NEXT CONFIRMATION BATTLE: MUKASEY ON NOVEMBER 6-- CAN DEMOCRATS HOLD THE LINE? BUSH ISN'T LOSING ANY SLEEP

Only the Senate gets to vote on presidential nominations. At least we won't have to sit and watch Rahm Emanuel's little kennel of Bush Dogs-- like Heath Shuler (NC), Chris Carney (PA), Jason Altmire (PA), Melissa Bean (IL), Dan Lipinski (IL), JoeDonnellyBradEllworthBaronHill (IN), Tim Mahoney (FL),  Harry Mitchell (AZ), and Zach Space (OH)-- obediently voting to confirm Bush's candidate to succeed Alberto Gonzales as Vlad the Impaler Attorney General.

When Bush first nominated Michael Mukasey, Beltway Insiders, of both parties, rallied round and gave a great big cheer and pretty much claimed the hearing would just be for fun and he was in like flynn. But then he started talking-- or not talking-- about the Bush Regime's wiretapping policies and torture policies... and progressives started having second thoughts. As usual these days Chris Dodd was first:

"Mr. Mukasey's position that the President does not have to heed the law disqualifies him from being the chief attorney for the United States. We have seen for too long, and at great expense to our national security, an Administration that has systematically attacked the rule of law and turned our Justice Department into a political wing of the White House. I'm afraid that Mr. Mukasey as Attorney General would be more of the same."

Obama, Clinton and Edwards also came out against Mukasey. Obama:

We don't need another attorney general who believes that the President enjoys an unwritten right to secretly ignore any law or abridge our constitutional freedoms simply by invoking national security. And we don't need another attorney general who looks the other way on issues as profound as torture.

Hillary said "Mukasey has been given ample opportunity-- both at his confirmation hearings and in his subsequent submission to the Judiciary Committee-- to clarify his answers and categorically oppose the unacceptable interrogation techniques employed by this Administration. His failure to do so leaves me no choice but to oppose his nomination." The Senate Judiciary Committee has set November 6th as the day they will vote on the nomination. Patrick Leahy, the committee chair, who was the first to declare confirmation a virtual slam dunk, has gone through Mukasey's 172 pages of written responses and he says they do not satisfy him. Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Richard Durbin, also a committee member, said "I can't support his nomination." Reactionary Democrats in the tightly divided Senate, like Ben Nelson, arch-villain of the KKK confirmation battle last week, are already lining up to support Bush and ignore the Judiciary Committee.

Andrew Greeley explained today why Mukasey is probably a much bigger danger to America than Gonzales, who he describes as "an incompetent buffoon, a hack from Texas."

[He] believes the president can ignore statutes passed by Congress by virtue of his power as commander in chief. The separation of powers, the essence of American democracy, is thereby abolished, and the president becomes a dictator who can do anything he deems necessary to defend the country. There is no review either of his decisions or his judgments about the powers of the commander in chief or the specific threat to the country. The president in theory is as absolute in his power as Stalin was in Russia. No one reviews him, no one rules on him, no one questions his decisions. The next step will be FBI men in jackboots appearing at the doors of presidential critics in the middle of the night.

Tomorrow's NY Times worries that Mukasey is treading a line so fine because he has to protect against future prosecutions against Regime members. A few nights ago I went to hear Paul Krugman speak at the L.A. Public Library. He was even more brilliant on stage than in the columns. I asked him if he thought Bush and his cronies had committed crimes that rose to the level of post-Regime prosecution. He wasn't sure but he told a little jokey. I'm paraphrasing: "On the last day of the Regime Bush pardons Cheney and resigns and then Cheney pardons Bush."

The Senate Judiciary Committee usually is stocked with partisans from each party. Even if some Democrats decide to filibuster Mukasey on the floor-- the way they did the KKK judicial nominee last week-- enough reactionary Democrats will throw their lots in with the GOP to shut it down and confirm him. If he gets out of the Judiciary Committee, he's home free. The KKK nominee had Feinstein jump the fence for him (or at least for old flame Thad Cochran). Will anyone jump the fence for Mukasey? We'll see next week. Today's Congressional Quarterly thinks if there is a traitor among the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats likely to let Mukasey pass it is-- surprise, surprise-- the increasingly reactionary Feinstein, someone who is very much compromised by her husband's longstanding financial relationships with criminal elements inside the Bush Regime.

MAYBE DAN GRANT SHOULD BE GIVING ADVISE TO DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR CONGRESS INSTEAD OF RAHM EMANUEL

Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats to play it safe and keep away from controversial issues. Last year some of the canddiates who listened to him-- especially on the Iraq issue-- did not capitalize on discontent with Bush's policies and with rubber stamp Republicans and today they are not members of Congress. Think particularly about Tammy Duckworth (IL), Lois Murphy (PA), Ken Lucas (KY), Diane Farrell (CT), David Mejias (NY), John Cranley (OH), Tessa Hafen (NV), Patty Madrid (NM), Phil Kellam (VA), Francine Busby (CA) and Christine Jennings (FL). This year Emanuel is selling the same play-it-safe snake oil. Dan Grant, a progressive and energetic young Democrat in a mostly suburban district stretching from Austin towards Houston, is ignoring Emanuel and keeping the focus on the Bush rubber stamp who represents his father-in-law's company, Clear Channel. Here's how he's doing it-- and here's how every Democrat who wants to win should do it:



That's right; kick them in the balls; don't dance around in a tutu.

DONNA EDWARDS-- A VOICE FOR POST-BUSH AMERICA

Let me lay it right on the line. A couple of months ago when Bush flew to Seattle to do a fundraiser for rubber stamp hack Dave Reichert, the blogosphere dug deep and helped Darcy Burner outraise Bush and Reichert. How different is it for another creature from Inside the Beltway, Madam Off the Table, to be headlining a fundraiser for one of the most treacherous and sleazy Democrats in Congress, Al Wynn? Wynn has no Republican challenge. Pelosi is shameless-- and quickly losing all credibility. She is there to make sure Wynn can beat a brilliant, energetic and progressive real Democrat, Donna Edwards. If Donna Edwards were in Congress instead of Al Wynn, Maryland would have one of the nation's sharpest public policy minds at work for it. And America would have someone who understands what a progressive is and understands that the role of government is not just self-enrichment for officials.

Democrats like Donna Edwards, Mark Pera, and John Laesch are all in primary battles against reactionary hacks. They are battling the Insider socialization and the Democratic Establishment mindset that worked hand in glove to present our country with, and perpetuate, the foul Regime of George W. Bush. At best, Madam Off the Table has turned from a true blue progressive to a George Bush co-dependent. At worst she is a full-fledged collaborator.

George Bush will finally be gone in January of 2009, in all likelihood replaced by Hillary Clinton who will have to be a lot more progressive-- and a lot less a part of establishment insider corruption-- than her husband ever was to even begin to tackle the real mess being left by 8 years of the toxic Bush Regime. I have my doubts that she will measure up to the job; I hope I'm wrong. And that makes it even more essential to elect men and women like Donna Edwards, Mark Pera and John Laesch. Imagine being rid of the likes of Bush Dogs Al Wynn and Dan Lipinski, not to mention ultimate rubber stamp Denny Hastert-- 3 of the root causes of all that is wrong in Washington-- and replacing them with the best and the brightest!

We have seen this year that it is not good enough to just replace horrible Republicans with mediocre-- or worse than mediocre-- Democrats. There is probably little we can do, at least right now, to rid ourselves of Republican-lite garbage like John Barrow and Jim Marshall in Georgia, Gene Taylor in Mississippi or Chris Carney and Jason Altmire in Pennsylvania-- let alone Steny Hoyer or Rahm Emanuel. But Al Wynn and Dan Lipinski are weak and faltering and Donna Edwards and Mark Pera are strong and ascending. Simultaneously, the insider millionaire shill in IL-14, Blue Dog Bill Foster, is a laughing stock everywhere west of DCCC headquarters (not counting those whose fealty he has purchased) and John Laesch is poised to stomp his Blue Dog ass into the ground. Laesch is a natural and energetic leader for serious progressives who understands there is a real job to do in this country.

Saturday Nancy Pelosi Madam Off the Table will be in Silver Spring to help a reactionary and corrupt tool of the Bush Regime raise money to fight a strong and vibrant progressive voice. Pelosi knows no shame. She is owned by Hoyer and Emanuel and the Clinton Machine. She is them and not us. Let's give some special help over the next few days to Donna Edwards' campaign. Matt Stoller put together a special Act Blue page, Better Democrats that I want to invite you to visit. Matt also has a powerful explanation of what we're trying to accomplish over at OpenLeft, as does Jane at FDL. Donna's campaign put together a special Halloween video for today I thought you might enjoy:



And let me leave you with a statement from James Rucker of Color of Change:

"Black Americans have long relied on Black elected officials like Al Wynn to represent their interests in Washington, and far too often, they find those leaders unaccountable and compromised. Al Wynn has repeatedly worked against the interests of his Black constituents, siding instead with big business and the wealthy special interests that fund his campaigns.

Today, we're saying enough is enough. Donna Edwards, Wynn's opponent in the Democratic primary, has been a powerful advocate for policies that benefit the Black community, especially low-income Black folks. She has an excellent record of public service, and we are confident that once in office she will serve her constituents with integrity and accountability.

While Nancy Pelosi holds a fundraiser this weekend in support of one of the least accountable members of the Congressional Black Caucus, we're asking Black folks to stand up, demand better representation, and support Donna Edwards for Congress."

REPUBLICAN SEX MANIAC RICHARD CURTIS CAN'T QUITE GET THE TOOTHPASTE BACK INTO THE TUBE

I've seen one viciously homophobic Republican elected official after another get caught red handed (or something) with boys and men and one thing all the perps have in common is that they all claim they're "not gay." After reading Bob Bauman's honest and insightful book into his own forced outing, The Gentleman From Maryland-- Conscience Of A Gay Conservative, which tells the tale of how a powerful right-wing congressman was arrested and went through the whole rigmarole until finally admitting his sexuality to himself, I realized that it is going to take a very long time for the Larry Craigs (R-ID), Bob Allens (R-FL), Mitch McConnells (R-KY), Richard Curtises (R-WA), Patrick McHenrys (R-NC), David Dreiers (R-CA), Lindsey Grahams (R-SC), etc to ever come to grips with their own natures. All of these men have been vociferous in denying their own sexual natures and each has voted against the interests of other gay men and women in a way that endangers regular American citizens trying to get on raising families and living their lives. Homosexuality has not made any of them more empathetic; quite the contrary. Non-closeted gay legislators, like Barney Frank (D-MA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) do stand up for equal protection under the law for all citizens. The Republicans seem to use virulent anti-gay stands as a way of proving "I'm not gay."

It hasn't been working out very well for Washington's Richard Curtis, a very conservative Republican state Rep from La Center. Although he was obviously messed up on drugs-- unmentioned in any news report I've seen until today-- all we heard from him yesterday was "I'm not gay. I've never had sex with any guys." He sure sounded like Bob Bauman (R-MD), Ed Schrock (R-VA), and Jon Hinson (R-MS) once did, like Larry Craig does now... and like Mitch McConnell probably will very soon. But, behind closed doors, he told the police quite a different story.

According to today's Columbian the police report states clearly that Curtis "admitted to having sex with a man he met at an adult video store in Spokane last week."

The police report offers a far different version of events from the brief account Curtis gave Monday to The Columbian, one that seems likely to threaten Curtis' political future.

The report is filled with graphic details of an encounter that began at a porn store on a Spokane Valley strip and concluded miles away in Curtis' room at the city's poshest hotel.

The police report contains an account of how Curtis allegedly donned women's clothing, red stockings and a black sequined lingerie top before engaging in a sex act at the store. He then continued to wear them throughout the night under his clothing, the report says.

Curtis, who has consistently voted in the most homophobic and bigoted manner, is 48 years old, married and has two daughters. He told the male prostitute he picked up that his wife knew when he married her that he liked men. I've read about people who crave-- and are willing to pay for-- unprotected anonymous sex but I've never talked to one. It seems like a pretty suicidal approach and from what I've heard it's almost always something people do in the context of severe drug problems. Curtis offered to pay a male prostitute $1,000 for unprotected anal sex but afterwards tried to weasel out with a $100 or $200 or $300 payment. (Unlike Larry Craig and Bob Allen, at least he wasn't a $20 gay Republican.)

Curtis did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday. He initially told police that he did not have sex with the man but later recanted, according to the police report. He also told police that he thought he might have been given some type of drug because his memory of the evening was hazy, the report says.

The report says that after the two men had sex, Castagna left the hotel room with Curtis' wallet. Curtis agreed to give the man $200, which he left at his hotel's desk, only to be confronted with a demand for an additional $800, the report says.

Spokane Police Detective Tim Madsen wrote in his report that Curtis wanted to keep the whole incident quiet. At one point, Madsen told Curtis that "the toothpaste was already out of the tube."

"Curtis told me he was just trying to put the cap back on the tube," Madsen wrote. "I told Curtis that the suspect may victimize other people in the future, and Curtis acknowledged that part of his job was to protect people in the state of Washington. ? Curtis said he wished he would have just paid the additional money to the suspect because he didn't wish the case to be prosecuted. If the incident became public, it could cost him his marriage and career."

You think?

Interestingly, Curtis figured he could threaten and bamboozle the prostitute and cover the whole thing up with a fellow Republican law enforcement pal. "The entire incident might have never come to light if Curtis hadn't contacted Sgt. Roy Rhine of the Washington State Patrol. Rhine, who works out of the patrol's Southwest Washington office, is a fellow Republican who has run for the state Legislature. According to Madsen's report, Curtis contacted a friend in the Washington State Patrol and wanted the agency to investigate 'because the local police would talk and it would get out to the press.' The WSP referred the case back to Spokane officials." And that was the end of another GOP hypocrite.

Meanwhile, far right propaganda sites are all up in arms because people are mentioning that Curtis is a Republican. They like it much more when Republican perps are apprehended by the law and called Democrats, as Fox TV did repeatedly and maliciously when Republican child predator Mark Foley (R-FL) was caught.

This video should not be viewed by anyone under the age of 18 without a parent in the room. If there's a priest or a Republican in the room, make him leave before you play it... for your own safety.


CURTIS MUST HAVE COME DOWN FROM DRUGS

He resigned. From "I'm not gay" to "I resign" in 24 hours is pretty good... for a Republican.

“Today I submitted my letter of resignation to Governor Gregoire effective immediately. While I believe we've done some good and helped a lot of people during the time I served in the Legislature, events that have recently come to light have hurt a lot of people. I sincerely apologize for any pain my actions may have caused.

“This has been damaging to my family, and I don't want to subject them to any additional pain that might result from carrying out this matter under the scrutiny that comes with holding public office.”

UPDATE: THURSDAY MORNING RICHARD CURTIS WATCH

New developments... well, the Seattle Times has a couple of factoids I neglected to mention before. Curtis' love interest, Cody Castagna, is nicknamed "Stallion" and although Curtis was very cooperative with the police, showing them semen stains and even santorum on the sheets, he balked when they tried to examine "the bag with the nylon rope and toy stethoscope in it, saying it had nothing to do with the matter at hand." Oh dear; this is a new one on me.

TWO REACTIONARY DEMOCRATS- JOHN BARROW AND JIM MARSHALL

Search as hard as you like, you're not going to find worse Democrats in the House of Representatives than Georgia reactionaries John Barrow and Jim Marshall. Example: Marshall was the only Democrat to vote to sustain Bush's anti-children's healthcare veto. There were 43 Republicans who voted better than he did. Two years ago he was the only Democrat to vote with Bush on an anti-war roll call. And-- how about this?-- overall, Barrow has an even worse voting record. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that these two were the only Democrats who even came close to losing their seats last year in the anti-Republican landslide. And this year they are considered the two most vulnerable Democrats, primarily because real Democrats don't want to vote for either. Both are on the DCCC Front Line list, reserved for vulnerable freshmen and a tiny handful of Democrats with no grassroots Democratic support. (Notice that none of the DCCC candidates have a single contribution on that list, a testament to the intelligence and discernment of Democratic donors so far this year. Barrow and Marshall taint all the other candidates on the list.)

Today's Congressional Quarterly look at the situation of the two despised Dixiecrats. "Barrow won the 12th District race by just 864 votes of more than 142,000 cast, and Marshall secured the 8th District seat by only 1,752 votes of nearly 160,000 cast." And next year could finish them both off, with quasi-legal GOP gerrymandering kicking in against both. Outside the Beltway, few tears will be shed if these two are defeated. In Barrow's case, particularly, it would offer an opportunity for a moderate Democrat-- rather than the far right Republican-lite Barrow-- to win in 2010.

Unfortunately, Barrow has no primary challenge. In a district where African-Americans are a plurality of the Democratic Party and where the congressman is not especially friendly to African-American interests, it is tragic that there is no challenge from inside that community. Marshall, on the other hand, does have two primary challengers, though neither looks like they can dislodge him.

Later today I'll be talking about three primaries where progressive, grassroots candidates can beat reactionary Democrats, one in Maryland and two in Illinois.

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN CROWN PRINCE INDICTED, FACES 100 YEARS IN JAIL FOR YEARS OF CORRUPTION

Don't get the idea that the only corrupt Republicans are the ones lurking around toilet stalls or paying for unprotected anal sex while wearing red lingerie. Most of the worst are just after money. And for Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona it has always been just about money. In fact there is something about the Mike Carona story that I related to at once. He and his posse called themselves-- although the name no longer fits-- Team Forever. The entire purpose of Team Forever was to get Carona elected sheriff so they could pillage at will and enrich themselves. I'm not that materialistic but when I was around 17 my friends and I had-- and put into operation-- a very similar scheme. Our first day at college we heard a lecture from the president of the student body, a long haired hippie named Sandy Pearlman. We figured the best way to score drugs would be to get into his good graces, as he seemed to be the leader of the hippies on campus. So we decided to grow out our hair and effected scruffy looks and I ran for freshman class president. Wasn't I disappointed to find out he only looked like a druggie and that he had never even smoked any pot (until I turned him on to it by chance one day). Anyway Carona and his pals' plan worked out way better-- for them... until recently.

Although Larry King lamely-- like Larry King does anything any other way-- nicknamed him "America's Sheriff," a title he deserves as much as Rudy Giuliani deserves the moniker "America's Mayor, Carona fooled few people outside of desperate Republican circles. Schwarzenegger, Bush and Rove were all attracted to what they thought of as his genuineness and sought to promote him as a GOP up-and-comer. All the while he was enriching himself and his cronies at the public trough.

According to yesterday's L.A. Times "Carona broke the law by failing to disclose that he had accepted tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts for himself, his wife and his former 'longtime mistress,' according to a federal indictment unsealed this morning. The women, Debbie Carona and Deborah Hoffman, were described as co-conspirators and were also indicted." Nice. Read the full Grand Jury indictments.

Team Forever had been at it since the moment Carona got into office in 1998, hiring cronies, selling concealed weapons permits, doing anything a sheriff could do to vacuum up hoards of money. Members of his gang have now turned on him and are testifying against him, although-- being a Republican-- he claims he did nothing wrong and refuses to step down.

Today's NY Times make a point of the fact that "Plea agreements with two men charged as co-conspirators in the alleged corruption scheme were also unsealed Tuesday. Mr. Carona had appointed the men, George H. Jaramillo, a lawyer, and Donald Haidl, a businessman, assistant sheriffs. Mr. Jaramillo admitted that he had illegally accepted money from Mr. Haidl from 1998 through 2002. Mr. Haidl pleaded guilty to filing a false 2002 tax return and admitted paying Mr. Carona and Mr. Jaramillo for years. In court papers, prosecutors said Mr. Haidl paid Mr. Carona and Mr. Jaramillo as much as $2,000 each per month at one point, as well as giving them gifts that included use of a private plane and a yacht, a vacation to Lake Tahoe and, for Mr. Jaramillo, a lease on a Mercedes-Benz."

He met with reporters this morning. What a dick!

MAX WANDERS INTO THE DEN OF LIONS... AGAIN

Max Blumenthal is just getting better and better as a documentarian. He went to the Values Voters shingdig and gave us an inside, birds' eye view of the nuts who control the Republican nominating process. Enjoy:

VITTER GOT IN NO TROUBLE FOR WHOREMONGERING, BUT HE JUST GOT SLAPPED WITH A BIG FINE FOR ELECTION FRAUD & MEET DICK CURTIS, A JUST OUTED GOP HYPOCRITE

the naughty love interest

According to today's Times-Picayune David Diapers Vitter (R-LA) "has agreed to pay a $25,000 fine for violating federal election laws during his campaign for the Senate in 2004." Kind of completes the image of what he is and always has been. He cheats on his wife and cheats the voters as well.

Meanwhile, way on the otherside of the country, up in Washington another I'm-Not-Gay-Republican-- yawn-- Washington Rep. Richard Curtis is all caught up in some extortion business with a gay prostitute. KREM, a Spokane TV station, reported that Curtis and the male hooker had "a sexual encounter and were seen together at various spots around the city." Spokane is just up the road apiece from Idaho and Curtis said, "I am not gay. I have not had sex with a guy." A.P. is reporting that Curtis and the hooker met at one of those porno video shops (the Hollywood Erotic Boutique) at 12:45am and then went back to Curtis' hotel room at 3:30am for sex. They don't say who did what to whom but the trick, Cody Castagna, demanded a grand to not blab that Curtis, who is married, is also enjoying the company of young men, and Curtis called the cops.

Before you start feeling too sorry for this chump, keep this in mind: he's a self-righteous right-wing turd who he voted against domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples. Last year, he opposed a gay rights bill that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Flush another Republican hypocrite down the toilet. I've lost count.


UPDATE: THE REPUBLICAN IS A DRAG QUEEN!

KXLY reports that GOP Rep. Curtis was not just into picking up young men for sex, he was also into wearing lady's clothing. My God! What is wrong with these Republicans? This guy voted no on employment equality for gay men and women while he was wearing frilly undies! (He insists he's not gay. Maybe the Republicans have their own words for things that are different from normal people's vocabularies. The KXLY Report is completely graphic (anal sex, etc).

State Representative Richard Curtis says he's not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women's lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis' activities publicly.

A search warrant unsealed Tuesday morning disclosed that State Representative Richard Curtis (R - La Center) had sex in his room at the Davenport Tower with a man identified as Cody Castagna, 26, of Medical Lake, who he met at the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on October 26th.

Curtis, according to a search warrant unsealed Tuesday, went to the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on East Sprague on October 26th at approximately 12:45 a.m. The store clerk, who had talked with Curtis, referred to him as "The Cross-Dresser" and said that during their conversations he confirmed he was gay and was married with children at home.

During his visit to the video store Curtis was observed wearing women's lingerie while receiving oral sex from an unidentified man in one of the movie viewing booths inside the store.

The rest of the details are incredible. Just makes you wonder if these kinds of people become Republicans or if being a Republican makes you like this. You might be interested in knowing that this fine GOP specimen, aside from a 100% homophobic voting record, also opposed using state dollars to provide health care for the children of undocumented workers and has uniformly low marks from Washington Conservation Voters, the abortion rights group NARAL and the AFL-CIO. All fits together-- especially the lingerie.


UPDATE: CROSS DRESSING REPUBLICAN REP STORY ON TV-- PLUS POSSIBLE SUICIDE ATTEMPT

I'm wondering if they'll play this tape at the Republican Convention. On his way home Rep. Curtis totaled his car. Did he try committing suicide? Curtis has given up on the standard GOP "I'm not gay routine."

HOW THE MEDIA WARPED THE PRIMARIES

-by Paul Lukasiak (of the AWOL Project)

On Monday, a new report was released to little fanfare by The Project For Excellence in Journalism and The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. The Invisible Primary: Invisible No Longer provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of press coverage of the Presidential campaign during the first five months of 2006. For the most part, the report treats the coverage as if there was a single campaign, rather than two distinct campaigns. But a comparison of the top line data with other sources of data tells a story that the report barely mentions: the way in which media coverage has not merely influenced, but severely warped, the primary process.

The warping was both quantitative and qualitative. Certain lesser-known candidates (the ‘media favorites’) received a disparate amount of coverage, while other candidates with more experience and/or higher name recognition were all but ignored. And these same ‘media favorites’ received much more positive coverage, and much less negative coverage, than well-known, established candidates.

PART I: THE TWO-PERSON DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY-- STACKING THE DECK

The Democratic Primary has been severely warped by the media’s insistence on turning it into a two-person race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. There were more stories about Hillary Clinton (294), and almost as many stories about Barack Obama (240) as the other six candidates (John Edwards, Joseph Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel) combined (265 total). Moreover, when there was a secondary focus to a story, Hillary (148) and Obama (147) far outstripped the other candidates like Edwards (48 secondary mentions.).  
 
Despite the enormous strides this nation has made over the last 40 years in combating racial and gender-based prejudices and negative stereotypes, the fact remains that a substantial percentage of Americans will not vote for a woman on a Black person to be President, and an even larger percentage will have their perception of female and Black candidates filtered through a veil of prejudices. This is especially true among older Americans, and in general the older a person is, the more likely they are to vote. Thus, women and Black Americans still face an uphill battle at the ballot box.
 
Nevertheless, a one term female Senator with extremely high negatives and a Black candidate with merely two years of national experience in the Senate received more coverage than two sitting Senators (Biden and Dodd) each with over 30 years in Congress; a sitting governor whose resume includes 7 terms in Congress, UN Ambassador, and Secretary of Energy who is also the first Hispanic to run for the Presidency (Richardson); a sitting 5 term Congressman (Kucinich); a former two-term Senator (Gravel); and a former Vice Presidential candidate and one term senator (Edwards.) combined.  
 
The lack of coverage for Edwards is especially notable. Traditionally, when a failed Vice Presidential nominee seeks the Presidency in the next election cycle (e.g. Walter Mondale and Joe Lieberman), they are given considerable coverage, and usually billed as the ‘front runner’. And in January 2007, Edwards had high name recognition, and was leading the pack in Iowa. But Edwards not only received little coverage for the first five months of 2007, what coverage he did get was decidedly negative-- the only month he got positive coverage was March, when his wife Elizabeth announced the recurrence of her breast cancer.
 
Also notable is the tone of Obama’s coverage, which was far more positive (46.7% of stories) and less negative ( 15.8%) than either Clinton (26.9% positive, 37.8% negative) or Edwards (31.0% positive, 35.2% negative.)

According to the Gallup Organization Clinton had a clear national profile (in Nov. 2006, 95% “of adult Americans [knew] enough about [her] to be able to give an opinion….”) at the beginning of the campaign. Edwards was well known (80% in February) too, but made no additional inroads into the public consciousness by May (81%).  

Speculation regarding an Obama candidacy was well underway by October, 2006, and by Decenber 2006 he was recognizable to 53% of Americans. Two months later, 72% knew enough about him to rate him (by May ’07 it was 75%).. The amount and tone of Obama’s coverage in January and February not only considerably increased his name recognition, but the overwhelmingly positive tone of the coverage has clearly provided him with an advantage in the national polls as well. Obama-mania peaked in March 2007, when he was given a positive rating by 58% of Americans, with only 18% viewing him negatively.

(In February 2006, a Diego/Hotline Poll showed that only 37% of Americans knew enough about Obama to rate him. Gallup did not start polling for Obama until December, 2006.)

As The Invisible Primary notes, “[t]he two sitting Senators [Clinton and Obama] were presented as locked in a two-way race.” The choice given to Democrats was between a woman about whom a substantial percentage of Americans (between 40% and 50% in various polls) have a negative impression of, and a Black candidate who has only two years national experience. It is difficult to not conclude that the media wants a Republican President-- or at minimum wants to make sure that the 2008 Presidential Election is “competitive."

CLEAR CHANNEL, REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA NETWORK, OUT TO KILL SPRINGSTEEN'S MAGIC?

If you look for Springsteen in Google News, you get one rave review of his live sold out tour after another. Last Thursday and Friday he wowed 'em at the Oakland Coliseum. Last night he was in L.A.

At 58, Springsteen certainly can't call himself young any more-- at least not chronologically. Despite the hurricane force he and the E Street Band frequently mustered during their two-hour show, plenty of fans cheering them on no doubt recall the nights of yore when this fabled group was just starting to break a sweat at the two-hour mark.

Still, what this outfit does on stage each night remains fairly daring, and the older they get, the greater the risk of the without-a-net abandon with which they administer the sacrament of rock 'n' roll.

The invigorating thing about the New Jersey bard is the way he and his merry band embrace their coming of age. For all the kudos Springsteen's new Magic album is earning for the joyful rocking it delivers, it's rife with self-doubt, disillusionment, anger and acceptance of the disappointments and compromises life inevitably presents the thinking person.

A couple weeks ago the new album was #1 on the Billboard album chart. Kid Rock's new album knocked it down a peg and this week, Springsteen disposed on Kid Rock and is back at #1. The album is already gold and headed right towards platinum and he's got a great shot to win a Grammy for Best Album of the Year. Magic's reviews virtually everywhere are over the top and the intro to his latest interview in Rolling Stone refers to the album's subject matter as "weighty stuff like the direction of our democracy and party stuff that recalls the days when sparks first flew on E Street more than three decades ago."

Republican radio network Clear Channel, a monopoly in many cities and a dominant player in most of the rest, isn't interested. Is it because Springsteen has been an outspoken campaigner for Democrats and progressives? Clear Channel has taken a political stand with its programming in the past. Just think back to their boycott of the Dixie Chicks. Oh, no... not way back, just back to when they released their most recent album. Despite being one of the top 10 best-selling American albums of the year-- across all genres and demographics-- radio studiously ignored it. There were maybe half a dozen country stations that even played it at all. What Clear Channel did to the Dixie Chicks is a watertight case for the need to break the media companies up into a thousand pieces. (John Sununu disagrees; he's pro-censorship.) I spoke with an old friend who heads a record company and preferred to speak off the record.

"When you have artists like the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen who have overtly spoken out against this Administration, they are taken to task in spite the clear and undeniable indications from the marketplace that people want to hear their music. What seems to be happening-- if sales are any kind of a barometer of what the marketplace is-- is that these politically-connected radio networks like Clear Channel are not looking to succeed as radio stations as much as pushing forward some political agenda.

Another friend of mine distinctly recalls the Senate hearings on radio consolidation in light of the Dixie Chicks boycott where Barbara Boxer and John McCain heard testimony including an internal Clear Channel memo threatening "Just wait and see what happens if Springsteen tries this." I guess we're seeing that right now.

Of course, Clear Channel hasn't publicly said they are boycotting Springsteen's music. But they are. Fox News, hardly a hotbed of liberal alarmists, reports that "Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from Magic... no new songs by Springsteen, even though it’s likely many radio listeners already own the album and would like to hear it mixed in with the junk offered on radio."

Clear Channel seems to have sent a clear message to other radio outlets that at age 58, Springsteen simply is too old to be played on rock stations. This completely absurd notion is one of many ways Clear Channel has done more to destroy the music business than downloading over the last 10 years. It’s certainly what’s helped create satellite radio, where Springsteen is a staple and even has his own channel on Sirius.

I don't buy it. Clear Channel is a big-time and very consciously right-wing power player with a goal of changing American pop culture. They have done all they could to stifle progressive voices and to dumb down and trivialize the culture. Meaningless, offensive and inoffensive drivel by Fergie, Britney Spears, Nickelback, and Rihanna you'll hear. But not Springsteen. Clear Channel even has its very own rubber stamp Republican congressman to look out for it's interests, the boss' (not The Boss') son-in-law, the overly right-wing Michael McCaul (TX). You want to see Bruce back on the radio? Stop listening to Clear Channel stations-- and stop voting for Republicans. If there was no Clear Channel-- and no Republicans-- this is what would be on the radio instead of Britney Spears:




UPDATE: SOME ADULT-ORIENTED CLEAR CHANNEL STATIONS ARE PLAYING IT

The Fox News report I linked to isn't exactly right. Some Clear Channel stations are indeed playing it, although mostly Clear Channel stations with independent-minded programmers like KBCO in Denver. Overall, Clear Channel isn't giving it the kind of exposure a #1 record would normally get.


UPDATE: CLEAR CHANNEL BUYING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE

In 2006 Clear Channel Communications ponied up almost $800,000 in legal campaign contributions, 65% of which went to Republicans. The two top dogs at the company are long-time Bush family retainers and cronies, Tom Hicks and Lowry Mays. Mays has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates for office over the years. A few: $69,500 for the Republican National Committee, $21,000 for the NRCC, $14,200 for Michael McCaul (TX), $2,500 for James Sensenbrenner (WI), $2,300 for Duncan Hunter (CA), $16,300 for Lamar Smith (TX), $6,500 for Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX), $3,000 for Tom DeLay (TX), $13,000 for Henry Bonilla (TX), $10,250 for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, $2,500 for Heather Wilson (NM), $6,000 for John Cornyn (TX), and $2,100 for Flip Flop Mitt and grudging grand for Giuliani (NY). And there were tens of thousands more from other family members. Hicks was a similarly huge donator to Republicans: $65,000 to the RNC, $50,000 to the NRSC plus another $300,000 or so scattered around to grateful Republicans who have made it very worthwhile for have been so generous. When people talk about the need for campaign finance reform and public financing of elections, this is exactly what they're talking about.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

I guess we do the only things we can do-- keep writing and talking and contributing however we can. I think the only thing that will wake up people like Pelosi and her henchmen, like Hoyer and Emanuel, is for some of them to get voted out. Some of them will have to be made examples of. They'll have to lose their jobs before they realize that people outside the Beltway live in a different country. That means it's a long process.

Something so obvious should not take so long but we're dealing with Washington. They live in denial of anything that might mean fewer dollars beinig slipped into their extra large pockets by Korporate
Amerika, just does not get very far very fast. Some progress was made in 2006 but it has to grow
exponentially with each election cycle. I just wonder if there is enough time left before it's too late for the country and the world.

I have my doubts about Sheehan but if she could knock out Pelosi, it would send a message, at least of some kind. Unfortunately, that message would be immediately spun as an exception or aberation. The media would be saying "well it's San Francisco, what do you expect
from those crazies."

So, the question becomes, which incumbents among the worst obstructionists and false Dems are the most vulnerable and most high profile whose defeat would send the most shockwaves and ring the
wake up bell the loudest. We need to have local and regional Democratic Primary Rebellions where Rahm and his minions get their asses handed to them. Local party rebellion against Rahm and his
picks. In a general election, perhaps some third party candidates who split the Dem vote and allow Repugs in might do it. I hate to see it but what's really the difference if a Repug gets in or a fake Dem gets in? At least Rahm and Chucky the Clown and those types might lose credibility and power within the Democratic party and then Progressives can take advantage of the opening. No? Meanwhile, supporting better Dems and getting more elected each time is the way to go.

-NOAH

FREDERICK OF HOLLYWOOD COMES OUT... AGAINST CIVIL UNIONS (OR THE SOVIET UNION)

Ole Fred opposes civil unions but he's ok with dirty old rich men marrying youngsters

Yesterday I spent some time on the phone with one of the most brilliant and extraordinary candidates I have ever spoken with. Dennis Shulman is running against New Jersey rubber stamp Republican Scott Garrett in the northern and northwestern edge of New Jersey (NJ-05). He's a rabbi. He's blind. He's a drummer, a psychologist and a truly unique individual with the most positive energy I've ever encountered from anyone vying for office. He's going to be the Blue America guest at Firedoglake this Saturday at 2pm (EDT). Neither Rabbi Shulman nor I ever mentioned the words Fred Thompson (or Frederick of Hollywood) while we spoke and why should we? By the time Dennis starts debating Garrett, Thompson will be a footnote to the political history of the 2008 election campaign. But yesterday Thompson blurted something out that reminded me of an important point the rabbi made.

Yesterday Thompson was in New Hampshire unsuccessfully wooing Granite State voters. While visiting the Delta Dental Plans Association he was asked if he supports New Hampshire's new civil unions law and if he thought that would work on a federal level. Ole Fred wasn't sure what he was being asked. "Soviet Union?" he muttered. "No, civil unions," the questioner repeated clearly. "Oh. No, I would not be in support of that," Thompson said. No, I'm sure he wouldn't. I mean isn't that exactly why homophobic country singer John Rich of Big & Rich said he was supporting Thompson the other day-- because he's the most anti-gay of the pathetic pygmies™?

Rabbi Shulman, on the other hand, has a very different approach to this entire Republican-manufactured "issue." "These are issues of equality under the law, not issues of sexual orientation or morality... In the traditions of Reform Judaism, the rabbis have voted to bless gay marriages. I am appalled by the idea that the federal government would intrude on my right to perform a same-sex marriage if I choose to do so. Marriage should be an issue-- as it always has been-- between the states and religious institutions. I don't see that the federal government has any rights to define who and how people should be married."

Imagine if Obama, Edwards or Hillary were making this kind of clear, straight forward sense on this fake issue that the right tries to use to divide people? Meanwhile... help a blind drummer who speaks Truth get to Congress.

WHAT'S MORE OUTRAGEOUS-- A $100K BELT BUCKLE, A $194K BENTLEY, 50 CENT AT YOUR OWN DAUGHTER'S BAT MITZVAH-- OR CHEATING OUR TROOPS OUT OF BODY ARMOR?

David Brooks, GOP war profiteer

What ever happened to the good old days when war profiteers and traitors undermining our soldiers in the field were put against a wall and shot? (Yes, unlike many of my liberal pals, I'm a death penalty fanatic-- although just when the punishment fits the crime-- like in the case of the Bush Regime cronies who have long and solid records of treasous criminality.)

David Brooks is probably best known, in our shallow, celebrity-obsessed society, for the lavish and grotesque bat mitzvah be threw for his daughter Liza at the Rainbow Room in 2005. Aside from 50 Cent (for the kids) his own middle-aged friends were entertained by middle aged rockers Aerosmith (who were paid a million dollars for the show), as well as Tom Petty, Kenny G and the Eagles. I can't imagine that the Eagles or Tom Petty took less than the fee Aerosmith got since they all share the same manager. I don't know much about Kenny G. but I suspect he got more than your average bat mitzvah band even if his music sounds just like your average bat mitzvah band's.

But it isn't the $10,000,000 tax deductible, company-paid bat mitzvah, the $194,000 Bentley, the stable of 100 race horses, the $100,000 diamond-studded belt buckle and numerous other egregious instances of fashion crimes or even more shameful manefestations of the sybartic lifstyle the Bush tax breaks for multimillionaires encourages. It's how he made all that loot.

Now, keep in mind that when Brooks was in business with the Bush Regime, making defective body armor for our troops on the front lines, he gave the National Republican Campaign Committee a nice fat check for $25,000, much less than he paid Kenny G to wow his friends at the notorious bat mitzvah the same year, but still, something the Republicrooks were happy to see come there way. He got plenty of business... unfortunately.

According to today's NY Post it was our troops who got the shitty end of that Republican stick. Brooks reaped $185 million by selling his company's stock "when he learned that 6,000 bullet-proof vests the company made were about to be recalled for being faulty and not able to block bullets."


UPDATE: STILL SPENDING BIG

Brooks retained Joe Tacopino as his $750-an-hour attorney. Radar tells us he was the subject of a March 2007 GQ profile titled 1-800 Save My Ass. "Tacopino also defended the Dutch kid held in the disappearance of Aruba blondie Natalee Holloway, the cop charged with sticking a plunger up Abner Louima's ass, and Foxy Brown."


UPDATE: BROOKS DENIED BAIL

Smart judge!

A federal judge denied David H. Brooks bail Tuesday, citing concerns about his access to immense wealth and the possibility that he could obstruct justice from within the walls of his 58th-floor Upper East Side highrise.

"I think the government has established that there is a serious risk of flight," U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert said during a hearing in Central Islip. "I don't have a clue what this man's assets are."

ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO HELP JIM HIMES DEFEAT THE ATROCIOUS FAKER FROM CONNECTICUT, CHRIS SHAYS

Holy Joe licks his chops at the thought of helping to re-elect his doppleganger, homophobic Chris Shays (endorsed by HRC)

I think Jim Himes made the case why he'd be a great replacement for rubber stamp Republican Chris Shays really well when he visited Firedoglake for a live blog session on July 28. Apparently the folks at HRC were still busy reading the hate mail they've been getting for helping homophobic Republican shill Joe Lieberman slip back into office. HRC is up to the same old tricks.

Aside from being a general rubber stamp for the entire toxic Bush Republican agenda, Shays has voted 4 times on specific legislation that impacted gay men and lesbians directly. Guess how many times Shays had to vote pro-gay in order to earn HRC's endorsement. Zero times. He was 4 for 4 rubber stamping the far right, homophobic agenda of intolerance and bigotry. Is that what HRC stands for?

At least another of HRC's horrible endorsements this year, Al Wynn (D-MD) voted for gay rights once out of the 4 times. HRC sure sells their endorsement cheap. Is today the right time to tell HRC to go screw themselves? I smashed the award they gave me and removed them from my will when they endorsed Lieberman. Not much more I can do, I'd recommend that people use this opportunity to donate to Jim Himes' and Donna Edwards' campaigns. And you can do both here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

IDIOT FROM BIG & RICH APOLOGIZES FOR BEING A BOOB... SAYS HIS DAD AND MINISTER TAUGHT HIM BIGOTRY BUT HE'S SORRY AND PLEASE DON'T STOP BUYING HIS CDS

Please, no more hypocritical Republican morality sermons from John Rich

A friend of mine who works with Big & Rich at Warner Bros, and who felt "devastated" by John Rich's homophobic and hypocritical smearing of gay families last week, just sent me the canned, damage-control statement the p.r. department wrote for him:

"My earlier comments on same-sex marriage don't reflect my full views on the broader issues regarding tolerance and the treatment of gays and lesbians in our society. I apologize for that and wish to state clearly my views. I oppose same-sex marriage because my father and minister brought me up to believe that marriage is an institution for the union of a man and a woman. However, I also believe that intolerance, bigotry and hatred are wrong. People should be judged based on their merits, not on their sexual orientation. We are all children of God and should be valued and respected."

I went back to some of the gay employees who seemed most hurt by his vituperative explosion of bigotry last week. Not a single one felt the apology was sincere, although they were all hopeful that the scare he got, which they felt made him issue it, might make him think a little harder next time he decides to express bigotry and hatred towards the people who have helped him build a career.

One gay man with a family told me, "You can't apologize after you say shit like that... what he originally said was how he really feels... I hope this will make him think it through more. I hope so."

Another WB employee, who has considered himself a personal friend of John Rich's, and said he felt not just "hurt" but also "betrayed," is glad Rich issued the "clarification." Still, he feels it "is disappointing to see such continued prejudice against gays and lesbians in this day and age. If bigotry and hatred are wrong then why would you prevent two adults who love each other and are willing to proclaim that love in public for their friends and family? As a person who's been in a stable, loving relationship for 12 years now (including both domestic partnership and public ceremony) and someone who has been working in support of Big & Rich professionally, I find it offensive that Mr. Rich has decided to make such a personal decision for me. Please mind your own business. In the words of the Dixie Chicks, 'Shut Up And Sing.'"

This guy works out in the field and is openly gay and has worked really hard to prove he could be the best in his field. I hired him many years ago and I saw how he grew and grew into an incredibly productive and dedicated part of a team. People have success at Warner Bros because of men and women like this guy. In the music business you don't succeed without a good song. And you don't succeed without a dedicated team behind you, getting your music into stores and magazines, on TV and radio. Big & Rich had a very devoted team behind them but Rich decided he's big enough now so that he doesn't think he needs them any more. Let's wait and see what happens.


UPDATE: A FAN SPEAKS OUT

Matthew Grant in Nashville likes Big & Rich's music. He says he "loves America, beer, his church and country music." And he's gay. Today's Tennessean published his letter to the editor asking John Rich to consider the impact his words of hatred have on the psyches of young people. He said it well:

There are a thousand young boys and girls who are fans of his, sitting in a room feeling so bad about themselves because they have feelings for the same sex that they do not understand or want. They get called a slur on the school bus and now, one of their favorite singers just said that they are "unnatural."

I would love to share with Mr. Rich the statistics of GLBT young people who kill themselves due to feeling "unnatural" and that there is no hope for them-- and of people who murder, "taught" to hate because of a statement that someone they knew or looked up to fed to them.

If you know of Big & Rich, their whole schtick is "Love Everybody." All we want is understanding and human rights.

As Mr. Rich counts his newfound money, he understands the power of his uneducated words as they leave his mouth and reach the ears and hearts of people who once looked up to him.

GRASSLEY TRIES TO TALK SOME SENSE INTO HOUSE REPUBLICANS ON CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE

It's easy to paint every Republican as a heartless monstrosity who hates children and loves war. After all, their voting records are there for all to see. But the S-CHIP veto but Bush has consistently mustered a few dozen Republicans who abhor the Bush Regime position if not the positioner himself. Today's Congressional Journal has an interesting story about Charles Grassley, a mainstream conservative (as in very conservative though not fascist) Republican senator from Iowa, and his unflinching and aggressive support for children and a bedrock family issue. Grassley will not let the bill die and he's still trying to convince fellow conservatives in the House to sign on and help override Bush's veto. He worked out the compromise with Democrats and wrote a bill he felt Bush and Republicans could support enthusiastically. Many Republicans in the Senate did and 45 in the House did, but still not enough to override Bush's veto in the House. He's willing to compromise on a few more issue-- probably kicking a certain number of children off the coverage plan-- in order to make it more palatable to the anti-family coalition that has stuck by Bush.

If House and Senate Democrats are willing to accept revisions to their latest bill, Grassley and his Senate partners on SCHIP legislation-- Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Finance members Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, and John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va.-- plan to offer an amendment to the measure when it reaches the Senate floor Tuesday or Wednesday.

The bill would then return to the House, which passed it 265-142 on Oct. 25. The chamber’s vote to clear the bill for the White House would show Bush-- and the measure’s supporters-- whether the changes had in fact produced a veto-proof majority in the House.

I wonder how many children have to be abandoned before the last reactionary Democratic holdout who is still sticking with Bush-- Jim Marshall (GA)-- decides to vote for it. Probably a million and he'll buy on.

Right-wing Republican House members coming under the most pressure for their adamant anti-family votes, all members whose seats could be in jeopardy for voting with Bush instead of with their constituents, include:

Rodney Alexander (LA)
Michele Bachmann (MN)
Roscoe Bartlett (MD)
Judith Biggert (IL)
Ginny Brown-Waite (FL)
Dave Camp (MI)
Steve Chabot (OH)
Barbara Cubin (WY)
the Diaz-Balart Brothers (FL)
Thelma Drake (VA)
Vernon Ehlers (MI), flip flopper
Tom Feeney (FL)
Scott Garrett (NJ)
Virgil Goode (VA)
Sam Graves (MO)
Robin Hayes (NC)
Tim Johnson (IL)
Ric Keller (FL)
Joe Knollenberg (MI)
Randy Kuhl (NY)
Michael McCaul (TX)
Thad McCotter (MI)
Marilyn Musgrave (CO)
John Peterson (PA)
Tom Reynolds (NY)
Mike Rogers (MI)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)
Bill Sali (ID)
Jim Saxton (NJ)
Mean Jean Schmidt (OH)
Tim Walberg (MI)

The bolded names are those most likely to haved nailed the final nail in their political coffin via the S-CHIP vote to sustain Bush's veto.

ARE WE JUST GOING TO CROWN HILLARY PRESIDENT? JOHN EDWARDS MAKES HIS CASE

I look forward to one thing about the presidential election in 2008. Like the vast majority of Americans, close to 80% now, I can hardly wait to see the last of George Bush, at least as the occupant of the White House. Like most Americans, I am eager to see his toxic domestic and international agendas leave with him and his foul, foul regime. I wish my next sentence could be about how I am equally excited to see a visionary and strong, brilliant new president come into office, someone who would be as good as Bush has been bad, someone who will kick-start the process of cleaning up the catastrophic mess he and the Republicans are leaving behind. I'm less than sanguine, however, that our next president will just be less horrible than Bush.

I can see that Hillary Clinton has a huge head start on all the other candidates and that she seems "destined" for the Democratic nomination. The Democratic nomination seems as golden right now as the GOP nomination is pointless and useless. After 2 terms of Bush, indisputably the worst and most venal leader America has ever experienced, there is great opportunity for real change. Is Hillary Clinton a vehicle for real change? Yesterday, William Safire, intellectually doddering and long past his prime, suggested on Meet the Press that Hillary's VP nominee would be Rahm Emanuel. Perhaps Lieberman would be a worse choice; it's a tough call. The fact that Tim Russert didn't laugh in his face and thank him for his years of service, while ushering him out of the studio-- watch the clip at C&L-- says something scary about our expectations for Mrs. Clinton. Remember, Emanuel got his start as her husband's hatchetman on the hated NAFTA, a Republican idea Clinton had bought into, much to the dismay of progressives and labor unions. Congressional Republicans were backing Clinton on this but he needed more Democratic votes than just the reactionary Blue Dogs and Dixiecrats. So he assigned Emanuel to bribe and threaten enough Democrats to pass the horrendous legislation. Emanuel was rewarded with a rotten borough in Chicago and immediately became the voice of the Clinton Machine in the House. He's the single worst member of the Democratic caucus, which he heads and, along with Steny Hoyer, the reason virtually no progressive or anti-war legislation is passing. Hillary will never choose him. The fact that the idea could be taken seriously for even a moment, however, is symbolic of what we're about to do to ourselves.

Is there a way out? I sincerely doubt it. I think she's got it locked. John Edwards, the only real alternative, disagrees with me. I hope he's right and I'm wrong. He released this statement today and I'm going to reproduce it here in its entirety in case you didn't see it. It's hopeful and inspiring. It's also probably too late.

Remarks by Senator John Edwards
St. Anselm's College, Manchester, New Hamphshire
October 29, 2007

Many of you know that I am the son of a mill worker-- that I rose from modest means and have been blessed in so many ways in life. Elizabeth and I have so much to be grateful for.
And all of you know about some of the challenges we have faced in my family. But there came a time, a few months ago, when Elizabeth and I had to decide, in the quiet of a hospital room, after many hours of tests and getting pretty bad news-- what we were going to do with our lives.

And we made our decision. That we were not going to go quietly into the night-- that we were going to stand and fight for what we believe in.

As Elizabeth and I have campaigned across America, I've come to a better understanding of what that decision really meant-- and why we made it.

Earlier this year, I spoke at Riverside Church in New York, where, forty years ago, Martin Luther King gave a historic speech. I talked about that speech then, and I want to talk about it today. Dr. King was tormented by the way he had kept silent for two years about the Vietnam War.  

He was told that if he spoke out he would hurt the civil rights movement and all that he had worked for-- but he could not take it any more-- instead of decrying the silence of others-- he spoke the truth about himself.

"Over the past two years" he said, "I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silence and speak from the burning of my own heart."

I am not holier than thou. I am not perfect by any means. But there are events in life that you learn from, and which remind you what this is really all about. Maybe I have been freed from the system and the fear that holds back politicians because I have learned there are much more important things in life than winning elections at the cost of selling your soul.  
Especially right now, when our country requires so much more of us, and needs to hear the truth from its leaders.

And, although I have spent my entire life taking on the big powerful interests and winning-- which is why I have never taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or political action committees-- I too have been guilty of my own silence-- but no more.

It's time to tell the truth. And the truth is the system in Washington is corrupt. It is rigged by the powerful special interests to benefit they very few at the expense of the many.

 And as a result, the American people have lost faith in our broken system in Washington, and believe it no longer works for ordinary Americans. They're right.

As I look across the political landscape of both parties today-- what I see are politicians too afraid to tell the truth-- good people caught in a bad system that overwhelms their good intentions and requires them to chase millions of dollars in campaign contributions in order to perpetuate their careers and continue their climb to higher office.

This presidential campaign is a perfect example of how our politics is awash with money.

 I have raised more money up to this point than any Democratic candidate raised last time in the presidential campaign-- $30 million. And, I did it without taking a dime from any Washington lobbyist or any special interest PAC.  

I saw the chase for campaign money at any cost by the frontrunner in this race-- and I did not join it-- because the cost to our nation and our children is not worth the hollow victory of any candidate. Being called president while powerful interests really run things is not the same as being free to lead this nation as president of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

If protecting the current established structure in Washington is in your interest, then I am not your candidate. I ran for president four years ago-- yes, in part out of personal ambition-- but also with a deep desire to stand for working people like my father and mother-- who no matter how hard things were for our family, always worked even harder to make things better for us.

But the more Elizabeth and I campaigned this year, the more we talked to the American people, the more we met people just like my father, and hard working people like James Lowe. James is a decent and honest man who had to live for 50 years with no voice in the richest country in the world because he didn't have health care. The more people like him that I met, the more I realized something much bigger was stirring in the American people.

And it has stirred in each of us for far too long.
 
Last month Ken Burns-- who made the great Civil War documentary-- launched his newest epic on World War II on PBS-- and what a story it tells.  

At the cost of great suffering, blood and enormous sacrifice, within four years after Pearl Harbor it is incredible what this nation achieved. America built the arsenal of democracy worthy of our great history. We launched the greatest invasion armada in the history of warfare against Hitler's fortress Europe, and, with our allies, we freed a continent of suffering humanity.
 
At the same time on the other side of the globe we crossed 10,000 miles of ocean and liberated another hemisphere of humanity-- islands and nations freed from the grip of Japanese militarists. While at the same time succeeding in the greatest scientific endeavor ever undertaken-- the Manhattan project-- and topped it off with building the Pentagon, one of the largest buildings in the world in a little over a year.  

It is incredible what America has accomplished. Because no matter what extraordinary challenges we have been faced with, we did exactly what America has always done in our history-- we rose to the challenge.

And, now, as I travel across America and listen to people, I hear real concern about what's going on. For the first time in our nation's history, people are worried that we're going to be the first generation of Americans not to pass on a better life to our children.

And it's not the fault of the American people. The American people have not changed.  The American people are still the strong, courageous people they have always been. The problem is what our government has become. And, it is up to us to do something about it.  
Because Washington may not see it, but we are facing a moral crisis as great as any that has ever challenged us. And, it is this test-- this moral test-- that I have come to understand is at the heart of this campaign.

Just look at what has happened in Iraq. What was the response of the American people to the challenge at hand? Our men and women in uniform have been heroes. They've done everything that's been asked of them and more. But what about our government? Four years after invading Iraq, we cannot even keep the lights on in Baghdad.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the American people were at their best. They donated their time and their money in record numbers. There was an outpouring of support. I took 700 college kids down to help-- young people who gave up their spring break. But what about our government? Three years after hurricane Katrina thousands of our fellow Americans, our brothers and sisters, are still housed in trailers waiting to go home.

There's no better example of the bravery and goodness of the American people than the response to the attacks of 9/11: firefighters and first responders risking and too often giving their lives to save others, charging up the stairs while everyone else was coming down; record bloodbank donations; and the list goes on. But what about our government?

Six years after 9/11, at Ground Zero there sits only a black hole that tortures our conscience and scars our hearts.

In every instance we see an American people who are good, decent, compassionate and undeterred. And, American people who are better than the government that is supposed to serve and represent them.

And what has happened to the American "can do" spirit? I will tell you what has happened: all of this is the result of the bitter poisoned fruit of corruption and the bankruptcy of our political leadership.

It is not an accident that the government of the United States cannot function on behalf of its people, because it is no longer our people's government-- and we the people know it.

This corruption did not begin yesterday-- and it did not even begin with George Bush-- it has been building for decades-- until it now threatens literally the life of our democracy.

While the American people personally rose to the occasion with an enormous outpouring of support and donations to both the victims of Katrina and 9/11-- we all saw our government's neglect. And we saw greed and incompetence at work. Out of more than 700 contracts valued at $500,000 or greater, at least half were given without full competition or, according to news sources, with vague or open ended terms, and many of these contracts went to companies with deep political connections such as a subsidiary of Haliburton, Bechtel Corp., and AshBritt Inc.

And in Iraq-- while our nation's brave sons and daughters put their lives on the line for our country-- we now have mercenaries under their own law while their bosses sit at home raking in millions.  

We have squandered millions on building Olympic size swimming pools and buildings that have never been used. We have weapons and ammunition unaccounted for that may now be being used against our own soldiers. We literally have billions wasted or misspent-- while our troops and their families continue to sacrifice. And the politically connected lobby for more. What's their great sacrifice-- higher profits.

It goes on every minute of every day.

Corporate executives at United Airlines and US Airways receive millions in compensation for taking their companies into bankruptcy, while their employees are forced to take cuts in pay.

Companies like Wal-Mart lobby against inspecting containers entering our nation's ports, even though expert after expert agrees that the likeliest way for a dirty bomb to enter the United States is through a container, because they believe their profits are more important than our safety. What has become of America when America's largest company lobbies against protecting America?

Trade deals cost of millions of jobs. What do we get in return? Millions of dangerous Chinese toys in our children's cribs laden with lead. This is the price we are made to pay when trade agreements are decided based on how much they pad the profits for multinational corporations instead of what is best for America's workers or the safety of America's consumers.
 
We have even gotten to the point where our children's safety is potentially at risk because nearly half of the apple juice consumed by our children comes from apples grown in China.

  And Americans are kept in the dark because the corporate lobbyists have pushed back country of origin labeling laws again and again.
 
This is not the America I believe in.

The hubris of greed knows no bounds. Days after the homeland security bill passed, staffers from the homeland security department resigned and became homeland security consultants trying to cash in. And, where was the outrage? There was none, because that's how it works in Washington now. It is not a Republican revolving door or a Democratic revolving door-- it is just the way it's done.

Someone called it a government reconnaissance mission to figure out how to get rich when you leave the government.

Recently, I was dismayed to see headlines in the Wall Street Journal stating that Senate Democrats were backing down to lobbyists for hedge funds who have opposed efforts to make millionaire and billionaire hedge fund managers pay the same tax rate as every hard-working American. Now, tax loopholes the wealthy hedge fund managers do not need or deserve are not going to be closed, all because Democrats-- our party-- wanted their campaign money.

And a few weeks ago, around the sixth anniversary of 9/11, a leading presidential candidate held a fundraiser that was billed as a Homeland Security themed event in Washington, D.C. targeted to homeland security lobbyists and contractors for $1,000 a plate. These lobbyists, for the price of a ticket, would get a special "treat"-- the opportunity to participate in small, hour long breakout sessions with key Democratic lawmakers, many of whom chair important sub committees of the homeland security committee. That presidential candidate was Senator Clinton.

Senator Clinton's road to the middle class takes a major detour right through the deep canyon of corporate lobbyists and the hidden bidding of K Street in Washington-- and history tells us that when that bus stops there it is the middle class that loses.

When I asked Hillary Clinton to join me in not taking money from Washington lobbyists--she refused. Not only did she say that she would continue to take their money, she defended them.

Today Hillary Clinton has taken more money from Washington lobbyists than any candidate from either party-- more money than any Republican candidate.

She has taken more money from the defense industry than any other candidate from either party as well.

She took more money from Wall Street last quarter than Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama combined.

The long slow slide of our democracy into the corporate abyss continues unabated regardless of party, regardless of the best interests of America.

We have a duty-- a duty to end this.

I believe you cannot be for change and take money from the lobbyists who prevent change. You cannot take on the entrenched interests in Washington if you choose to defend the broken system. It will not work. And I believe that, if Americans have a choice, and candidate who takes their money-- Democrat or Republican-- will lose this election.

For us to continue down this path all we have to do is suspend all that we believe in. As Democrats, we continue down this path only if we believe the party of the people is no more.

As Americans, we continue down this path only if we fail to heed Lincoln's warning to us all.

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected," he asked, "if it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us. It can not come from abroad. If destruction be our lot-- we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time or die by suicide."

America lives because 20 generations have honored the one moral commandment that makes us Americans.

To give our children a better future than we received.

I stand here today the son of Wallace and Bobbie Edwards. The father of Wade, Cate, Emma Claire and Jack-- and I know, as well as you, that we must not be the first generation that fails to live up to our moral challenge and keep the promise of America.

That would be an abomination.
 
There is a dream that is America. It is what makes us American. And I will not stand by while that dream is at risk.

I am not perfect-- far from it-- but I do understand that this is not a political issue-- it is the moral test of our generation.

Our nation's founders knew that this moment would come-- that at some point the power of greed and its influence over officials in our government might strain and threaten the very America they hoped would last as an ideal in the minds of all people, and as a beacon of hope for all time.

That is why they made the people sovereign. And this is why it is your responsibility to redeem the promise of America for our children and their future.

It will not be easy-- sacrifice will be required of us-- but it was never easy for our ancestors, and their sacrifices were far greater than any that will fall on our shoulders.
 
Yet, the responsibility is ours.  

We, you and I, are the guardians of what America is and what it will be.  

The choice is ours.

Down one path, we trade corporate Democrats for corporate Republicans; our cronies for their cronies; one political dynasty for another dynasty; and all we are left with is a Democratic version of the Republican corruption machine.

It is the easier path. It is the path of the status quo. But, it is a path that perpetuates a corrupt system that has not only failed to deliver the change the American people demand, but has divided America into two-- one America for the very greedy, and one America for everybody else.  

And it is that divided America-- the direct result of this corrupt system-- which may very well lead to the suicide Lincoln warned us of-- the poison that continues to seep into our system while none notice.

Or we can choose a different path. The path that generations of Americans command us to take. And be the guardians that kept the faith.

I run for president for my father who worked in a mill his entire life and never got to go to college the way I did.

I run for president for all those who worked in that mill with my father.

I run for president for all those who lost their jobs when that mil was shut down.

I run for president for all the women who have come up to Elizabeth and me and told us the like Elizabeth they had breast cancer-- but unlike Elizabeth they did not have health care.

I run for president for twenty generations of Americans who made sure that their children had a better life than they did.

As Americans we are blessed-- for our ancestors are not dead, they occupy the corridors of our conscience. And, as long we keep the faith-- they live. And so too the America of idealism and hope that was their gift to us.

I carry the promise of America in my heart, where my parents placed it. Like them, like you, I believe in people, hard work, and the sacred obligation of each generation to the next.

This is our time now. It falls to use to redeem our democracy, reclaim our government and relight the promise of America for our children.

Let us blaze a new path together, grounded in the values from which America was forged, still reaching toward the greatness of our ideals. We can do it. We can cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington and replace them with the timeless values of the American people. We can liberate our government from the shackles of corporate money that bind it to corporate will, and restore the voices of our people to its halls.

This is the cause of my life. This is the cause of our time. Join me. Together, we cannot fail.

We will keep faith with those who have gone before us, strong and proud in the knowledge that we too rose up to guard the promise of America in our day, and that, because we did, America's best days still lie ahead.

DRAFT TOM UDALL

Perhaps you'll recall that a couple of weeks ago Alex Flores wrote a guest post about the grassroots movement to draft Rep. Tom Udall to run for the open New Mexico Senate seat being vacated by disgraced Republican Pete Domenici. There have been some developments since then and I asked Alex to catch us up a bit. His report:

Back around the beginning of October, an idea was hatched to draft Congressman Tom Udall to run for the US Senate from New Mexico. Since then, the netroots have raised over $1,100 for the Congressman by asking for donations of only $5!

Now we're changing strategies to send an even stronger message. Many supporters of the draft emailed in applauding the efforts to collect $5 donations but lamented that they would rather not contribute to the Congressman's account unless he's really committed.

DraftUdall.Com is taking a new approach. The online petition now has a new question: How Much Do You Pledge to Give Tom Udall's Senate Campaign?

Since we started this new plan four days ago, another $1,200 have been committed. We think that can increase a hundred fold! Please help out.

Four other Democrats are running for the seat, one well-known in Mayor Martin Chavez and three lesser-known Dems, Don Wiviott, Jim Hannan and Leland Lehrman.

Heath Haussamen, a New Mexico blogger, wrote a bit recently about Martin Chavez's problems with progressives:

Securing big-name supporters and financial contributions is an important step for Chávez's senatorial campaign, but he has another problem to overcome: Progressive Democrats, at least those in the Albuquerque area, aren't his biggest supporters.

That's an understatement. After candidates and referenda backed by Chávez, or at least his staffers, were defeated in the recent Albuquerque municipal election, the unique coalition of Republicans and progressive Democrats who made it happen literally celebrated together.

It's also apparent that going to position himself in the center for this race. Contrasting himself with the more experienced and more progressive Tom Udall, Haussamen writes:
He also said he is confident he would defeat Udall in a primary.

"Philosophically, he's so far to the left," Chávez said. "I'd rather not have him in the race, but that's a challenge I'd not shy away from."

Angry? Sign the Petition and tell Congressman Udall how much you'll pledge to a real progressive if he runs for the US Senate ($2,300 is the Federal campaign limit).

Tom Udall already said he wouldn't run for the seat, but Chavez is running scared of the draft effort, doubtless aware that Tom Udall is the most popular Democrat in the state who can still run for the Senate.

Remember those SurveyUSA numbers? When Steven Pearce is the Republican nominee, moderate Mayor Chavez loses and progressive Congressman Udall wins; the spread is 39 points! When Heather Wilson is the Republican nominee, moderate Mayor Chavez loses and progressive Congressman Udall wins; the spread between them in this race is 22 points!

Starting with Republican candidate Steven Pearce, Congressman from New Mexico's 2nd District:
* Pearce loses to Congressman Tom Udall by 18 points
* defeats Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez by 21 points
Now to Republican candidate Heather Wilson, Congresswoman from New Mexico's 1st Congressional District:
* Wilson loses to Udall by 18 points (same as Pearce),
* defeats Chavez by 4 points (Wilson runs 17 points weaker than Pearce)

The Draft Udall movement is really picking up steam. If you haven't seen yet, we were on page A2 of yesterday's Washington Post and were recently given coverage in The Hill, a newspaper circulated in Washington, DC to every office in Congress. Help keep up the pressure, sign the petition and pledge money to Tom Udall today!

If you've already signed, please sign again, your old duplicate signature will be deleted.

See the "Draft Udall Around the Web page for more coverage.

-Alex Flores

REPUBLICAN SECRET GAY CODES CRACKED-- WHAT LARRY CRAIG, BOB ALLEN AND THE REST OF THE GOP CLOSET CASES ARE TRYING TO TAP OUT IN THE TOILETS

I can't say that I'd ever heard about all the tapping and hand signals in public toilets before Larry Craig got outed by Officer Karsnia in the Minneapolis Airport restroom. I knew some gay guys met that way but I thought that was in the old pre-liberation days when the humpy toilets were called cottages (U.K.), tearooms (U.S. and Canada), and beats (Australia). What I didn't realize is that there are still hundreds of thousands of closet cases (i.e.- Republican gays) who still meet each other in public restrooms. And they have their own codes and signals. All my friends are out and I don't know any Republicans. Fortunately, the newest issue of Out exposes the entire previously secretive GOP gay code. Don't try this if you're a normal gay person. This is just for Republicans.

Toe tapping: "Howdy, neighbor. Let's fuck."
Suitcase placed to block under-stall visability: "God can't see us now. Let's fuck."
Wink through door cracks: "I'm not gay. I'm just a 'man who has sex with men.'"
Eye contact and $20: "If anyone catches us I'm going to say something racist. It's still better than being a faggot."
Two toe taps followed by hand swiped under stall divider: "You seem like the kind of guy who's into manicures. All those sorts are usually into sucking my dick."
Hand swipe with prominent wedding ring: "I've voted to change the Constitution so that we could never get married, but I never voted against sucking your dick."
Hand swipe with a prominent tan line where a wedding ring should be: "My wife is momentarily not at my side. There's no one to stop my dick from accidentally falling into your mouth."
Hand swipe with cigar "That thing that Monica did to Bill that made me vote to impeach him... do it to me."
Passing the classified section under the stall: "I voted against giving you employment protection, so I'm offering you a blow job."
Placing hand on heart: "I voted against the hate-crimes act because I'm a lover... hopefully yours.
Glance through divider while crosiing oneself: "If someone spots us, I'm going to say I was looking for Jesus in your crotch."
Closed fist under divider: "I voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and everyone knows the best defense is an offense."
Clicking heels while pissing: "I'm a friend of Dorothy. And Jeff Gannon."
Open palm under divider: "Do you have any toilet paper? I've run out of the Constitution."
Flushing repeatedly: "Romney-Giuliani in '08!"

Presumably when they catch Lindsey Graham we'll have a whole new set of secret gay codes-- the bandana code. But even that meets the tea room circuit and-- I am not making this up-- of you wear a doily it means you like meeting sex partners in public toilets-- on the left if they are a top or on the right if they are a bottom. Anyone want to guess on which side Lindsey wears his doilies?

Democrats are less ambiguous about their signals. Barack Obama, for example, signaled to gay people that he isn't interested in their votes by having an outspokenly homophobic singer/preacher, Donnie McClurkin, headline his Embrace the Change concert in South Carolina.

MINI-UPDATE: OBAMA DEFENDS HIS IN-HOUSE HOMOPHOBE: Obama claims his gay bashing singing preacher only wants to "cure" unhappy gays, not the happy ones. Presumably Larry Craig is a happy one-- or at least a happier one-- since he's been using campaign donations to pay thousands of dollars in legal bills stemming from his bust in the toilet. This isn't legal. I have a suggestion for the senator about how he could make a great deal of money. More than 90% of the delegates attending next year's Republican National Convention to nominate their party's sacrificial lamb will arrive through the same airport were Craig was arrested for his toe-tappin' and hand signals. I have a feeling delegates-- and others-- would pay the traditional GOP $20 for a photo of themselves with Senator Craig in front of the stall where it all went down.

ANN COULTER IN WEHO-- THE REST OF THE STORY

Last night my friend Rick Jacobs and his pal Phil Kleweno, the chairman of GLAAD, were dining quietly at Murano when they noticed an acrid, sulfuric smell. They followed their noses and... yes, in the flesh-- Ann Coulter! Rick wrote the story up on Huffington Post today and I'm not going to repeat the whole encounter; click the link and read it yourself.

Rick is one of the most gracious and debonair gentlemen I have ever met. But his passions got the better of him and speaking, I would guess, for the whole community-- a community that has been spat on and shat on and murdered and abused since the 3 Abrahamic religions come up with their own hateful, Bronze Age definition of morality-- his usually impeccably diplomatic demeanor momentarily slipped away as he told her what he thought. And, yes, this is the picture he snapped with his cell phone; click on it to enlarge (if you dare).

CONGRESSMAN JOHN HALL GOES TO IRAQ, LOOKS AROUND AND RETURNS TO AMERICA TO EXPLAIN WHY HE WILL NOT VOTE FOR BUSH'S SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET REQUEST

left to right: that's Howie, John Hall, John Amato and Lucas Gardner a couple weeks ago

John Hall is an outspoken progressive freshman congressman in a Republican-leaning district and he's facing a multimillionaire opponent who is willing to spend millions of his own dollars smearing him and distorting his record. But unlike some Democrats in similarly uncomfortable positions, John is not playing the Republican-lite game. Instead, he stays in touch with his constituents and actually tries explaining his thinking on key issues to them so they understand where he's coming from when he votes as their representative.

Last week he was part of a small congressional fact-finding delegation that went to Iraq. In a letter to his constituents he went through all of his experiences from visiting with soldiers from Westchester County who are stationed there to doing one of those heavily guarded McCain market tours in a part of Iraq Bush claims is safe-- "If this is one of the safest parts of Iraq," writes John, "I worry what the dangerous parts are like"-- to playing songs on his guitar for recovering military personnel at Landstuhl Medical Center at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany on the way back to the U.S. He concludes by explaining why he has decided to vote against Bush's request for more money for an endless occupation.

My conclusion is that we should never send our Armed Forces to carry out a mission that is not militarily achievable. Based on comments by Ambassador Crocker, and the fact that since the September report to Congress the top four Iraqi leaders have not even been in the country at the same time, I continue to believe that American involvement in this war must be ended. This is a political and civil conflict that can only be resolved by the Iraqis themselves, by deciding whether they want to compromise and live together, or continue to fight along religious, ethnic, or tribal lines.
This week President Bush asked for more war funding, bringing his total request for this year to nearly $200 billion. Based on what I just witnessed, and in order to bring the Maliki government back to reality, I will not support such a request without a timeline for redeployment or withdrawal of our troops. I recognize the imperfection of any proposed solution, but if the Sunni Shayks in Anbar can get together, perhaps the Shia mullahs in Basra can also. The Kurdish north already has a functioning government, if they can restrain the PKK from attacking Turkey. Baghdad is a problem, but it is and should be the Iraqis’ to solve.

We should start by turning over Saddam's palaces to the Iraqi government; I heard repeatedly that our control of the palaces is seen by local population as a sign of occupation.

We should assure the Iraqis and surrounding countries that we have no plans for permanent bases, and cease building anything that can't be eventually turned over to them.

We should follow the reductions in troop levels already announced by General Petraeus this fall and next spring with more redeployments and continue to hand Iraq back to the Iraqis. We must determine a date to end this unnecessary war, which has sapped our military, drained our treasury, and damaged our reputation around the world.

As you know, John is, like last year, a Blue America-endorsed candidate for Congress. If we like his approach and would like to see him continue working for us in Washington, please consider making a contribution to his campaign.

HAVE YOU JUST GIVEN UP ON STOPPING BUSH AND HIS WAR IN IRAQ?

I watch so little TV, other than South Park, that maybe I just missed it and there really was tons of coverage of the peace demonstrations that took place all over America this weekend. I probably just couldn't find it but I didn't see any mention in either the NY Times or the Washington Post, or maybe that means, officially, there were no peace demonstrations. Oddly, the BBC covered them with a small article.

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in demonstrations against the war in Iraq in cities across the US.

Rallies took place in a dozen cities, with the biggest crowds gathering in New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

They were timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of a vote by the US Senate to authorize the Iraq invasion.

Those taking part, who included relatives of servicemen fighting in Iraq, urged the US congress to cut off funding for the war.

The 'national day of action' was called by the United for Peace and Justice coalition.

And the San Francisco Chronicle gave it some coverage on the first page... of the B-Section. Oh, and the Salt Lake Tribune covered the march and rally in Salt Lake City, at which the mayor, Rocky Anderson, spoke.

But mostly I'm just hearing about it via e-mail. Friends all over America have mentioned that they marched. Sometimes I get the feeling that too many of us have just bought into the Democrats' pathetic message that they can't do anything about it because Bush is president. They don't mention that Mr. 24% Approval Rating has a very special protector in the Speaker of the House who has taken the one tool that the Founding Fathers gave us to remove him, off the table. Anyway, I despair sometimes that everybody is just resigned to letting him and Cheney and their cronies go on their tragic killing ways until the day Hillary is elected who seems to maybe, probably, hopefully be saying she'll... wind this thing down... if she can?

The e-mail I got from Cindy Sheehan today (which is posted on her blog) outlined some of the problems anti-occupation activists are facing. Personally, and somewhat quixotically, she's trying to hold Pelosi accountable by running against her for Congress. I used to live in that district. If I still did I would be voting for Cindy and I wouldn't have to think about it twice.

In November of 2006, the peace movement scored a major coup but we later discovered that the Democrats had only used our vibrant, angry and deeply committed movement to regain both Houses of Congress. Some of us erroneously thought that we could relax a little and allow the 110th Congress to take some of the slack from us hard-working activists to end the war and hold BushCo accountable. After all, that's what we pay them for, isn't it? I, and my organization, was roundly criticized by many people for going to Congress in January to demand that the Dems do the job we elected them to do. "Give them a chance." "Shut the f**k up." These and harsher epithets were hurled at us. I understand, because we wanted to relax, too. In November, we were as shocked as everyone else was, though, when Nancy and Harry (Bush Enablers Number One and Two) took impeachment "off the table." We knew there would be no rest for the weary with this Congress, and, unfortunately, I think we have been vindicated?very regrettably for democracy around the world.
 
Where do we go from here?

PRIMARIES HAVE CONSEQUENCES-- LIKE WAR AND PEACE: A CASE FOR JOHN LAESCH

If you're a regular DWT reader you're already aware that the axiom "All Republicans Are Bad And All Democrats Are Good" is pure hogwash. Well half of it is hogwash. All Republicans are bad; every. single. one. But plenty of Democrats are just as bad: corrupt, power-hungry, impervious to the best interests of their constituents and disinterested in protecting the common good or promoting basic progressive values and principles. Even on an issue as basic as the Bush Regime's war in and occupation of Iraq, you will find rubber stamp Democrats every bit as bad as Republicans-- not many, but enough to prevent Nancy Pelosi from exercising an effective opposition to the Regime's toxic agenda.

There are no surprises on the list of the worst Bush-Dogs, those Democrats who vote most frequently with the Bush Regime on issues related to endless war in Iraq. Using Progressive Punch's Chips Are Down scale here is the list-- from bad to worse-- of the handful of  Democrats who have consistently voted most frequently to rubber stamp Bush's policies in Iraq. These are fake Democrats (except for Tim Mahoney who is an actual Republican who just re-registered as a Democrat in order to win a congressional seat-- and vote like a Republican):

Eliot Engel (NY)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Bud Cramer (AL)
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Tim Mahoney (FL)
Melissa Bean (IL)
Zach Space (OH)
Jim Matheson (UT)
Baron Hill (IN)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)
Joe Donnelly (IN)
Chris Carney (PA)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Dan Boren (OK)
Gene Taylor (MS)
Nick Lampson (TX)
Jim Marshall (GA)
John Barrow (GA)

The bolded names are on the Democrats' own list of most vulnerable members of Congress. They are on the DCCC Front Line list for 2008, the list of Democrats that the DCCC judges most in need of lifeline infusions of cash to combat, basically, a lack of popularity with their constituents. When you donate to the DCCC most of the money goes to shore up the re-election campaigns for these Democrats. In many cases-- like in the ones above-- it is to support Democrats who consistently vote against Democratic values and principles, even in the most crucial instances like the occupation of Iraq. Would it be fair to consider these members war-mongers? Yes, absolutely. Would it be fair to consider these members worthy of defeat and in the same category as a Republican? If you think the war in Iraq and Bush's policies there are wrong, the answer is absolutely yes.

Many of these congressmembers were once candidates, candidates who were being pushed by Rahm Emanuel and the DCCC. Just as Emanuel is telling favored insider candidates today to "inoculate" themselves by moving right on immigration issues and throwing immigrants under the bus, last year Emanuel was hysterical in demanding that Democratic candidates inoculate themselves by not speaking out against the war in Iraq. Many Democratic candidates were defeated because they followed Emanuel's lousy advice. But much worse, many anti-war progressives and grassroots activists never got a chance to even run because Emanuel, Hoyer and the DCCC pushed them out of the way in favor of pro-war, insider schlubs, schlubs who are now on the list above (Tim Mahoney and Baron Hill being perfect examples) or who went down to defeat in November (like Christine Jennings and Tammy Duckworth). Matt Renner did an extensive report on many of these catastrophic Bush-Emanuel Dogs in the September 6 (2007) edition of Truthout. He explores how Rahm Emanuel sabotaged progressives all over the country and helped elect the conservative Democrats who have thwarted Nancy Pelosi's agenda and her ability to battle the GOP. The races he focuses on include IL-06 (which Emanuel threw to a far right Republican by supporting a mediocre, non-grassroots Democrat who could never win against a progressive activist in the primary), FL-13 (identical scenario to IL-06), CA-11 (where an enlightened grassroots gave Emanuel the finger and beat his shill in the primary and went on to defeat a far right Republican without his help), and FL-16 (where Emanuel drove the progressive out of the race in order to install an actual Republican, Tim Mahoney, in the place of the doomed Mark Foley).

Renner comes to similar conclusions that most people who have followed Emanuel's machinations have:

Many of the candidates that Emanuel helped elect have joined with a group of self-styled conservative Blue Dog Democrats and have cast key votes with Republicans and stymied Democratic efforts to end the occupation of Iraq and the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

Thirteen of the Democratic members of the House elected in 2006 joined The Blue Dog Coalition; a group that, according to its spokesperson, has no official stance on withdrawal from Iraq or the president's warrantless wiretapping program. However, 30 out of 47 of the Blue Dog members broke with the majority of Democrats and cast votes in favor of the recent Protect America Act, a bill that greatly expanded the power of the executive branch to spy on Americans. The caucus also broke with the majority of Democrats when 40 of the Blue Dog members voted to continue funding the occupation of Iraq without a timetable for withdrawal.

John Laesch between 2 would-be Bush Dogs

Now, let's take a look at the race in the northern Illinois congressional district being abandoned by Denny Hastert. IL-14 a district we've been talking about for several years because of our support for a progressive, grassroots young military vet named John Laesch. Last week the other Democrats who are trying to move in on the chance to fight it out with whichever millionaire representative of special interests the Republicans decide to attempt to replace Hastert with tested themselves out against Laesch. They came up short-- very short. Today's Daily Herald tells the story:

It was Laesch who won the crowd; the Newark carpenter's remarks garnered more applause than that of the other two 14th District candidates combined.

Oh... so what, you say-- he must have brought lots of fans to cheer for him, the way Mitt Romney does at the GOP straw polls he always wins. Nope. As the story makes clear, the forum at the Kane County Government Center in Geneva was open only to Democratic Party committeemen. These are the people who watched Laesch's campaign last year and who know from on the ground experience that he is the one who can turn this red district blue. In Washington, on the other hand, Emanuel is insisting-- working behind the scenes-- that self-described Blue Dog millionaire Bill Foster be the nominee. Foster was recently invited to a training session in Chicago for favored candidates during which Nancy Pelosi, Chris Van Hollen, other DCCC functionaries, incumbents, labor leaders and cash-rich PAC officials spoke with the candidates. Laesch was excluded. Emanuel is determined to make sure Foster is the nominee regardless of what the local Democratic Party thinks and regardless of the likelihood that he would be disastrously defeated in 2008. He's an Emanuel kind of candidate-- no values, no positions, just a Republican-lite power-hungry player. When Emanuel spouted off at the session that Democrats must "move to the right" on immigration in order to "inoculate" themselves, many of the candidates rolled their eyes and ignored him. Foster was straight out of the gate immigrant-bashing (in a district with a vibrant and growing 20% Hispanic community). See that list of bad Democrats above? Emanuel will do whatever he can to make sure Bill Foster is on it next year.

Why should you care? There are many reasons-- not the least of which have to do with the potential for national progressive leadership John Laesch is displaying. But the story in today's  Herald goes straight to another matter that I know is of great concern to all readers of DWT: Bush's and Cheney's vow to provoke a war with Iran.

A former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who served in the Middle East, Laesch repeatedly lashed out at President Bush and the Iraq war. Starting a war with Iran, Laesch said, would cause "World War III."

"If you think Iraq is a mess, Iran would be a complete and utter nightmare," Laesch said.

Laesch pushed Stein and Bill Foster, a scientist and businessman from Mill Creek, to say whether they'd immediately cut funding for the troops in Iraq and whether they'd authorize going to war with Iran. Laesch pledged, if elected, to cut funding for the Iraq war and to vote against going to war with Iran.

In response, neither Foster nor Stein would commit to vote "no" on going to war with Iran, saying they would need to study the issue further.

Do I need to say any more? Do you take this kind of thing seriously? Prove it by kicking in-- even $5 if that's what you can spare, for John Laesch's campaign. It's your country. You want Bush and a bunch of craven Bush Dogs like Bill Foster getting us into a war with Iran?

McCONNELL EARMARK SCANDAL MAY BE THE LEAST OF HIS WORRIES

McConnell is infamous in Washington for a number of things, aside from his official duty as Bush's chief obstructionist in the Senate. He's as dirty as they come and, unlike many of his colleagues, he's known for taking bribes from overseas interests. He's been an "unofficial"-- but immensely well-paid-- lobbyist for China for a long time. A new scandal, though, has him taking money from closer to home: a British arms dealer.

The story broke in the Kentucky papers today and it could be a devastating blow to McConnell's already shaky re-election prospects. In a state plagued with severe economic problems, it looks very bad that McConnell was caught earmarking $25 million for a British armsmaker, BAE, "that is under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and suspected by American diplomats of a 'long-standing, widespread pattern of bribery allegations.'"

According to the story in the Lexington paper "McConnell has taken at least $53,000 in campaign donations from BAE's political action committees and employees since his 2002 re-election." He is suspected of having taken hundreds of thousands of dollars under the table.

Ethics watchdogs say they're surprised McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, would continue to give earmarks and take donations from a corporation in hot water with his own government. McConnell should keep his distance, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

"Most politicians decide that a scandal is a good time to stop doing business with a company, at least until the scandal is over," Sloan said. "Particularly when we're talking about a criminal investigation over bribery. You would think that a member of Congress would want to steer clear of anyone accused of bribery."

Even without the scandal, it looks bad for a senator to earmark federal money for a corporation, as compared to a public university or a local government in his state, said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center in Washington.

"Why did they need special favors from Senator McConnell instead of going through the usual open competition and budgeting process at the Pentagon?" Boehm asked.
Nor should McConnell take donations from a company to which he steers federal funds, said Boehm, a former Republican congressional aide.

"Contributions from entities that directly benefit from earmarks are a bad idea," he said. "There's a big difference between a company that just likes your general ideas and a company that stands to benefit from one or more transactions that you're making on their behalf using public money."

But the brouhaha over more McConnell bribery allegations could pale compared to rumors leaking out that the long awaited evidence of McConnell's double life as a closet queen is about to be put on the table. Raw Story is reporting tonight that Larry Flynt is on the verge of breaking another sex expose. He told Fox's Neil Cavuto that this one will stand “Washington and the country on its head.” Hustler intends to "expose a sex scandal of huge proportions involving a prominent United States Senator." And unless he's talking about Lindsey Graham...


UPDATE: BUT WHO WILL TAKE HIM ON?

As McConnell's approval numbers continue to slip, people keep asking who will be the Democratic nominee? I mean even if they do catch him in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, you still can't defeat someone with no one. DailyKos has a diary today about McConnell's tribulations and about the best Democrat to take him on: Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Horne. Horne hasn't decided to run but there is a grassroots effort to get him into the race. I don't know a lot about him other than he lost the congressional primary race to John Yarmuth and that he had been endorsed by Paul Hackett and was a fave around DKos. This is one we should look into more closely.

HOW SAFE IS IT TO FLY?

Not very-- at least not according to a reluctantly-released (some would say "covered-up") $8.5 million survey of thousands of airline pilots by NASA in 2005. But the results were never released and it took the Associated Press until now to squeeze them out of the Bush Regime (by filing a Freedom of Information Act request). Although there's been a lot of back and forth and embarrassed bureaucrats and denials on the political level, it looks like the survey was covered up because NASA thought the release would frighten the flying public and have a negative impact on the bottom line of the airline companies.

Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey.

Do you think the Bush Regime would put the financial safety of the airline companies ahead of the public's right to know if flying was safe? According to the NY Times our old pal, Rep Brad Miller, chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology, someone I would certainly trust far more than any cronies of anyone in the Regime, intends to find out.

The chairman of Brad's committee, a pro-business, conservative Democrat from Tennessee, Bart Gordon, was aghast. "This is like a drug manufacturer finding out through trials that there are problems with a drug and not making the public aware because they don't want to reduce the sales of the drug or scare the public. It could be enormously helpful in a wide range of areas in trying to understand mishaps."

JOHN RICH OF BIG & RICH DOES A RICK SANTORUM IMPERSONATION ON NASHVILLE RADIO-- A NAIL IN HIS PROFESSIONAL COFFIN?

I had already left Warner Bros by the time our Nashville division had released its first album with Big Kenny (Alphin) and John Rich (pka, Big & Rich). When I first heard Warners had a hit artist called Big & Rich I thought they had finally broken into the rap business. They hadn't.

I was vaguely aware they had a big, albeit humdrum, wedding song last year called "Lost in This Moment," and that the first album, Horse of a Different Color went platinum a couple times. Other than that, I wasn't hearing much about them... until Thursday. Thursday I started getting barraged with e-mails from distraught former employees of mine all complaining about Big & Rich being homophobic.

It stems from half the duo, John Rich, going on a gay-bashing, Santorum-like jag for his political hero, Frederick of Hollywood. Rich is a regular commentator on Steve Gill's radio show in Nashville, where he spouts his Limbaughesque nonsense to an audience where marrying one's cousins and aunts is a lot more common than gay marriage. After a thorough tequila-fueled search for the most backward of the pathetic pygmies™ vying to personify a third George W Bush term, Rich has endorsed Thompson. And in a slap at the cousin-marrying Rudy Giuliani and at gay-Americans, he spouted off about gay marriage on Wednesday:

"I think if you legalize that, you've got to legalize some other things that are pretty unsavory. You can call me a radical, but how can you tell an aunt that she can't marry her nephew if they are really in love and sharing the bills? How can you tell them they can't get married, but something else that's unnatural can happen?"

I suppose far more "natural" would be Rich's own lifestyle as an embarrassing and philandering slob. He may be hysterical and obsessive about his irrational zombie-like hatred for Hillary Clinton but reports from the road are that when he's got enough substances in him there isn't a woman breathing he doesn't try to jump on.

Gay employees and straight non-bigots at Warner Bros, and that pretty much accounts for almost everyone who works there, are pretty disappointed, to put it mildly... and I'm not the only one getting complaints. One person who has worked on the Big & Rich projects wrote, "I tend to support all of our artists unconditionally even when some of their politics don't necessarily coincide with mine. I have been made aware of comments made by Big and Rich and I must say this is a real blatant slap in the face and it's somewhat scary to think that I'm helping to make artists' voices such as theirs heard out in the world. I feel deeply torn by comments that they've made recently and can't help but feel really uncomfortable having to see or hear them played in this amazingly diverse environment of Warner Brothers Records that to me has always spoken on behalf of the eccentric and artistic."

Another WB employee, an out front gay men, is torn between his disapproval of censorship and his disapproval of bigotry. He feels it's the company's duty-- their moral responsibility-- to take a public stand against this denigration of a class of people. "Rich's comments are not a political position, they are words of hatred that denounce an entire community and are taken as a personal attack on many of our families. CBS did not tolerate Imus's racist remarks against Blacks nor should we with Rich's remarks about gay families."

I spoke with one of Tennessee's most influential and respected radio programmers. He was still dismayed today and he said most everyone he knows in the music business is as well. This is what he told me:

"Much of the Nashville music scene is ashamed of John. We have felt betrayed because many of us had embraced him and his mantra of love everybody. John has made a career on the backs of many people, and a lot of them are gay. More than anything, his hateful comments have hurt them and they feel especially betrayed. John is entitled to his opinion. However, comparing gay marriage to incest was unforgivable. I have urged those who feel as I do to stop buying his records and songs that he writes."

That sounds like a very sensible suggestion.

UPDATE: SUDDENLY I'M IN BIG & RICH WORLD

Not a pretty place! People are sending me reports from tequila bars, houses of ill-repute and of wildly careening Bentleys. And I now know more about Big & Rich than I ever wanted to. Like they're such big Sean Hannity fans that not only do they go on his HOP propaganda show, they have him come and perform with them onstage (in front of people). And then I'm hearing the more serious charges that the fix is already in and they are winning a shit-load of awards next month (from the Country Music Awards on Wednesday, Nov 7 and the American Music Awards on November 18.)

And one of their fans even defended them by saying they have a gay song called "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)." I used to be a dj at a couple of gay country bars, The Cinch and the Rainbow Cattle Company and I'd rather go to a dentist everyday for a week than play this musical turd. And... Perez Hilton indicates there are "rumors" about John Rich! Well, well, well... so another Larry Craig?? He doesn't mention what kind of rumors but he did call him a "queen."


UPDATE: JOHN RICH'S OTHER HALF ISN'T A BIGOT

Turns out Big Kenny is a normal American. Not only that, he's an empathetic humanitarian and he and his wife just returned from Sudan where they delivered school and medical supplies (and musical instruments) to orphans in Darfur. He also donated $2300 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. His only previous political donation was to right-wing Democrat Harold Ford last year when he ran against even further right Republican Bob Corker. Rich never donated to anyone.

THIS WEEK IN THE NEWS

A few more things happened in the national media this week that really illustrate the agenda they follow. You would think they would be satisfied with merely helping lie us into an unnecessary war
that has ruined or ended uncounted thousands of lives and enriched the Bush Crime Family and associates at U.S. taxpayer expense. These things aren't unusual, of course, but the transparency and boldness of their bullshit reveals a raised level of contempt for the public.

    1. The Philadelphia Inquirer has hired former kook senator Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum to write a column for their rag. I guess they have confused themselves with National Enquirer supermarket tabloid.

Personally, I think they should have hired Ed Anger from the sadly now out of business Weekly World News, my fave tabloid of all time. If the so-called mainstream media is just going to go all tabloid all the time on us, why not? They already think they can never have too much Britney, why not Santorum? Sure, he isn’t quite as talented as she is but… What’s next? A Larry Craig column on travel and dating tips?

    2. On Tuesday, several TV stations including the whole FOX and MSNBC networks ran FEMA's phony press conference where FEMA EMPLOYEES POSED AS REPORTERS and asked questions of a FEMA deputy press flak. THE QUESTIONS for the phony reporters were provided by FEMA. There were no REAL reporters in the room. There was no explanation that it was a fake news conference. We
are just supposed to constantly buy into the crap they put on our TV screen. The whole thing was TOTALLY SCRIPTED, another fraud by the current administration. I guess it wasn't enough to have a few ringers and fake reporters in the White House press corps to go along with the regular reporters/accomplices from the national media.

    3. Oh, and how 'bout Corporate News Network's Glen Beck and his hateful gibberish about people who hate America losing their homes in the California fires.

    4. Then there’s one of my local dailies, Newsday. On Tuesday, their joker, Tom Brune, declared Mitt Romney the "Family Values" candidate. I guess the other candidates in both parties are devil worshipers or something. Hmmm. I can see evidence of that for several of them. It’s typical of media hacks to equate rightwing extremists with "Family Values", as if those in the center or the left are just busy beating their kids and cruising airport mensrooms. Brune typically doesn’t even bother to define what that neat little slogan means. [Ed- maybe it means opposing health care for needy children, the way Romney and the rest of teh pathetic pygmies™ do.] But, was it "Family Values" when Mitt tied the family dog to the roof of the family car and eased on down the road? Hey, if you can consider waterboarding to not be torture, I guess you can feel OK about terrorizing and torturing a family pet. After all, Mitt would make a fine replacement for the current lowlife in the White House. You know the guy who put cherry bombs into the mouths of frogs and then considered hooking up wires to a man’s testicles to be perfectly acceptable.

Thus far, I haven’t seen any mention in Newsday of Romney paying bribes to the hallowed leaders of the ChristianReich for their endorsements. One "minister", a christocretin named Don Wilton, felt a pang a conscience this week and tried to send the money back. No coverage of that, either. Can you imagine the play it would get if a Democrat had done the same?

     5. It ain't just FOX "NEWS". Orwell predicted them all. Our news media is now the farcical news media that we heard about the U.S.S.R having decades ago.

NOAH

BLUE AMERICA WELCOMES MARK SCHAUER (MI-07)

Marcy (emptywheel) first told me about Mark Schauer, a state senator from a district near her own, quite some time ago. There were a lot of people declaring they would run in southern Michigan's 7th CD-- to face the most radical right member of the state's congressional delegation, Tim Walberg-- but Marcy counseled me to hold off. She felt there was a very good chance Mark would jump in and that when he did, everyone else would bow out and endorse him. After spending some time with him on the phone this week, I understand from whence her enthusiasm springs. Please join us over at Firedoglake at 2pm, EDT today for a live blog session with Mark.

I started off by asking him what issues his constituents are telling him are the most important for them. "Without question," he stated immediately, "the top issue facing the 7th congressional district is the economy and jobs. This is a state that has been rocked by outsourcing, a global economy, and trade agreements that have cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. Folks are worried about their future, about their families, about whether they can retire, whether they can send their kids to college or whether they're going to lose their home. And related to that are basic security needs, like health care. Are they going to be able to keep health care and afford coverage for their kids or are they going to lose their pension? Will Social Security be there for them? Once you get past that, the war and our foreign policy-- or lack thereof-- are a major concern. Are their sons and daughters and neighbors in harm's way in Iraq? And people are hopeful that we'll be able to restore a foreign policy based more on diplomacy and less on war. And third would be the environment, including climate change."

That got him talking about the economic opportunities for Michigan in pursing alternatives to fossil fuels for energy. "Folks are concerned about gas prices. Folks are concerned about the rising cost of heating their homes and they know there are alternatives. They know our planet is at risk and you have to think about it as the legacy we're leaving our kids. Michigan is a Great Lakes state and the environment is always an issue of concern to the people here. People in south-central Michigan don't think slant drilling in the Great Lakes is the answer, although Tim Walberg supports it."

And speaking of Walberg, I had to ask Mark about the war. Walberg's record is crystal clear. Since getting to Congress last year, he's participated in 18 roll calls concerning Iraq and he's voted 18 times with Bush and Cheney. He never found a single issue about Iraq to disagree with them on-- although most Republicans have. He's also voted 7 times on issues effecting the well-being of our military personnel and he's been wrong all 7 times-- voting against our servicemen and women and for his party leader. But Mark, although a state senator, has an Iraq-related record to examine as well. I asked him to explain it.

It was March, 2003, just days before the president went into Iraq and one of the ultra-conservative members of the Michigan senate put up a meaningless resolution to put everyone on the record in terms of support for Bush's strategy in Iraq. I voted against it. It was a tough vote at the time if you'll recall the public sentiment back then. People were getting in my face about voting against the president when they were equating that with not supporting our troops. I do support our troops but that vote was the right thing to do then and history has born that out. I'm on record from the start saying this was a flawed strategy."

Mark's state senate district, like the congressional district, has a Republican lean. Gore took 46% of the vote and Kerry took 45%. Last year, an underfunded, barely known Democrat who wasn't taken very seriously in political circles, came within one percentage point of beating Walberg. And Walberg hasn't become popular since winning the seat. There's a certain amount of residual resentment of the way a great deal of outside PAC money, from Club For Growth, was used to defeat a decent, moderate Republican incumbent. And his voting record-- in a basically all-American, moderate district-- has been very, very hard right, way at the bottom of the Republican congressional barrel and far more extreme than any other congressman from Michigan. If you examine Progressive Punch's Chips Are Down rankings, you find Walberg sitting there with radical kooks and ideologues like Patrick McHenry, Michele Bachman, Mike Pence, Virginia Foxx, Marsha Blackburn... with an even worse record than Mean Jean Schmidt, Marilyn Musgrave or Virgil Goode.

"We're spending $12 billion a month in Iraq and this president, along with Tim Walberg, opposes spending an additional $7 billion a year to make sure that three a half million kids receive health care. It's a tragedy in so many ways for our country... This president and his policies have put us more at risk. We have got to start to change. You want to hold this president accountable?
This Congress has got to use its investigative powers and if it's determined that George W. Bush has violated his oath of office then he has to be held accountable. I'll be entering office in January of 2009 and there will be a new president and I want to spend my time moving us forward and undoing the mess that this president has created and that's where my energies will be focused-- on that change and that new direction."

Mark is the Democratic Senate Leader in Michigan. I checked YouTube to see if he had any clips and I found a pretty cool one he put up 7 months ago directed directly to bloggers! Take a look-- and then think about giving Mark's campaign a hand over at our Blue America ActBlue page

WILL WE EVER GET ENOUGH LARRY CRAIG? AND IF SO... WILL IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE? HE'S NEVER GOING AWAY

Does Officer Karsnia have a tat too?

My doctor likes the shotgun approach to nutrition. He wants me eating lots of different fruits and vegetables with lots of different colors and he figures between them all, I'll get everything I need. Maybe his brother is an attorney who specializes in defending Republican closet cases caught up in stings in public restrooms. In the last 24 hours Larry Craig seems to have launched 3 simultaneous assaults on the Minnesota justice department. His latest reasons for pleading innocent:
1- Minnesota's disorderly conduct law is unconstitutional as it applies to his conviction in a bathroom sex sting. The ACLU has already filed a friend of the court brief that argues that "Craig's foot-tapping and hand gesture under a stall divider at the Minneapolis airport are protected by the First Amendment."

2- There wasn't enough evidence that he committed a crime when he was arrested in the June sex sting at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, according to a two-page document filed Friday with the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

3- The judge erred by not allowing Craig to withdraw his plea, that the judge who sentenced Craig to a fine and probation never signed anything saying he accepted the guilty plea.

One could work, although it isn't likely. I guess on some level it makes him feel better about lying to his colleagues, his constituents, and the world about resigning. Good for him. Personally I just think he should read Bob Bauman's book about how an outed right-wing homophobic member of Congress can go through self-discovery and come out a better and fuller human being. Unlike Bauman, though-- who did it after he was driven from office-- Craig should do it while he's still a sitting senator. He won't though; he's still in denial about even being gay.

That said, I have a question. Why are these closeted right-wingers so damn cheap? First it was Florida Republican Rep. Bob Allen offering that undercover cop $20 to fellate him and then yesterday we find out from Wonkette that Craig dragged home some trick he met at a DC bar, performed some kind of GOP-sex on him, humiliated him and then stuffed a $20 bill in his pocket saying "Remember, I can buy and sell your ass ten thousand times over. You were never here. Don’t try to come back here. You don’t know me." What's with the $20 bills and gay Republican closet queens? It isn't even all Republicans. I mean David Diapers Vitter was handing around crisp $100 bills to half the female hookers in Louisiana-- and plenty in DC to boot. Anyway Peter, Joe and Tony have a little ditty from Sweet Charity for Idaho Senator Craig and Florida Rep. Allen:

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT "BETTER DEMOCRATS" MEANS? WATCH A LITTLE VIDEO

This video made me cry. The right always kills people like this though.

We need more Democrats like Paul Wellstone, not compromised pieces of crap with arms and legs.

MITT'S NOT THE ONLY REPUBLICAN FLIP FLOPPIN' FOOL-- COLEMAN, SUNUNU & VOINOVICH TURN AROUND ON TREATY

I think when I first heard about opposition to a treaty regulating access to the world's seas there wasn't anyone credible against it at all. When Reagan was preisdent he had endorsed it-- and vowed to live by it's regulations until it had officially passed. The U.S. military wants it. Even Bush is for it. The only opposition is from the "black helicopter crowd," nuts and loons like Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and John Bolten. And they don't like it primarily because they just hate the UN and the concept of the UN. But these are the kinds of folks who just DO NOT BELIEVE in organized society-- the kinds of people who refuse to fund fire departments but who are rich enough to have their own for themselves.

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note has the whole story today about how kooks like Bolton and Frank Gaffney have gotten to rubber stamp wingnuts John Sununu (R-NH), Norm Coleman (R-MN) and George Voinovich (R-OH) to start making noises about changing their votes to oppose the bill. Right wingers are suspicious because if environmentalists and the UN want it, there must be something they can find to hate in it-- even if two Bushes and a Reagan thought it was in the country's interests to ratify the treaty.

Environmental groups endorse the treaty's protection of global fish stocks, the US navy endorses its assurance of free movement and the oil industry's trade group endorses its promise of a level playing field for companies staking claim to drill in the Arctic.

But Republican antagonists in the Senate, several of whom have derailed the treaty twice in the past, discount even the Bush administration's backing. They yesterday blocked a preliminary ratification vote, and in doing so declared it an auspicious date for foes of international institutions.

"There is no better time to celebrate the 62nd birthday of the United Nations than to say we don't want it," said Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican senator who leads an annual effort to withhold US funds from the UN.

Inhofe... the craziest and most backward member of the U.S. Senate; figures. I called Andrew Rice, the exceptionally bright Oklahoma state senator who is running against him next year. I could see him rolling his eyes over the phone, embarrassed that of all the states in the country it had to be the one he's so proud of to be stuck with a nutcase like Inhofe.

"As a U.S. Senator who constantly portrays himself as a pro-national security public servant, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe is now choosing to ignore the pleas of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of the Navy, among other military leaders, when they ask for Senate approval of UNCLOS.  American military leaders have made it clear that participation in UNCLOS will enhance our national security and that changes have been made in UNCLOS provisions to explicitly protect American interests.  And yet Jim Inhofe and a very small minority are working against our nation's best interests, simply because it might hurt the special interests he puts before the needs of Oklahomans again and again. Inhofe is clearly out of step with our national security needs."

The two most backward of the pathetic pygmies™ running for their party's useless presidential nomination, Huckabee and Thompson, have also weighed in against the treaty-- even if neither has much of a clue what it's about. "Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson have pointedly broken with Mr Bush on the treaty. 'At a time when customary international law in this area has proven sufficient, I believe the efforts of treaty proponents would be better spent reforming the United Nations,' Mr Thompson said yesterday," attempting to curry favor with that same old Black Helicopter crowd.

Taylor Marsh and Matt Stoller, neither of whom spend smuch times riding black helicopters, have both written eloquently on this today. If, like me, you feel it's time to celebrate the impending end of the Bush Years but getting rid of detrius like James Inhofe, Andrew Rice's Blue America page is open... 24/7.

DO CHUCK SCHUMER AND THE DSCC HATE GAY PEOPLE?

I went to James Madison High School in Brooklyn. We had two future U.S. Senators and a future Supreme Court Justice... and a bunch of future record business presidents. But only one person who was "out." It wasn't me; it was an incredibly brave thing to do back then. Julius was not only out, he was one of the only African-American males in an almost all-white school. Wow, was he brave! And did he get gay-bashed! But not by Chuck Schumer, at least not as far as I can recall. Schumer was the valedictorian in 1967 and went to Harvard and then Harvard Law. Since then, Chuck grew up to be my old district's Assemblyman and then the congressman and now the moderate U.S. senator... and the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where he has the reputation of being effective and ruthless, something like a slightly more sophisticated version of Rahm Emanuel. He's a moderate on gay issues-- supports including gays in hate crime legislation and is ok with civil unions but opposes gay marriage.

Yesterday you may have read at Swing State Project or BlueNC that Schumer is trying to recruit someone to run against Jim Neal, a moderate to progressive, grassroots Democrat. After Rep. Brad Miller announced he wasn't going to run against Elizabeth Dole, Schumer's dream candidate was Grier Martin. He helped push State Senator Kay Hagan of Greensboro out of the way for Martin. But when Martin announced he wasn't going to run, Jim Neal announced he was in. Recall that on Sunday we discussed Neal's candidacy from the perspective of him being an out gay man. Apparently, the DSCC has been doing the same thing-- except coming to a different conclusion.

The rumors I'm hearing-- persistent, loud, widespread, unsubstantiated, off-the-record-- are that Schumer blew his stack when he heard about Neal running and has declared-- in his pompous, know-it-all way that high school valedictorians always do-- that an openly gay candidate cannot win in North Carolina. Well, a gay will never win in North Carolina if his own party doesn't back him; that's for sure. I called Jim Neal this morning to ask him about the rumors. He wanted to talk about his vision for North Carolina, not about the DSCC. I don't know him yet but he seems to pride himself on being a non-politician and a non-insider. "I don't owe anything to anyone but the people of North Carolina," he told me. He wouldn't comment on the rumors about Schumer. "As for the DSCC, we can’t control them nor can we focus upon them. We’ve had no direct contact with Senator Schumer. We’re focused on fundraising and building our campaign organization."

I asked him if he thought Schumer would be more enthusiastic about his candidacy if he was in the closet. Most insider politicians always seem cool with gays who stay in the closet. He talked a little about what an admirable record Schumer has had on civil rights issues-- Schumer did vote against the right-wing proposal to ban gay marriage with a Constitutional Amendment-- but he said wouldn't speculate. "I can't really answer that. I’d certainly hope that’s not the case."

But before Schumer makes gay people think HRC was correct after all when they endorsed Alfonse D'Amato for Senate instead of him, he should take a look at the most recent polling on the North Carolina race. In head to head match-ups, the only Democrat shown beating Dole is Governor Easley (who isn't running)-- and it's close. The rest of the potential Democratic field, including Neal, does around the same against her. His numbers are identical with North Carolina Democratic Party Chair, Jerry Meek. The poll was conducted after Neal had publicly acknowledged that he is gay.

I liked the way Jim Neal discussed the S-CHIP debate. He said if Elizabeth Dole couldn't support tax-funded health care for needy children she should consider giving up her own (far more lavish) tax-funded health care. Schumer needs more plainspoken men and women like Jim Neal running for the U.S. Senate. If you'd like to learn more about Jim or if you'd like to volunteer for his race or contribute to his campaign, please surf right over to his website.



UPDATE: DO ALL THE GAYS IN THE SENATE HAVE TO BE REPUBLICAN CLOSET CASES?

Lucas just found this at Salon and he insists I include it (you can click on it to enlarge it):

POLITICIANS SAY THE DAMNEDEST THINGS-- LIKE ABOUT TORTURE

In his headlong, no-holds-barred quest to be the personification of a third Bush term, Rudy Giuliani (not to mention Bush's own execrable Attorney General nominee, Michael Mukasey) leaves plenty of wiggle room for the use of torture. Giuliani, when asked about waterboarding said he isn't sure if that would be considered torture. "It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it." He blames waterboarding's bad name on "the liberal media... But I have to see what the real description of it is."

Maybe he-- and his pal Mukasey-- can start their quest to find out about the real description by reading Jurist from the University of Pittsburgh's law school. Wednesday Gary Solis, an Adjunct Professor and former Marine Corps judge advocate and military judge, attempted to teach the willfully ignorant something about waterboarding. If Mukasey and Giuliani don't know what it is, "the U.S. Army has long known."

During the U.S.- Philippine War (1899-1902), five Army officers, Major Edwin Glenn, Captain Cornelius Brownell, 1st Lieutenants Julien Gaujot, Edwin Hickman, and Preston Brown, were convicted by courts-martial for employing the “water cure” in interrogating Philippine prisoners. Although Brownell’s victim, a local priest, died while being subjected to the water cure, Brownell’s conviction was set aside on jurisdictional grounds. Army juries rejected the defense of “military necessity,” recognizing the water cure for what it is. The Army’s Judge Advocate General, the reviewing officer of Glenn’s case, derisively noted, “the resort to torture is attempted to be justified…as the habitual method of obtaining information from individual insurgents.” In the Vietnam War, Army Staff Sergeant David Carmon was disciplined after he was pictured torturing a prisoner with the water cure. But Judge Mukasey doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture.

After World War II, several nations prosecuted former enemies for variations of waterboarding. The U.N. War Crimes Commission, in its Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, details convictions for the near-drowning of prisoners during interrogations. The Sawada case was a U.S. military commission in which “the water treatment” of captured Doolittle raiders was a basis for convicting Sawada and others. A Norwegian military court convicted Karl-Hans Klinge of the same torture. American military commission convictions reported elsewhere include, U.S. v. Chinsaku Yuki, U.S. v. Yagoheiji Iwata, and U.S. v. Hideji Nakamura and Others, all resulting from the water treatment of American or Philippine prisoners. The Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East says, “The practice of torturing prisoners of war and civilian internees prevailed at practically all places occupied by Japanese troops…. Among these tortures were the water treatment….” But Judge Mukasey doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture.

U.S. domestic courts describe “the water cure” and “water torture” as human rights violations, and a means to coerce confessions, in In Re Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos (D. Hawaii, 1995) and U.S. v. Lee (5th Cir., 1984). In Chile, the 2005 National Commission of Political Imprisonment and Torture, investigating abuses of the Pinochet era, documents the common use of water torture during interrogations. Argentine and Chilean criminal prosecutions continue today. But Judge Mukasey doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture.

I'm sure both Giuliani and Mukasey do know that waterboarding is torture. It's just that neither is willing to take on the Bush Regime which insists it isn't. Bush says "We don't torture" but he, Alberto Gonzales and Cheney have quite enthusiastically signed off on waterboarding. To admit it is torture could make them candidates for war crimes tribunals. Mukasey wants these people to employ him. Giuliani wants their supporters to vote for him.

The wikipedia entry on the word waterboarding is very clear. The first sentence (with 9 citations): "Waterboarding is a form of torture which consists of immobilizing an individual and pouring water over his or her face to simulate drowning. Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, and also to punish, and/or intimidate. It elicits the gag reflex, and can make the subject believe his or her death is imminent while not causing physical evidence of torture."

During the Spanish Inquisition, probably the low-point for Christianity and surely one raison d'etre for the separation of Church and State so reviled by Republicans, waterboarding (toca or tortura del agua) was used during "trials." Since then, civilized nations, including the U.S. before Bush came to power, have agreed to the UN Convention Against Torture. It was signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1994. Among other things it states clearly that "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Giuliani and Mukasey, in regard to the employment they are each seeking, ought to know that and ought to be able to deal with it. That neither does, speaks volumes about their respective suitability for the jobs they crave.

Former CIA officer and author Bob Baer has explained that waterboarding is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough." According to today's Des Moines Register at least one of the pathetic pygmies™ agrees with this anti-Bush Regime view.

Waterboarding is a form of torture no matter how it is done and should be a prohibited among U.S. military interrogation practices, Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Thursday, taking issue with GOP rival Rudy Giuliani's recent remarks.

"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot and being used on Buddhist monks as we speak," said McCain after a campaign stop at Dordt College here. "People who have worn the uniform and had the experience know that this is a terrible and odious practice and should never be condoned in the U.S. We are a better nation than that."

McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese military after his plane was shot down 40 years ago today, made it clear he disagreed with Giuliani.

McCain, likes to point out that his opposition to torture among Republican presidential candidates is based on military experience not shared by any of the other pygmies. And he echoes Baer, not Bush, Cheney or Gonzales (nor, apparently Giuliani or Mukasey) when he says "There are much better and more effective ways to get information. You torture someone long enough, he'll tell whatever he thinks you want to know."

NOW ONLY ONE DEMOCRAT OPPOSES HEALTH CARE FOR CHILDREN

STOP! Is that sick baby an illegal or too rich?

Earlier we mentioned the House leadership was bringing up S-CHIP again. They did. And it passed again-- with 43 Republicans joining all but one Democrat. We'll get to that in a second. But first I want to share with you some of the responses from our GOP congressmember who refused to vote for children's health care. Please bear in mind that all of their families are covered by far more sumptuous healthcare (at taxpayer expense):

First from the scumbag whose concern for the welfare of children made him cover-up his colleague Mark Foley's serial molestation of underage male pages for years so as not to endanger a GOP-held seat in Florida: Tom Reynolds, one of the most vile and despicable creatures to crawl around the halls of the Capitol-- "The bill puts lipstick on a sow. Today is raw politics-- trotting out a vote just for the sake of a vote." If you'd like to help put an end to the disgrace of this pile of vomit's career, the name of his opponent is Jon Powers, someone who very much cares about children and, in fact, started an organization to care for war orphans after returning from the war in Iraq. Please consider helping him at his Blue America page.

Last year we mentioned that rubber stamp Republican Ginny Brown-Waite was certifiably insane after she demanded that the U.S. dig up all the bodies of American fighting men buried in France and return them home. Her embarrassed Republican colleagues just ignored her. Her consciously false reason for voting again children's health care today was because she said it will be a "magnet for illegal aliens." As she is-- assuming she is vaguely literate-- aware, the bill specifically excludes undocumented immigrants in order to address Republican xenophobic hysteria. But she voted no anyway-- and then lied about it to her constituents.

But no deception rises to the level of Michigan crook Mike Rogers. In a convoluted excuse for his anti-family vote he "said that rich children could still qualify for benefits because states, in determining eligibility, could ignore or disregard part of a family’s income." Mike Rogers, whose entire career has been one championing the prerogatives of the rich and powerful over ordinary Americans, whose entire career has been 100% dedicated to serving, slavishly, special interests-- basically his campaign contributors, is afraid states will bend the rules to cater to the children of the rich? Give me a break! Does anyone listen to this stuff with a straight face?

And of course Georgia's Tom Price (KKK) is still whining that it's a "massive tax increase" because it would increase the cost of cigarettes. Another blatant liar: Pete Sessions (R-TX) "said that under the new bill, as under the original, two million people would lose private health insurance coverage and enroll in the expanded government program." These people have no shame whatsoever. The bill will be vetoed by Bush again and his veto will be sustained again.

Reactionary Mississippi "Democrat" Gene Taylor, voted for the bill today. He had been one of the two to vote to sustain Bush's veto last week. So of the 5 Democratic reactionaries who voted against children's health care-- Taylor, Baron Hill (IN), Mike McIntyre (NC), Bob Etheridge (NC) and the execrable Jim Marshall (GA)-- only the execrable Jim Marshall is still standing with the Republicans. He's still on the DCCC Front Line page as well, so that Democrats contributing to that organization can fund a candidate who votes against all Democratic principals and values-- and for endless war in Iraq.

GROSS... WONKETTE FOUND SOMEONE WHO ADMITS HE HAD SEX WITH LARRY CRAIG

The picture is David Phillips who, in 1987, had a pretty revolting sexual encounter with Idaho Republican homophobe Larry Craig who, as you already know, is not gay and has never been gay. (And Bush doesn't torture-- nor, by his definition, did the Spanish Inquisition.) Anyway, read Wonkette's account.

Yesterday it came out that even before Craig was entrapped and arrested in a public toilet for trying to have sex with a cute undercover cop, he had hired a law firm (and a p.r. flack) to either sue all his ex-sex partners who were spilling the beans on him or to sue the media outlets that were beginning to investigate the reports. I guess he could have consulted them before he plead guilty to playing footsie with the cute cop, although by the time of the incident he no longer had them on retainer. He had already paid them $37,350, although I'm not certain what they did for all that money (which came out of campaign contributions).

On the weekend of November 9, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, horribly outmatched this year by their Democratic counterparts, is having a "Desperation Weekend" at Sea Island, Georgia with many of the far right's biggest financial sugar daddies. The NRSC encourages as many GOP senators to come as possible-- except one. They specifically asked Larry Craig not to show up and embarrass them further. He RSVP-ed that he'd be there.


UPDATE: THEY ARE THE BOYS

A few days ago Lucas and I put together an innocent little music clip for the Until December song "we Are the Boys" for Crooks & Liars and now people are talking about making it the theme song for the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis next year.

Maybe a (really) old joke will help us see, with "movement" conservatives, how those icky things we call disasters are really opportunities

I feel bad for poor Pete Stark, getting into such a heap of trouble for suggesting that Chimpy the Prez is sowing death and destruction "for his amusement." Oh, for shame, Congressman Pete! How dare you say such a thing?

Of course we're not supposed to say things like that. "For his amusement"? Shocking! No, no, our Chimpy has some deeply held convictions about world policy and interglobular terroration, and while we may disagree with his viewpoint, or his tactics, we must never question his motivation. "For his amusement" indeed!

Forget the apologies--whatever happened to good old-fashioned solution of having him wash his mouth out with soap?

Well, Chimpy's "amusement" seems to me a loftier explanation (and one that would at least correlate with, if not exactly explain, all the bone-chilling smirking and stomach-turning chortling he does when he shows his putrid puss in quasi-public) than the more obvious one: that he is the shame-consumed possessor of the World's Tiniest Penis, which is apparently shrinking more every day, even as we speak, to what must by now be submicroscopic invisibility, forcing our Chimpy to take the most desperate steps imaginable in the hope of one day, someday, being able to feel, even for the fleetingest of microseconds, like a real man.

But I didn't come here today to talk about that. My brain is still stuck in the groove that produced my fulminations yesterday about the role the Bush regime seems to have played in making this year's Callifornia fire season . . . well, we can't say "the most"amusing" in recent memory. How about the gaudiest? Whee! Burn, baby, burn!

Yes, I'm still stuck thinking about the "thinking" that goes into the determination of "movement" conservatives to sit by and watch disasters befall their fellow humans. And as I've thunk, I kept hearing a little voice say:

"But they don't think of them as disasters at all. Not Iraq, not Katrina, not Southern California engulfed in flames and smoke. It's more like, you know, stuff just happening."

And I kept thinking of an old joke. A really old joke. So old that I can't remember exactly how I first heard it, back in the day. So I retreated to the Joke Lab to reconstruct it.

Now, it's a little embarrassing to find oneself reconstructing a joke, especially one this old anc creaky. Which may explain how I came to produce this undeniably overstuffed version. The joke probably works better in bam-bam-bam quickfire for. And maybe if I could have remembered the quickfire version straight off, I could have let it go at that, and we would all be spared a round of pain and humiliattion.

Anyway, here it is, the reconstructed version. (Raise your hand if you've never heard any version of it:)

Three geezers are playing cards in their Miami Beach condo complex, reminiscing about their lives before retirement.

Gus says, "I owned a dress company. Did a million dollars in sales our best year, before business started to slip. Then we had a terrible fire, whole place went up in flames. Probably some disgruntled former employee. Luckily the insurance paid $250K, and I retired here."

Max says, "I was one of the biggest furriers in the city, put minks and sables on the backs of celebrities, their names would make your eyes pop out. Then all those anti-fur crazies started getting attention, really started eating into my business. Just then some nut plants a bomb in my showroom, probably a terrorist--the FBI never caught the son of a bitch--and we're wiped out. There was a half mil in insurance, but I just didn't have he heart to start over."

Sid says, "I made children's toys. Business was so good, I built a new headquarters out in the suburbs, offices and factory all under one roof. Sure, I took my son-in-law in the business, an idiot as well as a crook, but he's family, so whaddaya gonna do? Every time I thought of having him whacked, my daughter would cry, 'Daddy, he's the father of your grandchildren.' Whaddaya gonna do?Luckily business was so good--knock wood--that I was able to carry the little pisher. Then out of nowhere comes a tornado, demolishes the whole operation, and wouldn't you know it, my shithead of a son-in-law wasn't even on the premises at the time! It was a total loss except for the five mil insurance payoff. But what's money when you see everything you've built up destroyed in an hour?"

Without missing a beat--so quickly, in fact, that they actually speak at the same time--Gus and Max ask, "How do you start a tornado?"

See, the thing is, "disaster" is such a loaded term. So judgmental. Wars? Killer hurricanes? Uncontrollable wildfires? Well, bad things happen sometimes, sure, but true modern conservatives know that every cloud has a silver lining, that when one door closes, another opens. As they say George W. Bush might say, if he hasn't already, "When God gives you, uh, lemons, you . . . no, maybe oranges, you make , , , you make a 500-percent profit."

You know how they always throw numbers around, about how this or that natural disaster has done so many millions of dollars of damage? Or even a billion they're talking about in California. Well, it's gonna cost even more than that to fix the damage--or maybe not fix it, but that money's sure as shootin' gonna be spent, and that's not a disaster, it's a doggone opportunity!

Or when those terrorist-loving Democrats whine sometimes about how many trilllions of dollars we're spending in Iraq? Completely forgetting that if we're spending it, it's going into somebody's pocket, which means we're growing the economy.

And don't you think that would amuse, you know, a "CEO president"?

WILL PUTATIVE DEMOCRATS JIM MARSHALL AND GENE TAYLOR BETRAY CHILDREN AGAIN?

As I mentioned earlier, the Democratic leadership in the House, much to the chagrin of Republicans, has decided to compromise on the GOP complaints about S-CHIP and reintroduce a modified version of the bill. Hoyer has been asking the 44 or 45 Republicans who have supported the bill on their advise on how to get another dozen or so votes so that the House can present Bush with a bill that is veto-proof. Perhaps he's meeting with Gene Taylor (D-MS) and Jim Marshall (D-GA), as well. They're the only two Democrats to have voted to sustain Bush's veto.

Republicans have been barraged by calls and e-mails from constituents and several are thought to be faltering. One bitter right-winger, Ric Keller of Florida, was bitching to the Washington Post that Democrats need his vote but "don't even have the courage to ask me for it." Keller's constituents have been hearing radio ads from USAction and MoveOn about his anti-family vote. In fact the newest barrage of pro-family groups advertising is hurting several Republicans:
Marilyn Musgrave (CO)- AFSCME, USAction, MoveOn
Tim Walberg (MI)- AFSCME, USAction, MoveOn
Sam Graves (MO)- AFSCME, USAction, MoveOn
Randy Kuhl (NY)- AFSCME, USAction, MoveOn
Tom Reynolds (NY)- AFSCME
Tim Johnson (IL)- SEIU
Rodney Alexander (LA)- SEIU
Michele Bachman (MN)- SEIU
Robin Hayes (NC)- SEIU
John Peterson (PA)- SEIU
Thelma Drake (VA)- SEIU
Barbara Cubin (WY)- SEIU
Tom Feeney (FL)- USAction, MoveOn
Ric Keller (FL)- USAction, MoveOn

Nobody's advertising in Georgia or Mississippi? Hmmmm... You think we should get this one on the air? Would you chip in if we did?




UPDATE: BUSH VOWS ANOTHER VETO

Speaker Pelosi sounded very concilatory when she offered to work with Republicans to fix their main stated objections to the S-CHIP legislation Bush vetoed. Today Bush says he doesn't care what Pelsoi claims to be doing, he's got his veto pen out and ready for use.

Pelosi's main point is that the legislation, is already "supported by a bipartisan coalition, Democrats and Republicans across the country. Republican and Democratic governors support the SCHIP initiative. Every organization that you can name, from the AARP to the YWCA, and everything in between, AMA, the Catholic Hospital Association, Families First, are lobbying for the passage of this legislation." Over 70% of ordinary Americans also support it. But even though only 24% of Americans give Bush a passing grade on his job performance, he still has enough rubber stamp Republicans willing to back his every move so that he can enforce his unpopular veto down Americans' throats. And according to this afternoon's Congressional Quarterly Bush vowed another veto.

NO IMMUNITY FOR LAWBREAKING COMPANIES-- ARE YOU LISTENING, HARRY?

Last night in Iowa, far from the bright lights of the major media centers, Rudy's mask came off. He embraced the Bush Regime's torture policies. Although waterboarding was first invented by the Spanish Inquisition specifically as a form of torture, Giuliani, when asked if a president could order it even if it violates national and international laws-- which it does-- says he "isn't sure" if waterboarding could be even considered torture. A Giuliani presidency would clearly be just more Bush and, like the rest of the pathetic pygmies™ vying for the GOP presidential nomination, he lusts to embody a third George Bush term; not exactly what more than three quarters of Americans are looking for.

Right now what Americans are looking for are clear and bold repudiations of Bushism-- of the failures, lies, incompetence, greed, bigotry, dismal failures that have become the hallmarks of the worst presidency in shared memory. Democratic political leadership has too often not lived up to manifesting that clear message of repudiation. As the Bush Regime gets ready to evaporate and its members return to private life to live off their ill-gotten gains, there is a mad dash for retroactive immunity for their rampant criminality. The first of those battles is being fought out on Capitol Hill now.

Bribe-besotted senators-- shamefully, from both parties-- have conspired with the Bush Regime to grant retroactive immunity to a gaggle of wealthy telecom executives who have worked closely, albeit unconstitutionally, with the Bush Regime to eavesdrop, wiretap and spy on American citizens. Chris Dodd said he will filibuster this repulsive legislation and Joe Biden, not exactly the Senate's #1 civil libertarian, has said he will back him up, as has Russ Feingold. Yesterday, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agreed to join a filibuster if the retroactive immunity is not removed from the bill.

Today DWT joins several other bloggers, as well as the ACLU, MoveOn, Color of Change, Working Assets and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in urging Harry Reid to honor the hold Senator Dodd put on this bill which polls find Americans overwhelmingly oppose. Here's the letter we sent Senator Reid today:

Dear Senator Reid,

Senator Chris Dodd recently announced his intention to place a 'hold' on any bill coming before the Senate that includes provisions for so-called 'amnesty' for large companies involved in illegally spying on Americans, and to filibuster any such bill if necessary. We are writing to ask you use your position as Majority Leader to honor this hold and join Sen. Dodd's leadership efforts to stop legislation that would allow these companies to escape liability.

For decades, it has been against the law in the United States for companies to give data about their customers, or access to their customers' conversations, to the Government without a warrant. But it now appears that for the last five years-at least-AT&T, Verizon, and numerous other politically connected corporations have repeatedly broken the law, turning over to the Bush administration unfettered access to the telephone calls, Internet activities, and calling records of millions and millions of Americans.

As a result of this lawbreaking, their customers, along with privacy groups, have sued them in federal court, and they are making progress. One federal judge, an appointee of the first President Bush, emphatically rejected the excuse put forward by the corporate lawyers that the companies mistakenly thought that what they were doing was legal. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker wrote:

AT&T's alleged actions here violate the constitutional rights clearly established [by the U.S. Supreme Court]... AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.

These companies have now asked Congress to pass a special law asking for 'amnesty.' The law would prohibit courts from ruling on whether these companies broke the law and force the dismissal of all court proceedings against them. We know of at least one company, Qwest, that refused these illegal government requests, a factor that adds weight when considering whether these companies were 'just doing' what the government requested. The companies seeking immunity clearly chose to break the law.

Providing amnesty to lawbreaking corporations is a complete assault on the rule of law and on the basic fairness of our political system. When ordinary American citizens are accused of breaking the law, they are forced to go to court and, if the accusations are proven, they suffer the consequences. If the telecoms really did nothing wrong, they should prove that in court, like all Americans must do.

Congress has faced up to this before. In 1965, some of our nation's largest banks were found by courts to have broken our anti-trust laws and also wanted amnesty from Congress for what they did. Senator Robert F. Kennedy spoke out forcefully against this. As the New York Times reported:

He objected to the basic philosophy of retroactive immunization which, he said, might logically be applied to 'murder or any other crime.'

The rule of law is the basic guarantee in our society that all Americans are treated equally. Amnesty for big business is an assault on that principle. To grant retroactive amnesty would be to announce that our wealthiest corporations are free to break the laws we pass, and amnesty would be yet another huge step in eroding our core political principles.

When signing this letter I hope I was acting on behalf of, and in the interests of, all the regular readers at DWT. The other bloggers lending their names to this effort are Jane and Christy at FDL, John Amato at C&L, Digby, Taylor Marsh, Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Markos and McJoan at DailyKos, Matt Stoller, Mike Lux, and Chris Bowers at OpenLeft, Duncan Black at Atrios and John Aravosis at AmericaBlog. Please consider co-signing the letter yourself (as Jason just did, eloquently, at The Seminal).

If you want to go further than just co-signing, here are the phone numbers and fax numbers of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Please be polite. DO NOT, for example, call Feinstein a whore for her work on behalf of the KKK yesterday in getting Leslie Southwick confirmed-- and it would probably be a bad idea to mention what she and Thad Cochran (R-MS) may or may not have been doing in bed long ago when they were lovers.

Arlen Specter (R-PA)- (202) 224-4254      Fax (202) 228-1229
Joe Biden (D-DE)- (202) 224-5042      Fax: 202-224-0139
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)- (202) 224-5251      Fax (202) 224-6331
Patrick Leahy (Chairman) (D-VT)- (202) 224-4242      Fax (202) 224-3479
Charles Grassley (R-IA)- (202) 224-3744      Fax (515) 288-5097
Edward M. Kennedy (R-MA)- (202) 224-4543      Fax (202) 224-2417
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)- (202) 224-4521      Fax (202) 224-2207
Herbert Kohl (D-WI)- (202) 224-5653      Fax (202) 224-9787
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)- (202) 224-4124      Fax (202) 224-3149
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)- (202) 224-3841      Fax (202) 228-3954
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)- (202) 224-5972      Fax (864) 250-4322
Russell Feingold (D-WI)- (202) 224-5323      Fax (202) 224-2725
John Cornyn (R-TX)- (202) 224-2934      Fax (972) 239-2110
Charles Schumer (D-NY)- (202) 224-6542      Fax (202) 228-3027
Sam Brownback (R-KS)- (202) 224-6521      Fax (202) 228-1265
Richard Durbin (D-IL)- (202) 224-2152      Fax (202) 228-0400
Tom Coburn (R-OK)- (202) 224-5754      Fax (202) 224-6008
Benjamin Cardin (D-MD)- (202) 224-4524      Fax (202) 224-1651
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)- (202) 224-2921      Fax  (202) 228-6362

RAHM EMANUEL-- THE WRONG SPOKESPERSON FOR DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION, ON HEALTH CARE, ON TRADE... ON EVERYTHING

This morning's NY Times trumpets a new S-CHIP vote tomorrow, one that tightens eligibility requirements so as to make certain that any children whose parents are undocumented will be unable to get health care. The new bill tightens eligibility for the program, generally barring the use of federal money to cover illegal immigrants, childless adults and children of families with incomes exceeding three times the poverty level: $61,950 for a family of four. "The bill addresses all of the concerns that were expressed by our colleagues and by the president," explained Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "We hope the Republicans will take yes for an answer." Fred Upton (R-MI), one of the almost 4 dozen Republicans who voted to override Bush's veto last week, said the changes improve the bill enough to sway more Republicans. Hey, maybe they will even get reactionary Democrats Jim Marshall (GA) and Gene Taylor (MS) aboard this time.

So more compromising from Democrats on a bill so overwhelmingly favored by the public that it is probably guaranteeing that no Republican can be elected to the White House, no matter which one of the pathetic pygmies™ wins that party's worthless nomination. In fact on issue after issue, Democratic values are informing a vision of a better America. It's a shame that our own pygmies, narrow partisan hacks, refuse to embrace them and ride them to victory. Nancy Pelosi is making a strategic mistake in having the detested Rahm Emanuel publicly speaking about the S-CHIP bill. He's hated by the immigrant community, by grassroots Democrats, by progressives and by Republicans. K Street, of course, loves him (as do the worst, Machiavellian, side of the Clintons).

And let me tell you how concerned Rahm Emanuel really is about health care for children. When he found out that mentally unbalanced Republican congressman Mark Foley (FL) was molesting young pages, he forgot to go to the police-- or even to the floor of the House to denounce him. Foley was breaking into the boys' dorm after midnight, shit-faced drunk, and Rahm hightailed it down to Florida to recruit a Republican, Tim Mahoney, luring him with a very appealing prospect. He and Hoyer promised to get the pesky Democratic challenger, Dave Lutrin, out of the way if Mahoney would switch the R to a D on his registration card and run for what was bound to be a soon vacant seat. He did and the news of Foley's proclivities for young men and boys oozed out into the media, perfectly timed. [Rahm went to hide under the same rock as Denny Hastert (R-IL), John Shimkus (R-IL), Tom Reynolds (R-NY), and John Boehner (R-OH), 4 Republicans who were covering up for Foley for their own partisan reasons.]

As I mentioned Monday, Emanuel addressed a training session for a couple dozen favored Democratic candidates. Afterwards several of the candidates mentioned to me that the low-point of the weekend was Emanuel's demand that they inoculate themselves against Republican attacks on the immigration issue by "moving to the right" on that one. Many of the candidates bought right into his scare tactics. Others remembered that his scare tactics last year-- that any Democrat perceived as being against the war would lose-- were disastrous. Candidates who did buy in, like Lois Murphy, Christine Jennings, Tammy Duckworth, and Patty Madrid, lost. Candidates who ignored his out-of-touch and self-serving directives, like Carol Shea-Porter, Jerry McNerney, Bruce Braley, John Hall, and Patrick Murphy all have the word "Congressmember" before their names today.

The funny thing about Emanuel-- whose Chicago district is 25% Hispanic-- is that I doubt he really cares one or way or the other about the policy issues inherent in this far-reaching and serious debate. Sure, the NAFTA bill he helped Clinton force down Democrats' throats in Congress caused much of the problem but... that isn't Emanuel's concern. His concern is getting Democrats elected and he doesn't care what it takes. If they have to abandon Democratic values and principles... well, he doesn't have a clue what those are to begin with. He caused quite a stir when he decided to kick off his inoculation campaign in the Washington Post Tuesday, blaming Niki Tsongas' near-loss not on what a crappy, middle-of-the-road and uninspiring candidate she is but on... immigrants. Spouting Republican talking points for them, Emanuel did all he could to negate Democrats' hard-earned advantage with tens of millions of Hispanic voters. "This issue has real implications for the country. It captures all the American people's anger and frustration not only with immigration, but with the economy," he babbled mindlessly. And now he's made it a crusade. Maybe Nancy Pelosi ought to tell him what California Governor Pete Wilson's same brilliant arguments did for the GOP in California.

Yesterday Frank Sharry, head of the National Immigration Forum, hit back-- hard. Democratic candidates who want to win need to inoculate themselves from Emanuel, not from finding a reasonable and comprehensive and humane solution to the immigration problem so horribly exacerbated by Emanuel's NAFTA and Bush's complete incompetence. Emanuel may want to go pirouetting around the country spouting nonsense and stirring up ethnic hatred about how "immigration is the third rail of American politics," when, clearly, it is Rahm Emanuel and valueless Democrats like him that are the third rail of American politics. For a cowardly and craven Republican like John McCain it's a third rail; for Democrats, it's a winner.

“Rep. Emanuel threw immigrants under the bus because desperate House Republicans are planning to run nasty ads about Democrats and immigration,” Sharry said.

Sharry also compared Emanuel to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who is leading an effort to offer a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants who complete high school.

The headline of Sharry’s press release said: “Senator Dick Durbin Leads the Senate Democrats into Battle on Behalf of Immigrants. Rep. Rahm Emanuel Leads the House Democrats, Er, Nowhere.”

Comprehensive, humane, realistic immigration reform is a winner for Democrats. Rahm's path is the path to disaster at the polls. Emanuel-style immigrant bashing-- not as blatant as Tancredo's but, in effect, the same thing-- was a tremendous loser for Republicans in 2006 when commentators and pundits-- and Emanuel-- were yelling that anti-immigrant stands were smart politics. How did that turn out?

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) hit opponent Bob Casey early and late for Casey’s support for the Senate comprehensive bill passed on a bipartisan basis last May. Santorum suffered the biggest defeat of any Senate incumbent in this election cycle, losing by 18%.

Katherine Harris repeatedly invoked Senator Bill Nelson’s (D-FL) support for the Senate bill in her comeback attempt. She lost 60% - 38%.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was attacked by his opponent, Tom Kean, Jr. (R) for the Senator’s support of comprehensive immigration reform. He won going way, 53% -47%.

Senators Cantwell (D-WA) and Stabenow (D-MI) were attacked for their votes in support of allowing legalized immigrant workers to claim credit for social security taxes paid when they had been undocumented. Both won easily.

Senator Carper (D-DE) was opposed by a one-issue candidate, former INS official and noted immigration restrictionist Jan Ting. Accused of supporting “amnesty,” Carper won 70% - 29%.

In Arizona-8 Republican Randy Graf lost to Democrat Gabrielle Giffords by 54% - 42%. This was a closely watched race for a toss up district along the U.S.-Mexico border in a state in which immigration is the number one issue. Graf made the prophetic statement, "If this issue can't be won in this district [by hard-liners], the argument can be made that it can't be won anywhere in the country."

In Indiana-8, House Immigration Subcommittee Chair John Hostettler (R-IN) was one of the featured Republicans in the summer “field hearings” held by House Republicans to stir up voters on the immigration issue. He lost by a wide margin.

In Arizona-5 hard liner J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) is the author of the book “Whatever It Takes” about illegal immigration, and refused to vote for HR 4437, the controversial Sensenbrenner bill, because he thought it did not go far enough. Hayworth was upset by comprehensive reform advocate Harry Mitchell 51% - 46%. Two years earlier Hayworth won re-election by 21 points.

In Colorado-7, the race featured hard liner Republican Rick O’Donnell trying to replace another Republican, Bob Beauprez who vacated the seat to run for governor. O’Donnell was featured in a front page New York Times article arguing that immigration was the biggest issue in his district and that his views were much more popular than those of his comprehensive reform advocate opponent, Democrat Ed Perlmutter. Perlmutter won 54% - 42%.

In Arizona incumbent and Democrat Janet Napolitano, an early proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, was attacked repeatedly by her opponent Len Munsil for being soft on illegal immigration. He proposed a half a billion dollar border security initiative as his signature issue. Napolitano won 63% - 35%.

In Colorado Republican Bob Beauprez staked his campaign on attacking his Democratic opponent, Bill Ritter, for being soft on illegal immigration. He lost 56% - 41%.

In numerous states Democratic incumbents and candidates came under fire from their opponents for being soft on illegal immigration and for supporting in-state tuition for undocumented students. In every case – Kansas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Maryland – the pro-immigrant candidate won and the attacker lost.

In California, Arnold Schwarzenegger took a different tack from many in his party. He moved to the center on immigration: he stopped applauding the Minutemen, he apologized for his support of Proposition 187 in the past, he dragged his feet on approving the deployment of his state’s National Guard for border duty, and loudly criticized the Republican Congress for not moving on comprehensive immigration reform. He was rewarded with a huge victory that included 39% of the state’s large group of Latino voters.

So much for the conventional wisdom that being for comprehensive reform would turn out to be a loser and that being a hard line hawk would be a winner.

Senator Durbin and Emanuel are both from Illinois. Durbin is a thoughtful statesman; Emanuel is a disgraceful hack. Watch this video of Durbin attacking Tom Tancredo's bigotry and hatred but very consciously not mentioning Emanuel at all. And Tuesday night Emanuel's diktat to Democratic candidate's spilled over into the campaign to replace Denny Hastert in IL-14. Emanuel's sorry shill in the race is a reactionary multimillionaire Blue Dog, Bill Foster, who was invited to attend last weekend's session and, predictably and enthusiastically, embraced Emanuel's demand that Democrats move to the right on immigration. A local reporter at the campaign's first debate highlighted the different approaches.

They disagreed on immigration reform, with Bill Foster [the Blue Dog] promoting a national identification card so the U.S. can "remain a nation of laws," John Laesch calling for a "more humanitarian stance," and Jotham Stein calling for a "path to citizenship" for the millions of illegal immigrants already here.

"I disagree that we are a nation of laws. I think that we are a nation of hope," said Laesch, holding a rolled-up copy of the U.S. Constitution.

Throughout the night, Laesch's comments drew the most applause from the crowd.

UPDATE: EMANUEL FOR VP?

I guess if Hillary really wanted to think of the very best way to ensure a Republican victory she could do what that silly, clueless Safire just predicted on Meet the Press and name Emanuel her VP nominee. But since she actually wants to win the presidency, my bet is that Safire, as usual, doesn't have any idea what he's talking about when he ventures outside of the realm of grammar. I think Safire has lost his mind, poor man. He's even come up with a Hillary and Rahm bumpersticker: Invade & Bomb with Hillary & Rahm. Don't hold your breath-- unless you're a right-wnger; then, by all means... be my guest.

ONE MORE TIME-- HOW MUCH RESPONSIBILITY DOES BUSH-STYLE REPUBLICANISM BEAR FOR THE CATASTROPHE IN CALIFORNIA THIS WEEK?

Driving home from a long overdue dash to accomplish a boatload of chores-- everything from buying a new spare tire and a new printer/fax and getting a visa for India to stocking up on antioxident-rich fresh berries for my morning shakes-- I heard an extraordinary interview on the radio. It was with a former Southern California fire chief. I've been looking everywhere online for a transcript but, with no recollection of his name, have had no luck. Basically he explained how badly government, primarily Republican-led government, has let us down. He also pointed out that when San Diego County voters were asked to approve taxes to build new fire prevention infrastructure, they ran in the other direction.

A friend of mine in San Diego just sent me an AP story about another Southern California fire chief, Chip Prather of Orange County.

Unable to slow, much less stop, many of the wildfires that have charred Southern California, some local officials lashed out Tuesday at what they described as state authorities who offered inadequate help and seemed unprepared for a foreseeable disaster.

Most blistering in his critique was the head of Orange County's fire authority, who said a quick deployment of aircraft could have corralled the massive blaze his crews were fighting near heavily populated Irvine.

"It is an absolute fact, had we had more air resources we would have been able to control this fire," Chief Chip Prather told reporters.

His remarks came shortly before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the rapid deployment of fire crews and equipment across a region where 16 wind-stoked fires were scattered over an area larger than some states. The blazes destroyed nearly 1,300 homes and forced the largest mass evacuation in California history.

Prather said that a dozen firefighters' lives were threatened at one point because too few crews were on the ground. It was not an isolated problem, he suggested, saying the bigger issue was the lack of an overarching scheme to attack several large fires at once.

"What we need to have is a national strategy and a state strategy," he said.

He sounds very much like the fire chief I heard on the radio. They're both victims-- we are all victims-- or the Grover Norquist philosophy of drowning government in a bathtub, the paramount domestic policy of the Bush Regime. The radio guy talked a lot about the blue ribbon panel outgoing Governor Davis and incoming Governor Schwarzenegger put together after the 2003 wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 2 dozen people. The panel made dozens of recommendations-- man of which Schwarzenegger ignored, much to the detriment of the families losing their homes this week.

Tomorrow's NY Times brings the California debate national. "Questions were being raised about how the fight against the fires had been coordinated, how resources had been deployed and whether Southern California had become smarter after the 2003 fires that ripped the region and its psyche..."

Some fire chiefs and elected officials said that they were angry with the state government for not adopting recommendations made by a blue-ribbon panel after the fires in 2003, in particular those that called for more firefighting equipment.

“There were a lot of calls for equipment and resources,” said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, who represents a district in Orange County. “When you have a finite amount of resources, you have to prioritize life and property first, and so we didn’t get water dropping until we started to lose structures.”

The fires of October 2007 have sharpened questions about the costs of protecting the increasing numbers of people who live in remote and highly flammable areas, reawakened old jealousies that simmer across Southern California and forced new examination of the tension between the need for local emergency services and the willingness to pay for them.

San Diego County, the largest county in California without a fire department, relies on a hodgepodge of local departments that are almost all serving areas where populations are growing faster than their tax bases, and which are often low on money among a constituency that is generally allergic to taxes.

Norquist, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, the whole Republican Party have taught these people very well how unnecessary governement, and the hated taxes that make government effective, are. I hope you read how Ken dealt with this same topic this afternoon. If you haven't had a chance to get to it yet, I strongly recommend that you do. Ken is brief and to the point and ends with two damning paragraphs that bear repeating:

I don't even recall which of the Bush-regime-inspired catastrophes Paul Krugman was commenting on last week on Countdown when Keith Olbermann pressed him for some glimmering of why, and he noted that the right-wing loonies--uh, my phrase, not his--just go crazy over any suggestion that people have any responsibility to help one another. It just drives them nuts. And no one has argued more persuasively than Krugman that one of the central missions of this administration has been to prove that government is truly incompetent to deal with problems, even (or especially) problems that have been attacked with success in the past by honest and competent government officials. (Remember the Clinton-era FEMA that was widely admired for its commitment to emergency preparedness?)

Couple this fundamental underlying psychosis with that other great philosophical underpinning of modern "conservative" government--that government exists for the purpose of helping its friends, cronies, and cash contributors steal every dollar that isn't nailed down--and you've got, well, the same old same old.

UPDATE: HOLD THE PRESSES... IT'S NOT BUSH'S FAULT

Fox News has made up a story that bin-Laden set the fires. There you go; we should have known.

There's probably something that can't be blamed on the Bush regime's slash-and-burn philosophy of governing, but inadequate fire preparedness isn't it

Howie has already called attention below to Michael Roston's Huffpost report citing the recent GAO report on inadequate government preparation for this and future fire seasons.

No, the ideological sociopaths and profiteering thugs of the regime didn't cause the Southern California fires, any more than they caused Hurricane Katrina. What they did was make sure that governmental resources were sufficiently mismanaged, with the usual heavy doses of politicizing and privatizing, to set the stage for catastrophe.

We could probably all have written the outlines of this story, but Michael has filled in the blanks:

In a June report, the GAO report faulted the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, and other agencies for failing to accomplish the "fundamental step" of planning out what assets and resources were needed to prepare for approaching fire seasons. Meanwhile, disaster response problems that have become all too familiar in recent years were also identified: administration officials placing resources where they were politically expedient, and using poorly performing contractors to accomplish critical national tasks.

"If you don't have goals and strategies for carrying them out, you're in a reactive mode rather than a proactive mode," Robin Nazarro, director of GAO's Natural Resources and Environment program and lead author of the report, told HuffPost. "They say they are using 5 to 10 year averages, but each year the fires gets worse, so they're always underestimating what they need."

You should read the whole report, but it's creepily more of the same old same old. Incompetent don't-give-a-damn planning, with large-scale siphoning off of tax dollars to "national contractors" who one supposes will turn out to be another set of the usual disaster-profiteering regime cronies.

I don't even recall which of the Bush-regime-inspired catastrophes Paul Krugman was commenting on last week on Countdown when Keith Olbermann pressed him for some glimmering of why, and he noted that the right-wing loonies--uh, my phrase, not his--just go crazy over any suggestion that people have any responsibility to help one another. It just drives them nuts. And no one has argued more persuasively than Krugman that one of the central missions of this administration has been to prove that government is truly incompetent to deal with problems, even (or especially) problems that have been attacked with success in the past by honest and competent government officials. (Remember the Clinton-era FEMA that was widely admired for its commitment to emergency preparedness?)

Couple this fundamental underlying psychosis with that other great philosophical underpinning of modern "conservative" government--that government exists for the purpose of helping its friends, cronies, and cash contributors steal every dollar that isn't nailed down--and you've got, well, the same old same old.

WHILE CALIFORNIA BURNS, BUSH FIDDLES AND GIULIANI PLANS TO DILUTE THE STATE'S ELECTORAL VOTES... AGAIN

Raging wildfires have forced over half a million 900,000 Californians to evacuate their homes. But while the southern part of the state burns-- and while CNN anchor Glenn Beck revels in the thought that liberals and others he disagrees with politically are losing their homes to fires-- Giuliani and his partisan allies are back again trying to dilute California's electoral power.

By Tuesday, more than 400 square miles in seven counties had been consumed by some 16 fires, flames fueled by high desert winds and hot temperatures that remained largely impervious to air attacks, garden hoses, fire retardant or prayers for relief.

The authorities said the blazes, raging from the Simi Valley northwest of Los Angeles to the Mexican border, were responsible for two deaths, and possibly five others. At least 25 firefighters and civilians were reported to have suffered burns.

By late Tuesday, the fires had consumed well over 1,000 homes and commercial structures, with the authorities reporting that 68,500 homes remained threatened. At least 500,000 people were estimated to have evacuated and thousands more had been ordered to move, making the evacuation effort roughly half the size of that from the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina. The authorities said firefighters were overwhelmed as new blazes sparked and existing ones thrashed in new directions, impeding efforts to focus energy and resources. By midday, a new fire began in San Diego County even as fires elsewhere became partially contained.

Before I get into Giuliano's attempt to screw with California's electoral votes while peoples' atttention is focused elsewhere, I have something to say about an even lower-life piece of crap Republican, xenophobic maniac and vicious nazi hatemonger Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who "alerted federal officials Tuesday to an event that he said would be attended by 'several illegal aliens.'”  The event that the mentally unbalanced and hysterical Tancredo went running to the police about was a "Dream Act"  Senate staff briefing attended by Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) and several students who were asked to testify.I wonder if Tancredo also called the police on the "60 Mexican firefighters from the border cities of Tijuana and Tecate [who] crossed into the United States on Sunday to help fight the fires."

Now to the foul Giuliani. Last month we reported that Giuliani's nefarious plot to steal the presidential election by screwing with the California electoral system had been uncovered and the culprits had slinked away in shame. They're back!

When the Californians are busy putting out fires, Giuliani's team is re-starting them. The most thorough explanation of what exactly they are up to was written yesterday by Frank Russo in the California Progress Report.

In a scene reminiscent of a grade B horror movie, a new set of characters have taken over the effort to put on the June ballot a change to California's award of Electoral College votes so they can win in June what they know they cannot win in November. Why they would be doing this for a measure that polls at 25% support and has been lambasted as a naked partisan power grab by newspapers up and down the state (including the Orange County Register!) is just one of the questions. It smacks of desperation--and a number of roads continue to lead back to Rudy Giuliani--who denies any connection with this.

Again, they refuse to divulge who is pouring the millions of dollars into the state to try to hijack the election, an effort that will lose badly and "further brand the Republicans as last in war, last in disaster relief and first in election fraud." If you want the definitive story and every in and out, read Russo's powerful piece. A simplified version is available from the L.A. Times, which makes the point that the effort is being led by GOP slimebuckets who have shadowy connections to both Bush and Giuliani-- David Gilliard, Ed Rollins, Anne Dunsmore, and Mike Arno. "Until recently, Dunsmore oversaw fundraising for Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign."

Oh, and one more thing about the fires: Bush didn't set them any more than he caused Katrina to drown New Orleans. His venal and incompetent regime-- and the philosophical premises they're run on (if you want to dignify concepts like "greed," "selfishness," bigotry," etc that way)-- made bad matters much worse. Just a few months ago the G.A.O. warned the Regime this was bound to happen and Bush's response to the warning was identical to his response to when he was warned that bin-Laden would attack New York and when he was warned Katrina was about to devastate the Gulf Coast. He buried his head... in the sand.

FORGET THE MORE AND BETTER-- WE JUST NEED BETTER DEMOCRATS-- SOUTHWICK CONFIRMED THANKS TO FEINSTEIN AND OTHER REACTIONARY DEMS

I felt sick this morning when I saw the Republican minority invoke cloture on the attempt by progressives to deny Bush's latest KKK judicial nominee confirmation. Yesterday I warned that Judas goat Ben Nelson was working with Trent Lott in rounding up the votes to thwart the progressive strategy. Thanks to Diane Feinstein (D-CA), he succeeded.

Judith Schaeffer, Legal Director of People For the American Way just summed up with the wretched and useless Senate Democrats just inflicted on the American people:

“Following the 2006 election, President Bush pledged to move ahead in a cooperative and bipartisan manner. But mere days after the new Congress was sworn in, he submitted the controversial nomination of Leslie Southwick.”
 
“Southwick’s disturbing legal recordand lack of commitment to equality before the law make him unfit for a powerful lifetime seat on the federal bench. We are deeply disappointed in the Senate Democrats who acquiesced to the President today on Southwick’s nomination.
 
“That’s not what Americans voted for when they gave Democrats a majority in the Senate. Senate Democrats must hold the President to his 2006 pledge of bipartisanship and cooperation by rejecting nominees who fail to interpret the law fairly for all Americans.”

The win today is being cheered by reactionaries, homophobes, Republican partisans, corporate interests, and racists as a huge victory. After the Republicans passed cloture to shut down debate 62-35, Southwick sailed to victory 59-38. So who were the Democrats who screwed us, Democrats who every progressive should do all they can to defeat?
Well, of course, first and foremost is the horrific and utterly corrupt and contemptible Dianne Feinstein, without whose connivance, Southwick would still be bottled up in committee hearings. And then of course, there's Bush's point man inside the Democratic caucus, Ben Nelson. The full list of Democrats who officially joined the GOP for the day:

Daniel Akaka (HI)
former KKK member (who could he abandon a brother in arms?), Robert Byrd (WV)
Tom Carper (DE)
Kent Conrad (ND)
Byron Dorgan (ND)
DiFi (CA)
Daniel Inouye (HI)
Tim Johnson (SD)- glad you were praying for him? did you send money too?
Blanche Lincoln (AR)
Ben Nelson (NE)
Mark Pryor (AR)
Ken Salazar (CO)

BIZARRE UPDATE D'JOUR: AND I ALWAYS THOUGHT COCHRAN WAS A HOMO

A reliable friend in Mississippi just wrote to me to give me a little context for DiFi's work on behalf of the new KKK judge. She did it for her ex-boy friend, Thad Cochran! Huh? Yeah, that's what I said-- DiFi and Cochran were actually an item at one time and she engineered a lifetime appointment for one of the worst judges imaginable, even from Bush, for her ex. As for the long-standing rumors about Cochran and the boys, he told me he didn't know anything about that but perhaps I was mixing him up with someone named Haley.


AND A NOT AT ALL BIZARRE UPDATE: REP. BARBARA LEE IS ASHAMED OF HER U.S. SENATOR-- WHO ISN'T?

Congresswoman Lee: "Let me also say that as a Californian and as an African American, I am incredibly disappointed that a Senator from my home state, Senator Feinstein, would not only vote for confirmation but would be the one to effectively bring this nomination to the floor by voting with the Republicans to approve the nomination in committee. It is particularly disappointing given California's diversity and our history of leadership on issues of civil rights, women's rights, worker's rights and the basic commitment to equality before the law, all areas where Judge Southwick's record is, quite frankly, sadly
lacking."

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HILLARY AND OBAMA? WHY CAN'T EITHER OF THEM JUST ANSWER A STRAIGHT FORWARD QUESTION?

Yesterday Chris Dodd came over to Firedoglake to talk with the community about his plans to oppose-- really oppose-- the heinous plans worked out between Bush and a gaggle of bought-off senatorial whores to grant retroactive immunity to top executives/campaign contributors at telecom conglomerates who cooperated, illegally, with Bush on spying on American citizens. You can watch Senator Dodd on this video:



Polling shows that "a majority of likely voters in the U.S. oppose giving immunity to telephone companies who sold customer information to the government." Although 31% of Americans are fine with all the wiretapping that Bush wants to do and all the retroactive immunity the regime wants to grant its lackeys, "according to the ACLU survey of 1,000 likely voters, 59% were either opposed or strongly opposed to the idea of giving companies that sold such information to the government civil or criminal immunity, even if that information was used to 'investigate terrorism.'"

You may already have gotten an e-mail from MoveOn yesterday asking you to consider signing a petition to congressmembers urging them to oppose immunity. It's really important that senators absolutely refuse, the way Dodd, Feingold and even Biden, have said they will, to sanction Bush's demands for immunity-- any immunity. After Bush's fingers off over the levers of power, Americans are going to expect a great deal more accountability than has ever been seen before in terms of a former administration. There is no place for immunity for any Bush cronies or their allies. Don't the Democrats ever learn?

I've seen two statements from Democratic front-runners Hillary and Obama. Hillary first:

"I am troubled by the concerns that have been raised by the recent legislation reported out of the Intelligence Committee. I haven't seen it so I can't express an opinion about it. But I don't trust the Bush Administration with our civil rights and liberties. So I'm going to study it very hard. As matters stand now, I could not support it and I would support a filibuster absent additional information coming forward that would convince me differently."

What the hell does that mean? Is Dodd, Feingold and Biden are filibustering Bush's attempt to retroactivley immunize executives who have helped him make a sham out of the Constitution. Where does Hillary stand? Is she committing to a filibuster? I read her statement a dozen times and I still don't know. I read Biden's and Feingold's and Dodd's and I do know.

Obama had a spokesperson send out a carefully hedged statement that says "if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form [whatever that means; bill's never come to the floor it their "current" form] he would support a filibuster of it." Since then he released an even more hedged statement:

"I have consistently opposed this Administration's efforts to use debates about our national security to expand its own power, whether that was on the Iraq war, or on its power grab to curb our civil liberties through domestic surveillance programs. It is time to restore oversight and accountability in the FISA program, and this proposal-- with an unprecedented grant of retroactive immunity-- is not the place to start."

Jesus Christ... has he been hanging around with the wrong people or something? Or just paying too much attention to the way Hillary doesn't commit to answering a straight forward question?

All Americans are asking them to do is agree to what Dodd, Biden and Feingold agreed to-- filibuster any bill with any retroactive immunity for any telecoms that did anything illegal? How hard is that? Are they on our side or the side, ultimately, of the big money interests that have turned Democrats like Jay Rockefeller into useless, pitiful whores? Didn't Obama accuse Hillary of being that already. What is he doing-- trying to follow suit... already? Maybe you'll have better luck asking than the rest of us. Here are there phone numbers. Ask them-- as well as your own senators-- to oppose amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms:

Hillary- 703-469-2008 (or her Senate office: 202-224-4451

Obama- 866-675-2008 (his Senate office: 202-224-2854

Call 'em. I can't guarantee, of course, that the telecoms aren't tapping... so be polite.


UPDATE: BLOGGERS ARE ASKING HILLARY AND OBAMA TO TAKE A STAND

Many of my favorite bloggers have started asking the same questions-- although I guess most of them are more polite than I am. Damn, why am I such a jerk? I need to spend more time on the phone with Christine Pelosi; she is such a good influence on my better side. Maybe I can take that training of hers. Does that make you a nicer person? Anyway... Jane, as always, is brilliant and the picture of diplomatic sweetness. And Atrios-- right to the point, just as you'd expect. John Amato must be really worked up because he's done an opus instead of a normal Crooks & Liars paragraph. Glenn Greenwald, wraps it all up nicely in a neat pacakge-- with a lovely ribbon (over at Salon). And Matt at OpenLeft is very concise and very precise. I can't wait to see if Digby weighs in on this. I bet she does.

MINI-UPDATE: Digby's been busy over at Common Sense explaining why Democrats never fight back effectively. But she rushed back to her own site and-- POW!-- laid out an incredibly well-reasoned piece about why we need an paddle-- Not A Tough Call. Also well worth reading: Taylor Marsh and Ian Welsh.


UPDATE: OBAMA GETS CLEAR

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

OK, was that so damn hard? Hill?


UPDATE: AND AT THE END OF THE DAY?

A big thank you to Chris Dodd, doing what a real Democrat should be doing! Tomorrow, we'll try to get an answer out of Harry Reid

IS ROMNEY BUYING OFF EVANGELICAL MINISTERS? AND WHEN THEY RETRACT THEIR ENDORSEMENTS, DO THEY GIVE BACK THE MONEY?

Odd how some of the most bigoted of the religionist right fanatics-- the ones who have taught their sheeplike flocks to hate and detest and fear Mormons (and anyone else classified as an "other")-- have endorsed Mitt Romney. Why? Well, for one thing Romney's long and well-documented public career proves conclusively that he is a man with absolutely no moral foundation. The sobriquet "Flip Flop Mitt" hardly begins to describe how completely undependable he is and has always been on issues the religionist right sees as black and white. And for another thing, these same kooks teach, very specifically, that Romney is not a Christian but a member of a dangerous cult. And yet...

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has been embraced in a most unlikely place: at Bob Jones University, the influential Christian college that teaches that his Mormon church is a cult.

Religionist loonies in the South are turning to Romney in despair after looking at the rest of the pygmies™. Bob Jones III and Robert Taylor, two of the fuehrers at Bob Jones Buy Bull College have endorsed him, as has Don Wilton, ex-president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and John Wilke ex-president of the National Right to Life Committee. So far every victory Romney has had is one he's written a big check for. Is he bribing these religionist rascals? Many think so.

In fact, one of the loons, Wilton, has just officially withdrawn his endorsement, calling it a "personal error." Although Romney has been trumpeting his successful seduction of Wilton all over the Buy Bull Belt he has now agreed to cease and desist making any reference to the mistaken endorsement. Does he have to return the money?

Wilton says he only sold gave Full O'Mitt the right to publicize the endorsement locally, once Romney-- who, characteristically, wanting his money's worth-- blabbed it all over the country, he endangered the tax-free empire the good Reverend Wilton has built for himself as "pastor" of the First Baptist megachurch in Spartanburg.

A Republican activist who teaches political science at Clemson University, Dave Woodard, says Romney is getting the religionist endorsements for another reason than payoffs. "They just realized that he's the best of a bad lot." Woodard is betting that for all the millions and millions of dollars Romney has spent trying to buy votes and endorsements in backwards areas of South Carolina, Frederick of Hollywood will win the primary there anyway, something that will effectively end Romney's costly but long-shot campaign.

Data from three recent AP-Ipsos polls showed that among born-again Christians, 22 percent said they'd vote for Thompson, 17 percent for Giuliani and 13 percent for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Romney was at 8 percent, essentially tied with Huckabee, who had 9 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had 8 percent.

At that rate, Romney could spend a billion dollars and still lose the GOP nomination battle.

WILL REPUBLICANS NOMINATE A CANDIDATE WHO CONDONES CHILD MOLESTING PRIESTS? WHY NOT? 24% OF THEM STILL ADMIRE GEORGE BUSH

Would Placa be Rudy's Head of HHS?

Ahh... finally the mainstream media is picking up on the Alan Placa story we've been trying to get out there since last spring. ABC-TV even has a video out using one of DWT's important themes, that Giuliani is unable to ever hire any decent people to work with. If he isn't hiring mafia criminals, cocaine dealers, whoremongers and closet queens, he's not letting go of a child molester, one of his closest friends and business associates.

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

That's Placa-- the guy who does something official at every Giuliani wedding and who now works at Giuliani Partners.

The ABC-TV report is way better but they don't share with blogs so either go to this link and watch it or look at this far less encompassing version:

BEN NELSON UP TO HIS OLD TRICKS AGAIN-- AND BUSH'S

Without the efforts of Nelson, Alito wouldn't be on the Supreme Court

I don't recall any netroots or grassroots activists making a stink last year when the absolute worst and most reactionary Democrat in the Senate was up for re-election. No, I'm not talking about Joe Lieberman. First of all he's a member of the CFL (Connecticut For Lieberman Party, not the Democratic Party). And secondly, compared to Ben Nelson (D-NE), Lieberman almost looks... well... looks less reactionary. Nelson's lifetime voting score at Progressive Punch is a dismal 50.28, showing he votes as much with the Bush Regime on their toxic agenda as he does with Democrats. But no one said boo and he was re-elected with much less fuss than he's earned. We'll have another 6 years of this reactionary butthead undermining progressive values every step of the way.

Today he is scurrying around the Senate like a rat trying to gather the votes to close down a Democratic filibuster on Bush's Southwick nomination, a vote expected tomorrow. Today's Congressional Quarterly reports that he is "working behind the scenes to line up enough Democrats to force a confirmation vote on a contentious appellate court nominee, while winning concessions from Republicans in return." He's coordinating efforts with Trent Lott (R-MS) and two Democrats who are rumored to favor the KKK candidate, Ken Salazar (CO) and Robert Byrd (WV).

Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson is trying to corral at least 11 Democrats and nine Republicans for a deal that would in some ways echo the “Gang of 14” effort that averted a Senate implosion over judicial nominations in 2005. This time, though, Nelson has broadened his effort.

Nelson is trying to persuade Democrats to vote against a filibuster of the nomination of Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. But he also wants Republicans to agree, in return, that they will not stand in the way of Senate action on fiscal 2008 spending bills.

Another putative Democrat, Mark Pryor (AR), whose voting record is nearly as bad as Nelson's-- and who is up for re-election in 2008-- has already announced he will be voting to shut down the debate so Bush's latest and perhaps worst judicial nominee can be confirmed.

GOOD NEWS FOR PROGRESSIVES IN SENATE RACES IN VIRGINIA AND TEXAS

Texas Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator, Rick Noriega and family

Although polls show that moderate Democrat Mark Warner will wipe the floor with either mainstream conservative Tom Davis or far right radical Jim Gilmore in the 2008 Virginia senate race, Davis' decision to not run-- while probably depriving Democrats of his House seat-- cedes the vast political center and will help Democrats up and down the ticket.

It was inevitable that Davis would drop out as soon as it was announced that the GOP would forgo a primary to pick a nominee and opt for a convention dominated by the kinds of extremists and neo-fascists who have run the Virginia Republican Party into the ground in the last few years.

Much more important news comes from Texas, where the Democratic insider/establishment candidate, multimillionaire Mikal Watts, has decided to give up his senseless and divisive bid for a chance to face radical right extremist John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate race next year. Blue America-endorsed Rick Noriega has been, despite Watts' gargantuan spending, the far and away favorite of the Texas grassroots. The Burnt Orange Report carries a statement from Watts and we just got an official statement from Rick Noriega's campaign:

I received a call from Mikal Watts this morning informing me that he has decided to withdraw from the Democratic Primary race for the United States Senate.

As Teddy Roosevelt once said, the credit goes to the man in the arena. And Mikal Watts will always have my utmost respect for standing in the arena and highlighting how John Cornyn has let Texas down, placing political extremists and his financial contributors ahead of the people of Texas.

Of course, this is not the first time Mikal has been in the arena-- he's been a true friend to Democrats in Texas and throughout the nation, and has always had the courage to stand up for his convictions.

Today, Mikal made a very difficult and personal decision to put his family first. That's a reflection of a strong character and a truly grounded leader.

Mikal and I made plans to sit down together in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'll continue the campaign that we started together and fight for the vision for a better Texas that we continue to share.

This is great news for Texas Democrats who will be able to rally around Noriega and present the pathetic and ultra-reactionary junior senator a united front. This will be a very tough race in a very Republican state, but could well be the icing on the cake of a huge national repudiation of right-wing Republican policies over the past 7 years. If you want to congratulate Rick, consider a contribution to his campaign fund today.


UPDATE: MORE BAD NEWS FOR REPUBLICROOKS-- ALASKA

Virginia and Texas might be joined by another "red" state in electing a Democrat to the U.S. Senate, as corrupt senior senator Ted Stevens' disgraceful career continues to crash and burn. And Democrats in the state have been busy reminding Alaskans what kind of a crook the state has representing them in Washington. Today a really great new resource for Stevens watchers was launched, RetireTed.com. Worth a visit, if just for the fantastic artwork.

REPUBLICAN HYPOCRITES FAIL IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO FORCE CONGRESS TO CONDEMN PETE STARK

In another blatant maneuver to get the nation's eye off the ball, Republican obstructionists in the House forced a vote on condemning California Congressman Pete Stark. Aside from being a colossal waste of Congress' time, this blatant show of Republican partisan hypocrisy was an opportunity for Americans to see the minority party at its sickest and most pathetic. Not a single Republican voted for the motion to table this embarrassing resolution. The motion to table (kill) John Boehner's attempt to bring further disrepute to Congress passed 196-173.

You might be interested in knowing that 5 Democrats voted with the Republicans on condemning Rep Stark and another 8-- mostly reflexive reactionaries-- voted "Present," refusing to come to Stark's defense. You can probably guess the names of the disgraceful 13 Democrats. But just in case... the 5 who voted-- as they so often do-- with the GOP:

Jason Altmire (PA), still not kicked off the DCCC Front Line list
Chris Carney (PA), still not kicked off the DCCC Front Line list
Joe Donnelly (IN), still not kicked off the DCCC Front Line list
Brad Ellsworth (IN), still not kicked off the DCCC Front Line list
Heath Shuler (NC), still not kicked off the DCCC Front Line list

The 5 worst freshmen, none of whom have earned support from Democrats for re-election, these are the guys who consistently support the Bush Regime agenda inside the Democratic caucus. The 8 who insultingly voted "present," are 6 Bush-Dems and two progressives (Dave Loebsack of Iowa and Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri) who probably had their own crazy reasons for their bizarre votes, although in the context of their entire records should just get a role of the eyes and a pass on this. The other 6 are:

Dan Boren (OK)
Lincoln Davis (TN)
Baron Hill (IN)
Tim Mahoney (FL), still not kicked off the DCCC Front Line list
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Dennis Moore (KS)

After the censure resolution was defeated, Congressman Stark made a dignified apology to those who were offended by his remarks and asked the House to get back to the serious busienss of getting S-CHIP approved (Thanks to TPM for the clip.)




UPDATE FROM JANE

A Firedoglake reader called Stark's office to complain about the apology. "The person answering the phone told me that Stark had no choice;  Stark was told before the vote was taken that should he not apologize, the vote to censure would pass.  According to his office, that is the only reason he apologized." Anyone want to guess who forced one of the best congressmen in America to humiliate himself and put himself on a level with someone like Mean Jean Schmidt? Was in Rahm? Hoyer? Madam Off the Table? I may have just seen a hint. CongressDaily: "Majority Leader Hoyer today said Stark's apology was 'appropriate.'"

Quote of the day: If you've ever wondered how Steve Martin's, er, distinctive mind came to be, um, the way it is, you must read "In the Bird Cage"

Steve Martin has one of the more free-wheeling, unboxed imaginations on the planet. True, what comes out of it often seems scatter-shot, but perhaps that's the point, or part of it--except that "scatter-shot" suggests something less carefully planned than I suspect is usually the case.

If you've ever wondered how a mind like this develops its particular cast, there's a wealth of information in an excerpt from Martin's forthcoming memoir, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life, in this week's New Yorker. Called "In the Bird Cage," the excerpt recalls the formative period of his late teens and early 20s, in the '60s, which includes three years working in a ramshackle theater at Knotts Berry Farm called the Bird Cage.

(The piece itself doesn't seem to be available on the magazine's website, but there is a five-minute audio clip of Martin reading from the book.)

Not surprisingly, the piece is impossible to pigeonhole, being by turns witty, nostalgic, wacky, introspective, charming, and cosmic--sometimes even all at once. With a rather surprising ending, it certainly gives me, at least, the feeling of something important having been shared.

I don't say that the following anecdote is at all representative, but I do say that the punch line it builds to (yes, it's an anecdote with a punch line, though it's a more or less thrown-away one) is almost impossible to imagine coming out of anyone else's mouth. I recognize that there are people who won't even crack a smile. It blew me away.

We're near the end of the period of Martin's life under discussion, and he has struck up an acquaintance with Melissa ("Mitzi") Trumbo, daughter of the formerly blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo [left]. Martin describes with grace and more than a little wonder the world he came to see in the Trumbo house, Mitzi's father having been one of the luckier of the Holllywood Ten in that, after a number of fairly desperate years, he was able to resume his career. ("Trumbo had a patriarchal delivery whether he was on a rant or discussing art or slinging wit, but nothing he said was elitist--though I do remember him saying, as he spread his arms to indicate the china and silver serving ladies, 'Admittedly, we do live well.'")

During Martin's time with Mitzi, her father wrote the screenplay for The Fixer, which would star Alan Bates. ("One afternoon, on the way to the Trumbo house, Mitzi warned me, 'Pop's in a bad mood today. He's got a screenplay due in four days and he hasn't started it yet.'") At that point Mitzi "was whisked off to Budapest" by her father to accompany him during the making of the film.

After I'd received several charming letters from her and then noticed a lag in the regularity of their arrival, Mitzi sent me a gentle and direct Dear John letter. She had been swept away by the director John Frankenheimer [right], who, twenty years later, tried and failed to seduce my then wife, Victoria Tennant, whom he was directing in a movie. Mitzi was simply too alluring to be left alone in a foreign country, and I was too hormonal to be left alone in Hollywood. Incidentally, Frankenheimer died a few years ago, but it was not I who killed him.

DO INSIDE THE BELTWAY DEMOCRATS KNOW HOW TO JUST SAY NO?

Sure they do. They know how to tell their own grassroots that there will be no impeachment charges of the monstrosity that infests the White House, the gunk on the soles of our shoes the thought of whom would have probably made the Founding Fathers give up and remain a colony of Great Britain. They know how to elect leaders vote counters like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer who work behind the scenes to make it look like congressional Democrats are trying to enact progressive values without ever quite getting to them. They certainly know how to say no to the meaningful campaign finance reform that would separate them from their money-based power.

But on top of the hapless McCain's completely ingenuous suggestion that all the Republicans need is 8 more months, today's question is, can Democrats say no to the Bush Regime's latest demands for more money for further occupation of Iraq, a policy the vast majority of Americans reject? Today's Washington Post writes it up like a game. "Bush challenged Congress to another clash over the direction of the Iraq war yesterday as he asked for $46 billion more to pay for overseas military operations and insisted that they approve it by the end of the year." That makes $196 billion this year. Take that!

And they will. That's all they can do? And why? We may have been wrong about the "more and better Democrats" theme. It's all about "the better." More like this crew we don't need. More like this crew will get us more of what this crew has been dishing out. There isn't a single Republican in either House of Congress fit to be re-elected. I can't say off hand how many Democrats are. You might ask yourself if your own congresscritter is a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus or if they have signed the letter to Bush saying they wouldn't vote for one more cent for Iraq above the money needed to bring out troops home safely and in an orderly fashion.

"Democrats," declared the Post "vowed not to rubber-stamp the request and indicated that they will disregard Bush's holiday deadline, holding off any action until next year as they debate a new strategy to counter his leadership on the war." Yawn. Is that what it comes to? Giving him the money between Thanksgiving and Christmas or giving it to him after New Years? At the current rate Bush is spending it "war appropriations could reach $1 trillion by the time Bush leaves office, a total that by some measures would exceed the cost of the Korean and Vietnam wars combined."

The Democrats who won control of Congress last year on the back of public opposition to the Iraq war instantly denounced Bush's spending plan and ridiculed him for seeking so much for the conflicts after vetoing the expansion of a children's health insurance program just weeks earlier. But Bush's proposal will force Democrats to confront the politically volatile choice of again following his lead or refusing to provide everything he wants.

Rubber stamps... rubber stamps... where have I heard that before? Oh yes, it's how Democratics castigated Republicans who went along with all Bush's outrageous requests. The Democrats now have a majority in both houses of Congress and Bush's outrageous requests have grown more outrageous and they're still being rubber stamped. The woman who represents me in Congress, Diane Watson isn't doing that. In fact when she isn't voting with the progressive majority, she's voting better than they are-- like when she opposed H.R. 1591, the March 23 supplemental appropriations for the war. Are there Democrats who actually are rubber stamps for Bush's unspeakable agenda? You bet there are, and if you're a regular reader of DWT you probably recognize most of their names. If you need to be reminded, you'll find many of their names on the DCCC Front Line page, the Democratic incumbents who get almost all of the contributions you give to that organization. Here's the list of the 20 Democrats who vote most frequently with the Republicans on Iraq, when the chips are down-- from bad to worse:

Mike McIntyre (NC)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Tim Mahoney (FL)
Bud Cramer (AL)
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Melissa Bean (IL)
Jim Matheson (UT)
Zach Space (OH)
Baron Hill (IN)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)
Joe Donnelly (IN)
Dan Boren (OK)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Chris Carney (PA)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Gene Taylor (MS)
Nick Lampson (TX)
Jim Marshall (GA)
John Barrow (GA)

The ones in bold are among the 29 Democrats on the Front Line page, each considered a potentially endangered incumbent. Normally that's just freshmen. Interestingly the 5 non-freshmen on this list-- Barrow, Bean, Leonard Boswell (IA), Chet Edwards (TX), and Marshall-- are all conservatives who often stray from Democratic values and 3 of them are on the list of the 20 most disloyal Democrats in terms of Iraq votes. And of the 29 incumbents on the Front Line list 13 are on the list of the 20 Democrats who have voted with the Bush Regime most frequently on Iraq policies.

IS GLENN BECK ON DRUGS AGAIN? DID HE SET THE FIRES IN CALIFORNIA? DOES CNN HAVE NO CONSCIENCE AT ALL?

In May when the firefighters banged on my front door and told me I had 30 seconds to evacuate my house I was annoyed. Then I looked out the back windows and saw the flames shooting up into the sky. I was out of there in 20 seconds. I was a horrible feeling-- like I might never see my home again. My heart goes out to everyone in southern California who is going through that horror tonight. Many friends and family members have called to ask me if I'm ok. All the dry wooded areas in the Los Feliz hills burned down in May. We're doing OK. The fires are an hour away (as the car drives).

Even when I heard that Mel Gibson's house might burn down, I didn't have any feelings of glee. Nor did I when I read reports that Ken Starr was seen fleeing half clothed from his Malibu digs near the right-wing college he teaches at where the grounds were aflame this morning. I called the police and asked if they needed people in vehicles to drive down there to help with rescues. They didn't.

But I was shocked, even dismayed, to hear the public radio waves being used to stir up hatred by right wingers rejoicing that some of the victims of the wildfires were probably Democrats. CNN anchorman and psychotic hatemonger Glenn Beck was at it again. Does this guy belong on the public airwaves? The one person who died was a man in a wheelchair who couldn't get out of his burning home. Was Glenn Beck beating off at the thought that the man might have been a liberal?

"I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today. There are a few people that hate America. But I don't think the Democrats are those. I think there are those posing as Democrats that are like that."

Is Beck even aware that the quarter million families evacuated in Northern San Diego County are probably mostly non-political, Republicans and independents, not Democrats? Not that that would matter to anyone in their right mind to begin with! A responsible journalist might instead be asking why fire fighters haven't had the funding necessary to adequately prepare for this predictable predicted catastrophe. And the rest of us might ask the same question-- as well as one for CNN: Why hasn't Glenn Beck been fired yet? These people are a disgrace to journalism.

TRAINING DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES TO... WIN ELECTIONS? BE GOOD LITTLE DCCC MEMBERS?

This past weekend there was a meeting in Chicago that was put together by AFSCME, the New House PAC, Christine Pelosi, and the DCCC. Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen were there and Rahm Emanuel video-phoned in. The meeting was billed as an "internal training" for Democratic candidates and although I've talked off the record with several attendees, other than Christine Pelosi, I found the principals and organizers to be very squirrely about the whole shebang. Very hush, hush.

Just try to get a list of who attended-- let alone who invited them! The DCCC, of course, aren't responding and the AFSCME folks say they'll "get back" to me. New House PAC has an unlisted phone number and no e-mail address available online but I still managed to track down an officer. He was cold, secretive and... he'll "get back" to me too. When I asked him who the candidates who were invited were and how they got picked, the temperature on the phone dropped to 20 below zero, kind of like what happened when I asked the same question of the various AFSCME people I spoke with.

The background to the story starts with what I took to be a promise from Chris Van Hollen, the guy who became Chair of the DCCC when Emanuel went on to greater glory running the Democratic House Caucus. Van Hollen is a progressive congressman from Maryland who earned his seat the old fashioned way-- beating a Republican incumbent (after winning a hotly contested primary during which he was not the Insider Establishment favorite). I contrast that to Emanuel who, in effect, was awarded his seat by the corrupt Daley machine and the decadent Clinton Regime-- for services (like the heavy lifting among Democrats on Clinton's Republican-oriented NAFTA bill) rendered-- and had no Republican standing in his way, just a progressive Democrat, Nancy Kazak, in the primary, a primary handled, at least in part, for Emanuel by someone currently residing in a prison cell... for-- what a coincidence-- political corruption.

Oh, so the promise... I asked CVH on a blogger conference call if the DCCC would refrain from helping defeat grassroots progressives in primaries against insider candidates, the way they did while Emanuel ran the show. He assured me they would not interfere in primaries. Lately I've been hearing from some progressive, grassroots candidates from around the country that the DCCC is either recruiting conservative candidates against them or favoring their insider opponents. The DCCC folks I've talked to vehemently deny this-- sometimes convincingly.

Americans can't understand why, with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress there has been not an inch of ground won against the Bush Regime in terms of Iraq and that, with the exception of the minimum wage bill, there has been virtually nothing of real significance accomplished by Nancy "Off the Table" Pelosi since she became House Speaker. Well, look no further than last year's DCCC recruitment. If you examine the Progressive Punch scores, ranked by Democrats most likely to vote with the GOP in a tough roll call vote, you will find among the 20 most disloyal Democrats-- the ones who support Bush's policies and the toxic Republican agenda-- 10 freshmen (that's 50%, an astoundingly large figure). And just who are these ten freshmen? In order of bad to worse:

Tim Mahoney (FL), an actual Republican recruited by Emanuel who muscled a progressive, grassroots Democrat, Dave Lutrin, out of the way so Mahoney would have no primary.
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Zach Space (OH)
Baron Hill (IN)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)
Joe Donnelly (IN)
Heath Shuler (NC), another Emanuel recruit who, during his campaign, wouldn't even commit to voting for Pelosi for Speaker
Chris Carney (PA)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Nick Lampson (TX)

With "Democrats" like these it's no wonder we don't have an effective Democratic majority in the House to do the kinds of things we all many of us feel in our hearts Pelosi would like to do. I guarantee you that Dave Lutrin would have voted according to his heartfelt Democrat values, not the way Rahm's boy Maloney votes (according to his Republican values). So you can imagine why I'm so nervous about Van Hollen falling into the same wicked way that I hoped we'd gotten rid of with Emanuel. But, though hope may spring eternal, it and $2.50 get you a roundtrip ticket on the L.A. subway system or a latte at Stabucks.

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine-- a DC insider, but a good guy-- who told me that Van Hollen, who he feels is a decent guy, would never in a million years have gotten the DCCC Chairmanship if he hadn't agreed to be Emanuel's "butt-boy." That makes me sad, even if it doesn't shock me. Of course, there are always more ways to look at any situation and I bet CVH doesn't see himself as Emanuel's butt boy. People who work at the DCCC who admire him and don't feel similarly about Emanuel disagree... strongly.

So... who got invited to the bootcamp and who invited them? And who got left out? And why?

Many of the invitees make complete sense: consensus candidates with no primaries-- in other words, Democrats who are already battling Republicans like Darcy Burner (WA), John Boccieri (OH), Charlie Brown (CA), Jim Himes (CT), Eric Massa (NY), Dan Maffei (NY), Mary Jo Price (OH). But others are in hotly contested primaries. That's where the problem starts. Let me give you the full list of candidates who were there from what I've been able to piece together after interviewing people from early this morning.
*John Adler (NJ-03) who is fighting rubber stamp Republican incumbent Jim Saxton
*John Boccieri (OH-16) who will contest an open Republican seat
*Charlie Brown (CA-04) battling it out with Doolittle of whichever wingnut beats him in the GOP primary
*Darcy Burner (WA-08) driving the final stake into the heart of Dave Reichert
*Steve Driehaus (OH-01) battling Bush-fave Steve Chabot who is getting a Bush funder in return for his vote to sustain the S-CHIP veto
*Joan Fitz-Gerald (CO-02), an insider who is fighting grassroots Democrats Jared Polis and Will Shafroth
*Bill Foster (IL-14), Emanuel's Blue Dog millionaire candidate trying to push grassroots hero John Laesch out of the race
*Larry Grant (ID-01), the favorite in a primary race with Rand Lewis
*Martin Heinrich (NM-01), the favorite in a primary with Jon Adams
*Jim Himes (CT-04), busy putting rubber stamp Republican warmonger Chris Shays out of his misery
*Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15), putting the finishing touch of relieving the Republicans of representing this seat they're abandoning
*Bill Kennedy (MT-AL), Schweitzer's, Baucus' and Tester's candidate to take on Denny Rehberg, the last elected federal officeholder in this "red" state
*Bob Lord (AZ-03), fighting to retire far right extremist loon John Shadegg
*Dan Maffei (NY-25), in the last stages of ending the pitiful career of rubber stamp Republican James Walsh
*Betsy Markey (CO-04), the only one left standing to take on Marilyn Musgrave
*Eric Massa (NY-29), putting the finishing touches on the political demise of right-wing idiot Randy Kuhl
*Bill McCamley (NM-02), in a primary battle with Al Kissling
*Bill O'Neill (OH-14), the perfect consensus candidate to replace rubber stamp Republican Steven LaTourette
*Gary Peters (MI-09), in a brutal primary race against Nancy Skinner
*Jon Powers (NY-26), the favorite in a primary against proto-Republican Alice Kryzan
*Mark Schauer (MI-07), the favorite in a primary against last year's opponent to Tim Walberg
*Dan Seals (IL-10), the favorite in a primary against Jay Footlik
*Ron Shepston (CA-42), this year's dragon-slayer against lunatic extremist Gary Miller
*John Unger (WV-02), fighting rubber stamp Republican Shelley Moore Capito
*Dick Versace (IL-18), the Democrat/ex-NBA coach who will be running for the seat being abandoned by Ray LaHood.

In the middle of all this I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with Christine Pelosi; that poor woman. I wouldn't wish me on anyone, let alone someone so positive and enthusiastic and idealistic. She pointed out this was her training, not the DCCC's training... you know, like the one at YearlyKos she did. I think I persuaded her to come over to FDL in November to talk about her book, Campaign Boot Camp-- Basic Training For Our Future Leaders-- which comes out November 5. That said... Chris Van Hollen, Nancy Pelosi, Brain Wolff (the DCCC's political director), Rahm Emanuel (via pre-recorded video), Larry Scanlon of AFSCME and several others were at these sessions. It appears to me that there was great value to the sessions, something confirmed to me by half a dozen participants today. And here's what someone who wasn't an invitee has to say about it. Jared Polis, a grassroots candidate running in Colorado, whose primary opponent-- insider primary opponent-- Joan Fitz-Gerald was an invitee:

The Democratic establishment frequently stifles the voice of the netroots and grassroots communities.

As I talk to Democratic voters across my district, I find that they are increasingly fed-up with the way Washington DC Democrats keep giving in to Republicans. Whether it’s making it harder for working families to emerge from bankruptcy, ending the war in Iraq, leaving gender identity out of ENDA, or letting telcos off the hook for illegal surveillance, the Democratic establishment risks increasingly estranging itself from where our voters are, and more importantly where our values are. You would never know that Democrats held strong values if you look at what comes out of the insular DC insiders. We are the party of values; let’s start living them and celebrate dissent and diversity.

Christine, bless her heart, must have called the DCCC because-- BOOM!-- they just called me back. Jennifer Crider, the Communications Director had this to say (exact words): "Anyone from the D Triple C's participation at the event is not an endorsement of a particular candidate." I'm so relieved. Let me ask Jared Polis, Sharon Renier, John Laesch, Jay Footlik, Nancy Skinner and some of the others how they feel about that. I'm going to a lecture by Edmund White at the Library now but more on this later.


UPDATE: EDMUND WHITE IS MY NEW HERO-- AND IT'S ALL LOVE AND KISSES ON THE POLITICAL FRONT TODAY

Although my new favorite person in the world of politics advised me not to put crazy things in my blog-- for strategic reasons-- like when someone calls Van Hollen Rahm's "butt boy" (because it sounds anti-gay, not because of the implications of the political relationship), all the Insider calls regarding the above story were really good-- and even useful. Someone from AFSCME took responsibility for inviting Joan FitzGerald and said "Joan has already been endorsed by AFSCME and has regularly stood with and been a great advocate for working families. That doesn't mean that Polis isn't but she's been there with us." I got a chance to explain why Rahm Emanuel is a wolf in sheep's clothing for America's working families and that the reason he is even a congressman was a reward for the dirty job he did in pushing through NAFTA.

Someone from the New House PAC called and took responsibility for inviting the Blue Dog in IL-14 to the training instead of the progressive grassroots candidate, John Laesch. He asked me to make the case for why John should be the Democratic candidate and afterwards he said he wished he had spoken to me before the invitations went out and asked me to put him in touch with John.

Meanwhile I spoke with a number of candidates and read a blog post from Martin Heinrich on how great the training was, something almost everyone who hadn't gone to a Wellstone training echoed. Candidates seemed really enthusiastic about two speakers, David Brock from Media Matters and Fred Ross, Jr. from SIEU whose call for field operations and old fashioned grassroots organizing was a welcome reprieve from the constant drumbeat of "money, money, money." And, predictably, the lowpoint of the weekend was provided by Emanuel who-- in much the same way he told Democrats last year to play down the anti-war message, causing several who listened to him to lose their races-- demanded candidates inoculate themselves against expected GOP attacks by moving to the right on immigration. Emanuel, who has never had to face a Republican in an electoral fight and has demonstrated he knows nothing about it, can be most useful for Democratic candidates if he's used as a counter-indication on how to proceed. And as far as the immigration issue per se, Chris Bowers covers son of Israeli immigrants Emanuel's cowardly or xenophobic perspective very astutely at OpenLeft.

MARK PERA ON A ROLL AGAINST A FALTERING BUSH DOG REACTIONARY IN ILLINOIS

For an increasing number of people, the Internet has become a primary source of news. It's also a more targeted source. For people interested in politics, the days of listening to bullshit from incumbents is long in the past. Because of tools like ProgressivePunch, for example, voters are two clicks away from their congressmember's actual voting record-- like Dan Lipinski's. Yes, he may be a Democrat in a decidedly Democratic district but his voting record, especially when it comes to core issues, like a woman's right to choice or the occupation of Iraq is pure Republican. He doesn't mention that when he asks voters to re-elect him.

Today's Chicago Tribune features a piece by Jim Tankersley about Lipinski's desperate battle to hold onto a seat he should never have held to begin with, Bloggers Dog Dems Who Vote Bush. Woof, woof!

Tankersley has noticed the Bush Dog campaign that is attempting to hold reactionary Democrats accountable for voting with Republicans on core issues. And he turned to bloggers from OpenLeft, Arch Pundit and DWT to help explain the phenomenon to his readers.

Matt Stoller, the editor of openleft.com and the architect of the "Bush Dog" campaign, proclaimed Lipinski the first "Bush Dog" to be targeted in a primary by the "netroots." In an interview, he said Lipinski was "not a good Democrat."

"Bush has made it very clear that he's not withdrawing from Iraq, and he's not going to sign anything that would lead to withdrawal from Iraq," Stoller said. "Either Lipinski knows this, and he's misleading everyone, or he's stupid."

While many of the "Bush Dogs" hail from Republican-leaning districts, Lipinski's traditionally votes Democratic. That galls some of the other bloggers who have joined Stoller in supporting Pera.

Lipinski votes "like a right-wing nut," said Howie Klein, who runs downwithtyranny .com and is one of the leaders of Blue America, a political action committee founded by bloggers. But, he added, "He's not in some radical right district."

ArchPundit, OpenLeft and DWT aren't going to win this race. Mark Pera, an exceptionally good candidate, is. Bloggers can help get his message out and help rally some support in terms of volunteers and financial contributions but without a good candidate, bloggers can't do much at all in these kinds of races. And, as we've seen when Mark visited us over at Firedoglake September 8, Illinois' third CD certainly has an opportunity to elect a congressman who will be far superior to Lipinski.
Today's Tribune story begins with a quote from Pera.

"Every time Bush needs a vote," the Democrat from Western Springs, Ill., says, "he turns to Dan Lipinski and gets it."

In the most recent quarter, Mark outraised Lipinski, $100,000 to $75,000. And $30,000 of Mark's total, more than the difference between the two came via ActBlue. While Lipinksi was raking in the dough from the Chicago Machine and Inside the Beltway lobbyists. In fact, one of Lipinksi's donors was Louisiana Republican Rep. Richard Baker's Back America's Conservative PAC, which normally just gives to GOP incumbents but in this case has chosen to give to a Democratic incumbent who, at least when the chips are down, votes with the GOP.

The primary in IL-03 is one that can be won. So far 108 Blue America donors have given Mark $1,860. If you'd like to help keep that going, here's the place to do it.

GOP DEBATE: OUT COME THE CLAWS AND FANGS

And if you're from NY, you know it's not that far-fetched

Tomorrow's NY Times seems to claim that Howard Wolfson, the Hillary campaign's chief flack, works with right-wing closet case Matt Drudge in shaping online news in a way that helps the campaign and hurts her more progressive rivals. Drudge is covering his bases in case, as looks likely, the GOP self-destructs in 2008. I wonder if she'll invite him to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom before Arianna or Markos. Probably; she probably has more in common with Drudge than either of them.

As for the GOP self-destructing, last night's mud wrestling match in Orlando, did none of the pathetic pygmies™ any good. The claws came out and the viciousness they usually reserve for Democrats was on full display as each desperately tried to prove he was more of a right-wing extremist than the others-- although there was more than enough typically mean-spirited Republican vitriol left over for Hillary too.

The debate stood out for the intensity and personal nature of the exchanges, as Republicans tried to distinguish themselves two and a half months before the first votes are cast-- a tactic that risks exposing some of the flaws that Republican voters say they see in the leading candidates.

First on the attack was sleepy ole Frederick of Hollywood who someone must have given a dose of something, judging by his passion level tonight as compared to his past lackluster appearances. Going right after front runner Giuliani, he informed the audience that the ex-NYC mayor "believes in federal funding for abortion. He believes in sanctuary cities. He’s for gun control. He supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, against a Republican who was running for governor, then opposed the governor’s tax cuts when he was there. So I simply disagree with him on those issues. And he sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues I just mentioned.”

Giuliani's defense against Thompson was less than convincing. "Fred was the single biggest obstacle to tort reform in the United States Senate. He stood with Democrats over and over again.” Once there was blood in the water, they all felt they were in their element. McCain attacked everyone, saying only he-- presumably because he was a prisoner of war in Hanoi-- was capable of being commander in chief. And with a special swipe at Romney, although it fit Giuliani as well, he said "I didn't manage for profit; I led for patriotism."

With Fox News calling the nasty get together under their own auspices a "cat fight," Huckabee likened the whole sordid mess to a "demolition derby" instead of a debate, but on stage no one called Romney on his compulsion to lie whenever he moves his lips.

There were some exaggerations and misstatements of facts. Mr. Romney, for instance, spoke of his record in Massachusetts and said, “We solved the problem in health care in our state, not by having government take it over the way Hillary Clinton would.”

But Mrs. Clinton’s plan calls for creating new options for buying private or public insurance at affordable rates, requiring everyone to obtain insurance, and providing subsidies and tax credits to small businesses and individuals who cannot afford it. She has said the plan would not be run by the government.

And Mr. Romney’s plan in Massachusetts bore some similarities to Mrs. Clinton’s proposal, in that it also required people to have health insurance. Mr. Romney’s campaign said his proposed federal health care plan did not include mandated coverage, though the plan he helped introduce in his state included some mandates.

Ron Paul seems to be selling Hillary to the Republican audience-- who appear to like her policies a lot more than they seem to like the American people:



Crooks & Liars caught the tenor of the hateful minority of imbeciles and fascists the pygmies™ were trying to appeal to-- the 24% of Americans who still think Bush is doing a good job.

MEET JIM NEAL, AN EXCEPTIONAL CANDIDATE FOR THE U.S. SENATE FROM NORTH CAROLINA-- AND A NON-CLOSETED GAY MAN

Two of my online pals, Pam and Teddy, were the earliest in sending me e-mails this morning. Teddy was eager that I see an exchange over at a great North Carolina blog, Blue NC. Jim Neal,who my friend Lanya from Traction has been telling me about, is the Democrat running against North Carolina's do-nothing rubber stamp Republican senator, Bob Dole's wife. He was chatting with the community online earlier this morning.

Submitted by omega_star on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:09am.
I've heard you're gay...

Submitted by JimNeal on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:18am.
I am indeed. No secret and no big deal to me-- I wouldn't be running if I didn't think otherwise

Submitted by omega_star on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:21am.
Do you really think a gay man can be elected in North Carolina?

Submitted by JimNeal on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:26am.
I'm not running this race to lose. I'm not running to make some social statement. I'm running to lead in the Senate for the voters in NC-- something Senator Dole has not done.
When people meet me, they'll see beyond the labels and into my character.

Submitted by omega_star on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 10:28am.
Where do you stand on gay marriage?

Submitted by JimNeal on Sat, 10/20/2007 - 11:05am.
It's okay if churches want to unite same-sex couples; it's okay if they don't. That's their Constitutional right which I support 100%.
But when it comes to the Government, I'm not in favor of any laws that discriminate against anyone for any reason.

The whole discussion went over very well at BlueNC-- and it certainly got Teddy's attention, who immediately asked me to contact him for Blue America. Pam wrote it up at Pam's House Blend and her post is a virtual compendium of the unsuitability of Elizabeth Dole and why Jim Neal, regardless of his sexual preference, would make an extraordinary senator for the state.

The South hasn't had an insurmountable problem electing gay men to office-- but they prefer their gay men stay in the closet. "Everyone" knew Mark Foley (R-FL) was gay but he would never admit it. So he kept getting re-elected over and over and over until the pressure of living a lie drove him to alcoholism and to molesting young boys. Republican closet queens like Mark Foley give gays a bad name. A few weeks ago I wrote about Mississippi Congressman John Hinson who was caught in a compromising situation with a man before he was elected, gave the Larry Craig "defense" ("I'm not gay and I apologize and I'm married") and was elected. Soon after he was caught not just making it with a man but with a Black man and he resigned and never went back to Mississippi.

In South Carolina it is an open secret that their U.S. senator, Lindsey Graham, is gay as a goose. But, despite having a male lover, he lives a closeted life and it manages to get by in the treacherous South Carolina political shoals. When homophobic fanatic Ed Schrock (R-VA) was discovered advertising for placing very explicit ads on a gay dating service line, he quickly resigned and disappeared... to spend more time with his family. As soon as Louisiana loon Jim McCrery was outed he immediately married his secretary, installed her back in Shreveport and went about winning re-election and living the life of a gay bachelor in DC. And, even closer to home, it doesn't seem to bother North Carolina Republicans that their itsy bitsy teeny weeny nutcase Patrick McHenry is not just a closet queen, but walking way over the edge with his involvements in a gay prostitution ring and, allegedly, a triple homicide.

But is North Carolina politically mature enough to accept an upfront, non-closeted gay person? Can they choose a senator based on his policy positions, attributes and his vision for the state? Everyone I know in North Carolina tells me the state has come a long, long way since Jesse Helms made a religious tenet out of homophobia, and that North Carolinians will look at Jim Neal and at Dole and pick the better candidate for the U.S. Senate. This will be a fun campaign to watch.

SO WHAT CAME OUT OF THIS WEEKEND'S RELIGIONIST RIGHT HATE FEST IN DC?

There was plenty of gratuitous gay bashing-- their # 1 obsession these days, especially transsexuals their latest target of opportunity-- even a handout eviscerating poor clueless Mike Huckabee for owning shares of Apple, known to this crowd as the gay computer company. Still Huck tied Full O'Mitt (who, as always, cheated to get his votes) as the preferred candidate of these, the most bizarre kooks in the political system. Maybe he won them over, despite his Apple shares and despite not have donned with a pillowcase or a tinfoil hat, with the appealing line "I come today not as one not who comes to you, but as one who comes from you." No doubt Giuliani, Romney, McCain and Frederick of Hollywood were already back at their hotel suites in their showers trying to scrub off the yuck.

But in the end thse 2,000 crazies are just part of the Grand Coalition of haters, bigots, racists, greedballs, the selfish, clueless, paranoid, closeted, xenophobic and deranged who make up today's Republican Party. They're finding out they can't dictate to it any longer. Those who just want to win at any cost-- the ones whose plush jobs depend on it-- are screaming that they should just forget that Giuliani is Satan, he's not as satanic as... the Mormon... not to mention Hillary, and they mist support him even if he does stand for everything they've been brainwashed into hating.

Gary Bauer, one of the self-proclaimed "leaders" of these pyschopaths knows his power will be considerably diminished if the Republicans are banished from the public trough where he has fattened immensely over the last 7 years. He was one of the advocates of a third party just a few weeks ago. The air seems to have gone out of that one rather fast.

"There was a moment of insanity about 18 months ago where we all thought that we could all agree," Bauer said. "But that is about as likely as herding cats." He added that if Giuliani won the nomination, he would be reluctantly willing to "lead a delegation" of pro-life leaders to see if they could reach some agreement that would allow religious voters to support the mayor. "Mayor Giuliani knows that he can't be president without us," Bauer added. "There is a lot of ground I think that we can stand on and negotiate and see if we can come up with something that is passable to everybody."

But the krazy glue that has held the crazy coalition together couldn't make it. He's in prison. So he sent his rabbi to remind the deranged participants of the good old days.

Perhaps the most surreal appearance came courtesy of the Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who declared "the bible is our blueprint," despite the fact that his organization, Towards Tradition, was used by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to funnel money secretly from an online gambling company to the wife of a convicted former advisor to the indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Tut tut... Bible, Buy Bull... it's always been all the same, in the end, to this, the Jimmy Dobson crowd.

WE SHOULDN'T BE OCCUPYING THEIR COUNTRY

Today's NY Times online edition has an interesting OpEd-- a video clip by documentary filmmakers Molly Bingham and Steve Connors. They show clearly what many of us knew from Day One-- and why we are still so angry not just at Bush, Cheney, Lieberman, McConnell and the usual clueless, bloodthirsty suspects but at collaborationist Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who should have known better-- that the occupation was utterly doomed from the start. Watch it at that link.

It is powerful and concise and it is clear. The American involvement in Iraq was a really bad idea, a bad idea that has, predictably, grown worse with time. If the two insider establishment parties offer you two candidates for office, any office, and neither is genuinely incensed about the immoral and catastrophic occupation of a foreign country, you don't have a candidate to vote for.

In 2005 eight members of the House founded the Out of Iraq Caucus:

Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Jan Schakowssky (D-IL)
William Delahunt (D-MA)
John Lewis (D-GA)

Since then another 65 members have joined and membership spans the political spectrum, from good government progressives like Hilda Solis (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Pete Stark (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) to conservatives like Nick Rahall (D-WV), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Al Wynn (D-MD) and William Jefferson (D-LA).

So while the inept and ineffectual Condoleeza Rice tries to deal with the vicious mercenary army (perhaps better termed "gang of murderous thugs") big time Republican campaign contributor Erik Prince has let loose on that rightfully pissed-off nation, the Establishment mass media, especially Insider the hated Beltway is still debating with itself if and when we should remove our troops. Today David Ignatius at the Washington Post thinks we should move up the timetable for transfering security to the effectively nonexistent Green Zone puppet government. Unfortunately his argument makes certain absurd assumptions, one of which is that we can ever expect truth or good will from the venal gangsters in control of the White House. It's their war and they're not giving up on it. Period.

The biggest argument against accelerating the handover is that violence is down now only because of the surge of U.S. firepower. But in coming weeks, commanders will be exploring whether it's possible to maintain the same combat "tooth" with less of a "tail" of logistical support.

Politically, the Iraq debate has a markedly different tone than it did a few months ago. At the White House, the sense of political free fall is over. Officials feel they are on a stable glide path toward a reduced but still substantial troop presence when President Bush leaves office. It's not exactly a military victory, with marching bands and flying flags, but it's not a defeat either.

The mood has changed on Capitol Hill as well. Congressional pressure for a quick pullout has eased, in part because Democratic leaders know they don't have the votes. Meanwhile, the top two Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have both said they expect that U.S. troops will still be in Iraq when the next president takes office, and they have discussed what role this residual U.S. force should play.

The one certainty about Iraq is that a large U.S. troop presence isn't acceptable over the long run, for Iraqis or Americans. So U.S. military commanders are wise to examine how to use the remarkable success of recent months to create alternatives that rely less on U.S. firepower. That's really the challenge now in Ira-- how to seize the moment, rather than maintain the status quo.

A far less reasonable voice is still squawking for "victory" and painting a false and rosy picture for Wall Street Journal, future war crimes defendant Michael Ledeen. He insists the U.S. occupation (which includes Blackwater) can still win the war of hearts and minds. Apparently these are today's Neocon talking points. They should take a look at the Times video we started with-- and try, for once, to face reality.

VICIOUS REPUBLICAN CADAVER-EATING CANNIBALS REPORTED IN NORTHWEST OHIO

"Brain, brains... must find brains"

When 10 term Republican incumbent Rep., Paul Gillmor died the first week in September, the GOP was confident that they could hold on to his sprawling northwest Ohio district. After all, it's 94% white, has a huge Republican voter registration advantage, and elected Bush with 61% in 2004. Robin Weirauch, the woman who lost to Gillmor in 2004 and 2006 declared she would run again. Why worry? Well, let's forget, for a monment, that as voters have gotten to know Weirauch better, her totals have gone up considerably-- from 33% in 2004 to 43% last year. Instead, let's take a look at the Republican field.

The two Republicans in this race are a right-wing state Representative, Bob Latta, and an extreme right-wing state senator, Steve Buehrer. Both are kooks but Buehrer is a drooling nazi-- supported, predicatbly, by the Club For Growth, a hard right faction of the Republican Party. Thursday the Ohio Elections Commission ruled against Buehrer and his fascist backers in a complaint brought against them by Latta that he was being smeared. I always have to laugh when conservatives complain that the fascist end of their party is smearing them; a little taste of a medicine they love to dish out but can't ever seem to swallow.

And it gets even funnier. Yesterday, just one day after the Elections Commission ruled against them for maligning Latta, the Club for Growth and Buehrer were running a uarter million dollar barrage of radio and TV ads against Latta. Latta's campaign says the tactics will backfire-- but we're talking about very low common denominator Republicans here, so it's more likely that they will be easily programmed to hate Latta and worship Buehrer. Matt Parker, Latta's campaign manager, said "the people of northwest Ohio are not ready for a candidate who is... bought and paid for by an outside group." Perhaps not the "people" in general. But the Republican base? What else have they been trained-- like seals-- to do?

The special primary election is November 6. Meanwhile Robin Weirauch is taking the opportunity to point out the vicious mess the GOP primary has develoved into. She's has been on the attack too-- but on the level of ideas and policy. Her own new  ad calls out Bush and the rubber stamp Republicans who sustained his S-CHIP veto. She called attention to it by telling the local media that, "While my Republican opponents Bob Latta and Steve Buehrer are focused on tearing each other down, I'm focused on the issues that matter to working families." She asked Latta and Buehrer to tell the voters where they stand on S-CHIP leguslation and Bush's veto. Buehrer said he would have voted to sustain the veto and latta ducked the question, saying he'd have to look into it. Either Latta or Buehrer will face Weirauch on December 11.

BUSH, PAKISTAN, DISASTER, PELOSI, IMPEACHMENT...

On Tuesday I talked a little about a new book, coming out this week, DECEPTION: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. One premise: not only did the U.S. know what Pakistan was up to, but that five U.S. presidents aided and abetted and willfully deceived the American public about the catastrophe being created in that unstable hellhole. Count backwards... then come forwards and keep in mind the stupidest, most ignorant, most willful, childish, irresponsible imbecile ever to get his hands on the levers of power has 15 more months-- 15 more months for what the NY Times reports one "senior administration official" said could be the "nightmare scenario" for the end of Bush's already disastrous term in office. (That's from tomorrow's Times,)

This morning's Times points out more American connivance in Pakistan, typically inept connivance that helped lead to the deaths of scores of Pakistanis yesterday as part of an assassination attempt against former (and possibly future) prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a convicted (by a Swiss court) money launderer with a long and an egregious history of incompetence and corruption, qualities the Bush Regime is overly comfortable with-- at home and abroad.

[T]he violence that greeted Ms. Bhutto on her return after eight years in exile and the finger-pointing between her camp and General Musharraf’s after the attack on her motorcade on Thursday has raised questions about whether the tenuous deal that the United States helped midwife can survive.

...Unresolved questions about the attack have added a new layer of distrust to relations between Ms. Bhutto and the government, as well as new uncertainties for the Bush administration policy.

On Friday, American officials acknowledged that there was no clear basis for confidence that the two leaders could work cooperatively. Now that Ms. Bhutto has returned to the country, they acknowledged that their control over events was limited, as Thursday’s bombing showed.

...“This backroom deal I think is going to explode in our face,” said Bruce Riedel, who advised three presidents on South Asian issues and is now at the Brookings Institution. “Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Musharraf detest each other, and the concept that they can somehow work collaboratively is a real stretch.”

Bhutto is widely viewed as the Bush Regime's pick to run the Pakistani show post-Musharraf. Want to take a guess how that's going down? No?... Then watch this graphic Pakistani report in Urdu or this shorter, cleaned up NBC News report:

Even some senior administration officials said privately and in a series of recent intelligence assessments that American influence over events in Pakistan was feared to be ebbing fast.

Some officials worry aloud that a year of unrest, violence and political intrigue in Pakistan may undercut Mr. Bush’s last chance to root out Osama bin Laden from the lawless territory where Al Qaeda has regrouped. Likewise, they fear, the unrest could cripple a renewed administration effort to turn around the war against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

If serious divisions emerge in Pakistan’s army, they could also threaten the security of Pakistan’s potent nuclear arsenal, something that Bush administration officials worry about far more than they let on publicly.

And the same way that Bush deceived the American public about Pakistan's nuclear situation, he also deceived the public-- and possibly even himself-- about the strength of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their Pakistani (Pashtun) sympathizers/allies. "Bush and General Musharraf were publicly declaring that Al Qaeda’s ranks had been greatly weakened, and that the Taliban was a spent force" at the same time they were taking over effective control of the northwest part of the country. "Part of the problem of fashioning a forceful policy, critics like Mr. Markey say, was that the American approach to Pakistan was never sewn together as a whole. 'You had different parts of the U.S. government dealing with different problems,' said Mr. Markey, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations." Yes, welcome to the Bush Regime-- the same Regime which has never done anything right since taking power. They couldn't protect the country from bin-Laden on 9/11, after being warned; they have been incapable of-- or unwilling to-- restoring New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; they started an unjustified war which they have failed to win and have practically wrecked the economic backbone and social fabric of the country in the process-- not to mention driving America's status in the international community from top of the line to bottom of the barrel. And it could get worse because Nancy Pelosi has decided to take impeachment off the table. The Founding Fathers put it there for a reason, and George Bush is probably far worse than what they had in mind.

REPUBLICAN RELIGIONIST NUTS IN A CORNER

Yesterday and today Washington witnessed a gathering of 2,000 politico-religionist loons, the Values Voter Summit. And regardless of the parade of the pathetic pygmies™ inability to make it to debates for Hispanic Americans, African-Americans, young Americans, or gay Americans they sure had their asses in gear when it came to ass-kissing the religionist loon-Americans.

According to this yesterday's Washington Post there was a lot of praying and a lot of discontent with the Republicans running for their party's presidential nomination, especially with Giuliani (who spoke today) and Full O'Mitt, who spoke yesterday. It was Friday so Flip Flop Mitt "presented himself as the antiabortion, pro-family, pro-religion contender whom Christian conservatives are seeking." They weren't. Neither Romney not Giuliani have many fans among this group, although Romney kicked Giuliani's ass in the straw poll (but, so did everyone... except McCain).

"I love his ideas on national security and defense, but you have to swallow the whole pill," Tammy Leinbach, a stay-at-home mom from Maumee, Ohio, said of Giuliani. "Our international ills come because of the warped social ills we have at home."

Craig Chorman, 54, a small-business owner from Fairport, N.Y., said he does not trust Romney's declarations of support for conservative issues because as governor, he took different positions.

"I feel like he hasn't been as consistent, and that concerns me," said Chorman. "We need somebody who stands with their core beliefs instead of putting his finger up in the wind."

They were somewhat more enthusiastic about Frederick of Hollywood and Huckabee but Alex Koppelman has a story at Salon today that speculates about the likelihood that if the religionist right's disenchantment with Giuliani, the probable Republican nominee, is strong enough, Hillary's victory could turn into an historic landslide. The same group of relihgionist right leaders who met a few weeks ago and threatened to start a third party if Giuliani wins the nomination, are meeting again today at the DC NutFest.

Conservative anger is real, at least for now. As longtime conservative activist Richard Viguerie, who was at the first meeting, told Salon, "If Giuliani is the nominee, it will be the end of the Republican Party. There's no way that conservatives are going to continue to play the role of mistress, and here's a man who's wrong on every single social issue." Viguerie predicts disaster for a Giuliani candidacy. "In a two-way race, I think he'd be hard-pressed to get 40 percent of the vote. In a three-way race, he won't come close."

...If a third-party conservative entered the race, a Giuliani candidacy really would redraw the electoral map. But that realignment would favor Clinton, not Giuliani, and make her presidency a virtual fait accompli.

Salon posits that of the 40% of Bush's core voters from 2004 who were religionist nuts, 67.5% of those would vote for a third party candidate rather than Giuliani. By their calculations that would amount to just 8 small states (48) electoral votes for Rudy, the 2 biggest being Indiana and Alabama. Although many Bush states (like Ohio, Colorado, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia and both Carolinas will swing to Hillary, Giuliani would still have a chance to win in Texas, Florida, Utah, Wyoming and even Virginia. But it wouldn't matter. Even if he picked up every single toss-up state-- a virtual impossibility considering the electoral trends-- he would still lose... by a landslide.

BLUE AMERICA WELCOMES HOWARD SHANKER, OUR FIRST ARIZONA CANDIDATE

Blue America is never eager to step into primaries unless it's a case of an exceptionally bad reactionary-- a Lieberman or a Jim Marshall-- against a surefire progressive. After Rahm Emanuel's term as DCCC Chairman ended I was under the impression that the bad old days of the DCCC getting their right-of-center, insider candidates in at the expense of grassroots progres