It seems Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted isn't finished doing his best to suppress the vote in his state and cause as much chaos and confusion as humanly possible between now and election day -- Husted To Appeal Ohio Early Voting Ruling To Supreme Court:

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced Tuesday that he will appeal a court ruling which restored access to early voting during the three days before the election.

An appeals court ruled Friday that Ohio must treat all voters the same as it treats military members or people who live overseas. Husted called the ruling “an unprecedented intrusion by the federal courts into how states run elections” in a press release on Tuesday.

“This ruling not only doesn’t make legal sense, it doesn’t make practical sense,” Husted said. “The court is saying that all voters must be treated the same way under Ohio law, but also grants Ohio’s 88 elections boards the authority to establish 88 different sets of rules. That means that one county may close down voting for the final weekend while a neighboring county may remain open. How any court could consider this a remedy to an equal protection problem is stunning.”

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that “while there is a compelling reason to provide more opportunities for military voters to cast their ballots, there is no corresponding satisfactory reason to prevent non-military voters from casting their ballots as well.”

President Barack Obama’s campaign and state Democrats had challenged Ohio’s effort to shorten the early voting period for those who weren’t in the military or based overseas. Early voting was available in the three day period period in 2008, and minority voters were more likely to vote during that period.

Read on for the response from the Obama campaign.

I think we will never have an honest discussion about race or about whether gestures -- verbal, images and physical -- imply white superiority over people of color. I just don't think it's possible because no matter how hard one might try to keep the discussion neutral, it just degenerates into a defensive, angry pile on the floor.

Megyn Kelly was just breathless and wider-eyed than ever on Monday over the mere suggestion that anyone could possibly think Arizona governor Jan Brewer's finger in the face of the President and disrespect shown to the office, much less the man, could possibly be construed by anyone as racist.

Enter David Webb, creator of Tea Party 365 and BigGovernment.com contributor, who takes a dim view of anyone calling Brewer's contrived gesturing racist. Jehmu Greene rounds out the panel for Megyn, where they hash out the issues.

Greene has a strong point when she points out that whether or not it was overt racism (she doesn't believe Brewer is racist), it had racial undertones that played out for people viewing that image. Combined with Brewer's claim that the conversation left her feeling 'intimidated', there's no question that the dog whistles were sounding loud.

David Webb is Andrew Breitbart in the body of an African-American man. He loves meanness, just like Breitbart does. It's not enough to dislike someone if you're Webb. Dislike is too kind. It must be hateful and mean, spewed with sneer and squinty eyes. I saw him give Sally Kohn a hard time last week, and today he actually managed to get the usually unflappable Jehmu Green close to livid with his repeated references to the "black mafia" and denial that there could possibly be racist overtones to the Brewer incident.

Webb leads off his argument with this question: "Did Jan Brewer's finger have the N-word written on it? That would have made it racist." He follows that up with this: "Or is this a case where the President and his acolytes need to call out the Black Mafia, which is what they are, to turn it into racism?"

I understand the need on these 24/7 networks to be outrageous in order to garner attention, but these comments were stomach-turning to me, not only for their obtuseness, but for the sheer joy he gets in trying to criminalize President Obama and other respected members of the black community like Greene. The fact that he, too, is black doesn't give him free license to spew racism on the airwaves, even if he thinks it does.

This exchange is particularly difficult, starting at about 3 minutes in.

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Ed's going to Wisconsin to cover the protests this Thursday, so good for him for continuing to give the event some coverage. Ed went through the endless media coverage over at Fox attacking unions and the concerted effort by the GOP to bust unions and played a clip of Karl Rove admitting that what we're seeing going on now in States with Republican governors is basically their game plan to bust every union in the country to win the 2012 presidential election by destroying one of the last core constituencies of the Democratic Party.

Radio host Joe Madison joined Ed and talked about President Obama's tepid response to the protests there so far and the need for him to wake the hell up and support these workers just as he spoke out for the protesters in Cairo.

As Ed pointed out, the Democratic Party has been mostly silent on what's going on in Wisconsin. They'd better decide if they want to be on the right side of the working class in the United States or not. If they don't, they need to find themselves on the other end of an actual grass roots movement instead of a corporate funded one like the teabaggers and more of what we're seeing in Wisconsin right now with workers finally saying that enough is enough.

I really, really wish Ed Schultz would quit bringing Republican hack Ron Christie on his show. That said, I've got to hand it to Joe Madison for this rant here where he called out the greedy Republicans for holding the poor hostage to get their tax cuts for the rich.

MADISON: I’m going to tell you, what we really should be doing… we ought to be in the streets. We ought to be jumping on these greedy Republicans who have the audacity to try to keep going what they had going for the last ten years.

Here’s what I would tell Republicans. Okay baby, it’s in your court right now. Create the jobs! And you’ve got thirteen months to get these people off of unemployment that you held hostage. You’ve got two years to create jobs in this country instead of spending that money on your luxury items. Ron is full of it. This is an attempt to just allow rich people to maintain their hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand. Create jobs or shut the hell up and American people ought to be in the streets screaming, not at President Obama so much because I’m going to tell you, you guys sat here and you held the poorest of the poor hostage! You played chicken with poor people’s lives and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

They should be but that would require them having the capacity to feel shame in the first place. And amen to Joe. They keep saying those tax cuts create jobs, well let's see the job creation now that they got their wish. You know the next bullpucky they'll be spouting is that there's still "uncertainty" for the "job creators" since the extension is only for two years.

Ed Schultz managed to find the one black man in America willing to defend Rush Limbaugh's racist remarks about James Clyburn... former Dick Cheney aide Ron Christie. Ed... Ed... Ed... PLEASE STOP having this man as a guest on your show. He's obnoxious, truly obnoxious.

Christie claimed that his buddy Rush Limbaugh was taken out of context and then he attacked President Obama for his remark that Republicans should sit in the back of the car, which the talking heads at Fox have been hammering on for weeks as being racist. He's probably lucky Joe Madison wasn't sitting in the same room as he was because Joe looked like he wanted to slug him.

Here's what Christie was defending from our friends at Media Matters.

Rush proposes a new leadership position for Rep. Jim Clyburn: "Driving Miss Nancy"

Jon Stewart had a slightly different take than Ron Christie and the Fox yappers on President Obama's remarks. From the Nov. 1st edition of The Daily Show. Relative portion starts at just past the three minute mark.

Indecision 2010 - Republicans Can Go to the Back of the Car

Apparently the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut thinks we should "review" the minimum wage. However, she has no idea what that wage even is or how many of her employees at the WWE are earning it. It's so nice to see these millionaires so in touch with the needs of average American voters that they might be representing should they get elected.

The Huffington Post has more on McMahon and her apparent lack of what the minimum wage is and what raising or lowering it actually means to the American economy.

Linda McMahon: 'We Ought To Review' The Minimum Wage

Her campaign apparently shot back at the article and said that they were not necessarily advocating for lowering it, but just for a "review". Well I'd welcome that review if she actually thought it was too low, but I'll be shocked if that's the case. If we wanted an honest "review" of whether the minimum wage is too high, I say let Linda McMahon try to live off of those wages for a year with no access to her other income and after that "review", we'll get her opinion on it.

And I just wanted to make one other point on the video which I've included here which is Ed Schultz, Ron Christie and Joe Madison debating McMahon's statement on Ed's show. I really was not sure which I wanted to make the headline, but decided criticism of McMahon was more worthy of notice than my criticism of the video I included.

That said, note to Ed Schultz. Please quit bringing Ron Christie, Heidi Harris and a host of other right wing back benchers on your show.

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February 13, 2009 MSNBC HARDBALL

January 18, 2009 C-SPAN

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

January 18, 2009 C-SPAN