“Public defenders’ offices in at least seven states are refusing to take on new cases or have sued to limit them,” writes reporter Erik Eckholm, “citing overwhelming workloads that they say undermine the constitutional right to counsel for the poor.”

The story focuses first on Florida:

In September, a Florida judge ruled that the public defenders’ office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many of those arrested on lesser felony charges so its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients. Over the last three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer in a year has climbed to close to 500, from 367, officials said, and caseloads for lawyers assigned to misdemeanor cases have risen to 2,225, from 1,380.

Minnesota public defenders are taking their own drastic measures — confronting insufficient pay rather than overwhelming caseloads. MPR’s Elizabeth Stawicki has a troubling report on the plight of Minnesota’s public defenders who moonlight to make law-school loan payments.

In reporting I’ve done over the last year, I’ve heard public defenders, victim advocates, state legislators, the previous and current Chief Judge of the Fourth District and County Attorney Mike Freeman lament funding for the state’s judicial system in colorful terms. Stawicki highlights a new initiative that hopes to spark a fix:

Minnesota’s Chief Justice Eric Magnuson says public defenders should get paid more and that the state needs more of them … He has convened the Coalition to Preserve the Minnesota Judicial System, which includes representatives from 20 different groups, including the public defenders. Magnuson said the coalition will work on a common strategy, mutually support each other’s funding requests, and inform the Legislature and governor about how all the pieces of the justice system fit together.

With the legislative session just two months off and the economy in the tank, Magnuson is likely fighting a losing battle. The testimony of one public defender in Stawick’s story describes what drove her to public defender work and reminds us what’s at stake:

“I walked into the jail and saw a sea of non-white faces, and from that moment I realized that we have some socioeconomic problems. And from then on I had a purpose — defending the Constitution is important.”

James Swenson, Chief Judge of the 4th District, issues his own warning in an editorial published in Downtown Journal:

“Politicians sometimes speak of ‘two Americas,’ referring to the widening gap between rich and poor,” he writes. “The current economic crisis, which threatens greater judicial budget cuts, could mean two justice systems in America; one for the well-off and another, second-class system, for everyone else. This is a very dangerous road to travel.”

There was the guy who said he couldn’t go to the polls because his wife upstairs was “under the influence.”

“As it turned out,” Price says,  “so was he.”

The couple was going to be voting for “The Maverick,” he told her. “Then he asked us if we thought The Maverick was drunk today.”

Then there was the woman who “wanted things to be the way they used to be, when election day campaigning was illegal.” She said she’d be writing the DFL immediately to protest.

And there was the screamer. “The man yelled so loudly at my canvassing partner I could hear him three houses down and across the street. He wants us to stop ‘harassing’ him and resented our using the hangtag to identify his house as a ‘do not knock’ for evening canvassers.”

“Oh!” he shouted. “So I have to be tagged now!?!”

Finally–on that block–there was Crazy Eyes. “He kept firing question after question at me,” Price says.

“Are you canvassing all over the state?”

“Yes.”

“Are you canvassing all over the country?”

“Yup.”

“Are you canvassing in Republican areas?”

“Nope, the campaign IDs Republican households.”

Then this zinger: “Are you going to keep canvassing after the election?”

“He was getting physically agitated at this point,” says Price. “I bade him a good day and walked off. He seemed disappointed at my sudden disengagement with him.”

Tom Bradley speaking at the 1988 Aids Walk Los Angeles.

Joe Mathews of Politico put the “Bradley effect” to rest yesterday even before Barack Obama’s victory. In a piece called It was guns, not race, that affected Bradley, Mathews writes: “Over the past few weeks, I examined polling and news stories from the 1982 race and talked with dozens of major players in the Bradley and Deukmejian campaigns.”

His conclusion? Blame Proposition 15: “The main problem was guns … Bradley had endorsed Proposition 15, a statewide ballot initiative that would have put a freeze on purchases of new guns. Bradley and Proposition 15 both had a lead in the polls when Bradley decided to back the initiative. But there was a huge backlash against Proposition 15 in inland, conservative California precincts. The resulting turnout was so overwhelming that it took down Bradley.”

“I think my relationship with Obama was probably like that of thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better.”

“It’s all guilt by association,” Ayers said.

Ayers said that he had never meant to imply … that he somehow wished he and the Weathermen had committed further acts of violence in the old days. Instead, he said, “I wish I had done more, but it doesn’t mean I wish we’d bombed more shit.” Ayers said that he had never been responsible for violence against other people and was acting to end a war in Vietnam in which “thousands of people were being killed every week.”

Only that’s not what Huebl is anticipating. He’s been talking for a week about the Obama Grant Park “insurrection” in chillingly racist terms. “The 5,000 or so police officers will be gravely outnumbered and placed in danger,” he writes. There is no way to keep out thousands of armed street gang members or protect the thousands of businesses. The cops will be way out manned and outgunned. Police cannot use deadly force against looters because of a 1967 Illinois law. Once the mob gets control of the outdoor lighting any hope of security will be lost for sure.”

Whether you’re expecting jubilation or mob violence, watch it all unfold with the Grant Park webcam, embedded here.

The results are definitive: Obama in a global landslide. But McCain wasn’t left completely in the cold. While no single country fell into the “Strong McCain” category, he’s got a few friends in the “Leaning McCain” category. Namely: Algeria, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, and Iraq.

On Sunday Colin Powell spoke strongly against his party’s slandering of Islam. This kind of thing is happening at McCain’s campaign events too. Here’s video from the American News Project of a McCain rally in Woodbridge, Virginia, where McCain supporters denouncing Barack Obama as a Muslim are confronted by a man who introduces himself as the chairman of McCain’s Maryland campaign–and a Muslim. “I ran for United States Congress and I was endorsed by John McCain,” he tells a man holding an anti-Obama sticker that features the crescent and star and the hammer and sickle.  Muslim McCain supporters are there too. “Shame on you guys,” shouts one, “because we’re Muslim and we’re McCain voters and you guys are taking votes away.”

Democrat Tom Udall is running for U.S. Senate in New Mexico and his campaign has produced a television ad that can only be described as time-stopping. In it, Army Sergeant Erik Schei, who was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq, speaks his support for Udall’s efforts to fund treatment for veterans with brain trauma.

Here’s a little context from a recent USA Today report:

The government plans to substantially increase disability benefits for veterans with mild traumatic brain injuries, acknowledging for the first time that veterans suffering from this less severe version of the Iraq war’s signature wound will struggle to make a living.

“We’re saying it’s real,” said Tom Pamperin, a deputy director for the Department of Veteran Affairs, about the significance of the change to benefits in the regulation the VA plans to publish today.

Up to 320,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered traumatic brain injury, a RAND Corp. study estimated this year. The vast majority of the cases are mild and came from exposure to an explosion, often from a roadside bomb. Most veterans with mild cases recover, Pamperin said, but some are left with permanent problems.

]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/13630/when-was-the-last-time-a-campaign-tv-spot-left-you-numb/feed 1 http://minnesotaindependent.com/13257/ashwin-madia-repeats-obamas-misleading-math-on-iraq http://minnesotaindependent.com/13257/ashwin-madia-repeats-obamas-misleading-math-on-iraq#comments Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:15:08 +0000 Jeff Severns Guntzel http://minnesotaindependent.com/?p=13257

You’ve probably heard Barack Obama talk about the Iraqi government’s $79 billion surplus. Now Ashwin Madia is decrying the surplus in his latest commercial. On its face it’s a compelling argument: Why are we spending $10 billion a month in a country with a $79 billion budget surplus?

If you scratch at it a little bit, however, it’s more than a little misleading. And scratch at it is exactly what Iraq’s finance minister did at the Council on Foreign Relations this week. Here is the Iraqi response to this favorite Democratic talking point…

Speaking with the Council on Foreign Relations, Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh said August reports of a budget surplus of as much as $79 billion through 2008 fail to take into account the true nature of the Iraqi financial system.

“The surplus or the excess in money that people talk about is money that was not spent (in August),” he said. “We are spending it now through the budget process.”

The minister said the budget surplus is at the Iraqi Central Bank and not the development fund for reconstruction in New York. Solagh said the Central Bank deposits, which total no more than $30 billion, are used to back the Iraqi currency.

“It is not surplus; it is the federal reserve,” he said. “It is the reserve of Iraq. That means we cannot have a fixed currency without it.”

It’s the foreign policy equivalent of the “welfare mother” argument of days past. Iraq is a country suffering from endemic poverty, epic violence, and a public health crisis. If the Democrats want the high ground on Iraq, they ought to start climbing.