QUOTE OF THE EVENING: GOP DETERMINED TO PROVE TO THE BASE THAT THERE ARE SOME NON-GAY REPUBLICANS IN OFFICE

Ken does an incredible job every morning, seven days a week, heading up the DWTQOTD Selection Committee, and making sure someone is watching every TV show and perusing the entire NY TIMES. 24/7! But the committee may have missed one of great interest to one and all. June 8th issue of THE ONION-- see while Ken and his Committee are up into the wee hours scouring the NY TIMES, I'm reading month-old issues of a less high-brow news source-- asked the crucial question: The US Senate voted yesterday on a proposed Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. What do you think?

The Onion's Quote Selection Committee, as you can see, picked three amusing quotes, but, for some no doubt Rove-inspired reason decided to censor the one really important answer. And that, my friends, is today's Down With Tyranny Early Evening Quote of The Day.

From Maya Coolidge, a tax preparer (amazingly, the identical twin of Ariel Kenner, the piano accompanist) comes this shrewd analysis:

With the midterm elections coming up, Republicans need to assure their conservative base that they're not totally gay.

Although some inside the GOP insist that the entire upper strata of the Party is run by closeted homosexuals, they could be at least partially wrong. Scott McClellen is gone. And let's not even get into speculation about Rove (no matter how many gay men swear they know for sure) or the even more obvious Ken Mehlman. Look instead at how the GOP has made an effort of at least making themselves look less gay.

Former Maryland Congressman (and Chairman of the Conservative Union) Bob Bauman was arrested with a teenage boy's appendage in his mouth and he was forced to give up his political career (as well as his wife and his 4 children). Kentucky GOP heavyweight Bobby Stumbo was banished from his leadership in the party after he was arrested for molesting a 5 year old boy. Virginia Republican Congressman, a viciously anti-gay "family values" psychopath, resigned after he was caught soliciting for gay sex online. Sam Walls, a GOP Chairman and candidate for the Texas legislature withdrew from politics after pictures of him as a drag queen started surfacing. After right-wing Supreme Court nominee G Harrold Carswell was arrested for fondling the genitals of a police officer in a Tallahassee rest room in a shopping mall, Republicans stopped nominating him to the Supreme Court and settled on Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito instead. After it surfaced that GOP homophobic closet case David Dreier was grossly over-paying his lover/Chief of "Staff," he was not permitted to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. Similarly the Florida Republican Party decided it would rather lose a chance to win a Senate seat with one-step-from-the-loony-bin Katherine Harris than allow homophobic gay closet queen Mark Foley to move from his House seat (FL-16) to the Senate. Jim Kolbe, gay Arizona congressional homophobe, is retiring from Congress. Right-wing pressure forced Louisiana self-loathing gay blade Jim McCrery to marry his secretary before allowing him to rise in the Congressional hierarchy. After Clarkfield, Minnesota's ex-mayor Jeffrey Kyle Randall served 9 months in jail for sexually molesting 2 young boys (10 and 12 years old), he stopped running for office. And after Utah Republican state legislator Brent Parker, an upsatnding Republican father of 6, was arrested for offering a policeman $20 for a little sodomy he was forced to resign. Oh-- and Washington State conservative kingpin/Spokane mayor Jim West... what a mess!

It sure is a Gay Old Party!

DIRTY DICK POMBO GOES TO THE MAT FOR BIG OIL AND A FEW FAKE DEMS RUSH TO HIS ASSISTANCE

Yesterday Richard Pombo got a potentially catastrophic anti-environmental, pro-Big Oil bill passed by the Republican rubber stamp House. The bill, which passed 232-187, would end a quarter-century offshore drilling ban and allow energy companies to tap natural gas and oil beneath waters from Maine to Alaska. The bill is considered particularly politically toxic in Florida and California since its impact would probably wreck the states' multibillion dollar tourist and recreation industries.

Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, rammed the bill through and dismissed other congressmen's concerns by saying "You can't say no on everything." Pombo, widely considered to be the most in-the-pocket-of-Big-Oil of anyone in either house of Congress, routinely says yes to everything that Big Business asks for-- as long as they keep paying him off.

Even some Republicans opposed Pombo's outrageous legislation, which is expected to die in the Senate. "We should not be opening all of our coasts to oil drilling when we have not taken the first step to conserve oil," said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chairman of the House Science Committee, who wanted to put into the bill a requirement to increase automobile fuel economy, but was prevented from doing so.

Pombo's opponent, Jerry McNerney, an alternative energy expert, has gained popularity in CA-11 by pointing out that Pombo refuses to ever say no to Big Oil, no matter how detrimental their demands. He, as well as many environmental groups, agree that Pombo is "the number one shill for Big Oil in Congress." Even Schwarzenegger has told Pombo the bill would be a disaster for California and has declared that he will oppose it.

"I have called Richard Pombo 'Big Oil's Best Friend' because he has no problem putting the best interests of Big Oil ahead of the American people. Pombo's bill is riddled with industry-friendly loopholes that blow yet another hole in the Federal budget," explains McNerney.

Most of the fake Dems who normally support Republican Big Business initiatives were on board with this horrendous piece of legislation (with a few exceptions of congressmen afraid that voters will defeat them for their anti-consumer/anti-worker records-- particularly Melissa Bean and Al Wynn). But the list of Democrats includes most of the regular suspects with the consistently worst voting records: Skelton (MO), Matheson (UT), Boswell (IA), Marshall (GA), Peterson (MN), Cuellar (TX), Mollohan (WV), Herseth (SD), Barrow (GA), Edwards (TX), Melancon (LA), Holden (PA), Boren (OK), Costa (CA), Berry (AR), etc.

Meanwhile I was struck by how many normally straight-down-the-line corporate hacks on the Republican side were afraid to vote for this bill. This was especially true of weak GOP incumbents with strong and surging Democratic challengers. For example, all 3 of the deadmen walking southeast Pennsylvania Republicans-- crazy Curt Weldon, Jim Gerlach and Mike Fitzpatrick-- ran from their usual voting patterns in fear of, respectively, Joe Sestak, Lois Murphy and Patrick Murphy. Similarly in Connecticut, the 3 endangered Republican corporate hacks, Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Chris Shays refused to back Pombo this close to the election, where normally all three could be counted on for their rubber stamp dependability. Even right wing kook/coward Dave Reichert (WA-08), under intense pressure from Darcy Burner, has suddenly backed away from Pombo and the GOP Big Business-owned mob.

Anyone who makes a contribution today to Jerry McNerney's campaign at the DWT ACT BLUE Page will win a cool music CD. That's on top of the satisfaction of knowning you're contributing to the political demise of the worst threat to the environment of any of Bush's rubber stamp congressloons.

KATHERINE HARRIS TAKES ANOTHER HOP, SKIP & A JUMP DOWN THE DARK ROAD OF INSANITY

Down With Tyranny has kept a close watch on Katherine Harris' rapidly deteriorating mental state. I think the turning point for her-- when she went from garden variety right-wing fruitcake to dangerously deranged psychotic was after she replaced her third campaign staff with some kind of quasi-religionist cult figure, her own personal Rasputin and decided to move away from a traditional political campaign and launch a kind of pseudo-religionist crusade.

According to Pensito Review the deranged congresswoman went off the deep end as she watched her ill-advised race against Bill Nelson completely unravel and her polling numbers fall even below George Bush's... almost as low as Dick Cheney's! Crazy Kathy, however, has processed her political demise as the roar of the crowd and the smell of the greasepaint.

She made up an absurd story (originally just for herself-- but then started believing it and, worse, started repeating it to members of the press). In Crazy Kathy's warped and delusional mind, everybody loves her and even liberal Democrats have pledged fealty to her highness.

She told the Palatka Daily News "I've had Democrats in the House of Representatives come to me and say, 'You know, we'd really like to take the majority in the U.S. Senate'-- these are Florida Democrats in the U.S. Congress-- 'but you'll do so much more for us if you're there.'"

The entire Florida Democratic caucus denies that any of them ever said anything remotely like this to her. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, for example, when approached for a comment, scoffed. "Under no circumstances, in any way, shape or form am I supporting Katherine Harris, nor do I know anybody in the delegation who is." Similarly, a spokesperson for Alcee Hastings said "I can assure you, Congressman Hastings is 110 percent committed to the re-election of Bill Nelson...He wishes Katherine Harris well in her life as a private citizen next year."

One of her own former campaign managers, Republican Jim Dornan, has confided to friends and acquaintances (and random people he meets at street lights) that Harris has lost her marbles. "I just figured it had never happened... It was all too weird."

Theories to explain Harris' erratic and unpredictable behavior range from "she forgot to take her medicine" to "she's been getting some strong stuff from her pal Rush Limbaugh." How lucky is Bill Nelson?

Quotes of the day: Justice Stevens explains our Chimpy's abuse of power so that even he could "get it" if he wanted (and the dissenting justices too)

"The executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction."
—Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, "at the end of a 73-page opinion that in sober tones shredded each of the administration's arguments," as Linda Greenhouse puts it in today's New York Times

In voicing my dread yesterday of the gathering force of the Roberts-Alito-Scalia-Thomas bloc on the Supreme Court, I didn't mean to minimize the significance of the truly historic ruling that the administration had no authority to establish its inquisitorial military tribunals, that it broke U.S. law and violated Geneva accords that are legally binding on the U.S., and that the Court has the authority, indeed the obligation to stop it. For those of us who have been watching this administration trash the U.S. Constitution for going on six years, there has never been any question about the flagrant illegality and unconstitutionality of virtually everything these people have done. The only question was when someone with the authority would blow the whistle.

So while my dread for the future remains undiminished, I think for this one day, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

And in case anyone was wondering what it means to say that we live in a country of laws, which even the president isn't above, let's give the final word to Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the lawyer for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the Afghani plaintiff in this case, who phoned his client news of the Court's ruling:

"I think he was awe-struck that the court would rule for him, and give a little man like him an equal chance. Where he's from, that's not true."

After all that the Bush administration has done to support and spread terrorism all over the world, the Supreme Court stood tall yesterday and delivered a powerful message to terrorists as to what they're really up against. An America that truly practices the values we were taught the country is supposed to stand for is a real enemy of terrorism.

AL GORE-- LOOKIN' BETTER EVERY DAY

Last night at 11:30 PM I e-mailed Ken and asked him if he would be covering John Stewart's interview with Al Gore. For someone who until recently always made up upstairs by 9:30 to watch South Park and hit the lights at 10 sharp, that's saying a lot. I'm getting into a can't-miss-The-Daily-Show-and-The-Colbert-Report-phase again. Well, sometimes I'm just so tired I do miss Colbert. In fact, sometimes I'm so tired that when Stewart introduces his dull hacky guest, I can just turn off everything and get a few extra minutes of sleep.

Last night it seemed like I had barely gotten upstairs and turned on the TV-- having worked hard researching a story about the Rove pal caught molesting 8 year old girls who put together the Bush campaign TV ads in 2000 attacking Gore for selling nuclear secrets to China-- before Stewart was introducing his guest. "Is it that late already!" I thought. It wasn't. The guest was Al Gore and Stewart had, wisely, decided to devote most of the show to him. Many rock stars wish that they got the kind of reception Al got from The Daily Show audience last night. John Amato's got a low-res video clip of it up at CROOKS AND LIARS but it doesn't capture the hysteria and emotional connection between the audience members and Al. So many, many, many "what if's" must have been on so many minds at that moment when Al came out on stage, waved once and gave two Thai Buddhist-style wei greetings (folded hands, slight bow).

Most of the interview, one of Stewart's best ever, was spent discussing AN INCONVIENENT TRUTH and the truth behind the film and book. But at one point, Stewart, being Stewart, couldn't resist monkeying around and jokingly asked Al if he wouldn't have liked to have seen Florida already suffering the predictable fate of the world's coastal areas if Bush's environmental policies keep going unchecked. Not a chance. I mean beyond not wishing ill to any place, Al certainly doesn't wish ill on Florida because, as he pointed out, "I won Florida." The audience roared their approval. So did I; I hope I didn't wake my neighbors.

GEORGE BUSH-- THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED FOR IRAN IN DECADES!

When I was growing up I heard a dozen bands doing it-- from the Blues Project, Ronnie Hawkins, John Hammond , Peter Green, Tom Rush, and The Band to The Doors, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Yardbirds, Santana and eventually The Jesus and Mary Chain but it was Bo Diddley who wrote the lyrics that asked the question, "Who Do You Love?"

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let's take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Today's GUARDIAN has an interesting story by Simon Tisdall pointing out why Iran's crazy leaders just love George W. Bush, even though no one else anywhere in the world does (with the exception of a few discredited old feudalists and plutocrats). He points out that although Iranian President rails at Bush as a warmonger and imbecile, Ahmadinejad understands and appreciates how Bush's bumbling, ignorance-fueled incompetence has worked miracles for Iran. Tisdall explains how how the Iranian leadership is "grateful to the Bush administration for ridding them of Saddam... Aliakbar Rezaei, a senior diplomat, [said] with an ironic smile. 'We're very thankful to the Americans. They paved the way for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Lebanon, too - our influence has increased due to the Syrians leaving. They've pushed up the oil price. Thank you! The Americans are also helping us establish a common identity in the region. Iran is closer to Egypt and other Arab countries because of the common enemy we share. The Arabs and Muslims were not unified. But the US has achieved this. They've done a lot for us.'"

Bush's policies and agenda-- both domestic and international-- have torn America's social fabric apart more thoroughly than at any time since his ideological forebearers did the same in the mid-1850s. But when it comes to the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, George W. Bush has indeed been a uniter and not a divider.

There's relief but no long-term reassurance from the Supreme Court's principled 5-3 repudiation of the administration's military tribunals

So the Supreme Court has turned thumbs down on the administration's military tribunals as violations of U.S. law and the Geneva conventions. The 5-3 vote is a relief, but not much reassurance for the future.

For one thing, it's really a 5-4 vote. Our new bullyboy chief justice, whose existence seems governed by the principle "I never heard of a really powerful person I didn't want to suck up to," couldn't vote because he already had, as an appeals court judge who cheered the kangaroo courts on. So the Roberts-Alito-Scalia-Thomas alliance is not only intact but apparently growing ever more cohesive and more militant by the day.

[Confidential to the jackasses with all their "inside knowledge" who tried to tell us that Alito wasn't going to be "Scalito": Have you gotten your heads far enough out of your asses to tell us whether you were in on the con all along or you're merely too-stupid-to-live morons?]

What's happening is that, as I suspected, the authentically "conservative" Anthony Kennedy is going to be driven to the side of sanity with increasing frequency by the pack of bloodthirsty, rampaging judicial hoodlums sitting to his right on the Court. As a holding action, that provides us with a thin margin of protection. But there seems less and less reason to think that there's any limit to how far to the right the Pack of Four is prepared to move the Court. As soon as they get one more reliable vote, watch out! It looks like they're prepared to write a previously unimagined book of "The History of Judicial Activism on the Bench."

For now, let us bow our heads in prayer, for:

• the continued health of 86-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens, and

• the replacement of Joe "Bring On the Loons" Lieberman in the Senate before the next Supreme Court nomination.

Final thought: Since the 750-plus signing statements that Chimpy the Prez has graffito-ed onto bills he's signed into "law" tell us that he considers "laws" nothing more than "Congress's opinion," is there any reason to think that the Bush crowd pays any more attention to Supreme Court decisions it doesn't like?

WEBB LETS GEORGE FELIX ALLEN KNOW THAT HIS ROLE IN VA SENATE RACE IS TO BE A PUNCHING BAG AND LAUGHING STOCK

I have to admit that I haven't been a huge James Webb fan. From day one I was a little apprehensive that, although he could beat George Allen, one of the absolutely worst senators anywhere in America, we could be creating the next Lieberman or Zell Miller by backing Webb. And then that primary campaign was so vicious and repulsive that I just plain turned the whole race off from my consciousness.

But I guess, at heart, I'm a cheap whore because Webb sure was my hero yesterday! The Associated Press reported that Webb knows how to answer the kinds of vile rightist slurs that is all they have in their little Rovian bags of filth. One would hope John Kerry would learn something about how to respond when one of these panty-wasted little pussies questions your patriotism-- especially when it comes from dog poop, like George Bush or George Allen that you just need to wipe off your shoes.

When Allen launched into an ignorant and pompous attack on Webb's opposition to the idiotioc flag-burning amendment that the Senate has been wasting time on lately instead of dealing with real problems the country is facing, Webb hit back-- fast and hard and Allen went and hid under his bed and shut his face. And all Webb, a much decorated war hero (and Ronald Reagan's former Secretary of the Navy), did was remind Virgnians that "Allen [is] a coward who sat out the Vietnam War 'playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada.'"

One of Webb's senior aides tweaked Allen by continually using his much-hated middle name (which kids in elementary school used to call him when they would beat him up everyday, which is what made him turn to right-wing notions and, eventually, the Republican Party), "While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."

Referring to Allen's laughable press release as "weak-kneed attacks by cowards," Webb's aide reminded Felix that "people who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield."

Wow! I bet Allen, who is best known for dealing with his profound feelings of inadequacy by beating up and torturing his sister-- who wrote a book about what a pathetic psychopath he is-- wishes he was never born. (You hadn't heard about the Virginia Senator who would be president who was already showing signs of psychopathic sadism when he was just a monstrous little punk? Perhaps you need to read his younger sister's book, FIFTH QUARTER: THE SCRIMMAGE OF A FOOTBALL COACH'S DAUGHTER. In it George Felix's younger sister Jennifer, exposes him as a sadist who routinely attacked his younger siblings, once dangling her over Niagara Falls by the feet, beating her boyfriend over the head with a pool cue, throwing their younger brother Brice through a glass door, dragging the children around the house by their hair, etc. "George hoped someday to become a dentist," she wrote. "George said he saw dentistry as a perfect profession-- getting paid to make people suffer."

Quote of the day: Can't Bushpeople keep secrets anymore? Also talking: Bush v. Gore 2006—GWB finds a special friend, and AG's OK with Florida

There is, it appears, a government designation for documents, "sensitive but unclassified," or SBU, roughly equivalent to whispering, "Shh, don't pass it on!" It has less legal force than pinky-swearing not to tell, and the State Department's Information Systems and Services (ISS) office recently reminded its people that it's a lousy way to keep secrets, especially with so many levels of classification available.

"This useful reminder was issued," Al Kamen notes in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column, "only five days after The Washington Post published a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad recounting the daily hardships and dangers confronting Iraqi embassy employees. Every paragraph of that cable was marked SBU."

The timing was purely coincidental, however. We know so because the ISS said so. Kamen says:

"We certainly believe them, though we hear no one at the State Department does."


ALSO TALKING (1)—Is it possible that our George has a crush?

Rachel Maddow, back from vacation on Air America Radio this morning (was it really only a week?), casts a wary glance at today's visit to Graceland by a giddy-sounding President Bush and his Elvis-loving special friend, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. On Koizumi's last visit, you may recall, he and Bush "played baseball" at Camp David. Says Rachel:

"It's like two 12-year-old middle-school girlfriends."

(Also, in the "Ask Dr. Maddow" segment, Rachel exploded the myth that eating raw rice—like what you throw at weddings—causes birds to explode. Uh-uh, says her ornithologist expert. However, all that rice on the sidewalk can be dangerous to people. It can make us slip and fall.)

ALSO TALKING (2)—Our Al doesn't have anything against Florida

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked guest Al Gore if he wasn't perhaps hoping to see Florida suffer the fate he warns of in An Inconvenient Truth for the world's low-lying coastal areas with the oceans rising? Said the former vice president:

"I thought I won Florida."

ANOTHER BUSH POLITICAL OPERATIVE FOUND GUILTY OF MOLESTING YOUNG CHILDREN

Although many of us may have forgotten, we don't need to hear from a judge and jury to know that Republican operative Carey Lee Cramer is a lowlife right-wing monstrosity who has long ago earned what's in store for him. But a judge and jury did speak today and they found the Republican consultant guilty, very guilty. A typical example of the Republican Party's family values in action, Cramer has become something on a posterboy for the GOP's "Leave No Child Untouched" policies.

I'll get into the specifics of Cramer's child molesting trial in a moment. First I want to remind everyone of the last time we ran into this Republican sack of dung. Think back to 2000 when Karl Rove's and George W. Bush's team was throwing every lie they could at the Clinton-Gore Administration. Rove's close friend Cramer became very wealthy as a Republican Party consultant who came up with a made-for-television lie claiming Clinton and Gore were secretly selling nuclear technology in return for Gore campaign contributions. Remember now? Obviously only insane people believed this silliness-- but that's the Republican base, the 29% of Americans who still insist that the absolute worst "president" in American history is doing an acceptable job.

Cramer’s repugnant TV ad showed a young girl picking daisy petals and ends with a nuclear blast, a remake of a 1964 ad that helped focus attention of what a kook and extremist Barry Goldwater was when he ran for president. Cramer’s ad made national news, though he refused to admit that he got the money for the commercial from Rove and Bush.

Interestingly, one of the girls he used in the ad was one of his rape victims. She lived with Cramer and his ex-wife for 8 years in Mercedes and McAllen in Texas. Cramer started molesting her when she was only 8 years old. (Do you know what they do in prison to dirty Republican men who molest little children?) Anyway, the inappropriate touching escalated to all sorts of Limbaugh/O'Reilly-like perversions and, finally, serial rape. On top of that, a second young girl, a 15 year old, came forward and also testified that the Republican slime bucket also molested her.

The jury found him guilty and Cramer faces up to 149 years in prison. He was taken into custody on a $4 million appeal bond after the verdict. All 29% of Americans who are still Bush supporters are going to need to pray that Cramer makes it through his first month in the pen.

NOW THIS IS THE KIND OF GRANDSTANDING DWT CAN GET BEHIND! DEMS TO REPUGS: NO MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE, NO SENATE PAY RAISES FOR YOUR FAT ASSES

Give 'em Hell Harry wasn't on my "Best Boy List" yesterday when he voted for that idiotic flag burning amendment-- which even he denounced as idiotic-- but he sure is today! That's because today Harry Reid threatened his avaricious, self-serving colleagues on the other side of the aisle with no pay raises if they continue to block an increase in the minimum wage for America's neediest families.

This morning CNN reported that Reid threatened to do whatever it takes to block pay raises for congressmen and senators until Republicans stop blocking raising the minimum wage from $5.15/hour to $7.25/hour. "We're going to do anything it takes to stop the congressional pay raise this year, and we're not going to settle for this year alone. They can play all the games the want. They can deal with gay marriage, estate tax, flag burning, all these issues and avoid issues like the prices of gasoline, sending your kid to college. But we're going to do everything to stop the congressional pay raise."

CNN was good enough to explain to their... online readers that "during the past nine years, as Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to increase the minimum wage, members of Congress have voted to give themselves pay raises-- technically "cost of living increases"-- totaling $31,600, or more than $15 an hour for a 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year, according to the Congressional Research Service."

CURTAINS FOR CRAZY BABSY CUBIN? GARY TRAUNER LOOKING GOOD IN WYOMING'S ONE CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

It's pretty nauseating that Wyoming (population 506,529, a tenth less than Washington, DC, which has no senators; of course Washington is 70% non-white and Wyoming is just under 90% white) has two U.S. Senators-- both extremist loons, Mike Enzi and Craig Thomas. The good news isn't that they elected a Democratic governor-- all I ever heard from Dave Freudenthal was a gratuitous Rovian talking points attack on Howard Dean-- but that the sparsely populated state has only one House seat.

If you want to see what a rubber stamp right-winger's voting record looks like, just click on Barbara Cubin's. But her excruciatingly bad voting record-- alwaysagainst the interests of her middle and working class constituents and always in favor of the Big Business interests which have financed her miserable political career-- isn't even what makes Cubin singularly eligible for a place on a list of the 10 worst congresspersons in the country.

Before she was elected to Congress in 1994, the nasty, elitist ex-cheerleader was in the state legislature where she made a name for herself by distributing penis-shaped cookies to the other members
During a House debate on a bill that sought to limit the civil liability of firearms dealers and manufacturers (H.R. 1036), the Wyoming bigot got worked up into hysteria, lost control of herself and started spewing the hatred and racism always just lurking beneath her frosty surface. “I am going to tell you what," snarled America's Ava Braun. "My sons are now 25 and 30, and they're blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment said we couldn't sell [guns] to anybody that was on drugs or had drug treatment or something like that. Well, so does that mean if you go into a black community, you can't sell any gun to any black person? Or does that mean that because my..."

Although she struggled mightily to control her arm from the giving the Nazi salute, the whole House was in shock and before she could finish her racist rant, Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) calmly interrupted her to object to her characterization of the African-American community. Watt asked that Cubin's remarks be stricken from the Congressional Record. By now the crackpot congresswoman had worked herself into an explosive lather and she flatly refused. Watt put his request to a vote and the entire Party of Racism and Bigotry rallied round their gal and Cubin prevailed 227 to 195, embedding her insane rant in the Congressional record for all time.

Although her Republican predecessors in the At-Large House seat would rack up 70% of the vote, 2 years ago she squeaked by with 55%. Unfortunately for her, she has a far more formidable opponent to face in November than she's ever had before. And with investigations in full swing into the Republican Culture of Corruption, the big money she was getting from crooked lobbyists-- yes, she was one of Abramoff's little darlings (and accepted over $20,000 in tainted money from DeLay)-- has dried up and she won't have the 3-1 money advantage she had over her last Democratic opponent. This time she's up against Gary Trauner, a well-respected entrepreneur from Wilson.

Gary co-founded OneWest.net, a regional Internet Service Provider based in Jackson Hole. As CFO he acquired 12 companies and OneNet employed over 70 people. Onewest.net was recently bought by a Wyoming regional telecommunications company and Gary has devoted himself to public service. As an entrepreneur he's experienced firsthand the issues that matter most to working people-- how to pay for health care, how to achieve a quality education, how to juggle work and family, how to provide a decent "living" wage, and freedom from unreasonable government and corporate intrusion. This is what is what has informed Gary's campaign and what has united Democrats and independents behind him.

Gary seems like a populist with a very independent streak and the latest Rasmussen Poll shows a statistical dead heat already (a very bad omen for a long-time incumbent). This is a race worth keeping an eye on. I know I will.

SUPREME COURT TO AMERICANS: MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN POLITICAL DECISIONS-- IN TEXAS AND CONNECTICUT

The Democratic suit against DeLay's power-grabbing gerrymander of Texas was always-- at least to me, considering the make-up of the Court, basically a far worse bunch than the villains who handed Bush the presidency he didn't win in 2000-- an exercise in windmill tilting. So this morning's Supreme Court decison didn't surprise me at all.

Predictably, the 5-4 decision "upheld most of the pro-Republican Texas congressional map engineered by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and freed all states to draw new political boundaries as often as they want. The court, however, said that part of the new Texas map failed to
protect minority voting rights, a small victory for Democratic and minority groups who accused
Republicans of an unconstitutional power grab in drawing boundaries that booted four Democrats
from office... Some 100,000 Hispanics had been shifted out of a district represented by a Republican, and foes of the plan had argued it violated the Voting Rights Act which protects minority voting rights."

The practical effects look like a 3-judge panel will first decide when to re-draw TX-23 (and surrounding districts)-- before or after November-- and that will probably mean bye-bye to corrupt right-wing nutcase Henry Bonilla. Then they have to decide if they'll draw the new boundaries for that part of Texas themselves or kick it back to the lunatic fringe state legislature to do it. A bonus could be next door in TX-28 where far right fake-Dem Henry Cuellar's main base of support, Laredo, would probably be added to Bonilla's district, which would make the contemptible Cuellar a sitting duck for another challenge from a real Democrat like Ciro Rodruguez.

There are a couple of real messages here to think about. One will encompass my daily attack on George Bush's and Ann Coulter's favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman, and the other is about the responsibilities we as citizens have if we even want a democracy. Attacking Lieberman is easier and more fun so let me deal with the democracy thing first.

To have expected this Supreme Court to throw out DeLay's partisan gerrymander was not realistic. This kind of partisanship is the business of voters. (That's why the Court, appropriately, took exception to just one part of the gerrymander-- the part that disenfranchised a minority group: Hispanics.) But if the people in Texas as not satisfied with the quality of their democracy they have a gubernatorial election and state legislative elections coming up, the perfect way to express their feeling about this stuff. Can the Democrats make the case so that Texas voters understand what's at stake? I'm not sure but I have a feeling they'd have a better shot with Texas voters than they would with the Roberts Court.

And that brings us to Lieberman unworthiness to be re-elected Senator from Connecticut. The always duplicitous and oily/slimy Lieberman is actually campaigning on a false claim that he opposed the nomination of Sam Alito, the deciding vote on this (all every other reactionary decision that has come down recently). Yes, he provided himself cover so he could go back to True Blue Connecticut braying like a jackass that he voted against Alito. But what he refuses to discuss is how he conspired with his Bush Regime buddies to guarantee Alito's confirmation by first voting for cloture-- the Republican tactic to shut off debate on the nomination and the Democrats' only chance to stop Alito. That pair of votes is showcases the quintessential Joe Lieberman: a dishonest hypocrite masquerading as a Democrat to keep power, power he consistently uses to advance much of the catastrophic and reactionary Bush agenda.

Quote of the day: Oh, the horror! DWT readers imagine Rush using Viagra, and Helen Thomas vetoes the Bush method of spreading democracy

"I am having difficulty keeping my dinner down with the thought of Rush Limbaugh actually having a purpose to possess Viagra.

"Oh the horror."

—DWT reader Matt, echoed by a slew of other commenters

By comparison, you're only too happy to imagine your parents having sex. (Ouch, I'm blind!)


HONORABLE MENTION—
On the gap between Bush rhetoric and Bush performance

"You don't spread democracy with the barrel of a gun."
—veteran Washington correspondent Helen Thomas, to Jon Stewart on last night's Daily Show, promoting her new book, Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public

WHICH DEMOCRATS JOINED THE GOP TO TRY TO PASS THEIR SILLY FLAG BURNING AMENDMENT?

The Republicans are making a lame attempt to get voters' minds off real issues, like Bush's catastrophic economic agenda, the gutting of the U.S. Constitution, and the gutting of Iraq-- to name just 3 that come to the top of my head instantly-- with a series of clownish proposals meant to appeal to the most extremist part of the Know Nothing base: gay marriage, abolishment of the estate tax (aka- The Paris Hilton Inheritance Tax Protection Plan), abolishment of the Voting Protection Act, and, today, the silliest and most meaningless of them all, the so-called Flag Burning Amendment. It failed. Frist is so lame he couldn't even keep Mitch McConnell (R-KY), his #2, from voting against this nonsense (which even Scalia signaled would be found unconstitutional).

Lucky McConnell voted no, thought, because there were enough Democratic turn-coats voting with Bush today to have passed it without McConnell's and Bennett's (R-UT) defection from the latest fascist nonsense. In case you like keeping track of which Democrats were the ones who don't deserve to call themselves Democrats today, here's the list:

Max Baucus (D-MT)- the #2 most reactionary voting record (after Ben Nelson) of any Democrat in the Senate
Evan Bayh (D-IN)- most reactionary voting record of any Democratic senator with presidential pretensions
Mark Dayton (D-MN)- good riddance
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)- up for re-election in November. I have never cast a vote for this worthless hack. I hope she wins by one vote.
Tim Johnson (D-SD)- coward
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)- third worst Democrat in the Senate; she'll lose next time anyway
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)- virtually tied with Landrieu for 3rd most reactionary Democrat
Bob Menendez (D-NJ)- he gets a pass cause he's normally a solid progressive
Bill Nelson (D-FL)- better than Katherine Harris, mostly because she's so terrible, not because he's worth anything
Ben Nelson (D-NE)- the Democrat with the overall worst voting record in the Senate; votes with the GOP at least as much as with Democrats on substantive issues. In fact his voting score is closer to 4 Republicans than it is to the next worst Democrat, Baucus.
Harry Reid (D-NV)- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
John Rockefeller (D-WV)- no comment
Ken Salazar (D-CO)- more and more turning into a dickhead
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)- like Menendez, she gets a pass on this one 'cause she's normally a committed progressive


AFTERTHOUGHT: HOW ABOUT WE ALLOW SENATOR BURNING?

Frist and these other grandstanding horses' asses, who are not doing their jobs as they let our country literally fall apart, decided they had nothing better to do today than waste an entire day debating... nothing at all. As Dana Millbank reports in todays POST, the kooks and wingnuts at "the Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming 33% increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year. The number has increased to four, from three."

That's what Bill Frist, who wants to be president (of the United States) decided to waste the Senate's day on. 4 people descrecrated a flag this year; let's pass a Constitutional Amendment. What about passing a minimum wage raise?

TOM DELAY'S CUT AND RUN STRATEGY FAILING. JUDGE ADVISES HIM TO "RUN LIKE A RABBIT"

Tom DeLay still isn't in prison. He has some many criminal cases pending against him that it is hard to keep track of them all. So far he was forced to resign, "temporarily," as Republican Majority Leader in the House. Then the "temporarily" became permanent and he was replaced by another crooked wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business, John Boehner. And then, after it became apparent he stood virtually no chance of being re-elected in his home district and could drag the whole Republican Texas ticket down the toilet with him, he was forced to resign from congress. But he has already won the GOP primary (against a relative moderate, anti-corruption/anti-DeLay Republican). Still hoping to pull the strings behind the curtain, DeLay continues his never-ending efforts to corrupt Texas politics. He tried timing his resignation in such a way as to allow his own far right extremist machine to appoint the next Republican congressional candidate, instead of allowing Republican voters to pick his replacement in a democratic fashion.

So the Democratic Party of Texas sued and that court case has been dragging on for months as DeLay continues his cat-and-mouse game about where he actually lives now. According to Texas' Democratic State Chairman, Boyd Richie, "The fact that Tom DeLay was served (a subpoena) at his home in Fort Bend County supports what the Texas Democratic Party has known all along, that Tom DeLay has been and continues to be an inhabitant of the State of Texas. Obviously, this makes clear that the Republican Party cannot conclusively establish from any record, either today, tomorrow, or in October, that Tom DeLay will not be an inhabitant of Texas on Election Day... Tom DeLay's actions this weekend confirm that his cut and run scheme is just a charade. If the DeLay-Republican charade is allowed to stand, DeLay could conceivably return to Texas after he is 'replaced' on the ballot, re-register, and actually vote in the election he hopes to abandon."

Yesterday U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks heard DeLay lying his ass off at the federal courthouse in Austin, where he showed a Virginia hunting license to prove that he's now a citizen of Virginia and not of Texas. He claims to have not moved his furniture because the place he's crashing at living in in Virginia came already-furnished. His wife-- who has been an active participant in his criminal activities, a sort of a gun moll to his capo di tutti capi function in the GOP-- admits that she's not moving to Virgnia and will be maintaining the DeLay residence in Sugarland. Although the judge didn't have him jailed on the spot for perjury, according to the AUSTIN STATESMAN, he looked at DeLay and said "My recommendation is to run like a rabbit."

Bob Dunn at Fort Bend Now has all the details of the law suit.

JERRY McNERNEY v DIRTY DICK POMBO-- AN ELECTION WITH IMPORTANCE BEYOND CALIFORNIA

Yesterday was a big day at McNerney headquarters. Fresh from smashing up Rahm Emanuel's handpicked Big Business Democrat in the June 6 primary and having won Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriot voting selection, McNerney landed two more major endorsements that will help him beat Dirty Dick Pombo. He won the DfA Grassroots All-Star vote and he was just named the latest Combined Netroots candidate-- which means Daily Kos, Swingstate Project and MyDD will all add him to their ACT BLUE Pages. (He's already on the DWT one.)

Chris Bowers over at MyDD has a great endorsement and has some new polling that Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research did for Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. It shows that 52% of likely voters think Pombo should not be re-elected (with only 35% thinking he should be). And in a trial heat with Jerry, Pombo is bested by 4%.

Rahm Emanuel, still smarting over the way McNerney made mincemeat over his pro-Corporate, Insider candidate has already boasted to ROLL CALL that the DCCC won't help McNerney's race. There's only one way to beat Pombo in 2006-- grassroots people power. We have an opportunity to send Bush and his rubber stamp Republicans a message that we're sick and tired of their failed and catastrophic policies and at the same time we can tell corporate Democrats like Emanuel that we don't intend to trade in one bunch of shitheads for another branch of the same Wall Street-owned system. So far Down With Tyranny readers have contributed, overwhelmingly in small donations, $2,227.30 towards Jerry's campaign, about one-fifth of his ACT BLUE total. Today would be a good day to think about how we have a chance to replace the guy who is trying to drill off the coast of California and who has advocated selling the National Parks, with a man who has dedicated his life not to political buffoonery and corruption but to seriously studying alternative energy-- someone who understands that public service is different from Dick Pombo's avaricious, self-serving approach to being a congressman. Please consider Acting Blue today.

Today's quote-of-the-day Honorable Mention goes to Michael Isikoff for diagnosing the Bush gang's latest anti-NYT fight as yet another war of choice

Of course, QOTD can't be expected to work on krugmandays (days on which Paul Krugman is officially on vacation). So once again it's Honorable Mention only.

HONORABLE MENTION
"It's clear to me that they want to have this fight."
—Newsweek investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, this morning on Air America Radio

Under other circumstances, we might have cited The Daily Show for its hilarious deconstruction last night of those seven sad-sack souls grotesquely pumped up into a major terrorist threat—whose thwarting was in some way connected to the bank-transfer spying program—by Bush administration lackeys spearheaded by Attorney General Al "The Torture Guy" Gonzales. However, at this point it appears that the Daily Show writers are actually writing the administration's material. They can hardly be rewarded for planting their own stories.

So today's Honorable Mention goes to Michael Isikoff for some gasbag-puncturing perspective on the administration's pugnacity in the matter of the New York Times's—though not the Wall Street Journal's or Los Angeles Times's—revelation of the government's secret bank-transfer screening activities.

Isikoff pretty much dismissed the prospect of any actual indictment of the NYT or anyone else, pointing out that Treasury Dept. officials actually provided briefings on the program to ensure accuracy. He described the political strategy at work as "Rovian jujitsu," the process of attempting to turn a political weakness into a strength, this being a fight the administration thinks it can score political points with, especially knowing that it can control the terms of the debate.

Sure, cornered Republicrooks have the right to try to bluff their way through, but shouldn't there be some extra penalty when they're finally nailed?

Like everyone else, I'm curious to see what ol' Rush has to say about his latest brush with the law.

Here's one possibility: "Okay, ya got me. Heh-heh. Everybody knows I'm a druggie. Heh-heh. And I know how funny it must seem, after all those terrible things I always say about druggies and about the dastardliness of coddling them. And here I am one. Heh-heh. I guess this time the joke's on me!"

Another possibility is that, once again, ol' Rush'll try to bluff his way through, while counting on his multifarious "connections" to work their usual magic, then when the dust settles (in his fans' eyes and ears) go back to business as usual.

Actually, I was thinking about this subject before Rush's latest troubles broke, in connection with the latest legal tribulations gnawing at the giant carcass of House Speaker Denny Hastert.

I have to confess that in this case I read the news account clear to the end. I don't always, you know. When I do, I think it's usually because my particular preoccupation with nuts 'n' bolts—the nitty-gritty way things really get done in the real world—has been triggered. As in the case of Speaker Denny's feat of real-estate profiteering.

Of course it stinks. All of it, in Rush's case and in Speaker Denny's, from nauseating start to stomach-turning finish. I don't claim to be either judge or jury, and I don't want to preempt their functions. The legalities of the matters need to be determined by our normal legal processes. But can there really be any question that in both cases it's time for those legal processes to get cracking?

With regard to Speaker Denny, come on, people, has anyone calculated the statistical improbability of the string of coincidences you have to believe in in order to accept his indignant protestations of innocence?

The one question that seems to me to remain open is whether this was an isolated instance in Speaker Denny's history—you know, a lone brazen shot for the gold—or this is just, you know, what he does. We can't even get to that question, though, because look who's there: It's the useless tub of shit himself, denying everything and angrily demanding an apology for the suggestion that his business dealings have been anything but pristine.

Now that's what gets me.

(And even if, for some reason, you're inclined to give credence to Speaker Denny's utterly incredible denials, don't you still feel some lingering sense of filth, filth mingled with degradation—some sense that even if by some miraculous chance the big blowhard didn't actually break the law, it's still unspeakably inappropriate for one of the country's most powerful elected officials to be grubbing for speculative riches like some garden-variety real-estate hustler?)

Of course, high-stakes bluffing is built into the modern world of Republicrookism. You know how folks used to say, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime"? Under New Republicrook principles, the operative motto is, approximately: "You can't prove nuttin', copper." Or I guess not even. It's more like: "I didn't do nuttin', and anybody who says different is a commie, America-hatin' liberal faggot."

I don't know about you, but I for one am sick of it, and I say we need to change the system.

Obviously you can't deny any American his right to bluff his compromised guts out. That's what made this country great. But somewhere there's got to be an escape clause whereby, in effect, once you're caught, you're caught. You know, like in paintball. I don't know anything about paintball except what I've seen in a few excruciatingly tedious TV-series episodes. But I do know that it honors the old-time principle that when you're caught, you're caught.

True, we've had the edifying spectacle of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the man who couldn't find enough indignant words to tell us how innocent he was, dissolved in those gorgeous Duke Cunningham Tears as he 'fessed up to the high points of what his friendly local U.S. attorney obviously had him dead to rights on. But what about the rest? Where is Tom DeLay doing a perp walk? Or Boo-Hoo Bob Ney holding House Majority Leader John "Ethics? Me?" Boehner hostage with a broken beer bottle to his neck, sneering, "You'll never take me alive, coppers"?

I just can't help thinking that while they should all have the right guaranteed by our Constitution to bluff their way clear through to the bitter end, there should nevertheless be some kind of extra penalty when their bluff is called and they finally have to fold. Don't ask me what, exactly. I haven't worked that part out. But really, I'm not asking for much. Hey, remember, I was willing to settle for Duke Cunningham Tears.

Oh sure, I have my fantasies. Like seeing "Limp Dick" Cheney "quail-hunt" his sorry-ass self on national TV. Or having the half-dozen most powerful Republicrook congressional committee chairmen stranded on a Survivor island with literally nothing to eat except one another.

Or how about this? Each caught crook has to participate in a series of TV "public-service announcement" (PSA) spots explaining in terms understandable to the people whose trust they've spent their public careers abusing: (a) what he did, (b) why exactly it was wrong, and (c) what punishment he thinks he deservse.

Unfortunately for ol' Rush, he's already on record regarding the evils of drug use and the punishment he thinks druggies should get. And that—ol' Rush throwing the book at himself—ought to make for some gripping PSAs. Can Speaker Denny's PSA script-writers top them?

IT'S GONNA BE A SCHADENFREUDE TUESDAY-- LIMBAUGH ARRESTED SMUGGLING DRUGS AFTER SEX VACATION IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Foaming-at-the-mouth radio talk show host/liar Rush Limbaugh, the posterpig-- along with Ann Coulter-- for real Republican values was arrested at Palm Beach International Airport smuggling drugs into the country after a weekend sex jaunt to the Dominican Republic. Along with the hillbilly heroin (oxycotin) that has become part of the Limbaugh legend, airport officials claim to have found piles of Viagra. According to CBS-TV "Limbaugh entered a plea deal back in April in a previous case where his charge of fraud to conceal information to obtain prescriptions was dropped under the condition he continue undergoing treatment for addiction. Limbaugh had admitted to being addicted to pain killers on his radio program and had entered a rehabilitation program prior to that arrest."

So it looks like Limbaugh has violated the terms of his agreement with the state of Florida. And international drug smuggling is a big deal. I wonder if lard-ass is going to jail this time? And what about buying sex from under-aged girls in third world countries? Isn't that against a law too now?

Limbaugh, who regularly denounces sex and drugs and rock'n'roll on his GOP propaganda show for people incapable of thought processes beyond a garden variety caterpillar, has still not sullied the good name of rock'n'roll with his outrageous hypocritical escapades (although Ann Coulter today claimed to be the world's only non-pot-smoking Deadhead).


FIRST UPDATE: CROOKS AND LIARS HAS THE VIDEO

No, not the video of Limbaugh in a drug crazed sex orgy during his wild weekend (at least not yet). What John has up now is the video of Olbermann talking about Limbaugh being "detained" at the airport. I'm sure John's got his sources searching every nook and cranny in the D.R. looking for the real tapes. As soon as he has 'em up, I'll let you know! (Tuesday: John's got the audio up of Limbaugh trying to defend himself with lame jokes about erections elections.)


LAST UPDATE ON RUSH LIMBAUGH, PERVERT

My pal Taylor is a brilliant writer and an impassioned progressive. She has also done more investigative work on the sex trade than anyone I know. Her coverage on Rush's sex tourism is the best in town. I recommend you do some brain tourism at Taylor's blog. Meanwhile, here's a taste of RUSH STOPS BY "SINGLE MAN'S PARADISE."

"Oh, no, I'll listen to anything about sex . ... My friends, I'm a pervert. I like kinky weird sex and I'm going to continue to like kinky weird sex." - Rush Limbaugh

It's a classic dodge. The fat man asks for an international escort. It's a single man's dream when on an exotic island. There is only one problem. The "escort" is almost always underage, at least by American standards, as well as the standards of common decency. I've studied and researched the topic for years, little of which was pleasant.

But that's the thing about sex junkets and dipping your doo-hicky into international... er, watering holes. All bets are off. The rules don't apply. And word to the wise... Just watch out for "Caroline" or you may come home with more than you bargained for.

But if that's not clear enough for you try this. The Dominican Republic is known for being a sexual Disneyland.

"There is always a demand for sex," said one Dominican prostitute as she lounged at one of the town's waterfront bars. "Men will always pay for it, especially in here ... where they can get anything they want at a discount."

Indeed, the Dominican Republic is one of the biggest sex tourism destinations in the world, thanks in part to Internet sites that extol the country as a "single man's paradise."

Of course, for Rush, the Dominican Republic is a perfect stopping off point. He won't find any feminazis down there. The women are as desperate as the women in Ralph Reed's favorite spot, Myanmar.

"The radical left, the Big Labor Union Bosses, and Bill Clinton want to pass a law preventing Chinese from coming to work on the Marianas Islands," the mailer from Reed's firm said. The Chinese workers, it added, "are exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ" while on the islands, and many "are converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand."

A year earlier, the Department of the Interior -- which oversees federal policy toward the U.S. territory -- presented a very different picture of life for Chinese workers on the islands. An Interior report found that Chinese women were subject to forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry.

Having done investigative work in the sex trade for years, the whole notion of Rush being stopped when coming from the Dominican Republic is just too delicious not to tie together. Sure, a grown man should never be caught without his Viagra, but I still don't get why the private jet Rush was on stopped in the Dominican Republic in the first place. Could be innocent and another one of those convenient Republican coincidences. But that's where fat men go, baby. Because child prostitutes can't say no.

After 3 divorces, it's easy to understand why Rush might prefer a little docile barely legal babe. However, other rumors for years. I mean, who can forget Rush's obsession with Gore's package in a show that had me in tears I was laughing so hard. Of course, now I know he was drugged out of his mind when he did it, but still. But those rumors are just silly, or is that stogie in his mouth telling the truth?

BATTLE FOR AMERICA'S SOUL IN RURAL ILLINOIS-- JOHN LAESCH TAKES ON GOLIATH

Last week the CHICAGO TRIBUNE laid out in great detail how Dennis Hastert was able to use his elected position to gobble up a cool $1,000,000 on some land speculation the price of which he was able to manipulate. Hastert, who has been protecting arch Republicrook Jerry Lewis, Chairman of the Republican Criminal Operation known as the House Appropriations Committee, was able to earmark a nice fat $200 million bit of federal tax dollar pork to increase the value of some land he sat on for 2 or 3 years.

Within a few days the WASHINGTON POST reported that the secretive deal actually netted Hastert a $2 million profit. But something else caught my attention. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a little-heard-from California congressloon, Gary Miller, by far the furthest right of all the nutcases who make up the California GOP congressional caucus, when I noticed people in his district were buzzing about large sums of money he was raking in by manipulative real estate speculation. And ditto for close Randy "Duke" Cunningham associate, Ken Calvert.

Using earmarks, Hastert, explains THE POST, "made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds. A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year's highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns." These 3 crooked dealers are close with Jerry Lewis and his Republican earmark queen, Letitia White (both currently subjects of an intense FBI investigation).

"For more than a year, the congressional corruption scandal triggered by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has focused attention on earmarks secured by lawmakers on lobbyists' and government contractors' behalf. Now watchdog groups are combing through lawmakers' land holdings and legislative activities, searching for earmarks that may have boosted the value of those investments.
'The sound bites from politicians have always been that they're doing what's best for their districts, but we're starting to see a pattern that looks like they might be doing what's best for their pocketbooks,' said Keith Ashdown, vice president of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense. The allegation that Hastert used a home-district 'earmark' for his personal enrichment is now at the center of a tussle between the most powerful man in Congress and a new watchdog organization that uncovered the land deal this month." Hastert, of course, hysterically denies any and all wrongdoing-- he is a Republican politician and "deny, deny, deny" is what they teach them in their version of ethics school-- and he is demanding retractions and apologies and everything else that Cunningham said and did (before he broke down and weeped and begged for mercy and wore a wire to help the Feds rat out his crooked associates).

Hastert, of course, has a long history of shady dealings and making vast sums of money through bribes and kickbacks. VANITY FAIR exposed him last year after he took a $500,000 bribe from Turkish agents to prevent the adoption of bipartisan legislation recognizing the Armenian holocaust. With Tom DeLay forced to resign in disgrace, and getting his affairs in order before his inevitable prison sentence, Hastert has become the titular head of the Republican Culture of Corruption. And what everyone in DC and back home in Illinois' 14th CD is wondering is, can he be swept out of office by the son of a preacher man?

The high school ex-wrestling coach-turned-multimillionaire (feeding, greedily, at the public trough for over 20 years), represents a north-central district due west of Chicago stretching nearly to Iowa. (Actually, Hastert represents multi-national corporations and the lobbyists who whore for them but his power derives from his political base in IL-14.) Electorally, Hastert has run far ahead of the GOP ticket, although his vote percentage slipped significantly in the last two cycles (from 74% to 69%) In 2004 Hastert spent $5 million on his campaign while his unknown opponent spent $18,028. Caught up in a more public corruption scandal than in the past-- and facing a far more formidable opponent-- Hastert is in for the battle of his political life this November.

It is rare-- very rare-- for constituents to defeat someone whose national power has brought the district so much pork and until 1994, when Republicans started a whispering campaign falsely accusing Speaker Tom Foley of being gay, no Speaker had been defeated for re-election since the Civil War! If John Laesch doesn't succeed in dislodging Hastert it won't be through lack of the personal qualities that define worthy leadership. And it won't be through lack of motivation. John's younger brother, Sgt. Pete Laesch, currently stationed in Iraq, asked John to run against the gargantuan rubber stamp who represents their district in Congress.

John is 32 years old and grew up in West Africa where his missionary parents were stationed. They moved to a farm in Newark, Illinois when John was 12. He enlisted in the Navy when he was 21 and served as an intelligence analyst in Bahrain, monitoring terrorist activity and analyzing foreign political and military structures, winning numerous citations and meritoriously rising 5 ranks within 3 years. After leaving the military he earned a degree in History from Illinois State University. He volunteered for Dennis Kucinich's campaign and in 2004 worked as campaign manager for progressive Democrat Dr. David Gill. (I was impressed yesterday to see Laesch make an impressive pitch for Gill on Daily Kos, at a time when non-DCCC candidates are scrambling, some desperately, for attention, endorsements and campaign cash. Read his Kos dairy; it shows what kind of a man he is.)

John has embraced the netroots enthusiastically and has run an open, grassroots campaign. I like it when candidates start off reporting to interested citizens rather than to party bosses Inside-the-Beltway. Laesch's outspoken criticism of Bush's war and his public embrace of progressive values-driven solutions to controversial issues hasn't made him a darling on D.C. Democratic Party bosses. But with yard signs sprouting up all over DeKalb, Kendall, Lee, DuPage, Henry, and Whiteside Counties, John's independent approach might well be exactly the right prescription for victory in a district where Democrats are heavily outnumbered by Republicans.

But even in a Republican-leaning district, like the 14th, Laesch's commonsense approach to the crucial issues of the day are far more in sync with voters' concerns than Hastert's, whose voting record defines rubber stamp support for Bush's catastrophic agenda. On health care, local development (and resultant skyrocketing property taxes), education, a realistic national energy, etc, Hastert has become more and more completely out of touch with Main Street as he has utterly embraced Wall Street. Laesch's positions grow out of his Main Street values and out of his sturdy, straight-arrow all-American character.

John already won his primary and now Democrats are united behind his race to replace an out-of-touch, entrenched, corrupt Speaker of the House with a fresh, energetic young man with integrity, strength and vision. John needs help to get out his message. I can't imagine a candidate as forthright and independent as John is going to get sufficient help from Rahm Emanuel's DCCC. It's up to us.

With a smidgeon of bipartisan common sense, we could easily deal with the wee problems cropping up among "entrepreneurial" Congressmembers

Reading Howie's report (below) on Orange County congressional sweetheart Ken Calvert, it occurred to me that these little problems could be dealt with by means of some simple, common-sense reforms, which should easily gain bipartisan support. Just to get the ball rolling, here are a couple of samples:

(1) We could start with a constitutional amendment banning the use of government funds to pay for hookers. Once the amendment passes and is formally adopted, it will probably require appropriate enabling legislation—whereby, for example, all government officials will be required to file quarterly reports of all hooker usage, with documentation that no taxpayer money was used in the payments.

(Depending on the wording of the amendment, it might be left to the courts to decide on the constitutionality and/or legality of HookerPACs.)

(2) Both houses of Congress should consider a system of graft regulation that would return a portion of members' loot to the U.S. Treasury, perhaps starting with what we might think of as the "lollapalooza" committtees, like the House Appropriations Committee, through which essentially every dollar the federal government spends is funneled.

There would undoubtedly be philosophical disagreements to work out:

• Advocates of "progressive" graft reform would probably want to see the share paid to the Treasury rise as the level of collections does, so that members would be required to pay, say, 5% of the first $100K, 12.5% up to $500K, 15% up to $1M, 20% up to $5M, and 25% of everything above that.

• By contrast, proponents of "free enterprise" graft reform might agree that it's right for members to "pay their dues" on their initial take, but that as "earnings" increase, it would be un-American to muzzle initiative. So, perhaps, of the first $50K it would be necessary to pay 40%, then 25% up to $250K, 5% up to $500K, and everything above that level is free and clear. (These reformers might argue that, as it would be inappropriate for the U.S. Treasury to profit from graft, the money should go instead to some other recipient, like a network of GraftPACs controlled by the Republican National Committee.)

KEN CALVERT, CAUGHT WITH A HOOKER, CAUGHT IN A REAL ESTATE EARMARK SCAM, SLATED FOR HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

In southern California there's an old joke about leaving L.A. and driving south "behind the Orange Curtain," a reference to the authoritarian nightmare that was post WWII Eastern Europe (behind the Iron Curtain). In the 60s and 70s Orange County could be written off as the "Bavaria of America" and compared to the Soviet satellites but politically a lot has changed since then. In fact one of Orange County's congressional districts-- formerly held by GOP nutcase "B-1 Bob" Dornan is now safe Democratic territory where Democrat Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) gets 60% of the vote and where Kerry beat Bush 56%-41%.

Change has been a lot slower in CA-44. This district, sprawling through the endless suburbs of southern Orange County and western Riverside County is improving... but more slowly. Ask anyone in the district what the biggest problem is and they'll all be reading out of the same hymn book: development and the problems that come with development from overtaxed public services (like education), runaway local taxes, traffic, crushing corruption... And the 44th CD has been represented in Congress by a greasy former real estate speculator as sleazy as the day is long (or, in summer, short), Ken Calvert. A gross little porky-pig lookalike, he was once arrested-- as a congressman-- with a prostitute giving him head in his car. (Yes, yes-- he's as much for Republican "family values" as the rest of them and, like most of them, flatly refuses to honor his word to step down after 6 terms.)

Even as a Congressman, Calvert is always on the make for a quick buck. His latest trick, a fave of many Republicans (they must all use the same financial advisor-- and ethics advisor), is buying cheap land and then using GOP crime boss Jerry Lewis to get dodgey earmarks secretly added to bills that directly increase the value of the property. House Speaker Denny Hastert was just caught with a $2 million dollar profit at this game, as were several Republicrook California congressmen, Gary Miller and Calvert.

But now Calvert is going for the really big bucks. Enough of the grubby and unseemly real estate deals that have been making him richer and richer. The chiseling far right extremist wants a shot at Lewis' uber-lucrative House Appropriations Committee, which oversees a trillion dollars annually. If anyone has proven unworthy of the kind of trust needed for a position like that, Calvert is the one. Now being investigated for his dubious connections to the endless scandals swirling around his former close colleague Randy "Duke" Cunningham, as well as Thomas Kontogiannis, Brent Wilkes, Jerry Lewis and the crooked GOP lobbying firm run by Bill Lowery, Calvert wants to clean up before the Republicans lose national power in November. Ironically the seat almost has Calvert's name on it. Before he was found guilty of accepting bribes, it was Cunningam's seat and after that Tom DeLay grabbed it for a brief by highly lucrative few months before his criminal behavior forced him to resign from Congress.

Last December and January I did a couple of posts about a little trip to Saudi Arabia arranged for Calvert and Duke Cunningham by Thomas Kontogiannis that seemed to go beyond just garden variety Republican culture of corruption greed and avarice, straying into the territory defined in the Constitution as treason. But neither this, his real estate swindling nor anything else seems likely to stop Calvert's obsession with getting his hands on the Appropriations Committee seat.

Unless he's indicted before that it is unlikely that anything will stop him-- including the district's Republican-leaning voters. The district gave Bush nearly 60% of its vote in 2004 (6% more than in 2000) and in 2004 Calvert beat Louis Vanderberg 62%-35%. Calvert spent $687,000 and Vandenberg spent $6,196. In November Vandenberg is running against Calvert again. I just spoke with him on the phone for 15 minutes.

He's incredibly knowledgeable and completely immersed in all the contemporary historical and political currents our country is going through now. He has no intention of trying to raise the $300,000 required by the DCCC before they were get involved in a congressional race. In fact, like so many Americans, Vandenberg feels certain that the corrupting influence of money on our political system is so corrosive that it undermines all the premises of representative democracy. Laughing, he told me if he wins, he'll thank Calvert. He says he's running so that in the future of someone asks him what he did to try to prevent what is being done to our country now by the Bush Regime, he'll have a good answer. Damn! He'd make an amazing congressman!


UPDATE: CLICK ON THE IMAGE-- BUT ONLY IF YOU'RE OVER 18 YEARS OLD

Quote of the day: The amazingly funny Jeff Garlin confirms that you can be a star to your fans and also a total unknown to the doorman

"That is my level of fame. People are either excited to see me or have no clue I'm even a member of the human race. I have a sense of humor about that."
—comic-actor-director Jeff Garlin (aka Jeff Greene of Curb Your Enthusiasm), after going unrecognized by the doorman at a comedy club where he would be performing the next night and also "gaped and pointed at" by people in line, from a wildly affectionate profile in yesterday's New York Times Magazine


HONORABLE MENTION—Bob Herbert takes a dim view of using war for political fun 'n' games

"If hell didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. We'd need a place to send the public officials who are playing politics with the lives of the men and women sent off to fight George W. Bush's calamitous war in Iraq."
—Bob Herbert, in his NYT column today, "Playing Politics With Iraq"

TESTER v BURNS-- A REPORT FROM THE NORTHERN FRONT

If you don't remember DWT Montana correspondant, John Rodwick, please take a look at his May 26 post, "Tester Time-- A Man Who Can Make Big Sky Country Proud in The U.S. Senate". John and his family are up in a log cabin for the summer with no internet access but they do have a TV and this evening he got by a cafe with wi-fi so he could send us a report on the Tester-Burns debate.

My wife, son and I watched the debate this morning between Jon Tester and Conrad Burns and it was great to watch Jon dance circles around Conrad! Conrad's verbal skills and ability to think on his feet are on a par with W's so sometimes the camera would cut to Jon while Conrad was responding, or trying to, and Jon was just chuckling and I could almost hear him saying to himself that this is like taking candy from a baby.

Conrad used, endlessly, the same old tired phrases like "you liberals" and "the other side of the aisle" has prevented us from doing what we need to do etc. But at one point he said he had voted for tax increases, then corrected himself, looked a bit sheepish and then uttered some other silly homily. I almost felt sorry, or at least embarrased for him and emabarrased that we would even be having a debate about who is more qualified. I felt like someone should have just stepped in and said, "Excuse me Conrad buit you need to step down right now, no waiting for an election; you are a doddering fool."

Tester speaks his mind so well and he just kept hammering home his main point about how there needs to be some vision and a plan, whether we are talking about Iraq, energy independence or border security. When they were sparring about spending Jon laughed again and told Conrad that he spends the people's money "like a drunken sailor." It was perfect.

Conrad got in to asking if Jon would open up ANWAR and Jon was great when he started talking about how short sigted that is at that, once again, we need a vision that looks into the future instead of the next 5 years.

That's about it from the front. I'd like to be hopeful and say that the elction is a lock for Tester but like my wife said when I was talking about how any fool could see who the better man is, that other people, Republicrooks she said actually, probably watched it and thought Conrad did a great job. I just don't know how many of those folks there are around here but I'm looking forward to finding out in November.

UPDATE: YOU BE THE JUDGE

You can watch the whole Tester-Burns debate for yourself and see if John's wife got it right-- that anyone, no matter how brain dead could have thought Burns did well-- here. And here's the second 10 minutes of the debate:

DICK DURBIN & RUSS FEINGOLD HAVE VERY DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY GRASSROOTS

Dick Durbin (D-IL) is no Barack Obama but he is a really good senator. His voting record is stellar (except for his proclivity to support Big Business interests over consumer and worker interests a little more than a Democrat should). And maybe that's the basis of his willingness to lay waste to the Democratic Party if it takes that to support his crony and fellow Big Business hack, George Bush's and Ann Coulter's favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman.

This morning, the Democrat's senate whip-- who should understand party discipline and is no longer qualified for a leadership position in the party and should resign immediately from that role-- was a guest on This Week with George Stephanopoulos where he was asked if he would support Ned Lamont if Connecticut voters chose him in the August 8 primary (as looks more and more likely everyday). Durbin said regardless of the outcome of the primary, he would support Lieberman. I guess he and Schumer must be talking a lot.

Dick Durbin may be a hero to corporate lobbyists and old guard DLC Lieberman dead-enders. But Russ Feingold never ceases to give grassroots Democrats-- you know, the real ones who haven't been contaminated by too many years Inside the Beltway-- reasons to love him. Today on MEET THE PRESS Feingold stated the obvious-- and what every Democrat shouldn't have to think twice about saying-- that he would be supporting whomever the majority of Connecticut Democrats vote for in the primary. (He also mentioned that his positions are more in line with Ned Lamont's but that he would support Lieberman if Lieberman is the Democratic nominee.)

Let's keep our eyes on Durbin. And anyone who wants to show him what they think of his insult to Connecticut and to grassroots Democrats everywhere, here's an ACT BLUE Page that has buckets for Ned Lamont and for Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund (open for biz 24/7).


UPDATE: OOPS, DURBIN WAS MISQUOTED... KINDA

He only said he would support Lieberman in the primary, not after he loses it. He was weasley and slimy about avoiding the question in regard to what he will do when Lamont beats Lieberman on August 8.

Meanwhile, another Lieberhund, Dick Morris, may be looking to break his perfect record of being wrong about everything always. Questioned by Taegan Goddard about the Connecticut race, Morris has ill-tidings for his fellow corporate shill:

"I think Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) will lose the primary and will be so crippled by the defeat and Ned Lamont (D) so empowered, that he will lose the general election as an independent. Sen. Jacob Javits (R-NY), in 1980, could have avoided defeat by not fighting the Republican Primary against Sen. Al D'Amato (R-NY) and running as an independent. But D'Amato was so empowered by the primary win and Javits so disempowered that he won the general election with Javits running a poor third. Lieberman's correct course of action is to withdraw from the primary and run as an independent. It is the only way he can get re-elected."

Quote of the day: Alan Wolfe and Frank Rich investigate why conservative "thought" leads directly to Bush-style government malfeasance

"Iraq failed for the same reasons that all conservative public policy efforts fail. Refusing to acknowledge the importance of government while relying on it to achieve your objectives causes the same kind of chaos in foreign policy that it does in matters closer to home."
—Alan Wolfe, in his article "Why Conservatives Can't Govern" in the July-August Washington Monthly

I expect to have more to say about the Wolfe article, and also about today's Frank Rich column, which sent me to it, "The Road From K Street to Yusufiya." For now, let me just offer one more tease from Wolfe, followed by Rich's parting shot.

Wolfe: "[T]oday's conservatives have no problem passing on the costs of their present madness to future generations. Governing well would require them to use the bully-pulpit of office to educate and uplift their base. But since contemporary conservatives get their political energy from angry voices of rage and revenge, they will always blame others for the failures built into their ideology."

Rich: "Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the very model of big government that the current administration vilifies, never would have trusted private contractors to run the show. Somehow that unwieldy, bloated government took less time to win World War II than George W. Bush's privatized government is taking to blow this one."

You really should read both. Hey, it's Sunday—what else do you have to do?

(I hear that blogosphere types are busy having hissy fits about an attack on Kos by David "Silly Boy" Brooks in today's NYT. I had no idea anyone paid any attention to Silly Boy. I mean, if he gets any sillier, he'll soon be soaring off, from sheer substantive weightlessness, into the upper reaches of the chumposphere.)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: BRING 'EM HOME

One of the nice things about grassroots politics is that you meet really cool people, candidates and their supporters alike. I just got an incredible e-mail from Rick Penberthy's campaign manager, Kevin Cate, telling me he didn't have words to describe this video he sent me. Neither do I. It's Bruce Springsteen singing "Bring 'em Home." It's very moving.

With even folks on the right worried that Ann Coulter has "gone too far," the slimers try to equate her with Al Franken and Michael Moore

One question I don't lose sleep over is (gasp), Has that nice Ann Coulter gone too far? (You know, with that diatribe in her book against the 9/11 widows.)

I have a funny history with our Annie. For a good while, I used to listen to Howie rage about her, and I assumed I knew who she was—yet another indistinguishable right-wing talking head, I thought. THEN I SAW HER "IN ACTION." Yikes! I couldn't even begin to describe it. But surely you've seen . . . it.

Eventually, I had to swear off watching Bill Maher, when it turned out that, since he considers her one of his best friends, she could slither her way into my living room at any time if I allowed HIM in. No, thank you. My only interest in her after that was depressed wonderment that you can actually make a living being that ignorant and that violent and abusive.

I have a new interest, though, and that is Bill O'Reilly's enunciation (joined by Rush and the Lesser Flacks, I assume) of the right's latest Bogus Equivalency: Annie C on their side, Al Franken and Michael Moore on ours.

False equivalencies are of course a prime tool of the right-wing demagogues. If Rachel Maddow ever does the compilation we need of her daily "Underbelly" segments, which isolate and spotlight favorite techniques from their playbook, this one should turn up with some frequency. And it drives me nuts.

Yes, Al Franken and Michael Moore have beliefs, strongly held ones. But they are also sticklers for truth. In their different ways, they are both obsessive about digging out the truth of the subjects they cover. They certainly never spew raw prejudice, which is what our Annie pretty much only does. She doesn't care the slightest about facts or truth or reality, and I mean this absolutely literally. All she has to offer is the psychotic "truth" of her unprocessed mental cesspool of lies and stupidities.

I keep saying that for me the single most interesting revelation in David Brock's confessional Blinded by the Right is his wildly belated awakening—after he was already a highly paid and esteemed "journalist" of the right—to the fact that what he had learned to do from his right-wing mentors had nothing to do with journalism. At least in theory, journalists approach a story by trying to find out what the story is. We all understand that hardly any journalists really do that all the time. They set out on a story with at least some mental model of what it is, and too many of them are reluctant to let go of those preconceptions as they undertake, you know, actual reporting.

But traditional journalists at least pretend that that's what they're doing. Brock came to understand that his brethren didn't even have that as a goal. What they did was start with a polemical position—an extreme right-wing one, naturally—and then shake the bushes for any shreds of fact or fiction to dress it up. At a certain point they don't even care whether their window dressing has any basis in reality, only whether it can be portrayed as having some.

When Brock came to do a mea culpa for his sliming of Anita Hill, it occurred to him that while he was mucking up the slime, he never really worried about whether any of it was believable. The only test was whether it was stuff with a "source" which gullible people could be made to believe.

(For that matter, anyone old enough to remember the Anita Hill ruckus at Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation hearings may remember the contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Those poor befuddled Dems kept trying to figure out: Were the Hill charges about Thomas true? Meanwhile the crafty Repubs—led by Arlen Specter, in what remains one of the vilest public performances in American political history—focused on only one thing: getting the obvious slimeball confirmed. In other words, winning.)

More power to David Brock for eventually seeing the light. Look how many of those right-wing bogus journalists never do. It's interesting that in his remade configuration, he has become a tiger for journalistic truth.

The process of right-wing phony journalism is also, of course, the way Republican "talking points" work. Oh, there are probably a few really, really dumb Republican pols, and a few really dumb Fox "newshounds" (Sean Hannity? John Gibson?), so stupid that they actually believe the manure that Karl Rove and his minions dish up for them. But they can't all be that stupid.

No, I assume that most of them repeat the vile lies, mindlessly and joyfully, because they have the screwy notion that they're in possession of some kind of Higher Truth, and anything you say or do in the service of Higher Truth is justified.

Quote of the day: It's a holiday at QOTD (see below), so we're stuck with Honorable Mention to a dead guy, TV schlockmeister Aaron Spelling

It's written into the contract that Quote of the Day always gets a holiday the day after Paul Krugman takes a vacation day. So, technically, we shouldn't even be working today.

(By the way, since our last estimate that it takes these guys maybe 20 minutes to bang out one of those columns, it has been suggested that it can hardly ever be done in less than half an hour. We're prepared to concede the point, though we can't help thinking that a simple video installation would reveal that 10 minutes out of that half hour is devoted to such activities as waiting for the weather and traffic report on the local news-radio or cable-TV-news channel, opening pistachio nuts, and scraping off that mysterious gunk that suddenly appeared on the letter-opener.)

So, no QOTD today, just Honorable Mention to a dead guy.

HONORABLE MENTION

"I think there is a need to escape. I think it is a release valve that keeps people from blowing their brains out or having nervous breakdowns. We find that the majority of our audience is worried, really worried, about the cost of food, how much it costs to send your kid to school, the cost of clothes."
—TV schlockmeister Aaron Spelling, who died yesterday at 83, quoted in his Washington Post obituary

Say this for Aaron Spelling: He didn't project this need for escapism into the real world of politics and government (at least as far as I know!), although I suppose you could argue that encouraging people to wallow in dumbness didn't exactly elevate our marketplace of ideas. By contrast, many (most?) of the people whose job it inescapably is to deal with those often-crippling daily worries Spelling talks about choose instead to manipulate and exploit them. (If you think this includes you, Karl Rove, you're right.)

In any case, among all the Spelling dross there was at least a certain amount of hearty entertainment, and even the occasional show that did contribute to the marketplace of ideas. The Post obit pays rightful tribute to the fine old ABC series Family, but doesn't mention the recently ended WB 7th Heaven, which for all its limitations really did welcome viewers into a world that contained real-world problems that couldn't be swept under the rug.

YOU MAY LOVE LOVE ROMANS... BUT BEING FABULOUS IS A SIN. (EATING BRUNCH IS A "MAYBE")

In Europe people are surprised that America has a plague of so-called "ministers" running around trying to "cure" people of homosexuality. German TV personality Bruno came all the way to our shores to find one and interview him for German TV. They got along fine and Bruno even taught him a few words of Deutsche-- but no lap dancing was permitted. Perhaps you have nothig else better to do and you'd like to see the video?

IF ANN COULTER WERE IN CONGRESS SHE WOULD BE STEVE KING (R-IA)

I don't know if there's a correlation between IQ and degree of rubber stampness among Republican congressmen but Steve King (IA-05) couldn't be more of a rubber stamp Republican if he tried. And in the last month he's certainly proven he's one of the most ignorant and just outright stupid individuals to be permitted to freely walk up and down the corridors of Congress. (But can he do it while chewing gum?)

Last weekend King-- who appears best when he is mixed up with Long Island's Republican congressman Peter King, a notch of two higher up the evolutionary scale, though by any reasonable standards, the bottle of the barrel when it comes to New York elected officials-- stuck his hooves in his mouth again. Having barely recovered from his nonsensical (public) claim that his wife would be safer walking around Iraq than Washington, DC, Iowa's dumbest congressman decided to forgo fart jokes yesterday and instead make fun of the physical appearance of one of the most accomplished a respected political journalists in Washington. Discussing the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi at Iowa's Republican convention, said, "What occurred to me that morning is something that I imagine a lot of you have thought about and he's probably figured it out by now. There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at and if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas." Helen Thomas is 85 years old. And Steve King is no gentleman. In fact, he's a gross pig. Of course his cheap frat-boy humor (which reminds me-- King was the numbskull who characterized the Abu Gharaib torture as "hazing"-- caused gales of hootin' and hollerin' and there were delegates snortin' like barnyard animals-- I mean it was a Republican Party Convention.

Although Congressloon King has refused to comment on his rude outburst, he had a flack who works for him issue a half-assed apology. Joyce Schulte, King's Democratic opponent in November, spoke more for what America is really all about when she said "Mean-spirited remarks are beneath the dignity of any self respecting congressperson, and remarks about another person's appearance are even lower. I hesitate to even use Helen Thomas' name in the same document with so vile a wretch as al-Zarqawi. But I want her and the world to know that Iowans are not insensitive buffoons who make fun at someone else's expense."

The 5th congressional district, though, is... well, a bit less evolved than places like Des Moines, Waterloo, Davenport, Iowa City, Ames and Dubuque. King's district is the extreme western part of the state and contains two actual cities: Council Bluffs and Sioux City. It's the least financially well-off district in the state, the whitest and has more hogs than any other congressional district in the entire U.S. (no doubt accounting for Congressloon King's manners). It is also the reddest district in Iowa and Bush had 57% of the vote against Gore and 60% four years later. King won his seat in 2002 with 62% of the vote. It's a very tough district for Democrats. King is well known locally as a bigot who hates Blacks, gays, immigrants, feminists. If you have already guessed that his espoused favorite form of government would be theocracy, you have figured out Steve King. The NATIONAL REVIEW hails him as "the great right hope." The most extreme right wing member of the Iowa delegation, King's voting record is an abomination. Looking at a list of the most far right congressmen, he falls way towards the bottom of the Republican caucus, right between Steven Colbert's friend Lynn Westmoreland and Chris Chocola, Indiana's looniest-- and least popular-- congressman.

...SO MY COUNTRY CAN BE FREE

Earlier I put up the Springsteen post at Daily Kos and a discussion started about the happened to the Dixie Chicks for speaking out. One commenter claimed that they had alienated their audience by speaking out against Bush's policies. I reminded them that the Dixie Chicks are doing far better now then ever and that their career has taken off when Bush's presidency is almost universally condemned.

The Dixie Chicks alienated a part of their audience and they inspired a part of their audience. The vast majority of their audience is into their music. At the height of the Bush-hysteria, fueld by right-wing radio propagandists, the Dixie Chicks sold out their entire tour.  Corporately-owned radio stations tightly allied to the Bush political machine refused to play the Dixie Chick's music and allowed pea-brained bigots to use the airwaves to denounce them for months. But their albums kept going gold and platinum and they gained far more than they lost by every conceivable measurement short of radio airplay. Their new album debuted at #1 and as Bush's popularity has plummeted and he has become one of the most loathed public figures throughout the world, the Dixie Chicks have become American heroines who are respected and admired everywhere-- including in the areas of the U.S. where country music dominates.

Down With Tyranny's Ali G correspondant, Daze, points out a very clear way to look at the problem the Dixie Chicks encountered with some country music fans. You wanna see which country music fans support the Dixie Chicks boycott and the Bush Regime mentality? Watch this video and look at the expressions on these peoples' faces after the first verse of the song. Some people look uncomfortable-- closet Democrats maybe?-- but most are clappin' along and singin' the song.

SPRINGSTEEN TEARS ANN COULTER, CABLE TALKING HEADS & BUSH NEW ONES

When I woke up this morning the very first thing I saw was Soledad O'Brien interviewing Bruce Springsteeen (a tape from last night, backstage at his concert). Soledad isn't bad as corporate talking heads go. She has a bit more on the ball than most of the bland, raised-to-have-no-capacity-to-form-opinions imbeciles you see on CNN but... she stepped right into it and Bruce let her have it. He also let George Bush and Miss GOP, Ann Coulter, have it. Supposedly CNN has the whole interview "available" behind some hidden wall. I couldn't access it. The Center For American Progress has the video clip CNN showed this morning up and available.

A partial transcript:

O’BRIEN: In 2004 you came out very strongly in support of John Kerry and performed with him - your fellow guitarist, I think is how you introduced him to the crowd. And some people gave you a lot of flack for being a musician who took a political stand. I remember…

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah, they should let Ann Coulter do it instead.

O’BRIEN: There is a whole school of thought, as you well know, that says that musicians – I mean you see it with the Dixie Chicks - you know, go play your music and stop.

SPRINGSTEEN: Well, if you turn it on, present company included, the idiots rambling on on cable television on any given night of the week, and you’re saying that musicians shouldn’t speak up? It’s insane. It’s funny.


O’BRIEN: As a musician though, I’d be curious to know if there is a concern that you start talking about politics, you came out at one point and said, I think in USA Today listen, the country would be better off if George Bush were replaced as President. Is there a worry where you start getting political and you could alienate your audience?

SPRINGSTEEN: Well that’s called common sense. I don’t even see that as politics at this point. So I mean that’s, you know, you can get me started, I’ll be glad to go. […] You don’t take a country like the United States into a major war on circumstantial evidence. You lose your job for that. That’s my opinion, and I have no problem voicing it. And some people like it and some people boo ya, you know?

Who do you trust? Bruce? Coulter? Bush? Cable TV talking heads?

PUSH, PUSH IN THE BUSH-- DAVID DREIER AND CURT WELDON ON THE DOWN LOW ROAD

Curt Weldon and David Dreier have a few things in common and some significant differences too. Both are very weak rubber-stamp Republicans who wish their party wasn't so right-wing or so extremist. Each is in mortal danger of losing his seat because as the GOP has gotten more and more radical, his district has become more and more moderate. But neither of these weak little men is a leader and both have become very rich by going along and getting along.

Dreier is part of the House Republican leadership and Hastert had named him Majority Leader when DeLay was indicted and forced out. When Roy Blunt and others of the more viciously homophobic element in the GOP caucus started shrieking hysterically that they wouldn't be taking no orders from a girlie-man, Hastert was forced to back down. Dreier was once thought of as a bit of a dashing figure, even dating some high profile Republican starlets (i.e.- party fag hag Bo Derek) and winning the WASHINGTONIAN'S uncoveted "Best Dressed Congressman" award. Outed as a hypocritical closet queen who uses his office to enrich his male lover and then publicly humiliated by Blunt, the figure he cuts these days is... well, pretty pathetic. In 2004 he came closer to losing his seat than any other congressman of either party in California.

But if Dreier's figure can best be described as pathetic, Weldon's is nothing short of frightening. One of the most corrupt and self-serving men in the Republican Congress, Weldon is desperately trying to cling on to the power that is the source of his and his family's ill-gotten wealth.

But today there is something else that the two pathetic bozos have in common: both used highly unethical push polls against their Democratic challengers. The Dreier push poll has been making its way around the Internet since the June 6 primary when Russ Warner, the overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidate was beaten by Cynthia Matthews (who ran against Dreier in 2004 and was nearly elected because of a jihad by two local radio hosts who talked about Dreier's major complicity in the Bush Regime's disastrous immigration policies). Cynthia didn't have a campaign, or even a website, for the primary contest. What "she" did have was Dreier-- or his supporters-- working hard to make sure she would win the nomination, since Warner was seen as a far more formidable challenger. And on election night Warner, who had been campaigning with Wes Clark and had been endorsed by the State Democratic Party, only drew 38% of the votes (Matthews pulling 47% and 15% going to a third Democrat). It was the stunning upset of the night.

By the following day people in the suburban Los Angeles district (CA-26) were coming forward and talking about the telephone poll they had taken the day before. The two questions-- both blatant lies-- were "Would you vote for Russ Warner if you knew he supported the Iraq War" and "Would you vote for Russ Warner if you knew his son killed civilians in Iraq." That's what a push poll is-- very Karl Rove.

Yesterday evening I got an e-mail from a friend of mine is Joe Sestak's campaign. He thinks Weldon's campaign, seeing Admiral Sestak's popularity soaring while his own sinks to the bottom, are panicking. "A supporter called in and said that he was just surveyed about the election, and was asked VERY negative slanted questions about Joe." Now that Rove isn't dodging indictment and worrying about a trial, he's back in his element: pure slime.

Quote of the day: Starting tonight, Bill Moyers is back on TV, and he's out to show that faith and reason can coexist—and we can talk about it

"We have to find a different way of talking about religion than the right wing."
—Bill Moyers, yesterday to Thom Hartman, who's currently filling in for (briefly vacationing) Rachel Maddow on Air America Radio

In my secular world Bill Moyers is about as close as it comes to sainthood. At this point, I would watch anything he puts on the air. So I have no intention of missing tonight's first installment of his new seven-part series for PBS, Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason.

The inspiration was PEN World Voices' April 2006 New York Festival of International Literature on the subject "Faith and Reason." Each show features an interview with a distinguished participant, listed in tactful alphabetical order on the PBS website (with brief bios plus links for more info): Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Mary Gordon, David Grossman, Colin McGinn, Anne Provoost, Richard Rodriguez, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson.

Moyers is blunt about fundamentalists and dogma generally. That adds up to closed minds, people who can't be talked to and so are beyond the reach of reason. When those people carry their dogma into politics, he's been saying at every opportunity, they have to be defeated at the polls.

So what kind of discussion should we be having, can we be having, about religion and the Big Questions it was invented to help us deal with?

In an interview with David Ian Miller in the June 19 SF Gate, Moyers was asked what he learned while doing the interviews for the show. He answered in part:

"I came away deeply impressed with writers, storytellers, who follow a thought or argument through all its twists and turns, who examine paradox and contradiction and reach their own conclusion as to the meaning of it all. Their respect for language—and their respect for one another—was something to behold.

"I heard believers say that without doubt religion becomes just nostalgia or an addiction. And I heard skeptics, agnostics and atheists say that you can dismiss religion without disrespecting the believer or dismissing the mystery of human experience.

"I heard a rich, layered, complex conversation that was informative and inspiring, and I wanted to put it on the air because it is important for people to hear not only what they say but how they say it. We can learn to talk differently if only we see people doing it well."

PHIL HENDRIE COMMITTED CAREER SUICIDE WHEN HE DRANK THE BUSH KOOL-AID LONG AGO. BUT HIS SHOW OFFICIALLY ENDS FRIDAY

I remember once laughing so hard that I had to pull over to the side of the road. And as soon as I did, my cell rang and it was a friend who was laughing so hard in a different part of town that he had pulled off the side of the road too. That was a long time. It was a time when Phil Hendrie's radio show was appointment-radio for me, a time when I'd make sure to be coming and going so I could hear Hendrie's insanely hilarious characters. A long time ago... I stopped listening to Hendrie years ago when he lost it entirely and a brilliant and irreverent satirical show became nothing but a hysterical right-wing hate fest and nightly Bush rally. His short-lived blog, georgebushisgod.com, was the last straw for most of his listeners and, although he has tried to back away from his overt partisanship, his ratings never recovered. My theory is that you needed a three-digit IQ to "get" Hendrie's humor. The slackjawed mouth-breathers who make up George Bush's fan base might have appreciated Hendrie's slathering adoration for their dim-witted leader but they could never grasp the abstract concepts necessary to understand what Hendrie was talking about.

His listenership plummeted, right along with Bush's approval ratings and as station after station dropped what had turned into a dull and pathetic Limbaugh-wannabe slot, it became clear that Hendrie would be looking for another job. Tomorrow's his last show. I won't be listening. Neither will my friend who pulled over to the side of the road that same night I did. Neither will Adam, the DWT Art Director in West Palm Beach all the way on the other side of America. But Adam got a letter from Hendrie a couple days ago and asked me to alert our readers. His take is that Hendrie's ruin-- he's going into "acting" now-- is a warning to Democrats (like Hendrie, Zell Miller, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson...) who sell out to the siren call of fascism. I was going to print the letter but when I re-read it I realized there wasn't a single sentence worth quoting.

MINIMUM WAGE: WHAT CAN YOU DO?

All the Democrats and 8 Republicans-- including staunch conservatives like Richard Lugar and John Warner-- voted in favor of Kennedy's minimum wage increase bill. It has been $5.15 for 9 years and Kennedy's bill would have gradually raised it to $7.25. It had a majority (52- 46) but not a big enough majority to pass. If this is important to you, these are the people who are up for re-election in November who voted to block the minimum wage increase:

George Allen (VA)
Conrad Burns (MT)
John Ensign (NV)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
Jon Kyle (AZ)
Trent Lott (MS)
Rick Santorum (PA)
Jim Talent (MO)

Funny how these same Republicans that can't see their weay clear to give working men and women a break are frothing at the mouth to give their biggest campaign contributors another tax cut. Of course, this is the Big Enchilada for the Republicans: the permanent abolishment of the estate tax. Oh, you thought it was defeated last week and went away? As long as their are Republicans breathing and as long as their are Democrats who would sell their souls to Big Business, it will never go away.


UPDATE: BOXER SLAPS DOWN ENZI'S PACK OF CALLOUS REPUBLICAN LIES

My friend Bob sent me the text of Barbara Boxer's pointed answer to Wyoming plutocratic wingnut Michael Enzi's discredited malarkey about why raising the minimum wage hurts people-- I mean I thought this was laid to rest in the 1930s.

Senator Enzi says this debate is grating on the Republican side of the aisle. Sorry, that is how it is when you are on the wrong side of the truth. It is grating to have to hear the truth as Senator Kennedy and others have spoken of.

It has been 9 long years since there has been an increase in the minimum wage. It is a disgrace. While we see our friends on the other side fight for the CEOs of oil companies, in the Committee on Commerce, they would not even swear them in. They are all on that side. When it comes to working families, forget about it.

Then Senator Enzi implies this does not have anything to do with women. Women make up 59 percent of the workers who would be affected as a result of raising the minimum wage; 1.4 million working mothers would benefit directly, 760,000 single moms would get an immediate raise, and over 3 million kids have parents who would get an immediate raise.
What has happened to family values on the other side of the aisle? It seems to me it is just so many empty words.

Then they scare you and say the economy will suffer. All you have to do, again, is look at the facts and look at the truth. In the 4 years after the last minimum wage increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in over three decades. All the talk about how bad a minimum wage increase is for the economy is not true.I say to my Republican friends, support the Kennedy increase in the minimum wage. The truth shall set you free.

Doonesbury update: More, er, uncomfortable details about young Jeff Redfern's CIA internship dribble out

Yesterday, you may recall, Jeff's parents, Washington Post reporter Rick Redfern and lawyer-activist Joanie Caucus, learned that their boy had apparently been denied CIA employment just because of that unfortuante incident when he happened to fire a Hellfire missile in Afghanistan during his internship.

The idea that Jeff might be punished for screwing up struck Rick as so totally un-Bush-like that Joanie was all set to hit the phones. Now more details emerge:

JEFF: I'm pretty sure that if my station chief hadn't written me up for launching a Hellfire, I'd be in.

OUT-OF-PANEL 'RENT: That was the only blemish on your record?

JEFF: Okay, so I may have missed a few rendition classes.

JOANIE: Well, that doesn't sound so . . .

JEFF: And there may have been a stupid security breach.

RICK: How stupid?

JEFF: I was caught text-messaging during waterboarding. Big whoop.

Quote of the day [continued]: Honorable Mention to Jon Stewart, who began by announcing, "I'm going to be a knee-jerk, reflexive reactionary"

And then, on last night's Daily Show, Jon went on to say:

"The Senate voted not to raise the minimum wage, which for the last nine years has been $5.15 an hour. So if you're working 40 hours a week, you're making two hundred large. They did vote themselves a pay raise, but they didn't vote to raise the minimum wage.

"I believe they were going to raise it to $7.25. So if you're working 40 hours a week, you'd be making two-eighty large, or maybe three hundred large.

"I just want to say, 'Good!'

"I'm glad they didn't do it, because, you know, the lower strata of American society's had a free ride for too long. And if you were to give them $7.25 an hour, you know it would just go, you know, up their nose and out their hose—you know what I mean? You don't want to give them 'walking around' money.

"So kudos to Congress for literally taking a great [bleep] on the poorest people in the country, 'cause they deserve it. [Over laughter and applause.] Don't they deserve it? Good job! Well done, folks!"

Quote of the day: No doubt Justices Roberts and Alito applaud as another judge shakes a fist at his powerlessness to check gross government abuse

I suppose it quickens the pulse of Chief Justice Roberts and Hench Justice Alito every time they hear about yet another judge who, despite fact-based outrage, does what the New Supremes think judges are supposed to do when the powerful want to use the law to run roughshod over the powerless: wave 'em on!

Now it's U.S. District Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of the Eastern District of Louisiana, who ruled that FEMA hadn't actually broken the law in its gross failure to provide information about benefits available to Hurricane Katrina victims and the application process. Nevertheless, the judge sounds pretty steamed in his ruling:

"While FEMA may not be legally required to notify applicants or recipients of assistance about what FEMA provides, much less provide any data regarding its availability or the requirements for obtaining such assistance, one can only wonder why FEMA would choose to not do so, as has so often been the case herein.

"It defies reason that a federal agency whose exclusive provision—and indeed, sole reason for existence—is to assist fellow Americans in a time of natural disaster in meeting their utmost needs would fail to notify people of the available services and the requirements for engaging those services, in some clear, consistent, and accessible way.

"It also defies reason that such an agency would be seemingly more concerned with fraud on the individual level than with actually helping those persons whose lives have been literally turned upside down through no fault of their own. It is the Court's determined opinion that the vast majority of Americans, including plaintiffs, do not expect the federal government to right all wrongs nor support them indefinitely, nor even attempt to make them anywhere near 'whole' after a disaster. Clearly such outcomes are simply impractical.

"However, certainly it would seem that FEMA would at least try to make things clear for those for whom it was created to serve. . . . [D]efendants must not forget that the foundations of all of these institutions, including our own government and FEMA itself, are individual people—human beings who must also be cared for, equally, equitably, and fairly.

"Rather than hiding behind bureaucratic double-talk, obscure regulations, outdated computer programs, and politically loaded platitudes such as 'people need to take care of themselves,' as the face of the federal government in the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA's goal should have been to foster an environment of openness and honesty with all Americans affected by the disaster. Sharing information in simple, clear, and precise terms and delineating the terms and conditions of available assistance in an up-front and forthright manner, does just that.

"Despite the voluminous 'administrative record' provided to the Court by FEMA, and despite FEMA's stated good intentions to the contrary, the Court has seen scant evidence that any such desire for openness and clarity guided any of FEMA's communications, and this obfuscation has acted much to the detriment of plaintiffs, and indeed, the entire country.

"Nevertheless, the Court finds that FEMA is not legally required to notify applicants or recipients of assistance about what FEMA provides or how to obtain such assistance. Regrettably this Court must leave any dissatisfaction with the law in this regard for those in the legislative branch to remedy."

Sorry, I tried to extract a shorter chunk from the extract available on washingtonpost.com, but I kept going back to the judge's text and feeling that, gee, his argument really needs to be heard.

What's more, it's hard not to think—even though Judge Duval had no reason to raise the issue, since it wasn't involved in the legal issues he was ruling on—that the Bush administration spared no effort to provide information about disaster-related plundering opportunities to its Old Crony Network of war-and-disaster profiteers, to make sure that they could profit as fully as possible from the tragedy and ongoing misery of their fellow Americans.

Isn't that, after all, what America is all about to the people who are running the country now?

I assume, by the way, that everyone is familiar with the New York Times's recent reporting that essentially the entire hierarchy of the Dept. of Homeland Security has moved straight from its stellar government performance to private companies doing "security" business with the department and other federal agencies. If it wasn't clear at the outset, it should be by now that the mission of the department never had anything to do with "homeland security." It was just a neat way of combining nakedly cynical political propaganda with a shiny, fat new boondoggle, a vehicle for Bush administration cronies—and I imagine, in fairness, for new "entrepreneurs" willing to "pay to play"—to cart off as much loot from the U.S. Treasury as their greedy clutches could manage.

[Note: Considering how long QOTD has already run, and the level of outrage it's got me running at, I'm going to save today's HONORABLE MENTION for later in the day. Jon Stewart had some nasty fun on last night's Daily Show with the Senate's rejection of the proposed minimum-wage hike. Just now I'm not in such a "fun" mood. Check back later.]

LIEBERMAN CROSSES THE AISLE

Maybe I'm being a little melodramatic; Lieberman is crossing the aisle so much some people wonder why he ever bothers to come back to the Democratic side (for procedural and housekeeping votes). Yesterday John Kerry, Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold introduced an amendment calling for a one year deadline for U.S. troops to be redeployed out of the Iraqi Civil War. One of the Republican's most bloodthirsty senatorial warmongers, John Warner (VA) used a greasy maneuver to cut their speaking time and award it to another "Democrat," the Republicans' favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman (CT). Lieberman, sounding more Republican and more pro-Bush than most admitted Republicans (for old time's sake, Lieberman-- like Zell Miller-- still claims to be a Democrat, more or less) ripped into Kerry and Feingold-- and also attacked the Democratic compromise amendment offered by senate moderates Carl Levin (MI), Jack Reed (RI), Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Ken Salazar (CO).

After Lieberman did his hatchet job on the Democrats' 2 reasonable proposals, Rick Santorum, the most disliked man (by his constituents, not just by staffers) of any Senator anywhere, praised him to the skies.

Ned Lamont-- like several senators who have campaigned for Lieberman such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama-- endorsed the Levin-Reed amendment explaining that "it represents the minimum needed, but will build a Democratic coalition to establish and stick to a plan to end the war."

Meanwhile, at the WASHINGTON POST Harold Meyerson demolished Lieberman's ridiculous claim that, even though he doesn't represent Democrats any longer, he still, somehow, deserves to be re-elected.

"I know I'm taking a position that is not popular within the party," Lieberman told Broder, "but that is a challenge for the party-- whether it will accept diversity of opinion or is on a kind of crusade or jihad of its own to have everybody toe the line. No successful political party has ever done that." That's a rather stunning assertion. If parties were based on the acceptance of diversity of opinion on the most important issues of the day, they would lack the definition to be parties at all. And the conduct and duration of our involvement in Iraq is, by the measure of every single poll, the No. 1 issue in the minds of the American people-- a majority of whom believe that the Bush administration has botched the war about as badly as a war can be botched. Now, maybe I've had this backward all my life, but I thought that elections were held to enable voters to choose between candidates espousing different points of view on the most important issues. Lieberman seems to believe that elections exist to enable voters not to choose-- indeed, to "accept diversity of opinion." And that if voters have the temerity to go ahead and choose anyway, they have crossed the line between party and sect in their zeal "to have everybody toe the line."

AFTERTHOUGHT: THE REVOLTING VIDEO OF LIEBERMAN CARRYING WATER FOR THE REPUGS

Is this a Democrat? Was Zell a Democrat when he tried disemboweling Kerry at the Republican Convention in 2004?


NOON UPDATE: WHICH DEMOCRATS VOTED TO CONTINUE U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN THE IRAQI CIVIL WAR AND VOTED TO APPLAUD BUSH'S CONTINUED OCCUPATION?

Both Democratic amendements were defeated today. Only one blue-state Democrat voted NO on both and, as you know, that was Joe Lieberman, who is, of course, George Bush's and Rick Santorum's favorite Democrat. The other 5 Democrats who voted for Bush's unfolding catastrophe were Mark Dayton (D-MN) who is retiring, and 4 Democrats who I personally wouldn't vote for no matter how horrible the Republican alternative is: Landrieu (LA), Pryor (AR), and both the horrible Nelsons (FL and NE).


MORE UPDATE: LIEBERMAN'S LATEST TRAGEDY

After having had his praises sung on the Senate floor by Man-on-Dog Santorum yesterday and having been endorsed by Bill O'Reilly last week, what-- barring Mussolini rising from the grave to campaign for him-- would be a worse indication for Connecticut Democratic primary voters that Joe Lieberman is serving very different interests than theirs? Well, this afternoon on Fox-TV bizarro fascist slut/clown Ann Coulter endorsed Lieberman.


THE LAST UPDATE BEFORE THE NEXT UNPLANNED SAVAGE ATTACK ON BUSH'S AND COULTER'S FAVORITE DEMOCRAT

Star A. Decise over at Enigmatic Paradox has an inciteful look at Lieberman's Loyalty Oath.

ICH BIN EIN LATINAMERICANO-- AND AN ALIEN FROM MARS

Wednesday nights I help John Amato out with his Late Nite Music Club over at Crooks And Liars. My pick tonight was "Trailways Bus" by Paul Simon, the hit from his 1997 release SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN, a kind of sountrack for the play he wrote, The Capeman.

My grandpa had died 3 decades before the song was released but when I heard it for the first time I felt like I was in his presence. He has always been an important person in my life, more than just the patriarch of the family. My idea of running away from home when I was a little kid was to take the bus across town to my grandparents' house where I could eat my grandmother's delicious homecooking and hear my grandfather's exciting tales. He used to tell me about how he would hide from the Cossacks in Russia when he was my age and there was a pogrom in his little town. And he told me how his whole family fled from their homeland, determined to start a new life where people didn't want to kill you because of your ethnicity or religion.

He was 12 when he came to New York. He and one brother were permitted to disembark. The rest of his family weren't. They wound up in Bahia in Brazil. My grandfather had nothing at all but he worked hard and did well for himself and thanked God for America every day of his life. He taught me about the dignity of work and he taught me about the importance of labor unions and he taught me to respect other people and their endeavors and their dreams. The first time I heard the word "socialist" was when grandfather explained what it meant to me. By that time he owned his own factory and he also explained to me about the duties of an employer to his employees. I was so lucky to have such a wonderful grandpa.

I have "Trailways Bus" on my iPod. My eyes well up every time I hear it. Remember how I said I was too imbued with empathy not to react deeply, drastically deeply, to the news about the 2 American soldiers tortured to death in Iraq yesterday? Well, the stories of immigrants to this country, like the childhood stories my gramps used to tell me, also always find a heartstring pulled inside me.

"Trailways Bus" is a series of these little stories and Simon's words and his voice-- even with the tone of his guitar-- powerfully convey the loneliness, despair, excitement, hopefulness, humanity of the immigrant experience. This is Paul Simon at his most masterful, his most poignant, his most relevant.


UPDATE: WILLIAM FISHER HAS AN EVEN BETTER STORY ABOUT HIS MOM

William Fisher at TRUTHOUT has a similar story to tell, except about his mother, Esther, a Polish immigrant. Besides the inspirational story, he points out that passing the "Stay in America" test for immigrants will be next to very difficult, though probably not more difficult than it would be for American-born citizens.

Recent tests of American point to dismal results:
"Just 22% of high school seniors had a 'proficient' understanding of how the American government works. And only one in 25 scored at the 'advanced' level. Just one in four seniors could think of just two ways the US system of government prevents the exercise of 'absolute arbitrary power.' (Among the 14 possible answers were such basics as the Bill of Rights, an independent judiciary, civilian control of the military - and the right to vote.) A third of high school seniors didn't know the Bill of Rights was written to limit the power of the federal government. Not one in ten seniors could identify two ways a democracy benefits from the active participation of its citizens. Just over a third knew that the Supreme Court pointed to the Constitution's 14th Amendment when it began to overturn segregation laws. Nearly three of every four students don't think about the First Amendment or say they take its rights for granted. Seventy-five percent of students said they thought flag burning was illegal, nearly 50 percent believed the government could censor the Internet, and many students didn't think newspapers should publish freely. In other tests, an obscene proportion of high school seniors couldn't find Iraq on a map, and only a slightly smaller group couldn't locate Mexico. College seniors-- from such schools as Yale, Northwestern, Smith and Bowdoin-- don't fare any better. For example, only 23 percent of this college group was able to correctly identify James Madison as the 'Father of the Constitution,' while 98 percent knew that Snoop Doggy Dog is a rapper and the same percentage correctly identified Beavis and Butthead!"

Fisher isn't advocating the elimination of tests for prospective new citizens. His main point is to urge that all Americans be educated. Pretty radical-- and not something Republicans, who depend of ignorance for their very existence, will ever permit.

DOOR TO DOOR WITH A RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE IN MISSISSIPPI

So far this week the Republicans in Congress made a mockery out of the 2,500+ young men and women killed in Iraq, defeated Ted Kennedy's modest proposal for a gradual minimum wage increase, put together a completely bogus "compromise" bill to abolish the estate tax, guaranteed Halliburton that they could continue stealing billions of taxpayers dollars with impunity, and generally continued their vicious class warfare against middle and working class Americans, most of whom are unaware they are even under attack. And It's only Wednesday.

Fortunately, my pal Daze, helped me lighten up with a fantastic little video clip of a Republican congressional candidate/doofus out campaigning in Mississippi's heavily Democratic second Congressional District. (Hit that link 8 words back.) If you had some fun watching Lynn Westmoreland (GA-08) on the Colbert Report last week, I think you'll find this kindred soul every bit as entertaining.

BUSH'S IRAQ OCCUPATION AND THE BUILDING DEMOCRATIC VICTORY IN NOVEMBER

Although we haven't broken out the cases of champagne at DWT, you can probably tell that Ken, Adam (and Sadie and Sophie) and myself are all pretty excited about Rahm Emanuel's decision to depart from the DCCC in November. (Had the decision been to depart today, we would all be drunk by now and I wouldn't be writing this morning.) Our disdain for the chairman of the DCCC is multi-faceted, covering a wide range of tactical and strategic decisions he has enforced that have made the Democrats less likely to compete effectively against Republicans in November.

However, many of his devastatingly bad decisions seem to all come from one place: his steadfast determination to keep the Democratic Party and, far worse, Democratic candidates around the country, from taking a clear and unambiguous position against Bush's war and occupation.

Today the well-respected GarinHartYang Research Group released a paper called "The Political Dynamics of the Iraq Debate" that puts the lie to Emanuel's violently aggressive demand (disguised as timidity-- oh please) that antiwar stands will lose the election for Democrats.

The overriding reality that defines the dynamics of Iraq as a political issue is  that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove  of the way President Bush is  handling the war in Iraq.  Indeed, one of the key reasons for Republicans’ vulnerability in this year’s mid-term elections is that Americans do not  believe that the country will be well-served by having a congressional  majority marching lock-step with the President in supporting a “stay the  course” approach to the war.  The significance of the current debates in  Congress is that nearly all Republicans are reinforcing their position as rubber  stamps for administration policy, while most Democrats are placing  themselves on the record as supporting one version or another of a new  direction for U.S. policy.   

Based on the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey,  conducted after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, only 35% of Americans  approve of President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq, while 61%  disapprove.  By aligning themselves so closely with President Bush’s conduct  of the war, Republicans who are running for reelection this year clearly are  playing the short side of the field.   

Current polling also demonstrates that there is broad support for a  change of course in our Iraq policy, while the status quo “stay-the-course”  position articulated by most Republicans in Congress has become a distinctly  minority position in the electorate.  On the question of our troop  commitment, for example, just 35% believe that we should maintain our  current level of troop strength in Iraq “to help secure peace and stability,”  while 57% say that it is time for the United States to reduce its troop level.  

Significantly, voters reject the contention, oft repeated by Republicans in Congress, that our involvement in Iraq is an important part of the war on terrorism and will make America safer. Indeed by 56% to 33% independent voters conclude instead that out involvement in Iraq is a distraction from the war on terrorism and will NOT make America safer.

On a party-to-party comparison, by a slight margin of 33% to 30%, voters say they trust Democrats in Congress more than they do the Republicans in Congress to deal with the situation in Iraq. Among independent voters, Democrats have a 27%-to-13% advantage-- with more than three in 10 independents volunteering that they do not trust either party and 16% saying they trust both parties equally.

The reality of mid-term elections, of course, is that there are choices between candidates. In this context, the Republican attack that Democrats differ among themselves about how best to change our course in Iraq will be irrelevent. By far the most important dynamic-- reinforced by the current congressional debate-- will be that in states and districts nationwide, voters will face a choice between a Republican who is aligned with President Bush on Iraq and identified with more of the same, and a Democrat who supports an independent approach and new direction for resolving what most Americans think of as a wasteful and poorly planned mess.

Right now, because of obfuscating and confused Democrats, like Emanuel and Lieberman, the Republicans are taking the clearest issue in the minds of voters and turning it into sludge and muck. Rove must have an alter in his satanic chapel with pictures of Emanuel and Lieberman in it on which he burns incense and places daisies daily.

Private polling I've been made privy to for in 6 dozen swing districts shows that a Democrat who takes a firm stand for exit does better than a "mumbler"-- i.e., a Rahm Emanuel type Democrat-- who thinks only "a new direction" is needed. amazingly. That proposition is a HUGE LOSER for Democrats and Emanuel has done his best to make sure mumblers are the only challengers facing Republicans in November-- all the more reason to support real independent-minded progressives like Jerry McNerney, Donna Edwards, Jan Schneider and other House candidates on the DWT ACT BLUE Page.

Meanwhile, 4 middle-of-the-road Democratic senators, Levin (MI), Reed (RI), Feinstein (CA) and Salazar (CO) introduced a consensus amendment today calling for the beginning of a phased redeployment-- and bringing an end to the Bush Regime's-- and it's rubber stamp allies in the Republican Congress-- open-ended/open-wallet non-strategy. This clearly tells the puppet regime to either get it together now or face what historically all collaborator/quisling regimes face when the occupying power departs anyway. Regardless of how the GOP propagandists spin this-- they are all ready running hither and thither screaching "cut and run, cut and run"-- here is the exact wording of the amendment:

SA 4320. Mr. LEVIN (for himself, Mr. REED, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. SALAZAR, and Mrs. CLINTON) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 2766, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2007 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to
prescribe personnel strengths for such fiscal year for the Armed Forces, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle A of title XII, add the following:

SEC. 1209. UNITED STATES POLICY ON IRAQ.

(a) SHORT TITLE.—This section may be cited as the ‘‘United States Policy on Iraq Act of 2006’’.

(b) FINDINGS.—Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Global terrorist networks, including those that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, continue to threaten the national security of the United States and are recruiting, planning, and developing capabilities to attack the United States and its allies throughout the world.

(2) Winning the fight against terrorist networks requires an integrated, comprehensive effort that uses all facets of power of the United States and the members of the international community who value democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.

(3) The United States Armed Forces, particularly the Army and Marine Corps, are stretched thin, and many soldiers and Marines have experienced three or more deployments to combat zones.

(4) Sectarian violence has surpassed the insurgency and terrorism as the main security threat in Iraq, increasing the prospects of a broader civil war which could draw in Iraq’s neighbors.

(5) United States and coalition forces have trained and equipped more than 116,000 Iraqi soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and more than 148,000 Iraqi police, highway patrol, and other Ministry of Interior forces.

(6) Of the 102 operational Iraqi Army combat battalions, 69 are either in the lead or operating independently, according to the May 2006 report of the Administration to Congress entitled ‘‘Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq’’;

(7) Congress expressed its sense in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (119 Stat. 3466) that ‘‘calendar year 2006 should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq’’.

(8) Iraq’s security forces are heavily infiltrated by sectarian militia, which has greatly increased sectarian tensions and impeded the development of effective security services loyal to the Iraq Government.

(9) With the approval by the Iraqi Council of Representatives of the ministers of defense, national security, and the interior on June 7, 2006, the entire cabinet of Prime Minister Maliki is now in place.

(10) Pursuant to the Iraq Constitution, the Council of Representatives is to appoint a Panel which will have 4 months to recommend changes to the Iraq Constitution.

(11) Despite pledges of more than $8,000,000,000 in assistance for Iraq by foreign governments other than the United States at the Madrid International Donors’ Conference in October 2003, only $3,500,000,000 of such assistance has been forthcoming.

(12) The current open-ended commitment of United States forces in Iraq is unsustainable and a deterrent to the Iraqis making the political compromises and personnel and resource commitments that are needed for the stability and security of Iraq.

(c) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that in order to change course from an open-ended commitment and to promote the assumption of security responsibilities by the Iraqis, thus advancing the chances for success in Iraq—

(1) the following actions need to be taken to help achieve the broad-based and sustainable political settlement so essential for defeating the insurgency and preventing all out civil war—

(A) there must be a fair sharing of political power and economic resources among all the Iraqi groups so as to invest them in the formation of an Iraqi nation by either amendments to the Iraq Constitution or by legislation or other means, within the timeframe provided for in the Iraq Constitution;

(B) the President should convene an international conference so as to more actively involve the international community and Iraq’s neighbors, promote a durable political settlement among Iraqis, reduce regional interference in Iraq’s internal affairs, encourage more countries to contribute to Iraq’s extensive needs, and ensure that pledged funds are forthcoming;

(C) the Iraq Government should promptly and decisively disarm the militias and remove those members of the Iraqi security forces whose loyalty to the Iraq Government is in doubt; and

(D) the President should—

(i) expedite the transition of United States forces in Iraq to a limited presence and mission of training Iraqi security forces, providing logistic support of Iraqi security forces, protecting United States infrastructure and personnel, and participating in targeted counterterrorism activities;

(ii) after consultation with the Government of Iraq, begin the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq this year; and

(iii) submit to Congress a plan by the end of 2006 with estimated dates for the continued phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, with the understanding that unexpected contingencies may arise;

(2) during and after the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, the United States will need to sustain a nonmilitary effort to actively support reconstruction, governance, and a durable political solution in Iraq; and

(3) the President should carefully assess the impact that ongoing United States military operations in Iraq are having on the capability of the United States Government to conduct an effective counterterrorism campaign to defeat the broader global terrorist networks that threaten the United States.

Someone is held accountable for screwing up in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan! Oh wait, it's only in the funnies.

You probably have to be a regular Doonesbury reader to appreciate just how big an, er, disappointment young Jeff Redfern has been to his folks, Washington Post reporter Rick Redfern and Washington lawyer and political activist Joanie Caucus. Somehow, however, Jeff managed to graduate from Walden College, to the consternation of former roommate and fellow screw-up Zipper Harris (nephew of Zonker, the legendary tanning champion), who has now taken to calling him "Diploma Boy." And somehow Jeff slipped into an internship with the CIA, which turned out, well, somewhat problematically.

Since graduation, Jeff has returned to the parental cocoon, where he has been mostly sleeping, claiming to be waiting for his CIA posting, which of course he can't talk about. Yesterday Rick guessed that his son had lost his job. Today the conversation picks up where it left off yesterday:

RICK: You already lost your job?

JEFF: No, I didn't "lose" it. I just wasn't offered a position. When I was interning in Afghanistan, I launched a Hellfire missile by mistake, so I got a bad write-up from my station chief.

RICK: Wait a minute. Someone held you accountable for messing up?

JEFF: Yeah. Why?

RICK: If Bush knew, he'd be furious.

JOANIE: Who can we call?

JEFF: Mom! No! He has enough problems.

PLEASE STOP SENDING ME NEWS OF CORPORATIONS SHIFTING THEIR POLITICAL DONATIONS TO THE DEMS-- IT IS NOT GOOD NEWS. GO READ SIROTA'S BOOK

At least half a dozen of my online buds have sent me the WALL STREET JOURNAL story entitled "Corporate Contributions Shift to the Left". Even if it were true-- it really isn't-- this is hardly good tidings. If you think it us, you must, must, must read David Sirota's new book, HOSTILE TAKEOVER: HOW BIG MONEY & CORRUPTION CONQUERED OUR GOVERNMENT-- AND HOW WE TAKE IT BACK.

Sirota's premise is that big corporate bribes-- legal and otherwise-- have entirely corrupted our government, which is now utterly dysfunctional in terms of providing a balance between the power of Big Business and the interests of unorganizaed and unprotected citizens. There is no question that the Republican Party is 100% owned by these corporate forces. And the Democratic Party?

The Democratic brand has been thoroughly muddied by Democrats like Joe Lieberman, Jane Harman, Bill and Ben Nelson, Rahm Emanuel, Al Wynn and dozens and dozens of others who have utterly sold their souls to the company store. Yes, they're not as bad as the Republicans but that says more about how iredeemably corrupted the GOP has become than about Democrats being willing to stand up and fight for workers and consumers and oppressed minorities.

"Some big companies," the JOURNAL story tells us, "are boosting their share of campaign contributions to Democrats this year, a sign that executives may be starting to hedge their political bets after a decade of supporting congressional Republicans. The shift includes backers of the Republican Party in the insurance, pharmaceuticals and tobacco industries, such as American International Group Inc., Wyeth, and Reynolds American Inc., according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan tracker of campaign contributions."

Why? Well, of course they sense the winds of change blowing-- but just a little: corrupt corporate whores called Republicans giving way to corrupt corporate whores called Democrats. Last February I talked about a ROLLING STONE essay by Mark Taibbi about the unprecedented degree of corruption among Inside The Beltway Republicans. It ended, however, with a warning about Democrats. "The Democrats, whose innocence in the crimes of the last five years to date corresponds exactly to their lack of opportunities for corruption, may now get a chance at the helm. But it won't take much exposure to cheap stunts like a beaming Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi signing a 'Declaration of Honest Leadership' before people begin to remember how much the other guys can suck, too. Bush haters are celebrating this week as old villains descend to the death chamber, but they should be careful what they wish for. Trusting Washington to fix itself is a whole new kind of torture."

Companies don't give political donations for civic nor, usually, for ideological reasons, They give money so they can have access and influence. In the case of the Republicans they got to actually write the exact legislation that effected their businesses' bottom lines. The bribery and kick-backs were unlike anything ever seen in Washington before. Democrats like Rahm Emanuel can't wait to get their share of the action. And many of them haven't, of course. Al Wynn is always there for the highest bidder. Doing away with estate taxes or or rigging the bankruptcy laws to target the middle class and protect the wealthy? There are always "pro-business Democrats" with their clammy hands out selling their votes-- just as though they were members of the Republican Party. Rahm Emanuel was only one of several dozen anti-consumer Democrats who joined the GOP for a day in voting down consumer protective labeling. How many Democrats are voting to allow the Big Telecoms to abolish the free internet ("free" being the key word there)? And how many Democrats joined the Republicans in a bid to run the FAA "like a business," endangering everyone who flies on an airplane?

"The shift in donation patterns for some big businesses mirrors early signs that companies and corporate trade groups may now be increasing their hiring of lobbyists with Democratic ties, after a decade of largely shunning them. The Federalist Group is a corporate lobbying shop founded by Republicans soon after the party took over Congress in 1994. In its first eight years, the firm only hired Republicans, including former aides to onetime House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and President Bush. Four lobbyists recently hired by the firm, beginning earlier this year, are Democrats, including a former House member from Louisiana and a health-care aide to liberal icon Edward Kennedy, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Other firms and trade groups that hired Democrats recently include the Information Technology Industry Association and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. In April, a new trade group representing the food industry tapped former California Democratic Rep. Cal Dooley as its president. At least part of the Democrats' new gains can be attributed to the decline of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and a Justice Department investigation into Republican lobbyists." Yes, the decline of DeLay and the rise of Emanuel. For lobbyists and corporate power brokers who just want someone to do business with, it's all the same.

A quick first thought on the (not soon enough) sunsetting of the reign of terror of Boss Rahm: Better late than never? (Let us hope!)

So Boss Rahm Emanuel is stepping down as czar of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)!

As I've told Howie a number of times, I'm one of those people who used to think of Boss Rahm as our pit bull, our political clawer-and-scratcher, someone on our side capable of countering the likes of the other side's Karl Rove. Until, in Down With Tyranny, Howie documented way beyond my satisfaction level that this isn't what Boss Rahm has been doing at all.

Instead, under the guise of focusing on Democratic "electability," Boss Rahm has been hand-picking, financing and generally doing whatever it takes to win Democratic nominations for candidates essentially indistinguishable from Bush Republicans—and in cases all over the country throwing all of his resources against vastly superior grass-roots candidates, people who might contribute to genuinely rebuilding the Democratic Party, remaking it as a majority party that works for the betterment of all Americans.

Officially, of course, the DCCC doesn't even get involved in primary fights. It's strictly forbidden! But tell that to the idealistic candidates with strong local support who've found themselves in the path of Boss Rahm's candidate-crushing machine.

Alas, this Congressional election of 2006 will be all Boss Rahm's handiwork. In the event that Democrats fail to take advantage of the unique opportunity presented to them this year by the across-the-board catastrophe that Republican governance has become, Boss Rahm will already be on the lam.

And in the event that enough of those phony-baloney Democrats in Name Only slip into the next House of Representatives, we're likely to have a Congress approximately as useless as the present one—or even worse, with Boss Rahm's Republican Lite DINOs having a deciding voice in most matters. Including the choice of his successor. No doubt they'll be hankering for a guy just like the one who brung 'em there.

Of course, there's still the alternative proposed by DNC chair Howard Dean: a 50-state strategy, where we try to rebuild the party all over the country, with real Democrats committed to real Democratic principles that offer a real alternative to Republican fat-cattery, neocon-think-tankery and right-wing-nuttery. Needless to say, Boss Rahm has been fighting this with all the considerable resources at his disposal.

But then, Howie already made the point that the people Boss Rahm likes to fight aren't Republicans, but Democrats--especially Democrats with real principle and a vision for the country.

Quote of the day: A veteran political reporter says it's less grim covering environmental rape and pillage than the U.S. House of Representatives

The subject of rampant criminality didn't even come up when Jon Stewart talked to Wasington Post national correspondent Juliet Eilperin on last night's Daily Show about her new book, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship Is Poisoning the House of Representatives.

Here's how Jon wound up the interview:

JON STEWART: You, covering this for 12 years—corrosive to the soul?

JULIET EILPERIN: Yes, and in fact I became so depressed doing it, I focused more on the environment, things like whaling in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands that you did earlier.

JON STEWART: So you chose to focus on the raping and pillaging of the environment rather than cover politics because . . .

JULIET EILPERIN: I find it less depressing.

DWT WON'T HAVE RAHM EMANUEL TO KICK AROUND ANYMORE-- THOUGH NOT SOON ENOUGH

Although I would have preferred an announcement of his immediate resignation, DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel has just done the best thing in his entire tenure at the Committee. He told colleagues he needs to spend more time with the family and will take his contentious ass out of the running for the next term, leaving open the possibility that the Democratic Leadership will find a DCCC head who will support candidates espousing and fighting for Democratic values and principles. What a concept!

There are a great many naive and superficial Democrats who have no clue how corrosive Emanuel is for the Party. I'm almost sick of fighting with these nitwits and blind imbeciles but I did leave a comment over at Daily Kos about why the people who assume Emanuel was doing a good job are dead wrong:

There is a misapprehension that Emanuel "claws and scratches to win seats" backed up by exactly nothing except Emanuel's own p.r. He's a fighter alright but he fights against anti-war Democrats. He fights against progressives. He fights against grassroots Democrats. He fights against any Democrat with a clear and positive message who wants to challenge a Republican incumbent. Rahm Emanuel is good for raising corporate cash from Big Business interests looking for weak corrupt political hacks in the Democratic Party to replace the weak corrupt political hacks they own in the GOP. He is an absolute disaster as a DCCC chair so far and, as far as I can see, the best thing he has done during his tenure is to announce that he won't try to hold onto the post again.

His newest stunt-- completely in character-- is to sabotage the election of poll-leading grassroots, anti-war progressive Jerry McNerney in his battle against Richard Pombo (possibly the worst Republican in the entire House). Emanuel tried shoe-horning his own issueless, corporate Inside-the-Beltway shill into the primary, spent a ton and leveraged big name Dems, created a lot of bad feelings and wound up with a pathetic 28%. McNerney can win this race and a decent DCCC chair would get behind the race. Instead Emanuel has told everyone who will listen to his poisonous whispering that the race isn't winnable and he doesn't want to waste money on it.

I have personally spoken to at least half a dozen progressive candidates who have told me that the dirty campaigning Emanuel has unleashed on them was beyond what they ever expected from their own party. One of his filthy tactics-- which he and Shumer employed to such devastating effect on Paul Hackett-- has been to tell a candidate's funders that any more contributions will be looked at as an unfriendly act towards the Democratic Party. This is a fighter, alright, but the only winner in these battles are Republicans. Emanuel's departure from the DCCC couldn't happen soon enough.

CONRAD BURNS, RICK SANTORUM & JOE LIEBERMAN ALL HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON TODAY: BAD NEWS FROM SUSA

EVERYONE RAISE THEIR HAND WHO THINKS IT'S A COINCIDENCE THAT CONRAD BURNS & RICK SANTORUM HAVE THE LOWEST APPROVAL RANKINGS IN THE SENATE. IF YOUR HAND IS UP, GO SIT IN THE CORNER-- WITH JOE LIEBERMAN

The new SUSA scores for the U.S. Senate just came out. Bottom of the barrel: Conrad Burns (crimes: unbridled corruption and extreme wingnutery) with a negative 24% net approval and Rick Santorum (crimes: even more extreme wingnutery and sneakier and less overt, but no less avaricious, corruption) with a negative 19% net approval. Both have to face their pissed off constituents in November.

While we were checking out Burns' and Santorum's venture into uncharted territory of voter disapproval, we decided to take a look at some of the other Bush Regime rubber stamps who are up for re-election and see what their constituents are thinking about them right at the moment. Let's see... it looks like someone left Mike DeWine uncorked and his bouquet has turned rather vinegary. His close personal and professional relationships with the Ohio political crime syndicates run by GOP kingmakers Thomas Noe and Alex Arshinkoff seem to have finally caught up with him-- that and the unmasking of his fake "moderate" voting record. He's got a minus 8 net disapproval. (Kentucky's Jim Bunning is almost as unpopular but he was recently posthumously re-elected and his corpse won't have to face the voters again for 4 years.)

Let's see, who else has an under 50% approval rating who's got to justify his behavior to the voters in 5 months? Oh, yes, Jim Talent (R-MO) who has a 48% approval, Bill Nelson (?-NE) with a 49% approval, Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) with a 49% approval).

Now Lieberman is a special case. He has a healthy-ish 55% approval rating in Connecticut. Unfortunately-- for him/fortunately for the nation-- that won't help him much in the August 8 Democratic primary. Turns out, only 46% of Democrats approve of his Bush-enabling job performance and, worse, yet, among self-identified liberals-- who are far more likely to vote in the Democratic primary than just run-of-the-mill garden variety Democrats-- only 40% approve. (67% of liberals approve of Connecticut's other Democratic senator, Chis Dodd.) Ready for Senator Ned Lamont?

Safavian goes down! Speculation says his conviction may set off a dominolike chain of Republicrook indictments. Uh-oh, watch out, Boo-Hoo Bob Ney!

So, Bush-administration scumbag David Safavian (seen at right), the first accused Republicrook to go to trial on Jack Abramoff-related corruption charges, has been found guilty on four of five counts.

This is more than just a case of one down, all those others to go. Because there is reason to believe that federal prosecutors have been waiting on a conviction in the Safavian case as a springboard to what could be a dominolike chain of indictments—involving the familiar roster of Republicrooks we've been waiting to wave off to prison, to kick off the official celebration of the Republican Culture of Corruption.

Newsweek chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff has been peddling this line for a while now in his weekly spots on Rachel Maddow's Air America Radio show, and today, with the jury seemingly slow to return a verdict, he returned to the theme. If the Safavian trial goes on too long, he suggested, the timetable could take us into the election season, when prosecutors are traditionally reluctant to seek indictments, meaning postponement till after the election.

This is, presumably, out of fairness. Talk about gallows humor. It would be singularly appropriate for people who devote their every waking breath to trashing any reasonable concept of fairness to profit from it—in the case of the prison-bound Republicrooks, to buy some time till they're indicted, and in the case of the Republican Party as a whole, to avoid having to answer to the electorate for its perversion of government into a syndicate of overlapping criminal fiefdoms.

Well, the Safavian jury doesn't seem to have been overly confused by the dust that the defense attempted to throw in its eyes. And if Isikoff is right, this could be bad news for all those slimeball Republicrooks who for months now have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Everyone seems to agree that at the top of the list is Ohio's own Boo-Hoo I Didn't Do Nothin' Bob Ney. With all the Ney lackeys and co-conspirators the feds are supposed to have flipped, you have to wonder whether it's just a matter of time before Boo-Hoo Bob's angry protestations of innocence turn into Duke Cunningham-style bawling.

OUR WHOLE NATION SHOULD WEAR BLACK TODAY FOR KRISTIAN MENCHACA AND THOMAS TUCKER

I had a suspicion when I started hearing about the capture of two young American soldiers in Iraq the other day that the Iraqi insurgents had a point they wanted to make. The only possibility of "good news" would have been if they kidnapped them (as the Pentagon referred to the incident) in order to exchange them for some captured Iraqi colleagues.

Unfortunately, that isn't what they had in mind. Instead, what they seem to have had in mind was revenge for the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And maybe more. The two young men were beheaded and tortured. Bush's shredding of the Geneva Agreements and his Regime's blithe dismissal of the horrible and criminal use of torture as "quaint" might have also been answered in the minds of these rebels. An Arab website referred to the nightmare as "slaughtering the two captured crusaders," a very emotion-laden word in the Arab world, one Bush stumbled and bumbled into using as he launched his unprovoked attack on Iraq.

The thought of more of our young men being killed in Iraq under any circumstances infuriates me and simultaneously fills me with deep grief. The idea of these two kids being dragged away and abused, tortured a beheaded is beyond my capacity to process calmly. I'm way too empathetic for that. All I can think is "why these 2 brave boys?" Why should these two families be struck so horribly and brutally? And why couldn't it be Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Frist and every single Republican senator and congressman and Lieberman and all the other Democrats who have acted as a rubber stamp for Bush's criminal agenda in Iraq?

These weak and cowardly men only know how to send other people's children to fight and die in their avaricious quest for more wealth and power. Today my friend Bob exposes their weakness and corruption and their utter incapacity to protect our country from real threats.

If we as a people don't stop them, whatever we get from their policies is what we deserve as a people and a nation. The young men brutalized today and their families traumatized deserve nothing of this tragedy, this inevitable tragic orchestrated by crass, weak con-men.

And keep in mind that Bush's disastrous inability as, Commander in Chief, to complete the mission in Afghanistan, a mission the whole country and most of the world was united behind, is leading to further catastrophe there, a catastrophe that could have been avoided if we had even a minimally competent leadership instead of the human detritus we have installed in Washington.

TWO DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES IN NORTH CAROLINA-- LARRY KISSELL AND HEATH SHULER

North Carolina has 13 congressmen. Six are Democrats and they all seem pretty safe bets for re-election in November. All 7 Republicans have Democratic challengers but two are already poised to defeat powerfully entrenched GOP incumbents. What these two races have in common is that their opponents are both far right loons and Bush rubber-stamps. Let's take a quick look at each of them and the districts.

Robin Hayes represents the 8th CD, the south-central part of the state including Cabarrus County at the tip of the old textile corridor-- devastated by Bush's "free trade" policies-- and east to Fayetteville with parts of Charlotte, kind of a swing district, although Bush scored 54% in 2000 and 2004, about what Hayes has been getting since he was first elected in 1998 Hayes is most famous for breaking down and weeping like a 9 year old girl after DeLay, Blunt and other Republicans forced him, on the floor of the House, to vote against his constituents interests to break a 214-214 tie for some hideous trade policies that wreaked further havoc and despair on North Carolina's textile industry. He is generally a posterboy for weak-charactered rubber stamp irresponsibility. His voting record is positively abysmal; he ties for the absolute worst congressmen on every single issue facing corporate subsidies, education, human rights and civil liberties, and everything concerned criminal and civil justice. No one in the entire House is worse than Hayes on these issues. He gets a flat zero on his votes on all of these-- and doesn't have a decent voting record on any other issues either.

Charlie Taylor's voting record is about the same. Where he stands out, however, is in the corruption department. This is his 8th term representing the 11th CD, the extreme western end of the state, the heart of the Great Smokey Mountains. It's a rural district, overwhelmingly white, somewhat poorer and more Republican than Hayes' district. The only city is Asheville. Kerry did considerably better than Gore had 4 years earlier. Taylor's weakest point is that he is widely considered to be the most corrupt politician in contemporary North Carolina. A member of Jerry Lewis' criminal Appropriations Committee, he is a major self-server and has been caught up in scandal after scandal, far beyond his involvements with taking tainted money from DeLay and Abramoff. Two counties in his district threatened to garnish his congressional salary because he refused to pay his property taxes and he owns a bank that loans cronies money that never gets paid back and gets written off (after portions are kicked back to the slippery congressman).

The two men opposing these two weak and disgraceful Republicans are as different as night and day from each other. One, Heath Shuler is a flashy favorite son being lavishly pushed by the DCCC. He fits their model perfectly: down the center moderate and totally uncontroversial. He's best known-- and was recruited by DCCC Chair Rahm Emanuel because-- he is a former NFL quarterback (for the Washington Redskins). His website could have been put together by Emanuel himself: slick and very light on issues beyond studied support for mom and for apple pie. His positions are standard Democratic Party fare, much of it pabulum. Although you can quickly see he's a gun supporter, you'd be hard-pressed to find out that there's a war in Iraq, let alone how he feels about it (although he honors our veterans). I hope he wins because there is no comparison between him and Taylor. If you live in the district, please vote for Heath Shuler. If you have some spare change you're willing to contribute to a campaign for someone who will work positively to make North Carolina and America a better place to live... go to the next paragraph.

Larry Kissell was not the DCCC candidate. He's a genuine grassroots candidate with an independent mind of his own. He doesn't plan to go to Congress to take orders from an authoritarian nitwit like Rahm Emanuel or anyone else. The DCCC candidate withdrew from the primary and the district rallied behind Kissell, who's very different from Robin Hayes-- and far better suited for the 8th CD. A 27-year veteran of the textile industry and an educator and a deacon of the First Baptist Church, Kissell's website leaves nothing for guess work on how he feels-- and what he wants to do about-- all the major issues facing North Carolina citizens. When Kissell talks about "values," it isn't empty rhetoric crafted to hoodwink strangers into voting for him. Kissell's Main Street values (not Wall Street values) are what informs and drives his desire to help his neighbors and his nation to do better.

This is not some right of center Democrat who will go to Washington and cause progressives to tear their hair out ala Lieberman or Zell Miller or Henry Cuellar. On the other hand, Inside-the-Beltway elitists like Emanuel are already tearing out their hair, reading stuff like "We staged our way into Iraq in one year, there is no reason we can't stage our way out in one year. My position is out of Iraq by the end of 2006." Reading Kissell's detailed, straight-forward essays on why he's running and what he plans to do in Washington make you feel this is truly a good man-- not an ambitious politician-- and one who you know you could trust to make the right decisions for his neighbors and for us all. You don't have to vote for Larry Kissell just because he's better than the Republican; you can vote for him because he'll make a great legislator imbued with compassion, strength, humility and wisdom.

I suspect any assistance the DCCC plans to put into North Carolina between now and November will go entirely to Heath Shuler. That leaves Larry Kissell to depend on plain citizens who believe in the promise of a better society. If you live in the district you can volunteer here. If you want to be part of a coast to coast movement of people contributing $5 and $10 and $20 increments to buy into an American dream of the "ordinary people" who are the backbone of this nation putting their collective foot down to Bush and his rubber stamp congressmen (and to Democrats cut from the same cloth), please click here on the DWT ACT BLUE Page.

Quote of the day

Maybe just a tad of context would be helpful here for non-New Yorkers. Defensive lineman Michael Strahan has been probably the best player the New York Giants have had since the heyday of the great Lawrence Taylor. And while Strahan, happily, hasn't led nearly as, er, colorful a life off the field as L.T., he seems now to have scored a breakthrough of sorts:

GEORGE W. BUSH ON HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE NO ONE-- NEXT UP: VENEZUELA

According to today's L.A. TIMES, Bush is blundering into another "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists" fiasco-- this time alienating the entire Latin American region.

The Bush Regime-- already far more hated outside America than even in Vermont-- is demanding that anyone who wants its "friendship" vote against Venezuela's shot at the rotating Latin American seat on the Security Council. Bush is demanding other nations vote for the puppet/torture regime of Guatemala instead. "Behind the scenes, U.S. officials have been applying pressure, even to close allies, Latin American diplomats say. For example, Washington has agreed to sell F-16 fighter jets to Chile, but are warning that Chilean pilots will not be trained to fly them if the government supports Venezuela's Security Council bid, the diplomats said."

The L.A. TIMES points out that after Bush's failed coup attempt against the wildly popular Hugo Chavez, relations between the two countries have gone drastically downhill, although the democartically-elected (and re-elected) populist Chavez has no bone to pick with Americans and, like so many the world over, just hates Bush (who he routinely refers to as an idiot).

"'No one wants to choose between the United States and Venezuela, but that's what it's come down to,' said a diplomat from one Western Hemisphere country, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. The Americans 'have made it quite clear this is a top priority... Everyone who wants to see balance in the Security Council, who wants to see the United States constrained, will vote for Chavez.'"


Caribbean countries, as well as independent-minded countries like Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina are behind Venezuela. The governments were in thrall to American corporate masters-- basically all the Central American countries-- plus the ones dependent of the Bush Regime for one reason or another-- Colombia, Mexico and Peru-- can be forced to do whatever the U.S. tells them to. If there is a deadlock among Latin American countries, the General Assembly gets to vote and the hatred for Bush in that body is so intense that they would give Venezuela 2 seats if they could!

Venezuela, the world's 5th largest oil exporter, supplies the U.S. with almost 15% of its oil imports (1.5 million barrels a day). Bush is constantly threatening Venezuela and a cut-off in exports-- Chavez has said if Bush keeps up his hostility and aggressiveness they'll start selling oil to China-- would devastate the U.S. economy and make the U.S. more dependent on oil from unstable Arab and African sources.


WEDNESDAY UPDATE: AND BOLIVIA TOO!

And while the Bush Regime is trying to undermine (and even overthrow) Chavez, there have also been rumblings about the U.S. "doing an Allende" on Bolivia's newly-elected president, Evo Morales, a genuine hero of working people throughout Latin America. If Bush is determined to make sure he is the most hated man in the entire world, he has already won and he can stop campaigning.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THINGS COULDN'T GET ANY WORSE FOR LIEBERMAN...

If I didn't personally know him to be a cruel, nasty, vicious and vindictive, self-righteous old hypocrite, I might be starting to feel sorry for Joe Lieberman about now. As more and more people in Connecticut start focusing on the race between Lieberman and Ned Lamont, Lieberman's once mile wide/inch deep support is rapidly evaporating. Although Connecticut Republicans still support him-- and why not, he votes for what's important to them and their leader most of the time-- Lieberman's support among Democrats is heading straight towards the state's approval rating of Bush: under 30%.

Inside the Beltway anti-democrat DSCC head Chuck Schumer is threatening Connecticut voters that if they don't re-nominate Lieberman he and other DC elitists will ignore the Connecticut Democratic Party-- which will surely spark an internal Party civil war-- and back Lieberman anyway. Most of the state's top Democrats don't seem too pleased with Schumer's typically heavy-handed and authoritarian interference and have already served notice that they will support whomever wins the August 8 primary, regardless of what party Lieberman runs on or Schumer supports. Last week both Democratic gubernatorial candidates, the Democratic Secretary of State and 2 of the 3 congressional challengers-- Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy-- pledged their support to whomever wins the primary. (Diane Farrell hasn't released a statement. An anti-war Democrat, she's in a peculiar position since the Republican she's running against, Chris Shays, has endorsed Lieberman.)

Today Connecticut's State Senator Majority Leader (and former Democratic Party Chairman), George Jepson broke open the dam and gave Ned a resounding endorsement. He's the first big-name Connecticut establishment Dem to do so (at least publicly). The endorsement is sending shockwaves through the state and, although no one is saying Lieberman is on suicide watch, he must know now it's all over for him and that because of his duplicitous support for Bush and the right-wing agenda, the gig is up.

Jepson explained that his support for Ned "begins with the war, but is not limited to the war... I sincerely like Joe Lieberman. But I disagree profoundly with his unyielding support for George Bush's war in Iraq, his embrace of the so-called 'culture of life' in overriding the rights of Terry Schiavo, his failure to be an advocate for civil rights issues, his support for school vouchers, his being the only
New England Senator to vote to allow the federal government to put a natural gas pipeline in Long Island Sound." He predicted that Ned's presence on the ticket will help all Democrats, "because
we will be speaking in one voice."

Steve Clemons has more at The TPM Coffee House. Apparently Jepsen, who has known Lieberman for 29 years, likes him personally. But he went on to tell Clemons that "This has become a matter of conscience for me, and I can't continue to support Joe Lieberman when there are so many areas of difference between his views and my own. I have known Ned Lamont for 25 years. He is intellectually capable and accomplished and a very thoughtful person. He is not drive by raw ambition but rather by the desire to do good for this state and our country. I know that he is willing to stand up to the Bush administration and work hard for a better and different agenda."

This means a lot more inside Connecticut that anything a treacherous windbag like Chuck Schumer has to say. For Lieberman it's a crack in the damn he'll never be able to repair. He should just take the Secretary of Defense job Bush has offered him.

JERRY LEWIS-- STILL NOT IN PRISON... BUT CLOSER EVERY DAY (PART 2)

By now readers of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, the L.A. TIMES, the NY TIMES or the WASHINGTON POST, who happen to have any interest in the politics of California's 41st congressional district, know that indictments, frog-walks, finger-printings, mugshots, protestations of complete and total innocence and plea-bargains-ratting-out-colleagues are all just what comes before the inevitable prison cell for the 41st CDs larcenous Jerry Lewis. I mean all that stuff, maybe even a trial, is now inevitable. But when do Lewis' constituents find out? Does pa wake up one morning and turn on the TV and yell, "Ma, will ya come in here and have a look. That Jerry Lewis fella is wearing an orange jump suit and has handcuffs on and they're taking him off to prison. I wonder what he done. Always seemed like such a straight shooter, too."

Actually, much to my surprise-- and probably Lewis'-- they actually are starting to find out... now. Lewis has the kind of tight, tight, tight relationships with all the local media that has precluded much coverage of what looks to be the biggest financial scandal in the history of the U.S. Congress. But with the FBI closing in and subpoena-ing records from the city, county and town governments all over the district, from tiny Yucca Valley township to humongous Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, and with more and more national media outlets covering the unwinding of Lewis' scandalous activities as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, even the friend local press has been dragged into reporting on the story.

My friend Leigh lives up in Big Bear and she comes to L.A. every week. She brings me news and tidings from the Inland Empire and the High Desert and, lately, she has also started bringing actual local newspapers. Just a couple months ago she told me no one in the district had even an inkling that their powerful congressman was the head of a high level crime syndicate at the heart of the United States government. "No matter what they say about him, " one of Leigh's neighbors, a Democrat, told her, "he brings home the bacon."

Indeed he was. He wasn't sharing much of it with anyone outside of his immediate circle though. And when he did do things for his constituents, even they had to pay and pay and pay.

Last week Leigh told me that some people in the district, despite Lewis' constant denials of knowing anything about any of this, are starting to wake up to the fact that something about their 28 year veteran representative stinks to high heaven. She brought me the SAN BERNARDINO SUN from Sunday, June 11th. She says it's the biggest newspaper in the district and that "everybody" reads it. There are 4 stories on page 1-- mostly the kind of stuff you would expect from a local Sunday newspaper in an exurban/rural district: a report on a (poorly attended) block party to kick off an anti-crime campaign, an expose about how people without high school diplomas have trouble finding jobs, a thriller on how local residents are seeing Jesus' image on bathroom tiles in Chino and in shadows cast by a willow tree in San Bernardino and then, smack dang in the middle of the page with a thick black border and a huge full color picture of a worried-looking Lewis, an article entitled "Deconstructing Jerry."

Now for all the San Berdoo DWT regulars discovered nothing that we haven't been talking about since last year. But for thousands of Lewis' constituents who haven't been reading this blog-- or the NY TIMES, etc-- it must have come as quite the shock. The article has it all. Not just the accusations and cool denials. This one lays the whole story out as it's unfolded over the last year: the FBI investigation into the ties between Lowery and Lewis, Lewis' relationship to the convicted and imprisoned bribe-taking Randy "Duke" Cunningham and how the same defense contractors who had been paying off Cunningham have also been paying off Lewis; Lewis' ties to Brent Wilkes and Tom Casey and an account of Casey's appearance on NBC-News where he explained how Lewis and Lowery had tried to shake him down for stock in his company in return for earmarks; the FBI subpoena-ing documents relating to Lewis' shady activities in forcing local governments in his district to funnel taxpayer dollars to Lowery in return for his (Lewis') services.

Lewis' Democratic opponent is political novice, Louie Contreras. If ever there was a David and Goliath scenario playing out in California, it's this sleepy race in the High Desert. When I asked Leigh how Contreras' campaign is progressing, she tells me that except for me telling her about it, she wouldn't know anyone is running against Lewis this year. (In 2004 no one bothered to.) When I looked at Contreras' website I found what looks like the tepid hand of the DCCC-- not handing out campaign funds, of course, just some losing advice about steering clear of all controversy in the hope that Lewis will lose the election on his own. Even under the "Ethics" section of the website, the statement doesn't seem likely to make anyone request an absentee ballot or mark election day down on the calendar: "I feel that I am a hard working American who believes that government and its services should always serve the people first. San Bernardino County has seen several cases of where government officials have placed the needs of companies and special interests ahead of the needs of the people. This is creating a level of distrust and cynicism of our elected officials that I feel needs to be drastically altered. I will work hard to earn your trust."

I'd say that Lewis' worried demeanor on the front page of THE SUN has more to do with law enforcement officials closing in on and shutting down his operations than on anything the Democratic Party is liable to throw at him.


FURTHER THOUGHTS: WITHOUT A ROBUST DEMOCRACY, CITIZENS BECOME DISCOURAGED AND DON'T BOTHER VOTING

Only 28% of eligible Californians turned out to vote in the primary. Maybe it was because the free-spending billionaire candidate for governor, Steve Westly, flooded the airwaves with unending, pounding negativity, just completely turning people off to the whole process. But even if that theory is true, it doesn't explain that Jerry Lewis' district had the lowest turnout of anyplace in the state. San Bernardino County was dead last of California's 58 counties: 20.8% and Riverside County was second worst with 21%. I've been scratching my head about how 43,527 people in the district decided to cast their votes in the uncontested Republican primary for Lewis. I mean, his family isn't that big. But then this morning I compared county numbers and I found something more interesting. Schwarzenegger got 69,274 votes in San Bernardino County. Lewis got 34,224. That means over 25,000 Republican primary voters who bothered to vote didn't vote for the guy who's been representing the district since the late 1970s. I guess that's a tiny step in the right direction.

Quote of the day: Oh Arnold, Arnold, Arnold . . . plus: Frank Rich beats up once again on those eternally stand-for-nothing Democrats

"Oh Arnold, Arnold, Arnold, you were doing so well."
—Huff's rich-bitch (no doubt arch-Republican) mother, played by Blythe Danner, as she paged through the Los Angeles Times in last night's episode of Showtime's Huff


HONORABLE MENTION—
Frank Rich dumps on the gutless Democrats again

"What's most impressive about Mr. Rove, however, is not his ruthlessness, it's his unshakable faith in the power of a story. The story he's stuck with, Iraq, is a loser, but he knows it won't lose at the polls if there's no story to counter it. And so he tells it over and over, confident that the Democrats won't tell their own. And they don't—whether about Iraq or much else. The question for the Democrats is less whether they tilt left, right or center, than whether they can find a stirring narrative that defines their views, not just the Republicans'."
—from yesterday's NYT column, "Karl Rove Beats the Democrats Again"

We'll be coming back to this subject. Actually, before we leave it, perhaps we ought to let Mr. Rich finish his thought:

"Those who are most enraged about the administration's reckless misadventures are incredulous that it repeatedly gets away with the same stunts. Last week the president was still invoking 9/11 to justify the war in Iraq, which he again conflated with the war on Islamic jihadism—the war we are now losing, by the way, in Afghanistan and Somalia. But as long as the Democrats keep repeating their own mistakes, they will lose to the party whose mistakes are, if nothing else, packaged as one heckuva show. It's better to have the courage of bad convictions than no courage or convictions at all."

MAIN SOURCE OF JERRY LEWIS BRIBES AND KICKBACKS COULD DRY UP AS LOBBYING FIRM SPLITS APART

Since buying the chairmanship of the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee, crooked lowlife High Desert congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) has been working overtime to appropriate everything he could get his hands on. Probably the most corrupt member of either house of Congress, Lewis is estimated to have illegally appropriated at least $12.6 million for himself. The key to all that wealth is his ability to control earmarks (in effect, grants) on legislation that comes out of his Committee. (Just so you know why this is a bigger deal than most run of the mill corrupt Republican congressmen, Lewis' little ole committee oversees close to a trillion dollars in government spending annually.)

So how has Lewis been getting his slimy mitts on the dough? It's not that complicated. His closest crony, a former fellow-corrupt Southern California congressman, Bill Lowery-- like Lewis, an extremely hypocritical right wing maniac-- is Lewis' bagman. You want to buy an earmark, you pay Lowery. Then Lowery kicks back to Lewis and his family members. Very simple. Lowery's Inside-the-Beltway lobbying firm, with a well-known, and well-deserved, reputation for being able deliver whatever its clients need from the Appropriations Committee, is called Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White. Or it was until last week.

They have billed millions and millions of dollars to clients seeking business arrangements with the government and the more the client pays, the better their chances are for a favorable outcome from the larcenous Lewis. Example: a couple of dozen government and community entities in Lewis' district have been strong-armed into hiring Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White in order to get favorable treatment from their own congressman! It is unbelievable that city and county governments have paid out over a million dollars in taxpayer money (in effect bribes) to Lewis via Lowery's firm. City and County governments and public utilities that have funneled bribes to Lewis through Lowery in the past year include: the City of Highland, $40,000; the City of Loma Linda, $20,000; the City of Murrieta, $40,000; the City of Redlands, $20,000 (the crook's own home town); the City of Riverside, $60,000; the City of San Bernardino, $40,000; the City of Twentynine Palms, $40,000; the City of Victorville, $120,000 (God only knows what was going on there!); the City of Yucaipa, $40,000; Riverside County, $120,000; San Bernardino Associated Governments, $60,000; San Bernardino County, $160,000; the Town of Yucca Valley, $40,000; Hi-Desert Water District, Yucca Valley, $40,000; Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Chino, $40,000; Inland Valley Development Agency, San Bernardino, $40,000; Lake Arrowhead Community Services District, $40,000; March Joint Powers Authority, $40,000; Mojave Water Agency, Apple Valley, $60,000; San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, $40,000; Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, Riverside, $40,000; Tactical Survey Group, San Bernardino, San Diego, $80,000.

On top of that, Lewis was also wringing money out of hospitals and universities that get federal assistance. The University of Redlands gave him a big fat bribe his bagman a nice lobbying fee of $100,000 this year. The St. Bernardine Medical Center pay-off was $80,000. The Hi-Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree kicked down $40,000 and the Cal State San Bernardino Foundation made sure the powerful local crime chief solon got a share of $120,000. Each individual contribution to the Lewis/Lowery crime operation might not be huge, but according to the Center For Responsive Politics, district taxpayer dollars that went into this neat little system of Lewis' was nearly $2 million dollars this year alone.

Of course, that's just chump change for the high flying Lewis, who has raked in millions more from private firms eager for government contracts and sweetheart deals.

But now it looks like the whole scheme is starting to fall apart. Lewis' close crony Randy "Duke" Cunningham is rotting in prison after admitting to accepting bribes. And in the last 2 weeks at least 7 of Lowery's clients from within Lewis' district have confirmed that they have received federal subpoenas seeking records relating to Representative Lewis and his lobbyist buds. The City of Redlands-- again Lewis' hometown-- has cut off all ties to Lowery's firm.

Lewis, of course, denies everything and says he knows nothing about any of this. When asked what he knows about Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White splitting apart, his terse, angry response was "Why should I know about it? I know no more about it than you do."

Apparently the two partners that have refused to participate in the criminal activities in which the firm specialized-- i.e., stuff relating to Lewis-- have left the firm to start a legitimate lobbying company. That would be Jim Copeland and Lynn Jacquez. The 3 Republicrooks left behind, now all under intense federal scrutiny, claim they are sticking it out and that everything is normal. That would be Bill Lowery, Jean Denton and the now notorious former Lewis employee Letitia White, aka- "The Republican Earmark Queen."

Nor is Letitia the only sticky-fingered Republican who had been shuttling back and forth between Lewis' office and the lobbying firm. Last week Joshua Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo exposed the sordid story of Jeffrey Shockey, currently the Deputy Staff Director of the House Appropriations Committee. What Marshall was kind enough to point out is that when Shockey went to work for the Appropriations Committee ("earmarks central"), he got a nice sending off present from Lowery: $2 million. Wouldn't you like to work for someone who took care of you so well when you quit your job? And not only that, but when Shockey quit to go back to work for Lewis, that sweet ole Lowery not only gave him the $2 mill, he also hired his wife Alexandra (another ex-Lewis employee). These Repugs sure take good care of each other-- with our money. Why just look how nicely Lewis' stepdaughter has been taken care of by Trident Systems, a defense contractor seeking to do business with Lewis' committee.

So why don't the good citizens of California's 41st congressional district rise up in disgust and give Lewis the heave-ho? Let's save that part of the story for tomorrow morning, ok?

WITH RESPECT FOR DAN RATHER

When R.E.M. released "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" in 1994 Kevin Laffey and I were working at Warner Bros Records. Now we're just 2 public-spirited citizens trying to give back to and do what's right for the country each of us loves. Recently Kevin turned me on to a great holistic dentist and we celebrated my happy new dental situation Friday with a lunch at my favorite raw food restaurant, the Jade Cafe in Silverlake. A few hours later Kevin copied me on a letter he had written to CBS-TV and 60 Minutes and when I prodded him, he said it would be ok to publish it on DWT.

Dear 60 Minutes and CBS News,

It is with disappointment and disgust that I read the news of the marginalizing and forced exit of Dan Rather from not only CBS News, but from 60 Minutes in particular. To replace a journalist of his stature with the current pop stars of entertainment reporting, Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper, is a sad testament to the deterioration of what was once the flagship of responsible reporting in America.

Whatever the internal politics are of the 60 Minutes production, however egos might have collided and with whom, more respect should be afforded for not only Dan Rather, but for the legacy of what he represents in the history of television news. I certainly hope that a public show of support for your colleague is being prepared for your audience. Although I would like to see Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl, Steve Kroft, Morley Safer, Bob Simon, Andy Rooney, et al walk off the show in protest, that kind of courage has all but left the arena of news reporting in this country. Instead of the allegiance to the Fourth Estate, allegiance has become more to the corporations that own "the news", the advertisers that own the corporations and the old political guard that dictates that news in the first place and who they deem safe enough to report it. Except for perhaps the unbridled frontier of the blogosphere, what has the Fourth Estate become after all in the age of the "(im)moral majority", but the State itself.

During the CBS Evening News which Leslie Stahl anchored tonight (June 16), that lack of courage was only too evident again. All the wonderful stories that Ms. Stahl, 60 Minutes and the CBS News division have reported in the past notwithstanding, a raging undercurrent of fear still runs deep in your editorial copy. A Republican bias hangs over each story like a pall, like a scythe. In a story on Bill Gates and philanthropy, the reporter used the term "liberal tree-hugger" pejoratively when speaking to a Christian activist. But even the word "activist" was apparently too strong as if even being an activist suggested something unsavory, something, God forbid, close to liberal. Instead, the reporter offered his guest a way to wriggle out of such a distasteful suggestion as an apology. Relieving the tension, you could almost hear the reporter sigh thankfully when she chose to refer to herself not as an activist and everything that word suggests, but as a "good neighbor". I think even Mr. Rogers would have gagged at the implication.

The media's demonizing of the words liberal, activist and even tree-hugger might benefit ad revenue in the short run, but in the long it is instilling in America's youth the notion that the ideas embodied by those words are inherently wrong and to use them is a shameful act. Shame on you, CBS, for allowing that mindset and for abusing the power you have for suggestion. It is the same abuse of power that the media used, yourselves included, to march a frightened American public over a cliff into the Iraq War like lemmings to the Bush Administration's beat. You could only wish that more of the populace of the United States should embrace liberal thinking, activism and, yes, the notion that hugging a tree is a healthy and loving thing to do now and then. To wit, I've included synonyms from the Merriam-Webster dictionary for the words Liberal and Conservative. Which of those would you be proud to be and which has left this country crippled with fear, extreme fundamentalism and shame in the eyes of the world?

LIBERAL
Synonyms - GENEROUS, BOUNTIFUL, MUNIFICENT mean giving or given freely and unstintingly. LIBERAL suggests openhandedness in the giver and largeness in the thing or amount given (a teacher liberal with her praise). GENEROUS stresses warmhearted readiness to give more than size or importance of the gift (a generous offer of help).

CONSERVATIVE
Synonyms - old-fashioned, orthodox, reactionary, traditional, unprogressive

Your treatment of Dan Rather has been indecent and shoddy. He deserved better than that as does the informed citizen. It drives one to find other sources for the news - unbiased news, not info-tainment as you would have it served up. Indeed, Edward R. Murrow must be rolling in his grave.

Sincerely,

Kevin Laffey
Los Angeles, CA

A TUESDAY AFTERTHOUGHT: CBS SLAMS RATHER ON THE WAY OUT

Maybe CBS hasn't gotten to Kevin's letter yet. Instead of honoring Dan Rather, they chose to slam him in their coverage of his departure. Classy!

Quote of the day: The trouble with Republicans? They've got no principles, and haven't had for most of a century—except maybe for this one

"Half a century ago, red was the nastiest cussword in the right-wing lexicon. Today it's the symbol of right-wing voterhood. Half a century ago, Republicans made great political hay out of a Democratic administration's having 'lost' the giant country they invariably referred to as 'Red China.' Today, they're all running eagerly to make deals with the same government to which we 'lost' it. That's the trouble with Republicans: They have no principles, and haven't had any for most of the last century. What they have instead, of course, is the love of weaponry, the desire to destroy, at whatever cost. Unmistakably, that's the unconscious agenda behind George Bush's unnecessary war in Iraq, and his new nuclear game of chicken with Iran. In the dark recesses at the back of the Republican mind, the lap-dissolve succession of mushroom clouds that closes Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove is the happy ending devoutly to be wished."

Wow!

it would be natural to assume that the writer of the above must be one of our leading political commentators. In fact, it's Michael Feingold, the lead theater critic of The Village Voice, reviewing a revival of Heinar Kipphardt's 1969 "documentary play" In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The play dramatized the 1954 hearings that sealed the public doom of the charismatic left-leaning physicist who oversaw the development of the atom bomb and then became a public pariah, not for his past political views, but for his growing horror at what he had done and his considered appreciation of the horror of nuclear weapons.

These days I read hardly any theater criticism--or music criticism or movie criticism. Not because I don't believe in the practice of these crafts, which in fact seem to me desperately important (although you could argue that considering the nature and quality of the current offerings, how important is it really to say anything about them?), but because the practitioners have become so abysmal. Not that there was ever a "golden age" of criticism, but it used to be that in every field there were a few people you could read and not come away dumber than you were before you read them.

Every once in a while, I do pick up a copy of The Village Voice—and I mean literally "pick up," since at least in New York you pick it up free, just like those free "shoppers" you get out in suburbia. As it happens, The Voice itself is another institution that once loomed large in my life but has sunk into near-irrelevance, so I rarely bother to route myself past one of the places where I can pick one up.

But the other day I did pick it up, and whenever I do, I remember that Michael Feingold is still writing theater criticism for the old rag. When I started reading Michael 30-some years ago, he was already distinguished by the depth of his knowledge of theater, his passion for the subject and understanding of its place in the world at large, and the incisiveness and readability of his writing.

Note that I didn't include in that summary anything about being "political," unless you count the part about his understanding of the place of theater in the world at large. Of course, if you're an engaged, sensate citizen of said world, it has to be the central subject of any art that's produced, and you can hardly help but be political. As you may have noticed from the opening of his review of Oppenheimer.

I hope you'll read the whole review, for the pleasure of seeing how an actual theater critic can work. For example:

"Tracing the hearings' path to this foregone conclusion [i.e., the panel's ruling that the Atomic Energy Commission had been justified in revoking Oppenheimer's security clearance], Kipphardt's play resembles a horrifying game of hide-and-seek. With the possible exception of Oppenheimer himself, all the characters know exactly how things must turn out. But the predictability is, in a sense, its own surprise. Watching while the government witnesses quibble, the prosecutors slant questions, the defense lawyers bitterly voice their sniping objections, we sit in an agony of tension, waiting for someone to speak out against the idiotic charade, to tell the government that it's wasting a precious human resource."

I should warn you, though, that if you read the review, and if you happen to be within striking distance of the play, you're likely to feel the need to see the damned thing—something that never happens to me with all those other phony-baloney theater (and music and movie) critics. Curse you, Michael Feingold!

BRIAN KEELER-- ONE OF US, ONE OF US

When people in Las Vegas stood and cheered the inspirational candidate asking for their support at Yearly Kos last weekend-- or listened to Sam Seder interviewing him on Air America-- there was more than a little pride. This was one candidate everyone-- the Russ Feingold backers, the Mark Warner backers, the Gore and Clark hopefuls and even supporters of DLC candidates like Biden and Bayh-- could agree on. But this candidate isn't running for president or for the U.S. Senate or even for a House seat. Nope, Brian Keeler is running for a state senate seat in an obscure upstate New York district. Why should anyone, outside of that district, care?

Glad you asked. People who have been reading Daily Kos and Firedoglake for awhile probably recognize the screen name NYBri as belonging to a well-spoken, forthright, engaging progressive, bursting with positive energy, enthusiasm, great spirit and abundant intelligence. That would be Brian Keeler and Brian is challenging a severely reactionary, entrenched Republican in New York's 41st senatorial district, basically all of Columbia County and most of Dutchess County. The last time Dutchess County elected a Democrat as state senator was 1910. That freshman state legislator, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, did well in Albany-- and... well, helped save America and the rest of the world.

The New York State Senate has been in GOP hands since the mid-1960's. Over the last decade it has allowed Governor Pataki to institute reactionary tax policies-- progressive income tax displaced by a virtual flat tax for the wealthy so that someone earning $40,000 a year and someone earning $40 million a year pay the same exact rate-- and other harebrained schemes that have severely hurt the middle and working class. Pataki is about to be replaced by a strong, unabashed, truly liberal governor, Eliot Spitzer, at which point New York should become what Brian calls "a shining beacon for progressive government and an example for the rest of the country."

In the last few years the 41st senatorial district has changed from deep red to purple to pretty blue. Although party registration is about equal, the last 4 years have seen a trickle towards the Democrats turn into a flood. Gore lost in 2000. Kerry won it in 2004. Local elections have started overwhelmingly favoring Democrats. This year Brian has no primary; Democrats and independents are firmly united behind him. The well-regarded Drum Major Institute For Public Policy rates each member of the New York State legislature based on key votes that measure commitment to the well-being of the middle class. Brian's GOP opponent, Steve Saland, scored a 36%/"F," one of the lowest ranked Republicans in the entire State Senate.

The 2 big issues in the race-- as they are all over the country-- involve local taxes and development. Don't roll your eyes. This stuff is critical for electing progressives. The public school system (which the Republicans would love to see whither away and die) is funded by property taxes-- which, as a response to Bush's and Pataki's grotesque financial policies, have had the clear and undeniable effect of making the rich richer and impoverishing the middle class-- and property taxes have exploded. State Republicans, like national Republicans, have lowered the taxes on the wealthy drastically, staggeringly, and pushed more and more expenses for essential services onto local governments while borrowing gargantuan sums of money to keep the state afloat. At the same time, Republicans encourage developers-- particularly the ones who pay them off with hefty campaign contributions-- to build willy nilly, providing further stress on infrastructure and local services.

"You're not going to stop development," Brian told us, "but development should be guided by the ability of our resources to sustain it, not by how much political power a developer's money can buy." [This is a message for district after district around the country, a message with which Democrats like Charlie Brown, Louie Contreras and Jerry McNerney in California, for example, can clobber Doolittle, Lewis and Pombo, 3 Republicans who have become immensely wealthy working with corrupt developers since they won their congressional seats. Ditto for Democrats running in Florida and Arizona and in almost any state where runaway development is stressing out the ability of local governments to cope.]

Howard Dean's strategy and DfA's strategy of building up progressives and the Democratic Party from the ground up, is absolutely crucial if our values and principles are ever going to get a shot at undoing the tremendous systemic damage that has been wrought by 8 years of Republican policies. No one explains more clearly than David Sirota in HOSTILE TAKEOVER how corporate, or Big Business, interests have simply bought the entire Republican Party and enough of the Inside-the-Beltway Democrats to ride roughshod over our very Democracy. Electing Democrats nationally can put the brakes on what Bush and his criminal regime are doing to our country. Nurturing and electing candidates like Brian is ultimately far more important. It's the only way to turn the mess around. He's one of us-- someone who sees the problems for what they are and dreams the dream of a fair and equitable America that we all have a stake in. The energy we are all feeling towards Ned Lamont and Jon Tester is the same kind of energy we should be feeling towards Brian Keeler. If you want to, you can donate to his campaign here.

Quote of the day: If Paul Krugman says he's not all that worried about inflation, that's good enough for me—only there's this can of soup . . .

"I don't fear inflation nearly as much as I fear the fear of inflation."
—Paul Krugman, in yesterday's newspaper

"I paid $1.89 for a can of plain, ordinary Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup????"
—a shopper who, er, would rather remain anonymous, to . . . well, let's say it could have been to that somewhat sympathetic-looking pigeon on the sidewalk outside the supermarket

For the record, the anonymous shopper wishes it known that the shelf price of the cream of mushroom soup was something like $1.59, he's pretty sure. But he had decided he was going to get the damned thing, and for once in his life he wasn't going to do a 20-minute should-I-or-shouldn't-I routine over the price. (Even Hamlet could make up his mind faster.) Then when the price came up $1.89, and he saw that the scanner seemed to have read the correct item, for once in his life he wasn't going to make a big deal about possibly being overcharged a lousy 30 cents.

(Actually, he doesn't often use fancy phrases like "a lousy 30 cents." Maybe he just figured that anyone who goes to the checkout counter prepared to pay $1.59 for a can of cream of mushroom soup might just as well pay $1.89. Think of it as a sort of "stoopid tax.")

The thing is, he had a really, really lot of leftover chicken. Hey, the previous week's sale had chickens for 69 cents a pound. He hadn't seen whole chickens at 69 cents a pound since . . . well, he couldn't remember when. It occurred to him that you could chunk up some of the leftover chicken on a nice bed of noodles, and with some kind of gravy or sauce you'd be in business.

He'd even mentioned it on the phone to his mother, and mentioned that he still had the drippings from the chicken to make a sauce with. Now, she's within days of her 87th birthday, and while her short-term memory, alas, if not exactly gone, has become alarmingly unreliable, when she talks about things that don't involve short-term memory she sounds pretty much like her actual self. And until she moved into a senior residence three and a half years ago, she was still cooking most of her own meals. So when she suggested how many things you can do with a can of cream of mushroom soup, it planted the idea.

(When he eventually told her how much he paid for the damned can of soup, she was flabbergasted, as he knew she would be. She said, "I wouldn't have bought it.")

He didn't use the mushroom soup with that particular chicken. As his mother still likes to say, "There are so many things you can do with chicken." And now, beyond keeping the can in the pantry for a nice feeling of security, he doesn't know when he can use it.

What do you do with a $1.89 can of Campbell's soup? He's thought about buying a display case for it—Andy Warhol may have been spoofing with his Campbell's-soup art, but he isn't. About the only way he can think of to use the damned can of soup is under the following precise convergence of circumstances:

(a) He's got a really, really lot of leftover chicken. And—

(b) He's got some nice noodles to put it on. And—

(c) He's got the queen of England popping in for dinner, and she's specifically said "not to fuss, just something from the fridge [or whatever she says for "fridge"] will be fine."

Or if not the queen of England, then maybe at least Professor Krugman.

CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS + SOME FAKE DEMOCRATS ISSUE ANOTHER BLANK CHECK FOR BUSH'S IRAQ WAR

I started this blog with a feeling of relief, saying that I couldn't complain about Nacy Pelosi and the Democrats not hanging together this time. With the exception of just 4 of the worst ultra-reactionary DINOs-- John Barrow (GA), Jim Marshall (GA), Charlie Melancon (LA) and Dan Boren (OK)-- the whole caucus voted against the GOP publicity stunt disguised as House Resolution 861: "Declaring That the United States Will Prevail in the Global War on Terror, the Struggle to Protect Freedom From the Terrorist Adversary." The Democrats were joined by Independent Bernie Sanders (VT) and by 3 anti-war Republicans, Walter Jones (NC), Jim Leach (IA), and Ron Paul (TX). The insulting resolution passed 222-194 because 218 Republicans have completely embraced the concept of being utter rubber-stamps for Bush's foreign policies. (In return he allows them to pillage the entire nation and steal whatever they can get away with; very cozy relationship.)

But I was wrong. That was actually just the enabling legislation to take up the matter. On the actual bill, the 4 DINOs were joined by 10 times that many Democrats! Although Jane Harman's brush with political mortality, courtesy of Marcy Winograd, kept her ass in check, all the regular fake Democratic Bush boot-lickers were there to join the GOP in endorsing the neo-Con plan for world destruction: John Barrow (GA), Melissa Bean (IL), Howard Berman (CA) who apparently needs a much stronger primary challenge next time, Marion Berry (AR), Sanford Bishop (GA), Dan Boren (OK), Barbara Boxer's favorite war-monger- Leonard Boswell (IA), Rick Boucher (VA), Dennis Cardoza (CA), Ed Case (HI), Ben Chandler (KY), Jim Cooper (TN), Jim Costa (CA), Jerry Costello (IL), Bud Cramer (AL), the Joe Lieberman of the House- Henry Cuellar (TX), Lincoln Davis (TN), Chet Edwards (TX), Bob Etheridge (NC), Bart Gordon (TN), Gene Green (TX), Stephanie Herseth (SD), Brian Higgins (NY), Tim Holden (PA), Ron Kind (WI), Rick Larsen (WA), Dan Lipinski (IL), Steve Lynch (MA), Jim Marshall (GA), Jim Matheson (UT), Carolyn McCarthy (NY), Mike McIntyre (NC), Charlie Melancon (LA), Dennis Moore (KS), Collin Peterson (MN), Mike Ross (AR), John Salazar (CO), Adam Smith (WA), Vic Snyder (AR), John Spratt (SC), Gene Taylor (MS), and Bennie Thompson (MS).

Although Democrats.com called the immoral 256-153 vote "yet another sign that a seismic shift in Congressional power is needed in November," there were far too many Democrats joining the GOP for the day to make this as clear-cut an issue as it should be. The claim that the Republican-controlled House passed the resolution saying "...it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq" and "…the United States is committed to the completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure, and united Iraq" is certainly true. But with 42 Democrats still clinging to their rubber-stamp status for Bush, the argument gets murky for the general public. What do the Democrats satnd for? That's a lot of Democrats opting to "stay the course," the disastrously, catastrophically failed course shoved down our throats by the war-profiteers and liars who utterly control the Bush Regime.

61% of Americans don't agree. (And that includes 85% of Democrats and 67% of Independents-- and this polling data was all taken after the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mega-media event.

Pelosi did really well in the "debate" but it was John Murtha who turned the tables on the callow GOP strategists, pointing out that there in no longer a real purpose for U.S. troops to be in Iraq. "
"There's less than 1,000 al Qaeda in Iraq but we're caught in this civil war between 100,000 Shias and 20,000 Sunnis fighting with each other... You know who wants us to stay in Iraq right now? Al Qaeda wants us there because it recruits people for them. China wants us there. North Korea wants us there. Russia wants us there. Stay and we'll pay, not only pay in dollars... I figure it took us through the Reagan administration to pay for the Vietnam War."

And Tom Lantos summed today's circus up most accurately: "The Republican leadership has turned what could have been a serious debate into a charade."

SANTORUM UNVEILS HIS LATEST DRAG OUTFIT & THE HOUSE VOTES ITSELF A FAT, SNEAKY PAY-RAISE

That revolting photo was pretty much the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning! Christy over at firedoglake e-mailed me the link around 6AM. No one should have to contemplate a photo of Rick Santorum doing his best Andy Bell impersonation-- on the floor of the U.S. Senate no less-- at 6AM. But the reason ole Man-On-Dog woke up yesterday morning and looked through his wardrobe and decided to get into that drag outfit wasn't because he thought it was Halloween. Nope, it was Seersucker Day in the U.S. Senate.

Yes, 2,500 American military deaths have now been reported from Bush's Iraq misadventure and the Senate decided to have a fancy dress party, instead of a serious debate about how to end the mess. House members, more openly-- even ostentatiously-- motivated by pure avarice decided to mark the occasion by giving themselves a nice fat raise.

Dana Milbank over at WAPO points out the resolution calling for the removal of most American troops by year's end never got off the ground. "It was difficult to take the senators seriously: A third of them wore blue-and-white striped suits in honor of 'Seersucker Thursday,' making the floor of the Senate resemble a Good Humor convention."

Not that it is ever easy to take Bill Frist seriously, he seemed even more idiotic that usual in his seersucker suit and white shoes spouting off mechanically that "If we were to cut and run bloody civil war would result." Before anyone could point out that bloody civil war has already resulted from the policies he has been relentlessly pushing, he scampered off the Senate floor and returned to his office, where free ice cream was being served to all. The rest of the senators soon left also since no one wanted to be late for the annual congressional picnic at the White House.

The House Republicans made sure everybody-- everybody in the House, not us, of course-- got a nice fat pay raise, despite the fact that we (their employers) hate them and think they're doing a really lousy job. Let's see... a $3,300 raise means each one of these crooks now makes $168,500. Jim Matheson (D-UT), a conservative who this blog has never once mentioned in a positive way before, actually tried to stop the raise from going through. No one joined him.

"I do not think that it is appropriate to let this bill go through without an up-or-down vote on whether or not Congress should have an increase in its own pay," he said. But by a 249-167 vote, the House rejected Matheson's procedural attempt to get even a direct vote on the pay raise, living breathing buckets of slime eager to cover their tracks so that the voters will never know who voted for a pay raise and who voted against it. They're so dirty and tricky. The annual "debate" on the members' raise is an insulting farce: both Democratic and Republican leaders coral sizable majorities of their sheep members to block any effort at real debate or accountability, and they make sure there is not a clear-cut vote on the measure. Neither corrupt Inside-the-Beltway party uses the pay-raise issue in campaigns.

Go watch the video of Congressman Lynn Westmoreland (GA-8) and tell me you think your tax dollars should be going to give this worthless lump of excrement a raise for the "job" he's doing. It is very, very difficult to find out who voted which way on this-- they make sure of that-- but I tracked it down for you. Let's look at the Down With Tyranny Hall of Shame Members-- the worst, most corrupt members of the House-- and see who voted themselves a pay-raise:
Joe Barton (TX)
Charlie Bass (NH)
Brian Bilbray (CA-- welcome back!)
Roy Blunt (MO)
Henry Bonilla (TX)
Mary Bono (CA)
Dan Burton (IN)
Ken Calvert (CA)
Eric Cantor (VA)
Barbara Cubin (WY)
John Doolittle (CA)
David Dreier (CA)
Phil English (PA)
Tom Feeney (FL)
Mark Foley (FL)
Jane Harman (CA)
Katherine Harris (FL)
"Doc" Hastings (WA)
John Hostettler (IN)
Steny Hoyer (MD)
Darrell Issa (CA)
Ernest Istook (OK)
Steve King (IA)
Peter King (NY)
John Kline (MN)
Joe Knollenberg (MI)
Jerry Lewis (CA)
Jim McCrery (LA)
Gary Miller (CA)
Bob Ney (OH)
Mike Pence (IN)
Richard Pombo (CA)
Deborah Pryce (OH)
Howdy Doody-looking Nimrod Putnam (FL)
Jean Schmidt (OH)
Tom Tancredo (CO)
Ellen Tauscher (CA)
Heather Wilson (NM)
Al Wynn (MD)
Don Young (AK)

The Pennsylvania state legislature pulled the same kind of stunt last year. You remember what happened? Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer and Senate Majority Leader Chip Brightbill, two particularly sleazy and notoriously dishonest Republicrooks were defeated in their primary races! And a dozen other Republican state legislators also lost their seats. Good precedent! If every person on the above list were defeated, America would be a much, much better and safer and more equitable place.

Oh-- and I almost forgot-- Republicans didn't just dress up like imbeciles this week, eat ice-cream and go to picnics at the White House. They also turned down a Democratic proposal for a small increase in the minimum wage, at the same time they were wondering what to buy with their own raises. Nice touch!

DRUM MAJOR INSTITUTE HONORS THE HEART AND THE SOUL AND THE CONCEPT OF BLOGGING

Elana Levin blogs (among other things) for the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in NYC. She asked me if DWT could help spread the word about DMI's annual benefit-- they are giving Markos a Drum Major for Justice Award on June 22nd. Seeing as she blogs herself, I told her to send me a post about it. and she did. I hope you'll learn as much from reading it as I did.


Why Kos is like DMI and Why DMI likes Kos

I'm one of those lucky people that got to attend the Yearly Kos conference as part of my job. I had a conversation with a journalist at the conference who asked me what I thought about Markos and Jerome now authoring books and appearing on TV. "Does that mean that bloggers just want to be print journalists after all? Is blogging just a training ground for the major leagues? "

I explained (patiently) that Kos still blogs all the time. And then I got into my real point. Which is, to bastardize and misuse the Marshal McCluhan line,  the medium is the message.
Blogging is intrinsically different from print journalism. Blogs transform a formerly one way message machine by enabling grassroots activist to leverage their collective power to pressure the traditional media to cover what they should be covering any and to pressure their elected leaders to um.. lead.

Blogging is inherently more populist than reporting because there is a discussion between the blogger and the audience. The audience becomes the writers too.  The blog poster and the commenters craft the message together and ideas come from that interaction. Blogs are by nature more democratic in that way (though doing things like rescuing diaries is important to preserving that).

You guys know this. That's why you blog. You've probably even read Peter Daou's jaw-droppingly good analysis THE TRIANGLE: Limits of Blog Power which shows how blogs can be leveraged to create progressive political change. Now here's the connection: next Thursday the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (my homebase) is honoring Markos with our Drum Major for Justice Award. He's being honored along side Anna Burger and Wynton Marsalis. Last years honorees were Arianna Huffington and Harry Belafonte. Yeah, the Harry Belafonte that's been on the front lines of the civil rights movement since before it had a name.

So why on Thursday, July 22nd in NYC is the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy giving Kos an award named after a Martin Luther King speech? (Btw tickets are still available and less than half price if you are under 30)

Ok here's why: More than anyone else online Markos has empowered countless "lay-people" to weigh in on the issues of the day right along side the so-called experts. By opening up the blogosphere to the public at large Markos helped promote a whole new platform for insightful voices fighting for change. Some of these bloggers spun off to make their own mark on the blogosphere and the world at large - one immediately coming to mind would be David NYC.

So Kos is about bringing the insight of folks outside the beltway to the table. That's a lot like what DMI is doing with our DMI Fellows program. A lot of the experts that reporters and policy makers go to for ideas are academics, or media celebrities. DMI wanted to empower voices from outside the ivory tower to weigh in on public policy.

So who are these upstarts and what do they know? Our fellows are all grassroots organizers with proven track records of creating social change and impacting policy. But as you've probably noticed, the voices of grassroots organizers are often excluded from the debate; DMI's Fellows program gives these grassroots leaders the research and communications support they need to weigh in on the policy that they deal with everyday. They know these policies from first-hand experience. By bringing these voices to the debate we have helped impact policy outcomes, impact the public discussion and there is even more to come.

So DMI understands why Kos's work in the blogosphere is important for creating change. When policy is made in a vacuum it rarely reflects the way things work on the ground. We need new voices in the policy debate that had been excluded in the past. Both Kos and DMI are all about that and that's why we are so excited to honor Kos.

And heck after totally rocking Meet the Press I think the netroots can pat ourselves on the back for showing that the spokespersons we develop can deliver a sharp message too!

Even after Yearly Kos a lot of people still don't understand the netroots.  But then there are still some people who think the earth is flat and that raising the minimum wage leads to fewer jobs. But I do think the reason why some people still don't "get it" about blogs is because they don't understand how something can exist that is so horizontally constructed rather than top down. When the idea of people power is alien to you, it's hard to understand the blogosphere, or Kos, or why a think tank in NYC that was born out of the civil rights movement and brings grassroots voices to the table would be honoring Kos.

So join us if you can on Thursday and promote people powered policy.

Didn't anyone tell Enron crook Skilling's shysters that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas? (Of course, they still collected $40M.)

Okay, it's Schadenfreude, but is there any law against it? It seems that Enron ex-crook-in-chief Jeff Skilling just can't break the habit of stiffing folks he does "business" with:

"To the list of employees, investors and businesses who suffered financial misfortune in Enron Corp.'s demise," writes Carrie Johnson in today's Washington Post, "add this one: the law firm defending former chief executive Jeffrey K. Skilling.

"Los Angeles-based O'Melveny & Myers LLP, which has represented Skilling on both civil and criminal charges since 2001, collected what in a typical case would be a fat payday: $23 million from its client and $17 million more from his insurance policies.

"But, true to form, Enron is still destroying financial expectations. Even before the trial began in January, Skilling's team of more than 20 lawyers, paralegals and support staff burned through those funds, leaving the law firm holding the bag for 'multiple tens of millions' of dollars in unpaid fees and expenses racked up during the four-month trial, Skilling's lead defense lawyer said. While Daniel M. Petrocelli declined to provide an exact tally, one source put the price tag at more than $25 million on top of the $40 million O'Melveny already collected."


SATURDAY UPDATE: SKILLING IS STILL ALIVE AND NO ONE KNOWS WHERE ALL THE STOLEN MONEY IS

Awaiting an October sentencing, serial criminal Jeffrey Skilling of Bush-Enron has been shopping a story about contemplating suicide after he was caught stealing millions of dollars from the publicly traded company. Needless to say, right-wing propaganda sheet the Wall Street Journal bit. Had anyone asked DWT we would have just reminded him that it is never too late and that a Republican rotting corpse always makes for a more compelling story.

Quote of the day: Europig bosses learn from their U.S. counterparts how to hog the trough—plus Fratboy George and Nino Scalia are, er, themselves

This was a tough one.

• For starters, I'm still thinking we need to talk about an item I already passed over yesterday: fratboy bully Georgie Bush's imbecilic "God, I'm so hip" hectoring of the reporter in "shades" who turned out to suffer from a degenerative eye disease that causes blindness and involves extreme sensitivity to sunlight. Yeah, the asshole apologized, but this still seems to me a vivid example of the crippling dysfunction of a fundamentally defective brain.

If at any time in your life you have any thought of paying even occasional visits to reality, you're supposed to begin to learn early on—I don't know, like when you're seven or eight?—that what's right in front of your eyes is often not what you at first think it is, and in fact is often quite the opposite of what the brain assumes when it's either totally blank or guided only by unprocessed prejudice and "common sense"-based misinformation.

This is the beginning of the journey toward basic human awareness. As the inspirational educator John Holt put it, "A child has no greater desire than to make sense of the world around him." Unless, apparently, something has happened to override or derail that desire.

• Then there's the Supreme Court's Alito-abetted decision to dismantle the police knock-and-announce rule. But Howie has already covered that, so it slips to honorable mention. (See below.)

• Which leaves us with the report by Geraldine Fabrikant in today's NYT: "U.S.-Style Pay Deals for Chiefs Become All the Rage in Europe."

"For decades," writes Ms. Fabrikant, "Europeans were far more restrained than Americans when it came to rewarding the boss." While they still have a long way to go to catch up, she reports that executive Europigs have made large strides:

"European bosses are increasingly winning pay packages that were unimaginable just five years ago.

"'Here in France, greed has been legalized,' said Pierre-Henri LeRoy, who heads the French advisory firm Proxinvest. 'Executives compare themselves to the market in the U.S., not India, when they plan their compensation.'"


HONORABLE MENTION—
Upholding no-knock police entry, Nino Scalia says: So sue!

Still, for sheer groanworthy, "Is this how it begins?" pit-of-the-stomach horror, I don't think you can top the New Imperial Supreme Court Majority's 5-4 decision that the old rule requiring police to knock and announce their presence before entering your premises is for sissies.

At issue was the question left unanswered in the 1995 ruling by Justice Clarence Thomas—on behalf of a unanimous Court, in Wilson v. Arkansas—which held that the centuries-old knock-and-announce rule, grounded in English common law dating back to the 13th century, is indeed enforceable as part of what makes a search "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment but ducked the question of what exactly the remedy for violating it should be.

Now No-Brain Nino Scalia, writing for the New Imperial Majority, says hey, the rule was never any big deal, and anyway now, unlike in the old days, police are so well trained that they always respect everyone's rights. (Apparently, it seems, our Nino doesn't decide everything based on the original intent of the framers.) And while yeah, the ya-gotta-knock rule is still on the books officially, if you're some whining crybaby who thinks the cops have done you wrong, well, you can always sue. Heh-heh.

I think today's NYT lead editorial, "The Don't-Bother-to-Knock Rule," got it right:

"If Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had stayed on the court, this case might well have come out the other way. For those who worry that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will take the court in a radically conservative direction, it is sobering how easily the majority tossed aside a principle that traces back to 13th-century Britain, and a legal doctrine that dates to 1914, to let the government invade people's homes."

ALITO ACCELERATES THE SHREDDING OF THE CONSTITUTION-- COURTESY OF JOE LIEBERMAN AND OTHER BIG BUSINESS-OWNED DEMS

It could only have surprised a complete dullard-- the same people who were surprised to find out that the Bush Regime was lying about weapons of mass destruction and about Saddam Hussein's participation in 9-11-- but today Sammy Alito struck. He was put on the Supreme Court to gut the Constitution and he came through with flying colors today.

In a 5-4 reversal (post-O'Connor), the Supreme Court decided that judges cannot throw out evidence collected by police who have search warrants but do not properly announce their arrival. As of today it is a lot easier for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting, a sign of the court's new conservatism with the extremist right wing Alito replacing the conservative O'Connor.

How did this radical wingnut get on the Supreme Court. Well, on January 30, 2006 (at 4:40PM) Democrats had one chance to turn back Bush's radical agenda of twisting and shredding the Constitution. Had the Democrats stayed united, this could have been achieved. But they didn't. You can probably guess which Democrats decided to vote against the interests of their constituents on that day and join the radical right in making sure the Supreme Court would have a solidly extremist majority, probably for decades. You want to guess who the traitors were?

First and foremost, of course, was Bush's favorite Democrat whatever he is now: Joe Lieberman, who couldn't wait to send e-mails to Connecticut voters telling them he had voted "No" on Alito-- after he had guaranteed that Alito would be confirmed for his Big Business and GOP allies by voting "Yes" on cutting off debate (cloture). Other Democrats joining Lieberman were all the usual suspects: Max Baucus (MT), Tom Carper (DE), Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), both the horrible Nelsons (FL & NE), Mark Pryor (AR), John Salazar (CO), plus a few other Big Business sellout Democrats emboldened by these traitors.

COLBERT INTERVIEWS THE DUMBEST MAN IN THE U.S. CONGRESS

Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) has one of the worst voting records of anyone in the House of Representatives. He is tied for dead last on every single category of Big Business kiss-up, everything that has to do with destroying public education, everything related to fair taxes, family planning, health care, housing, human rights and civil liberties, impartial justice, fairness for working men and women, and everything to do with war and peace. His voting record is stunning. A former crooked real estate developer he's among the 25 most extremist right-wing radicals in the entire Congress. Before being elected to Congress in a freak accident in 2004, he had been referred to as a "braying jackass" by the Speaker of Georgia's House of Representatives.

Now he represents Georgia's 8th congressional district, south of Atlanta through Macon and Warner-Robbin and south and south and south. He's been in cahoots with all the big players in the Republican Culture of Corruption, taking dirty money from DeLay, Boehner, Blunt, etc. He's been a quintessential do-nothing rubber-stamp imbecile for the last 2 years but is eager to continue doing nothing and making good money for it.

Today he gave his Democratic challenger, Mike McGraw some hilarious ammunition. Somehow he wound up on the Colbert Report-- apparently his staff members are as swift as he is-- and John Amato has the whole amazing episode on CROOKS AND LIARS. He looks so stupid-- especially when he's advocating abolishing the Department of Education-- on the video that it makes one feel that this is a put on. But it's real and it enshrines Colbert as one of the greatest interviewers of all time. The best part of the interview is when Colbert reminds him that he sponsored a bill to display the 10 Commandments in public buildings. When Colbert asks him to name them... well, watch the video over at John's place.

PATAKI TRYING TO ACT LIKE A PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER

The New York State Republican Party is literally falling apart. I was born and raised in New York and I can't remember it ever being in the dire circumstances it is in now. All the New York Republican politicians are at each other's throats. The only thing that everybody seems able to agree about is that it's all Pataki's fault. According to the newest SUSA polling, Pataki's popularity with his state's voters is right down there at the very bottom of the list with the most detested Republicans in the nation: Bob Taft (OH), the only one already convicted of a crime and the only one with approval ratings rivaling Osama bin-Laden's, Frank Murkowski (AK) Roy Blunt (MO), Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA), Bush crony Mitch Daniels (IN), and, of course, Ernie Fletcher (KY), the only one who has been indicted-but-not-tried-yet. Great company-- and well-deserved. 37% of New Yorkers approve of Pataki's job performance.



So... he seems to think he should run for president (since he's still smarting from Bush passing over him for Secretary of State and picking his tutor instead). Why would someone who is considered to have done a completely miserable job as New York governor, leaving the state and his party in chaotic shambles, think the nation would want him? Especially after 8 miserable years of George Bush. Your guess is as good as mine-- particularly if you're guessing he's looking for a future Cabinet position or at least an ambassadorship above the Andorra or Fiji or Paraguay position he may have earned. Nevertheless, today's Des Moines Register reports that he's been able to recruit a gaggle of Iowa political operatives.

Yes, no one has ever accused him of not having some wealthy supporters willing to let him waste their money-- especially because he has delivered so mightily for them over the last decade or so. He has been able to rent Iowa's former State Senate GOP leader, Stewart Iverson, as Iowa chairman of his PAC. And, if that weren't enough, Pataki managed to snag (or get snagged by, depending on your perspective) Ed Failor, Jr, executive vice president of Iowans for Tax Relief (probably a better name that what it really is-- Iowans Wanting To Make Sure The Rich Pay No Taxes). Pataki also signed up Benton County Republican Chairman Loras Schulte and 2 party activists/yentas, Diane Crookham-Johnson and Jo Ellen Hill.

Tomorrow Pataki will be in Iowa again (his 6th visit since he decided to make believe he's running for president). Saturday is the state Republican Party convention and besides Pataki, Iowans of the far right persuasion can expect to see an assorted parade of loons and nitwits. George Allen, another kook with no chance to become president but who is desperate to find a new job, will be there for sure.

NEIL YOUNG ISN'T THE ONLY CANADIAN SINGER WHO HAS LOST FAITH IN GEORGE W. BUSH. PEACHES PROBABLY APPEALS TO A DIFFERENT CROWD THOUGH

If your idea of a sexy singer is a white bread, lump of plastic wind-up doll like Britney Spears, you may not get aroused by 39 year old Canadian performance artist Peaches. I first came in contact with her a few years ago when I was doing a fund-raising auction for People For The American Way. Madonna gave us a signed platinum record award. Neil Young signed a guitar for us. Green Day gave us the handwritten lyrics to one of their songs. Krist Novaselik offered to take the high bidder for a day of flying on his self-piloted airplane. There were hundreds of wonderful items and we brought in nearly a quarter million dollars. But I think the oddest donation of all was Peaches' contribution. She gave us a shot glass, etched with a Confederate flag, and encrusted with her own dried menstrual blood. Bidding was intense and it brought in a couple hundred dollars.

In a couple of weeks Peaches, who lives in Berlin, releases her third album, IMPEACH MY BUSH. The album is an electro-rock masterpiece, with guest appearances by Joan Jett and Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, but it is unlikely to get much airplay. Nevertheless, this could well be a breakthrough year for the innovative and unique singer. She made a huge splash at the "Bring 'Em Home Now!" concert in NYC a couple months ago. And you can expect to see her as the opening act for the tour of the year: Nine Inch Nails and Bauhaus.

Please check out her web site where you can see her video of "Kick It" (which she did with Iggy Pop) and listen to some more of her music. Meanwhile, here's a sample of "Fuck or Kill," which will be forever called "Impeach My Bush" by (mostly college) djs intrepid enough to play her music-- but not suicidal enough to risk losing their station's broadcast license.

Dubbed the highpriestess of electroclash Peaches is an Air America fave (well... a Janeane Garofalo fave). None of her singles, "Lovertits," "Set It off Song," "Rock Show," "Kick It" (the one with Iggy), "Operate" or "Shake Yer Dix" has gotten much airplay in the U.S. She's much better known overseas. Here's a compelling clip of Peaches performing "Tombstone, Baby." Sort of takes the idea of "cat fight" to a scary new level

WHO'S THE HOTTEST MAN IN POLITICS?

"Hot" isn't the first word that comes to mind when you think of politics-- at least not in terms of "sexy." I think of guys who look like a composite of Denny Hastert, Curt Weldon, Bill Frist and Jeb Bush when I think of what politicians look like. But Ron Gunzburger's Politics1 is finishing up a readers' poll to find out who the hottest man in politics is. It ends tonight at 9PM (Eastern). Ron's readers either prefer Democrats or he just couldn't find any attactive Republicans to offer up. (I mean South Dakota's John Thune? Hot? 11% voted for him and he was the only Repug to jump out of single digits.) Anyway, it appears that the winner will be a Democrat, either Albuquerque City Council President Martin Heinrich (currently at 20%), Sam Brooks, a DC City Council candidate (at 19%) or Nebraska congressional candidate Scott Kleeb (who's at 18%)

I don't know anything about the 2 City Council guys. But Kleeb is a conservative Democrat (in the most Republican districts in a deep, deep red state). He's a Democrat who, if, by some miracle, he wins against the drooling neo-fascist he's running against, can be expected to vote with Democrats around half the time. That's better than none of the time. But DWT support for November will be focused on Democratic challengers who can be expected to fight for basic Democratic and progressive ideals, values and principles 100% of the time-- like Donna Edwards, Jerry McNerney, and Ned Lamont. Now that's HOT!

Quote of the day: If the investigation is over, since we know Karl Rove did leak gov't secrets, President Bush has to say, "Karl, you're fired!"

It really couldn't be simpler. As Rachel Maddow pointed out on her Air America Radio show yesterday, the apparent end of "Prosecutor Pat" Fitzgerald's investigation of "Bush's brain," Karl Rove, is actually good news.

Maybe it's a shame that Prosecutor Pat either couldn't match our Karl's deeds to the fine print of an appropriate statute or else didn't feel he had enough evidence to prove a case to a criminal jury. The fact is that, as a result of his investigation, we know now as a matter of record, beyond any possible doubt, that our Karl did leak Valerie Wilson's secret CIA identity.

We also know beyond any doubt that the lying sack o' shit lied about this to a grand jury. Sack-O gets probable perjury and obstruction of justice as a freebie, though. The fact remains that, just by being caught leaking that secret stuff, according to the president's own several-times-repeated standard, he's out. No ifs, ands or buts.

Remember, the only thing that has kept Sack-O on the government pad is the infinitely repeated mantra of the "ongoing investigation." Rachel played a mind-numbing collage of Flack-O Scott McClellan's infinite refusals to answer any questions about Sack-O on account of the "ongoing investigation."

Well, it was Sack-O's very own personal shyster lawyer who succeeded in extracting a letter from Prosecutor Pat stating that Sack-O Walks! Well done, Sack-O's Shyster! You've cleared the only remaining obstacle to having Sack-O heaved out on his monumentally fat ass.

So now it's time for Sack-O to face the music. Dum-de-dum-dum. It's clear that there's no possibility except that the very next words out of the mouth of George W. Bush must be:

"Turd Blossom, you're fired!"

ARE CHUCK SCHUMER AND JOE LIEBERMAN LEAVING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY? GOOD RIDDANCE!

So many music business big shots came from Brooklyn. I never could figure that out. And from my neighborhood too! We had a lot of politicians from my neighborhood. Would you believe it if I told you that the once-Jewish-now-more-consciously-upwardly-mobile Norman Coleman (R-MN) went to my elementary school? We were co-secretaries of our class. Far less of a stretch is New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer. We both went to James Madison High School; Ken (KenInNY) too. Ken still lives in NY and has told me Schumer has been a good senator. Ken is really smart and if he says so, I'll suspend disbelief. But one thing Schumer has not been is a good head of the DSCC.

Oh yes, he knows how to raise money. That's what he's always been best at. It just sticks to his palms. If you wind up at a party with him, empty your pockets before you leave your home and leave your credit card there too. But a good DSCC head? He has saddled us with an anti-choice social conservative who gratuitously endorsed Sam Alito's nomination for the Supreme Court to run as "our" candidate in Pennsylvania against Santorum. He manipulated the Ohio primary in so disgraceful and underhanded a way as to drive out one of the two excellent candidates, Paul Hackett, and demoralize thousands of Ohio Democrats who would gladly have supported either victor in the primary but will now sit the race out, possibly throwing it to the corrupt Republican scumbag Mike DeWine. He attempted to do the same thing in the Tester-Morrison primary, had his ass handed to him by independent-minded Montana Democrats, and now tries to tale credit for Tester's overwhelming victory over the DLC/Shumer hack! But, my friends, there's worse yet to come... much worse.

A couple of hours ago the National Hotline reported that Chuckie announced that "the DSCC 'fully supports' Sen. Joe Lieberman in his primary bid, and he refused to rule out continuing that support if Lieberman were to run as an independent. [So now people being asked to contribute to the DSCC-- something I urge you never, never, never to do-- know that their donations might not go to support a legitimately chosen Democrat but could easily go to a corrupt crony of a gaggle of corrupt senators who don't give a rat's ass about the actual Democratic Party, just about their own miserable, needy, undeserved careers.] There were degrees of independence, Schumer said. 'You can run as an independent, you can run as an independent Democrat who pledges to vote for Harry Reid as Majority Leader.'"

Like Lieberwhore's word is worth anything at all??? (Well, maybe there's honor among thieves, which explains why Schumer has come to the hated Bush-supporting Lieberman's defense.) Now today the sleazy walking turd from Brooklyn said claimed he had neither sought nor received assurances from Lieberman that an independent bid would not ensue if Ned Lamont tightened the
noose." But when my bud Pach interviewed Schumer for firedoglake this is the question he (presciently) posed to the lowlife NY Senator:

"I hate to harp on this, but this is something that is big in the blogosphere. If the race does tighten, and Ned Lamont does make it a race, how committed is the DSCC to committing resources to Senator Lieberman since Senator Lieberman hasn't committed to running as a Democrat?"

And what did slimy Schumer say to Pach? "I think Senator Lieberman has committed to running as a
Democrat to us. That's me, and he has to Senator Reid." Schumer's a liar. No one should ever believe a word that comes out of his mouth.

During the run-up to the Connecticut state convention, delegates received mailings from Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton-- and Obama gave a laudatory speech for Lieberman a couple weeks earlier. At that time, Lieberman promised them that he wouldn't jump ship in exchange for these (fairly worthless in a Crashing The Gate world) endorsements.


UPDATE: JIM DEAN, A CT RESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF DFA SENDS AN OPEN LETTER TO SCHUMER, LIEBERMAN AND OTHER RENEGADE BELTWAY DEMOCRATS

An Open Letter to Beltway Democrats
 
I am disappointed that Senator Lieberman has refused to rule out leaving the Democratic Party to run for re-election as an Independent. I plan to support the winner of the Democratic primary for Senate in August because I believe that Democrats need to stand together in November. All Democrats, both inside and outside the Beltway, must do the same. We can't afford to divide ourselves-- too much is at stake.
 
I hope you will join DFA, Ned Lamont, and thousands of other grassroots Democrats by pledging to fully support the winner of the Democratic primary on August 8th.
 
Respectfully,
Jim Dean
Chair, Democracy for America

Schumer needs to be replaced as head of the DSCC as soon as possible. We need a loyal Democrat in that position. His attitude is outrageous and beyond the pale. As my friend Matt pointed out in an e-mail this morning, people in New York don't know what a bad guy he really is. People think he's a true blue progressive; he isn't. He serves on the board of advisors for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, along with Lieberman-- as well as other neo-Con freaks like Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Zell Miller, Steve Forbes, etc. Thank God Eliot Spitzer is rising in the NY politics as Schumer goes into morbid decline!

RUSS FEINGOLD ANNOUNCES HIS NEW PROGRESSIVE PATRIOT: JERRY McNERNEY (GREAT CHOICE)

I think the last time I got something from Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriot's PAC it was a plea for money for a "moderate" Democratic incumbent, Leonard Boswell of Iowa. (Boswell is certainly moderate compared to drooling fascist scum like DeLay and Cheney and Pombo, but reactionary if you look at how he actually votes on key Democratic core values issues. I'm sure he's a wonderful man (if Russ says so) and I have no doubt that any Republican who replaces him will be immeasurably worse. But with so many great progressives in need of scarce financial assistance-- progressives who will vote to preserve a woman's right to choice and to protect endangered minorities and to stand up for consumers and workers against Big Business and who will vote against Bush's harebrained neo-Con schemes-- why send some to Establishment Democrats who are... well, frankly, just "better than a Republican." I hope he wins. But my money goes to Donna Edwards and Ned Lamont and Jon Tester and Jerry McNerney. And today Russ Feingold's also goes to Jerry.

Today's e-mail from Feingold's Progressive Patriot PAC was far more welcomed news.

The Progressive Patriots Fund announced Jerry McNerney as the winner of “Pick a Progressive Patriot: YearlyKos,” a special round of its popular online voting event. McNerney is challenging Rep. Richard Pombo in California’s 11 District.

“This round of the ‘Pick a Progressive Patriot’ was a huge success,” Feingold said. “Over 50 candidates were nominated from 24 states, but in the end McNerney received the most support from a very enthusiastic group of bloggers and online activists.  We are happy to send $5000 to the McNerney campaign and we thank everyone who participated in this round of “Pick a Progressive Patriot.”

Voting took place this past weekend at the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas, as well as online across the country. This was the fourth round of “Pick a Progressive Patriot.”

Other top vote getters, who will receive financial support from Feingold’s Progressive Patriots Fund are:
John Laesch (IL-14)
Charles Brown (CA- 4)
Eric Massa (NY - 29)

Past candidates named “Progressive Patriots” are John Courage (TX-21), Bill Winter (CO-06) and Rich Olive (IA-5 Senate District).  Next week Feingold will launch his fifth “Pick a Progressive Patriot” online voting event, this time focusing on some of the excellent Democratic candidates for Governor across the country.

I've maintained a bucket for Russ' Progressive Patriots PAC at the DWT ACT BLUE Page and, of course, I also have a bucket for Jerry, money that goes directly to his campaign-- 100% of it, none for me and none for Leonard Boswell, Joe Lieberman, or anyone else who supports George Bush's anti-democratic agenda.

DID THE HOWARD DEAN REVOLUTION JUST HIT THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION? SANE MODERATE DEFEATS NUTCASE FASCISTS FOR PRESIDENCY!

"This election is about the people being heard."
"It's no longer kingmakers; it's the people."

Does this sound like your and your friends talking about Howard Dean's race against a bunch of old-line boss-backed hacks to head the DNC? This probably doesn't.

"I am more excited about the Southern Baptist Convention today than I have ever been in my life."

The man who made these remarks is Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma. And the ocassion was the upset election of outsider Frank Page as president of the Southern Baptist Convention over two candidates closely tied to the SBC's ultra-conservative power structure. In a major victory for "grassroots Baptists"-- and even blogging Baptists!-- Page took 50.48% of the vote on the first ballot-- just 65 more votes than necessary for a first ballot victory. "Every Baptist counts," beemed Burleson who claims the election is "a turning point" in Southern Baptist life-- toward more openness and inclusiveness.

The far right extremist who was being pushed by Paige Patterson and the elitist crowd who have dominated the SBC leadership and hand-picked virtually every president since 1979, received just under 25% of the votes, a clear reflection of "grassroots dissatisfaction with officers who direct the SBC's work but offer little financial support to its central missions budget, the Cooperative Program. Page's church contributes 12.1 percent of its 2005 undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program. Floyd's church gave 0.27 percent of undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program in 2005 and an additional 1.6 percent to other SBC causes" and the other far right kook who was also defeated, leads another church that have nothing to the Cooperative Program.

Frank Page is 53 and he said he intends to rebuild the Southern Baptist Convention as a more open organization. In an attempt to reassure the drooling loons and revent a schism he announced that he has no intention of "trying to undo a conservative movement that I have supported all these years." But he warned that he intended to appoint leaders who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible but who also have "a sweet spirit... I'm an inerrantist-- I believe in the word of God-- I'm just not mad about it."

This is huge news. I don't think they have the Ann Coulter/Dick Cheney/Fred Phelps/Rush Limbaugh model in mind when they talk about "a sweet spirit." Rove must have been not paying close attention to have allowed this MAJOR engine of the entire fundamentalist movement slip into the hands of a genuine moderate more concerned about God's work than a partisan political agenda.

HAS LIEBERMAN LOST HIS MARBLES? OR IS THERE SOMETHING BEHIND THE TREACHEROUS SENATOR'S ODD BEHAVIOR?

Joe Lieberman has undermined the meaning of membership in the Democratic Party for years and has led a small, completely Inside-the-Beltway, elitist and divisive faction (the DLC) which has done nothing but muddy the waters of party affiliation. And now, finally challenged by an actual Democrat, Ned Lamont, who is campaigning on straight-forward Democratic Party values and principles, George Bush's favorite Democrat, is cracking up-- really cracking up. As more and more Connecticut Democrats are getting familiar with Joe Lieberman and his voting record, he is rapidly losing ground to Ned Lamont. Lieberman's fragile ego hasn't been able to handle it and he's lashed out innapropriately... some would say insanely.

Last week Lieberman started running widely ridiculed and majorly deceptive advertisements accusing Ned of... being a Republican. A friend of mine in Hartford, a clinical psychologist, called me yesterday evening and told me she had never seen a clearer case of projection in her career. "It has really torn into his psyche over the last month that more and more Democrats have seen him categorically exposed as a traitor. Everyone knew he was Bush's #1 ally when it came to the brutal occupation of Iraq but now everyone is connecting the dots and seeing that Lieberman is just a Republican in disguise. People who weren't sure who Sam Alito was last month now know that it was because of Lieberman's plotting with the GOP that he was confirmed as a Supreme Court Judge. So what does he do? He accuses Lamont of exactly what he is and what has made people dislike and distrust him: being deceitful and being a Republican."

Yesterday Lieberman's bumbing campaign manager, Sean Smith, a right-of-center political consultant/hack, admited to a talk show host on WSTC/WNLK in Fairfield County that Lieberman has no intention of supporting Ned if Ned wins the August 8 primary. Ned, of course, has announced that he will support the will of Connecticut Democrats and support whomever wins the primary.

Old line Lieberman operatives and cronies are urging him to abandon the Democratic Party-- whch has did long ago except in name-- and run as an "independent." Ironically, Lieberman is popular with Connecticut Republicans but not with independents. One of his harshest critics, in fact, is independent former Governor, Lowell Weicker. But not as harsh as Jane over at firedoglake.

It is just so pathetic.  But Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid better be thinking about what they plan to do if in fact this isn’t a feint and it happens, because they know WE’LL be banging the war drums over it.

I love Ned, I back Ned because it’s the right thing to do, win or lose.  But Lieberman’s actions are those of a desperate man.  His internal polling must just SUCK.  Things look better and better for Lamont every day, and I hope every Senator who ignored our faxes and voted for cloture on Alito gets a little shiver when they watch what is happening to Joe.  This is not "all about the war" as Joe’s cheerleaders would position it.  It’s much bigger than that, and they should know it by now.

10AM UPDATE: THE UNDERDOG VS THE LAPDOG

At some point wily old Joe is just going to not want to get out of bed in the mornings anymore. Today's HARTFORD COURANT was probably not a welcome addition at Chez Lieberman today.

In the battle between the Underdog and the Lapdog, the evidence mounts that the Joe Lieberman camp has not only lost touch with the senator's home state but with reality, too. Those folks have been in George W. Bush's pocket so long they're even talking like him now. Seeking to lambaste Ned Lamont, Lieberman's primary opponent, the senator's staff and admirers reach into the Bush-Cheney-Coulter playbook. No less a light than Sean Smith, Lieberman's campaign manager offers the bizarre, Orwellian, Bushian assault on the foe: [...] Personal villification being the GOP order of the day, it is of little surprise that it rubs off on Lieberman's pals as well. Christopher Droney Jr., the former Democratic state chairman, goes the Coulter road to smear anyone who doesn't kowtow to Lieberman as Lieberman kowtows to the White House as part of the Bush-Cheney-Lieberman Axis of Eerie. The forty percent and growing people, all hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them, who dare to wonder about Lieberman are slandered as terrorists-- the old Bush ploy of attack attack attack, call names, brand them as enemies, not opponents. "I think to be terrorized through the summer by an extremely small group of the Democratic Party, much less the voting population, is total insanity for a person who is a three-term senator," Droney said the other day, speaking to the entitlement that his man Lieberman somehow enjoys.

And speaking of news unwelcome at Chez Lieberman! The new Rasmussen polling numbers came out this morning and Holier-Than-Thou Joe's negative momentum is continuing unabated. Every single day, as they campaign around the state (and as Lieberman's vile, negative, patently false ads run), Ned Lamont gains support and Lieberman loses more and more support. The new Rasmussen Report shows a narrowing 6% gap between the recently unknown Lamont and the 3-term/all over Fox Nooze Senator-- 46% to 40%. A friend of mine who works for a cowardly U.S. Senator who had his arm twisted into endorsing Lieberman, told me Lieberman is the most hated Democrat inside the Democratic caucus and not only will no tears be spilled if Lieberman loses but that it will spark the biggest party-- at least on the Democratic side of the aisle-- in 20 years.

Quote of the day: Bushbrains may be easy targets, but someone has to take them on—Jon Stewart tackles the latest babbling Bushboob

You like to think that nothing that the people in the current administration (otherwise known as "our government") say or do can surprise you anymore, but every day yet another of those heckuva-jobbers crawls out of the woodwork to boggle your brain.

You must have heard about the comment offered by Deputy Asst. Secretary of State Colleen Graffy in response to the three inmate suicides at Guantanamo. "Certainly, taking their own lives was not necessary," she said, "but it's certainly a good P.R. move to draw attention."

Pause. Let's all try to catch our breath.

Okay now, care to field this one, Jon Stewart?

JON STEWART: [Really jazzed] It's she-zazz, baby! They're like the Barnum and Bailey of suicide guys!

[More sober now] I don't think that's a P.R. move. You know what? An Al Qaeda bomber dressed as a wolverine parachuting in the world's largest shwarma* [on-screen graphic depicts this scene], that's a P.R. stunt. This seems more depressing.

[*Wikipedia defines shawarma (or shwarma) as "a Middle Eastern-style sandwich usually composed of beef, chicken, turkey or lamb."]

In fairness, even though the Bush administration doesn't believe in science—or fairness, for that matter—perhaps Deputy Assistant Secretary Graffy's hypothesis deserves testing. How about this? Who's in more desperate need of "good P.R." than the Bush administration? No one, right? So we find a few patriotic political appointees to off themselves, preferably on live TV, and see how well it works.

Was that your hand up, Madam Deputy Assistant Secretary?


HONORABLE MENTION

Since we've already descended into utter boobery, can Bill O'Reilly be far behind? You like to think that nothing that the old loon says or does can surprise you anymore, but . . .

As everyone knows, our Bill has demonstrated time and again that he will go to any length, to the end of the earth if necessary, to become even more plug-ignorant than he already is. Friday it was a jolly fact-obliterating jaunt down to sunny Guantanamo. The Daily Show had this story too:

JON STEWART: Now it's unclear whether the prisoners committed suicide as a political statement or simply because they'd lost the will to live. There is, however, a third explanation.

Video clip of OUR BILL: Just hours after I left the prison at Gitmo last Friday, three detainees committed suicide.

Now settle down, people. You think this comedy business is so easy, let's see you come up with a punchline worthy of a slow-pitch lob of a straight line like this.

Here's what Jon came up with: "I can't believe they lasted that long after an O'Reilly visit." Okay, let's be generous and call this maybe a clean single up the middle. But surely a pitch like this deserves to be smacked out of the park.

I'll bet someone out there can give it a proper whack. Any takers?

EVERYBODY HATES RICK SANTORUM-- HE'S PRACTICALLY THEIR LIEBERMAN (AT LEAST IN TERMS OF DISDAIN)

Screwball right-wing extremists in Pennsylvania are clamoring for blood-- Rick Santorum's. Santorum may be is the most radically right senator north of the Mason-Dixon Line but to the lunatic fringe, the heart and soul of Bush's 29% approval rating, Santorum isn't conservative enough! And they're not gonna take it anymore!

Today HUMAN EVENT'S Jason High, in a story called "Disillusion Republicans Leave Santorum In Perilous Position for November," writes that "Republicans are likely to look at Rick Santorum and his past betrayals, shrug their shoulders and walk away. There's a feeling of 'no compromise' right now that Santorum is going to have a hard time overcoming... Beyond Santorum, there are other lessons to be taken from Pennsylvania right now. The Republican Party has drifted from its base conservative values. Voters in Pennsylvania are holding elected leaders accountable, and national Republicans can expect a similar day of reckoning. The revolution in Pennsylvania was not over the pay raise, although that surely was the catalyst. The targeted incumbents also voted for tax increases, oversaw huge expansions of government, and had become entrenched, abusive, and self-serving. Sound familiar, national Republicans?"

And the loons are ready for war-- against... everyone. "Republicans need to stop regurgitating Ronald Reagan's famous 11th Commandment, 'Though shall not speak ill of another Republican,' and instead focus on the principles and beliefs that shaped Reagan's entire career. Most notably, Republicans should take this Reagan quote to heart, 'A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs, which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell numbers. ... And if there are those that cannot subscribe to these principals, then let them go their way.'

Go! Go! Go!

Of course in Pennsylvania they don't have all that much to lose when Casey defeats Santorum in November, as virtually 100% of political pundits expect. Casey is nearly as reactionary as Santorum on a wide range of social issues and his future votes in the Senate are more likely to anger and frustrate naive progressives than right-wing extremists. But if High and his pals think the far, far, far right of the Republican Party is so strong and riled up right now, why don't they go after Olympia Snowe, Mike DeWine, and Tom Kean who are practically Maoists compared to Santorum?

Down With Tyranny Books & Music

A PROGRESSIVE HEROINE IN MARYLAND: DONNA EDWARDS TO CHALLENGE BIG BUSINESS DEM AL WYNN FOR CONGRESS

On June 3rd, when we talked about the role of primaries in holding wayward Dems' feet to the fire, Paul Lukasiak left a suggestion that we look into and get to know Donna Edwards NOW (Paul's emphasis). "One reason I didn’t wind up giving to Winograd last week was that it would be 'late money' to a candidate whose chances were indistinct… With limited funds, I’d much rather send in 'early money' to establish a candidate’s credibility as soon as possible." OK, let's give it a shot. Today's awesome, grassroots, progressive Democrat is Donna Edwards.

Maryland's 4th congressional district is just east of DC, stretching from north of Germantown down past Hillcrest Heights. People think of the district as Prince George's County, although it also contains a hefty chunk of Montgomery County. It's a majority African-American district and is one of the bluest districts in the entire country. Even though it is fairly affluent by national standards, Bush still only drew 21% of the vote in both 2000 and 2004. Al Wynn has been the congressman since 1992 and he wins by margins nearly as lopsided as Gore and Kerry did.

Although overall his voting record indicates a garden variety moderate Democrat, all too often when Wynn has had to choose between Business interests and the interests of consumers and workers, he comes down firmly on the side of Big Business, especially if we're talking about the kinds of big businesses that are generous with campaign contributions. Wynn's record of consistent support for corporations is out of line with most Democrats in the House. He often votes with the Republicans on issues effecting energy industries and was one of the disgraceful batch of Democrats that joined the GOP to vote yes on the odious and blatantly unfair bankruptcy bill and FOR repealing the Estate Tax. He was also the lead Democrat in trying to gut the Shays-Meehan bill banning soft money from politics and was one of the minority of Democrats in the House who supported Bush's unjustified attack on Iraq.

In short, Wynn is a business-friendly hack with the kind of sketchy voting record you could expect from a Democrat in a red-leaning or toss-up district. His district has more government employees than any congressional district in the entire country. He never has to fear being displaced by a Republican. What he does have to fear, on September 12, is being displaced by a progressive Democrat.

Donna Edwards officially launches her campaign Thursday (June 15). In a message to residents of the 4th CD she explained why she is running against Wynn:

Some people will ask, why run against an incumbent Democrat in a Democratic district? The answer is simple. Our current representative in Congress consistently votes against the interests of ordinary Americans, casting his lot with Bush and the Republicans on such critical issues as Iraq, the industry lobbyist-written energy bill, and the bankruptcy bill.
My record is one of leadership on these issues. I listen to people, not special interests. And in Congress, I will work tirelessly for the common good.

Record? She has a record? She sure does! After realizing her career dreams lay in the direction of public interest advocacy, she co-founded and served as the first executive director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, giving battered women legal and political support they had lacked as a class. She helped pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, providing comprehensive funding for shelter and services for victims of domestic violence and their children, something that has been targeted for extinction by Bush and his rubber-stamp Congress. She has been very active in citizen-initiated efforts to reform the grotesquely anti-democratic campaign finance system and lobbying laws, first with Public Citizen and then as the executive director for the Center for a New Democracy. Since 2000 she's been the executive director of the Arca Foundation and she's made a great reputation for herself working with grassroots groups to support living wage campaigns, to reinforce the importance of an independent judiciary, on protecting Social Security and supporting labor and human rights internationally (the only way to guarantee that so-called "free trade" is also "fair trade").

When it comes to Wynn, who Donna supported in 1992 when he first ran, she explains her disappointment. He "was one of only a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus to support the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq as well as all subsequent spending. He has led efforts to bring casinos to the district. He voted for the Republican energy bill, to weaken the Endangered Species Act, drill for oil in Alaska’s protected land, and give billions of dollars in tax breaks to the oil and gas companies. He sided with the Republicans and the pharmaceutical companies on drug policy, the credit card companies on the bankruptcy bill, and just recently, he joined the telecommunications industry in supporting privatizing the Internet. The money his campaign has received reveals these new alliances. We haven’t left Albert Wynn; he’s left us."

When I spoke with Donna a couple of days ago she told me that for her to win against an entrenched incumbent like Wynn, voters have to see her as authentic and as someone who wants to represent their interests in a meaningful way. She's lived and worked in the district for 25 years and has put together a potent grassroots network of people in the district who are not content with the current leadership and who have diverse interests, from the war to the environment to transportation, development and economic issues. "Al's changed substantially since he's gotten into Congress-- and not for the better for this district." She says he was a decent state senator and had been open to listening to people, Now, for everyone I talk to familiar with Prince George's County, all I hear is that Al is a boss who gives orders and that he is deaf to the people in the district. That's certainly reflected in his voting record. Donna says there is "no level of accountability" and that she wants "Al Wynn to run on his record because his record is deplorable."

If you already understand why progressives are so heartily in favor of Ned Lamont's primary campaign against Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, you will have no trouble in understanding why progressives need to get behind Donna's campaign. When he last reported, Wynn had $377,919 on hand. Unlike most Democrats, his PAC contributions came overwhelmingly-- and not surprisingly-- from Business (79%) rather than Labor (20%)-- a disparity that has grown markedly since he was first elected. His stance against net neutrality has guaranteed that the big telecoms will continue to fund his career and his pro-corporate activities on behalf of the energy and pharmaceutical companies will keep the "contributions" rolling in. To combat that, Donna has people interested in good government, like us. Most of us don't write $2,000 checks... but there are a lot more of us than there are of them. In a race like this, small contributions, if made by enough people, will give Donna a chance to get her message out to Maryland residents, many of whom have no idea that their Democratic congressman votes with Republicans again and again and again.

She is on track to topping the $200,000 goal she set for herself by the end of this month. Unlike most grassroots candidates I've talked with, she has taken a leave of absense from her job so that she can run a full-time campaign. Talking about Marcy Winograd's valient campaign against Jane Harman, Donna says it took "a lot of courage and that Marcy was one of only a few around the country." She believes that progressives can successfully challenge incumbents like Wynn and that what voters are craving are "clarity and authenticity and not double-talk."

An old friend of mine who lives in Prince George's County is excited about the campaign. He phoned me today and told me that "everybody has Joe Lieberman; I have Al Wynn." And now he has Donna Edwards-- and hope.

First 10 donations for Donna thru the ACT BLUE Page get an autographed copy of David Sirota's brilliant new book, HOSTILE TAKEOVER. AND... we have a matching offer as well, for the next 24 hours, Zach, a fellow progressive from Portland, Oregon, has agreed to match the Donna Edwards contributions up to $1,000. That means whatever you give is doubled. Zach actually does work in a highly sensitive job for the military helping protect our country from attack. When he offered to match the donations for Donna he told me he's "just a