[Orlando, December 16. Image via Getty]

ORLANDO, FL - DECEMBER 16: A member of the Orlando Magic dancers performs during the game against the Toronto Raptors at Amway Arena on December 16, 2009 in Orlando, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

[Miami, December 16. Image via Getty]

MIAMI - DECEMBER 16: Mireya Suarez (R) gives loaves of bread to Elba Lopez as she receives free food at the annual Latin Chamber of Commerce food giveaway on December 16, 2009 in Miami, Florida. The organizers, who say they are seeing more people than usual this year because of the poor economy, distribute large baskets of food for those who need help with holiday meals. The bags contain items including milk, meat, canned fruit and spices. All of the items are donated by various companies and supermarkets. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

[Coral Gables, October 14. Image via Getty]

CORAL GABLES, FL - OCTOBER 14: Jillen Lippincott holds a sign during a rally in front of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) office to show her support of having a strong public health insurance option in the health care reform bill on October 14, 2009 in Coral Gables, Florida. The Senate Finance Committee yesterday passed its version of a health care reform that does not include a public insurance option. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

As the clip explains, turn of the century women were so obsessed with feathered hats — particularly those with the kind of feathers an Egret only grows when nurturing her young — that a whopping 95% of Florida's shore birds were killed by poachers greedy for the feathers that were worth more than their weight in gold:

"The Audubon Society tried unsuccessfully to persuade women not to buy hats with feathers, while the powerful millinery industry used its influence in Congress to defeat a series of national laws aimed at stopping the slaughter of birds."

Finally, a conservative Congressman named John F. Lacey got a bill passed that made transporting birds killed in violation of any state law a federal crime, and the contentious years that followed it (which included a war between poachers and game wardens) set the stage for the Everglades' preservation.

Without getting into any blatantly obvious lessons about the ethics of fashion (surely that's the name of a class somewhere), those are some pretty stupid looking hats! Great-Grandma: WTF?

The Call For A Featherless Hat [PBS]
The National Parks: America's Best Idea [PBS]

[Homestead, Florida; September 21. Image via Getty]

HOMESTEAD, FL - SEPTEMBER 21: (L-R) Beth Frazier, Carol Echeverria and Angie Solomon along with other volunteers sort food into individual bags to be given out at Farm Share, a non-profit business, that helps families in need on September 21, 2009 in Homestead, Florida. Facing sharp budget cuts due to economic conditions the county of Miami-Dade may have to cut the budget of Farm Share, which in turn will affect some of the 6,000 people they are helping. One year ago Farm Share was helping 3,000 individuals and families. Cities and counties across the nation are facing the same dilemma as tax rates drop and municipalities look for programs to cut to make up budget deficits. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

• The details of Fashion's Night Out — aka Anna Wintour's Plan To Save Retail — have been announced. Over 700 stores in all five boroughs will be participating in events that range from sewing circles to cook-ins to rock shows:

• Celebs and designers who will be in attendance at the various festivities include Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, Francisco Costa, Manolo Blahnik, Isaac Mizrahi, Kate Mulleavy, Diane von Furstenberg, Liev Schreiber, Stephanie Seymour, and Anna Wintour herself. Although all the tee shirt customization and free music will be enough to drag us around to at least a few stores come September 10, we're also tremendously excited by the idea of taking salsa lessons taught by Juan Carlos Obando. [WWD]
• As is to be expected, Vogue is apparently attracting a lot of attention from cost-cutting consultants McKinsey. Dare we hope that McKinsey will shake things up at the tired mag, and shake them hard? In other Condé Nast news, Teen Vogue's very stylish accessories editor, Taylor Tomasi Hill, is leaving to take a position at Marie Claire. There are no plans to replace her. [Fashionista]
• Agent Provocateur is launching a new line of super-expensive lingerie it's calling couture. Agent Provocateur Soirée will launch with an in-season show at New York Fashion Week on September 9, and hit stores in November. Prices top £2450. [Elle UK]
• The second issue of Love is out, and it turns out the preview image that surfaced online last month actually is one of the covers — editor Katie Grand chose Alex Hartley, and 18-year-old bass player she found on the Internet, for one cover, and Sting spawn Coco Summer for the other. [Fashionologie]
• Katie Grand had 35 guests at her recent wedding. Thirty-five guests who finished 28 bottles of vodka. Our kid of woman. [ToL]
• Dasha Zhukova, the 28-year-old heiress, art gallerist, and Grand's replacement editor at Pop, is rumored to be pregnant by her 42-year-old boyfriend, Roman Abramovich. [P6]
• An image of Scarlett Johansson which might be part of the ad campaign for a Dolce & Gabbana perfume launching later this year has leaked. The perfume is called Rose The One, and the picture is very soft and rosy looking, plus Johansson is already confirmed to be the face of the scent, both of which are signs that point to yes. [SassyBella]
• Tori Spelling has launched a children's clothing range. Little Maven will cost $26-$88, and is designed for kids up to 4 years of age. [Daily Mail]
• Naomi Campbell and Queen Rania of Jordan were introduced while holidaying in the south of France. There's no word on what they discussed upon meeting. [Daily Mail]
• The mayor of Kennesaw, Georgia, which is male model Sean O'Pry's hometown, is today giving the 20-year-old an official proclamation, because O'Pry speaks highly of Kennesaw in the interviews he does between gigs for Armani and Calvin Klein. [P6]
• Comme des Garçons and Converse are giving their collaboration wider distribution this fall. Four styles of the Comme des Garçons-designed sneakers will go on sale in select cities at the end of this month, and worldwide in October, for $100 a pop. [WWD]
• When asked about the person who irrevocably changed the way she looked at fashion, Heidi Klum generously named Karl Lagerfeld, despite the designer's stated dislike of her. [Newsweek]
• Everybody is wearing Lolita glasses. And by everybody, we mean Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Katy Perry, Nicole Richie, Kelly Osbourne, and Kim Kardashian. Clearly we ought to be wearing them, too. Or something. [NYDN]
• If you are a man who wants to buy Levi's jeans that are "re-created using the original techniques from 1873" for $395, you can do so, at J. Crew's downtown men's stores. [WWD]
• Riam Dean, the young woman who was asked to work in the stockroom by Abercrombie & Fitch because of her prosthetic arm, has sold the full, terrible story of her experience of discrimination to the Daily Mail. Dean says the £9,000 she won from the company in damages hasn't covered her legal fees. [Daily Mail]
• Hats are back, again. This story gets re-written every six months. [WSJ]
• The alligator "harvest" begins later on this month in Florida, but wildlife experts expect the number of the creatures that will end up as purses this year to be drastically reduced: while revenue from alligator skins topped $71 million in Florida in 2007, a mere $10 million is this year's industry estimate. What doesn't make sense about all these stories about exotic skins, whether alligator, crocodile, or python, losing their marketplace appeal, is the fact that among luxury categories, the bridge products — wallets, keychains, and other "aspirational" branded baubles — are the ones that are experiencing the steepest decline in sales. Brands from Hermès to Louis Vuitton have reported that their most expensive offerings, like exotic skinned bags, are still experiencing strong sales — if not actually leading sales across the whole brand. So what gives? Are the pythons and gators going to be left to their own devices in the Everglades this season, or not? [MSNBC]
• H&M's same-store sales fell 3% on last year during the month of July; analysts had expected a more modest 1% drop, since the fast fashion chain has been performing relatively well in the recession so far. [Reuters]
• Following another disastrous quarterly result, Abercrombie has announced it plans to further cut its prices. [WSJ]
• Escada USA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York, one day after the German parent company opened bankruptcy proceedings there. [WWD]

• Madonna and Jesus have broken up, if you believe that she Twitters, which this paper does. Meanwhile, she's allegedly on her way to Malawi to adopt another kid. [Daily Mail]

• According to the papers, her Madgesty is 2 days away from adopting a second child from Malawi. That seems… speedy. [The Sun, Mirror]
• Lindsay Lohan's latest flick, Labor Pains, will never hit theaters: It's going to premiere on ABC Family, then go to DVD. This is the flick in which LL plays a woman who fakes being pregnant to keep from being fired. Hilarious? [Access Hollywood]
• Rihanna was seen "smiling and flirting" with a group of guys — including Brody Jenner — at Nobu in New York on Wednesday. She also has a blond, female security guard, which is kind of awesome. [Page Six]
• Last night, Rihanna was seen dancing at a Hollywood night club. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse's latest Facebook status reads "If you love him, let him go." [The Sun]
• Warning: Celebrities have Twitter ghostwriters. Where do we apply? [NY Times]
• Wow, Shawn Johnson is making quite a bit of cash to appear on Dancing WIth The Stars — if she goes all the way she could take home over $350,000. [E!]
• Speaking of DWTS, Holly Madison has been experiencing pain in her rib area. Bad enough that she's on meds. This show is dangerous! [E!]
• Kate Middleton, Prince William's girlfriend, has a pal named Emma Sayle. Apparently Emma runs sex parties called Killing Kittens, for single women and couples. Racy! [The Sun]
• Courtney Love versus a designer on Etsy: Guess who called someone a "vile horrible lying bitch"? Hint: The rock star. [E!]
• The designer also claims Courtney Love called her an "asswipe nasty lying hosebag thief." [TMZ]
• Jennifer Hudson has set a date for her wedding, but it's a secret. [Mirror]
• Queen Latifah has been cast in a romcom described as modern day Cinderella story; she'll play a physical therapist who falls in love with a basketball player while helping him recover from a career-threatening injury. [Variety]
• What the world needs now: A Ben Hur mini-series. [Variety]
• Rapper T.I. will be sentenced today for weapons possession; he will probably get a year. He's already done 1,000 hours of community service. [CNN]
• Donna Martin, aka Tori Spelling, returns to 90210 on Tuesday. Plus: Diablo Cody drops by. Stuntcasting means someone really really wants you to watch. [E!]
• Seriously, what is Courteney Cox's Cougar Town show really about? Every shot we ever see is CC in a robe. [Socialite Life]
• Something stinks: NBC is yanking cooking competition show Chopping Block off the air and replacing it with repeats of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. [Yahoo via Reuters]
• Survivor winner Richard Hatch wants to get out of jail. [Yahoo via AP]
• So you know that shaggy coat Pixie Geldof wore? She had a matching dress underneath. [Daily Mail]
• A witness claims to have seen two dudes get off of rapper Flo Rida's tour bus, kill a rabbit, and then get back on. Now Flo Rida is being questioned by police. [Socialite Life]
• Former Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge star Willie Aames is broke and having a big garage sale in suburban Kansas City; he filed for bankruptcy last year and his home is in foreclosure. I want Charles in charge of me? [Yahoo via AP]
• Eddie Cibrian, recently accused of cheating on his wife with LeAnn Rimes, was photographed holding hands with his wife at Miami airport yesterday. Damage control? [TMZ]
• Got $150 million? You can buy the late Aaron Spelling's mansion: 56,500 square feet of space on more than 4.6 acres. There's a bowling alley, wine cellar, wine tasting room, gift-wrapping room, a humidity-controlled silver storage room, China room, library, gym, and, of course, screening room. [Yahoo via AP]
• Green Day is back, with an eight studio album out May 15th. [EW]
• Blind item! Which A-list hunk got elbowed in the face by a girl after demanding she get him a bag of blow? The damsel clocked him after he called her a few (unprintable) names. [Gatecrasher]
• I like any job where you can just shut yourself away from everybody." — Robert Pattinson. [Mirror]
• We schedule it out. We force ourselves to do it. There's always an excuse for a couple not to take time for themselves, but it's really short sighted. The first thing you'd better do is make a date as soon as that baby comes. You'd better make a date and take your wife out within a month - whether you want to, or not - and you can't talk about the kid. And you'd better have a romantic weekend within two months because it tears couples apart, these babies do. Felicity and I have been really good about finding time. We'll go away for two days - for one day, even - and we try to do it four, five, six times a year." — William H. Macy, on keeping a marriage alive when you have kids. [Mirror]
• She has the partying part down right. But I don't think she's got the focus. I mean, it requires a lot of focus and a lot of people think they can do it, but they really find that it's a lot harder. Ask anyone - it's a lot harder than it looks. I guess that's why they call us supermodels - we make it look easy. But it's not as easy as it looks, so I wish her all the best." — Tyson Beckford on Lindsay Lohan. [Perez]
• "Because I got high, I forgot to pay. It was stupid. I'm an idiot for that." — Method Man, on owing back taxes. [Gatecrasher]
• "I think the last thing I should be doing right now is planning a wedding. I'd become one of those cracked-out housewives with a vacuum cleaner, hopped up on Dexedrine." — Kelly Osbourne, who just left rehab for her painkiller addiction. [Mirror]

• A new study shows that children with contact lenses feel better about their looks than kids who wear glasses. • Horrible news: over 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year. Officials say that many of these deaths were tied to domestic abuse. • Proposition 8 is back in court. The court's decision is due within 90 days, so here's hoping that the 18,000 same-sex couples wed in California are not forced to give up their rights. • Four years after being honorably discharged, Lisa Pagan, mother of two, was recalled for duty. She reported with her children, and is now waiting to hear whether her appeal - on the grounds that she must stay in the country to take care of her kids - will be approved or not. • According to a study from the University of Warwick, modern women are ill-equipped to deal with motherhood because of their newfound geographical mobility. • New strains of drug-resistant gonorrhea have been detected in the US, UK and Australia. • The kidnapping trial of Kumari Fulbright, former beauty queen, has been pushed back until at least August. • Toward the end of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of children were kidnapped and put up for adoption. Years later, Spain is facing pressure to investigate the "lost children of the Franco regime." • The Belfast Rape Crisis Center is facing harsh criticism for its burlesque show fundraiser. Academic Fionola Meredith is among those opposing the show: "Forget post-feminism and irony - Northern Ireland remains an old-fashioned sexist's paradise where women's rights are very far down the political agenda." • More than 15,000 tapes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Christian talk show, the 'PTL Club', are up for auction. • Excerpts from Josef Fritzl's psychological examination have been released, and the details are terrifying. Fritzl claims that he "actually led a completely normal family life" and that he was a "good provider." • According to UN officials, the women's prison at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan, is probably the best in the country. The "humane" prison allows children to stay with their mothers, and offers classes for the prisoners in English and computer science. • British teachers worry that forward-facing strollers may be to blame for the recent decline in the linguistic abilities of many children. • Artist Christian Faur assembles amazing portraits entirely out of whole crayons. Check them out here. • A new study has found that sexual dysfunction among women may have more to do with the brain than with the body. • The world's first pink dolphin has been discovered living in an inland lake in Louisiana. • The Japanese have invented a new weight loss tool: expensive toe rings. • Women are less likely to go into debt and work harder for financial independence than men, according to a new study. • Mariachi classes are gaining young followers, as second and third generation Latinos reconnect with music of their grandparents. 14-year-old Maureen Sanchez has been taking Mariachi classes since she was five, and has already recorded three CDs and appeared on national radio and television. • A recent survey shows that women are more religious than men. Analysts speculate that this may be caused by - what else? - motherhood. • For the first time, researchers have established a link between estrogen and fat storage, which may explain why women store fat differently than men. • The New York Times has a short, but important, documentary following an 11-year-old girl on her last day of school before the Taliban closes it down. • 

[Image via Florida Times-Union[

• Hank Williams Jr., who we started studiously ignoring after he murdered our national anthem during a Palin rally, has decided that he's not quite done with being part of a losing campaign and will challenge Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander in the primary for the 2010 race. [Politico]
• Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman today threw out Florida's 31-year-old law prohibiting LGBT Floridians from adopting children, noting that there was no scientific evidence to support the ban and Florida allows LGBT people to foster children. The state plans to appeal. [Wall Street Journal]
• Barack Obama is adopting, too, and not just a puppy — he's adopting current Defense Secretary Robert Gates for his own Administration. [ABC News]

• Obama also named David Orszag, currently head of the Congressional Budget Office, to head up his Office of Management and the Budget. He will be the first blogger to join the Administration. [The Hill, Washington Post]
• One person who won't be part of the Administration is former CIA official John Brennan, who took himself out of the running for any Administration position after being pilloried on the blogosphere for stuff he wasn't a part of. [Washington Independent]
• If you were missing Sarah Palin, she's all over the news today, between receiving an award from Field and Stream, heading to Georgia to campaign for Saxby Chambliss and being laughed at by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. [Politico, New York Times, Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber is back on the teevees, too, hawking digital converter boxes. When will those two crazy kids ever get it together and admit they belong together... and out of my field of vision? [Wonkette]
• Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal hopes it's soon, so he can kick his Presidential campaign into high gear at last. Yeah, we're turning into that kind of political system. [LA Times]
• Not that this election is actually over yet, as Al Franken's just a little concerned that some officials are squirreling away valid ballots to keep Norm Coleman in office. You'd think it was a paranoid fantasy, but he's got video. [Politico]

• If you weren't already aware, voter turnout is really high. That's led to some scattered problems, which will be chronicled after the jump. [Washington Post]
• In the mean time, the fucking Supreme Court heard the fucking case about fucking swearing on fucking TV. They didn't say "fuck" once, so I felt like someone had to. [Washington Post]
• A lot of people in California who really love each other rushed to get married today in case a bunch of small-minded, easily-led voters decide to make it illegal today for them to do so tomorrow. [NY Times]
• Joe Lieberman "fears" for the future of this country if the Democrats gain a filibuster-proof majority today, and has vowed to join with Republicans to filibuster anything they want to show his contempt for his constituents and the Americans who decided they were okay with a Democratic Senate. [Think Progress]

• Actor Tim Robbins was the most prominent victim of the ironically-named Help America Vote Act's mandated purges of voter rolls today. Being rather well-informed, he took his ass to court to force the city of New York to allow him to vote in the regular fashion, rather than provisionally since it would have gotten discarded. Can we just agree HAVA needs to be revisited next year? [NY Times]
• Rudy and Judith Nathan Giuliani apparent had no such difficulties and even got to cut in line. [Village Voice]
• Some people in Detroit waited 4-5 hours to vote. [CNN]
• Ditto in St. Louis. [CNN]
• A bunch of people in New Mexico that requested absentee ballots never got them and were told to show up and cast provisional ballots, as though if one needed to vote absentee that was a possibility. [CNN]
• At one Florida voting site, they had one machine to accommodate all the voters. Yeah, it was in a predominately African-American neighborhood. [Huffington Post]
• There were big problems with broken machines and a lack of paper ballots in Richmond, Virginia today, too. [Huffington Post]
• In Indiana, the GOP violated a judges orders and tried to challenge the voting status of foreclosed-upon voters. [Huffington Post]
• Some voters in Ohio were forced to cast provisional ballots (which might or might not be counted) because poll workers screwed up and thought that the address on the license had to match the address on the registration. It doesn't. [CNN]
• A 92-year-old woman in Texas cast her ballot from an ambulance outside the polling place when her absentee ballot didn't arrive. [CBS]
• Joe the Motherfucking Plumber went to the wrong polling place and tried to good ol' "Do you know who I am?" when he got stopped for speeding this week. Fuck. Off. Dude. [Wonkette]
• Joining JTMP in fucking off should be P.U.M.A. co-founder Will Bower. [CNN]
• Not that she swears, but 114-year-old Gertrude Baines, the daughter of former slaves who voted for Obama today, probably shares that sentiment. [LA Times]

Colorado
After reports surfaced that Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman had purged tens of thousands of voters from the rolls in Colorado within the sacrosanct 90-day time period in which purges are illegal, he was sued to add the voters back in. This week, a federal court forced Coffman to not only add those voters back onto the rolls, but to grant their provisional ballots special status. When one of the purged voters files a ballot, the state has to actively prove that they don't qualify to vote or else count the ballot.

Florida
The grandmother of voter suppression efforts by the GOP, early voters are turning out in record numbers here, too, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2000 election. Most of them say they're hoping that if their votes get screwed up, voting early will give them time to fix things. Of course, machine breakdowns and ID-verification ended up slowing the process down, which means that early voters have hurried up to stand in line anyway. Despite GOP concerns that early voting could cost them the election, Republican Governor Charlie Crist ordered early voting locations to stay open longer to accommodate the unexpected surge.

Georgia
In a state seeing unprecedented voter turnout, particularly in African-American communities, and with scores of people voting early (as much as 40 percent of the total 2004 turnout), it's worth nothing that the Republican Secretary of State, Karen Handel, "flagged" as many as 55,000 Georgia voters for additional review prior to the election. While the courts told her to notify the 4,500 flagged for citizenship review that they were eligible to vote, there's no word on the other 50,000 people she's trying to kick off.

Michigan
Michigan has a system that sends newly registered voters cards to confirm their registration. Since 2006, about 5,000 of those cards were returned as undeliverable, and the state threw those voters off the rolls with no other evidence. This week, a federal appeals court ordered the state to re-enroll those voters, insisting that the state law does not require the receipt of the notification card, so the state can't declare them not registered. Those (and other voters) can still face a request for proof of residency at the polls.

Ohio
Ohio, the biggest, swingiest state of them all, has also been a hotbed of voter purges, new registration and Republican activity this year. As mentioned before, Ohio Republicans attempted to force Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to throw people off the rolls and stop allowing voters who registered after the early voting period had started to vote; Brunner declined and the Supreme Court sided with her. Bush even tried to get the Department of Justice to weigh in on it, but AG Michael Mukasey decided he didn't want to end up a Gonzales-style legal outcast and declined. Nonetheless,most observers expect that Ohio will be the biggest clusterfuck of this election season (possibly even surpassing Florida in 2000), full of legal challenges, fraud allegations, suppression allegations and general stupid political shit that has nothing to do with anything. Should be fun.

Pennsylvania
The state of Pennsylvania went to court to argue that it didn't need to provide voters with paper ballots — despite all this talk of record turn-out — unless all of the machines in a polling place fail. Judge Harvey Bartle ruled that if half of the machines in a polling place break, the state has to provide paper ballots to voters. The state decided against appealing the decision, apparently realizing that forcing voters to stand in long lines to all use one functioning machine is probably not the best plan.

Virginia
The Virginia NAACP filed a lawsuit against Democratic Governor Tim Kaine this week, alleging that the state was failing to provide enough voting machines at minority voting places and asking the judge to force them to try to keep wait times to 45 minutes. They withdrew their request for a temporary injunction yesterday after negotiations with Kaine's administration, but the lawsuit remains active. People trying to take advantage of in-person absentee voting in Northern Virginia locations like Arlington have had to wait as long as 90 minutes this week. Worse yet, an anonymous group has been distributing flyers in Democratic precincts intended to convince voters that the day for Democrats to vote in November 5th.

West Virginia
After numerous complaints from voters that touch screens were flipping their votes for McCain, Jeff Waybright, the Jackson County clerk, attempted to explain away the errors and improperly calibrated machines. He demonstrated how it might look that way when a machine was improperly calibrated, and then calibrated the machine. It promptly failed to do what it was supposed to. So, if you live in West Virginia, review your votes carefully and take your paper record.

Voter Registration Smashes Records [MSNBC]
Concern Mounts Over Expected Voting Surge [CBS]
Some Voters Still Waiting On Absentee Ballots [CNN]
Colorado Agrees to Restore Voters to Rolls [NY Times]
How Early Voting Could Cost McCain Florida [Time]
Gov. Crist Extends Early Voting Hours statewide [Miami Herald]
Black Voters May Lead Democratic Wave [Salon]
Thousands Of Flagged Voters Can Vote, Court Rules [CNN]
Michigan Loses Appeal Over Voters Rolls [MSNBC]
Ain't Like the Old Days [Talking Points Memo]
In Tight Race, Victor May Be Ohio Lawyers [NY Times]
Judge: PA Must Have Paper Ballots Ready If Half Of Machines Fail [CNN]
Va. NAACP Sues Virginia Governor Over Election Readiness [AP]
NAACP Drops Voting Lawsuit [Richmond Times-Dispatch]
Delays Abound in Early-Voting Surge; Predictions of High Turnout, Confusion [Wall Street Journal]
Phony Board Of Elections Flier Tells Virginia Democrats To Tote On November 5 [Think Progress]
West Virginia Vote Flipping Allegedly Caught On Tape [Huffington Post]

Earlier: There's Nothing Some Fear More Than Citizens Exercising Their Constitutional Rights
Voter Suppression And You: A Guide For Unreal Americans

The Obama Interview [Rachel Maddow]

Related: How Rachel Maddow Landed Barack Obama [Observer]

• The officially-designated GOP scapegoat for Wardrobe-gate appears to be McCain aide Nicolle Wallace (left), despite the fact that I guarantee she knows how to put together a wardrobe for less than $150,000. Wallace isn't "going to engage" with people until after the campaign, but she knows the score and her memory doesn't even have to be that long. [Think Progress, Politico]
• Speaking of the score, Vanity Fair and the National Security News Service are apparently pursuing reports that McCain killed a guy in a car accident (implication: drunk driving) in 1964 and the Navy is still covering it up. Who knew the October surprise would be about McCain? Karl Rove must really hate him. [Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber officially endorsed McCain today, and said that Obama would be the end of Israel. What the fuck does JTMP know about Israel? Joe doesn't know jack, actually, and even Fox News had to admit that. [CBS, Huffington Post]

• Though Palin yesterday refused to be a Maverick and call on convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens to resign, John McCain decided he could. So he did. [NY Times]
• Rachel Maddow's viewership is so far up, she can claim to have beat Larry King in one demo. One demo today, tomorrow...all of them. [TV Newser]
• The Dow, too, finally decided to get up. That'll last until it falls again, then goes up, down, up, down and apparently I need to stop watching so much porn. [Washington Post]
• Florida Governor Charlie Crist decided to get back at McCain for not choosing him as the running mate — or, possibly, do the right thing for the right reasons, stranger things have happened — and extended early voting hours in Florida. Someone's gonna get re-elected. [Politico]

According to the Times, Moore and "his Great Schlep co-creator, Ari Wallach, 33, arrived in Boca Raton on Friday…they focused on places like nearby Wynmoor Village, a mostly Jewish retirement community in Coconut Creek. On Saturday, Mr. Moore said they found 10 to 20 people around the pool. Some were undecided, but most were avid Obama supporters, including a darkly tanned older man with a nipple ring and a large Jewish star around his neck. Mr. Moore said he was encouraged but not surprised. 'A large percentage of nipple-ring people are in Obama’s camp.'"

The Venn diagram of nipple ring wearers and senior citizens is pretty small, and a lot of the folks interviewed by the New York Times and several British papers are still not enthused about the Democratic senator from Illinois. "I switched to the Republicans after 9/11. I'm a Jew. Security is important because we've had 2,000 years of insecurity," Robert Aschheim, a lawyer, tells the Times of London. "My kid is pretty liberal — but what the hell, he's 24 years old. I'm trying to change him.”

However, both the Guardian and the Times of London have found anecdotal evidence of Jews who were successful in convincing their grandparents to vote Democratic on November 4. Jonathan Packman made the trek down to Fort Lauderdale to convince his 91-year-old grandparents, Bertha and Julius, to vote for Obama, and his travel paid off. “Jonathan, he's been using all the tactics on us but he doesn't have to try too hard. We've moved down from New York to live the life a little and I really don't like Republicans," Bertha tells the Times of London. “I just want to say how nice it's been to have our family visit us.” Awww!

Laugh at a Campaign Pitch? Sure. Visit the Grandparents? Not So Much. [NY Times]

Related: Young Make 'Great Schlep' To Persuade A Skeptical To Vote Obama [Guardian]
'The Great Schlep' May Seal The Presidency Deal For Barack Obama [Times of London]

Earlier: Waterboarding Apologist Says Sarah Silverman Is "Not A Jew"

Richard Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, says in the Chicago Tribune that ''Election law has become political strategy." Hasen's not wrong, except about the timing — election law has been an electoral strategy since McCain's hero Barry Goldwater ran for President in 1964. Back then, it was called "ballot security" instead of "voter caging," but the principles were the same: target low income and minority voters whose housing situations might not be as stable as your average suburban white Republican voter with mailers marked "Do Not Forward." When they are returned to sender, get the person thrown off the voter rolls since they don't live where they say they live and, abrakazam!, you've got one less vote for the other party. It was so bad and so racist that the Republican party was forced to sign consent decrees agreeing not to do it anymore in 1982 and again in 1986. This, of course, did not stop the Republican party from doing it (at least) in 2004 in Ohio and Florida.

Not that caging was the only electoral problem in 2000, either — former Secretary of State Katherine Harris initiated a "felon purge" that illegally purged at least 2,000 former felons who had their rights restored from the voter rolls as well as thousands of other Floridians with "similar" names. Unsurprisingly, most of these people who were prevented from voting were African-American (and, in many cases, Democrats). Bush won Florida by less than 1,000 votes. But even what limited bad press the Republican party got from that hasn't stopped them in their quest to make sure that as many potential Democratic voters are purged from the rolls in time for Election Day — or should we start calling it coronation day?.

In 2007, the head of the Republican Party in Kansas was so emboldened by the fact that most people don't give a shit if voters (and particularly minority voters) are illegally disenfranchised that he actually sent out a letter bragging about the party's efforts to throw legal voters off the rolls. He's still the chair, by the way.

The Chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan told reporters for the Michigan Messenger last month that they planned to challenge voters on election day based on lists of foreclosed homes in the county, in an effort to get voters thrown out of polling places. Of course in Michigan, as in the rest of the country, minority homeowners were far more likely to have been offered subprime mortgages and are thus far more likely to be caught up in the foreclosure crisis in Michigan. Unlike registration-caging which, when done by race, is illegal under the consent decree, it's apparently perfectly legal to challenge someone's right to vote at their polling place.

The Republican National Committee sent out "registration confirmation" mailers to thousands of registered Democratic voters in Florida this summer (you know, when the snow birds weren't there) with "do not forward" noticed attached in order to cage voters there as well. Their spokeswoman told a reporter that it "wasn't worth writing about," because, of course, they'd prefer that you not know that they're undertaking massive efforts to eliminate potential Democratic voters from non-provisional balloting on November 4th.

In Ohio, they've gone even further, filing lawsuits against the Secretary of State to keep anyone from voting in-person absentee that registered close to the deadline — as the woman pictured did. Can't you tell she shouldn't be allowed to vote? Can't you just see it in her face? Ohio law allowed people to vote in-person absentee before the registration deadline and the Secretary of State ruled that ballots not counted until election day weren't votes until Election Day. And — horrors — people that might not have the means to get back to the polls a month after they registered did so. Homeless people! Women at domestic violence shelters! The Ohio told the New York Post that they "smelled a rat" in that, because, you know, increasing voter turnout (which is embarrassingly low in this country) through making it easier for legal but disadvantaged voters to vote is totally shady. This is what they do: when they can't win on the issues, they'll win by hook or by crook or by making sure that your civil rights are violated and you can't do anything about it. Oh, and yes, Republicans are caging votes in Ohio again, too, in case they couldn't disenfranchise enough people by the registration deadline.

But they've got other tactics that they're hoping you can't tie to them. In 2002, the Republican-controlled Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the completely unironically named Help America Vote Act. That's the legislation that ushered in the days of electronic voting machines, by the way. But it also ushered in the days of database-checking and automatic verification that will kick out voter registrations if a typo some data-entry person making $6 stuck in or left out a letter somehow. They're checking your voter registration against your driver's license (took me an extra trip to the DMV to get mine right, by the way) and against the Social Security database which is so error-ridden even Republican-leaning groups like the Chamber of Commerce don't want to have to use it to see if you're eligible to work in this country. Oh, and they don't even have to tell you if you've been purged — you might just show up on Election Day and be told in a crowded room that they think you're a felon or an illegal immigrant or have registered in more than one place. That's not humiliating or intimidating or anything, or designed to get you to give up and go home. And that, of course, is if some GOP operative "observing" the election doesn't decide to challenge your right to vote at all based on some shadily-obtained caged list.

And don't let them pretend that this isn't part and parcel of how they expect to win. They know they're not going to win votes based on their policies at this point — hence with talking about Bill Ayers the "terrorist" BFF of Obama, hence with running nothing but negative ads, hence with not calling out their supporters on yelling "Kill him!" or "Off with his head" at rallies. But if they can't win with that, they'll win with this and hope that, as has always been the case, disenfranchised voters will head home and not scream, shout or try voting again. Because, after all, there's another election they want to win by hook or by crook next year, and a win's a win as George Bush proved in 2000.

States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal [NY Times]
Voter Reigstration Lawsuits Could Shape Nov. 4 Election [Chicago Tribune]
Voter Caging [Project Vote]
Voter Caging [Wikipedia]
Voter Supression [ePluribus Media]
Botched Name Purge Denied Some the Right to Vote [Washington Post]
Kansas GOP Chair Sends Email Boasting of Voter Caging [Crooks & Liars]
Kansas Republican Party Officials [Kansas GOP]
Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote [Michigan Messenger]
New NCRC Study Shows Racial Disparities In High-Cost Lending Remain Entrenched [National Community Reinvestment Coalition]
Democrats, Florida Elections Officials Criticize GOP Mailing [St. Petersburg Times]
Ohio Republicans Use Lawsuit To Fight for State's Crucial Votes [Wall Street Journal]
GOP Smells Rat in Ohio [NY Post]
Nearly 600,000 Subject to Possible Caging in Ohio [Miller-McCune]
Immigration [U.S. Chamber of Commerce]
Red Flag On Purging Voter Rolls [CBS News]