Just in from Reuters...

Not mentioned in the Reuters article is the effect the law is likely to have on student voters, as most WI student IDs have been disallowed for use as voting identification at the polling place, though some of those restrictions are being challenged via the WI Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state's top election authority, which is interpreting the new measure.

Though the WI bill that was jammed through the state legislature by the Republicans who control it and signed by Gov. Scott Walker (R) allows for voters to receive "free" Photo ID at state DMV offices, many of the state's office are infrequently open, and some voters have documented difficulties in obtaining the free IDs even where they were able to take time from work or school and find a way to get to the DMV to go through the tedious process.

In July we reported on the story of a new voter whose residency was challenged after DMV officials rifled through his bank statement to determine whether there had been enough "activity" in the bank account to assure his residency. We also reported in the same story that state officials had explicitly instructed DMV workers to not notify applicants that their ID would be given to them for free, unless they specifically asked for it for the express purpose of voting. Otherwise, a $28 fee would be assessed on top of any costs incurred by the applicant, such as purchasing a copy of their birth certificate or passport or making their way to the DMV.

Kristina Boardman, Director of WisDOT's Bureau of Field Services explained to The BRAD BLOG at the time that the reason they've instructed DMV staffers to not ask applicants if the ID is to be used for voting purposes is because "the statutory language specifically puts the onus on the customer for getting the ID for free for voting."

The frustrating experience of the hopeful voter at the DMV was documented in a video tape recorded during the process which we posted along with our story.

As we also detailed previously, a 2005 study [PDF] by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Employment and Training Institute found that Democratic-leaning voters such as the elderly, ethnic minorities and college students are likely to be hit much harder by the new law than middle and upper-class white voters...

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution declares:

Isn't that quaint?

Josh Holland takes a look at what happened to that apparently antiquated notion from the document which used to carry some weight in the way this country was governed, as he notes that some 1,500 American citizens have now been arrested while peaceably assembling to petition the Government for a redress of grievances over the past month since Occupy Wall Street began.

Last night, while the GOP debated Casino Capitalism (in an actual casino!), Give Me Liberty author and reporter Naomi Wolfe became one of the latest to have had her Constitutional right to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances taken away from her, as seen in the following video (in which that "Democrat Party-sponsored" "mob" was attempting to petition Democratic NY state Governor Andrew Cuomo for a redress of grievances)...

Wolf wrote about her arrest seen above, "for standing lawfully on the sidewalk in an evening gown" at the UK's Guardian today, noting that she explained to the NYPD before she was cuffed that she was both a "NYC citizen and a reporter".

As her article's sub-header notes, "Arresting a middle-aged writer in an evening gown for peaceable conduct is a far cry from when America was a free republic."

"I became exhibit A in a process that I have been warning Americans about since 2007," Wolfe writes. "First they come for the 'other' – the 'terrorist', the brown person, the Muslim, the outsider; then they come for you – while you are standing on a sidewalk in evening dress, obeying the law."

This afternoon she told Huffington Posts' Jason Cherkis, "I didn’t choose to get myself arrested. I chose to obey the law and that didn’t protect me."

So, where are all the outraged "Tea Partiers" who used to decry supposed abuses of the U.S. Constitution under our authoritarian regime? Oh, right, they were just pretending to give a damn about any of it...like good little scammed Fox "News" soldiers.

P.S. Here's hoping Wolf makes out as well following her inappropriate arrest as Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman did after hers.

UPDATE 10/19/11: In her Guardian piece, Wolf explained that the NYPD had told her the permit for the event she was attending (an annual Huffington Post event which Gov. Cuomo was also scheduled to attend, thus the protesters) when she came across the #OWS folks, forbade protesters from using the public sidewalks outside the building. Suspecting the claim from the police was bullshit, she says she requested to see a copy of that permit prior to her arrest, but was not allowed to.

Since posting the article above, Wolf contacted me to note that she has finally tracked down a copy of the type of permit HuffPo had last night and --- surprise, surprise --- the claim by cops appears to, in fact, be bullshit...

This is just shameful. As a Jew (if not a particularly practicing one), watching how the American-Israel lobby gives a horrible name to Israel (and Jews for that matter) becomes more embarrassing every day. And since Republicans have decided to make believe that Obama is "vulnerable on Israel" --- they will say anything for perceived political gain, no matter whether it's actually true or not --- I suspect this sort of thing is only going to get shamefully worse as the 2012 election nears.

Two recent examples, both detailed below, demonstrate the desperation and willingness of these folks to use the State of Israel as little more than a propaganda bludgeon for Republican political causes.

The first example includes blatantly misleading --- and easily debunked --- lies to claim "anti-Semitism" at the heart of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Who is behind the video ad smear? Top Republican neo-cons, naturally.

The second is revealing in that it actually puts the lie to the claim that the American-Israel Lobby gives a damn about the supposed Iranian Menace, since new documents reveal they have blatantly decided to give two particular businessmen a Get Out of Jail Free Card, despite recent revelations that the two have spent years profiting by illegally trading with Iran, Israeli's supposedly mortal enemy. Those two businessmen and traitor traders? Charles and David Koch, naturally...

Say it, don't spray it! Am I right, Mike Huckabee?!

While campaigning in favor of Issue 2 in Ohio (the referendum forced onto the ballot by voters in an attempt to veto the GOP bill that strips public unions of many collective bargaining rights), hilarious former Arkansas Governor and 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee encouraged supporters to suppress the votes of opponents...

Hilarious stuff. Particularly in Ohio. As Comedy Central's Dennis DiClaudio pointed out, "if any person who ever voted for a Democrat ever got within a 70-yard radius of a microphone and made a joke even slightly similar to that one, Andrew Breitbart would spend a long weekend foaming at the mouth in the video bay attempting to edit down footage of the guy into something that made him look like he murdered Ronald Reagan, and James O'Keefe would be trying to seduce him in front of a hidden camera with a salame."

But, ya know, IOKIYAR.

But it's not the first time Huckabee --- now a host of a weekly show on Fox "News," a cable channel that pretends to care about "voter fraud," but only when they can trick viewers into believe it's being performed by Democrats --- has told the same bad "joke." As we reported in April of 2009, he used the exact same voter-suppression hilarity while stumping for Virginia's then Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell...

Remember WI's 45-year old Republican state Sen. Randy Hopper? The one whose own wife revealed, during signature gathering for his recall election earlier this year, that he was no longer even living in his own district after he'd split to move in with a 25-year old Republican aide?

Last August, Hopper lost his seat during those Badger State recall elections.

Last night, he was spotted driving "all over the road" --- with the aide/girlfriend in his car --- and ended up spending the night in jail for driving while intoxicated.

If his driver's license is taken away, will Hopper now even be able to cast a vote next year in Wisconsin, in the wake of the polling place Photo ID restrictions that Hopper and the Republican Party jammed through the legislature as part of their new voter suppression laws? Will he have to face the same ridiculous hoops that other citizens have been met with in order to do so?

UPDATE 10/19/11: More details on Hopper's drunken comments as he was hauled away after his arrest, including his warning to the arresting officer: "Don’t ever run for office, by the way"...

Poor Rupert. He had trouble getting out much of his speech in San Francisco on the need to privatize use more private technology in our public education system...

Oh, well. That's hardly the worst thing that could happen this week to poor Rupert.

I'm still largely off the grid for another day or so (as I have been for the last 24 hours+), but delighted to check in to see so much great conversation on D.C. Douglas' #OccupyWallStreet video we posted in the previous item. Also delighted to check in to see that the worldwide #OWS movement is today's top story across all the major corporate media outlets!

Incredibly, I'm here in Las Vegas (for a conference) and find huge signs advertising CNN's next GOP debate here on Tuesday being held at The Venetian. The embarrassing perfection and irony of the next Presidential debate being held at a CASINO is something I don't have time enough or perhaps even skills enough, to adequately elucidate upon at the moment.

All as some 20 #OccupyWallStreet protesters were reported arrested just minutes ago attempting to close their accounts at Citibank near Washington Sq. Park in Manhattan! More irony there than you can shake a GOP debate in a casino at.

In the meantime, cursorily related --- on both the irony scale and several others --- I was interviewed by Bob Jimenez on LA Business Today, about two weeks ago on our local LA Cityview 35 channel as the uprising was just begin to force its way onto the national corporate mediascape.

The segment, seen below, aired earlier this week. We discussed blogging, journalism, capitalism, the "occupation," e-voting and more in the very quick 12-minute segment...

Back soon! Viva La Occupation!

An awesome video from D.C. Douglas. Could well become an anthem for the movement...

The video is brilliant. Please crank up your speakers and watch it. You won't be sorry. But just to highlight the four items Douglas, no enemy of capitalism, calls for changing --- each of which would make very worthy demands for Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement, should they decide to create specific ones...

• Reinstate Glass-Steagall: Restore the firewall, created during the depression to avoid a similar mess in the future, then abolished in 1999, which kept banks out of the business of risky investment and speculation schemes.
• Audit The Fed: Force transparency for the trillions of tax-payer dollars given away in corporate bailouts and/or manipulated by the currently unaccountable public/private "national bank".
• Reverse Citizens United via Constitutional Amendment: End the absurdity of corporate "personhood" and unlimited (and secret) corporate money in politics, as established by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
• Overhaul the Tax Code for Corporations & Top 1%: They often pay less of their income than you do. Sucker. That is simply obsene.

Missed this late last week, but it's still well-worth flagging here...particularly for all of the pretend "conservatives" who visit this blog.

Here's UK Prime Minister David Cameron speaking at last week's annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester [hat-tip Towleroad]...

So, again, with the vast majority of self-identified "conservatives" in the U.S. not actually conservative at all, and most "liberals" not particularly liberal, we know why Rightwing media love to use those completely misleading labels, but what's the pathetic excuse for the rest of the media doing so?

Of course, unscientific online polls don't mean much of anything, right? Still, this one is both interesting and/or amusing, given where it is and what the question was.

Our guess is that these results won't be getting much air time on Fox "News"...

[The above results are as of 10/11/11, 11:39am PT.]

UPDATE 10/16/11: Oh, look! After all the attention the above poll received outside of Fox "News", a huge number of alleged votes have now flipped the results back in favor of "No. They have no idea how jobs are created or how a free-enterprise system works." Go figure.

The New York Times' Paul Krugman absolutely nails the rapidly growing fear and loathing amongst the Oligarchy as Republicans scramble to support years of corporatist cronyism and corruption over the very real grass-roots uprising of "Occupy Wall Street" protesters who've had enough and are now finally fighting for the general welfare of middle-class American citizens.

"This reaction tells you something important," Krugman writes. "Namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called 'economic royalists,' not the people camping in Zuccotti Park."

"What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is," he avers.

The short piece is a must-read, as it pretty well sums up exactly where we are at what could be a pivotal moment in history, especially as you're likely to see much more of the panic expressed on Fox "News" and other corporatist outlets as the popular and populist uprising continues to grow...