Serious cash is changing hands amid the pomp and pageantry of the party conventions. Convention halls and party space, balloons and fireworks, free food and gift bags all cost money and lots of it. Campaign finance laws have tried to close loopholes in the electoral system, but according to a report from the nonprofit group Public Citizen (pdf), “[c]orporations and their lobbyists see the national nominating conventions as ideal opportunities to buy access and influence with the presidential campaigns, lawmakers, and party leaders.”

Corporations contribute millions of dollars in “soft money” to both parties by donating to each convention’s host committees. In 2004, Public Citizen reports that private donors gave $57 million to the Democratic convention and $86 million to the Republican convention. “As of August 2008,” Public Citizen reports, “173 organizational donors to the host committees have been identified, and all but two are corporations.” This year, the International Herald Tribune estimates that private donors will give some $112 million to the conventions.

Each host committee offers donor circles for corporations to buy into, ranging from $50,000 to $5 million, with perks associated with each level. Donors who give $1 million to the 2008 RNC host committee—a group that includes US Bank, Xcel, and Medtronic—are promised a private reception with Minnesota politicians Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Norm Coleman, and the mayors of St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Bloomington.

Influence is also bought by hosting exclusive parties and receptions for politicians. One example is AT&T’s celebration for conservative “Blue Dog” democrats, which according to Public Citizen, “appears to violate the letter of the ethics rules.” Salon.com reporter Glenn Greenwald showed up outside the party and was quickly ushered away by the police. Greenwald writes: “Amazingly, not a single one of the 25-30 people we tried to interview would speak to us about who they were, how they got invited, what the party's purpose was, why they were attending, etc.” A video of Greenwald’s efforts is posted below.

Trying to curb the moneyed influence of the conventions, new laws have created confusing inconsistencies in 2008. At the highly publicized Kanye West show during the Democratic National Convention, the Sunlight Foundation’s Political Party Time Blog reports that House members were forced to pay a $90 entry fee. Senate members, who weren’t bound by the same ethics laws, got in for free. Reporters from Sunlight Foundation, predictably, were denied access all together.

Image by Steve Bott, licensed under Creative Commons.

Here’s what the Republicans have mustered this week: A DNC counteroffensive that mocked the Democrats' stage and blather about how 80,000-plus people showing up for a political speech is somehow a bad thing. And now there’s this: A seemingly last-minute, hail-mary VP pick driven by the now-stale strategy of luring disgruntled Hillary supporters.

Word broke this morning that Sarah Palin is McCain’s pick. The first-term Alaska governor is so unknown on the national stage that CNN’s breaking coverage of the nod was basically a rewrite of the governor’s web bio.

She’s got ethics reform on her short resume (and an ethics investigation) and some green credentials. But most importantly and most obviously she is a woman. Why else would McCain throw his experience mantra under the bus? To paraphrase Josh Marshall, If you’re a 72-year-old cancer survivor running for president you better pick someone who’s ready to step up, especially if your entire campaign is based on your EXPERIENCE.

Here in Minnesota, we’re all buzzing about what doomed Governor Tim Pawlenty’s chances. (Our office pool was a boring failure, since everyone picked Pawlenty.) He was the frontrunner in chatter yesterday, had canceled his week’s schedule, and then suddenly broke the Republicans’ tightly controlled message management and—not sounding too happy about things—told a local radio station that it was a “fair assumption” that he wasn’t going to be the veep. That leaves the impression of a last-minute decision, one forced by the unexpected strength of Obama’s performance last night.

While Democrats—egged on by Republican teasing—stewed in doubts about Obama not hitting back hard enough, or Obama leaving himself open for sucker punches by going on vacation, or their ranks not being unified, the Obama team clearly had a plan. They let McCain’s people play in the mud for the whole of August. And in one fell swoop of a speech, dispatched with each and every tactic in the Pubs’ playbook. The speech was smart, and, given the Republican response to it last night, it was clearly unexpected.

Now, it’s not even September, and the McCain team has been forced to chisel away at their best card—the experience card. It’s time Democrats—particularly the pundits out chattering to the media—stop letting Republicans get their goat and leave the self-doubt thing behind.

Image by  Ryan McFarland , licensed under  Creative Commons .

After days, weeks, months of fretting about how to keep Bill Clinton’s mouth shut, the former president showed last night what he can do when unleashed.

Bill has been credited with sinking his wife’s campaign and then, fueled by bitterness, turning his sights to Obama. None of that was on stage last night. He not only delivered the most clear-eyed analysis of why Americans should vote with the Democratic Party, he explained why they should vote for Barack Obama (a distinction not made by his wife a day earlier). Beyond that, he showed why he can be a campaign asset: He’s a scary smart diagnostician of the country’s woes and what’s needed to heal them.

Andrew Sullivan, who’s more than upfront about his “personal disdain” for the man, had this to say about the speech:

Tonight, I think, was one of the best speeches he has ever given. It was a direct, personal and powerful endorsement of Obama. But much, much more than that: it was a statesman-like assessment of where this country is and how desperately it needs a real change toward reform and retrenchment at home and restoration of diplomacy, wisdom and prudence abroad.

It was a night of redemption for more than just Bill, though. Senator John Kerry, the Dems’ 2004 loser, rallied to his moment.

There’s a lot of blogster buzz about how the networks cut away from Kerry’s speech to, as TPM’s Josh Marshall puts it, “feature their yakkers.” (One word: C-SPAN.) Kerry’s speech is indeed worth revisiting for anyone who missed it. It got off to a wobbly start, but eventually took off. The highlight is a Jon Stewartesque debate Kerry recreates between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain.

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding me folks? Talk about being for it before you’re against it.

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what’s more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same “Rove” tactics, the same “Rove” staff, the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.

Watch Kerry's speech:

And Clinton's, too:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here. 

It isn’t surprising that activists and protesters are speaking out against “the police state” in the streets of Denver. No matter what was going to happen this week at the DNC, there would have been someone out there condemning the actions of the police.

There is real cause for concern, though. Beyond the questionable constitutional legality of the protest zones in the first place, which keep protesters out of view of their intended targets, police working the DNC have so far been involved in several dubious incidents well documented by independent media outlets such as Democracy Now!, the American News Project, and Colorado Indymedia. The Rocky Mountain News also has a provocative video that documented police reaction to a conservative Christian-led protest and counterprotesters. 

Despite some self-declared right-wing bloggers who disagree with the protesters’ message and express outright glee at police actions, it should not matter whether you agree with what they have to say. Those who characterize anyone remotely progressive as “moonbats” often have complaints about how their own movement’s freedom of speech is suppressed. If they are as concerned as they appear to be about their own First Amendment rights, shouldn’t they also be concerned about the First Amendment rights of all citizens, including their far-left counterparts?

It’s one thing to disagree with a message, and it’s another to champion the suppression of that message. I mean, come on, there are reports of no badge identification displayed by some of the arresting officers? Police forcing even those who stood on the sidewalks, and not the city streets—many of whom were not protesting—to remain surrounded by police in riot gear for two hours? And throwing down and hitting a Code Pink protester with a baton when she asked an officer why he made an arrest?

These aren't things anyone should champion, no matter their political allegiance.

Image by  zenobia_joy, licensed under  Creative Commons.

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here. 

In last night’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton said: “Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for president.” 

Steve Kornacki  reports for the New York Observer that the line was supposed to read: “Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.”

Two commenters on the New York Observer site were not amused. One anonymous poster said, “Christ, people—she told people like twenty times to vote for Barack Obama! Stop continuing this ridiculous rift story.”

What do you think? Is it time to move beyond the subversive Clinton story? Or are you waiting for Bill’s speech tonight?

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Throughout the Obama campaign, Michelle has been skewered for her remarks on the stump, but her speech at Monday night's DNC kickoff got decent, even good, reviews across the political spectrum. Here’s a roundup of quick takes on the potential First Lady’s delivery:

Here's Jim Geraghty for the National Review:

In one sense, Michelle's speech did what it needed to tonight, and that is... little or no harm. It was a serving of mashed potatoes from her, but considering her comments that have generated headlines so far in this campaign, generic happy talk about working hard and dreaming bigger and aiming higher will be a pleasant surprise.

The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan raved:

There was plenty I didn't like about this night, as you can tell if you scroll down. But it succeeded in the most important task. Michelle did it. She more than did it. She struck fear in the GOP tonight. Their lies about the Obamas will fail. As they should.

Newsweek tapped former Republican speechwriter, Michael Gerson, and former Democratic speechwriter Michael Waldman for their takes, and both were impressed. Says Gerson:

Michelle Obama [was] impressive—confident, fluent, and appealingly personal. The sharp political edge she has sometimes shown on the stump was nowhere in evidence. Instead, she told a compelling working class story and rooted her own considerable accomplishments in the American dream. She clearly brings a liberal sensitivity to a variety of issues, but, in this speech, it was the soft liberalism of service and community, not the hard liberalism of anger and radicalism.

James Forsyth of the Spectator was only slightly disappointed:

Michelle Obama played it safe tonight. Gone was the sassy campaigner I remember seeing in Iowa and South Carolina. The aim of the speech was to introduce Michelle Obama to the public and to dispel the idea of her as an angry, divisive figure. On that score, it worked. 

And Dahlia Lithwick of Slate had this sharp analysis:

Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked about law and policy and poverty, and yet she talked about her kids, her husband, and her family. And she didn't do that merely to show us that smart women are soft and cuddly on the inside. She did what everyone else in this campaign is terrified to do: She risked looking sappy and credulous and optimistic when almost everyone has abandoned "hope" and "change" for coughing up hairballs of outrage. Every Democrat in America seems to be of the view that optimism is so totally last February; that now's the time to hunker down and panic real hard. Good for Michelle for reminding us that to "strive for the world as it should be" is still cool, and for being so passionate about that fact that she looked to be near tears.

Watch Michelle Obama's speech:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Hillary Clinton did her duty last night. She threw her support behind Barack Obama and delivered the requisite sound bites. There was “No way. No how. No McCain.” And a favorite here in Minnesota, “It makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days, they’re awfully hard to tell apart.”

What she didn’t do was say much about Obama’s platform, leadership abilities, or vision. In a 23-minute speech, Obama the candidate (versus Obama “the Democrat who is not me”) got about 3 minutes of time—and that's a generous tally. For a speech that’s drawn most of the convention’s limelight, that’s a big void. It was evident, as the New York Times reports, that Obama’s team had little input in its writing.

We could see more of the same tonight, when Bill takes the stage. We’ll definitely hear about Hillary. But given reports of Bill’s bruised ego and his lust for recognition of his accomplishments in office, we could get not only a primaries flashback, but a ’90s flashback, too. Here’s hoping he saves some room in his speech for the nominee.

Watch Hillary’s speech:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

UPDATE (8/27/2008, 5:00 p.m.): My colleague Elizabeth Ryan points me to some choice analysis by Anne Taylor Fleming at the Washington Independent:

Yes, she endorsed Obama—mentioning him at least a dozen times. But what she endorsed was the candidate — not the man. He had no flesh on him. He was the Democratic candidate, and that was enough for her.

There was no talk of Obama’s passions, his career, their shared goals and ideals. Of course, she reaffirmed the big “D” democratic values. We’re for the forgotten, the working class not the upper class. We’re for energy independence and a restitution of the respect America used to garner around the world, so squandered in the last eight years. We’re for health care and hope and change. That’s why I ran, she said—underscore “I.” She never said that’s why Barack Obama is running. It was a passionate but strangely impersonal—almost totally impersonal —endorsement.

The Republican National Convention is coming to town, and the mood is, well, hesitant. The decidedly blue-leaning Minneapolis-St. Paul region is doing its best to put on a happy face for the visiting rich white oligarchs, but there’s a palpable if subtle dread among many progressive-minded Twin Citians. The clever “Make an Effort” campaign by Minneapolis ad agency Campbell Mithun on behalf of The UnConvention plays off these fears:

Ad: Park

Background: The Twin Cities have one of the most vibrant GLBT communities in the United States. This ad is set in Minneapolis’ Loring Park, the site of the annual Pride Fest and a well-known gay hangout.

Ad: Limo

Background: The Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a local icon because, well, it’s a local icon. For many Minnesotans, a Twin Cities visit just wouldn’t be complete without a pilgrimage to the mega-maraschino.

Ad: Pin

Background: The Minneapolis-St. Paul area has as many tattoos per square foot of flesh, and nose rings per nostril, as any hipster den in the United States.

(Thanks, Minnesota Independent.)

Hillary had the unenviable task of forging unity last night, but Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer delivered the near impossible: A rousing speech on energy policy that had folks hootin’ and hollerin’. 

Schweitzer hammered home the key principles that Democrats need to keep drilling into voters’ heads until November. First, there are several energy avenues that don’t wreck the planet and don’t rely on “petro-dictators.” Second, all those avenues lead to American jobs that can’t be outsourced. 

We need to break America's addiction to foreign oil. We need a new energy system that is clean and green and American-made. We need a president who can marshal our nation's resources, get the job done, and deliver the change we need.

That leader is Barack Obama. [Crowd shouts Obama’s name.] Yeah, that’s what I like to hear. Barack Obama knows there's no single platform for energy independence. It's not a question of either wind or clean coal, solar or hydrogen, oil or geothermal. We need ’em all to create a strong American energy system, a system built on American innovation.

After eight years of a White House waiting hand and foot on big oil, John McCain offers more of the same. At a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, when American families are struggling to keep their gas tanks full, John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against biofuels. Against solar energy. He even voted against the wind energy.

This not only hurts America's energy independence, it could cost American families more than a hundred thousand jobs. At a time when America should be working harder than ever to develop new, clean sources of energy, John McCain wants more of the same. [Boos.] Wait till you hear this: And he has taken more than a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. [Boos.] Woah. Now he wants to give those same oil companies another 4 billion dollars in tax breaks. [Boos.] Four billion in tax breaks for big oil?

That's a lot of change, but it's not the change that we need.

Watch the video:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Amid calls for Obama to go for the jugular and burn down Republicans’ houses, it’s worth remembering that this candidate’s insurgent appeal during the primaries was driven in no small part by his ability to lure Independents and Republicans. Former U.S. Representative Jim Leach—a Republican from Iowa—brought that home last night in an eloquent, if a bit dryly delivered, speech teasing out the good values of both parties and tracing where his own had gone astray: 

The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values. The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming. And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and an unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts.

I’ve not heard a more elegant, succinct autopsy of today’s Republican Party.

Tonight is Hillary’s night, all the headlines tell us so. But after that, Democrats should start focusing again on winning over Independents and Republicans, not Hillary supporters.

Watch Leach’s speech:

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Thanks to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson for putting all the oppressive Democratic hand-wringing in perspective this morning:

Since I landed here Saturday night, though, I haven't heard a lot of Democrats crowing about the terrible whuppin' they're about to administer. I've heard predictions of victory, yes, but also a lot of questions. Will Hillary Clinton's die-hard supporters refuse to lay down their arms, even if their champion begs them to? Will an unreconciled Bill Clinton steal the show? Will Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field be so stirring and poetic that the Republicans will slam him again for excessive eloquence?

In other words: Are Hillary Clinton's followers, many of whom care deeply about women's issues, ready to accept a Supreme Court majority that would do away with Roe v. Wade, which John McCain would surely deliver? Has Bill Clinton forgotten everything he ever learned about politics and forsaken his lifelong loyalty to the Democratic Party? Would Obama be wise to effectively renounce the use of his great oratorical gifts, which constitute one of his most powerful and effective weapons?

All these questions are just excuses to fret. Unlike Republicans, Democrats like to obsess about what could go wrong. It's kind of a partisan hobby. 

The trick this election, Robinson says (paraphrasing Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell), is to "quit whining about it and just go out and win "

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Ahh, prepackaged conventions. What’s the media to do? How about rehash the primaries? Hence, we have the Hillary Clinton narrative that just won’t die: The party’s divided, delegates are going to spoil the convention, chaos will reign (cross your fingers).

The Columbia Journalism Review’s Campaign Desk smacked down the tired media meme last week. Choice moment:

[T]he angry-women-will-sink-Obama myth is yet another example of the media confusing activist opinion with public opinion in general. And public opinion generally defies such a simple—if dramatic—storyline.

But the media’s not the only one dumping gasoline on a dying fire. There’s also the McCain camp, which just released this ad:

Kevin Drum, newly blogging for Mother Jones, surmises that “the folks running McCain’s war room are getting cabin fever or something.” But that could be a good thing:

Maybe an attack ad this transparent will be just the thing to finally get all those ex-Hillary supporters fully on board with Obama.

Drum points to some savvy analysis by Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic, who notes that despite all the hand-wringing about party unity, the Democrats are remarkably in step with each other:

[F]or all the talk of disunity, the really remarkable story about the Democrats right now is the absence of meaningful dissent on the party's agenda. When it comes to substance, the Democrats are arguably more united than they have been since the early 1960s. Yes, you can find divisions on both domestic and foreign policy, on everything from the relative priority of deficit reduction to America's response to Darfur. But these debates don't match the kind we've seen in the past.

For her part, Hillary had this to say about McCain’s ad blasts this morning at a breakfast for the New York delegation: “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I do not approve that message.”

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

Little “real news” is expected to come out of Denver and St. Paul, and any potential drama—from unhappy Clinton loyalists, for instance—is being carefully planned for.

But this wasn’t always the case. Detailing the events of the 1948 Democratic National Convention for the Huffington Post, Chris Weigant writes, “The Democratic National Convention back then did have dramatic events showing the party not just divided, but actually splintering into factions and birthing a new (but, thankfully, short-lived) third party as a result. All this from the convention floor itself.”

Looking further back, the Atlantic offers up historic convention perspectives from its archives dating to 1884. Articles covering the 1884, 1936, 1968, and 1980 conventions trace the impact of radio and television, analyze the shortcomings of the process, and provide an interesting look at the road to the modern convention.

The story of that modern convention is really a “tale-of-two-conventions,” according to Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard. Ferguson writes, “As the party conventions grow wan and meaningless, drained of all surprise and news value and practical importance, they have been kept alive by the second convention, the journalists’ convention, which in contrast grows larger, more elaborate, and more robust every four years.” (Thanks, Harper's.)

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

The Daily Show is gearing up for the Republican National Convention with this new billboard near the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport. Thanks to a friend of the East-Lake.net blog for snapping the photo, and the Minnesota Independent for providing the link.

Cell phones across the land just woke folks up with the news that Barack Obama has chosen Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware to fill his VP slot.

More to come soon, when it’s not 3 in the morning.

UPDATE (8/23/2008, 11:00 a.m.): OK. Now that it’s a civilized hour for discussing such matters, here’s some choice reaction from the blogosphere.

Here’s Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish:

The biggest emerging problem with the Obama campaign is Obama’s reluctance, lack of talent and lack of will to get into lively, feisty, pissing matches with his opponent. This was brought home in the Saddleback forum. What he needs is a plucky, fun, free-wheeling attack machine, with the necessary gravitas to express adequate contempt for the Bush administration's fatally misguided foreign policy without in any way seeming defensive.

Greg Sargent at TPM also focuses on Biden’s attack dog creds:

Rather than whine about how mean Republicans are when they hit Dems on national security, as so many Dems do, Biden has a real talent for responding with an appropriate mixture of mockery and contempt.... Biden, ultimately, shares and embodies one of the core convictions driving Obama's campaign: That Democrats can win an argument about national security with Republicans, and shouldn't run from a fight on the topic or concede any sort of presumed GOP superiority on it.

On the downside, Sargent notes:

The choice of Biden introduces a loquacious and occasionally gaffe-prone figure into a campaign that's largely succeeded because of its extraordinary message discipline.

Ezra Klein , reposting from his June case for Biden, makes the point perhaps most succinctly about what Biden brings to the Dems’ ticket:

Joe Biden is an incredibly arrogant jerk. And that’s exactly what Democrats need.

Other than being the designated Pub flayer, Klein astutely points out another plus: Biden’s been in the Senate a while, knows it well, and can work its levers—something, we noted in our July-Aug. issue, either candidate looking past November 4 would be wise to consider:

And Biden, who’s got a long history of bipartisanship in the Senate and deep ties to the institution, would probably prove a pretty effective emissary when Obama needs a couple more votes for this or that piece of legislation.

On the other side of blogtown, Townhall.com fronts the analysis of the AP’s Ron Fournier:

The candidate of change went with the status quo.... The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative—a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin and Ed Morrissey lambaste the soon-to-be-infamous middle-of-the-night text botch. And Morrissey adds a few other dirt-digging zingers:

Biden told serial lies on the campaign trail in 1987 about his background and education, rudely dismissed a voter by telling him that he (Biden) had a “bigger IQ”, and most notoriously plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.  All of this will come out in this election.

My two cents: Malkin and Morrissey have my vote on the text timing. Obama didn’t want to be woken up by Clinton’s red phone at 3 a.m., and I feel the same way about the O-Team text that buzzed me out of my slumber. But onto more substantive affairs.

Obama does need an attack dog, so Biden seems fitting, but less as a designated hitter and more as someone who can teach Obama to throw a few punches himself. More importantly, Biden’s smart, and that’s how Obama and his crew have gotten as far as they have: by picking the smartest folks in the room and corralling them into a strategy corner.

I agree with Klein, Biden is an arrogant jerk. The Dems may need some of that, but being an ass brings with it the baggage of alienating some folks. I also worry that the Obama team may have been rattled by a bad August and made their pick from the mindset of being against the ropes. And that’s never a good thing. (I for one am glad they had a bad August. They needed to force the media to put McCain in the spotlight for a while. The fact that the only thing that spotlight hit was negative campaign ads is telling.)

Now it’s on to the McCain VEEP speculation race. You’ll have to stay tuned, but at least this time you won’t have to stay awake.

Last week’s New York Times detailed the tragic case of Hiu Lui Ng, a New Yorker of 17 years who died a grisly death after his cancer and fractured spine went insistently undiagnosed at a detainment center in Rhode Island. This week, the paper followed up with a similar story of a detainee who crossed paths and cells with Ng; Marino De Los Santos lived to tell his tale (and file a lawsuit). The July issue of KoreAm recounts the cases of two women—one who died in custody, the other still ailing there—and their thwarted attempts to receive proper care. And in an extensive investigation back in May, the Washington Post weaved the narratives of several detainees—many who died, some who survived abysmal care—into a withering dissection of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureaucracy fatally unequipped to meet the post-9/11 demands hastily placed upon it.

In the past five years, the Post found, 83 detainees have died in custody or soon after being released. Thirty of those deaths, according to analysis and expert reviews arranged by the Post, may have been caused by the actions, or inaction, of medical staff. “The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” the Post’s Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein wrote.

I’ve often wondered at the unwitting and anodyne adoption of the word “detainee” in the years since September 11, 2001—its easy migration from referring to “terrorists out to kill us” to aspiring immigrants and asylum seekers swept up in the bowels of a frightened, misguided bureaucratic reflex. “Detainee,” it seems, is meant to delineate someone outside the criminal justice system per se, someone whose case awaits judicial review. “It’s not like we’re throwing folks, in prison, see; they’re going to detainment centers.” The words roll of the tongue and the conscience.

But as the dismal state of medical affairs at the publicly and privately run “detainment” facilities shows, it’s time to start calling things by their right names. Perhaps if people “detained” because of paperwork glitches (which played a crucial role in Ng’s situation) or people denied proper medical care because of software errors (see Yusif Osman’s case in the Washington Post) were reported as being sent to “death houses” or “disease centers,” our linguistic faculties might be triggered into focus, and with them our moral compass.

Google just released a new application called Power Readers in Politics, where both major presidential candidates and a number of journalists show off what they’re reading on Google Reader. Obama and McCain have reading lists that look like two sides of the same coin. Here’s a breakdown of what the candidates (or at least their campaign staff) say they're reading.

Non-Girly Man Credentials:
Obama: ESPN, NBA, Chicago White Sox
McCain: Arizona Cardinals, Diamondbacks, ESPN
Advantage: Obama. The White Sox won the World Series in 2005. The Arizona Cardinals haven’t won anything since the 1940s.

Trying to be funny:
McCain: BBQ Bible, JibJab
Obama: Daily Show
Advantage: Obama. Although the short, bespectacled Steve Raichlen of the BBQ Bible might play well in some parts of the country, the Daily Show is definitely funnier than Jib Jab.

Local Media:
Obama: Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times
McCain: Arizona Republic
Advantage: Obama. The Chicago Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for investigative reporting. The Arizona Republic hasn’t won one since 1993.

Mainstream Media:
Obama: Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, the Economist
McCain: Forbes, Fox News, Wall Street Journal
Advantage: Obama. He’s got the numbers.

Online Media and Blogs:
Obama: Daily Kos, Think Progress, Talking Points Memo, the Huffington Post
McCain: National Review (2x), Wired Danger Room, Drudge Report, Jeffery Goldberg at the Atlantic, Politico (2x), Mark Halperin at Time,  Powerline, RealClearPolitics, the Weekly Standard Blog
Advantage: McCain. Talking Points Memo may be the strongest single link, but McCain’s got the bigger lineup. Also, McCain focuses more on individual reporters, which is sure to gain him points.

Non-Partisan Political:
McCain: ONE Campaign, Navy.mil, Yahoo! News
Obama: None
Advantage: McCain. Even though Yahoo! is a slightly mystifying choice on a Google application, McCain still wins this one.

Partisan Media:
Obama: Barack Obama’s Blog, Democratic Party Blog
McCain: GOP, Meghan McCain’s Blog
Advantage: Even. I was going to give this to McCain, but Meghan’s Blog makes her dad’s campaign look like a brainwashed summer camp.

Analysis: In spite of Obama’s famed advantage in Web 2.0, the McCain campaign put up a surprisingly strong fight. One factor was that McCain’s reader included more news sources than Obama’s. By my count, though, the Obama campaign was able to barely edge out the competition and win the Google Power Reader challenge.

We all have different definitions of financial security and wealth, but some are more realistic than others. When asked to define a “rich” income level at the Saddleback Forum this past weekend, the responses from Barack Obama and John McCain were revealing. Obama said $150,000, while McCain posited, “How about $5 million?” He was ostensibly joking, but his response is the perfect example of sincerity cloaked in fatuousness, and completely in line with his party’s economic philosophy.

Ezra Klein, at the American Prospect, made a chart to contextualize the candidates’ definitions of wealth:

Klein concludes that McCain’s “profoundly out of touch” answer, facetious or not, is frustrating but inevitable: He's been richer, for longer, than Obama and most of his fellow Americans. “Nothing weird or malign: Just the naturally skewed perspective of someone who lives on a particular extreme, in this case, the extreme edge of the wealth distribution.” Obama is, by his own definition, undeniably wealthy, but Klein argues that because his family’s acquisition of wealth is relatively recent, Obama’s outlook is more realistic.

McCain and his companions in the richest slice of America’s population have no concept of what it is to barely get by on a middle-class income, much less at or below the unrealistically low poverty line. While statistically unsurprising, this warped economic outlook will have dire consequences for the middle and lower classes if McCain becomes president, all but ensuring an extension of the Bush Administration’s apparent mandate that the rich get richer at the expense of pretty much everyone else.

Chart courtesy of Ezra Klein.

Protesting in the nude certainly gets people’s attention, but do the spectators recognize the protestors’ message? And furthermore, do they care? Sustainablog.org writer Adam Williams considers these questions after observing the World Naked Bike Ride in St. Louis earlier this summer. The event, which takes place in 20 countries, protests society’s crippling oil dependency and “indecent exposure” to air pollution. The problem is that it might be difficult for conservative legislators and voters to take the message seriously. “If conservatives are unlikely to respect and appreciate the collective perspective of clothes-free cyclists, then is anything gained by protesting oil dependency in the buff?”

In an interview with NPR this morning, John McCain brushed off the idea that his campaign has gone negative. What about those ads? You know, like the one comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? Or the “Hot Chicks Dig Obama” spot that took a tip from the white fear–mongering ad that helped sink Harold Ford’s senate bid in Tennessee? Or, as Amy Sullivan dissects for Time, “The One” medley that adeptly mines Evangelical Left Behind lingo to paint Obama as the Antichrist?

C’mon, they’re funny not negative, says li’l ol’ McCain. “I strongly recommend,” said McCain, “that people who don’t find humor in that relax, turn off the computer, and go [out] and get some fresh air.”

It’s impressive to see how McCain—whose presidential aspirations (not to mention his family’s reputation) were once pulverized by the slime of the Rove machine—has so thoroughly adopted the tactics (and staff) of his onetime foe.

A note of empirical sanity: The University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, an independent and highly regarded tracker of campaign advertising, found that one in three of McCain’s and the Republican National Committee’s ads were negative, while nine out of ten of Obama’s were positive.

In a commencement address at Harvard this spring, excerpted in Greater Good, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling spoke about the unique power of human imagination to change the world. Rowling said that when she worked for the human rights organization Amnesty International in her early 20s, she shared office space with former political prisoners and read the testimonies of torture victims. The experience made her realize that imagination is what allows us to empathize with people who have suffered horribly and to act on their behalf. The danger of inaction, Rowlings said, comes from people who “prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all”: 

They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages. They can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally. 

Rowling urged the Harvard graduates to “retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages.” To change the world, she said, all that we need is “the power to imagine better.” 

To read more about the need for imagination, see the creativity package in the July/August issue of Utne Reader.

From health care plans and investments options to the small choices of what to have for lunch, Cass Sunstein wants to help people make better decisions. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School, is the coauthor, along with economist Richard Thaler, of Nudge about the subtle ways that government can push (or nudge) people into making better decisions.

For the latest episode of the UtneCast, I sat down with Cass Sunstein to talk about the benefits and dangers of using nudges in government and business. And since Sunstein is also an informal advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama, I asked him about the ways in which both candidates are nudging voters. 

You can listen to the interview below, or to subscribe to the UtneCast for free through iTunes, click here.

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 Interview with Cass Sunstein: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ohio may be the first state in the nation to require businesses with 25 or more employees to give seven days of paid sick leave, the Dayton Daily News reports. The ballot measure’s supporters, such as labor unions, say the change is necessary to address the dearth of paid sick leave in the state (2.2 million Ohioans have none, according to a spokesman for the sick leave issue). The proposal's opponents, like the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, maintain that it would adversely affect businesses already struggling with insurance and health care costs. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (pdf), just half of all Americans have paid sick leave, and only 30 percent of the population gets sick leave to care for a sick child.

(Thanks, Stateline.org.)

While the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing have the Western media focusing on China’s human rights violations, we should not lose sight of the discord surrounding the 2010 Winter Games slated for Vancouver.

An in-depth article in Briarpatch magazine describes the numerous ways in which the poor and homeless populations of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside have been shoved aside during the seven-year ramp-up to the Games, focusing on a series of missed opportunities by the city to prepare for 2010 while honoring its low-income inhabitants. Instead, Briarpatch reports, Mayor Sam Sullivan, the city’s Non-Partisan Association, various real estate developers, and the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation made a number of empty promises, pledging to build low-income housing (only to delay construction) and to eliminate homelessness (without specifying quite how that would be achieved).

Sullivan also enacted the euphemistically named Project Civil City, which is cracking down on Vancouver’s homeless population by removing Dumpsters from alleys, conducting anti-panhandling public awareness campaigns, increasing tickets and fines targeting the homeless, and installing more public security cameras. Already, low-income hotels have been shut down to make way for the construction of upsclae hotels, convention centers, and condominiums, casting thousands of evictees out onto the streets.

By the time the Vancouver Games commence, Briarpatch suggests they will represent a raft of broken promises disguised as progress and burnished with forced goodwill. While the Games’ planners hope to emulate Vancouver’s legendary Expo ’86, the Games will more closely resemble the 2000 Sydney Olympics, another contentious undertaking that drowned out an embittered citizenry with overhyped Olympic spirit.

(It's a long shot, but there may still be an opportunity for Vancouver to redeem itself. After the 2004 Summer Games, Athens took an unusual step by converting the apartments in its Olympic Village into low-income housing.)

Image courtesy of sillygwailo, licensed by Creative Commons.