MACACAWITZ THUGS BEAT UP VIRGINIA BLOGGER, MARINE CORPS VET. MEDIA LABELS HIM A PROTESTER AND HECKLER

I didn't want to write about this today. But the Washington Post should be ashamed of whoring itself out to the GOP smear machine again. And this time their victim is a friend of mine who I was on the phone with last night, Mike Stark, a blogger, a UOV law student a father and a former marine who is a patriot who loves his country and has served it honorably. When he was set upon by paid George Allen thugs and savagely beaten, the Post head-lined it as Allen Supporters Wrestle Heckler To Ground. The paid Allen thugs are "supporters." The blogger in the media area is a "heckler" and the savage beating is a little wrestling?

The headline writer is certainly a scum-sucking tool but the 2 reporters aren't so fabulous either. "A Democratic activist who verbally confronted [when they ask a question of a politician in a media area it's also called a verbal confrontation? Or is that just for bloggers?] U.S. Sen. George Allen (R) at a campaign rally in Charlottesville today was shoved, put into a chokehold and thrown against a window by three men wearing Allen stickers, according to a widely disseminated video of the incident."

The Post also gave space to the absurd charge that this was orchestrated by Webb and the Democratic Party to embarrass Macacawitz, who has certainly proven over the course of this campaign that he needs no help from anyone in embarrassing himself. I wonder why Macacawitz and the Post didn't just blame Bill Clinton.

You can read a more reasonable and factual account at Crooks and Liars, where Mike is an occasional contributor, and you can watch the video of what actually happened for yourself.

Mike's letter to the media:

Oct 31, 2006

The following is a letter to NBC29 from Mike Stark, the man who was tackled for a comment he made at Senator Allen's campaign stop in Charlottesville on Tuesday.

My name is Mike Stark. I am a law student at the University of Virginia, a marine, and a citizen journalist. Earlier today at a public event, I was attempting to ask Senator Allen a question about his sealed divorce record and his arrest in the 1970s, both of which are in the public domain. His people assaulted me, put me in a headlock, and wrestled me to the ground. Video footage is available here, from an NBC affiliate.

I demand that Senator Allen fire the staffers who beat up a constituent attempting to use his constitutional right to petition his government. I also want to know why Senator Allen would want his staffers to assault someone asking questions about matters of public record in the heat of a political campaign. Why are his divorce records sealed? Why was he arrested in the 1970s? And why did his campaign batter me when I asked him about these questions.

George Allen defends his support of the Iraq war by saying that our troops are defending the ideals America stands for. Indeed, he says our troops are defending our very freedom. What kind of country is it when a Senator's constituent is assaulted for asking difficult and uncomfortable questions? What freedoms do we have left? Maybe we need to bring the troops home so that they can fight for freedom at George Allen's campaign events. Demanding accountability should not be an offense worthy of assault.

I will be pressing charges against George Allen and his surrogates later today. George Allen, at any time, could have stopped the fray. All he had to do was say, "This is not how my campaign is run. Take your hands off that man." He could have ignored my questions. Instead he and his thugs chose violence. I spent four years in the Marine Corps. I'll be damned if I'll let my country be taken from me by thugs that are afraid of taking responsibility for themselves.

It just isn't the America I know and love. Somebody needs to take a stand against those that would bully and intimidate their fellow citizens. That stand begins right here, right now.

W. Michael Stark

Why would Felix Macacawitz hire thugs to behave that way? Allen's own siblings have long recounted how he has always been a violent psychopath and natural born terrorist. The fish rots from the head:

CHARLIE RANGEL SUGGESTS THAT CHENEY SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP

The Bush Regime has used Cheney as the scary asshole figure for at least 4 years-- after kindly, brilliant elder statesman image failed dismally; it's supposed to make Bush look better by comparison and also stave off would be impeachment enthusiasts. It doesn't work and everyone I know wants a simultaneous impeachment. Now, as they are threatened with devastating electoral losses in both houses of Congress, they're eager to demonize other people. And Cheney, of course, has been leading the charge.

He picked a lively one to attack today, someone who isn't laying down and allowing himself to be run over: Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel. The idea is that when Democrats take over the committee chairmanships-- which is, after all exactly what the majority of Americans want to happen-- Democrats will do... what? Things that reactionaries and fascists abhor? That's the idea. These guys don't seem to understand that the overwhelming majority of Americans see them as abject failures in everything they've done and that it's time to start the long and arduous process of cleaning up after them.

Charlie Rangel is part of the cleaning up crew, along with a score of other mature, capable, experienced members of Congress, many of whom are not motivated by the naked personal greed of Republicrook leaders like Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Jerry Lewis, Denny Hastert, Roy Blunt, Bob Ney, Dirty Dick Pombo, Charles Taylor, Curt Weldon, John Doolittle, Don Young, Tom Feeney, Duncan Hunter or fueled by bizarre and authoritarian ideologies like Tom Tancredo, Mean Jean Schmidt, Jim Sensenbrenner, Marilyn Musgrave, J.D. Hayworth, Barbara Cubin, John Kline, Michael Sodrel, Steve King, Patrick McHenry, Lynn Westmoreland... You want to think scary... just go over the voting records and public pronouncements of this gaggle of psychos and so-far unindicted criminals (other than the handful who have already been indicted).

Of course, move to the Executive Branch, home of Cheney and Bush and their gang and you move up a few notches-- from "Duke" Cunningham stealing commodes or even Jerry Lewis stealing millions to actual crimes against humanity. But Dick Cheney, a man who ought to be turned over to the International Court of Justice along with the main gangsters running this Regime, is trying to frighten people by claiming Charlie Rangel doesn't understand the economy and would wreck when the Dems win in 7 days!

Rangel blasted back and reminded people that Cheney-- with the lowest approval rating of any known person in America other than Paris Hilton-- is a "son of a bitch." (He's also the husband of one but that's been covered elsewhere this week.) According to today's New York Post "The bitter war of words escalated to the point where the bombastic Rangel even questioned whether the tightly wound Cheney needed professional treatment-- and mocked him for accidentally shooting his hunting buddy earlier this year."

The bombastic Cheney lied his ass off over at CNBC, claiming that "the stock market" wouldn't like it. Well, fact of the matter is, the stock market will love it. Markets always do better-- much better-- under Democrats than under Republicans. No doubt bottom of the garbage can reactionaries like that Kudlow asshole won't like it but he's been so far off base about everything that it's difficult to fathom how even the GOP propaganda outlets still take him, or make believe they take him, seriously. (Here's the actual data, that neither Cheney nor a trained propaganda monkey like Kudlow can alter: under Democratic presidents the Dow Jones Industrial Average has historically gone up by 7.19% while under Repug presidents it has risen 3.85% and when Democrats lead Congress the market has gone up by 6.46% while when we are burdened with GOP leadership in Congress markets go up by 3.51%. Historically the worst-case scenario has always been a Repug President with a Repug-controlled Congress-- like now-- and the Dow averages an anemic gain of 1.54%. Two more FYI's-- Dem pres/Dem Congress: up by 6.53%; Repug pres/Dem Congress: up by 6.37%. So the question remains-- is Cheney a lying sack of shit or ignorant or both?)

Anyway, back to the always entertaining NY Post, By the time Cheney had scurried over to Fox, his home away from home, he was declaring "Charlie doesn't understand how the economy works." Interpretation-- Rangel won't continue the fiscally irresponsible and catastrophic BushCheney policies of taxing the middle class and letting the ultra wealthy off the hook.

Rangel, who has already famously pointed out that Bush shattered the ole meme of white racial superiority, suggested that Cheney seek some kind of "rehab" for "whatever personality deficit he may have suffered. When you have those sorts of problems, you're supposed to seek help."

WHY SHOULD YOU VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS (PLUS GOP GIVING UP ON MORE SEATS)

People who believe in progressive values and principles have no electoral choice but to work with the Democratic Party, even with all the flaws of the Inside the Beltway careerists like Rahm Emanuel. The alternative... well, we've just had 6 years of the alternative and there is no reason to believe that it won't get worse. Much worse. My friend John Beug just sent me two video clips that show why we need to vote Democratic a week from today. One defines "liberal" and one defines "conservative." Take a look. Which are you?





While that sinks in, chew on this: ABC News just reported that the Republicans have given up on three more hopeless seats they've been contesting. No money Republican corporate bucks for OH-18 (Bob Ney's handpicked successor Joy Padgett), or CO-07 (end of the line for Bush-bud/wingnut Rick O'Donnell; can you say "Congressman Perlmutter?"); and, alas, they have stopped flushing resources down the Curt Weldon toilet in PA-07.

LOOKS LIKE THE FEDS ARE WAITING UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION TO ARREST CURT WELDON AND HIS DAUGHTER

I bet you didn't know I do a travel blog too, did you? I haven't been working on it lately because of all this election stuff. But I can't wait to start writing about Tierra del Fuego, which is where I'm going right after we take back Congress from rubber stampers and crooks like Curt Weldon.

One of the trips I took in the last few years was to southern Italy and Sicily. I spent a month driving south from Rome; really loved it. I used to live in Austria-- boring-- and I would drive into northern Italy at every opportunity. Later, in the music biz, I had to visit Milano all the time for... hehe... work. And vacations... well not much beats Tuscany. So southern Italy was a really new and different experience. I haven't written about it at the travel blog yet. So why bring it up at DWT? Glad you asked. On the way down to Sicily we stopped in Portofino. In the summer it's crawling with Europe's elite and they all stay at the astronomically over-priced Hotel Splendido. Even in the dead of winter, with service much-curtailed, it's hideously over-priced. I can't believe I wasted my money staying there.

Pennsylvania's most crooked congressman, Curt Weldon, didn't waste his money staying there. American taxpayers and Italian businessmen, eager for his patronage, picked up his expenses. According to today's New York Times "In November at the five-star Hotel Splendido overlooking the harbor in Portofino, a playground of the Italian rich, Representative Curt Weldon was the center of attention. The second-ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Weldon was a main speaker at a conference sponsored in part by the Italian military giant Finmeccanica. At the gathering of Italian, British and American political leaders, Mr. Weldon, of Pennsylvania, spoke on behalf of Italian arms makers who were seeking a bigger share of Pentagon contracts. Taxpayers paid for Mr. Weldon's stay. He received a $1,153 daily expense allowance from the federal government and flew over on a military jet."

Although the Justice Department won't confirm they are now looking into Weldon's sleazy dealings with the Italian arms maker, they do acknowledge they are "looking into whether he used his position to steer almost $1 million in consulting contracts from a Russian energy company and other Eastern European interests to a lobbying firm headed by his daughter Karen, 31. Her home and her office were searched two weeks ago by federal officials. Law enforcement officials said they were examining a wide variety of Mr. Weldon's connections with foreign companies..."

It was Weldon, who is one of Congress' most skilled crooks at extracting bribes from foreign businesses, who helped Finmeccanica to land the $1.7 contract to build the next presidential helicopter (Marine One). And his bag-woman daughter was, of course, the conduit of Weldon's pay-offs, just like with all his other recent criminal bribery dealings. "Mr. Weldon's relationship with the Italians has been mutually beneficial. His daughter Kim, 29, a former social worker, was hired by AgustaWestland, the Finmeccanica subsidiary that won the Marine One contract, shortly after her father's speech in Portofino. Kim Weldon's work is to set up booths at trade shows and perform public relations. AgustaWestland said the timing was coincidental. Ms. Weldon, through a company spokesman, declined to comment." Nice.

And it didn't stop there. Employees of the Italian conglomerate were asked to help funnel at least $20,400 into Weldon's campaign coffers. (Those are the "legalish" bribes; make sure you distinguish between the ones congressmen allow themselves and the ones that land people like Randy "Duke" Cunningham and, soon, Weldon, in federal prisons.)

Aside from hiring his no-talent daughter, the Italians also hired other friends and contributors of Weldon's in gratitude for his work on their behalf. (Note: Weldon is supposed to be working on behalf of his congressional district, not on behalf of Italian arms manufacturers. He has never registered as a lobbyist for foreign governments, although that is what his main preoccupation has been for over a decade.) "Finmeccanica says that it has not been contacted by the Justice Department but that it is worried. In a letter last week to Il Sole 24 Ore, the company said about Mr. Weldon. 'The connection between the investigations related to the person and Finmeccanica is harmful to the image of the Finmeccanica Group.'"

Just an FYI, Admiral Joe Sestak, has been embraced by PA-07 and will be elected to Congress by a wide margin a week from today. Curt Weldon will spend the next several years in prison with his pals Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, Tom DeLay and at least a dozen other Republicrooks who have been caught with their fat fingers in the cookie jar.

Quote of the day: Chimpy the Prez proves there's no God, at least not one with a lick of sense. How else could he keep on spewing such lying drivel?

"However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."
--you-know-who, to (according to the Washington Post) "a raucous crowd of about 5,000 GOP partisans packed in an arena at Georgia Southern University"

Six years into the nightmare that is the Bush administration, I find it useful to continue pointing out periodically something that Howie pointed out about our Chimpy before he took the oath of office: that he is the unluckiest person on earth. If this seems counter-intuitive to you, it did to me at first as well, since plainly everything he has can be attributed only to luck. (He certainly hasn't achieved anything through either talent or hard work.) But when you look closer, you see that everything he has ever done has failed, usually colossally. True, he has never (that I know of) paid the price for his screw-ups. In fact, he has more often than not been richly rewarded for them.

But the fact remains that his whole life, virtually everything the man has touched has turned to doody. And as Howie pointed out way back when, this is a helluva track record for a person who is about to become president of the United States--opening up the possibility (likelihood?) that his continuing streak of disasters becomes our streak of disasters.

Which I think pretty well sums up the history of this sorry-ass administration. Looked at this way, the unbroken record of catastrophe is just more of the same. Looked at this way, for example, it should have been easy to answer the question of whether we wanted a man whose very existence is a monument to failure to lead us into war.

So when our Chimpy talks about losing, he knows whereof he speaks, from a lifetime of it. The final irony is that he doesn't know that he is the world's foremost expert on failure. It is his--and the country's--misfortune that he has been surrounded by people with a financial interest in making believe that his failures, each grander and more humiliating than the one before, have been successes, even triumphs. If the results for the country hadn't been so devastating, it might almost be amusing.

TIME TO THROW THE RASCALS OUT... IN PENNSYLVANIA

People keep telling me I'm doing a good job. This morning the good job I did was to wake up and find a comment on my blog from Lee Nelson of Wyndmoor, PA. Lee took our Blue America theme song, "Have You Had Enough?" and adapted it to the situation on the ground in Pennsylvania with a cool video everyone in the keystone state should be watching. Please take a look and if you know anyone in Pennsylvania, let them know about it. It's for them.

PLEASE LET THIS BE THE LAST I EVER HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT KATHERINE HARRIS

I wish people would stop asking me to write about Krazy Katherine Harris. Dead; finished; fork was stuck in... months ago. Yes, she finally jumped out of the 20's in polling and is now at an all-time high of 30% against conservative Democrat Bill Nelson. She's peaked. And she still hasn't been arrested for the bribery charges pending against her. But her antics aren't that funny anymore. More sad than funny, actually.

Anyway, the Polk County Democrat, as well as a number of shoppers, have bucked the Florida trend and endorsed Harris. The 22 daily newspapers in the state, on the other hand, have all ganged up on Krazy Kathy and not endorsed her.


This has been another in a long string of really bad weeks for the drugged up Harris. It started when her gay valet made the papers, having admitted to a sexual relationship with Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist. And then a couple of one-two punches from the two last remaining dailies to have not endorsed Nelson-- both Republican stalwarts. Both the Orlando Sentinel and the Florida Times-Union joined the other 20 dailies in the state in letting their readers know that voting for Krazy Kathy would be... well, paraphrasing a little, just plain crazy.

I really hope nothing else happens between now and November 7 that makes me report on this race and that the next time I mention her on DWT is to report that she lost with the worst margin of anyone ever running for the U.S. Senate on a major party ticket.


UPDATE: KRAZY KATHY THREATENS TO WRITE A TELL-ALL BOOK


Last night when I was posting this, I said to myself, "Self, do you think this crazy tranquilizer-addled bitch will ever write a book and tell how she stole the 2000 election for Bush? You know, sweet revenge?" I figured... nah; they'd kill her and she'll be in prison or a mental institution soon anyway-- with even less credibility than she has now. But, according to today's Washington Post that ain't stoppin' her: "Katherine Harris, who is trying to become a U.S. senator, says she is writing a tell-all about the many people who have wronged her. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to: the Republican leaders who didn't want her to run, the press that has covered her troubled campaign, and the many staffers who have quit her employ, whom she accuses of colluding with her opponent. She is vague about what, precisely, makes her a victim, but she says she has it all documented."

Maybe I'll be writing more about the nutcase afterall.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MARILYN MUSGRAVE? IS THIS THE UGLY FACE OF AMERICAN FASCISM?

Musgrave must be panicking. Blue America heroine/goddess Angie Paccione-- with no help whatsoever from the anti-grassroots DCCC-- has pulled out ahead of Musgrave in the latest polls. Angie is now beating the wicked witch by 3 points and Angie has all the momentum. Jacquie reminded me that the new polling data is concurrent with the Blue America radio spots being up all over Musgrave's district. We'll keep running them until late Tuesday afternoon, November 7. Thank you everyone who helped by donating money for the "Time To Throw Musgrave Out" radio ads at our Blue America PAC. If you would like to contribute to Angie directly, here's the place.

Meanwhile, I'd like to invite you to sit back and watching a thrilling little docudrama starring America's most vicious member of Congress, Marilyn Musgrave herself. Watch how this self-satisfied, entitled turd treats people and how much she cares about her constituents. And don't miss the fascist thug at the end. These Repugs know they're all washed up and, boy, are they pissed off.

BARABRA CUBIN TO CHALLENGE ALL POLITICAL OPPONENTS TO MUD-WRESTLING MATCHES? TAG TEAM WITH LIMBAUGH IN THE WORKS?

You'll recall a few days ago when psycho-bitch Babsy Cubin (KKK/R-WY), a typical Republican bully, threatened to slap one of her opponents after he told the truth about her unabashed bribe taking. People in Wyoming don't cotton to their public officials threatening a disabled man in a wheel chair, especially not a disabled man in a wheel chair who is also a military veteran. But it should surprise no one since rubber stamp Cubin has been part of the Republican jihad against veterans for the last 2 years, voting to cut benefits and limit access to health care and educational opportunities for our vets and to penalize the underage children of families whose military parents have been called to duty. There are few members of Congress as anti-military (other than sloganeering) as Crazy Cubin.

Even before she threatened Libertarian candidate Tom Rankin a Wyoming Tribune-Eagle poll was showing the race as a virtual dead heat with Democrat Gary Trauner building on intense momentum and coming within 4 points of the 6-term congresswoman. It is widely believed that her support has eroded further, although no post-outburst incident polls have been released yet.

Cubin, who at first defiantly admitted she threatened Rankin and defended her abysmally boorish behavior, has now changed her story and is trying to re-write history, as political hacks often try to do. After seeing the cascades of negative reaction to her widely reported behavior, she suddenly has claimed that all she said to him was "If you had said that to anyone else, they probably would have smacked you." So she's a bully and a liar (as well as a bribe taker).

When the lying didn't staunch her evaporating support, she changed her tactics and decided to blame the whole thing on far right windbag Rush Limbaugh. It seems, ditto head that she is, and completely incapable of independent thought, she now claims that because Limbaugh smeared and made fun of Michael J. Fox (a Parkinson's Disease sufferer who angered Limbaugh by making an ad about stem cell research), she thought it was a signal for Republican nut cases to attack disabled people. You think I'm making this up, right? That I'm trying to be funny?

Well, I guess you missed yesterday's Billings Gazette... right? "Down in Wyoming, U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin got into some hot water when, after a debate, she threatened Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin, who has multiple sclerosis and uses an electric wheelchair. She reportedly said to him, 'If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face.' She later apologized, saying she may have been influenced by listening to too much Rush Limbaugh. Last week, Limbaugh said he would slap actor and Parkinson's disease sufferer Michael J. Fox, 'if you'd just quit bobbing your head.'"

Take a look at this TV ad from the Public Campaign Action Fund.


UPDATE: BYE BYE BABSY?

Looks like Gary Trauner is going to rescue Wyoming from it's embarrassing Cubin problem.

ROVE SCRAMBLIN' FOR AN OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER SURPRISE

Is anyone surprised that Musharrif was pressured into letting the Bush Regime fire a predator missile into a religionist school on the hopes they'd kill Zawahiri? If you answered yes, you haven't read Ron Suskind's essential One Percent Doctrine. Anyway, the early reports from ABC News don't seem to indicate that this potential October surprise has quite done the trick; we'll have to wait and see. Bush once thought he had Zawahiri's severed head in an icebox for a couple of months. We'll probably have to wait less time for Man-on-Dog Santorum to get his mug on TV to say that Bob Casey had invested in the madrassa. Of course, that's no surprise... just desperation.

I think it's too late for these kinds of desperate measure, especially in suburban districts like the one the New York Times profiled today. Jodi Kantor was pointing to the race in WA-08 between reactionary rubber stamper Dave Reichert and progressive Darcy Burner, but it could have been any of the well-educated suburban districts that gave governorships to Tim Kaine in Virginia or John Corzine in New Jersey last year-- or the Philly suburban districts getting ready to turn out rubber stamp incumbents Curt Weldon, Michael Fitzpatrick and Foley's pal Gerlach.

"Bellevue has been growing more Democratic for several years, thanks to an influx of liberal voters and a professional class that is changing teams. This year, Bellevue may send its first Democrat to Congress. Darcy Burner, who even supporters admit is inexperienced, may unseat Representative Dave Reichert, a well-liked, longtime public servant, simply because constituents want Democratic control of the House of Representatives." And that will be the story of the 2006 midterms no matter how many Predator missiles Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld shoot into Pakistani schools.

ALL THE AMMO ANYONE NEEDS FOR THE LAST WEEK OF THE LAMONT LIEBERMAN RACE

I've probably been writing about the hypocrisy of Joe Lieberman as long as anyone. But I've never done it as well as Cliff Schecter did today at AlterNet. If you know anyone in Connecticut still undecided about the senate election there-- or anyone intending to vote for Lieberman, please get them to read Cliff's piece. This is the one I referred to on Friday when I said words could be the nails in Lieberman's political coffin.

He lays it all out in black and white, a brilliant, well-researched compendium of all of what makes Joe Lieberman unfit to hold public office. You've probably been reading bits and pieces over the last 3, 4 months but Cliff goes beyond that and into details no one has printed before. Lieberman "would seemingly invade Cuba tomorrow, but charges forth into slave-labor trade deals with Communist China at the behest of his corporate paymasters (and at the expense of his constituents' jobs). He once marched with Martin Luther King Jr., yet now forebodingly and dishonestly refers to Al Sharpton as "one of Ned Lamont's closest advisors," hoping the mere mention of the controversial African-American preacher will summon white-suburban fears of unruly invading black hordes who crave white women and seek Rotary Club membership... Last year Lieberman thought John Bolton wasn't worthy of being U.N. ambassador and voted accordingly. Yet, now that he needs Republican votes to win his do-over bid to hang on to his job, Bolton-- a 'person' who has chased subordinates around a hotel trying to shoe-beat them-- has suddenly become the second coming of Adlai Stevenson or Daniel Patrick Moynihan on the international stage... In 1997, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond offered a motion to kill an amendment authored by Minnesota legend Paul Wellstone that would have required the secretary of defense to put $400 million into veteran's benefits the following year. Lieberman joined the Thurmond assault on veterans. He also opposed efforts to increase health care spending for veterans by $13 billion over five years in 1996 and an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Harkin to transfer $329 million from defense accounts to the Veterans Affairs Department for health care programs. He has, however, continued to find billions of dollars to support missile defense programs that have shown as much promise as Tucker Carlson on 'Dancing with the Stars.'"


UPDATE: GERSTEIN'S BACK, BAT-SHIT CRAZY AS EVER

At first I thought Lieberman had just cracked up entirely. Then when I got to the bottom of the page I realized it was just that ridiculous Gerstein thing again. I thought he wasn't allowed to contact the press again when he was on drugs?? I rarely link to Republican and right wing sites but I'll make an exception today since anyone who reads it will probably understand what's wrong with these people and why they have to be stopped as soon as possible (Nov 7). This is the hysterical, McCarthyite Holy Joe/Gerstein Thing response to the New York Times' very reasonable endorsement of Democrat Ned Lamont.

If Nancy Pelosi is serious about cracking down on lobbying in the House, does she have a thumbs-up from the soon-to-be master of Democrookedness?

Godspeed to House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, who is talking the talk on House ethics reform. "Lobbyists Won't Like What Pelosi Has in Mind," according to the head of Jeffrey Birnbaum's "K Street Confidential" column in today's Washington Post.

Pelosi, writes Birnbaum, "has promised to change the chamber's rules to reflect the provisions of her not-so-modestly-named Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006. The months-old measure would, among other things, prohibit House members from accepting gifts and travel from lobbyists or from organizations that employ lobbyists."

Some of the changes Pelosi has advocated would require changes in federal law, and those of course will require Senate approval as well (and Senate rules changes require a two-thirds majority). But changes to House rules require a simple majority vote of the House.

There is, it appears, hardly any limit to Pelosi's cruelty. "In an attempt to slow the revolving door between the public and private sectors," writes Birnbaum, "Pelosi would deprive lawmakers-turned-lobbyists of a few of their congressional perks. She would eliminate the House rule that gives access to the House gym, the House floor and its cloak rooms to former members of Congress who are registered to lobby--access that was temporarily taken away earlier this year." The she-devil!

It will be interesting to see how persuasive the new speaker is in securing the votes of the Yellow-Dog Democrats beholden to Master Rahm Emanuel, who gives every evidence of believing that the primary reason for Democrats to take power is to "get theirs"--converting the Republicrookery franchise to Democrookedness.

A SONG FOR THE WEEK LEADING UP TO ELECTION DAY

My pal Bertis called a couple days ago to talk about how it's looking good for a Democratic victory-- and he lives in Georgia! He was a little worried about Webb's race against Macacawitz going south, so the speak, but when I re-assured him that Webb is up again by 3 points, he grabbed for his checkbook so he could send Webb's campaign more money. People like when Webb smacks down the little racist twerp when he steps out of line. And when the bumbling Webb went after Webb's books it seems to have swung public opinion further against Allen. I hope you had a chance to watch the video of Webb making mincemeat pies out of Macacawitz.

But then we got to the real reason for the call: music. Bertis has an idea: Lloyd Cole and the Commotions did a great song called "Perfect Blue" and Bertis thought this would be the perfect time to play it. Good idea. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't have it. However, around the same time and in approximately the same genre, a band I used to work with at Sire called A House, did a wonderful song, "Call Me Blue Again" and You Tube does have this one:

Can you imagine Nancy Pelosi on lead vocals?

Quote of the day: Finally the government takes advantage of Al Gore's extensive work on global climate change—only it's the British government

"The evidence shows that ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth. Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."
--from a newly released report by a commission on the Economics of Global Change headed by Sir Nicholas Stern (above), a senior British government economist, for Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e., Treasury Secretary) Gordon Brown (the presumed future prime minister)

The report has triggered a flurry of activity:

• Chancellor Brown (right) announced that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore will be consulting with the British government on climate change.

• Still-Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a call for "bold and decisive action" to reduce emissions.

• Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Chimpy the Prez . . . uh . . . well, the last we heard, our Chimpy was still waiting for more research--although, according to reliable sources, with the shift in government funding toward anti-environmental research, the closest thing to a relevant study being funded by the U.S. government is one aimed at pinning down the date of the Rapture. The president is said, however, to have asked aides to look into where he can get "one o' them cool purple ties" like the one Chancellor Brown is seen wearing above. (We are unable to confirm persistent reports that Karl Rove has commissioned multiple surveys to find out whether voters think a purple tie would go well with the president's eyes.)

TEXAS CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 22: VOTE TWICE FOR SHELLY

Rozius, our correspondant from TX-22 is back with an update on what's going on in Tom DeLay's former district. His report:

The rollercoaster ride in the 22nd Congressional District appears to have the GOP faithful in the area ready to chuck up their cotton candy.

First, during the Spring GOP primary local Republicans renominated Tom Delay (R-Federal Correctional Facility) secure in the knowledge that he would somehow dodge his money laundering indictment and connections to GOP super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Whoops! Delay cut and ran deciding to start saving up for his legal fees as a D.C. lobbyist.

Then, the local Republicans determined in a very Bush like fit of deciderness that they could just choose another candidate to place on the November ballot as if the primary had never occurred. Whoops! Even Texas judges pointed out that Delay was the only Republican who could appear on the ballot according to the very same Texas laws that Delay and his GOP mob was so fond of ignoring.

This left the Grand Old Perverts in a strange situation. They were forced to mount a write in campaign for a seat that they had considered secure as recently as five months ago. This put Democratic nominee and former Congressman Nick Lampson in the driver's seat.

Fortunately for Lampson and the Texas Democrats, the GOP powers that be decided that the best way to assure a successful write in campaign to was select a candidate with a name that would be easy for local Republican to remember and spell. Whoops! Enter Houston City Councilwoman "Shelly Sekula-Gibbs"

To further complicate matters, Texas Governor Rick "Good Hair" Perry decided to call a Special Election during the General Election to replace Delay for the two month period between the election and the beginning of the new Congress. Considering that Congress will most likely not be is session during this time period the move on the part of Perry and Karl Rove to get Sekula-Gibbs' name on the November ballot was aimed at allowing Republican voters the opportunity cut and paste her into the write-in slot. And, since Sekula-Gibbs is running in both the Special and General Election on the same ballot she is allowed by Texas law to accept twice as much in individual contributions from wealthy Republican donors.

Local television viewers have been treated to an unending stream of campaign commercials featuring Sekula-Gibbs singing a little ditty to the tune of "Roll Out the Barrel"-- "Vote twice for Shelley. Special and then write her in."

Apparently, national Republican operatives had originally promised Sekula-Gibbs $3 million in campaign aid.That figure has turned out to be closer to $100,000 and some mail-outs. Sekula-Gibbs was forced to loan her own campaign an additional $250,000. She has spent $270,000 during the past three months. The local party had raised $500,000 from Texas Republicans including a $150,000 fund raiser featuring Dick Cheney in early October. Delay has kicked in his mailing list and other Texas Republicans like Kay Bailey Hutchinson have stumped for the GOP underdog with the unspellable last name.

The crown jewel of the Sekula-Gibbs campaign will occur on October 30th when George "Don't Take My Photo With Him" Bush comes to town to rally the rabid-but-faithful. Local Democrats are planning a special welcome for Bush when he visits on Monday. I plan on attending to see what transpires.

For his part, Lampson has run a local campaign stressing his earlier work in Congress with health care, transportation, education, The Johnson Space Center and child protection issues.

Lampson has $1.7 million in the bank. He raised $390,000 and spent $834,000 in the last reporting period, between July 1 and Sept. 30. About $195,000 of his contributions came from individuals, $115,000 from political action committees and the rest from other sources. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved $850,000 worth of television advertising time for the last two weeks of the campaign on Lampson's behalf.

Lampson has not bothered to run in the meaningless Special Election and instead is concentrating on the General Election. He faces token opposition from Texas Libertarian candidate Bob Smithers on the ballot.

State Republican officials privately admit that Sekula-Gibbs is facing an up hill battle and is a 1 in 20 shot to win. The real focus here is for 2008 when the ballot situation will be a bit more in their favor.

It looks like the local bumper stickers are correct. Texans in the 22nd Congressional District are about to "Clean Up Congress-Without Delay."


UPDATE: MORE MASS MEDIA BULL

I doubt the Houston Chronicle is trying to sway the race away from Nick Lampson and towards that DeLay crony the GOP has in the race. I think the reason for the silly story on the Zogby poll is just to get people to buy newspapers-- Write-in tightens race in District 22. Oh Lord, the race is tightenin', the race is tightenin'... I better run out and buy a Chron or log in to their website.

And then if you read below the headlines you notice the race isn't tightening at all, not even a little. Chris Bowers over at MyDD explains how these silly polls, especially Zogby's, can be easily manipulated to show anything the person who commissioned the poll wants it to show. "Lampson is actually doubling up Gibbs 36-19. But hey, Zogby wasn't commissioned to make a boring poll... the poll does show long-term problems for Democrats in this district. In a straight trial heat, with Gibbs's name on the ballot, she leads Lampson 53-40. Even if Lampson wins this race due to the odd ballot situation involving DeLay, clearly it will be a difficult seat to hold."


UPDATE FROM SUGARLAND, TEXAS

Not much gets by our pal Rozius. And this morning he's got the details of Bush's campaign trip to the heart of DeLayland:

Here is a quick update on the Bush visit to Sugarland Texas

Bush jets into Ellington Field in Houston at taxpayer expense.

He then jumps on a Marine Helicopter at taxpayer expense to fly to a small regional airport that is much too tiny for Air Force One to land at.

Around 1,500 rabid Republicans greet the President in a hanger. No one else had a chance to attend the event because it was the standard GOP "You must have a ticket passed out by the Texas GOP to enter." Around 100 protestors braved the heat, humidity and mosquitoes to protest along the state highway that runs in front of the airport. Bush never saw them.

Here are the lowlites from the speech:

"The best way to make sure an enemy is unable to do us harm is to stay on offense. It is hard to plot, plan and attack when you’re on the run."

"I saw a threat in Saddam Hussein... I made the right decision against Saddam Hussein."

"The only way we won't succeed in Iraq is by leaving before the job is done," he said. And as for the Democrats, "It's a serious political party in the midst of a war, and they don't have a plan for success. They don't have a plan for victory."

"Their approach comes down to this-- the terrorists win and America loses," President Bush said as the partisan crowd booed loudly. "I'm not saying the Democrats are unpatriotic. I'm just saying they’re wrong."

Strangely enough, Bush spent half his speech talking about Iraq while Sekula-Gibbs has pretty much avoided the topic during her campaign appearances.

But then again, this taxpayer funded junket really wasn't about the write-in candidate with the unspellable name. It was about tossing some raw meat to some of Bush's most reactionary supporters in Texas.

RAHM EMANUEL, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S OWN TOM DELAY, DECLARES WAR ON PROGRESSIVES

I don't agree with the electoral analysis in today's Washington Post at all. They have far fewer "contested seats" on their chart than I do on mine. As always, they are following the Inside the Beltway rear view mirror prognosticators and they are 3 weeks behind reality. Where's McNerney v Pombo? Where's Brown v Doolittle? Where's Wulsin v Schmidt? Where's Kissell v Hayes? They're missing 20 contests. Maybe they only had room on the page for 35. But that isn't why I'm writing tonight. I mean I think anyone who reads DWT already knows the mainstream media is behind, way behind.

November 7 the Democrats are likely to have a huge victory in the House. Rahm Emanuel and his nefarious allies will come streaming out from under their rocks and crawling out from the dark places they share with the worst Republicrooks to claim "their" victory. But will it be their victory? Doesn't look like it to me. Most of Rahm's handpicked pro-corporate, a-little-better-than-a-Republican candidates aren't fairing too well. Grassroots candidates are the ones who will bring Democrats the victory the nation calls out for. Emanuel's more-of-the-same crap candidates... we'll see. But let's take a look at what the Post says.

The 3 Florida seats in contention all have Emanuel shills. The Post says only Jennings is out front at this point. Tammy Duckworth in Illinois? Up for grabs. Baron Hill in Indiana? Too close to call. Ken Lucas in Kentucky: too close to call. Heath Shuler, too close to call. Grassroots Dems, mostly unbeholden to Emanuel-- who is busy trying to catch up with the front of the parade so lame TV political correspondents can see him leading it-- are winning their races without his help. Many of them hate his guts and wish him all the worst.

Meanwhile, other writers in today's Post lay bare some of the DCCC's tactics. Anyone interested in the lameness and backward nature of how the dinosauric party functions and why they always do so badly ought to read it. And read the Dewan/Kornblut/Emanuel story in tomorrow's New York Times about Democrats running to the right.

I'm not certain why Emanuel allowed the Dewan and Kornblut hacks to take any credit since he totally wrote the whole piece-- an opening salvo in his p.r. war to take credit for something that has very little to do with him-- and what it does have to do with him is all bad. "In their [he means "our" or, better yet, "my"] push to win back control of the House, Democrats have turned to conservative and moderate candidates who fit the profiles of their districts more closely than the profile of the national party." And then he brags about Republican-lite Heath Shuler in NC-11, Rahm's star shill, who couldn't quote decide if he wanted to run as a Democrat in North Carolina or a Republican in Tennessee until a week before he announced. And then Rahm goes on, 8 days before the election, to declare war on the Democratic base.

"But if candidates like Mr. Shuler do help the Democrats gain majority control of Congress, it could come at a political price, which may include tensions in the party between its new centrists and its more liberal political base. While Democratic leaders have gone to great lengths to promote the moderate views of these candidates, some, like Mr. Shuler, have views on issues like gun control and abortion that are far out of step with the prevailing views of the Democrats who control the party. On some issues, they may even be expected to side with Republicans and the Bush White House." How unexpected is that when Rahm was out hunting for Republicans to run against Democrats in Democratic primaries-- like Tim Mahoney in FL-16 (the Foley district Rahm seemed to be sure would become very winnable for some strange reason... what a coincidence. Lucky we have Tom DeLay Rahm Emanuel fighting for us. What would politics be like without amoral scumbags?

When he asks himself if his crop of pro-corporate, Republican-lite, homophobic, misogynistic, holy rollers will have any power in the new Congress, Rahm licks his chops. "Absolutely. They're going to have an impact on the Congress and the caucus." And he's counting on them to tilt the balance of power within the party.

"There are two main groups of moderate Democrats in the House: the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of socially conservative and moderate members formed in 1994; and the New Democrat Coalition, a caucus of centrists formed in 1997. While there are differences between the two-- the Blue Dogs tend to be more rural and Southern, with occasional alliances with Republicans, while the New Democrats are more suburban and wealthy and place a premium on party loyalty-- there are members who belong to both. Both, of course, have a stake in helping the centrist candidates succeed. Representative Ellen O. Tauscher of California [a bribe-taking corporate whore and shit eater who has guaranteed herself a nasty primary in 2008], a co-chairwoman of the 47-member New Democrat Coalition, said that 27 of the top 40 contested House seats were being pursued by Democrats who have pledged to become members of the group, which says its chief issues are national security and fiscal responsibility."

Ironically, progressive and grassroots Democrats have rallied behind the right-of-center Emanuel shills for the sake of party unity, while Emanuel, Schumer and their cabal have done all they could to undermine progressives. If McNerney loses in CA-11, it will be because of Emanuel and if Lamont is beaten by the despicable Lieberman it won't just be the renegade Democrats like Mary Landreiu and Tom Carper and Ben Nelson who at least had the guts to openly announce they were supporting Lieberman, regardless of the wishes of grassroots Democrats in his state, but the sneaky backstabbers like Schumer, the Clintons, Obama, and Biden.

RICK RENZI-- CORRUPT IN DC, CORRUPT IN AZ-- LOSING HIS CONGRESSIONAL SEAT TO PROGRESSIVE ELLEN SIMON

Since I've started blogging I've met a lot of incredible men and women who I probably would never have gotten to meet otherwise. One of the most impressive is Maria Leavey, a media consultant in Washington whose e-mails I always look forward to anxiously. In between the incredible work she has done for Tom Harkin, Howard Dean, the Campaign for America's Future, Democracy Radio, and the American Prospect, I managed to convince her to write up the story of the campaign in Arizona's first congressional district between right wing nincompoop/slimy crook Mike Renzi and a shining beacon of progressive American hope, Ellen Simon. Here's Maria's report:

WE CAN TURN THIS ONE BLUE


While Democrats are taking back the country, progressive Dems are taking back the party and Ellen Simon, running in Arizona's First CD, is one of the ones doing it. Her opponent, the ethically-challenged incumbent Rick Renzi, is under federal investigation, behind in the polls, and getting desperate. He can't engage Simon on the issues, as he's wrong on all of them, so he's attacking her for standing up for our constitutional rights. "ACLU Ellen," as he has clumsily dubbed her, has fought for the rights of individuals and families her entire life. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she knows better than most how carefully we must guard the liberties our constitution guarantees. Renzi calls this dedication "Cleveland values," in another futile attempt to coin a catchphrase. Apparently he means that dedication to civil rights is a decadent and dangerous trait peculiar to Easterners (as people from Cleveland are considered in Arizona), but the voters of the district aren't buying it. Simon's campaign has been largely self-funded with Renzi bringing in more than twenty times the donations, largely from right-wing special interests and corporations. The DCCC has moved AZ-1 into their "Red to Blue" program but Rahm Emanuel hasn't kicked in any funds. Ellen Simon isn't his kind of Democrat, but she's ours. Check out her web page.


Maria Leavey

FELIX MACACAWITZ STRIKES AGAIN-- JIM WEBB WILL WIN IN VIRGINIA BECAUSE OF HIS CHARACTER, NOT IN SPITE OF IT

Please watch this video. Governor Tim Kaine gives Jim Webb a rousing introduction. And then Webb gets up and talks about the novels he's written, the ones recommended by the Marine Corps, taught in college literature courses, compared to the work of Steven Crane by the Houston Post, a "remarkable moral statement" by the Boston Globe which was positively dwarfed by the accolades heaped on it by the Wall Street Journal which have been slammed and slandered by Macacawitz and the Rove Slime and Hate Machine.

George Allen has nothing to run on. He's one of the 2 or 3 most pathetic people in U.S. government. His record is a disgrace. Webb explains the difference between himself and the cowardly and illiterate Allen. All Allen can do is lash out with attacks to try to impugn the character of a decent American hero. George Allen is a disgrace to the Commonwealth of Virginia. All he can do is smear, smear, smear. If you want to understand why this race is important and why it's important to replace a man like Macacawitz with a man like Jim Webb, click that video or hit the link above.




UPDATE: MACACAWITZ OPENS HIS STUPID TRAP AGAIN-- DOWN BY 5%

I have to admit I was a little stunned by Randi Rhodes today. She was reading all this steamy porn on Air America. I guess she was inspired by Macacawitz' idiotic comments about Jim Webb's highly acclaimed books. Less accalimed were the trashy novels Rhodes read from by GOP propagandist Bill O'Reilly and the slutty pornographer married to Darth Cheney. What an imagination that dirty-minded bigot has! I was wishing I had known about her filthy mind when she-- and her equally hypocritical allies Joe Lieberman and Bill Bennett-- were demanding that rock music be censored.

Anyway, since Macacawitz decided to make literature-- not one of his strong suits-- a campaign issue in the Virginia election his polling numbers have taken a tumble. With a 51%- 46% spread maybe we can start saying Senator James Webb.

THE VALUE OF EDITORIAL ENDORSEMENTS

There was stir this morning over the New York Times enthusiastic endorsement of Ned Lamont. But did anyone seriously doubt it would be forthcoming? Afterall, as the Times points out, regarding the disastrous Iraq occupation "When it comes to the next step, Mr. Lieberman seems to mimic the Bush administration’s proposal to stay the course (while no longer mentioning that toxic phrase) with new tactics. Mr. Lamont is close to the Senate Democrats (minus Mr. Lieberman) who demanded a timetable for withdrawal without being too firm on what that ought to entail." And then they really exlained why re-electing Lieberman would be a terrible mistake:

Two months ago, Connecticut's Democratic voters sent Mr. Lieberman what should have been a jarring wake-up call when they rejected him for Mr. Lamont, a relative newcomer. We have been waiting to see what lessons the state's best-known politician took from his defeat, and from the daily evidence of the deterioration of the situation in Iraq.

We wanted to see a capacity for growth and change in Mr. Lieberman. The country is full of Republicans who now realize the Iraq invasion was a disaster, either in its basic concept or in its execution. The most honorable of them are in agony over what has happened. Mr. Lieberman, who had not only continually defended the administration’s Iraq policy but also attacked Democrats who criticized the president, had more cause for soul-searching than most.

But instead of re-evaluating his own positions, Mr. Lieberman blamed his constituents for failing to notice that he had offered some negative comments about the conduct of the war, too, mainly when he was running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004. He did not protest when Dick Cheney said that people who voted for Mr. Lamont were giving comfort to "Al Qaeda types." His only reflection seemed devoted to a re-examination of the rules for getting back on the ballot.

Since his primary defeat, Mr. Lieberman has run a well-packaged campaign built around his self-assigned bipartisan image-- "It's not about politics," say his ads. But it is very much about politics-- from the flood of special interest campaign donations that has been running Mr. Lieberman's way to the old Karl Rove lesson that political winners never admit to error.

Powerful, but not surprising. After all, the Times often endorses Democrats and was enthusiastic about Lamont at primary time. Far more surprising is when staunchly Republican papers endorse Democrats over long-term Republican incumbents who they have been routinely endorsing for years. Those should serve as ear-splitting alarm bells for the GOP.

The most important local paper in Curt Weldon's district has always been the Delaware County Daily Times and they've always loved their pork-barrel congressman. Every two years, like clockwork, they endorse Weldon. Then they met Joe Sestak and today the Daily Times told their readers to forget Weldon and vote for Sestak. Now that is big news!

A few days ago the ECM Publishers editorial board, which publishes over a dozen small town newspapers in Minnesota joined the Minneapolis StarTribune in endorsing Coleen Rowley over far right extremist incumbent John Kline. The StarTribune explained how "Republicans have tried to paint Rowley as some sort of loose-cannon liberal. We don't see it: She was a career FBI agent, including a stint in New York investigating drug dealers and mobsters, and voted for George W. Bush in 2000 on the belief that he would govern as his father had. She would balance the federal budget by letting the Bush tax cuts expire exactly the way a GOP Congress wrote them and would reform immigration law by following the Senate Republican blueprint. She would move toward universal health insurance though a cautious strategy of state experimentation, and she would wind down the war in Iraq by following the sensible outline of Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania veteran who has endorsed her." But the ECM endorsement must have come as a far bigger shock to rightist Kline.

Kline offers voters stubborn support for a status quo that produced the deadly quagmire in Iraq and tax cuts that ballooned the federal deficit as war costs mounted.

Like many Americans, Rowley is indignant at the country’s direction under President Bush and a Republican Congress. The retired FBI agent and 9/11 whistleblower is bright, tenacious, a flexible thinker and an able voice of dissent.

In other words, she’s right for these perilous times. The Republican-leaning 2nd District may not be ready to elect a Democrat, but we think Rowley is the most capable and deserving of Kline’s opponents since he was first elected in 2002.

The editorial is long thorough and well-thought-out. It is a stinging indictment of John Kline and it ends with a very clear message: "A nation demanding change will be better served with Coleen Rowley in Congress than with John Kline."

This kind of stuff is happening all over the country. I'm certain that Bryan Kennedy's campaign and the Sensenbrenner campaign shared equally in the astonishment today when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did the unthinkable.

But come back with me for a moment to Pennsylvania. Next door to what will soon be Weldon's former district is another moderate suburban Philly district, PA-08, currently held by Bush rubber stamper Michael Fitzpatrick. Last year the key local paper in the district, the Bucks County Courier Times endorsed Fitzpatrick over Ginny Shrader. Previously it was always on board for moderate Republican Jim Greenwood. This morning a tradition was shattered when the editorial board endorsed Patrick Murphy.

It isn't online but my friend Adam sent it to me in an e-mail. It could be written in scores of papers across our country. It's worth reading because it isn't only about Patrick Murphy. It's about November 7 in general.

Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy holds out the promise of needed change in Washington, where the one-party rule has led us widely astray.

President Bush came into office calling himself a uniter, not a divider. But our nation is more divided today than it has been since Vietnam. And, once again, an ill-conceived and misdirected war bereft of allied support and without a clear mission is at the core of our fractured nation.

But it is not the only issue driving a wedge between our citizens - and our nation and the world.

A Republican Congress that has acted more like a rubber stamp for the president than a constitutional check on presidential power is both enabler and accomplice. Howling partisanship trumps thoughtful deliberation, corruption arises, ethics pale.

We are worried.

Against this troubling backdrop, congressional races are playing out across the nation. Here in Bucks County freshman Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, hard-working and earnest and with an accomplished 10-year record of public service, faces Democrat challenger Patrick Murphy.

Needed change

An Iraq war veteran who has never held public office, Murphy is an experienced military and civilian prosecutor and a former West Point professor. As a former Army captain, Murphy is used to commanding others and making tough decisions.

As a congressional candidate, he embodies the promise of needed change.

First and foremost, Murphy backs a timed withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, now gripped by sectarian violence - if not civil war. Yet he is not proposing to "cut and run," as he's been accused. He would get our military men and women out of harm's way but redeploy a strategic strike force of 20,000 to 30,000 troops outside Iraq.

A timeline for withdrawal, he believes, would encourage the Iraqis to take control of their nation's security and their citizens' future. We think he's right. And we think his desire to keep a lowprofile toehold on Iraq makes sense.

Too little, too late

Fitzpatrick no longer backs Bush on Iraq. He has called for a new strategy and is awaiting the recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, appointed by Congress with the president's approval. We're encouraged by the congressman's changing view, but President Bush has already made it clear he will not be bound by any of the study group's recommendations.

Our concern is that we could be in store for more of the same.

This is our central fear in returning Fitzpatrick to Congress-- that he will not be as strong a force for change as Murphy.

We are likewise concerned that the congressman will continue to cast votes advancing this administration's shortsighted and unfair tax cuts. We also believe that his conservative beliefs put him out of step with his mostly moderate district on the promising science of embryonic stem cell research and on the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate.

That said, the congressman's values are among his strongest points. A former Eagle Scout, Fitzpatrick is honest and thoughtful. He shows a command of detail. That's why his willingness to engage in sleazy negative campaign tactics is disappointing. Unfortunately, this isn't new.

Negative campaign

In his race against Democrat Ginny Schrader two years ago, the congressman failed to keep a check on the tactics of national party operatives. When Schrader was slimed, Fitzpatrick said he wasn't responsible.

He sang the same refrain when Iraq War vets questioned Murphy's war record while appearing at a press conference he convened a few weeks ago. Fitzpatrick should have prevented this from happening at his own event-- or at least denounced their comments immediately.

We are likewise offended by Fitzpatrick's television ads and mailings.

They diminish the quality of character we've come to expect from him. They also raise legitimate questions about how independent he can really be within his own party if he can't control the tone of his own campaign.

We do want to note that Fitzpatrick has had a distinguished record as a county commissioner and that his solid work as a freshman congressman deserves praise. In his first term, he authored 24 bills and proctored several measures into law - an uncommon achievement. And he demonstrated a willingness to break stride on a number of issues with his party and president. Indeed, he's been cited for being one of the most independent members on Capitol Hill. Right on the big issue

This is the sort of bipartisanship we need in Congress. Unfortunately, on the overarching issue of our time, Fitzpatrick for too long was unable to break rank. The Courier Times Editorial Board has had its own lengthy, spirited and even contentious debate - perhaps paralleling the national debate - and has decided to issue its congressional endorsement to Patrick Murphy.

Murphy's young, we know. But we regard him as bright, accomplished for his age, and committed to public service. He has insights from his firsthand experience in Iraq that are not to be discounted. His values and character also are strong.

Murphy is committed to a new direction, and at a point when so many Americans believe major change is necessary, his timing provides him with a significant boost to secure an edge over the long popular and respected Fitzpatrick.

Do these kinds of small town paper editorials move votes? A few. Maybe TV ads move a few more, which is why we're trying to get our Tony Trupiano TV spot up on the air. And it's why I want you to take a look at this totally effective spot playing on Montana television courtesy of The Public Campaign Action Fund.

The confluence of all this stuff is going to make for a very Blue-- in the best sense of the word-- Tuesday on November 7.


UPDATE: LET'S NOT FORGET FIELD AND STREAM

Glossy magazines like Field and Stream don't usually endorse political candidates. But the race in CA-11 is anything but "usual" and one of the candidates, incumbent Congressman Dirty Dick Pombo is widely recognized as the worst legislator anywhere in the country when it comes to the environment, not just by attitude, but by deed. And he threatens to do a lot worse than he's already done. I can't imagine that anyone who remotely cares about a clean and healthy natural environment isn't already gung-ho on voting for Jerry McNerney.

But the Green Sportsman editorial (that's the Field and Stream blog) is an indictment of Pombo that every American, regardless of where they live, should read.

It sounded like hyperbole when green groups started calling Rep. Richard “Dick” Pombo (R- CA) the “Darth Vader of the Environment.” But as they say in Texas “it ain’t braggin if you can do it”, and Pombo has shown he can – and will – do it to sportsmen and the environment at every turn.

As chair of the House Resources Committee Pombo pushed to allow road building in the Tongass National Forest, sell national parks to private industry, eliminate the moratorium on selling federal lands to mining companies, remove regulations that force energy companies to respect wetlands and wildlife values on public lands, weaken the Endangered Species Act, and rewrite the National Environmental Policy Act so industry would have a more profitable time on public lands at the expense of fish, wildlife, and sportsmen. No wonder real estate developers have paid almost $250,000 into his campaign chest over the years.

The looming election hasn’t made Pombo back off. Now he’s pushing a bill that would remove the popular 25-year ban on drilling for oil and gas off fragile coastlines. This stinks on its own, but it could also torpedo a Senate-passed drilling bill by Mary Landrieu (D-LA), that would actually help fish and wildlife. The Senate version opens new areas to drilling only in the northern Gulf, which already has lived with the industry for more than 50 years. In exchange, four coastal states would receive 37.5 percent of the royalties for habitat restoration. Louisiana urgently needs the money to help rebuild the nation’s most valuable coastal estuary, half of which has been destroyed by erosion over the last 50 years – a process largely a result of the many miles of canals dredged for oil and gas related work.

Pombo is hoping to push his agenda in a conference committee, a strategy the record shows could sorely cost fish, wildlife and sportsmen.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? START BELIEVING-- IT'S THE WILL OF GOD (FINALLY!)

The country's accountant-in-chief, Government Accountability head David Walker, is warning that the U.S. is headed for economic disaster. He says that "the American public needs to tell Washington it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin... the last six years of Republican rule have produced tax cuts, record spending increases and a Medicare prescription drug plan that has been widely criticized as fiscally unsound." Still, seeing the Iraq catastrophe as a sure-fie perscription for massive GOP losses next Tuesday, the Bush Regime has been urging Republicans to run on their economic record. And, if your district has a super abundance of voters in the top .5 or maybe 1 percent of income earners (multimillionaires and above), it would be grand advice. Otherwise, the Republican economic initiatives are probably not a great idea to bring up in public.

Now today's L.A. Times claims Rove has some kind of 11th hour strategy to save the day for the far right. In short, his "plan is three-pronged: to reenergize any conservatives who may be flagging; to make sure the GOP's carefully constructed campaign apparatus is functioning at peak efficiency; and to put the resources of the federal government to use for political gain." OK, point one seems to be an unmitigated disaster-- with even die-hard far right extremist bastions like Idaho in danger of electing Democrats and with traditional Republican constituencies like rural voters and evangelicals (please read Ken's brilliant piece from earlier this morning) moving away from them. His second point is somewhat worrying if he's talking about the kind of outright election theft that was widespread in 2000 and worse in 2004.

But point three is what the L.A. Times article is all about: good old fashioned pork barrel politics. Too late. people are beyond Republican blandishments. They even understand that attempt to lower gasoline prices a month before the election was an insult to their intelligence and it seems to be backfiring against the Republicans.

Far right operative Dick Armey, once the filthy House GOP leader, now a filthy lobbyist who realizes he'll soon have to contend with pissed off progressives-- with nowhere to turn for solace except Rahm Emanuel (and that's gonna cost a lot)-- is already poking through the entrails and bones of the Republican carcass to find out where they went so drastically wrong. "The answer is simple: Republican lawmakers forgot the party's principles, became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy. Now, the Democrats are reaping the rewards of our neglect-- and we have no one to blame but ourselves." It doesn't quite go far enough in explanation but it's a step in the right direction, a direction Bush, the Cheneys and Rove seem completely unaware of. January should be interesting.

And that leave Rove just that one option: stealing the election electronically. The polls are so overwhelmingly against them, that it makes it somewhat hard to do with a straight face. Do they care? I doubt it. The always upbeat Air America hosts seem to think if the American public turns out in its vast millions to vote to reject the Bush Regime's authoritarianism (for those who wince at "fascism"), then the rightists will be overwhelmed and unable to do their worst. We'll see. Right now they are desperate to create the possibility in the public's collective consciousness that all the polls-- including the Republicans' own polls-- have it wrong. Today's Wall Street Journal is carrying that torch and expect a lot of that from teh Limbaughs, Hannitys and Fox propagandists this week.

Quote of the day: Garry Wills provides a timely reminder that this administration has given us government of, by and for the "faith-based"

"There is a particular danger with a war that God commands. What if God should lose?"
--Garry Wills, in "A Country Ruled by Faith," in the new (Nov. 16) New York Review of Books

"That is unthinkable to the evangelicals," Wills continues. "They cannot accept the idea of second-guessing God, and he was the one who led them into war. Thus, in 2006, when two thirds of the American people told pollsters that the war in Iraq was a mistake, the third of those still standing behind it were mainly evangelicals (who make up about one third of the population). It was a faith-based certitude."

Let me say at the outset that I am in awe of Garry Wills, who may be the smartest person I've heard tell of. (Well, there was Einstein, of course. And probably other scientific geniuses I have no shot at understanding. So let's say, "maybe the smartest person whose thinking is accessible to the nonspecialist.") While I'm not saying that no one else could have offered this simple, elegant explanation of why the Stay-the-Coursers (or however one might characterize the "victory in Iraq" delusionalists now that they claim that "stay the course" isn't now and never was their policy) can always so easily rally that chunk of the population to this particular cause, it nevertheless seems to me vintage Garry Wills.

That said, for the most part this new NYRB piece isn't the normal Wills kind of piece, which you expect to leave you with the feeling, "Gee, I never thought of that," and a striking chunk of new understanding. It is more a compendium of the state of our knowledge of the extent to which the Bush administration has been "faith-based" in just about every dimension.

Not in any useful way, of course. After all, there are plenty of people of faith whose faith leads them to devote their lives to fighting things like war, poverty and hunger. But of course "faith-based" in the U.S. has come to mean something almost totally different: quasi-militaristic support for a band of savage, ignorant, delusionally extremist fake-Christian evangelical theologues, whose screeching fatwas at just about every opportunity mock both the spirit and the letter of the teachings of Jesus, whose preachings, offered today, you can be sure would be savaged by the true-Christian-hating likes of Rush and Sean and Annie C and Bill O, not to mention the racketeers of evangelical faith (you know the names, from Robertson, Falwell and Dobson on down). There is, goodness knows, plenty of work to be done here on earth by people of faith, but that's not the kind of faith enforced by the demonic "faith-based" loons of America.

Although Wills doesn't make the specific connection, this piece seems aimed at the whining of people like David Kuo, whose new book has advanced the proposition that the Bush White House scorned its evangelical base, stringing it along, patronizing it (referring to its players as "nuts") and failing to come through for it. Now, I always enjoy the spectacle of the far-right-wing loons biting off chunks of each other's flesh. And I don't doubt that the Republican pols who have made it a primary objective to recruit and exploit the "faith-based" community--pols who take their marching orders from Karl Rove, of course--have truly unlimited contempt and loathing for the evangelicals. I am delighted to see their core dishonesty and cynicism in pursuit of their far-far-right-wing ideological goals exposed.

But the notion that the Bush administration hasn't delivered for the evangelicals is in itself delusional. There is by now a substantial literature documenting the lengths to which these people have gone to put the power of government at the service of what we might call the Golden Calf of anti-Christian religious extremism, and Wills's NYRB piece serves not just as a reminder of the breadth and penetration of the "faith-based" movement but as a bibliography of studies of its reach.

"Bush," Wills writes, "promised his evangelical followers faith-based social services, which he called 'compassionate conservatism.' He went beyond that to give them a faith-based war, faith-based law enforcement, faith-based education, faith-based medicine, and faith-based science. He could deliver on his promises because he stocked the agencies handling all these problems, in large degree, with born-again Christians of his own variety."

The staffing problem wasn't left to chance:

"The head of the White House Office of Personnel was Kay Coles James, a former dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University and a former vice-president of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, the conservative Christian lobbying group that had been set up as the Washington branch of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. She knew whom to put where, or knew the religious right people who knew. An evangelical was in charge of placing evangelicals throughout the bureaucracy. The head lobbyist for the Family Research Council boasted that 'a lot of FRC people are in place' in the administration. The evangelicals knew which positions could affect their agenda, whom to replace, and whom they wanted appointed. This was true for the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services--agencies that would rule on or administer matters dear to the evangelical causes."

Wills proceeds, area by area, to show how the Bush administration organized itself to make good on the delivery of:

1. Faith-Based Justice

2. Faith-Based Social Services

3. Faith-Based Science

4. Faith-Based Health

and finally, yes, 5. Faith-Based War

If you have any doubt about the extent to which the Bush regime has serviced the phony-faith-based evangelical jihad, you owe it to yourself to read the Wills piece in its entirety.

WILL THE DEMOCRATS TAKE BACK THE SENATE?

"Madame Speaker" is a foregone conclusion everywhere except around the fringes of the GOP, people who think Santorum/Macacawitz will be the Republican Party's 2008 presidential ticket, the Limbaugh/Hannity/Dobson true believers. But what about the Senate? Will the country see another of the legion of hypocritical closeted gay Republicans, this one from Kentucky, as Majority Leader or will it be Harry Reid?

The latest polls offer hope. Or, like I've been saying all along, God hates these fascists so much that He wants the Democrats, with all their flaws, to kick their butts. Corker was ahead, slightly, in reliably Republican Tennessee. A real progressive would have to be in a very partisan mood to vote for a reactionary asshole like Ford. But the latest poll shows Ford up by an astounding 5 points. Why? Independents in Tennessee were so repulsed by the Republicans' blatantly racist ads-- the one that insinuates that African-American male politicians are only interested in white women and the one that uses a background of threatening jungle drums whenever it mentions Ford (and a soothing, soaring string section whenever it mentions Corker). An ad these two may be great to turn out the KKK base of the GOP but it doesn't take into account that Tennessee, 2006 has come a long, long way and that people live in the state who don't dance to those tunes. It's unlikely that either ad helped get Corker any votes. It's more likely they helped people make up their minds that it's time to send the Republican Party a strong message.

And then in Missouri the tables were turned in a similar fashion when drug-addled Rush Limbaugh decided to do his grotesque imitation of a person suffering from Parkinson's Disease in response to a very well-received ad Michael J Fox did in support of Claire McCaskill and stem cell research. Polling on the ad shows that undecided voters who saw it became more likely to vote for McCaskill. A friend of mine in Kansas City tells me that that was nothing compared to the numbers of people who made up their minds to vote for McCaskill after hearing about Limbaugh's shameful imitation.

"Non-ditto heads here are already embarrassed that Missouri is somehow associated with this drug addled pervert. It infuriated people when he did that crude imitation of Fox. I think it helped more undecideds make up their minds to vote for McCaskill than the actual ad did. Go Rush!"


The latest polling shows McCaskill leading by 3 points. After devastating him in the last debate of the campaign, Sherrod Brown has a double-digit lead over DeWine. On Thursday the Republican Party admitted they had given up on DeWine and wouldn't spend another dime on that race. In Montana, Conrad Burns has resumed his fall towards the 30s (where he will meet Rick Santorum and Lincoln Chafee). That leaves a Democratic Senate with two races still too close to call: a see-saw battle in Virginia between Felix Macacawitz and Jim Webb-- will Macacawitz open his mouth before November 7 and end his chances?-- and a fluid race in Arizona where underdog Jim Pederson is gaining on far right nutcase Jon Kyle.

Not everyone agrees with my analysis. One of the kooky right wing sites has the betting odds from Tradesports. Although the gamblers see virtually no chances whatsoever for Republican hopefuls like Santorum, DeWine, Mark Kennedy (the loon in Minnesota), Steele or the soon-to-be-indicted Burns, they sense GOP victories in Virginia, Tennessee and, just barely, Missouri. We can trust Governor Matt Blunt to keep the vote counting fair and unbiased there, right?

A place where things could go terribly wrong is in Connecticut where the Democrat, Ned Lamont, is in danger of Lieberman's alliance with Republicans and his seemingly unlimited use of "petty cash." Although many prominent Democrats have been unforthcoming with support they had promised the Democratic ticket in Connecticut, some-- like John Kerry, Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, Wes Clark-- have been troopers. Triangulators like the Clintons, Biden and Obama have not come through. In fact one of Lieberman's main allies, reactionary Democrat Joe Biden has made a point of trying to sabotage Lamont. Progressives need to remember. It's very possible that because of the Clintons, Obama and Biden, the Republicans-- with Cheney as tie-breaker-- will still have a functioning majority in the Senate after the elections.

CORPORATE BRIBES START FLOWING TO DEMOCRATS-- TIME TO BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE?

I have quite a few friends and allies who were cheered by the New York Times headline today that reads Democrats Get Late Donations From Business. Ugghhh. Maybe Rahm Emanuel will use it to sweep some pro-corporate shills into office, like his two favorite Florida "ex"-Republicans, Christine Jennings (FL-13) and Tim Mahoney (FL-16) both of whom he and the equally slimy Steny Hoyer inserted at the expense of actual Democrats who believe in Democratic ideals and principles.

And it's not just in Florida where Big Business-oriented/Republican-lite Democrats are being helped into office by Emanuel's crew. Charlie Taylor (R-NC) is as bad as one can be without being behind bars and I'm sure-- well that may be too strong a word; make it "suspect"-- Rahm's boy Heath will be an improvement, although he's not yet committing to vote for any "San Francisco liberal" for Speaker. And I was reading about how Mike Weaver, one of the goons calling himself a Democrat in Kentucky, is running to the right of the Republican on "the gay issue," as well as on Iraq and on abortion.

Lucky we have Rahm, isn't it? Well, I didn't really mean "we," I meant Big Business; they have him-- we're stuck with him. And, as the Times says, Corporate America is "already thinking beyond Election Day, increasing its share of last-minute donations to Democratic candidates and quietly devising strategies for how to work with Democrats... Lobbyists, some of whom had fallen out of the habit of attending Democratic events, are even talking about making their way to the Sonnenalp Resort in Vail, Colo., where Representative Nancy Pelosi of California is holding a Speaker’s Club ski getaway on Jan. 3. It is an annual affair, but the gathering’s title could be especially apt for Ms. Pelosi, the House minority leader, who will be on hand to accept $15,000 checks, and could, if everything breaks her way, become the first woman to be House speaker. 'Attendance will be high,' said Steve Elmendorf, a former Democratic Congressional aide who has a long list of business lobbying clients. 'All Democratic events will see a big increase next year, no question.'"


Almost all grassroots Democrats are using Big Pharma's massive bribes to Republicans as a campaign theme this year. Yet... "For the first nine months of the year, for example, Pfizer’s political action committee had given 67 percent of contributions to Republican candidates. But October ushered in a sudden change of fortune, according to disclosure reports, and Democrats received 59 percent of the Pfizer contributions."

Same thing with the Military-Industrial complex, the part of RepubliWorld that bribed Cunningham and Lewis and all those Republicans who are either in jail or will soon be in jail. Well, now they're getting ready for Rahm and his pals. "Until October, Lockheed Martin, the giant military contractor, had been following its pattern from recent elections of giving about 70 percent of contributions from its political action committee to Republicans. But Lockheed Martin’s generosity shifted in the first half of October, with Democrats receiving 60 percent of donations, or $127,000."

My friends tell me to STFU and worry about Rahm after "we" win November 7. Cheer for garbage piles like Mike Weaver, Tim Mahoney, Harold Ford and Ben Nelson. So what if anti-choice Bob Casey gratuitously announced he would have voted to confirm Alito if he had the chance? We need a Democratic-controlled Senate to... to... something worthy, I'm sure. And even if Casey is a "C" or even a "D," that's a lot better than Santorum, who would be far below an "F" if there was such a thing. Although... like I said to a friend of mine today, if I or someone I love gets dragged away from a defender of the Homeland and disappears into a Kafkaesque world without habeus corpus but with waterboarding... will it matter that Corker is an "F" and Ford is a "D?"

And if some vicious bigot gets inspired by Ford's overly enthusiastic homophobia and shoots me is that not as bad as if that vicious bigot had been inspired by Corker's homophobia? Meanwhile, fake-Democrats like Ford and Weaver and Lieberman and Nelson destroy the value and meaning of the Democratic brand and make millions of voters disgusted with the political process. To them both parties are the same. We know better... right?

When I ask you to donate to our campaign to put ad spots on TV for Tony Trupiano, I'm asking you to help elect a real progressive who will not be a pawn to Rahm Emanuel and who will never vote to barter away our civil rights like Harold Ford and who will never accept corporate bribes like... well, too many to list. Help elect Tony by making even a small donation to our Blue America PAC.

CAN WE BOUNCE RUBBER STAMP McCOTTER OUT OF THE HOUSE AND PUT TONY TRUPIANO OVER THE TOP?

OK, take a look at the ad first. It's tailor-made for Michigan's 11th congressional district, suburban Detroit.



Bush beat Kerry by 3 points there. It's a winnable seat. I don't know if it's because Tony is too unbossed and too independent minded or because Tony is adamantly opposed to the continued occupation of Iraq or just because Tony's such a staunch progressive and so firmly opposed to the corporate bribes Rahm Emanuel so fervently lusts after, but the DCCC ain't giving Tony jack. We've raised around $10,000 for spots so far. It's not enough to put Tony over the top.

The 5,732 people who have donated $489,512.04 on the Blue America ActBlue page have astounded me with their generosity and with their constant willingness to give 'til it hurts. It pains me to have to ask for more but if we want the ad to be more than symbolic, we need to raise at least $20,000. I think we can do it. Today John Kerry linked his website to our page, Bob Geiger gave us a free ad on his and Matt Stoller totally rocked out for our campaign at MyDD. Here's the place to donate-- right next to the American flag cleaning up the disgrace McCotter and other rubber stamp Republicans have made in our nation's capital,

WHAT IS IT WITH ALL THESE REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVES CALLING THE COPS ON CITIZENS??

I mean members of Congress work for us, right? So what's with these Republican self-entitled congressmen who think they're feudal lords and ladies calling the police to arrest constituents? Last week a crazy right wing corporate whore from Pennsylvania, a real monstrosity named Melissa Hart, didn't like the idea of some senior citizens peacefully petitioning her for redress from the horrible doughnut hole legislation she helped get through Congress (as a favor to the pharmaceutical companies that have given her over $100,000 in legalized bribes). So she called the cops. On a bunch of grandmas and grandpas!! What a turd!

I know it sounds hard to believe but Hart staffers in Allison Park, PA called the police on 40 members of the Alliance for Retired Americans carrying... doughnuts. Unfortunately for Hart, a terrorist at heart, the whole incident was captured and broadcast by KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Take a look at Hart's pathetic excuses for calling the cops and think about that if you live in western Pennsylvania when you vote on November 7.



And Hart isn't the only bat-shit crazy wing-nut calling the police on people. The most famous story that got out there after KKK-supported Marilyn Musgrave debated Angie Paccione last week was about how the clueless Musgrave was mouthing a Republican platitude from Dwight Eisenhower's days about how America has the "best healthcare system in the world" which caused the entire audience to erupt in derisive laughter. But there's another story coming out of that debate as well, one that illustrates Musgrave's authoritarian nature more than her usual cluelessness.

Michael Schiavo blogged about it at Daily Kos. Michael and his family had already directly suffered at the hands of Musgrave and her fascistic interference in his family's most personal matters. So when she saw him sitting in the front row of Windsor High School Auditorium, she panicked and did what Republicans like her do when something they don't like happens... she called the cops. "Just minutes after taking my seat, I noticed a flurry of activity around my seat including about four uniformed police officers who were-- I would learn later-- called in by Musgrave staffers and asked to remove me from the building. At this point, I had made no speeches, I had no signs, had made no attempt to disrupt or cause any commotion. I only came into the auditorium, spoke to a dozen or so reporters and took a seat. To their credit, the police refused the Musgrave campaign's appeal to have me removed... A sitting member of Congress asked the police to remove me-- a taxpaying citizen-- from a public debate. Obviously, I misunderstand the concept of a political debate. I thought a debate was a place to share ideas, answer questions, defend your record and tell citizens what you've done and what you will do. Marilyn Musgrave believes, I have to gather, that debates are places to have the police remove people who don't agree with you. After the police talked with obviously irritated Musgrave staffers and the debate organizer, the Musgrave campaign complained that my seat, next to the timekeeper, was inappropriate because-- get this-- Marilyn Musgrave would have to look at me."

Hopefully, after November 7 no one will ever have to look at Marilyn Musgrave again, except for fellow KKK enthusiasts who seek out this kind of thing.

Unfinished business revisited, Part 1: In which it turns out that not even Dorothy Parker can tell us how the heck Thurber's seal got in that bedroom

"All right, have it your way--you heard a seal bark!"

Awhile back I found myself trying to resurrect E. B. White's description of his role in making his friend James Thurber's faint pencil drawings visible to the naked eye--simply by way of describing how I feel while transcribing recorded Daily Show segments for this space. Somehow that seemingly simple goal launched me on a tour of the history of comedy, none of which saved me from having to rely on my memory of White's account of the process, owing to the mysterious disappearance of my copy of what was for both Thurber and White their first published book, the 1929 collaboration Is Sex Necessary?

I. CRIME-WATCH UPDATE

Much business was left unfinished in that account, I'm afraid, and it seems about time to revisit the scene of the crime, as it were--starting, naturally, with the actual crime, the mysterious disappearance of my copy of Is Sex Necessary? It seemed pretty clear to me at the time that the book had been stolen, and very likely by the same fiend who periodically sneaks into my premises and makes off with the very record or book--out of the zillions to choose from--that I am about to want. Shockingly, law enforcement has shown no interest whatsoever in the case. Not even a nibble from any of the thousands of "cold cases"-type shows now infesting the upper reaches of the digital cable-TV spectrum.

However, I discovered that I could easily, and surprisingly inexpensively, lay hands on a pristine copy of a 75th-anniversary edition (gasp!) of the book published in 2004 by HarperCollins, the corporate legatee of Harper Brothers, the original publisher. The new Is Sex Necessary? even comes rigged out with an interesting new foreword by John Updike. Astonishingly, as Updike points out, this little book has never been out of print. I'm not sure if you can imagine how that cheered me the Friday evening I ripped the book out of the mailbox, following an unusually stressful work week. True, the cheer didn't last all that long, but I believe in taking it where you can get it.

II. UPDATE ON (FROM?) THE YEAR 1950

Now, the year 1950 is important to our story. As it happens, in that year both Thurber and White were writing, separately, about the subject of White's role in the propagation of Thurber's drawings--to introduce new editions of books originally published some two decades earlier.

White was writing a new introduction for Is Sex Necessary?, expressing wonder that the book had survived 21 years of life. (Could he have imagined that there would be a 75th-anniversary edition?) Sure enough, this introduction contains his account of how the Thurber illustrations in the book came to be published--at a time when no Thurber drawing had ever been published anywhere. This is the very material I had been searching for all along! In recognition of it's importance, we're going to set it aside and come back to it in Part 2.

Meanwhile, in 1950 Thurber was writing an "author's memoir" for a new edition of his first collection of drawings, The Seal in the Bedroom and other predicaments (1932). I have already quoted Thurber's account of his "collaboration" with White on the drawings, which is in some ways more informative than White's, as you'll see when we come back to White's account. Notably, Thurber traces the history of his experience of pictorializing a seal, which ultimately led to the drawing that inspired the title of this book, reproduced above.

Now, if you don't recall, or have never read, Thurber's own account, it would be easy enough for you to follow the link above. Or, since that's already typed, I could just cut-and-paste it in here, and unwary readers might think I've been typing my fingers to the bone. Say, why don't we do that?

The few interviewers who have shown a mild interest in trying to find out how such drawings as mine ever came to be published have told their several versions of the important part White played in the process, but my own account seems to me to belong here. In the spring of 1929, then, he tried to get The New Yorker to publish a drawing I had done with a pencil on yellow copy paper. It showed a seal on a rock staring at a distant group of human beings, and saying, "Hm." The magazine's art meeting rejected it and sent along, for my instruction and guidance, a professional's drawing of the head of a seal, with the message, "This is how a seal's whiskers go." White sent my drawing back to the next art meeting with the message, "This is the way a Thurber seal's whiskers go." It was rejected again, without drawings or messages. White and I then wrote Is Sex Necessary? and he forced our shocked publishers to publish my illustrations for that book. The New Yorker then asked me to have another look at the seal on the rock, but I destroyed it. I set about doing another one, and what came out of that, by accident and ineptitude, was the drawing in this book of the seal in the bedroom.

I gave the original drawing to Bob Benchley, who had sent me a telegram the day it was reproduced in The New Yorker, the first telegram I ever got about anything of mine. About 1934 he lent it to a New York art gallery for an exhibition that lasted three weeks. The gallery kept it for seven years, in the basement wrapped and tied and addressed to Bob. When I found out about this, I went to the gallery and dug it up and gave it back to him. "Why didn't you tell me it had been gone for seven years?" I asked its owner. "I thought maybe it was on permanent loan," he said. And it darn near was.

What I did not quote was the introduction provided for the original edition of The Seal in the Bedroom--and of course retained in the new one--by Dorothy Parker. When I was writing before, it seemed off-topic (even in a ramble that can hardly have laid much claim to having a topic), and possibly too much of a strain on the patience of any readers who might have made it that far. Or maybe it just would have meant more typing, not to mention proofreading, than I felt up to just then. Either way, let me correct that oversight now (even at the cost of perhaps skimping on the proofreading):

Once a friend of a friend of mine was riding a London bus. At her stop she came down the stair just behind two ladies who, even during descent, were deep in conversation; surely only the discussion of the shortcomings of a common acquaintance could have held them so absorbed. She heeded their voices but none of their words, until the lady in advance stopped on a step, turned and declaimed in melodious British: "Mad, I don't say. Queer, I grant you. Many's the time I've seen her nude at the piano."

It has been, says this friend of my friend's, the regret of her days that she did not hear what led up to that strange fragment of biography.

But there I stray from her. It is infinitely provocative, I think, to be given only the climax; infinitely beguiling to wander back from it along the dappled paths of fancy. The words of that lady of the bus have all the challenge of a Thurber drawing--indeed, I am practically convinced that she herself was a Thurber drawing. No one but Thurber could have thought of her.

Mr. James Thurber, our hero, deals solely in culminations. Beneath his pictures he sets only the final line. You may figure for yourself, and good luck to you, what under heaven could have gone before, that his sombre citizens find themselves in such remarkable situations. It is yours to ponder how penguins get into drawing-rooms and seals into bed-chambers, for Mr. Thurber will only show them to you some little time after they have arrived there. Superbly he slaps aside preliminaries. He gives you a glimpse of the startling present and lets you go construct the astounding past. And if, somewhere in that process, you part with a certain amount of sanity, doubtless you are better off without it. There is too much sense in this world anyway.

These are strange people that Mr. Thurber has turned loose upon us. They seem to fall into three classes--the playful, the defeated, and the ferocious. All of them have the outer semblance of unbaked cookies; the women are of a dowdiness so overwhelming that it becomes tremendous style. Once a heckler, who should have been immediately put out, complained that the Thurber women have no sex appeal. The artist was no more than reproachful. "They have for my men," he said. And certainly the Thurber men, those deplorably desoigne Thurber men, would ask no better.

There is about all these characters, even the angry ones, a touching quality. They expect so little of life; they remember the old discouragements and await the new. They are not shrewd people, not even bright, and we must all be very patient with them. Lambs in a world of wolves, they are, and there is on them a protracted innocence. One sees them daily, come alive from the pages of The New Yorker--sees them in trains and ferryboats and station waiting-rooms and all the big, sad places where a face is once beheld, never to be seen again. It is curious, perhaps terrible, how Mr. Thurber has influenced the American face and physique, and some day he will surely answer for it. People didn't go about looking like that before he started drawing. But now there are more and more of them doing it, all the time. Presently, it may be, we shall become a nation of Thurber drawings, and then the Japanese can come over and lick the tar out of us.

Of the birds and animals so bewilderingly woven into the lives of the Thurber people it is best to say but little. Those tender puppies, those faint-hearted hounds--I think they are hounds--that despondent penguin--one goes all weak with sentiment. No man could have drawn, much less thought of, those creatures unless he felt really right about animals. One gathers that Mr. Thurber does, his art aside; he has fourteen resident dogs and more are expected. Reason totters.

All of them, his birds and his beasts and his men and women, are actually dashed off by the artist. Ten minutes for a drawing he regards as drudgery. He draws with a pen, with no foundation of pencil, and so sure and great is his draughtsmanship that there is never a hesitating line, never a change. No one understands how he makes his boneless, loppy beings, with their shy kinship to the men and women of Picasso's later drawings, so truly and gratifyingly decorative. And no one, with the exception of God and possibly Mr. Thurber, knows from what dark breeding-ground come the artist's ideas. Analysis promptly curls up; how is one to shadow the mental processes of a man who is impelled to depict a seal looking over the headboard of a bed occupied by a broken-spirited husband and a virago of a wife, and then to write below the scene the one line "All right, have it your way--you heard a seal bark"? . . . Mad, I don't say. Genius, I grant you.

It is none too soon that Mr. Thurber's drawings have been assembled in one space. Always one wants to show an understanding friend a conceit that the artist published in The New Yorker--let's see, how many weeks ago was it? and always some other understanding friend has been there first and sneaked the back copies of the magazine home with him. And it is necessary really to show the picture. A Thurber must be seen to be believed--there is no use trying to tell the plot of it. Only one thing is more hopeless than attempting to describe a Thurber drawing, and that is trying not to tell about it. So everything is going to be much better, I know, now that all the pictures are here together. Perhaps the one constructive thing in this year of hell is the publication of this collection.

And it is my pleasure and privilege--though also, I am afraid, my presumption--to introduce to you, now, one you know well already; one I revere as an artist and cleave to as a friend. Ladies and gentlemen--Mr. James Thurber.

DOROTHY PARKER
September 1932

For the record, Thurber comes back to this introduction in his 1950 "author's memoir." Here is the final paragraph:

As long ago as last May, Harpers sent me a copy of Mrs. Parker's Introduction. I had had some idea of sending it to her on the ground that she might want to take certain things back. I decided not to let her see it. It has always been one of my cherished possessions, and I was afraid that its author might take out a word or put in a comma. Dorothy Parker was the first to supply the kind and constant words that a man who draws stuff like the stuff in this book must have, if he is going to go ahead with it. I send her my love, and gratitude, and blessings, as always.

At this point, the logical thing to do would be to introduce the relevant portion of White's introduction to Is Sex Necessary?, where it can be juxtaposed with Thurber's, and see what if anything results. You don't think I'm stopping here just because I'm not prepared to do more typing, do you? No, I sure hope you don't think that.

[to be continued]

THE REALITY OF A BLUE AMERICA MEANS A BLUE OHIO TOO-- MEET MARC DANN

The most massive corruption in the history of any state ever took place in Ohio over the last few years-- from billions of tax payer dollars diverted for partisan purposes to a presidential election hijacked. No checks? No balance? Nothing?

Glad you asked. In fact, the man to ask is our special guest today-- one of the few people shining a light into the dark, dark recesses of Republican one-party control in Ohio-- State Senator Marc Dann. Marc is running for Attorney General of Ohio and he was kind enough to agree to come spend an hour with us this afternoon. I hope he's a fast typer.

Ironically, while Marc was trying to uncover the scandals rocking Ohio, one of the people doing her best to deny them and cover them up-- not to mention perpetrate and plan them-- Betty Montgomery, was the State Auditor and is now the GOP nominee for Attorney General. She isn't held in very high regard outside of Republican crime circles (where she's adored, of course). I asked Marc to put ole Betty's role in perspective so non-Ohioans would see where she fits in.

"If there's a posterchild for Republican corruption in state government, it's Betty Montgomery. She has been in positions over the last 12 years, first as Attorney General and then as Auditor, and when they set this corrupt investment system up at Workmen's Comp, she was their lawyer!"

You know me; I pressed him a little. He doesn't want to get all wild so he asked me, rhetorically, "Do I have a video tape of her conspiring first with Voinovich and then with Taft to set up a fundrasining annuity for Republican officeholders? No, but her failure-- and the failure of Petro, the failure of Taft, the failure of Blackwell-- to assert their independent, constitutional duties to stop the exchange of campaign contributions for investment management and stockbrokerage fees... Look, Ohio was treated as though we were a $20 million customer instead of a $20 billion client-- charging us six or seven cents a share instead of three or four cents a share, resulting in a loss to Ohio of a billion dollars in premiums paid for by small businesses to compensate injured workers... And her defense? This is what she says: 'My record will reflect I'm guilty of doing nothing.'"

Taxpayers don't pay public officials to do nothing while a major heist is going on, especially if the hoisters are all in business with the public watchdogs. While Marc was working in the State Senate to end the one-party state's outrageously corrupt practices, Montgomery, Blackwell, Petro, Taft and the rest of the crew were calling him partisan and denying everything. Jail sentences have already started being handed out and Tom Noe, a Republican county chairman and major GOP rainmaker already has one conviction and is on trial for even more serious crimes now. Polls show Taft to be the most hated governor in the history of America in any state. And the GOP's current candidate for governor, the corrupt Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, can't get out of the high twenties in his re-election bid. (He has other plans for winning that don't include voters.)

Sitting in the State Senate and watching his state absolutely drowning in the most unspeakable-- and systemic-- corruption, Marc knew he had to take action. "I felt like I've been watching a car accident in progress but it was in state government. The brazenness with which these guys have used our tax dollars to raise money for their campaigns has just been horrifying, especially in a state where they've allowed tuition to go up by 68% over the last 6 years. We should be lowering barriers to higher education. And meanwhile we haven't made any investments in law enforcement technology, DNA testing, etc."

Marc is a firm believer in accountability. He seems to relish the fact that the statute of limitations on most election crimes is 6 years. That means he can convene a Grand Jury and have the first real look at what Blackwell, Ashinkoff, Noe, Ney, Taft and the rest of the Republicrooks did to make sure BushCheney retained the White House. "Under a recently-passed bill in Ohio, the next Attorney General will have the authority to seek indictments of anybody who violates Ohio election law including the Secretary of State, local election boards and precinct judges and anyone who intentionally deprives Ohioans of the right to vote."

You think Marc Dann is the kind of Attorney General you'd like to see clean up the Columbus Culture of Corruption? You should visit his web site and consider volunteering for his campaign between now and next Tuesday. And if you want to donate, here is his ActBlue page.


UPDATE: MARC'S A REAL FIRE-EATER!!

This post barely scratches the surface of what Marc Dann is all about and why he'll make a great Attorney General for Ohio. The discussion we had with him today at Firedoglake captures it much better. I mean, he was talking about arresting Karl Rove!!


AFTERTHOUGHT: THE REST OF OHIO LOOKING PRETTY BLUE TOO

In yesterday's Washington Post Chris Cillizza confirms what observers had been observing for some time: the national Republican Party has given up on Ohio. Well, mostly given up. They certainly have pulled out of Mike DeWine's doomed race against Sherrod Brown. And no one in their right mind thinks Ken Blackwell as any chance whatsoever of being elected governor.

"Considering the Buckeye State's primacy in the last two presidential elections," writes Cillizza, "the fact that national Republicans have effectively ceded the Senate and governor races there shows the damage done to the GOP brand by the ethical questions surrounding Gov. Bob Taft (R), who will retire after his current term, and Rep. Bob Ney (R), who faces sentencing for a bribery conviction stemming from the Jack Abramoff scandal. It also raises questions about whether the handful of targeted Republican House members can withstand the double whammy of a difficult national political environment and a state political landscape where having an 'R' after your name is akin to wearing a scarlet letter."

Cillizza feels the least likely Republicans to be re-elected are Steve Chabot (OH-01), Mean Jean Schmidt (OH-02) and Deborah Pryce (OH-15), although none of these walking dead are in as much trouble as Ney's handpicked world-be successor Joy Padgett (OH-18). Right now Democrats are tied or lead in each of these districts. Sweet.

COMING MONDAY-- BYE BYE JOE LIEBERMAN

Hopefully the power of words will be the nail in Lieberman's political coffin. Monday.

But for your weekend viewing pleasure Brian sent me a nice new video showing why Lieberman is absolutely toxic for Connecticut. Enjoy:




UPDATE: JOE LIEBERMAN-- ONE BIG MISTAKE

Wes Clark's new ad for Ned Lamont is pretty powerful. Watch it at the link. Wes makes the point in 30 seconds: Joe Lieberman's support for Bush's war in Iraq was a mistake and his inability to change course is a mistake. Even the religionist right is realizing that the BushCheneyLieberman stay the course approach is a mistake. Seems to me no one in Connecticut who watches it is going to make the mistake of voting for Lieberman again. On the other hand, it is doubtful anyone who has ever voted for Lieberman in the past will be voting for him November 7. Virtually all of Holy Joe's support this year is from Republicans-- and people who like petty cash.

ALRIGHT... LET'S BRING HOME MICHIGAN'S 11TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT FOR A REAL PROGRESSIVE-- TONY TRUPIANO

In terms of quality of candidates we've interviewed and blogged with for the Blue America series, it doesn't get any better than Tony Trupiano. Please take a look at his session over at Firedoglake. John Amato introduced Jane and I to Tony and we're as floored by his dedication and commitment to core progressive values and principles as John is. Since that late September chat the Blue America ActBlue page has raised nearly $5,000 for Tony's campaign. Not bad for a rag tag grassroots outfit, huh? But is it enough to win him the seat? It isn't. Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC should be helping with that. They're not. Let's really help Tony win this seat.

A couple days ago one of the most impressive TV ad makers in America, Lars Sandvik , sent us an ad he had put together for Jim Webb. Only Webb isn't using it. I asked him if he could adapt it to one of the Blue America progressives. He said "yes" and, like everyone who works on Blue America, Lars has done everything pro bono and made sure everyone else involved would too. So which campaign would most benefit? John, Jane and I don't have any fancy Beltway consultants-- thank God-- but we have something way better: Markos. We got Markos to go over all the races with us and figure out which race would be most likely to benefit from this particular ad and where our limited budget would actually do enough... not just enough to send a message, but enough to swing a few points and win an election. In the end the four of us all came to the same conclusion: Tony Trupiano.

Tony's opponent is a posterboy for the whole concept of being a rubber stamp. He is one of the least independent-minded congressman in Washington, even to the point of being a bit of a laughing stock. A complete mama's boy, he became hysterical at the one debate he had with Tony and wound up making an idiot out of himself and then refusing any further debates. Since he actually gerrymandered the district for himself as a state legislator, he feels quite certain he's got this baby in the bag. He must be reading MyDD because he just gave away 80% of his campaign warchest-- all those legalized bribes for so many favors to so many corporations-- to the RNCC.

We can win this race. Tony's doing very well on a shoestring budget. Some real air time the last week of the campaign could put him over the edge of victory. And we're not just talking about a generic "Democrat" here. We're talking about someone who will fight, and fight hard, for the basic tenets of a progressive America. If Tony gets into Congress he will immediately become one of the most important and articulate champions of working men and women. And I can tell you one thing-- Tony Trupiano will never vote to sabotage habeus corpus and Tony Trupiano will not agree to throw any minorities under the bus for his own career advancement.

Look at the Blue America ActBlue page. You've raised nearly half a million dollars and every $5 and $10 and $20 donation was pure grassroots. This is probably the last time we'll come asking for help in this cycle. If you have anything left you can spare, please consider going to the Blue America PAC and donating for television time buys for Tony now. We have to pull the trigger on Monday. So whatever we can raise between now and then, we put on the air.

REPUBLICANS BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF... THEY FOUND A GOP CONGRESSMAN IN A SEX SCANDAL THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE TEENAGE BOYS!

After all that icky stuff about Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley asking 16 year old boys to measure their penises for him-- followed by him getting soused and trying to break into their dormitory late one night, eager to personally confirm the reported measurements-- and Arizona Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe with his camping trips with high school boys, and Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Phil English with the teenage male prostitutes, and Illinois Republican Congressman Denny Hastert with the nearly all gay staff-- can you imagine what happy hour was like there???-- covering up for all the sexual predators... well, the GOP is practically bragging about Nevada Republican Congressman Jim Gibbons. He's not a gay sex predator-- just a sex predator.

Gibbons-- like Don Sherwood (R-PA)-- seems to think it's ok to beat up women who spurn your gross sexual advances. "A few weeks ago it seemed five-term Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) would cruise to victory in his bid to be governor. But last week Las Vegas casino cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo said Gibbons shoved her against the wall of a restaurant parking garage and threatened her when she rejected his sexual advances." Taking a creative note from his Pennsylvania pal Sherwood (who claimed he wasn't choking his young mistress but massaging her; he later paid several million dollars to make up for the "massage"), Gibbons said that during the Oct. 13 encounter, he was just trying to help Mazzeo when she appeared to be falling down.

That scandal isn't going away-- even though another one has already popped up. In fact, a Gibbons operative has offered Ms. Mazzeo some hush money if she'll just STFU and let him win his race. The victim of Sherwood's "massage" got millions. Wonderers in Nevada are wondering what Gibbons is offering. Now, aside from trying to portray himself as an upstanding Christian gentleman who would never make a dirty grab at a cocktail waitress, let alone ask her for a bj, Gibbons is all about cracking down on "illegals." He's about as bad as Tancredo and Musgrave and Graf, although no one has ever photographed him in full KKK regalia.

Why is this relevant? KLAS broke a big story a day or two ago that deals with an entirely different aspect of Gibbons unsuitability for public office. While he was running around screaming that we should be rounding up immigrants and deporting them, he was hiding one in his basement and paying her slave wages to work for him-- for years (1987 ''til 1993). Gibbons wife has been caught blatantly lying about this. "KLAS reporter George Knapp obtained documents showing that the Gibbons tried to obtain legal status for Pastor; among them was an employment agreement signed by Dawn Gibbons and Pastor [the Peruvian immigrant in question], which said Pastor worked from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. six days a week for $800 a month. Pastor said she was always paid in cash, Knapp reported, and no Social Security or other benefits were paid." Still... better than another Republican congressman-- or gubernatorial candidate-- caught in bed with another live boy.


UPDATE: MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE REPUGS-- A SURVEILLANCE CAMERA CAUGHT GIBBONS TRYING TO GET THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS TO GIVE HIM A BJ IN A PARKING GARAGE

Gibbons is like the non-gay/non-pedophile Mark Foley. And now there's proof. Can you say Governor Titus?

IF ROVE IS PLANNING TO STEAL THE ELECTIONS ELECTRONICALLY AGAIN, THIS PEW RESEARCH WILL BE THE PROOF HE DID IT

The TV networks-- as well as the political parties-- are conspiring to make it look like the contest for control of Congress is close, even a cliff hanger. It isn't. An anti-Republican blow-out has been taking shape all year and a Democratic wave will sweep away dozens of rubber stamp Republican congressmen. A very serious scholarly survey by the Pew Research Center shows double-digit leads for Democrats across the board-- not razor tight margins that are easily manipulated to fudge cheating after people like Katherine Harris, Rove, Mehlman and Kenneth Blackwell have done their dirty, traitorous deeds, but double-digit leads... everywhere.

"An oversample of voters in 40 competitive districts  identified by a consensus of political analysts  shows that voting intentions in the battleground districts are about the same as they are in the 'safe' House districts. Among registered voters, the Democrats lead by 11 points in competitive districts (50%-39%) and by the same margin in safe districts (49%-38%)." Iraq is the dominant issue and even GOP voters "are now rendering more negative judgments about how things are going in Iraq."

And despite Rove's diktat to his troops to move the discussion away from Iraq and towards the Democrats' strongest issue-- the economy-- "the new poll finds no increase in public optimism about the nation's economy, despite gains in the stock market and lower gas prices. Just one-in-three Americans say the national economy is in excellent or good shape, while nearly twice as many (65%) view the economy as only fair or poor. Opinions about economic conditions are especially negative in the Midwest... The Democratic Party's advantage in handling most issues remains stable."

And if Diebold does what the Republicans pay them to do, people will look at numbers like these: "public impressions of the Democratic Party have improved since the summer. Currently, 53% express a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, up from 47% in July. Just 41% have a positive opinion of the Republican Party, which is virtually unchanged from April and July (40% on both occasions)."

The survey examines competitive districts in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana, New York and Ohio. As a group these districts voted for Bush in 2004 but now nearly 60% of their residents disapprove of how he's handled his job. Bush does much worse, of course, in districts that didn't vote for him in 2004. But that's the point-- these are Republican districts and they have realized what a farce and a sham his entire Regime-run-amock has been. And about half the voters say that national issues, especially Iraq, matter more to their vote for Congress than do local issues.

Even in the newest Fox poll Democrats are overwhelmingly preferred. "Less than two weeks before Election Day, Democrats hold a double-digit lead over Republicans among likely voters in the Congressional election-- not surprising, as Democrats are seen as the party that can do a better job on almost all of the top issues facing the country today, according to a new FOX News poll." According to Fox, the double digit lead for Democratic candidates is because independent voters have massively turned against the Republicans and because Democrats are far more motivated to vote than Republicans are. The vicious, negative ads and fear and smear tactics that have worked so well for Republicans in the past are falling flat this year as a renewed sense of reality sweeps the country.

DWT will attempt district by district predictions next week but as of now, it is looking like a Democratic net gain of far over the 15 seats needed to sweep Hastert and the GOP leadership from control. At this point Democrats are far closer to taking 50 seats than 15 seats in the House. Tom Schaller has a powerful analysis in today's Baltimore Sun. "An electoral tide of sufficient magnitude next month would surely sweep out a few Southern Republicans. Former Tennessee football star Heath Shuler is a Democrat leading his race in western North Carolina. The Democrats also hope to pick up the seats in Florida and Texas vacated, respectively, by disgraced Mark Foley and deposed Minority Leader Tom DeLay. But most Democratic victories will be won north of the Mason-Dixon Line or west of the Mississippi River. In fact, about three-quarters of the Republican-held seats in jeopardy are located in what I call the "4D rectangle" of states formed by connecting Dover, N.H.; Dover, Del.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Duluth, Minn. Five states within this rectangle have three or more Republicans in jeopardy: Connecticut, Indiana, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Democratic candidates in Iowa, Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin are also competitive. Meanwhile, Republicans are even struggling to hold seats in some distinctly red portions of the country, including eastern Washington, western Idaho, central New Mexico, southeastern Arizona and Wyoming." Today's NPR story about the collapse of the Republican Party as a genuinely viable entity in much of rural America should put the finishing touches on any hope Republicans have of maintaining their power... at least in a relatively fair election.

What happens when good people do bad things? The next shoe drops in the sorry saga of New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi. It still sucks.

As I said the other day, while venting what I guess would be fair to describe as heartsickness over the predicament that a pol I've long admired, Alan Hevesi, has gotten himself into: "Hevesi's problem now isn't so much his political enemies as his normal supporters."

Case in point: Today the New York Times, seeing no viable alternative, has taken the extraordinary step of endorsing the Republican candidate for state comptroller even though everything in his record and his campaign suggests that he will do the job abominably:

New York Times Editorial
October 27, 2006
For New York Comptroller

This has been an election year rife with sudden scandals and candidate meltdowns. In New York, we have watched in increasing dismay as State Comptroller Alan Hevesi's re-election campaign--and reputation--have unraveled in recent weeks. A damning report by the State Ethics Commission has found that he "engaged in acts that violated the public trust" by deploying taxpayer-funded cars and drivers for personal use.

That report, and Mr. Hevesi's unsatisfactory response, leave the voters with a dilemma. In general, Mr. Hevesi has done a good job running the comptroller's office over the past four years. His opponent has a far less impressive background and has appeared out of his depth in campaign appearances. Are the ethical issues enough to tip the scale?

In this case, yes. This is the second time Mr. Hevesi has committed the same violation of public trust. When he was comptroller in New York City, a news report revealed that he had repeatedly used city cars and drivers to transport his ailing wife. He reimbursed the city $6,439. This year, the same issue was raised by his opponent, Christopher Callaghan. Mr. Hevesi admitted he had once again been using government cars to chauffeur his wife, apologized repeatedly and agreed to repay the state almost $83,000. In both cases, Mr. Hevesi volunteered to reimburse the taxpayers only after the problem was made public.

As the criticism has grown louder in recent weeks, Mr. Hevesi has increasingly walled himself off from the press and the public. Only after intense pressure did he finally agree to Wednesday night's debate, when he apologized but defiantly portrayed his actions as a concerned husband's protection of a fragile spouse. He insistently ignores the fact that the issue is not whether Mrs. Hevesi should be driven around, but who should be paying the bill.

If the Republican Party had known Mr. Hevesi's candidacy was going to implode, it would undoubtedly have looked harder for a nominee to challenge him. As it was, Mr. Callaghan, the former Saratoga County treasurer, appeared to have been the only person to raise his hand. Until a few weeks ago, he had been such a phantom candidate that even some of his fellow Republicans were scrambling to find out who he was.

As treasurer, Mr. Callaghan ran a tiny office of about a dozen people where he was, in effect, Saratoga County's accountant. He is known as a penny pincher when it comes to public funds, which is good. He is also a conservative on nonfiscal matters, whose political views would put him at odds with many New Yorkers. In interviews and in this week's debate, he has been extremely unimpressive, hardly the man whom voters would normally want to hire as the state's chief fiscal officer and sole trustee of New York's $140 billion pension fund.

But one of the main jobs of the comptroller is to make sure people who handle taxpayers' money understand the very clear line between their personal expenditures and the public treasury. There is no way Mr. Hevesi can fulfill that vital role anymore.

Rather than choose between Mr. Hevesi and Mr. Callaghan, some political and civic leaders have called for Mr. Hevesi to resign, hoping that the political powers can then pick another candidate. While he could not be taken off the ballot, the public could presumably be told whom they would be getting if the departed comptroller won the election. That strategy smacks very much of the Albany political culture, in which almost anything can be papered over by a few powerful officials sitting down privately to make a deal. The public should choose between the candidates offered, and that means they should choose Mr. Callaghan.

If elected, we hope he avoids the political hacks and has-beens waving their resumes and chooses the all-important counsel, deputies and advisers for the pension funds from the rolls of the best and most thoughtful people available in New York State. We make this endorsement with some trepidation, but with a conviction that it is vital that voters take a stand against the curdled political culture in Albany. There have to be consequences for bad behavior--for political parties as well as individual politicians. We support Christopher Callaghan for New York comptroller.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

If I may quote myself again: Man, this sucks.

Quote of the day: Afghanistan is poised to follow Iraq down the toilet while American policy is made by people in need of prompt institutional care

"It's hard to believe that the world's only superpower is on the verge of losing not just one but two wars. But the arithmetic of stability operations suggests that unless we give up our futile efforts in Iraq, we're on track to do just that."
--Paul Krugman, in his column today, "The Arithmetic of Failure"

Yesterday washingtonpost.com's Dan Froomkin devoted his column, "Why Bush Thinks We're Winning," to Chimpy the Prez's obsession with "winning" in Iraq, as evidenced in his nonsensical press conference and his utterly imbecilic if not outright psychotic "private" chinwag with a gaggle of right-wing columnists the day before.

At this point, it's hard to see how anyone who isn't engaged in the war profiteering that has been one of the principal results, if not one of the principal objectives, of the American invasion of Iraq can have any doubt that George W. Bush isn't just a worthless shell of a human being but a man who is totally delusional--by the most generous standards totally insane and mentally incompetent to perform any kind of work that requires the most glancing acquaintanceship with reality, least of all the office of president of the United States.

Unfortunately, there's only one mechanism for dealing with his mental incapacitation, as spelled out in the 25th Amendment:

4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Obviously this isn't going to happen (the people who would have to take such action are either as deranged as the president or codefendants in the war crimes he should be facing), which is just as well considering the only "remedy" provided. (Acting President Cheney???) The only hope at this point is a swell of demand for change from the American people.

And that can only start if tiny rays of light begin to penetrate the fog and filth of ignorance and delusion in which the country has been smothered by the forces that unleashed Karl Rove and his kind on us. In this vein, then, standing up to the insane delusion of "winning" in Iraq--however that might be defined--here is the start of Mr. Krugman report from the real world:

Iraq is a lost cause. It's just a matter of arithmetic: given the violence of the environment, with ethnic groups and rival militias at each other's throats, American forces there are large enough to suffer terrible losses, but far too small to stabilize the country.

We're so undermanned that we're even losing our ability to influence events: earlier this week, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki brusquely rejected American efforts to set a timetable for reining in the militias.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a war we haven't yet lost, and it's just possible that a new commitment of forces there might turn things around.

The moral is clear--we need to get out of Iraq, not because we want to cut and run, but because our continuing presence is doing nothing but wasting American lives. And if we do free up our forces (and those of our British allies), we might still be able to save Afghanistan.

The classic analysis of the arithmetic of insurgencies is a 1995 article by James T. Quinlivan, an analyst at the Rand Corporation. "Force Requirements in Stability Operations," published in Parameters, the journal of the U.S. Army War College, looked at the number of troops that peacekeeping forces have historically needed to maintain order and cope with insurgencies. Mr. Quinlivan's comparisons suggested that even small countries might need large occupying forces. . . .

As usual with hostage-hold NYT columnists, the full text of the column will be found appended in a comment.

GOP HATE GROUPS FIND CHEER IN THE NJ SUPREME COURT GAY CIVIL UNIONS RULING

"The New Jersey court decision that gay couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual couples was bad news for social conservatives-- the bad news they were hoping for. 'Pro-traditional-marriage organizations ought to give a distinguished service award to the New Jersey Supreme Court,' said the Rev. Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention."

The bigots and fear-and-hate-mongers on the extreme right say the ruling will encourage brainwashed religionists to flock to the polls to vote for the party that espouses bigotry and practices sex with teenage boys and cover-ups!

One of the far right Republican politicians disguised as a religious figure, an arch-hypocrite named Tony Perkins of an extremist hate group with the misnomer, Family Research Council, was licking his chops in glee after the decision. "I have to think there are Democratic strategists out there thinking the words of the old Japanese admiral: 'I fear all we've done is wake a sleeping giant,'" said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based advocacy group. 'They were coasting into an election with a Republican base with dampened enthusiasm. This brings it all back home to the base, what this election is about.'"

Another extremist Republican politician, this one disguised as a preacher, James Dobson, who heads the Colorado-based hate group Focus on the Family, held 3 fire and brimstone GOP rallies which were supposed to draw between 15 and 20,000 people each. Each drew 3,000 suckers-- even after the ticket prices was waived-- to hear the Republican Party lies couched in misleading and even blasphemous religionist terms.

Today's New York Times is running a story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg on how the Republicans are scurrying to exploit the ruling to appeal to their base of bigots and homophobes. Bush and congressional rubber stampers like Rick Santorum of Virginia Pennsylvania and Felix Macacawitz of Virginia have nothing to run on except an issue almost no one cares about-- "that gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and financial benefits as heterosexual couples."

Republicans, of course, risk reminding voters of the party's arch hypocrisy in this area, publicly advocating an anti-gay agenda while privately protecting their own closeted gay members, even members known to be molesting teenage boys in the care of Congress. Most voters aren't going to be as concerned about Dick Cheney's daughter and her female lover having legal rights and equal financial benefits as they are about GOP congressmen like Mark Foley and Jim Kolbe chasing young male pages through the halls of Congress while a cabal of closeted gay GOP solons, from Karl Rove, Denny Hastert, Jim McCrery, Ken Mehlman, Larry Craig, Charlie Crist, Mitch McConnell to dozens and dozens of shadowy right wing homosexuals on Hastert's staff and on the staffs of even the most outspoken anti-gay senators like Santorum, Colburn, Inhofe, Martinez, Macacawitz, Frist and Martinez kept it all under wraps

Trust St. Rudy of the Rubble to figure out how to turn a buck off the far-right-wing reversal of the government's role in environmental protection

Funny, here we just were, talking about that pompous scumbag Rudy Giuliani!

Let me say, first, that I don't think there's any real danger of Rudy becoming president. Although those of us who've watched him govern at same-city range know that there's no more thoroughly anti-democratic figure (and do I ever mean small-"d" democratic) in our public life, as far as I can tell he's still regarded as practically a socialist by the famous "base" of the new and improved ultra-right Republican Party, even with his bogus credentials as the World's Worst Authority on homeland security leveraged from his post-9/11 incarnation as St. Rudy of the Rubble.

Now, since there doesn't seem to be much of anything else for our Rudy to run for, since apart from the presidency, he seems to regard just about every office except maybe pope as a step down from his status as the World's Most Fatuous Blowhard, that means he probably isn't going to become much of anything else--except the inescapable supremely authoritarian, loudmouthed egomaniac he's always been.

So it's nice to know that he's good for the occasional chuckle. Perhaps his real future lies as the antihero of a really wicked satirical comic strip? Anyway, here without further comment is an item from Al Kamen's Washington Post "In the Loop" column:

From the EPA to Rudy's Firm

The door revolves. Jeff Holmstead, former assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for air and radiation, has joined the Washington office of Bracewell & Giuliani. Partner Rudy Giuliani praised his "familiarity with the compliance challenges facing the private sector." Holmstead was much criticized by enviros as point man for what they said were administration efforts to weaken air-quality regulations.

HAD ENOUGH OF DON "THE CHOKER" SHERWOOD?

Chris Carney is one of several dozen Democrats ignored by the DCCC until after grassroots support catapulted him to a lead over an enfeebled, reactionary Republican incumbent. Carney, a Blue America-endorsed progressive, has seen his lead over Don "The Choker" Sherwood grow steadily since he first showed up on Firedoglake for one of our question and answer sessions. We've raised over $7,000 for him and Mike McIntee, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher did a great customized version of "Have You Had Enough?" for Pennsylvania bloggers. This morning's Scranton Times-Tribune carries a story by Elizabeth Piet about how Blue America's efforts have helped Carney's campaign turn an entrenched congressman into an underdog while the DCCC at first shook its head, then scratched its head and is now heading for the bank to help Carney close the deal with voters in PA-10.




UPDATE: MORE "HAD ENOUGH?" STUFF

Connecticut newspapers are starting to write about "Have You Had Enough?" for two reasons: the band is going in to Connecticut to go on a statewide bus tour with Ned. They'll be performing the song wherever they can find someplace to plug in. And our "Time To Throw Nancy Johnson Out" spots are now flooding the airwaves in CT-05. The Waterbury Republican American did a YouTube oriented story this morning talking about our efforts to clean up Congress.

And you remember the wonderful Carol Voisin who's taking on bizarre right wing extremist Greg Walden up in Oregon, right? Well, Carol took "Have You Had Enough?" and made her own TV spot which is now up and running on cable TV. You can keep it on TV if you can afford to send Carol some money at her campaign's ActBlue page.

REPUBLICANS LOSING THE MIDDLE CLASS IN MIDDLE AMERICA: MEET ANNE NORTHUP AND JOHN YARMUTH

As Cliff Schecter explains in Go Midwest (and Border State), Young Progressives for In These Times there's something going on in Kentucky this year. And that something may well get John Yarmuth, founder of the Louisville alternative weekly paper, elected to Congress. Unlike some of the other Democrats running in Kentucky (Weaver and Lucas), Yarmuth is not some Republican-lite reactionary. He's a real Democrat with populist goals and progressive values. "Yarmuth calls for 'putting the government back on the side of working people' by not taking campaign contributions from 'any industry' and stopping jobs from being shipped abroad." He's running against a quintessential Republican rubber stamp, Anne Northup, who has taken hunderds of thousands of dollars in legalized bribes from Big Business to always vote in their interests and ignore the interests of her constituents.

Her dismal voting record reads like a jihad against working and middle class Kentucky. DMI rates every legislator on a broad basket of issues affecting the middle class and then rates each member of Congress. Astoundingly, Northup, in her rush to rubber stamp every abysmal scheme cooked up by Bush, DeLay, Abramoff and Hastert has earned a flat zero (an F)! So what's a gal who likes the steady flow of corporate cash gonna do round election time when voters start wondering exactly why they're disastisfied with the direction the country is going and despairing of the lack of leadership from their elected officials?

Incredibly, Northup seems to think last minute bluster is going to fool someone into thinking she's somehow independent of the despised BushCheney Regime. Yesterday's Louisville Courier-Journal ran a story about Northup trying transparent this little trick. "U.S. Rep. Anne Northup, portrayed as a rubber stamp for President Bush by Democratic challenger John Yarmuth, is calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a change of strategy in the Iraq war. 'Considering where we are today and the number of losses and casualties in the last month, I don't want to depend on the same team, meaning Rumsfeld,' she told The Courier-Journal yesterday."

Moderate Democrat Ben Chandler from a neighboring Kentucky district called Northup's demand that Rumsfeld resign "simply a desperate attempt by one of President Bush's staunchest supporters to distance herself from an unpopular war during a close election. I believe the voters of Louisville will see this drastic change in policy by Northup as too little, too late." (Of course Northup insists that her sudden change of heart has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the election and the fact that her race is a dead heat.

The newspaper points out that Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky claims that Rumsfeld has "done an excellent job" and that "he'll be remembered as one of the great secretaries of defense." (Many men who live their lives hiding in closets find it impossible, after a while, to distinguish between lies and truth, even as they're talking themselves. Unless you understand that, you'll never understand McConnell.)

"Northup's comments on Rumsfeld prompted Yarmuth's campaign to accuse her of 'cutting and running from her record.' She is 'trying to… run away from the fact that she is in lockstep with Republican leadership,' said Jason Burke, Yarmuth's campaign manager. 'She was on George Bush's team and she loved the guy and now she doesn't.'"

Bush will be campaigning in the area this weekend. Northup would love to go be she has a previous engagement with her mahjongg league. Or maybe she read today's AP poll that shows the middle class abandoning the GOP in droves. "In it, 56 percent of likely voters said they would vote to send a Democrat to the House and 37 percent said they would vote Republican-- a 19-point difference. Democrats had a 10-point edge in early October... middle-class voters are embracing the Democratic Party and fleeing the GOP-- just as they abandoned Democrats a dozen years ago and ushered in an era of Republican control." They're pissed off about Iraq and the economy and blame Bush and rubber stamp Republicans like Northup.

"Overall, the picture looks bleak for Republicans. Likely voters have low opinions of both Bush's job performance and that of the GOP-controlled Congress. The president's approval rating is at a dismal 38 percent while Congress' is even lower-- 23 percent. Two-thirds of adults say America is on the wrong track... Voters have grown increasingly angry at the Bush administration and Republican leadership in Congress throughout October... A majority of middle-class voters now favor Democrats to control the House and say that Democrats best represent their most closely held beliefs. They trust Democrats more than Republicans to handle the situation in Iraq, which most of them view as a mistake. The war is this voting group's most important issue. The economy and health care are close behind. Like voters of all stripes, the middle class is angry with Bush and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill-- and these voters could take out their fury out on the controlling party at the ballot box as they did in 1994."

Now think back to the DMI analysis above. Northup was rated an F and a ZERO on middle class issues.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KERREY AND KERRY IS MORE THAN AN "E"-- IT'S ALSO THE TREACHEROUS LIEBERMAN

Bob Kerrey from Nebraska always seemed like a decent guy to me, regardless of the tasteless "baby killer epithets that have been thrown his way since his days in 'Nam. And, honestly, I was floored today when I read that Kerrey has endorsed Lieberman. True, he went to Connecticut and gave a speech that sounded like he was actually supporting Ned Lamont but, in the end, he decided to tell Democratic voters in Connecticut that he knows best and that the reactionary Bush rubber stamp is the right person to send back to the U.S. Senate, even though Lieberman has been telling intimates that he plans to wreak revenge on Democrats if he's re-elected senator.

"'We cannot be the Iraqi police force forever,' Kerrey said, calling it an inappropriate use of U.S. military. 'At some point you've got to say to the Iraqi people, It's yours.'"

At the same time that Kerrey was campaigning for Lamont's ideas and for Lieberman, John Kerry was in Connecticut with Lamont campaigning both for him and his ideas. Now neither Kerrey nor Kerry was a big fan of another sleazy and duplicitous pol when they were young men. Kerry seems to have learned a lesson. Kerrey hasn't. Someone needs to send him this video. (I heard when Lieberman saw it he became hysterical. Too close to home?

HAROLD FORD, MARK FOLEY, JIM KOLBE, TONY SNOW, MEHLMAN, HASTERT... WHAT A ZOO!

Earlier today I had something to say about Harold Ford's political opportunism and his willingness-- eagerness to shove gay men and women under the bus for the sake of his smarmy career. Not all my friends agree with me. Well, actually all my friends do agree with me; they just think progressives need to overlook it and get him elected so he helps form a Democratic majority in the Senate. I voiced my doubts and concerns about that strategy already. But I do want to bring up a Ford-related point from the always amusing Dan Savage (which I suspect was written before Ford was on Imus exposing his homophobia and protesting a bit too loudly):

Harold Ford should film a response to the GOP’s racist attack ad. He should look into the camera and say this:

The Republicans have accused me of being a heterosexual man. They're implying that I have an interest in women. It would seem that today's Republican Party is more comfortable with elected officials-- male elected officials-- who take an interest in teenage boys. Mark Foley is acceptable to Ken Mehlman's GOP. Heterosexual men, it seems, are not.

Is it gay baiting? Yes it is, but so fucking what? African Americans in the GOP turn a blind eye to the race-bating that their party indulges in. Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and Ken Blackwell haven't had much to say about this ad, huh? Because they don't care what their party says or does so long as it keeps 'em in power.

If a little gay-baiting helps the Dems seize power, shit, gay bait away, Harold. Make that ad, Harold, and this fag will send you a big, fat, fucking gay check.

Savage is a big Casey supporter too. What a Democratic Party member he is!

But speaking of the GOP's problem with closeted members molesting teenage boys, a week or two ago I mentioned that Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) had announced his little camping trip with underage male pages in order to get it out before it landed on him like a ton of bricks. The bricks have finally started to fall. (One wonders when they'll start falling on other closeted gay Republican hypocrites, like Hastert, McCrery and the senator from Kentucky... the one who didn't pass away.)

Hastert's gay House Clerk, Jeff Trandahl admitted under questioning-- though he didn't get the waterboarding treatment Cheney is so fond of-- that, like Foley, "Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) was one of a small number of 'problem members' of Congress who page program supervisors complained spent too much time socializing with pages, taking them to dinner or sporting events outside of official duties."

Kolbe, well-known in Tucson gay circles for his fondness for teenage boys of the "smooth" variety, refused to comment, only saying he is "cooperating fully with all the inquiries" (except, apparently, the ones from the press.

Trandahl didn't say whether or not Hastert covered up the Kolbe "problems" with the teenaged pages -- the way he did in the Foley case-- but the big shock in all this is how the mass media is cooperating with the GOP to never say that the gay Republican congressmen actually sucked and fucked these boys. They have done all they could to make it sound like-- in Tony Snow's words-- "just naughty e-mails." It wasn't just naughty e-mails. Boys have already said that they have had sex with Foley. Funny it never gets on the 6 o'clock news.

IF YOU LIVED IN TENNESSEE, WOULD YOU VOTE FOR HAROLD FORD? THANK GOD I DON'T HAVE TO MAKE THAT DECISION!

Last week a friend and ally asked me for some help with fundraising for his progressive Democratic organization. He had a great idea and I was extremely excited. But when I looked to see exactly who the fundraising would benefit I was sickened. First on his list: fake Democrat Harold Ford of Tennessee, someone I would have trouble even voting for, let alone giving a dime to! But what about making Harry Reid Majority Leader and what about all the committee chairs? Yes, that's where the trouble part comes in. If not for those factors I would never in a million years even consider voting for reactionary assholes like Ford (or either Nelson or Landreiu or... well, of course, there's Lieberman in his own category of treachery).

Like any other corrupt corporate whore-- regardless of partisan affiliation-- Ford voted for Bush's Big Business-oriented bankruptcy bill. And he voted to abolish habeus corpus in America and in favor of allowing Bush to torture anyone he likes. That's what I'm supposed to raise money for? The traitorous congressmen who voted to abolish habeus corpus should face treason trials someday-- along with Bush and Cheney. But today I should vote to give them more power?

After yesterday's New Jersey Supreme Court decision Ford made the following statement:

"I do not support the decision today reached by the New Jersey Supreme Court regarding gay marriage. I oppose gay marriage, and have voted twice in Congress to amend the United States Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. This November there's a referendum on the Tennessee ballot to ban same-sex marriage - I am voting for it."

Today he ran to a right wing radio host to repeat his anti-gay bigotry over and over again. Screw Harold Ford! If we want a grandstanding demagogue and bigot who is willing to trample on the rights of others, we have Corker. Maybe I'd get in the voting booth and hold my nose and weep a little and gnash my teeth and vote against an overtly rubber stamp U.S. Senate (and in favor of a slightly less rubber stamp Senate) and pull the lever for Ford... maybe. But pay for the privilege? Not a chance. Not a dime for Harold Ford.

And voting for this asshole moves the Democratic Party inexorably towards the reactionary values of the Republicans we're trying to get away from. "But he's a fighter," is what you hear from Democrats. True, he's a slimy opportunist with an outsized sense of entitlement (first African American president ambition) who fights... for himself. He's a Democrat by chance, not because the Democratic Party particularly stands for something. At this point, the reasons to hope he wins and the reasons to hope he loses are about in balance.


UPDATE: TWO COMMENTS AS TO THE PLACE OF TENNESSEEANS ON THE EVOLUTIONARY SCALE

Almost simultaneously I just got two e-mails; one was to approve the comment from Rick on this piece (please read it) and the other was from my friend Christy pointing out a piece by Attytood called "Can 6 million Tennesseans Be This Backwards? (No)."

Obviously I feel the same pain that Rick does about political compromise, particularly one this "stinky." Will Bunch has had the time to drink a cup of coffee and think it over some. As usual, his insights are worth considering. And, like myself, he comes to a harsh conclusion: "It's just too bad there's no lever in this race for "'none of the above.'"

Quotes of the day: Bob Herbert finds Hoosiers don't like the GOP but still aren't wild about the Dems (Plus: The N.J. Supremes say a mouthful)

"I voted for Bush twice. Now I just want him gone."
--Lucy McKee, 40, a part-time supermarket clerk

"What's happening now is frightening to me. The war. The deficit. The cronyism. I'm the kind of Republican who signed on for balanced budgets, minimal government and letting people go about their lives. I feel like somebody has thrown away that playbook."
--Jeri Niazi, 60, a University of Notre Dame security monitor and "lifelong registered Republican"

Both quoted by Bob Herbert in his NYT column today from South Bend, Indiana, "Fed Up With Everybody"

After quoting Ms. Niazi, Herbert continues*:

Ms. Niazi said she is pro-business but she "never dreamed" that corporate interests would achieve the kind of overwhelming and corrosive influence on the federal government that they have under President Bush.

"They are cleaning up," she said, "while people here are having a tough time making ends meet."

The overwhelming sense I took away from interviews with voters in and around South Bend was a feeling of disillusionment with government. Republicans and Democrats spoke sourly about the Bush administration, but no one expected dramatic changes if the Democrats gained control of one or both houses of Congress. "People say the Democrats are weak, and frankly, I think they are," said Vernon DeWitt, who recently moved to Mishawaka from St. Louis. "I'm fed up with everybody."

The big issue here, as in most of the country, is Iraq, which will have claimed close to 3,000 American lives by the end of this year, and which has lasted almost as long as the U.S. involvement in World War II.

"The war creates stress on the electorate," said Congressman [Chris] Chocola [left--the Republican incumbent in Indiana's 2nd Congressional District, locked in a fierce reelection battle]. "I think it wears people's patience. They don't see a clear light at the end of the tunnel. They see every night on the news the bad things going on, and they almost never see any of the good things going on."

It's understood that this is a very tough political environment for Republicans. People want change. But the lack of great enthusiasm for the Democrats is an indication that the system itself is not working well, and that would be a problem more serious than even Iraq.

There are only two major parties. Where do troubled voters turn if the country is in a serious fix and neither party is seen as having an adequate solution?

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
*As always with hostage-held NYT columnists, the full text of the Herbert column will be appended in a comment.


ALSO TALKING--The N.J. Supreme Court Says a Mouthful

"We have decided that our State Constitution guarantees that every statutory right and benefit conferred to heterosexual couples through civil marriage must be made available to committed same-sex couples."
--Justice Barry T. Albin, in yesterday's majority opinion of the New Jersey Supreme Court

It's true that, as Howie reported yesterday, the New Jersey Supreme Court by a 4-3 majority stopped short of ruling that the state's constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, pointedly leaving that decision to the state legislature. But is it possible not to be astonished that on the crucial issue as enunciated above by Justice Albin, there was no dissent on the court? In effect, the vote for this groudbreaking ruling was a unanimous 7-0. The dissenters all wanted to go farther and articulate a right to same-sex marriage.

Justice Albin, an appointee of then-Gov. James McGreevey, seems to have understood the historical significance of the court's ruling. He prefaced the point I've quoted by saying, "Our decision today significantly advances the civil rights of gays and lesbians." Yes, it does.

In the most-quoted part of his opinion. Justice Albin wrote: "Now the Legislature must determine whether to alter the long accepted definition of marriage. The great engine for social change in this country has always been the democratic process. Although courts can ensure equal treatment, they cannot guarantee social acceptance, which must come through the evolving ethos of a maturing society."

This doesn't strike me as unreasonable. At the same time, the court made clear that it's interested in legal reality, not symbolism, giving the state legislature 180 days to come up with legislation that provides same-sex couples with "every statutory right and benefit conferred to heterosexual couples."

As it happens, contrary to widespread expectation, the imminent age-mandated retirement of Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, an appointee of then-Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, seems not to have figured seriously in the decision-making process. Justice Poritz in fact was among the three justices who would have insisted on a universal right to "marriage."

If this turns out to be the last major ruling of "her" court, even though Justice Poritz was on the nominal losing side, an effectively unanimous decision striking such an important blow for basic human rights seems to me a legacy in which she can take pride.

MARILYN MUSGRAVE DOESN'T ONLY HATE GAYS, SHE HATES VETERANS TOO-- SHE JUST HATE GAYS MORE

You probably just think of Marilyn Musgrave as a hateful anti-gay bigot. And she has spent almost all of her time in Congress obsessing over gay men and women and claiming that the gravest danger facing America today is gay marriage. This is one sick cookie. But gays are only one of the groups this most foul of Republicrooks has tried to sink her venomous fangs into.

Recently Disabled American Vets looked at the voting records of all members of Congress and rated them according to the kind of support they have given military veterans, regardless of political party. Not a single congress member of either house did worse than Marilyn Musgrave. In the last 2 years she has been able to take time out of her busy homophobic campaign to launch a vile jihad against Americans who have fought for our country. Musgrave rated a zero! A zero is pretty miserable for someone who is always babbling nonsense about "supporting our troops." Compare her zero rating to other Colorado members of Congress. Republican Senator Wayne Allard got a 33 and Democratic Senator Ken Salazar got a 92. Congressman John Salazar rated a 60, Diana DeGette got a perfect score-- 100-- and, as with many things, Musgrave's mirror-image was Tom Tancredo, another big fat zero. (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America rated Musgrave a dismal C-)

Now this lying sack is using the gigantic corporate bribes she's been collecting to run a series of negative, malicious and totally untrue attack ads against Angie Paccione, trying to cover-up her own anti-veteran votes by claiming-- falsely, of course-- that it is Angie who is against our vets. Disabled American Vets filmed a statement by a vet eager to call Musgrave out on her lies. It's very strong stuff... very real. (Although, in her defense, at least Musgrave doesn't threaten to beat up disabled vets the way her close friend and fellow KKK-endorsee Barbara Cubin does.)

While you watch it, please keep in mind that Angie is running neck and neck with Musgrave and definitely needs some grassroots financial help to keep up with those big corporate bribes Musgrave is swimming in. Please visit our Blue America ActBlue page and let's help put Angie over the top-- and get rid of that Musgrave disease. Even the conservative Denver Post has had enough: "In Congress, Musgrave has pursued an extreme agenda and has offered all-too-predictable support for the president on issues ranging from restrictions on embryonic stem cell research to tax and war policy. Her largest burden, though, is that she simply hasn't much to show for her four years in Congress. We admire her occasional spark of independence-- she voted against House leadership and the president earlier this year on a supplemental that included disaster relief for hurricanes Rita and Katrina but no drought relief for farmers and ranchers-- but the district, with its growing urban centers and large agricultural interests, needs a more effective and versatile representative... We believe Paccione offers the district its best bet for strong representation in Washington. She has been a productive member of the Colorado House, steering legislation into law to increase penalties against adults who supply alcohol to minors. She co-sponsored a tough bill this year aimed at methamphetamine abuse, which was signed into law. Contrary to an ad suggesting that she put out the 'welcome mat' for illegals, Paccione introduced legislation this year-- now law-- to create a division of the state patrol aimed at cracking down on the trafficking of illegal immigrants. During the special session in July, she co-sponsored a bill-- which takes effect Jan. 1-- requiring employers to examine and affirm within 20 days the legal work status of newly hired employees. Paccione is a former pro basketball player who has found success as an educator and a lawmaker. After four years in the statehouse, Paccione has earned a reputation for doing her homework and she shows an energy and a range to represent the far-flung 4th Congressional District."

NEW YORK TIMES FINALLY GIVES UP ON THE DEMENTED CHRIS SHAYS-- ENDORSES DIANE FARRELL

The New York Times always endorses Chris Shays. They fall for that fake moderate bullcrap. Today they stopped falling for it and endorsed Diane Farrell to represent CT-04 in the next Congress. The Times editorial wisely begins with an indictment of the GOP in general-- a perscription to vote out every single one of them, from Lieberman on down:

The most fundamental rule of democracy is that when elected officials fail repeatedly, voters throw them out of office. If the polls are anywhere near accurate, most Americans have concluded that the Republican Party-- particularly the Republican majority in the House of Representatives-- has failed egregiously. On Iraq. On ethics. On oversight of a reckless White House. But that conviction sometimes comes into conflict with the feeling that a good representative should be rewarded with re-election, without regard to party.

And the editors go beyond just the-only-good-Republican-is-a-defeated-Republican meme. "...as his party has moved to the right, Mr. Shays has taken more and more stands with which we have profound disagreement. His position on immigration reform is far closer to the crabbed, xenophobic stance of the House Republicans than the fairer, bipartisan approach of the Senate. During the campaign, his remarks about the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison-- which he minimized as 'something less than torture'-- were disturbing."

In 2004 The Times endorsed Shays over Farrell. They've finally come to their senses. Since Shays had his public nervous breakdown a couple weeks ago and started flip floppin' all over the place and then said there was no torture in Abu Gharaib, the polls have turned against him. And when the Green Party candidate withdrew in favor of Farrell that may have clinched the deal.

NEW JERSEY SUPREME COURT OKS CIVIL UNIONS FOR SAME SEX COUPLES

A snarky commenter today e-mailed me that if he had a boyfriend as cute as Florida Republican Charlie Crist's he'd be pushing for gay marriage. [I pointed out that as nice looking-- in a Republican frat boy kind of way-- as Crist's boyfriend is, look at that herpetic lip.... I mean, that's what happens when you lay down with... Republicans.] Anyway, the New Jersey Supreme Court kind of ruled on gay marriage in New Jersey today (and only New Jersey; it has no relevance if Crist wants to marry Wetherington or if Karl Rove wants to marry Ken Mehlman or if Bush wants to marry Lieberman).

Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this State, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution...

To bring the State into compliance with Article I, Paragraph 1 so that plaintiffs can exercise their full constitutional rights, the Legislature must either amend the marriage statutes or enact an appropriate statutory structure within 180 days of the date of this decision...

We will not presume that a separate statutory scheme, which uses a title other than marriage, contravenes equal protection principles, so long as the rights and benefits of civil marriage are made equally available to same-sex couples. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.

Sounds ok to me. I always said that I thought marriage-- as an enforced societal institution-- was way over-rated and gays are insane to be mindlessly walking into that trap. But I wouldn't stand in anyone's way. I doubt many people other than-- appropriately-- those directly involved, care that much anymore. I mean, there are the vicious nut cases like Fred Phelps and Marilyn Musgrave, but other than a handful of extreme kooks like that, who gives a damn anymore? Americans think Iraq, the congressional corruption epidemic, Bush's for-the-rich-only economy, uncontrolled borders and stuff like that are far more important than if Charlie Crist and Jason Wetherington want to make all their friends go shopping for dinnerware patterns. Approval civil unions, as the New Jersey Supreme Court did today, sounds just fine for now.

NOT ALL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES SHUN BUSH-- SOME ARE REALLY DESPERATE, LIKE SHERWOOD, POMBO, MACACAWITZ AND BUCHANAN

Most Republican incumbents are running campaigns that can be summed up in one sentence: "I am an independent and not a rubber stamp." Hoping and praying that voters won't examine pure rubber stamp voting records and knowing full well that the Democrats are generally too lame to get them out effectively, the main tactics for these GOP incumbents is to avoid debates at all costs (look at this cute clip of Bilirakis' mentally deficient son avoiding a debate and hoping low information voters in FL-14 think it's his father who they're voting for), especially public ones, and to avoid any association with Bush, Cheney or Hastert. Endangered Republican incumbents-- and that list is approaching 65 now-- have let it be known that they would appreciate it if neither Bush nor Cheney visits their district and, if possible, stay out of their state altogether.

One outstanding exception is an outstandingly stupid Republican we've talked about before: Don "The Choker" Sherwood. He's admitted to a 5 year extramarital affair with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter-- although he claims that when he choked and beat her it was just a "massage"-- and he is on the list of Republicrooks likely to be indicted in the Abramoff rat-fest going on at the FBI right now. Already down by double digits against Blue America candidate Chris Carney, Sherwood invited Bush to campaign with him-- and fell further in the polls as PA-10 voters were reminded of Sherwood's utter rubber stamp posture over the last 6 years.

"Among likely voters in the northeast and central Pennsylvania district," reports the A.P., "Democrat Chris Carney had 50 percent to Sherwood's 38 percent, a 12-point lead, according to the Keystone Poll. The poll has a 5 percentage point margin of error. Sherwood, a four-term incumbent, looked to have a safe seat in the conservative district until the affair became public. On Thursday, President Bush visited the district to campaign for him."


Although most GOP candidates are shunning Bush, according to today's New York Times "there is a certain class of Republicans who are somewhere between eager and willing to have him at their sides. There are those facing ethical questions or struggling to recover from gaffes. There are those desperate for the cash Mr. Bush can bring in just by showing up for lunch. There are those who need the president to turn out a demoralized base. And there are those who, like Vern Buchanan, the Republican candidate for the House here, are a little bit of all three."

Buchanan is a crooked used car dealer with a well-deserved reputation for hiding tainted money off-shore in Bahamian banks. He's one of the sleaziest of a very sleazy batch and he and Bush get along famously. He's also on the verge of losing this Republican Sarasota district being vacated by Krazy Katherine Harris for her pointless, mad bid for a U.S. Senate seat. Buchanan has wasted over $4,000,000 of his own money on the race. Bush was there on Tuesday and raised $375,000 for Buchanan's faltering campaign.

But even a crook like Conrad Burns from Montana, almost sure to need Bush to pardon him in the near future, has asked Bush to stay out of Montana where he is currently being outpolled by Blue America favorite, John Tester. "One Republican strategist close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly about campaign strategy, said some Republicans-- among them Senate candidates in tight races in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee-- simply do not want their final campaign images to include Mr. Bush, and have spurned White House offers for help. Instead, White House strategists [Rove] are sending Mr. Bush to Republican-leaning districts like Sarasota, where he can help energize the base and increase voter turnout. The president will also appear in swing districts where the Republican candidate has calculated that the last-minute infusion of cash he can bring in is worth more than any bad publicity surrounding the visit."

The Times makes a point of explaining that pretty much the only Republicans willing to take the risk of being photographed with the unpopular, disliked and even toxic "war president" are the ones in severe trouble and touched by controversy and corruption like Buchanan, Sherwood, Felix Macacawitz, Dirty Dick Pombo and Doolittle. And the desperate. If you ain't got nothing, you ain't got nothing to lose... and that would cover Michigan Republican nut case Mike Bouchard and Mike Sodrel (IN), who shouldn't be wasting his time campaigning with Bush when he could be looking for a new job.

Quote of the day: The crooks in government get away with just about everything. Unfortunately, the good guys are stuck playing by the rules

"What in good golly goes through these confounded fellows' heads?" [language altered slightly to enhance publishability]
--keninny, contemplating the apparently looming end of the political career of New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi (seen here with his wife, Carol, after his defeat in the 2001 New York City mayoral primary)

Probably many Americans recall that September 11, 2001, which turned out to be something altogether different, started out in New York City as primary day--in particular for the three citywide offices: mayor, public advocate and city comptroller. Again as many Americans probably recall, it was an unbelievably beautiful late-summer day, the kind of weather in which New York City is just the bestest place in the world to be. Or at any rate you don't mind being here.

Hardly anyone knows or cares that, partly braced by that gorgeous weather, I roused myself unusually early and, allowing myself extra time to be able to vote before work, actually was at my desk in Midtown before 9am, with my civic duty done. A bit later a coworker said something crazy about a plane flying into the World Trade Center. It turned out to be true, and . . . well, everyone knows what happened from there.

The primary election was canceled, of course. All of the votes already cast were thrown out. Most of us who had already voted were lucky enough to be able to participate in the rescheduled primary. An untold number of early-morning voters that day, eager to get to their WTC desks bright and early to attack the beautiful new day, weren't so lucky. It doesn't rank high on the list of the day's disasters, but it's worth remembering that for those folks, the last votes they cast were thrown out.

Now we get to the point: a fact that no one knows--or, surely, cares about. That morning, in the hotly contested four-way mayoral primary, I voted for New York City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi--then finishing his second term as comptroller, following 22 years as a state assemblyman from Queens. And I did so without regret, unless you count the likelihood that, apart from me, it didn't look like it was apt to be much more than the comptroller's family and friends voting that way.

This is, of course, a political world dominated by 24/7 self-promoters like then-outgoing Mayor Rudy Giuliani (right)--who, you may remember, in the wake of 9/11 generously offered to stay on as mayor beyond the end of his legal term. Actually, he didn't so much "offer" as announce how things should be, in that familiar bullying tone, the tone that says, "Fuck you, you shithead, I'm always right, and if you don't like it, you can just drop the fuck dead." No one could have been more surprised than our Rudy when a city still under siege politely thanked him for his service but assured him that, even in the wake of a disaster like 9/11, we are capable of operating our government in accordance with the applicable laws.

Some of us wondered whether the newly canonized Saint Rudy of the Heaven-Sent Rubble, who in truth had kind of worn out his welcome in our town before 9/11 gave him the kind of TV platform he functions best on, would leave City Hall quietly when his term ended, or would we have to send New York's Finest in to drag his sorry ass out?

As I look back, it may in fact have been the depth of my loathing for our Rudy, who I believe is one of the truly awful people on the planet, that attracted me to a quiet, professorial candidate like Hevesi. (He actually has been a college professor a good chunk of his life.) In the dog-eat-dog political world of the likes of Rudy Giuliani, he has the aura of a lamb offering himself for slaughter.

Not that I really knew that much about him. In all his years in the state Assembly, he'd always seemed to me a bright, conscientious guy--and he'd gotten himself elected city comptroller twice and done, as far as I could tell, a terrific job. Most visibly, as the city's chief auditor, he was frequently pointing out the shoddy financial policy if not outright lawbreaking of the Giuliani adminstration.

What non-New Yorkers may not know is that our Rudy's chief principle of governance was to pay no attention to any law he didn't like and sneer at suckers who whined about it, in effect daring them: If you don't like it, sue! And did they ever, in staggering numbers. Because the law was usually pretty clear-cut, with the Giuliani administration on the wrong side of it, the city comptroller's office got to process a steady procession of losing judgments the city was forced to pay as tribute to our mayor's ruthless, relentless, pathological egomania. For better or worse, nearly every time Rudy's minions dragged the messsage "The Lord Rudy is the law" into court, the court responded, "No, actually, he isn't."

It seemed logical to me that Hevesi as the "anti-Rudy" deserved the first shot at running the city, well, differently. It wasn't going to happen before 9/11, though, and it certainly wasn't going to happen after. However, Hevesi brushed himself off and put together a campaign that, the following year, got him elected state comptroller.

Once again, he not only has done what has seemed to me a commendable job of watching over finances but has managed to be a frequent thorn in the side of an untrustworthy Republican chief executive, in this case Gov. George Pataki (right), who after nearly three full terms in office remains almost as shadowy a figure as he was when the unspeakable then-Sen. Al D'Amato plucked him out of obscurity to run for the job. (To the two things we've always known about him--that he's really tall and that he went to Yale, which I don't imagine they brag about, though despite his height he's hardly their biggest alumni embarrassment--we can add this: His "principles," such as they are, are highly subject to prevailing political winds, but are basically for rent to the parties with the deepest pockets.)

I was just looking at the bio Hevesi has posted on the New York State Office of the State Comptroller website. Of course it's self-serving, but it goes on and on and on listing the things the guy has accomplished or proposed over all areas of state business. Of course I don't understand this stuff, and to tell you the truth I didn't more than glance over it. But I have a feeling it's all, or mostly, legit and serious stuff, of the sort that's likely to be done only by someone really destined to do that job.

As Michael Cooper, a really good reporter, points out in the New York Times story linked above, "For most of this year [Hevesi] was considered such a shoo-in for reelection that some pollsters did not even ask about the state comptroller's race." Cooper continues:

Then his little-known Republican opponent, [J. Christopher] Callaghan, the former Saratoga County treasurer, revealed that Mr. Hevesi had been using a state employee to drive his wife for more than three years.

Mr. Hevesi quickly acknowledged using one of his state employees to drive his wife, Carol, saying that she needed a driver for security reasons. He apologized "abjectly" and reimbursed the state for nearly $83,000 to cover the driver's costs, saying that his failure to do so for more than three years had been an oversight.

But the State Ethics Commission released a scathing 26-page report on Monday, accusing Mr. Hevesi of breaking the public officer's law and calling his defense of using the driver at all into question. The report found that there were never valid security reasons to assign a driver to Mrs. Hevesi and that Mr. Hevesi's reimbursement might not be enough, and questioned whether he had intended to repay the money.

Before the Ethics Commission report came out, I figured this would just be a little cloud hanging over Hevesi as he was reelected and served his next term as state comptroller.

Everyone is aware that Mrs. Hevesi has been ill, and one would guess seriously ill. The particulars don't seem to be much talked about, and frankly, that's none of our business. But of course, neither is it the state's business to provide her with chauffeur services. That Hevesi knows this is made abundantly clear by the woeful pretense of "security" concerns. As far as I know, the Hevesis aren't prosperous people, and providing Mrs. Hevesi with the kind of transport she has apparently needed would likely have been a tremendous financial burden on them. Again, alas, not the state's problem.

This is, rather, the price you pay for spending your life as a reasonably honest public servant. Somehow I don't imagine, say, Tom DeLay getting himself into this fix.

Nobody quite knows what will happen next. Even the law is unclear, providing at least two totally different mechanisms for removing the state comptroller--if it comes to that. Our soon-to-be governor, Eliot Spitzer (right), who we have to remember is actually still running for that office, stresses that he has read the Ethics Commission report carefully, and is "reevaluating my position" in the comptroller's race. A raft of investigations are under way, including one by the state attorney general's office, from which Attorney General Spitzer has recused himself on the ground of his political support of Hevesi.

As Cooper points out, Hevesi's problem now isn't so much his political enemies as his normal supporters:

Citizens Union, a nonpartisan civic group that had supported Mr. Hevesi for New York City comptroller, said that unless he could persuasively rebut the charges against him, "Citizens Union believes his actions are so inconsistent with one of the fundamental responsibilities of the comptroller--being the watchdog over the use of taxpayer dollars--that he should resign his position."

And Assemblyman William L. Parment, a Democrat representing Chautauqua County in western New York, called for Mr. Hevesi's resignation as well.

"I really can't quite figure out how he can continue in office," Mr. Parment said in an interview, adding that it was a hard position for him to take because he liked Mr. Hevesi. "The comptroller is the person who goes around the state and audits people's books, and has an oversight capacity on the conduct of public officials. Consequently, he has to be above suspicion. It's like Shakespeare: Caesar's wife has to be above suspicion."

Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat running to unseat Representative John E. Sweeney upstate, also called on Mr. Hevesi to resign. "Kirsten is running a campaign on ethics and accountability, and, given the present circumstances, she believes resignation would be appropriate," a Gillibrand campaign spokeswoman, Allison Price, said on Tuesday night.

And an important police union, the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association, withdrew its endorsement of Mr. Hevesi. The union's president, Edward D. Mullins, said that the charges against Mr. Hevesi "suggest a total lack of regard and respect for the law."

Man, this sucks. If the Ethics Commission report stands unchallenged, and is as "scathing" as suggested, it seems pretty clear that Hevesi is going to have to go. And it's no help, I'm profoundly sorry to have to say, to point out that Republicans operate under a totally different set of "ethics."

FEDS CLOSING IN ON ANOTHER REPUBLICAN CROOKED CONGRESSMAN-- MEET RICK RENZI (AZ-01)

One contest I'm not entering is the one that ask for guesses as to the order in which Republican congressmen get indicted after November 7. Of course Jerry Lewis, John Doolittle and Curt Weldon have to be big favorites because it's already been leaked-- to put it mildly-- that investigations of these serial crooks are in full swing. But don't count out Don Young, Denny Hastert, Ken Calvert, Dirty Dick Pombo, Tom Feeney or any number of these lawbreaking lawmakers.

In fact, as I mentioned last weekend, Rick Renzi (R-AZ) has been pushing his slimy way to the top of the list. Today's New York Times splashes across its pages the story that has been roiling Arizona politics all week, namely that Renzi, in a tight, tight re-election bid against Ellen Simon, is being investigated by the Feds for some shady dealing to benefit family members. (Renzi isn't be investigated for being a shameless corporate whore who has consistently ignored the interests of his eastern Arizona constituents in order to line his own pockets with legalized bribes from Big Business.)


Tuesday it was announced that the Feds are investigating Renzi, who has a long record of shady dealings, mostly involving real estate manipulation, because he introduced legislation that benefited a military contractor where his father is executive vice president. The Virginia company Renzi was so eager to help out also helps him. According to the Times ManTech employees "were the largest contributors to Mr. Renzi’s campaign in 2002 and the second-largest in 2004."

Renzi is a Republican so, of course, he denies all wrong doing-- like DeLay, Cunningham, Ney, Abramoff, Foley, etc. He has also denied wrong-doing when it came to light that he was pressuring landowners to buy a 480 acre parcel from one of his cronies, Jim Sandlin in a complex deal where he told developers that he would get the private land swapped for federally-owned public land as long as Sandlin was included in the deal. Sandlin netted a nice $3 million profit and then Renzi renegged and screwed the developers. People in the district are starting to get sick of Renzi and his self-serving shenanigans. Last week's Majority Watch poll-- even before the ManTech scandal broke-- showed Simon beating him 50-46%.

BLUE AMERICA: IN WISCONSIN THEY KNOW HIM AS RANDY KOEHN, PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE FOR ASSEMBLY. HERE HE'S NOONAN

Unless you live in a tiny northeast corner of Wisconsin west of Marinette (basically the Green Bay northern suburbs), chances are the only way you know Randy Koehn is as "noonan," his Firefoglake blogger sign-on. Until this afternoon, he hasn't been on Firedoglake a lot lately. That's because he's knocked on 8,000 doors in the last few months. That's a lot of doors. And he's been going to an awful lot of Friday night football games.

You see, blogger noonan/Randy Koehn is also the progressive Democrat-- like many of us, barely a Democrat, but thoroughly a progressive-- running for seat being vacated by Assembly Speaker John Gard, Wisconsin's 89th Assembly District. Gard, virtually always referred to as "the Tom DeLay of Wisconsin politics," is trying to move up to the congressional seat being vacated by right wing rubber stamp Mark Green so he can pursue his futile but messy attempt become Governor. Wisconsin Democrats need to wrest about a dozen seats from the Republicans in order to prevent them from gerrymandering the state in 2010. Randy's race for the open Gard seat is the tip of the arrow in that crucial battle. He won a tough primary against a well-known middle-of-the-road Democrat and now he's facing an extreme right wing nutjob named John Nygren.

Randy grew up in the district. In fact, now he's a history teacher, teaching in the same classroom he studied history in when he was a kid! Until this spring he was an independent but he registered as a Democrat so he could run for Assembly and bring progressive ideas and solutions to the fore there. He feels blogging has made him a much better-- and much better-informed candidate-- although his reactionary opponent, an insurance salesman, a Republican Party county chairman and a serial spousal abuser, never stops deriding him as "an extremist blogger," whatever that is.

I have a friend, Gil, in a small town in the western part of the district, in a town called Puluski. He grew up there and he doesn't know Randy. He has known Nygren for years. "He's a real Eddie Haskell type," she told me last night, "the kind of guy that gives you the creeps... comes over to your house and steals a rare stamp out of your stamp album when you're in the bathroom." Gil has already made up his mind to vote against Nygren before I called to get his lay of the land. When someone like Randy says ""We need to build our economy from the bottom up, with a strong foundation, not wait for money to trickle down," that may sound like music to progressives' ears. To the wingnuts, it sounds like communism or atheism or gayness or terrorism or whatever they hate this season.

When Randy started his race, he had a wide range of progressive issues he was running on-- from "easing the property tax burden, equalizing school funding throughout the state, and bringing high paying jobs to the area" to helping to solve the medical care breakdown that middle and working class folks in his district are so burdened by. "Now," he told me, "I don't get much further than talking about affordable medical care. That's the #1 issue, the issue on everyone's mind I meet. I'm not meeting anyone who wants to discuss the GOP talking points, 'Gays, Guns and Abortions;' everyone wants to know what I plan to do about affordable health care." And Randy has a plan-- one that provides everyone with health care and drives the right-wingers crazy, especially right-wingers like Nygren who supports risk pools (that's what insurance agents do) and Bush's thoroughly discredited health savings accounts.

Endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, the AFLCIO, SEIU, AFSCME, and Planned Parenthood Randy has to face a mass media owned lock stock and barrel by partisan Republicans. They didn't even cover the one candidate forum Nygren agreed to do. Why bother? They already know who they're supporting regardless of what the candidates say. Up against that Randy's got a legion of his former students and they're all over his My Space page and all over the district.


Randy has put a lot of the money he's managed to collect into hundreds of yard signs and into fliers that his volunteers are passing out every weekend. He also put a TV ad together. He's been able to run the TV ad on cable networks in the area. Lst night it was on during The Daily Show. I'm thinking we could significantly help Randy out with his race. Take look at the ad. It only costs $14 to run in on the local cable system. I bet a lot of us can find $14 to get someone from our own community and who believes in the same values and principles we believe in to be able to run the ad on TV. We added Randy to our BlueAmerica ActBlue page to make it easy. (He's right between to of our favorite candidates, John Laesch and Larry Kissell. Let's show him the kind of love we've shown them.)

NOT THAT I REALLY CARE THAT MUCH BUT YA GOTTA WONDER, ARE THERE ANY STRAIGHT REPUBLICANS? FRESHLY OUTED: CHARLIE CRIST

In the title I said "freshly outed" and that's not exactly true. Conservative Republican-- and Florida Attorney General-- Charlie Crist was outed by his even more extreme right primary opponent, Tom Gallagher, and DWT duly reported it on May 2 (with a cute little homoerotic Republican Party animation you must see. But now we have a handsome Republican lad (photo above) who admited-- even boasted-- to having done... well, you know what, with Crist.

At least Jason Wetherington, a rising star-- well... an ex-rising star as of today-- in the Florida Republican Party, isn't 16 or even a teenager like the boys Republican congressmen Tom Foley (FL), Jim Kolbe (AZ) and Phil English (PA) are said to prefer. (No one knows what kind of boys Denny Hastert and Mitch McConnell like but we may have more news on that soon.) Anyway... Wetherington is a full gown 21 year old man and Charlie Crist is free to sodomize him to his heart's content. It's just kind of icky that he's been sending out viciously anti-gay campaign pieces-- saying that gay couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt children-- while he and Wetherington, an ex-Katherine Harris staffer (but who isn't?) were... well... you know.

Wetherington also named another Harris campaign worker, Bruce Carlton Jordan-- a convicted felon-- as Crist's long-time lover. Crist has publically denied even knowing who Jordan is. "I don't recall the name," he lied. But Crist also denies he ever had sex with Wetherington or with any other men. Of course, all Republicans deny everything when they're caught. Think: Foley, Abramoff, DeLay, Ney, Cunningham, etc

This story was broken by Bob Norman, the same reporter who first outed Foley in print. (Foley was outraged and, like Crist denied everything and anything.) Norman has huge credibility and his story seems water tight to me. I wonder if the right wing religionist voters who make up most of the base of Florida's Gay Old Party will pull the lever for Foley and Crist a week from Tuesday. Stay tuned.

BLUE AMERICA CAVALRY RIDES OFF TO CONNECTICUT TO SAVE AMERICA FROM NEFARIOUS JOE LIEBERMAN

I was so excited today when Kim from Ned Lamont's campaign called and asked if Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher with their swingin' band would come up to Connecticut next week to play "Have You Had Enough?" on Ned's bus tour November 2, 3 and 4. Each of them answered YES within moments of me e-mailing them. The song has never been played live. If you're in Connecticut, don't miss this unique opportunity.

And if you're in Connecticut don't miss a wonderful new short, Joe Lieberman's Greatest Hits. It won't be coming to a theater new you but, the very YouTube attacked by Holy Joe last week has it up now. There are some steamy scenes between Joe and Bush which reminded me today about how each swore the never even contemplated "Stay the Course" and how each ridiculous lie from each of the reactionary prevaricators was shot down. Tonight the New York Times admitted, in print, that they got it wrong when they reported Holy Joe hadn't ever used the phrase "stay the course" to describe his long-espoused-- now shamefully, surreptitiously abandoned-- Iraq position. Anyway, herrrrrrrrrre's Joe:

WHAT DO MEAN JEAN SCHMIDT AND JOHN DOOLITTLE HAVE IN COMMON-- A BEAUTIFUL BLUE WAVE IS HEADED THEIR WAY

Victoria Wulsin is one of the most exciting and one of the most promising candidates endorsed by Blue America. We've raised over $21,000 for her battle against the odious Mean Jean Schmidt-- including an independent radio campaign based on the "Have You Had Enough?" theme. Starting yesterday, and going through the evening of November 7th, we have hundreds of spots up all over the district at stations like WPAY, WNXT, WRAC, WFTM, WPFB, WIOI...

But what will win Victoria this contest is the ad that starts running on TV this evening, one that captures the essential differences between her and the embarrassing rubber stamp Schmidt.



And while you're watching Victoria being frank and up close about the right wing fanatic she's fighting, think for a moment about how Charlie Brown, way up near the Oregon border has one of Congress' worst crooks, John Doolittle, on the run. No one thought this was a winnable race-- until after Blue America raised $23,000 for him-- and did an ad buy-- again, hundreds of spots of a part of the sprawling district where we thought he could use a push. Starting yesterday our spots went up on KNCO-Am and FM and on KAHI-FM and now even the DCCC is putting money into buying media in Charlie's district.

Tomorrow will be the one week mark for our $5.00 per candidate Blue America fundraiser. You already went over the $100,000 mark in one week. Thank you. We're going to help take back Congress because of you. Let's keep it going.

As the right wingers' chickens come home to roost, isn't this the time to step up the effort to help Americans understand their TRUE self-interest?

As I read Mags's interesting account below of her surprised and surprising political conversation with a local businessman with whom she assumed she would have very little in common philosophically, an assumption that proved incorrect, I was thinking of my old political guru Milt Shook, whom I recall saying a number of times that as people were exposed to the RESULTS of the hard-right-wing economic policies of the Bush administration, they would begin to discover that this wasn't what they signed up for. (Since much of the Bush program has required outright lying at every stage, calling black white and up down, you know that even THEY know that the people would never buy those initiatives if they were honestly presented.)

Of course the process is always slower to develop than one wishes, and doesn't work out as neatly or comprehensively. But maybe it IS true that eventually people notice. I'm still waiting to see how it will play out Nov. 7 and beyond, but it does appear that we may be on the verge of witnessing some political chickens coming home to roost.

This seems to me all the more reason to despise the Rahm Emanuel approach: figure out what people want to hear and say it to them. It's much tougher to work out a political program that is truly in the interest of the largest number of people and then and then help people understand why this is so. But when those chickens are finally coming home to roost, illustrating the real-world consequences of Bushonomics, and the neocon divorced-from-reality worldview, and the rest, isn't this the time to be trying to open people's minds?

HE WAS NOT A LIBERAL, BUT...

-by Mags

This last week I attended a conference that dealt with mental health issues. At these conferences we are educated about many facets of providing services across the spectrum to those in need of them. It is always filled with a variety of persons which include clients, practitioners, administrators and board members.

The break out sessions cover mundane minutiae related to Medicaid capitation, the rip roaring excitement of evidence based practices, and a myriad other scintillating topics. I happen to be a person who loves these kinds of things. I think it is a character flaw.

Of late there is a push to utilize wisely every single dollar in serving our clients and our communities. We are instituting peer centers and we are working to integrate systems of care to treat the whole individual by making care accessible. I know, us bleeding hearts, barely a dollar to spare and here we are trying to figure out how to serve more people. There is such need.

A colleague of mine and I engaged in conversation at the end of the first long day of the conference. He is an outspoken individual. He is a private business owner. I have always considered him to be at least conservative, probably Republican. We began discussing programs and how different areas could sustain certain programs due to budgets and public awareness of the need for those programs. I expected him to chide me for feeling like we should be able to do more when he said an amazing thing. He told me that he felt like things were getting bad, that they were getting out of hand. It had gotten really bad. It was so bad in fact that a friend of his the other night had called him a communist.

This statement was so shocking to me. For once, I was speechless, and I am glad I was. I was only able to listen as he continued. He said, and I will not put quotes on this because I did not record it or take notes, but he said in effect that he did not necessarily believe that all people would or should have everything equally, but he said (and this I can quote), "There ought to be a base line." I nodded. "Yes," I answered. "I believe that everyone born into the world ought to have at the very least food, shelter, and medical care." What a risk that was for me. I must work in this small community with this man and others like him, and I am at this point unsure as to what extent it is wise to tip my liberal hand.

To my surprise, he emphatically agreed. And, so he continued, "I consider myself a conservative Republican." ( I was right). But, he said, and here I paraphrase. The reason his friend called him a communist is because he told his friend that there ought to be this baseline, and that there might be one, but if there is one, it was awfully damn low. I think I might have added the damn part, but as I type it here, it helps to illustrate his intensity as he spoke.

He continued telling me that as a small business man he would not vote to eliminate the single business tax, because no matter what people say, you cannot take the tax away, it is simply made up somewhere else. Here, I nodded, and added, "Who do you want to have that money, me or some wealthy person who will not walk into your store to spend it?" "Exactly," he answered.

He was not done. He says, "I can solve the Social Security problem by doing one thing, and the only problem we will have is how to spend the extra money." "How?" I asked. "Take off the income ceiling on those who contribute." was his reply. I was dumbfounded. He was right of course, but I never expected to hear it from him. He continued, "Someone could run for president on that." I nodded.

We continued to talk about how such a person would have difficulty getting elected because the really big political contributions come from the very folks who do not want to pay Social Security taxes. What we could do about it, we did not know, but I said, "What we have today amounts to PR politics. It doesn’t matter if you really do something just as long as you can look like you are." He nodded. He smiled, and again, he agreed. And, that was pretty much it. He had to dash off, the conversation was over. But, I stood there with changed perceptions of the man, and a pleasant change it was.

I have a minor in Women's Studies. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a woman say, "I am not a feminist, but I do believe in equal pay for equal work, and I do believe that women should have help with household chores, and I do believe that women should have reproductive choice," all of these things being part and parcel of feminism. Such is the power of emotionally charging labels.

I was a bit intimidated by my friend. He has been in his position a long time and is a native of this area. I am a newcomer to the position I hold and new to this area. I have no track record, and I am still forging relationships with my colleagues, but in the end, I was rewarded by having this conversation. I wonder how many people out there who would start a conversation by telling us they consider themselves a Conservative Republican are really liberals who just don’t know it yet.

According to the polls, there sure are a lot of them out there.

Guest Blog From Dave Beasing-- YouTube: A New Gun In Town

If my friend Dave Beasing got the kinds of results that the Inside the Beltway careerist yutzes the Democratic Party Establishment hires year after year after year, he wouldn't have a job. Dave Beasing is a nationally-respected consultant and researcher who specializes in decoding the youth market for major companies like Dodge and Vh1. In the music business, he's numero uno and he specializes in actionable results, not excuses. Dave started as a disc jockey at small Midwestern radio stations and eventually wound up as the Program Director of Viacom's Star 98.7 FM, a breakthrough L.A. station in the 90s. He now spends many hours moderating focus groups for Jacobs Strategies, which keeps him up on the mood in the red states. Lately, he's witnessed a clear trend, that even Republican conservatives in places like Missouri are ready for a change in Washington. When I want to know what's really going on in the country, I could care less what Bob Shrum or Joe Hansen have to say. They're always wrong. I call Dave. Last week we were all scratching our heads about Lieberman's violent and seemingly gratuitous attack on YouTube. Today, I asked Dave to share some of his insights here at DWT.
 
The Senator from YouTube?
 
If Democrat challenger Claire McCaskill defeats Republican incumbent Senator Jim Talent in Missouri--and polls say it's close-- history may record McCaskill as the first U.S. Senator to have received a major boost from YouTube. Just before the weekend of October 21 & 22, McCaskill launched a new 30-second TV spot starring actor Michael J. Fox, a dramatic appeal based on the Democrat's support of stem cell research.

Inspiring campaign ads are nothing new. But while many Missourians may have first seen this spot on television-- the usual way-- many first saw it online. And politics aside, Fox's strong emotions cause most who see it to also suggest it to a friend. In fact, it was YouTube's most viewed video that weekend, and the McCaskill campaign claims over half a million people saw it. Many were probably inspired to contribute to air the spot a few more times the old-fashioned way.


[The video has been viewed on YouTube by over a million people.] The implications of this are enormous for political strategists and activists. Great TV spots (or T-shirts or bumper stickers or campaign songs like "Have You Had Enough?") has been around forever. Now it doesn't cost that much to get them seen or heard.  
 
Make no mistake: Campaign contributions still matter... a lot. But with Internet services like YouTube and blogs like DownWithTyranny at your disposal, big ideas are more important than big budgets.

[Editor's note: If you like our ideas for helping non-DCCC-funded progressives like John Laesch, Angie Paccione, Robert Rodriguez, Victoria Wulsin, even amounts as small as $5 add up fast. Last week we did a $5/candidate on-line fundraiser that brought in $50,000 in one day. Take a look-- and chip in what you can. Oh, and one more thing: Dave and the million people who watched it weren't the only ones who noticed the effectiveness of the Michael J Fox ad. Today Ben Cardin deployed a similar one against the Bush rubber stamp imbecile he's running against in Maryland.]

Quote of the day: Have you stepped back lately and thought about just what our little adventure in Iraq is costing us, literally?

"The total costs of the war, including the budgetary, social and macroeconomic costs, are likely to exceed $2 trillion."
--economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University (a Nobel laureate) [left] and Linda Bilmes of Harvard University [below], in a newly published update of an earlier study they did, quoted by Nicholas Kristof in his NYT column today, "Iraq and Your Wallet"

"In the run-up to the Iraq war," Kristof writes, "Donald Rumsfeld estimated that the overall cost would be under $50 billion. Paul Wolfowitz argued that Iraq could use its oil to 'finance its own reconstruction.'

"But now several careful studies have attempted to tote up various costs, and they suggest that the tab will be more than $1 trillion--perhaps more than $2 trillion. The higher sum would amount to $6,600 per American man, woman and child."

There's a lot more to be said, just about the basic arithmetic of financing the war in Iraq--the scope of the debt stretching decades into the future, where the money is coming from to pay for it, what else we might be doing with it--and Kristof is worth reading today on all these fronts.*

But for now I'm just thinking about these basic numbers. Amazingly, it almost doesn't matter--right now, anyway--whether we're talking $1 trillion or $2 trillion. Even more amazingly, it almost doesn't matter--right now, anyway--whether the administration officials who got us into this mess believed their own cockamamie numbers, or even whether they would have done the same thing if they had had accurate cost projections. An extra trillion bucks here or there, what's the diff? And does it really matter, given the scale of the debacle, whether these people down-the-line lied about the commitment they were suckering us into or were simply that stupid and incompetent?

Oh sure, it makes a difference, but not for right now. Right now I just want to allow the raw numbers to sink in:

• what they said it would cost, and--

• what we're guessing it will actually cost,

• along with, perhaps, some consideration of what we've gotten for the money, just for perspective.

(It's also okay, I think, to remember that that poor schlub of a trained-poodle economist Larry Lindsey managed to become one of the few people actually fired from the Bush administration, not long after he attempted to answer the question of how much such an adventure would cost, even though his estimate was undoubtedly ridiculously low. Of course, there are those who believe that Lindsey was fired for being fat. Like me, for instance. I really do believe it. Well, actually, I believe both: (a) that the people who actually forced the poodle out, which I would assume were some combination of "Big Dick" Cheney and "Dandy Don" Rumsfeld and their minions, wanted him gone for his disloyalty in daring to share information with, gasp!, the public, and (b) that the way they sold the ax job to our Chimpy was by pointing out that the guy not only was overweight but refused to jog with his commander-in-chief (shocking!). As a fringe benefit, once the deed was done they could spread the story that the poodle was fired because he was fat--to add a dollop of humiliation to the shit-canning. In case you didn't know, these are not nice people. But we digress.)

Have you let those numbers sink in? At the front end: projected cost of under $50 billion, or maybe nothing! At the rear end: bills piling up to the $1 trillion mark--or maybe $2 trillion, who's counting?

Now, just one more thing, especially since I hear there's an election of some sort coming up. You know how we keep seeing those polls that measure "approval" ratings of the administration's "handling" of the war and all the other matters it's supposed to be "handling"? Why are we still reading such polls? How is it possible, again staring at these raw numbers, that any of these people still have jobs?

- - - - - - - - - -
*As usual with NYT columns, the full text of Kristof's is appended in a comment.

NO ONE EVER SAID ABRAMOFF WAS STUPID; IN FACT, HE'S QUITE SHREWD-- IN A REPULSIVE TOM DELAY/RAHM EMANUEL KIND OF WAY

Jack Abramoff knows he's going to prison. Now he's just wondering how to get the best deal for himself. He can read the polls as well as anyone and he sees the same Democratic sweep on the horizon that everyone else-- other than Bush, Rove and Cheney-- sees. Today's Washington Post, for example, is reporting that "Independent Voters Favor Democrats by 2 to 1." And if he's smart enough to be reading Christy at Firedoglake he's gotten to the real heart of the matter: besides the new WAPO/ABC poll, there are new polls from MSNBC, McLatchey and Mason-Dixon that all show the same thing, it's curtains for the villains in 2 weeks. Abramoff seems to feel his best shot for the immediate future does not lie with taking one for the (red) team.

All but calling him Chatty Kathy, U.S. News is reporting that he's been telling the FBI so much about the Republican congressmen (+ Katherine Harris) who he was bribing for the last 6 years that he now has his very own FBI desk. He's the ultimate rat and he can't spill enough about the Republicrooks who are not in prison yet. They're reporting that "he spends up to four hours a day detailing his shady business to agents eager to nail more congressmen in the scandal."

As I said before, there are a whole lot of GOP solons from low information districts who will be re-elected only to face almost immediate indictment and the same eventual fate as former GOP congressmen/current prison inmates Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney.


FBI insiders, or at least those with inside info from FBI employees familiar with the Abramoff case, are betting that almost instant indictments are looming for Alaska's Don Young, Florida's Tom Feeney, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Ken Calvert and Dirty Dick Pombo of the Golden State and Phil English and Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, as well as for former GOP Crime Boss Tom DeLay. But it doesn't end there. Apparently Abramoff has said enough about 3 U.S. Senators-- Jim Talent (MO), Conrad Burns (MT) and John Ensign (NV)-- plus almost 20 other House members, for files to have been opened on all of them. And some of those files are getting pretty fat. Conrad Burns is a sure bet for a long prison sentence and it is unlikely that there will not be indictments of Denny Hastert (IL), John Sweeney (NY), Cathy McMorris WA), Virgil Goode (VA), J.D. Hayworth (AZ), Marilyn Musgrave (CO), Ann Northup (KY), Robin Hayes (NC), Charlie Taylor (NC), Heather Wilson (NM), and Gil Gutknecht (MN). Cases are in the early stages against Mike Ferguson (NJ), Tom Tancredo (CO), Barbara Cubin (WY), Tom Davis (VA), Ron Simmons (CT), Mike Rogers (MI), and Jim Gerlach (PA).

So anyone wondering if DWT has any plans of closing up shop after November 7... well, just look at that list. I'll be here for everyone one of them guys and dolls.

CRAZY, RACIST CORPORATE WHORE IN WYOMING THREATENS TO BEAT UP DISABLED, WHEELCHAIR BOUND OPPONENT: MEET BABSY CUBIN

Late last June we took a look at Wyoming's one member of the House, a crackpot right wing imbecile name Barbara Cubin, best known-- until now-- for handing out penis shaped cookies to other Republican legislators and for her vicious racism. Considered one of the most biizarre and unstable and most extremist members of the kooky Republican majority, Cubin's seat is thought to be in jeopardy for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is the quality of her Democratic opponent, Gary Trauner.

But today's story about bat-shit crazy Cubin doesn't really directly involve her contest with Trauner. Today's Casper Star Tribune has a headline about the violent and deranged Cubin threatening to slap her challenger during a debate. When I read it I scratched my head thinking Trauner could probably knock the ho out with both hands tied behind his back and bullies like Cubin usually go after weaker prey. And, lo and behold... it wasn't Trauner at all she was threatening. "Immediately after the lights and cameras shut down, incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin walked to Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin, who had criticized her for receiving contributions from former House Speaker Tom Delay, R-Texas. 'If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face,' Cubin told Rankin, he said Monday... The Cubin campaign did not deny the exchange on Monday."

No they didn't deny it, since there were witnesses. Instead they made excuses for the threat. According to some right wing hack she has working for her, "He misrepresented her and insulted her integrity during the debate." Insulted her? How? By telling the truth? Barbara Cubin is one of the worst and most outrageous whores in the entire Congress, taking large sums of money from any corporate interest eager for an easy vote.

Rankin, a 7 year military vet, is disabled with multiple sclerosis and uses an electric wheel chair. Barbara Cubin is a real asshole.


UPDATE: CUBIN ISN'T THE ONLY RIGHT WING KOOK WHO DOESN'T REACT WELL WHEN REMINDED OF A DISGRACEFUL RECORD-- HOLY JOE LIEBERMAN EXPLODES

Jane is reporting that after tonight's debate between Ned and Lieberman, Holy Joe walked up to Ned and started cursing him. Lieberman feels entitled to "his" Senate seat and entitled to keep his awful record private from Connecticut voters. Lieberman has lost his mind.


TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: BABSY CUBIN HAS DISGRACED WYOMING AND CONGRESS. SHE NEEDS TO RESIGN

Today's Jackson Hole Daily digs down into this disgraceful incident and ends it like this:

Rankin said he wanted Cubin to resign over the incident.

"The best response Barbara Cubin could give would be a resignation," he said. "Nothing less than that would satisfy me.

"She is not the type of person Wyoming residents want representing them," he said.

NOW WE KNOW WHAT "W" STANDS FOR

-by Mags

Long ago George Bush vowed to get Osama bin-Laden dead or alive. Then later he downplayed the importance of capturing Bin Laden and bringing him to justice telling folks he didn't worry about bin- Laden, he just didn't think about it all that much.

Just last week George Bush told George Stephanopoulos "We have never been stay the course, George." But, as we all know, in the last year this administration has been all about stay the course. In fact, earlier this year in the House of Representatives there was a resolution "debated" on the floor for the sole purpose of allowing every member of the GOP who wanted to to parrot the phrase while calling the Democrats the cut and run party.

So much for "Stay the Course." The White House press team is spinning the finer points of just what they meant all these months during which time the Democrats pointed out that "Stay the course" was not a strategy. Suddenly "Stay the course" can man anything from not changing any policy or practice in Iraq, to a possible pull out of troops. Who knew?

This is no surprise to those paying attention to the spin machine in the White House. Afterall, these are the folks who have given us a new reason for the Iraq war on at least a weekly basis, although they have been known to change that within seconds and within the same interview.

Now, George the "War" President had decided to campaign on the economy. How many voters will now see George as a fiscal champion? First, they must get help to change their focus in mid-stream.


We have spent the last 6 years being whipped around by denials and later public admissions. Now as the success of any of George Bush's policies look doubtful, they once again engage in a denial so obvious it must be embarassing for them. At least one would hope.

At least we now know what the "W" in George W. Bush stands for. It stands for Whiplash.

CLINT CURTIS IN A STATISTICAL TIE WITH FLORIDA'S WORST AND MOST CORRUPT CONGRESSLOON

Usually when I list a gaggle of the worst Republicrooks or those most likely to be indicted one name that always shows up is shady Florida wingnut Tom Feeney. But I just realized that I never really got into the details. The short version is simple: Feeney accepted gifts-- including one of those all-expenses-paid Scottish golfing excursions for himself and the Mrs-- from... who else? Jack Abramoff. Oh, what's a $20-30,000 golf trip between Republicrooks, you ask? Feeney's votes were always there for Abramoff's clients, not for his Daytona Beach and suburban Orlando constituents. (Actually I shou;dn't have said "who else?" since there were others. Feeney likes accepting gifts, even illegal ones from registered agents of foreign powers.

In 2000 Feeney was right up there with Jeb and Katherine Harris is manipulating Florida election procedures to disenfranchise tens of thousands of votes in order to deliver the presidential election to George Bush. You might say that everything that has happened since-- all the woes that have been visited on this country since 2000-- can be partially blamed on Feeney. And if it wasn't bad enough that he helped Bush steal the election, once he was elected to Congress, he immediately signed up as an unswerving rubber stamp.

In 2004 the enfeebled Florida Democratic Party didn't bother putting up an opponent for someone who is arguably the worst and most corrupt member of the Florida House delegation. 2006 went somewhat differently. With disatisfaction about Feeney's slavishly Big Business voting record and embarrassment with his corruption building, several Democrats were eager to get in the race against him. One, Clint Curtis, a former Republican aghast at how sharply to the right his party has swerved, won the primary.


Feeney has done his best (worst) to paint Curtis as a tinfoil hat kook. The characterization couldn't be further from the truth and the latest polling-- a dead-heat within the margin of error, according to Zogby-- show that residents of FL-24 don't believe it either. Clint is a much-respected computer expert and a specialist on electoral integrity-- kind of a weak spot for Feeney. Last week the Daytona News-Journal enthusiastically endorsed Clint over the wretched and ethically-challenged incumbent. In the endorsement, the editors have laid out for the public what has mostly been whispered about: Feeney has attempted to subvert the democratic process by hiring a computer firm to rig electronic voting machines for the Republicans.

"Curtis worked for a firm that had been asked by Feeney to create a computer prototype that could be used to rig elections without detection. Curtis said he believed Feeney wanted to use it to prevent fraud but claims that he later discovered that Feeney intended to use the program to control votes. Feeney adamantly denies the allegation."

Clint is running on a platform that is deep and wide and sound-- progressive to the core and exactly what is needed after 6 years of mess from the Bush Regime and its disgraceful rubber stamp Congress.

The Bradblog has detailed the vicious, baseless smear campaign Feeney has been waging against Clint. He refuses to debate and refuses to discuss issues and avoids, at all costs, any discussion of his grotesque voting record (an F from DMI on legislation impacting the middle class and an unblemished string of reactionary and Big Business votes that is among the most extreme in the entire Congess).

A rare interview offers an abundance of insight into Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau--and some startlingly personal insight from Mrs. T

Since the subject seems to arouse no interest, and often startling hostility, I try to keep my admiration-bordering-on-awe for Garry Trudeau and Doonesbury under wraps. It has been awfully hard, though, in the case of the two-year-old recurring plot line involving erstwhile football hero B.D.'s loss of his leg in Iraq, and his continuing struggle to return to his life.

I do want to mention that yesterday's Washington Post Magazine carried a rare and outstanding profile of the publicity-phobic Trudeau by Washington Post humor columnist (and online chat host) Gene Weingarten, who followed up today with a terrific online chat session.

In the chat session, for example, Weingarten shared the gnarled history of the cover illustration (see above), drawn for the occasion by Trudeau:

One question many of you are asking involves the cover the magazine: Yes, Trudeau drew that specifically for The Post. The general idea was mine--having B.D., with his missing leg, ruminating on the nature of "The Creator." There's a funny story behind this.

Once my editor, Tom the Butcher had approved of the idea, I needed to broach it to Trudeau. We were together in Tucson at the Vietvet conference. But first, I phoned Tom to work out one final detail. Here is how the conversation went:

Me: So, how much can we pay him?

TtheB: Pay him?

Me: For the illustration.

TtheB: I don't think we can pay him anything. We can't pay the subjects of our stories. You know that.

Me: We're not paying for the story! We're paying a world-famous artist for a cover illustration.

TtheB: I know. But it looks like we're paying for the story. We can't do it.

Me:

TtheB:

Me: Okay, let's do a little thought experiment, shall we?

TtheB: Let's!

Me: Do you agree that an original illustration by Garry Trudeau is an item of some intrinsic value? Worth thousands of dollars, in fact?

TtheB: Sure.

Me: Okay, then. So, by asking him to do this illustration for free, we are in effect asking him to give us money.

TtheB:

Me: In other words, HE is paying US to write the story about him.

TtheB:

Me:

TtheB: Okay, this is above my pay grade.

So Tom the Butcher went to discuss this with great and powerful people at The Post. Scenarios were discussed. Options were weighed. And so forth. Finally, it was decided that we would not pay Trudeau for the art, but we would donate a substantial amount of money, in his name, to the charity of his choice.

So, that's what happened. I tell this story mostly because it illustrates the sometimes comical super-serious degrees to which this newspaper is willing to wrestle with issues of ethics and angels on pinheads and so forth--and also why I would not want to work for anyone else. Trudeau, by the way, took my idea for the cover and improved my wording hugely, giving it Mamet-like sparseness.

He's donating the money to Fisher House, which is a program to provide free or low-cost housing for the families who are visiting injured soldiers.

ALSO IN THE CHAT SESSION: A reader pointed out that the illustration is erroneous, since Trudeau draws the strips in pencil, and the pencil drawings are then turned over to an inker.

• • •

Well, there's one other thing I can't not mention, from the Post Magazine piece itself--especially in the interest of anyone who has been overwhelmed by the B.D. saga. No, make that two things:

(1) I had no idea of the extent to which Trudeau has immersed himself in the world of the wounded war returnees. So I also had no idea that it was made possible in large part by contact initiated from the Pentagon following publication of the strip in which B.D. was injured, offering cooperation that opened this whole world to him. This may, tragically, be the most caring thing the military has done for the veterans who have returned un-whole from our ill-advised military adventures.

(2) Trudeau's wife, Jane Pauley, thinks the B.D. story is the best work he's ever done, which is interesting, if unsurprising, but not the point I wanted to pass on, which is the special connection she feels to this story. I think this has to be told the way Weingarten himself tells it, near the end of his piece:

AT 55, JANE PAULEY IS STILL BEAUTIFUL, and she still projects frank vulnerability, or vulnerable frankness, or whatever is that subtle combination of qualities that made her America's preeminent morning-show host in the 1980s. We're meeting for breakfast because there is something Trudeau wouldn't really talk about, and Pauley will.

In 2001, Pauley nearly lost her mind. After receiving steroids to control a case of the hives, she began doing oddly intense things. How intense? She bought a house one day, for no good reason, on impulse, from an ad on the Web. Misdiagnosed with depression, she was hospitalized under an assumed name, to protect her privacy. Eventually, she was found to have a bipolar disorder--triggered but not caused by the steroids--for which she is still undergoing treatment. Pauley chronicled her struggle in a 2004 memoir, Skywriting.

Trudeau was largely absent from Skywriting, and he had been guarded with me about the effect of Pauley's illness on him and the family. He volunteered only two things: "I was told by a doctor that 40 percent of marriages just don't survive it, so from the beginning I knew we were up against something really significant"; and, "The disease subverts your basic survival instinct in the sense that the people who you need to help you survive are the same people you are attacking."

So that's what I ask Pauley about.

"Yes," she says, dryly, "there is a free-floating anger that needs a target and will find one."

For a year or so, Pauley says, before her symptoms were under control, Trudeau and the family lived with her irrational rages. The twins were hunting for colleges, Trudeau was pressed by deadline after deadline, and Mom was a fulminating piece of work--demanding, histrionic, impossible. ["The twins" are the two older of the couple's three children--daughter Rickie and older son Ross, now 22. They wound up at Yale and Brown, respectively, so that part seems to have worked out OK.] "It was just incredible torment for them," Pauley says. "Garry was keeping the house together. It has to have been the most painful part of his life."

Pauley has recovered with the help of lithium, a drug she says she will be on for the rest of her life. Things are mostly fine, she says, except for some side effects, such as a persistent tremor to the hands. She looks murderously at her coffee cup, which the waiter has overfilled, almost to the brim.

"For example, I can't risk trying to pick that up."

Pauley thinks the story of B.D. has been something special, the best work Trudeau has ever done. And then she says:

"I don't think he's consciously aware that it has anything to do with me."

With . . . her?

Pauley smiles. "Garry's mind is very compartmentalized. The department doing the strip in his brain is not directly connected to the husband part, but . . ."

Pauley takes a forkful of scrambled eggs.

". . . it defies credulity that on some level it is not present in his work. What is he writing about, really? He's writing about mental illness, and how it's possible to find a way out of it, with help. It's very hopeful."

I start to say that Trudeau has never made that connection to me, in fact denies that his private life ever intrudes into the strip. But Pauley is ahead of me.

"He'll want to say no, but it's hard to argue with. Isn't it?"

WHAT HAPPENED TO LIEBERMAN'S $387,000 ILLEGAL SLUSH FUND?

Ever work in a political campaign? An early one for me was in Bobby Kennedy's U.S. senate campaign in New York. I was the 16 year old elevator operator at his Manhattan headquarters. Sometimes after work someone upstairs would send out for pizzas for the volunteers. Of course I don't eat pizza anymore but back then... Oh, I loved the goodies the petty cash draw would buy. Well, mostly. Once they sent me out with some money from that draw to buy a bunch of magic markers and oaktag, not nearly as exciting as the pizzas.

Joe Lieberman is nothing like Bobby Kennedy, of course, but recently another way they're not alike has come to everyone's attention: the way Lieberman has been using petty cash. Forget the pizzas and magic markers and oaktag. $387,000 in "petty cash," judiciously spread out on the street is very much meant to buy something else entirely.

Holy Joe Lieberman has always been one of the most duplicitous politicians and dishonest hypocrites in the U.S. Senate. He's infamous as a dirty political player so no one should be surprised that he's been illegally using "petty cash" to buy votes. Jane caught this on Saturday (and again today) but she's too polite to suggest Lieberman  or someone in his campaign is as bad as the Bush-Rove political machine when it comes to electoral cheating.


What do crooked pols like Lieberman do with nearly $400,000 in "petty cash"? Right before voting day? One thing: bribes. That's it. Nothing else. In Lieberman's case, "community leaders," are paid for turning out their people. It's a crime. I wouldn't show my face either-- would you?


OH... AND A LITTLE AFTERTHOUGHT ON LIEBERHOUND AND ANOTHER 60'S PERSONALITY


If Lieberman is nothing like Bobby Kennedy, there is another 60's pol he was very much like: a true Joe Lieberman role model, Richard Nixon. Do you think I'm stretching a bit? I'm not, not even a teensy weensy bit. Remember when Chuck Hagel started publicly warning everyone that Bush's occupation of Iraq was getting to look a lot like Viet Nam? And remember how Bush sent out his attack Lieberhound to savage Hagel? Today David Sirota and Matt Stoller called my attention to some fascinating Nixon/Lieberman parallels: "The Language of Deception:"

Consider a November 3, 1969, President Richard Nixon gave a speech pretending he wanted to soon end the Vietnam War. His speech came a full 3 years and 9,000 American casualties before he was forced against his will by public pressure to end the war. His words are almost exactly the same as Senator Joe Lieberman – another politician who now publicly pretends to want to "end the war," all while working against all efforts to end the war.

"I want peace as much as you do." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"No one wants to end the war in Iraq more than I do." – Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06
 
"Many others-- I among them-- have been strongly critical of the way the war has been conducted." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
"I want to end the war." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"I have been very critical of a lot of the mistakes the Bush administration has made in Iraq." – Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06
 
"Many believe that President Johnson's decision to send American combat forces to South Vietnam was wrong. But the question facing us today is: Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it?" – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"The question is what do we do now. We are there, no matter what you think of how we got there." – Joe Lieberman, 10/8/06
 
"I want to end the war." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"I want to help end the war in Iraq." – Joe Lieberman, 8/11/06
 
"It is a plan that will end the war and serve the cause of peace." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"I recently, again, issued a 10 point plan to get the job done [in Iraq]." – Joe Lieberman, 10/18/06
 
"A fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait until our forces had withdrawn and then move in." – Richard Nixon, 11/3/69
 
"If you tell your enemy when you're going to leave, they'll wait and create disaster." – Joe Lieberman, 7/6/06
 
"I would be untrue to my oath of office if I allowed the [war] policy of this nation to be dictated by the minority who hold that [anti-war] point of view and who try to impose it on the nation." – Richard Nixon, 1969
 
"There is a real but unfortunately too often overlooked or concealed bipartisan American consensus in favor of this new war." – Joe Lieberman, 4/26/04
 
"I understand why they are concerned, about this war. I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace." – Richard Nixon, 1969
 
"I already know that some of you feel passionately against my position on Iraq. I respect your views." – Joe Lieberman, 8/7/06

50 REASONS TO ELECT DEMOCRATS TO CONGRESS-- A CONTEST AND A CHALLENGE

If you've been listening to Air America lately you've no doubt heard some of the Take Back Congress ads. These very effective 60 second spots are part of a campaign that enumerates the 50 reasons to elect a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate. And the reasons are great; take a look or have a listen. Problem is, there are only 38 reasons, not 50. Can you help them write a dozen more ads why Democrats should be running the House and Senate instead of the Republican rubber stamp brigade?

I just got off the phone with Richard Greene, the mastermind behind this effort and he told me that over 1,000 Air America listeners have already responded to the campaign by donating $60,000 to 7 candidates. He just added Victoria Wulsin, the Ohio grassroots progressive on the verge of expelling the hideously reactionary Mean Jean Schmidt from the Congress and I urged him to put Coleen Rowley (just endorsed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune today) on the list too. Blue America candidate John Laesch is already kicking ass, with 750 donations for around $10,000.

Today Richard is rallying Democrats, progressives, independents and anyone else tired of a one-party rubber stamp Congress to show the far right establishment and their unspeakable talk show hosts and propaganda machine how strong the Air America/netroots community is. He's asking for $10 donations that span the whole spectrum of Democratic challengers, from Tennessee conservative Democrat Harold Ford, who may do little more for us than vote with Team Blue to make Harry Reid Majority Leader, to mainstream moderates like Claire McCaskill of Missouri and James Webb of Virginia, to actual progressives looking to help shape genuine systemic change, like Victoria Wulsin, John Laesch and Clint Curtis.

If you come up with another idea for one of the 50 reasons, please send it to downwithtyranny@aol.com/ If Richard uses your suggestion not only will you have struck a blow for a better America, you'll get a great gift-- an advance promotional DVD of the film Al Franken: God Spoke, autographed by Al (and not yet available in stores) and an autographed copy of Al's latest book, The Truth-- With Jokes

Quote of the day: This is no time for Democrats to be "making nice" to Republicans, or to be rolling over for Dems who think and act like Repugs

"There are those who say that a confrontational stance will backfire politically on the Democrats. These are by and large the same people who told Democrats that attacking the Bush administration over Iraq would backfire in the midterm elections. Enough said."
--Paul Krugman, in his NYT column today, "Don't Make Nice"*

As Howie has already noted today, we already see the unspeakable Rahm Emanuel (would you want to be the poor sumbitch who's got him looking, er, the way he looks in this photo?) jockeying for position in the new Congress, taking credit for a victory that--assuming it materializes--he will have had shockingly little to do with. I wish there were something to be done about this, but as long as there are political power gatherers-brokers--and flacks like the Washington Post's Steve Hendrix to offer them P.R. fellatio--what are we going to do?

Well, we can try fighting back.

Howie and I have chatted about this, and he has pointed out that the Democratic class of House freshmen is likely to include a number of incoming members who not only aren't beholden to Master Rahm but hate his guts for either ignoring or actively opposing their progressive grass-roots campaigns.

Of course, as far as the master is concerned, they'll probably be just a bunch of fringe loons, and he no doubt expects Speaker Pelosi to look the other way while he puts the screws to them, encouraging them to choose between becoming more "pragmatic" and serving out their time in Congress on the farthest fringes. If this brings to mind the infernal image of Tom "The Hammer" DeLay (right), it's perhaps not accidental.

What we can do is make sure those people know we stand behind them, that there are people looking for a Democratic majority committed to real progress for the country, not the dawn of a new Democratic culture of corporatism and corruption. As Paul Krugman writes today:

Political considerations aside, American voters deserve to have their views represented in Congress. And according to opinion polls, most Americans are actually to the left of Congressional Democrats on issues such as health care.

In particular, the public wants politicians to stand up to corporate interests. This is clear from the latest Newsweek poll, which shows overwhelming public support for the agenda Nancy Pelosi has laid out for her first 100 hours if she becomes House speaker. The strongest support is for her plan to have Medicare negotiate with drug companies for lower prices, which is supported by 74 percent of Americans--and by 70 percent of Republicans!

What the make-nice crowd wants most of all is for the Democrats to forswear any investigations into the origins of the Iraq war and the cronyism and corruption that undermined it. But it's very much in the national interest to find out what led to the greatest strategic blunder in American history, so that it won't happen again.

If American voters rise up, as they are increasingly expected to do, and demand an end, not only to Republican ideological extremism, but to Republican cronyism and corruption, that doesn't give Democrats license to take over the cronyism-and-corruption turf.

The Democrats have an opportunity here. To return to Krugman:

The reason we have so much bitter partisanship these days is that that's the way the radicals who have taken over the Republican Party want it. People like Grover Norquist [right], who once declared that "bipartisanship is another name for date rape," push for a hard-right economic agenda; people like Karl Rove make that agenda politically feasible, even though it's against the interests of most voters, by fostering polarization, using religion and national security as wedge issues.

As long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.'s strategy, Democrats can't do much, if anything, to narrow the partisan divide.

Even if they try to act in a bipartisan fashion, their opponents will find a way to divide the nation--which is what happened to the great surge of national unity after 9/11. One thing we might learn from investigations is the extent to which the Iraq war itself was motivated by the desire to have another wedge issue.

I don't suggest that we start taking anything for granted, that we have the luxury of devoting anything other than maximum effort to beating back the tidal wave of propaganda and filth yet to be unleashed by Karl Rove's political machine, with a view toward electing the most progressive Congress possible. At the same time, though we do have to start thinking past November 7 to the convening of the new Congress. Because one thing's sure: Master Rahm is.

- - - - - - - - - -
*Note: As usual, the full text of the Krugman column is appended in a comment.

MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE GETS IT MOSTLY RIGHT-- ENDORSES COLEEN ROWLEY AND TIM WALZ OVER RUBBER STAMP REPUBLICAN GOONS

Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune started making House endorsements. The easy one was the recommendation to re-elect much-admired Democratic Congresswoman Betty McCollum, a basically uncontested race (against a guy from Eritrea named Obi Sium).


They endorsed one other incumbent-- ineffective Republican hack and rubber stamp Jim Ramstad, in a transparent attempt to show how "nonpartisan" they are. In so doing they have ignored the fact that progressive radio talk show host Wendy Wilde has captured the imaginations of Minnesotans who want something more than "stay the course," not just in Iraq, but here at home as well. Although Blue America didn't have the time to set up an interview session with Wilde, we did customize our song and video for her campaign and very much hope Ramstad is swept out of office as he and other Bush enablers deserve to be.


The biggest surprise of the endorsements was the Star Tribune's abandonment of another rubber stamp Republican goof ball, Gil Gutknecht, in favor of Fighting Dem Tim Walz. Gutknecht was part of the "Gingrich Revolution" of 1994 and he's been as big a disappointment as the rest of that class. Gutknecht is a confused mess who has proven himself clueless on policy and catastrophic on ethics, hauling in the loots hand over first from the corporate donors whose interests he represents over and above the voters of MN-01. According to the editorial endorsement "the DFL has fielded a superior candidate in Tim Walz. A 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard, Walz delivers a blistering but authoritative critique of the Bush administration's missteps in Iraq and treatment of military veterans. But he is not a one-dimensional candidate. A football coach and Teacher of the Year at Mankato West High School, he seems to have a finger on the pulse of the district's needs and frustrations. He has issued sophisticated position papers on balancing the federal budget and reforming immigration policy. He has raised nearly $1 million in campaign contributions, a record for challengers in this district, and has shown an ability to lead by building a formidable campaign operation. Walz's party certainly takes him seriously, for he has earned the endorsement of Nebraska's Bob Kerrey and Georgia's Max Cleland, both former senators and respected Vietnam veterans. Walz radiates energy, optimism and critical thinking -- qualities Washington could use right now."

But for me the big coup of today's endorsements was the thumbs up the paper gave to Blue America heroine Coleen Rowley over right-wing extremist and fanatic John Kline, by far the worst member of the Minnesota congressional delegation. The Star Tribune doesn't savage Kline the way he deserves to be. Instead, their endorsement of Rowley is all about why she would make a better representative for MN-02. "we cannot endorse [Kline's] steadfast, increasingly strained, defense of the Bush administration over policies that have produced destructive budget deficits, mired the nation in a disastrous war and tarnished the nation's image as a defender of human rights and the rule of law. Republicans have tried to paint Rowley as some sort of loose-cannon liberal. We don't see it: She was a career FBI agent, including a stint in New York investigating drug dealers and mobsters, and voted for George W. Bush in 2000 on the belief that he would govern as his father had. She would balance the federal budget by letting the Bush tax cuts expire exactly the way a GOP Congress wrote them and would reform immigration law by following the Senate Republican blueprint. She would move toward universal health insurance though a cautious strategy of state experimentation, and she would wind down the war in Iraq by following the sensible outline of Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania veteran who has endorsed her. While Rowley is short on political experience, she has proved herself a quick study and avid learner. Washington needs a change in course, and the Second District is a good place to start."

Crooks and Liars is focusing on Coleen today too, trying to get the Blue America ActBlue total for her up from $15,000 to something her ace ground operation can deploy in two weeks to balance out the gigantic corporate warchest Kline has amassed by voting 100% of the time for Big Business interests over the interests of his constituents. He's, by far, the most out-of-touch member of the Minnesota delegation and the one who has most richly earned defeat.



UPDATE: A CHOICE EVEN A KID CAN UNDERSTAND

A YouTube clip by Mike McIntee is worth 10,000 words:

OK, doing the arithmetic, does this mean that Armstrong Williams actually performed $152K worth of propaganda for the Bush administration?

According to an AP report in today's Washington Post:

Columnist Settles in Propaganda Case

Columnist Armstrong Williams has reached a settlement with prosecutors regarding payments he received from the Education Department to promote President Bush's agenda.

Under the agreement, Williams admits no wrongdoing but will have to pay $34,000. The deal was reached last week by Williams, the Education Department and its subcontractor, Ketchum Communications. . . .

The financial nitty gritty appears to be:

The Justice Department examined whether Williams performed the work that was promised in his $240,000 contract signed in late 2003 and cited in his monthly reports. Williams received a total of $186,000 under that contract, according to a 2005 Government Accountability Office report on the matter. Ultimately, prosecutors determined he was overpaid $34,000.

So, unless we've screwed up the math (always a possibility), the story would appear to be that "Army" contracted to provide $240K worth of disguised administration propaganda but only came through with $152K worth, but now that he's paying back the $34K overpayment everybody's happy.

Just checking.

RAHM THE RAINMAKER SMELLS THE SPOILS SO STRONGLY THAT HE CAN ALREADY TASTE THEM-- MEET THE DEMOCRATIC TOM DELAY

Is Emanuel really as bad as Tom DeLay? Depends what you mean by "bad" but the short, fundamental answer is yes, the Democratic Party insiders' two-bit Machiavelli is exactly as dangerous to democracy as DeLay was. The main difference-- outside the ideological policy contrasts-- is that DeLay has had power to abuse; Emanuel is about to get it. Today, Steve Hendrix examines the would-be Democratic Hammer at the Washington Post; DWT has been examining it since Nancy Pelosi blundered into giving him the chairmanship of the DCCC.

His mouth filled with lox or pastrami or corned beef, Emanuel boasts that "there's no clean way to do this," refering to his swinish eating habits, not his swinish way of running the D-Trip. Without ever refering to Rahm's self-aggrandizing bullshit of hand-to-hand or hand-to-tank fighting in the Golan Heights with the Israeli Army-- a putz' fantasy, meant to intimidate and coerce putzier putzes, like the aforementioned future Madame Speaker-- Hendrix gives away the true story of Rahm's 9-fingered conditon, a childhood boo-boo gone band.

"As the member of Congress responsible for recruiting candidates for House races, raising money and vetting strategy for dozens of districts, he's received raves from campaign connoisseurs in Washington for running a taut committee. Notably, he's nearly closed the perennial cash-on-hand gap between his team -- with $36 million in the bank at the end of September -- and its GOP counterpart. He's fielded credible candidates in districts no one had expected to be in play a year ago. And he's generally been flogging the party like a never-satisfied CEO." Thanks Mr. hendrix; we're heard it all before, a lot. Emanuel has a great p.r. shop.

If recruiting candidates means finding self-financing Republicans to run as "Democrats," we wind up with corporate shills devoid of any Democratic values-- like Tim Mahoney in Foley's old seat-- or wasting god-only-knows-how-much money trying to defeat anti-war, progressive grassroots Democrats like Jerry McNerney with right-of-center rubber stamps (yeah, our side has that type too). Rahm's recruiting job has been terrible-- unless your idea of a good Democrat is a conservative, anti-choice, homophobic Big Business pretty boy like Heath Shuler (who basically tossed a coin to decide if he'd run as a Democrat or a Republican). Meanwhile, did Rahm find a real opponent to take on Jerry Lewis, the most corrupt Republican in the House-- and the one most likely to be be indicted and join his pals Ney and Cunningham and Abramoff in prison? (Answer: no; Lewis seems to have found his own "opponent," one who doesn't do any opposing.)

And if he's such a great fundraiser-- and I'm not even talking about God having to save us from the Wall Street chits that will be cashed in after the Democrats take over-- where are some funds for grassroots candidates an inch and a half from knocking off cash-rich GOP incumbents? Think Angie Paccione v Marilyn Musgrave or John Laesch v Denny Hastert or Coleen Rowley v John Kline or Victoria Wulsin v Mean Jean Schmidt or Steve Porter v Phil English. And every single district that has been a surprise, came not from Emanuel's efforts-- except FL-16, which were probably very much his efforts-- but despite him. He's always aimed at 15 seats. Democrats will probably take more than double that. Nothing to do with Emanuel at all.

And as far as vetting campaign strategy, I'd say I've talked in-depth to at least 50 Democrats. Exactly one seemed happy about Emanuel's DLC-oriented vetting and that one told me he had it out with Emanuel's attempt to impose his reactionary politics on his campaign and that he was able to convince Emanuel to back off. Most of the other campaigns see him and his anti-liberal interference as much an enemy as the Republicans.

After he left the Clinton Administration, the vulgar, corner-cutting, amoral Emanuel managed to amass $18 million in two years as an investment banker. Does this mean he's a crook who belongs in prison? I'd say "definitely" but I can't be 100% certain so I'd leave it as a "probably." Right now my biggest fear is how this ex-ballet dancer turned would-be thug is going to mire the Democratic Party caucus in corruption and tar our party with his own reactionary, power-mogering instincts. His toxic influence of Pelosi could make a Democratic victory November 7... less valuable to progressives and grassroots Democrats that we hoped. Can he do to us what DeLay did to the GOP? See my "definately/probably" dichotomy above.


AFTERTHOUGHT: EVEN EMANUEL IS NOT COMPLETELY IMPERVIOUS TO GRASSROOTS DEMANDS


Today's L.A. Times is reporting that the DCCC will start spreading some campaign money around to another few races around the country. Democrats who will benefit inclide progressive Tom Walz (MN), hideously reactionary, quasi-Republican Mike Weaver (KY), progressive Jerry McNerney (CA), and conservative Jason Altmire (PA). Looks like Emanuel is giving up on Angie. We shouldn't. Let's raise her some more money so she can compete against the mentally unbalanced homophobe Marilyn Musgrave.

AND DON'T EVEN GET HER STARTED ON RUMSFELD

California's Courage Campaign starts running a great new TV ad today. You should watch it and then think about helping them keep it on the air for the next 2 weeks. California isn't as blue as many people think. The 18 fastest growing counties all voted fascist in the 2004 presidential election-- and look what a pile of dung people seem to be about to re-elect as governor!

HOW MANY REPUBLICROOKS (BESIDES JERRY LEWIS) FACE INDICTMENT AND PRISON AFTER THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS?

The entire political establishment was shocked-- and several Republicans probably crapped in their panties-- when the daughter/bagwoman and closest political cronies of arch-Republicrook Curt Weldon were served with subpoenas, had their homes and offices searched and had loads of evidence against the bloated and corrupt Pennsylvania congressman seized and carted off. This never happens right before an election. The Justice Department, the FBI and law enforcement officials tacitly agree to hold off on indictments and arrests of political figures within 6 weeks of an election, so as not to unduly influence the outcome. In Weldon's case, the grand jury that has been investigating his massive bribery case demanded the seizures, fearing evidence could be destroyed.

But with the unraveling of DeLay/Hastert Cultural of Corruption so pervasive and corrosive in every branch of national government, it is likely that several Republican congressmen who may be re-elected November 7, by voters not fully paying attention, will wind up indicted, on trial and in prison before the 2008 elections.

Today The Lofty Donkey is reporting that crooked Arizona congressman Rick Renzi will not be indicted for either his Hastert-like land deal or for income tax fraud and bribery until after November 7. Hastert and Ken Calvert are under investigation for the same sort of crooked real estate dealings as Renzi. Crooked land deals are only a small piece of the case closing in on Jerry Lewis (R-CA), widely thought to be the most likely Republican to next face prison. Others almost sure to be indicted after November 7 are Don Young of Alaska, John Doolittle of California, Katherine Harris and Tom Feeney of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia, Gary Miller and Duncan Hunter of California, and, of course, Montana's Conrad Burns.

In all likelihood at least Harris and Burns will be private citizens when they are carted off to prison. But how embarrassing will it be for the low-information voters in, say, CA-41, when their freshly re-elected long-time Republican congressman, Jerry Lewis is incarcerated? I mean won't they feel like the stupidest, brain-dead morons on earth? While the current issue of Rolling Stone ranks Lewis only the 5th worst congressman in the country, the do title the story about him The King of Payoffs. And some media sources have even started reporting how this crooked chairman/crime syndicate boss of the powerful House Appropriations Committee just fired 60 investigators who were getting a bit too close to discovering a pattern of corruption inside his committee.

Friday's Congressional Quarterly lays out a story that sounds incredibly like Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre, the one that led to his resignation and disgrace.

The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee dismissed most of the panel's team of waste and fraud investigators this week, firing about 60 contractors who had been examining federal spending related to Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and other programs.

Committee staff called the contract investigators on the evening of Oct. 16 to tell them that Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., had refused to renew their annual employment agreements, which expired with the 2006 fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The contractors, who worked for the panel's Surveys and Investigations team, were primarily retired investigators from the FBI, the CIA, the military and the Government Accountability Office. Among the projects the investigators had been working on were an examination of body armor for U.S. troops and the Army Corps of Engineers' spending to improve levees and dams in Louisiana.

Investigators said they were told not to come to work on Oct. 17 and that they had a week to turn in their congressional ID badges and collect their belongings. Sixteen permanent staff members of the team remain employed by the committee...

The team has existed since 1943, according to a September 2005 news release from Lewis that announced the investigators would be looking into waste in Hurricane Katrina contracts. The team's contract investigators served at the discretion of the House committee's chairman.

Lewis' decision "has in fact stalled all of the investigations on the staff," said one of the contractors, a former FBI agent, who asked not to be identified. "This eviscerates the investigatory function. There is little if any ability to do any oversight now."

Contractors were told that the team's offices in Louisiana, Wright Patterson Air Force Base and on the third floor of the Ford House Office Building were being shut down. The team is retaining offices on the second floor of the Ford building and at the Pentagon, the contractor said.

"In effect, no investigative function is going to be done," said the contractor, who called the decision "misguided."

"This staff has saved billions and billions of dollars, we've turned up malfeasance and misfeasance," the contractor said. "It's results justify the expense of the staff. I have no idea why the chairman would do this..."

Scofield [a Lewis flack] said any criticism of the decision was "just a bunch of sour grapes." He also said there was no concern that the move would stall investigations of Katrina and war spending.

"What we're looking for is not timely oversight, we are looking for good oversight," Scofield said. "We're confident that a periodic bipartisan review is a prudent course to make sure that we are getting the best oversight we can..."

[Former contractor, Ron] Garant said the GOP leadership was not interested in tough investigations. "When you have one party government, there was no real interest in investigating anything," he said.

Lewis, meanwhile, is in the midst of his own legal troubles, after newspapers reported that the Justice Department has begun investigating his relationships with lobbyists. He has spent nearly $800,000 in legal fees from his campaign account since June, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

by Mags


The good news is that Cheney feels the love. (He's seen here at a fund-raiser in Topeka with Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun.)

The bad news is that he's going to need a lot of Viagra to express it. You know Cheney, always the romantic--GFY (Go F*ck Yourself).

(Let us be very clear, this item refers to the supposed love the Veep is claimed to be finding out in the Heartland, and not to the child mentioned in the article. Although I can't help but ask, what is that all about? I would call a social worker. Just saying.)


The good or bad news (depending on your vantage point) is that Ken Lay's conviction has been vacated. Lucky for Mrs. Lay. Sort of. Word has it the judge had no choice, since Mr. Lay had not had a chance to appeal before his untimely demise. (Untimely for those looking to recover damages from his fortune, that is. Perhaps fortuitous for the Lays, all things considered.) But a lengthy process will be undertaken by government and other lawyers to continue actions to prove fraud. (I wonder if one day we will see photos of Mr. Lay relaxing by the beach in some South American locale. Nah . . . )

The just plain bad news is the same as it has always been: Enron investors and employees will continue to get the shaft.


The bad news is that the Torture Bill (officially the Military Commissions Act of 2006) has been signed.

There is no good news here. The even worse news is that Bush is beginning his campaign to criminalize dissent. You can read the whole transcript of his address here.

The American people are their government, Mr. Bush. You are simply hired by us to do a job. It is not Al Qaeda that has turned the tide of public opinion, Mr. Bush. It is your ineptitude and your lies.


This news article says that Tony Blair is thinking of prohibiting the wearing of the veil by Muslim women. If anyone thinks it's OK to outlaw that public display of religion, I wonder if they would also consider it acceptable to ban Christian women from wearing their crosses (or bearing them either).

Good news or bad news? You decide. But the dominant culture will always be tempted to outlaw what it can't understand.


The good news is that George has a plan for Iraq!

The bad news is that it is a super-secret plan. He is only sharing it with idiots. Of course, according to George yesterday, it's the same plan he's always had. Even though people around him say he is altering the plan, he keeps saying it's the same plan. Gives one whiplash.


Speaking of secret plans, they're what Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos is most famous for, including a secret plan for creating jobs. In the state with the worst unemployment numbers in the nation, this might qualify as good news--except that DeVos seems to consider Michigan voters such bad security risks that he can't reveal his plans until after the election.

The bad news is that if these plans are so secret, it must be because they're not worth a damn. Believe me, if any of these jackasses had anything good to say, they would have broadcast it on FOX News 24/7.


The bad news is that Rickie Santorum thinks he is Frodo. He told the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States." If you don't have any idea what he's talking about, you've got a lot of company.

The good news is, Rickie is way down in the polls. Crazy is only playing well in CT. What can I say?


The bad news is that we can't figure out who comes out looking worse in the Mark Foley mess--the GOP or the clergy.

The good news is that we knew they were both hypocrites to start with. This is just very public proof.


This week's ironic news is that the U.S. is building a wall to keep Mexican immigrants out. The really ironic news is that former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is laughing his ass off about it, publicly recalling then-President Ronald Reagan "standing in Berlin and saying, 'This wall should be torn down.'" It seems safe to say that Mr. Reagan is rolling over in his grave.

God, you can't make shit like this up!


Hey, here's good news: We finally have proof that birds of a feather do indeed flock together, with President Bush hitting the campaign trail in behalf of Virginia Sen. George Felix Allen, the "Macaca" man, and of Pennsylvania Rep. Don Sherwood, the alleged mistress-choker.

The bad news is: blech and, to repeat, ew-w-w!


The good news is the SNAFU--or FUBAR, depending upon your fondness for acronyms that contain the F-word--in which the U.S. can't figure out if North Korea's Kim Jong Il is or isn't sorry for the nuclear tests his country ran. (We all know that love means never having to say you're sorry.) Seems Condi has been dispatched to make sure Americans are confused about the issue, so George can look all presidential and keep us tense and afraid.

I suppose this is once again all bad news; I was just joking about any of it being good. Once again, we are kept in the dark, but it's understandable, since our own government doesn't have a frigging clue either. No one could have predicted that they would fly airplanes into the towers. No one could have predicted the levees would not hold. Lying bastards.


The good news is that George Bush yesterday felt that Iraq was important enough to meet with his generals for a whole 90 minutes.

The bad news is that his attention span is about 60 seconds.


Author's note: Well, we are still blogging for one more week. With George making noises about dissent, the weeks ahead may get very interesting.

Maybe we all need to safeguard ourselves by having an investigation of ourselves on file somewhere--a file that proves we're innocent of any collusion with the enemy. I mean, haven't we come to the point where we must prove our innocence instead of someone proving our guilt? It is my best idea for those in the forefront of the struggle to get the truth out.

And that, friends, is the bad news.

WHAT WILL BUSH DO? STEAL THE ELECTION? FLEE TO PARAGUAY?

Panicked over his Regime's complete rejection by American voters, even George Bush now claims he isn't-- and never has been-- a "stay the course" kind of guy. Everything seems to be falling apart for someone being more and more recognized as the absolute worst chief executive in American history. Today the L.A. Times even exposes how his corrupt and venal family has cashed in on his devastating policies.

In his NY Times column today, Frank Rich says it's virtually impossible for the Democrats, despite themselves, to lose in 2 weeks. "The Democrats are so brilliant at yanking defeat from the jaws of victory that it still seems unimaginable that they might win on Nov. 7. But even the most congenital skeptic has to face that possibility now. Things have gotten so bad for the Republicans that were President Bush to unveil Osama bin Laden's corpse in the Rose Garden, some reporter would instantly check to see if his last meal had been on Jack Abramoff's tab. With an approval rating of 16 percent-- 16!-- in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Congress has matched the Democrats of 1994 or, for that matter, Michael Jackson during his own version of Foleygate. As for Mr. Bush, he is once more hiding behind children in an elementary school, as he did last week when the monthly death toll for Americans in Iraq approached a nearly two-year high. And where else could he go? Some top Republican Congressional candidates in the red state he was visiting, North Carolina, would not appear with him. When the president did find a grateful campaign mate at his next stop, Pennsylvania, it was the married congressman who paid $5.5 million to settle a lawsuit by a mistress who accused him of throttling her."

So with every single poll and all the newspapers and television newscasters announcing that the Democrats will massively win in the House and may even defeat the forces of darkness in enough senatorial battles to take over the Senate as well, the Bush Regime mainstays are surely trying to decide what course of action to follow. "More than half of Americans, 55 percent, would like to see Democrats take control of Congress, according to a poll by Newsweek magazine released on Saturday... The poll found that 57 percent of those surveyed disapprove of Bush's job performance and just 35 percent approve. And it found that 67 percent are dissatisfied with the direction in which things are moving in the United States... 74 percent said a top priority for Congress should be to make changes to allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for seniors, and this included 70 percent of Republicans. And 68 percent of those polled said raising the minimum wage should also be a top priority." This is a gloom and doom scenario for Republicans, virtually all of whom have been rubber stamps for Bush, have voted overwhelmingly for his much-loathed Big Pharma giveaway and who all opposed raising the minimum wage.

So would they try to get away with just stealing the races electronically, like they did in 2004? Or would enough Americans scratch their heads and say "Hey this don't seem right. Where's that huntin' rifle, Betsy?"

Looks like Bush himself is preparing for any eventuality. Like a long line of disgraced tyrants before him, Bush may be getting ready to skip town and find himself a safe haven where he'll never have to face the Bar of Justice for his grotesquely criminal regime. "It has been reported that George W. Bush has recently purchased a 98,842 acre farm in Northern Paraguay. What on earth does the President of the United States need a 98,000+ acre farm in Northern Paraguay for?" Paraguay has some bizarre relations with the Bush Regime and in the past is known to have given safe haven to a wide array of dictators and war criminals from Juan Peron to a dozen escaped Nazis.


UPDATE: "STAY THE COURSE" FOR W HAS THE RING OF "READ BY LIPS" CIRCA 1992

The alternative title for this update was "Liar Liar, Pants On Fire." Does Rove really think Americans are that stupid? Even in Texas people know better. But just in case... Think Progress has put together a little video presentation to remind people of how Bush can barely open his mouth without lying.

YOU THINK SOMETHING STINKS IN DENMARK? YOU SHOULD TAKE A LOOK AT THE OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY!

Next Saturday, our guest at Firedoglake's Blue America is not someone running for Congress. Instead, we have a state senator from Ohio. But a very special state senator. Mark Dann was one of the people who exposed the whole Ohio Republican Party Machine as a criminal enterprise. And now he's running for Attorney General of the state. And who is he running against? Betty Montgomery, the state Assessor who helped design the system that has bilked Ohio taxpayers out of a billion dollars a year. It should be a great blog session with Mark-- next Saturday at 2 PM (est)-- and I hope you'll join us.

Meanwhile... today's Toledo Blade, the paper that first broke the Tom Noe Republican coin scandal and the multimillion dollar rip off of the Ohio Workmen's Compensation Fund and introduced the outside word to Mark Dann, has a related scoop. There's a video-- one that Noe's crooked wife/moll/GOP County chairwoman Bernadette has, and one that "could launch 30-second TV attack ads against GOP candidates like so many shells from a cannon."

The video is of a little birthday party/GOP fundraiser for hubby Tom (already found guilty of illegally funneling tainted money into the BushCheney election campaign and currently on trial for another set of criminal offenses) and it stars a cast of some of the worst criminals in Ohio political history: Senator George Voinovich, Governor Bob Taft, Auditor Betty Montgomery, Attorney General Jim Petro, et al.

Bernadette is pissed-off. She's angry because all of her husband's co-conspirators, particularly Ms. Montgomery, a viciously homophobic closeted lesbian who's entire life is based around lies, self-loathing and denials, are acting as though they never knew him now that the plot they all hatched together is unraveling before the public. Could spell more bad news for Satan's team in Ohio.

MEET MIKE McINTEE, NETROOTS HERO FROM MINNESOTA, LIKES: RAMONES, THE TWINS, COLEEN ROWLEY

I hope you already know who Mike McIntee is-- or at least know his work. Mike is a big supporter of Coleen Rowley's and a couple months ago he took the Blue America "Have You Had Enough?" song and did an animated video for it. People were so enthusiastic that requests have flooded in for similar videos for candidates across the country. Mike's clip suggesting it's time to throw Denny Hastert out and replace him with John Laesch has been played more than almost any other political video on YouTube. Tens of thousands of people have watched Mike's clips for Charlie Brown, Victoria Wulsin, Jerry McNerney, Mike McGraw, Bill Winter, Carol Voisin, Chris Murphy, Wendy Wilde, Robert Rodriguez, David Roth, Roger Sharpe, Joe Sestak, Angie Paccione, Steve Porter, and other progressive Democrats in every part of the country. Yesterday he whipped one up for Kirsten Gillibrand, the most recent Blue America guest at Firedoglake.



A few days ago Mike saw one of the smear campaign ads paid for with the huge corporate bribes John Kline spent the entire last two years amassing. And Mike isn't the only person in Minnesota to notice the bullshit Kline was spewing. The Minnesota Monitor wrote about it and then Mike did a video about it. I think you'll dig it as much as I did:




Mike got so creative and productive because, like so many of us, he got majorly pissed off at the Bush Regime and the rubber stamp Republicans enabling his reactionary agenda. "They've been ripping away the institutions, laws and principles that have made this country great," Mike told me. And he's pissed off that the poor in his native Minnesota pay nearly twice as much as the rich in taxes and fees as a percentage of their income. "I've seen firsthand how the mantra of 'me first' is killing this country."

Mike comes from a background in TV news and he's got 25 years of experience, working at local stations from Harlingen, Texas to Minneapolis, covering wars, floods, riots, politics, disasters, and stories about cute puppies. He even ran a national TV news network-- the All News Channel-- on DirecTV. "Media consolidation undermined our channel and I had to lay everybody off when Hubbard Broadcasting sold the bandwidth to Fine Living Television. That was about three years ago. I spent the next year finding jobs for all of my former employees. Then I reinvented myself, learned how to do non-linear editing and launched a company intent on producing relevant media people really cared about. At first we produced family history videos, but then branched out into podcasting and online videos. The technology had changed enough that it was time to democratize broadcasting-- which is now my mission."

All those years in TV news prevented Mike from getting too involved with politics. "Now that I'm out of TV news, I'm making up for lost time. I help our Eagan/Burnsville Democratic-Farmer-Labor party with communications. I'm a delegate and I push for changes in the party to put people with vision and backbone in leadership positions. I blog. I podcast. I challenge the local reporters to do a better job and to quit glossing over the issues." And he's been one of the back-bones of the entire Blue America campaign for 2006. Mike's 47, loves the Ramones and lives and dies for Twins baseball.

LOOKS LIKE PENNSYLVANIA HAS ALL THE BEST TV ADS THIS WEEK! THE CHOKER VOTED AGAINST STEM CELL RESEARCH

I hope you already had a chance to see Joe Sestak's powerful response to Republicrook Curt Weldon's lame attempt at a Rovian swiftboat smear (below). Pennsylvania is shaping up incredibly well for Team Blue this year, with statewide races (Governor and U.S. Senator) way, way ahead for Democrats and half a dozen GOP-head House seats seriously in play. Aside from the landslide shaping up for Admiral Sestak against the contemptible and prison-bound Weldon, it also looks like a double-digit landslide in PA-10 for another ex-Navy man, Chris Carney. Chris is battling Don "The Choker" Sherwood, whose campaign has been marked by one disastrous miscalculation after another.

While Sherwood was carrying on a 5 or 6 year adulterous affair with a woman young enough to be his granddaughter, an affair that ended when the police were called in after Sherwood beat her up, he was also consistently voting against the interests of his constituents at the behest of Big Business and the religious right. An independent group called Majority Action decided to make a little TV spot about how Sherwood voted to kill stem cell research (which is heavily supported by Pennsylvania residents). This ad, like the Joe Sestak ad, is the kind of powerful push back strong, clear-minded Democrats are making all over the country. Democrats will sweep the House on November 7 not because of Hastert's coverup of the Foley sexual predatory scandals but because Democrats have the answers and the ability to communicate them to the voters.

BILL MAHER ASKS BARNEY FRANK IF LARRY CRAIG IS A CLOSET CASE

Barney Frank (D-MA), annually voted one of the 2 or 3 smartest men in Congress in the Washingtonian poll of Capitol Hill aides, was on FIRE on Bill Maher's TV show the other day. Bill asked his guests what's up with all these gay Republican officials being dragged out of their closets. He aimed his barb particularly at Idaho right-wing extremist and arch-homophobe Larry Craig, a Bush rubber stamp senator who was recently outed. Barney kind of passed on that one-- although with great aplomb-- and then went on to the heart of the problem. "The right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy and people who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door and do it themselves." But he was just getting warmed up. Watch the video.

HOW DO YOU ANSWER A LOW DOWN REPUBLICAN SWIFTBOAT ATTACK FROM A COWARDLY BUCKET OF SLIME? JOE SESTAK DOESN'T LET WELDON GET AWAY WITH IT

I liked Joe Sestak from the moment I started reading about him and he got the DWT seal of approval early on. But it wasn't unt