Have you ever actually read one of those spammy, scammy, Nigerian-prince-inheritance, I-have-such-a-great-deal-for-you junk emails? Here's what's funny about them: they're now preying upon your mistrust of said spammy, scammy emails in order to get you to trust them. I received one this morning, and I had to laugh at the attempt. It's not so funny when guys running for President of the United States try to pull the same gambit.

It is hardly a stretch to consider that the greatest danger to Barack Obama's re-election prospects has never been the quality of his opposition. Sure, one could take away from the first presidential debate that if Mitt Romney yells a lot at the moderator, the lies escaping his lips don't matter, given how the polls went a bit nuts over the past week. So what to make of it?

The President's greatest enemy is mistrust, and Republicans know it. If there is one thing we can believe about our politics, it's that Americans don't trust a damned thing. The politicians themselves, the policies they propose, the banks they rescue, the laws they pass -- it's all either up for debate, or simply dismissed. They know that given the records of George W. Bush and the recently departed Congressional session which they sat on, they don't have much to run on. The plans Romney and his running mate have for the economy are apparently not worthy of our eyes until we send them to the White House.

So Republicans aren't so much asking America to trust them as they are attempting to have us embrace the mistrust. Romney's best hope is to sow in each voter a lack of faith in what President Obama has done, and even who he is.

In her opening discussion, Melissa will ask today whether anyone actually cares about the truth anymore. Given what's happening in Florida before the election, it's worth asking; we'll get into that, too. Melissa will also spotlight a young hero targeted by the Taliban for having the audacity to help her classmates get an education --  given that this Mental Illness Awareness Week, we'll take a look at living with mental illness, and take a look at the most recent (and unfortunate) developments with one of the most visible sufferers in our politics, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois. And be sure to stay tuned for a Footnote that will preview Tuesday's presidential debate in a way no one else will.

Our guests include:

• Danielle Belton, editor-at-large at Clutch Magazine, writer for BET's "Don't Sleep!", and creator of the blog The Black Snob. 
• Diana Furchtgott-Roth, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and author of "Regulating to Disaster."
• Rula Jebreal, foreign policy analyst for Newsweek, and an MSNBC contributor.
• Jason Johnson, political science professor at Hiram College, chief political correspondent for Politic365.com, and politics editor for The Source magazine.
• Jonathan Metzl, author of "Protest Psychosis;" director, Program in Medicine, Health, and Society, and professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University.
• Gihan Perera, executive director of Florida New Majority.
• Joy Reid, managing editor of theGrio.com, and an MSNBC contributor.
• Bill Schneider, distinguished senior fellow and resident scholar at Third Way.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

Fighting through laryngitis, Melissa finished last Sunday's show if not with a strong voice, then a strong message -- about strength. Specifically, what we we perceive our President to be able to do, what we aspire for him to do, and how that often contrasts with his actual powers:

It takes strength to deal honestly with your opponents, even when they deal dishonestly with you.
It takes strength to make the tough calls even when you are not sure how they will turn out.
It takes strength to have the patience to watch policy become progress.
It takes strength to admit mistakes and change direction when needed...
So yes, the presidency itself is weak, which is why Americans want presidents themselves to be strong. I just encourage us not to confuse aggressiveness with strength.

Take a look at Melissa toughing it out through her Footnote from last Sunday -- our Good Look for this week. Be sure to join us today for another edition of "Melissa Harris-Perry," and another Footnote! See you on msnbc at 10am ET.

Let's give a break to what many think is a mythical being: the undecided voter. There are 24 days before Election Day, and the Undecided Voter is catching hell -- from Saturday Night Live, most recently. This isn't new; The Daily Show gave them the business in 2008. Really, you haven't made your mind up by now?, they imply. No, some haven't. Some folks have actual questions they still want answered.

If that isn't clear by the polls being swung by a 90-minute debate in which the one guy who lied loudly came out the "winner" over the President, I don't know what to tell you. Clearly, "Undecided Voter" doesn't just apply to people who haven't made any kind of decision whatsoever.

Surely such an important decision -- who will be the Leader of the Free World -- is an important one to ponder. And it should be encouraging that there are citizens among us weighing all the important policy positions, personal attributes, and records of the men running for President of the United States. Right?

Instead, these utterly responsible citizens are being pillories as if they were aliens walking amongst us, and encounters with them are on the level of what Carl Sagan described in "Contact." Meeting one is like encountering an Oklahoma City Thunder fan; seriously, have you met one? But there's the problem with anecdotal evidence right there: there are tons of people (though likely not in Seattle) who root for that team, as there are actual, real, living undecided voters.

So rather than asking those people in a fury, "WHY HAVEN'T YOU MADE UP YOUR MIND, DUDE/LADY?!?!", today we'll explore some of the things that could help sway their vote in these final days. Naturally, there are people who are their direct opposites -- folks who have voted early, in states like Ohio. Well, in today's edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™, we'll bring you some fresh news on what extremes Republican lawmakers and state officials are going to in order to block people from voting early.

We'll also assess the cultural and social impact of an Obama second term on African Americans, and take a look at school desegregation through busing. And we'll have a Foot Soldier which you will not want to miss!

Our guests include:

• Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
• Anthea Butler, professor of religious studies and graduate chair of religion at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Prudence Carter, associate professor of education and sociology, Stanford University, and author of "Stubborn Roots: Race, Culture, and Inequality in U.S. and South African Schools."
• Jelani Cobb, associate professor of Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut.
• Kim Janey, senior project director at the Massachusetts Advocates for Children, and a part of the Boston School Reform Project.
• Glen Johnson, politics editor of Boston.com.
• Nina Turner, Ohio State Senator.
• Matt Welch, editor-in-chief of Reason Magazine, and author of "McCain: Myth of a Maverick."

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivers an address centered upon foreign policy yesterday at the Virginia Military Institute.

Next Tuesday will mark six years since the normally mild-mannered Dennis Green famously lost his temper at a press conference following a crushing loss his Arizona Cardinals suffered at the hands of the Chicago Bears. Green, then Arizona's head coach, saw his team blow what seemed to be an insurmountable lead late in the game, and lose at home on Monday Night Football. I'll spare all the specifics that NFL Films covers well in this video -- one which you should watch in order to see Green spit hot fire:

The Bears are what we thought they were. They're what we thought they were. We played them in preseason — who the hell takes a third game of the preseason like it's bullsh*t? Bullsh*t! We played them in the third game — everybody played three quarters — the Bears are who we thought they were! That's why we took the damn field. Now if you want to crown them, then crown their *ss! But they are who we thought they were! And we let 'em off the hook!

Over those nearly six years, I've been reminded of the punchiest line in Green's rant -- "they are who we thought they were!" -- often as I've watched Mitt Romney run for President. Considering the address he gave yesterday at the Virginia Military Institute, it seems that this actually be the moment at which it is most poignant. How so?

Despite Romney's newly launched, media-driven campaign "reset," it is important to remember that he has always been the same person. I'll explain what I mean.

There's no doubt that Romney's efforts at re-invention are the stuff of legend, even under their current moniker of "etch-a-sketching." Last week's debate was a sign that we're in a new phase of it, a (perceived) Romney shift back to the political center under the cover of vagaries and lies. Yesterday, he continued in that vein with a frightening foreign policy speech.

First, the biggest etch-a-sketch:

“I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”

This two-state solution, of course, is the exact opposite what he remarked to a private, high-priced fundraiser back in April. Yes, the same one at which Romney spoke derisively about the "47%" and said that he believed Palestinians aren't interested in peace and that as President, he planned to "kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it."

In a substantive, surgical breakdown, Fred Kaplan of Slate called the speech "the most dishonest" Romney has delivered yet. Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic wasn't happy, either, going even further by calling it a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad"  speech:

The speech that Mitt Romney gave Monday ought to make every American nervous about what he and his ideological team would do if permitted to direct U.S. foreign policy. What a debacle...

Romney's foreign policy sure does seem as if it's the terrible consequence of the Republican Party's attempt to treat spending as if it was the only failure of the Bush Administration, rather than acknowledging the various ways in which the Bush foreign policy made the United States worse off.

Yeah, but was it loud? Given that near-universal praise greeted Romney for his bullying, loud debate performance full of lies last Wednesday and the wacky polls we've seen both ways since, it's clear that that this is a volcanic electorate in many senses -- molten, fiery, volatile. As long as Romney feeds the heat with his rhetoric, all while re-jiggering himself to the left of his extreme party positions for those voters who -- like casual sports fans at playoff time -- are just starting to pay attention, it's a recipe for success. Right?

In his analysis of Romney's speech yesterday, Adam Serwer of Mother Jones opted not to focus on the substance Kaplan and Friedersdorf analyzed, noting that this speech was less policy address than public service announcement (in the vein of Jay-Z, naturally). Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic ponders the timing of this "reset," wondering if Romney has been espousing the extreme for a little too long:

Historically, those commitments have told us something about the plans candidates pursue in office. Those commitments have also told us something about the resistance candidates will put up in the face of political pressure. With Romney, the latter may be more important, because if he’s elected he'd almost certainly be working with a Republican Congress. The plans he endorsed are very much like the ones House Republicans have already passed. If Romney is not willing to stand up his party’s base now, why should we expect he'd stand up to them as president? ...

Romney had more than a year of campaigning to position himself as a moderate. He chose not to do so. That tells us a lot—more, surely, than anything he says now.

That brings me back to "they are who we thought they were," and a must-read New York Times piece on Romney from last week. In a lengthy examination of Romney's past as Massachusetts governor, it was clear that through all of his varied policy machinations and switches, the guy really wanted one thing more than anything: to be President. I've wondered aloud why a man of his wealth and business influence would even bother with the revealing, arduous process of becoming President, but one thing that has been clear over the course of time is that Romney is a politician of almost limitless ambition, to the point where lying has become a campaign staple (and alternatively, punchline).

Yesterday's speech gave some substantive, frightening indication of what he'd do if elected. But Mitt Romney hasn't changed. If we'd been paying enough attention, it would be clear that we've always known. So enough about "etch-a-sketching," and the like. It's clear that Romney not only doesn't expect America to care -- he's counting on it.

So, as you heard if you follow Melissa on Twitter, she's keeping her voice very low this morning. Mostly, because we here on the #nerdland staff are begging her to.

Shortly after yesterday's show, there were signs that Melissa's head cold began stealing her voice, reducing it to little more than a whisper. In the hopes of preventing one of our guests, "The Cycle" co-host Steve Kornacki, from becoming "MHP" impromptu guest host Steve Kornacki, we've asked her to save her voice for the show. Despite the whispers, the beat indeed goes on. (Ahem.)

Topics Melissa will broach today through her (perhaps) amplified mike today include one of the third rails of American politics: affirmative action. We'll have a bonus edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™, Ohio edition -- and take a look at the first-generation Americans running this fall to serve America in Congress and elsewhere. Melissa also has a preview of this week's vice-presidential debate in store.

In addition to potential substitute host Kornacki, our guests include:

• Debo Adegbile, acting president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
• Chloe Angyal, an editor at Feministing -- and contributor to The Atlantic, Jezebel, The Guardian, among others.
• Sayu Bhojwani, founding director of the New American Leaders Project.
• Grace Meng, Democratic candidate for Congress from New York.
• Christopher Smitherman, Cincinnati councilman and head of the Cincinnati NAACP.
• Robert Traynham, MSNBC contributor and former communications director for Rick Santorum.
• Kenji Yoshino, NYU law professor.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

One of those You'll Only See It On "MHP" segments aired last weekend, and in light of a recent event, it makes for a particularly salient Good Look this week. That event is the death this week in Canada of one of North America's most notorious academic racists, Jean Phillippe Rushton.

Aside from funding projects around the world for "scientists" like himself, Rushton was notable for his genetic similarity theory -- which posited, essentially, that you're likely to be kinder and more altruistic towards people who more similar genetically to you -- and another whopper about the correlation between genital size and intelligence (we can see where that's going).

More on that from the Southern Poverty Law Center, via Salon:

Rushton’s infamous theory about race and intelligence can be summed up in two words: size matters.

He postulated that brain and genital size are inversely related, implying that whites are more intelligent than blacks and that Asians are the smartest of all.

It was clear that Rushton, for science or his own motivations, believed race to be a genetic, physical construct. But perhaps we should thank bozos like Rushton for strengthening another theory: that race is a social construct.

That's the discussion Melissa opened up last week, spurred on by the Native American identification which Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has claimed from family anecdotes, and which her opponent -- incumbent GOP Sen. Scott Brown -- has tried to make into a thing. Much like "fetch" in "Mean Girls," he's failing; and his staff isn't helping, whooping mock Native war chants and doing the asinine "tomahawk chop" gesture.

See below the incredibly compelling conversation which resulted from all that foolishness. The second part of the three-segment discussion is an interview with National Museum of the American Indian director Kevin Gover, of the Pawnee tribe. You can find the first segment above the jump; the rest, below. Join us today at 10am ET for more news analysis you won't see anywhere else, only on msnbc.

Today's show had plenty of highlights. Perhaps tops among them was Melissa's open letter to Washington Post George Will, whose October 1 column posited that President Obama's good fortune in the polls to this point was due less to white guilt over giving up on America's first black president. I have another take on this of my own which I may offer later, but I doubt I'll do better than the response Melissa offered today.

She offered another explanation, other than melanin, for the President's poll advantage:

It could it be that Democrats have effectively linked Romney with candidates, elected officials, and policies that represent the extreme anti-reproductive rights initiatives in the Republican party. That big gender gap could be because of transvaginal [Virginia Governor Bob] McDonnell, "legitimate rape" [Missouri Congressman and Senate candidate Todd] Akin, and no-pills [former presidential candidate Rick] Santorum.

Could be, right? Check out the entire segment below; those who are unable to play the video can find a transcript after the jump.

Every now and then, I like to push back from the big panel and give some people individualized attention. And sometimes the best way to make your point is with a personalized touch, like a letter. So George Will, this one's for you.

Dear George. It's me ... Melissa.

On Monday, your column made a case for rejecting President Barack Obama's re-election bid. It was based on our tough economic realities and questioned whether Mitt Romney could turn this contest around.

Now, let's be clear, I disagree with your assessment of the Obama administration, but the first part of your argument in reasonable. It is based in empirical realities.  You convincingly demonstrate that Americans have had a tough time fiscally in the past four years. I might disagree with you about the causal relationships between the economic factors you cite and the Obama administration but I don't argue with your data.

Which means I hope you won't quibble with the new data released yesterday showing unemployment fell to 7 point 8 percent, and also offering upward revisions of job growth, and an additional 114 thousand jobs created last month. But after a reasonable start you went off the rails a bit by writing this,

"Obama's administration is in shambles, yet he is prospering politically. This may not, however, entirely be evidence of the irrationality of the electorate. Something more benign may be at work."

Interesting word choice, benign. Because what you really mean is something sinister. You suspect something is amiss when, even after the President's meager performance in Wednesday's debate ... he still enjoys a 46 percent to 44 percent lead over challenger Mitt Romney.

See, George, I don't think it's all that paradoxical. It could it be that Democrats have effectively linked Romney with candidates, elected officials, and policies that represent the extreme anti-reproductive rights initiatives in the Republican party. That big gender gap could be because of transvaginal McDonnell, "Legitimate Rape " [Todd] Akin, and no-pills [Rick] Santorum.

Or George, perhaps it's that Mr. Romney chose a running mate who advocated transforming Medicare into a voucher system. That just might have caused some reliably conservative seniors to reconsider their willingness to support the president.

And George -  it could be that until Wednesday night Mitt Romney had run a breathtakingly uninspiring campaign pockmarked with gaffes, inconsistencies, and evasion.

No, George, you took none of this into account. Instead you wrote the President's lead is solid because- and I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this- it's because the president is *black.* You say:

"... the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure - thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him - seems reluctant to give up on the first African American president."

Right, George -- because we all know that black men hold an unfair advantage in the labor market. You can see evidence of it all around you!

After decades of racial good will shown to black workers as a result of the unfairly imposed guilt trip by radical race-card playing media types like me, black workers now have an unemployment rate of 13 point 4 percent.

Yeah, racial guilt. That's it.

Whew, well, I hereby give you permission to set down the white man's burden. If you don't want to vote for the president ... don't. Plenty of other voters seems to have found actual reasons to support him.

Sincerely,

Melissa

The entire political media, since Wednesday night's presidential debate, has been doing plenty of reading. Mostly of President Obama's twitches, pauses, umms, ahhs, looks down, looks up, all in an effort to understand every single one of his missed opportunities in his first encounter with his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. But for all the Thursday morning quarterbacking, perhaps the best evaluation of the debate was written before it even took place.

Alec MacGillis, writing about Romney's biggest strength and weakness on Wednesday morning in The New Republic:

It is no secret that Romney does not do well mixing with the hoi polloi—the 47 percent, the 99 percent, however you want to define the great unwashed. He tells women they don't have their makeup on yet (3:00 mark), he startles moribund elderly people in cafes, he lets the dawgs out, he insults local bakeries’ products, he declaims about cheesy grits (0:55 mark), he makes fun of people’s rain ponchos (2:15 mark), he pretends to understand their economic anxiety. Most of all, he condescends. ...

In debates, Romney loses this affect. He snaps to attention and he’s firing on all cylinders, because he feels challenged: put simply, he is amongst his fellow 1 percenters, where he feels most comfortable, and he wants to show his wits and win the exchange.

it is arguable that Romney considers himself not simply equal to the President, but quite superior. It doesn't take a lot of reading to understand that. Obama is no mere hoi polloi, mind you; he did make a point of speaking directly to him. But what is key is that the President didn't exploit Romney's biggest flaw, according to MacGillis: the etch-a-sketchitude of his positions. And as a result, President Obama made his biggest mistake -- he made the alternative more palatable to America.

To start off today's show, Melissa will offer her read of the debate, and yesterday's positive jobs news. Other topics we'll get to today include Romney targeting Big Bird, the third grade (yes, literally), and what education researchers call the "Matthew Effect." Melissa will also kick off another edition of This Week in Voter Suppression!™, one which will carry particular import for out-of-state college students looking to vote nearby their campuses. Oh, and Melissa will offer her response to this nonsense George Will wrote, and delve into the "angry black man" stereotype which the Drudge/Carlson/Hannity triumverate tried to bait America into buying about the President the day before the debate.

Guests will include:

• Ari Berman, contributing writer for The Nation and author of "Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics."
• U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, Democrat from Maryland.
• Dan Dicker, CNBC contributor and principal partner at MercBlog.
• Annie Murphy Paul, Time magazine contributor and author of "Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives."
• Raul Reyes, attorney and NBC Latino contributor.
• Matthew Segal, president of OurTime.org, a non-partisan youth empowerment organization.
• Maya Wiley, founder and president of the Center of Social Inclusion.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

AP Photo/David Goldman

Stand-ins for the real Mitt Romney and Barack Obama take the stage earlier today.

There aren't too many events outside of the Super Bowl which get the level of pre-event publicity, analysis, and hype. This is not to dis that analysis; there's a lot of good stuff being written about an event that may not change a thing. In that specific respect, the correlation to sports falls apart, since no one is keeping a standardized score: President Obama will not score five points for an effective answer on Libya, nor will Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney rack up 10 for one of those witty "zingers" he's been practicing.

But still, score or no score, the focus will be on who "won." This needs to stop.

There has been plenty of sports metaphor employed in the course of previewing what's happening in less than two hours. The definitive one I read, by James Fallows in The Atlantic, is headlined "Slugfest" and features a convincing, if unflattering, mock-up of the two combatants in a boxing ring. Having come from the sports media world, I get the allure of a good catchphrase or allusion to one of the more definitive things in our culture (outside of the BCS): winners, and losers. We want to see something decided; we want a result. We want this to be over.

Maybe it will be tonight. Perhaps, as Obama deputy campaign director Stephanie Cutter joked, one of them will literally fall off the stage (respect, Bob Dole). Perhaps one of them will do so figuratively, as in "8 Mile," pulling B-Rabbit to the other man's Papa Doc (who, like Romney, went to Cranbrook).

It actually would be a real service to the nation if they did just what Eminem's character does here: spout out all of the canned criticisms that each candidate has about the other, and get to the real problems of the nation. True, some of those canned criticisms matter to Americans more than others.

But more than anything, I hope we don't see two children bickering tonight. I want to see grown-ups, talking to us like we're grown-ups, about grown-up problems. Forget "want" -- I need that. We all do.

Join MSNBC for the analysis worth watching, starting at 8pm ET tonight. Follow the live-blog, featuring MSNBC contributor Joy Reid and newly-named MSNBC.com executive editor Richard Wolffe, on the Lean Forward site. I'll be live-tweeting the debate at @JamilSmith.

If my church home back in Philadelphia, Mother Bethel A.M.E., is skipping a worship service, you know something's up. The reason they did so yesterday was a good one if civic participation and responsibility is your thing:

As the city, state, and nation await the fate of Pennsylvania's new voter-ID law a little more than a month before the presidential election, a historic church in Philadelphia took matters into its own hands Sunday.

Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, at Sixth and Lombard Streets, canceled its 11 a.m. service, and members fanned out to eight congregations, traveling as far as Lancaster, urging people to register - even reregister - to vote.

Their message: If you think you are registered, register again and make sure your voter registration exactly matches the name on your identification card. The voter registration deadline is Oct. 9 in Pennsylvania and Oct. 16 in New Jersey.

Folks at Mother Bethel and elsewhere in Pennsylvania are hitting the streets to educate voters about the election and the state's increasingly confusing efforts to suppress its own citizens' vote. Still, they have to wait until November 6 -- in my home state of Ohio, they're about to get started voting tomorrow morning.

As I write, several Ohioans are camping out at various Boards of Elections throughout the state as if they were waiting on Springsteen tickets:

Several Democratic state senators in battleground Ohio plan to mark the start of early voting by sleeping outside local boards of elections offices on Monday night.

Early voting for the Nov. 6 election starts on Tuesday. Ohioans can cast an early ballot by mail or in person without having to give a reason. State senators in some of the Ohio's largest counties plan to take part in what they're calling a "Sleep Out The Vote" campaign to raise awareness for early voting. At least five Democratic senators in Hamilton, Lucas, Cuyahoga, Franklin and Mahoning counties plan to stay overnight at their local boards.

About 30 percent of Ohio's total vote — or roughly 1.7 million ballots — came in ahead of Election Day in 2008.

That last point is key -- according to reports, early voting numbers in Ohio are expected to be big; absentee ballot requests already are up from 2008. Tomorrow, we'll post more here about Ohio; you can click here to watch Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio talking about the "Sleep Out the Vote" initiative, and his re-election fight, earlier this evening on "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

Speaking of Pennsylvania, the start of Melissa's look this past weekend at voter suppression efforts can be seen below. See more of that discussion here.

A far cry from the microchips, wires, and bits and bytes that form them, what computers have come to mean in our culture has manifested itself in so many positive and negative ways. It's no different in politics, where campaigning has seized technology as a way to reach out and connect in an emotional and substantive way. And yet in the actual voting process, the technology has become a hinderance to many, with fear of what it can do stunting the progress beyond the butterfly ballot, and with those who have been courageous enough to make that progress hitting the bumps in the road that come with any technological advance. (For evidence, see what Apple's going through with its new Maps app.)

Today, Melissa will get technical in a number of ways, including an examination of technology in our politics, how early voting is going and will go -- whether people are voting on paper or using a computer -- and the upcoming debates (sure to be live-tweeted by yours truly and thousands more). She'll also take the mess Scott Brown has made for himself with race-baiting Elizabeth Warren to take a look at race as a social construct. We'll also have a look at sex trafficking and slavery, which also has a disturbing online aspect we'll explore.

Keep an eye out also for another sterling Footnote, and Melissa's daughter making a cameo! We'll also invite these folks into #nerdland:

• Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer at the Washington Post.
• Katon Dawson, former South Carolina GOP chair, and former senior advisor to Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign.
• Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, NBC Latino contributor, director of communications for Latino Decisions, and fellow at the LBJ School at the University of Texas.
• Kevin Gover, director of the Museum of the American Indian, civil rights attorney, and member of the Pawnee tribe.
• Asia Graves, survivor of human trafficking, and case manager at Fair Girls.
• Amy Jo Martin, founder and CEO of Digital Royalty, and author of the upcoming "Renegades Write the Rules."
• Andrea Powell, executive director and co-founder of Fair Girls.
• Jamal Simmons, democratic consultant at the Raben Group.

As always, folks -- be sure to interact with us during the show here in the comments of this post, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #nerdland. We look forward to having you join us at 10am ET on msnbc!

Last week, we had the legendary Willie Nelson join us from the road to talk not just about his 27th year of Farm Aid (which was a big success on Saturday):

"I was just hoping to help farmers be able to farm food and feed their families," Nelson told the Patriot-News of the event's origins in an interview on Friday. "There was a time we were the strongest, after World War II, when everybody was pulling the plow. Now the government is only trying to make things better for the big corporations."

Nelson also talked to Melissa about the presidential election, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comments. It is something to see, folks, despite the Skype technology! Take a look before you join us today at 10am ET on msnbc!