who is down in the polls.

Beyond this particular race, these ads show (again) that you can get away with an awful lot if the other guy is Arab or Muslim.

This is now the 15,327th severely flawed poll that shows Joe Sestak gaining significant ground on Pat Toomey. Before Rasmussen, and before the internal polls of both campaigns, PPP, Muhlenberg, Quinnipiac, and 15,321 other grotesquely inaccurate polls had shown Toomey's lead collapsing.

Like Sharron Angle and her "Second Amendment remedies", the intent is clear -- if democracy doesn't give the teabaggers the result they want, then violence is on the table.

Stephen Broden, a Republican running for Congress in a Dallas, Texas district, says if the Nov. 2 election does not yield the desired change in Washington then a violent overthrow of government would be one option "on the table," the Dallas Morning News reported.

The starkest illustration of Mr. Boehner's mushrooming ability to command big checks were contributions in the third quarter to Boehner for Speaker, a joint fund-raising committee set up this year whose goal is spelled out in its name. Individuals may write checks as large as $37,800 to the committee, to be divvied up among Mr. Boehner's own campaign committee, Friends of John Boehner; an affiliated political action committee, the Freedom Project; and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Boehner for Speaker collected $1.9 million between July 1 and Sept. 30, according to figures to be filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

When Bob Perry, a wealthy home builder from Texas, emerged six years ago as a prime financer of the Swift Boat Veterans attack ads against Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, the political strategist Karl Rove was there to vouch for Mr. Perry.

Now Mr. Rove and his party are benefiting from his old friend's largess once again, as new federal disclosure reports this week showed that Mr. Perry has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group Mr. Rove helped start. Mr. Perry was the group's biggest donor.

Stupid future-Chinese people owning us! If only we hadn't attempted stimulus spending -- we could've been as prosperous and successful as the communist nation that spent vast sums of money on massive infrastructure projects as part of their $586 billion stimulus.

Recent polling shows Tancredo and Hickenlooper in a close race, with Maes trailing badly. If Maes fails to garner 10 percent of the vote at the polls, the Republican Party will lose its official designation as majority party in Colorado.

Democrats have dropped a seat to go to 52 in the Senate Snapshot. Still, with seven campaigns within less than 3%, the battleground is wider than ever. Anything between 49 and 55 remains quite plausible. Toss in Washington and Wisconsin, where polling has been close lately, and even 48 and 56 are not entirely out of the question.

Even if that message fails to prove a winning one next month, Paul Davis, the Democratic minority leader in the State Assembly, believes the conservative takeover of the Republicans may eventually lead to a realignment of the parties. As evidence he noted that three incumbent Democrats in his caucus first won office as Republicans.

"I think over time," Mr. Davis said, "you're going to see more and more of these moderate Republicans decide that they have more in common with Democrats than with conservative Republicans."

Sarah Palin, the king- and queen-maker of campaign 2010, extended her reach to the mid-Atlantic region Wednesday, but the former Alaska governor got her Lower 48 mixed up. She endorsed West Virginia Republican John Raese for the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. Raese is opposing Democrat Joe Manchin for a Senate seat in neighboring West Virginia.

And today, O'Donnell also took issue with the assertion that the Constitution mandates a separation of church and state.

On a bright morning this July in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, more than 20 volunteers gathered in the town center to register people to vote and go door to door building momentum for Democratic candidates. They were joined by a local candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's 6th district, Dr. Manan Trivedi. Trivedi, a physician who served as a doctor in Iraq, spoke to the crowd before joining them in hitting the streets to talk with voters. He told the group that this year's election is just as important---if not more so---than 2008:

Voting is a fundamental right--and when we make our voices heard, we can keep moving our nation forward, building a fairer, stronger, and more just America.

Raise your hand. Raise your voice. Raise your VOTE. Learn everything you need to know to vote this November: http://RaiseYourVote.com/

This is an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT election. Raise your VOTE!

There are a lot of subterranean efforts afoot around the country right now to suppress the vote of various racial minorities, but a group styling itself Latinos for Reform is taken a more straightforward approach: their running ads in Nevada asking Latino voters simply not to vote.

The ads are the work of Robert Desposada, a Republican political consultant and Univision pundit.

Last week I noted that the ads that have been bankrolled by Karl Rove's groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against Senate Dem candidates across the country have been widely debunked by independent fact-checkers for their multiple falsehoods and distortions.

Turns out the same is true of the Chamber's ads against House Democrats. These Chamber ads, which are running or have run in multiple districts across the country, contain many claims that are demonstrable distortions or have been repeatedly debunked as false by independent fact-checkers.

Now that we have video of Joe Miller's private security contractors handcuffing and forcibly detaining a reporter who dared ask Miller a question during a campaign event last night, we can say for sure that Miller was absolutely serious when he praised East Germany's police state approach towards immigration policy.