Today, Sister Julie McGuire had to turn away 12 fellow Indiana nuns — all in their 80s or 90s — from a polling place because they lacked a state or federal photo ID, as mandated by the recent Supreme Court decision. AP reports:

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,’” Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. “You have to remember that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”

Sister McGuire also underscored the difficulty in obtaining IDs for these women: “We’re going to take from now until November to get them out and get this done. You can’t do this like school kids on a bus. I wish we could.” More on the ID Divide here.

For results to come in from Indiana and North Carolina, check out Spencer Ackerman interviewing David Petraeus.

In an “unusual foray into foreign policy” yesterday, First Lady Laura Bush admonished the Burmese government for its “inept” response to the recent cyclone that killed over 20,000 people. The First Lady heaped particularly harsh criticisms on the Burmese government for not adequately warning residents about the incoming storm:

It’s troubling many of the Burmese people learned of this impending disaster only when foreign outlets such as Radio Free Asia and Voice of America sounded the alarm. Although they were aware of the threat, Burma’s state-run media failed to issue a timely warning to citizens in the storm’s path.

Watch it:

In fact, equally harsh criticism could be leveled at President Bush. As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005, Bush was on vacation, and the White House ignored warnings about the dangers ahead:

2001: FEMA ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as “among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.”

Two days before landfall: Federal officials told the White House “that the city’s levees might be overtopped or breached.” Bush later famously said “nobody could have predicted” the breaches.

Hours before landfall: Federal officials warned the White House that flooding “could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months.”

Laura Bush added, “I hope that the military will realize they have to accept aid from everybody they can possibly accept it from.” The White House, however, turned down aid from other countries offering to help after Katrina:

Turned down foreign aid: After Katrina, the administration rejected many “allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars,” the Washington Post reported. The most common responses: “sent letter of thanks” and “will keep offer on hand.”

“The response to the cyclone is just the most recent example of the junta’s failure to meet its people’s basic needs,” she concluded. Yet the Bush administration has also turned its back on the hurricane survivors:

Undermined workers: President Bush issued an order in 2005 suspending application of the Bacon-Davis Act, allowing contractors to pay less than prevailing wages in Katrina-damaged areas.

Toxic trailers: FEMA “suppressed warnings” about levels of formaldehyde in FEMA-provided trailers to Katrina refugees.

Laura Bush’s Katrina amnesia went unchallenged by the press corps, who instead proceeded to ask about daughter Jenna’s upcoming wedding.

Brian Maloney of the right-wing site Radio Equalizer defends Rush Limbaugh’s comment about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa being a “shoe shine guy.” “As to Limbaugh’s remark, was it indeed racist? This one’s easy: not at all!” writes Maloney. “There’s nothing race-specific about his comment. Are ‘shoe-shine guys’ usually Hispanic? No.” Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, has quite a different take:

What can I tell you? It’s the same kind of nasty, bigoted, racist type of comment that has become so prevalent in today’s society, as practiced by Lou Dobbs, as practiced by [Sean] Hannity, [Bill] O’Reilly, [Michael] Savage — all these guys who are appealing to a particular bigoted audience, and fanning the fires of bigotry and racism by doing these kinds of things without real concern about the consequences of their words.

Hillary Clinton shows off her deep connection with the common man:

“We’re going to knock balls out of the country’s park,” [Mrs Clinton] says, standing in a minor-league baseball stadium, “for the home team, which is America”.

Glad we cleared up which country we live in.

Last month, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repeatedly made the false claim that Shi’a Iran is training Sunni al Qaeda. In a Washington Post discussion today, a questioner observed, “I’m surprised that more hasn’t been made out of all of the verbal slip ups by McCain.” The Post’s Michael Abramowitz brushed over McCain’s many gaffes, saying the press has sufficiently critical of McCain:

ABRAMOWITZ: I don’t think McCain is being cut a break by the press for verbal miscues: When he confused the Sunni and the Shia, the press was on it immediately.

As Media Matters has documented, media outlets including CNN, The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, Reuters, and the AP ignored or overlooked over the gaffe in their reporting. Just last week, Abramowitz stuck up for McCain’s premature declarations of Mission Accomplished in Iraq, stating:

ABRAMOWITZ: I think McCain will certainly be attacked over the war during the campaign but I doubt that he will be blamed for “Mission Accomplished” because he was always more sober than than the White House about progress in Iraq.