The Baytown (Texas) Sun -- a daily newspaper with a long history in a very conservative coastal town -- on Sunday voted 4 to 1 to endorse. Here is their Editorial. [hat tip to Kathryn Kase]

Like the other Texas papers we mentioned this morning, the Sun is highly critical of Bush, concluding:

Based on his record, President Bush does not deserve re-election.

Does Bush have an FBI surveillance file? The FBI isn't saying. But it is not complying with a California activist's FOIA request to produce it.

Michael Petrelis, who says he placed a Freedom of Information Act request for the President’s file July 6, says he has not received the file. He made a request that the request be expedited due to the presidential election, but it was denied. The FBI confirmed to RAW STORY today that it had received Petrelis’ request July 28. In their letter denying an expedited release, the bureau said that the request had been placed in their regular processing queue.

The FBI would not confirm or deny whether they kept a file on Bush.

“Based on information you have provided, I have determined you have not demonstrated any particular urgency to inform the public about the subject matter of your requests beyond the public’s right to know about government activity generally,” wrote Records Management Division Section Chief David M. Hardy. “Accordingly, your request has been placed in our regular processing queue.”

Now the FBI says you can't put in a FOIA request for a living person. But others say that's a "simplification."

TomPaine.com reports on voter suppression in Philly...and Michigan.

Nevada has some funny busines going on as well.

District Judge Valerie Adair on Friday denied the Democratic Party's request to reopen voter registration to voters whose forms might have been destroyed by a Republican-backed organiza- tion.

In denying the Democratic Party's petition, Adair said extending registration could "open the floodgates" to allow people not affected by the purported fraud to register. Such a move would be inviting "additional fraud and manipulation," she said.

Update: Colorado Luis, and the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network outline suppression attempts in Colorado. Also see Krugman today.

Here's a new endorsement for John Kerry by the Daily Texan. After criticizing Bush on a number of domestic and foreign issues, it says:

The Bush-Cheney campaign itself offers the best endorsement for John Kerry: He changes his mind. When it became increasingly obvious that the war in Iraq was based on faulty intelligence and downright ignorance, Kerry was willing to call out the administration. As law enforcement officers began using anti-terrorism powers to create an unsettling culture of surveillance in America, Kerry attacked the way the Patriot act is used.

Far from being a mindless flip-flopper, Kerry has proven that he is willing to listen to public input. Kerry's brand of flip-flopping would be a welcome change from an administration that simply refuses to admit mistakes or accept any responsibility for the disaster zone it has created in the Middle East. It's about time that someone in the White House has an open mind.

John Kerry, a fresh start and an open mind. Sounds pretty good to me. And in case you missed it a few weeks ago, here is the endorsement of Kerry by the Crawford Iconoclast, the hometown paper where Bush's ranch is located.

Dick Cheney is once again trying to instill fear in the heart of every American in an attempt to snag votes:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday evoked the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such a threat, which the vice president called a concept "you've got to get your mind around."

"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us - biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said. "That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.

Bush-Cheney have no strategy to counter a catastrophic attack. Take the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act that Bush signed into law yesterday. Bush insisted that funds for first responders be reduced.

A new poll shows that John Kerry has wider support among black voters than Bush:

Blacks prefer Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry over President Bush by a nearly 4-to-1 margin, though their support for the Democrat is down slightly from the backing Al Gore received in 2000, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Bush didn't get good marks for his handling of the war in Iraq or for his overall job performance, according to the poll of black Americans from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The center is a Washington-based research group that focuses on issues concerning blacks.

Not suprisingly, support for Bush was strongest among Christian conservatives and those over 50.

Atrios has begun the October Surprise Watch. We all know Rove and Bush will try to pull a rabbit out of hat before the election. The question is, what will it be? I'm sticking with my earler prediction, Osama bin Laden turns up dead.

If he turns up dead, it will be as if Bush killed the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz...people will be chanting, "Ding, Dong, the witch is dead" as if all our battles with terrorists will be over.

Bush needs Osama gone, not captured. Now here's the question: If he turns up dead, will an independent pathologist or medical examiner be allowed to examine his remains to determine how long he's been dead? Wouldn't you want to know if he died a few days ago or has been in storage for six months or more, in preparation for an October unveiling?

What say you?

The AP reports that Democrats have registered more new voters than Republicans in these swing states:Arizona, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire. In Florida, they are tied.

There are no numbers for Ohio and Pennsylvania. No mention is made of Colorado.

Al Gore blasted President Bush in a rousing speech today at Georgetown University. Some choice quotes:

I'm convinced that most of the president's frequent departures from fact-based analysis have much more to do with right-wing political and economic ideology than with the Bible."

"It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency," he said. He painted the Bush administration and its "right-wing" supporters as pursuing policies for the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the rest of the country.

"The essential cruelty of Bush's game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals and then cloaks them with a phony moral authority, thus misleading many Americans ... who have a deep and genuine desire to do good in the world," Gore said.

"And in the process, he convinces them to lend unquestioning support for proposals that actually hurt their families and their communities," he said.

"Truly, President Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged," he said.

Lots more, if you find a link to the entire speech, please leave it in the comments.

Early voting in Florida began today. Within one hour, problems began. Armies of lawyers are on hand and and already heading to court.

I hope no one has forgotten what happened in 2000 and how the Republicans and the Supreme Court stole the election from Al Gore.

TalkLeft was not a blog in those days, but it did provide daily coverage of election news. I have combined the coverage into one page, 2000 Recap, and think that it will be a valuable resource for bloggers and journalists looking for comparisons between 2000 and 2004.

The page is divided into sections: Election Day to Concession Day news, Post Concession Day News (only one article of interest there), Opeds (all from the Democrats point of view), Humor (just two funny pieces, still relevant today) and Court Documents.

Amazingly, almost all of the links still work. I'm not sure how long the page will stay up as some may disagree with my "fair use" statement, so use it and save what you want while it's still available.

Bottom Line: Re-acquaint yourselves with what happened in Florida in 2000, broadcast it and make it more difficult for it to happen again.

Chisum Lee in The Village Voice lays out the importance of the the felon vote.

With so much attention focused on the Presidential race, I all but forgot about some local races that matter a great deal--those for the office of District Attorney.

Colorado voters made a terrible mistake a few years ago when they voted to impose term limits on public officials and neglected to exclude prosecutors. As a result, the Denver metropolitan area, particularly Denver, Jefferson, Adams and Arapahoe Counties, will lose four honest, trustworthy, dedicated and extremely capable top prosecutors who, throughout their careers were concerned about doing justice as well as getting convictions: Bill Ritter, Bob Grant, Dave Thomas and Jim Peters.

The job of the prosecutor is to do justice, not to accumulate convictions, like notches on a gun. Prosecutors should be objective and evenhanded. Their duty is to both protect the public and fairly administer the law.

The Denver Post today had an election guide with short bios for the candidates in the state-wide DA's Races. Most made me want to cringe.

The real losers in the term limits vote are the citizens of Colorado. So many of the contested races for DA are filled with people who sound either clueless as to what the job requires, or so victims' rights and police-oriented that they might not recognize the concepts of justice and balance if they bit them from behind.

TalkLeft has only one endorsement in the ten or so contested races: Scott Storey, who is running against Mary Malatesta for Dave Thomas's spot in the 1st Judicial District (primarily Jefferson county. Here's why we oppose Mary and support Scott:

Mary Malatesta has spent her career rising to the top of the states' death penalty prosecution team. She describes her occupation as "death penalty prosecutor." In her own words, here is why she is running for District Attorney...in a county that might see one or two death penalty cases a year out of the thousands of criminal cases filed and in a state that has executed one person in the last 30 years and has only three people on death row.