UPDATE 4.00am EST - it's definitely a coordinated campaign. See full update inside

I'm compiling information about the robo-calls, starting with a list of congressional districts that have received robo-calls to suppress the vote. We can use this list to prove that the NRCC is systematically suppressing the vote nation-wide in a coordinated campaign.

We can stop these calls, and one of the ammunition we need is detailed and complete evidence that it's happening everywhere. Also, it would be nice if we could get leaked NRCC emails (etc) showing it's a co-ordinated, centralized campaign. And perhaps shut down the company that's running the calls? Who is it? I can dream....

UPDATE 1.30am EST - it appears the calls are coming from CONQUEST COMMUNICATIONS GROUP -- contact details inside!

Anyway, the list, forthwith, below the fold. PLEASE CONTRIBUTE IN THE COMMENTS. I will be adding to the list as long as I can stay up.

The races with confirmed fake robo-calls so far are: CA-04, CA-50, CT-04, CT-05, FL-13, GA-12, ID-01, IL-06, IL-08, KS-02, NC-11, NH-02, NY-19, PA-06, WA-05.

This is some more political art that I did. Joe is rumored/claimed to have used about $400 000 in "petty cash" during the primary to buy votes. Apparently it's also called "street money" and $20 is a standard amount to give someone "hey use this for a taxi to get to the polls" kind of thing.

Anyway, I thought Joe deserved to have his own special money for this, so here it is (click for full size).

More (including what you need to print it) on the flip...

Summary of updates: It's legal. If you want to print it, you can do so legally providing it's no larger than 5 x 2 inches in size. See updates inside.

We've crunched the numbers from kos' leaked DCCC spreadsheet. The picture isn't pretty.

After eliminating members who can't afford to pay or are in competitive situations:

• 55 members "owe" dues that represent < 20% of their CoH, for a total of $2,500,875
• 83 members "owe" dues that represent < 50% of their CoH, for a total of $4,997,175

It would seem that even a moderate level of pressure could infuse cash into the competitive races, without threatening endangered incumbents.

Spreadsheet file: http://simonwoodside.com/... (With help from exNYinTX)

Detailed table on the flip.

Continuing from yesterday and kos' spreadsheet, I've pared down the list of delinquent Dem reps and their unpaid DCCC dues. I've excluded those who kos excluded, and those who can't afford to pay. But there's still $6.5 million owing. That's just 11% of the money these reps are sitting on in their bank accounts.

In addition, exNYinTX added the CDs for each of the 101 delinquent reps!

Some of the worst: Tanner, John (TN-8) owes $190,000, just 21% of $911,236 on hand. Kind, Ron (WI-3) owes $150,000, just 25% of $592,144 on hand. Dingell, John (MI-15) owes $100,000, just 14% of $696,012 on hand. Kaptur, Marcy (OH-9) owes $130,000, just 15% of $878,330 on hand. Lynch, Stephen (MA-9) owes $130,000, just 12% of $1,042,785 on hand. Hooley, Darlene (OR-5) owes $125,000, just 15% of $855,980 on hand. Marshall, Jim (GA-3) owes $100,000, just 8% of $1,206,784 on hand.

And the booby prize winner: Meehan, Marty (MA-5) owes $23,750, just 0.5% of $4,898,715 on hand.

Complete list on the flip.

kos posted a spreadsheet with some members with unpaid DCCC dues. I've crunched the numbers in Excel to come up with this list of representatives in the House who haven't paid their full dues, and for each one, how much they owe, and how much cash they have on hand. Kos's picks are excluded.

In toto, almost 100 representatives owe a grand total of $9.4 million while they sit on a combined total of $59 million.

Some of the worst offenders are: Spratt, John: owes $300,000, has $1,535,307. Tanner, John: owes $190,000, has $911,236. Dingell, John: owes $100,000, has $696,012. Mollohan, Alan: owes $200,000, has $674,593. Kaptur, Marcy: owes $130,000, has $878,330. Hooley, Darlene: owes $125,000, has $855,980. Lynch, Stephen: owes $130,000, has $1,042,785. Marshall, Jim: owes $100,000, has $1,206,784.

Complete list on the flip side.

Yet another walt disney hacked image by me. This time it's the all-time classic steamboat willie, the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever, in 1928. And it's for this reason that copyrights now last for ... 70 years ... after the death of the person who created it. Ridiculous.

Fortunately, satire has its own special rules, and since Disney chose to get involved in politics, they're now fair game.

Visual Diary: imagineering the new Disney

As a result of Disney's new made-for-TV movie fiction, I've decided to make some more anti-Disney art. Well, the company has been untouchable for a long time. But now, not so much. This is a slightly altered clip from the Sorcerer's Apprentice (a sequence from their great film Fantasia).

All CC licensed. More on the flip side baby.

Disney is definitely the weakest link in "The Path" and so it makes sense to incriminate them as much as possible. They're supposed to be good guys, innocents, making beatiful stories fit for all ages. In short they produce fiction

(more below the fold)

With 900 screener copies floating around out there, it's likely that there's a Kossack who has a copy or has access to one. What to do then? Don't watch it - rip it and let us watch it.

Given the length of the movie, this is not a job for YouTube, it's a job for BitTorrent. So here's a guide to how to take your copy and make it available to anyone with a high-speed connection.

Once the movie makes into a big bittorrent tracker, it won't matter if they try to stop it - it will spread like wildfire. And then we'll all be able to pick through it with a fine-toothed comb and document the atrocities before it's shown on TV.

Below are the instructions - use them yourself or send them to a friend.

I haven't seen this in the diaries but I think this ought to be front page news. Israel has effectively mined huge parts of southern Lebanon with at least 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs - which can easily detonate when disturbed by civilians returning to their homes.

What's more, Israel seems to have dropped most of the bombs in the last 3 days of the conflict, when a peace deal was well under way.

BBC: The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon. UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.

Mr Egeland described the fresh statistics as "shocking new information". "What's shocking and completely immoral is: 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said.

Below the fold: Israel's munitions are more "mines" than bombs.

(originally posted at Simon Says).

I was just reading this article on The Vets for Freedom faux grassroots movement. If there's one think that I don't like, it's astroturfing. See why at wikipedia. Especially political astroturfing, the worst kind.

The web of connections in the article is pretty confusing so I came up with this information graphic to try to untangle it a bit.

The UK MP for Bethnal Green and Bow just destroys (video) a reporter for Rupert Murdoch's Sky News on british television. Why doesn't anyone get this fiesty on CNN?

Update: opening transcript (thanks gong). Galloway argues that Israel's response is totally assymetric, and in addition, that the Sky News anchor, and by extension, all of Sky News and Murdoch's empire (including Fox) are biased idiots.

Credit given where credit is due:

The progressive blogosphere is only about one-third of the progressive netroots, and the progressive netroots are only about one-third of the progressive movement

Speak of blogs as the tip of an iceberg. There's a lot more under the water.

Journalists, however, see the tip and they think they've seen the whole thing.

In my previous poll, 84% of you said that the "mystery sources" were full of shit and Lieberman's GOTV effort is going strong. Some new "people with names" reports say that you're right.

Yet another case of the "mystery sources" who get all the weight in the national papers, while local reporters and bloggers with the real story are ignored.

Details inside.

Today I called my senators, Boxer and Feinstein, to let them know that I want them to support the censure bill.

I said "I'm calling because I'm concerned about Bush's illegal spying. I would like the Senator to support the censure bill. Does the Senator support the bill?" In both cases, the staffers said that the senator has not yet made a statement. They thanked me and that was that.

What do you say when you call? What's the most effective thing to say?

What do you think they do after you hang up?

I've got a list of good tips from the comments below.

Yesterday our Senators missed obvious opportunities to call out Rumsfeld on the Iraq debacle.

Slate:

Rumsfeld replied, "The plan is to prevent a civil war and, to the extent one were to occur, to have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to."

That's not a plan, and Rumsfeld must know it. He even, wittingly or not, left an opening in his reply--Iraqi security forces will deal with it, "to the extent they are able to"--that any high-school debater would have plowed through with gusto. "To what extent are they able to?" would have been one decent follow-up.

But nobody followed up.

This has got to stop, and if no one else is going to do it, then we ought to take some action.

The GOP has plenty of criminal scandals going on but you wouldn't know it this week. Instead everyone from kossacks to the traditional media has been totally focused on a minor scam which has a few unknown committee members approving a boneheaded port security deal. Never mind that everyone of any importance has arms-length distance from the decision. Never mind that the whole thing can disappear if Bush just changes his mind. Don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.

Meanwhile, the house GOP gets to parade around breathing national defence fire and looking like heroes, while their criminal activities go uncovered. Gone is the close scrutiny of the last few months to Abramoff, the NSA, and Plame. Instead we have Tom DeLay making proud speeches about defending our ports.

This doesn't play particularly well for Democrats and it's not making a dent in Bush's approval because he's already in the doghouse. The only effect this "scandal" is really having is to distract people from the real problems in the Republican party.