At his rally beginning momentarily, John Kerry will announce John Edwards as his choice for Vice President.

NYT: Kerry will shortly announce at this morning’s rally that he has chosen John Edwards to be his Vice President.

The Indonesian elections appear headed towards a September 20 run-off:

With about 10 percent of the ballots counted by the election commission, Yudhoyono was leading Tuesday morning with 33 percent. Megawati was second with 27 percent and Wiranto had 23 percent. Election officials said they hoped to complete an informal canvass later this week. The relatively smooth conduct of the election, held at 575,000 polling stations on thousands of islands, marked a milestone for a country that emerged only in 1998 from 32 years of autocratic rule under President Suharto. The vote was Indonesia’s first direct election for its leader…

…If Megawati fails to make the second round, it would set up a showdown between retired generals, which could raise the fears of some Indonesians that the military is planning to reassert control over the country’s politics. So far, most of the concern has centered on Wiranto, who has been indicted on charges of crimes against humanity by a U.N.-supported tribunal in connection with a 1999 wave of militia violence in East Timor.

Wal-Mart Watch: Wal-Mart tries out the same spin on the unions strategizing to organize it and the class action law suit designed to hold it accountable: They’re wrong, but they’ll help make us better. Well, they got one out of two right:

“‘In Chicago, you have to be willing to step out of your so-called comfort zone and what you’re used to doing,’ said John Bisio, a spokesman for Wal-Mart. ‘We recognize that there are experiences there that are different from other places. Organized labor is very strong there. We know we’re going to be subject to great scrutiny, and we really want to adhere or conform to the spirit of how things are done in Chicago.’ Mr. Bisio said that in Chicago, Wal-Mart would work with local leaders in choosing some of its employees and buy products and services from local and minority-owned businesses. He said he doubted the company would soften its opposition to labor unions, ‘but that’s not to say there won’t be times when criticism or scrutiny might make you better focus on what you really need to do for your own people.'”

Notice how demands for living wages, decent benefits, and a voice on the job are framed as if they were some kind of quaint local affectation, and not human rights for workers everywhere in this country and outside of it. Labor isn’t an aesthetic wrinkle in the scenery of Chicago just looking to be made to feel important. Labor is a powerful social movement out to challenge and transform Wal-Mart’s business model and the stratified economy it’s wrought. And Wal-Mart knows it.

Elton Beard notes Meet the Press’ Andrea Mitchell making clear which side she’s on – and it’s not ours:

51% of Americans now consider the war a boo-boo, noted the NBC host. Perhaps discomfited by this she turned to a guest for consolation, and her mask slipped for a moment (all emphasis added): So, Joe Lieberman, have we lost the American people?

Not surprising, then, that she let his description of the war as one against “the very same people who attacked us on September 11th” slide unchallenged. As Elton observes:

…as one, a million viewers across the land leaned forward in their comfy chairs awaiting a journalistic follow-up to these odd, Cheney-esque assertions. Like, what was that previous circumstance where division at home deprived America and the world of a victory over terrorists who hate us more than they love life? And, does the honorable Senator have any information connecting anyone now in Iraq to 9/11?
A million viewers across the land were sadly disappointed. Russert’s substitute just let Sen. Lieberman’s startling statements stand…some causal viewers, under the impression that Andrea Mitchell is a journalist, unaware that Meet The Press and the Senator are on the same team, just might have walked away believing that what Sen. Lieberman said correlates well with reality

An announcement of Kerry’s running mate looks to be about nine hours away:

The political chatter intensified when Kerry addressed supporters during a barbecue at his wife’s farm near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “I’m heading out to Indianapolis to give a speech tomorrow, but before I go we’re gonna do a little rally here in Pittsburgh at Market Square, so if any of you can make it, I’m told the gates open at 7 in the morning — if you’re up at that hour — but at 9 o’clock tomorrow we’re gonna have some fun, and then we’ll head out to the Midwest again and back on the trail.” Democratic sources close to the campaign told CNN that barring a last-minute hitch, Kerry will use the rally to announce his choice. They added that in an attempt to keep the name secret until Kerry makes the announcement, his choice is not scheduled to attend the rally.

Sunday, Kerry campaigned in Iowa with Gov. Tom Vilsack, 53, another of the three men considered to be on his short list of possible choices. At multiple events, both Kerry and Vilsack deflected reporters’ questions about whether the two had discussed the Iowa governor’s chances of getting on the ticket. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, 63, is also considered to be a top contender for the second slot. Walking his dog outside his Washington-area home on Monday, Gephardt referred all questions about the vice presidential slot to the Kerry campaign. “I don’t know anything,” he said.

The Washington Post today ran an interesting (if lite on policy) profile of Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, the least-known of the top contenders for Vice-President. At this point, I say Kerry will tap Edwards, for good reasons and bad ones, and remain convinced that of the finalists, he’s the best choice. But I’m ready to be surprised. Especially if it’s by John Lewis…

The Bush Campaign tries to beat the expectations game:

In an e-mail sent Monday, Matthew Dowd, Bush’s chief strategist, predicted that the race will “swing wildly” in Kerry’s favor within a month. Dowd’s memo included a chart showing that the challenger typically has gained a 15-point bounce in polls when the running mate is announced and the spotlight of the convention shines on the nominee. These two developments “can have a dramatic (if often short-lived) effect on the head-to-head poll numbers,” Dowd wrote. “In fact, historical analysis suggests John Kerry should have a lead of more than 15 points coming out of his convention.” Dowd did not say in his memo what factors might help Bush close the gap, or when that might happen.

How’s this for expectations? George Bush’s polling numbers for the past few months, based on comparison even to those incumbents who lost the Presidency badly, shouldn’t come close to as low as…George Bush’s polling numbers for the past few months. Or is it too late to float that expectation?

Oh, what an even-more-tangled-than-previously-evident web we weave:

The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad’s programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons, according to government officials.

The Washington Post tracks developments in the imprisonment of Chinese dissident Jiang Yanyong:

Chinese military and security officials are forcing the elderly physician who exposed the government’s coverup of the SARS epidemic to attend intense indoctrination classes and are interrogating him about a letter he wrote in February denouncing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, according to sources familiar with the situation. The officials have detained Jiang Yanyong, 72, a semi-retired surgeon in the People’s Liberation Army, in a room under 24-hour supervision, and they have threatened to keep him until he “changes his thinking” and “raises his level of understanding” about the Tiananmen crackdown, said one of the sources, who described the classes as “brainwashing sessions.” But Jiang, who became a national hero last year after blowing the whistle on the government’s efforts to hide the SARS outbreak, has refused to back down, and said in a recent note to his family that he would continue to “face the problems confronting me with the principle of seeking truth from facts,” according to a person close to the family.

Barbara Ehrenreich on the Fourth of July:

Today, those who believe that the war on terror requires the sacrifice of our liberties like to argue that ‘the Constitution is not a suicide pact.’ In a sense, however, the Declaration of Independence was precisely that. By signing Jefferson’s text, the signers of the declaration were putting their lives on the line. England was then the world’s greatest military power, against which a bunch of provincial farmers had little chance of prevailing. Benjamin Franklin wasn’t kidding around with his quip about hanging together or hanging separately. If the rebel American militias were beaten on the battlefield, their ringleaders could expect to be hanged as traitors. They signed anyway, thereby stating to the world that there is something worth more than life, and that is liberty. Thanks to their courage, we do not have to risk death to preserve the liberties they bequeathed us. All we have to do is vote.

Happy fourth.

The Bush National Labor Relations Board strikes another blow against workers’ rights:

The right of an employee to have a representative present at an investigatory meeting that the employee reasonably believes might result in discipline covers unionized workplaces only, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled. The board ruled that employees who work in a nonunionized workplace are not entitled to have a coworker accompany them to an investigatory interview with their employer. The board overruled a 2000 decision, which had extended to unrepresented employees a right to have a coworker present during such interviews. These rights are called Weingarten rights, after the U.S. Supreme Court case where employees represented by a union won the right to have a representative accompany them to a disciplinary interview. (NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251 (1975)).

The people who defend decisions like this are, of course, the same ones who take potshots at the labor movement claiming it’s a protection scheme only interested in helping its members.